CHAPTER FOUR

Snake and Rain paused for a quick wash of hands and face, and a long drink of water, then wheeled around the corpses, over the bridge, and on toward Napa. Toward the end of the day, the two bicyclists arrived at what appeared to be a dilapidated and long-abandoned wooden shack.  The single building, of weathered, unpainted wood, was half-covered with growing vines and bushes, and looked as if the first strong wind would reduce it to separate boards.  Snake followed Rain up to the sagging doorway and stopped.  "This is it?"      

Rain smiled.  "Almost."  He dialed the numbers on what looked like a rusted combination lock, gave a push, and the rickety-looking doors slid back easily on well-oiled tracks to reveal a tidy garage.  It held an old but well-maintained pickup and a green Volkswagen.  Between them was an open stretch of concrete which had once, Snake deduced, housed the delivery truck Rain had abandoned down south.  Shelves and sections of pegboard, covered with tools, hardware, boxes and bags, lined the walls.  Rain lifted a kerosene lantern off a hook near the door and lit it, then he and Snake wheeled their bikes into the room, and Rain shut and locked the door behind them.  By the light of the lantern, Rain led Snake to a door in the windowless wall, and through it to a small room in back.  Two single beds and a table and chairs, set on colorful rag rugs, a waist-high bookshelf filled with magazines and paperbacks, and a kitchen/pantry area created a cozy space.  One corner of the room held a wood-burning stove and a neat pile of fuel for it.  "We can sleep over here," Rain said.

"Where's this Group of yours?" Snake asked as he settled into one of the chairs.  He gave a sigh, shook his hair out, and leaned back, closing his eyes.  The dull pain that was always there behind his bad eye seemed to get worse when he was tired.      

Rain started the process of laying and lighting a fire in the wood-burning stove, his back to Snake.  "This is just the garage.  The settlement's a lot farther up in the mountains.  There's no road, just trails, and it's a long way in.  Takes most of a day to get there, even if you know exactly where you're going."  He closed the door on the stove as the fire caught, and turned to smile at his fellow traveler.  "We try to make it as hard to find as we can, and once in a while, we lose it, too.  The beds and stuff are here because nobody wants to try to follow the trail in the dark, and if you get here too late in the day, it's better to sleep over."

"Place looks like a good wind-storm would take it out."

"Give the wall a whack," Rain said.  Snake complied, and his fist connected with unyielding wood in a solid  thump.  "It's a lot stronger than it looks.  The guy who built this, back in the seventies, was a genius at this kind of stuff.  Worked for some movie company - Industrial Light Something - before he dropped out to join the commune."  

The fire was beginning to take the chill and damp off the room as the two men rummaged in their bike-trailers and pulled out rations to heat on the stove's flat top surface.  Ran hung up several more lanterns on hooks set into the wall, adjusted the ventilation ducts in the walls, and they ate in the cheerful golden light.  "Lots less creepy than the chemlamps," Rain remarked.  "Those things always make everything look all green and weird."    

Snake had to agree.  He found himself relaxing in the comfortable little space.  After dinner, he spent a while leafing through a pile of old magazines he found in one corner: The Animal Agenda, Whole Earth, Kindred Spirit, Pangaia, Raise The Stakes, and at the bottom of the stack, a few dog-eared copies of Anarchy.  He snorted softly and set them back down unread, after noticing that the address labels had been carefully peeled off the covers.  He was getting a mental picture of the people who had stocked this place: left wing, counter-culture nature nuts, detail oriented and paranoid.  Tree huggers.  He picked up a tabloid with a clenched-fist logo holding a monkey-wrench, and reconsidered.  Tree spikers was more like it.  Eco-terrorists.  He paged through and found an interesting article on sabotage.  He ignored the rhetoric, concentrating on the practical suggestions.

They slept soundly in the comfortable beds.  The next morning, Rain spent some time refilling the lanterns and restocking the woodpile, then dug into the storage area to find two large metal-frame hiker's backpacks.  "Can't get the bikes through," he explained.  "We pack everything in by horse or on foot.  Leave everything you don't really need here."  They transferred the contents of the trailers to the backpacks, leaving most of their food and water on the shelves for the next occupants.  Reluctantly, Snake left the bicycle-mounted gun, but insisted on salvaging the rest of his weaponry and the bottles of Scotch he had liberated from the winery.  Rain spent a few minutes looking around the front section of the garage before they started out, smiling to himself.  He patted the truck's dented fender.  "Junk," he said cheerfully.  "Scrap metal.  From now on, the world belongs to feet again."  Snake gave him a sour look and said nothing.   

A barbed-wire fence set the shack off from the land behind.  Rain lifted one of the fence-posts from its socket, laid the wire flat, and stepped over it.  When Snake had followed, he replaced the post, leaving the fence looking solid and undisturbed, and started out confidently into the unbroken wall of vegetation beyond.  Rain never faltered, although if there was a path, he was the only one who could see it.  They climbed steadily upward, farther into the mountains, ducking and winding between redwoods and pine trees, through underbrush, over narrow, fast-flowing streams bridged with rocks or fallen tree-trunks, where sword fern grew thick beside the foaming water.  After several hours, they came out into a clearing and Rain stopped.  "Midway point," he said.  "Rest here."                                                           

"Here where?" Snake asked, sitting down on a fallen tree.  He was glad to note that his wounded leg was not giving him much trouble, and he was keeping up with Rain even over the difficult groundcover.  He looked around at the featureless tangle of trees and vegetation.  It looked the same as every other featureless tangle they had passed.  "You sure you're not lost?"

Rain nodded.  "We're still several hours out.  See that tree?"  He pointed. "Lightning damaged.  We're beyond the ridge behind that tree, across the next valley.  I've been back and forth this way a lot."

"No wonder Ormsby sent you to track me."

It was late afternoon, and the sun had slid down behind the tops of the trees, by the time they reached the commune.  Rain turned onto a faint deer track that wound a barely visible path through dense stands of trees, up and down steep slopes covered with slippery fallen leaves and lush winter foliage.  They crested a final hill and halted by a big redwood tree overlooking a valley covered in an unbroken carpet of green.  "There it is," Rain said.

"There what is?" Snake said wearily.  "All I see is more fucking trees."     

Rain grinned at him triumphantly.  "That's all you're supposed to see."  He cupped his hands around his mouth and produced a complicated liquid trill, like some exotic bird call.  "I want to warn them we're coming before we get into bow range," he explained.  "Some of the security shoot first and identify the body later."

Snake eyed the interlaced branches in front of him with a distinct lack of enthusiasm and tried to imagine himself reproducing the sound.  "Can't you just yell, 'Hey, you?"

Rain laughed.  "Everybody has his own call.  That way, they know, not just that somebody's coming, but who it is.  You can use 'hey, you.'"  A variation of the call was repeated from a distance in front of them, and Rain added, "That's Linden."

A lithe figure slipped out from between the trees ahead and ran toward them, light-footed on the slippery leaf groundcover, long brown hair and homespun cape flowing out behind her.  Over her shoulder she carried a crossbow like Rain's.  "Rain!  You're back!"  She threw herself into Rain's open arms and hugged him fiercely.  "I'm so glad to see you!  We'd just about given you up for lost."   She turned to Rain's companion and her expression became wary.  "And you are...."   

"Lin, meet Snake Plissken," Rain said with a note of pride in his voice.  In a few quick sentences he related the events of the last month, finishing up with, "We rode up to the garage on some bicycles we got from DMZ and walked in today."

Linden eyed Snake soberly.  "Snake Plissken.  You're the one who shut down the Machine, aren't you?"  At Snake's nod, she continued, "Gwen was monitoring the News Channel when it happened; she told us about it.  You pressed that remote at Firebase Seven, and all the power quit; everything just stopped.  It took a while for it to sink in, that the Machine was really gone for good.  Thank you.  Mother Gaia may just have a chance now."  She reached forward and took Snake's hand in a light clasp between her own hands, then released it, smiling at him.  "Welcome to Rivendell, Snake."       

Linden turned and disappeared into the trees again to take up her post on watch, and the two men continued on their way down into the valley below.  Snake found himself uneasy and irritated.  Once again, he was coming into alien territory wearing somebody else's identity with his name attached to it.  He remembered pushing the button, his feelings of rage and disgust.  To give Mother Gaia a chance?  He snorted softly to himself.  Not fucking likely.  His shoulders prickled with the feeling he was being watched every step of the way by armed and invisible defenders of this place.

He and Rain passed a few outlying buildings nestled among the trees: storage sheds, workshops, two- and three-room cabins with neatly cultivated kitchen gardens and  a few plump chickens clucking and scratching around the fenced enclosures.  A large orange cat lifted his head and yawned as they passed, then curled back into sleep on the porch of his cabin; a dog wagged a greeting and came over for a sniff and a scratch behind the ears from Rain; a tame crow cawed from a gatepost.  Wild finches squabbled around a big feeder, and a squirrel frisked up the trunk of a tree to watch them fearlessly at eye level.  As they went by, people called and waved, then came down to the winding path to welcome Rain back.  They greeted Snake with a wary neutrality.

A clearing at the center of the settlement held a larger building, a rustic, circular hall sided with vertical redwood boards and topped with a conical shingled roof.  It reminded Snake of a giant water tower.  "The Lodge," Rain identified it, as he pushed open the door and invited Snake to follow him inside.  "We have to let everybody know you're here as a guest," he explained to Snake, "Or somebody might take a shot at you in the woods."  Snake's ever-present paranoia ratcheted up a notch.

Inside, the Lodge was warm and welcoming, the wooden walls decorated with handmade quilts and macramé hangings, Navajo blankets, and pictures.  Two wide stone fireplaces stood at opposite points around the circle, and a cheerful blaze crackled in one of them.  Baskets of dried flowers and feathers, and potted plants, stood on the floor or hung from the ceiling, while braided rag rugs in bright colors were scattered over the broad floorboards.  A wide alcove held kitchen equipment, including a big wood-burning cook-stove.  Large and small wooden tables were scattered around the room, along with handmade chairs in several styles and sizes.   As they entered, a general cry of "Rain!" went up from the six or eight people engaged in various tasks inside, and the young man was buried under a loving avalanche.  One little red-headed girl danced up and down, eagerly tugging at Rain's sleeve, as the young man struggled out of his backpack frame and set it down against the wall of the room.  Snake followed suit, as a matronly woman with a ruddy complexion and long, dark braids came over to hug Rain.  Rain kissed, hugged, laughed and greeted in return as the people crowded around him.  Snake backed away toward the wall, looking for breathing space.

"Enough.  We have a visitor."  A firm voice cut through the hubbub, and the group fell silent as Snake turned to see a tall, slender, elderly woman striding toward them.  Snake took in her olive complexion, strong, determined features, dark eyes, and mass of fuzzy gray hair caught in a single thick braid.  The woman wore a russet tunic belted over a full, ankle-length green skirt, and sandals.  She carried herself with an unmistakable air of competence, and the rest yielded to her with what seemed to Snake to be an almost unconscious deference.  "Come with me, please," she said, gesturing to Snake and Rain, and led the two to an area near the fireplace with a desk and several chairs.  The rest fell back slightly, out of immediate earshot, and returned to their former tasks, although Snake could see them casting sideways glances in his direction.  "Please, sit.  Be comfortable."  The woman settled into a large armchair and Rain took the one next to hers.  Snake lowered himself to the edge of another chair, feeling anything but comfortable.

"It's good to have you home safe, Rain.  We all feared the worst, with you down south," she began, then looked over at Snake.  "Snake Plissken.  Do you seek sanctuary with us?"  The words had the cadence of a ritual formula.

"Who are you?"

"I am Ray Lee," the woman answered.  "We don't have 'leaders' here, but I am one of the elders of this Group.  My partner and I were among those who founded Rivendell Commune, back in the 'seventies."  She looked down for a moment at her hands folded neatly in her lap.  "It seemed like poetry then: the Last Homely House East Of the Sea, the hidden place with strength to resist and defend against evil.  But now, with a very real Dark Power risen all around us...."  Her voice trailed off, and she raised her calm gaze again to Snake's face.  "Snake Plissken, do you seek sanctuary with us at Rivendell?"

"I'm thinkin' about it," Snake responded.

"Snake was hurt getting out of L.A.," Rain supplied.  "The blackbellies shot him."  Reaching into his jacket pocket, he produced a folded, tattered paper and handed it to Ray Lee.  "The blackbellies want him real bad."  Snake glowered at him: Idiot.   

"Yes, Rain; we all heard."  Ray Lee scanned the faded paper, then put it down.  "That's quite a reward."  She looked at Snake.  "You know, what you've done has created a nexus point for radical transformation.  You are a catalyst, an agent for changes we can't yet even begin to imagine, for good or ill.  The consequences are... beyond anything Gaia and her children have faced for centuries."   She shut the paper in a drawer of her desk and sat down again.  Snake thought about asking for the wanted poster back, and then shrugged mentally.  Ray Lee continued, "But there is hope in this for the Earth.  If you ask for sanctuary, no one here will turn you over to the authorities, and if they trail you to this place, you will be defended."

"I take care of myself," Snake said shortly.

"I have no doubt of that.  But here we all take care of each other.  If you choose to stay, we will ask you to help with our defenses or contribute in some way, but that can wait until you have recovered from your injuries.  We have a traveling doctor due by here soon, if you want to see him."  She paused and assessed Snake with a level, considering gaze.  "You have a reputation as a dangerous and violent man, and I believe it is deserved.  I will ask for your assurance that we, here, are safe from you.  Give us your word, and we will accept it."

Snake was used to being considered dangerous, but it had been years since anyone had offered to take his word for anything.  It threw him off-balance.  After a moment, he answered, "I have no quarrel with anybody here.  Leave me alone, I'll leave you alone."

Ray Lee's mouth turned up slightly at the corners, but her voice did not change.  "It may not be that easy if the blackbellies come looking for you here.  But they are our enemies, too.  We'll give you as much space as we can while you're with us."  

Snake was not sure whether or not that sounded like a threat.  He frowned in Ray Lee's direction.  For now, he had nowhere better to go, and the blackbellies were hot on his trail.  Time to hide out, and wait to see what developed.  

"He can stay with me," Rain offered.  He turned to Snake.  "If you want to."  Snake paused, then nodded once.

"Very well, Snake; I'll take that as a 'yes.'  I'll put it before the Meeting.  If the consensus is against you, I will have to ask you to leave as soon as your wounds are healed, but I doubt you will be turned away."  Her eyes shifted pointedly to the Magnums in Snake's holsters.  "You may want to leave your weapons in your cabin if you aren't working security."

"No," Snake said in a tone that left no room for negotiation.

"As you wish.  Most of the people here, especially the older ones, don't like guns."  Ray Lee looked as if she was trying very hard to keep her face and voice neutral.   She turned to Rain.  "Morgan, I believe, has an extra bed."

"I'll ask her if I can borrow it," Rain said.

He started to stand up, but she made a "wait" hand gesture, and he paused.  Her expression turned somber.  "We can use you on security tomorrow, Rain.  I wish I could give you more time, but we had raiders here while you were gone.  Storm was hurt, and we lost Sequoia."        

"They killed Sequoia?"  Rain looked away and down for a moment, then back at Ray Lee.  "The raiders?"

"Buried where we put the last batch.  Nobody got away; we're safe.  Sequoia, we buried under his favorite thinking spot at the Rainbow Circle.  Rhiannon moved in with Storm.  They were handfasted at Meeting."

Rain nodded slowly.  "I'm glad I'm back."

"We're glad to have you back.  We need you, Rain.  Go and get settled in."  She turned to Snake, and added, formally, "Welcome to Rivendell, Snake."

Snake and Rain picked up their packs, and Snake followed Rain to Rain's home on the outer edge of the settlement.  The snug little cabin was set in a cut between two outcroppings of rock, part way up the side of the hill, and behind it a winding trail led toward the top of the mountain.  "Sniper blind's up there," Rain said as he pointed up the path.  As they climbed, Snake was able to get a better look at the settlement from above.  Cabins and outbuildings, including a large greenhouse, dotted the valley in no particular pattern, clustering along a stream that wound through the bottomland.  Farther off was a corral and a shelter for several horses, and a similar one for a small herd of goats.  Some distance farther on was a group of boxes on stilts, which Snake identified, after some puzzling, as beehives.  On the other side - Snake stopped dead as he figured out what he was seeing, and took a longer look.  Fields for growing crops had been cleared, leaving a sprinkling of trees among the curved rows of cultivated land.  A series of light camouflage nets had been spread from tree to tree, masking the signs of human activity beneath from casual aerial surveillance.  No wonder the valley had looked like untouched forest land as they had come over the top of the hill.  Simple, low-tech, and effective, Snake thought to himself.  "Won't have to worry about that any more," he said, pointing toward the nets.

"Right," Rain answered.  "We'll get a better yield with more sunlight.  That'll be a point in your favor at Meeting."

Snake snorted softly, and they continued up to Rain's unlocked cabin door.  Rain opened it and took a lantern from a hook by the door, then lighted the fat white candle inside.  "C'mon in, Snake," he said, and gestured the other man inside.  Snake stepped into the single oblong room and looked around.  The last light of twilight came through the windows' open shutters, joining with the warm candlelight on unpainted wooden walls and worn board floors spread with more of the woven rag rugs.  In the center of the room was a wood-burning stove, and at the rear, a door to a bathroom with a Clivus Multrum composting toilet.  One corner held a bed and a wardrobe, and along the same wall was a rack of knives, throwing blades, crossbows and bolts, and equipment for taking care of them, plus a target pad on a stand.  The other side of the room held a table, chairs, and a cabinet/bookshelf.  Rain pulled them down toward the door and pushed them closer together, creating an open corner opposite his own sleeping area.  "You can put your stuff there," Rain said.  "I'll go get that bed for you."  He trotted out the door and off down the path toward the valley floor.

Snake shrugged out of his pack and set it down against the wall, then took off his jacket.  He'd hidden out in worse places, over the years.  He remembered the dump in Cleveland he'd shared with Carjack and Texas Mike, where roaches ran out when he lifted the telephone receiver, and a crop of mushrooms sprouted periodically next to the shower.  It would feel good to stop moving for a while and let the wound in his leg heal.  He could still feel an ache deep in the damaged muscle.  He sat down in one of the handmade wooden chairs and stared at the stove, weighing the effort required to light a fire.  These people might run interference between him and the blackbellies if the USPF came looking for him, but.... .  He thought about the long journey through the woods and wondered where he would go if he had to run.  Instead of a refuge, this place could be a trap.  He sat there thinking for a while as the twilight deepened outside.

He heard the sound of voices, and opened the door.  Rain and a sandy-haired, middle-aged man were struggling up the path carrying a single mattress.  Behind them was a teenage boy with the metal bed-frame slung over his shoulder, and behind him, a woman who looked like the boy's mother, carrying a wooden chest and, with her, a half-grown girl holding the chest's two drawers.   Snake stepped back, and the group trooped into Rain's cabin and deposited their burdens on the floor, leaning the mattress up against the wall.  Rain said, "Thanks again, you guys."

They trooped out again, heading back down the path, and the older man paused at the door.  "You're welcome," he said, smiling.  "Since we fostered Raven out, this stuff has just been sitting in the back room.  We won't need it till spring."

"Where's your new one coming from?" Rain asked him.

"Oregon, I think," the man replied.  "The doctor said there's a boy there that wants to foster here."  He eyed Snake, who was leaning casually against the wall, his hands at his sides near the gleaming twin Magnums he was still wearing.  "Well, I'll be going.  I know you're tired.  Anything else you need, Rain, let us know."  The man eyed Snake sideways again.  "Ray Lee's called Meeting for before dinner to decide on..." he paused, as if a bit embarrassed, then finished, "...on Sanctuary.  She asked me to see if you wanted to speak, Rain."

"Yes, I do."  Rain went to the door, then turned back toward Snake.  "I'll be back in a little while.  I don't think there'll be any problem.  Make yourself at home, Snake."

"Fuck that."  Snake picked up his jacket.      

"If Meeting is deciding on a membership, the person isn't supposed to be there, so everybody can talk freely with no bad feelings afterwards.  Snake," Rain said urgently, "If you try to crash the Meeting without being invited, they'll turn you down for sure."           

Snake struggled briefly with himself, then let his instinct for survival win out.  Rain knew more about the dangers here than he did.  Snake watched the two men heading down the trail, his nerves tingling as he shifted into fight or flight mode.  Who the fuck did those assholes down there think they were, trying to play god with his life?  Too angry to sit still, he turned to setting up the furniture crowding the cabin.  The new mattress and bed-frame went in the corner opposite Rain's bed, and the two-drawer chest next to it.  This final effort, on top of the long day's walk, drove home his bone-deep weariness. He sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed, feeling the heavy ache all through him, the more specific throbbing in his damaged leg and in his head.  He shook back his hair, sighing, and closed his eyes.  

After a few minutes, he got up again and went to light a fire in the wood-stove.  Evening chill was creeping in on the mountain air, sharpening the pain in his leg-wound, and his whole body wanted food and then sleep, but he was too restless to relax.  You're losing it, Snake, he thought; never even considered that they might not let you stay.  The kid had seemed so certain.  Stupid asshole.  The anger shifted: stupid fucking asshole Plissken; don't you ever learn?  Keep making the same fucking stupid mistakes, trusting people.  What happens if they decide to kick you out?  You know they're here now, the one thing they've gone to so much trouble to hide.

"Buried where we put the last batch."  Snake pulled out his Magnums one at a time and checked them.  He took out the Barret, loaded it, and laid the assault rifle on the bed.  Finally, he clipped the elegant little automatic in its holster to the waistband of his pants, hidden at the small of his back, and slipped the pullover on over it.  He found himself pacing back and forth from one window to another, trying to see into the gathering darkness quickly becoming full night, and stopped himself.  Waste of effort.  He took a breath, felt himself slipping into that single-minded, knife-edge focus on the next sixty seconds that carried him through action, as he settled on his unmade bed facing the door, rifle ready, coiled and waiting.

                                                  ******************     

Rain climbed slowly up the dark path to his cabin, feeling tired and drained.  Meeting had been intense.  He had been surprised and disturbed to discover how much opposition there was to having Snake stay at Rivendell, and he'd had to argue hard before the consensus to grant Sanctuary had been reached.  He mulled over the opposition's points and admitted, reluctantly and with a touch of fear, that they made a sort of sense.  Snake was violent and paranoid; he had a quick and savage temper, and tended to settle arguments by casually blowing his opponents away.  He had no reason to be loyal to Rivendell or the Group's people.  Sociopath a ghostly voice from the Police Channel whispered in Rain mind.  He had brought Snake back with him because he could not bear to leave him behind in danger.  Back at Rivendell, with his responsibilities for his Group's safety heavy on his shoulders again, it seemed almost a foolish act of self-indulgence.

As he neared the cabin, Rain walked more heavily, deliberately making noise.  He  stopped outside the closed door and called out, "Snake, it's Rain."  The door swung open and Rain found himself staring down the barrel of the leveled assault rifle he had been half-expecting.  Stamping down his own defensive reaction, Rain froze.    "It's O.K., Snake," he said in a deliberately calm voice, "I'm alone."

Snake eyed Rain over the weapon.  "What'd they say?"

"They said you could stay."  Rain breathed out, but remained standing still until the gun barrel lowered and Snake backed away from the opening.  Moving with an air of unconcern he did not feel, Rain slipped in and closed the door behind him.  His mouth quirked.  "I told them you weren't going to go around pointing guns at people."

Snake snorted and said, soft and cold, "What conditions?"

"Probationary."  With a sigh, Rain dropped into a chair and unzipped his jacket.  "Most of them are afraid of you, because you're from outside and because of what they've seen on the Police Channel.  A lot of them think what you did at Firebase Seven was a good thing.  They're glad you shut down the Machine, for the sake of the Earth, but they want to be grateful to you from a long way away.  They wish you'd go someplace else.  Best I could do was wait and see."  He paused, then added in a neutral tone, "Can you blame them?"

The man across from him silently shook his head.  He set the rifle down on his bed and leaned forward with a long, slow exhalation of breath, then reached with one hand to knead the muscles at the back of his neck.  Rain could read the weariness and tension in him from across the room.  The hard edge and hair-trigger reflexes that came out of Snake's constant battle with the world were bought at a great price.  Snake lived with the safety off.    

At the thought, Rain was flooded with desire and a fierce tenderness.  He imagined what it would be like to have Snake's strong body under his hands, working the knots out of Snake's back and shoulders, easing him.  He imagined that soft, intense voice rough with passion, and the sweet flavor of Snake on his tongue.  He wanted to make love to Snake.  The phrase - making love - curled through him like narcotic smoke and dissolved into nothingness.  Rain drew in a breath and shook off the image.  Living here in such close quarters with Snake was going to be every bit as uncomfortable as the cabin on the Afternoon's Delight.

"Dinner's in an hour," he said.  "I think we ought to eat at the Lodge.  I don't have anything here."

"O.K." Snake answered.   He set about moving in with a maximum of efficiency.  The bed, chest, and a chair established the boundaries of his territory, setting off a smaller square within the larger square of the room.  He made the bed, using sheets, pillow, and blanket from the drawers of the chest, tossing the unzipped sleeping bag over it for warmth, and unpacked his backpack, stowing clothing in one drawer and gun supplies and cigarettes in the other.  The pullover and automatic returned to storage.  The boots from his stealth outfit went under the bed, along with the Barret and the salvaged bottles of Scotch, and, finally, the pack and frame itself.  He removed a lantern from its peg above his bed and set in on the table, creating a place to hang his gunbelt within easy reach, then sat down again on the bed.    Meanwhile, Rain did the same with the contents of his own pack, trying not to watch Snake as the other man moved, reached, stretched, and bent over.  

They went to dinner, heading down the trail by the faint light of moon and stars toward the brighter golden light of the settlement below.  Rain moved surefooted and confident; Snake followed the unfamiliar trail more cautiously.  As they stepped through the door to the Lodge, a wave of warm air met them, carrying mingled scents of piney wood burning in the wide fireplaces and good cooking, along with the sound of cheerful chatter.  Many candles filled the room with flickering light that was surprisingly bright once their eyes adjusted to it.  Snake and Rain headed over to a loaded table to pick up plates and food set out pot-luck style.  Snake was alert and unsmiling as he studied the gathered population of Rivendell.  Rain tried to see the group with a stranger's eyes.  Thirty-five or so people filled the room, a few older, a scattering of children, several knots of young people clustered by themselves, talking animatedly.  Many of the older women wore flowing skirts and blouses like Ray Lee's.  Most of the others were in practical jeans and workshirts, enlivened with colorful scarves and jewelry.  Rain smiled to see Snake's reaction to the three or four men also dressed in skirts among the crowd.  Most, men and women alike, had long hair down their backs, with, here and there, a close-cropped head in deliberate counterpoint.  I don't know, Rain thought, we just look like us.  He wondered what Snake thought of them.  The man's expression was guarded and non-committal.

"Food looks good," Snake commented as he loaded his plate.                                                  

There was a hint of surprise in his tone, and Rain remembered Josh's comments about Tofu Gulch.  He grinned.  "Yeah.  Vegetarian isn't just bean sprouts and steamed veggies."  He filled his plate, too, with spaghetti in a thick homemade sauce, fresh salad with wild mushrooms, cornbread, garden vegetables, and warm apple cobbler with goats'-milk cream.  They headed for a pair of empty chairs at one of the tables, followed by many pairs of eyes.

Ray Lee rose from her seat at one of the tables.  "Friends, let us take a moment," she said.  Conversation stilled, and when she had their attention, she continued.  "We thank those who helped prepare this good food, and those who planted and reaped the harvest, for their hard work.  We thank Mother Gaia for the gifts of her bounty. We thank all of you for your contributions."  She turned toward the spot where the two men sat, and smiled.  "Today, especially, we welcome back Rain, who has returned to us safe and sound.  And as you know, we have someone who has sought and been granted sanctuary with us, Snake Plissken.  He is a friend, and we welcome him.  Thank you, Snake, for giving us new hope."  She paused.  When

Snake said nothing, she finished with, "Let us eat together and share our strength."  

She sat down, and conversation resumed around them.  Snake ignored it, concentrating on his meal.

As Snake and Rain dumped their empty dishes into the double tubs of hot water where the clean-up crew were washing up, the little girl they had seen earlier at the Lodge came up to them.  She stood looking up at Snake thoughtfully.  "Daddy says you steal stuff.  Do you?"

Snake eyed the child for a moment, then said in a neutral tone, "Yeah."

"Why?"

Rain thought of all the possible answers to that, and trying to explain to a child the difference between stealing stuff and fighting the System.  For a disillusioned second he wondered if there was one.

Snake's voice roughened with an ironic honesty that seemed more for his own benefit than for that of his audience.  "Because I want to."  

"You're not supposed to steal stuff.  That's bad."  The girl pointed toward the Magnums holstered at Snake's sides.  "You got guns.  Like the bad guys who came.  Mommy said you kill people."  The child frowned and seemed to come to a conclusion.  "You're a bad guy!  I don't like you."

Snake turned to go, his voice darkening.  "Good.  Then stay out of my way."

The girl persisted.  "Are they gonna kill you back?"

"Yeah.  Eventually."  Snake picked up his jacket and began to walk off.

Rain looked around, wondering where Astrid's mother was.  Astrid hurried after Snake and caught up with him as he and Rain threaded their way toward the door through the maze of tables and people.  "Can I see your guns?" she asked.

"Astrid!" A heavyset woman appeared out of the group of people and caught hold of the child's hand.  "Come on, honey."  Her face and her tone were darkly suspicious as she faced Snake.  "I don't want you talking to my daughter."  Rain could see the muscle in Snake's jaw tense in response, but the other man did not answer.

"He's a bad man."  Astrid trotted alongside as her mother started to lead her away.   "Can I watch when they shoot him?"

The mother turned to stare at Snake, but he had already slipped outside.  "No, you can not watch when they.... .  They're not going to shoot him!  What did he say to you, Astrid?" Rain heard fading away behind him as he went to catch up to Snake.

The door to the Lodge closed behind him, and he stepped out into the sharp chill of winter evening.  He shrugged on his fleece-lined denim jacket.  Snake was ahead of him, a dark figure silvered by the moon.  Light caught on the pale flesh of his bare arms and glinted on his guns.  "Snake!" he called.  Snake slowed marginally, shrugging on his own jacket, as Rain caught up to him.  "Why'd you say that to Astrid?" Rain asked.  He never explains himself, Rain thought.  Snake paused and turned to face Rain, his head thrown back and cocked at an angle, his whole posture expressing sardonic cynicism: Why not?  "Sociopath" suddenly had a concrete meaning.  Snake, Rain realized, had rejected not just one System, but all of them.  Rain felt a chill.  Knowing it was the wrong thing, he said, "Look, we're trying to teach Astrid and the other kids that stealing and killing are wrong."  

Snake's direct gaze focused on Rain.  His face was white against the darkness, the patch a black slash across it.  Moonlight glittered in his good eye.  His soft snort was eloquent.  All of Rain's potential justifications sounded ridiculous, sanctimonious, even to himself.  He fell back on honesty, hoping Snake would understand.  "They have to believe that.  We all do.  We have to be able to trust each other, or Rivendell and the Groups would fall apart.  We can't depend on the law or the police here."

"I don't give a fuck about your Group."

"But, Snake," Rain said, trapped in an argument he knew he could not win,  "Society depends on -"

"Society's just another name for somebody else's rules."

"Was that why you pushed the button?  To get rid of the rules?"  That made sense to Rain.  The old image of the romantic outlaw surfaced: Snake as the clear-eyed rebel fighting to bring down the lying, hypocritical System.  Of course he did not trust them at Rivendell yet.  He had been hurt and betrayed too often.  Trust would take time.  Something dark and bitter moved across the outlaw's face as Snake turned away, without answering, and started back up the path.  Rain followed.  If Snake went to sleep like this, he'd surely have another of his nightmares, Rain thought.  A practical idea struck him: the baths.  It was where he had always gone, since he had moved to Napa, when he was too tense and upset to fall asleep.  He caught up to Snake again.  "Snake, I've got an idea."

                                                  ******************       

"Was that why you pushed the button?  To get rid of the rules?"  

Fuck it.  Get your own answers.  Memories of tortures and beatings, deaths and betrayals, stirred in Snake.  There were so many reasons, all of them personal.  He eyed the young man across from him on the moonlit path, the young man with the quick gestures and the looks that reminded him of Taylor, but who was not Taylor - who would never be Taylor - and knew that Rain would not understand, and that it was not worth trying to explain.  Rain was too young.  He still thought in terms of causes and idealism.  There were no causes.  There was only survival and revenge.  Pain flared behind his bad eye and knotted in his tense muscles, riding on a weariness too deep for easy sleep.  He needed to work it out.  He heard Rain suggesting a visit to the hot mineral baths, and decided that it couldn't hurt.  He followed Rain as the young man turned in a different direction.  

A path threaded its way down toward a hollow near the base of a hill, where lantern-light glowed from narrow openings around the roof of a low redwood building.  As they entered, warm air swirled around them, and Snake drew in a breath of thick, slightly sulfurous, vapor, halfway between fog and steam.  He coughed hard, fear rising in him, and hesitated as pain flared again in his head.  Rain turned a concerned look toward him.  "It's all right, Snake.  There's no gas in the water.  The vents go down a long way."  

Snake stared at him for a moment, then decided to accept this.  He looked around at the large, dimly-lit room, where men, women and children splashed in several pools carved into the rock.  Most of them were naked, a few wrapped in towels, as they chatted casually, sitting on the edges of the pools or the redwood benches lining the wall, or floated, or played in the water.  At one end, a low barrier along the floor sectioned off a group of communal showers that reminded Snake of his Army barracks.  Cubicles, some of them filled with clothes, lined a wall at the other end.   Snake noticed that there were no doors on the storage boxes.  At least, he thought, he could keep an eye on his stuff while he soaked.  He had no intention of letting his Magnums out of his sight.  As it was, he would have to give the guns a good cleaning to get rid of the moisture they had picked up from the air.  

Ignoring the other people in the room, Snake stripped off, folded his guns inside his shirt, folded his shirt inside his pants, added his underwear and boots to the top of the pile in one of the wood wall-boxes, and covered it all with his jacket.  Rain followed suit, then waved in the direction of the showers.  "We have to wash first," he explained.  Snake nodded, remembering the Japanese baths he had visited in New Vegas, and complied.  It felt wonderful to get rid of the mud and grime of the journey.  Afterward, he slowly lowered himself into one of the pools, next to Rain.  His body gradually adjusted to the steaming-hot water as it crept up to the middle of his chest, then to his shoulders.  Snake settled onto the bench carved along the side of the pool and leaned his head back against the smooth rim, feeling the heat soak through him, easing his tight muscles, pulling the tension out of him.  He sighed and half-closed his good eye.

After a few minutes, he asked, "Where'd this all come from."  The wave of a dripping hand took in the whole building.        

"They only put this in about twenty years ago," Rain answered.  He wore a blissful expression of total content as he lounged chin-deep in the hot water.  "Blasted the pools out of the rock, capped the geothermal steam vents to use the pressure for heat and power.  The hot water is mixed with cool water from the spring that feeds the river.  It's filtered through a lot of rock that pulls out most of the gas, and the temperature's high enough, the rest fractions off.  That's about all I know about it: the water's safe.  There used to be a lot of resorts and spas up in this area, but most of them went out of business because of the war."  

Snake grunted an acknowledgement and relaxed into the all-enveloping hot water, trying to let his mind, except for the segment keeping track of his guns, go blank.  For the moment, he refused to let anything bother him, not even the gawky teenage girl he noticed casting sideways glances at him from two pools over.  He came back to attention abruptly as a new woman entered the room.  Her graceful, swaying stride caught Snake's eye, and he breathed out raggedly, instantly aroused, as she slipped out of her cloak and long skirt and blouse.  Her naked body was spectacular: long legs, rounded hips curving into a slim waist, full breasts that quivered enticingly as she lifted her slim arms to tie up long, thick hair the color of prime Scotch.  A natural blonde, Snake noted, as he caught sight of the soft golden triangle below.  She was perhaps in her early thirties.  Snake focused on her as she glided to the edge of the central pool and slipped into the warm water.  "Who's that," he asked, his voice low and rough.

"Dawn.  Our Healer," Rain answered, in a tone that begrudged the information.     

The woman greeted people around the room, chatting briefly with several of them, as Snake watched her.  She turned in his direction, and hesitated as Snake raked her with a frankly predatory stare.  Her expression shifted to nervousness, and, a moment later, to anger and disgust tinged with fear.  She turned away, climbed out of the pool, pulled her clothes on quickly, and walked out of the building without looking in Snake's direction again.

Snake thought briefly about following her, and then thought, why bother?  The look on her face had been enough.  A wave of overwhelming exhaustion swept through him, and he felt almost too heavy to move.  He went with it, not fighting.  Getting older, he thought with a sort of fatalistic resentment, slowing down, not bouncing back the way he had after Leningrad or the Max, or even Cleveland.  He looked down at himself, naked under the water: not bad for forty-six, but forty-six he was.  There was only so long he could count on his body to give him what he needed in the crunch.  Sooner or later, they get everybody.  The scars, the battered features, the eyepatch and four-day stubble, were enough to scare off any woman.  Body's not too bad, but the face is for shit.  No wonder she took off.  He gathered himself together, and said gruffly, "I'm going."

He climbed out of the water and dried off with one of the big, fluffy towels from a pile on a table near the cubbyholes, then dressed, feeling glad to be rid of the vulnerability of nakedness.  The satisfying snap of his gunbelt locking back into position made him feel whole and complete again, and as close to secure as he ever got.  His freshly washed hair tickled the back of his neck, and he pushed it away impatiently, readjusting the strap holding his patch in place, then picked up his jacket and walked out into the darkness.  The trail he had taken down from Rain's cabin was clear in the bright moonlight, and he retraced it easily.  Rain followed.  Behind them, sounds from the Lodge of guitar, harmonica, rhythmic handclapping, laughter, and singing faded out into the quiet of the night.  They reached Rain's cabin and shut the door behind them.  The two men undressed in weary silence and climbed into their respective beds.  Snake slept, restlessly, and dreamed of drowning.              

                                                    ******************        

The teenaged girl who had seen Snake at the bath pulled on her clothes and dashed down the path to the Lodge.  She found her little clique of girlfriends in their usual spot, an isolated table they had moved to an alcove near the kitchen preparation area.  After the dinner cleanup, it provided as much privacy as could be found anywhere in Rivendell.  Here they gathered to giggle and talk, exchange gossip and confidences with each other, away from parents and boys.  The girls were poring over a tattered piece of paper, talking eagerly.  

"Aspen!  Summer!  Feather!  Guess what!"

"What, Sierra?"

"You'll never, ever guess who I saw!"

"Who?" came the chorus.   

"HIM!"  Sierra said.  She pointed dramatically at the image of Snake Plissken on the wanted poster from Ray Lee's desk drawer, which had migrated through successive hands until it reached this table.

Running fingers through her long dark hair, Feather put on a bored expression. "So?   Hef deal.  We all saw him, at dinner.  My Mom says they argued like cats fighting at Meeting over letting him stay."

"He sat four places away from me," said Summer, trying for the same tone the older girl affected.  "All he did was talk to Rain and stupid Astrid."  

Aspen leaned over to whisper conspiratorially, "He was wearing guns.  Two of them.  I saw them."    

"Of course, you dube!  For protection.  They're after him."  Feather picked up the wanted poster and read from the grimy page: "Reward. Two Million New Dollars for information leading to the capture of  S.D. 'Snake' Plissken.  Do not attempt apprehension.  Suspect is armed and considered extremely dangerous.  Notify USPF if sighted."

"Wow - bluebacks!" Aspen said.  "He must really be dangerous."

Feather smiled with superior adolescent cynicism.  "They always offer a big reward and say the person they're after is just so bo-kew dangerous.  It makes them look better when they catch one of them.  They're just mad 'cause Snake demagged their drive."

Impatiently, Sierra waved her hands in the air, fingers splayed.  "No, I saw him... in the baths."  She leaned over Feather's arm and pointed to the line on the paper under the glowering image of the wanted man: "'S.D. "Snake" Plissken.'   I know why they call him Snake!"

Feather snorted.  "Yeah.  It's 'cos he slithers outta trouble so easy.  Police Channel said that years ago."   

"Nuh-uhh, Ms. know-it-all Feather-brain," Sierra taunted.  "It's his tattoo.  It's a... snake.  A cobra.  And it's..." she paused to whisper in Feather's ear.

"NO!"

"Yes!"

"What?" demanded Summer and Aspen in unison.   Feather turned and whispered to Aspen, who gasped, "Ewwwww!  That is so toxic!"

"What is it?" Summer demanded, bouncing in her chair in frustration.

"You're too young to know," Feather said with a bored roll of her eyes.

"I'm going fostering soon!  I'm meg old enough!  Tell me!" Summer cried.

"Pin it, Summer," Feather said, "two years isn't 'soon.'"

"Oh, tell her, Feath.  She's gonna bug us until we do," Aspen sighed.  She wound a light-brown curl around her fingers and then pulled it straight again.  It fluffed back into place.

Sierra beat the other girl to it.  "It's on his... penis!"

"That wasn't the word you used to tell me," commented Feather, smugly.

Summer sat, stunned into silence, for a moment, and then whispered, "The whole thing?"

"Well, the head is on his stomach."  Sierra gestured, descriptively.  "It goes down all the way and the tail is...."  She grinned wickedly and made a curling motion with her forefinger.

"I don't believe it," Summer said.  "Nobody would put a tattoo there.   It'd hurt too bad."

"Maybe that's why he's so 'dangerous'."  Aspen clapped a hand over her grinning mouth, and the entire group broke into a gale of embarrassed giggling.

"Bet he isn't really.  Anybody who isn't into 'Peace, Love and Understanding' is dangerous, according to my folks," Feather retorted when the giggling died down again.  "Haz-mat old retros!  Snake is totally bo-kew dreem, and I bet he isn't anything like the poster says, or my folks either."

"Anybody wrung enough to get his choad tattooed isn't 'dreem'.  He's gassed," Aspen said firmly.

Summer sat silently for a few minutes, staring down onto the surface of the table as she chewed pensively at one side of her lower lip, then she looked up at her friends and said defiantly, "I'm going to see it.  Private showing."

"Tack away!  How?" Aspen cried.  "Don't tell me you're going to march up and ask him.  Nobody's that gassed."

"Only way to get up close enough to Snake Plissken to really see that tattoo," Feather drawled, with an attempt at ever-so-adult sophistication, "is to sleep with him."

Sierra adjusted the black velvet ribbon she had begun wearing around her neck with what she hoped was an air of provocative sexiness.  "Hey, he can park that dreem bod in my bed any night!"

"Then that's what I'll do," Summer said; "Sleep with him."

The three girls stared at Summer with shock and disbelief.  Feather flounced and made a moue of disgust.  "Oh, virtual!  Like you would."  Her eyes narrowed and she lowered her voice.  "I dare you, Summer!"

"Watch me," Summer said firmly, and got up to leave.

The little group watched her depart with determined chin held high, then broke into scandalized and disbelieving chatter for a little while longer, before returning to their separate homes for the night.  Feather slipped into her bed and settled down, pulling the hand-made blanket up to her chin.  If Summer really did get together with Snake, it would sure make the rest of them look like for-sure dubes.  But she wouldn't.  Summer was just a kid.  Plissken wouldn't be into anybody like that.  And he really was scary, even if he was extreme-dreem sexy.  Summer would chicken out, like she did with most of her wild plans.  Feather smiled to herself, and drifted off to sleep with misty fantasies, vague on concrete details, about what nights with the exciting newcomer might be like.

                                                ******************         

Snake woke in the morning to a muted chorus of animal noises from beyond the shuttered windows of Rain's cabin: hooting of mourning doves and twittering of finches and sparrows from the trees right outside, quarrelsome honking of geese and crowing of roosters from down in the valley, the distant bleating of goats and barking of dogs.  Rain opened the shutters as Snake sat up and reached for his patch, and scent of wood-smoke drifted in along with pale dawn light.  Snake lit one of his dwindling supply of cigarettes from DMZ, wondering how long he could stretch them and when he would be able to get more.  He'd seen no evidence that anyone else at Rivendell smoked tobacco or traded for it.        

Rain was already dressed and preparing his crossbow for his shift on Security.  "Forget sleeping past the critters' wake-up call," he said cheerfully.  He watched Snake shove the clothes he had worn since their purchase at DMZ into a corner of his bedroom space with his foot, and reach into his dresser drawer for a new set, and he smiled.  "If you want to get those clean, I'll show you where the wash-house is on the way down to breakfast."

Might as well try looking a little less feral, Snake decided.  He dressed, combed out his hair, and shaved with water heated on the top of the wood-stove, using the mirror hung on Rain's wall, then the two men headed down to breakfast at the Lodge through the crisp morning air.  The lack of a lock on Rain's door bothered Snake, but he settled for drawing the door closed and pulling down the cross-bar latch.  Green leaves flickered around them, moving in the light breeze, as they descended, and, below, the clear stream, flecked with whitewater, glinted silver where the rising sun climbed over the hilltop to fall on it.  A crow cawed a warning to its fellows as they passed under its tree, and a smell of clean damp earth and pine-needles rose from the red-brown path before them.  Snake saw Rain drawing in deep, appreciative breaths and smiling, clearly glad to be home.  As they passed the door near the kitchen area of the Lodge, Snake noticed a flock of chickens, mixed with a few geese, crowding around it, as a middle-aged man with Hispanic features scattered food-scraps to them.  Snake spared them a quick sideways glance.  They were the first live, unconfined chickens he had ever seen.

Rain caught his look.  "Chickens will eat anything.  Even better than pigs.  Anything we don't compost goes to them."

"When do we get chicken on the menu?"   

"We don't kill animals unless we have to, for protection or something like that.  We use some of the eggs, but we let a lot of them hatch," Rain answered.  Snake took note of the intent expression on the younger man's face, and remembered the fish catch on the Afternoon's Delight.  More of this crazy animal stuff, he thought.  

Snake studied the flock.  "How many's 'a lot'?"

"Predators get some of them, either eggs or chicks: foxes, owls, hawks, coyotes, sometimes the cats.  The hens are pretty good at defending their nests, though --

I got pecked a lot when I was on egg-collecting duty as a kid."  

Snake stopped and turned to stare at Rain.  A scattering of Rivendell residents detoured around the two, heading into the open door toward breakfast, as they paused.  "Predators?  You don't kill them off?"

"No.  It's their home, too.  We're all part of the balance, part of the pattern Gaia is weaving out of our" -- Rain waved a hand, clearly searching for the right word -- "relationships.  There's a mountain lion who lives up farther in the hills and raises cubs every year.  The cubs move on, but she stays.  Every so often, she gets one of the goats or a horse, but she keeps the deer from overrunning our crops, too.  The coyotes take some of the fawns, and help keep the cats under control.  The cats take mice and rabbits that eat our crops, and some of the birds.  The birds eat our seeds and fruit, but a lot of insects, too.  We don't use chemical pesticides for the insects: that would kill off the bees that give us honey and wax, and pollinate the crops.  There's a pair of hawks nesting on the ridge up there" -- he pointed - "and turkey vultures down by the apple orchard.  Raccoons, possums...."  Rain shrugged and broke off with, "It all fits together."

"You're overrun with them," Snake muttered.  "It's a zoo."

Anger flashed over Rain's face and he answered sharply, "Not a zoo!  Not a farm, either.  Rivendell is part of the forest.  We live with the plants and the animals.  We share with them, we don't just use them."  

Snake snorted.  "Everybody gets used."  Images of  New York Max rose in his mind. Everybody's somebody else's dinner.  He started to walk on.   

Rain's expression shifted, and he held out a hand to slow Snake down.  "Snake, don't you see?  In the city, everything is buried under concrete and glass, under buildings hundreds of stories tall.  Underneath, the Earth is totally dead.  You can feel it: Gaia crying for her lost children, crushed under the cement.  For me, living there would be like suicide.  But here, the dying gives life.  It's part of the pattern."     

Snake snorted again, and turned away from Rain, without speaking, to enter the Lodge.  Rain seemed to take Snake's reaction as a hint.  The two of them filled their plates in silence from the buffet, then took seats at one of the tables scattered around the room.  Once again, Snake noted, the food was very good.  There was fruit, fresh bread with jam and honey, hot cereal, eggs, and cheese, along with goat's milk and coffee.  Rain ate hurriedly, his eyes on his plate, and after a few minutes stood up again and shouldered his crossbow.  He walked off, his back stiff.

Snake ate slowly, stretching the activity as long as possible.  He was at dead stop.  For a month, he had been pushing himself all-out, without rest, to reach this place, and now that he was here, he had nothing to do.  He observed the inhabitants of Rivendell as they bustled in and out for breakfast, eating quickly and departing again immediately as soon as they were finished.  In this hard-working farming community, which grew or made most of what it needed, no one had much spare time for socializing during the precious daylight hours.  A few people greeted him with a cautious smile as they passed, most ignored him, and a few seemed to be deliberately avoiding eye contact.  No one spoke to him.  Snake felt as out of place here as he did everywhere else.  He refused to let it bother him.

"Hi," said a light, hesitant voice at Snake's left elbow.  

Snake's head snapped in the direction of the voice, and he saw a girl with a breakfast tray in her hands.  He took in the wide blue eyes and cascade of brown hair half-way down her back, the clear skin with its dusting of freckles over her little nose, and the slender but rounded figure.  Nice, he thought.  

"Can I sit here?"

Snake nodded permission, reserving judgment but inclining toward welcome.  The girl slid her tray onto the table beside his, and sat down in the chair next to him.  He noticed she had a clean, flowery scent, like lavender soap.  He tried to guess how old she was.  Once, he would have said eighteen, but it was impossible to tell any more.  She wasn't exactly his type, but she was definitely attractive, and apparently interested in him.  It had been a while.  His mouth relaxed slightly, taking on a less grim line.

"My name's Summer," the girl went on in a slightly breathless rush.  "I saw you when Ray Lee introduced you at dinner last night.  I always thought from the vid you were about seven feet tall."  She studied him.  "You're lots better looking than your pictures."

Snake was suddenly glad he had shaved that morning.  "Never thought about it."  

"I bet they pick the really bad pictures, 'cause they don't like you," Summer said.  She looked down and then back up at him with innocent flirtatiousness, and favored him with a smile that sent a twinge through Snake's groin.  "But I do."  Summer pushed her food around on her plate with her fork for a moment, as if at a loss, then looked at Snake again.  "If you need an extra blanket, I have one you can have.  I do weaving.  Blankets, shawls, rugs, stuff like that.  They're really warm.  I could bring one by your cabin."

"Sounds good, baby."  Snake finally smiled in return.  That was as clear an invitation as he'd ever heard.  No reason not to take her up on it.  "When?"

Summer hesitated, seemingly startled by the direct question.  "Uh - soon."  She stood and picked up her tray, clattering the dishes together in her haste, looked away toward the door and then back at Snake.  "I've got to go."  She paused and then said quickly, almost as if it required an effort, "See you later."  She dumped her tray by the cleanup area and hurried out, brushing past a dark-haired girl standing near the door.  

Snake watched her go, admiring the way Summer's long hair bounced against her back above her cute little ass.  Nice body.  Definitely fuckable.  She was young, but she looked old enough, older than a lot of the hookers he'd seen on the streets of Bangkok and New Vegas.  He'd never gone for the kids.  He wanted a woman, and one with experience, but he wasn't in the mood to be picky.  With a pretty girl coming on to him, forty-six didn't seem nearly as old as it had last night.  This one knew what she was doing, he was sure of that.  You want it, baby; I'll give it to you.  'Soon,' eh?  It's a deal.

He smiled to himself as he dropped off his own dishes and went out into the winter sunshine.  He caught the dark-haired girl scowling in his direction, and ignored her.  He had more pleasant thoughts on his mind as he walked down the path through the center of the settlement in as upbeat a mood as he ever achieved.  The day was bright and cool, painted in brilliant shades of blue sky, green plants, and red earth, the air fresh, and the sound of the brook nearby a soft rushing noise accented by birdsong.  In this place, Snake thought, Rain's ideas might make some kind of sense.  He'd explore, scope out the lay of the land.  He smiled to himself again at the mental pun.  Yeah, he'd have Summer show him around.  There were probably a lot of private spots out of sight in the forest around here.

"Snake!"

Snake turned at the sound of the voice to see a man a little older than Rain, who, he remembered, had been seated some spaces down from him at dinner last night.  With him were two other men and a plain-faced, rather chunky woman.  Snake stood still, wondering what they wanted from him.

"'Morning, Snake," the man said, shifting the weight of the ladder he was holding to his other flannel-clad shoulder.  Snake eyed him silently.  In spite of Snake's lack of encouragement, the man seemed to feel the need to introduce himself and his little group.  "I'm Roberto.  Yarrow, Mark, Sky," he pointed to each in turn.  "We're going to take down the camo nets over the fields.  Thanks to your, uh, efforts at Firebase Seven, we won't be needing them anymore.  I wanted to thank you for that."  He grinned as if Snake's success had been his own.  "Come on and give us a hand, and see what you've done for us."  As Snake hesitated, his automatic negative streak rising to the surface, Roberto added, "I heard you got shot up pretty bad in L.A.  It's O.K.  We'll do the climbing and take 'em down.  You and Yarrow can fold.  C'mon, Snake."  He waited, smiling in friendly invitation.

"Yeah, O.K.," Snake said at last.  He was irritated at the suggestion he was too crippled to do the job.  He had a half-conscious, purely animal, need not to appear vulnerable among a group of strangers who might be potential enemies.  He followed the group out of the houses and into the wide, tree-sprinkled fields he had seen on his climb down into the valley.  They were surrounded by a thick, high hedge of thorn-bush with gates at intervals.  Natural fencing, Snake concluded.

Yarrow, a shorter, older man with oriental eyes, fell back slightly to walk at Snake's side.  "Roberto and I spoke up for you at Meeting," he said.  "When the power went off, I knew things were going to turn around at last.  We've been waiting a long time, hiding.  Now, we can start to take back the earth for Gaia, make things the way they ought to be."  Snake remembered a similar conversation he had had with Rain.  Evidently there was a militant group here at Rivendell who wanted to see him as some kind of hero.  He regarded the idea with considerable misgiving, answering with a skeptical, non-committal little snort.  He tucked it into the back of his mind as he helped take down and fold camouflage nets, listening to the conversation around him among the others and storing information about them.

Snake spent the next few days sleeping, resting his wounded leg, recovering, and settling into the routine of life at Rivendell.  In the cold mountain mornings, he felt every scar and every half-forgotten wound.  Here were peace and sanctuary of a sort, but he never counted on any good thing lasting.  He would take it as it came, day by day, survive and heal.          

                                                     CHAPTER FIVE

Somewhere near Los Angeles:

Rance Farris trudged along the pot-holed road toward Firebase Seven.  He had set out a little over three weeks ago, when news reached him of Snake Plissken's escape from Los Angeles and the final broadcast setting off the Sword of Damocles satellites.  Rance had been tracking Snake for a long time, following up on cold trails that led nowhere, from one false Plissken-sighting to another.  Now he had a solid lead, and he was determined not to lose Snake again.  Plissken owed him, and he planned to collect, no matter how long it took.  The bluebacks the USPF was offering were only the down payment.  The real reward would be seeing Plissken die, preferably slowly and painfully.  

Plissken had been badly wounded, they said, in Los Angeles, and he couldn't have gone far without transportation, now that the satellites had knocked out the power.  Vicious satisfaction twisted in him: shot yourself in the foot again, didn't you, Lieutenant?  Took everybody with you again, like you did before, you fucked-up bastard.  This time, when I find you, you'll finally pay.  Rance had heard rumors of a man in Los Angeles who might know something, somebody connected with the dead revolutionary, Cuervo Jones.  When he got to the island, he would start there and take up the trail again.

                                                 ******************

Over the next few days, Snake spent most of his time sleeping, and the rest studying the Rivendell group while keeping his distance.  He avoided the social gatherings in the evenings, and seldom talked to anyone except in response to greetings, whose friendliness seemed forced and artificial to him.  They seemed to be addressed to a Snake Plissken who did not exist except in the minds of the radical segment of Rivendell society.  He knew he was being watched, the potential threat they saw in him tracked by many pairs of suspicious eyes.  The pretty girl who had come on to him seemed to have disappeared.

By the time she reappeared, Snake had had enough sleep that he felt almost rested and the inactivity was beginning to grate on his adrenalin-junkie's nerves.  He was sitting on the log bench just outside Rain's cabin one morning, trying to will himself into stillness without great success, when he saw Summer climbing up the path toward him, carrying a square gray bundle.  As she stopped in front of him, he noticed she was breathing a little fast and there was a trace of heightened color in her cheeks.  

"Snake, you're awake!" she said.  "Remember?  What we talked about?  I brought you something."  She smiled self-consciously as she unfolded a beautiful gray blanket with a pattern woven in blacks, whites, and dark reds.  "It's a pattern from the First People.  I got it from a book.  It's called Sky Rattlesnake.  See," she pointed, "that's the rattlesnake, and those are the lightning flashes and the clouds.  I made it for you."

Snake reached out and touched the pattern lightly.  "You made this for me?"  He looked up at her.  The last time he had been given anything, just as a gift, was beyond memory.

"Well, I started it last year, but I didn't finish it.  After we talked at breakfast, that day, I got it out again and finished the background and the edges.  And I signed it."

"How do you sign a blanket?"

"See that triple band of dark blue wool at the edge?  That means I made it."

Summer traced the black and red zigzag of the rattlesnake image with her fingers. "Sky Rattlesnake is a sacred pattern, the book said."

Snake picked up the lower edge of the mohair blanket and let it flow through his hands.  It was soft and thick, warm and almost weightless.  His fingers brushed Summer's, and he smiled at her, letting the contact linger, feeling her quiver slightly under his touch.  "This'd be great to... share on a cold night...."   He put invitation into his one good eye.

Summer inhaled, then exhaled sharply, and sat down next to him on the bench.   "Yeah," she breathed, moving over toward Snake.  He spread the blanket over their laps and slid an arm around her to bring her closer, reaching up with his other hand to stroke her long hair.  His fingers tightened in the silky mass, turning her face up toward his, and he lowered his mouth to hers in a kiss.  It built in intensity, turning hard and demanding as he felt his body begin to respond to her.  She turned and melted against him, raising her arms to hug him in turn.  She made a soft sound as her hands opened on his shoulders.  He pressed her back toward the bench.  His arm moved down, tightened, circling her, pulling her to him.  He felt her stiffen, and realized that he and Summer were sitting in a very public area, in full view of the settlement below.  He loosened his hold and said huskily, "Want to go inside?"     

Summer hesitated, drawing back slightly, out of breath from the kiss.  "Oh, god, Snake, I... I I want to... but, can we make it later?" she stammered.  She paused, wide-eyed, her mouth slightly open, then added quickly, "It's... umm, you know... that time...."

Snake was mystified for a moment, then caught on.  "Hell, I don't mind," he murmured.  His hand shifted, moving under her jacket to cup a rounded breast, and his thumb brushed across the hardened nipple beneath her shirt.    

"No, I can't," Summer said, more firmly.  She put her hands on his shoulders, pushing.  "Let's wait... 'til later, OK?"

She started to back away, shakily, but Snake caught her hands.  He looked down into her eyes, unwilling to let her go so easily, annoyed by her sudden reluctance.  He hadn't had a woman blow hot and cold like this with him since his dimly remembered dates in high school, before he discovered the more satisfying simplicity of hookers.  He didn't understand it any better now than he had then.  "That's later, baby, not never, right?" he rasped softly, in the rough, warm lower registers of his voice as he squeezed her imprisoned fingers.        

Summer's voice was uncertain, close to tears.  "Snake... y you're so beautiful!  I... I I want to...bebe with... you, honest.  Just... just... later.  Please.  Let go!"  She tugged at his grasp, and he did let go.  She turned and all but ran down the path.

Snake started to go after her, but, with an effort, restrained himself.  He sank back on the bench, harsh breath hissing through clenched teeth.  He was a stranger here, an outsider, and Rivendell might be possessive about its women.  He'd never had to force a woman, and he wasn't about to start with this one.  If she wanted to wait, he'd wait.  But only so long.  The functioning of a woman's mind and body were largely a mystery to Snake, but his own familiar body was telling him in no uncertain terms exactly what it wanted.  He lifted the soft mohair and held it to his face, inhaling Summer's scent there like an animal tracking prey, and growled under his breath.  He carried the blanket back inside Rain's cabin and spread it over his bed.  Sky rattlesnake, he thought, and saw the sleek black Gulffire in his mind's eye.  Yes.  He reached into his drawer for a cigarette and lit it, as frustration slid into baffled anger.  That at least was familiar, and, in a strange way, comforting.

                                                      ******************

Summer fled down the path, shaken and confused.  She had had every intention of  going inside with Snake, but a sudden wave of fear had drowned her plans: fear of herself, of Snake, and most of all, of the unknown.  Her whole self was still electric with reaction.  She had felt her will draining out of her, the core of her body turning molten, and the sheer intensity of her response to Snake had terrified her into flight.  She climbed to the place she went when she wanted to be alone, high up the hill where a waterfall that fed Rivendell's stream tumbled down toward the valley, and sat there, heart pounding, while she tried to gather her thoughts.

It had started with the tattoo, wanting to see the tattoo, wanting to beat Feather at her game of "I'm so grown-up and sexy."  She had never expected it to become something like this, something that would reach right down into her center and trouble her in ways she didn't understand.  They said that when she was fostered out to a new group she would find someone and have sex with them, some day find someone to partner with.  She hadn't expected this to find her here.  It wasn't time, it wasn't right.  This stranger who disrupted the whole world of Rivendell drew her in a way she could neither completely refuse or accept.  She couldn't think.  It was too confusing, and her heart was beating too hard.

She saw him again, the sun glinting red in his hair, his hard body and strong face full of self-confidence and experience.   She tasted the memory of his alien tobacco-flavored mouth, and heard his voice that sounded like her mohair felt: soft and rough and warm.  She remembered the feel of his hands.  The boys she knew at Rivendell all seemed suddenly ridiculous.  Snake wasn't a boy.  He wasn't any known quantity at all.  He was a man, and she wanted him.  She was scared to death of him.  She relived the kiss and felt herself go liquid again.  She had acted like a little kid, running away like, she was sure, her friends had all predicted.  Next time, she wouldn't.  Please, let there be a next time!  She'd prove to him she wasn't a little girl any more, and prove it to herself.  And she had to see that tattoo.  She huddled on the mossy stone, feeling miserable.

                                                  ******************

When Rain poked his head inside the cabin door some time later, he found Snake stretched out on his bed on top of the new gray blanket, staring at the ceiling.  Several cigarette butts and a half-empty glass of Scotch occupied the dresser-top next to him.  Snake sat up as Rain entered.  "Snake," the younger man said, "the circuit doctor's here.  You need to see him."

"No, I don't," came the flat reply.

"Yes, you do.  He wants to vaccinate everybody here.  He says that cholera, typhus, all kinds of stuff, are starting up in the cities and the refugees are bringing it with them.  Plus, you need an exam by a human doctor instead of a vet."  

"Bullshit."

"Come on, Snake," Rain said, "You need to find out what those fuckers at Firebase Seven really did to you."      

Rain could see uneasiness creep into Snake's face, and congratulated himself on finding something that would convince Snake to go for medical attention.  He wondered just how long it had been since Snake had voluntarily visited a doctor.  "Shit," Snake growled; then finally, "Yeah, O.K."

"I'll have him come by the cabin later tonight," Rain said.  One look at Snake's truculent expression made it obvious Snake was not going to stand in line with the rest of Rivendell's population.   

Better warn the doctor he's going to have a less-than-cooperative patient, Rain thought, as he made his way back down the trail to the Lodge, where the circuit-riding doctor was setting up his treatment area.  People were already gathering outside as Rain slipped in by the side door to talk to the doctor alone.   "Hi, Spence," he called out to the short, gray-haired man in jeans and flannel shirt who was setting plastic boxes out on the long serving table by the fireplace.  Rain broke into a wide grin as he caught sight of the doctor's assistant, a broad-shouldered young man with coffee-colored skin.  "Kestrel!" he cried, "What are you doing here?"  The two men hugged and exchanged a brief kiss, and Rain added, "Are you with the doctor now?"                      

The doctor greeted Rain, then turned back to his preparations as Kestrel explained, "Yeah.  I'm going to be his apprentice."  He smiled.  "I got tired of the winters in Idaho."  The two men had grown up together, and Kestrel had been fostered out from Rain's home Group to one in Idaho about the same time Rain had been fostered to Rivendell.

"He's going to take over for me some day," the doctor said, smiling over his shoulder in the direction of his new intern.  "I can't keep on doing this forever you know."

"I decided I wanted to learn about medicine," Kestrel said.  "Spence says he's going  to teach me himself, because the medical schools and hospitals are going to be really screwed up for a while."  His dark eyes sparkled.  "Gods it's good to see you again, Rain!  We've got to get together tonight."  

"Definitely!" Rain said.  "I can come over to the guesthouse after dinner."  He trusted Kestrel, but he preferred to keep Snake's presence at Rivendell on a Need To Know basis.  He turned to Dr. Spencer.  "How are you, Spence?"

"Fine, fine," the older man answered.  "It's good to see you again.  Your mother and father say hello.  Oh, and here."  He fished in his bag and brought out several envelopes.  "Mail."

Rain took the envelopes and pocketed them.  "How long are you here for?"

"A few days.  As long as I'm needed.  You'll have time to write replies, but don't take too long.  I'm not hanging around for you to finish."   

"I'll have them ready by the time you leave," Rain said.  He drew the doctor away a few feet and lowered his voice.  Kestrel tactfully tuned them out.  He was learning medical ethics already.  "Will you have time for a private exam?"

"I can make time.  What's the matter, Rain?"

"Not for me.  It's for... the person staying with me.  He had a badly infected wound, and he's been really sick with the Plutoxin-7 virus."

"Plutoxin-7!  How did somebody here get exposed to Plutoxin?"  

"It's... a a long story.  I'll let him tell you about it, if he wants to," Rain said.

The doctor nodded and dropped the subject.  "Anybody else here come down with it?"

"Not as far as I know, Spence."

"Good.  I'll come to your cabin as soon as I'm done here."

Late in the afternoon, Rain and the doctor, his medical bag slung over his shoulder, climbed up the path to Rain's cabin and knocked on the doorjamb beside the open door.  Snake looked up from the book on woodcraft he had picked up to read from Rain's limited library, and gestured unenthusiastic permission for the doctor to enter.  Rain started to follow.  Dr. Spencer turned to him with a smile.  "Rain, you're hovering," he said.  "I'd like to talk to the patient alone."  Rain went to sit on the bench outside.                                                       

Dr. Spencer was frowning slightly as he stepped inside.  Plutoxin was nothing to be dismissed lightly, especially now.  If Rain's guest really had it, he could start an epidemic.  As his vision adjusted to the lower light level, he got a good look at the man standing in the center of the room.  The doctor's glance flicked from the brace of Magnums hung over the peg on the wall to the grim eye-patched face in front of him.  Could it be...? ?  He deliberately cut off speculation.  If this was the outlaw the USPF wanted so badly, it was none of Dr. David Spencer's business.  The man was here as a patient.  On the other hand, Snake Plissken had a reputation for deadly and explosive violence.  He would proceed with caution.     

"I'm Doctor Spencer, most people call me Spence."  He held out a hand, which the other man ignored.  "Rain tells me you wanted to see me.  What can I do for you?"

The suspicion in the other man's good eye was balanced by the closed neutrality of his face.  "Gunshot wound," Snake rasped, "Almost healed."  He took a breath.  "What've you got for headaches?"

"That depends on what's causing them."  Dr. Spencer began to unpack the case of medical equipment he had brought with him.  "Since the power went," he said into the interior as he dug around inside, "It's interesting to see what I have that still works."     

"Nothing electrical," Snake offered as he sat down on the edge of the bed, watching the doctor intently.

"No.  That's what I discovered.  You know," the doctor continued, "In some ways, this gives us back something we'd lost, with all our technology.  I think a lot of doctors today aren't comfortable unless they have machinery between them and the patient."  He smiled wryly and quoted, "'Look upon it as a challenge.'"  

Dr. Spencer kept up the cheerful chatter as he assessed his patient, trying to put Snake at his ease, with what appeared to be limited success.  Plissken  -- he was all but sure now that it was Plissken  -- was smaller and lighter than the posters and the televised images had led him to expect.  Powerful, compact body, good reflexes, alert: the man looked healthy, if slightly weather-beaten.  Dr. Spencer relaxed  and concentrated on the receptivity he needed to conduct a good exam.  He kept his manner calm, telegraphing his movements; he doubted this was a man who liked surprises.  He checked the one good eye, ears, nose and throat.  The other man's responses to touch and voice were guarded, but rational.  Not the gas case the late, unlamented Police Channel warned us about, then, he decided.  He picked up his stethoscope, and Snake silently removed his shirt, displaying a patchwork of old scars and the tattoo that confirmed his identity.  Dr. Spencer listened carefully, frowning: the heart was strong, with the slow, steady beat of the athlete, but the lungs could be clearer.  "I'd like to see the wound," he said, and Snake complied.  Front and back, it was closed and healing well.  "It looks fine," Dr. Spencer said; "Whoever patched you up did a good job."

"It was a goddamn vet," Snake growled.

"A good one, I'd say."  Dr. Spencer smiled.  "Well, I've done my share of emergency surgery on the non-human members of the Groups myself.  In some ways, we're all a lot alike.  We're all animals."

Snake snorted as he pulled up his pants and started to shrug back into his shirt.  Dr. Spencer held out a hand.  "Are you up on all your inoculations?"      

"I don't like needles."

"I don't blame you."  Dr Spencer laid down his stethoscope and looked directly at Snake, all pretense dropped.  His face darkened angrily.  "I've heard about what happens to prisoners of the USPF.  Damned blackbelly bastards!"  Snake started and his hands twitched reflexively, as if reaching for his guns, as his good eye narrowed again.  The doctor went on in a calmer tone, "There are needles and there are needles.  I think you know this is necessary.  There's a lot of disease starting up in the cities, and it's spreading.  I can't force you, and I wouldn't if I could, but...."  He picked up a syringe and a transparent vial.  Snake nodded once, silently, his expression sullen.  The doctor completed the injections, and Snake finished pulling on his shirt.  He dropped the used needles into his sharps container and faced his patient squarely.  "I'm recycling needles when I can.  They're going to be difficult to replace.  Have you been exposed to... anything contagious?"  

Snake hesitated, scowling.  Dr. Spencer waited, patient but inexorable.  "Plutoxin-7," Snake rasped.  "Before I went into L.A."

"Hm," Dr. Spencer said.  "There were rumors the USPF was experimenting with it.  We were lucky it didn't get loose when they bombed Sandia during the war.  Nasty stuff."   

Snake looked away, then back.  "They said it would kill me in ten hours."  A sardonic smile flickered across his mouth.  "Government propaganda."  

"The original virus certainly would have.  Apparently this one's been modified -- or it's mutated by itself."

"What does it do to you?"

"Long term?"  Dr. Spencer looked him in the eye.  "I don't know.  I do know you can't get rid of it; it stays in the system permanently, like a retrovirus.  It depresses the immune system.  Beyond that, it hasn't been around long enough for anybody to find out.  We aren't even completely sure how it's transmitted.  You're a carrier, but I don't know if you're infectious, or how, or for how long."

"Shit."

There didn't seem to be anything Dr Spencer could add to that assessment.  The two men were silent for a few moments, then the doctor gave a short sigh and moved on.    "You say you have headaches?  How often?"

"All the time, but they've been getting worse."  

"Do they concentrate in any one area?"

"Left side and back.  And lately..."  Snake hesitated and then continued with obvious reluctance.  "...Lately, I've started getting flashes, like lightning.  Never happened before."

Dr. Spencer tried to keep the concern he felt from coloring his voice.  "They're probably from your injured eye.  May I..."  He reached out a hand, tentatively, and  stopped.  Snake removed the patch, flinching.  His eyelid snapped shut by reflex.  He forced it open again, and the pale, puckered socket watered violently.   

"Sorry," the doctor muttered.  "It'll just be a minute."  No wonder the man had headaches.  He had only seen gas injuries to the eye this severe in a few casualties from the front, early in his medical career, and most of them had not survived.  The usual treatment was to remove the eye.  He nodded, and Snake slipped the patch back in place with obvious relief.  "Well," Dr. Spencer said dryly, "I think we've found the source of your headaches."  He was rewarded with a soundless laugh from his patient, and relaxed a bit, hoping that meant he was gaining Plissken's trust.  He  girded himself for the announcement he dreaded making. "I hate to say this, especially with conditions as they are, but you should have that left eye removed."

"FUCK that!"  Snake exploded.  

"Has anyone warned you about what can happen?  You're at risk for a pressure buildup in the damaged eye, or sympathetic ophthalmia.  You could go completely blind."

"Nobody touches my eye!" Snake snarled.  He leapt to his feet, grabbed his guns and his jacket from their pegs, and slammed out of the cabin.

Dr. Spencer followed.  He stopped on the flat rock just outside the cabin door which served as a stoop.  Rain got to his feet.  The two watched Plissken disappear into the trees, and the doctor commented, "That didn't go well."

"He's really touchy about medical stuff.  I can try talking to him, but...."   Rain looked worried.  "He could really go blind?"

"You were listening," the doctor said, annoyed.  "Yes, he could.  Ophthalmia, glaucoma - they're both possible with that eye.  Tell him to watch out for sharp pain, reddening, or any signs of infection in either eye.  That's the best I can do."  Dr. Spencer went back into the cabin, reached into his bag, and took out a packet of pills.  He handed them to Rain.  "Give him these.  Demerol, for the pain.  They're all I can spare.  Drugs are running out fast, and I don't know when I'll be able to get any more.  No electricity means no labs, no drug companies.  We're back to the days of wise women and herbal medicine."

"Dawn does a lot with herbs," Rain offered.  "When I fell and ran that branch through my arm, she treated it with arnica and goldenseal and pennyroyal, and it healed fine."

Dr. Spencer smiled.  "They weren't called wise women for nothing.  There's a lot of value in traditional medicine too.  It wouldn't hurt to have your friend visit Dawn.  Maybe she can help him."  He paused, then added, "Mark my words, Rain: the human race is in for some tough times.  This has given us all a new chance, a new hope.  Maybe it will all come out for the best in the long run.  But one thing for sure - it's going to get a lot worse for humanity before it gets better."   He shouldered the strap of his medical case.  "Tell your friend I'm not coming after him.  There's nothing more I can do, and he'd make a very unpleasant enemy.  I'll give your love to your parents when I see them."  He headed off down the path, back toward the settlement.       

                                                   ******************

Snake strode angrily away from Rain's cabin.  He chose a half-overgrown trail at random and followed it, bulldozing through the brush and ducking under overhanging tree-branches, until he came to a clearing with a rough circle of old logs arranged around a firepit.  New grass was sprouting among them, and the smudge of old ashes and charred bits of wood were mingled with fallen leaves and wind-blown debris.  It was obvious the place had not been used in some time.   

Snake sat down on one of the logs, his head pounding and his bad eye throbbing from its exposure to the light during the doctor's examination, wishing he had brought his cigarettes, wishing he'd been able to con the medic out of some decent painkillers.  He considered going back for the smokes, but decided against it.  He'd had more than enough contact with people for a while.  He shut his eye, willing the pain into submission.  Background noise.  Baseline reading.  Recalibrate the instrument.  In the dark behind his closed eyes, the wood around him was full of elusive sounds: wind moving through the needles of the pine above him, rustlings in the dead leaves, sudden trilling of birds.  Cool air brought him the smell of wet earth and old wood.  He shifted on the tree trunk beneath him, ignoring the damp cold of its bark, and absorbed the solitude, welcoming it.

Dr. Spencer's warning came back to him, and he pushed it aside.  Just leave me the fuck alone!  Images of the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills surfaced, of the trays of body parts, the bright blade reaching for his face, to steal his eye.  His whole self revolted at the memory: nobody's going to cut on me!  He saw Taslima and the dark expressive eyes that had drawn him.  So pretty.  So dead.  The future is right now.  That's all there is.

The pain in Snake's head eased gradually, and he opened his good eye.  He felt as though he were becoming invisible, safe, as he listened to the sounds around him: the squawk of scrub jays, the resonant drumming of a woodpecker on a nearby tree, the sound of something, maybe a deer, moving through the brush.  As he watched, sitting absolutely still, a skunk ambled across one section of the campfire circle and stopped to hunt for grubs under the flaking bark of the logs.  It sniffed in his direction, then wandered off grumbling to itsel