Santa Olivia

Page 8

“Oh yes.” Hands helped her sit, supported her. Sister Martha placed the baby in her arms. “I’ve never heard of a labor that quick. Maybe it’s a gift of the saint after all. You ought to name her Olivia.”
A girl. It was a girl.
“I can’t,” Carmen whispered. “I made a promise.”
There wasn’t much at first to indicate that Loup was different from other infants. She cried only when she was hungry, but then Tommy hadn’t been a fussy baby either. She ate a lot and slept a lot, but so had Tommy.
“You’re blessed with easy babies,” Sonia observed. She’d volunteered to watch Loup along with Tommy when Carmen went back to work.
Carmen eyed the baby. “I guess.”
She was a cute baby with caramel-colored skin, a thatch of black hair and black eyes like her father. At first they were as wide and wandering as any newborn’s. It wasn’t until her eyes began to focus that Carmen was sure. In her round cherub’s face, those eyes were as steady and fearless as the effigy of Santa Olivia the child-saint, just like her father’s had been.
“Loup Garron,” Carmen murmured, stroking her cheek with one finger. “What are you gonna be, wolf-cub?”
The baby smiled at her with surprising sweetness.
Tommy adored his baby sister without reservation or a hint of jealousy. He seemed to mature overnight, taking the role that Martin had given him with great seriousness. And it was a good thing, too. At six months, Loup began crawling with dexterity and vigor. Tommy was far more adept than poor arthritis-ridden Sonia at chasing her down.
“No, baby!” he said, scooping her up as she nearly tumbled down the narrow stair that led to the diner. “You have to be careful.”
She wasn’t.
Given half a chance, she fell down stairs and out of cots, banged her head on table legs, burned her fingers on the hot plate. As soon as she began to walk, at less than a year old, it got worse. But Loup never cried or complained when hurt, only frowned in wounded perplexity. And because Carmen was working herself to exhaustion trying to support them all, it was Tommy who explained to her, over and over, that she had to be careful. And Loup listened to him with wide, grave eyes, trusting and doting on her older brother. At eighteen months, she began talking.
Life in Outpost continued. There were no more missile attacks, only the ever-present rumors of El Segundo’s intentions. Soldiers went out on patrol and came back weary and thirsty. Sometimes they found bombs, traps like the one that had killed Tom Almquist. Sometimes they found them in time. Sometimes they didn’t. But at least there were no more missiles. And Carmen Garron never, ever spoke of her doubts aloud again.
While Loup was between the ages of two and five, the differences that marked her grew more pronounced. She was an agile, darting child, curious and fearless; and yet when she was still, it was an unchildlike stillness.
“Tell me about my daddy, Tommy,” she would ask.
Tommy never got tired of talking about Martin. “He was the strongest man in the world.” He extended his arm, making a fist. “He used to let me hang from his arm. I couldn’t budge it an inch.”
Loup would plant her feet and tug at her brother’s arm until it trembled, lowering. At twelve he was a strapping boy; but she was preternaturally strong and weighed more than appearances suggested. Tommy grinned and dropped to his knees, ruffling her thick, coarse hair.
“You’re just like him, loup-garou,” he whispered.
It was true and it filled Carmen with secret pride and hidden fear. She adored her responsible son and her strange, fearless daughter with a deep, aching ferocity. She treasured their bond—and envied it a little, too. She was terrified that word would get out that she’d borne a daughter to a man who wasn’t wholly human, a man the government wanted to catch. Fearful that Father Ramon would talk, or Grady or Sonia, or that Danny Garza would unearth her secrets out of spite. Fearful that one day there would be soldiers on their doorstep to take her baby away to a laboratory.
But no one came.
Instead there came another wave of sickness, passing over Outpost like a bloody-winged angel. For once, for a mercy, it passed lightly over the children. It ravaged the elderly and took a handful of healthy adults. It left a number of others with weak lungs and racking coughs.
Carmen was one of the latter.
Sonia was one of the former.
“Mijo.” Carmen stroked her son’s hair. “You know Tia Sonia is gone?” He nodded gravely. She sighed. “I think it’s time you went to school, mijo. You and your sister.”
Tommy knelt by her bedside, leaning on folded arms. “Let me take a job. I could work at the reservoir. Or I could haul garbage like Martin. I don’t mind. Then you wouldn’t have to work so hard.”
“No!” Carmen coughed and spat blood.
“Mom…”
“No.”
So they went to school, brother and sister. It had been a good school once—or an okay school, anyway. Now the halls were nearly empty and most of the classrooms dusty and abandoned. Ancient, yellowing signs hung from the walls cheering on the Santa Olivia Jaguars, but there weren’t enough students to field a team in any sport, and no one to play against them if they could. All forty-odd kids met in a single big classroom, all ages grouped together. The only teacher left alive was Mr. Ketterling, a bitter drunk who’d gotten only more bitter with age. On the first day, he mocked thirteen-year-old Tommy for his poor reading skills.
“I’m trying,” Tommy said calmly.
The yardstick cracked over his shoulders. “Try harder!”
“Don’t.” Six-year-old Loup was out of her seat, standing atop her desk. She snatched the yardstick from Ketterling’s hands, wielding it like a pugil stick. Her black eyes glittered. “Don’t hit my brother.”
Ketterling flinched.
“Loup,” Tommy said. “No.”
“Holy shit!” someone said fervently.
Ketterling grabbed for the yardstick. Loup leaned away just enough to evade him. Ketterling overbalanced, arms wheeling. Forty-odd kids of varying ages snickered. His face turned red and he lunged. Loup leaped backward, landing lightly on the floor, watching him with interest.
“Loup.” Tommy got between them. “Give me the stick.” For a moment, her small face turned set and mutinous; then she handed it over. Tommy turned and gave it to Mr. Ketterling. “I’m sorry, sir.”
The man was shaking with rage. “Get out!” His voice emerged high and strained. He pointed at the door, his hand trembling. “Take your freak of a sister, get out, and never come back!”
“It won’t happen—” Tommy began.
“Get out!” The words were shrieked.
They went.
Outside it was dusty and sleepy in the late-afternoon heat. Brother and sister sat on the school steps.
“’Sorry, Tommy.” Loup propped her chin in her hands. “I didn’t mean to ruin school for you.”
“’S’all right.” He ruffled her hair. “I didn’t really want to go.”
“Me neither.”
They sat companionably for a while until Tommy roused himself. “Hey. You want to go someplace special? Someplace I always wanted to see?”
Loup raised her head. “Sure.”
EIGHT
The faded sign read “Unique Fitness.” Ten years before Tommy was born, it had been a family fitness center where men preened with weights, women sweated in all manner of contraptions, and there were special classes for children twelve and under. There were still murals on the walls, stylized athletic silhouettes rendered in uninspiring mauve and teal. But throughout Tommy’s and Loup’s lifetime, it had been a boxing club.
The plateglass windows were still intact; it was one place in Outpost no one dared to vandalize. Carmen Garron’s children stood outside gazing in at the spectacle of half a dozen men sparring, shadowboxing, and working the bags.
“That’s him!” Tommy pointed at a figure inside. He lowered his voice. “Grady says he’s the man who taught the general to box. He’s the only guy in Outpost who doesn’t have to stay if he doesn’t want.”
“Huh.” Loup pressed her face to the glass. “How come he’s teaching us?”
“Get back!” Tommy yanked on her shoulder. “I dunno. The general asked him to.”
She slipped out of his grasp. “Let’s go in!”
He reached for her again, but too late. Her hand was on the doorknob. When Loup moved fast, really fast, you knew it in no uncertain terms; but even her ordinary movement was quicker and slipperier than it looked. A bell on the door jangled, and her slim body angled through the opening.
Reckoning it was too late, Tommy followed his sister inside.
No one noticed them at first. The place resounded with dull, slapping thuds. Tommy took a deep breath. It smelled like sweat and mildew, overlain with something sharp and antiseptic. He watched the men hitting bags, lifting weights, and knew he wanted to be one of them.
It felt like he belonged here.
It felt like home.
“Hey!” There were two young men sparring in the near ring. One of them broke off a clinch and came to lean over the ropes, his broad face caged in protective headgear and distorted by a mouth guard. “Beat it, punks.”
“Miguel Garza,” Tommy whispered to Loup. She nodded sagely.
“Floyd!” Garza’s opponent spat out his mouthpiece. “Got some brats gawking!”
Tommy knew they should go, but he desperately didn’t want to. Suddenly, unexpectedly, it had become very important to him that he be allowed to stay. The trainer came drifting toward them. His name was Floyd Roberts, and he was tall and lean and colorless, with pallid skin, white hair, and pale, watery eyes.
“Did I tell you to break?” he asked mildly, making a shooing gesture at the fighters. “Go on.” They grimaced and resumed sparring. Floyd Roberts bent absently toward Tommy and Loup, repeating his shooing gesture. “Begone, children.”