Into the Fire Read online

  Her gaze was strong and steady—as was the crossbow she aimed at their heads.

  “Whoa!” Park muttered, stumbling backward and nearly tripping.

  Julio raised both hands. “We come in peace.”

  Dakota repressed a smile. It’d been two years since she’d last seen the woman, but Haasi was the same spitfire as she remembered.

  “You told us to swing by, remember?” Zander said.

  “Could’ve used your walkies to warn me when you were coming,” she growled at the twins.

  They shrugged their burly shoulders.

  “Forgot,” Zander said good-naturedly.

  “Archer and Jake on patrol?” she asked.

  Zander nodded. “Boyd had some things to take care of on the homestead, but he’ll be out later.”

  “I expect you’ll be wanting a meal. That’s why you came at lunchtime.”

  “We don’t expect a handout,” Dakota said quickly.

  “Good, ‘cause I’m not offering any.” Haasi hung the crossbow on a hook just inside the door and wiped her hands on her skirt. “But you can work for it.”

  “We wouldn’t expect anything less, Haasi,” Zander said.

  Haasi’s sharp gaze traveled over the group. “No Ezra?”

  Dakota shook her head.

  Zane and Zander had swung by the cabin around noon—greeted by Ezra via gunpoint —and asked them to come out to Haasi’s. Ezra had categorically rejected the offer, but the rest of them had piled into the truck and followed the twins’ Harleys down the road, leaving Ezra to keep watch.

  Before they’d left, Ezra had given Dakota a two-way radio so they could communicate if there was trouble.

  They were still exhausted from the attack yesterday—and from lugging the bodies of the seven dead Shepherds deep into the swamp, leaving them for gator food—but they went.

  Now they stood in a large dirt clearing surrounded by oaks and cypress trees. Before them was a plank house with faded paint, a trim little porch, solar panels on the sagging roof, and a screen door propped open with a rock.

  Twenty yards to the left of the house squatted a chickee—an open pole house with a palmetto thatch roof, built on a wooden platform on stilts. A small fire burned in the center, and smoke drifted up from a hole in the thatched roof.

  An old Chevy pickup was parked in the shade beneath a mossy oak tree. Goats and chickens scampered freely around the property. A shaggy, black-and-white spotted goat trotted up and bumped against Dakota’s legs, nosing at her pocket for something to eat.

  “Hey!” Park’s eyes lit up. “Son of a motherless goat. Literally.”

  Dakota rolled her eyes and pushed the goat away. “Go bother Park. He wants you to.”

  “Shoo!” Haasi waved her hands. “Git, Dot.”

  The goat gave her an indignant baaa before trotting off toward a clump of overgrown weeds.

  Two older kids sporting long, raven-black hair, bronze skin, and big dark eyes came running around the house, followed by a huge dog that looked like a cross between a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler.

  The girl was about twelve, the boy maybe ten. Dakota only vaguely remembered Haasi’s grandchildren, but Eden let out an excited gasp and dashed across the yard to greet them.

  They hugged her, chattering incessantly while the dog circled them, tail wagging, barking exuberantly.

  Dakota’s chest tightened to see her happy.

  Once upon a time, a better and happier time, Eden had spent many a summer afternoon here. After the girls’ first three months at Ezra’s passed without incident, they’d all let their guard down a bit.

  A girl needs another girl to talk to, Ezra had said gruffly. Once or twice a month, he’d arranged for them to ride their bikes the few miles down the road to Haasi’s place to do some chores, socialize, and bring back some goat’s milk. Dakota hadn’t minded; it’d been good for Eden.

  Haasi gestured at the children. “You remember Peter and Tessa.”

  “Hello there,” Julio said.

  “You’re covered in skeeter bites,” the little boy said to Julio with a wide grin. He had big ears, bright inquisitive eyes, and a mischievous expression.

  Julio scratched at several red, swollen bumps on his cheek but managed a good-natured grin. “I think they like me a little too much. I’ve got twice as many bites as anyone else.”

  “Your blood must be sweet,” Tessa said. She was tall and lanky, with defined cheekbones and sleek black hair tied in a braid that reached the small of her back.

  Julio raised his eyebrows. “Is that it? I’ll be sure to tell my wife. She’ll get a kick out of that.”

  “You can’t go a second without protection,” Tessa warned. “Here we’ve got skeeters big enough to put a saddle on.”

  “Trust me—I’ve learned my lesson.”

  Park scratched at several bumps of his own with his good hand. “Me too.”

  Maki came to the screen door. She said little but watched everything with a sharp, analytical gaze. Dakota remembered that about her. She was one of those still-waters-run-deep kind of women.

  “We’ll give you some skeeter paste before you leave,” Maki said.

  “Thank you,” Julio said with a wry, grateful smile. He put his hand over his heart. Several more bites swelled on his hand and arm. “You’re saving my life.”

  Peter giggled.

  “Used to be, moonshiners and poachers kept swarms at bay with smoke pots and cheesecloth sack netting,” Haasi said. “Our people used to smear rancid alligator fat on their exposed skin to keep the insects away.”

  Peter and Tessa squealed in disgust. Eden scrunched up her face and pretended to gag.

  “And everyone else, apparently,” Park said with a grimace. “Please tell me there’s a better option. I’m running out of DEET.”

  “The old ways of doing things are mostly gone,” Haasi said. “When I was a girl, we would crush beautyberry leaves in our hands and rub them all over our skin. That still works, but now I strain the crushed leaves in rubbing alcohol, add a few drops of lemon eucalyptus, and put it in a spray bottle. The skeeters hate it. It’s natural and just as effective as all those expensive, toxic chemicals. I’ll give you some to take with you.”

  “Thank you,” Park and Julio said at the same time.

  Haasi used to make and sell their herbal remedies, poultices, and tinctures at the Little Cypress farmers’ market. Maybe she still did.

  Little Cypress wasn’t really a town but more of a small settlement, like the old days of the Wild West; made up of a gas station, a family-owned grocery store, a tiny post office, and a cluster of squat houses and mobile homes on cement blocks.

  “I’ll give you some ground mangrove leaves for Ezra,” Haasi said. “Mangrove trees have great anti-inflammatory and antibiotic properties.”

  “He needs it,” Dakota said. “Thank you.”

  Haasi turned to the children. “Kids, weed the garden and feed the chickens. Then if there’s still time, you can go hunting and rustle up some Muscadine grapes to make that jelly Tessa likes before the storm hits.”

  She gestured up at the sky. On the horizon across the vast sawgrass plains, dark clouds thickened. The trees rustled in the growing breeze. The temperature had lowered several degrees in the last few minutes.

  Tessa rolled her eyes and grabbed Eden’s arm. “Come on, we can get it done fast. Then we can listen to music and you can draw a new portrait of me, if you want. I still have the drawing pad and pencils you kept here.”

  Eden nodded eagerly and hurried after her, trailed by Peter and the dog, all of them happy and grinning.

  “Eden—” Dakota said, concern already tensing her stomach.

  Eden turned back to her with an embarrassed frown. I’m fine! She signed. I’ll be okay.

  “Typical teenager,” Haasi said.

  Eden wasn’t a typical teenager. She grew up oppressed, restricted, and abused, her voice stolen from her in more ways than one.

  Haasi put a
reassuring hand on her arm. “They’re fine. All of them. They know to stay close. That dog may look like a mutt, but he’s smart as a whip. Nokosi’s trained to protect those kids with his life, and he will. ‘Nokosi’ is Seminole for bear. He’s fierce as one, too.”

  “Okay.” Dakota took a breath. “Okay. You’re right.” She gave Eden a tight nod, an ache in her chest.

  Eden waved while simultaneously rolling her eyes and disappeared out the door.

  “I know I am.” Haasi was straightforward to a fault, a tough no-nonsense woman. Anyone who chose to live out in the unforgiving wilds of the Everglades had to be. She took no flak from anyone, but underneath her impatience and sharp tongue, she had a big heart.

  Dakota had seen it in the way she took Eden under her wing, no questions, no judgment.

  Good people have to watch out for each other, she always used to say.

  But with actual lives on the line, Dakota wondered if that were still true. Generosity and nice platitudes were fine when everything was normal, when your own kids were safe and warm.

  For most people, when the world went to hell, the rule was to protect your own first, second, and last.

  How long would Haasi remain kind and generous? How long would anyone? Not long, Dakota suspected. Not long at all.

  15

  Dakota

  Haasi motioned to the rest of the group. “Boys, one of the solar panels has been on the fritz. Why don’t you get the ladder and toolbox from the shed? Maki will finish with lunch. Wild boar stew, fresh tomato and spinach salad from the garden, and fry bread.”

  “Sounds delicious,” Julio said. “I love a good fry bread. I’m happy to help in the kitchen, but I’m not bad at fixing stuff that’s broken, either.”

  “A man of many talents,” Haasi said. “Useful skills are always welcome around here.”

  Park raised his good hand. “I’ll help Maki. Can’t do much with this broken arm.”

  “Good. Get to it.” Haasi turned to Dakota as Park followed Maki into the house. The twins led Logan and Julio toward an old, weathered shed in the back. “I’ll make a poultice to ease some of Ezra’s pain. Come with me.”

  Dakota followed Haasi around to the back of the house. Haasi kept up a steady stream of conversation, pointing out the water filtration system and the beehives buzzing with honeybees, easily covering the awkward silences while Dakota fumbled for something worthwhile to say.

  Haasi motioned proudly at the goats. “The girls each produce about ten pounds of milk a day for most of the year, and they’re a lot easier to care for than cows. Goats get a bad rap, but they’re lifesavers.”

  “You still sell goat’s milk at the farmers’ market?” she asked absently.

  Haasi’s face darkened. “Not the last few weeks. We heard there was rioting, desperate people stealing from each other. Best to stay away from civilization for a while, even the rural places.”

  “Good idea.”

  Dakota paused beside a heavily pockmarked cypress tree. She touched one of the hundreds of holes and raised a questioning brow at Haasi.

  “Here’s where I practice my marksmanship when I get pissed off.” The woman grinned proudly. “It happens a lot. Good thing with the crossbow is I get to reuse the bolts. I hang a target up and don’t stop until it’s ripped to shreds.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  The sweltering heat baked her bare shoulders. Sweat dampened her hairline beneath the brim of the baseball cap she’d borrowed from Ezra. The afternoon thunderstorms couldn’t come soon enough.

  Haasi followed her gaze toward the clouds billowing over the vast river, the capillary network of mangrove creeks and canals, sawgrass islands, a copse of spindly swamp pines. In the distance, a great blue heron glided across the darkening sky.

  “It’s beautiful,” Dakota said.

  “While it lasts. Snowbirds and damn tourists coming down here with their mobile homes and campers and speedboats. They don’t know South Florida. They don’t know it at all.”

  Haasi turned her head and spat on the ground. “And all these developers chopping bits of the Glades away, dredging and developing and building their steel and concrete monstrosities, ruining the best parts of the land for nothin’ but money. Pretty soon, there won’t be anything left of all this. I was born here, and it might all be destroyed by the time I die.”

  “I hope not.”

  Haasi shot her a sideways glance, her gaze sharp. “You miss the city?”

  “No. Not at all. I…I never wanted to leave here in the first place.”

  She followed Haasi into the chickee hut. The smoke from the center firepit kept the mosquitos out. Haasi took a stone pestle and mortar from a low shelf and placed it on a narrow wooden counter a few feet from the fire pit, along with a small vial of natural oils.

  She dug around in a stout wooden cupboard and pulled out some fresh green leaves and another vial filled with a brownish sludge, which she offered Dakota. “An extract of the mangrove root, for pain relief. I’ll need to make a fresh poultice from the leaves.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Always use the fresh leaves if you can—they’re more effective than dried. Both the bark and the leaves’ll work for all kinds of skin disorders, boils, cuts, and wounds. The Seminole have been using it for hundreds of years. It’ll heal Ezra right up.”

  Dakota’s throat tightened. “Thank you, Haasi. I mean it.”

  Haasi bent over the pot of water boiling over the fire and scooped out a cupful of water with a ladle. With a large spoon, she doled just enough boiling water into the mortar to cover the leaves. She mashed them with the pestle while Dakota watched.

  “What’s it like out there?” Haasi asked. “We’ve heard things on the radio. We’ve seen the refugees fleeing, even seen some of the really sick ones. Archer says there are dead bodies littered all along 41—most of them blistered and burned, covered in horrible sores, missing their hair...we’ve already had to fight a few of the ones well enough to want to steal from us.”

  “Whatever you can imagine, it’s worse.” Dakota closed her eyes, reliving the initial terror of the shockwave, the blinding light so bright it’d gouged her eyeballs like fingernails, the poisonous mushroom cloud rising above the devastated city. The screaming and panic. The shattered buildings and burnt bodies. The children weeping over dead parents.

  For the first time in days, she thought of the survivors they’d left behind at the theater: mild-mannered Rasha and her husband, Miles; Fierce Zamira and her listless granddaughter, Isabel; and little Piper, who Dakota had dragged from the street moments before the lethal fallout descended.

  They would have left the theater by now. Were they okay? Had they reunited with their families, found shelter and safety? She hoped they had, especially Piper.

  “Whatever people say about the hard living out here, at least we have everything we need,” Haasi said. “My people learned not to trust the government for anything a long, long time ago. Out here, we make our own food, water, shelter, and electricity. We never depended on anyone to give us a thing. We’ve done this all on our own. And we can keep doing it for the rest of our lives.”

  “As long as the outside world doesn’t come in wanting to take what you have.”

  “There’s that.” Haasi’s face hardened. “We’ll be ready for them. We’re prepared.”

  Dakota wasn’t sure anyone could be prepared enough for what was coming.

  16

  Dakota

  Dakota licked her dry lips, suddenly nervous. Haasi had never asked her about what it was like in the compound, though Dakota was certain Ezra had told her where they came from. “I should tell you about the Shepherds and the attack on Ezra’s place.”

  Haasi gave her a sharp, appraising look. Though age and sun had crinkled the bronzed, earthy skin around her eyes, with her high cheekbones and the proud jut of her jaw, she was still an incredibly handsome woman. “Yes,” she said. “You should.”

  Dakota expla
ined the facts. Haasi kept mashing the mangrove leaves, remaining silent other than a few occasional grunts.

  Dakota hesitated, wondering if she should say more. Trust was too big a word to use, but she liked Haasi; she always had.

  Maybe trust was exactly the right word.

  “Ezra is angry at me,” she said haltingly. “He doesn’t want my friends to stay. He wants us all to leave—me included. But the Shepherds will come back. There’s no way they won’t come back.”

  “For someone so smart, he can be stubborn as an ass, can’t he? Some of us have been meeting for several years, forming a community group to protect each other. We need it now more than ever. We never turned away anybody needing a bit of help if they were willin’ to help themselves. But these people, they’re only interested in what they can take.”

  Across the yard, one of the Collier twins broke into raucous laughter. Dakota glanced over.

  Julio was squatting up on the roof, bent over one of the solar panels with a wrench in one hand. Zander was three-fourths up the ladder leaning against the house, holding the toolbox and offering plenty of unsolicited advice.

  Logan and Zane were lounging at a picnic table beneath the shade of several live oak trees. Zane had set three jugs on the table and was handing one to Logan. Snippets of conversation drifted her way: Zane was describing the merits of moonshine over conventional alcoholic beverages.

  Last night, Archer had explained how during Prohibition, their great-grandfather had escaped to the Glades to make and sell moonshine in peace. The twins—Zane and Zander—still made corn whiskey moonshine with an ancient but working still on their property.

  All five Collier brothers worked construction—often traveling over an hour each way to various construction sites in Everglades City, Chokoloskee, Immokalee, Orangetree, and East Naples. Or at least, they did until the bombs.

  They were staying away from towns and cities, now. Maybe for a long time. But Archer insisted they’d be fine. They were the hardy types who prided themselves on their ability to live off-grid.