Celsius 233 writing contest entry: The Law

  • By Jason Johnston
  • October 24, 2012
  • 388
                        
Running Fox pulled hard on the reigns, and his horse skittered to a stop on the wet, uneven cobblestones. His green eyes glanced left and right through the sketchy rain, scanning up and down the unlit narrow side street. He thought he was in the right neighborhood, but with no street names posted, it was hard to be sure. He had to hurry. His informant had said the deal was going down tonight, and he was already running late. Running Late, he thought to himself amusedly. That should have been my name. To be fair, it was hard for anyone to be on time. Very few watches or clocks in good, working order even existed. The EM pulse of a dozen atomic bombs had seen to that. Even those fortunate few who were lucky enough to own a timepiece were often thwarted by herds of sheep or cattle blocking the roads, or snarls of carts and buggies ignoring the blank red octagonal stop signs which vainly attempted to restrain traffic. Running Fox gave up trying to peer through the gloom, and he turned Briar’s head to the left, more or less at random. He had ridden through this area of town before, but only during the daytime. The ruined buildings looked different at night, with the shadows of their gaping doorways and shattered windows merging with the darkness, lit only rarely by the flickering amber glow of candles or small fires. As Briar cantered slowly down the narrow alley, Running Fox’s hand drifted down to the leather holster at his side. The bulging weight of the heavy antique revolver reassured him, as it always did. This was a dangerous part of town for a lone lawman, even during the day… Above a doorway swayed a wooden placard, with rainwater from a broken gutter cascading over it and blowing away as spray in the wind. Running Fox peered closely, barely able to make out the sigil it bore. A crudely painted image of a skull leered back at him, gold coins spilling from it’s lifeless mouth. “Hah!” A grim laugh escaped the marshal’s lips, and he removed his hat to run the fingers of one hand through his wet, collar-length red hair. This must be the tavern he was looking for… The Grinning Merchant. Replacing his hat, he dismounted, and tethered Briar to a streetlamp which hadn’t shone in the sixty years since Nuke Night. Lifting his shotgun from it’s saddle-holster, he started for the door. The door seemed to be bolted shut, but the latch on the front window yielded easily to his Bowie knife. He opened it gingerly, then clambered cautiously into the darkened room. Small tables were scattered about, all of them bearing upturned chairs, doubtlessly stowed out of the way so the floors could be swept. A bar ran along the far wall, with various bottles shelved behind it. The bottles were labeled only with pictures, of course, some of which Running Fox recognized, and others which were probably local home-brews. He threaded his way between the tables slowly, shifting his weight with each step, careful to avoid the creaking of worn floorboards. He had no idea if the runner he had sent for back-up had carried his message successfully, or if any men would even volunteer for a posse on a rainy night like this. Caution was called for. He must assume he was alone. As he stalked slowly towards the doorway at the far end of the tavern, his thoughts churned with cold intent. All that readin’ and writin’ had nearly killed humanity, he thought. Everyone knew the stories of how things used to be, of unbelievable riches, hedonistic luxuries, and devices which worked like magic. But the evil side of all that learning had overpowered the good. The nukes had burned the riches, destroyed the luxuries, and rendered inert all of those wondrous trinkets of science. He’d be damned if he let it start up all over again. The survivors of Nuke Night had felt the same way. In the scrambling chaos of the aftermath, the freezing had looted the libraries for anything which would burn, the starving had refused to share precious food with scientists and teachers, and the wrathful had taken out their vengeance on anyone bearing the stigma of education. The abandoned schools and institutions of knowledge had been reclaimed over the decades, and now served a quite different purpose: They were now prisons for anyone found guilty of literacy. A thin line of light flickered around the edge of the closed door, and he could hear hushed voices whispering on the other side. They sounded excited, even gleeful. The marshal silently unsnapped his holster strap, and eased back the twin hammers of his shotgun until he felt the double click of their readiness. If his information was correct, a few more bookworms were about to be sent back to school. With a snarl on his lips, he kicked open the door. The scene was lit by a single lantern sitting on a rough wooden table in the center of the room. Crowded around it were two young men, one thin, balding older man, and a girl whose golden braids shone in the tallow light. Their faces were starkly illuminated masks of surprise and terror as Running Fox burst through the door. Piled in stacks, and strewn open upon the table were the sources of their frightened guilt: Books. “In the name of the law,” Running Fox bellowed, “Stay where you are!” The girl sank back into the arms of one of the younger men, who held her protectively, though he looked terrified himself. The older man, who had been bent over an open book, slowly straightened, and turned to face the lawman. Running Fox was shocked to see that the bald man was wearing glasses. Though not technically illegal, glasses were very rare these days, and wearing them was cause enough for a lynching. “Yer all under arrest!” the marshal declared. “Now, gimme yer names, alla you!” The younger ones were cowering, afraid to speak, but the bald man was simply watching him, his demeanor calm and his eyes relaxed behind his rectangular lenses. He stepped forward, palms upturned. “These are my students, Yellow Moon and Tall Elk,” he said, indicating the trembling couple. “That is my son, Matthew,” he continued, nodding towards the other young man. “And I am Paul. Please don’t shoot, we are all unarmed.” “Matthew? Paul? What kinda names are those?” the marshal demanded. “They come from an old book,” the bespectacled man said softly. The metal rims of his glasses gleamed in the lantern’s light as his gaze drifted down to the gold star pinned on the lawman’s dripping trench coat. “May we know your name, Marshal?” “The name’s Running Fox,” he answered gruffly, “and yer all in a heap a’ trouble!” Paul folded his hands in front of him, oblivious to threats. “Do you know why people are now named after animals and other visible objects?” he asked, and then went on to answer his own question. “It is because we can no longer teach our children to write their names properly. We point to something and say ‘You are named after that!’ “It is a sign of our decay.” “Decay?” Running Fox scoffed. “It was readin’ that nearly killed us all! Readin’ and writin’ and learin’! That’s the decay!” “You poor fool,” Paul answered sadly. “Don’t you see what’s happening in the world? We’re moving backwards, not forwards.” He gestured at the gun in the lawman’s hands. “How old is that weapon, Marshal? It’s from before, isn’t it? Before Nuke Night?” Running Fox recalled the many nights spent oiling his father’s guns. “What do you think will happen, Marshal, when the guns are too old to fire? Will we make new ones? We cannot. We lack the knowledge.” Running Fox gritted his teeth, because he knew that Paul was right. “We shall be forced to take another step backwards in time, to crossbows and halberds, swords and shields.” Paul’s words were tumbling through the lawman’s mind, forcing him to question his own motives, to doubt his own actions. Instinctively, he fought against the treasonous thoughts. “Enough of yer fancy talk! Yer guilty of possession and distribution of the written word! Yer all comin’ with me!” Paul shook his head sorrowfully. “No, Marshal, it is you who are guilty. Guilty of strangling the very civilization you claim to protect.” “I said that’s enough!” Running Fox strode forward, and grabbed a small book from the table. He swung open the hinged side of the lantern, and thrust the book inside. “No!” Paul yelled, showing panic for the first time. He lunged for the book. Running Fox let it go, his hand returning to the cold trigger. Both barrels went off, deafening in the small room. Paul lay crumpled on the floor, his hands still clenching the smoldering volume. “You fool,” he gasped in the sudden silence, “You poor fool…” “Father!” Matthew cried out, his voice raw with pain and loss. Running Fox knew he had upheld the law, but that knowledge brought him no comfort. He didn’t feel like a hero, or a lawman. He felt like a murderer. What was in those books that a man would value them over his own life? The sudden weight of his own ignorance came crashing down on him. “Git outta here,” he said, his voice thick. “Git outta here now.” After some struggling, Yellow Moon and Tall Elk managed to drag Matthew out with them. Running Fox was left alone in the empty room, surrounded by books he couldn’t read, and standing over the corpse of a man who could. He thought about what Paul had said, about civilization sliding backwards, and the part he was playing in it’s fall. The posse could arrive any minute, and a bonfire would soon follow. Paul’s body would be burned atop a pile of his own books. Running Fox looked around the dimly lit room, and found himself wondering how many books he could carry in his saddlebags. He knew of people here and there, people suspected of literacy. They would mistrust him at first, wearing the badge as he did, but perhaps, in time, they would teach him the mystery of the written word. Perhaps they would teach him to read. The lawman stooped, and gently took the singed book from Paul’s fingers. It was small and thin, not much more than a pamphlet, really. Maybe one day he would understand why this was worth dying for. The embossed letters on it’s cover were flickering gold in the lantern’s light. Though he could not yet read them, they said: The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.


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