Parable of the Talents - Octavia E Butler Page 0,9

help your kids to live?”

Ramiro Peralta only turned away from me in anger. He and Alan Faircloth looked across the Gathering room—the school room—at one another. They’re both afraid. They look at their children—Alan has four kids, too—and they’re afraid and ashamed of their fear, ashamed of their powerlessness. And they’re tired. There are millions of people like them—people who are frightened and just plain tired of all the chaos. They want someone to do something. Fix things. Now!

Anyway, we had a stormy Gathering and an uneasy anniversary celebration. Interesting that they fear Edward Jay Smith’s supposed incompetence more than they fear Jarret’s obvious tyranny.

So this morning, I was ready for a day of walking, thinking, and plant collecting with friends. We still travel in groups of three or four when we leave Acorn because the mountains, on the roads and off them, can be dangerous. But for nearly five months now, we’ve had no trouble while salvaging. I suppose, though, that that can be dangerous in itself. Sad. Raids and gangs are dangerous because they kill outright. Peace is dangerous because it encourages complacency and carelessness—which also kills sooner or later.

In spite of the Dovetree raid, we were, to be honest, more complacent than usual because we were heading for a place that we knew. It was a burned, abandoned farmhouse far from Dovetree where we’d spotted some useful plants. In particular, there was aloe vera for use in easing burns and insect bites, and there were big mounds of agave. The agave was a handsome, variegated species—blue-green leaves edged in yellow-white. It must have been growing and propagating untended for years in what was once the front yard of the farmhouse. It was one of the large, vicious varieties of agave, each individual plant an upturned rosette of stiff, fibrous, fleshy leaves, some of them over a meter long in the big parent plants. Each leaf was tipped with a long, hard, dagger-sharp spike, and for good measure, each leaf was edged in jagged thorns that were tough enough to saw through human flesh. We intended to use them to do just that.

On our first visit, we had taken some of the smallest plants, the youngest offsets. Now we meant to dig up as many of the rest as we could bundle into our handcart. The cart was already more than half full of things we had salvaged from the rotting storage shed of a collapsed cabin a couple of miles from where the agave grew. We had found dusty pots, pans, buckets, old books and magazines, rusted hand tools, nails, log chains, and wire. All had been damaged by water and time, but most could be cleaned and repaired or cannibalized for parts or at least copied. We learn from all the work we do. We’ve become very competent makers and repairers of small tools. We’ve survived as well as we have because we keep learning. Our customers have come to know that if they buy from us, they’ll get their money’s worth.

Salvaging from abandoned gardens and fields is useful, too. We collect any herb, fruit, vegetable, or nut-producing plant, any plant at all that we know or suppose to be useful. We have, always, a special need for spiny, self-sufficient desert plants that will tolerate our climate. They serve as part of our thorn fence.

Cactus by cactus, thornbush by thornbush, we’ve planted a living wall in the hills around Acorn. Our wall won’t keep determined people out, of course. No wall will do that. Cars and trucks will get in if their owners are willing to absorb some damage to their vehicles, but cars and trucks that work are rare and precious in the mountains, and most fuels are expensive.

Even intruders on foot can get in if they’re willing to work at it. But the fence will hamper and annoy them. It will make them angry, and perhaps noisy. It will, when it’s working well, encourage people to approach us by the easiest routes, and those we guard 24 hours a day.

It’s always best to keep an eye on visitors.

So we intended to harvest agave.

We headed for what was left of the farmhouse. It was built on a low rise overlooking fields and gardens. It was supposed to be our last stop before we went home. It came near to being our last stop, period.

There was an old gray housetruck parked near the ruin of the house. We didn’t see the truck at first. It was