The Settlement

by Nora Bencsics

The Settlement is your mother and your father and will provide for you always. [First principle of the Settlement]

“Follow the river, follow the river,” he chanted to himself feverishly, clutching his walking stick to support his slowing steps.  He’d twice fallen into that river, barely able to drag himself out, the festering wound in his side and the torn tendons in his legs making him scream with the pain. Were he to fall in now, with the river running so fast, he knew, even as the world dimmed in the heat of his fever, that he would not survive.

When some clarity periodically flickered in his mind, he cursed himself for his folly.  He’d been lucky enough to survive the war and flee unscathed to Blackspear. He’d heard about Blackspear, knew what moralistic prigs those people were, why the hell did he pick the preacher’s daughter? But forbidden fruit always tasted the best, and Barlew Moynihan had never been one to deny himself.

As Barlew staggered alongside the river, it seemed that the dreary flat land, its dried yellow grasses rustling towards a wavering horizon, was all that remained. He was going to die here. That old junkie had lied about the location of his paradise on earth, where all was peace, health, and plenty of food. To the boy Barlew, scrabbling to survive in the slums of old Chicago, it sounded glorious.

“Why did you leave it, if it was so good?” the boy had demanded.   

“They made me go, I didn’t fit,” the man’s voice quavered with bitterness, his eyes red-rimmed and sunken. He made a little choking sound, which might have been a sob or a gob of phlegm caught in his throat. “I should have tried harder to pretend. Change things without anyone noticing. Impatient. I was too impatient.”

He told Barlew where to go: head directly south of the town of Blackspear in what used to be South Dakota, follow the Moreau River. In the post-apocalypse world in which the boy lived, that was all unimaginably far away.

Barlew got out of that slum, and for a long time forgot about the Settlement. He became an adventurer, a mercenary, a gambler. He’d more recently picked the wrong side in a war, and his latest folly had left him half-dead. Now, he was on his way to paradise after all. If he lived to get there.

 

Journey to prove the worth of our young. [Fifth principle of the settlement]

 

The young ones chattered and laughed as they surged towards the riverbank, having fun. That too was part of a Proving Journey.

Halley watched their heads bobbing up and down amongst the tall grasses by the river. She arched her back, stretching her shoulders and chest as she took a deep happy breath. How glad she was that she’d been chosen to lead these youths on their Proving Journey! She loved the Settlement, loved her family, her teachers, her friends.

But, oh! The freedom to be away even for a little while with no one to watch her, expect anything of her. Her charges on the Journey were far too preoccupied with themselves to pay attention to her, unless she asked something of them.

Just then, a shrill voice cried out, “Halley, Halley!”.  Halley plunged after her youngsters, to find them in a semi-circle, frightened but excited, looking down at a body sprawled facedown.

“Jeho!” Halley breathed.  An outsider!  No one had heard of an outsider so close to the Settlement in her lifetime. And here she was, with the young of the Settlement on their Proving Journey. This was not the type of lesson they were supposed to learn. What was she to do?

After a moment, she said in a bracing voice, “Alright, go to the meadow where we’re setting up for the night.  I’ll be there soon.”

Praxos, a tall thin youth with a determined look, said, “Are you sure you want to be alone with.. with it?”

“Him,” she said shortly. Praxos was often annoying, zealously sermonizing about Settlement principles.  He always watched her, as if waiting for her to expose some weakness. She waved them away, “Go on then, all of you.”  

She squatted down next to the body, placing a finger on the man’s pulse. His skin was very hot and flushed under the grime and bruises, and his pulse beat weakly. But she could tell he was a good-looking man, with strong regular features, a shock of long blue-black hair. There was blood seeping out through his jacket. What had happened to him? What should she do? If he was dying, perhaps she didn’t have to do anything.

Since she could remember, her parents and teachers had drummed into her head the importance of following the principles of the Settlement, which allowed the Settlement to maintain the wondrous peace and plenty all its people shared. Outsiders, if found hurt near the Settlement, used to be taken to the Settlement to heal. They were then transported far, far away, so they could never find their way back.   

The last time that happened was long before Halley was born, and she had heard of no other since. The 10^th principle said to ‘’shun the outsider’’, but what did that mean in practice?

And she wasn’t sure she wanted to shun the outsider. She’d wanted to meet someone different, who looked different, thought differently, for a long time.

Just then the man groaned.

 

Fear and shun the outsider.  [Sixth principle of the Settlement]

Barlew opened his eyes upon one of the most beautiful young women he’d ever seen in his life, her lovely face framed with flowing russet locks, luminescent eyes, a willowy frame. Like an angel. Was he dead? No, he hurt too damn much. As he struggled to sit up, she supported him with a strong arm around his shoulders, a surprising strength given how slim she seemed.

“Tell me,” he rasped, his throat soar from thirst. “Did I make it? Is this it? The Settlement? The Bajadoz Settlement?”

Her eyes widened in alarm, and he fell back as she removed her supporting arm. “How…how do you know about the Settlement?” Her voice was a whisper.

“I met one of you once, when I was just a kid.” She made a gesture that he lower his voice. “It kept me going. No matter how bad things got…”  Not quite true, but it sounded good, he thought. “I’ve been looking.  For a long time.”

“One of us,” she said softly. “Oh.” She seemed to be thinking. As if to herself, “One who didn’t succeed on the Proving Journey?”

“The what?”

But she only shook her head, nibbling a fingertip nervously.  She looked, he thought, to be somewhere in her mid-twenties, just a few years younger than himself.  So healthy, she glowed, he thought.  

Then she said, “What did you hear about the Settlement?”

“It’s a place of peace, of plenty,” he said, smiling dreamily. “Where everyone does what they like best. Where sickness gets healed. Where no one gets hurt.”

A somewhat cynical expression appeared on her face. “Where nothing ever changes, where everyone is the same and plays their part,” she muttered. He stared at her.  

“Can you help me?” he asked piteously. He wasn’t gaming her either, he needed a healer to live.

“I’m not supposed to,” she said. “You’re an outsider.”

 

Provide aid and support to all in need. [Third principle of the Settlement]

Maybe it was Praxos’s annoying righteousness when he came back to see what she was doing with the outsider that made her do it. Maybe it was because for the first time in a long while, Halley felt a shiver of excitement at something new and different, which she often hungered for, but always hid from the eyes of others in the Settlement.

She chivied her young followers into fashioning a stretcher. It had been near the end of the journey anyway, they had been about to return to the Settlement anyway.

Praxos challenged her, “Why are you doing this, Halley? We shouldn’t bring an outsider back to the Settlement, no matter how sick.”

“Nor were we told not to. I know we have in the past.”

“Not since our grandparents’ time! Look at him. He looks filthy. Wrong. Sneaky. You’re forgetting the 10^th principle!”

“And you are forgetting the third principle! To provide aid and support to all,” she snapped back.

“All in the Settlement,” he said stiffly.

“That’s not what it says! It says ‘all’!”

“It is understood. We’ve got nothing to do with those outside the settlement. The wicked and the broken. Like him.” Praxos looked about to aim a kick at the man, but Halley pulled him away.

Halley’s temper grew hot and she made the biggest mistake of her life. She said what she was thinking. “Well maybe it’s time we did. Bring some fresh blood into the Settlement. Some new ideas! Find out what is happening in the world! Maybe even just liven things up.”

He stared at her, open-mouthed. That she, the golden girl of the settlement, the brightest star, slated to one day be leader of the Settlement, should say such things!

Halley knew as the words left her mouth what a fool she had been, and the look on Praxos face, a combination of horror and contempt, confirmed it.  

As Praxos left, a whisper floated up to her from the man at her feet, “You should have maybe kept those thoughts to yourself.”  

 

Serve the Settlement with your greatest strength. [Second principle of the Settlement]

Barlew shifted in and out of consciousness while they built his stretcher, though he heard the quarrel between the girl and the righteous-sounding kid.  I must conform, he thought muzzily, forgetting in his feverish haze that conformity was among the least of his talents.

Then they hoisted him onto the stretcher. After that, he passed out for some time.

He awoke to find a tall, robed man bending over him, who jerked upright with a slight hiss as Barlew opened his eyes, his dark face impassive as Barlew focused his gaze on him.

“Don’t worry,” Barlew joked weakly. “I’m sure I’m not contagious.”

Unsmiling, the man introduced himself as Healer Gruder, saying, “You’re lucky. A little longer there’d not be much we could have done for you. That was a nasty knife wound. Your muscles will take longer to heal. But you can walk, though with pain.”  With an expression of distaste, he added, “We’re not used to violence and hurts like this in the Settlement. But I’ve done my best.”

He was out the door before Barlew could say thank you.

“They don’t seem that eager to take me in,” he mused out loud.

“They certainly aren’t,” the girl who’d found him came into the room. Still the loveliest thing he’d seen, even with a grim expression on her face.

“What’s your name?” he asked. “I’m Barlew. Barlew Moynihan. You?”

“Halley. I’ve been assigned to take you outside for some air to build your strength. You’ll not see anyone else in case you corrupt them.”

“Too late for you, is it?” he grinned.  

Unamused, she snapped, “Yes. Get up, please.” 

Outside on the porch, he saw a long street, small wooden houses marching down the tree-lined street, at the far end of which he could see a circular structure with a spire.  Quite a few people loitered on the other side of the street looking at them.

“It’s been 75 years since an outsider was seen here,” she said in answer to his unspoken question.

At the same time, horses with carriages rattled by, and here and there to his astonishment he saw small electric vehicles darting down the street. Even in the biggest of the old reclaimed cities he’d rarely seen one of those. The people he saw seemed well dressed and happy enough. 

“Is it true that everyone is wealthy and healthy and with their own house here?” he asked.

“We live according to the ten principles. We learn at an early age to be satisfied with what we are and can do. Some who can do more receive more, but all are looked after.” She spoke as if by rote.

“Even the drunks and junkies?”

She glared at him. “There are no drunks and junkies. None that stay in the Settlement.”

 

Treasure and teach your young well, for they are the future. [Fourth principle of the Settlement]

She had never seen Pellis, her mother and now leader of the Settlement for the past four years, so distraught.

“Those words you spoke, tell me Praxos… misheard.” Pellis was a tall broad silver-haired woman, who radiated competence and good will.

“You know Praxos never lies, mother,” Halley said. Now that the moment of reckoning was here, the tight knot in her chest unwound.

“The responsibility was too much. You were stressed…”

“No. Praxos annoyed me. So I said what I thought,” she paused for a moment. She knew her mother had always taken pride in knowing that one day her daughter, her incredibly talented daughter, would be leader here too. She said, as gently as she could, “I said what I’ve always thought.”

“Even knowing that … that kind of thinking could destroy everything we built here? The world is broken out there. Murdering, stealing, raping, starving. This outsider was in a war, he said. As if it were nothing.”

Young woman and older stared at each other, tears in each of their eyes.

“If only you hadn’t spoken like that to Praxos, of all people…”

“But I did,” she went and hugged her mother. “And if not to him…it would have one day been to someone else. I can’t help how I feel.” She sagged against her mother suddenly, sobbing.  “I tried so hard but I can’t. I can’t help feeling trapped.”

Her mother pulled back, her voice shaking with her grief. “You know what must happen, don’t you, my love, my Halley?”

“You’ll send me away with the outsider.”

Tears flowed down her mother’s face. “No. Neither of you can go anywhere. That outsider knew who we were, where we were. We cannot have others find out. Nor can you remain to corrupt the people.”

Halley gasped with horror, turning to flee the council room. But the others had been listening outside and were waiting for her.

 

Walk in peace with Jeho. [Seventh principle of the Settlement]

In the dark of the moon, seven left the Settlement secretly, carrying between them two large tightly bound bundles. They walked for hours, away from the river to the hill of dark stones, where few things grew.

After the burials were done, they stood looking at the mounds of grass and rock for a long time, one of them weeping silently.

“Come,” said Gruder the healer, touching Pellis’s arm. “It’s time to go. We have done the will of Jeho.”

“The will of Jeho,” echoed the others.

 

THE END