One Good Turn

The baby deer was lying just off the road. I couldn't tell if it was dead or alive. It was in a fairly thick stand of poison ivy, so I didn't really want to go get it unless I had to.

It was almost too small to bother with, but with food so scarce and water practically nonexistent, we were running out of choices. It was turning into a daily fight just to find enough food to stay alive.

The deer's mother was nowhere to be found. I'd much rather have taken it down, but if I had, the baby would have died on its own soon afterwards anyway. We were down to the point where we'd drink the deer's blood; that's how low we were on water.

You don't really think about how precious water is until you don't have any. Then you fantasize about it, about bathing in it, soaking in it, splashing it around, wasting it like you did before the world went to hell. Like there was always going to be plenty.

The kids that had been born since The Darkening (we didn't know what else to call it. The Great Conjunction was already taken) didn't know what that was like. They were used to having to survive on scraps and drops and drizzles. They'd never seen a single cup of water that wasn't in somebody's hand. There weren't any more lakes.

Part of me still cringed away from the guilt of having to slaughter animals. Part of me figured it was a blessing for them, being killed before they starved or died of thirst. The rest of the colony was just glad to get the meat.

There wasn't going to be much meat on this one though. I hadn't killed it cleanly; it was just stunned from the throwing club I'd clocked it with. It was lying there just a little down the slope from me, head downhill, one leg sticking up, the others all akimbo. One bent back on itself. It looked broken. I wasn't sure the thing was still alive, but then it twitched just enough that I could see it breathing. Great. Still alive. Nothing I love more than having to kill something twice.

I picked my way down the slope to the baby deer, wondering if it survived, maybe we could take it and raise it and start farming deer instead of hunting them; but then I realized whatever gender it was, we'd have to have two. And finding even one was rare enough that that wasn't likely to happen any time soon.

It didn't move as I approached it; probably too confused and hurt to think straight. I felt horrible. But it was us, or them. Them being the few animals that had survived The Darkening. When the clouds cover the sky ninety percent of the time, what else are you going to call it? Oddly, these clouds didn't ever drop rain. Who knew why? Something for the scientists to figure out. Not me. I was just a hunter/gatherer/general step-and-fetcher for the colony. So here I was, stepping and fetching a baby deer.

As I picked it up it started thrashing and screaming. I grabbed it by the neck, expecting to have to snap the neck to keep it from thrashing and kicking me, but it calmed down, as though acknowledging that its brief life was getting ready to end. I clamped down hard on my emotions; we just didn't have any choice.

I made my wobbly way up the hill while the baby deer thrashed around a few more times, called a few more times. I sort of hoped the deer's mama would hear it and come running. Two kills in one day would be an insane bounty. No such luck though.

I got it up to the top of the hill where the old road headed off in two directions. Nothing to worry about, nobody drove any more. All the stupid stories about gasoline being useful years after it had sat in a container were just that. You could take a shower with it now and it wouldn't do anything at all. It was mildly useful as an oil based cleaner but most of the time it was more work to get it than it was worth.

I held the deer down and got ready to snap its neck. It was pretty placid at the moment. All I can say in my own defense is that there wasn't any movement on the road, so I didn't look.

Suddenly the deer thrashed and squealed one more time, as its eyes locked on an honest-to-god buckboard, pulled by a... oh my god, a walking buffet and leather shop. It was a horse. Sitting in the front with one hand on the reins and the other hand pointing a pistol at me was the oldest, scraggliest guy I'd seen in years.

He didn't say anything for a few seconds. Finally he croaked out "where'd you find it?"

Took me a few seconds to realize what he was talking about. "Over there, just down that slope. I wasn't sure it was alive at first."

"Been awhile since I saw any of those, that's for sure." He laid the pistol down on the seat beside him. "what're you planning to do with it?"

"Probably..." ...I stopped. What was I going to do with it? Why was it still alive? Why hadn't I snapped its neck as soon as I got to it?

"I haven't decided yet. Normally we just slaughter and eat them. But for some reason..." I trailed off.

"Good for you," the old man said. "I should've eaten this idiot awhile back but truth to tell I've gotten used to having him around. He's company, he doesn't talk back, doesn't moan about how horrible life is. He and I been together a long time."

Clearly this guy was off his rocker. There was no way there was enough water to keep this horse alive, let alone useful enough to pull a wagon. And yet, it didn't look as decrepit as it ought to have.

He interrupted my reverie. "You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat animals, can't you? Whether they're good people at heart or not."

Yeah, you sure could. Here I was about to kill a 3 day old deer for meat. I felt like the lowest dirt you could be.

"I know," he said, "you were gonna kill it, but you didn't like doing it, did ya?"

And with that he took a necklace off his chest and threw it to me.

I caught it with one hand, the deer in the other. It wasn't much to look at; a heart-shaped locket. You used to be able to buy them anywhere, cheap silver, sentimental crap.

"Thanks, I guess." I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it in this dystopia. It wasn't like I had a boyfriend or anything.

He smiled. "Just do me a favor and don't open it till you get home, OK?"

"Sure thing. Thanks. Much obliged."

He smirked, gave the reins a slap, and he and his oddly-healthy horse went on their way.

I carried the baby deer all the way back to the colony. Felt stupid, but I got the feeling that if I didn't take care of this thing, I was welching on a bargain.

Dropped the deer off right inside the decrepit walls, told them to find a place to keep it alive. They thought I was nuts. Said they were going to kill it and eat it because there hadn't been much brought in for a few days.

I started to argue but I decided not to. Stopped long enough to look at the cheap crappy silver heart shaped locket and realized, again, that I was welching on a bargain. Told them to keep it alive.

Opened the locket expecting to find a couple of pictures from a time long gone that nobody would ever see again.

Instead, inside was a piece of paper with a latitude and longitude.

It's been four years since we found the place. Underground water reservoirs the size of New York City. Ultraviolet light farming.

And, yes, pens to raise cattle, sheep, goats...

And deer.

She's a proud mama now. Hobbles just a bit from when the leg never quite healed straight, but you wouldn't know it to look at her. Domesticated deer are quite affectionate. And I'm the expert in how to talk to them and keep them alive and...everything else.

She doesn't know she's the only reason this colony survived. If I had killed her, that old man wouldn't have given me that cheap, crappy silver heart shaped locket. We found him a few miles away, dead of a heart attack. The horse was happy to be found. He lives comfortably with the rest of the livestock.

We kill them for food, of course. But because of that stupid, crappy heart-shaped silver locket, and the morality we regenerated, we're humane about it.

Stupid locket.