Smilodon Country

By Steven Popkes

In the ruins of Saint Louis, Lucio has been a Long Bottom Boy for as long as he can remember. He has scavenged. He has been hunted for food. He has eaten his fill of human prey. He has been both the abused and the abuser.

 

He's been okay with this.

 

One day he sees things differently. Can he stay? Can he leave? Where can he go? Who can he trust? Is there a place for him anywhere?

He does not know it but he is on his way to Smilodon Country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven Popkes
• Release date: Jun 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9781636322575

Steven Popkes

Steven Popkes lives in Massachusetts on two acres of land where he and his wife garden, grow bananas and breed turtles. His day job consists of writing support software for space and ballistic systems. He insists he is not a rocket scientist. He is a rocket engineer.

Book preview

Smilodon Country

By

Steven Popkes

Book View Café/Walking Rocks Edition 

06/25/2024 Release Date

ISBN: 978-1-63632-257-5

Copyright © 2024 Steven Popkes

Book View Café Book View Café

To Philip K. Dick, who demonstrated what was possible.

Table of Contents

Also By Steven Popkes

Part 1: Leaving Saint Louis

Part 2: Along the River

Part 3: Predator/Prey Relations

Part 4: Community Values

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Credits

About the Author

About Book View Café

Also By Steven Popkes

Howard Cycle Novels

God’s Country

Jackie's Boy

Danse Mécanique

House of Birds

Nuthatch County

Other Novels

Caliban Landing

Slow Lightning

Welcome to Witchlandia

Collections

Simple Things: Collected Stories

Winters Are Hard: Collected Stories

Tom Kelly's Ghost and Other Stories

Novellas

The Long Frame

A New World

The largest cat that ever lived, the saber-toothed cat (Smilodon populator) may have exceeded four hundred kilograms in weight. This is approximately one hundred fifty kilograms heavier than the largest living cat, the Siberian tiger (Panthera tigris altaica).

—The Man Who Faced the Saber-Toothed Cat by Pedro Luna, from Fugitive Knowledge, edited by Andreas Beer and Gesa Mackenthun, Waxman, 2015

Part 1: Leaving Saint Louis

Chapter 1.1

My squadboss, Jihandre, had sent us out to scout the area around Delmar. It was a nothing gig. Pretty much every grocery for twenty miles around us had been looted. But there was always someone desperate enough to check out a grocery—or anything that could be thought of as a grocery—again. Surely, there must be something left.

That left me and Umberto crouched at the edge of the crumbling parking garage next to a strip mall, watching and shivering. It had been a thin winter so far and it was still January. The Long Bottom Boys were looking forward to a little meat in the pot. We weren’t particular.

We were watching for anybody looking for us, too. After all, we weren’t the only ones around. We could end up filling someone else’s belly as well as they might fill ours.

So far, we hadn’t seen a thing. Heard a thing. Smelled anything on the wind.

I was about to tell Umberto this was a lost cause when he poked me and nodded toward the grocery parking lot.

Sure enough, along the south side of Delmar, I saw someone peeking around the edge of the building on Skinker Boulevard. I didn’t move—they might see me if I stayed still but they would certainly see me if I moved. I estimated three hundred meters—too far for a good shot. I just had my AK. I should have brought one of the sniper rifles. Even then it would be chancy.

Under the parking wall, so no one could see my movement, I gestured to Umberto: wait.

He grinned, stroking his little mustache carefully. He was proud of it, though it was narrow and barely there and made the corners of his mouth look smudged. I was jealous. We were both sixteen and I couldn’t grow more than baby fuzz if my life depended on it. He waved back: no problem, Lucio.

Sneaky Guy ducked back out of sight behind the corner but we didn’t move.

A few minutes later, Sneaky Guy crept out along the sidewalk, hugging the building. Behind him, one, two, three, four smaller figures. Kids, maybe?

I waited to see if there was anybody else bringing up the rear. Nobody.

Sneaky Guy led the kids down the street, watching the storefronts.

Good for us: we were up the street past the grocery. Sneaky Guy wasn’t alert at all. The storefronts had his attention. Stupidity is its own reward.

I edged up my AK, laying it slowly on the top of the parking garage wall and sighted on him. Two hundred meters. Nice shot if I had a sniper rifle, I snarled to myself.

Sneaky Guy led the kids along the street, carefully watching the storefronts for an ambush, all the time moving closer to the grocery and to us. I counted down the distance, keeping him sighted the whole time. A hundred meters. Eighty meters. Sixty meters. Forty meters. That was good enough. Estimated the wind and the drop. Edged the barrel a little up and a little north to compensate. Eased the trigger. A crack and Sneaky Guy fell over in a boneless collapse.

Umberto ran down the stairs and down the street to catch the kids before they ran. I kept an eye out to cover him.

The kids huddled around Sneaky Guy’s body, crying. Good. Umberto slowed to a walk, talking to them, calming them so they didn’t scatter. He waved backwards to me and I left the top floor of the garage and made my way down to them. Two girls. Two boys. Maybe six to nine but starvation made it hard to tell.

I drew them a little ways from the body and asked their names. Tommy? Andre? You’re Maria and Suling? Good. I spoke calmly and pulled some rope from my ditty bag and tied them wrist to wrist, just tight enough to keep them together but not enough to hurt them.

Umberto was watching for anyone else.

The body on the ground was well-fed—clear sign he was a member of another group. Farrel’s, maybe. Or Nature Phil’s. He certainly had not been sharing with the kids. Sneaky Guy had probably just found them. Got overconfident and figured he’d check out the strip mall on the way back. I realized that Umberto had only stripped the body of anything essential.

We can’t leave him, I said.

We have to. You need me to help take the kids back.

I can handle that. I nodded significantly to the body. Field dress him and follow me back.

Carry forty kilos of meat on my back? Not happening. You need me to bring up the rear.

I looked around. The return was mostly residential, only low buildings. Nothing tall enough to house a sniper. And, with the kids, we needed to return the most direct way possible. He was right.

Okay, I said. Field dress it over in the parking garage and stash it. Then, catch up to me. I’ll walk slow. We’ll send someone back for it. I looked around. Still early and cold. The corpse fungus wouldn’t get a start for a day or so.

Umberto grabbed the legs and hauled the kill back to the parking garage.

I smiled at the kids. Okay. Let’s go for a walk. Then, you’ll get food and a warm place to sleep.

That quieted them down a little and we started back to the Saint Louis Art Museum.

oOo

Umberto caught up to us about twenty minutes later. It was just over four kilometers back to the Museum but we had to zig zag, wait for the kids, zag again. I didn’t breathe easy until we crossed Lindell into our territory. I pulled one of the guards aside and told him where Umberto had cached the body.

Fight training was going on in the field in front of the Museum and we walked past the action to Jones House, where the women lived. Matron Dee smiled at the kids when I gave her the rope. The kids gave me side eyes as they walked past—they figured they’d been sold down the river. I didn’t say now they were safe—truth was, they weren’t. Safety didn’t exist. Tough times were ahead of them. But I’d gone through it along with the rest of the Boys. A group was safer than an individual and the Long Bottom Boys were better than some.

Umberto wanted to go back to the Museum for breakfast but I was too jittery from the kill.

I’m going back to the fields and work out, I said.

Jihandre was leading the training, his knit cap tight to his head, the silver rings he kept in his hair tinkling like tiny bells as he moved. He was pretty fit for an old man.

I slipped into the rear line but Jihandre wasn’t having any of it. He waved me up to take over.

We did warmups for a while. Then practice: strike, block, strike, repeat. All the basic stuff. Jihandre was a stickler for always practicing the basics. We paired off for practice sparring. I got Hugo. I liked working with Hugo. He was big and very strong. If he hit you, your head rang like breaking glass. And he never took it personally. You could smack him right in the face and he’d grin and say: Good hit.

Jihandre walked around pointing out a mistake or encouraging something he liked. Then, he dismissed them all and held me back.

How did it go this morning?

Well fed man—maybe one of Nature Phil’s. Picked up four kids. I sent Jomo back for the carcass and dropped the kids off at Jones House.

Good work, he said. He thought a moment. Maybe you should come up to Lindell. Work with me and London Bob.

I stared at him for a long moment. This was the man who had taught me everything I knew: how to fight, how to shoot, how to know if I was being hunted and what to do about it. Now, he wanted me to work with him and London Bob. This was a promotion.

I would like that, I said, swallowing hard. I’d like that very much.

We’ll see. He pushed me in the direction of the Museum and left.

oOo

Everybody ate together in the Museum’s old restaurant section. Umberto and Doc Halliday were already there. I looked over at them: beans again. I grabbed a spoon and a bowl, dipped beans from the pot, and sat at their table. joined them.

Doc had to be sixty—older than anyone—he was a real doctor which meant he was a grown man before the world fell apart, long before I was born. He was the oldest person I had ever known. He was eating slowly, looking carefully in the stew for bones or anything else hard.

Your teeth bothering you again? I asked.

Shut up about my teeth, he said.

 That was a yes. Jones house is going to drop four kids on you later.

Four kids? He stared at me, then shook his head slowly.

That’s right, said Umberto. "And forty kilos of meat for the next pot."

You dressed it? asked Doc. Who’s going to smoke it?

It won’t get to that, I said. We’ve been without good meat for too long. It’s going to go into the pot as soon as Jomo and his crew bring it back. That’ll stop the fungus.

Doc shook his head. None of this is normal. He said to himself. I ignored it. Doc said a lot of things.

Umberto finished and stood up. He gave me a crooked grin as he left, and I had a good idea where he was going.

I have news, I said after he’d gone. Jihandre said he might want me to work with him and London Bob.

Doc watched me a moment and looked back at his bowl. He didn’t say anything.

A promotion is good, I said, prompting him.

It’s the best you can hope for, he said.

That stung, somehow. Jihandre appreciates me.

Yes, said Doc bitterly. "You are of use to him. One of his best fighters. Certainly, his best shooter." He fell silent.

That makes this good. I’m getting recognition.

God damn it. Doc dropped his spoon into his bowl. I’m trying to be encouraging.

Doesn’t sound like it.

Would you rather I say: Lucio, you’re too damned smart for this place. A promotion is the least they could do. He pushed the bowl away.

What do you want me to do?

"Get smarter. Read books—read my books. You could be Doc after I’m gone. Doc snorted. But you don’t give a fuck. You can barely read."

I read fine!

"You can but you don’t. The pond minnows are better read than you."

I read fine, I said to my beans. Maybe I don’t want to be Doc.

Fine. Doc leaned towards me, trying to look into my eyes. Every written book is a life you can add to your own just by reading it. It makes you richer. It makes you smarter, building on the support of people before you. He leaned back. But you don’t take advantage of that, do you? He waved around the room. Why should you? What the hell good is a rich inner life going to be to you? To be the best read baby Mussolini in a destroyed world? He pointed his finger to the table. "This is not normal. You deserve better. But there’s nothing better this world has to offer."

With that, he got up. He put his bowl in the bucket and left.

I stared after him. What the hell was eating him up? Then I looked into his bowl to see whether he’d eaten all his beans.

oOo

Talking to Doc made me feel like crap. Why couldn’t I take a little pride that Jihandre appreciated me? What the fuck was that all about?

I wanted to go outside, January cold or not. I went back through the galleries towards the front entrance. Past some marble statues. I saw Jake getting ready to pony one of the new kids—Tommy. He was already bent over, pants down. Tommy glanced up while Jake was undoing his pants and saw me. He looked away, staring down at the ground with a look of sick betrayal. I knew that look. I’d been there. Like everything else, this was something to be endured until you could do it to someone else.

Pony or not, he was safer here than outside. He would understand that someday.

Umberto was waiting for me outside.

I have got something to show you, he said, grinning with excitement.

What?

It’s at the Zoo.

Nothing lives in the Zoo but animals we can’t touch guarded by robots that will kill us if we move wrong.

Exactly. That’s what makes it fun.

I let him herd me behind the Museum, stashing our weapons at the top of the hill, hopefully out of range of the keeper’s guns, and skidding down the mud to the entrance.

I didn’t understand why the keepers let anyone in. I didn’t understand why the Zoo even existed when everything else was busted into ruin. But they did. Anyone could come in and watch the aging animals wander listlessly about. Two or three times a year somebody committed Suicide By Keeper by trying to bring in a gun or a knife.

Umberto led me down a concrete path, to turn to a worn viewing area. There, twenty or so meters away, was an elephant, chewing some grass and watching us.

Umberto leaned over and said to me: Meat porn.

We were standing in a three-by-three-meter concrete bunker overlooking the elephant paddock. It was January and cold as hell. Two keeper bots were standing next to us. One had two separate gun barrels pointed at Umberto. The other had his pointed at me.

Why should Umberto want me to watch a forbidden six-ton slab of meat eat hay out in the frozen mud and snow?

Oh.

I chuckled. We can’t eat it. We can only watch it and dream.

Umberto nodded. Exactly. He grinned, smoothing that awful mustache again. He was always just a little bigger than me. A little taller. A little broader in the chest.

The little plaque said Jackie. Jackie ate placidly.

Meat porn. Exactly. I laughed again.

Then, she looked up and stared at me with a murderous glare. I felt skewered by it. As if she could see who I was just by looking at me, deeper than Doc. Deeper than Jihandre. As if she were calculating the distance: could I make it over to them and kill one of them before the keepers stopped me?

She watched me for a long time. I stared back.

Then, she seemed to come to some conclusion. She snorted in contempt and turned back to her hay. He’s not worth the effort.

That pissed me off. No stupid animal could judge me. I tried to reach for my pistol but, of course, it wasn’t there. No guns allowed.

But the keepers noticed the movement and lit up. I heard clicks as they armed their weapons and the red lights on their cylindrical bodies blinked at me, right next to a bright yellow smiley face Welcome to the Saint Louis Zoo sticker.

Shit, hissed Umberto. "What the fuck did you do?"

Shut up and back out of here.

We held our hands up and backed out of the bunker. Outside, another keeper bot was waiting, both barrels at the ready, and followed us all the way to the entrance turnstiles. Umberto pulled his pendant out of his shirt, shielding it from anyone seeing, the way he always did when he left the Zoo. Then, he bowed slightly to the keeper and put it back. I didn’t know what the pendant was and didn’t much care. Most of us had some kind of mojo or another.

The keeper didn’t move. It waited and watched us as we kept our hands up and walked across the parking lot debris and up the hill.

At the top, we stopped next to where we had cached our guns. The keepers had an irregular line of how close they’d allow a gun to the Zoo. I don’t know how they figured it out but figured it likely had something to do with range and view. If an animal could be shot from a particular vantage point, that position would be monitored by the keepers. If someone ever brought a gun to that spot, the keepers would drop them. We took notice.

I looked back at the keeper. It was still watching us but the lights had gone out. I reached towards the cache and nothing happened. So, I got my .45 and AK, and Umberto got his nine-millimeter and AR-15. We looked at the keeper again. No reaction. We lived. We trudged up the hill towards the Art Museum.

What did you do? asked Umberto again.

I reached for my pistol.

That was stupid.

I didn’t even have it on me.

"Like they cared. What were you thinking, man?"

I shrugged. I wasn’t. Obviously.

I still saw Jackie’s eyes boring into mine. But now, it was as if I could see what she was thinking about me. As if she were looking over my life. I shook my head. What the fuck did she know?

oOo

We kept an eye on the ground as we went up the hill. London Bob had made a point for people to keep an eye out for spent shells so we could reuse them. I didn’t see the point. I didn’t know much about the world before the shit came but it sure had a lot of guns. We had enough ammunition. Besides, reloads just fouled up the barrels. But London Bob was the boss so Umberto and I watched the ground. We found nothing. Nobody fired on this side of the hill unless they had a death wish.

Around to the steps. I stared up at the huge columns of the Museum, across the Great Basin to where London Bob and his lieutenant’s houses on Lindell. Where Jihandre had made the vague offer I might work. The girls and women were in Jones House further east. Everything looked different somehow. Less clear. More confused.

The Long Bottom Boys and the Rank Bastards split Forest Park roughly in half into two territories. We occupied McKinley westward. They had everything to the east. We had the Great Basin. They had Jefferson Pond. Like my squadboss, Jihandre says: nobody fights like they fight for water.

But that was just where we lived. There was nothing left to eat in the park. Nothing to scavenge. Maybe an occasional animal would wander in but it wouldn’t last long. The Boys ranged west into Clayton and up into University City. The Rank Bastards scavenged north up to Martin Luther King near Farm Country, but not close—Farm Country people stationed snipers everywhere—and east towards the city. There were only fifty-six of us and forty or so Bastards. That left open city with a few stragglers and small gangs picking remains from buildings that had been picked clean decades ago. I always heard it was the same out in the county. Beyond that were only rumors of emptiness.

The Museum property had a back entrance that led to the Zoo, but it was kept blocked. London Bob was always worried the keeper bots would attack. I thought he was crazy to think so—the keepers didn’t care about anything but the Zoo. The only time you ever saw them outside of the fences was when they were escorting supply trucks that came from somewhere south. Even the people up in Farm Country kept out of their way and opened the gates for them. We all had guns—I mean AK-47s were war weapons a hundred years ago—but the keepers had real military-grade weaponry. Guided ammunition. Variable caliber. Explosive bullets. You didn’t fuck with them.

Still, London Bob had been running the Boys forever. He was probably smarter than me.

All the way up the hill and around to the north side of the museum, I felt like eyes were watching me. As if I could see myself from the outside. It was a weird feeling. Here is Lucio looking for shells. Here is his friend, Umberto. Was Umberto my friend? We had fought side by side since we were ten. Thieving skirmishes into Farm Country. Fighting off the smaller gangs and stealing their caches. Little wars against the Rank Bastards. Umberto had always had my back. Surely that made him my friend.

But I always kept an eye on Umberto. I knew I could rely on him in a firefight to watch my back or lay down covering fire. It came to me that this was the only time I trusted him. Even a friend can turn you in. A lot of my fellow soldiers had been tried and convicted of treason—stealing food. Sneaking into Jones House. Keeping their own secret cache. There was only one punishment: into the pot. There was