Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

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Book: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang Read Online Free PDF
Author: Kate Wilhelm
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction
now he had counted twenty-two people; he thought that was all of them. During the storm that lashed the valley that afternoon, he heard Mike whinny and he crawled from the lean-to and stood up. Mike, down the slope of the knob, wouldn't mind the rain too much, and he was protected from the wind. Still, he whinnied again, and then again. Cautiously, holding his shotgun in one hand, shielding his eyes from the lashing rain with the other, David edged around the tree. A figure stumbled up the knob haltingly, head bowed, stopping often, then moving on again, not looking up, probably blinded by the rain. Suddenly David threw the shotgun under the lean-to and ran to meet her. "Celia!" he cried. "Celia!"
           She stopped and raised her head. The rain ran over her cheeks and plastered her hair to her forehead. She dropped the shoulder bag that had weighed her down and ran toward him, and only when he caught her and held her tight and hard did he realize that he was weeping, as she was.
           Under the lean-to he pulled off her wet clothes and rubbed her dry, then wrapped her in one of his shirts. Her lips were blue, her skin seemed almost translucent; it was unearthly white.
           "I knew you'd be here," she said. Her eyes were very large, deep blue, bluer than he remembered, or bluer in contrast to her pale skin. Before, she had been always sunburned.
           "I knew you'd come here," he said. "When did you eat?"
           She shook her head. "I didn't believe it was this bad here. I thought it was propaganda. Everyone thinks it's propaganda."
           He nodded and lighted the Sterno. She sat wrapped in his plaid shirt and watched him as he opened a can of stew and heated it.
           "Who are those people down there?"
           "Squatters. Grandmother and Grandfather Wiston died last year. That gang showed up. They gave Aunt Hilda and Uncle Eddie a choice, join them or get out. They didn't give Wanda any chance at all. They kept her."
           She stared down into the valley and nodded slowly. "I didn't know it was this bad. I didn't believe it." Without looking back at him, she asked then, "And Mother, Father?"
           "They're dead, Celia. Flu, both of them. Last winter."
           "I didn't get any letters," she said. "Almost two years. They made us leave Brazil, you know. But there wasn't any transportation home. We went to Colombia. They promised to let us go home in three months. And then they came one night, late, almost at dawn, and said we had to get out. There were riots, you know."
           He nodded, although she was still staring down at the farm and couldn't see. He wanted to tell her to weep for her parents, to cry out, so that he could take her in his arms and try to comfort her. But she continued to sit motionlessly and speak in a dead voice.
           "They were coming for us, for the Americans. They blame us, for letting them starve. They really believe that everything is still all right here. I did too. No one believed any of the reports. And the mobs were coming for us. We left on a small boat, a skiff. Nineteen of us. They shot at us when we got too near Cuba."
           David touched her arm and she jerked and trembled. "Celia, turn around and eat now. Don't talk any longer. Later. You can tell us about it later."
           She looked at him and slowly shook her head. "Never again. I'll never mention any of it again, David. I just wanted you to know there was nothing I could do. I wanted to come home and there wasn't any way."
           She didn't look quite so blue-cold now, and he watched with relief as she started to eat. She was hungry. He made coffee, the last of his coffee ration.
           "You want me to fill you in on anything here?"
           She shook her head. "Not yet. I saw Miami, and the people, all trying to get somewhere else, standing in line for days, standing on the trains.
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