Tertiary Effects Series | Book 2 | Storm Warning

by Allen, William

  I was curious about Dallas/Ft. Worth, since other than the expected stories about the flooding and some mention of housing refugees in the sports stadiums, the news out of the DFW area seemed fairly tame. I guess the penny had yet to drop for them, but I was wondering if Mike and Marta felt like they’d made a mistake essentially abandoning their home in Ft. Worth for the questionable shelter here. I made a note to talk to Mike about this later, and moved on, returning to the HAM radio for some unfiltered news.

  I listened to what amounted to the livestock report in Wichita, Kansas for ten minutes, again taking notes of the price swings in grain, before switching back to the national news at the top of the hour at seven a.m. locally. I was a bit surprised to hear the top story. The president announced a new wave of government spending intended to spur on economic development in what had been referred to in past years as the Rust Belt states. Billed as a bid to rebuild America’s heavy manufacturing base, to me, the move smelled like welfare for big business or the labor unions. They might have been better off spending the money on building or refurbishing inland oil refineries, since by my modest calculation, we were missing over half of that capacity. Price limits were one thing, but how would they transport anything if the price to produce diesel fuel was ten dollars a gallon? Could the nation’s trucking industry survive on fuel prices in the double digits?

  These questions chased each other around in my head and I sighed. Maybe we would shortly be dealing with a hyperinflationary period. It was all funny money these days, with nothing propping up the digitally printed dollars except a wink and a nod from the Federal Reserve. Might as well have been hooking up an IV to help revive a patient who was missing his body from the waist down. The procedure might make the healthcare professionals feel better for their effort, but it did nothing to save the patient.

  Many of the prognosticators in days past had predicted a financial collapse would result from such a widespread disaster, but none took into account the control displayed here by the combination of the White House, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Reserve. They were clearly working with the international banking concerns on a program that kept everything propped up. This might be a house of cards, but the big boys were using superglue to hold the edifice in shape. Not that I was complaining, since the alternative was that previously predicted financial collapse. The situation reminded me of that old Russian folk saying under the Soviet system: I pretend to work, and they pretend to pay me.

  The system wouldn’t last long, but I meant to leverage my cash for as much benefit as I could manage. If Dallas really was managing to survive undamaged so far, I would discuss the long shot possibility for Mike and his family to move back for the time being. If the damage from this hurricane was the tipping point for the area’s descent into anarchy, I didn’t want my brother’s sense of loyalty to the rest of us to endanger his wife and children. That was exactly the opposite of the goal for which this place was intended, and I resolved to talk to him about it as soon as he got up.

  It was seven thirty by the time I’d shut off the radio setup and exited my office, dressed in a pair of clean blue jeans and a long-sleeved, button-up work shirt. Despite the overcast skies, Mike and Pat had insisted on maximum skin coverage for folks working outside, which in our crew pretty much meant everybody. In addition to concerns about damage to the ozone layer caused by the meteor and its passage, the danger represented by mosquitos carrying the Zika virus, West Nile, and a host of other threats could not be overstated. I worried what we would do when the DEET ran out, but given the threat of a long, hard winter, I guessed that problem would work itself out.

  I didn’t bother with anything on my feet except socks. We never wore shoes or boots in the house, and most of our footwear remained stored in the mudroom out back. I kept a pair of Crocs by the front door, just in case, but I really didn’t like the way the things rubbed my feet, though Marta swore by hers. I understood that was a common opinion in medical circles, but not one I shared.

  I could hear the rest of the house stirring, and no doubt someone had been awake through the night. I could check the roster, as we used the whiteboard in the kitchen for scheduling such things. We rotated the graveyard shift, and with the return of the cameras around the property, the person responsible could monitor the feeds downstairs. We’d become quite lax about such things in the last few weeks, dealing with the runup and aftermath of Hurricane Debbie, but I knew Mike and Pat planned to call a meeting today to address new plans and tighten existing security measures.

  Beatrice had already gotten up, and she was teaming up with Sally to produce stacks of pancakes and waffles for the hungry crew. We’d tried to institute a rotating kitchen detail, but apparently some of us proved to be incapable of boiling water or slicing bread. So after that mini-revolt, Beatrice and Sally came off the graveyard shift rotation and went on the revised kitchen detail.

  As expected, I also found Marta finishing up her breakfast and packing her lunchbox for the day. She looked well-rested, and I was hoping she had a better day at work. The woman loved her job, and despite her sometimes prickly exterior, she had a truly nurturing spirit. I hoped she and Dorothy were striking up a friendship born from their shared commute, but I felt it not my place to ask.

  “Mike up yet?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s upstairs with Pat, running the boys through the shower.”

  Well, that made sense. The young boys, Hunter and Tommy, didn’t mind showers, but both had an aversion to the whole ‘washing behind your ears’ concept that must have been genetically encoded.

  “Like the dads are any better,” I scoffed, and Marta gave a low chuckle.

  Beatrice heard this and wandered over with a short stack of pancakes, depositing them on my plate without pausing. She gave her daughter a curious look and Marta explained. Beatrice tried to act scandalized, but she failed miserably in the attempt. The laughter that spilled out from all of us, Sally included, was still echoing when Mike sauntered into the kitchen. He bent to give his wife a peck on the cheek, then glanced around with a cautious expression. “Dorothy’s here. What’s up?”

  “Nothing, honey,” Marta chirped back, gathering up her lunchbox and heading for the door. “Gotta go.”

  Other than Mike giving me the stink eye for a few minutes, we proceeded about our business until I heard the back door open and shut. Tamara, Lisa, and Rachel came storming into the kitchen like they were seizing a hostile beach, and I rolled my eyes as the three girls hustled to the table for breakfast. Well, two of them. Tammy carried the egg basket, and she proudly deposited the morning’s haul in the sink before heading over to her notebook to chart her results.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, directing my question to all three young ladies as they squeaked their chairs on the tiles of the floor. I didn’t particularly like tile, but I’d been overruled by Marta and Nikki when it came to the kitchen and eat-in area.

  “Yes, sir,” Lisa replied. “Cow milked, horses fed, and eggs gathered. Billy was out checking the horses, so he carried the milk can over to the cold room for us.”

  “Did you say, ‘thank you’?”

  “Of course, Uncle Bryan,” Tamara replied with an aggrieved sigh. “You act like we’re uncivilized heathens. Or boys.”

  That got a giggle from the other two girls, and Mike gave me a headshake, subtly disclaiming parenting responsibility for that one. Again, my brother and I could exchange whole sentences in a look, making it our own version of shorthand.

  “My apologies, ladies. Lisa, how is Maisie acting? She getting along okay with Pearl?”

  With the increased population of the Hardin homestead, I’d planned to add another cow to the milking barn. Pearl was the calmest tempered of the Jerseys, and after she’d recently delivered her calf, Mike and I had introduced her into the milking barn. She was still held separately so her calf could continue to nurse, but we’d decided to take the calf off her in another week. The calf would go on the milk replacer and Pearl
would start producing for us instead.

  “She’s doing fine, but that Buttercup tries to get into everything,” Tammy complained. Though she was the youngest of the three at only ten years old, Tammy inherited the Hardin height and was at least six inches taller than her older cousin Rachel, standing almost as tall as Lisa, who was nearly thirteen.

  “That’s typical with a Jersey,” Rachel explained. “They’re a very curious breed. Smart, too.”

  That was typical of Rachel Parker. She was a quiet girl, studious and intense at times when she was busy studying a problem. While Rachel might be smaller than her cousin Tammy, she was strong for her size and I knew her to be a hard worker. And though she was only eleven, Rachel already knew she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. Not surprising that she knew more about the critters on the ranch than I did.

  “Well, we need to figure out a plan for breaking Pearl into milking, so why don’t you ladies get on that for us. Also, who’s going to take over feeding little Buttercup when we split her off from her mom? She’ll need to be on the milk replacer for six to eight weeks, depending on her development.”

  “Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!” Lisa cried out, and I tried not to laugh at the girl’s enthusiasm. For someone who had only spent a few weeks living the country life, Lisa seemed to fit right in with the demanding schedule and hard work.

  “Any objections?” I looked to the other two.

  “I’ve already got the ladies,” Tammy replied, clearly referring to her chickens.

  Rachel merely shook her head, a little smile playing across her lips. She was already well occupied between working in the greenhouse and helping Billy with the horses.

  “While we’re handing out new duties, who wants to take over the pigs?”

  “All yours, Uncle Bryan,” Tammy crowed, and the laughter that filled the kitchen again felt good.

  “Finish up your breakfasts then, ladies, because we have plenty to do today.”

  “Can I finish my breakfast?” Mike asked plaintively, and we chuckled once again.

  “Well, if you consider yourself a lady, who am I to judge?”

  After getting off that last zinger, I quickly rinsed off my plate and fork before placing them in the dishwasher. Bea would run a load later, after the staggered breakfasts were all completed. We simply had too many people living in the house now for everybody to sit down for a meal together, especially since the dining room had been sectioned off to contain supplies for various ongoing projects.

  Walking back over to the still-seated Mike, I laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Hey, you want to grab Pat?” I asked, pitching my voice low.

  “Anything wrong?” Mike instantly tensed, but I squeezed him reassuringly.

  “Just heading up to see Wade. Give him the scoop on what Andy shared, and warn him about what we saw on the way home.”

  “That sounds like a good idea. You want to drive?”

  “Let’s save the fuel and take a ride instead,” I replied, still keeping my voice low so the chatter of the girls covered my words. “I have a feeling we’re going to be spending quite a bit of time in the saddle after things drop in the pot.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When Mike called ahead to see if Wade had time to see us, he learned that not only was Wade home, but he also had his uncle, Doyle Husband, over for a visit as well. That might prove fortuitous, I thought as the three of us rode over to the neighbor’s house. Doyle might be helpful in a lot of ways, since he was a survivalist who’d started getting his plans in order since the eighties. Doyle had a large chicken farm over on the other side of the county outside Fayette, and Wade thought his uncle was set up for anything short of a nuclear near-miss.

  I was riding Azure this morning, and Mike and Pat were riding the two geldings, Bert and Ernie, we’d picked up over the years. The geldings were big old boys more accustomed to hauling logs or pulling wagons, but at least for Mike, only one of the geldings could carry his weight comfortably. One of the other mares, Bonnet, was heavy with foal and no one but Nikki wanted to ride Buster, the feisty quarter horse she’d picked up cheap. She was a pretty mare, but prickly in her disposition.

  “We need more horses,” I commented, and not for the first time.

  “Kind of hard to do at the moment,” Pat replied. “I don’t think the auction barn is still in business right now.”

  “Could talk to Mr. Lovett,” Mike added. “He is in the business, after all.”

  “Don’t know if we can afford any of his,” I responded. “He’s got some pretty Percherons, but I know they go for a pretty penny, too. And we really need a stallion. Don’t think we can rely on in vitro services anymore.”

  “He’s got some regular riding stock, too,” Mike continued, guiding Bert around a deep rut that was turning into a small creek as the runoff kept the water flowing. Even with the absence of rain at the moment, everything felt damp and the humidity made me feel sticky. I glanced up, but still no sign of the sun.

  “I got a call this morning,” Mike said, picking up where he’d left off, but Pat and I didn’t follow until he continued.

  “It was my neighbor, Scott Brister,” Mike supplied, “and he said there was a real estate guy named Armstrong sniffing around the neighborhood. Looking to buy houses.”

  “How is he going to pull that off in this market?” Pat asked, and I thought he might be thinking about his own place back in San Marcos. No doubt looted and possibly burned down, if what we were hearing on the radio could be believed.

  “Actually, the market for intact houses is really high right now,” Mike replied. “I was thinking about it anyway.”

  “Dude, you can’t sell your house,” I protested. “That’s the retirement for you and Marta.”

  Mike gave me a sad look, and I knew he was thinking about the many years he and Marta had spent fixing up their place until it was a showplace in their cul-de-sac.

  “You guys all know that neighborhood is untenable long term. I mean, I know Scott and the rest have done their best to protect the area, and by extension my house, but there’s no water there except for that little pond in the center of the development and that creek on the backside. We have the generator, but where would we get fuel? No, that house is set up for short-term survival, and we’re looking at a long grind.”

  Mike made sense, but I still felt saddened by his assessment.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked carefully.

  “Talk to Marta about it tonight. See what she thinks.”

  “She won’t want to sell,” Pat cautioned, and Mike shook his head.

  “Already something she brought up. She sees it clearly. That house is an asset, but one we’ll lose if we don’t act quickly. The neighborhood watch has been effective, but I think Scott would welcome new neighbors. In this situation, an empty house is a threat to the whole community.”

  “If she says yes, what next?” I asked, dreading what I figured he would say.

  “Then we need to e-mail the guy, see what he has to offer, and plan on making a trip up to sign the papers and clear out what’s left in the house.”

  “My back hurts already,” I mock complained.

  We ended the conversation there as we approached Wade’s house from the side, and I saw where he’d converted part of one of his barns into a small stable. Wade and Dorothy also had horses, but he’d never bothered with individual stalls for them or invested in a tack room. Now it looked like Wade was busy getting set up for such things.

  Wade met us as we ambled into the wet pen.

  “Permission to step down?” I asked officiously, and Wade gave me the finger before turning it into a wave for us to dismount.

  “I knew reading those Westerns would warp your brain,” our neighbor teased, and I was the first in line to shake his hand. On an earlier visit, I’d noticed Wade’s library and had borrowed the boxed set of the Sackett series by Louis L’Amour, devouring them in short order. I’d read them all as a kid, but now
re-reading as an adult opened my eyes to more details that’d flown over my juvenile head at the time.

  “To the contrary,” I quipped, “I was getting into the proper mindset.”

  As we led our horses into the barn and proceeded to unsaddle them, Wade kept up a running commentary on what had been going on around their place over the last few days. With the flooding and all the hurricane damage, Wade found his skills called on for many repairs, and he’d been as busy as a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest, as he described it. With Dorothy going back to work, he’d been forced to rely on his brothers and their wives as well as his boys to get a lot of the work done around their place.

  “And now, Ethan is back driving over the road, at least for now, and David has been coming out with me on jobs, so really it’s Margie and Mom supervising the boys who end up doing most of the upkeep around here,” Wade explained.

  “Ethan say anything about the condition on the interstates?” Mike asked, and I thought he might already be planning his trip to Ft. Worth.

  “Crappy. He’s constantly worried about losing a tire, or the whole wheel, to places where the roads have been undercut. Most places, four lanes have been reduced down to just two, and a big rig has a hard time working under those circumstances. Plus, well, the roads are the least of his concerns.”