A Tearful Reunion

by Darrell Maloney

  “They’re on edge, and yesterday I started hearing rumors they may stage a pre-emptive strike to take out a bunch of the Mexicans first.”

  “Damn, Luis. Maybe you need to climb into the back of our truck and leave town with us.”

  Luis laughed.

  “Oh, don’t you worry about me. It’ll take all the blacks and all the ABs together to take out this crazy Mexican.”

  “Yeah. Speaking of crazy Mexican, Luis, can I ask you a question?”

  “Maybe. Is it a stupid one?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think so.”

  “What?”

  “Why did you bring us here? I mean, your guys could have just let us pass. I feel bad for your situation. It sounds like it’s likely to get pretty ugly around here.

  “No offense, but this isn’t our problem. Our being here isn’t going to make anything better. Your guys should have just let us pass on by and get out of town.”

  “Oh, man! I knew you’d ask a stupid question, Wedo.”

  “Why is it a stupid question?”

  “It’s a stupid question because the men were following your orders, not mine.

  “My orders?”

  “Well, maybe not your orders. You can’t give orders on my turf. Only I do that.

  “It was more the request you made.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you came in here with Tony… what was it, maybe three weeks or so ago?”

  “About that, yeah. So?”

  “You and Tony told me you had a scheme to deliver booze around the city. You said you were going to partner up. Tony was gonna run the dope and you were gonna run the hootch.

  “You remember telling me that?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “You said the only thing holding you back was transportation. You said you heard tell of a red pickup truck that had the engine removed and was being pulled by two horses.”

  “Okay…”

  “So, my people have been looking for that contraption for the last three weeks, with instructions to bring it to me if they came across it.

  “And it just so happened they came across it today. It wasn’t their fault that your dumb ass was the one sitting on top of the damn thing.”

  Dave suddenly felt foolish. Every word was true.

  They didn’t capture Dave and his companions because they had any animosity toward them.

  They captured Dave because they had instructions to.

  “So we’re free to go?”

  “Almost.”

  “Almost? What in heck do you mean almost?

  “If you leave now you’ll probably get killed five miles up the road. Or at least have your horses taken away from you.

  “If you wait half an hour until my friend gets here you’ll have a much better chance of surviving.”

  “Okay, now you’re just messing with me.”

  “No I’m not, gringo.

  “Five miles east of here is Indian territory. Or Native Americans. Whatever you want to call them. They call their territory The Rez and no, I don’t know why.”

  “The Native Americans have a gang?”

  “No. Not really. I mean, it’s a whole bunch of Indians from a bunch of different tribes all working together.”

  “All working together to take Albuquerque back.

  “Word is they’ve amassed over three hundred red men. They picked people from all the refugee camps surrounding the city.

  “They went to them and got all the tribal leaders together and they decided they didn’t want biker gangs and street gangs and Mexican gangs to rule their city. They’ve got everybody riled up and ready to attack.

  “There’s only one thing holding them back.”

  “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

  “Horses. They want to attack on horseback and they don’t have enough of them. They’re desperate for horses, and they’re taking them from wherever and whoever they can get them.”

  Chapter 51

  Scarface Manson had a man named Tom Vega who was something of an electronics whiz back in the real world.

  The “real world” meaning life before the worldwide blackout.

  He’d lived off post at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, coincidentally just a mile or so from the home of Dave and Sarah Anna Speer.

  Dave had once taken a computer to a shop where Tom Vega worked a part-time job as a computer repair man.

  Dave didn’t speak to him directly, but saw him sitting behind the counter as a clerk waited on him and they locked eyes and did the traditional “man nod.”

  Now, four years later, Tom Vega was looking hard to find a way to kill Dave Speer.

  Their lives, since that afternoon at the computer repair shop, had taken vastly different paths.

  Dave went back to his family and his suburban home. Back to the new job he’d taken after getting out of the Marine Corps.

  Back to working a second job, a part-time job, as well. He didn’t really need the second income to survive. But the part time job funded his prepping efforts.

  Back to experimenting with various methods to dry out foods for long term storage. How to cook common prepper foods like macaroni and cheese and chicken and dumplings without perishable additives like milk and margarine.

  How to make his own trail mix by purchasing bulk quantities of peanuts, raisins, marshmallows and the like.

  And most importantly of all, how to hide his prepping activities from his neighbors.

  Tom Vega’s path was far different.

  Each night after going home from his part time job, he sat alone and sulked.

  He sulked because the Army wasn’t what he thought it would be. He’d pictured a fun-filled life, traveling all over the world and having all kinds of adventures.

  Instead he was stuck in San Antonio, just a few miles from where he’d grown up; where he’d spent his entire life.

  And the Army had so many damn rules and regulations.

  He sulked about his part-time job. How he was the most talented repairmen in the shop by far. The one who fixed the things others gave up on.

  The one who deserved a big pay raise, but who saw the other workers get raises instead because the boss liked them better.

  He sulked because his wife of four years nagged him unmercifully about his drinking, about his failure to spend time with the baby, about his attitude in general.

  One night Tom Vega drank too much. Sulked for too long.

  Couldn’t take it anymore.

  Oh, he tried to blame his wife when the next door neighbors called the police.

  Tried to say it was her fault; that it was her constant nagging which caused him to snap.

  “She deserved what she got,” he was quoted as saying on the police report.

  Tom Vega went to jail; his wife spent eight days in the hospital recovering from a severe beating which included a broken jaw and fractured skull.

  He was right about one thing. The Army did indeed have a lot of rules and regulations.

  One of them regarded the beating of one’s wife.

  It turned out the Army frowns upon it.

  The beating occurred on an Army installation, which made it a federal offense. He was sent to Fort Leavenworth military prison for eleven long years.

  The wife?

  She healed completely and met another man. A decent man who showered her with love instead of his fists.

  She divorced Tom Vega and never looked back.

  Chapter 52

  In prison, Vega quickly gained a reputation as someone who could repair the tiny televisions his fellow inmates were allowed to purchase for their cells. It helped him to maintain his skills to a certain degree.

  And when Scarface Manson lamented the fact the video monitors inside the pillbox were badly damaged from his dynamite, he ordered Vega to try to fix them.

  Sarah and Lindsey happened to be sitting on one end of the dining room table playing two-handed solitaire and debating whether it s
hould undergo a change of names. “After all,” Sarah said, “the very nature of two people playing makes it non-solitary at all.”

  “Oh, Mom, don’t be such a butthead.”

  “I’m serious. The term solitaire implies… wait a minute. Did you just call me a butthead?”

  “Sorry. It’s just that… well, sometimes you worry too much about things that aren’t worth worrying about, that’s all.”

  They were distracted by Vega, on the other end of the table, who cursed out loud.

  “Damn it!”

  He’d been working on the last of the monitors which once streamed live video from the trees outside the bunker.

  One by one, Vega examined the monitors and attempted to repair them. But even after scavenging intact parts from some to repair others, he hadn’t been able to get any of them working again.

  His reputation as a good repairman was on the line.

  Scarface would be angry.

  But there just wasn’t enough left of the monitors to work with.

  He gave up.

  Then he stood up.

  And threw the monitor against the wall.

  It was the same bad temper which had made him beat his wife years before. Three years of prison-mandated anger management classes hadn’t worked.

  As he stormed off to tell Scarface he’d given up; that they’d never regain the capability of monitoring activity outside the bunker, Lindsey looked at her mom.

  And both smiled.

  They knew Dave was coming.

  And they’d worried if Vega had been able to fix the monitors, they’d see him coming in time to lay a trap for him.

  Now they knew that would never happen.

  John Parker appeared at the doorway.

  He looked at the carnage of the broken monitor, in shattered pieces all over the dining room floor.

  “What’s the matter, did Vega give up?”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  He looked at Lindsey and asked her, “Lindsey, do you mind if I borrow your mother for a few minutes?”

  Lindsey shrugged and said, “No. I’m tired of her beating me anyway.”

  Sarah looked at Parker and he explained, “I just need to talk to you about something. It’s kind of important.”

  She followed him toward the back of the bunker.

  As they passed one of the storage rooms he stuck his head inside to make sure it was empty.

  It was. They were alone.

  He said, “I just heard a rumor that you’re professing your love for Santos.”

  “Yes. But I don’t really love him. I’m just taking your advice to latch onto one of your men and to pretend to love him. And it’s working, by the way. The others aren’t demanding anything of me anymore. They consider me Santos’ woman.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Santos is gay.”

  “Oh my God, you know that?”

  “Yes. But I’m the only one who does. I just felt it important that you knew it, in case the love you were professing for him was real.”

  “I assure you it’s not. My love belongs… to someone else.”

  “Good. I mean, you and I have spent a lot of time together. I’m a convict and I helped kill some friends of yours.

  “Under those circumstances I would never expect you to call me a friend. But at the same time, I feel a bit of a bond toward you. I don’t want you to be hurt any more than you have been already. If you’d developed a true love for Santos I didn’t want you to be disappointed, that’s all.”

  “John, let me ask you a question.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “Those years you spent in prison… how did you deal with your desires… your needs?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The things your wife did for you before you went to Leavenworth. In your bedroom. The things she was no longer doing for you after you went to prison. How did you get by without those things?”

  He laughed and his face flushed just a bit.

  “Well, some guys resort to the things they used to do when they were teenage boys, in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

  “Other guys just learn to do without. Why do you ask?”

  “I’m not asking about other guys. I’m asking about you. How did you deal with it? Did you resort to your teenaged activities or did you learn to do without?”

  He blushed again.

  “Early on, I resorted to what I did as a teenager. Then later on it just wasn’t worth the effort. I just learned to do without.”

  “And now… Kara tells me that even though she ‘belongs’ to you, you haven’t laid a hand on her.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So even though you have the opportunity, you still do without. Why?”

  “Wait a minute. You said one question. You’re already way past one.”

  “Just answer the question, John Parker. Even though you have the opportunity to make love to Kara, and even though she’s a beautiful woman, you choose not to. Why?”

  “Honestly? I may not be a very nice man. I drove drunk and killed a woman, and crippled her only child. I helped lead a band of marauders that killed three friends of yours.

  “I’m a very bad man in a lot of ways.

  “But I’m not the type of man who is going to force myself on a woman. I’m just not.”

  “I want you to make me a promise, John Parker.”

  “A promise? What kind of promise?”

  John Parker was a fairly smart man, despite the bad decisions he’d made in life.

  But given a million years to try, he still wouldn’t have guessed what was coming next.

  Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  Deeply.

  For more than a full minute.

  When she came up for air she told him, “I want you to promise me you won’t do without anymore. That from now on you’ll come to me. And let me fulfill your needs for you.”

  Chapter 53

  “But Daddy, they’re hurting them.”

  Dave put a finger to his lips.

  Beth dutifully hushed, but she didn’t like what she was watching.

  Sal didn’t either. He turned his head and looked away.

  Luis had his men drag in a friend who happened to be a horseman. And a pretty good blacksmith as well.

  Together the two of them came up with a plan to get Dave, Sal and Beth past what Luis called “the Indian Nation.”

  “They’ll stop you the same way my guys did,” Luis told him.

  “Because just like my guys, they’ll have orders to.”

  “What do you mean, they’ll have orders to stop us?”

  “My guys stopped you because they’ve had standing orders for three weeks now to watch out for a red pickup drawn by two horses. They were told if they ever came across such a vehicle, not to shoot whoever was aboard. But instead they were to bring it to me.

  “And they did exactly that.

  “The Indians, on the other hand, have standing orders to stop and take any horse which happens by.

  “And have no doubt, they’ll do exactly that.

  “The only way they’ll let you keep your horses is if you convince them they’re not worth stealing. You have to make them appear crippled so they won’t want them.”

  Dave was leery at first. Even when Luis asked his friend Eddie if there was a way to make a sound horse appear lame and Eddie replied “sure” he was hesitant.

  But he honestly couldn’t see another option.

  They were past the halfway point. They’d already gone most of the way through a very dangerous city.

  Turning back and retraveling the same dangerous route wasn’t a good option.

  Neither was going ahead without a game plan to get the rest of the way out of the city.

  If this was the best plan they could come up with, he had no choice but to go with it.

  “I can pry one of their shoes up and place a pebble beneath it,” Eddie sugges
ted.

  “The horse will favor that hoof, and to someone who doesn’t know why he’ll appear to be lame. Especially if the people on the highway aren’t horse people.”

  “But the horses are still young and healthy,” Sal protested. Surely they’ll be able to see that and wonder why young and sturdy horses are behaving so. Surely that’ll make them look closer. And what happens if they examine the hoof and find the pebble?”

  “Look. Traveling for long distances on pavement is bad for horses anyway. Anyone who owns horses will know that. Pull the license plates off the back of your rig. Then tell them you came from Alaska. That you barely survived the winter up there, so as soon as it was over you put two strong horses on your pickup and set out for the lower forty eight.

  “If they think you’ve come three thousand miles with the same team of horses they’ll understand how such young and strong horses can be lame.

  “As for the pebble, they won’t be able to see it beneath the horseshoe. There won’t be any visible reason they’ll be able to see what makes the horse favor that one leg. The only possible explanation, unless they pull the shoe, is that the horse is lame.”

  It seemed, in theory, to have merit.

  Dave hated it, though, for a couple of reasons.

  First of all because the horses didn’t deserve any of this. They’d been loyal servants since Sal and Beth left Adelanto. It just wasn’t fair to them to repay their service by causing them pain.

  Second, there was no way, despite Eddie’s promises, to guarantee they wouldn’t be permanently harmed.

  Still, again, Dave couldn’t see another way to go.

  He took Beth aside and took a knee.

  “I promise you, honey, we won’t make the horses suffer any longer than we have to. If we can get past the Indian roadblock we’ll find the safest place we can and I’ll pry those pebbles out of the shoes myself.”

  “Do you promise, Daddy?”

  “I promise honey.”

  Eddie gave Dave a tool to pry up the end of the horse shoes, a pair of needle nose pliers to remove the pebbles, and some shoe nails to tack the shoes back into place.

  Dave said goodbye to Luis.