by John Grit
Martha threw the coat she was using for a blanket off her and had a shotgun in her hands in a second.
Cindy jumped up and ran to the gun corner, then realized there was no danger.
“Sorry to wake everyone,” Nate said. “We’re trying to setup something to keep the kids away from the guns. This cabinet will hold them. Adults could break into it easily, but it has a hasp up high enough they can’t reach it, so it will do to keep kids out.”
Martha carried her shotgun to where most of the other guns were leaning in a corner. “Oh. Good idea.” She rubbed sleep from her eyes. “Might as well start breakfast,” she said, stretching to get the kinks out of her back.
“Well,” Nate said, “it looks like you two are starting to be like combat vets when they first get home. Wives of combat vets often have to use a broom handle to wake their husbands. Otherwise, they might get hit.”
“No man is ever going to hit me again,” Carrie stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by sleepy-eyed children still lying on the floor, holding a butcher knife in her hand, “even if he doesn’t like being woke up.”
Everyone but the smaller children had their eyes on Carrie. Kendell stood near her, his eyes fixed on the blade. He carefully backed away. Brian stood next to Nate, his face revealing the tension inside him.
Nate pointed to a small table on the side of the room. “Do me a favor and put that knife over there.” He spoke in a calm voice. “It’s dangerous to have it that close to the kids.”
She took her time, stepping between children, as she made her way to the table. After laying it down, she turned and walked toward the stove, threw several pieces of firewood in, and looked up at Nate. “I laid on it so the kids couldn’t get cut.” She looked at Kendell. “I kept it close because I don’t know him.” She motioned with her head toward Kendell.
“Do you think a boy who took care of children, going hungry so they could eat, and placing himself in danger to protect them, would be like those animals who hurt you and Caroline?” Nate asked, his voice still calm. “His chances would have been a lot higher without them.”
She threw a handful of tender in the stove and blew on it. The smoldering coals flared up and ignited the thin slivers of sappy pinewood. She closed the stove door and looked up at Nate while still kneeling. “He’s probably okay, but I’m not taking any chances.” Her voice grew strong with conviction. The scars on her face deepened as her emotion rose to the surface. “No one is ever going to hurt me again.”
Nate swallowed. “Not until they kill me and Brian.”
“And me,” Martha said.
“And me.” Cindy took her shotgun and put it in the cabinet. “The kids are up now. We better put these guns away.”
~~~~
Chet’s voice came in over Nate’s radio. “They might be carrying the plague. Did you think about that? Any of them sick?”
Nate keyed the mike. “They were sick from starvation and drinking swamp water, but they’re all getting better now. We just cannot take care of that many small kids.”
“Sorry, we just can’t take on that many kids either. Maybe one or two, but not all of them. We’re short on food as it is.”
Brian clenched his jaw, but kept quiet.
“I understand you would be taking on a lot, but we are a small group here. Yours is much larger.”
“I tell you what: we’ll take four of the oldest ones. I promise you they will be treated well, and if they go hungry it will be because we are all going hungry.”
Nate was glad they had taken all the children outside before he called the Big Oak group.
Kendell broke in. “Why does he want the oldest ones, for slaves? No way!”
Nate raised a hand to quiet him. “We’re not selling the kids out, but the fact is we cannot take care of all of them.”
“I took care of ‘em all by myself, and I can do it again.” Kendell could not stand in one place. He pounded his right fist into his left open hand, while he paced back and forth across the room. His lips moved, but no more words came out.
“Get real,” Brian said, “they were starving and so were you.”
“Shh.” Nate keyed the mike. “We’ll get back with you after we decide. Have you made any progress on the security measures we talked about?”
“Some.” Chet’s voice came in sounding like he had breathed helium but could be understood well enough. “We’ve had storm damage here, so I called them back to help out.”
That bit of information caused Nate to jerk his head and look up at the ceiling. “Security is important, so important it is a twenty-four/seven job, not just when it’s convenient.”
“I don’t see you out there manning the observation posts.”
Nate’s neck muscles tensed. “This is not something to talk about over the air. I will get back with you on the other problem.”
“Okay, fine. I doubt Big Pine will take all of them either. Just because we’re larger groups does not mean we’re any better off in the food department than you.”
Nate signed off and turned the radio switch off to save battery power.
Kendell stepped closer to Nate. “Don’t be begging anyone to take those kids. If they don’t want ‘em and they take ‘em anyway, they’re likely to not take care of ‘em, or worse.”
“I understand what you are saying, and I know you are worried about them.” Nate looked more exhausted than he did after days of fighting the raiders on the dirt road. “I was hoping to keep them together so you could go with them and make sure they will be taken care of. Not that we are trying to get rid of you. In fact, you would be an asset here.”
“But you want to get rid of them ‘cause they’re too little to work and are just trouble.” Kendell’s voice rose, bouncing off the bunker’s concrete walls.
Brian got in Kendell’s face. “He’s doing the best he can. You’re accusing him of things that aren’t true and you better back off.” He clenched both fists.
Nate got between them and pushed Brian back. “Calm down, both of you. All of this friction is caused by the fact we all care about those kids and are worried.” He looked at Brian and then at Kendell. “And we all know there is not enough food here to last long if they stay.”
Kendell seemed to lose all energy and sat down against a wall, staring at something only he saw.
Nate turned to Brian. “Either be quiet, or go outside while I call the other group. “I expect Mrs. MacKay will take them all, but who knows. The way things are now, we cannot count on much of anything.”
“I can.” Brian stared at Kendell. “I can count on my father doing the right thing.” He opened the cabinet, grabbed an AR-15 and stomped out of the room.
Nate switched the radio on. “Calling Big Pine. Come in.”
The radio signal from Big Pine was weak and garbled. Their aerial had been blown down by the storm, and they were using a jury-rigged one. Someone at Big Pine was able to listen in on Nate’s contact with Chet at Big Oak and had told Mrs. MacKay of Nate’s problem.
Mrs. Mackay first asked if any of the children were sick or injured. Her next transmission was, “We will take them all.”
Nate looked across the room at Kendell. A light shined in Nate’s eyes that was not there before. “Thank you. There is a small chance it will be temporary. I’m going to keep trying to raise the Guard or some other government agency. They have to have set up orphanages by now.”
“I wouldn’t place my hope on the government,” Mrs. MacKay said.
Nate keyed the mike. “I hear you.”
They made arrangements for two trucks to be at Nate’s farm four days later, sometime in the afternoon. The children were still weak. Nate wanted to give them more time to recover while being fed regularly. Two days for them to rest and recover from bad water and little food, and two days to get them to the farm.
“We’re running low on vehicles,” she said, “even the diesels are quitting on us one by one. The men are doing their best, but there are no spare
parts and the diesel fuel is growing some kind of slime in it.”
Nate knew she was referring to what many called dinosaur snot—slime that grows in untreated diesel fuel—but did not want to waste battery power talking about it on the radio. He thanked her again and signed off. “They must have some really old fuel over there.” He spoke to himself, thinking out loud.
“Are you going with us to see what’s it’s like there?” Kendell asked. “I don’t want no misunderstanding about how the kids will be taken care of.”
“I don’t think there are any misunderstandings. Mrs. MacKay is an old family friend.”
Kendell appeared to be growing angry again. “If you ain’t just dumping them off, you should at least do that.”
Nate looked him in the eye and nodded. “Okay. I will go with you. But I hope you understand something yourself.”
“What’s that?”
“What you are asking, and I’m not so sure it should be called asking, is no small thing. While I’m gone, everyone here will be on their own, and there is still the storm mess to clear out of the way and a field to clear and plow for a winter crop…if we can have a winter crop with the weather acting so strange.”
Kendell looked back at Nate, who outweighed him by one hundred pounds, with no fear. “Things is bad for everyone right now.”
Nate snickered. “Yeah.” He headed for the door. “How about helping us remove storm debris. Brian should be making up trot lines so we can use some of that deer of yours for fish bait. Later, I’ll show you how to make fish traps out of vines and sticks. If we hurry, we might be able to set the line and one trap before dark.” He looked over his shoulder as he walked. “Then we’ll all have fish tomorrow.”
~~~~
The next day, Nate, Brian, and Kendell were down at the river. Nate watched Brian pull in the trotline. It quivered and yanked at his hand. The three of them had gotten up before sunrise and rushed down to the river with empty packs to carry more of the cached supplies with them on the way back to the bunker, as well as any fish they may have caught the night before.
“There’s quite a few on it,” Brian said.
Nate pulled a stringer out of a faded fatigue jacket pocket. He unwound it and handed it to Kendell. “String them on this to carry with.”
While Brian and Kendell were busy with the trot line, Nate pulled the trap out of the river. Splashing fish told him they had plenty for a big meal. “We’re going to be busy cleaning fish when we get back.” There were two bass, about a pound and a half each. The rest were all catfish or bream, mostly blue gills.
They loaded their packs with most of what was left of the cache and headed for the bunker.
It was getting late by the time they cleaned the fish and had a good bed of glowing coals in a fire, ready to shovel into a pit. They found a four-foot square of expanded steel Mel had left for a grill in the cave. After shoveling hot coals into the pit, the grill was put on top and the bream and bass spread out, smothered in barbeque sauce. The children would enjoy the barbeque taste, and they wanted to give them the less boney flesh. The smaller catfish were in a pot of peanut oil, deep-frying over the fire.
“This is the last time we’ll be doing this: no more peanut oil,” Brian said.
“No more barbeque sauce either,” Martha added.” We should enjoy this fish fry and barbeque while we can.”
Nate lifted a wire fryer half-full of catfish from the boiling pot of peanut oil and set it aside to let it drain and cool.
The sun hung low to the west, just behind the tree line. Nate stopped for a few minutes to take in the colorful show. Back to work again, he checked the fish on the grill. Flakes of flesh pulled away as he used a fork to test how well cooked it was. He pulled a piece off and ate it. “It’s ready. Time to start feeding the kids before it gets too dark.”
Kendell used a rag to keep from burning his hands on the wire handle and grabbed a large pot of beans. He carried it to a makeshift table, twenty feet long and only two feet wide. “Did all you kids wash your hands?”
They sat on benches made of logs, squirming and impatient. Only three answered, some did not even nod.
“If you haven’t washed your hands, go inside and do it now.” Kendell nodded at the oldest boy. “Pump water for them and see to it they wash.” He ladled beans on plate after plate. “Eat all you can. There’s plenty, and we have a long walk ahead of us starting tomorrow.” Several of the children scurried off to the bunker, the boy in the lead.
Brian pulled his carbine around from his back where it hung. “I better hide in the woods and stand watch while you eat.”
Nate nodded. He slid a pile of cleaned fish off a plate into the hot grease. “I’ll relieve you in about thirty, forty minutes.”
Brian walked into the woods, his eyes searching for trouble.
Cindy brought a Dutch oven full of hot biscuits out of the bunker and put one each on every plate. She left to bake more on the wood stove.
One by one, the children ate heartily, but they soon filled themselves and pushed away from the table, refusing offers of more. They stretched and yawned, eyes sleepy.
Kendell pulled his jacket closed and buttoned it. “It’s gettin’ chilly again. At least the bloodsuckers ain’t out heavy like usual, but the kids should be inside before they catch a cold.”
Martha smiled. “You’re a regular mother hen. They’re lucky to have you.”
Kendell looked uncomfortable. “I wish there was more clothes for ‘em. If we leave early in the morn, it’s goin’ to be cold, and they ain’t got hardly a stitch on ‘em.”
No one said anything. There was nothing to say. They just did not have any more clothes for them.
“We’re going to have a hard time getting them to the farm before dark tomorrow even if we leave early,” Nate said. “They are a lot stronger now, but most of them are too small to walk fast or far, and we can carry only a few of them.”
Kendell threw more wood on the fire for light and warmth, even though they did not need any more coals to cook with. “At least they been gettin’ fed lately.” The wind picked up, and flames flickered out from the fire, leaning off to leeward in red and orange feathers. “I haveta thank all of you for that. We was havin’ a hard time when you helped and changed things.”
Martha gave him a quick hug. “You’re welcome. We’re going to miss you and the kids. I wish we could…we just can’t.” She stepped back away from the firelight and stood silently in the dark shadows. After a few minutes, she went back to work.
~~~~
The next morning most of the children cried when they were gently shaken awake, knowing they were leaving the only place where they had been comfortable in many months. It was more than an hour before sunrise, but there was much to do before they could leave when it would be light enough to see.
All the children were fed well, shoed and clothed poorly, kept halfway under control, and led into the woods. Martha, Cindy, and Carrie waved their tearful goodbyes. Nate and Kendell carried four of the smallest on a stretcher. They sat with their little legs hanging over the sides, swaying with their carriers’ movements. Brian carried the little girl with a cut foot, his carbine hanging out of the way on his back, next to the backpack. Nate was concerned about their lack of real security measures, but there was no way to keep a weapon in their hands while carrying children.
They carried as much food as they could, but if something went wrong and the others did not arrive as planned, they would soon be going hungry. Nate, having learned by painful experience, understood well that plans can go to hell fast. He always preferred to have a backup plan or two, but this time he had none. They carried enough water to get to the farm. After that, there was the hand pump to refill all their canteens. What troubled him was he had no idea if that pump was still in working condition. If vandals had damaged it while they were gone, they would soon be boiling river water again.
~~~~
Nate stood back in the shadows, scanning his field
with binoculars, now overgrown with weeds. The barn and house seemed to be untouched. A careful search revealed no danger, no one in the area, and no sign anyone had been there since they left.
Brian kept his carbine ready, looking around behind them, and down toward the river as far as he could see.
Kendell had his rifle in his hands, but his attention was on the children, trying to keep them quiet and still. Most were tired and not too active, several were falling asleep, but the older ones wanted to walk around and play. After spending a cold, uncomfortable night in the woods and walking all of one day and half of a second, none of them were in a good mood. Nate and Brian could have made the trip in an hour during normal times before it became too dangerous to travel fast in the woods, but the small children could not walk far without resting every thirty minutes. Nate did not hold out much hope they could get the children to the farm before nightfall, anyway and was not surprised they had to stay one night in the woods.
Kendell snapped his fingers. “Git back over here.” He kept his voice low, but his tone convinced two wayward boys to obey.
“Here.” Nate handed the binoculars to Brian. “Overwatch while I make my way around and circle the farm. I’ll be coming back from the river.”
“It doesn’t look like they’ve been here,” Brian said. “They should have been here waiting, and we aren’t late, so they didn’t get tired of waiting and leave.”
“Yeah. It’ll be dark soon. I better get going.” Nate left his pack with them and faded into the woods.
The sounds of several vehicles rattling down the long and winding drive alerted Nate. He turned and ran the short distance back to the safety of the woods and waited where he could see as they passed. He was surprised when he saw that the first pickup contained only one person, the driver. The second pickup conveyed only the driver also.
