by N. C. Reed
“Could be,” Billy shrugged. “Or could be someone on the road, found that rifle in a house, and wanted to make sure it worked for they took the trouble to pack it along.”
“I’m inclined to think it’s somebody ‘round here, though,” Billy went on. “That gravel pit’s kinda off the beaten path. Unless somebody just lucked up on it, they’d near ‘bout have to know where it was to find it.”
“That’s true,” Jerry nodded. “Guess we’ll need to be extra careful, next little while.” Billy nodded.
“What’d you think about those two friends of George’s?”
“Don’t know’em, can’t think much about’em,” Billy shrugged. “Be nice to have a couple more grown men around, especially if they know how to handle themselves.” He looked at Jerry intently.
“We seen a couple days ago how bad things may get. It’s comin’ winter time, and folks that ain’t prepared is gonna be scared. Scared people do dumb things. We got it pretty good, here. Anyone finds or figures that out, we’re gonna have company callin’. Worries me, some, what might happen.”
“Yeah, me too,” Jerry sighed. “I. . .I don’t know, sometimes, Billy,” he admitted after a pause. “I’m pretty sure we won’t regret askin’ George and Ralph to come here. But others? I just don’t know.”
“Well, we can always go meet’em, like we did George,” Billy shrugged. “Don’t see no other way to find out if we think we can trust them, or anyone else, for that matter. Thing is,” he added, gesturing skyward, “I don’t fancy being’ out and about in hard winter, can it be helped. That means, we got to go soon, or wait for spring.”
“Some folks we’d like to maybe have might not make spring,” he finished with another shrug, this one more questioning.
“Hadn’t thought about it like that,” Jerry admitted. “I guess I figured everyone would make plans for the winter.”
“Remember what Ralph said about Franklin,” Billy cautioned. “Ever body acting’ like the canned and dried stuff in the groceries would last’em a good long while. They’ll be people out on their own, like us, that’ll be fine, if they take precautions. Places like Franklin are what bother me. Lot o' people there. Cold, hungry, angry people. Decide that us country folks got a plenty, and they only want their ‘fair share’.”
“Fair share is it?” Jerry snorted, angry. “Funny, I didn’t see them out here workin’ to get the food in.”
“Won’t matter none to them,” Billy shook his head. “All they gonna see is that we got what they need, and it’s only ‘right’ that we give it to’em.”
“That ain’t happenin’,” Jerry said forcefully.
“I agree,” Billy assured him. “And that means we’ll have to fight, sooner or later, to keep what’s ours. Better be ready for it, all I’m sayin’.”
The three of them stood there, soaking in that last statement. They’d already fought more than they’d expected. There was sure to be more to come.
Shrugging it off, they decided to join the girls. Soon there was talk of supper, and Toby saddled his horse to go and get his mother. They’d make a good meal tonight at Billy and Rhonda’s, and celebrate the good things.
That was all they could do for the moment.
*****
After the Silvers had gone, Billy sat up late. Rhonda had already taken a bath and gone to bed, warning Billy not to be up too late. He promised he wouldn’t if he could help it.
But he couldn’t help it.
Finding that the ‘range’ had been used bothered him. Not in an ‘I’m scared’ kinda way, but in a ‘who was it’ kind of way. He wanted to know who it was, and where they had gone.
The more he chewed on it, the more certain he was that it had to be someone local. There just wasn’t much chance that a casual passer by would find that gravel pit. It was in back of beyond.
Unless, he decided, someone was deliberately following rural roads, and keeping off any main roads. Staying out of sight, moving from place to place, just scavenging what he or she could to get by, and then moving on again.
Billy had to admit that for someone who wasn’t prepared, that wasn’t a bad way to get along, things being what they were. It was a lot like the train, really, at least on theory. He hoped that whoever it was didn’t share the train people’s way of thinking about every one else.
If someone was out there, have they moved on? Or have they decided to stay, with winter coming on? If they decided to stay, did they know about the folks already living here? Was that the reason they’d decided to stay?
Too many questions and not enough answers. Billy shook his head and got to his feet.
He had work to do tomorrow. He’d need rest.
He headed up the stairs to Rhonda, leaving the problem behind for tonight.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Hey, Billy!” Ralph called as he and George rode into the yard. Rommel was instantly on guard, but since he knew the two men, he waited to see if he’d have to attack or not.
“Fellas,” Billy nodded, laying aside the hammer he’d been using. He was beefing up the ‘shack’ as he called it, where his secondary storage was. “What’s goin’ on?”
“You got a minute?” George asked. “We need to talk to someone with some local flavor.”
“Well, I guess that’s me, okay,” Billy grinned. “Ya’ll wanna come in? Rhonda’s got some coffee on.”
“Sure!” the two men chorused. Coffee was hard to come by.
Once seated, with Rhonda joining them, the two men got down to business.
“We talked to Jerry yesterday about maybe making some bio-diesel,” Ralph said. “We’ve not ever done it, but we know how it’s done. Thing is, there’s some stuff we’ll need in order to make a start. And,” he added, “we’ll need some specific seeds to grow the best crops for the process.”
“Well, what kinda ‘quipment do ya need?” Billy asked, frowning a little.
The talk turned technical after that. George and Ralph went over the plan they had worked out over the last evening, and Billy tried to follow. Finally, though, he gave up.
“Look, guys,” he said, sighing, “this is lost on me. I can’t follow half what you’re sayin’. Tell me what you need to make it work.”
“Oh, uh, yeah,” Ralph looked a little embarrassed. “Sorry, we kinda get carried away.”
“No problem,” Billy nodded. “But I can’t really follow all that technical stuff. And anyway, I ain’t gotta. I just need to know what you need. Then we’ll see if I know where it is, or if we gotta go lookin’ for it.”
George produced a list, which he handed over. Billy read it, frowning at times, nodding at others.
“Okay, I know, roughly, where we can get about half this stuff,” he told them. “Some of the others, I don’t even know what they are. You need to decide what you need first, to get started. And you need to list alternatives we can all be lookin’ for, in case we can’t find what you want, or there ain’t enough of it.”
Both men looked at him for a moment, the looks on their faces indicating they hadn’t thought about any of that. Rhonda didn’t quite smirk as she refilled their coffee cups.
“Uh, yeah, we can do that,” George nodded. “You think we can get the stuff in the town nearby?”
“Some of it,” Billy nodded. “The hardware for almost certain. Some o’ them chemicals, I don’t know. Maybe. That oil, cookin’ oil and the like, we can scavenge from restaurants at first, to get you started. After that?” Billy shrugged.
“Best bet would be if we could find a warehouse that had a lot of it.”
“Well, the oil is just for now, and to help us get the project going, and perfect our. . .well, methods. To make diesel in any significant amount, we’ll have to plant a lot of acreage in something we can extract oil from.”
“Such as?” Rhonda asked.
“Probably rapeseed,” George replied. “It’s what they make canola oil from, and it’s about the best oil for making bio-diesel, at least so far as I kno
w of. There’s plenty of others, too, but if we can generate canola oil on a big scale, we’re on our way to makin’ bio-diesel.”
“Sunflower oil is about the next best thing,” Ralph opined. “It’s not quite as good as canola, but it’s still pretty good.”
“Can you mix the two?” Billy asked. He got owl blinks in reply.
“I have no idea,” Ralph admitted. “None at all.”
“Well, ‘spect we can worry on that later,” Billy shrugged. “You guys get your lists straight, and then we’ll head into town. What we can’t get there, we’ll have to go further out for.”
“That could be risky, too,” Rhonda spoke up. “Don’t forget the train.”
“You really think they’re still around?” Ralph asked, frowning.
“No idea,” Billy held his hands up, palm up. “But I ain’t takin’ no chances. We’ll be extra careful. But still, this is somethin’ we need. Without it, we’re back to a mule and a plow. We can stay fed, but you can forget anything extra.”
“If we can keep machinery going, we can grow wheat, too,” Ralph nodded. “Be nice to still be able to bake bread a year or two from now.”
“Sure would!” Rhonda enthused. Mostly to cover her near slip of revealing that she and Billy would have bread in a year or two. No sense sharing that, as Billy liked to say.
“What about these two other fellas ya’ll was talkin’ about?” Billy asked. “Tell me more about them. Or anyone you’ve thought of besides.”
“Well, Terry Blaine is about forty-two, maybe forty-three, I can’t recall exactly now. He’s married, wife’s name is Maria. They got two kids, a boy who’s twelve, I think, and the girl is nine. He’s a gunsmith. Got to doing that work in the Army, and kept it up afterward.” he broke off as Billy rolled his eyes.
“He’s also a pretty fair mechanic, or was when we were in service together. Maria was a veterinarian assistant. Well, I guess she still is.”
“Pete Two Bears is an Apache Indian. By now he’s got to be, oh, twenty-six, maybe twenty-seven. He joined up at seventeen, to get off the reservation. He settled in Tennessee because his last duty post was Fort Campbell.”
“Paratrooper?” Ralph asked.
“Nah, they don’t do the paratroop thing anymore,” Billy shook his head.
“Right,” George nodded. “They use helicopters. Air Assault they call it, now. Anyway, Pete was a designated marksman, what they used to call a sniper. Hell of a tracker. Several NCO’s tried to get him to go SF, but he was determined to get out. Said he’d done his thing.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Ralph nodded.
“Anyway, they’re sorta hangin’ together at the moment, I think. At least they were together when I saw them at Franklin. That was. . .two, no, more like three months ago now.”
“They’re good people, you think?” Ralph asked.
“I think so,” George nodded. “Served with them in Iraq, and Afghanistan. We were in the same squad, in fact, in Iraq. Same platoon in ‘stan. Took fire with’em,” he added solemnly.
“Always a resume booster,” Ralph agreed. “Any down side?
“Terry can be short tempered,” George nodded. “His wife, o’ course, takes some o’ that starch outta him. She wasn’t with us in theater, mind, but when she’s around, he’s better behaved.”
“That short temper be a problem?” Billy asked.
“I really don’t think so,” George shook his head. “Like I said, it was while we were in country. Man acts different, times like that.”
“What about. . .Two Bears, did you call him?” Billy asked.
“Pete’s kind of a loner,” George said. “Quiet, unassuming. But he is lightning fast, and as dangerous as a rattlesnake. If you hear him rattle, it’s too late.”
“I take it he’d not be inclined to act such upon us?” Ralph asked.
“Nah, he ain’t like that,” George assured his friend. “And he’s a hard worker. Man he could go all day, seemed like, and never stop. He works slow but steady, and just keeps right on until the job’s done.”
“I like that,” Billy nodded. “I tend to do that some.”
“He’s a lot like you, Billy,” George nodded. “Lot o' the same ways about you. Slow, deliberate thinking, but once the actions starts, he never hesitates.” Billy murmured something the others couldn’t hear, his ears reddening at the implied compliment. Rhonda snickered, but held her tongue.
“Well, I guess if we’re gonna contact them, or anyone else, we need to do it soon,” Billy sighed. “I gotta feelin’ we ain’t gonna be too mobile once winter sets in. I figure this’ll be a cold one, and likely wet, too. Travel might get pretty dangerous.”
“Well, I can call Terry on the HAM,” George offered. “See if he’s interested. He’ll know how to contact Pete, if he thinks Pete might be interested.”
“Ralph, what about you?” Rhonda asked. “Anyone else you can think of, that might make a go of it here? Especially someone with skills we need?”
Ralph pursed his lips together, thinking. He snorted, finally, and grinned a bit lop-sided.
“Well, yeah, there’s one,” he answered finally. “One outfit, actually, but I don’t much think you’ll want him around here.”
“Who?” Billy asked warily.
“Ben Kelvey and his bunch,” Ralph admitted.
“Oh, hell no!” Rhonda snapped out before Billy could even reply. “I ought to whack you upside the head for even suggestin’ it!”
“Hold on gal,” Ralph held his arms up in appeasement. “I said you’re not likely to want him around, but hear me out, okay?” Rhonda folded her arms, her face set into a look that said it’s not happening, but she didn’t object.
“Ben really ain’t a bad sort,” Ralph told her. “You saw him on a very bad day, don’t forget. Man loves his family. Can’t fault him for that. Ain’t sayin’ what he did was right by any means, I’m just sayin’ you caught him on a bad day.”
“Ben is good fella, just got a mite o’ temper. You should know how that is,” he risked a grin at the flame haired Rhonda, who snorted. She was not amused.
“Anyway, if his brother, Jonathon, and their nephew Howie survived, they’d make a good addition around here. Ben is a carpenter. I don’t mean a shade tree one, neither. A master carpenter. Can build a whole house from scratch, you give him the goods for it.”
“Jon used to drive a log truck. Big woodsman. Knows how to hunt, track, and the like. So good that people hire him as a guide during huntin’ season, you know?”
“Howie is an electrician. Rebuilds electric engines, appliance repairs, wires houses from the box on. In fact, when Ben built a house, it was usually Howie who wired it, unless he was busy somewhere else. They’re all pretty handy.”
“I. . .I don’t know about Beth,” he admitted. “After what happened, I got no idea what frame of mind she’ll be in, or whether her and Howie are even still together.”
“Anyway, like I said, they’re pretty good stock, all things considered. And I’m fair sure Ben is sorry for what he did and said,” he added. “I mean, that crunch to the jaw didn’t hurt him, none, either,” Ralph grinned, nodding to Billy. “But honestly, he’s not bad people.”
“I have to agree,” George nodded. “No one ever had anything bad to say about Ben, or any of the rest, either. Stick to their own knittin’, and take care o’ each other. And,” he added thoughtfully, “right now, they’d be likely to react pretty well to becoming part o’ this set-up. Things ain’t good in Franklin. And if Jon and Howie ain’t able to work, Ben will work enough for all of them. That’s just the way he is. He don’t want charity. He works for everything he gets. They’re all like that.”
Rhonda looked at Billy, clearly expecting him to say no.
“We can talk to him,” Billy said evenly.
“What?” Rhonda all but screeched.
“Rhonda, I told you before I didn’t think he was a bad man,” Billy said calmly. “And he ain’t like to forget that jaw, nei
ther,” he admitted. “If he’s as good as these guys think he is, then we can at least talk to him. And his family.”
Rhonda spluttered, looking for a coherent thought.
“We can always say no,” Billy reminded her.
Rhonda harrumphed loudly.
“We can,” Billy stressed.
“Fine,” she waved the subject away.
“Rhonda, I swear,” George said earnestly. “If I thought, even for a second, that he would cause trouble, I wouldn’t even mention him. I like Ben, but I love my family. This place is a paradise in the time’s we’re livin’ in right now. My family is safe, sheltered, and well fed. I won’t risk that for anyone.”
“Same here,” Ralph agreed with an emphatic nod. “And if I get even a hint of a suspicion of a thought that he might make trouble, I’ll tell you straight out. Like George said, I don’t like nobody that much.”
“We can talk to him,” Rhonda muttered. “Ain’t no harm in talkin’, I reckon.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The next day, despite any misgivings, Billy took George and Ralph into Cedar Bend. All were armed, of course, and Billy pulled one of his empty trailers.
“Be careful,” Rhonda whispered as she adjusted Billy’s collar against the morning cold.
“You know I will,” he grinned at her. “Always careful.”
“No, Billy, you’re not,” Rhonda sighed. “Go on, and get, now. Sooner you’re done, sooner you’re back.” She kissed him lightly, and stood on the porch as he walked to the truck. She waved at George and Ralph, then walked into the house.
“You’re a lucky man, Billy, if they ain’t nobody told you already,” George told him. “She’s got sand. Like my Debbie. Man got a woman that’ll stick by him in times like this, he’s blessed.”
“I know,” Billy said quietly.
They drove to town amid talk of what they could do, and what they could do it with. It was a chance for them to see some more of the available farm land, and to get a look at the grimness of what was left of Cedar Bend, Tennessee. Population now zero. And holding.
