by Marla Monroe
Destiny studied the map once again and made some calculations. She should be close to where a community had once lived by now. Soon she should start seeing homes that would be scattered out around a small town. God let her not have made a miscalculation somewhere along the way. She was so tired and hungry.
After putting everything away, she stood up and started walking once again. Each step she took seemed to be more and more difficult. She realized after about thirty minutes that she was on the verge of exhaustion. If she didn’t stop soon and rest for more than fifteen or twenty minutes, Destiny wasn’t sure she would be able to recover enough to make it at all. The idea of bedding down out in the open terrified her. She was sure something terrible would happen to her if she did. No, it was better to keep going until she found somewhere relatively safe.
An hour later, the sound of voices had her stopping to listen. It took her a few seconds to calm her racing heart so she could hear better.
“Need someone to help us with this blasted garden, Dave. I’m tired of working sun up to sundown all the time,” one man said.
“Harper, you rarely work a good eight hours as it is. I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” another man said.
“If Jason would let the women out of the house to help us it wouldn’t be so bad. I mean, at least it would be someone helping, and we’d have a pretty woman to look at while we worked,” the first man spoke again.
“Well, that ain’t happening. He’s too scared something will happen to them. He’s probably right, you know. Between the damn wolves and bears and those black market agents roaming around, a woman ain’t safe out in the open.”
Destiny listened for a few more minutes, then slowly backed away from them so they couldn’t hear her as she walked around them. She wasn’t thrilled with their conversation, but it sounded like they wouldn’t turn down some help in exchange for food and a place to sleep. She didn’t have a lot of options at the moment. Provided they didn’t find out she was a woman and not the teenage boy she was pretending to be, Destiny felt like it was the perfect place to rest for a few days.
She quickly located the drive leading up to a two-story house with a very large garden stretched out behind the house and woods on either side. She approached the front porch in a slow stride with her hands out by her sides. She was sure someone would see her before she made it to the porch, and she didn’t want them to shoot first and ask questions later.
Sure enough, a tall man stepped out on the porch with a rifle cradled in his arms. He looked very comfortable with it to her. She stopped walking and stared out from under her hat, forcing a smile to her face.
“Hi there. I was wondering if you had some work I could do for a place to sleep and some food for a few days. I’m making my way out to my cousins’ place on the other side of Montana.” Destiny held her breath in hopes the man wouldn’t just chase her off his property.
“You don’t look like you can do much work. You’re a scrawny thing. How old are you?” the man asked.
“I’m nineteen, and I’m stronger than I look,” she answered, keeping her voice pitched low.
He grunted and motioned for her to come closer. Destiny had to make her feet move toward the porch and the man who could either shoot her, send her on her way, or offer her a place to rest and food in her tummy. Her gut feeling was that it wasn’t the best of choices, but since she really didn’t have anything else to choose from, she needed him to agree to let her work for food and a place to rest.
After staring her over for a full minute, the man nodded. “Come with me.”
Destiny followed him around to the back of the house where a barn stood not far from the garden. He opened the door and led her inside. Inside were three horses and a great deal of farming equipment. The place was in decent shape, but it needed work. The smell of grass and manure was strong but comforting in a way.
“Here you go. You can bunk down here at night.” He indicated an empty stall. “Stow your things here, and I’ll show you what needs doing in the garden. Won’t be long ’til it’s time to pull it all up and till it under for the winter.”
He didn’t give her much time to pull off her pack and drop everything to the floor before he was striding across the barn once again. Destiny followed him back out to a small shed he opened up.
“Here are the garden tools. Keep them clean and straight. You can start by gathering anything that looks ripe and carrying it to the back door. Just knock and leave the basket on the steps. Someone will come out and get it. Then start hoeing the weeds that are trying to take over. Dinner will be around dark. Wash up and knock on the back door. Someone will hand you out a plate. Any questions?” he asked.
“Uh, no, sir. I’ll get to work now.” Destiny swallowed at the amount of work to be done.
The garden was almost as large as a football field. But then, considering that there were at least five other people, if not more, living there, they would need a large garden to feed themselves.
She selected a basket and hurried back to the garden to start gathering anything that was ripe. She prayed she chose the right ones, and soon she filled the basket with everything from tomatoes, to beans, to cucumbers. When she filled one basket all the way up, she placed it on the steps and knocked on the back door before returning to the shed to locate another basket. By the time she’d filled that one and left it at the back door, Destiny was already exhausted. Where she was going to get the energy to hoe, she didn’t know.
She took a quick break and drank some water from the water hose. After wiping sweat from her face, she glanced at the sky and noted that clouds were building. It would probably rain that night, but it wasn’t the storm she was expecting. No, this one would just be a small squall compared to one that was building up. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she’d always known when the weather would turn ugly. Didn’t matter if it was going to snow or rain, she just knew when and if it was going to be bad.
Taking the hoe out into the garden, she located the worst areas of grass and started there. It was hard work. She wished she had gloves, but she hadn’t seen any in the shed. She would remember to get some the next time she ventured into a large enough town with an abandoned store she could look through. Gloves would always come in handy.
Two hours later, she stopped and sat down where she was to rest. Sweat poured off of her, and she was shaky all over. After she had rested for a few minutes, Destiny climbed back to her feet and carried the hoe back to the shed. She made sure it was clean and dry, then washed up as well. It was nearly dark now, and she was starving to the point that her belly hurt more than ached.
She knocked on the back door and waited for someone to bring her something to eat. After what seemed like forever, a man stepped out and handed her a plastic bowl with beans and a hunk of bread. While it was more than what she’d gotten when working on the supply bus, it still wasn’t much. She took it from the man without saying anything. He glared at her before turning around and walking back inside the house, slamming the door behind him.
Once she’d finished eating, she rinsed out the bowl and left it on the back steps. Her weary legs barely carried her back to the stall in the barn. She rolled out her bed and curled up under the thin blanket. It wasn’t long until she heard rain against the metal roof of the barn. It lulled her gently into sleep.
* * * *
Granger McCall watched the goings on around the house he’d found that morning. He normally didn’t approach a place until he had thoroughly staked it out for long enough he knew what to expect if he did decide to ask for work. This one wasn’t the type of homestead he really wanted to stop at, but he was low on supplies and the last three days it had rained a cold drizzle that spoke of the colder weather to come. He needed to rest then get back on the road. He wanted to find a nice, dry place close to a settlement where he could barter for food while staying warm during the winter months.
He counted a total of four men, two women, and one teenage boy. The boy
was scrawny, but he seemed to be doing most of the work in the garden. One of the men stayed in, or close to, the house at all times while the other two disappeared into the woods. He figured they were going hunting. Now was as good a time as any. He hated dealing with people, but he had no choice if he was going to get a place to stay for a few days.
Granger slowly walked up the drive, stopping when the man who had stayed inside walked out on the porch with a rifle in his hands.
“What do you want?” the stranger asked.
“Looking for a place to rest for a few days. Been on the road a long time. I can chop wood for you. Get you a good stack for winter,” he said.
“You look strong enough. Each day you stack a cord up for me, I’ll let you stay in the barn and feed you two meals a day.” The other man looked at him like he figured Granger would shake his head and leave.
“Sounds fair to me. I’ll stow my stuff in the barn. Where’s your ax, and I’ll get started.”
The other man hesitated then nodded. “It’s out in the shed, next to the garden. Got a boy working the garden out there. Don’t scare him off.”
Granger just grunted and headed toward the barn. He located an empty stall that happened to be next to the one the boy looked to be using. He stared at the boy’s stuff but didn’t rummage through it. He didn’t nose around other people’s property. Just because he didn’t trust anyone didn’t mean he was going to act untrustworthy.
When he walked up to the shed, the teenager emerged from the garden carrying a hoe. He looked like he was barely standing on his feet. When he caught sight of Granger, he stopped, much like a deer froze when it heard something. The boy’s eyes were a pretty shade of hazel with more green than brown in them. His face seemed feminine and slim for a boy, but then everything about the boy was small. He couldn’t have been much more than five foot four or five with a thin build and graceful appearance. His chin-length brown hair had obviously been cut by his own hand and looked ragged even to him.
“I’m working for a few days for a place to sleep. Won’t be bothering you,” he told the boy. “Just getting the ax to cut fire wood.”
Granger continued to the shed and located the ax. He checked the sharpness and was pleased to see it was sharp. He closed the shed back and nodded once again to the boy who still hadn’t moved a muscle before walking back to the stump they used for cutting wood. It was obvious that was what it was used for by the wood chips and splinters of log on the ground around it. Someone didn’t know the first thing about cutting wood. That was obvious.
In no time he had worked up a sweat and gotten into the rhythm of swing, split, stack, and set up. Over and over, he swung the ax, creating perfectly split firewood that would burn well. More than likely what they had been using was so poorly cut that it either burned too fast or was difficult to get started. Most people didn’t know that how you cut wood affected how it burned.
Once he had a little more than a cord split and stacked, Granger cleaned the ax and replaced it in the shed. Then he cleaned up the area around the stump where he’d been working. He didn’t like cutting wood with a mess on the ground around him. If he stepped on something and lost his balance, he could end up cutting himself on the ax.
After cleaning up, he watched the teenage boy clean the hoe then wash up as well. He followed him to the back door where the kid knocked then stood back and waited. Finally, one of the men he’d seen earlier walked out with two bowls in his hands. He handed one to the boy and the other to Granger. It was obvious by the expression on the man’s face that he didn’t like Granger one bit. Well, that was fine by him. He wasn’t trying to win any popularity contest. He just wanted some food in his belly and a roof over his head for a few days.
When they sat down to eat, he noticed the kid didn’t have as much as he did. Then again, he didn’t have all that much himself. Still, he had the overwhelming urge to offer the kid some of his. Instead, he carried his bowl over to the stump and used it as a seat to eat. The kid just sat on the steps where he was. Granger dug in, and, when he looked up again, the boy was nowhere to be seen.
After he’d rinsed out his bowl and set it next to the one the boy had left on the steps, Granger returned to the barn to get some sleep. When he passed the stall next to his, he could hear the faintest of noises coming from the other side of the door. It would be easy to look over the top and see what the boy was doing, but Granger didn’t much care what the sound was from. He walked into his area and closed the door. Then he spread out his bedding and lay back.
The bastards weren’t feeding them much considering the work they were doing. He could always supplement what he got with some of the jerky he still had left from trading a deer he’d killed a while back. He doubted the boy had anything to fall back on. Something about the teenager called to him. He’d never been one to care about what happened to others before. Well, not since he’d gotten out of prison about three years before everything had gone to hell.
In another lifetime, Granger had been an upstanding citizen working as an accountant for a firm that audited hospitals. He had a nice condo in Pittsburg, a fiancée, good friends who he hung out with regularly, and he was about to get married. He’d had it made, or so he thought. Then one day everything fell apart. His best friend Eric and his fiancé had set him up to take the fall for Eric’s scheme to filter millions of dollars from their clients over nearly a year. He’d never seen it coming.
It had all been a set up from the beginning. It had been Eric who’d introduced him to Laura in the first place. They’d hit it off instantly. Now Granger knew it was only because Eric had fed her everything that he’d liked in a woman, making her pretty much irresistible to him. She’d seemed perfect to him, and it wasn’t long before they were living together. All that time, his best friend was screwing her behind his back and setting him up to go to prison.
Together, Laura and Eric had gotten away with well over ten million dollars, and Granger had taken the fall for something he hadn’t done. It didn’t matter that they never found the money. All that mattered was that it was his codes used to access accounts and his passwords used to get into the system after hours. Why no one had caught on to it sooner, Granger didn’t have a clue. It wasn’t until much later that he realized what had happened. Still, no one would believe him, and with nothing to his name, he only had a public defender who didn’t give a rat’s ass about him or his claims.
He’d been reading an old newspaper and saw where Eric, his supposed best friend, and Laura, his ex-fiancé, had gotten married and were honeymooning for two weeks in Cancun barely a month after he’d been convicted. Neither Eric nor Laura had enough money between them to afford a honeymoon in Cancun, much less two weeks.
He’d spent six years of his life inside those walls and only gotten paroled so early because he wasn’t a violent offender and they were overcrowded. He’d kept to himself and avoided trouble as much as possible, but trouble had a way of finding you when you were inside. He had the scars to prove it. One of them he saw any time he looked in a mirror. It reminded him that people weren’t to be trusted. Man was inherently untrustworthy as far as he was concerned. No one really cared about anyone other than themselves.
When the catastrophes started, his theory on man’s descent into madness began to manifest in the world around him. Entire cities were destroyed in earthquakes, fires, and tornadoes. The tsunami that took out most of southern California left behind a vast wasteland and no survivors. In the aftermath of everything, he watched as people turned into thieves, murders, and scavengers with little regard for anyone but themselves. His faith in humanity had been totally destroyed, and now the tiny flame of hope that one day he’d be proved wrong had been destroyed.
As soon as it became obvious that there would be no overseeing anyone’s parole anymore, Granger gathered supplies and headed west. The east coast was a complete mess, with the infrastructure in total meltdown. Where the West, he heard, had been devastated by tornadoes and fires, t
here wasn’t as much disease there like there had been in the larger cities.
Granger had no desire to settle down anywhere, but after years of wandering from place to place, he realized it was time to settle down and carve out a safe place for himself. More and more people were heading west to escape the turmoil in the cities. He stood a much better chance of being left alone if he went toward the northwest part of the states where few people wanted to live with the intensity of the winters. That suited him fine. Let them repopulate the center of the country if they could. He’d live out his days without having to worry about anyone else screwing him over.
He lay there thinking about what all he needed to do once he found a place to stay. It occurred to him that he hadn’t heard any noise from the stall next to him lately. The kid must have fallen asleep. Despite the fact that he shouldn’t care one way or another, Granger couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing at his age, living in the wilds all alone. It couldn’t be easy on him. His size and the dark circles under his eyes attested to that. Something about the boy made Granger want to hold him. He wasn’t normally attracted to men, but for some reason, he was to this kid. Kid was the right word, too. He couldn’t be much over seventeen or eighteen, much too young. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Granger rolled over and went to sleep.
Chapter Three
The weather grew cooler, and Granger found himself helping the kid clear the garden one day. It had been a week, and he was about ready to move on again. They were barely feeding them enough to keep them alive to work for them, so it wasn’t worth it to Granger to remain any longer. Oddly enough, the only reason he’d stuck around as long as he had was because of the kid. He hated to leave him for some reason. They barely said two words to each other all day, but he was reluctant to leave.
