“Nelson, I thought the same thing not more than thirty minutes ago.”
“What same thing did you think of?” Ashley asked, sitting down on the other side of Nancy, and Mike almost crawled over Nancy to get to his momma.
“Nothing,” Michelle and Nelson said together.
“Daddy,” Olivia cried out, running over and latching on his leg, and Nelson picked her up. “Nana is teaching Pappy how to brush my hair and put my ponytails in,” she said, twirling her ponytail.
“What story did Pappy read you?”
“About David and some lions.” Olivia smiled and saw Michelle. “Mommy!”
Olivia threw out her hand, leaning for Michelle. As Michelle took her, Nelson let her go. “Huh,” Nelson said and walked over to find Nellie out of her catatonic state. He grabbed the napkins and started setting them out. Brittney was in Matt’s lap, telling him about the stories as Nelson set out the napkins.
Hearing Devin’s giggle, he looked up to see Gerald bringing him to the table. Nellie was setting down a plate of bacon and again froze, watching the interaction. “Hope you didn’t mind me getting Olivia,” Bernard said as he sat down. “Matt and Ashley drop off Brittney on the way to the gym, and Nellie said Olivia needed to be over here.”
“I don’t mind; I guess we could drop her off when we go to the gym,” Nelson said, staring at Nellie in her catatonic state.
“Oh, I’ll come and get her. She’s as light as a feather,” Bernard said and looked up to see Nellie gaping at Gerald and Devin. “Nellie, you need me to get the food on the table?”
Shaking her head to break the trance, she said, “No,” as Michelle set down the biscuits.
Michelle looked at Devin having a blast with his new friend. “Ready for food, Devin?”
Gerald and Devin looked up at her in shock. “Already?” Gerald said as Devin wrapped his arms around Gerald’s face.
“Well, you could feed him if want, Gerald,” Michelle said, sitting down.
“Okay, how do you do it?” Gerald asked as Devin clapped his hands, making him laugh.
“My word, Gerald, I’m sitting right beside you; I can help you,” Nellie said, setting down plates of eggs.
Gerald held Devin up. “It’s eatin’ time, buddy!”
Devin howled out laughing as Bernard got up to move Devin’s highchair between Nellie’s spot and Gerald’s. As Bernard pulled levers to move the tray, Gerald watched like a hawk. Then when Bernard set Devin in the chair, Gerald looked under the tray as Bernard made sure Devin’s legs were under it. Even Nelson was impressed with how fast Bernard got Devin in the chair.
“We are talking tonight, so don’t make plans,” Michelle whispered in Nelson’s ear.
“Damn right,” Nelson said and started filling his plate.
When Nellie sat down and showed Gerald how to feed Devin his oatmeal and biscuit, Nelson fought the urge to just walk outside.
After breakfast, Nelson tossed his rifle in his side by side and made sure his gas can was full. As he climbed in, Matt ran over and jumped in beside him. “If you don’t mind, same deal as before. You run that monster you call a chainsaw, and I’ll stack limbs.”
“I got the little chainsaw today, so you can do some limbing if you wanted to,” Nelson said as he started the UTV.
Looking over his shoulder at a chainsaw half the size of the monster in the bed, Matt nodded. “I will try that one.”
“Believe it or not, more accidents happen with the smaller ones.”
“I said ‘try,’ not run it,” Matt clarified as Nelson shot out the gate. “We may be wanted, but I’m happy we aren’t wanted for murder.”
“It’s just a matter of time before they try to find something on everyone.”
As Nelson pulled through the area they were cutting down, Matt looked over at him. “How long you think we got before they come here?”
“Matt, we are on a farm in the middle of nowhere. We stand a good chance of them never coming here. Contrary to popular belief, America is a big place.”
Stopping near the area they were going to cut, Nelson turned off the UTV. Matt said, “We were listening to the HAM radio last night, and riots are widespread. Food is starting to run short in major cities, and Wyoming joined with Texas, Montana, and the other states in withdrawing from the Union. It’s rumored that Missouri was going to announce it, but the governor was called to Washington, and his plane crashed.”
“Funny how that happens,” Nelson said, putting his chaps on, “that someone who wanted to follow the people’s wishes ends up dead.”
“A guy outside St. Louis reported that Homeland has thousands of military contractors there.”
“Missouri is vital ground. We are in the middle of the country north to south and east to west. Those southern boys in Louisiana and Arkansas are going to freeze traffic on the southern routes. Iowa doesn’t have the population to make a massive stand, but there aren’t a lot of cities, so the government might be able to move traffic east to west, but Iowa gets snow. They need Missouri to remain with them or at least neutral.”
“That’s what I mean; everyone that I’ve heard on the radio is talking about all the government people moving around the state. The only other states that are reporting more than us are Ohio and Mississippi.”
Buttoning up his cutting jacket and putting on his helmet, Nelson said, “Ohio because of location, and it’s got some good farmland. Mississippi because it is farmland.”
“So if one does show up, what do we do?”
Nelson grabbed his chainsaw. “Kill ‘em,” he said, lowering his ear muffs.
Matt sighed. “Dude, what I’m trying to say is, what if they come in force? Shouldn’t we run?”
Looking up with a hard expression, Nelson said, “Matt, if we have to run, our lives become instantly a thousand times more challenging. We have little kids. They can’t hike far or fast, so running for them is almost impossible and most likely a death sentence for them and us. I’m of the mind of come for me and my family, I’m going to kill you and find your family. When I find your family, I’m going to make them scream as I kill them to let others know: Fuck with me and my family, I’m killing yours.” Nelson put the chainsaw on the ground. Pulling the choke, he grabbed the cord and yanked it.
As the chainsaw roared to life, Matt stared wide-eyed at Nelson as he moved over to a tree. “Shit, that pretty much separates who we kill,” Matt mumbled. Hearing a motor moving behind him, Matt turned to see Nancy, Michelle, and Gavin driving out of the house on a UTV with Gavin in the back, spooling out cable in the trench Nellie had plowed.
Setting down his gear, Matt put on the leather chaps and other gear and grabbed the smaller chainsaw. Groaning as he put on the hardhat and lowered the ear muffs, Matt flipped the choke and yanked the cord. “I hate these damn things.”
When they had three trees down and limbed out, Bernard pulled around with the tractor and scooped them up with the front-end loader. Feeling the ground tremble, Matt turned to see Nelson dropping another tree. He looked at the area they had cleared, and only trees that a person couldn’t hide behind were left. The area still had many trees but none bigger than twelve inches around.
Refilling his chainsaw, Matt stood up and yanked the cord as Nelson moved to another tree. Waiting for the tree to hit the ground, Matt moved up and started cutting the limbs off. The only thing they stopped for was to refill the chainsaws with fuel and oil.
When Matt felt a hand tap his back, he jumped and turned to see Bernard stepping back and holding up his hands. “Bernard, next time, throw something at me,” Matt said after he shut off his chainsaw.
“Thought about that, but as small as that chainsaw is and how big you are, I figured you would’ve thrown it at me,” Bernard laughed, looking over at Nelson dropping a big oak tree.
“Like I would throw one of Nelson’s chainsaws,” Matt scoffed. “He would use that giant son of a bitch on me.”
“It’s lunch time; go get Paul Bunyan, and let
’s eat.”
Taking off his helmet and goggles, Matt looked at Bernard. “Bullshit, that damn blade on that chainsaw is thirty-six inches long. He turns around fast, I’m in two pieces.”
Bernard laughed. “That’s why I’m letting you go get him.”
Putting down his stuff, Matt glared at Bernard then eased over to Nelson and waited until the massive pine tree he was cutting hit the ground. Yelling and waving his arms, Matt slowly walked over to Nelson, who was climbing up on the trunk of the fallen pine. Nelson walked down the trunk, cutting off limbs as Matt came closer.
Seeing something out of the corner of his eye, Nelson turned to see Matt jumping up and down like he was dancing. Killing the saw, Nelson lifted up his earmuffs. “You are not MC Hammer,” Nelson said, walking back down the trunk.
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t about to walk up and tap you on the shoulder to get your attention,” Matt said, waving an arm around at all the tree stumps. “I don’t want to join the ones you’ve attacked with the saw. Bernard just keeps driving over and hauling their bodies off to the sawmill.”
Nelson laughed and looked past Matt as Bernard walked up. “He’s scared of me when I’m cutting,” Nelson said, jumping off the fallen tree.
“That’s why I sent him,” Bernard said, smiling. “Lunch is ready.”
Taking off his hardhat, Nelson looked around. They had cut a hundred yards back from the road across from the house and several hundred yards east along the road. The house was hidden behind the berm this far out, and only the top of the roof could be seen.
Shifting his gaze from the berm around the house, Nelson sighed, looking at the massive barn. It was several hundred yards away on the other side of the road, but there was nothing they could do to even attempt to hide such a massive building. “That barn blocks a lot of what we can see to the east,” Nelson said, balancing the chainsaw on his shoulder as he held the bar, and the engine was past his head.
“Gerald said he had that covered a year ago,” Matt said, grabbing the smaller chainsaw. They walked back to the UTV and unloaded the gear in the back.
“When you boys start after lunch, you need to head west and clear the tree line back,” Bernard said, jumping beside Nelson. Matt grabbed their weapons and gear, loaded them in the back, and climbed in.
“Yeah, we’re good here. If they want to hide and watch us from here, fine by me,” Nelson said, starting the UTV, and sped back to the house.
Pulling up behind the house, they saw the UTV Nancy, Michelle, and Gavin were using already parked. They heard a motor coming and turned to see Gerald and Ashley pulling up with Duke, Gerald’s dog, running behind them.
Stopping in a cloud of dust, Ashley jumped out with a smile. “Hi, guys,” she said, slinging her AR over her shoulder and bouncing inside. They turned to see Gerald dragging his sweat-soaked ass out of the UTV. Wiping the sweat off his face, he stormed over to Matt and pointed a finger an inch from his nose.
“We are fucking trading jobs!” Gerald spat. “Your wife is a slave driver!”
“I work with her all the time; no she’s not,” Matt growled.
“Fine, you can work with her. I’ll work with Paul Bunyan.”
Nelson grinned as he grabbed his vest and AR out of the UTV and followed Bernard in the house. After hanging up weapons and vests, everyone sat down as Nellie came over putting platters of food on the table. “Gerald, Hank called on the radio and said they started on the work you went over with them.”
“Well, that should keep them busy for the next week or so,” Gerald said, holding his glass beside him as Olivia carried a pitcher of tea around the table to fill everyone’s glass.
“You think Steven is helping?” Nellie asked, sitting down.
Gerald shook his head. “I doubt it. That man is worthless.”
“He never has been worth much,” Bernard said as Olivia filled his glass. “He found a way to make money sitting on his butt using other people’s money.”
Matt put his glass on the table after Olivia filled it. “You think Steven is going to be trouble for them?”
As Nelson helped Olivia into her chair, he watched Gerald get up, grab Devin’s highchair from between his and Michelle’s chairs, and carry it down to his end of the table. Setting Devin beside his chair, Gerald sat down, grinning at the baby. “You get any bubbles?” Gerald asked, and Devin squealed out, hitting the highchair.
“Damn, don’t even ask to take my baby anymore,” Nelson mumbled.
Bernard chuckled and looked up at Matt. “Steven’s going to be trouble for Hank and his family, not us. If they kick him out, Steven won’t come here. He knows I don’t like him.” They all clasped hands as Bernard said blessing.
After lunch, Matt headed to the sawmill with Ashley as Nelson and Gerald headed to the front of the house. Nelson stopped the UTV and climbed out. Gerald looked down the road to see all the larger trees cut back a hundred yards. “Damn, no wonder Ashley was running that sawmill like she stole it. You tried to turn into a lumberjack,” Gerald said, taking off his vest and putting on the chaps and gear.
“The big saw is mine,” Nelson said as he finished his chaps and grabbed the leather coat. “You can use the little one,” he said, grabbing his hardhat and the big chainsaw.
“Hey, no arguments here,” Gerald said, grabbing the other hardhat. “You knock them down; I’ll limb them out.”
After filling the chainsaws with fuel and oil, the sounds of crashing trees soon shook the ground. Unlike Matt, Gerald wasn’t afraid of the chainsaw, and Nelson would barely have a tree on the ground only to see Gerald walking over to attack it. Seeing Gerald would always stop and watch when he started sawing, Nelson wasn’t scared about him walking into a falling tree.
After a few hours, they had already cut down what Nelson did in the last three days. Bernard was having trouble keeping up with the two. As Gerald was refilling his chainsaw, he heard Nelson’s saw idle and heard thumping. Looking over, he saw Nelson driving wedges using the back of a hatchet in a cut he made with the chainsaw. “You need more fuel?”
“Nah, I just filled up!” Nelson shouted then grabbed his chainsaw and cut on the opposite side of the wedges. Gerald watched the tree fall the opposite way it was leaning.
“Shit, that boy needs to be a lumberjack,” Gerald said, walking over as Nelson grabbed his wedges and hatchet. “Why did you want it to drop that way? We are in the woods, and nothing is around; it really doesn’t matter.”
Pointing the way the fallen tree was leaning, he said, “Didn’t want it to take out all those smaller trees.” He pointed where he made the tree fall. “This way, it only hit one. Don’t want to make it really obvious we are thinning the trees.”
“Well, let me destroy the evidence then,” Gerald said, yanking the pull cord.
It was late afternoon when Gerald motioned Nelson to shut off his chainsaw. Nelson turned it off, looked back toward the house, and noticed they were several hundred yards further away than he and Matt had cut to the east. “Damn, didn’t know we went that far,” Nelson said, taking off his hardhat.
“Yeah, this should be good enough,” Gerald said, turning and walking back to the UTV. “I wonder how Matt is doing with the slave driver?”
“She’s that bad?”
Gerald glanced at Nelson out of the corner of his eyes as he walked. “I would rather take the Q course again than work with her on that sawmill. I couldn’t keep up taking the damn boards off as she cut them, and Ashley would just kick them on the ground.”
Nelson shook his head. The Q course was the tryouts for the Green Berets, and he knew how hard it was. “I’ll just cut trees down then,” he said, putting his chainsaw in the UTV. “It’s going to take several days just to haul all these limbs off.”
“Maybe, but that is far down the list. We need to get those other PVC panels over the moat.”
Putting on his tactical vest, Nelson turned to Gerald. “Those panels are PVC?”
“Uh, yeah, you co
uldn’t tell?”
“Shit, they look like wood quarter inch wall paneling,” Nelson said, grabbing his AR.
“It’s paint, Nelson. I didn’t want wood, and when they rebuilt one of the hangers at the base, I got those.”
Sliding behind the steering wheel, Nelson started the UTV and said, “Learn something new every day.” They passed Bernard heading to get more of the trees they dropped. Passing the driveway, Nelson headed toward the barn. When he came around the front corner, Nelson stomped on the brake. “Holy shit.”
“Yeah, and you wanted to know why I wanted to change jobs,” Gerald chuckled. There were stacks of boards everywhere. Way off in the back were the slabs that were left from the trees. They were neatly stacked in four piles each almost as tall as Matt. They could tell because Matt was throwing one on and moving back to the sawmill as Ashley kicked a board off on the ground.
At the end of the barn were stacks of logs, and Bernard was dropping the last ones on the stack, grabbed another one, and moved up, waiting on Ashley to finish with the log on the mill. “She may be small, but Ashley can run the hell out of a sawmill,” Nelson said, moving over then stopping the UTV.
“Like I said, her husband can work with her on the damn sawmill,” Gerald said, getting out. They took off their gear and helped Matt until supper.
When they were parked back at the house, Nelson looked over at Matt, who was waiting until Ashley ran into the house. “Your wife is a slave driver.”
“Nah, that’s how she always works,” Matt chuckled. “She’s small so she just moves at hyper speed.”
“No wonder you’re big enough to eat hay,” Gerald said, walking past Matt.
Chapter Three
It was two days later, and Nelson and Michelle were walking out of the cabin to head to the gym. Devin was draining his bottle making a lot of noise in the pre-dawn darkness. “He eats like a pig,” Michelle said, looking down at Devin in her arms.
“Hey, he’s got a soccer ball head; leave him alone,” Nelson said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.
Forgotten Forbidden America:: Patriots Reborn Page 3
