“You don’t know that the hurricane did that much damage. All we know is what we’ve seen here. You’re just guessing when you say there’s nothing left to go back to over there. I can assure you, no hurricane damage is going to prevent what are some of the wealthiest communities in the United States from making a quick recovery. Things may be better over there already than they are here. They probably even have the power back on by now.”
Bart just stared at this man his former daughter-in-law had married with a blank expression on his face. How anyone could be so delusional in the face of harsh reality was beyond him, and he didn’t have the patience to argue with him.
“Okay Daniel. If you want to buy one of the boats out of my yard, bring me the cash and I’ll set her over in the river for you. Then you can have at it, but I’m not going. If you want to take your son, that’s fine. If Shauna wants to go with you, that’s fine too, but I’m having no part of it!”
“Cash? How do you think I can get ahold of that much cash right now? Yes, I can get it later, after we get back home, but you know as well as I do that the situation with the banks is going to take some time to sort out. Shauna knows what I’m worth though. She will assure you I’m good for it, whatever amount we settle on.”
“We ain’t settling on nothing without cash money. I’m responsible for every vessel that’s in that yard. One day the owners are going to show up wanting them back, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to tell one of them I let some fellow that was ‘good for it’ take his boat on credit!”
In truth, Bart doubted that most of the owners would ever show up there again. If it were indeed feasible to pay them, he figured most of them would gladly sell out of their yachts that were unlikely to ever do them any good again. Bart knew there were quite a few large boat owners that were already well prepared and ready to go that probably got out of the country while the getting was good. A well-equipped cruiser, especially if it was set up and provisioned for long voyages, would make a damned fine alternative to holing up in any of the cities, hoping for the best. A few of the vessels in his yard met the requirements for that kind of escape, but most were in various stages of refit or in need of it, and in other cases the owners lived far away, storing their boats here for their annual winter jaunts in warm waters. Those folks several states away would surely never make it back, at least until things changed drastically. But regardless of all that, Daniel Hartfield didn’t have the knowledge or the experience to do what he was proposing without Bart’s help, and Bart had zero interest in trying to go back to the east coast of Florida.
The bottom line was that Bart was in no mood to waste anymore time discussing it. If Shauna’s husband didn’t get it yet, Bart figured he probably never would. He figured there were plenty of folks just like him all over the country—the kind of folks that couldn’t understand what they were really facing. Life as they knew it before wasn’t coming back anytime soon, and not just because of a hurricane, either. Things had gone too far this time for an easy fix, but of course people didn’t want to hear it. Most of them had never known hard times, much less the kind of hard times Bart knew was coming. Shauna was handling it well though, especially considering how worried she was about her daughter. Bart had always liked her and had done his best to talk some sense into Eric before the woman finally gave up on him. He understood his son’s sense of duty and the lure of being part of a really special team of top-notch operators, but Bart agreed with Shauna that Eric had done his part. He should have come home to stay ten years ago. Shauna wanted someone that would be there for her and her daughter, and Bart couldn’t blame her. He didn’t have anything against Daniel Hartfield for stepping in and taking his son’s place; someone was bound to anyway. Shauna was a beautiful woman with a great personality, and Bart hadn’t expected her to remain single for long. Her new husband provided nicely for her and all had been well before all this chaos and disorder began. Daniel simply wasn’t equipped to deal with that, and Bart knew most people weren’t. They didn’t prepare for such things because they didn’t believe such things could ever happen.
Bart went back outside to sit down for a minute with Shauna and Andrew before he turned in for a few hours of sleep. He knew the boy was having a hard time too, and it didn’t help to hear his father and stepmother arguing over what they ought to do. Shauna had made him breakfast and was trying to keep him distracted from the conversation Bart had just had with his father. Bart knew the kid was bound to have his doubts as to who was right about all this, but overall he was taking it as good as could be expected. The biggest problem Andrew was dealing with was the sheer boredom. It was a long time since Bart had been 12 years old, but he could well remember how easily a boy could get bored with just sitting around waiting, and how time seemed to drag so much slower at that age. It was even worse for kids now, because they were used to passing the time with video games and other electronic forms of entertainment. Andrew still had his smartphone with some game apps installed, and keeping it charged wasn’t a problem when they were running the generator. But there was no way to connect to the Internet to download anything new, so he was still bored, even with that.
“Are you going to let us start target shooting today?” Andrew asked, hopefully.
“I wish I could, son, but I’m afraid it’s still not a very good idea right now. There are still a lot of strangers making their way up and down the river, and we just don’t have anything to offer them if they come asking for help.”
Bart didn’t really think the sound of gunfire would attract the kind of people that would actually ask for help, but it would sure attract attention, which was the last thing they needed. It was a good thing that Andrew and his father wanted to learn to shoot though, because Bart knew something could happen to him, leaving their security totally up to Shauna if they didn’t. He’d promised Andrew he would figure out a way to get them started as soon as he could. He knew a couple of isolated spots they could go in the skiff to where they could get in some target practice, but it would be best to do that at night, and on an evening when there was enough moonlight to see what they were doing. Right now, with what had just happened last night in the boatyard, Bart wasn’t willing to leave the property unattended after dark.
“I hate sitting around here all day with nothing to do. I wish I could go with you and help you guard the boatyard tonight. I can be quiet, I promise.”
“Not tonight, Andrew, but one of these nights soon, I’ll take you down there. I know it’s boring having to wait sometimes, but we’ll go do some more fishing late this afternoon after I catch up on my sleep.”
“Fishing’s boring too, just sitting on the riverbank hoping something will bite. I like fishing in the boat out in the ocean a lot better. Even behind our house is better, because you never know what you’re going to catch in the canal. I don’t like this freshwater fishing in that stupid little creek. It’s always the same old thing. Do you really think we won’t ever be able to go back to our house? I heard what you told my dad, but he says we can. He says we ought to at least go and see. I wish we could.”
“Believe me, Andrew, I wish we could too. If this was just a hurricane we were dealing with, we would be able to soon. There’d be power companies sending trucks and crews in from all over the Southeast. I’ve seen it time after time when a hurricane hits. There’d be search and rescue teams and volunteer groups bringing in food, water, generators and everything you can imagine that would be needed, and things would have already been looking a lot better by now. But this isn’t just a hurricane, and you know that as well as I do. Those folks from out of state aren’t coming, because they can’t. Maybe eventually, when law and order is restored, they’ll get around to getting the power back on down here, but it could be months before that happens, and the more folks suffer in the meantime, the more dangerous some of them will become.”
Bart stopped when he caught Shauna’s glare. She had already gotten onto him about scaring the boy, but Bart didn’t see
that twelve years old was too young to deal with reality. The truth was, if Andrew was going to survive now, he was going to have to grow up fast. Bart knew it was possible, because he’d seen it firsthand. Hell, he’d encountered kids younger than that fighting with the Viet Cong. Whether Shauna and Daniel agreed with it or not, Bart wasn’t about to sugarcoat the truth and keep the boy in the dark. Spending time alone with him fishing was a good opportunity to talk to him and to begin his real education, and yes, when the time was right, he would take him to the boatyard. The kid was going to be exposed to the violence one way or the other, Bart was certain of that, and he would do his part to get him prepared for it. Regardless of how traumatic that might prove to be, it was far preferable to what Bart was certain many kids Andrew’s age must have already had to face during these trying times.
He excused himself from their company and went around to the porch on the west side of the house to his hammock. That was his best bet for undisturbed daytime sleep, as there was too much commotion in the house with his guests moving about, no matter how quiet they tried to be. Bart didn’t need much sleep these days anyway. It seemed the older he got, the harder it was to sleep more than a few hours, so it hadn’t been difficult to adapt to his new schedule of watching the yard all night and napping by day. The west side of the porch was coolest in the mornings, and by the time it started warming in the middle of the afternoon, Bart was usually ready to eat something and do his afternoon chores. After that, fishing the creek with Andrew for an hour or two before sunset was something to look forward to before he left again for the boatyard.
Twenty
BART TOOK HIS SPRINGFIELD down off the rack and left the house again at about ten minutes after sundown. He stood waiting and listening on his dock for several minutes, hidden from view of anyone on the river by the dense trees that hung out over the banks of the little side creek. After deciding all was clear on the river, he started the outboard and cast off, doing a quick visual upstream and down to confirm the river was deserted as he entered the main channel. When he arrived at the yard, he made a round along the perimeter and did a walkthrough of the rows of blocked-up vessels, checking that all was as he left it that morning. So far, there had been no pillaging during daylight hours, but Bart knew it could happen anytime, and was bound to eventually. He couldn’t be there twenty-four seven though, even if he could stay awake, not with Shauna and her family at his house, demanding part of his attention.
He opened up his little office and put a pot of water to boil on the propane stove for coffee. When his brew was ready, he filled his insulated travel mug and made his way over to the trawler that had become his guard post and lookout tower. As he settled in for another long night, Bart reflected back over the conversations of the day, first with Shauna, and then with Daniel and Andrew. Despite her worries over Megan, Shauna was handling all this better than most in her shoes could. The more that Bart was around her, the more he knew his son was a fool for letting her get away. Not only was she smart and levelheaded under duress, Bart also thought she was even better looking now at thirty-nine than she’d been when she was his daughter-in-law. Eric had to know what he was giving up, and Bart couldn’t figure out why he would do it. As far as he knew, Shauna had been as patient with him as a woman could be, especially considering all the worry that the man had put her through being gone more often than not. Bart couldn’t blame her for wanting more, and he was sure that Daniel Hartfield had been good to her, but he could also see the disappointment in him written all over her face now, as it was obvious that the man was unwilling to accept that the world he’d known was no longer there to go back to. Bart understood that they were all growing anxious and impatient, although each of them for different reasons. Sitting in that secluded bungalow day after day, night after night was getting old, especially for folks used to a fast-paced life in the city. Without electricity, land-lines or cell phone communications, they were cut off from the outside world, stuck in the middle of nowhere with little to distract them from their worries and boredom.
All these factors were causing inevitable tension, and Bart didn't really know what to do about it. He was doing the best he could by providing them a refuge that was relatively safe. They might be doing without a lot of what they were used to, but they were sheltered from the weather and had plenty to eat. The latter was especially a big deal now, considering how many people in this part of the state must be going hungry by now. Grocery store shelves had already been mostly depleted because of the riots and disruption of transportation long before the hurricane. Bart had been moving supplies from some of the yachts to his house for weeks, and there was even more where that came from, still tucked away in the lockers of most of them. Because so many of them were long-distance cruising vessels designed to be self-sufficient, they were well stocked with non-perishable goods. Having access to them in his boatyard was like having his own mini disaster preparation center. The folks that had stored all that stuff aboard their vessels wouldn’t likely be back to claim it, so Bart intended to make use of as much as he and his guests needed. In his mind it wasn’t stealing, because he’d contracted to provide storage for the vessels as well as performing maintenance and repairs on most of them. And despite the circumstances, he was still managing to provide security, even though it meant watching over the yard at night with his rifle. If things ever returned to normal, which Bart doubted, he’d settle up with the boat owners by deducting what he’d taken from their bills. Since those invoices would likely never be delivered, the food and other goods he salvaged was likely the only compensation he’d ever get for his diligent efforts, and Bart was glad he had company to help him make use of it. Bart knew that if he didn’t have these resources, things would indeed be tough, but he figured he could probably get by for a while off of fishing the river and whatnot. As it was, what little fishing he was doing was just a pastime and diversion for Andrew.
Bart had kept his promise to the boy earlier that day, when he woke from his nap. Every afternoon, it was much the same. They would go down and sit on the bank of the little creek next to his dock, casting for bass with artificial lures and using cane poles with cork bobbers on the line in hopes of catching a catfish or bream. It wasn't a very exciting way to fish for a 12-year-old boy, especially one who’d been offshore fishing in the Atlantic. At least it gave Andrew something to look forward to every though; something besides hanging around the house all day, listening to the same old conversations between his dad and stepmom. Bart did his best to make it interesting for him, telling him tales of things that had happened on the river and stories of the days when the Everglades took in all of the state south of Lake Okeechobee. It was a distraction for him until they could do something more exciting, like shooting the guns for real.
These thoughts occupied his mind as the hours slipped by, and Bart was beginning to think it was going to be a quiet, uneventful night—something he wouldn’t complain about one bit. He got up walked around the deck of the trawler a couple hours before dawn, stretching his legs and thinking about going down to the office to heat up the rest of the coffee. But when he glanced back out at the river, he caught a glimpse of movement several hundred yards downstream. Sweeping the dark water with his riflescope, Bart studied the area in question, thinking maybe it was just a low-flying heron or some other large shorebird early off the roost. But then he saw it again, magnified in the scope, and recognized the rhythmic up and down motion for what it was—kayak paddles! The water reflected off the surface of the blades in such a way that they were visible even in the darkness, giving away the location of the silent craft sneaking upriver. Bart scanned the channel on both sides of the flashing paddles but didn’t see anything to indicate there was another one. What he could tell now though, was that there were two paddlers sitting in tandem in the one, so it was a bigger kayak than the little solo sit-on-tops the two fellows arrived in the night before. It was hard to see the details, because the boat itself was either black or very dark in
color, and the men paddling it were also wearing dark clothing. There was little doubt in Bart’s mind that these two fellows were up to no good though, and when the boat began gradually angling across the river straight in the direction of the boatyard, his suspicions were confirmed. Well just come on, you damned sons of bitches! Come on and get you some of what your buddies got last night! I imagine those gators won’t mind another good feeding, and besides, I’ve got enough ammo to do this every night—probably for the rest of my life!
Although he could have easily taken them out while they were still in the boat, Bart was going to give these two the benefit of the doubt just like all the rest. He would wait and see what they did once they landed on the boatyard property, even though he was already quite certain they were here to loot and steal. Why else would anyone sneak upriver to come here at this hour?
Bart moved the crosshairs of the scope back and forth between the two figures as they pulled up to the narrow beach, but their faces were in the shadows, and he could tell little about them. The one in the bow seat got out with a line in hand to tie off the kayak to a nearby piling, while the other man stepped out into the water at the stern to help him pull it ashore. When it was far enough up on the beach to not float away, that same man in the rear reached into the kayak and got out a black rifle, which he handed to his partner before retrieving another one of his own. The weapons appeared to be compact AR-15 type rifles from the silhouettes he could see, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it looked like one of them even had a grenade launcher attached. What in the hell?
But Bart was more curious about their boat than their choice of weapons. He could tell that it was one of the folding type kayaks that he had seen in Florida waters before on occasion, but the matte black finish wasn’t typical. Bart wondered if it came that way or if these two thieves had painted it black to aid in their stealthy nighttime raids. If the latter were the case, then they were serious about their occupation and this certainly wasn’t their first target. Once again, he considered taking them out now before they took another step into his yard, but he would wait until there was no question he was justified. But whenever he did it, he would get both of them quickly, before either had a chance to return fire.
Feral Nation Series: Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series Boxed Set Page 14
