Seasons: A Year in the Apocalypse

by E A Lake

  The place, what I recall of it, was hot and dusty. Every afternoon, we took naps—they called them siestas—and Mom and Dad had cocktails at four each afternoon. I wasn’t sure about anyone else, but I don’t recall ever reading about a cowboy having an appletini after a hard day on the trail.

  I met a girl there. We promised to stay in touch and remain best friends forever. Her name was Roberta or Robin or something like that. I’m pretty sure it started with an R. Sometimes, I wonder whatever happened to the tiny red-haired, pale-skinned, heavily freckled girl. Was her life as big a mess as mine? Was she missing not one but two children as well?

  The coolest thing I remember from our vacation—aside from my new best friend, whats-her-name—were the horses. Having grown up in Mankato, I was pretty much a city girl. My idea of going to the country was riding my bike to Mandy Pinkerton’s house on the south side of town and sniffing the fresh-cut hay two or three times a summer.

  But the horses at Camp Cheesy were the bomb!

  I only got two rides in the whole six days we were there. Both times, it was on a sleek splendid palomino named Thunderbolt. I can still recall the feeling of sitting high in the saddle, watching people beneath me look up, admiring me on Thunderbolt.

  It’s funny, but I don’t recall any of the actual riding times—where we might have gone, the sights we may have taken in. I don’t remember what I wore for either of those rides though I’m certain my parents made me wear some stupid cowboy hat. I don’t even remember if Mom or Dad accompanied me on those two rides. But I remember Thunderbolt.

  How many times since then, well since that hot August night some 22 years back, had I wished I had a horse. The things I could actually accomplish, the places I could go, the people I could find.

  The last horse I saw—other than someone riding it—lay dead in a ditch last fall. It was just down the road to the south. The thin pale-brown steed had a broken front leg, a hole in the head from a gunshot, and no meat on its hindquarters.

  Whether it was people or wild animals that stripped the flesh away from the ragged creature, Sunshine and I never knew. But neither of us had wanted to be around when whatever or whoever came back for the rest of the rotting flesh.

  Chapter 21

  With warmer early-summer weather, our crops sprang from the ground. One morning, I noticed small green sprouts poking through the dirt. Within a week, they were three inches tall.

  Sunshine and I settled into an easy, measured rhythm. There was work to be done and nothing but time to do it. Though it was tedious, dull, mind-numbing labor, at least we had plenty to keep us busy.

  Most mornings began with a thorough weeding of the garden. We knew by keeping ahead of the extra green sprouts, we’d never have a repeat of last summer.

  It had been late July, or so we were told by Mr. Lasky. The sweaty dog days of summer had a firm grip on the region. Most days, Brady, Sasha, Sunshine and I sat idly on the screened porch, hoping for a breeze.

  A week went by, perhaps two. The garden was right there, thirty feet from the south side of the house, but we blissfully ignored it.

  “Everything’s growing fine,” Brady would say. “The corn is over my head and looks as green as ever. Those tomatoes got blossoms everywhere. We’re fine.”

  So off we’d go. Exploring the area on foot for a few days, swimming in a nearby lake several others. Occasionally, rain would pop up, trapping us inside our gray enclosure.

  Yet, just yards away, trouble loomed.

  By the time we got back to weeding— “How bad could they be?” Brady joked—we finally saw the errors of our lazy thinking. Mr. Lasky chewed us out one afternoon, claiming the yield from the corn would suffer. That had been enough motivation to get back to work.

  Sunshine and I weeded with the precision of a surgeon. If it was in the soil and we knew it didn’t belong there, it had to go. Sometimes, not often but occasionally, we became overzealous and weeded some of our small crops, mainly carrots and onions. But we stayed steadfast so we’d never have to make our hands raw again from so much weeding in one session.

  When rain played its evil game and avoided us for more than a week, we were forced into watering—by hand. That was not something I relished. Weeding was nothing compared to watering. Mostly because our best water source lay some 400 yards away.

  “This be your dumbest idea yet,” Sunshine groused, lugging two large metal pails filled with water. “We walk halfway to hell, fill these buckets, and then back. And every time we make this trip, we pass a perfectly fine pump, every time.”

  Already, I was used to her grumbling. Even I didn’t enjoy the walk after the first round. But it was a necessary precaution.

  “If you recall, late last summer, our well began to act up,” I replied, pausing to wipe sweat from my brow. “Water didn’t flow with every pump anymore. Sometimes it gurgled, sometimes it trickled, and yes, sometimes we got water.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Water’s what we want. What’s wrong with that?”

  “According to Mr. Frederickson,” I continued as we began our journey anew, “our well was trying to run dry. Don’t you remember? He said it was either clogged or going dry. He even shot that .22 of his down the main pipe three times to try and see what the problem was.”

  “I remember some idiot pointing a gun down a pipe, that’s for sure. But it’s fine now, Abby. We been getting water all spring. It’s fine, I tell you.”

  I nodded slightly and felt a grin creep to my lips. Yes, it was fine now. And I planned on keeping it that way. The water from the well was filtered by yards and yards of sand. It was perfectly fine for bathing, cooking, and most importantly, drinking. I wasn’t willing to run the risk of a dry well and suspect drinking water. Not now, not ever.

  Fifteen trips were needed to get enough water to give our crops a thorough soaking to keep them alive and thriving for another week. Well, partially our crops. Most of the sizable garden was taken up by Mr. Hulton’s heirloom corn.

  “Ya know,” Sunshine said, studying one of the ears on a corn stalk. “We ought to sneak a few of these away and keep the seeds for ourselves. Not go eating it.”

  A familiar argument, and one I wouldn’t tolerate. “We are nowhere near desperate enough to begin stealing,” I scolded. “That’s all that separates us from those terrible people. We will not, under any circumstances, lower ourselves to that level.”

  She raised her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. Don’t go getting all haughty on me just for thinking out loud. Just seems like a waste, that’s all. If we sneak off a few ears and plant them next year for our own use—”

  “And where would you grow these ill-gotten gains?” I vented. “Right here in our garden? Right under Mr. Lasky’s nose? Like he wouldn’t notice.”

  I paced back and forth for several minutes. “Sometimes, I swear I don’t know where your mind is, Sunshine. Some of the ideas you come up with are so far-fetched.”

  I noticed her full-out grin. “Name one other one; I bet you can’t.”

  I thrust a finger in her direction. “If I recall, late last summer, you had a plan to steal one of Mr. Frederickson’s new calves.”

  “It wasn’t that bad an idea. Just needed a few kinks worked out, that’s all.”

  “It was a terrible idea,” I ranted. “He’s our friend. And more importantly, he brings us food every few days. What an awful way to repay his generosity. Never mind the fact that he’d see the cow the first time he showed up in our barnyard.”

  She chuckled and went back to fetch a runaway watering pail. “I said it had a few kinks to work out. A little more time, I would have had that well in hand, missy. Well in hand.”

  I sighed, watching her flip the bucket up with her foot, grasping it from midair with seemingly no effort. Thus were my days with Sunshine Jones. Never was there a dull one.

  Chapter 22

  We weeded, we watered, we weeded, we watered, and if we were bored, we weeded and watered some more. Until the crops,
the corn mostly, were above our knees, we needed to keep at it. The garden was our life and only thought for three weeks each summer.

  When a violent thunderstorm came through at night, Sunshine and I would stand by the window, watching the wind and rain pummel our crops. We prayed aloud that each and every plant survived. Most times, they did. Only every once in a while did we think God didn’t hear us.

  We were told, by Mr. Lasky, it was early July. We had no way of knowing and didn’t really care. Only when he deemed the corn to be tall enough and strong enough did we take a respite from our daily demands. But there was always more work to be done.

  Some days, which seemed to stretch into weeks, we hauled downed wood from a nearby stand of timber. Though it was technically on Mr. Hulton’s land, he didn’t mind that we took what we could.

  We hauled branches as large as my scrawny thigh back to our barnyard, load after load, until we couldn’t walk any more. After a few days of rest, we got at chopping them into pieces that would fit in our woodstoves.

  Chopping was terrible work, and we had to take turns. So many times, the ax became stuck in a hunk of wood, and we would have to work together to remove the rusty blade. Other times, wood would fly up and strike us, unprepared for its attack. But the worst were the blisters caused by the work.

  The Amish gave us ointment, a type of salve, to use on the open, weeping wounds. It always stung at first, but that, they claimed, meant it was working.

  I stood in the yard one afternoon—out of breath, out of energy, out of will to go on—staring at my equally exhausted housemate.

  “Please tell me tomorrow is the day of rest,” I whined. “Please, let it be tomorrow.”

  Sunshine chased down pieces of errant wood chips that we’d use as fire starters. “I already done told you that, Abby. Like three times now. Your Amish lover told me two days ago that it was coming in three days. That makes it tomorrow.”

  I collapsed to the ground cross-legged. “Thank God,” I sighed.

  Sunshine patted my shoulder as she passed by. “Maybe thank Sunshine once in a while for paying attention. You’d probably just work through it if you didn’t know any better.”

  I watched her fill a dented metal pail with the last of the chips. I would have thanked her if I had had the energy to.

  We slept in on the day of rest. I was awake early, sometime around dawn, but I rolled over and fell back into a dreamless sleep.

  Walker wouldn’t be available to be seen until after the midday meal, so there was no rush in getting up. That was my logic when I rolled over one more time. The real reason probably had more to do with my complete exhaustion.

  Though we ate two meals a day, they weren’t large, calorie-rich meals. They were small bits of substance that kept us alive. What they failed to do was to give us the muscle and energy needed for the life we lived.

  We had to have eaten our supper the previous day; it wouldn’t make sense we’d skip it, given how hungry we were. But as I lay in bed, pulling on the ends of my hair, I couldn’t recall what we’d had. It was light enough outside to risk waking Sunshine, but I decided to let her sleep a few minutes more.

  My plan was coming along nicely. Someone was going to lend me a horse. Whether Mr. Frederickson or Mr. Hulton or some other generous soul, someone just had to. From there, a two- or three-hour ride away were all of the answers I sought.

  The obvious choice was Mr. Frederickson. Besides Sunshine, he was the closest thing I had to a friend. Sure, there was a small issue with his wife. But he’d looked past that, perhaps.

  Mr. Hulton had a heart somewhere. The main problem with him was there was a price for everything. Mr. Frederickson might do it out of the kindness in his heart, but not Mr. Hulton. He would dream up a price, and I imagined it would be steep. If push came to shove, I might just have to pay whatever he asked.

  Our next-closest non-Amish neighbors were the Rileys, maybe two miles due south. We’d seen them pass from time to time, making their way to the Amish store. Though they weren’t overly friendly—they both certainly had the sourest dispositions I’d come across anywhere—they did have a horse the last time I had seen them. And I bet they’d love the opportunity to help out a desperate person in need. At least, I had talked myself into believing so.

  “You roll over one more time, I’m gonna slap the living shit right out of you, Abigail Turner.” Huh, Sunshine was finally awake. Now, we could get our day started. Good.

  Chapter 23

  Walker looked fine. Actually, he looked great. Immediately I felt self-conscious about my appearance. Where he was fit and erect, I was run down and slouched. He was happy and smiling. I acted depressed and weepy. I was, in a word, pathetic, and I knew my son saw me that way as well.

  “Don’t cry, Ma,” Walker said, stroking my face through the fence. “You know I hate to see you cry. It hurts me inside.”

  I wiped away some of the tears with my free hand, trying to give him a weak smile.

  “I’m just so happy to see you again,” I said, fighting back another sob. “That’s all. These are tears of joy.”

  I noticed his eyes shift to my right, and his smile grew. “Hey, Sunshine. You look nice today.”

  Instantly, anger grew inside my soul. I tried to fight it off, but had no success.

  “Hey, Walker,” she drawled beside me like some flirty middle-school girl. “I wanted to look nice for you today, make you happy.”

  She had on the same dress she always wore to see him. Neither of us wore makeup, a remnant of the past long gone. Of course, her dark skin always looked perfect. It hid the bags and lines that my pale face failed to.

  Grinning, he looked down, kicking at the fence. “Aw, you always look nice, Sunshine. You always have.”

  This kind of talk needed to stop. They were never going to be a couple, and I had told Sunshine that many times, away from Walker. Still, she insisted on leading my boy on.

  “Is everything planted here?” I asked pleasantly, changing the subject.

  He nodded, pointing behind me, to the west. “Corn’s all in. Beans, peas, carrots, onions, beets are all planted. Just waiting on some starter tomatoes from that big Amish farm to the north. We been weeding like bastards these past ten days.”

  I cringed at his use of profanity but let it slide so as not to spoil the visit. I’d work on cleaning up his language once he was back home.

  “Lask says you two got everything in and the fence all up by yourselves,” he continued. Squeezing my hand, he leaned closer to the fence. “You’re doing good, Ma. Real good. Any word on Brady and Sasha?”

  I always dreaded that question from Walker. Every time he asked it, his eyes showed hope. And every time I had to answer it, I noticed that hope snuffed out.

  “No,” I answered, seeing his lips form a frown, “but I might have a plan to get to Rigby and figure out what’s keeping those two.” Immediately, his eyes lit up again.

  “That’d be great, Ma. Really great.”

  “She just needs to work out a few details,” Sunshine inserted, elbowing me in the ribs. “Ain’t that right, Abby?”

  Damn that girl. If she could just keep her mind on her own business—

  “Ladies.” A new voice entered the discussion. A quick peek down the fence line confirmed my suspicion that it was Mr. Lasky’s.

  “Oh hey, Lask,” Walker called out. The man must have been decent to my son, I decided. Walker always seemed decently happy to see him.

  “Mr. Lasky,” I added, “how nice to see you again.” It wasn’t really a lie though it wasn’t completely true.

  “Yeah, like seeing a skunk in the garden,” Sunshine muttered beside me. I turned and shushed her with a look. There was no need to alienate a man who could potentially help my cause.

  He ignored Sunshine’s remark and gazed my direction. “Luke, why don’t you run back to the bunkhouse. That show those people are putting on is about to start.”

  His face lit up like mine did once upon a time w
hen told I was going to a movie. “Hot dog, I’ve been waiting for this.” He began to trot away but turned and came back. “Bye, Ma. See you next week.” Our dried lips met, surrounded by wire.

  “I love you,” I whispered so only he could hear me.

  “Love you too, Ma.” And he was gone. Except for a quick wave to me and then Sunshine he never looked back.

  “A show?” I asked, watching him disappear around the corner of a building. “I trust it’s nothing risqué, Mr. Lasky.”

  “Maybe it’s some of those ladies Hulton brings in for you,” Sunshine said, holding back no skepticism. “Maybe they stand up on tables and take their clothes off. GeeMah told me about women like that.”

  I noticed the corners of Mr. Lasky’s lips beginning to curl upward. “It’s some musical troupe,” he commented, signaling us toward the gate. “They come around every six months or so. Mr. Hulton feeds them and gives them some supplies. They sing and dance and tell jokes for an hour or two.”

  He stopped walking and faced us. “Not that it’s really any of your business,” he added. “It’s just that Mr. Hulton thinks the men and women crave something besides work all the time.”

  I thought about not asking, but changed my mind. “And you, Mr. Lasky? Do you crave such entertainment?”

  We continued our stroll toward the gate, only slower this time.

  “They really suck,” he stated. “Only a few of them can sing, they got one dancer in the whole lot of any worth…”—his eyes met mine— “and the jokes are all old and corny. Not worth telling and not worth listening to again, that’s for sure.”

  Opening the main gate, he motioned us inside the compound. Were we going to see the show? Sunshine and I stood in place, uncertain of what to do.