Pavement Ends: The Exodus

by Kurt Gepner

  They went ahead to a bend in the road so the men could continue to clear the path. Two hours were spent effecting repairs. While they were delayed, the members of the Caravan productively busied themselves. They gathered firewood, brought up water from the river and boiled it, a full bushel of dandelion leaves was collected and Felina had the nutria hide stretched on a frame that she had just made for the purpose.

  Having more visible weapons greatly reduced the number of solicitations they were accruing from passersby. Hank allowed himself to feel remotely pleased by the outcome of their recent adversities. Their arsenal was growing.

  They still had Donkers, his grandfather’s thirty-thirty. His trusty pistol-gripped shotgun, Whisper, was always at his side. And the scoped pistol, which Silas had dubbed Ringer, had found a home on the dark man’s hip. His brother, Matt, had his long sword. Marissa had her rapier and dagger. And their children had some nasty little blades of their own. Their most recent acquisitions consisted of: Three, twenty-two caliber rifles, a thirty-ought-six rifle with scope - claimed by Andrea in place of Hank's trusted Winchester - and a nine-millimeter pistol.

  For ammunition, they had five and a half boxes of thirty-thirty rounds, six boxes of shotgun shells, a handful of twenty-two rounds, one box of thirty-ought-six rounds and two 15 round magazines of nine-millimeter.

  Cautiously, taking frequent security breaks, Hank had the men clear a path almost to the next bridge. When they got near to that landmark, however, they were run off by the Washougal Sheriff. It was obvious that Hank needed to go have a conversation with the local law.

  Leaving the Caravan unprotected was not an option, so he refused to allow Andrea to join him, despite her admirable protests. Her ambition to intercede seemed odd to him, but he chalked it up to her overprotective nature. Even though they had known each other for such a short time, and rarely interacted, she had developed a loyalty toward Hank that bordered on possessiveness. Hank appreciated her concern for his wellbeing, but made it clear that he was depending on her for the safety of the Caravan. Instead, he hobbled along with Silas toward the blockade with a white flag tied at the top of his walking staff and no weapons.

  The Sheriff was sitting on the hood of an antique fire engine as they drew near. Beside the fire engine was a classic, daisy-yellow VW Beetle with a whirling red light magnetically fastened on top. A few dirt bikes and ATVs were parked along the westbound side of the bridge. Around the vehicles a small posse of men milled about. When they caught sight of Hank and Silas, they formed an armed wall. The wall numbered one dozen. Many more men stayed back with the Sheriff. Then the Sheriff leaned down, as if he were a knight addressing a squire, and spoke to a man on his right. That man, apparently the deputy, handed his rifle to the Sheriff and walked out to meet newcomers.

  Hank and Silas cautiously kept walking until the man said, "That’s close enough." Holding his palms out as the gap between them closed, Hank smiled and greeted the deputy. In return, the deputy, who was dressed like a hunter and appeared to be of retirement age, looked at Hank with a dour expression on his creased face. In his left hand was a frayed spiral-bound notepad. He held a ready pen in his right. "You got family in Washougal?" He asked.

  A shout came from the Sheriff’s posse. "Hey, that’s Hank!" Their interrogator spun to face the voice. The shout had come from a man with a fresh bandage across his forehead and left eye. The Sheriff hopped off his pedestal and grabbed a handful of shirt, keeping the bandaged man from running out. Hank couldn’t quite make out the words they exchanged.

  With a beckoning wave the Sheriff called out, "Come on back, Clyde. Taylor will deal with this."

  The older man gave Hank a friendly nod and returned to the posse. Over his shoulder he said, "I guess it’s your lucky day."

  Taylor came trotting up to them and stuck out his hand with a grin. Hank pushed aside his shadow of concern over Evie’s words and gave his old friend a genial handshake and slap on the back.

  After giving Silas a quick introduction Hank said, "I was hoping to see you." Then he pointed to the bandages and deduced, "That must not be too bad if you’re out here playing cowboy with the Sheriff."

  Taylor’s smile slipped away as he fingered the bandage. "Yeah… This is not as bad as it looks." Clearly something about the wound disturbed Taylor, aside from the obvious. Deflecting attention from his injury, Taylor smiled and enquired about Hank’s presence. The men gave him a very abridged account of their experiences up to that point.

  "We’ve heard about you," Taylor said with a mischievous grin. "Only the story was that you were a band of marauders who made off with a whole caravan of goods."

  With furrowed brow Hank asked, "What are you talking about?" But just then a light came on in his mind, as he put the pieces together. "Let me guess. A guy by the name of Stewart Vangaard came through?"

  Taylor nodded. "Yes, sir. His group told how they were robbed and traded that Beetle over there and a couple dirt bikes for some guns and ammo. Said they’d rather be well defended than have to worry about finding enough gas to keep their wheels rolling. So what’s the deal with that Stew character?"

  Silas stepped in when all that Hank could do is shake his head. "That is one slick piece of work," he said. "If you want to know how to tell when that slippery snake is lyin’, then you ought to keep a sharp eye on his gums. If they’re flappin’, well… then you’ll know." Silas leaned in, like he was telling a secret. "He’s the one who ripped off my man, Hank, and held the lot of us, men, women and children, hostage. Him, and them thugs of his did, anyway." He emphasized his words with a tall nod and deep frown. "And then he goes about actin’ like a tyrant while gettin’ carted around like a king. But what could we do, when he had all the guns?"

  "Well, I’d suppose you bide your time and look for an opportunity to turn the tables," Taylor said with enthralled vigor. It had only taken Silas an instant to weave his spell on the man.

  "That’s right," Silas agreed with a snap of his fingers. "And you know how those tables got turned?"

  "I can’t imagine," Taylor said, with a wide eye.

  "Ol’ Hank just swooped in and took out the whole gang," Silas said with a clap of his hands. "Ran ‘em off, tails tucked, like a pack of jackals." Silas stood up straight and said, "But there I go again. We got all those people waitin’ and I’m tellin’ stories. I suppose we ought to get back and let ‘em know that we’ve got to turn ourselves around…"

  "Oh no you don’t," Taylor countered. "I’ll tell the Sheriff what happened while you bring up your crew. If you’re heading up to the mountain, you’ll want to stop by the Pendleton Store on your way. It’s open for trade."

  "Well then… You know we will!" Silas confirmed with a grin. "Thanks, Taylor. Come on, Hank. Let’s go get this show on the road."

  "Yeah," Hank said. "Thanks a lot, Taylor. See you in a few."

  Then a strange expression came over Taylor and he said, "Look, Hank, I’m going to set the Sheriff straight, but before we get on with all that, could I talk to you about something? In private?"

  Figuring that Taylor wanted to come clean about his advances on Evie, Hank turned to Silas and said, "Go on back to the Caravan and get everybody ready. I’ll be right behind you."

  "Will do, Cap’n," Silas said with a toothy grin and left the old friends to their discussion.

  "Here," Taylor pointed to a guardrail alongside the road. "Let’s step over there. You may need to sit down." Then he muttered, "Or maybe I will."

  As the men walked Hank said, "Evie told me what happened."

  The shock in his eye was tangible, but Taylor took it in stride. "I’m so sorry, Hank! I was actually going to put an end to it, but you know how Evie is when she’s got it in her mind to do something."

  It was Hank’s turn to be shocked and Taylor could tell that whatever Evie had said to her husband was not what he had assumed. "Oh, God! What did she tell you?"

  If not for the guardrail Hank would have collapsed. He couldn’t make sen
se of the words. He understood them, but the conclusion they formed was impossible for him to believe. Hank swallowed and cleared his throat. "Why don’t you just do your talking?" He managed to say.

  "Oh, geez, Hank! I wasn’t going to break it to you like this," Taylor replied. The pleading tone of his voice had no effect on Hank whose hands gripped the guardrail with white-knuckled power.

  Taylor gulped and then spoke almost too fast to comprehend. "We’ve been seeing each other for more than a year. Most of the late nights she’s been putting in at her business have been at my place. She was going to ask you for a divorce as soon as you finished building the new garage. After that we were going to get married. But I was feeling so bad about the whole thing; I was going to put an end to it. I swear!"

  Hank looked at the man with a mixture of loathing and disbelief. He wanted to smash him in the face. He wanted to choke him. Hank did none of that. His mind was spinning. I’ve got to get these people to the Meadow, was his first structured thought. It wasn’t his thought, he was sure, and as soon as it formed, he scoffed at it. Then he scowled bitterly at his ignorance and naivety. An avalanche of Evie’s words and actions returned, crystallized in his mind like pieces of a puzzle snapping together. Then his first thought returned. "I’ve got to get these people to the Meadow," he said aloud.

  "You what?" Asked Taylor.

  Hank abruptly stood and Taylor flinched. Then Hank looked down at the man who had dared to call him friend. "Be gone when we get to town." He felt his fingernails biting into his palms and his teeth grind. Taylor looked terrified and stood like a man before a firing squad. Then Hank’s anger was suddenly flooded out by a deep and utter despair. He turned away from Taylor with head slung low and plodded toward the Caravan.

  "Hank, what are you going to do?" Taylor called after him. "I’m sorry!"

  Over his shoulder Hank said, "Just… Just be gone."

  Hank felt numb. His heart was broken and his soul was in anguish, but his body felt numb. Right now, I’ve got to concentrate on getting my people to safety, He thought. Things are bad and getting worse. People are murdering people. If we don’t get up to my cabin soon, we might not get there at all. I can’t waste my energy worrying about who’s been fucking who. He was trying, but not really succeeding to convince himself that this new revelation was not important.

  He couldn’t stop his mind from sorting through all of the debris that his marriage had just become. All this time… I thought she was putting in long hours... building her business. I thought she was tired. Now it makes sense… When she’d be at work and Taylor would cancel our plans… No wonder she never wanted to go hiking with us…

  As he trudged on to rejoin his companions, Hank concentrated to deliberately swallow down his hurt. The irony mocked him. Hadn’t Evie just told him that he needed to get better at burying his emotions?

  Silas was the first to greet him, no doubt to report on the Caravan’s status. When he saw the way his leader was carrying himself Silas asked with unmasked worry, "What’s eatin’ at you, Hank?"

  Shaking his head, Hank evaded the question with uncommon agility. "It’s an old story that we’ve all heard before… Bad news about a mutual friend." Even Dale, who was standing near, gave him a look of sympathy.

  Gripping Hank’s shoulder, Silas asked, "You gonna be all right?"

  With a vague nod that tasted like a lie, Hank said, "The sooner we get up to that Meadow, the sooner we’ll all be fine." Then he pressed his hand across his forehead. "Okay, I’ve got to pull it together."

  For the first time, Dale broke the silence with his longtime neighbor and friend. "It’s perfectly reasonable that you’re tore up about this, Hank. We’re not going to judge you for being a little crazy right now."

  Hank gave his old friend a tortured smile. "We’re all crazy, right now. But I can’t let this news affect me." He wished that he could find solace in the sympathy of these men. He wished that he had learned of Taylor’s death instead of… this. He swallowed it down, again. "The rest of those people don’t need any more drama piled on to the end of their world. If they see me melt down, it will snap their thread of security. As for Evie…" He caught himself. Let them assume that its news that she would take hard, he thought. Then he looked over at the Caravan, as if he could see his wife through the walls of the U-haul. "I don’t want to say anything to anyone."

  "You’re not going to say anything?" Dale challenged.

  "Nothing," Hank confirmed. "As far as I’m concerned, that part of the conversation never happened."

  The men agreed to say nothing.

  When they rejoined the Caravan, Hank yelled out, "Let’s move!" He climbed into the Duck Truck and started rolling without waiting for anyone to settle in. He had seen Evie standing at the rear of the U-haul, anxious to hear about the exchange, but he ignored her. By the time they got to the bridge, all of the vehicles that had been blockading their path were driven out of the way. As Hank crossed, the Sheriff approached.

  The man’s uniform was clean and pressed. Under his wide-brimmed hat, a once cheerful face looked out through gold-rimmed bifocals. Although the man dredged up a smile, Hank couldn’t see any account of it in his cold grey eyes.

  Slowing to a stop, Hank rolled down the window and forced his own false smile to his lips. "Hello, Sheriff. Thanks for letting us pass through," he said. "I’m Hank Shumway." He offered his hand out the window and the Sheriff shook it.

  "Sheriff McDonald," he introduced himself. "Taylor said you were heading up the mountain to a cabin?"

  "Yeah," Hank confirmed. "It’s a couple miles past Bear Mountain Road. Do you know where that is?" Sheriff McDonald nodded his familiarity with the area. "These people are mostly refugees from my neighborhood. They’re friends and family."

  "It looks like you’ve got a helluva load in the back," Sheriff McDonald observed. "You willing to part with any of it?"

  Hank gave him an uncommitted shrug. "Depends on what there is for trade."

  Sheriff McDonald gave Hank a crooked smile. "Oh, there’s plenty you might like."

  "Then we’ll probably do some business," Hank said. "By the way, Sheriff, a few miles back, we picked up an old man in a wheelchair. He said his name was John. We never got a last name. He was pretty bad off, so we fed him and gave him a bed."

  "That was nice of you," Sheriff McDonald stated blandly.

  Hank dismissed the insincere compliment. "Anyway, he died." Sheriff McDonald didn’t react, so Hank went on. "Do you have a place we can take the body? We hate to leave him by the side of the road, but we don’t have enough beds for the living, much less…"

  "Let me take a look at him," the Sheriff said. "If he’s one of ours, we’ll take care of him." Hank showed John’s body to the Sheriff. "Old John Bender," Sheriff McDonald identified. "Went off to die," he observed. "It was good of you to show him some kindness in his last hour." Sheriff McDonald had his men take the body.

  Hank got back behind the wheel of the Duck Truck and the Sheriff closed the door for him. Hank said, "It’s starting to get late, Sheriff, is there a place where we can set up camp for the night?"

  With a quick nod, Sheriff McDonald said, "Right there in the parking lot, in front of the Pendleton Store." Then, with a meaningful glance toward the rear of the Caravan, Sheriff McDonald added one more thought. "We’re keeping Washougal together, Mr. Shumway… if only just barely. Folks are pulling together and pooling their resources and forming a real community. I hear it’s getting bad out there." Hank nodded with knowing eyes. "And out there is where we intend to keep all that bad. Make sure your people know what I mean. I’m making a big exception letting your wagon train through my city and I would take it personal if we had an incident."

  "Thank you, Sheriff. This is a decent bunch of people," Hank said with a grimace and a spasm of doubt. "But I’ll make sure they’re clear on that point before we get into town."

  Sheriff McDonald smiled coldly at Hank and pushed himself off the door of the Duck Tru
ck. "Sounds good, because we sure don’t need any thieves or vagrants in our town" he said with a clear warning in his voice. Then his smile became genial and he patted the side of the truck. "The roads are clear the rest of the way in. The store is staying open late, just for you. And…," he said as an afterthought. "Welcome to Washougal." He stood back and Hank gave him a friendly wave while slowly accelerating the Caravan up to ten miles-per-hour.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When the first dead traffic light came into view, Hank stopped the Caravan and gathered everyone around the front. He sat on the hood of the Duck Truck and waited for the children to settle down. While he waited, he took a moment to really see each person assembled before him.

  Brody stood directly in front of Hank. Like so many others, the boy’s dusty blonde hair was tangled and pasted to his skull. His bruised and battered face was, however, distinctly clean. And though he had undergone a drastic evolution of character, provoked by the cataclysm caused by the Flare, the loss of his parents and his best friend's death by stupidity, his posture was still self-assured, if not downright cocky.

  Beside Brody, standing tell-tale near, was a Mexican girl who looked to be about his same age. She was Enrique’s daughter. Her jet black hair was brushed back into a pony tail and its full bodied luster sparkled in contrast to Brody’s. Hank strained to remember her name. Was it Dominique? The rest of the Escobar family was clustered less than an arm-span behind her.

  Enrique and his grandmother, the shrunken yet powerful Felina, stood behind his children. At fifteen, Miguel was the eldest and was still sporting a set of crimson ears from his recent lashing. The seven-year old, Roberto, regarded Hank with a rapt wide-eyed astuteness while the frowning Juliette nervously twisted the hem of her sun-yellow dress until her panties were showing. The whole family had taken advantage of the brief hiatus by scrubbing up hands and faces.