Baxter’s team slept in a house near the clubhouse. By the time he got downstairs, everyone that was off-shift was dressed and scrambled. He strode out the open front door feeling awkward in the heavy vest. His guys were shining their lights over a body near the clubhouse. Baxter took off running, the rifle banging into his legs.
“What the hell happened?” he asked when he reached his team.
“It was a raid,” one of the former deputies said, looking up at Baxter. The deputy pointed to the man standing closest to Baxter. “Check his weapon. Make sure he’s safe.”
“What?” Baxter asked.
The man closest to Baxter, an employee of the county water department, saw what the deputy was referring to. “Your finger, sir,” he said. “You need to keep it out of the trigger guard.”
Baxter looked down, saw that indeed his finger was laying on the trigger.
“Is the weapon safe?” the deputy asked.
Baxter held his weapon out and inspected the safety switch. “Yeah.”
The water department man confirmed this and nodded at the deputy.
“So enough with the fucking weapons training,” Baxter said. “What’s going on?”
“I think it was locals. Not too terribly organized,” the deputy said. “Someone set some tires on fire and sent them rolling onto the golf course. We sent two men in the direction they came from but they didn’t find anything. I had a man on the roof of the clubhouse with night vision, and he said there were three men with baseball bats approaching the clubhouse from the back. I gave him the go-ahead to drop one of them. After those shots were fired, hell broke loose in all directions.”
Baxter nodded.
“The others ran,” the deputy confirmed. “We started taking fire from outside the wall. When we shot back, they booked.”
Baxter looked around and verified that it was only men he trusted standing within earshot. “This was inevitable,” he said. “Yesterday I saw a group of men playing golf. That completely sends the wrong message when you’re surrounded by starving people. It’s not only arrogant, it’s stupid.”
“Agreed, sir,” the deputy said. “Not to mention the dumbass move that Valentine pulled with the explosive.”
“We need to get ready to make a move,” Baxter said. “All of you who worked tonight are going to need to pull special duty tomorrow. I’m going to tell folks that we found a warehouse to stash supplies in and that we need to get them out of sight in case there’s another raid. We have two untouched semi-trailers of food and one tanker. I want those moved to the bug out location in Russell County. I want a driver and someone riding shotgun in each truck.”
“Do you want us to stay over there?” a man asked.
Baxter shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll need you guys back here with those trucks. Just unhook and come back. We may have more to haul.”
“Are you going to take everything?” asked the deputy.
“What do you mean by everything?” Baxter asked.
“I mean are you going to take all of the food that these people here have to live on?”
Baxter hesitated, trying to figure out how to say what he needed to say without sounding heartless. “Look, we can’t save everyone here. I wish we could but we can’t. There’s no way we could organize these people to go with us. They’d want to take a bunch of crap and we don’t have time for that. Besides, the more of them go, the shorter this food will hold out. I’m not taking everything. I’m only going to take what we can in the way of food, weapons, and fuel. It will give us a decent chance of surviving. If anyone isn’t cool with that, this is the time to decide. You can stay here if you want.”
He looked around his group. There were no dissenting voices. He couldn’t read them well enough to know if that meant they were with him, though. Did he really have their hearts or were they waiting until his back was turned to take him out? It was hard to know.
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad no one wanted to quit. We’re a team and we need each other to get through this. From this point forward, your primary responsibility is the safety of each other. Glenwall residents come second.”
Chapter 36
The Valley
Randi had three of her horses saddled and waiting when Buddy and Lloyd ambled down the driveway.
“Y’all are on time,” she said. “I expected the musician to slow you down.”
“I had to threaten him a little,” Buddy replied. The older man appeared to be moving a little better now, his wounds healing. He was wearing a sparkly purple backpack that didn’t go with the weapons he carried.
“Where’d you get that backpack?” Randi asked. “That’s snazzy.”
“Ariel,” he said. “That sweet little thing made me a lunch and packed it in her own school backpack.”
“When I asked where my lunch was, she told me to check the hog trough,” Lloyd said.
“I like that little girl,” Randi laughed.
Buddy grinned. “Me too.”
“Got your .32?” Randi asked Lloyd.
Lloyd frowned. “Damn right I got my .32. I don’t see how my pistol has become the joke of this whole valley. It’s a perfectly respectable weapon.”
“How does it make you feel that everyone in this valley, including the women, have a manlier gun than you?” Randi said. “And before you make any smartass comments about how manly your gun is, remember who you’re talking to. My mouth can burn you like the sun through a magnifying glass.”
Lloyd bit his tongue and said nothing.
“That’s what I thought.” Randi grabbed her Go Bag from the porch. She carried her pistol in her waistband and had the .22 rifle her brother had given her. She swung onto the saddle of her horse.
“You’re making fun of my pistol and you’re carrying a .22 rifle?” Lloyd asked snidely.
Randi cut him a look. “You get one warning,” she said. “This is it. No smart comments or it’s on.”
Buddy laughed. “Gonna be a helluva day. I can tell already. Helluva day.” He swung onto a horse and rested his Winchester .30-.30 across the saddle.
Lloyd tried to mount his horse while it edged away from him. He already had a foot in the stirrup so he had to hop on one foot to keep pace with it. Randi laughed.
“I’m trying,” he said. “Damn horse.”
“Lloyd’s confused,” Randi said. “Last horse he rode didn’t move until he put the quarter in.”
Lloyd finally had the horse trapped against the porch and was able to swing up on it.
“Let’s go, Laurel and Hardy,” Buddy said. “Time’s a wasting.”
It took them nearly an hour of easy riding to reach Lloyd’s childhood home. Randi and Buddy maintained a respectful distance while Lloyd paid his respects to his dead parents and went inside to check the house. He returned with a couple of pillowcases of items he wanted to take. He knotted them together and tossed them over the horse’s neck.
They backtracked for a mile and headed north toward town. Each trip out of the valley was different from the one before it. It almost seemed that the cloud of desperation that had settled over the community had given way to apathy and an acceptance that it was futile to struggle. For most, death was coming. The time for preparation had passed, and those who had not made the effort were probably going to die.
They took the road toward town and paused to study it from the vantage afforded to them. There was very little movement. No cars were driving. A few lone folks walked about.
“I got no interest in going through there,” Buddy said.
“You aren’t tempted to see what town is like?” Lloyd asked.
“I ain’t in no shape for a fight,” Buddy said. “Someone might try to take the horses. Maybe even for food. Randi can take care of herself. I’m just not sure I’ll be able to take care of me and you.”
Lloyd was offended. “I can take care of myself.”
Buddy laughed and Randi joined him.
“I don’t get it,” Lloyd said.
Buddy shook his head and nudged his horse forward.
They rode to the bottom of the hill, and instead of continuing on the road into town, they turned east along a creek. They followed a walking trail along the creek until they neared the cemetery where Buddy’s daughter was buried. They rode their horses up the bank onto Main Street, turning into the cemetery gate about a quarter of a mile down the road.
Randi and Lloyd peeled off as they went through the iron gate. Buddy stopped his horse and turned around.
“What are you all doing?”
“I thought you’d like to be alone,” Randi said.
“I’ll be alone the rest of my life,” Buddy said. “I’ll take the company of friends while it’s available to me.”
They followed behind him until he reached an unmarked plot with a withered flower arrangement at its center.
“She was buried the day this all hit,” Buddy said. “It ain’t likely her marker will ever make it here.”
“I’m sorry this happened,” Randi said.
Buddy stared at the ground for a long time, his mind in a distant place, replaying an entire life. When he was done, he gave them a strained smile. “We can go now.”
They cut through a silent neighborhood and an adjoining pasture, heading in the direction of home.
“Can I ask you guys a favor?” Randi asked.
The pair mumbled that she could.
“I need to go check on my brother,” Randi said. “He didn’t want to join us. I’d like to make sure he’s okay. Maybe we can even talk him into coming back with us.”
“I don’t mind to go, but it seems like you’d be better off asking Jim,” Lloyd said. “He’s got a lot better guns than we do.”
“Jim has a family,” Buddy said. “She’s asking us because we’re single, which makes us expendable.”
“Yes,” Randi agreed.
“I will have you know that if I am killed, millions of banjo fans will mourn my loss,” Lloyd said.
“There’s no such thing as a banjo fan,” Randi said. “People are just humoring you, same way they do a kid when he’s got a bowl of spaghetti on his head. You think you’re cute and so everyone goes along with it.”
“Besides, think of all the people you’ve given haircuts to over the years. They’ll probably rejoice at your passing,” Buddy said. “All those kids with one missing ear.”
Lloyd smiled at Randi. “Despite your verbal attacks on my person, despite you making fun of my pistol, despite your rebuffing of my romantic overtures, I will gladly go with you.”
“Your romantic gestures are like your banjo playing,” Buddy teased, “off-key and stumbling. I’ll go with you too, Randi. We’ll gladly help.”
“It could be dangerous,” she said.
“As they said in Little Big Man, it is a good day to die,” Lloyd said.
“Speak for yourself, you old bastard,” Randi cracked. “Dying ain’t on the itinerary. Either way, I appreciate you two. Can we go tomorrow?”
Chapter 37
Rockdell Farms
With the rubbing alcohol gone and all of his stash of store-bought liquor depleted, Hodge was in bad shape. He hadn’t had a day without drinking since about age seventeen. He couldn’t even remember the last time without a little nip to ease out the rough spots. The symptoms of withdrawal were beginning. He shook with delirium tremens. His body ached. He thought at any minute he’d throw up. It was time for emergency measures.
He retrieved his two bottles of concentrated Lysol disinfectant. Each diluted to make nine gallons of cleaning solution or, in his case, nine gallons of drinking solution. He’d learned about drinking Lysol the first time he’d been in detox. It was a tip shared among career alcoholics. That time he’d been picked up by the cops while staggering around town and nearly getting hit by cars numerous times. The police dropped him off at the local detox center and that was where he woke up the next morning. They’d fed him well, put some clean clothes on him, and gave him some nice medications so he didn’t get in any hurry to rush off. It was better treatment than he was used to. Kind of like a spa for addicts.
He picked up a few tips from the old drunks on how to stay drunk when the money ran out, including drinking aftershave, rubbing alcohol, and Lysol. He’d only stayed in detox for the day, deciding that he preferred drinking to taking the Librium they gave for withdrawal symptoms.
He signed himself out and returned to the drinking life. He’d been in detox one time since then, picked up for the same reason, and found detox was no longer the same congenial place as it had once been. Usually populated by middle-aged drunks, the detox center was now full of kids addicted to pain pills. Apparently drunks were a dying breed and Hodge decided he’d do his best to avoid detox after that.
He mixed the Lysol according to the instructions, having great difficulty with his shaking hands as he attempted to pour a measured amount of the concentrate into the empty gallon milk jug. When finally he had it, he filled the remainder of the jug with water and took a whiff of the mixture. It smelled of lemons and chemicals. He reminded himself this was not about the trip. It was about the destination. The destination was drunk.
He choked down a drink and heard a roaring sound in his head. He gagged a little and staggered to his worn out recliner, the arms stained dark and threadbare. He sagged into the chair and stared at the wall at the framed pictures. There was an array of them, each displaying the sample photo that had come with the frame. He told people they were his family when in fact, he had no family left and no pictures of what family he’d once had. The pictures gave him comfort when he needed it. He’d named the folks in those pictures and assigned relationships to them within his meager family tree.
When the roaring in his head didn’t stop, he regarded the clear milk jug on the chipped Formica countertop.
“That shit has killed me. My brain is shaking itself apart.”
He got back to his feet and wandered outside, hoping that filling his lungs with fresh air might clear the roaring from his head. His porch was trash-strewn and rotting. He leaned carefully against the porch post, his eyes watering. He blinked several times and realized that the roaring was not the sound of an approaching aneurysm. It was the sound of approaching tractor trailers.
He went back into the kitchen, grabbed the jug, and started back out the door. He knew the trucks had to be going to that camp those Wallace County men had set up. They had promised him booze and he needed it now. He would follow those trucks like a wolf stalking a wounded elk. He looked at the jug in his hand, wondering if he should take it or not, then deciding that he’d better. He might get thirsty.
He wove his way through his debris-filled yard. He looked longingly at his S10 pickup, wishing he could drive instead of having to walk. The truck had been sitting for ten years or so, since he got his fifth drunk driving conviction. The truck was now used for storing trash until he could haul it to the dump. The truck was full so he’d started a new pile in the yard about a year ago. Somehow hauling trash to the dump didn’t seem all that important when he had all that empty yard.
As he walked toward the creek-side campsite those men had set up, he did indeed become thirsty and sipped from his jug. The taste wasn’t so bad the second time. Perhaps it had damaged his taste buds. He tried to concentrate on the lemon taste, imagining that it was simply a chemical-infused lemonade. He could feel it working, filing off the hard edges of the day. Maybe things would be okay after all.
He started to sing as he sometimes did when was enjoying his first drinks of the day. He wasn’t feeling it though. He was too anxious over getting the bottle he was promised. In fact, he was salivating merely thinking about it. The thought did cross his mind that the drooling might be a symptom of poisoning from drinking the Lysol. He’d seen a poisoned dog slobbering like that one time. What was he supposed to do? These were desperate times.
He’d had several nips from the jug by the time he reached the camp. Neither his vision nor his counting wer
e very good, but he thought perhaps a half-dozen men were clustered there trying to assist with unhooking the trailer. He didn’t see the tall fellow that seemed to be in charge.
No one noticed him approaching until he was right on them. When he was noticed, six weapons were immediately raised in his direction.
“Easy there,” Hodge said, grinning. “I come in peace.”
One man lowered his weapon. “Look who’s back,” he said to the others. “The town drunk.”
The other men lowered their weapons and returned to work.
Hodge frowned. “Ain’t no need for name calling. That ain’t neighborly, and it looks like we’re neighbors now.”
He chuckled. “What the fuck you want, old man? We’re busy.”
“That feller who was with you before, the boss man,” Hodge said. “He with you?”
“He didn’t come this trip.”
“He might have sent it with you then,” he said. “He was supposed to send me a little gift.”
“I don’t know anything about any gift.”
“A bottle of liquor,” Hodge explained, his voice rising a notch. “He said he’d send me a bottle of liquor. You all heard him. He promised.”
He shrugged. “Sorry. Can’t help you.”
“Dammit!” Hodge said. “I told him I’d find you all a place to store your shit in exchange for a bottle. You sure you didn’t keep it for yourself?”
Another man walked up. He wore a checked shirt, cowboy hat, and cowboy boots, and he carried a sidearm. “What you going on about?”
“Your boss man promised me a bottle of liquor if I found you a location to store your shit. I found you a location and I want my bottle of liquor.” Hodge actually hadn’t thought anything about a storage location. He was pretty sure he could come up with something on the fly. There were a lot of large barns in the valley.
“That’s between you and him,” the second man said. “I don’t have time to fool with you. We’ve got work to do. Now get the hell out of here before I knock the shit out of you.”
No Time For Mourning: Book Four in The Borrowed World Series Page 16
