Sharecropping The Apocalypse: A Prepper is Cast Adrift

by Ron Foster

  “Let me get myself clear of this log and you all walk your pretty selves just about a hundred yards or so up the shore from here and through the woods apiece and we got friends waiting to meet you! Never seen crazy guys like you two poking their heads and guns out the bushes like that except in a bean the clown tent at the carnival show!” Crick said celebrating by fussing at them playfully and laughing as the pair came out of the thicket to stand on a clearer piece of shoreline.

  “Can’t do it man, there is a bitch of a ditch over here full of mud and water that looks dang near impassable. We’ll try to go around Crick and meet you up their somewhere when we can get a clean path!” Ben hollered back.

  “Who yare you talking to Crick? Who’s that? Is that them damn prisoner catcher releasers you been talking about?” Bertha bellowed in her strong voice out from the other farthest side of the ravine.

  “They are our friends Bertha! Told you that already! You are going to like them just fine.” Crick said over the noise of the engines and all the crowing going on about all the confusion.

  “Tell them to come on over here and get acquainted! I can keep Bertha in check,” Clem called out trying to get a glimpse at where the other voices were coming from.

  “They can’t cross over from where they are at Clem, they’re stymied by a ditch that is between ya’ll!” Crick called back

  “What the hell’s a ‘stymie’? Just float them on back on the tractor. Never mind I’ll come down there and get them myself, tell them to stay put David!” Rossy called.

  “No you stay right there yourself Rossy where you’re at and don’t be pointing no guns at them when you do see them. They are our friends! Let me see if I can idle the engine here in front of them for a second and figure things out.” Crick said, deciding if it would be better than to shut the tractor down out here in the water or try to let it idle. Damn thing should start back up .He had enough experience with amphibious vehicles in the Army that he figured it should start as long a s the exhaust pipe and anything that made it go bang like the air scoop also stayed above the waterline.’

  Crick finally decided what to do and with an ‘Oh Hell’ this might hurt pause gingerly turned the key off to tractor in order make conversation possible over the noise of the engine and the lapping of the water from his wake.

  “What’s up boys? You don’t look too bad considering the trip you been on.” Crick said swinging open the door of the tractor to greet his fellow rafters and figure out just what he’d hit in the shallows to stop him and figure out how best to get off of it.

  “Well ain`t you a damn sight for sore eyes man! You couldn’t find anything better to captain than whatever that is you’re riding on? And who the hell are all these folks who keep yelling back at us?” Ben called back having some fun for the fist time in a month and curious as hell about what he would get back for an explanation...

  “They’re some new friends we met! Awful good people actually, that believe it or not knows more about how to survive this disaster than the whole bunch of us preppers put together. I don’t know how you’re going to get over there but find your way best you can and I will see you over there.” Crick called looking at the ravine leading up to a bluff.

  “Don’t worry about us; we will get our butts in gear and get there eventually. Have you been over to the Prepper camp yet?” Beauregard called out to him concerned about those they had left behind.

  “No not yet, this is our very first maiden voyage if you want to call it that. I think they might can hear us over there but unless someone is fishing that steep slope at the far end away from camp they can’t see us this far away. “Crick said sitting down on the front end of the floating tractor boat and hiking his boots up on the bumper so he didn’t get his feet wet as the unwieldy craft rocked up and down in the rivers current.

  “Got anything to eat?” Beauregard called out.

  “Got something for you all good to eat already fixed, but you got to get back around that way somehow. Hey boys, this currents picking up, I got to fire this thing up!” Crick said as he started drifting down river some.

  Crick climbed back into the cab and attempted to restart the old beast. RRR, RRRR the thing grumbled before its engine finally caught again and rumbled to life in a billow of smoke and diesel belching. Crick managed to pull out of the shallows and off the log he had hit and get in the main channel a bit more as he started to throttle down to make it back to the landing where Clem and Bertha stood waving at him at the other end of the bend.

  “Now what we are going to do, Ben? Do you have a course of action you prefer?” Beauregard said.

  “I guess we are going to walk it uphill and around unless you want to try swimming it.” Ben said.

  “Seems like us swimming would get us there a lot better and faster than crawling up that ravine, but this pistol don’t swim so well. I say we walk” Beauregard replied.

  Crick idled the tractor’s engine down and reduced the white froth coming off the paddlewheels and hollered at them while bobbing along more midstream in the river.

  “We’ will keep honking the horns on and off down at the boat landing and you can find your way to us easier!” David called out

  “Follow that redneck reveille and we’ll finally find who’s making all that noise and what it is they are driving!” Ben said to Beauregard and they set off on the rest of their trip.

  It was roughly about 45 minutes later that Ben and Beauregard who had probably walked a little further than they had to all the while cussing the briars, the heat, the mud and life in general while figuring out the way until they came upon the faded peeling white paint signs pointing to the boat landing.

  “That’s got to be where they all are!” Beauregard said with a renewed spring in his step.

  “Head that way then, don’t worry about me, I can keep up just fine.” Ben said as they trudged up to a small paved road coming up on the clearing where they observed a unique heart warming sight.

  An old blue and white pickup with Loomis sitting on top of the cab in that old cowboy hat of his looking like a cop siren, Crick hollering at them from the paddlewheel tractor parked off to the right, an old country man in worn overalls happily cavorting about everywhere pointing in their direction making exclamations and an old black woman with a bonnet on waving welcome to beat the band when all of the sudden a gangly figure popped up out of the woods in front of them hollering “Howdy ya’ll” as Rossy Ross came out of the edge of the woods to greet them personally with a childlike glee and a smile that would be forever be remembered.

  “You let them men folks hands go and quit hugging them and come on down here Rossy!” Bertha said as everyone came up to greet the lost rafters.

  “Introductions are in order! “ Crick declared and set about restoring order while grinning like a possum eating honeysuckle.

  “Well I already know which one Ben is; he got that sheriffs badge on!” Bertha said, to which Crick and Clem started chuckling about it and Loomis took control of the situation by doing the intros and reliving the men of their burdens by taking their packs.

  “I can’t tell.” Rossy said puzzled

  “Tell what, darling?” Bertha said, talking to Rossy as everyone started greetings and shaking hands once more firing questions at one another.

  “If he has got the badge on, does that mean the other one’s the dentist?” Rossy asked, poking a finger in her mouth and not quite wanting to talk about what it was paining her.

  “I am not any dentist, who told you that? What is she talking about?” Beauregard said complaining. “You got a tooth hurting honey?” Beauregard said starting to reach a caring hand over at the child as she caught sight of his pistol and started to hide behind Bertha.

  “I ain`t no dentist I said!” Beauregard exclaimed and wondered what his pistol she had observed had to do with that obscure fact.

  “Well we don’t need to get out of jail but we do need teethies fixed around here. So are you the dentist or do you just kno
w about dentures if someone needed some bonded?” Bertha declared.

  “Just what is it that we are talking about? Stupid shirt, I didn’t even think anything about wearing it to be honest. I ain`t no sheriff or dentist neither. I am a bail bondsman.” Ben protested.

  Crick said he would tell them later and not to worry about it.

  “There he said it, just what kind of men is it you put bonds on if it ain`t for teeth Ben? We don’t needs no indenturing or getting out of jails” Bertha complained.

  “You boys got to eat something regardless I guess! Crick said you wouldn’t bother us none and I believes him” Bertha said going to get her picnic basket of goodies.

  “Ha! I tell you who the denture man is now!” Rossy whispered to Crick watching the boys salivating over the rabbit and goodies in the basket that Bertha took the cover off and shoved it their way for further inspection.

  “She got pickles and other fixings in there too Gents, we ain`t going to make you sing for your supper boys, no worries, just eat real slow ands save us some. We will let you eat first in peace before we start into telling our stories and asking for yours.” Clem said, shaking a rabbit haunch at Beauregard who only took about one second to make it disappear out of his hand and headed towards his mouth.

  “Now ya’ll munch munch” Loomis began, trying to talk with a mouthful of rabbit and reaching over towards Bertha’s pickles before they went too far away as his audience reached over carefully to get their own foods away from the ravenous heathen who had been waiting on that picnic basket lid to be opened and lunch to be called all day.

  “Loomis! Where is your manners at son, the guests eat first and they gets the first choice!” Bertha scolded him but still enjoying how that country boy loved eating her vittles. Then Bertha snatched the pickles back and said “Here get you some.” as Ben and Beauregard’s eyes popped at the feast set out before them.

  There was a momentary pause and Crick said “Get you some corn dodgers also and dip them in the syrup.” Before Ben and Beauregard fought each other to be first to get some of that good eating out of the basket Clem started taking care of the distribution in a more orderly fashion.

  “I’ll get mine in a minute that is if you three leave me anything.” Crick said joking.

  Well if you didn’t know anything about two ravenous dogs eyeing each other before chowing down you could have used old Ben and Beauregard as an example. Took a second or two of them wolfing down ravenous bites of country fried rabbit and corn dodgers before Beauregard finally felt sated enough to have surfaced for air and say something.

  “This is the best, munch munch, food, munch, I ever tasted! This is wonderful! Thank you, Miss Bertha.” Beauregard declared, Ben agreed, eating with two hands and seeing how much he could fit in his mouth at once with a playful poke at Loomis who acted like he was going to steal a bone from a starving dog as he reached past them for some more hot sauce.

  “Settle down boys; eat slowly now it’s better on your gizzards. It’s kind of like drinking water after being in the desert; you can’t wolf it down all at once! I know you got spider webs in your assholes from not eating for a while, but you got to settle down and pace yourselves better!” Clem said looking at the two gluttons consuming even the sweat off the pickles on a napkin.

  “That’s right; don’t be saying you got sick off my cooking or anything crazy like that. Ya’ll can’t be punishing yourselves that way or I’ll have to give you my old cure and dose you some later!” Bertha declared sternly. To which Crick and Loomis declared “Oh hell no”, because Clem had clued them in as to what the “Bertha cure” was that included some turpentine in it and the gamut of medicinal meadow weeds she knew that said you sure didn’t want to go there! Bertha believed in expectorants and purges to get the poisons out of you as she put it and the cure was as about as bad as the cause and they had seen she also kept asafetida and castor oil about for the occasion.

  “You will end up puking or shitting your guts out either way oh believes me you don’t want to try or need the cure.” Rossy advised making a face.

  “Bertha had this thing about turpentine.” Clem said. “It goes in everything she makes from horse and mule liniment to cough medicine and you didn’t want Bertha dosing you with none of her concoctions or it’ll be coming out one end or the other or both!” He declared slowing down eating himself.

  Needless to say the chomping fest stopped when Bertha started fishing around in that big old purse of hers for her ‘medicine’ and the boys slowed down to a almost comical pace so they wouldn’t get that dose of medicine!

  “If you don’t take a dose, you know she’s going to snatch hold of you and sit on you!” Rossy Ross said in a whisper.

  “That’s the secret to good health my friends, don’t tell her you got anything wrong with you!” Clem said;

  “Bertha used to chase me around when I was a boy and sit on me to dose me with that medicine of her and her maws and you don’t know which way it’s going to come out, but one good thing about it, she will wash your drawers afterwards!” Clem exclaimed. “You better leave her a clean pair of drawers on laundry day too or you are going to get dosed again!” Clem guffawed and everyone took note to be wary.

  3

  THE CAVALRY ARRIVES

  Julie and David were traveling down a winding country road about thirty miles from Crick’s house watching the road and the horizon for any telltale signs of smoke or danger ahead.

  For the last two and half hours they had been listening to the emergency broadcast channels giving directions to the FEMA relocation centers and warning of wild fires and traffic hazards. The trip had been pretty much uneventful except for a wildfire detour of a national forest that had got them lost for a while until they could make heads or tails on a map where exactly they were at.

  David didn’t know if GPS was working or not and that fact bugged him a lot. GPS was relatively easy to bring down if you were a foreign power with satellite killer technology but he wondered also what a dedicated hacker could do to the system if they had a mind to.

  The military as well as many other commercial ventures relied entirely too much on that navigation system in his opinion and he had been aware for years how fragile and how dependent they were on the technology. Well maybe they will say something about it on the radio or he could ask Crick if he had heard anything when they met up.

  “Julie it won’t be long until we get to Crick’s place, I guess we sort of over worried ourselves about this trip in some ways, but don’t let your guard down just yet. I don’t know if it’s just my nerves being jittery from the ride or knowing the lack of us seeing very many people means bad things about them holding up in their houses, but its downright creepy thinking about rolling up on any house I don’t know well right now.” David said carefully watching anything and everything with a detached curiosity that hoped to gain answers from the most obscure things.

  The muddy river banks that looked like they would soon cave in they had seen along the way didn’t really tell him much about the hazards of the waterways. He already knew a dam was blown around here, but it also appeared there had been a great deal of rain fall around the area recently. That was a good thing. Maybe it would help knock out some of those wild fires.

  Good thing the damned terrorists had not included weather in their plans or had they? Now that was a confusing thought. It would make sense for them to blow a dam right before a deluge to magnify the effects of an attack but on the other hand if you planned on doing some economic damage as well as hamper and exasperate recovery efforts with a firestorm you don’t want a rainstorm reducing your efforts.

  “I know what you mean David about feeling apprehensive and emotionally drained. Heading out on this trip I didn’t know if we were going to see the apocalypse or get pulled over by some kind of military storm troopers wanting to take some of our stuff.” Julie replied.

  “Except for that congregation of military police in Montgomery, I guess we we’re very lucky
not to see anyone. They sure are warning the public a lot on the radio about what martial law is these days.” David said slowing down and observing the woods ahead.

  “Why are you slowing down David? You see something?” Julie asked looking ahead to see what was up.

  “I’m trying to decide if we need to go ahead and get the long arms out of hiding and make them more available.” David replied, still scanning the area.

  “You expect trouble, David? Do you think that their might be something wrong at Crick’s house?” Julie asked looking across the car seat at David carefully.

  “No, but forearmed is forewarned or some shit like that, I’d just as soon have my shotgun handy driving up on that house. You get that Keltec 9mm carbine out and that bag of clips in the duffel bag when I pull over.” David said staring over toward the road’s shoulder.

  David had his 7 plus 1 shot Sig 45 pistol handy as well his .380 Keltec pistol in his pocket. Julie had a 17 plus one shot 9mm Astra A100 and a 9mm Keltec pistol in her Thunderwear holster and extra clips. Both had relied on these armaments on the trip so far and in no way felt under or over gunned in anyway..

  A carry pistol and a backup pistol, David advised should be the same caliber if possible. Everything Julie carried for this trip was 9mm caliber, two pistols and a thirty shot carbine. David didn’t have another 9mm pistol or he would have matched her. The 380 was his daily carry pistol, he was known to say if he had his pants on he had his pistol on.

  The 45 pistol of his required some thought from him as one of his carry choices. But he did not consider this dilemma of choosing a weapon for long. His other option was the .357 single action Ruger pistol or a CZ52 semi auto pistol which shot 7.62 x 25mm Tokarev ammunition.

  The CZ was a hotly debated item between him and Julie because David knew it was a vest buster with a standard load up to and a bit past a level one ballistic vest and with the hand loads he had it could surpass a level two bullet resistant vest. In a martial law situation, that was a serious thing to consider. However, after much thought and soul searching, David had opted for the 45 because of dependability and availability of ammunition over the more exotic round in the CZ52 pistol.