by Joe Nobody
“If you think it’s safer to go directly to the island, then my all means, let’s skip the rest of the stops. I’ve had enough fun for one day.”
Looking at the sun, Gomez said, “It will take at least three hours off our trip. I’m going forward and letting the engineer know.”
“Looks like you might get to see Terri sooner, rather than later,” Grim announced.
“I could use a day off at the beach,” Bishop responded with a grin, “to work on my tan.”
His friend motioned toward the south, a squall line of ominous clouds stirring on the horizon. “Doesn’t look like the best time to be squishing sand between your toes.”
“Figures,” Bishop observed. “At least we’ll be done with this assignment. I think we have enough information to create a good report for the council. Think Gomez will be sorry to see us go?”
Laughing at the thought, Grim indicated he did not. “Gomez wouldn’t be sorry to see his own mother go.”
“We’ll tell him he can have our pay for the day’s work. That ought to cheer him up.”
Major Misery heard the ruckus before the two frightened, dirty faces appeared at the command tent. He knew immediately something had gone very wrong.
“Where’s Hoss?” was the father’s first question, the state of the men in front of him already telling of a failed robbery.
Looking down at the ground and shuffling his feet, the older of the two bandanas replied with a low voice. “He didn’t make it. He’s dead, sir.”
Both of the messengers expected an explosive tirade from their boss, the man’s temper well known and respected. Much to their shock and relief, the major merely stared off into empty space and sat down slowly, as if finding his land legs after a long sea voyage.
After a few moments, Misery whispered, “How?”
“That new guy that Hoss fought yesterday… the little one… he killed him while we were shooting it out with the other guards on the roof.”
“Did you see him kill my son?”
“No, but I saw Hoss’s body before we took off. When I slid down the ladder, I peeked inside and saw him lying dead inside the car. That new guy was pulling his knife out of Hoss’s back.”
Both of the major’s fists slammed onto the table, the outburst startling the messengers. The display was quickly brought under control, Misery continuing with a low voice. “So I assume our little Trojan horse caper didn’t work out so well?”
“It would’ve, but those new guys fought like nothing we’ve ever seen. They were better shots and more disciplined than anything we’ve ever gone up against.”
Major Misery was no longer in the tent, at least not mentally. His physical body rose, briefly pacing around the room, but it was evident his mind was elsewhere.
“How many men did we lose?”
“Ten… ten out of fourteen, plus two more of the forward team.”
Finally, the major’s eyes focused. “Did you recover my son’s body?”
The frightened glance exchanged between the two visitors answered the question long before one of them mumbled, “No.”
Veins appeared in the major’s forehead, his body trembling in anger. Pivoting sharply on his heels and pointing a shaking finger, he hissed, “If they have Hoss’s body, you know what that means. It means the fucking Lady Star is no longer a gravy train for us. It means the baron is going to come after us vigorously. It means you two, and all the rest of you worthless idiots are going to either hang, or go back to eating squirrel stew out in the woods.”
Both of the messengers nodded, “What do you want us to do, boss?”
Major Misery managed to calm himself down with great effort, finally rubbing his chin in thought. “Gather everyone. All the ammo and weapons we can muster. We’ll make sure that locomotive doesn’t make it back here tomorrow. We’ll stop it just north of the island. Now get going.”
Corky, after escorting his guests off the ship, strolled onto the bridge, his experienced eye scanning the conditions outside the thick glass enclosure, his brow wrinkling in a frown. “Quite the blow,” he remarked to the first mate.
“Yes, sir, it surely is. I’ve been watching the wind speed, and things appear to be getting serious out there. I’ve seen gusts at 60, pretty constant at 40.”
“And the barometric pressure?”
Sighing, the man keeping watch replied, “Our barometer is down, sir. I can’t monitor the pressure.”
Corky motioned to a nearby docked tow, the Morgan City Angel restless in her berth less than 30 feet away. “Have you contacted Angel to check the pressure?”
“Their radio is down, Captain.”
Corky grunted, remembering the issue being reported yesterday. There were no spare parts available. No new radio could be purchased, shipped, or installed. “Send a man over and ask Captain Miller for a reading.”
“Yes, sir.”
While he waited, Corky mentally inventoried the list of broken equipment in need of repair or replacement. Given it had been over two years, the items weren’t significant. Still, it seemed like things were breaking more often, their needs growing every day.
“Maybe that’s why we can’t stand on our own,” he whispered to the empty bridge. “Maybe that’s why we should join whatever government eventually forms.”
But it was more than radios and equipment.
Watching the deckhand pull on his raingear in preparation to brave the weather, Corky realized part of the reason why he welcomed the Alliance so openly was that he was getting tired. He’d worked so hard to organize the city’s people, putting together The Strand and arming his men to provide security and protection. It was a thankless job, a never-ending river of problems, issues, and snags requiring more diligence than any cargo haul he’d ever attempted.
He’d been raised living off the land, and at first, couldn’t understand how anyone residing so close to the water could go hungry. Under his guidance, fishing, shrimping, oyster harvesting, and even the gathering of edible seaweeds had been systematized throughout the island.
It had been one of his engineers who taught the locals how to evaporate seawater to isolate the salt.
But it was exhausting work with little reward. No one was going hungry - there was little organized violence in his realm, but other than that, Galveston simply wasn’t making much progress.
The trade agreement with the train operators had pushed the standard of living a little higher. Now there was wood, beef, and a wider assortment of vegetables available to the people. Classrooms had been formed, the island’s children at least learning to read.
He’d formed neighborhood committees, centralized what little medical care they could provide, and tried to organize the fishing fleets.
“Everything went to hell right as I was starting to enjoy life,” he said, waiting on the mate to return. “Doesn’t seem fair – but then no one promised our time on this earth would be fair.”
A minute later, the drenched deckhand returned. “Sir, Captain Miller reports we are at 29.58 inches of mercury and falling.”
Corky whistled, looking at his first mate. “That’s not good… not good at all. I want every tow and barge double-lined immediately. Looks like we have a serious tropical system moving in, and I don’t want any of our craft pulling free from her moorings.”
“Right away, Captain. I’ll radio and send messengers.”
Corky turned his attention back to the windows, a new worry now dominating his thoughts. A tropical depression would measure 29.54, a Category 1 hurricane 28.95. A big hurricane could go as low as 28.06.
Turning back to his second in command, Corky said, “I want to be advised of the pressure every hour. If it dips below 29 inches, I want to be notified immediately.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Terri heard the wind and rain roaring against the warehouse’s roof and walls. Even inside the coach, the storm sounded ferocious.
Pacing to the window, she glanced into the cavernous building, catchi
ng a glimpse of the torrent through the partially opened door. It looked as if the rain was blowing near horizontally. “Heck of a squall,” she commented to Betty, casting a worried look toward the older woman.
“They have them down here,” came the immediate response. “All that wide open ocean gives the weather plenty of time to build. That’s why only palm trees thrive along the coast.”
Slim, complete with glistening poncho and rifle, stepped into her view. His hair was soaking wet. He looked cold.
Terri knew her security men wouldn’t leave their posts, no matter how bad the weather turned. Given her protector’s imitation of a soaked rat, Terri realized the sentries were probably patrolling the outside of the warehouse as well as the interior. “I’m going to make a pot of coffee for the guys,” Terri declared. “They look miserable out there.”
“Let me help,” Betty said, moving toward the kitchen counter.
Coffee had become one of the most valuable commodities in the Alliance. Existing stores had been depleted early on, with only the occasional new stash being discovered. Pete, it was rumored, had a secret supplier from Mexico. The deliveries were said to be made late at night, the Meraton bar owner and mayor supposedly trading his best moonshine for the precious beans.
Pete would neither confirm, nor deny the accusations.
When the pot had finished brewing, Betty produced a tray of cups. There wasn’t any sugar, but cow’s milk had been plentiful at the time they had left Alpha.
Slipping on her own raincoat, Terri checked her sleeping son before taking the tray of steaming joe to the door. Betty helped her down the steps, frowning at the constant growl of the storm against their shelter.
The chairwoman found Butter first, the big fellow keeping his vigil just inside the large, doublewide door they had driven through. “Hey there,” she said over the bedlam outside, “I brought you something hot to drink.”
“Is that coffee, Miss Terri?”
“Sure is. Now you have to promise not to tell Bishop I shared his secret stash,” she teased.
Reaching for one of the cups, Butter smelled the liquid like a wine taster approaching a rare vintage. “That smells extra amazing,” he replied.
“Where are Slim and the rest of the guys? I have some for them, too.”
“They’re down at the far end of the building, ma’am. I can’t leave this door, but if you walk about 50 yards that direction, you should run into them. And thank you, Miss Terri. You don’t know how good this tastes.”
Butter handed her his flashlight, “You should take this with you. It keeps getting darker by the minute.”
Terri glanced around, peeking outside at the drenched street and town beyond. It was shocking how dark it was given the mid-afternoon time of day.
A minute later, Terri found the other security men. They were huddled in a corner, their attention drawn to the only clear window in the entire building. Everything else had been boarded up years ago.
“Hi guys,” she greeted. “Anybody want a cup of coffee?”
“Did you say coffee? As in real, down-to-earth joe? Yesssss, ma’am!”
Grinning, Terri set the tray on a nearby stool, the only piece of furniture she’d seen in the whole place. After watching the team take turns pouring, she turned to Slim and nodded toward the window. “What were you guys watching out there?”
“The storm, ma’am. One of the guys used to live here in Galveston back in the day. He said this is one of the worst he’s ever seen.”
Terri scanned the building around them, “Are we safe here?”
“As safe as anywhere I can think of at the moment. There’s no way we could drive the RV in this wind… at least no safe way. The streets are already filling with standing water here and there.”
Terri walked to the window, absentmindedly relaxing her hand against the glass. She couldn’t see much, the blowing rain, dark clouds and dirty window all serving to obscure the view. She perceived another gust of wind bluster against the building, and then quickly pulled her hand away from the glass where it had been resting. Turning, she exclaimed, “I felt the wind push the glass in! It actually bowed inward!”
Slim nodded calmly, motioning to the building with his eyes. “These walls are poured concrete, every window but this one has been long gone and replaced with plywood. The rafters are 12x12 hardwoods that have survived every storm for the last 80 years. Odds are it will survive another.”
Turning back to the glass again, Terri watched the rain for a few more moments and then said, “You don’t think this is a hurricane, do you?”
Slim frowned, “Actually, ma’am, that’s exactly what we were just talking about. It’s very frustrating not knowing. There’s no Emergency Alert System, Weather Channel, satellite photos, or even equipment to measure the wind speed or barometric pressure. And really, it doesn’t matter. We can’t leave in these conditions, so we’ve got to ride this out, no matter what type of storm it is.”
“If it is, what about all those people? I remember the island flooding during Hurricane Ike, but everyone had been warned and a lot of people had evacuated for the mainland.”
Clearly concerned about the possibility, Slim’s response carried a tone of helplessness. “I can’t think of any way to warn everyone. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing we can do.”
Terri didn’t like it either, her mind filled with images of the happy, productive residents she’d seen earlier at The Strand and on the way to the beach. Galveston was proving to be one of the few places she’d visited that held optimism for the future – that would be able to contribute to the recovery of the entire region.
It angered her that Mother Nature might be taking aim at one of humanity’s few bright spots, but as Slim had noted, she couldn’t think of any action or move that would help the situation.
Like the ocean pounding the seawall just a few miles away, waves of helplessness rolled over Terri. She could only hope it wasn’t a hurricane, or that it was a small one.
The rain began pelting Bishop just after Gomez announced they were two hours outside Galveston. Keeping his station on the first car’s platform, he’d been watching the dark line of clouds heading their direction for some time. When the first drops fell, he was ready with a poncho.
The steady rhythm of the iron horse made diligence difficult at best, some sections of the rail almost rocking him to sleep. For the “nth time,” he pined for a cup of coffee.
They were heading almost due west now, the deep forests behind them now replaced with open, coastal plains. He knew they were nearing Houston, the route taking them to the eastern edge of the city where they’d turn south for the final run to Galveston.
Bishop had no desire to see Houston. He’d heard enough reports, talked to enough people to know his former home wasn’t anything at all like he remembered.
Checking the terrain ahead and seeing nothing more threatening than a couple of goats grazing along the line, Bishop allowed his mind to wander back to the last time he’d seen Houston proper before all hell had broken loose.
Before this latest assignment, Terri and he had talked about visiting their home, or at least what might be left of it. While the couple didn’t have any reason to believe it had burned, they both assumed it would’ve been weather-damaged and overgrown at a minimum, looted at worse.
“I can’t, Bishop,” Terri had declared. “I just can’t. I remember it the way we left it, and I want to keep that vision. That life is gone, and I can’t see any reason to stir up all that emotion again.”
It seems like it was so long ago, Bishop thought. Their first home together, worrying about the electric bill, the price of groceries, and struggling to make the payments on both a mortgage and a new truck.
He could almost smell the coffee percolating in the kitchen as the rays of the morning sun streamed through the kitchen window. He remembered watching Major League Baseball games in the den, and how Terri fussed over the finger foods for the Super Bowl.
&
nbsp; They had so much then and didn’t even know it. There were always cold cuts in the fridge, at least a pound of bacon ready for the pan. Fresh fruit, eggs, chips and salsa… little things that they took for granted at the time. Now, even a cup of coffee was considered an extravagance to most.
The rainfall increased its annoying intensity, now stinging Bishop’s face as Lady Star sliced through the blow. Ducking inside the car, Bishop tried his best to do his job and keep watch through the streams and rivulets that ran down the glass. The rhythm of the rails tempted him to close his eyes, but he didn’t dare reduce the intensity of his vigil. Gomez was probably right about Major Misery.
As usual, he had to agree with Terri’s desire not to visit their home. Returning to the old neighborhood would indeed conjure up a head full of bad memories.
But it wasn’t the potential despair over a lost abode or looted china that bothered Bishop. What he feared had nothing to do with possessions or physical things. No, what troubled the Texan the most was losing the battle that raged inside him. He feared that visiting their first home would add fuel to a flame that he barely managed to contain.
The more he fought, witnessed, and suffered in this new world, the angrier he became at the loss of the old one. Every man he’d been forced to kill added to the fury. Every orphaned child, starving wretch and street lined with empty homes caused the ire to build.
He was constantly suppressing the urge to lash out at something, to make someone pay for all of the pain and suffering. His internal ferocity was barely contained, and if it triumphed in this conflict, his morality would disappear forever.
At first, he’d been completely occupied with simple survival. Staying alive had consumed all of his energy and time.
But as things stabilized, there was more mental bandwidth available to analyze, observe, and remember. Without the need to spend every waking moment of every day focused on providing nourishment, Bishop began second-guessing their lot, searching for answers.
