Tempest of Tennessee (Episode 3): Tempest of Tennessee

by McDonald, Terry

  Preeja, Maggie and the children came out to see what we’d brought. The two women couldn’t contain their joy on seeing how much food was on the truck.

  We off-loaded the equipment on the trailers, an easy but time-consuming task. With the storm continuing to hold off in the distance, by unanimous consent, we decided to unload the food after dinner.

  We entered the house and found they had already fed the children. Dinner was beef stew, lots of it and we emptied the pot.

  During the meal, we told Jules and Maggie about meeting David, and the possibility that his family might be joining us.

  Rather than expressing any misgivings, Jules said, “Good, two more adults to stand guard at night. That large of a family, they’ll need to set up in the bunkhouse with you and Annette.

  Maggie had no misgiving either. She was still basking in the joy of the bounty on the pallets. “How many more loads do you think it’ll take to bring all of the food here?”

  Jeffry said, “Utilizing the dump trucks and a couple of the trailers, we can empty the warehouse with a few more trips.”

  Uh oh, without preplanning for diplomacy, I fronted him again. “We could, but we won’t. We’ll leave some for the people still alive in the town.”

  Maggie said, “There are people still alive there?”

  I told her, “All the way from here to Henderson and coming back we didn’t see a single living person, but, yes, according to David, the man we met in Henderson, there are a few survivors living in the city.”

  Jeffry said, “If we hadn’t breached the door, those supplies might have never been discovered. You don’t believe in finder’s keepers, loser’s weepers?”

  Shaking my head, I said, “But we did breach the doors. We could take all of it, but that wouldn’t be fair.”

  Jules said, “”I agree. Besides, our goal is to become self-sufficient and not rely on that sort of food. A few more pallets should see us through summer. What we are going to need are canning jars; thousands of them.”

  After the meal, sitting with coffee, Annette said, “If we hadn’t promised David we’d be back in the morning, I’d say we sleep in. I’m worn out.”

  Jeffry said, “I hope one of you knows how to run the dozer. My wounded leg has reached its limit. I’m going to take a pain pill and lie down.”

  Abby shot him a dour expression. “I’ll run it. It can’t be that hard to operate. I’m sure you can bear the pain long enough to—.”

  “I know how to run a Bob Cat,” Jules interjected. Then speaking to Jeffry, he said, “Son, we appreciate what you did today. Go take your pill and rest. We’ve got this.”

  Call me paranoid… perhaps I am, but Watching Jeffry’s expression during the entire exchange, I got the feeling he wasn’t entirely happy with the easy solution to what I believe was an effort to get back at me for my attitude, but he didn’t voice it.

  Groaning as he stood, he said, “Yeah, it’s throbbing and tightened up.”

  To piss him off, I said, “Yeah, you did a great job today, we all appreciate it. Take it easy tomorrow. I’ll get Jules to show me how to operate the lift so we’ll have several back-ups. A day off your leg will be good for you. Heck, if you do move around a bit, you can get the generator hooked to the house electrical system. If you don’t know how, I’ll do it before we leave out.”

  He turned back to answer, but Abby stepped in. I think she figured out I was goading him. “He knows how. He connected our house to a backup emergency system.”

  Jeffry still tried to get in the last word. “Good luck trying to offload the pallets with the lift. You forget I had to shove them in because the forks don’t extend. If you tilt the dump to slide them to the rear, I would bet the cans break loose from their shrink-wrap. By the time you unload the trucks by hand, the sun will be up.”

  I shook my head, “Naw, I’ve got that covered. We’ll use a chain to pull em to the tailgate and fork em from there.”

  He gazed at me for a long moment and then said, “That’ll work. I’ll see about the generator tomorrow.” He saluted the table, turned and left the room.

  Maggie shouted, “Yea… hot water for baths, running water in the kitchen and central heat. Welcome back, civilization.”

  ******

  Jules showed Abby and me how to operate the dozer controls. It really wasn’t much different than operating a farm tractor. We three took turns offloading pallets and stacking them two-high in the garage.

  Things went well until the next to the last pallet. Backing from the bed with it on the forks, the shrink-wrap holding the cans gave way, spilling hundreds of cans to roll everywhere including under the truck. Using buckets, we had to gather them and restack them on the pallet in the garage.

  When we finished, we stood for only a moment to admire the job. One more load of twenty-four pallets would fill the space. Dog-tired we went to bed.

  The next morning, after an early breakfast, we wasted an hour attempting to get one of the dump trucks to crank. Jeffry didn’t show up for breakfast. Abby said he had a restless night.

  We gave up on the obstinate dump truck and rolled out with three towing their trailers. At the last minute, as we were driving off with me in the lead truck and Annette again riding guard in the bed of the dump, Jules came running to the passenger’s side of the truck. I braked and he climbed in.

  “Jeffry’s up. I left him to guard the home front. I’d like to see the town; how it looks since the last time I was there.”

  “I’d say welcome aboard, but two things. Where’s your rifle? The other thing is we’ll be better off with either you driving and me on guard in the bed of one of the trucks or me driving. We didn’t have any trouble last time but last time doesn’t guarantee this time.”

  Jules smiled, “Yes sir, Capitan, this isn’t a tour, is it? I’ll grab my rifle and ride in the back of the last truck.”

  Shortly after making the turn onto the road that went to Henderson, I saw a pickup truck ahead of us approaching at high speed. Without slowing, it flew past us. In the bed of the truck were several teens, boys and girls. One of them threw a beer bottle that broke against the side of the truck I was driving.

  Watching the truck recede in the rearview mirror, I wondered how so many young people managed to survive, wondered if they survived individual circumstances or it they’d survived as a group.

  While I had no reason to believe they were a danger to us, one thing I knew for sure was that a bunch of teens running wild and free with no restraints was bound to run into some sort of trouble. It crossed my mind that it wouldn’t be long before most of the girls were carrying babies in their arms. That’d slow em down.

  In Henderson, we went to the County Works to unhook the trailers and off-load the dozer. With Jules driving the dozer, we followed him in the dump trucks to the Armory.

  Rounding the turn to take us behind the warehouse, alerted by the racket of our trucks, I saw David poke his head from the opening. When we stopped and dismounted the trucks, he and his family were outside waiting for us.

  Deborah, his wife held an infant in her arms. David had a hand on a stroller that held a kid not much past the infant stage. Beside him, holding his free hand was a boy that was barely tall enough to come to his knee. He hadn’t lied about their plan to have kids as fast as they could.

  Approaching them, I pointed to Jules and said, “David, this is Jules Kincaid, the owner of the ranch we told you about.”

  Jules strode past me to grasp David’s hand. “David, I’m Jules Kincaid. They tell me there’s a possibility you will be joining us. Will you introduce me to your family?”

  David’s smile showed that he appreciated Jules’s attitude.

  “Yes. This is my wife, Deborah. The kid in her arms is Pink—, er, Teresa, but we call her Pinky.” He jiggled the stroller. “This is Fran… Francis named after her grandmother. The stick of dynamite beside me is Carl, named after his grandfather.”

  Deborah said, “Call me Deb. David told me abo
ut the offer to join you all at your ranch. I’m a bit confused as to why you would want us there. Look it, I’m savvy enough to know that a couple with three non-productive mouths to feed isn’t an ideal candidate for a survival group.”

  Jules laughed and said, “We’re not screening candidates for usefulness. What we do want are people who are decent and willing to pull their share of the load.”

  “What is your goal there at your ranch?” She asked.

  “Our goal is to have a large enough group to run a ranch; to raise enough livestock and plant enough seed to become self-sufficient. Another goal is to have an adequate number of people bearing weapons to be able to protect ourselves. It takes many people to maintain a twenty-four hour guard. We’re nowhere near that point.”

  Deb nodded, “Well said, and exactly what we thought. David mentioned that one member of your crew did seem to have reservations about us.”

  Jules cast me a look that I took as cautionary. “That was my son-in-law Jeffry. He’s ex-military, recently retired from the marines. He looks at things from a different point of view. We spoke last night and I can assure you he is completely onboard regarding recruiting new members. I will ask if you will pull your share of the load?”

  Deb said, “I can speak for myself and for David. We have never shirked duties that need doing. We spoke last night about this. Whether or not we decided to join with you depended on how the meeting went this morning… David.”

  David smiled at her, turned to us and said, “If you’ll have us, we’re in.”

  Jules said, “Good. That’s settled. One of us will drive you to your place to pack.”

  David said, “We have a truck and we’ve already packed. I’ll run over and get it.”

  He took off running. Watching him go, I said, “He does what he says he’ll do.”

  Deb laughed, “He loves to run. Our place is less than a mile from here. He’ll do that in seven or eight minutes. Since all he has to do is jump in the driver’s seat of the truck, we should see him in just over ten.”

  That proved true. Jules was positioning the second pallet on a truck when David walked into the warehouse. Approaching me, waving to his family seated on a pallet, he asked, “How can I help?”

  “Do you have a weapon?” I asked.

  “I have several in the truck.”

  “Grab one and join Vikas on guard outside.”

  “Vikas… is he the Muslim?”

  “Ask him,” was my reply, with a mental side of, if that’s a problem, goodbye to you.

  David nodded, “He seems the quiet sort. Is he difficult to talk to?”

  “Vikas difficult, no, but sometime he strings words together in a different way, but it always makes sense.”

  “I’ll get my shotgun and see where he wants me.”

  Jules finished loading the first truck. Annette went to bring in the next one while I drove that one out. When we finished loading the trucks, I asked Annette to check if some of the family wanted to ride over to the County Works in one of the dumps.

  “The four of them is a crowd for an old Ford Ranger.”

  Deb and their two smallest children rode in the truck with Vikas. At the Works, Jules suggested she stay inside the warehouse with the kids while we loaded the rest of the equipment we wanted.

  The trailer-mounted solar generators were too heavy to move by hand. David suggested we pull them outside with his truck and then use a chain attached to the dozer to pull them onto the trailer. One trailer held two of the towable solar units. We put the third onto another trailer and then packed smaller items around them.

  We spent an hour loading everything from yard tools, gasoline powered tools and parts for all sorts of equipment. David’s chain idea worked for loading heavy items onto the third trailer, a huge diesel-powered welder and two towable air compressors. To that load, we added three oxy/acetylene units, a plasma cutter and an inert gas, wire-fed welder.

  Taking a break, all of us gathered near where Deb sat with her children. Jules said, “It’s only a little after one. Let’s do one last walk through for anything we should take with us, and hit the road. I’d like to get this lot unloaded at a decent hour. I’m bushed.”

  Vikas, standing near David said, “Yes, and it is the treat my Preeja and Maggie make for dinner this night. I will not tell on promise, but you will assuredly like.”

  Annette said, “Have any of you noticed the sky? The way the clouds are building, we’re going to get the rain that missed us last night. We’d better hurry. Jeez, what’s it been, two months since it last rained? What’s weirder is it’ll be March in a few days and we haven’t had a day under sixty since the hailstorm.”

  The entrance to the warehouse was only feet away. I stepped outside, gray, patchy clouds were overhead, but far away, moving toward us from the south was a wall of bottom heavy black clouds.

  Jules joined me, saw what I saw and shouted, “Okay, forget about anything else. Get the straps, ropes and bungee cords and lock everything down on the trailers. If we hurry, we can beat the rain. Let’s move it.”

  Back at the ranch, Jules hustled Deb and her children inside to meet the rest of our group. Returning, he directed us to detach the trailers at the barn and bring the pallet-laden trucks to the garage.

  He and Abbey took care of unloading the food while the rest of us unloaded the smaller items from the trailers that didn’t require the assist of the dozer. We finished before them. With the dozer tied up unloading pallets, standing around waiting, I thought, heck, my four-wheeler can drag the heavier stuff off.

  We beat the rain, but not by much. The others headed to the house while I drove my four-wheeler into the barn. Jeffry came in as I was leaving.

  “Tempest, I waited until I could speak to you without an audience.”

  I was ten feet from him and stayed there. “Yeah, what do you want to say?”

  “Just want to say that we somehow got off on the wrong foot with each other. My fault. I was responding to you as I would to a young child, not an adult. I’ll tell you why. You’re very small for your age and that influenced my attitude. Last night Abby informed me you were seventeen. It won’t happen again.”

  “Thanks. I’m glad you said that.”

  He continued speaking, “There’s another thing. Yesterday I got really pissed when you made what I thought to be a unilateral decision to allow David and his family to join us here. I was complaining about that to Jules and Maggie. Abby reminded me that I was wrong, that you asked for my opinion and rather than say let’s consider it or another sensible response, I came up with, “I don’t know’. How stupid you must have thought me.”

  “I wouldn’t categorize it as stupid, slow maybe.”

  He burst out laughing. “Wow, thanks. They also told me you could be very abrasive. You’d have made a great Marine.”

  I said, “Let’s cut to the chase. You’re trying to say you don’t want to butt heads with me. I’m good with that. Let me tell you what I thought. Here’s a Marine. He’s tough. He’s a decision maker. He’s a survivor. What I wanted was off the hook, to let someone else be in charge. I hoped it would be you.”

  There followed a long moment of silence. His eyes tried to engage mine; I let them. He studied me, finally said, “Here’s how I see it Major Tempest. I’m in you bivouac. You know the area and the people. You know the customs. I’m from a different place, never been in the southern states in my life. You know what’s considered normal and what’s not. Until I’m acclimated, you’re in charge. I’ll advise if asked or if I see something that you should be aware of, but in trips away from the ranch, you’re the honcho.”

  I said what I felt. “Well I hope your hurry your ass up and get acclimated.”

  Again, he burst out laughing, but it was good-natured. “I’ll do my best, Major. Come on; let’s see what the women cooked up for us. The odors coming from the kitchen have tortured me for the last few hours.”

  We walked together to the house. He tried to get me
to talk about my battles; ‘Engagements’ he called them. I told him to ask Vikas and Annette.

  Nearing the house, I heard the steady, but muted throb of an engine. Entering the house, the light shining from a chandelier hanging in the foyer gave testament to the proof of Abby’s assertion that Jeffry could tap the generator into the home’s electrical system. I pointed to the chandelier. “You do good work.”

  Jeffry barked like a dog and said, “I don’t have a tail to wiggle, so that’ll have to serve as a thank you.”

  I gave him a shove. He staggered and yelped.

  Embarrassed as hell, I said, “I’m sorry, I forgot about your injured leg.”

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s what friends do.”

  I was beginning to think he could be a friend, but messing with him, I said, “Friends shove injured friends?”

  His response was a chuckle.

  The odors of the un-served meal permeated the house. The table was set with floral dishes. Each plate had a water glass and a small, tapered wine glass with a long stem. Evenly spaced above the long table were three hanging wrought-iron lamps.

  Entering the dining room, smiling to those greeting us, Annette waved me to a chair beside her. Seated at the table I counted ten chairs around the long dining room table, but by my mental count, we had only nine adults. A frivolous thought passed through my mind, ‘We needed to find one more person to fill the table’.

  The reality was we needed double that number to have the ability to maintain a constant guard and have enough workers to operate a large ranch and farm.

  Jules entered the dining room carrying a tray holding a bottle of wine resting in a metal bucket of ice. Preeja followed behind him and sat beside Vikas.

  Jules placed bucket on the table and sat. “The women will join us in a moment. We’ll have a toast before the meal.”

  In an awe filled tone, Vikas said, “Look my Preeja, it is the Dom Perignon in the ice; the champagne of royalty.”

  Jules smiled, “Yes it is Dom Perignon, but I’m not sure of the royalty part. Maggie and I were going to have it when we sold our first herd of cattle, but… well; we’ll have a round as soon as they join us.”