by Ron Foster
“Here take this with you so you can’t say I stole something else and you better clean it good before trying to pull the trigger on it again or you will have the barrel blow up in your face.” David had said before Dump took him down and threw him on his boat with further threats to not come back, “EVER! GOT IT?” David and Dump Truck said menacingly to the man before David added he would weigh him down with rocks and drown him if they crossed paths again.
“I remember that crazy day and story like it was yesterday. Relax yourself, David, you have got to admit Captain Mertz did send them two girls’ contracts over for you to buy out and he put a price on anyone else’s contract he had over there that you might have felt like taking in.” Stewart said needling David.
“Yea, Mertz was probably trying to bankrupt us enough to think of signing one of those contracts ourselves. The son of a bitch got a little payback on me taking a couple of our people in that were left owing at the company store when they took off but I am sure they are regretting that now. Hell, we ain’t got no debtors prison over here if you don’t pay; you’re free to go where you want, we just don’t feed you.” David said before he caught on Stewart was only messing with him.
“Yea Stewart Ha Ha, mess with me and piss me off today. You forget I ain’t done doing my trade allotments yet.” David said sounding like his statement was only half in jest.
“Now, David, I was just having me fun with you. I talked to Captain Mertz by the way. Do you know what he wants?” Stewart said with a cat that ate the canary smile.
“No, I was hoping someone would tell me before I had to talk to him.” David said, all ears.
“Well, for one thing would you believe fireworks? Seems he loves those things as much as your buddy George does. I told George I didn’t think you would have a problem with him selling him some maybe if it couldn’t be considered high explosive or something. You two need to patch things up and diffuse the situation around here if you’re going to allow him in camp. You two got everybody on edge and ready to fly off the handle. Go over there and be seen shaking hands with the blighter I say so folks settle down and we don’t have any fights. You told him he could come over to talk business and watch the fleet send off.” Stewart said.
“I thought he only meant one small boat and a couple of his men. I think he is taking things a bit far with that show of force he has got with him.” David said not trusting the man and having people stationed here and there out of sight ready to respond if any trouble started.
“You never said how many boats or people.” Farnsworth kind of squeaked who had brokered this meeting deal.
“Damn, Farnsworth, I wasn’t around to ask that question now was I?” David said admonishing him for the oversight and asking Stewart what else it was the man wanted who reminded him more of a prison warden than a fleet captain and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Oh, the usual stuff about wanting to open better trade relations and such between us and the old stiff shirt is still wondering about how we are managing to get gas and diesel but he wants permission to talk to Roland.” Stewart said not so confident now watching David listening to his “don’t shoot the messenger” message.
“Wait a minute now, I know this is your Landing David but I don’t need your permission to talk to anybody. It might be the polite thing to do in his asking you for some since this is pretty much your shin-dig but if he wants to talk, I will listen. I might not want to listen to him long though because if it’s cattle or horses he wants, I ain’t got any that ain’t spoken for. I don’t need to go the extra step to insult the man and tell him I wouldn’t sell any walking stock to him if I did or criticize his labor policies, unless he brings them up. To me, those folks did something like signing a credit card or student loan and made some bad decisions they weren’t aware of and are paying the price. Just because you got a boycott on him don’t mean I have to. Them folks got to eat over there too you know but I won’t allow him to overcharge or gouge anybody, either. You forget even though you got a tiny piece of it, that me and Dump mostly own that little railroad enterprise that brought all that loot down here for you to be divvying up trading at the Rendezvous.” Roland said taking a bit of umbrage at the fact David had a whole bunch of non- compete deals with other would be traders going on that affected him and his pocket book directly.
“Point taken, you didn’t really need to remind me of any of that if you had allowed me to answer.” David scolded before saying he had no problem allowing a meeting on his turf and hopefully Mertz was just being polite and business like by asking and not trying to do any kind of insider takeover of his supply lines indignantly phrasing “allowed” for Roland’s ears.
“The nerve of that bastard Mertz saying he wanted to talk business and then calling a meeting with his best and almost only livestock supplier. No worries, Roland was a sharp operator and if you wanted to call him that, ”a straight shooting cowboy” from his white Stetson to his silver belt buckle that said to the world “I won the Bull riding Contest” relic of his professional rodeo days. A man among men in these hard times, who had built his own big ranch up from sweat and grit from nothing but hard work and perseverance with a bit of luck. If you asked Roland if he had any “daddy’s money” invested in owning such a big spread he said no, “when he was young in west Texas they were so poor they kept tumbleweeds for pets.” He was also the backbone and funding behind “Roland’s Post Apocalyptic Rail Road” The damndest most profitable business in the world these days that David knew of unless you included the Central Traders Bank that was too much like the former Federal Reserve for him to like or trust much except for the delivery of paper for real hard metals.
What Roland’s railroad was all about was simply controlling several railroad lines leading into the city of Atlanta. The first zippers or scout cars they had running the rails were manufactured in his barn harnessing an old tinkering refugee’s knowledge of creating something out of nothing and Roland’s farm style do-it-all welding. They made highly efficient go cart like vehicles that would run on the rails using what they had like weed eater motors and chainsaw engines to transport freight car spotters and foragers into the city and outlying towns to find food, medicines or just plain loot in one form or another. When the occasion came along that found something big like a whole boxcar of feed wheat bags was discovered, he sent his wagon teams out to go get it or when gas was available and there was enough room to get around on choked highways maybe a truck or some sort of all terrain vehicles would be used to transport it back.
Roland and a few busted up old retired rodeo clowns and a crippled bronco rider were the only ones left alive that still knew how to drive a wagon or hitch a horse to traces to plow with that most people knew of. The old bronco rider was the only one who could still remember how to make and repair harness but age and arthritis made it too hard for him to work and it was hard for him to teach a lifetime of experience to anyone without even the correct tools for the job.
Manufacturing a horse and wagon these days was beyond the scope of most people just like making a modern automobile would have been for anyone not in that industry. That’s the problem with this clash of worlds we got now between the post modern and this back to the 1800’s society. Everyone is a specialist but in all the wrong things except those that could remember researching in a library using the Dewey decimal system versus how to find a feature on a cell phone, how to be sociable and do business on the street versus figure out how to take an online order. It was different skill sets and generations pitted against themselves and trying to figure out how to communicate all over again.
Dump followed Roland over to see Captain Mertz in case he needed any back up and Farnsworth tagged along as David’s representative until he could get together with them later when asked.
“Stewart, go get Gauge to see if his friend Martinez is with any of the boat crews and listen for anything else going on for me, if you would.” David said rubbing his eyes after a puff of wind bl
ew some wood smoke from the campfire they were hanging out at close to his eyes.
“Good idea, David. Uh, one other thing you need to know, mate, I didn’t say in front of the others. He told me to tell Hobe yes if Boudreaux says no.” Stuart said softly so the old Cajun wouldn’t hear.
“He did, did he? What the hell is Hobe talking to Mertz for? How long has this been going on?” David fumed.
“Now don’t get mad at Hobe, it ain’t what you think. He wasn’t trying to borrow no money or nothing, well that ain’t exactly true there. He was trying to see if the Captain would sell one of those big racing sailing yachts he took from the sailing school at the marina before we could get there to do the same.” Stewart explained.
“Hell, I want one of those, what is he asking for one? Screw Hobe, I need one for fast clipper service to Rendezvous at Toulouse. Ever since I thought about opening a permanent trading post down there I been thinking about trying to acquire something like that. How much does he want for one?” David asked.
“Now David, Hobe don’t work for you, me buco, he works for Boudreaux, if anybody. That Cajun has plenty of money just like you do, more actually, I think. Now give me a minute there is more to this story you need to listen to before second guessing it’s ending. If Boudreaux says no to Hobe getting a loan extension, Mertz says he will pay that boat off and take it in trade on his, kind of like an old car dealer but not for the same reasoning. See Hobe has got himself a business idea Mertz wants in on and you know how independent minded Hobe is, so it looks to me like he just wants to have something on Hobe and be able to stay next to him so he can wheedle some part of the pie out for himself.” Stewart declared.
“I would tell you to speak English but I already know you are. Look, tell me the rest of the story in a minute and send somebody over there to get Gauge to do a bit of spying for me. I will distract Boudreaux here for a bit and try to keep away him from Hobe a little longer.” David said and went over to stand in front of Boudreaux a minute who was laughing about something over at the picnic table.
“Ok, David, I got that taken care of. Where’s Dump at? He still over at Mertz’s with Roland?” Stewart asked looking around at the various groups starting to move their chairs closer to the water as the sun indicated it would be going down in an hour and a half or so.
“Chow Time! Cow Time!” Troy hollered out from the cook fires while ringing a big dinner triangle made of iron.
“Ah hell, so much for plotting and scheming now. If Dump’s within a quarter mile or so, you should see him pretty soon. There he is!” David said pointing and laughing as Dump rolled along in that fast shuffle walk of his he did when he was heading on a mission to be one of the first in the chow line.
“I see him; don’t look like Mertz and Roland are far behind. Let’s get going ourselves.” Stewart said as the place suddenly looked like someone kicked an ant hill as everyone converged on a very rare feast indeed.
After fingers were licked and plates were cleaned, everyone settled back in various folding chairs to watch the spectacle and hear the outcome of the judging as soon as the sun went down and the boats were lit up still moored at the dock. A cheer went up and the ohhs and aws started as each boat lit up one after the other without a hitch making a synchronous light show none of the captains wanted to screw up.
The chaplain said his blessing, a moment of silence was observed and the boats lights winked out in reverse order. After the brilliance of the lights and a moment of prolonged darkness ensued, the first rocket went off as a dazzling fireworks show began to the even louder cheers of the Landings spectators.
After about a 10 minute fireworks show, the boats relit all at once and got underway to their next destination at Boudreaux’s Bar and Trading Post after the judging was held for best decorated boat and although Hobe didn’t win with his entry, it was a contender of merit and much praise.
David offered to bring Hobe’s crew back with him to the compounds on the Lake but Gauge and Esmeralda said they were having too much fun and would make it back somehow tomorrow from the trading post. Otto and Ava took him up on it though and after their farewells somberly went to sit around the camp fire a bit longer before going home, lost in their own thoughts in sweet sour moods. At the last minute, Stewart and Farnsworth decided to take Otto’s and his wife’s place on Hobe’s boat instead of riding with Boudreaux and this caused the Cajun some suspicion but he didn’t care much, he had plenty of other riders to drink and play with.
7
OF LAKES AND LOONS
David rose the next morning and decided that he had been working way too hard lately, hell who wasn’t these days what with all there was to do just getting ready for the Traders Rendezvous and the general hard living practice of getting the first of the spring gardens put in along with the hunting and fishing in order to eat, it was just too much. He just didn’t feel well at all after his last bout with the flu or whatever it was that had made him sick for a month. “Sickness comes in haste and goes at its leisure” he reminded himself. Still, he wasn’t used to feeling this puny and unmotivated so early in the day.
All that work had to get done, of course, but he wished it would rain so he would have an excuse to shirk some work, not that it mattered, there was still plenty of work to do inside his house as well as work at the general store but at least that wasn’t as much physical labor as digging in the dirt or walking miles on a trap line which he still did more than occasionally in spite of being able to hire others to do it for him usually.
There wasn’t much extra help available on the lake these days. Most folks were working on their own little plots of ground or hired out for the Trade Rendezvous and there was barely enough extra hired hand labor left behind to produce some surplus in the community garden. Every field looks green from a distance, even a cemetery, David thought somberly looking out across a field the lake clan occasionally used for that purpose. They had planted a lot of pecan trees around the field and when asked why they were doing it when most everybody living today wouldn’t ever get to taste a nut. David had told them it was the work of the dead to better the earth for the generations that came after them and went silent once more leaving them to contemplate those words meaning. He also asked them where have all graveyards gone? Had they noticed their disappearance as the weeds and forest reclaimed them?
Working in the community garden was kind of like sharecropping in these lean times. By the time spring came around, most of the regular workers owed the majority of their existence living through the winter to trade credits at the company store. These debts got repaid in labor and tradable surplus vegetables from the few fields Bernie and he owned and managed. Well, owned wasn’t quite exactly the right word, it was considered community property but what do you call it when only two people own all the seed, fertilizer and labor that went into it? Poverty is no disgrace but decidedly inconvenient and he didn’t have any more suggestions to reduce it around here.
The laborers needed food and they worked for just that and some trade goods or the ambiguous “Bernie Bucks” that traded at the general store and amongst themselves. Those made up bucks were convertible into silver or gold but they were based on community pricing and not their actual value except for 1 Bernie buck for one hour work or a silver dime seemed to change all the time depending on what commodity was purchased due to rarity, etc.
David had been an emergency manager before the big solar storm took the grid down and folks seemed to never let him live down the fact that neither he nor any other agency had a plan for the catastrophe they had woke up and found themselves in. It is better to be a has-been than a never-was David reminded them and at least he got out in the field instead of sitting up in the stands complaining and had tried to do something to prepare his fellow citizens for most disasters. Folks could get quite huffy about his former job and trying to use him as a scapegoat for their woes or current conditions.
David had explained his only job had been to manage resources and to
send help where it was needed but if you didn’t have a fire department or a police force anywhere, what the hell was there to manage?
David had just dealt with existing resources and not any huge imaginary or otherwise warehouses full of goods to give away to the people in need when the banks shut down and the grocery store trucks quit running.
He had some experience working with volunteer fire departments and such though and he reminded folks that being left alone to fend for your own community wasn’t anything new and he had organized what he called the “Our End Of The Lake Clan” as best he could.
It was that coordinating of resources and manpower that had saved their asses so far he was quick to remind them. He wasn’t any socialist about it, either, it was the money or the work that got you things and anyone that couldn’t or wouldn’t pull their weight had the community court to deal with. It wasn’t like he or the rest of his trading group didn’t freely offer charity and goods to those that required them but if you had a nickel or he could dream up something for you to do, that was it, you were somehow going to end up paying your way.
