by Harp, Wilson
We finally had that blow up about a week before Mom passed on. I told Anne when I went to Chicago, it would be to find my wife and daughter and I didn’t need her there to complicate things. She just stared at me for a minute and then turned and walked out of the house. I didn’t see her for several days, and she never brought it up again. Neither did I.
It wasn’t a coincidence she would be here, with both horses, on the very night I decided to leave. I considered just walking around the gate, but wanted to say goodbye to Frank. I would just be as friendly as I could with her and try not to fight about her going again.
The door to the guard house opened and Anne waved at me.
“David, get in here,” she said. She held up a cup and motioned to it.
The smell of coffee moved my feet a little faster. She brought coffee to the guard station. Frank must be thrilled. Coffee was a very rare commodity now, and it normally went for almost as much as sugar.
I reached for the cup of coffee as I came near and Anne pulled it back into the small shack.
“Come in and shut the door and you get the coffee,” she said.
I followed her inside and breathed in the warm, woody air.
“Is that mine?” I asked as I reached for it again.
“Yes,” she said as she handed it to me.
“I hoped you would wait out the storm,” Frank said.
I turned and looked at my friend. He had his feet up on the desk and was sipping his own cup of coffee.
“She brought enough for a whole pot,” he said as he motioned to the coffee pot sitting on the stove. “If you didn’t show, I could have had it all to myself.”
I took several long sniffs of the drink before I sipped it.
“Where did you find this?” I asked. “It’s still pretty fresh.”
“I bought a can from one of the scavengers,” Anne said. “Back around Thanksgiving. I was down to around a third of a can, so I sold it to Frank.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked.
“Ted said it would be a good idea. You can ask him why.”
I could feel my jaw clench as I took another sip. She must have told Ted about me yelling at her. He always took her side whenever we had disagreements.
“And the horses?” I asked.
“Too cold to head up to Ted’s tonight on foot, don’t you think?”
I nodded. “If I had the choice to ride, that’d be better.”
“You should see her hair,” Frank said.
Anne glared at Frank.
“What about your hair?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“She got it all chopped off,” Frank said.
“Why would you get your hair cut off?” I asked.
Anne stumbled for words. Between being angry with Frank and clearly not wanting to discuss it with me, she felt trapped.
“Sometimes a woman just wants to make a change in how she looks. Okay?” she asked.
“Okay with me,” I said. I really didn’t want our goodbye to be acrimonious.
“I’m going to check on the horses,” she said. “Have a good night, Frank.”
“Goodbye, Anne. Have a safe trip. I hope I’ll see you again,” he said.
She slammed the door as she left.
“She’s not going with me, you are aware,” I said to him after she left.
“She is going with you, you are aware,” he said. He smiled as he took another sip of coffee.
I shook my head as I realized I wasn’t going to be able to avoid a fight with her after all. But she wasn’t going and that’s all there was to the argument.
“She’ll be back here tomorrow,” I said.
Frank cocked his head and his smile dropped. “Not tomorrow. But within a week. I still say once you get to see what has happened in Cape, you’ll wise up and not go haring off across uncontrolled territory.”
“I need to find them, Frank.”
Frank put his coffee down and rubbed his face.
“They’re dead, David.” He didn’t make eye contact with me. “You know it. Deep down you do.”
“I’ve had that very thought every day for the last nine months, Frank. Every single day. And every day, I know I need to make this trip.”
“You know I never went back to Wilcox. You know I can’t bear to drive by the nursing home, don’t you?” Frank looked up at me as he spoke. “I can’t stand to think how my mother suffered in those last days. I can’t imagine her looking at the door hoping I would walk through and take her away.”
I nodded. “I know, Frank. But I have to face what’s happened. I have to.”
Frank sighed and picked up his coffee. “You are a stronger man than me, David. I always knew it, but this puts it in plain view. Don’t go get yourself killed for no reason. Make it back here if you can. You can build a life here. You know it.”
I smiled as I put down my empty cup. “I’ll be back, Frank. I hope I’ll be back with Lexi and Emma. But I’ll walk through that door again by summer in any case.”
Frank looked away again and sipped his coffee.
I opened the door and stepped back into the snow.
“Frank try to talk you out of going?” Anne asked as I shut the door behind me.
“For the hundredth time, yeah,” I said.
Anne mounted up on Bonnie and motioned me to Clyde.
I unstrapped my pack and placed it behind his saddle. Then I mounted and rubbed the large horse behind his left ear. He whickered softly and looked over at Anne.
“Let’s go. It’s not getting any better on the road,” Anne said as she guided Bonnie around the gate.
Clyde followed the mare without my instruction. I glanced over my shoulder and took a final look at Kenton. I said a prayer I would see my little hometown again.
Chapter 2
The turn off for Ted’s place was about a mile down the main highway. The light from the guard post fought its way through the snow and darkness for about a third of the distance. Once we cleared the final shine of the light, the snow took on the eerie blue glow of a secluded winter night. The once busy highway was not used to wearing an undisturbed blanket of snow and it gave away the passage of many creatures which would prefer to pass unnoticed. Rabbit prints were common along the edges. Signs of two foxes crossing the highway together were clear. No coyote or dog prints, though. That was a blessing. The horses would let us know if they caught scent of a bear or a mountain cat.
“Am I going to have to wait until we get to Shangri-la before you tell what the deal with the hair is?” I asked.
“There is no deal, and Sophia will smack you if you call it that.”
“Ted doesn’t mind, and it’s his compound.”
“Ted don’t mind a lot of nonsense, but he isn’t raising kids like Sophia and some of the others. They want a respectable place and Sophia says Shangri-la sounds too much like a place Lester would own.”
“You avoided the question,” I said.
“I told you already. I just wanted a change.”
“And that’s why you were ready to punch Frank in the nose?”
“Don’t need much reason,” Anne said with a sniff.
The blacktop road which led up into the woods and right to Ted’s compound was screened by a small group of elm trees. If you didn’t know there was paradise down that road, you would never have paid attention to the little cut off.
The horses knew the way, though, and deftly made the turn without any tension on their reins.
“I do want to thank you for meeting me at the guard house,” I said. “This is a lousy evening for a stroll.”
“How much better do you think it’ll be as you head up to Chicago? I don’t know why you can’t wait until spring.”
“I’ve talked it over with Ted. Winter travelers will be harassed less along the way. They are moving with a purpose and others will let them be.”
“Ted has a lot of theories,” Anne said. “I don’t think they’re all gold.”
“He’s tried to get me to let you go,” I said. “You think that idea is pure gold.”
“Not gold. But makes sense.”
I waited for more. I thought for certain she would take the opening and start the argument again. She didn’t say anything. I resisted the impulse to look over at her. As dark as the road was under the canopy of trees, I wouldn’t have been able to read anything on her face anyway. And if I turned, she would know I expected a fight.
“I’m glad we aren’t fighting,” I said at last.
“Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Well, you haven’t… I mean, you’ve just been so agreeable.”
“I can’t be agreeable and polite even when you act like a stubborn ass?”
I sighed heavy as I realized our fight from last month was simply in a cease fire state. I had a feeling she was holding fire until she had reinforcements.
The first indication we were coming up on the compound was the smell of wood smoke making its way down the hill. The wind and snow kept the smoke near the ground and the horses hooves stirred up the small trickle of evidence of human habitation.
The blacktop forked and the smaller spur wended its way past a stand of cedar to a large wooden gate.
Bonnie slowed to a stop just as the gate opened.
“Come in, come in,” Tom said. “Come in out of the cold.”
Tom’s hat was covered in snow and even his bushy white eyebrows had caught a few flakes. I had no idea how long he had waited by the gate for us to arrive. Anne guided Bonnie into the compound and toward the barn.
I looked around at the two new houses which had been set up since I had last been here. Sophia had encouraged Ted to take in four families which needed some help. Ted agreed, but they had to prove they wanted to learn how to survive on their own. Ted didn’t feed the folks at his place with scrip, and he would toss any slackers out without hesitation.
The Bakers were the family which blossomed the most up here. Pete was a hard worker, but he had trouble earning enough scrip in town to keep his family fed. They had five children left. Two were buried before the summer ended. But up here, they were all able to be fed, and fed well. The children would learn about raising animals, tending crops, and building simple machines with the men in the compound. Sophia had started talking about setting up a school in the spring. She had homeschooled her own kids and I think she felt like getting the other mother’s involved would give them purpose and a boost.
That was the problem many faced this winter. We had all worked so hard to plant, protect, harvest and store food, that when winter came, the mental challenges erupted. I loved to read, and there were plenty of books to keep me occupied, but many people were going crazy from being stuck inside on cold blustery days. They didn’t have the threat of starvation or freezing to keep their minds off their boredom.
Many people looked at their piles of scrip and wondered what they were going to do with it. They had enough food and wood, but they wanted entertainment. And that is where Lester Collins came in.
He had plenty of supplies and food for himself and his men, and he had plenty of booze and drugs to entice some of the townspeople from Kenton to head out to his place and trade valuable items for temporary solace. He had successfully recruited a dozen young women, girls to be honest, to provide other comfort for those willing to pay. They didn’t have to work in the fields and they could eat, drink and smoke all they wanted.
When the Army first arrived in town, I had hoped they would shut Lester down. But instead, Lester greeted them with open arms. He was the biggest backer of the scrip idea, and soon he had a stockpile of the local currency. Ted had said Lester wouldn’t even have to plant a single crop this next year. He could buy all of his food and wood with what he had earned this winter.
Every day it seemed more people grew bored and curious about what it was like up at his place. They would buy a pass to get into his place from the army, then spend some of their sweat and effort on a night of revelry.
Nobody from Ted’s place participated, except for Kenny. Ted wasn’t an overly moral man, at least he had never commented on things he found immoral, but he still avoided Lester’s. I knew Kenny was at Lester’s quite a bit, but he never talked about having a good time or wasting his scrip. Kenny always said he had to go out to Lester’s. It was always ‘had to’.
“David. David?” Anne poked me as she got my attention.
“What? Oh, sorry Anne.”
“Clyde’s brushed down enough. Let’s go,” she said.
I had lost myself in thought and had set Clyde in the stall between Bonnie and Trigger. His tack was off and I had the brush on my hand.
“You okay?” Tom asked me as Anne left the barn.
“Yeah, I just keep thinking about the town,” I said.
“Don’t worry, David. I have faith you’ll find your answers. And I know you’ll make it back.”
I smiled at Tom. “I’m glad one of us does.”
“Hey, you fixed the radio for us. And you didn’t think that would ever happen. Right?”
“You’re right, Tom.”
“Have faith in yourself, David. Others do.”
That had always bothered me. I hated when I felt like others depended on me. The radio was a prime example. Anne had told Ted I could fix anything with electronics. It wasn’t true. I loved to tinker when I was a teenager, but that had been several decades ago. Ted handed me the radio and everyone I knew just assumed I would fix it. And I did. But it didn’t make me feel more comfortable with that level of responsibility.
“You feeling pressure to find your family?” Tom said as we walked toward Sophia’s house.
“I guess so. I know I should have left last April, but I just couldn’t leave my folks in their condition. Dad told me Lexi and Emma were my first priority, but he never pushed it.”
“I reckon he must have been as stunned as the rest of us when it happened.”
I knew that wasn’t the case. My dad had been one of the first ones to grasp and fully comprehend the situation. He didn’t push me to go because he felt the trip would have been futile and he didn’t want me to throw away my life in a hopeless pursuit.
He never said it, didn’t even hint at it, but I knew it was true. I knew it because it was what I denied in my own mind.
“I best be getting back to my house before Holly starts to worry,” Tom said as we approached Sophia’s door. “Good to see you again, David. I probably won’t be up early enough to see you off, so I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Thanks Tom,” I said. I held out my hand, but he pulled me in for a hug.
“You take care of yourself,” he said. He smiled, nodded and then walked away.
“Knock, knock,” I said as I opened the door to Sophia’s house.
“Come in David,” she said as she turned to see who was entering.
I stepped in and shut the door. Her house was warm, much warmer than my house. Anne sat at the table, her coat and hat still on as she talked with Vivian, Sophia’s 5 year old daughter.
“Kenny’s in the other room,” Sophia said. Her look informed me this was a dismissal. I figured she and Anne were in the middle of a discussion and I wasn’t welcome to join.
“Thanks,” I said. “Ted in there?”
“No, he should be here soon, though,” she said as she turned back to tending several pots which were cooking on her stove top. The smell of roast pork filled the house. Even after having had the bowl of stew just an hour before, I felt hungry enough to eat a full meal.
Kenny was sitting on a chair reading to Kaylee, his niece. Sophia’s third child, Andy, was playing with a boy I didn’t recognize on the rug in front of the fireplace. They were playing with toy cars and talking about how they were fixing them to go scavenge in the city.
“Hi David,” Andy said as I came into the room. “Are you really going to Chicago tomorrow?”
“That’s the plan,” I said.
“Uncle Kenny won’t let me
go with you,” Andy said.
The boy he was playing with, maybe a year younger than Andy at age 8, looked up with alarm on his face. I recognized him at that moment. His name was Josh Lewis and he and his parents had come to Kenton from Cape Girardeau with his younger sister. The family didn’t talk about what they saw to many people, but Ted had worked some of it out. Ted didn’t say much about it, only we would see for ourselves as we went to Chicago. That was the way Ted told me he was going with me. I didn’t argue, I knew I needed someone to watch my back.
“You sure you want to hit the road?” I asked Kenny. “Looks like you have quite the life here.”
Kenny smiled and went back to reading to Kaylee.
When I told Ted my Mom was in her last days and I would be ready to go soon, Kenny mentioned he could use a stretch of his legs and wanted to know if he could go with me. I was very happy to have him join me and Ted, and very pleased he had the courtesy of asking me rather than telling me.
The kitchen door opened and the flames in the fireplace flared up. The door shut as Ted came in from the wind and snow.
“It’s really coming down out there,” he said. “But I was just talking to Rolla on the radio and it’s calmed down already over there. Will be bitter cold tomorrow morning, but we should have good weather for a few days.”
Anne said something to Ted, but I didn’t hear it.
“That’ll be fine,” Ted said. “Sophia, are you good with that?”
“Yes, Ted.” Sophia said. “You go get cleaned up. You and Kenny and David. I need to get the kids to bed.”
The boys picked up their cars as they heard what the matriarch of the house said. Little Kaylee whispered something to Kenny, but he just picked her up and handed her to Sophia as she walked in the living room.
“Come on boys,” she said. “Let’s get to sleep. If it isn’t too cold tomorrow, I’ll let you help me milk the cows.”
The boys smiled and hurried after Sophia and the girls. How quickly children adapt. It had been months since kids had complained about being bored or not having a television or video games. Learning something new, like milking cows or how a hand pump gets water out of the ground, was what kept kids interested now. That and books. The town library had been augmented by the private book collections of many people. Some houses only had a couple of books, but a surprising number of people counted their books in the hundreds. Most were paperback fiction, but there were a considerable number of text books on many subjects. It shouldn’t have surprised me, since my house in Oak Park would have dozens of my college textbooks. I could never justify selling my books back for less than ten percent of what I paid for them, and had lugged them through many moves after college. Maybe someone up there had found use for them.
