I thought about it for a moment and decided that even though I couldn’t make a decision for the entire town, I did know of a few things that would be helpful. “Balmorhea’s mayor is a man named Pedro Hernandez, so he’d be the one to make all the trade decisions. But I do know that we need medicine and soap or hand sanitizer. Do you have anything like that?” I asked.
“I’ll put soap and sanitizer on our shopping list, but we do have medicine. Standard drugstore stuff like aspirin and cough syrup, but if you want specialized drugs you can talk to Mikey. He’s our resident drug addict and can probably either hook you up with things from his stash or knows where to find it. It’s the only reason we keep the guy around. He was a pharmacist before all this went down, so he’s a walking encyclopedia of helpful shit with medicine when he’s not wasted.”
“Good to know,” I replied. I thought about Balmorhea’s population. Several people were losing their hair, our fingernails were very brittle, most people’s blood didn’t clot very fast after a wound and abnormally dry, cracked skin was prevalent. Maybe it was the radiation, but I was willing to bet that it was some type of vitamin deficiency that we couldn’t make up through our crops alone. “What we really need is multi-vitamins and probably some pain relievers.”
“Mikey!” Jason shouted towards one of the wagons. “Oh, for Pete’s sake! Hold on a minute, Chuck.”
He stormed over to a wagon and threw open the flap. “He’s always passed out and worthless,” Marcus startled me by saying. “Oh goodie, here he comes,” he finished as he pointed towards Jason who was dragging one of the most pathetic excuses for a human being behind him by the arm. The man half-heartedly kicked his feet in an effort to stand up every so often, but it was clear that he was drugged up and didn’t mind being dragged behind the caravan’s leader.
Jason deposited his cargo in front of me and sat back down on the picnic table. “Here we go, Chuck. What was it that you needed from our pharmacy?”
I went over the symptoms with Mikey and discussed what we’d been eating for the last year. He nodded groggily. “Yeah, man,” he replied in between the wipes of his dripping nose on his sleeve. “Sounds like you guys are all severely Vitamin A deficient and probably several of the Vitamin B’s too. You should round out your diet with more meat and dairy. I’d also recommend that you need Vitamin C too since you’re probably not getting enough.”
“Really?” I said sarcastically. “If we could have done that we would have. We get the occasional deer, but it’s mostly just the vegetables we planted that we have to eat. Sounds like we need to get some multivitamins and maybe some calcium supplements.”
“Sure, that would do it too, man,” the high pharmacist replied.
I waited for a couple of seconds before I looked back to Jason. “Is this guy serious?” I asked. “Can he help or not?”
“Yeah, he’s an annoying asshole isn’t he?” Jason said with a grin.
“I can hear you, man,” Mikey said.
“I know you can. Yes, Chuck, now that our amazing encyclopedia of medical ailments has passed judgment, we can definitely help you. We have several cases of multivitamins in the drug wagon where Mikey stays. Question is: What do you have to trade for it?”
There’s the crux of it then. Of course I knew that Jason and his band of merchants were out for a profit, but I figured that they may have been willing to part with some vitamins as a gesture of goodwill. I really needed to get those vitamins for Rebecca and Sam and there were a couple of other women in town who were at varying stages of pregnancy as well. In fact, we’d been contemplating a journey to Fort Stockton about forty-five miles to the east to see what supplies we could find, but if we could get something here, it would save us from a very dangerous trip. “We don’t have a lot,” I replied, “but we do have a few extra plows that Alejandro designed and we can spare some seeds for planting.”
Jason thought it over for a while and then said, “What are these plows made out of and how are they pulled?”
I described Alejandro’s plow to him and he stood up to pace around and make a show of thinking things through. Obviously, he was a fan of theatrics, but I was willing to put up with it if we could get some vitamins.
Finally, he returned and said, “Alright, we’ll trade you some items for your plows. Obviously we’ll trade the vitamins, but I’d like to talk to that mayor of yours to see how else we can do business.”
“I’ll take you to him whenever you’re ready,” I answered. “We’ll need to head back before dark anyways. Otherwise they’ll get nervous and send out a party to search for us.”
“Alright, I’d like that. I can go either tonight or tomorrow morning, but we need to get moving before noon so we can make it to our next campsite before dark. Even though the muties are mostly gone, there are things out there that you don’t want to run into in the dark without a defendable position.”
“Let me go back tonight and discuss this with Pedro. Then come to the south gate the first thing in the morning. Only you and a couple of people though,” I said as an afterthought.
“Sounds fair,” Jason replied. “I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Hey, mister,” Jackson piped up.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“You wouldn’t happen to have any razor scooters would you?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t. But I bet they have some in New El Paso. If we can work out a trade deal with the folks in your town then I’ll be sure to pick one up when we go through there and drop it off on our way back through next week.”
Jackson grinned from ear to ear. “That would be awesome,” he exclaimed. “I miss my razor more than anything. Well, that and ice cream!”
I placed my hand on his shoulder and gently turned him back towards the cabin. “We’ll be heading back now,” I stated as I glanced at the darkening sky. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
Jason shook my hand and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Time to get back inside the safety of the firelight anyways,” he replied. “Safe journey.”
I waved and started walking back towards the cabin to link up with the others. I felt Alejandro’s presence immediately behind me. “I heard Jackson ask for a scooter,” he said. “It’s funny, but sometimes with all that we’ve gone through I forget that they’re still kids.”
“Yeah, but I think he’ll be alright,” I responded. “I think we’ll all be alright.”
* * *
As promised, I discussed the trade proposal with Pedro and the other members of the town. We all saw it as a win for Balmorhea to begin trading with the larger communities that were left. The week flew by and in no time Jason and his crew were at our gates again with the supplies that we’d requested after our initial meeting but they didn’t have. The exchange seemed fair, but I began to wonder if it would be easier to trade directly with New El Paso ourselves and cut out the middleman.
Alejandro and I discussed the possibility of going to New El Paso with Rebecca and Sam. They finally agreed that it would be alright to go as long as the two of us stayed together and agreed to watch each other’s back. It was a win-win in my book: the town would get a firsthand look at what was available for trading and what we had that others wanted, and I’d get to go back out onto the road to see what was out there.
I’d always considered myself as sort of a homebody before the apocalypse, but all those months of traveling had bred a thirst in me for getting out and seeing our world. I craved the excitement of finding something new around the next bend. I’d been feeling the itch to travel for months now and to just get away from the familiar. Maybe that was why I volunteered to go on every work detail to the lake.
Regardless, Alejandro and I were leaving for New El Paso in a few minutes and I was excited. I packed a few things into the exterior pockets of my backpack that I’d left out last night to use this morning, but I was pretty much set. I heard movement behind me and I saw Rebecca walking towards me from the nursery. “Jesse’s s
till asleep. I can wake him up if you want to see him before you go,” she said.
I thought about it for a moment and shook my head. “No, let him sleep,” I replied. “I spent as much time with him as I could last night. I don’t want your first day alone with him to be a nightmare because he’s cranky.”
She nodded and placed her head on my shoulder while her arms wrapped around me. “Be safe,” she breathed into the fabric of my shirt.
“I will, don’t worry,” I assured her. I did some quick math in my head using our horses’ estimated speed of three or four miles an hour. “Jason said that New El Paso is about thirty or forty miles to the northeast of where El Paso used to be, so that should be around 160 miles from here. At Rusty’s pace we should be there in the afternoon four days from now.”
She nodded her head again. “I just remember how dangerous it was before and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“We’ll be safe. The zombies have all died off so it should be alright. I mean the merchants are out traveling the roads every day now.”
A soft knock on the door told me that Alejandro was here and ready to go. I gently pushed Rebecca back to create some separation between us and kissed her. “I love you and Jesse. And the baby,” I amended as I patted her growing stomach. “We’ll see you in about a week and a half.”
She squeezed me tight in a hug and then let go. “I love you too. We’ll keep an eye out for you.”
I turned and opened the door. Alejandro stood on our front porch wearing the same travel clothes that he wore on our trip south so long ago. “Hi, Rebecca,” he said with an awkward wave.
“Hey, Alejandro. Keep him safe, okay?” she said to him as I strapped on my gun belt that held Jesse’s pistol. I shrugged my shoulders into the backpack’s straps and picked up my battered old baseball bat. I never found my tomahawk after the cannibal camp, but the bat had been with me from the very beginning and it was showing the signs of a hard life.
“Will do,” he answered. “Ready to go, bud?”
“Yup. Just need to strap my KA-BAR on the backpack straps and I’ll be set.” Even though I’d just be taking the pack off in a few feet I’d learned through an almost disastrous incident to not attach knives to my body if I was wearing a backpack. On the journey to Balmorhea the backpack straps had rubbed against the snap holding my knife until they finally caught and unbuttoned it. The damned thing fell and stuck into my boot. Thankfully, the blade only penetrated through the leather a little, but it still cut my foot enough to make walking uncomfortable for several days.
After I secured the knife’s sheath to the strap I hugged Rebecca one more time. She whispered that she loved me and then it was time to go. I closed the door behind me and the excitement of the upcoming trip threatened to bubble over. The air was crisp, probably in the mid-forties. It was still cold enough at night to give all of the farmers a fit, just about every day, worrying over whether or not a killing frost would wipe out our only means of food. We’d been lucky so far. Since we started planting last year the weather had been right on the edge of disastrous without actually tipping that way.
“I knew that you’d be running behind so I saddled up Rusty for you,” Alejandro said as I walked down the porch’s stairs. Sure enough, Rusty and Bob, Alejandro’s horse, were hitched to the railing ready to go. Even though it had been almost two years since he did it, I still giggled a little at the name Bob. The horse was female, but Alejandro insisted that it be named Bob. I often wondered if it was an acronym for “Big ‘ol Bitch” but he’d never tell me why he chose that name.
“I’m not that late,” I replied.
“We were supposed to leave at dawn. Sun’s been up for twenty minutes.”
“Alright, you’ve got me then. I’m late,” I acquiesced. “Thank you for saddling the horses.”
“Sure. No problem—ungh,” he grunted as he swung himself into the saddle. I cinched my pack into place behind the saddle and climbed onto Rusty.
We rode slowly through the little town that had been our home for two years. I took in the details as we set an easy pace for the horses. The cracked glass above the church door, the wooden slat missing from the park bench in front of the old barber shop, the screen door on Ms. Johnson’s trailer that squeaked every time the wind blew all drew my gaze as we rode out of town. Even though I was excited about the trip, I felt like I was leaving the comfort of an old blanket on a cold morning.
We arrived at the northern gate and the guard hopped into the car that we’d positioned across the narrow opening. I heard the old transmission drop into neutral and then he stepped out and slowly pushed the car forward out of the way. I waved in thanks to him and then we were outside of town on the access road leading to Interstate 10.
Our trip was going to take us west along the old super-highway of I-10 to a town called Van Horn. Once we got there, we would take highway 54 north to 62, then west until we came to the turnoff for New El Paso. Jason couldn’t remember the name of the road, but Alejandro had been able to get a telepathic image of the location from Marcus. The old road sign had been partially obscured in the image, but it was fourteen thirty-something and new signs had been put up as an indication that this was the road to the city.
After we cross-referenced a map, I was certain that the town of New El Paso was probably just the old Dell City renamed. They had a few things going for them that a newly established town wouldn’t. First off, they had wells already dug for water. We didn’t really notice it in Balmorhea too much because of the nature park, but we were out on the edge of the deserts of the American southwest so water was everything. Second, there were already homes built there, so they wouldn’t have been starting totally from scratch. And the final reason I could think of was the storage facilities. Dell City had been a small producer of wheat in the desert region so they had massive storage silos which could hold all sorts of things for a new community trying to be the regional trading hub.
We made good time that first morning. The horses were fresh and we had to restrain them from running as we made our slow journey west. They seemed to be just as happy as we were to get out from behind the walls and into the open terrain beyond our town’s walls. The landscape stretched away before us with small hills on either side of the highway at varying distances. To the south lay old Mexico and to the north lay the rest of America…or whatever we were calling it these days.
We were about twenty miles out of town when I noticed a rider behind us on the road. We held up on the median and I pulled the small bird-watching binoculars from my bag. The rider was too far away to see his face, but I recognized the horse’s coloring and the clothing. “Son of a bitch,” I exclaimed in anger.
Alejandro looked at me funny so I handed him the binoculars. After a moment of adjusting the lenses to his weak eyesight he let out a soft chuckle. “You can hardly blame him,” he said. “This is a big adventure for a sixteen year old.”
“Fifteen,” I corrected my friend. “He’s still fifteen for two more months. Goddammit! How the hell did he get out of town with that horse?”
“Jackson’s a smart kid. He probably knows more ways out of town than we could ever imagine.”
“I should beat his ass,” I replied. Geez, I sounded just like my father. I swore to myself that when I had kids I would never be such a hard-ass like he’d been, but this world was so drastically different than the one I’d grown up in. Sure, growing up in Chicago had been dangerous as well, but out here in the wasteland there were a million and one things that could kill you.
“You’re not gonna do that and you know it,” Alejandro chided me quietly. “Besides, it will be good for him to get away from his sister for a while. Those two are too much alike and they fight like cats and dogs.”
I grunted in approval. I still wanted to spank him or punish him somehow, but I’d never raised a hand to our adopted son and I knew that I never would. “I hope he packed food for himself, otherwise we’re all gonna get pretty hungry.”
Alejandro just stared at me and I tried to discern the look that he was attempting to convey. His ruined face made the job extremely difficult, but I eventually figured out that he was going for, “No shit, Sherlock”.
“Okay, you’re right, buddy,” I said holding up my hands in defeat. “He’s a smart kid. Probably has more supplies than we do.” It was true. He and Jordyn had lived on their own for months after their parents were killed so he knew a thing or two about survival.
We waited a full fifteen minutes as his small shape grew and became more defined. When he got within a half of a mile, he spurred his horse into a trot and before long he was seated right in front of us. “Hi, Chuck. Hi, Alejandro,” he said sheepishly with a wave.
“What the hell are you doing out here, Jackson?” I asked. Even though I knew that I wouldn’t send him back, it was important to keep up appearances that this wasn’t acceptable behavior.
“I knew that you guys might need help,” he replied.
“Do you know how stupid it was coming out here alone? How the hell did you even get past the guards?”
He patted the rifle sling across his chest and said, “I can take care of myself, Chuck.”
“No you can’t, you’re just a kid,” I retorted.
He chose to ignore my little outburst and answered, “I only left about ten minutes after you, I went really slow for a while until we were far enough away from town that you wouldn’t send me back. I told the guard that I slept in and was supposed to meet you at the I-10 intersection and he let me out.”
“Well, when we get back I’m gonna have a talk with that guy,” I muttered.
Jackson’s eyes lit up. “Does that mean that I can come with you?” he asked excitedly.
Enduring Armageddon Page 25
