“If I understand right, she’ll eat anything that’s growing?” Terry finally asked, interrupting Felipe’s endless list of edibles.
“Pretty much,” Felipe conceded. The elephant didn’t hesitate when she saw the lake. She waded in, drank her fill, washed herself, splattered Felipe, and ate the vegetation growing at the water’s edge.
“She likes the water,” Felipe said unnecessarily. “She likes to eat, too. I fear that she wasn’t getting enough while traveling with us.”
“It’s a different world today from what it was yesterday. We’ll send someone by with dinner and a blanket,” Terry told the man, assuming he’d stay outside with Jumbo until they found a home.
“I don’t know what to say.” Felipe watched the elephant rip an entire bush out of the bank and devour it.
“Just do your best to help us. We all need help at one time or another. Jumbo can make quick work of those fields, I suspect, as well as fertilize them all if her last contribution is any example.” Terry and Char both shook the man’s hand. Felipe found a rock to sit on as he watched Jumbo act at home.
As Terry and Char walked away, she got a good grip on his butt and squeezed. “What do you say, we pick up the kids, eat dinner, and then get Aaron to take them for a walk while we take care of a little mom and dad business,” Char teased.
Terry wanted to run, but held himself back because of his dignity, although when Char jogged away, he happily took off after her, almost giddy with expectation.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ted stood like the grizzled old sea captain, feet wide with hands on his hips, the ship’s wheel beside him. Terry shook his head at the display, but needed Ted’s expertise to handle the ship.
First order of business was to train a new ship’s captain, because they needed Ted to work on the nuclear reactor so they could generate power for two years before needing to refuel.
They couldn’t spare him to go fishing every day. He said that he could do both, which made Terry shake his head once again.
He knew that Ted needed less sleep than others, but they couldn’t have him so tired he made a mistake with the Mini Cooper. They had Gene to help avoid any catastrophic failure, but it was best if both of their nuclear engineers were on top of their games when messing around with the reactor.
A group of five volunteers stepped aboard the sailboat, each getting a warm greeting and a thank you from Terry Henry, while Ted looked at three men and two women as if they were gum on his shoe, each of them a pockmark on his ship.
At the last moment, Merrit and Adams ran to the dock. “Got room for two more?” Terry was good with it, but Ted didn’t want them, saying the ship was overloaded as it was, especially once they hauled the fish aboard.
“Fuck off!” Adams said as he climbed aboard. Once standing on the deck that he had personally scraped, sanded, and polished, he gave Ted the finger. Merrit tiptoed aboard while the others were distracted and quickly took a seat.
Ted harumphed, before turning to his duties. Terry watched the man as he ran down a checklist that he carried within his mind. Ted mumbled to himself as he checked things off.
“Prepare the sail!” he called out to the novices. They removed the cover and tucked it into the cabin. Adams stood by the winch to haul the sail to the top of the mast.
“Cast off the lines!” Terry pointed to the one at the bow while he took the stern line. An older woman called Anne quickly unlooped it from the dock cleat, then wrapped it and tucked it away.
“Push off!” Ted yelled impatiently. Anne and Terry leaned into the dock and the boat drifted into the harbor.
“Sail!” Adams started cranking the winch, not too fast because he didn’t want the system to fail before they made it out of the harbor. But it rolled smoothly. The final bit of pig fat provided from the previous night did the trick to keep everything well lubricated.
The breeze was in their faces, but Ted tacked twice and angled smoothly into the lake, where he could take a more leisurely approach up the coastline.
“North?” Ted asked.
“North it is, Ted,” Terry replied, letting the wind whip his hair as he smiled into the lake’s spray. “May fair winds and following seas lead us to fish aplenty.”
They tacked a few more times to train how to do it. Anne seemed a natural on the ship, walking steadily as the sailing boat clipped through the small waves.
Terry waved her to him. She seemed to dance alongside the cabin as she came, watching the wind and sail before jumping to the deck.
“Yes?” she asked.
“How would you like to be the next captain of this fine vessel?” Terry wondered.
“Why me?” she wondered.
Terry pointed to one man up front, leaning over the rail and puking his guts out. A young woman was a little green, but holding her own. The others were sitting and watching the waves flash by. Closer, Adams continued to give Ted the finger, while Merrit laughed to himself.
“Because you love this. You see the ship as an extension of your being, just like he does.” Terry nodded toward Ted, whose eyes flitted from sea to sail to clouds and back again in an endless loop of looking for clues that would help or hurt their progress.
“I do love the sailing part. I knew I would the second I heard we were recovering a sailing vessel. I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve never sailed before,” she whispered.
Terry didn’t care. A natural was a natural.
“Ted! Meet your new trainee,” Terry said, leaning toward the ship’s captain. “Listen to everything he tells you and learn everything you can. Your test will be in a week.”
“Yes, sir!” she said, saluting sloppily while maintaining her balance through a roll of the ship. She ducked smartly as Ted tacked and called for Merrit to trim the sail.
Ted was constantly in motion to keep the sail at its best angle. He held the wheel as the ship sailed ahead.
Terry slapped Adams and Merrit on the backs. “Nice job getting the boat ready,” he told them.
“Not that he’d notice!” they complained as Ted called out another tack.
“How long have you two knuckleheads known him?” Terry asked sharply.
They both looked away.
“A long time, I know,” Terry continued, glaring at the two Werewolves. “The one constant in this universe is Ted, who has probably been the same from when he was a small child. You will have no better man in your corner, so for fuck’s sake, stop giving him the finger!”
Adams smirked and looked away.
Ted angled the boat toward a shaded cove. “Look for underwater obstructions,” Ted called. Eight pairs of eyes looked overboard as Ted sailed through the area he expected they’d find fish.
“Helm’s a lee!” he called as he tacked through the wind, turning the boat through one-hundred and eighty degrees. “Prepare the net.”
Anne stepped under the boom and grabbed the end. The fishermen each took a handhold and prepared to toss the net over the port side.
On Ted’s command, they cranked the sail down a few notches to slow their forward progress, then they heaved the net into the water. The four corners of it were tied to a single rope that was wrapped around the base of the mast and tied off, just in case.
Ted turned the boat to the port slightly so the rope pulling the net didn’t slide past him. Once the slack in the rope was gone, it acted like a sea anchor.
“Run up the sail,” Ted ordered, waving his hand frantically as he looked back at the water behind them, then the lake ahead. “Faster!”
The wind caught the sail all at once and jerked the boat forward. The boat pulled through the shallows and Ted ordered the sail to be cranked down, so the fishermen could pull the net in.
As a team they dragged the net to them and out of the water. They dumped the twelve fish on the deck and prepared for round two.
“My fault,” Ted cried as the sail went back up and he turned to make another pass. “Have to keep the speed up once the net is out to cat
ch the unsuspecting school. We slowed and that allowed them to escape. Keep your hands clear after you throw out the net. We’re going to do it right this time.”
Ted didn’t smile. For him, it was a technical exercise where he’d failed miserably on the first run. To the others, it was all practice and twelve fish were already in the boat.
“Alex!” Anne called to her husband. “Start cleaning these fish. I think there are ice chests under the seats.” Adams and Merrit both nodded and pointed to both sides of the deck.
“We can always chuck them into the cabin,” Adams suggested. “We took the carpet out, but the dinette is intact. The cabinet doors are shot. The bathroom works, for reference.”
“There’s a real bathroom?” Terry asked, smiling.
“Not for the likes of you!” Merrit held out his hand to stop Terry from going down into the cabin. “It’s a pretty small space. We’d prefer if you didn’t befoul it.”
Terry feigned shock and surprise. “Me? Befoul? I know not from where the barbs have come, but come they have, visiting their pain upon my person. The anguish I suffer!”
Terry threw a hand over his eyes, and almost got himself clocked by the boom as Ted called another tack and the sail swung from one side to the other.
Seven passes through that stretch of coastline later, they had the deck nearly swamped with a wide variety of fish.
Anne pulled a knife and started to clean fish, but Terry chased her to the aft end to stay with Ted and start learning everything he was doing. Terry used his razor sharp silvered blade and got to work.
***
Pepe and Maria made the daily trip to trade with the farmers in the north when they really wanted to spend full days in their own fields. The half-days were making for long days. The horses were tired. Pepe and Maria were tired.
As they were dropping off a cartload, Char intercepted them. “We might have some help for you,” she said mysteriously.
“Anything you can do would be great. There’s so much work and not enough hours in the day!” Pepe groaned.
“I want to introduce you to Felipe, and his assistant, Jumbo. Together, I think they may be able to make short work of plowing your fields, but I think you should meet them and judge for yourself.”
Char waved at them to leave the cart as Kaeden and Kimber ran ahead, playing tag as they went. The adults followed, strolling toward the lake.
Maria took a turn carrying the baby. She couldn’t take her eyes off Cory’s ears, but she was too kind to say anything.
The farmers didn’t know that the baby’s mother was a Werewolf.
Char didn’t want anyone beside the FDG to know. The existence of the Weres and the unknown world were not meant to be common knowledge. They feared it would cause too much strife with the humans if they realized the truth of their existence.
When they cleared the last line of brush, they saw the elephant working its way up the shoreline, systematically eating the bushes and shore grasses. The farmers’ mouths hung open as they looked.
“She is willing to pull a plow,” Char stated.
Pepe closed his mouth and smiled slowly, giving his wife a small push. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy to see an elephant.”
After Char introduced them, she excused herself and herded the kids toward the small power plant where Gene was running it with only Lacy for company.
Because Ted is at sea with the brave sailors and fishermen who seek to provide food for our tables, Char thought philosophically. And I bet Gene is fit to be tied.
They found Bogdan playing along the lakeshore. As soon as the bear cub saw visitors, he ran at them as he loved to do. The humans scattered as he approached so no one got run over.
He stopped and whimpered as the humans reconvened by his side.
“We can’t have you running us over,” Char informed him. He sniffed her and the baby while Kaeden tried to climb onto his back. Kimber tried to join him but the bear shook like a dog, throwing both children to the ground.
They were up in an instant and back at him.
“Come along, there’s no time to play,” Char told them. She wasn’t about to leave them with the bear cub. He was still a wild animal, although most people treated him like a pet dog. He acted like that too, but he didn’t know his own strength.
When the children were bigger, they could choose for themselves. Until then, Char wasn’t going to leave them alone with Bogdan.
The plant was running, which created a certain amount of noise. The turbine whined at a high rpm, which filled the power plant with sound. Steam made the pipes bang and Char winced.
The modern world was noisy. Char didn’t miss that.
She saw Gene and he waved. Lacy had a rag wrapped around her head, holding something over her ears to block the sound. She waved, too.
And they both went back to work, checking one thing or another, making a tiny adjustment on a valve, listening, and watching.
Char backed out before making it a full step inside.
***
“A little higher,” Shonna said, guiding the pipe into place. “A little more…there.” She slapped the visor down and struck an arc against the first pipe and tacked it to the second pipe. She touched six different spots to close the gap and then ran a final bead around the circumference as an initial fill of the gap between the two pipes. She took her time while Timmons grunted and struggled.
When she finished and lifted her welding visor, Timmons cautiously lessened the weight he was holding. The pipe stayed steady. They checked the other end, but it had been set in place better and was still aligned. Timmons stood back while Shonna tacked it and sealed the gap. She ran a second bead around it and then a third. She returned to the first weld she’d done and touched it up with two more beads.
She twisted from the pipe and jumped, landing lightly on the catwalk next to Timmons.
“Thank God we didn’t lose power. Did they ever tell you what went wrong?” Shonna wondered.
“Lost steam,” Timmons answered as he coiled the welding leads to help carry the welding equipment down the stairs. “The water level dropped too low because they had the autofill system shut off. Once the power is on, that system can be brought online. Otherwise, it’s all manual. You need power to make power. I can’t believe Ted missed that tidbit, but he doesn’t care about that plant or this one. He’s got his nuke, a train, and now a boat. We may never see him again.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Shonna said, smiling and thinking fondly of Ted and his foibles.
“How are we doing down there?” Timmons yelled at Sergeant James.
“Next sections of pipe are ready!” he shouted with hands cupped around his mouth.
Timmons gave the young man the thumbs up.
“Three days?” Shonna asked.
“That’s what I figure, but I’m not telling any of them that! I need Ted to stop fishing and make sure that reactor will fire up. I don’t trust Gene to do it alone.” Timmons fussed with the tools.
As the time grew close to bringing the plant online, his stress was magnified. He took the full responsibility of bringing electricity to North Chicago on his own broad shoulders, despite the number of people helping.
No one expected the power to come back on without a hitch. There would have to be trials where they activated the grid a little at a time. But once they had power, some of the automated systems might come back to life. When they’d checked the grid, they found more grounded faraday cages wrapped around key equipment than they ever imagined.
The EMP didn’t destroy all of the grid. What it did take out brought the system down and society collapsed, but with time, it could have been resurrected.
And that was what Timmons intended to do, but he needed Ted, and the smaller man was on his yacht fishing.
That was how Timmons saw it. He looked at his hands, dirty with cracks where the cuts and scrapes had healed.
“We still have a long way to go. Three days until the hard work b
egins,” Timmons thought out loud.
CHAPTER NINE
Chief Foxtail stood in Billy’s office. When Mayra had arrived, he’d given her his seat. She bristled at the notion, but the chief said he felt like standing, so he did. When she was finally uncomfortable enough, she sat down.
Sue watched disinterestedly as they waited for the rest of the invitees.
Char arrived next and helped limit everyone’s discomfort by giving them something to celebrate. She waved for them to follow her outside.
Aaron remained out front with the children. They’d found or created a ball and were kicking it around. Other children were joining in, some of the rescued girls, children from New Boulder, native children. Pretty soon, it was a mob. Once the youngest of the Weathers boys joined in, order came from the chaos and teams were formed.
Parents and other adults lined the outside of the area as various items were tossed or kicked around. Scuffles were quickly broken up.
Billy led the parade of adults in the meeting to the main door where they could watch.
“Which one is that?” Felicity asked, pointing to a young but tall black child who was keeping the peace.
“I believe he’s eleven and called Auburn,” Char said. “I think the next oldest is Tennessee.”
“And I think Kimber has a boyfriend,” Billy suggested as Kimber was standing next to Auburn, almost leaning against him. They were holding hands.
Char took a step toward the door, but stopped when she felt someone’s hand on her arm. She whirled and saw Foxtail’s calm expression. He didn’t have to say anything. She wasn’t sure what she had intended to do, besides exercise a mother’s prerogative. In reality, she didn’t know any children who were raised better than Claire and Antioch’s brood.
She conceded and held herself back. There were far worse things in the world, as Akio had alluded.
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