The Troop

by Gayne C Young

  “Easter Bunny’s pals,” Luke laughed. “That’s funny.”

  That night we had plenty of fresh meat to eat. We had deer ribs and rabbit cooked with prickly pear fruit along with a few choice cuts of venison cooked over the flames on skewers. Dad and Johnny were back in time for dinner and they both praised everyone on the jobs we’d done with the hunting, cleaning the game, cooking dinner, and cleaning up after ourselves. Dad even commented on what a great job Liam was doing with his rabbit teeth necklace extraction.

  “That’s sure some fine bunny teeth pulling there, Liam,” Dad quasi-joked. “Good job.”

  “Well, it’s a skill like anything else,” Liam joked. “I’m seriously thinking about becoming a bunny dentist once the world gets back to normal.”

  “A bunny dentist,” Luke laughed. “That’s pretty funny.”

  62

  That night I had the absolute worst nightmare I’ve ever had. I was back on my island. My parents were there, and they were happy and still married. My sister was there, and we were all having a good time on the beach. The sand was bleached white and the sky and the sea both a vibrant blue. Like I said, we were all happy and having a good time but then the blue sky turned black and the island burst into flames. Mom and Dad were coughing and choking on smoke and trying to shield my sister from the flames. Somehow the distance between me and them grew until they were a football field away. I called to them, but my voice was gone. The flames behind them parted and through them road five men on horseback. They were screaming and laughing and waving guns and machetes and looked to be pure evil. My mom and Dad and sister ran my way but the men road up behind them and cut them down with wild swings of their blades. The riders laughed and screamed in joy and pushed forward and toward me. I tried to scream but still couldn’t. I turned around but found myself face-to-face with Bob’s corpse. He had decomposed even more since the last time I’d seen him and he laughed and said, “I’m the lucky one. I told you I’m the lucky one.”

  I turned away from Bob just in time to see the riders bearing down on me. The lead rider raised his machete in cackling laughter and brought the blade down toward my head. I raised my hands to stop it and my voice returned and I screamed in panic and then Liam was screaming at me telling me I was having a dream.

  “What!” I yelled back, disoriented and confused and unsure of where I was or if I was awake.

  “What the hell are you dreaming about?” Liam called across the tent to me.

  I sat up in my cot and wiped the sweat from my brow and fought to catch my breath.

  “Dude, what were you yelling about?” Liam continued.

  “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I had a nightmare.”

  “Obviously,” Liam sarcastically barked as he stood from his cot.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You woke me up,” Liam complained. “I guess I might as well piss.”

  Liam walked outside the tent and I did all I could to calm myself. I was breathing normal and no longer shaking when Liam screamed, “No! No! No!” and his voice gave way from words to some kind of pain and it was like I was in my nightmare once more.

  63

  I bolted out of my cot and rushed to the front of the tent. I paused there thinking about my nightmare and how real it was and for a second wondered if I was still in it. Liam screamed once more then gagged and coughed. I summoned all my strength and was about to run out into the dark after him when the stench hit me.

  Skunk.

  My eyes started to burn and I grabbed a shirt from the end of my cot and covered my mouth and nose. I looked out to see Liam’s silhouette it in the moonlight maybe 10 feet out away from the tent. He was on all fours and was heaving like he was going to vomit.

  I saw Dad and Johnny running towards our tent then stop maybe 15 feet from Liam.

  “Liam, are you OK?” Dad yelled.

  “I was sprayed by a skunk!” Liam gagged in response.

  “We know,” Johnny tried not to laugh.

  “Where is the skunk now?” Dad yelled in question.

  “I don’t know,” Liam hacked. “He ran off.”

  “Go down to the dam,” Dad instructed. “Get in the water and start washing yourself. We’ll follow you.”

  Liam nodded and headed into the darkness. I ran through the standing haze of skunk odor to Dad.

  “What happened?” he asked as we started toward the dam.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I had a nightmare. It woke Liam up. He went out to pee then started screaming. Y’all showed up right after.”

  Johnny stopped at the trailer on our way to the dam. He lit a cigarette lighter then scrambled through the shelves and pulled out a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a rag.

  “What’s going on?” Carl asked after suddenly appearing. He was quickly joined by everyone else except for Luke and Matt.

  “Liam got sprayed by a skunk,” I said.

  Everyone but Dad and Johnny started laughing then Johnny laughed a little and said, “Let’s go.”

  We all walked to the dam to find Liam squatted down in the now two feet deep water. He was frantically rubbing himself as if he had a bar of soap in his hand.

  “You OK?” Dad yelled out from the safe distance of 10 feet he and the rest of us kept from the water’s edge.

  “I think so,” Liam admitted. “I can breathe now.”

  “Where’d the skunk spray you?” Dad asked.

  “Outside our tent,” Liam answered.

  “On your body, goofball!” Johnny barked. “Where on your body did he spray you?”

  “Right above my stomach.”

  “At least you weren’t wearing a shirt,” Dad offered before instructing Liam to take off his remaining clothing and toss them on the bank. “Your shorts probably got some spray as well.”

  “I’ve got some peroxide. That should help,” Johnny said. “But first, reach down and get some mud and gravel. Use that all over like soap. Really scrub yourself.”

  “OK,” Liam said before complaining, “I don’t know why everyone’s got to stand there and watch me.”

  “You’re the best show in town,” I yelled in response.

  “Shut up, Taylor!” Liam barked. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had woke me up with your nightmare.”

  “I wouldn’t have had a nightmare if you hadn’t been talking about people coming to kill us or us having to kill them,” I replied.

  “Someone’s going to kill us?” Andrew asked shocked as if he’d been left out of something.

  “No,” Johnny answered. “No one’s coming to kill us.”

  “Tell us what happened,” Dad yelled out to Liam trying to change the subject. “How’d you get sprayed?”

  “Or ‘why’ is a better question,” Johnny insisted.

  Liam continued bathing himself in mud and gravel and said, “I went out to pee and was peeing when I noticed the skunk. He was real close to me digging around or something and I pissed in his direction to try to get him to leave.”

  “You pissed on him!” I theorized. “Didn’t you?”

  “No. I peed in his direction,” Liam countered.

  “Did you pee on a skunk Liam?” Johnny asked through bouts of laughter.

  “Some pee might’ve gotten on him,” Liam admitted. “A little.”

  “Then it serves you right,” Dad declared. “What were you thinking?”

  “I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Liam moaned.

  “What an idiot!” Carl laughed.

  “Way to go skunk!” Jack cheered.

  Everyone but Dad laughed at Liam’s stupidity and argued that he got what he deserved.

  Johnny walked to the edge of the water and put the hydrogen peroxide and rag on the ground. He backed away and up towards the rest of us.

  “OK skunk pisser,” Johnny began. “Let your stomach dry then wipe that area with a rag of peroxide. Let that dry then repeat a few times.”

  “That will get rid of the smell?” Liam ask
ed.

  “Oh God no,” Johnny laughed. “But it might make it better.”

  Liam eased to the side of the newly formed pond and reached for the rag and bottle of peroxide. He was careful not to stand up then complained, “Does everyone have to be staring at me? I’m naked!”

  “You’re in the water,” Dad reminded Liam. “It’s night. All we can see is your shape.”

  “Yeah but I don’t want y’all seeing all my shapes,” Liam laughed.

  “No one’s looking at your nakedness,” Johnny promised. “No one’s looking at that. At an idiot who pissed on a skunk? Yes, we’re all staring at that.”

  64

  “Man, that burns!” Liam almost screamed as he washed his skunk sprayed abdomen with peroxide.

  “Only cuz you rubbed that area raw with gravel and mud a few minutes ago,” Johnny explained. “Let that peroxide dry then do it again.”

  “You got this?” Dad asked of Johnny. “Taylor and I will run back up to camp to get Liam another set of shorts if you do.”

  Johnny laughed and gestured with open arms at Liam then the others and said, “This is my life right now and I got it.”

  Dad smiled then led me back toward camp.

  “You know where Liam has another pair of shorts?” he asked.

  “I’m sure I can find him something,” I said. “But that’s not why you pulled me away. What did I do wrong? I didn’t pee on a skunk.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Dad chuckled. “Yes, we need to get Liam some clothes but I just wanted to check on you. What was Liam talking about, saying that y’all were talking about killing people or something earlier?”

  “I’m not gonna kill anybody,” I assured Dad.

  Dad chuckled some more then said, “I know. I’m just asking you what y’all were talking about? What gave you nightmares?”

  I told Dad how Liam brought up the riders that burned the truck when we were hunting. How he said he’d have no problem shooting them if he had to. I continued and said that I wasn’t sure what I could or couldn’t do in a situation like that but would like to think that I’d be able to protect myself and others if I had to. But also that I didn’t want to think about it that much.

  We got to the living room and Dad said, “Where do I start?”

  “By telling me that I’m not a sissy or something like that because I don’t know what I could do in a situation like that,” I interrupted.

  “I don’t think there’s anything sissy about admitting you don’t know what you could or couldn’t do in a life-and-death situation,” Dad explained. “I also don’t think there’s anything sissy about not wanting to think about things like that when you’re only 14 years old.”

  Dad paused and then added, “But unfortunately that’s not the world we live in anymore.”

  “Huh?”

  “When we came out here the only things we were thinking about were merit badges and having fun. Now we’re thinking about day-to-day survival. And how people handle that. Some, like us, do our best. Others, like those out in the road that burned the truck and those Johnny’s friends on the radio were talking about, use what’s happening as an excuse to be their worst. To not try harder or to work together or to help one another.”

  “Are there more people like us or like them out there?” I asked not sure that I wanted an honest answer.

  “I’d like to think there’s more good people out there than bad,” Dad admitted.

  “But that’s not the case anymore,” I interrupted once more. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  “I was going to say that you and the others are growing into strong good men and that we should focus on that. Every day, that’s what we should focus on.”

  “Man, he still stinks!” Carl’s voice cried from the darkness.

  He and Jack came into the living room and Jack asked Dad, “You get Liam some clothes? He’s ready to come out of the water.”

  “Does he still stink?” I asked.

  “Stinks like, man do you stink or what!” Carl explained. “But not like, oh my god my eyes are watering just standing next to you stink.”

  “Then I think he should sleep in the bed of Johnny’s pick up and not in my tent,” I said.

  “Probably a good idea,” Dad said. “So is moving your tent away from where the skunk sprayed. I’m sure he got some long lingering stink on the foliage around your tent as well.”

  “Probably,” Carl said.

  “So,” Carl, Jack, can you guys help Taylor move tent?” Dad asked but kind of ordered.

  “Let’s do that in the morning,” I suggested before either could answer.

  “Morning?!” Dad exclaimed. “It’s almost morning now.”

  “I wonder what skunk tastes like,” Johnny mused aloud as he approached. “Ya’ think it’s better than badger? Or worse?”

  “I’m glad the skunk ran off n’ we won’t get to try,” I said.

  65

  Liam smelled like skunk for two weeks.

  After that he just stunk like Liam stink.

  Same as before.

  Despite his bathing his sprayed area in hydrogen peroxide on an almost daily basis for five days straight, the rancid smell of skunk remained on him and could be smelled by everyone within a ten-foot radius of him. We all gave Liam a hard time about it for a day or two then felt sorry for him and quit.

  I mean, there really wasn’t anything he could do about stinking so bad.

  He did stink though.

  Really, really bad.

  Not like eye watering bad.

  But pretty darned close.

  I’m not sure how he could stand himself to be honest.

  During this two-week period we continued to hunt, gather food like mesquite pods and prickly pear pads and fruit, and trap birds. The dam made getting water easier and also attracted a lot of wildlife. Everyone with the exception of Luke took turns hunting. Carl, Jack, and Matt each got really good with their bows and were even able to shoot rabbits at a fair distance. We hunted and ate squirrel, rabbit, boar, and deer. Despite eating almost nothing but protein we all lost more weight. Our hair grew scruffy and Dad’s and Johnny’s beards filled out more and we all got tanner.

  We got a major thunderstorm one afternoon during this time. It started just after lunch with a pretty good rain that saw everyone standing outside washing their hair, body, and clothes in it. We didn’t get to do this as long as we wanted to though because the downpour was quickly followed by thunder and lightning. We all stayed in the living room for the show and quickly discovered that our cedar stave roof that was so good at shading us didn’t do much for rain. We have since fixed it by covering the slats with mud and gravel mixed to the same consistency of that we were using to make bricks.

  The rain washed clean most of the area burned by the fires and days afterwards small grasses and plants sprung up in what used to be nothing but ash. Dad said this new growth would bring in more game like deer and boar.

  Dad and Johnny both joked that we’d all gone savage given our appearance. “Most of y’all run around with no shirts on and wearing teeth and bones around your neck,” Johnny laughed. “What’s next? Tattoos and dreadlocks?”

  “How long does it take to grow dreadlocks?” Carl wondered aloud.

  “A long-time,” Dad replied. “A real long time.”

  “I got nothing but time!” Carl laughed.

  In addition to basically just surviving we also took time to enjoy the new life we had. We cooled off in the dam, swam in the swimming hole, read all our Boy Scout books and merit badge pamphlets over and over again, played cards, made up games, and told stories.

  All in all, it wasn’t that bad of a life.

  66

  “Hello, Troop, 137!” Bill welcomed over Johnny’s radio. We all sat there staring at the HAM radio speaker as if it were TV screen or the man himself.

  “Hey, back at you Bill,” Johnny said into the microphone. “Can you give us all an update on how things are going bac
k there in the civilized world?”

  “I don’t know how civilized it is,” Bill chuckled. His tone dropped and he asked seriously, “By the way, just how honest should I be?”

  “Tell it like it is,” Johnny strongly suggested. “We got nothing but strong young men here. They can handle the truth.”

  “I know they can. I mean, y’all can,” Bill corrected himself. “Johnny’s told me how y’all have managed for the last couple of months. Sounds like you’re doing well. A lot better than most people.”

  “We are Bill,” Johnny said proudly. “But of course, we’re anxious for some news.”

  “Things are getting better in some places. Worse in others. A lot worse,” Bill started anew. “They’ve got limited power in places like New York, Los Angeles, in Houston…oh in Washington D.C., thanks to the Navy rigging some kind of power lines off their aircraft carriers. They’re nuclear. It’s not a lot of power, what’s coming off of them, but I guess it’s enough to help rebuild or refurbish the items that will help crank out more power I guess.”

  “Food and medicine are still an issue,” Bill continued. “And the lack of these has led to gangs and a lot of violence. You’ve got gangs of people coming together to steal food and gangs of people banding together to protect food. There’s a nationwide nighttime curfew that most people adhere too but then there’s others that don’t.”

  “How are you holding up personally Bill?” Johnny asked. We all sensed that Johnny was trying to change the subject, that he didn’t want Bill talking too much about gang violence and stuff.

  “My family and I are doing OK. We live out in the woods outside of Austin. We’ve got food, planted a garden. We hunt some. Keep a watch out for threats. Like everybody else we’re getting skinnier,” Bill laughed.

  “You have any advice for us?” Johnny asked.