If her assessment was accurate, they could begin building a society that had a secure food source. Despite the arid climate, if the power was running, irrigation could keep the farms that were already established productive. Everything they needed was right here. But how to convince everyone that it was in everyone’s best interest to share and cooperate?
As two armed men approached the gate, Cole drew a deep breath. This was going to be his first—and he hoped not his last—attempt at getting people to work together for their mutual benefit.
Amanda’s mouth twisted. “Here they come.” She reached for her rifle.
“Wait!” Cole put his hand on the barrel. “I don’t blame you, but I’d like to try talking to them first.”
Her eyes narrowed but she finally nodded. “We just want what is ours.”
“I know.” And now he needed to find out why these men chose to take this ranch when there were likely many that were unoccupied.
Cole eased his door open, repeating his tactic of showing his hands before fully exiting the vehicle. He doubted the Jeep door would provide much protection if the men decided to fire their rifles at him, but it gave him the illusion of protection.
At first, the men looked identical to Cole. Both wore jeans, light colored shirts and brown cowboy hats. Dark scruff covered their jaws, but as they came closer, he noted the one on the left was taller, his boots well-worn, and he walked as though he owned the ranch. “This is private property!”
Cole refused to argue the point. Not yet. “Good afternoon. My name’s Cole Evans and we stopped by to invite you to a survivor meeting.”
He was making this up on the fly, but it occurred to him that if survivors could gather some place neutral, they could collaborate to help distribute resources, share information, and help each other.
“A survivor meeting? What the hell for? So we can risk getting sick? No thanks.” The taller man shook his head. “Not interested.”
“Let me explain…” Cole moved a fraction to bring his arms down, freezing when the rifles leveled on him. “Look, I’m unarmed here, but I’m not going to keep shouting with my hands up, so I’m going to take a couple of steps closer and put my hands down.” He lowered his arms, bracing for the impact of a bullet, but the men held their fire, their expressions nearly carbon copies of wariness and hostility.
“Let’s be honest…I know this isn’t your ranch—not really—but times are crazy and I can understand that you saw this working ranch with all of its resources and decided to claim it for your own. Obviously, you two are strong young men.” Behind the first two men were three other guys back near the stable, rifles angled across their bodies as though eager to be put to use. Cole ignored them, focusing on the taller of the two in front of him.
“Amanda told me how you came and forced them out and killed her dad—”
The taller man interjected, “We didn’t kill anyone!”
Cole shot a look at Amanda, who had left the Jeep and stood on the other side of the hood. She shrugged. “I said they shot him. I didn’t say he died. They made him stay.”
“He’s a prisoner?”
The taller man protested again, “No—he’s only here because they didn’t bother to take him with when they fled. Damn cowards! We took care of him. We’re not barbarians.” The shorter man moved up alongside the taller. Cole wondered if he’d read their body language wrong. Maybe the shorter guy was in charge.
“We’re not cowards! I had to get my younger siblings to safety after you all started shooting! It’s what my dad wanted me to do!” Amanda strode up next to Cole, her fists clenched, her face red.
Cole didn’t debate the issue. “So, is Amanda’s father okay now?” He wanted to keep using Amanda’s name so the men would become familiar with it, thinking it make it harder for the men to do her harm if she wasn’t just a nameless young woman they’d forced from her home.
The men exchanged a look but then the shorter one shrugged. The taller one said, “Yeah. He’s okay for now. He’s even helping us—”
“Helping you? As in, he’s up and about?” Cole cut in, hoping the good news would take the edge off Amanda learning her father was helping these men.
Amanda shook her head. “My dad would never help someone like you! Someone who threatened his whole family! You’re lying!”
“You’re calling me a liar?”
“Damn right I am! And a thief too!” Amanda drew to within feet of the gate.
“We’re survivors—you heard your boyfriend. We’re not thieves.”
Cole let the boyfriend comment go and Amanda hadn’t seemed to notice it.
“What do you call stealing my home?”
“You found a new place.”
So, they knew of the smaller ranch. That meant someone in the group had a way of keeping tabs on what was going on in the area. Interesting.
“It’s not our home. This is our home!”
“Amanda has a point. She and her family live here and you knew that. You had to have figured that out by now once you saw pictures of all of them throughout the house.”
Cole didn’t know for certain the house contained pictures of the family, but he guessed it must. His guess was confirmed a moment later when the shorter man said, “We could have killed them all and taken it anyway, but we let them live.”
“It’s a good thing too.”
“What? How’s that?”
“It would be incredibly stupid for you to kill someone who could help guarantee the continuation of the human race.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Shorter guy took off his hat and wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. “Not everybody died, obviously.” His tone dripped sarcasm.
“That’s true, there are survivors, but how many? Did you know that there’s a minimum viable population level?”
The shorter man scratched his cheek as he thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, we’ve seen at least twenty people besides ourselves.”
“That’s it?” Cole cocked his head. “And I would bet that Amanda and her family made up a majority of those survivors, right?”
“Well, yeah, but now we can add you to the total, so twenty-one.” He laughed as if he’d told a hilarious joke, and his friend laughed along with him.
Cole wondered briefly if letting these men into the gene pool was the right thing to do. A little curating couldn’t be a bad thing, could it? Maybe the world would be better off if these men stayed isolated on this ranch away from any women and allow their gene pool dry up. But, they did appear healthy and had managed to survive, so, reluctantly, Cole said, “This area is going to be a magnet for people who survived the pandemic. With the dam and a reliable water source, electricity and shelter already in place in place, I expect the trickle of people Amanda said she’s seen arrive will turn into a flood over the next several months and years.”
“We don’t need more people. Things are fine like they are.” The taller man drew close to the gate, almost touching it.
“You might think so. Everything you ever wanted is yours for the taking.”
“Sure is!”
Cole nodded. “I know, right? Any house you want, whatever is inside it, and if you need more, you just find another empty house or a warehouse and discover whatever is inside it, and it’s yours. It’s every person’s fantasy, in a way. Although I bet nobody ever admits to it.” He raised an eyebrow, giving them a sly grin, nodding in a ‘am I right?’ kind of way.
Giving each other a knowing glance, the men shrugged and chuckled.
Spreading a hand on his chest, Cole dropped his voice, as though telling a shameful secret. “Speaking for myself, I had a helluva good time walking into a department store and plucking whatever I wanted from the shelves, piling into a dozen carts before loading it all into a truck—a free truck, mind you—and hauling my find back home to my family.” He pantomimed chucking goods into a shopping cart and driving home the point of how much fun it was by pulling on an imaginary air horn in celebrati
on. The men got the reference and threw their heads back in laughter.
Cole grinned in return. The men relaxed their stances, their rifles clasped loosely as they listened. That was his intended effect. The men who had stood in the distance came closer. He counted a total of seven men on the other side of the gate. Was anyone left in the house? He saw a couple were older than he was, and two looked to be barely more than teens. He nodded to them, acknowledging their presence.
He glanced at Amanda to find her listening as well, a smile teasing around her lips. He included her in the scenario. “Amanda, here, found some cattle whose owners were deceased, and she and her family survived the winter on beef that literally walked itself to her front door!”
It was an exaggeration, but even Amanda laughed. Cole ambled to the front of the Jeep and sat on the bumper. Leaning back, he crossed his feet at the ankles, propping his elbows on the hood. “Damn, that was fun!” He left out the part where he’d been shot. Or the part about the dead babies, flies, maggots, rats and all the other horrific things they’d seen. He waited for the scenes to set themselves in everyone’s head. Whatever they had personally experienced, he expected that they had all seen horrors. He finally added, his voice cracking, surprising him, but maybe it added truth to his next statement. “But most of the last year really sucked.”
A shadow crossed the shorter man’s eyes, and the taller one dipped his head, scuffing a foot on the ground before he nodded his head in agreement.
Cole remained silent, letting the images they saw in their heads coalesce and linger. Now that he knew they weren’t cold-hearted bastards, he sighed and leaned forward. “Everything we got was free— none of it cost us one red cent—but I would bet every last one of us would agree that the price was too high.”
The shorter man cleared his throat and slung his rifle over his shoulder “I lost my wife and kids. I don’t know how I was spared, except I’d freaked out and spent every blasted minute I could out with the cattle. I rode from morning to night, even camping out, telling Lucy that I thought wolves were killing our steers.” He paused. “I shoulda been there to help her. She had to watch the kids die first before she got it. It was almost a blessing then, because she didn’t want to live without them. Every time I’d come up to the house, I’d hear one of them laughing that weird, crazy laughter, and I’d hightail it back to the barn.”
Don rested a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Scott. Almost same thing happened to me, only they all got it the same day. Tami died at work, and the kids at school. At least I was spared having to see them like that. But, I was out harvesting the damn beans. So, I had a mountain of beans, but nobody to eat them.”
To his left, Amanda leaned against the side of the Jeep, her eyes fixed on the ground ahead of her, tears rolling down her face. Cole hated that he’d caused her to cry, but when he heard a sniff in front of him, he turned and caught the taller man swiping at his eyes.
Cole stood and approached the gate. “I’m sorry about your families.” He meant it and hoped his sincerity showed.
“Thanks.” The shorter man drew a deep breath. “Life goes on.”
“Yes, it does. As hard as it is. And this is going to sound almost callous, but I don’t mean it that way. It’s simply the truth. This horrible virus has given us an opportunity to start with a clean slate, so to speak.”
“A clean slate? I don’t get it.”
Cole shook his head. “I’ll explain more at the meeting. We’re planning it for three days from now …”
He cast about for a location to give them, but he didn’t know the area. Damn it. Amanda caught his eye, catching on to what he wanted.
“We’re meeting at Veteran’s Park, five o’clock. It’s going to be a potluck, so bring food.” And she gripped the bars of the gate. “And, please, I’d like to see my father. I want to make sure he’s okay.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
For a minute, tension ratchetted up as the shorter man said, “No. We can’t do that. We told you he’s fine.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you and just walk away?”
Cole put out a placating hand. “Hey guys, she needs to see her father and make sure he’s okay. That’s a reasonable request. You said you weren’t barbarians…”
The shorter one met the taller one’s eyes, and some kind of agreement must have been struck because the shorter one seemed abashed. “Okay, fine.” He reached for the padlock on the chain, and dug in his pocket, withdrawing a key. “He’s up in the house. His room is first—”
“I know my way around, thanks.” Amanda’s gave the men a hard stare.
Just when Cole thought the easing of tensions was going to revert back to hostilities because the shorter man stiffened at Amanda’s tone, the guy shook his head and said, “Yeah, I suppose you do.”
The men parted to let her through and Cole thought about following her, but decided against it. He remained where he was, hoping to keep the men engaged.
“Like I said earlier, my name is Cole.” Now that the gate barrier wasn’t blocking him, he stuck out his hand to the shorter man.
“Scott. Nice to meet you, Cole.” His grip was firm, his palms rough with callouses.
“Hi, Cole. I’m Don.” The taller man thrust his hand out, and Cole clasped it.
The other men introduced themselves and, deciding there was nothing to see, wandered off.
Cole fought the urge to wipe his hand on his jeans. It wasn’t that the men were dirty, although they had been working on the ranch, so who knew what they had come in contact with. He could handle routine dirt. He was used to working with the horses, after all, but forever in his mind was the thought of the virus. Was it still active?
Did he dare believe Holland claim that Cole was the lone person immune to Sympatico Syndrome? None of them wore masks although he saw no signs of the virus present in any of the men. If anything, everyone was very low key, almost taciturn. He’d considered wearing a mask, but initially, there was so much distance between them and the other men that he hadn’t felt the need. When the opportunity came to approach them, he wasn’t about to break the fragile truce, of sorts, by whipping out a mask.
He pondered how to broach the subject of these men stealing Amanda’s home. “Hey, so—” But Scott spoke at the same time, cutting Cole off.
“So, what’s your story, Cole?”
“My story?”
“Yeah. You’re not from around here.”
“How do you know that?”
“Your accent.”
“Ah, yeah.” Cole rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t think I had much of one, but I guess it’s noticeable?” He slanted Scott a grin.
Scott agreed. “Yup. I’d peg you for Chicago or Detroit. Something like that.”
“Close. Just north of Chicago, but actually in Wisconsin.”
“Did you live here before the virus?”
“No. We only arrived yesterday.” Cole took the opening to voice his concerns, but couched in what he hoped was non-aggressive language. “Amanda and her family thought we were you, ironically. She chased us down the highway until we took a stand. Once we realized we had nothing to fear from each other, we decided to stick together, at least temporarily.”
It was a bit of an exaggeration as there had been no talk of sticking together, but if he could let it seem like Amanda’s family and his own were together in this, they would be a force to be reckoned with.
“Us? Who is us?” Scott seemed skeptical of his claim.
Here’s where Cole needed to make them sound formidable. “I’m with a group of men and women from Wisconsin. We made battled our way here across raging rivers and through land occupied by hostile locals who tried to steal our supplies back in Kansas or thereabouts.”
He gave a wry shake of his head. “This ranch belongs to Amanda and her family. Why take everything from them when you could, literally, have almost any other ranch in the area?”
Scott’s amicable expression twis
ted at Cole’s words. “Because we can. Because it has better water than any of the others. Because it’s not fair that they lived and my family didn’t. Let them see what it’s like to suffer.”
“Amanda has suffered. We all have lost loved ones. You have to realize that. And how do you think inflicting more suffering will make you feel better?”
“What difference does it make? Like you said, they can have any other ranch—and they did.” Scott’s eyes narrowed. “And what makes you think you’re in a position to bring together a bunch of folks from these parts?”
“I don’t know if I can, but I think it’s worth pursuing, don’t you? We can create a future for ourselves.”
Don shrugged, joining the conversation. “Or we could all be dead tomorrow. Might as well live in the moment.”
Scott laughed, but it was laced with bitterness. “Yup. We’ve got nothing left to lose.”
Cole conceded his point. A fatalistic attitude was understandable after surviving the horror they’d all endured. “You’re right. And I’m a complete outsider. Hell, I’ll admit a big reason we came out here is because we hoped there’d be electricity. We were right about that.”
He looked at Don, then back to Scott. The men had withdrawn, bringing their rifles up, holding them across their bodies. Damn it. He had to get them back. He’d intended to be completely honest and win them over by not hiding anything but he’d hit a nerve. “Listen, that’s not the only reason or even the most important one. The other reason was we thought this area would be a magnet for other survivors. Right now, we—as in survivors— have stuff. Food, tools, clothing—basically, everything we need to get by, at least for the near future, but what we don’t have are people.”
Scott scowled. “We have all the people we need right here.”
Despite not wanting to anger anyone, Cole couldn’t hold back his reaction. “A few minutes ago, I thought you were someone with a little compassion, but I was wrong. You have none, and what’s even worse, you have no common sense.”
“The hell you say?” Scott’s jaw thrust out, his arms fisted at his waist as if he was preparing to do battle.
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