by Boyd Craven
“We’ll make contact and advise them to move on. With the numbers Lance’s group has, and how it’s growing, that’s all we can do,” Jess said.
“I want to run them out some food,” I said.
There was silence. Raider was laying in the shade made by the corner of the overhanging roof of the porch, sleeping. I wished I was; my emotions were a mess, and I was having a hard time sorting out the growing sense of panic in my gut.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Jess said finally.
“Why not?” I asked her, anger creeping into my voice.
“Too much to get into over the radio,” her father’s voice cut in, “so let us handle it.”
“They’re… you know what… there are two days left. Unless you guys are rolling out, right now, get in touch with me the same time tomorrow night.”
“Wes, don’t do anything stu—”
It hurt to cut off Jess’ words when I turned off the radio. I wanted to throw it, but realized it would be a dramatic gesture that would do nobody any good. I also realized that I wasn’t even mad at them necessarily. I could think of a dozen reasons on why going back with food was a bad idea, but I felt responsible. I’d killed one of their fathers. I was sure of it. There were a few things in life that I was naturally good at: making moonshine, my studies in chemistry, and shooting. Two of the three were essential life skills, and the latter the reason I was sure I’d had the kill shot.
Had they been chasing Les off because they’d been attacked once already, and thought he was with them? Did they think the old man driving slowly down the road meant he’d been casing their place out? Or simply, were they hoping to gun him down, and take his SUV and any and all supplies they could get from him? My head swam, and I drained the water glass. I needed more if I was going to do what I wanted, and I didn’t have a lot of time.
“You’re going back anyway?” Grandpa asked me.
“Yes,” I said, waiting for the ass chewing I knew I was coming.
“Even though it may not do one lick of a bit of difference and put your own safety in jeopardy?”
“Grandpa, I have to,” I told him simply, meeting his gaze.
He’d been standing in the doorway, leaning against it. Already, I could see the life coming back into him after the surgery. The hollowed-out eyes weren’t so hollow anymore, and his loose skin was starting to fill out around his neck and face as he gained back much needed weight.
“Boy, did it ever occur to you that if you get yourself hurt or killed out there, it might not be the best for me and your grandma?”
“I promise I’ll be careful,” I told him.
He nodded again. “Good. Your grandma and I been sitting in there chewing on this while you had your radio call. I think we should move the coop and get a few of your buckets out for ourselves. We also think it might not be a horrible idea if you mosey on up there and make sure they are all right.”
That about rocked me off my feet. I was expecting more logic and reasoning. I was acting on feeling and instinct.
“I want to load part of my pack up with dry goods when I go,” I told him.
“You do that, and if they got little ‘uns… If they ain’t got no place to go…”
“Grandpa, that’s asking a lot of you and Grandma—”
“Don’t you sass your grandpa none,” Grandma said, coming into the open doorway, putting her arms around Grandpa’s still skinny chest.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, tipping my hat. “This trip… I think I’m going to have Raider stay here with you. I’m only going to bike part of the way in. If they are watching the farm…”
“You’re worried about being spotted?” Grandma asked.
I nodded, and she disappeared, only to be back a moment later. My overalls were damp at the cuffs, but she’d rinsed them out in the sink. They were wool, and in a color that naturally blended in. I’d need my boots and hat to finish things off.
“You want my hunting suit?” Grandpa asked me suddenly.
“Your…” Then it hit me. He’d taken camo netting and made his own ghillie suit. I usually didn’t like to use it, but with the sun beating down on me and as hot as mine was, if I could put up with the annoying, itchy, scratchy feeling of the wool, I could put up with Grandpa’s suit. I just didn’t like how it covered my face and made access to my pockets a pain. “I think I’ll stick with what I know for now,” I told him after thinking about it.
He nodded and headed into the house. He came back a moment later with his suppressed .25/270 and two boxes of his hand-loaded ammunition. I took the overalls and laid them out across the porch to finish drying and left my deer gun where it was. I had a coop to move.
3
The tractor fired up a lot easier than I ever would have imagined. I worried about the sound traveling, but we needed the forks on the front of the tractor to move the coop off the doors to the root cellar. Raider ran beside the tractor, then took off like a shot as a rabbit was scared into bolting for new cover. I watched for a moment as he ran it down. Two large bites and it looked like he swallowed it whole. Moving the coop itself didn’t take long, and Foghorn kept a wary eye on me. With a full belly, Raider wasn’t really looking at the rooster, but was nearby, as if to comfort me with his presence again.
The tiny, evolved velociraptors all crowded the coop to see what I was doing, even while the tractor was running. I grimaced when I got it free and saw the deep litter covering the doors. Grandma was going to have a field day, and I knew who was going to have to scrub the mess clean when things calmed a bit. I headed down with Grandpa following me.
He saw what was down there and whistled. “I knew you had a ton of stuff, but I never realized it was this much.”
“Buckets everywhere,” I said absentmindedly. “There we go.” I went to a stack that had several open at the top.
It was what I’d left open and unsealed for immediate use after the National Guard units were done searching the area. I had a pocketful of one-gallon Ziploc baggies which I started filling from the first open bucket. Two gallons worth of rice in two bags. Next was mixed beans, though most of them were northern dried beans from the last shipment I’d gotten from Margie and Curt’s bakery. I filled a bag up with those. Then I went to one more bucket and filled a bag with lentils.
“You getting them some toilet paper after the shits you’re about to give them?” Grandpa asked me.
I turned to give him a snarky remark, but saw he was grinning. “They can use a leaf, just like we’re going to have to soon.”
“What, you didn’t prep with toilet paper?” Grandpa asked, looking through the supplies with an alarmed expression on his face.
“Nope,” I lied, laughing inside.
He started cursing as I made my way to a sealed bucket, one of the last I’d packed. It was the mixed nuts. I hadn’t thought I’d ever be able to use them all up before they went rancid, but I realized what a gold mine it actually was. Protein and fats, portable, shelf stable for a time. I filled two of the Ziploc baggies before sealing them. Grandpa grabbed a few bags and I gathered the rest, and we made our way out to see Raider and Foghorn nose to beak outside.
“They’ve been like that since you went down,” Grandma said.
“I… Raider, leave him alone.”
Raider made a weird mewling sound, but he never turned his head from the rooster that was nearly the same size as his head.
“They’re just having a staring contest. I don’t have the heart to tell your loco dog that Foghorn is blind in that eye though.”
“What?” I asked, snorting.
“Why do you think he walks in a circle around you? He’s keeping his good eye on you. Can’t see out the left side.”
I grinned and shook my head. I had no idea if he was pulling my leg or not, but the laughter felt like a releasing of tension after feeling as if my heart had been crushed. I turned to look back at the open Bilco doors, but Grandpa was already waving me to the porch. Grandma had taken my ca
nteen, and I could see her working the hand pump. I was about to rush over to take over for her when I saw her quit.
“Aren’t you going to tell me this is a bad idea?” I asked Grandpa as Grandma walked back, capping the old metal lid.
“Son, we all know it’s a bad idea,” he said, lining the bags up on the railing on the porch.
“I knew it was a horrid idea as soon as you started telling me the story,” Grandma said, as if to finish Grandpa’s thought.
“Then why are you—”
“Could you live with yourself if you did nothing?” Grandpa interrupted.
“I… no.” I admitted.
“This is one of those times you’re doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and your heart’s in the right place. Most of the time, you’ll get your ass handed to you, but sometimes, things work out ok. I don’t want to see you hurt none, but in life…”
Grandma picked up next, “Sometimes you just have to do it, or knowing you could have done something and didn’t… it eats at you. Changes you in a way we don’t want to see you have to change.”
Grandpa nodded, Raider let out a chuffing sound, and I saw he’d abandoned the staring match with Foghorn and was standing beside Grandma. He’d snuck up, quiet as all get out, and I hadn’t caught him moving in my peripheral vision. I grabbed my pack and opened it up with one hand, shoving the baggies of food in. Grandpa handed me the bags he’d laid down a moment before, and those went in as well. Last was one of the boxes of the wildcat hand-loads. The other I’d keep in an outer pouch after I’d made sure everything was loaded up.
“Thanks,” I told both of them suddenly.
My entire life, they’d loved and raised me. It wasn’t a perfect life, but I couldn’t imagine anything better, and the fact they understood and could empathize with how torn up I was about this decision was more than touching. In fact, there was some stupid wind blowing and some grit was getting into my eyes. I wiped at them, then pulled my camo netting to me and unrolled it with my back facing the wind.
“You going to tell them what happened to their daddies?” Grandma asked me suddenly.
“No,” I told her softly, “that isn’t my place. I’ll tell their mothers if I run into them. Hell, I have to. You heard Jess and her dad on the radio. They… I don’t know…” The anger was bubbling up inside of me. “I need to do this, and I don’t think they’re going to help.”
“Sometimes a man has to walk his own path,” Grandma said solemnly.
“Where’d you hear that?” Grandpa asked her.
“I don’t know, I think it was in one of your Playboys you left out the other night? Nothing else to read while you’re snoring up a storm. Farting in your sleep and—”
“That’s way too much information,” I cut her off.
“Wow,” Grandpa said and put both hands up as if to ward off an attack. “Raider, come inside and get some water.”
I watched as his ears perked up at that, then saw him looking at me questioningly. I nodded to him, and he went for the front door that Grandpa was pushing open for him. He slipped inside, and the door closed behind him on the springs.
“Want me to put the coop back in place?” I asked suddenly.
“Naw, don’t want to fire up the tractor again right away, just in case somebody is looking for the sound of where it came from the first time. We’ll get it another day.”
That made sense to me and I nodded, before walking over and hugging him then Grandma. I had to get out of here before I choked up. I checked the rifle, then finished loading up. I could hear Raider barking his fool head off as I rode away. I hoped I would see him again. Even though I knew I was doing the right thing, I felt like I was going to pay for my decision, and painfully. Feeling like I had a target on my back, I started pedaling harder. I prayed I would have an uneventful trip.
I had set up in the same spot where I had first run across the kids. The farmhouse now looked like it had been shut up tight from the view I had with the scope. Shutters were drawn and the door that had looked to have been open in the distance was closed tightly. None of the kids were in sight. Things felt wrong. I held still and controlled my breathing, listening. I knew I was slightly upwind of the farm and would have preferred not to have been, but most people didn’t consider their scent trail when stalking game, or in my case, sneaking up.
I’d tied the camo netting to my pack and had left it partially unrolled. The long grass that had been dead and dried out from the summer heat was stuck in parts of it here and there, almost like a ghillie suit. Grandpa’s would have been great, but it was hot, and I didn’t want to carry the extra weight. The fact that the farmhouse was now all shut up had me thinking that the family had holed up inside. Either I had spooked them, or Lance’s boys on the motorcycles had.
I checked myself; they weren’t Lance’s boys if they had kidnapped Marshall. It sounded to me like they were holding him, to control Lance? To get his supplies? I wondered if that was what had made him act the way he had been, but only for a moment. I’d seen from his own actions that my version of ‘break the law as long as it harms no one’ didn’t apply to him. He had no issue with that. I felt my side for Raider, then remembered he was back at the farm, watching over my grandparents. I’d liked to have stashed my backpack and done the creep to the house on my own, but I wanted and needed the supplies that were inside.
I slowly started making my way along the edge of the tall grass that separated their field from the wild bramble and raspberry bushes I was hiding in. To me, it looked like there was going to be a bumper crop of soybeans this fall, but without treatment, none of the food was edible. I remembered eating fresh soybeans as a kid, not knowing any better, and getting all kinds of stomach cramps and digestive issues. They needed to be processed properly, and simply soaking them was the start to a long process. Still, I saw no animals and no kitchen garden like we had.
“Raider buddy,” I said to empty air. “If I’m about to do something stupid, speak up.”
I knew I wasn’t going to get an answer, so I crawled on my belly, the .25/270 in front of me. I moved slowly, ignoring the jumping insects and mosquitos that were trying to feast upon my arms and face. I had them covered, but they tried with a relentless pursuit of blood. Was that what I was waiting for when I made contact with the families? Could I trust the kids to carry the message to the grownups? I was approaching the farmhouse from the side, so I could see both the front door and the outline of a porch on the back that faced the old barns.
Their barn was much like ours, old boards, painted red, large rolling doors. The difference was that their barn was about three times the size of ours and the metal roofing had been done within the last decade or so. Ours was more functional, meant for a small farm’s worth of livestock; whereas this one was to hold equipment. The rolling door was open, but I couldn’t make anything out from my angle. My goal was the house, so I continued my slow crawl. Ten feet. Fifteen. Twenty. I had a thousand to go, and my approach would take me a long while if I continued at the slow, easy pace I was going.
“…Don’t want to!” I heard a little girl’s voice, then her scream of frustration.
She sounded familiar, was it the smaller girl I’d seen? Laney? Or was that Mary? I shook my head and tried to pinpoint where I’d heard that come from. It hadn’t been the house, so I turned my focus to the barn. The barn was just as far as the house. If I followed the field, I could make better time by going through the edge, letting the tall grass mask my movements. I would be almost invisible from those angles as long as I stuck to the edge, using the tall grass as cover to conceal things. Impatience got the better of me, and I moved that way.
After a few moments, I got through and held still, scanning the field like I’d done dozens of times already. Immature plants were poking up and making their own cover. I could see in spots where something had dug up and wallowed in a low spot. Feral hogs? Hogs? I turned back to the house and barn. Seeing nothing, I started moving on all fours, ke
eping my rifle in front of me, the silencer pointed to my left.
“…Laney, don’t you…”
A woman’s voice called out as a young girl broke from the darkness of the barn. I watched as what looked like a young woman, judging by her figure, followed. The girl had something in her hand, held out in front of her, and was running like her life depended on it. The woman was slower, which made me slow to watch. I knew I was all but invisible, but I could see them good enough. The girl was shoving something in her mouth as the woman let out a grunt of frustration before stopping the chase and sitting down in the middle of the overgrown lawn in front of the barn. I was amazed at how much I could hear, but then again, there hadn’t been any motorized sounds, no radios nor phones, for a long time now. My hearing had started picking up things again that it had once filtered out. I could hear the girl’s feet pounding as she ran, and ran straight for me!
I went still as the woman called out to her again. She made her way to her feet, but I was watching the little one shove a handful to her mouth again before turning back to see if she was still being pursued. I was going to have to make a decision soon. Stay down, move out of the way, or show myself to the running girl. She made an almost direct beeline for my hiding spot. Again. They had done this earlier, and I had to wonder if what looked like a good place to move to the farm in concealment was also a favorite hiding spot of the kids. I cursed myself mentally and got lower to the ground and started moving again, hoping to get out of the way. The girl’s fast feet had brought her closer to me, too close for my comfort.
“Laney!” a man’s voice shouted, booming and echoing across the farm.
The little girl stopped as if poleaxed, her feet almost coming out from her. She turned, still putting something to her mouth. I could see her throat working as she swallowed something. I got the rifle up and made sure the safety was on and looked through the scope. I found her after a couple seconds; she was sweaty, her eyes and cheeks red as if she’d been crying hard. I turned the scope to the woman who had gotten to her feet. Her hands were held loose at her side, and she now was approaching the trembling little girl.
