by Lou Cadle
The scene was photographed, the body was bagged, the little girl was taken away, still holding a bag of apple chips Kelly had given her, and at the end of a long day the sheriff said to Quinn, “I’ll have to present this to the prosecutor to see if he wants to call it a crime. Don’t leave the county.”
“I won’t leave this property,” Quinn said. “You can find me here any time.”
“Good,” the sheriff said. “Make sure of it.”
Quinn wondered why he’d needed to have not only the last word but to put that kind of punctuation on it when Quinn had already said he’d be here. Asshole.
The Crockers were gone, thank the Lord, and he finally was alone with his family.
“You did okay, Devlin,” he said. “You too, Kelly. Thanks for not running over here when I asked you not to.”
“We’ll talk about that tomorrow, Arch Quinn,” she said, but she put her arm around him for a quick squeeze. “You holding up okay?”
“Tired,” he admitted. “We need to clean this stuff up before we go to bed.”
“The kitchen can wait,” she said. “But I guess we’d better get the food back in those barrels so mice don’t get to it.”
“I can start on the kitchen,” Devlin said.
“Okay,” Kelly said, “but be careful. I think I saw some broken glass.”
“I’ll sweep it up first.” And Devlin was gone.
Kelly studied Arch in the dimming evening light. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m tired. Angry. Frustrated.”
“I’m sure you are. But are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Really. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
They went into the shop and cleaned up the spilled food. It was mostly MREs and dried food out here, several hundred pounds of flour and a couple hundred of white rice. “Think this flour will be ruined because it got exposed to air?”
“It’d be better if it hadn’t,” she said. “We’ll get the barrel covered for tonight, then come back and pump air out of the container tomorrow. Best we can do.”
“How long do you think it’ll last then?”
“Two years still, I’d think.” She looked around. “I guess I should try and scrub this blood up now.”
“It’s dry. It can wait until tomorrow. Won’t make a difference.”
“Might attract bugs,” she said.
“I’d like to crawl into bed early. I’m wiped out.”
“Whatever you want, sweetheart. You’re the hero of the hour.”
He didn’t feel particularly heroic. He’d done what had to be done. And he was bone-tired. He left her to clean up and headed for the main house.
In the kitchen, Devlin had cleaned up the broken glass and was putting things away.
“If you’re tired, it can wait until tomorrow, son,” Quinn said.
“I’m okay. It’s only eight.” He pointed to the antique clock on the wall, something Kelly had brought back from a thrift store. Every morning, it was wound one turn. A drop or two of oil every few years, and it’d run forever, no matter what happened—the end of petroleum, an EMP, or anything short of a wildfire that burned the house down and the clock with it.
In the bedroom, he stripped off his clothes and jammed them in the hamper, then took a hot shower. It crossed his mind again to worry about what was happening in town—and worse, down in Phoenix, which had twenty-five times as much population. But he needed sleep right now. He’d check tomorrow.
He crawled into bed, and next thing he knew, Kelly was shaking him awake.
“Honey, honey.”
He struggled to sit up. “What’s wrong?” He had the awful, sick sense that something was wrong, something terrible.
“Nothing. You were dreaming.”
Yes, he had been. He’d been imagining coming back home to a house overrun by not one but dozens of men. He’d been alone and there’d been twenty or thirty of them, yanking open drawers, turning over furniture, laughing, not looking for food, just destroying for destruction’s sake.
“Right,” he said, and he collapsed back into bed.
“Want to talk about it?”
He shook his head. “About what you’d expect.”
“Maybe it’d help—”
“No,” he interrupted her, and then felt immediate regret at how sharp his tone had been. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“It’s fine. I’ll give you a whole day to be a grump. Maybe two.” She nuzzled him.
He had a strange urge to push her away. “Need more sleep.”
“I know. It’s only a little after midnight. I love you, Arch.”
“Love you too,” he said, but right then he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel much of anything but fear and worry. They crowded out everything else. Maybe a good night’s rest would cure him.
* * *
Dev was up early the next morning, and he started on his chores right away. He fed the rabbits and the chickens, let the chickens out into their yard, and collected the eggs. He walked the perimeter of the property, looking for any problems, as his father had taught him.
He wondered, as he walked, about what it might feel like to kill a man. For the first time, after a lifetime of training with firearms, he began to doubt himself. If it came to it, if it had been him in the shop with the burglar, would he have been able to pull the trigger?
He was worried he was too much a coward. His father had told him if the time came, the training would take over. That’s why they did it. Dev, who had sometimes doubted his father on other matters, began for the first time to doubt him about this. They were people, not machines. A machine, you could make perform a certain action over and over again, no matter the circumstances. Machines didn’t have opinions, or feelings, or bad moods. They didn’t care if it was raining or snowing. Take the inverter for the solar system. It did what it was supposed to, turning DC power into AC.
Dev was not like that. People were more like malfunctioning machines, or like the rooster, likely to balk at the worst of times.
Nothing was wrong anywhere on the cleared half of the property. The truck hadn’t been broken into. There was some trampled brush that might have been where the guy yesterday (the dead guy, his mind reminded him) might have come through from the road. But it could have also been trampled by a buck, or a bear. He looked for tracks that might tell him, but he saw none. Hadn’t rained in a while, and tracks weren’t obvious. With time, he could probably figure it out, but it wasn’t that important.
Dev backtracked to the chicken coop, where he’d left the wire basket of eggs hanging on the gate. He brought them in and was cleaning them at the kitchen sink when his mother came in, yawning, wearing her robe.
She said, “That’s nice of you, but I can clean them. It’s my job.”
“I don’t mind.” He brushed at one dirty spot and couldn’t get it off, so he flicked a few drops of water on it and tried again. Success.
His mother put an empty cardboard carton by him. He already had more eggs cleaned than would fit in the carton.
“Looks like a good day’s worth of eggs. Crazy good.”
“We didn’t collect last night. The sheriff and everything.”
“Right, right. I forgot. Are all the animals all right?”
“All good and all there,” he said. “I guess we’re having eggs for breakfast.”
“I guess we are. And maybe supper too. And I’ll bake a pound cake today, I think. With strawberry syrup.”
“Yum,” he said. He finished with the eggs and put them in their slots, piling an extra layer in between. It still left seventeen eggs on the counter.
“Is the brood nest okay?”
“I didn’t look closely. The hen was on it and not willing to move.”
“Okay. Let me get in the sink and get the coffee started. Would you like to try some?”
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“Tea?”
“Water is good.” He wished they had milk. The Crockers ha
d a milk cow when he was little, and they brought over milk every other day to share, but when it died, they never replaced it. He still remembered how Sierra had cried. Maybe they should have gotten one before now. Maybe back when the war started. Too late now, probably.
A few minutes later, his father came in, dressed for the day, saying nothing. He sat and his mother said, “Coffee in another two minutes.”
His father only grunted.
His mother said, “I think we neighbors should meet again today if you’re up for it.”
“Gotta be done.”
“Okay, I’ll see to it now, if you like.”
“After breakfast.”
“I can go tell people,” Dev said, wanting an excuse to leave.
“What about breakfast?” his mother said.
“I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. If you put foil over it, won’t it still be warm?”
“Well, yes, but.” She glanced to his father and something about what she saw seemed to convince her. “Okay. Tell everyone ten-thirty, and to meet here. I think we’ll be ready by then.”
Dev ran out the door. He knocked on the Crockers’ back door not a minute later.
Mr. Crocker opened up for him. “Hey, Dev. You’re out of breath.”
“Ran here.”
Mr. Crocker’s eyes darted beyond him. “Is anything wrong?”
“No. No, sorry, nothing to worry about. Mom and Dad want another neighborhood meeting today.” Oops, maybe that had come out too much like an order. “If that’s okay with you. Ten-thirty? At our place.”
“Good. I have some news your folks will want to hear.”
“Oh?” Now Dev was curious. He was also curious if Sierra was around, but he didn’t see her behind Mr. Crocker in the kitchen. “Anything I should tell them?”
“It can wait until ten-thirty. You want breakfast?”
“Mom’s making it for me. I gotta run so I can get back there. See you in a couple hours.”
Bodhi ran up to him as he left the steps and Dev stopped to pet him. “Good dog. Good watchdog.” Had it not been for Bodhi barking yesterday, his family might have lost a lot of good food.
Mr. Morrow was awake but still in his robe. He said, “Come on in. Have some tea if you’d like.”
“I can’t, I’m sorry,” Dev said, and told him about the meeting.
“I hate to leave Sybil.”
“I think it will be a short one. Can you come for just twenty minutes? If not, I can always come back and tell you what happened, if you like.”
“No, you’re right. Twenty minutes alone won’t do her any harm.”
“I gotta get down to Mr. Henry’s.”
“Thank you for coming,” Mr. Morrow said.
Dev ran to the end of the road where the strange Curt Henry lived. He was such an odd guy. His mother had told him not to fear the man, and Dev didn’t. He was intrigued by him.
Mr. Henry wasn’t outside. Dev had been hoping he would be. He knocked softly on the door.
Nothing.
He knocked a little harder.
“Who is it?”
“Devlin Quinn, sir, from down the road.” Dumb. Like he knew a dozen Devlin Quinns and needed to be told which one. “My folks want us to meet today. After, you know, what happened yesterday. Do you know what happened?”
“I know. Hang on.”
It seemed like forever until the door swung open, squeaking on a hinge. He should oil that. Mr. Henry was dressed. “Sorry. Finishing up a project in there. So what time? At the Morrows’?”
“No, sir, at our place. Ten-thirty.”
“What’re they going to talk about?”
“I don’t know for sure. Mr. Crocker says he has news. I’m not sure about my father, but he wants to talk about something too.”
“If you had to guess.”
Dev swallowed nervously, not wanting to speak for his father. “If I have to guess? I think defense. If we should do anything more before the next guy tries to break in.”
“You think there’ll be a next guy?”
“My father thinks so.”
“But what do you think?” Mr. Henry asked.
Dev hadn’t had this long of a conversation with the man in—well, ever, really. “I think so too. It’s hard to say for sure unless we can get information from Payson. Maybe he’ll be talking about that, taking a run into town. I honestly don’t know.”
“You may both be right, but I wish you weren’t.” He sighed. “All right then. Ten-thirty, if I’m done here and can make it.” And without another word, he softly closed the door.
Dev ran back to the road and jogged up it until he was at his own place, and then he stopped and looked at it, trying to see it as a stranger might. There were warning signs, like “Trespassers Will Be Shot.” But signs didn’t do much, he thought. They hadn’t kept the guy out yesterday. In fact, now that he considered it, they seemed like false threats. Like if you were really dangerous, you might not put up signs that said, “I’m dangerous.” You’d be quietly dangerous and give no warning.
He’d never thought of that before.
He walked slowly up the driveway, his head swiveling, trying to have more thoughts like that. He wondered if his father would listen to his ideas. Probably not.
But that didn’t mean there was a law against him having some.
If it was him, he’d park the truck out of sight. Or, no, leave it in sight so an intruder knew there was someone home, but turn it so it blocked more of the driveway, and down lower on the slope of their driveway than where it was now. That way, no one could drive right up to the parking area between shop and house. They’d have to get out and walk up the last rise. He’d been taught that high ground was important in any military action. It wasn’t that much higher right by the shop, but his mother always said about work that every bit helped. Maybe that principle worked for higher ground too.
He tried to think it through. Higher ground was good because of better sight lines and because things you propelled toward an enemy traveled farther when going downhill, anything from rocks to bullets. He knew it was so from deer hunting, bow and rifle both. The opposite was true, with uphill shooting or throwing shortening your range. Hills slowed running attackers. For a flatlander, like someone from Phoenix, he would bet even this little hill of the driveway might be a struggle to run up, here at 5,400 feet elevation.
So that’s what he’d do. Block vehicles from approaching with the truck. Secure the highest ground. Leave the ladder stowed against the base of the house so that one of them could get up onto the roof and have higher ground still. The roof could be a sniper’s nest.
He thought about it all through breakfast. At some point, he came to and realized his mother had asked him a question. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked if you were still hungry.”
He glanced down at his plate. It had a few flecks of egg on it, so he must have eaten some, but he couldn’t have sworn if they had been fried or scrambled or poached. He considered his stomach. “I guess I could eat another. There are plenty of them, right?”
“That’s right,” she said, standing and taking his plate with her. “We might have to ration sugar soon, but for the next few months we can have all the eggs we want. They don’t keep very well, and frozen ones are only good for baking.”
“Thanks,” he said, as she set his plate back down with not one but two fried eggs, over easy, dotted with ground black pepper.
“So what are you boys up to the next couple hours?”
“Fence,” said his father.
“You want to put in a fence?” His mom poured his dad more coffee.
“More like a trip wire. I won’t use tactical wire so Crocker won’t have anything to bitch about with hurting Bambi. Not that he should. I can strangle Bambi with barbed wire if I want, as long as it’s on my own damned property.”
“Honey,” his mom said. Nothing else, just that, sort of sad and disappointed, this way she had of telling you she
didn’t approve of what you were saying or how you were saying it.
It worked as well on his dad today as it did on Dev. “Sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t strangle a deer with barbed wire anyway. You know that. But I want to put in a trip wire. Plain wire. The animals will see it, having the sense God gave them, but someone sneaking up here might trip over it, especially at night. He might fall and make enough noise to alert us. And I want to dig a couple of spider holes for us to use if we get attacked with any force. And when we’re out there, Dev, I want you to work out sectors of fire if two of us are in adjacent spider holes.”
“Yes, sir. Maybe we should look for a dog too,” Dev said. “We wouldn’t have known about the break-in unless Bodhi had told everyone.”
“Too late to be thinking of getting a dog. Where would we get one?” His father waved the idea away like it was a mosquito. “Trip wire will only take a day to install along the road side of the property with you and me working together, Devlin. And the spider holes not much longer than that. Maybe we’ll dig four, three up here north of the road and one south.”
“Okay.”
“When you finish your eggs, do your morning chores, and we’ll get started.”
“They’re done,” he said. “And everybody is coming here at ten-thirty. How much can we get done before then?”
“We’ll have to see.” His father pushed back from the table and left the house without another word.
“Breakfast was good, Mom,” Dev said, scooting his chair back. “Thank you.”
“Thanks, honey.”
“You need help cleaning up?”
“I can get it. The mood your father is in, you’d better get going.”
Dev agreed. He left the table and headed for the door, but his mother’s voice stopped him as he was turning the doorknob.
“Devlin?”
He turned his head.
“Be nice to your father. I think he’s....” She gave him a lopsided smile. “Yesterday was hard on him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“Go on now.”
