by Nathan Jones
Tom gagged and swallowed quickly at the idea of scavenging anything edible from that butcher's field. But he couldn't argue that the Grand Junction refugees couldn't afford to turn their noses up at anything that was possibly salvageable.
He emerged from the position they'd hastily found, prepared, and concealed, and went in search of the militia's leader. A bit farther back from the ambush spot, he found Gray grimly directing his people in respectfully lining up four bodies, while a short distance away five militia fighters were getting their wounds treated by what looked to be competent doctors or at least battlefield medics.
Nine dead or wounded. A sign that the attack on Sangue's scouts hadn't been nearly as one-sided as dumping heavy machine gun fire onto a hillside of soldiers.
Tom joined the sheriff, removing his hat in respect. “My condolences,” he said quietly.
“I'm of the opinion that if I have to go, I'd rather do it fighting bloodies than starving to death on some mountainside. I like to think that my people felt the same, small consolation as that is for them and their loved ones.” Gray sighed. “Sangue always puts up a fight, but this went better than expected.”
That seemed like an understatement, considering the overwhelming massacre on the far hillside. “It did. Your militia lives up to its legend.”
The sheriff gave him a slightly brittle smile. “I'm guessing you feel a bit better about taking us in now, huh?”
Before Tom could answer, Mitchells joined them. The man also paused to remove his hat in silent honor of the fallen, then after waiting several respectful seconds turned to them. “Hope you don't mind me wondering,” he said, gesturing to where Jonas was securing the heavy machine gun back on its small handcart, “but you folks have been starving your way across hundreds of miles, and you still lugged this monster with you the entire way?”
Tom snorted. “You complaining, after what we just saw?”
Gray smiled thinly. “It was a sacrifice every step of the way, but we wanted to be ready to give the bloodies a warm welcome.”
“Warmest I've ever seen, sir.” Mitchells turned to Tom. “What do you say, Trapper? Rest the night, make sure the bloodies are cleared out of the area, then turn these folks towards Camptown?”
Well, looked like the crushing victory had convinced Camptown's leader of the value of taking the refugees in. “Would like to make sure we don't leave such an obvious trail there, but yeah,” he replied. “Until then, let's make sure we don't push too hard and everyone makes it there hale and hearty.”
The Grand Junction refugees' leader was staring between them. “Wait, Camptown? That's what you named your new settlement?”
“Yeah.” Mitchells shook his head in mock weariness. “By popular demand. And just for the record, I've hated that name from the start.”
Tom chuckled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Should've bet on the bay.”
Chapter Twelve
Solutions
Skyler was there with most of the town to greet the new arrivals, all gathered at the west end of the valley.
He'd been to Grand Junction a few times over the years since coming to live in the mountains, traveling in convoys with Trapper. Sheriff Gray's militia had always been a bit ragtag, with no official uniforms and most of them carrying their own weapons, or those taken from slain Sangue bandits. Even so, there'd been a sort of stern pride to the group, a deep respect shown to them by every inhabitant of the city and even those who came there to trade or for sanctuary.
It was shocking to see them now, even the legendary sheriff himself, looking like withered skeletons in ragged clothes, barely able to walk in spite of enjoying a couple days of decent meals. How could these beaten down men and women be the same ones who'd stolen Sangue vehicles and staged daring raids against the enemy? Who'd valiantly crushed every group of bandits that came within a hundred miles of their city?
It was a hard sight to bear. Although to be fair, Trapper had sent word ahead that even in their downtrodden state Gray's militia had still destroyed a staggering four squads of enemy soldiers with minimal losses, so the legend wasn't completely dead.
Skyler just wished he could've been there to see it. Or, better yet, been part of it.
The women he'd rescued from Sangue, aside from Mer who was with Brandon's skirmishers and Jenny who'd gone with the relief group to bring food and supplies to the refugees, were there with him and his mom and Fiona and the kids. They looked more cheerful and full of hope than he'd seen them since Trapper's volunteers showed up to save them and Brandon from the squad of pursuing bloodies. Eager to be reunited with the group they'd split from, and hoping that friends they'd left behind were still alive and well.
Skyler was eager as well, and not just for a chance to meet Sheriff Gray again and talk to real life Grand Junction militia. This group had come from the north, which meant they might've spotted the Hendricksons heading the other way and could give him news about his friends.
Heck, Lisa's family might actually be with them!
That eagerness was why he sidled after Brady when the man walked out to greet Trapper, Mitchells, Gray, and a few of the other refugees. Tabby hissed for Skyler to come back, and the former trader glanced back and gave him a wry look. But he didn't argue with him tagging along.
“So this is the bowl valley,” Gray said, his voice a lot thinner and reedier than Skyler remembered. Hard to imagine him browbeating drunken troublemakers in his city's bars, or yelling orders to his militia on the battlefield. The old man looked around at the camp with its newly built cabins and more under construction, and the summer retreat with its corrals full of animals. “Roomy enough for six hundred more?”
“Here, or the valley just northeast of here,” Brady replied, offering the militia leader his hand. “Arguably an even better place to live, lower elevation and access to more water. Not quite as defensible, though.” His tone suggested he still wasn't sure about taking in so many people, and as he spoke he glanced worriedly along the column.
“Well, time enough to sort that out,” Gray replied. He looked exhausted, more than anyone Skyler had ever seen, but still straightened his shoulders with a sigh. “Shall we get my people settled? Maybe at the southern end of the valley, with a good distance between us and Camptown to provide a bit of a buffer at first?”
“Sounds reasonable,” Mitchells said, gently clapping the other sheriff on the back. “Come on, let's go find a good spot that hasn't been littered with cow pies from grazing animals.”
As the two men started the column of refugees across the valley, the residents of Camptown approached to greet the new arrivals and offer warm welcomes and sympathy for their ordeal. Skyler wanted to start searching the column for news of Lisa's family, but he paused and hung back when Brady pulled Trapper aside to talk to him.
“Are you sure about this, Trapper?” the trader asked, brow creased with worry. “I know they took out four squads of bloodies like it was nothing, but even so . . . we're barely holding on ourselves as it is, without adding double our number of folks who are even worse off.”
“I'm not sure of much of anything these days,” Tom replied grimly. “But I'm sure of three things: One, these folks will die without our help. Two, that Sangue knows we're somewhere south of Highway 29 and they're searching for us, and we need all the help we can get fighting them. And three, I guess adding onto two, this is Gray Tucker and his Grand Junction militia we're talking about. They might be in a bad way now, but they're also the folks who fought off the bloodies for years. Those are the sort of folks you want on your side.”
Brady sighed. “I can't argue with any of that. But pragmatically speaking, hunger's going to kill us before Sangue can at this rate.”
“Maybe,” the mountain man agreed. “I've got a notion we might kill two birds with one stone there, especially now that we've got more folks who can fight beside us.” He motioned to the refugees. “But we can worry about that tomorrow. For now, let's concern ourselves with getting t
hese people taken care of.”
Skyler took that as his cue to approach the column, looking for someone to talk to. He finally settled on an exhausted family trudging along without pausing to talk to anyone, a man and woman with a young son. He tentatively approached. “Excuse me, I'm looking for the Hendrickson family.” The three barely glanced at him, and he fought a surge of impatience. “The Hendricksons? Have you seen them? Tall, brown-haired man, short woman with dark brown hair, daughter about my age with lighter brown hair and a son that's about three?”
The dad gave him a weary look. “Were they in Grand Junction when the bloodies hit us? I'm afraid I can't offer much good news if that's the case.”
He shook his head. “They headed north from here about a month and a half ago. You might've run into them on the way down.”
The emaciated man sighed. “Only folks we've met on the road south have sent us packing. Didn't meet any solitary families wandering around, but things are brutal out there so you should accept that they've probably come to some bad end.”
“Wes!” his wife scolded, giving Skyler an apologetic look. “I'm sure they're fine. We haven't met anyone like you describe, but we're a big group and a few folks have joined us. You can ask around.”
What do you think I'm doing? he thought, irritated at the man's pessimism. Of course Lisa and her family were fine. Probably doing well enough that they hadn't even needed to join this ragtag group heading the wrong way. He was just asking around to get good news about them, reassure himself that they really were safe.
“Okay thanks,” he said, then without waiting for a reply hurried on to the next group of people.
No one had any more promising news for him. He even sought out a few of the people who'd joined the refugee caravan along the way, only to be disappointed at the sight of strangers. And as he moved among the hundreds of people, searching each face, his hope that he'd see the familiar welcome ones of Uncle Bob, Aunt Vicky, Lisa, and Bryant faded.
By the time he'd searched the entire group, they'd found a place to set up their temporary camp. Trapper and Gray were already putting people to work, digging new latrine ditches and felling trees for firewood and to begin construction on houses.
The Grand Junction leader immediately showed his pragmatic side there, by insisting that instead of building the mostly small cabins for individual families like Emery had done, they'd make a lot more progress and use far fewer materials by making larger buildings and dividing up the interiors.
Skyler couldn't for the life of him see how, since bigger buildings obviously meant more building materials, and he clearly wasn't the only one. Trapper, showing some of his college smarts from before the Ultimatum, did, and seemed chagrined that he hadn't thought of that when Camptown's residents were building their new homes. But he let Gray describe the math of it to the folks who couldn't wrap their heads around it.
It was actually pretty simple once explained. If you doubled the lengths of a building's walls, it would take twice the materials and twice the labor, or probably a bit more since larger projects always had complications that required more time. But in any case, instead of doubling the square footage inside it would increase it by four times. So the bigger you could make a building, the fewer materials you'd have to use overall, and the more people would have shelter faster. Not to mention that heating one large space, even when sectioned off for families, would also be easier and more efficient.
The lengths of trees would be the biggest hurdle there, but Gray had a design that would let them make walls incorporating multiple trees placed end to end. As he described it, the end result would be like a viking longhouse, twice as long as it was wide, using half again as many materials as a square house and with double the square footage.
Plans for building the new settlement distracted Skyler from his moroseness at not getting any news about Lisa, at least for a while. But when it came time to get started on the work, he couldn't bring himself to throw his full enthusiasm into it like usual. He volunteered to help with the latrine ditch, but after only a short turn was swapped out so the shovel could be used by someone who was actually trying to get the job done.
As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, Trapper noticed and pulled him aside to talk about it. “Doing okay?” he asked, somewhat awkwardly.
Skyler felt a surge of annoyance. His parents had been asking that ever since their stupid decision to ground him, as if they had no idea why he might not be fine and dandy with them treating him like a kid, just when he most needed to act like an adult and look out for his loved ones.
On the other hand, acting all sullen and moody wasn't going to change their minds any. Besides, he kind of felt alone after his fruitless search for news of the Hendricksons, and Trapper had always been a good person for listening if he needed to say something. “I was hoping one of the refugees had seen Lisa's family,” he admitted. “Or they'd even joined up with this group and come back south.”
“Ah.” His adoptive dad gave him an understanding look. “I'll admit, I had that same idea and didn't have any luck asking around either. But you know what they say, no news is good news.”
Skyler had always thought that was kind of stupid. Wouldn't it be the opposite, since if something really bad had happened the person probably wouldn't be able to send word?
Trapper didn't seem to know what to make of his silence. “I know things aren't going exactly how you want, son, but you know you'd be happier if you pulled yourself out of this slump and focused on what you can still do.”
I'm sure you'd feel less guilty about tethering me in the pasture like an old nag if I did, wouldn't you? Skyler just shrugged and headed back to the latrine ditch. One of the Grand Junction refugees was struggling to dig, barely strong enough to poke at the stony ground. He took the shovel from the poor man and made himself useful, contenting himself that he could at least work out his frustrations productively.
* * * * *
The Grand Junction refugees were far from settled, and more than a few people in their camp and Camptown both were bedding down with emptier bellies than they'd like. Still, the day had gone as well as Tom could hope.
With the sun sinking below the horizon, he dug around in what little he and Kristy had kept from Miles's scavenged treasure in the cave, retrieving a dusty bottle. Then he headed out to find Gray.
Unsurprisingly, he discovered the sheriff still working hard, in this case redistributing blankets and firewood to his people. They were already susceptible to cold due to their emaciated and weakened state, and with the sun setting the high mountain air in the bowl valley was swiftly growing chilly even though it was the end of July.
Tom gave him a hand making sure the worst off wouldn't freeze in the night, then gestured off away from camp. “Figure it's been a while since I bought you a drink, Sheriff,” he said as they made for a low rise overlooking the valley. He withdrew the bottle. “Although to be fair, you never bought me top shelf stuff like this when drinks were on you.”
Gray snorted in disbelief. “Yeah, I'm sure you managed to get your hands on something like that, fifteen years after the world went crazy.” He shook his head wearily. “Or is it sixteen, now?”
Tom turned the bottle so the sheriff could see. “It's right on the label.”
The older man squinted, then took the bottle for a closer look before cursing in weary incredulity. “Unopened, even. How the blazes, Trapper?”
“Long story.” Tom produced two glasses and poured a splash into each. Then, with a quick glance at the other man's haggard face, poured him more.
The sheriff almost reverently lifted the glass to his nose and inhaled, then took a small sip and swished it around his mouth. He swallowed and breathed out deeply. “Man, that's good stuff. Haven't had anything half as fine since before the nukes flew. Seriously, where'd you get your hands on something like this?”
Tom shrugged and took his own sip, savoring the warmth spreading down his throat and through his gut. Kristy
would skin him alive if he went overboard, but he should at least be sociable. “Wife's dead husband left caches of loot scavenged from the Utah Valley fallout zone.” Gray choked on his next sip, nearly wasting some of the precious liquid, and he bit back a sigh. “I checked it with a Geiger counter to make sure it was safe. Not a single beep.”
The haggard man glared at him. “You know, I've made it a rule to not take people's word on that, not even yours. Just not something you can afford to take on faith, right?” He looked forlornly at the half full glass in his hands for a few moments, then swore and took another sip. “I guess if I'm going to risk radiation sickness, this is the gamble I'd pick.”
Raising his glass in salute, Tom took another small sip.
There was silence between them for a while as both nursed their drinks. Gray seemed too exhausted and beaten down to care much for conversation at the moment. He finished his cup fairly quickly, then held it out hopefully.
Tom obligingly splashed a bit more in. “Maybe we can address the proverbial elephant in the room,” he said quietly.
The sheriff paused taking another sip, looking as if a mountain had just landed on his shoulders. “You mean the fact that you folks look like you're already on the brink of starvation, and you just more than doubled your numbers taking us in?”
“That's more of a whale of a problem,” Tom replied grimly. “One I don't even want to tackle a few shots in after a long day. I can't imagine you'd be any more eager.” He considered pouring himself some more, then considered Kristy's disapproving face. “I meant more along the lines of who's in charge here.”
“Well that would be Mitchells, right?” Gray asked, finally starting on his second glass. “Or if we're talking about the defenses, I guess you?”
Tom shifted uncomfortably. “Well, you're the one who went toe to toe with Sangue for years. Kind of hard to argue with that kind of reputation.”
“I don't want it,” the sheriff snapped with surprising vehemence. At Tom's surprised look, the man sighed and took a slower sip, staring out at the darkening sky with a haunted expression. “I'm played out, Trapper,” he continued in a quiet voice. “I watched my city get overrun and half my people taken, while half of the rest ran off into the hills with practically nothing. It took everything we had to scrape together a few thousand refugees and get away ahead of Sangue patrols.”
