by Reed, N. C.
The only thing Daisy found herself grateful for was that Lila, her youngest sister-in-law, had not been forced to endure the same things she, Jasmine and especially poor Bernice had gone through. The teen had suffered enough as it was.
She felt her anger course through her once more at how callously Josh Webb had put them all in danger simply because of his stubborn pride and idiot 'ideals'. For far from the first time she wished Josh Webb still lived so she could kill him ever so slowly. Her life was essentially ruined thanks to...
Her thoughts took a side turn as Daisy found herself looking out over an empty field. While the field had burned over during the huge fire back in the spring, it was starting to flower again now, and she saw something she had not expected to see. Not here.
Every year since she had married into the Webb family, Daisy and her sisters-in-law had accompanied Deborah Webb to her family territory in rural Alabama, where they had spent two or three days gathering the plants that Deborah Webb used to make her home remedies and medicines. One of the most important and sought after plants that Deb had coveted was simple wild lettuce. Wild lettuce had little in common with the lettuce growing in the gardens on the farm other than an extremely vague resemblance to the leafy greens used in salads and on sandwiches.
Wild lettuce was usable to treat any number of maladies, and was an excellent analgesic on top of that. It was often hard to find and was sought after by anyone who practiced what Deb had always called 'home medicine' or 'home doctoring'.
And Daisy was looking at a field full of it.
-
“Look!”
Patricia looked up to see Daisy Webb walking into the clinic, her arms loaded with some kind of plant.
“Daisy, what is all this?” Patricia asked.
“This,” Daisy set the plants on the counter, “is one of the most valuable plants ever as far as home remedies go!” Her excitement was so obvious that Patricia couldn't help but be enthused herself.
“What is it?”
“Wild lettuce!” Daisy all but crowed. “And you've got a field full of it!”
“I take it this is a good thing, then,” Patricia smiled. Whatever use this plant might be, seeing Daisy in such high spirits and so animated after... wait...
“I think I remember Deb mentioning this,” Patricia murmured to herself.
“You bet she did,” Daisy heard her anyway. “Or at least she would have if you were discussing home cures. This was one of her most favorite of all plants. We used to make a pilgrimage of sorts to her family home down in Etowah County every year just to gather this!” she held up one of the plants.
“I remember she was a fount of knowledge of that kind of things,” Patricia nodded sadly. “It was a great loss to us all when she passed and took it with her.”
“What do you mean?” Daisy looked puzzled.
“None of the rest of us know the things she knew,” Patricia waved an arm to indicate the clinic.
“Maybe you don't,” Daisy replied. “Jasmine, Lila and I do. Deb made sure of that.”
“What?” Patricia's look couldn't have been more incredulous.
“It was one of the things that Deb insisted on all of us learning,” Daisy shrugged. “She said she wouldn't be around forever to ask her what to do.”
“My God, Daisy, why didn't you say something!” Patricia exclaimed.
“No one asked and... well, I wasn't really thinking about it,” Daisy admitted, more subdued suddenly.
“Understandable,” Patricia nodded. “Completely so. Now that I do know, however, the first thing is to make sure that knowledge isn't lost! Well, maybe not the first thing,” she thought. “We need to gather the rest of this, right?”
“Yes,” Daisy nodded. “But only the fully developed plants. If we pick them too early, they're not much use.”
“Can we perhaps harvest some of the seed and plant our own?” Patricia asked. “We have greenhouses up now, and Angela has a seed garden as well. What other plants should we be gathering?”
“First, we need to gather the wild lettuce that's ready,” Daisy was shaking her head. “Before something happens to it. And we need to take precautions to keep the rest from being eaten or otherwise molested before it's ready to be harvested. After that we need to process it as quickly as possible so that we don't lose any of it. Then we can worry about the rest. I wish I had realized... ” she trailed off for a moment, taking a deep breath. “I thought you had... I mean, with all the modern medicine, it never occurred to me that you needed this kind of thing,” she admitted.
“We need all the help we can get,” Patricia assured her. “And while we do have modern medicines at the moment, they won't last, and we can't get more. What we have is all we have. Whatever we can use to supplement those medicines is nothing short of a godsend. I didn't know anyone but Deb knew those things.”
“This might get Jasmine more animated, giving her something like this to do,” Daisy noted. “And we need to get Lila out of the orphanage, too. She knows as much or more as we do, being raised with it.”
“I'll see to it.”
-
“What does this do, again?” Anthony Goodrum asked as he, Nathan Caudell, JJ and Deuce worked to surround the newly found wild lettuce with a small wire fence, hanging small strips of white cloth soaked in cheap cologne or other oils, including a fishnet like material containing bars of the cheapest soap any of them had ever encountered.
“For deer, white is a danger signal,” Gordon Sanders told the boys. “For them and most other wild animals, the smell of cologne or soap is a smell associated with man, and they learn to fear that kind of smell early on. Between this and the waving scarecrow,” he pointed at the hanging figure that used small wind fans for arms, “and finally Olly here,” Gordon patted the giant Horned Owl model that was sitting on a crossbar across the small field from the scarecrow, “we'll hopefully see most rodents and wild animals avoid this field and leave this stuff be.”
“So, they're scared of the smell because they associate it with us?” JJ asked.
“That's right,” Gordon nodded. “Other things work as well, depending on the animal. Coyotes for instance are often spooked by gun oil.”
“Wait. Gun oil? Really?” Nathan Caudell wanted to know.
“Really,” Gordon nodded again. “I've seen coyotes stand and look at people without moving hardly at all until someone raised a gun. As soon as they do, the coyotes hit the road as fast as they can. They've learned to associate it with danger. Coyotes aren't nearly as dumb as people would have you believe. One reason why so many people make pets out of them, I suppose.”
“People make coyotes pets?” Anthony Goodrum asked, looking up from tying another strip of cloth.
“They do indeed,” Gordon assured him. “I knew a woman over near Frankenwing that had a pair of coyotes she had found as pups and raised herself. A full blood coyotes is actually a good looking canine, to be honest.”
“Frank who now?” JJ asked. He and Nathan were the only non-locals. Deuce hadn't asked any questions because he already knew all this, having been raised on the farm.
“Frankenwing,” Gordon repeated. “Little community off the interstate, south of here.”
“Frankenwing,” Nathan seemed to be trying the word out as he pronounced it slowly.
“Don't let that hurt you, man,” Deuce joked. “It's a real place,” he chuckled.
“Where did that name come from?” JJ asked.
“No idea,” Gordon admitted. “Let’s get this finished, boys. If we don't, we'll have women yelling at us, and I for one can do without that.”
“Yeah,” came the chorus of younger voices.
-
Clay was standing on the pad when the small convoy returned from rail duty the second day. Returned the second time, actually, as they had freed enough rails the day before to make three loads. All of the crew were tired and dirty, and more than one had a nasty looking blood blister from being pinched. Fortunately
, that was all the injuries they had suffered, no one having lost a digit beneath the heavy rails.
“Looks like we'll have plenty of steel for a while, yeah?” he said to Jake as the big mechanic joined him.
“Well, ideally we should try and get some more of it, later on. But I'd prefer to wait until it cools off a bit first. Doing this in the heat is starting to suck, big time.”
“I don't see why not,” Clay agreed. “You've got a bunch already, and I doubt anyone will take it all between now and then. For all we know, no one else will even think of it,” he shrugged.
“True enough,” Jake agreed with a nod. “None of us had, after all. Not for the kid, we'd not have done it either.”
“Also, true,” Clay had to laugh lightly. “We just thought we were crafty back in the day, didn't we?”
“No kidding,” Jake snorted. “Imagine if we'd been that smart, man?”
“We'd have been studying instead of doing something productive,” Clay laughed outright this time.
“Most people would consider studying to be productive,” Jake pointed out.
“Could we have painted the water tower by studying?” Clay challenged.
“Point,” Jake conceded. “Listen, man,” the big mechanic turned serious. “This ain't my business, I guess, but... you need to keep an eye on Goodrum, I think.”
“Why?” Clay asked, curious.
“He's getting more disagreeable by the day, man,” Jake explained. “And he's prone to temper problems as it is. All you gotta do is look at Carlene jump when he's the least bit loud and you'll wonder if there ain't a reason for it. Like I said, it ain't my business, I ain't in charge of nothing. I'm just telling you what I see. If it's not already a problem somewhere we can't see it, then it will be if he keeps on like he is.”
“I'll mind it,” Clay promised. Darrell Goodrum was a big man and his temperament could prove to be a problem if it got out of hand.
“You guys should take a day,” he changed the subject, patting his friend's shoulder. “Two days of slinging rails has to have you wrung out. Tell the crew to take tomorrow to rest. We're in a good spot for the moment so let’s take advantage of it.”
“Talked me into it,” Jake laughed. “We'll get unloaded and then we're done.”
-
“Elderberry of course,” Daisy was talking to Patricia. “It's good for a number of things, as well as being good for just general health. Echinacea is a great antibiotic and flu treatment, plus it can often enhance someone's immune system to help people in a household with sickness stop from becoming ill themselves. Then there's Comfrey, but I'm not sure it grows wild. It's an excellent wound treatment and works well even for things like a brown recluse bit or diabetic ulcers. The problem with that is I don't know where we can find any other than in one of Deb's 'wild' gardens, and that would... that would mean going... going back,” she managed to choke out the words.
“Easy now,” Patricia patted her arm. “We can find some seed, I'm sure, if we-,”
“No, that won't work,” Daisy was shaking her head. “It doesn't seed, at least not properly. You have to take root cuttings or even branch cuttings and use them to start new plants. That's the only way it works. If we want it, we'll have to go and get it,” she sighed.
“You can tell us what to look for and we can go and find it,” Patricia promised.
“Maybe,” Daisy seemed skeptical. “I…I think I'm going to go home for a while,” she stood slowly. “I'll think about what else we can use, and where we can get it, I promise,” she raised the notebook and pencil Patricia had given her. “I'll talk to you later. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Alright, dear,” Patricia smiled at the young woman. “Daisy, if you need me, come find me, okay? I don't mind and I know Beverly doesn't either. And just so you know, this will help us all a great deal. Thank you, so much.”
“It's the least I can do,” Daisy replied. “Look what you've done for me.”
-
“I don't want to go back to the Webb place, and I definitely am not going to take Daisy back there,” Clay said later as Patricia spoke to him about it.
“Clay, we need that plant if we can get it,” Patricia held firm. “The medicines we have will only last so long. We need to have natural replacements for as much as we can and this Comfrey Daisy is talking about is of great use. I've already checked the books I have and all of them mention it as doing everything Daisy has already pointed out. It's a wonderful wound balm for troublesome wounds that won't heal or are slow to heal. You can't tell me some of you won't need that at some point, Clay.”
“Never said we didn't,” Clay replied. “I just don't intend to get it at the Webb place. We'll find it somewhere else.”
“I don't know of anywhere else,” Patricia insisted. “And Daisy only knew of the places that Deb had planted it, around their farm.”
“Patricia, we can't go back there,” Clay stressed.
“Why?” Patricia asked. “The people who attacked them are gone, aren't they?”
“The Webb place is gone,” Clay said softly, looking around him to make sure no one else could hear.
“What do you mean, gone?” his sister-in-law asked.
“Patricia, there were bodies...” Clay paused, thinking of how to say it. “There were bodies, family members, in those houses in terrible states of decay and abuse,” he told her. “They were unusable, the houses were, I mean. Would never be suitable for anyone to live there, ever again. And Leon determined that they deserved better treatment than to be left like that. It was dangerous for us to try and… to try and bring them out of there, they had been there long enough that....” He finally stopped and took a deep breath.
“Leon ordered me to destroy the houses once we got everything the family could use from them,” he said softly. “I burned them to the ground, a funeral pyre for those left inside.”
“Well, at least there won't be any bodies, then,” Patricia tried to put a good face on it. “Right?”
“I left the bodies of the people who attacked them laying there,” Clay admitted. “They didn't deserve any better. Course, they're probably gone by now,” he added. “Buzzards have to eat, too.”
Patricia didn't shudder at the coldness in her brother-in-law's voice, but it took effort. Every so often she was reminded of the kind of man the teen she remembered had grown into. While some of the other former soldiers were often identified as 'scary' by the residents of the farm, her young brother-in-law was more often described as 'terrifying'. She decided he rated it.
“Look, Clay,” she said finally. “I understand, I do. But the bottom line is that we need this stuff. I don't mean it's nice to have if we can get it. I'm not pulling a mattress deal on you like Mom did. This is real deal, got to have it, can't get it anywhere else kind of stuff. We need the cuttings to start our own garden so that when we need it, this stuff will be there. I'm doing everything I can now so that we can be ready when the time comes. Unlike some people, I listened when you talked. I know that things are not going to get better. If anything, they're going to get worse. Right?”
Clay didn't answer for several moments, looking at Patricia without blinking. Finally, he nodded, once.
“You're right,” he replied. “This so far is... nothing. A side note. An annoyance. By now every little oligarch around has realized that he can run his or her little fife just like they want to, with no repercussions from anyone weaker than they are. There's no more central authority and no government system still in place to deal with that kind of behavior anymore. So yes, it can only get worse from here. Probably much worse.”
“You know,” Patricia changed the subject suddenly, “I'm a little surprised you guys haven't decided to have some kind of little kingdom of your own in all this. You're got the power, and the know-how. What's to stop you? It's not like you'd be evil or anything. It might be a good thing for everyone around us.”
“I'm in no way interested in that, and neither are the others,” Clay
replied at once. “All it would do is make us targets, and none of us have much patience for that kind of thing. It's better we just stay here and be farmers.”
“None of you will ever be 'farmers',” Patricia snorted. “Not even Gordy, anymore,” she added with a weary sigh. “I never imagined things would go this far, Clayton. I saw this happening, but then eventually everything straightening itself out. I can see now how incredibly naive that was.”
“Someday things will straighten out,” Clay agreed. “Probably even climb back to where we were when this happened. But we won't see it. Not like it was. The kids, they might. I don't know,” he shrugged. “Anyway,” he stood. “If we really need this ... whatever it is, then if Daisy is willing to go, I'll put a team together and take her. You and Beverly need to make sure she can stand that kind of trip, though,” he warned. “It will be bad.”
“It can't be worse than what she already went through,” Patricia told him. He pondered that a minute before nodding.
“Hadn't looked at it that way,” he admitted. “And you're probably right. Just make sure.”
-
Clay hadn't gotten far when Heath Kelly called him from the cupola, informing him there was a vehicle inbound and moving slowly. It looked like the truck that Jordan's mayor and militia commander used, and so it was. Clay stood waiting as the truck pulled slowly onto the pad and stopped, the two men getting out with their hand carefully in view.
“You two are awfully cautious today,” Clay noted.
“We weren't sure we'd be welcome,” Dawson admitted, his voice tinged with a little anger as well as a little fear.
“So far as I know you are,” Clay promised. “What brings you out to our little slice of the apocalypse?” he asked, far more jovially than he felt.
“We had a bit of a misunderstanding with Holloway and Newell a few days ago,” Dawson replied. “We were hoping to set that straight. Maybe iron out a mutual aid agreement.”
“Well, let me call them down here, then,” Clay nodded. “You guys have a seat,” he pointed to a table and chairs in front of Building Two. “Be a minute or so.”
