“As long as we keep feeding them.” I chuckled and shook my head. “Miss their feeding time, hell, miss the feeding times any of these yahoos have gotten used to, and we’ll have a mutiny on our hands.”
“Eventually, some of them will be food,” Angie mused philosophically.
“Yep,” I said. “We’ll have to steel ourselves for that.”
“You and Jackie are both hunters,” she said with a shrug. “How hard can it be?”
“It’s not quite the same,” I told her. “You’ll see.” So far, we hadn’t needed to slaughter any of our animals for food. That time was coming, though, and I didn’t exactly look forward to it. We’d pretty much have to figure it out from scratch and from books. Then there was tanning and leatherworking. I didn’t like the idea of having anything go to waste since it might create a dangerous habit for us in the future.
Angie shrugged and lightly punched me in the arm.
“We should finish up and get some sleep,” she said. “You and Jackie have an early morning ahead of you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I straightened and stretched, then looped an arm quickly around her waist and pulled her against me with a grin.
She grinned right back, and we shared a warm kiss. What with the early morning, there wouldn’t be anything else tonight, most likely, but at least we’d all be together.
After that moment, the two of us checked the pasture and the chicken coop, then walked across the road and up the driveway to the Roberts Farm. The cattle were restless, all crowded together in the pasture near the house, with Rob, the big black Angus bull, drifting alertly around them. He chuffed at us, but instead of heading over to greet us, stayed put.
Angie and I glanced at each other, and I was about to say something when a distant howl rose, hit a crescendo, then trailed off into a series of yips. The coywolf was still out there.
“Well,” I muttered. “That answers that.”
“Sure does,” she said, then hip-bumped me. “I’m pretty sure our furry friend out there isn’t going to mess with big Rob and his ladies.”
“I know,” I said, then turned and looked towards the house. I had never gotten around to messing with the still, although I had finished bottling the beer that John and Linda had been brewing. We’d even sampled it and found that it was a pretty decent pilsner with a kind of berry undertone.
There was so much that I’d meant to do, but building up the farm and making sure my little family had everything we needed took up a lot of time. Currently, we were heading towards spring, which meant that soon, Jackie would herd us all out to do some planting.
Maybe after that was done, we could search the nearby farms for more useful things, like books and recipes and tools.
“Hey,” Angie poked me in the stomach. “Did I lose you there?”
“Maybe,” I said with a slight grin. “Did you say something?”
I practically heard her roll her eyes.
“Let’s get back home,” she said blandly. “You and Jackie need to get some sleep. I’ll help Estelle with the kids and do some cleaning. Maybe I’ll keep watch.”
“If you do that,” I said as we started back towards our own farm. “Keep an eye on the battery.”
“Will do, specialist,” she teased and hooked an arm through mine.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’d probably be a sergeant by now if I’d stuck with it.”
“Want me to call you sergeant, then?” Angie asked.
I shook my head.
“Wouldn’t feel right,” I admitted. “I’m a civvie now and have been for years.”
“They say you can always take the boy out of the service, but you can’t take the service out of the boy,” she teased and leaned into me.
I shifted to keep my balance as we walked.
“And here I thought that was talking about girls and trailer parks,” I retorted.
Angie laughed, and I joined in. We’d settled into an easy camaraderie as well as an intimate relationship, and it had made Jackie nervous at first. Despite not being jealous, she was a bit insecure and didn’t have the shared history of service that the former Marine and I shared. We’d taken care of that fairly quickly, but occasionally the young woman’s anxiety flared up.
Everything was getting better, and life did seem to be settling down. We still had concerns, but as our plans fell into place, they seemed further and further away. Of course, there would always be more work.
4
Jackie and I rolled out of bed around four A.M. the next morning, dressed quickly in the dim light of the small, electric nightlight, and walked out into the kitchen with our packs, rifles, and sidearms less than fifteen minutes later.
Apparently, Angie hadn’t been lying when she said she’d be up all night. She had coffee ready to go, and we took the hot beverages gratefully.
“We had power all night,” she reported. “Our friend was really talky, too.”
“Any answers?” Jackie asked.
“Not really,” Angie replied. “Sounded like some dogs and maybe another coyote.”
“The dogs are more of a worry, but the coyotes are getting bolder.” Jackie sipped her coffee and looked from me to Angie and back.
“Good to know about the power,” I said as I took a sip of my own coffee. Hopefully, we’d be able to get some milk in a few months, once the cows started having their calves. Powdered creamer just didn’t cut it.
Of course, that reminded me of something else I had to do. Damn, but that list was long! We definitely needed a milking shed, though.
“It didn’t look like the battery levels dropped significantly,” Angie told me. “As far as I could tell, anyway.”
She looked at the packs that sat at Jackie’s and my feet. “How long are you two planning on being out?”
“As long as it takes,” I said. “We’ve got about-”
“Four days of food and water,” Jackie broke in. We hadn’t really talked about what she’d packed. I just gave her free reign to do what she thought was best. “More than that would really weigh us down.”
“That long?” Angie asked in surprise. “Wow. I didn’t expect longer than a day or two.”
“We’ve got a fair bit of ground to cover,” I said by way of explanation. “We’ll check some of the other farms nearby for any sign as well as try to track the critter from here. Ground cover and time of year won’t make it easy.”
“It’s a lot easier to find deer,” Jackie added. “Which makes it kind of a surprise the coywolf and his pack haven’t been hunting them instead of messing with us.”
“Maybe the deer moved on,” I suggested.
“Not likely,” She mused. “I mean, maybe, but…” Her voice trailed off.
“Shouldn’t you finish your coffee and get moving?” Angie asked.
“Probably,” I said with a slight grin.
Jackie sighed, finished her coffee, and picked up her pack. She looked at me while I did the same.
“We’ve got radios,” I said. “And we’ll check-in. Call if there’s any trouble, and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
Angie waved a hand dismissively and grinned.
“Off with you,” she said. “I’m going to catch a couple of hours before Estelle and the kids show up, then we’ll make signs and go put them up. Are you really sure that this is a good idea?”
“Yes,” Jackie said before I could voice my own thoughts. “We should try to help anyone that might be out there.”
I just nodded. It wouldn’t do any good to argue. The girl was well-meaning to a fault, despite the whole episode with Hunter Blake trying to kill us.
“Whatever you say, boss,” Angie said, then hid a yawn behind her hand. “Okay. Bye, guys. See you when you get back, and good luck.”
With that, she came over and popped up on tiptoes to kiss me before turning and doing the same to a rather surprised-looking Jackie. Then, humming to herself, she wandered off towards the bedroom.
Jackie always seemed surprised when Angie kissed her like it was something new. I kept my amusement to myself as I shouldered my pack, picked up my heavy rifle, and headed out the door.
Outside, the air was cold, and there was a faint smell of rain. The sky above was overcast and just dimly glowed with the hidden light of the near-full moon. We paused and put on headlamps, switching on the red lights to help us see without hurting our night vision, then started off towards the back of the property. Jackie edged into the lead, guiding me towards where she’d first run across the coywolf and his pack.
A couple of the dogs, Suzy among them, trotted up.
“Stay,” I said firmly. “Guard.”
The black and brown shepherd mix let out a chuffing sound and sat, then growled softly as more of the pack closed in. As one, they all stopped and watched as we kept going.
“I swear,” I muttered under my breath. “They’re getting smarter.”
“They were bright, to begin with,” Jackie said quietly. “I wish we could bring one with us, but it might hurt our chances.”
I nodded. The coywolf had tangled with our dogs a couple of times now, and it had prowled the edge of the farm for who knew how long on top of that. We could only hope that the critter didn’t have a good sense of us, or we’d be wandering around the woods while it laughed and stayed two or three steps ahead.
The Bergara B-14 was heavy in its sling as we walked. I’d picked it on the off chance that we’d get a decent line of sight on the coywolf before it sensed us. Jackie carried a pump shotgun in a sling carry as well, barrel to the sky. We wouldn’t be bringing them to bear quickly, but we also both wore sidearms. I had my Les Baer, like always, and she carried a Glock G-19. They may not have been the most practical sidearms for hunting, but they would serve as a decent backup in case of emergency.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
After a fairly short walk, we were in the trees near the edge of our acreage, and Jackie pulled up short.
“This is where I ran into him the first time and killed one of the coyotes that were with him,” she told me.
“Probably a decent place to start,” I said. It was starting to grow a little lighter, and I reached up to turn off the headlamp. “This is going to be a lot of guesswork, you know.”
“I know,” she said and sighed. “I mean, we could set up, what do you call it, overwatch in a blind, but without knowing anything about where he patrols.”
“Like I said.” I chuckled. “Guesswork. I’m thinking that we cut ninety degrees right and head as straight as we can. About three miles on, we’ll hit another farm. It was mostly produce, but they had some chickens and goats that were pretty much free-range.”
“So,” she mused. “Wild chickens and goats, now?”
“Most likely,” I responded. “Maybe we’ll find some other sign between here and there.”
“Hopefully,” Jackie said.
We turned and headed off, roughly parallel to the backside of the property line. It didn’t really matter anymore, but I thought of all the farms pretty distinctly. Ours bordered on a rather extensive bit of acreage that had been marked by posts and tree tags, which was maintained by a coalition of the local landowners as a hunting preserve of sorts. Anyone who owned interest in it could hunt for free, and anyone else could pay a pittance for the privilege.
We all kind of took care of each other.
As the sky grew lighter, we began to search our surroundings a little more thoroughly. The land out here bordered on untouched, with a thick canopy of oak and pine and a blanket of leaves covering the forest floor. Our boots crunched as softly as we could manage through the fallen leaves and pine needles, and we had to shift our rifles to our shoulders to keep them from getting snagged in the thickening undergrowth.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Jackie said hesitantly. “About the coywolf and this…” She trailed off and looked back at me, a pensive expression on her wide-eyed face.
I just smiled back.
“Go ahead, love,” I told her.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
That wasn’t quite the question I’d expected, but I didn’t hesitate to say, “I do.”
“I’m sorry that I’ve kind of been keeping something from you,” she continued. “But I did mean to talk to you about it. The timing never seemed right.”
“It’s fine,” I assured her. “I’m sure you had your reasons.” Besides, I was in the army. I was used to not knowing what was going on. Since Angie had filled me in, I wasn’t too concerned, either.
“I want to see if I can make friends with the coywolf,” she blurted out. “I really think I can.”
“No offense, love,” I said. “But that’s a pretty dangerous risk, you know.”
“I know,” she said. “There’s something about him, though. He’s smart, and he’s really intriguing.”
I chuckled softly.
“If you were talking about a man,” I said. “I’d really be worried.”
Jackie laughed too and blushed hotly.
“I like animals,” she said flatly. “But not like that.”
“I’m not judging,” I said, and grinned as she blushed even more.
We finally lapsed into silence and trudged on, finishing out the first mile or so before I spoke again.
“Tell you what,” I said to her. “I’ll give you your chance, but I mean to have that furry bastard in my crosshairs. If he turns on you, I’m going to shut him down.”
“That’s fair,” she said. “But let me make the call, please. If I scream, you can shoot, okay.” Her eyes met mine, pleading for me to give her this chance.
I sighed and broke eye contact first. This whole situation made me unhappy, but I really couldn’t bring myself to deny Jackie this particular request. Hell, she’d worked miracles with the bulls and the other animals. The dogs adored her, and she could get them to do things that I couldn’t. Even the cats didn’t give her too much sass.
“Fine,” I said. “And I say that under duress.”
A broad grin spread across her face, and her eyes lit up.
“I can do it, Henry,” she exclaimed. “I know I can.”
I just nodded and returned the smile. It was nice to see her light up like that, even though it happened fairly often. Jackie was just one of those people who, despite everything that had happened since we all woke up to this changed, new world, kept a smile in her heart and on her lips.
She’d done wonders for me, then for the others. I could only hope that I, that we, made her happy too.
Our walk went on in comfortable silence as we ambled through the thickening woods. Light and shadow played intricately through the leaves above and the cool smell of the woods wrapped around us. After a while, Jackie paused and looked back at me, then tapped her nose and wrinkled it cutely.
I sniffed the air curiously and caught it, a faint smell of blood and animal musk. We both cast about for the source and found it, eventually. A dead goat, or what was left of it, was tucked away under some bushes. It was little more than a head and a well-gnawed foreleg.
Paw prints covered the ground beneath the bushes, and a shallow depression had been dug out. A patch of fur was stuck on a broken branch. We both squatted down and peered about.
“That’s a few days old, at least,” I observed, motioning to the remains.
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I don’t think it was him, though. Probably another coyote, though.”
“Could be a dog,” I suggested.
“True. The fur’s the wrong color for the coywolf.”
I nodded. He was a more golden brown color, while the strands we found were mostly gray.
“Still, we might be on the right track,” I said as I looked around. “If there are more goats around here, he and his pack might not stray far.”
“It’s possible,” she said as we both rose. “Goats aren’t the easiest prey, but if it’s a fairly sizable herd, they can probably pick off stra
gglers.”
I fished a compass out of one of my jacket pockets, balanced it on my palm, and waited for the needle to settle. Once it had, I pointed off to the rough northwest.
“That way is the farm I told you about,” I said. “The goats should be there, and the coywolf and his pack might be, too.”
“I’m hoping that we scattered the pack,” she mused. “It’ll certainly make my plan easier.”
“You want a one-on-one, don’t you?” I asked.
“Oh, hell, yes,” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to have to try to deal with the whole pack at once.”
“In all fairness,” I said. “I can probably deal with the pack.”
“Just not my preferred solution,” she said with a smile. “I know you’ve got my back, and I hope you believe I’ve got yours.”
“I don’t just believe it, babe,” I said with a grin. “I know you’ve got it.”
“I love you,” she said, beaming.
“I love you, too,” I answered. “Now, let’s finish this hunt and get back home.
Jackie nodded and bounced over to give me a quick kiss, full of joy and promise. I returned it, settled the big 6.5 a bit more securely on my shoulder, and we set off, making quick but careful time towards the Boutwell farm.
I hadn’t really told Jackie, but it wasn’t that much of a farm. The Boutwells had been something of local characters. Moonshiners, troublemakers, and what a lot of people called “poor white trash.” The thing is, despite all that, they hadn’t been the worst neighbors.
They even dropped off a few mason jars of ‘shine every now and then for grandma.
Too bad they hadn’t made it through the virus.
5
The Boutwell farm was about ten acres of land studded with ramshackle barns and animal pens, a wood-and-steel shed, and a doublewide that had been converted into a larger home through a few additions that were probably never up to code.
Jim, his wife Marybeth, and their four kids were gone along with their truck. I figured they were dead at some medical center somewhere. There had been no sign of anyone when I’d managed to find time to check. I’d freed the animals, which I figured was better for them than letting them starve, and hadn’t really thought twice about the place until the coywolf.
After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading Page 3