And she led the way to the main part of the bunker, calling out ahead of her, “Don’t shoot. We’re unarmed and coming out.”
Chapter 22
It was important for Scarface to demonstrate up front he was no one to mess with.
As the hostages gathered in the anteroom, just below the ladder leading up to the pillbox, he appeared at the top of the ladder and climbed down.
He was holding Jacob’s head by the ponytail it had taken him three years to grow.
“Which one of you belonged to this one?”
Kara turned her head and retched.
Scarface told her rather disdainfully, “I hope you know you’re gonna clean that up.”
Then, to the group, “Well? I asked you all a question.”
Kara stepped forward. With all the dignity she could muster while trying not to look at Manson’s trophy she said, “His name was Jacob. He was my husband and the father of my child. And you’ll rot in hell for what you’ve done.”
“I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I believe in might makes right. I take what I want. I took this place because I saw it and I wanted it. Your man… you said his name was Jacob? He wasn’t man enough to defend it, so he lost. I won.
“He obviously wasn’t man enough to defend you either. And again, he lost; I won. I will take you, just as I took this place.”
“Like hell. I’ll die first.”
“No doubt you would. The trouble is, you’ll be much more fun to me alive. So here’s the deal… if you die, so does your baby. How’s that?”
Kara stopped short. Surely these animals wouldn’t stoop so low as to kill an innocent baby.
But the look on Manson’s smug face told her he just might.
Sarah was an expert at reading peoples’ faces. In her mind there was no doubt.
She stepped in to diffuse the situation.
“Are the others injured? Do they need medical attention?”
Manson laughed.
Not a joyous laughter, but rather the laughter of a madman.
“I don’t know. Climb up the ladder and see.”
He watched in appreciation as Sarah climbed the rungs.
At thirty six, she still had her figure and was as strikingly beautiful as she was in college.
“I like the way you move, honey. Maybe I’ll take you instead and leave Miss Attitude for one of my men.”
As she got to the top of the ladder and peered into the interior of the pillbox he snarled, “My guess is that before you can treat their wounds you’ll have to gather up all the pieces and determine what belongs to who.”
He laughed again.
He was the only one.
He walked over to Lindsey, who started to back away and then decided it was better to stand tall, to show she didn’t fear him.
Even though she did.
He ran his fingers through her long chestnut hair and asked, “And what about this young treat? Who shall I give her to?”
Sarah climbed back down and jumped to the floor from the third rung.
She stepped between the two and said, “This is my daughter Lindsey. She’s sixteen years old, and if you touch her again there aren’t enough men in your army to keep me from killing you.”
Scarface Manson wasn’t normally one who tolerated insolence, not from his men and certainly not from his hostages.
But he’d just won a major battle without losing a single man. He’d taken the bunker, damaged but still chock full of provisions and ammunition.
And he had his choice of several women he could take to be his personal… companion.
Life was good. At least for Joe “Scarface” Manson. He could afford to be a bit benevolent.
He’d let the insolence slide, or he’d deal with her later when his typical foul mood returned.
He went next to Karen, who was more frightened than defiant. Her two young daughters and son, perhaps taking her lead, seemed terrified as well. They were hiding behind her single file, trying desperately to be invisible so the bad man didn’t talk to them as well.
What’s your story, honey? How old are you?
“I’m thirty one.”
He eyed her closely, as though inspecting a used car before purchase.
“You’re not bad looking. But I don’t know if I want to share your time with three little brats…”
Then he seemed to have a change of heart.
“Then again, though, having three little kids around will give me some good leverage. You’re way more likely to do what I tell you without sassing me. If you know I’ll take your insolence out on your kids, I mean…”
Karen had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She knew what was coming next.
Manson turned to his men and announced, “Okay, this one is mine. Anybody else lays a hand on her you’ll be shot and dragged outside for the buzzards to feast on. I hope you all understand that, because I won’t say it a second time.”
He turned back to Karen and said, “I’m sorry, honey. I forgot your name.”
“It’s K… Karen.”
“Her name is Karen, fellas. And she belongs to me now.”
He turned to Parker and said, “You get next choice.”
Parker, without hesitation, said, “I’ll take the young one. Kara.”
Kara took that moment to turn her head and retch a second time.
Manson thought that hilarious, and didn’t mind saying so.
“Oh, yeah, buddy. That’s a real winner, she is.”
He turned back to his men and said, “Looks like the five of you get to share Sarah. I don’t want any bickering or fights. You can work out some kind of schedule or arrangement everybody will be happy with. If I hear any bickering I’ll just shoot her and solve the whole problem.
“And one last thing. The kids, and that means the sixteen year old girl, are not to be touched. They’re for labor only. They’ll keep the place clean and cook our food and do our laundry, and in exchange for that they get spared all that… other stuff.
“After all, we wouldn’t want these people to think we’re barbarians.”
Chapter 23
As Sal and Beth napped in the shade of a Coca Cola truck, relatively cool because Dave had doused their clothing with water, Dave climbed aboard the trailer on a resupply mission.
Weight in the pickup was no longer a concern. The horses had made it up the long hill and while tired, seemingly suffered no long-term effects.
The next couple of hundred miles, until they neared Flagstaff, was flat and dry.
Extremely dry.
For the next four to five days their biggest problem would be the heat.
Since they were crossing a desert, they couldn’t count on stumbling across any rivers or streams. No playa lakes or natural springs.
Whatever water they’d use they’d have to pack in with them.
Dave moved six cases of Dasani from the trailer to the bed of the truck, putting them into place gently so he didn’t jar little Beth awake.
It had always been his favorite bottled water, and the only brand he drank back in San Antonio. It was almost like reuniting with an old friend.
Back in San Antonio. God, that seemed like so long ago…
In another trailer he found a new set of sheets for Beth’s mattress. Pink and adorned with some kind of weird cartoon creatures. He felt a tinge of guilt for not remembering what the creatures were called. Grumblings or Grouplings or something. When Beth was a couple of years younger he put her in his lap and they watched the cartoon together. Beth sang their silly songs. Dave tried, and butchered the words. Beth laughed until she rolled out of his lap and onto the floor.
It was a nice memory. Odd he couldn’t remember what they were called.
No matter, he decided. She’d like the sheets anyway.
He also found a teddy bear. Not quite as plush as Mr. Bear. But since Mr. Bear was back in Kansas City and she was here, this one would have to do.
At least for now.
He took a tiny can opener from his pocket and opened a can of chili.
He held it under his nose and sniffed it.
As he suspected, it was tainted.
The tractor trailers stuck in this twenty-one mile traffic jam had been there for more than a year and a half, subject to the brutal rays of the desert sun.
Daytime summer temperatures inside the trailers regularly rose to one hundred and sixty degrees.
Anything in a can was tainted.
Dave saw that as an awful shame. All over the world people were starving to death, or ending their own lives because they couldn’t tolerate the hunger any longer.
And here, on this isolated stretch of highway, was enough food to feed an army for a month, all gone to waste.
He looked instead for dried foods. Something he could reconstitute without wasting a lot of water. Something that, while it might not be the healthiest food around, would fill their bellies and provide them the calories they’d need to keep moving.
He grabbed a case of macaroni and cheese, three cases of Ramen noodles and two cases of dried soup.
Two years before, Sarah wouldn’t allow him to do the family’s grocery shopping without completing a very specific list for him.
That was fine with him. He enjoyed grocery shopping about as much as going to the dentist. It was one of those tasks he was more than happy to yield to someone who everyone agreed was better at it.
Sarah wondered early on in their relationship whether he was an atrocious shopper on purpose. So that she would do it herself rather than burden him with it.
Gradually, though, she realized it was one of those things he just wasn’t good at. Like vacuuming and doing the laundry. He, like a lot of men, just wasn’t blessed with certain abilities.
Oh, he could find his way to the supermarket. And he could find his way home again. The problem was he always bought the cheapest brands to save money. Or he paid no attention to labels. He couldn’t for the life of him, for example, understand there was a difference between apple vinegar and white vinegar.
“Isn’t apple vinegar the same, only with apple flavoring?”
He also had shiny syndrome. He tended to buy anything and everything at eye level or on end caps with colorful signage.
A year into their marriage Sarah finally had enough. When he came home from the supermarket with eight different types of pasta and four different kinds of candy, but not a single fresh fruit or vegetable, she shook her head.
“I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you let me do the shopping from now on. You can do the things you’re good at.”
“Like what?”
She actually had to pause and think.
“The garage. From now on you’re in charge of keeping the garage clean. And the front steps. You can keep the front porch swept. I’ll do the shopping.”
Dave remembered the conversation, and he remembered smiling.
“Deal!” he’d said without hesitation.
Yes, Sarah would likely have pitched a fit if she saw his resupply choices.
But she wasn’t here. And Dave knew that to keep moving they’d have to keep packing in the calories, without unnecessarily cooking away their water supply.
He’d learned enough about prepper cooking since the blackout to know the items he selected would fit the bill quite nicely.
When the day began to cool they struck out and kept moving when the sun set, using light from the full moon to avoid the obstacles in their way.
By mid morning, when they finally stopped again, they’d put almost twenty miles beneath the wheels of the old pickup truck.
Sal, unused to driving at night, started to nod off a couple of times.
Beth finally yielded her mattress in the truck’s bed so the old man could nap. It gave Dave a chance to drive the rig for the very first time. Beth, seated next to him, filled him in on everything he’d missed.
It was by far the best of Dave’s many nights on the road.
Chapter 24
They drove face first into a glorious sunrise.
By that time Sal was sleeping peacefully in the truck’s bed, snoring loudly enough to scare away any wolves, bears or bigfeet in the area.
Beth was starting to nod off herself.
She’d run out of fuel about an hour before, and Dave had tried to talk her into moving to the truck’s cab. The bench seat wasn’t roomy by any means, but it was enough to accommodate Beth’s tiny body.
But she wanted to prove to her father she was as tough as he was, and swore she’d ride alongside him until they broke for the day.
She was falling fast.
“Have you ever driven?”
Her eyes suddenly opened, then grew wide.
“You mean drive the horses and pull the rig?”
“Yes.”
“No. I asked Sal a few times if I could and he always told me it was a man’s job.”
Dave laughed.
“But you’re as tough as any man. You’re even tougher than me.”
“I know I’m not. You’re just being silly.”
“Well, maybe you’re not as tough as me, since I’m secretly Superman and all.”
She eyed him warily.
“Dad, just how old do you think I am, anyway?”
“Eight years old, last time I checked. How old do you think you are?”
“Old enough to know you’re not Superman.”
“Oh? And just when did you decide that? When you were three years old I had you convinced.”
“When I was three years old I was a lot more gullible.”
“Oh. I miss those days.”
“When I was gullible?”
“Yes.”
“How come?”
“Because you believed everything I told you. When I told you the moon was made of green cheese you believed it and wanted to go there with me in a rocket and taste it.
“When I told you I was Superman and could do anything you told your friends at pre-school I could fly.
“When I told you your teeth would fall out if you didn’t brush them every night you believed me.”
“Daddy, I did brush my teeth every night and they fell out anyway.”
“Good point. But at least you got money for them from the tooth fairy.”
“That’s when I stopped believing everything you told me, I think.”
“When?”
“When I lost a tooth and put it under my pillow. The next morning I found a dollar under my pillow and you and Mommy went on and on about how the tooth fairy left it there.
“But what neither of you knew was that I saw you sneak into my room late at night and switch the dollar for the tooth. You thought I was asleep but I stayed awake on purpose. On account of I was curious to see what the tooth fairy actually looked like. I never thought she’d look just like my dad.”
“And that’s when you stopped believing me?”
“Not just you. Mommy too. That’s when I first realized that a lot of stuff you told me was just malarkey.”
“Where in the world did you learn a word like malarkey?”
“From Sal. He uses it sometimes so he won’t use curse words.”
“He doesn’t curse at all?”
“Nope. He uses other words instead. Funny words, like malarkey and dad-gummit and gosh-darnit.”
“Really?”
“Yep. When he’s really angry he says, ‘Well I’ll be jiggered.’ What does that mean, anyway?”
“I haven’t a clue, honey.”
“Well anyway, when he says that I know to leave him be on account of that’s when he’s really angry.”
He handed her the reins and said, “Now, then. The ground is flat and they’re moving at a good pace. They’re smart enough to follow the road, so there’s nothing to it really.”
“Then how come Grandpa Sal said it’s a man’s work?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I guess he was afraid that if the team wanted to they could get away from you. Or maybe he just didn’t wa
nt to feel like he wasn’t needed.”
“Why would he feel unneeded?”
“Well, sometimes us silly adults feel like we’re the most important part of our kids’ world. And then when they start to get older and start doing more and more things for themselves, we start missing the days when we were more important to them.”
“Do you feel that way sometimes?”
“Honestly, yes. I do. I felt it when your sister stopped needing for me to do things for her. Little things. Like when I used to open her soda bottles for her because her hands were too small. And later on, when I had to take her to dance classes and cheerleading classes and stuff. Before her friends started getting cars and taking her for me. I missed that stuff. I missed the same things with you, too.
“You see, sometimes us adults, we don’t want for you guys to grow up. We’re afraid that when you do you won’t need us for anything anymore.”
“That’s really really dumb.”
“I know it is, sweetheart. But I’ll bet you feel the same way when you’re my age and your own children start to grow up.”
“Daddy, you can go back to being my Superman if you want.”
“I can?”
“Sure, if it makes you feel better. I mean, you’ve always been like my hero, even when I got big enough to know you weren’t the real Superman. You were always stronger than even Mommy and you fixed things when they broke. Even me. I always thought of you as my hero. Even now. I mean, you came all this way to… wherever we are, to rescue me.”
“You wanna know a secret, honey?”
“Sure. What?”
“You’re my hero too.”
Chapter 25
Sal stirred around eight o’clock or so and hopped off the slow moving rig to take a leak in the middle of the highway.
He turned his back to Beth, just in case she turned around, then jogged to catch up with them when he was finished.
Dave noticed the gesture and appreciated it.
Most men had long before stopped worrying whether anyone might be watching.
Including, unfortunately, Dave.
He made a mental note to change that.
Dave took the reins and pulled the team to a stop to make it easier on Sal’s bad knees.
A Tearful Reunion Page 9