by Doug Kelly
Michael pointed at John. “We’ve got a new guy.”
“You know him?” asked Sam.
“Yeah.”
“You can vouch for him?” asked Sam.
“Yes, sir.”
“That so?” Sam looked at John as he did all the other newcomers. Asset or liability was always the first thing that came to his mind. If they could not do anything for him, they were worthless. His eyes pierced the darkness like dark pools of liquid evil. John could feel Sam’s menacing gaze. He looked away, intimidated.
“What’s your name?” asked Sam.
“John Sisk.”
“You know who I am?”
“Yeah, Sam Deville.”
“How do you know me?”
John looked up and met Sam’s eyes. “Reputation.”
Sam smiled. “What brings you here, John?”
“Business.”
“You’ve got business for me?”
“Yeah.” John looked around the huge warehouse. “I need a place to stay, too.”
“Michael,” said Sam.
“Yeah, Boss.”
“Meet me in my office. Bring John with you.”
Sam climbed the metal steps to his office. Inside the office, Sam lit an oil lamp, and the room glowed in yellow light.
Michael and John talked quickly as they slowly ascended the steps to Sam’s office.
“Hey, look at my arm. Does the tattoo look like a number 1 and a 3?” asked Michael, awkwardly bending his neck to try and get a better angle to view the swollen, red skin.
“Sure it does.” John bit his lip to keep from laughing.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Okay, I’m not.”
“What did you bring? Anything valuable?” asked Michael.
“Moonshine and marijuana.”
“That’s good. We can move it. But—”
“But what?”
“It’s the wrong time of the year. People aren’t out and about in the cold. But it’ll move fast when the weather breaks.”
Michael stopped walking up the steps, grabbed John by the shoulder, and asked, “Have you been drinking?”
“A little.”
“You better cut that shit out. If you work for Sam and he finds out your head isn’t screwed on…well…just don’t do it.”
Michael started walking up the steps again, and John kept the pace.
“Stop bitching at me. You remind me of my wife,” said John.
“How’s your wife doing?”
“She doesn’t feel good.”
“Fever?”
“Yeah, she’s burning up.”
They stopped at the open doorway to Sam’s office. He sat behind his desk in a chair turned away from the door. Michael knocked on the doorframe and announced their presence.
Sam spun the chair around. “Come on in, and let’s have a talk.”
Each man sat on a chair in front of Sam’s desk.
Sam leaned back in his padded leather chair, put his feet on the desk, and looked at John. “Let’s cut to the chase. What can you do for me?”
“I’ve got access to a still, and land to plant whatever you want. We used corn to make the alcohol, but there’s plenty of room to grow pot if you want.”
Sam found a toothpick on top of his desk, put it in his mouth, and tilted his head back. As he looked at the ceiling, he probed with the toothpick between his front teeth and contemplated his strategy.
“You said ‘we’. Who else do I have to deal with?”
“Just me. I know how to run the still.”
Sam shook his head. “Corn doesn’t plant itself. You’ll need labor.”
“There’s a tractor in the barn, right by the still. It works, I’ve seen it.”
“A tractor needs fuel. That’s getting hard to come by.” Sam used his tongue to turn the toothpick around in his mouth and looked at John curiously. He began to doubt John, and John sensed that.
“It’s all by a subdivision,” said John. “We could use it as a labor force.”
“What about fuel?” asked Sam.
“There was a guy in the neighborhood. He could always find that stuff, gallons of it. I don’t know how he did it.”
“Who’s that?” asked Michael.
“Dylan Smith.”
Michael cringed at the name and subconsciously put his hand on the pistol in his front pocket.
“What’s wrong, Michael?” asked Sam. “You look like you saw a ghost. Do you know this Dylan Smith?”
“Yeah. I’ve got no love for him.”
“Me, neither,” added John.
“Do you think we could get Dylan behind this? Maybe he could persuade the community to get onboard. We could promise them food.”
Michael and John exchanged glances. Each man turned the possibility over in his mind.
“Maybe you could persuade him,” said John, as he finally got the courage to look Sam directly in the eyes.
Michael smiled at the thought and the way John emphasized the word, “persuade.”
Sam spit the toothpick onto the floor and sat upright in the chair. He clenched his hands into fists on the desk as he leaned forward. His eyes narrowed.
“I need to expand my territory,” said Sam. “Would you like it if Dylan worked for you? Maybe tighten the thumbscrews if he gets out of line?”
Each man answered with a mischievous grin.
Sam leaned back in his chair. “Good, that settles it. I’ll have one of my boys pay him a visit in the springtime. We’ll start out nice and see how that works. Maybe give him something special, a token of appreciation.”
John and Michael nodded in agreement.
“Michael,” said Sam with a commanding voice.
“Yes sir.”
“You have to get that tattoo of the letter B on your arm fixed. It just looks stupid.”
Chapter Twenty Four
On an early spring morning, by the stream near Tom’s barn, columns of warm sunlight fell between the shadows of tall trees. As a snake slithered along the dark soil of the bank into a clearing, its black scales agreed with the warmth of the sunshine. Its sinuous body rested there and became more alert as it absorbed the sun’s rays.
A small frog emerged from the streambed. Weak and tired from months of hibernation, the amphibian moved slowly up the bank, away from the cold mud and water. As it crept forward, the frog felt the soil become tepid under a column of yellow light and stopped to absorb the warmth.
There, the two met as predator and prey. The snake’s unblinking eyes, stoic and still, found the small frog within striking distance. Flicking the air, the snake’s forked tongue sensed its prey. The frog flexed its front limbs to elevate its view and looked side to side. The perfectly camouflaged snake used its advantage to strike the unsuspecting creature just as the frog lowered its belly onto the warm ground.
Vicious jaws clamped quickly around their prey. After a short struggle, the frog stopped fighting, and suffocated inside the serpent. Along the snake’s tubular body, peristaltic waves contracted rhythmically against the frog’s corpse, pulling it deep inside. Warm and full, the snake had no need to lie exposed while the percussion of heavy boots encroached upon it, so it slithered away, unnoticed by the man that marched by.
Dylan stopped the tractor at the edge of the plowed field. After he engaged the hydraulic lift, the two-bottom plow rose from the last furrows. He turned the tractor and stopped again to look at his accomplishment. The engine sputtered rhythmically as it idled. The tractor was small, with no cab for protection from the weather, and had barely enough power to pull the plow. Dylan stood tall on the tractor as he faced the southern breeze to enjoy its warmth. After sitting back down, he turned off the engine and listened to the same warm breeze that rushed across his body. It flowed through the nearby trees and rustled the leaves majestically. Tired and hungry, Dylan’s thoughts drifted into a daydream while his fatigue tried to pull him directly into sleep. A sharp whistle broke the tranquility of the moment
and another whistle in the distance brought him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and saw Ruth standing beside Tom’s barn.
They still called it Tom’s barn, even though he was dead. Killed during the winter, they could not bury him in the frozen ground near his parents, as they guessed that he would have wished. Instead, they cremated his body with a funeral pyre. All that remained of Tom was a pile of gray ashes at the edge of the woods, and his parents lay under two piles of dark earth. Those three markers alone were enough reason for the group to keep calling it all, “Tom’s.”
Across the field, Ruth waved eagerly to Dylan. After one quick glance back at the turned soil, he started the tractor and drove toward Ruth and the barn. As the tractor slowly advanced, he watched Ruth move the three goats. She staked them in different locations on the grass to let them graze the first green shoots of springtime. As he drove by, Dylan watched her pay special attention to the pregnant goat, her small hands moving along the swollen underbelly to feel for a kick.
Dylan parked the tractor in the barn and met Ruth on the lawn, walking up behind her as she tended to the goats. Dylan stopped and announced his presence by calling her name.
“Ruth.”
To her side, on the ground, he saw a plastic bag. It was the same bag as yesterday and the day before. He guessed that its contents were also the same as the previous two days. Most likely, a container of corn mush sprinkled with walnuts or pecans, and a bottle of water.
“Yes, Dylan.”
Ruth was not ignoring him, but she did not turn around. Missing her farm life, a moment of reflection had captured her mind. She had tucked her hair under a knit cap, and she felt the refreshing breeze on her bare neck as she stroked the goat’s bristled fur with her hand. Ruth hugged the dumb animal, caressing it once more with the soft skin of her cheek. She truly missed her old way of life and her family’s farm, but missed her family most of all.
“Looks like you’ve got something for me,” said Dylan.
“Oh, of course I do. How rude of me.”
Ruth jumped up and handed Dylan the sack. It was cold, but he was not going to complain. He was hungry and thought the food’s temperature should be the least of his worries.
Dylan tilted his head toward the plowed earth and asked, “Does it look alright to you?”
Ruth considered the question as she surveyed his work, eyes quickly shifting across the rich soil in the distance. During her silent contemplation, Dylan opened the bag and confirmed that the meal was just what he had suspected.
“Yes, it looks alright to me.” She nodded her head. “That’s good soil. We should be able to grow just about anything. Any idea how may acres you plowed?”
“Tom said he had about forty acres. I couldn’t get it all, so I would guess about thirty at the most. That’s more than we could use now, but in the future, who knows what we’ll need. Might as well do it while we have a tractor that works.”
“Now you’re ready to disc and harrow.”
“What?”
“You disc and harrow after you plow. That breaks up the clumps of sod and makes it easier to plant the crops.”
“This is all I’ve got. And I’m lucky to have that. Are you trying to tell me this is not going to work?”
“Well…no…but it would make it easier. You should’ve plowed this in the fall if you couldn’t disc in the spring.”
“Well…no…you should have been here in the fall to tell me that,” Dylan joked. “That would have made all this easier for me.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I should have.”
Ruth understood Dylan’s humor, but the somber tone of her reply to his joke spoke volumes about how much she appreciated what he had done for her and how much better her life was here in this community, away from Sam Deville. And not just Dylan, but all those under his roof and some in the community, had taken a chance and accepted a scared, cold stranger, and she deeply appreciated that kind gesture.
Dylan cast an eye toward the back porch and considered it the best place to sit and eat his cold meal. He held the bag up, raised an eyebrow, pointed to the back porch, and asked, “Care to join me?”
“That’s for you.” She held her hands forward in a halting gesture. “But I can stay while you eat.”
They went to the porch.
“I wish you could’ve brought me a steak,” said Dylan. “That’s something I miss. Steak smothered in mushrooms, medium rare.”
“You won’t have to wait too long,” said Ruth. “That son of yours is out with the other boys. They have the bows you made for them. You just wait, they’ll bring back something.”
“Rabbit steak and squirrel steak isn’t the same as a good T-bone. Not to me.” Dylan laughed and emphasized his statement by poking his thumb into his chest. “And besides, even those little critters are getting hard to come by. It seems like a lot of other people have the same idea.”
“You have a good son.”
“Yes, I do.”
At the porch, Dylan dropped his tired body and crudely sat. A fine cloud of dust rose from the weathered boards. Ruth sat gently by his side. They faced the barn, the gravel driveway, and the clearing to the stream that had become a path for travel from the subdivision.
“Before he left with the other boys, I heard him say that he wanted to be just like you.”
“Just like me?” Dylan asked rhetorically, in a facetious tone. He grasped the spoon with an over-handed grip and plunged it into the mixture of corn mush and nuts. Etiquette be damned. After carefully spooning the mixture to get at least a fragment of tree nut with his first bite, he filled his mouth with the thick, cold paste and swallowed. He thought deeply about what she had said.
Considering the mistakes he had made, Dylan wondered if he was really the best role model for his son. He had taken a job requiring too much travel, in order to chase the almighty dollar, when he should have been chasing baseballs with his son instead. He loved his son and his son loved him, but those decisions had taken him far away all too often and had threatened his ability to make it back home alive. When he did make it home, after the pulse, he had returned to a divided family, and later lost his wife. He blamed himself for all of it.
Even now, his children had adopted Mary as their surrogate mother and spent most of their time with her. She took care of them while he continued to be gone from home. He felt like he had no other choice, but still, the fact remained that he left his children behind too often. Dylan could not forgive himself for letting that happen. He hoped that his son would learn from his mistakes to become a better man.
Three familiar silhouettes appeared on the path across the stream and emerged from the clearing. Kevin, Jim, and Joel approached the ragged porch. With both arms, Jim hugged a sack tightly to his chest. As Jim got closer to the porch, Dylan saw that it was a sack of birdseed. He recognized it from Harold’s house. Jim dropped the bag between Dylan’s dangling feet. The bottom of the sack flattened when it hit the ground, and it stood upright with its top splayed open.
“What?” asked Ruth. “Did you bring him something to eat, too?” She jokingly poked Dylan in the side as she said it, and she caught herself touching him just a moment too long. Ruth casually stood up, but she stayed near Dylan.
“Nope,” said Jim, as he worked the cramps out of his thick fingers. “Read the label. It’s birdseed. That’s bird—seed in that bag.” When Jim put an emphasis on the word “seed,” Dylan understood why they were here.
“What kind of seed are we looking at?” asked Dylan.
“Sunflower,” replied Joel. “Sunflower seeds are high in unsaturated fat calories and essential vitamins and minerals.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t a doctor anymore?”
Joel parried the verbal thrust, and countered with, “No, I guess I’m a farmer now, like you.”
Just as a gust of wind began to tip the open sack, Dylan moved his legs to stand and stretch his tired body. Accidently, his boot bumped the s
ack and tipped it all the way over, spilling some of the contents. Dylan stepped back and cursed at his clumsiness. After glancing down at the mess of seeds on the ground, he looked up and caught Ruth grinning at his misfortune. He smiled back. Ruth had tucked her hair under a knit cap for the walk to Tom’s house. Now that it was warmer, she decided to remove her hat and enjoy the balmy weather. Her long hair fell down past her shoulders, and then the wind swept it back. She watched Dylan look at her, also just a moment too long, and the pale skin of her cheeks turned a faint shade of red, like an autumn peach. He knelt down and picked up the spilled seeds.
They heard the sound of a motorcycle coming toward them on the road. Dylan sat the bag of seeds upright, leaned it against the porch for stability, and stood to see what loomed their way. A lone rider on a small motorcycle with high suspension and knobby wheels came into view. It was a dirt bike. The rider slowed down as he passed the gravel driveway, and then he turned the motorcycle around and disappeared back in the direction from which he had come.
“Who was that?” asked Kevin. His jacket was unzipped and blown back in the breeze.
Dylan saw the pistol tucked into Kevin’s beltline and felt a sensation of relief. He had not brought his rifle or knife, and now he realized just how naked he felt without them. The sound of the motorcycle returned, but now the sound of a larger vehicle accompanied it. He turned to look at the group, and they were already looking at him.
“Ruth, I want you to get behind that barn and hide,” commanded Dylan. “If this goes bad, go home and warn the others.”
Ruth scurried away and hid behind the barn just as an old pickup truck came into view. In the lead, the motorcycle stopped and turned again after it passed the driveway. This time, the driver stayed there at the side of the road. The old truck slowed down and turned onto the driveway, and then it pulled up to the barn door. To their astonishment, it was Tom’s old truck, full of boxes. To their dismay, it blocked their path home.
Kevin removed the pistol, disengaged the safety, and held it behind his back. “This is bad,” Kevin said firmly. “If he comes out of that truck with heavy-duty firepower, we’re screwed.”
“Do you think it’s John?” asked Joel. “I remember what you told me about what he did to Tom.”