“Amputate my hand!”
“Let me deal with Cecil first,” she said. “I’m going to try to remove the bullet, see if that stops the infection. In the meantime, you need to wait in another room.”
“Got it.” He watched his wife get to work, feeling an odd kind of envy for her.
The compound needed her. The homesteaders would never be able to function or even survive without a nurse—in this case serving as an emergency doctor. But Hatfield—especially with one hand—wasn’t.
19
Sitting alone in the den and scanning across the pictures of his dad, Hatfield tried to blot out the last day. It was a series of nightmares, nothing less than that. Multiple homesteaders lost—possibly including Cecil—and attacks coming from a gang that outnumbered them.
On top of that, he faced the real likelihood of losing his shooting hand.
Cecil paid him the big compliment of saying his father would have been proud of the man he’d became when the homestead came under siege. But things were different now. He’d be tested again and again and again. He stared at the images blankly, not knowing how to react.
Gazing into the eyes of his father’s face and imagining his demanding baritone yelling out orders, he wondered what his dad would think of him now.
“A leader doesn’t expect his men to do anything he won’t do—or can’t—do.”
He repeated the words over and over again as if engaging in a kind of self-torture, reminding himself that he was no longer a leader now and not just because of his shortcomings as a shooter. It was everything. The new circumstances. The dangers they now faced. His doubts, the uncertainty of his role. Everything.
Flooded by mixed emotions, he returned the pile of pictures to the box. Right now, his father’s unyielding voice—imaginary or not—wasn’t what he needed. He’d had enough of that as a teenager.
He turned and saw the door of the den open slowly with a creak. His daughter—dour-faced and sheepish—poked her head through. “Dad, Mom wants to see you in the dorm room.”
“Sure, honey.”
Hatfield stepped down the hallway, bracing for bad news about Cecil. Jess slipped out of the dorm room and dropped her scarf. “Well, I did the best I could.” She pulled a tiny bullet from her pocket, face glowing with a weak smile.
“Honey, you’re amazing! That’s great news.” But he noticed the smile fade. “Isn’t it?”
“Getting the bullet out is a good start, but it’s no guarantee I stopped the infection.”
“Anything else we can do for him?”
She smirked. “You’re talking to a pastor’s daughter. So you know the answer.”
“Prayer, prayer, and more prayer.”
She shrugged. “Nothing else left.”
“Long as he still has a chance. Can I talk to him?”
“Sure.” She reached for her husband’s hand, carefully pulling it to her face. “This is more what I’m worried about. Come on in, and let’s see what we can do.”
A grin immediately spread across Hatfield’s face when he saw Cecil sprawled across his mattress, sporting the leisurely demeanor of someone who’d just had a tooth pulled. “Well, look who’s still going strong! Glad to have you still around, Captain.”
“Come on now. You should have known it would take more than a bullet to bring down this old bull.” With his big body shaking into a chuckle, he started to reach up for a handshake.
But Jess stopped them. “Germs, guys. We have to be careful in here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Cecil said. “I trust there is no danger of the exchange of germs when I tell your husband how proud I am of the way he conducted himself”
“We’re all proud of him,” Jess said. She pulled down her mask just long enough to dampen his cheek with a kiss.
He turned and gave her a sly grin. “Not worried about germs?”
“I outrank you.” She gave him a pat on the butt, then said. “Now, let’s get you on that mattress and give me five minutes to get everything sterilized—or at least the best we can do under the circumstances.”
As her husband lowered himself to the bed next to Cecil’s, the captain propped himself up to the elbows and addressed him. “You know, Trevor, your father used to say, give me ten men with steady hands on their guns and we’ll take down an army.”
Hatfield glanced over, the smile fading from his face as he looked at the graying fingertips on his shooting hand.
Cecil went on. “And although I didn’t witness it with my very eyes, from what I heard, you have a steady gun hand.”
“Thank you.” Hatfield chose not to share his anxiety about his shooting hand. With any luck, he’d heal before it would become an issue. “So… Cecil, there’s something I’m wondering about.”
“What’s that?”
“One of the guys holding my kids the other day on the porch said something about the three homesteaders who left.”
“What about them?”
“He said they’d joined up with this gang. And they’re now able to give them inside information about us. How we operate and all that. In fact, that might have been the reason for the sneak attack at the hospital. Also, that might have been the way they knew the guy on guard duty would be there—”
Cecil stopped him with a calmly-lifted hand. “You let me handle all that.”
“Well, what I’m saying is, we might want to change things up a little. You know, to make sure they don’t know—”
The captain shook his head. “I know we’ve sustained big casualties, but as long as we have enough to hold things down, we should be fine.”
“But we don’t actually know how many of them—”
The leader’s face hardened into a threat. Hatfield knew that any more words would be a challenge he couldn’t make. “Trevor, I need you to stay in your lane, as the kids say. And that lane is an important one. We will need good shooters, and a good shooter you are.”
Hatfield and his wife gave each other a look. They knew something Cecil didn’t. They knew the steady shooting hand was in danger.
“Open wide for me,” Jess said. Then she slipped a pill on her husband’s tongue and gave him a glass of water. “This won’t knock you all the way out, but it’ll keep you from feeling any pain.”
He swallowed the water and pill. “I’m ready for you.” The syringe she then pulled out made him a little less ready.
Noticing her husband’s widened eyes, she said, “You never were too fond of needles, were you?”
With a half-grimace, half-smile, he shook his head.
“I’ll need this to apply a local anesthetic. You’ll need it, but you don’t have to look at it if you don’t want.”
They shared a grin, recalling a memory from years ago.
“Honey, can you help me practice my needlework?” asked a nineteen-year-old Jess from the bathroom.
Hatfield lifted his eyes from a magazine just long enough to glance at his wrist. Even the word “needle” made him uneasy. But he tried to play it cool anyway. “Sure. You need me to be your guinea pig for poking?”
Jess stepped into the room, carrying a small bag. Taking a seat in front of him, she rolled her eyes, putting on rubber gloves. “Needle poking? The correct term is phlebotomy.”
“Excuse me, Miss Registered Nurse.”
She held up crossed fingers. “Not yet, but we’re a month away.” As she pulled out the needle and raised it to his arm, she noted the look on his face. Tense, eyes sharply focused on his arm. “No rule that says you have to look at it,” she said. “Unless you just don’t trust the phlebotomist.”
“No, it’s not you that I don’t trust. It’s the needle. Never been a fan.”
“Well, just train your eyes somewhere else.”
He did, and when she saw where his gaze landed, she gave him a playful slap on the wrist. “Not there.”
“Well, looking isn’t the same as grabbing, is it?”
She smiled. “I suppose you’re right. Just make sure it
stays at looking.”
He groaned.
She mocked his groan and said, “That’s what you get for dating a pastor’s daughter.”
When he finally brought his eyes back to hers, Jess said, “We both know a way you could fix the situation.”
“In time,” he said, looking down at the lump in his breast pocket. “Until then, why don’t you empty my pockets to help me get more comfortable.”
“Very funny.”
“No, I’m serious. I insist that you check my pockets before you perform this procedure.”
“Why? So you can pounce over me while I’m trying to focus on your arm?”
He sighed. “Look, There’s something in one of my pockets I think you need to know about.”
“I bet there is, you horndog.”
Pointing to his breast pocket, he said, “Seriously. Isn’t that a rule? Make sure the patient’s pockets are all empty so they’re nice and comfortable while experiencing the lobotomy.”
“It’s phlebotomy and—” Her eyes landed on the lump in his breast pocket. She tapped it, pulled it out, and opened it, her mouth wide open as she gasped. “Trevor!”
He’d spent months saving up for the ring, and it brought Jess to exactly the place he’d been hoping. “It’s yours if you’ll have me.”
She smothered him with a hug, screeching out an answer that sounded close enough to “I do” to make him happier than he’d ever been.
Jess’s face was still glowing with the grin decades later as she pulled the needle from his arm. “That’ll do it.” His field of vision grew blurry, and the room seemed to be spinning.
A voice from his side yanked his attention away. “Come on, boy! Can’t you handle a little needle?”
Hatfield turned and spotted a familiar face.
“Hi, Dad,” he grunted to the sergeant.
“Don’t hi Dad me. Answer my question! Are you really expecting your men to follow you if you can’t endure a little pain in your hand? What kind of leader are you?”
“It’s not my job to be a leader,” he answered drowsily. “That’s the captain’s job.”
“You’re right about that. You are no leader.”
“Why not?”
His father leaned in closer, bringing his loud baritone to his son’s ear. “Because you will not lead!”
“I told you, it’s not my job!”
“Bullcorn! If you were a leader, you’d have the courage to tell the current leader you don’t agree with him.”
The conversation ended there with Hatfield’s eyes dancing on a distant wall. He had no comeback for his father’s words, no justification for his retreat.
20
Hatfield wasn’t sure how many hours had passed, but it seemed like days since his hallucinatory chat with his father when the room snapped back into focus. The smiling face in front of him had been talking for a while, but her words were lost in echoes. Now the echoes were gone, and the face was familiar again. “You back with us, stranger?” Jess asked.
“Huh?”
“You seemed a little lost there for a while.”
He gave his head a vigorous shake. “I suppose I was.” He lifted his hand, saw it fully bandaged now. “It’s… still there. You didn’t have to amputate?”
“Not completely, no.”
“What does that mean?”
She nodded toward his hand. “Go ahead, take a peek.”
He pulled the bandage partly off. The palm was scarred and a little tender but otherwise felt normal. He kept going, releasing a relieved breath when he saw all fingers there—mostly. The upper half of his right forefinger was gone. His trigger finger. “You amputated my finger.”
“The tip, yes,” his wife answered. “And you’re welcome.”
He looked up, met her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound—”
She lifted a hand and nodded. “No, that’s fine. I understand how much that trigger finger means to you. You men and your guns.”
“Jess, it wouldn’t be a big deal ordinarily. But we need—” He stopped himself before running the risk of coming across ungrateful again. “Thank you. My wife the doctor, huh? Who knew?”
They shared a tiny laugh. He turned and took a glance at the Cecil in the bed next to him, snoring as he slumbered on his back. His father’s imaginary rant reverberated through his head as the captain dozed.
The voice was part encouragement, part nag. Something was deeply wrong with Cecil’s approach to things, his insistence on staying the course despite the dangers. “I’m sure you’re going to need the bed back soon,” he said.
Jess answered, “Well, not right away—”
But her husband was already on his way out.
21
Hatfield stood in the front doorway, watched the guard bring a cigarette to his lips. He looked back and nodded when he noticed he was being watched.
He nodded back but said nothing, every gear in his mind shifting. The guards had worked in shifts, according to Cecil’s schedule. The three VVs must have leaked that schedule to the others.
Other things caught his attention. He stepped over to the guard, extended his hand. “How are you? Name’s Trevor Hatfield.”
They shook, and the guy laughed. “Come on, we all know who you are. After the job you did with the pistol.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Jake. Jake Stillwell.”
“Jake, why are we using a chain-link fence?”
He shrugged. “Gives us good visibility. That’s what the captain says.”
“Yeah, but the visibility goes both ways. We can see, and we can be seen.”
“Well, that’s never been an issue. Well, until—” Jake lowered his eyes as if afraid to address a sensitive topic.
“Yes, Jesperson’s shooting. I understand. But it seems to me that it’s never been an issue because you’ve probably never faced a serious threat out there before. Or have you?”
“Sure we have. We’ve had all kinds of crazy people trying to get inside the compound. We even had some looters during the riots. And in the end, they didn’t do us any harm.”
Hatfield said nothing, staring out into the landscape. Cecil’s thinking had begun to make sense. But what made more sense were the reasons it had to change.
In the past, the only dangers the compound faced came from crazed individuals, desperate, hungry, disorganized. They never before faced a group—let alone an organized group who had inside knowledge about the homesteaders and their goings-on. “Look, Jake, we’re going to have to adapt to the changes around here.”
“You mean the fact that we lost so many men?”
“That’s part of it. But we’re up against new dangers, smart people who have us outnumbered. The old ways won’t work.”
Jake nodded, but there was a hollowness to his gesture. It wasn’t clear how convinced he was.
“We can start by varying the schedule of the guards. Make it so that nobody knows when the new one is coming on. In fact, you can start by taking off a little early. I’ll hold things down until the next guard gets here.”
“But Cecil has given us specific orders—”
“I know what Cecil has done. If he has a problem, you tell him to come to talk to me.”
“Yes, sir.” Jake handed his rifle over, then walked inside.
“We adapt, or we die,” Hatfield said. The words rattled through his head for several seconds. They kept on rattling as he lifted the gun to the target, planting a knee onto the ground.
He hefted the rifle into place the same way he always did, but it soon became clear that it wouldn’t work. He raised up from the crouch, looked at the target again, and smiled as if the target had changed positions. “We adapt, or we die,” he said to himself, then dropped to the ground again and placed the rifle onto his left shoulder.
The first few shots were clumsy, crashing into the dirt a few yards ahead of him, the others knifing into a nearby tree. He tried again, still not quite near the target but no longer
bringing up the soil. “We’re getting there,” he groaned to himself.
After lifting himself off the grass, he pulled the pistol from his holster and held it in his left hand, fighting off the sense of awkwardness. After taking a few deep breaths, he fired away, doing better now. He had a ways to go before matching the mastery he’d reached with his right hand, but he soon discovered that the enemy wasn’t the uncomfortable use of his left. It was his inner panic. He needed to stay calm, tell himself that shooting was shooting.
He also needed to ignore the voice. His father’s voice, the same one that had haunted him as a kid. It was still there, reminding him that he wasn’t good enough. But now, it spoke in a single sentence. A leader doesn’t ask of his men what he won’t—or can’t—do himself.
The more shots he took, the more the voice faded into the backdrop. It was a whisper now, no longer a scream. And it was a relic from the past that demanded attention. But he didn’t have to give it the attention it wanted. He could move on.
Maybe someday, he’d win the approval from his father. He wasn’t yet there. But for now, he settled for what he could get. A calming ripple enabled him to shoot.
The bullseyes returned right along with the confidence. Shot after shot found its intended mark.
A different voice called from behind him as he heard footsteps through the tall grass.
“Very nice,” Cecil said. “Versatility is always what you want in a shooter.”
He turned and nodded. “Morning, Captain Payne.”
“Good morning to you, Mr. Hatfield,” he answered. The emphasis on “Mr.” was clearly intended as a dig, a reminder that Cecil was a man with a rank, a military background that made him more qualified as a leader.
Hatfield took it in stride, offered a smile.
But the captain had more. “Of course, being a strong shooter—however versatile—doesn’t make one able to lead.”
“True.”
“Now it has come to my attention that you deliberately instructed one of the homesteaders to disobey my orders.”
How We Survive: EMP Survival in a Powerless World Page 12