by John Grit
Brian walked along behind him. “That was easy enough.”
“Yep,” Nate said. “Let’s get inside and hook everything up and see if that old radio still works after being stashed in the woods for so long.”
After ten minutes of work, they had the radio ready.
Nate turned the volume up and switched to the frequency he and Chet had agreed on.
“Did you agree to a time of day?” Brian asked.
Nate looked at him and sighed, his eyes bright with self-deprecation. “I was worried about you worrying about me at the time, so I did not think of everything.” At the time he suggested he would contact them by radio, he was to some extent just putting them off. He wanted to get the supplies to the barn and get back to Brian.
Brian smiled but said nothing.
“What, no smart aleck remarks?”
Brian shook his head. “Like you said, nobody can think of everything.”
“I’ll transmit for a few minutes, and you can listen and learn how it’s done. Then I’ll leave you to it for about thirty minutes while I eat breakfast.”
“I can eat while I listen,” Brian quipped.
“No, you need to—”
The radio came alive.
“This is Big Pine calling Little Hickory. Come in.”
Nate held the microphone close to his mouth and spoke. “This is Little Hickory.”
A man’s voice came back. “Hey! I’ve been trying to get you for more than two hours, off and on.” Chet sounded relieved. “Nothing to report here. I’m just glad to see our radios are working. How are things there? Come in”
Nate pushed the button on the side of the mike. “Several gunshots this morning just at dawn, long ways off. No trouble though. Come in.”
“I’m reading you great. How are you reading me? Come in.”
Nate had checked the signal meter when Chet was transmitting. He knew a little about Ham Radio procedures, but his signal communications training was military. Fortunately, Chet instinctively understood how to communicate by radio well enough to make it work, and Nate immediately adapted to his method. “Your signal is 5 x 5. I’m glad we’re able to hear each other so well, at least with this frequency. Come in.”
“Five by five? Come in.”
“Never mind.” Nate kicked himself for getting too military. “I mean I read you loud and clear with a strong signal. Come in.”
“Great. I’ve already contacted Big Oak this morning. We had trouble reading each other. I think they don’t have their aerial rigged right. I’m going over there tomorrow with a few guys and check it for them. Come in.”
“Sounds good. I think we should have our radios on at first light every day, if possible. It’s the only way we can be sure someone is listening when we need to communicate. We can’t have our radios on twenty-four/seven and manned, but we can run them for thirty minutes every day. Come in.”
“I agree,” Chet responded. “Come in.”
“When you get Big Oak’s radio going, try to contact me tomorrow at sundown, or have one of them do it. Come in.”
“Will do. Unless you have something else, I’ll be signing off now. Come in.”
“Nothing else. Little Hickory signing off.”
“Big Pine signing off.”
Nate switched off the radio.
“Well,” Brian said nonchalantly, “can we eat now?”
Martha looked up from the wood stove. “Wild ham and freeze-dried scrambled eggs for everyone. No coffee. We’re out.”
“We’re out of ketchup too,” Brian said.
Cindy laughed. “We won’t be running out of tomato sauce anytime soon. You can use that.”
Brian worked the hand pump so Nate could wash his hands with lye soap. There was no sink, but there was a drain in the floor under the water pump. They used buckets to wash dishes and clothes. “It’s not ketchup,” he said, “but it will work to make those eggs taste like they’re eatable.”
“It’s not that bad. You’ve been spoiled by growing up on fresh yard eggs.” Nate pumped while Brian washed his hands. “We do need to start a late crop. Only the hardy vegetables will survive though. No more tomatoes.”
Brian dried off. “Like Cindy said, we have plenty until next harvest. What I’m thinking is how safe it will be to go back to the farm and work the fields. There are still a few of those killers around.”
Martha looked up while taking biscuits from a Dutch oven on the stove, waiting to hear what Nate had to say.
Brian blinked and looked up at his father. “You’re planning on farming here, aren’t you?”
Nate sat at the small table and filled a glass with water. “It’s sandy around here, and not so good for planting. Best land is down by the creek. That’s where the water is too. The bugs down there will eat most of our crop, though.”
“And the coons and possums and deer and hogs and squirrels,” Brian said.
Nate piled scrambled eggs on his plate and grabbed a biscuit. “Won’t be fun or very productive, but it’ll be safer.”
“Damn. It’ll be a little patch here and there, wherever we can find sunlight and a clear patch in the bottomlands.” Brian’s voice revealed his displeasure of even thinking about it.
“Won’t be fun, that’s for sure,” Nate repeated.
Martha pushed eggs onto Brian’s plate. “It’s crazy is what it is.”
Everyone but Carrie, Synthia, and Tommy, who were asleep, looked at Martha.
Martha looked back at Nate. “Why don’t we join one of the larger groups? There’s safety in numbers, and they still have a tractor or two that runs until the diesel runs out and plenty of land to farm.”
Nate’s chest deflated and he looked away at nothing. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I never was much for being part of a large organization, not since I left the Army.”
“We should at least think about it,” Martha said.
Cindy spoke up. “They might not want Tommy, Synthia, and Carrie. They’re likely to want only those who can work.”
“In that case they can go to hell,” Martha said.
“Well, she’s right,” Nate and Brian said simultaneously.
Brian kept quite while his father finished. “They might not want to take on anyone that can’t work.”
Martha dropped the lid onto the Dutch oven with a clank. “Then we girls will be staying here. I’m not abandoning either of those girls, anymore than I would Cindy or Tommy.”
“I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with the idea of joining them anyway,” Nate said. “Once we do, we lose control of our lives, our destinies. Here, no one bosses anyone, but there is probably a pecking order at both of those farms. A group that large must have leaders.”
Brian stopped eating. “No one bosses anyone here, Dad?” He had a silly grin on his face.
“I didn’t say fathers and mothers aren’t fathers and mothers here, smartass.” Nate chuckled. He was glad to see Brian still had a little of his old self in him, despite all he had been through.
“I think we should stay here,” Cindy said.
“Well, it’s still just us thinking and talking about it,” Nate said. “We have a lot of work to do around here before we do more than just think about it.”
Nate and Brian ate fast and left to haul more supplies from the creek to the bunker.
Brian was impatient and kept pressuring Nate to move faster.
“Rushing could get both of us killed in an ambush,” Nate whispered. “Cool it.”
Brian said nothing, but he stopped pushing his father to walk faster.
Fifty minutes later, Nate stood in the shade of an oak, listening. With the wind tossing the trees and underbrush violently, he would not be able to hear even if ten men were plowing through the brush at top speed. He scanned the woods, fruitlessly trying to catch movement in a sea of movement. The cache sat only thirty yards away, he knew that, but he could not see it for the brush. And yet, something was wrong—he could sense it. There had been
no unnatural sound to alarm him, no fleeting image of a man lurking in the woods, but he knew someone was there.
Nate motioned for Brian to get down behind a cypress stump, his eyes telling Brian something was wrong.
We’ve got hours before dark. We’ll just wait and let him get impatient. Nate took careful, slow steps and made his way to bullet-stopping cover and dark shade for concealment. He squatted down behind a tree and peered around the trunk, trying to penetrate the brush with his eyes, down low where you can often see a man’s lower leg when he takes a careful step.
Seeing no sign of a man, Nate searched the treetops, though he knew Brian had already done that.
Nothing.
Time ticked by, and the woods treated them to a natural show of various small creatures at play or on the hunt for food. Three squirrels chased each other in the swaying treetops, despite the wind. That was unusual, since squirrels do not normally come out of their nests on windy days. A raccoon dipped her paw into the creek and pulled out a dead fish, and then a doe came sneaking along their side of the creek from upstream. Like squirrels, deer do not move around much on windy days. The commotion of the windblown woods certainly had this one nervous.
Great. She’ll be our alarm. Nate watched as she inched closer to the cache. She stopped in mid step and wrinkled her nose, raising it in the air, sucking in a sent she did not like. She was not smelling Nate or Brian, they were downwind of her. Maybe the human scent on the cache. Nate waited.
The doe continued her cautious way down a well used deer trail, stopping to look under brush, just as Nate had done earlier, and listen after every step. A certain scent of danger caused her to hesitate. She inched along, her nose working the air.
Nate and Brian both flinched and dropped to the ground when a rifle boomed from only thirty-five yards away.
Nate tried to find the shooter, but thrashing nearby distracted him for a second. He looked over to see the doe on its side, kicking at nothing and trying to get up. She bled from her chest. Nate checked on Brian, finding him laying flat on the ground, looking back at him, his eyes wide.
The sound of someone bulling through brush alerted Nate. He had his rifle ready, aiming at a form coming closer. An emaciated African American boy not much older than Brian exploded into the small clearing and shouldered his bolt-action rifle. He kept his yes on the thrashing doe as he pulled a sheath knife and bent down to cut the doe’s throat. Nate scanned the woods for any sign of more people. He glanced over to Brian and saw that he had his carbine on the boy. Don’t shoot.
Nate and Brian kept silent while the boy gutted the doe. Nate decided the boy was alone, but did not want to take any chances, so he signaled for Brian to stay where he was and keep his eyes searching the woods for danger. Then Nate stood and slowly crept up behind the boy.
Sensing something, the boy whirled around on his knees and looked up at Nate, terror on his face. He fell back onto the bloody doe and held the knife out, slashing.
“Whoa there. I mean you no harm.” Nate tried to sound unthreatening. “Calm down. I just want to talk.”
The boy grabbed for his rifle’s buttstock to swing it off his shoulder.
“Hold it, damn it!” Nate stepped closer. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just keep that rifle slung where it is.”
“This is my deer,” the boy swallowed, trying to bolster his courage, “and you ain’t taking it.”
“No, I’m not. I just want to talk.”
The boy looked up defiantly. “I ain’t got nothing to say. You might as well leave me alone if you ain’t going to steal from me. And if you are, you might as well kill me now, ‘cause you ain’t gettin’ this meat or my rifle without killing me.”
“All I want is to talk. You can keep working on the doe if you want.”
The boy got into a more comfortable position and sat next to the doe. “There ain’t nothing to talk about. You can’t have any meat. I need it for myself.”
“How about your name? My name’s Nate Williams. I own a farm not too far from here.”
“I saw that farm awhile back. There ain’t nothing there. The stealers got it all.” He looked up at Nate with hard eyes and a harder face, his jaw jutting out. “And it wasn’t me. It was the stealers.”
“I know,” Nate said. “The National Guard took care of most of them. “Like I told you, I just want to talk.”
“Well, hurry up and talk. I got work to do. Or kill me if you’re going to. I don’t know as I care much one way or the other. If it wasn’t for—” He stopped suddenly and looked up at Nate with hate in his eyes.
Nate understood instantly what he saw looking up at him. “I have people I’m looking out for too. I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else. I only kill in self-defense.”
“Got any kids?” The boy stood up slowly, obviously mindful to not make Nate nervous. He wiped the knife on a leafy brush and slid it into its sheath.
“Yes. My little girl died in the plague. My son is still alive.”
What the boy said next set Nate back on his heels.
“Well, I got a bunch of kids to take care of.”
Nate stood there staring through his mask. “How is that?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
“I don’t. I got to get this meat taken care of. They’re hungry. I shot two squirrels earlier, but that wasn’t enough for nothin’.”
“I guess not. Are there any adults with you?”
The boy almost flinched, but just caught himself. “Three men, all with guns. Should be here soon. I’m sure they heard the shot.”
Nate coughed. “Hmm. Well, maybe we should cut that doe in two pieces, and I’ll help you carry it. We can meet them on their way here.”
The boy’s breathing picked up. “Why don’t you just leave me alone, if you don’t want something from me?”
“Because I have a little food to spare, and I do not want children to go hungry if I can help.”
The boy stood there and said nothing.
“How many children are you taking care of? Will you tell me that?” Nate slung his rifle to show he meant no harm.
The boy kept his face hard. “They’re comin’.” His Adam’s apple moved up his throat. “They’re goin’ to be mad about you messin’ with me.”
Nate sighed. “Brian, come over here.”
Brian stood and walked into the clearing, but stopped ten yards away.
Nate motioned with his head. “This is my son, Brian. My wife and little girl got sick and died.”
The boy appeared to be surprised by the fact Brian had been hiding in the woods the whole time. He looked Brian over.
Nate understood that he was looking for signs of abuse. “You can trust us.”
The boy’s eyes flitted from Brian to Nate.
“Are the children your brothers and sisters?” Nate took a step closer.
The boy shook his head. “I found them in some kind of orphan home when I was lookin’ for food. They was alone ‘cause the people takin’ care of them all died from the sickness. There was more at first.” He swallowed, his thin neck rippling with muscles just under his sweat-soaked skin. I lost some. I think they didn’t get enough to eat. Two were taken away while I was lookin’ for food. I was told when I got back two men took them. Clay was beat up pretty bad from tryin’ to stop them from taking his sister. They didn’t hurt none of the others though. The ones they took was the oldest girls.” He looked away.
“How many are left?” He did not answer. Nate started to speak again but was interrupted by Brian.
“Oh come on. My dad only wants to help. He’s not exactly into hurting kids, for God’s sake.”
“There was eighteen. There’s fourteen now.” The boy’s chest heaved and his face revealed the tress of not knowing if he had just betrayed the children he had been struggling to take care of and protect.
Nate blinked at him for a few seconds. “How old are they?”
“They’re just littl
e kids.” The boy appeared to be near to tears, his façade of being a hardass melting away. “Some six or seven, some nine, ten years old.” He wiped his face. “You really goin’ to help? You hurt them, you better kill me now.”
Brian broke in. “Jeez. Dad’s just bossy, he’s not mean. He won’t hurt anybody that doesn’t try to hurt us.”
The boy looked at Brian, his chest heaving, sweat running down his face. As he breathed deep and fast, ribs showed through tears and holes in his filthy brown T-shirt.
Nate slid his pack off. “I have a little rope. We’ll hang the doe up and go get the kids.”
“What do you want with them?” The boy looked up at Nate, his eyes hard again.
“I don’t want anything, but it looks like I’m going to have to help you take care of them until we can find some people who can do a better job. Maybe the Guard will take them.” Nate looked for a suitable tree. “Help me with your doe.”
“Bugs are going to get on it,” the boy said.
“It’s the best we can do. It’ll keep until we get back.” Nate threw a loop over a limb ten feet above the swamp floor. “How far is it?”
The boy seemed to be having trouble catching his breath and growing more upset. “I’ve been huntin’ all morning, after I left them those squirrels I cooked. I’m not sure. Maybe a mile. I’ve been walkin’ slow. Still huntin’, stalkin’.”
“They downriver?” Nate asked.
The boy helped him lift the doe while Brian tied the rope off. When the boy let go, he was gasping. He staggered back. “Yeah. I need to rest for a minute.” He sat down right there in the mud.
Nate squatted in front of him. “There are no men with guns, are there?”
The boy shook his head.
“I told you the truth.” Nate’s voice was soft for such a big man. “I won’t hurt those kids. We’re with others who will help. You can relax now.”
The boy began to shake. He pulled his knees up, buried his face in his arms, and cried.