by John Grit
Nate reached out and put his heavy hand on the boy’s bony shoulder. “That’s all right. Let it go. It’s not all on you anymore. They still need you, but you have people to help now.”
Nate waited a minute and then handed him his canteen.
The boy drank eagerly.
“Clean water tastes sweet after drinking river water, doesn’t?” Nate waited for the boy to finish drinking. “What is your name?”
“Kendell Taylor,” the boy said.
Nate stood and put the canteen in a side pocket in his pack. Okay, Kendell Taylor, let’s go help those kids.”
Chapter 5
Kendell stopped and turned back to Nate, who was five yards behind. “We’re close. Let me go ahead and talk to them before you come in. They’ll be scared if I don’t.”
Nate nodded.
Kendell left.
Brian stood next to his father. “Damn. I hope he’s not setting us up for an ambush. There might really be men with guns instead of kids.”
“I doubt it. If he’s lying, he’s a damn good actor.” Nate pointed to his left. “But get over there behind cover and wait just in case. I’ll get his attention when he comes back. Don’t show yourself until I say so.”
“Right,” Brian said. “We can’t be too careful.”
Nate’s eyes lit up. “You’ve been learning a lot lately.”
When Brian walked away, he smiled.
Kendell came through the brush, not trying to be quiet, crashing over palmettos. He stopped where he left Nate and looked around. “Mr.?”
Nate spoke but did not come out from his hiding place. “Over here.”
Kendell hesitated, but seemed to realize that Nate was just being careful. He walked toward the sound of Nate’s voice until Nate told him to stop.
“It ain’t no trick,” Kendell said. “I just want those kids taken care of. Where’s your son?”
Nate ignored his question. “Why did you take them out here in this swamp?”
Kendell looked in the direction of Nate’s voice. “To get away from people. What do you think those bastards wanted with the two girls they took?” He spit, his face showing hate. “I’d rather they starve. There ain’t no food in town anyway. It’s all been ate or taken and hoarded. I expect you’re out here hidin’ too, aren’t you?”
“That’s about it. People are a source of danger.” Nate scanned the woods, buying time while he kept the boy busy. “How long have you been out here?”
“We been in the swamp several months now, but we was a long way south until a couple days ago. There was so much shootin’ around there, we headed on up here to get away from the fightin’.”
Nate stood, and the boy could see him behind brush. “What have you been eating, besides deer meat?”
“I been feedin’ them anything they could keep down their throat.” He watched Nate come closer. “You goin’ to feed them right off? They’re real hungry.” He took notice of how Nate kept scanning the woods. “There ain’t no one out here except those kids.” He pointed. “This way.”
“I believe you,” Nate said. “But I have only one life, and I’m really serious about not giving it away by being careless.”
The boy snickered. “You be different from me then. Except for those kids, I ain’t got nothing to lose or be scared of.”
“I know what you mean, but you’ll think differently once things are better.” Nate raised his voice so Brian could hear. “My son is going to stay put while I go in with you. Once I see how safe it is, he’ll come on in and we can do what we can for them.”
The boy nodded. “Okay.”
Kendell led him upslope, out of the wetter areas and into a stand of oaks. Nate stopped and looked at saw palmetto stems that had been pulled out and the white part gnawed off, all the way up the stem to the green part. They had eaten the white part of every palmetto bush in the area. They passed a cabbage palm that had been hacked open and the white eatable material ripped out and consumed.
Oh God. Nate had to catch his breath. He had seen children suffer before, but he could never get used to it. All were skeletons, as close to death as life. Weak from starvation and covered with festering bug bites, scratches, cuts, and bruises, their hair growing long and wild and matted with filth, they watched with terror as Nate came closer. Sick from drinking untreated river water, many were lying down on mats made of palmetto fronds. Evidence of diarrhea was everywhere on the ground. All were looking back at him as if he were a demon come to take them away to hell. But they were already there.
Their fear of this giant washed away when they saw tears running down Nate’s face.
One boy, about six, summoned all of his strength to push himself up from the ground and stagger over to Nate. He raised his right hand and scribed an arc in the air. He looked up at Nate. “Hi,” he said.
Nate swallowed and said, “Hi there, buddy. We’re going to take you to food and give you all plenty to eat. Then we’re going to take you home.”
“I did the best I could,” Kendell said, tears streaming down his face. “I did.”
Nate patted him on the back. “Yes you did, and you saved most of them. You did as well as any man and better than most.” He looked around the camp and saw lean-tos covered with palm fronds, set like shingles to repel rain. “You did all that with your sheath knife?” he asked.
Kendell nodded. A little girl walked up and wrapped her arms around his leg. “Don’t cry Kendell. It’ll be okay. We ain’t really that hungry today.”
“You won’t be hungry much longer,” Nate said. He looked at Kendell. “We have a cache of food not far from where you killed that doe. We’ll cook a meal for them right there. They’re so far gone, they probably won’t be able to hold it down, though.” His jaw set. “Nevertheless, we’re going to feed them as soon as we can.”
“Some of them can’t walk.” Kendell picked the little girl up. Her right foot was bandaged from material cut from Kendell’s shirt. She had no shoes.
“We’ll make a stretcher and carry two at a time on it.” Nate took a step, heading for Brian. “Explain to them that we’re going to food while I go get my son. That should motivate them to walk faster.”
Stunned by what he saw and felt, Brian gave the children what little food he had in his pack, so did Nate. The children drained all their canteens. Kendell refused any food. He plainly cared more for the children than himself.
The condition of the children visibly affected Brian. Tears ran down his face as he carried the little girl who could not walk because of an infected cut on her right foot. She had stepped on something a week before, leaving a festering gash.
Nate and Kendell carried the stretcher Nate had made from poles. Nate came up with the idea to place children sitting on the stretcher with their legs hanging over the edge, making it possible to carry four small children instead of just two. With Brian carrying the little girl with a cut foot, they were able to keep the other children in sight as they traveled through the swamp to the cache.
The children’s weak condition forced them to travel no more than a few hundred yards per hour. It took until late afternoon to reach the cache. The wind gained strength throughout the day. The sky did not show any sign of rain, despite the strange wind.
“I don’t think they can go any farther,” Nate told Brian. “Build a fire and we’ll boil water for them to drink after it has cooled.”
“What about feeding them?” Kendell asked. “You promised you would feed them.”
“We will.” Nate pointed to a small clearing that was higher than the surrounding area and at least a little less wet. “Cut palmetto fronds for them to lay on tonight. We’ve got a big tarp covering the cache. We’ll use it for shelter. Cut some poles for a long lean-to. Don’t make it any higher than three feet, so it will catch less wind.”
“We ain’t got much daylight.” Kendell pulled his knife and walked toward a stand of palmettos. He went to work with all the vigor his emaciated body could muster.
> Nate wondered what would be best to feed starving children. The main thing now is to get potable water in them so their bodies can start flushing out the bugs they have been drinking. He pulled a tarp off the cache and searched for something to cook for them, cursing his lack of medical knowledge. Soup that’s mostly broth maybe?
Brian stretched his T-shirt over the mouth of a two-gallon pot he found among the pile of canned goods and Mason jars at the cache and put it in the creek so the water would strain through his shirt, removing the larger-sized debris. He then put the pot on a fire Nate had started. Nate helped him roll a large log upwind of the fire to protect it from its growing force. The flame still flickered horizontally. Brian searched for more firewood, breaking dead branches off trees. All of the wood lying on the ground was soaked with moisture. It took a lot of heat to boil that much water fast, so he had to spend fifteen minutes searching for more firewood. With a fire blazing, he gathered up every canteen he and his father had. A few minutes after the water started boiling, he used his still-wet T-shirt to grab the pot’s wire handle and put the pot aside so it would cool.
Nate called his son over to the cache. “What should we feed them?”
Brian looked up at him confused.
Nate smiled. “Well, you’ve been reading every survival book we had in the house since the stuff hit the fan. Your dad doesn’t have all the answers, you know.”
“I don’t know…thin soup I guess.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Did you read that in a book?”
Brian thought for a second. “I don’t remember. I know they don’t need any deer meat right now. It’s hard to chew and hard to digest. Tomorrow we could probably feed them something more solid than soup, though.” He glanced over at the children and sighed. “I don’t know. They seem really thin and weak and sick.”
Nate put his massive hand on his son’s shoulder. “I think we can save them. Go help Kendell while the water is cooling.”
Feeding all of the children took hours. They had only two cups, stainless steel World War II military surplus—the kind that fit on the bottom of a canteen. The freeze-dried reconstituted soup seemed to satisfy them and relieve their hunger pangs. Each of them got a full cup.
Kendell refused to eat until the last child had been fed. “Look at them,” he said. “They ain’t hurting as much now. They’ll sleep tonight.” He wiped his face.
Nate handed him a cup of soup. “It’s your turn now.”
With Kendell and the children asleep, Brian prepared a meal of spaghetti. There was no soup left, and there was only tomato paste from a Mason jar to go with it. They ate by the fire. By then it was eleven o’clock. The wind continued to build.
“That Kendell is a good guy,” Brian said. He ate the last of his spaghetti.
“Yeah.” Nate sighed. It was more than weariness.
“How are we going to take care of all of them?” Brian asked. “What if no one will take them?” He looked up at his father as he stoked the fire. “I can see you’re worried. And I know you’re not going to send them away, even if all of us go hungry. Except me, Synthia, and Tommy. You won’t allow that.”
“We’ll worry about it later. Get some sleep.”
“Got to boil more water first, so we’ll have some in the morning. They’ll want to eat again too, before we head up to the bunker.”
“As soon as the water is done, stomp the fire out. It’s a beacon for trouble. Then get some sleep. I’ll stand first watch.”
“You won’t hear anything coming in this wind.”
“True, but I can still shoot, wind or no wind.”
Brian crossed his arms and shivered. His T-shirt was still wet. They had not dressed for the cooler weather that descended on them with darkness. The wind-chill made it worse.
Nate took his off. “Put your shirt somewhere it will dry and put mine on.”
Brian stood there. “It’ll be too big, and you’re going to be cold.”
“Go on. I’m your father. Do what I tell you.”
Brian took the shirt and walked to the lean-to.
~~~~
The next morning after Kendell and the children were fed, Nate and Brian loaded their packs with food, and they headed for the bunker. It had taken three hours to feed everyone again, but they had gotten up at sunrise, so they still managed to make it to the bunker by afternoon.
Nate and Brian were supposed to have been back the day before. Martha and Cindy had gotten little sleep, worrying about them. Despite their relief to see them back, they wasted no time asking about what happened. They immediately set about taking care of the children.
Brian nearly wore his arms out pumping water so Martha and Cindy could give all the children a bath. The smaller children cried when the lye soap stung their festering sores. Melissa, the little girl with an infected foot, screamed while Cindy held her down as Martha cleaned the gash and put antibiotic cream on.
The children’s filthy rags were falling apart, and there were few clothes that would fit them. Most of them wound up with little more than a piece of a sheet wrapped around them as a skirt. Kendell was able to fit into Brian’s jeans and T-shirt, owing to his skeletal figure, but the jeans were several inches too short.
For some reason, Carrie came out of her near stupor that had lasted so long, a product of her nightmarish ordeal, and was able to help. The sight of all the sick children seemed to open a door in her mind, and she went to work. For the first time since Nate saved her from the sadists, she showed emotion other than fear.
Though still weak, the children improved rapidly. They sat under a pine tree, clean and wearing clean clothes or at least a swath of clean cloth wrapped around them.
Brian hid in the woods, keeping watch. They had been lax on security while taking care of the children. Now that he was no longer needed at the pump, he resumed their normal security measures.
Nate left for the cave to look for materials to fashion a shelter of some type for the children. There was not enough room in the bunker for all of them.
Kendell took an old tree-saw Nate had given him and set to work cutting poles for the shelter while Martha and Cindy cleaned dishes in the bunker.
“My God, Mom,” Cindy said. “How are we going to feed all of them?”
Martha looked at her daughter with worried eyes. “What food we have will not last long now, that’s for sure.” She forced a wintry smile. “It’s not like we have any choice. We’re not going to turn them away.”
Cindy folded her tired arms across her chest and sighed. “What about the plague? They might be carrying it.”
“I thought about that too. More than likely the disease has played itself out by now.” Her face contorted in disbelief of her thoughts. “We can’t turn children away to die.” She shook repulsive thoughts from her head. “No way. We will just have to make do.”
Carrie came in and used the pump to fill a pitcher, then went back to the children. She made sure they all got a drink.
“Look at Carrie,” Cindy said. “Something good has come out of this already.”
“Yes, but we do not have enough food to feed everyone for long.” Martha turned to check on Tommy and Synthia. They were sitting side by side on a blanket, sharing the only picture book they had. They looked up and smiled.
With full stomachs and feeling better than they had in months, the smaller children outside grew sleepy, and soon the older children followed suit. Carrie sat nearby, keeping watch over them.
~~~~
Late in the afternoon, the wind gained in strength, and the sky turned gunmetal gray, with clouds scudding across the sky from the west, sinking lower to earth, thickening and growing darker by the hour, but no rain fell.
Nate, Brian, and Kendell fought a flapping tarpaulin, as the wind tried to snatch it out of their hands. They stretched it over a frame of pinewood poles, only to have it blown off before they had time to tie it down.
“Forget it,” Nate yelled over the wind. “The kids can’
t stay out here tonight anyway. A storm is coming, and it’s getting colder by the hour. Stretch it over one pole only and make it smaller. It will be less likely to blow down and will still be large enough for us three and maybe Cindy to stay in tonight. The children can sleep in the bunker.”
“What about the cave?” Brian asked. “We can leave the door open to let air in.”
“I don’t want to be that far from the others in case someone comes around,” Nate answered.
They struggled against the strengthening wind for another half-hour before they had the tarpaulin secured. Cold rain drops as big as quarters drove down at a forty-five degree angle, pelting them with enough force to sting. The sky continued to grow darker.
Nate looked up and saw a black cloud, its leading edge overhead whirling in a circular motion. He stared at two places where a tight spinning motion formed, becoming more distinct with each moment. Though they had stretched the tarpaulin as tight as possible, it snapped in the wind, sounding like rapid-fire gunshots. A branch from high in a pine tree came down nearly hitting Nate in the face, but he knocked it aside with his right arm. He snatched up a coil of rope. “Get inside now! This is tornado weather.”
Kendell and Brian rushed in through the door and into the dim glow of a kerosene lamp. Nate ran in just behind. He leaned against the steel door and shut it. Brian put the bar in place.
Cindy closed a loophole shutter she had been watching from. “I don’t think you guys should stay out there tonight.”
“We’re not,” Nate said, “even if everyone but the smaller children has to stand on their feet all night. That’s a wall cloud over us.”
“What does that mean?” Carrie asked. She held a little boy and Synthia both as she sat on a blanket on the floor.
Carrie had talked little after her ordeal with the sadists, and Nate was surprised to see her talking so much. He did not want to frighten her, so he said, “There will be some rain and wind.”
Large hail clattered against the steel shutters and door. The three feet of dirt and sod that covered the bunker’s concrete roof blunted the sounds of the wind and hail.