by John Grit
“There is a time to be hard about killing because it’s a matter of your life or his, but I do not like killing someone because of his mouth. People say things sometimes they really don’t mean. In his case, I think he meant it, but human life is not so valueless that I will kill a man for a surly mouth. Knocking him down was enough. It was more about Kendell than him. Kendell is a good person, and he does not deserve to be treated like that.”
Brian smiled and looked away. “You would have killed me a long time ago, if you killed people for talking back to you.”
“Ah, yes. Your grandfather was a lot harder on me than I have been with you. Maybe I’m weaker than he was. It’s just that I remember what it was like to be beat on by someone who is supposed to love you. When I was your age, I would never have had a conversation like this with my father. He did not believe in communicating much. Still, he had his way of showing me he loved me. I turned out okay.”
Brian’s voice sounded mature and confident. “You’re not weak. Maybe you’re stronger than your father was.”
“I’m just doing the best I can. And I know that’s what my father did. He was just different.”
“Maybe someday I can take care of you when you’re old and repay you.”
Nate’s eyes lit up, but Brian could not see in the dark. “Hah! You will be busy with your own children. The sentiment is appreciated, though.”
“Well, I’m sorry about all the times I made another hair on your head turn gray.”
Ramiro stepped out of the house, obviously looking for someone. He saw Nate and Brian and started over to them.
Nate saw him coming. “If you want to apologize for your comments on God, now’s your chance.”
“Mr. Williams, would you like for me to escort you to your sleeping area?” Ramiro asked.
“Are you taking us to Kendell and the children?” Nate picked up his pack.
Ramiro rubbed his chin. “They are sleeping, but I suppose you can look in on them.”
“That would be fine,” Nate said. “We just want to check on them.”
“Uh, Mr. Ramiro,” Brian said, “I want to apologize for saying what I said about God.”
“That is no problem.” Ramiro shrugged. “We are concerned with what’s in your heart, not your words. It is not good for a boy to hate God.”
“I…I don’t know what I feel about God.”
“And that is probably what is troubling you as much as all the rest.” Ramiro held his left arm out, welcoming them to the door. “We do not have time to discuss why God allows terrible things to happen tonight. Your apology is accepted. For now, let us rest. Mrs. MacKay has much to ask of you in the morning.”
“Oh?” Nate stood in the stream of light escaping the open door, looking at Ramiro. “We are not planning on staying long. The others are not able to maintain security long without us.”
“She will speak to you tomorrow about many matters.” Ramiro led them to a room upstairs.
The children were lying on thin mattresses on the floor. Kendell slept on the floor with no pad, just a blanket, where he could keep an eye on them and anyone coming into the room would have to go past him to get to the children. His rifle lay beside him.
They left the room quietly and went down the hall to a room nearly full of snoring men lying on blankets or thin pads on the floor. It was obvious to Nate that they did not have enough beds to go around. Nate and Brian were both so tired they fell asleep within minutes, despite the snoring and hard floor.
~~~~
For some reason, perhaps because he had not slept for more than a few hours at a time in so long his body’s inner clock was not used to sleeping for seven hours straight, Nate woke up. He opened his eyes and looked around the room. Brian slept quietly beside him. He could make out most of the room in what little light came in through the one window in the eastern side. The sun still hid behind the earth’s horizon, but false dawn gave faint illumination, enough he felt he might as well wake Brian and start the day early. He had no idea what Mrs. MacKay had in mind, but he had his own plans too.
Nate shook him, and Brian woke instantly, looking at his father with questioning eyes, wondering if something was wrong. They grabbed their packs and rifles and headed down the hall, stopping to check in on Kendell and the children.
Already awake, Kendell said nothing, but joined them in the hallway. They continued on, down the stairs, and into the living room, careful not to disturb anyone’s sleep.
Mrs. MacKay sat in a chair. She looked up from her Bible. “Oh. I am glad you are up so early. I am certain you are hungry. Let’s have breakfast and plan the day ahead of us.”
For the first time, Nate noticed the aroma of frying bacon and eggs. He could not smell any coffee—that would be too much to expect. His stomach growled, and he remembered the meager supper the night before. The look on Brian’s face told him he was hungry too.
They washed their hands with water poured over them into the sink, taking turns with the pitcher, careful not to waste the water. It was a long haul from the solar-powered pump in the nearest pasture. The well and pump were originally installed for watering livestock and the well was shallow, not intended for human consumption. To be safe, they boiled all water before drinking, but considered it safe enough for washing hands and bathing in.
An elderly man put two eggs on each plate. Water would be their drink, nothing else. He offered red peppers, but Nate, Brian, and Kendell turned him down. There was no bread of any kind.
Mrs. MacKay looked around the table at the others. “I am sorry this is all we have to offer. We have enough eggs for everyone, but we’re not exactly over-blessed with them. More chicks are being raised, and soon we will be making a meal out of the older hens, but for now this is breakfast.”
Kendell held his fork in mid air. “Thanks for sharin’ what you have. It’s easy to share when you have a lot. It ain’t so easy when you have little yourself. I and the kids have come across too many takers lately.” He nodded to Nate and Brian. “They are givers, and so are you. You give even to your own hurt. There ain’t no reason for you to apologize.”
Her eyes lit up. “You’re welcome, Kendell. We share what we can here, and we all do our best to give back.” She chuckled to herself. “It’s not that this is a commune, and we don’t follow the Communist Manifesto, I am as much a capitalist as always. It’s all about survival. If I did not think we could handle the children, we would not have taken them in. It’s a risk, but one well worth it to my mind. Still, if we were starving there would be no point in taking them in and watching them starve along with the rest of us. There is only so much we can do in the way of charity, but I think we can do this. The children will be the last to go hungry here.”
Brian finished his eggs. “We lost all of our chickens and our milk cow to the raiders. Kendell is right about the takers. There’s plenty of them, too many.”
She took a sip of water. “Supporting yourself today is hard work. It’s not as easy as it was before the plague. Some get it in their head stealing is easier.” Her eyes twinkled. “You and your father taught more than a few that stealing is not so easy after all.”
“Mrs. MacKay,” Nate said, “I would like to use your radio in a few hours to contact our group and let them know we’re okay.”
“Certainly.” She sat back in her chair. “There is a favor I would like to ask of you before you leave. I wish you would look over the place and help us improve our security measures.”
“We have a little time before I am supposed to radio home, so I’ll get to that right now. Mind you, I’m no expert, but I will tell you what I would do if this were my place.”
She smiled. “Wonderful. We have a few military veterans among us, but none as experienced as you, and no former law enforcement. Any advice you can give would be a great help.” She got out of her chair and stood.
Nate stood and so did Brian and Kendell.
“I was never in law enforcement.” Nate rubbed the stubble
on his chin.
“Of late, you have been this county’s de facto sheriff.” She gave him a half-smile. “And a good one at that.”
“It was all in self-defense.” Nate grabbed his rifle and pack. “There was no playing cop, just surviving.”
Brian followed his father’s cue and grabbed his carbine and pack.
“Where do you want to start?” Mrs. MacKay asked.
“Your outer perimeter. I need to see your first defense measures.”
Everyone but Kendell headed out the door. He stayed behind to help in the kitchen and make sure the children got breakfast.
Mrs. MacKay talked over her shoulder while walking to a pickup. “Let’s hope at least one vehicle wants to run this morning. Transportation is becoming more iffy as time passes.”
“How are your liquid petroleum supplies?” Nate asked. “You might be able to refit a couple trucks to run on LP.”
She stopped at the door of a pickup. “We have a half-full one-thousand-gallon tank of LP behind the heavy equipment shed. Some of the men were able to convert a couple generators and a small utility vehicle. It’s called a Gator. None of our gas is any good for motor fuel, and the diesel is nearly useless also. It will not be long before LP is all we have for fuel.”
Nate slipped his pack on. “Might be worth the risk to go looking for more LP. Maybe you can trade something for it. Some places, empty farms and the like, there might be some that have not been looted yet. If the whole family is dead, there’s no reason not to take it before someone else does.”
Mr. Ramiro drove down the drive on a Gator. He stopped and walked over to them. “Good morning.”
Everyone but Brian answered, “Good morning.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Mrs. MacKay said. “Nate is going to look over our security measures. Would you show him around? I have much to do in the house. You can use the utility vehicle.”
“Of course.” Ramiro turned toward the Gator.
Nate and Brian followed.
Ramiro slid behind the Gator’s steering wheel. “There is no need for the boy to come, is there?”
Nate threw his pack in the back and sat on the front seat beside him, the butt of his rifle on his right leg. “Why not? He has been to hell and back with me, there’s no reason why he can’t be with me now. He might learn something.”
Ramiro shrugged. He waited for Brian to get seated in the back and then headed down the drive. “We might as well go to the gate first, so you can see it in the daylight. You could not have seen much last night.”
Nate nodded.
When they stopped just short of the gate, Nate got out and looked the area over, then he used his binoculars to scan a wooded area to their right. “I hope those men hiding in brush under that stand of water oaks are yours.”
Ramiro jerked his head around and then his body, to face Nate. He smiled. “You found them?”
“One has a bolt-action, the other, what looks like an HK-91. They need to utilize concealment better, and more importantly, bullet-stopping cover.”
Ramiro’s smile grew wider, and he cocked his head, but said nothing more.
Brian still sat in the back of the Gator his carbine in his hands, pointed skyward. “Dad, they might have someone across the road.”
“They should have someone across the road. If he’s there, I haven’t found him yet.” Nate walked closer to the gate but did not go directly; he walked off the drive and into some brush, and then worked his way to the fence. He scanned down the road with his binoculars in both directions, concentrating on the brush growing up to the edge of the clay road.
Nate emerged from the brush and examined the gate and looked down the fence line.
Ramiro watched with interest. “Do you see anyone else?”
Nate came back to him before speaking. “There’s a woman on the left side of the road, about a quarter mile. She saw me watching her. Whoever it is, is alert. She needs to stay farther back in the brush and in shadow, though. If she and I were enemies, I would not have let her see me. She would be dead now.”
Ramiro’s face turned hard. “She is my wife.”
“Well,” Nate said, “she needs to cover her pretty face with something green. Even black would be better than nothing. A hat would help also.”
Ramiro nodded.
“The gate is not strong enough to withstand ramming with a car or truck and the fence will not stop anything either.”
“Yes, but what can be done? We have little materials.”
“Do you have a gas welder and gas?”
“In the shop.”
“Then you can make a stronger one with a few scrap water pipes. How about a tractor with a front-end loader?”
“It still runs, but there is little usable fuel,” Ramiro said. “We hope to use it for pumping water for the crops with its power take-off. The drought season comes soon.”
“Well, if you have enough fuel, make the ditch along the road deeper and wider. Push the dirt up against the fence. Make it as high and steep as possible, so a truck or car can’t get over it. You can drag big logs up too—anything to stop vehicles or at least slow them down to give you a chance to shoot them. Those cypress trees over there would be great for that.”
“Men can make the berm with shovels,” Ramiro said.
“It probably would be more accurate to call it a rampart. Yes, men with shovels can do it, if you have the manpower and the time.”
“We can use horses to haul logs.”
Nate mentally measured the property’s frontage. “I think you really need the tractor. You’ve got hundreds of yards to deal with. The creek on the north side is a natural barrier, but the other side is open all the way to those trees.”
Ramiro looked to the south. “The trees grow close there. No car or truck could get through. It is wet and muddy in the rainy season. Their tires would spin and get stuck.”
Nate motioned with his head. “Let’s go over and look that creek over. I have an idea.”
They rode the Gator over to the creek as close as they could before it got too wet, passing within seventy yards of the men hiding in brush. Nate waved as they went by. This time Brian got out with them. They walked into the wet area, through a stand of cypress trees as large as any likely to be found still surviving in Florida. Nate turned upstream looking the topography over. Nearing the house, they came to a place where the creek ran through a ten-foot-deep ditch cut out of a hill. Generations past, the ditch had been dug to drain an area and turn lowland into pastureland, some fifty acres, off to their right, farther north of them. The area around the house and the five hundred acres behind it was much higher ground, but the land north of that dropped off into what was the previously wet fifty acres, with the creek draining it and cutting through the hill.
Nate looked all that he could see over. “Do you really need that pasture over there?” He swept the fifty acres with his left arm. “What I’m thinking of suggesting you do will cause some of that pasture to be flooded.”
Ramiro tilted his head and looked at Nate with narrowed eyes. “How will this help security?”
Nate noticed that Brian was looking more perplexed than Ramiro. “Well, I suppose it would make it a little more difficult for anyone to get through there if it’s under a foot of water, but I’m thinking of a way to produce electricity for you. At least a small amount anyway.”
Ramiro’s eyes narrowed further. “Electricity?”
“Yes. To recharge batteries for your radio and a little light so you can stop using up kerosene at night. Perhaps set up some car headlights to blind attackers at night. It depends on how much work you want to put into making a bigger system. I’ve been planning on doing something similar, but much smaller, for our place but have not had the time.”
Nate glanced at Brian. “What time is it?”
Brian checked his wristwatch. “Fifteen to nine.”
Nate directed his attention back to Ramiro. “I have to use your radio to contact home.”
He headed for the house. It would take him less time to walk than to go all the way back for the Gator.
Brian followed.
It took ten nerve-racking minutes to contact Martha on the radio. With each passing minute, Nate and Brian’s apprehension grew. They both released a heavy lung full of air when Martha’s voice finally came through the speaker.
“All is well here,” she said. Synthia is crying for both of you, though. She thinks you’re gone for good, like Kendell and the children.”
Nate talked to Synthia for a few seconds to assure her he and Brian were coming back. Nate informed Martha of his plan to stay one more day and start for home at sunrise. He would radio them at 9 AM the next day if there were any more changes in plans. He finished the call and switched the radio off.
“Well, I am happy you were able to check in on your friends and that they are doing well,” Mrs. MacKay said. “Ramiro tells me you have many helpful suggestions for us. Let us go into the study and discuss what you have in mind.”
Nate discovered the study was as large as most people’s living room and had walls of books in fine wood cabinets. There was a computer sitting idle and a large oak desk with a few papers stacked on it.
“I will need paper and pencil to make a list,” Nate said.
“Of course.” Mrs. MacKay went to her desk and got out a few sheets of paper. “You’re welcome to sit here while you write.”
Nate sat in the chair. “Do you have any topographic maps of this area?”
“Why…yes. My late husband had some around here somewhere.”
“I think you can use the creek to generate power, but I would like to get a better idea of the topography of your land and the surrounding area first.”
“Ramiro,” Mrs. Macy said, “would you search for those maps? I am certain he kept them in this room somewhere.”
Ramiro nodded. He opened a cabinet door, starting his search at the far end of the room.
Mrs. MacKay turned back to Nate. “Are you thinking of a waterwheel?”
“Yes.” Nate kept writing as he talked. “It will turn two alternators to produce twelve volt direct current electricity. That power can be used to charge batteries taken from all those wrecked pickups and trucks on the road by my place and at the bridge. You need to grab every car battery you can get your hands on and plenty of alternators. Get the highest capacity ones only. Some of those larger trucks should have high-output alternators.”