With Ben’s plate empty, Gunner and Sam reluctantly moved from their positions on either side of him, where they were anxiously waiting for a few scraps.
“Maybe you’ll have better luck with the kids.” Ben watched as the two dogs abandoned their begging tactics and started for the back door.
“I’ll take ’em out,” Joel offered.
When Joel got up from the table, Ben noticed the absence of his pistol.
“Forgetting something, aren’t you?” Ben asked. Joel looked stumped for a second as he glanced around the room and then back at his dad. He shrugged. “What?”
“Your gun.” Ben raised his brow.
“Okay.” Joel sighed loudly and rolled his eyes.
“Hey, always carry. That is the rule we made. Remember? At least for now or until things change. You don’t know what’s outside that door!” Ben was irritated with Joel’s response and body language, but that changed as he began to feel bad for raising his voice. Joel was still just a kid. It was hard to remember sometimes, but that was because he hadn’t been able to act like a kid lately, but that wasn’t Joel’s fault.
“I know. Sorry.” Joel slouched as he headed upstairs. Now Ben felt even worse about how he had reacted and even a little guilty for not letting his son be a kid for a change. He certainly deserved it, and he probably felt relaxed here at his grandfather’s. But that was also the type of attitude that could get you in trouble.
“I just want you guys to be safe,” Ben said, but Joel was already halfway up the stairs and out of sight. Gunner and Sam stood at the door, looking back at the room full of people and confused about what was going on.
“I’ll let them out.” Jack started to get up, but Joel’s heavy footsteps came from the stairs already. He breezed through the kitchen and out the back door, only stopping long enough to wait for the dogs to follow him outside.
“We haven’t had much trouble around here. He’ll be all right,” Jack tried to reassure Ben. And while Jack might have been right, it was good to stay in the habit of how they did things. Joel wouldn’t always just be stepping outside at his grandfather’s house.
“You might feel differently if you’d seen some of the things we have,” Ben reasoned.
“It’s true. I used to think people were inherently good, but I don’t know anymore.” Sandy took a sip of coffee and leaned back in her chair. Ben had to agree with her, although if he was being honest, he was always a little cautious when it came to trusting people until they proved they could be trusted. All that had happened over the last couple of weeks had only proven that to be a prudent viewpoint. Outside the small group they met in Cloverdale and a couple of others, Ben was disappointed in humanity as a whole.
Chapter Five
After breakfast, Ben helped Jack clean up in the kitchen while Sandy made the others who were still sleeping a plate of food and covered it with foil.
“We’ll probably cut the generator off in a little while.” Jack looked at his watch. “I’ll let it run until eight if you want to let the kids know their chance to get a shower won’t last long.”
“Okay, I’ll let them all know,” Sandy said.
“Ben, how ’bout giving me a hand with this ice?” Jack handed Ben the bucket while he held onto the counter for support. Ben was made aware once again just how much Jack had aged as he stood next to him in the kitchen. Jack was always a little shorter, but now, Ben seemed to tower over him by a good six inches or more.
Sandy headed upstairs to wake the rest of the kids while Ben and Jack headed outside. As soon as Ben stepped out onto the sun-bleached deck, he was reminded of how quickly it was going to get hot, and his sense of urgency was renewed. Joel was standing in the shade of a large oak tree, throwing and old retrieving dummy to Gunner and Sam.
“Don’t work ’em too hard. It’s hot out here,” Jack called out to Joel.
“I won’t. I’ll give them some water when they’re done,” Joel answered without looking away from what he was doing.
Jack opened up the outbuilding and led Ben inside and back to the cooler.
“I wish I could send you guys with more of this venison, but it won’t keep without ice. Well, at least you can take enough with you to have dinner the first night on the road.” Jack was half-talking to himself as he pushed a few things around in the cooler. “I talked to Joel about me staying here in case his mother returns. I didn’t want you to have to lie to your son. You can tell him the truth someday when the time is right,” Jack said before stepping aside to let Ben dump the bucket.
Ben nodded and remained silent, but inside, he wrestled with the urge to bring up the subject of Jack going with them again. He needed to make peace with Jack’s wishes, something that was easier said than done. Otherwise, they could spend the whole day arguing their cases to one another, and Ben knew that, in the end, Jack wasn’t going to change his mind. So rather than waste what was possibly the last day he would ever spend with the man by debating what was right, Ben decided to let it go and focus his efforts on gearing up the trucks.
They opened the two large overhead vehicle bay doors to let in the light and a little air. Ben pulled the Blazer out into the sun and made room inside the outbuilding to set up a staging area where they could sort through the gear. He had a rough idea of how he wanted to repack the Blazer, but he wasn’t sure what they were going to end up with after they went through Jack’s stuff.
Given Jack’s current situation, Ben figured that he would offer them just about everything he had. And while they could use whatever supplies he was willing to give them, there was a limit to what they could reasonably carry. The Blazer was already loaded down pretty well. Ben could make some room by moving a few things around and organizing what they had, but there was no getting around the fact that he still had to squeeze four people and a large dog in there. The trip would be tough enough, and on top of everything else, there was no need to make it uncomfortable.
Ben also knew that, realistically, the Jeep wouldn’t carry that much gear, either. He was thankful that Jack had put the time and money into fixing it up, but it wasn’t a large vehicle. There was no back seat in the Jeep Scrambler; as far as Ben was aware, there never had been, so it was basically a small pickup by design. It was fortunate that it had the rare full soft top that covered the entire back end, unlike most Scramblers, which sported the standard half top only. Of course, it was a soft top and wouldn’t provide any real protection from anything other than the elements.
That also meant there would be no way to really lock the Jeep up and secure things inside. Jack had installed a large lockable box in the rear of the Jeep where the back seat would normally sit, but Ben decided to remove that and make room for supplies and one of the dogs.
He imagined Gunner would ride with Joel and Allie. Over the course of the trip here, the dog had become very attached to Allie, not to mention that Gunner was Joel’s dog, after all. It was probably for the best, as Bradley and Emma were close with Sam, and Ben thought that having a little piece of their former lives here would be good for them. He hadn’t planned on adding another large dog to the mix—or any dog for that matter. But maybe having Sam along would provide some comfort for his younger kids.
As Ben started removing the homemade lockbox from the cargo area of the Jeep, he thought about another thing that was on his mind. Jack had put a lot of new components on the Jeep, including a new engine, and in his experience, there were always a few bugs to work out with a complete rebuild or replacement. Sometimes the problem or problems took a while to show up.
With just over a thousand miles on the remanufactured engine, it was far from proven, and Ben was well aware that some break-in issues would be likely. It would be trial by fire for the Jeep. The cross-country trek they were about to embark on would cover just over two thousand miles and include some major elevation changes at the beginning of the journey and then again at the end. The temperatures alone were enough to test any vehicle’s cooling system, let alone th
at of an almost forty-year-old Jeep. They would have to carry extra water if they could find a place to stow it. Other than that, there was nothing else he could do to better prepare the Jeep for the journey. Ben knew that worrying was pointless, but it didn’t stop him from doing just that.
By the time Ben had the storage box unbolted from the Jeep’s bed, Joel had joined them in the garage and was ready to help his dad. Ben was glad to see Joel because the thick plywood box was too heavy and awkward for one person to carry on his own, and he wasn’t about to let Jack help him.
With the Jeep ready to receive whatever could be squeezed in, they turned their attention to the shelves that lined the outbuilding’s walls. The sturdy wooden shelves that Jack had built himself many years ago ran five shelves high and extended all the way up to the twelve-foot-high ceiling. The number of tools and the amount of hardware Jack had stored in here was something that was only possible by a lifetime of acquiring things.
Ben wished he had a truck large enough to take it all. Leaving this all behind was such a waste, but they had to be reasonable and pack only what they needed to survive. There was no point in even looking through the tools—or anything else for that matter—except the hunting and camping gear.
He had briefly considered the possibility of hooking Jack’s aluminum John boat to the Blazer and using it like a trailer. The boat was lightweight, and if he took the small outboard off, it would be even lighter. But Ben remembered some of the situations they found themselves in on the way here, and the thought of adding a boat to the mix quickly lost its appeal. Besides, by the time they finished loading the boat with extra stuff, it wouldn’t be lightweight anymore. It was better to travel with only what they needed and have the ability to pull over and disappear into the woods if the situation warranted—something that would be extremely difficult with an eighteen-foot boat in tow.
Jack instructed Joel to set up a step ladder so they could reach the top shelves and begin sorting through the dust-covered supplies. Sam found a spot on the cooler concrete floor nearby; exhausted, she lay sprawled out and remained motionless, other than for her heavy panting. Gunner did the same after he helped himself to the bucket of water Joel had set out for them.
The temperature was a little cooler in the shade of the building, but with the added humidity, it was still oppressive. Ben was amazed that everything around them was so dry when it was this humid. Maybe the atmosphere was changing; maybe they would see some rain soon.
Jack had an old-fashioned mercury thermometer mounted on the wall, and Ben had to give it a second look to make sure he was seeing it right. It was already reading an impossible ninety-four degrees. Ben wasn’t that familiar with average summer temperatures for June in Maryland, but he didn’t think that was right.
Jack noticed him studying the thermometer. “Yeah, it’s much hotter than it should be.”
“It’s pretty brutal, and we’re not even in the sun.” Joel wiped his brow with an old shop towel. “Maybe I shouldn’t have played with the dogs so hard,” he added.
“They’ll be all right. It’s us I’m worried about.” Ben looked at his watch. It was just after eight in the morning, and it was almost unbearable out. At this rate, they weren’t going to last long out here, and if the temperature rose too much, they might reach a point where they would have to quit until the evening.
It was disappointing for Ben to think they might not get it all done in one day. He was hoping to finish loading the trucks today, with the exception of a few last-minute things, and have a down day tomorrow here at the house. They could all use a break after what they had been through, even if it was just a short intermission from their chaos-filled lives. They had plenty of unknown challenges approaching in the near future, and those were just the things they could plan for. Who knew what other unforeseen problems they would run into on the way back? There were sure to be some.
Ben wasn’t naïve enough to think that it would be smooth sailing all the way to Colorado. There were twice as many of them now, and that meant twice the responsibility. He felt the pressure building, and its weight on his conscience was very real.
Chapter Six
They worked at a slow but steady pace for a while, making sure to stop and drink water every so often, but they were fighting a losing battle against the ever-rising temperature and eventually reached a point of exhaustion. It was almost noon, and the sun blazed down on them with full force now. Even in the shade of the outbuilding, the heat was stifling.
It didn’t seem to bother Jack that much, though. In fact, he seemed to come to life a little as they pulled down the hunting gear. He moved aside dusty bags of Teal and Mallard decoys as they sorted through it all. It was the most life Ben had seen in Jack since they’d arrived. Jack paused for a minute and stepped back to look at it all as it lay spread out on the concrete.
“Lots of memories here,” he said longingly. Ben recognized the windup; he’d seen it many times before and knew immediately they were in for a story or two. Jack loved to talk about his adventures and past hunting trips. Most of the tales revolved around duck hunting in his youth and the many times he’d been lucky enough to make it back with his life. “Hunting the bay in the winter can be dangerous business,” he always said.
Of course, he could never leave out the time he’d almost drown and then nearly froze to death by falling into the marsh while hunting out of duck blind number 10 at Assateague Island National Park. He was after a decoy that had broken loose from its rigging due to the ice flow and was being carried out into the bay. Jack foolishly went after the decoy only to step into an unseen drop-off in the tea-colored water. He went completely under, filling his chest waders with freezing-cold water, and barely managed to make it back to shore. Soaking wet and hypothermic, he was forced to make the three-mile hike back to the truck in thirty-degree weather.
Jack told of some other close calls and included some more pleasant stories as well. Ben had heard most of them more than once, and so had Joel, but neither of them stopped him.
“It might be time to call it until the heat breaks,” Ben suggested.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Jack agreed. His clothes were soaked through with sweat like Ben’s and Joel’s, even though he had mostly stuck to supervising and talking. Ben had watched the temperature slowly creep up to just shy of the hundred-degree mark over the last couple of hours. He’d been to some pretty miserable places while in the Army, but this rivaled the worst of them as far as the heat was concerned. The occasional smell of death that drifted into the building from the thousands of rotting chickens on the next farm over didn’t add to the experience, either.
Jack abruptly turned away and headed over to the generator, where he wasted no time in turning it on. Ben wondered why he was running it now until he saw him head over to a large wall-mounted fan. The oversized commercial fan hummed to life as the blades reached their maximum speed and a strong breeze began to clear the stale, hot air out of the workshop. Joel moved closer to the fan and struggled to peel off his wet shirt as he basked in the fresh air. “That feels good,” he said with a sigh.
To take advantage of the fan, Ben repositioned himself as well, then grabbed onto a support column to keep his balance as he closed his eyes and enjoyed the coolness. He was feeling a little dizzy now that he had stopped moving and was suddenly aware of just how much the heat was affecting him. It was a good thing they were quitting now. He’d had about all he could take for the time being. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Jack rummaging through the ice in the cooler. Ben opened his eyes to see Jack bent over at the waist and rummaging through the freezer. He finally emerged holding two ice-cold beers.
“I’ve been saving these.” Jack held the bottles up in one hand. He handed one of the beers to Ben and the other one, to Ben’s surprise, to Joel.
“I want some of that too, young man.” Jack smiled while making eye contact with Ben as if he was trying to get his blessing in sharing the beer with Joe
l. Ben wasn’t crazy about the idea and had never let Joel have a drink before, but considering the circumstances, he didn’t see any harm in it right now. After all, this was the last time Joel would be with his grandfather. This was the last any of them would see of him. Ben pondered the magnitude of the moment as he rolled the cold glass bottle in his hand; it was already sweating enough to cause condensation to run down his hand.
Jack returned from his workbench with a plastic cup and held it out for Joel to fill.
“To a safe trip home.” Jack held up the freshly filled cup before taking a drink. The way Ben was feeling, beer wasn’t the best choice right now, but he reminded himself that this was for Jack’s benefit and not his. It had been a long time since Ben had a cold beer, and the ice-cold liquid was refreshing in spite of his concerns. Ben glanced at Joel as he took a sip and then made a face.
“It’s not bad,” Joel remarked as he took another small sip.
“Don’t get used to it,” Ben added.
Joel rolled his eyes. “I know.”
As much as Ben tried, it was getting harder and harder to see Joel as just a kid anymore. He hated to admit it, but his son was quickly transforming into an adult whether he was ready for it or not. Ben was worried about letting Joel have half a beer, and he had to admit it felt like a silly thing to worry about considering all they had seen and been through in the last couple of weeks. They stood around in silence for the next few minutes as they finished their drinks and surveyed what they had accomplished.
They had made pretty good progress despite the conditions, and the Jeep was beginning to take shape. They had to pack smart, though. The soft canvas top on the Jeep prevented them from carrying anything on the roof. Fortunately, Jack had a rear cargo carrier that mounted to the hitch-style bumper on the Jeep. On the rear carrier they could put the larger, bulkier items like Jack’s spare five-gallon gas cans, similar to the ones they carried on the Blazer. Joel also found a couple of five-gallon plastic water containers that could ride back there as well. This left room on the inside of the Jeep for things that couldn’t get wet or shouldn’t be exposed to the elements. And thanks to Jack’s generosity, there was plenty of that stuff to pack.
Dark Road (Book 6): Reckoning Page 3