by Joe Nobody
Bishop and Terri went to a corner table, and he pulled out her chair. Before he sat down, he slowly removed the .45 from his belt and then took the bottle out from under his arm. Everyone tried not to stare at them, but Bishop recognized they were the center of attention. A short, stocky man came out from behind the bar and said, “I’m Pete, and this is my place. I’m sorry, but we only have warm beer and wine. It’s the best I can do right now.” Bishop shook the barkeep’s hand and then reached for the bottle and handed it to Pete, who held it up to the light, and then let out a whistle. He looked at Bishop and shyly commented, “I wouldn’t have anything of this quality even if the trucks were still delivering.”
Bishop reassured him, “Pete, I would like to share that with everyone. We are celebrating tonight and don’t have any old friends here to join us. Would you do the honors for anyone who would like a drink?”
Bishop could see smiles breaking out all over the bar, and Pete went around showing everyone the bottle. While most had no idea of what it was, one thing was certain - it was not warm beer, and that was good enough for them. Pete poured the first two glasses and mixed water with the dark liquid. He brought them around and set them on the table in front of Terri and Bishop. Soon, everyone had a drink in their hands and looked at Bishop. He held up his glass and toasted, “New Friends.” Everyone took a sip.
After the second round, the locals started talking, and conversation flowed freely. Bishop and Terri split up for a little bit when Terri started talking to one of the other women. The men gathered at the end of the bar, and Bishop joined them, absorbing as much information as he could.
At one point, he looked up and saw two men walking around his truck. He stuck the .45 in his belt and started to head for the door, when Bill stopped him. “They won’t bother your truck, mister. They are two of that group staying down at the Manor. They have been there for going on 10 days now. After they first came into town, they shot one of the Lazy T’s hands, but claimed it was a fair fight. They have a man with them, seems to be the leader. He keeps them in line, and there hasn’t been any trouble since.”
Bishop watched as the two guys circled the truck twice and then headed on down the road. He could see they were both carrying long guns under their jackets, and their eyes were always looking around.
“Are there any rooms at The Manor?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t stay there. I’ve heard those Ohio boys are awful mean, and most folks staying there have left. I don’t think Harry is even manning the front desk anymore.”
One of the cowboys asked a woman, “Is Betty still taking boarders at her bed and breakfast?”
“She would if they were clean, quiet and had something to barter with.”
Pete returned the bottle to their table with about one quarter left in the bottom. Bishop waved him off and said he could have it. Pete replied, “Thank you, but you should reconsider. Money is no good here anymore. We all trade for what we need, and this is a high value trade.”
Bishop and Terri got directions to Betty’s house and stood up to leave. Bishop nodded at Pete as if to say, “Thank you, and we will be back.”
Pete nodded and smiled, as if to say, “You are welcome anytime.”
Bishop and Terri said good-bye to all of their new friends and left to find Betty’s B&B.
Bed and Breakfast and Guns
There were still candles burning in the windows when they found Betty’s. It was a single story stucco home about a mile outside of town. It had a nice yard and looked welcoming. Bishop recommended Terri go up to the door. But before she could knock, a middle-aged lady with a round face appeared. Bishop’s heart stopped when he saw an old double barrel shotgun in the woman’s hands. It didn’t take long before she set it down, and the two girls were talking like old friends. Terri waved at Bishop, and he got out of the truck as Terri introduced him to Betty.
Betty didn’t have any guests, but she wanted to know what they could trade. She listed eggs, flour, laundry soap and toothpaste as the things she needed. Bishop offered some detergent, but that was the only item from her list they had to barter with. Betty looked over his shoulder and asked if his truck had air conditioning. When he told her it did, she then inquired if it had a CD player, which it did. Betty said she would take two loads of laundry soap and one hour sitting in the truck so she could listen to her music in the cool air.
Bishop smiled and said, “Deal.” They shook hands.
Betty had a carriage house and suggested Bishop park the truck inside since there hadn’t been any law around for days and days. Bishop took her up on her offer, pulled the truck inside, and closed the door. The garage even had a lock.
Their senses heightened from their experiences of the last few weeks, Terri and Bishop were more aware of their surroundings. Normally the sound of pots and pans banging around a bit might have gone unnoticed. But in these still unfamiliar surroundings, the noise awakened them soon after daybreak. The sound startled Bishop, and he tensed up momentarily. His fears quickly subsided, wooed by the delightful aromas wafting through the air. They dressed and headed downstairs to greet their host. They enjoyed some coffee as Betty presented them with breakfast burritos, complete with rice, a little ham, and a touch of eggs. Mealtime conversation centered on everything they had learned the night before.
The power had gone out in Meraton about the same time as the electricity failed in metropolitan Houston, according to the refugees that had drifted through town from that direction. At the time of the blackout, the residents didn’t pay much attention because that kind of thing happened now and then. A few years before, power had been out for two days, and there hadn’t been any storms of any kind.
The man telling Bishop the story was not sure, but he thought it had been a week or so before folks noticed there had not been a Texas Ranger or a county sheriff drive through town in days. The delivery trucks also stopped coming to town about the same time. A park ranger had driven up from Big Bend National Park and spread the word that martial law was declared in the big cities, and the roads were all closed. The ranger purchased some batteries, loaded up as much food as her SUV would hold, and headed back toward the park. No one had heard from the park rangers since.
The townspeople also realized that travelers had stopped arriving from either direction. This was a major concern at first, because so many of the local businesses made their living from the tourist industry. Everyone had had a good laugh when one of the bar patrons related the story of the first town meeting when the owners of the two gas stations were in a panic about not being able to sell their gas. The preacher looked at them and inquired, “How would you pump it out of the ground without electric power anyway?”
So the town had resorted to the habits of the old days. Horses were common, as many of the surrounding ranches had dozens of the animals. Many of those who resided inside the city limits kept their own horses with friends or relatives who had enough land. Weekend rides in the Glass Mountains were as common here as a round of golf in other places.
Another account from the night before involved an 18-wheel truck that had pulled into town. The driver had parked the big rig at the gas station seeking a mechanic. His tractor and trailer were riddled with bullet holes, and he relayed a tale of how he barely survived Midland, Texas with his life.
Over time, other people drifted through town with little bits of news and rumor. One man passing through had said El Paso and Juarez were on fire and claimed that you could smell the dead from 10 miles away. Rumor was that the US Army and the El Paso police force had barely established order when the starving people from Juarez broke through the bridge to come north. Gunfire erupted, and a kind of cross border war started. Someone else had heard that the drug cartels and the Mexican Army had joined together and were fighting the people of El Paso.
Alpha, the next town 120 miles down the road, was said to be all but abandoned. The town’s primary industry was a chemical plant, and an explosion relea
sed a poison cloud that killed hundreds. Several of the local ranchers found dozens of thirsty people wandering through their lands and gave many of them shelter, while others had received gunshots.
Fort Stockdale, the nearest city to the north was under control of the county sheriff. Always considered to be a bit overbearing, he organized the people and took over complete control. It was also rumored that if you wanted to live under his protection, you had to follow his rules and work in the community doing what he wanted. Another patron at Pete’s added that a lot of the deputies had moved their families to the town and stayed there.
Not all of the stories recounted at Pete’s the night before were doom and gloom. Almost everyone at the bar had cheered up when the subject changed to the town’s latest enterprise. A few weeks before, a local ranch foreman had brought in a freshly butchered cow and parked along Main Street with it strung over the side of his truck. His rifle had broken, and he put up a sign offering to trade beef to anyone who could fix the gun. The town’s seamstress noticed the traffic generated from the man’s offer and saw her own opportunity. She had a dozen eggs from her chicken coop that were going to spoil, so she set up a card table with a sign offering to trade the eggs.
By day’s end, there was a makeshift farmer’s market all along Main Street, and it had been growing ever since.
Commerce had not all been civil however. Two attempts had been made by strangers passing through to rob one of the gas stations. Both holdups had been answered with loads of buckshot and thus failed. The town organized its own posse, and when shots were fired, an unofficial police force would come running. Almost everyone carried a firearm, but so far, no big gunfights had occurred except for the night the Lazy T’s hand was shot.
“Those boys from Ohio are bad news,” one man said at Pete’s. “They are hard-looking men with mean eyes and won’t step aside for anyone on the sidewalk.” The story was that they came into town as a group, found The Manor, and moved in. At the time of their check in, there had been about 20 other guests at the inn. Only a few days later one of the families just got in their car and left. Peculiar behavior, given the current state of things, for folks to just take off like that… All kinds of rumors flew around town that the mother and teenage daughter looked like they had been beaten, and the man was in even worse shape, but that was just rumor. Someone else claimed they saw one of the men going into the hotel late one night with a local Mexican girl slung over his shoulder. The witness had run to Pete’s and told the few customers what he had seen. The Lazy T ranch hand was a big guy, a little drunk, and he decided it was his time to be a hero. He was shot that night, and none of the locals knew what really happened.
A group of the town’s men got together and went to confront the accused. The situation had almost gotten out of control. “Those five were going to shoot it out with all fourteen of us, and they almost seemed eager to do it.” The leader, someone had called him “Spence,” had defused the situation by claiming that the shooting was self-defense. He postured that his man had been confronted by a big drunken cowboy who pulled a gun.
“What would any of you gentlemen do if that happened to you while you were guests in a strange town during these bad times?” No one could dispute his claim. No one really wanted to have the first shootout on Main Street in over 80 years, so they let it go.
“I don’t let them in here anymore,” said Pete, “and ever since, they have stayed to themselves and lay low. A few ‘tourists’ tried to get a room at The Manor when we still had stragglers coming through. I would see them go in and then come out quickly and leave.”
Speculation about the mysterious travelers ran the spectrum. “They are waiting on something,” one man said decidedly.
Someone else added, “We see them walking to the market now and then, but that is about it. Over the past few weeks, any time a car or truck comes to town, they are among the first to check it out. It just seems to me like they are waiting on someone. Why else would they stay?”
The Art of the Deal
“That’s laundry detergent?” Betty asked with a skeptical look on her face.
“Sure is.” replied Terri, “Let me show you.”
Terri was holding what looked like a thin stick of gum with a mint smell and color. She and Bishop had found the handy little packets a year ago at a camping store. They had purchased toothpaste, body wash and laundry soap, that other than the color, were all the same shape and size. The little packets contained 50 strips each, and were about the size of a pack of breath mints. After experimenting with them, Bishop purchased several, and they had gone into their camping packs and hurricane boxes.
Terri and Betty were standing next to a big tub in the back yard. Betty carried out two baskets of dirty laundry and filled the tub with water from her old, hand well pump. Terri immersed the strip in the tub of water and waited a minute for it to dissolve. She stirred the tub with her hand a few times and soap bubbles started forming on the surface.
“Well I’ll be,” was all that Betty had to say as she started washing clothes. Terri helped her, and in less than an hour, the clothesline running across the backyard was full of billowing colors drying in the sun and light breeze.
After the laundry was done, Terri heard strange noises coming from their bedroom and rushed to see what was wrong with Bishop. He was on the floor trying to do pushups, and clearly his bad arm was giving him trouble. After a heated debate about his not resting enough to let his body heal, she had given up, and let him do as he wished. Despite the spat, she returned later to check on him. She smiled when she saw he had his rifle and was moving it around in all kinds of directions like it was a dance partner. She had watched him do this at home for years. He had called it “gun ups” and “doing the rifle dance.” She just thought it was silly. Bishop had tried to explain to her that exercising with the rifle made it become an extension of his body. He tried to draw analogies, like a baseball player repeatedly swinging a bat, but it was all lost on her.
Bishop was mad. He couldn’t do any of his exercises without a lot of pain, and a couple of times he stopped just short of tearing open his wounds. He had attempted one-arm pushups, but his injury had taken its toll. He was just not strong enough yet. The swelling in his bad arm was almost down to normal size, and he had dodged the infection bullet due to Terri’s good work and the pills. Despite his limitations, he had managed to work up a sweat and went to the backyard to wash off with the well water.
He dried and put on clean clothes. He moved the truck out of the garage, thinking Betty would want her hour in the cool air soon. He really didn’t mind letting the truck idle for an hour as it would use little gas, and he needed to re-check the radiator after the truck had warmed up to make sure his repair was in good shape.
He backed it out of the garage and turned it off. He figured it was a good time to take a quick inventory. He unlocked and opened the cover for the truck bed to see what they had left. He just finished his mental list of the contents and shut the small hatch when he heard a voice from behind. “Nice truck.”
He hadn’t heard the three men approach. They were standing about 20 feet away, spread in a semi-circle eight to ten feet apart. They all had AR15 rifles, held them military style, and carried them properly.
“Thanks,” was all Bishop said. He was so mad at himself his ears were ringing as he didn’t even have a butter knife to defend himself. He was also scared as hell.
The man in the middle nodded toward the back passenger window where the sniper’s bullet had left a hole. “Looks like you had a little trouble.”
“Yeah, it was a hunting accident.”
That brought a laugh from all of them, and one of them said, “I can just imagine what you were hunting.” The leader continued, “We are not from around here, kind of stuck and waiting on some friends to show up, but they are late. We saw you pull into town last night and wondered if you had any news from back east?”
Bishop’s voice was terse, “I can’t re
ally tell you much. We were camping for a few weeks at a hunting lease down by Brownsville. We started heading home and had all kinds of trouble finding gas and lodging. I have heard rumors, but really don’t know many facts. We have been avoiding people as much as possible.”
Spence digested Bishop’s story for a bit, and said, “I saw some rifle cases in the back there. What were you hunting?”
“Mister, I don’t know you, and we have just traveled several miles of bad road. Around here, asking questions like that after sneaking up on someone is not only rude, but dangerous.”
Bishop watched as anger flashed through the man’s eyes like wildfire. All three of them shifted their rifles and Bishop heard one safety click off. The noise caused the leader to look hard and the man re-engaged the safety on his weapon. Spence calmed down and said, “My name is Spence, and we didn’t mean to be rude or scare you. These days, you can’t be too careful.”
Bishop saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and then Terri was behind one of them carrying her rifle.
“Everything okay, honey?” she asked in an innocent voice.
“Everything is fine, darling. I was just having a chat with my new friends.”
One of the men started to turn toward her, and the unmistakable metallic sound made by the moving safety on Terri’s rifle stopped him cold. “This big gun makes me nervous. Last time I had it out, I pulled the trigger by mistake, and it kept shooting all afternoon. It holds so many bullets, you know.”
Spence sized up the situation. “Well sir, thank you for your information. I wish you good luck on your trip home. Something tells me you are going to need it. Let’s go boys.”
Bishop watched as the three men left. They moved like a well-trained rifle squad, and he was impressed. After they were out of sight, he gave Terri a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “You saved my ass again, baby.”
“This is becoming a habit, Bishop. I thought you were supposed to protect me?” Terri said with a wink.