by A. American
Mel came into my shop before I got a chance to open the case. “You going to come in and eat?” she asked.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
She was standing in the door looking at me. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I didn’t want to have this talk with her, but there was no way around it; better she hear it from me.
“Okay, hang on a second, though,” I said and went back and opened the case, pulled out a bottle and walked over and leaned against the workbench. Mel looked at me like my head was on sideways when I unscrewed the bottle and took a shot. I held the bottle out to her. “Want one?” She just shook her head at me with a look somewhere between curious and annoyed. “You might want one when I’m done,” I said.
I went into what had happened, from the trip to town to the return, and what had happened at Mark’s house and afterward. I told her what Randal and Leland had said, what Pat had said, and then of course what happened next. She stood there looking at me, her eyes growing wider as I went along. When I got to the shootings, her hands went to her mouth. She stood there without saying a word.
When I finished, she was still standing there with her hand covering her mouth and her eyes wide. I picked up the bottle and took another shot. She finally came out of it. “I can’t believe you did that. What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“Are you going to go to jail?” she asked.
That actually made me smile; it was just another example of how people were not coming to the realization of just what was going on. “No, honey, I’m not going to jail. But there are some people that are not happy about it, so we need to be careful,” I told her.
We went inside, where a bowl of chili sat at the table waiting for me. I asked Mel where the girls were and she told me they were all in their rooms reading or something. I ate my dinner without much enthusiasm. When I was done, I went into the girls’ rooms to check on them. The two big girls were both reading books. I talked to each of them for a minute, lying on their beds to spend a couple of minutes with each of them. Little Bit was in her bed with a Bass Pro Shop Monopoly game in her arms, sound asleep. I slipped the game out and covered her up, then went out to the living room.
Mel was sitting on the couch reading a book as well. I sat down for a minute, then told her I was going to go out to the shop and listen to the radio for a while; I just couldn’t sit inside right then.
“Bring some wood back in when you come. There isn’t any more on the deck,” she said as I stood up to go.
“Okay.”
Back out in the shop I turned on the radio and spun the top off the bottle. I poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into a canteen cup and started to scan the frequencies. The traffic on the radio was really picking up. I heard people from several states. Even though radios had been outlawed, it didn’t appear to be stopping anyone from transmitting.
Most of the talk was what you would expect: conditions where the various people were, food situations, water situations and security. Rumors were being exchanged about where food was being distributed or where the government was using force. This was a little disturbing to hear, that they were actually going after people. I wanted to ask questions but wasn’t about to transmit. Sarge had made it clear about how careful I had to be, and that thought made me think of him and the guys, where they were and what they were doing, how they were doing.
I was roused from my thoughts of the guys when I heard someone talking about a mailman. They reported seeing a mail truck go down their road with a uniformed mailman driving it. This brought about a lively conversation about whether or not the government was starting to function, some saying it was now just a matter of time before the power would come back on and things would start to get back to normal. The chatter on the radio deteriorated on the frequency I was listening to, so I started to scan through the band.
It wasn’t long before I found another that caught my attention when I heard “mailman” again. Stopping on the frequency for a second, I heard the end of the exchange.
“Asked me a bunch of questions and was filling out a form.”
“What’d he ask ya?”
“What I did for a livin’, did we have any food, then he asked if’n I had any guns. That’s when I told him it was none of his business. Then this other feller got out of the Jeep and came up. He was wearin’ a uniform and carry’n a rifle, an’ he told me to settle down an’ answer the questions.”
“What’d you do?”
“I called my boys outta the house, then tole them to git the hell off ma land.”
“Did they leave?”
“Damn straight they did.”
This conversation too went off on another direction so I just shut the radio down. Draining the canteen cup, I went inside.
Chapter 9
Thad and Anita had been in the house for almost a week when Pastor Fish showed up one afternoon. Thad was out back cleaning out the pigpen when Pastor Fish came out the back door and called to him. Thad looked, up leaning on the shovel he was using and waved a greeting. He met the pastor as he crossed the yard toward the pen.
“How ya doin’, Thad?” Pastor Fish said, sticking out his hand.
“Good, Pastor Fish, how you doin?”
“Fair ta middlin’. How’s things here?”
“Good as can be, considering what brought us here,” Thad replied.
The pastor’s face turned sour. “What happened?”
Thad told him everything except what Mr. Jackson had said about the girl and the way she had died. He pulled his arm out of his coat to show the wound where the piece of bullet still resided. Pastor Fish took Thad’s arm in his hand and looked at it.
“Thad, that’s startin’ to look angry, you taking anything for it?”
“No, sir, ain’t got any antibiotics.”
“We’ll see what we can do about that. Where’d you bury Mr. Jackson?”
Thad motioned for him to follow and led the pastor to the oak tree where he had buried the old man. The two men stood there for a couple of minutes, not saying anything. The pastor took a look around the area, then said, “You couldn’t have picked a better spot. It’s a wicked world we livin’ in nowadays.”
“Getting worse ever day too,” Thad said.
The two men walked back up to the house in silence. As they came up to the back porch, they could hear voices on the front side of the house. The two men shared a quick glance and Thad drew his Glock, which he always carried now. He walked around the side of the house. Pastor Fish stayed behind Thad as he peeked around the corner. Holstering the pistol, Thad and the pastor stepped out to see Anita talking with a uniformed man.
“Is that a mailman?” the pastor asked.
“Sure looks like it.”
Anita saw them coming, and Thad could see some apprehension on her face as he approached. The man looked up as the two of them came up. “Good morning,” he said with a smile.
After a brief exchange of niceties, the man got down to business. The postmaster had been tasked with conducting a census of sorts, to figure out where people were, what their skills were and, most importantly, what their needs were. The uniformed man went down a form asking questions and making notations on it. When Thad asked what they needed all this information for, the answer to the question caused the three of them to share a quick glance.
With a smile on his face the uniformed man replied, “To facilitate the relocation of people to the area they will be able to provide the most benefit to the reconstruction of our nation.” He said it as an actor would recite a well-rehearsed line, or like a used car salesman trying to close a deal.
Thad looked the man straight in his eyes. “We don’t plan on going anywhere. We’re taking care of ourselves and will continue to do so. Thank you for coming out.” He put an arm around Anita and turned toward
the house, motioning with his head for the pastor to follow.
As Pastor Fish stepped by the uniformed man, the man stepped in front of him and asked, “Where do you live?” again with that plastic smile on his face.
Thad motioned for Anita to go into the house and stepped between the two men. “I’m gonna ask you to leave now.” The man took a step back, still smiling, and flipped through the papers on his clipboard.
Looking down at the sheaf of papers, the man asked, “Where’s Mr. Jackson?”
Thad took a step toward the man, but Pastor Fish put a hand on his shoulder. Thad looked at the Brother, who nodded with his head toward the road. Standing by one of the old-style mail Jeeps was another man. This one wore a military-style uniform and carried an assault rifle. Thad turned and the Brother put a hand on his shoulder again and the two of them walked toward the house.
From behind them the mailman called out, “You will be receiving a letter in the coming days with instructions. Failure to follow them will be . . .” The man paused for a moment. “. . . unpleasant to say the least. There are jobs that most would rather not have, do you understand?”
Thad and the Brother continued into the house, Thad shutting and locking the door behind them.
Inside, Anita was in a near panic. “What are we going to do? They can’t just send us off to work someplace, can they?”
The Brother spoke up before Thad could. “If martial law has been declared, then they could.”
“Well, they already did that,” Thad said.
The old Brother looked over at Thad in surprise. “How do you know?”
“I have a radio and someone I trust told me.”
“You have a two-way?” the Brother asked.
“Yeah, I got it on my way home. My friend gave it to me.”
Anita said, “What are we going to do, Thad?”
The conversation went on for some time between the three of them, trying to figure out what they should do. Anita’s biggest concern was that they might be split up and sent to different places. Thad tried to assure her that would never happen, and Anita reminded him he was useless to them dead. Thad sat there for a minute chewing on that.
“I’m gonna set up the radio. I need to talk to some folks if I can reach them,” he said.
• • •
Ted showed up with the boat the next evening. They hadn’t seen anything to make them think there was anyone around. Sarge figured the DHS goons weren’t worried about it since they had torched the place. Using the boat to cross the river, Sarge slipped up to the little garage that sat between the river and the scorched spot where his house had once stood. Pulling the door open, he saw the old truck was still sitting there.
The truck was an old Dodge Power Wagon that Sarge had owned before he went into the army. It had spent many, many years in storage. Since his retirement, Sarge had spent some time getting it back into running order. A new Crate 360 sat under the hood now, and the rest of the running gear had been rebuilt and were now as good as the day they had come off the line in Detroit. What he had not spent any time on was the looks of the beast. It was mostly a flat black of sorts and the interior was in wretched condition, with the springs showing through the seats.
The rotor cap and the coil were in an old Glad garbage bag box on a shelf. Sarge pulled the box down and installed the two pieces in a matter of moments. Ted and Mike stood watch, Mike out front and Ted behind the building watching the river. After a quick check with the two guys to make sure the coast was clear, Sarge cranked the old truck. Dead, not even a click. Sarge ran out to Mike and told him to go pull one of the batteries from the boats and get it back up here pronto.
Mike did as instructed, giving Ted a quick rundown on his way. Mike had the battery back in a few minutes and Sarge hit the key. This time the truck cranked for a minute, then fired to life. Sarge feathered the gas for a moment, the old beast revving its response. Satisfied it was ready, Sarge stepped out to Mike and told him to get Ted and head for the swamp, he would meet them on the old road they had scouted prior to this little exercise.
“Be careful. If anything happens, call us and we’ll be there,” Mike said.
“Just keep the radio on. Let’s go,” Sarge replied.
Mike gave him a nod and jogged around the garage. Once they were in the boats and turned out into the river, Sarge grabbed his gear and tossed it into the truck. Opening his pack, he pulled an old flannel shirt out, then took off his vest and threw it on the front seat and put the flannel on. Swapping his boonie hat for one of his 101st trucker-style hats, he would look like any other old cracker driving down the road, if there were any driving.
When he made it to the gate, he found it had been pulled down by something heavy; the six-by-six posts anchoring either end of it were pulled completely out of the ground, and the gate lay twisted and mangled. Then he spotted something in a tree and he climbed out to look at it. It was a WANTED poster. Actually it was several, like the ones he had seen for the FBI’s most wanted, only this one had his picture and name on it. The others had photos of Mike, Ted and Doc on them. Their posters gave their names and ranks and labeled them as deserters, and armed and dangerous. The line under WANTED made his blood run cold: it said DEAD OR ALIVE. Sarge was standing in the road beside the truck looking at the poster and suddenly became aware of the rumble coming from the two Thrush glass packs on the old truck. Looking down the road, he saw a man he recognized as one of his neighbors standing in the road looking at him.
Looking back to the poster in his hands for a moment, he read the part about the reward. Instead of cash, the reward was offered in “food credits, redeemable at any FEMA facility.” Lowering the poster, Sarge looked down the road again. The man was still there, but he put his hands in his pockets and walked off the road, trying too hard to look casual. Climbing up into the truck, Sarge put it in gear and deliberately drove toward the man’s house. Coming abreast of the house, he saw the guy still in his yard. Sarge pushed the clutch in and gunned the engine, looking right at the guy, who quickly went inside.
Seeing the mistake of those glass packs clearly now, he took a bit of a roundabout way out the area, knowing anyone around could easily hear the old beast. He was on edge for the entire drive to the rendezvous with Mike and Ted. The more he thought about it, though, the less it seemed to him like there would be anyone out here looking for him. Sarge knew the DHS just didn’t have the personnel to watch these sticks too closely; they would let their reward offer do the work for them.
Rounding the corner where he was to meet the guys, Sarge saw the trees move out from in front of his truck. He was impressed with Ted for this one. Instead of cutting brush to build a blind for the truck, Ted had dug up some of the small pines and planted them in five-gallon buckets, then dug holes in the ground for the buckets to fit in. After driving in, the guys dropped the buckets back in the holes and spread pine needles out at their bases. Sarge got out, popped the hood and grabbed a piece of wire from the seat. Mike came over to him and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Just a little surprise for anyone who tries to start the truck,” Sarge answered.
He went around to the front of the truck and fished the wire through the firewall, telling Mike to find it and pull it through. Once the wire was pulled into the cab, he connected the other end to the coil after stripping it. Inside the cab, he stripped that end and wrapped it around one of the seat springs from the bottom. He rerouted the positive side to the ignition. If anyone tried to start it, not only would they get the shock of their life, but the horn would sound too.
The three of them quickly spread the camo net Sarge had over the truck and headed back to the shack. He told them about the posters. Doc seemed to take it worse than the other two, who brushed it off with typical morbid humor.
“So now everyone is looking for our scalps in exchange for a can of beans,” Doc said.
&nb
sp; “Get used to it, son, this is only the beginning. It’s going to get a lot worse soon enough,” Sarge said.
“Thanks for that, really cheered me up.”
Sarge said, “Look at it this way: this makes it easier for us.”
Doc looked at him like he was stupid and Sarge said, “Anyone we come across is either for us or against us. No gray area now.”
Doc said, “You may be ready to kill everyone you meet, but I’m not. Everything I’ve ever done was aimed at protecting these people.”
Sarge said, “Let me make this very fucking clear right now: I don’t want to kill everyone I come across. You and I both took an oath once: all enemies, foreign and domestic. I’ve done my part for the foreign ones, now comes the time to deal with the domestic. Anyone who isn’t part of the solution to the current problem is part of the fucking problem and will be dealt with accordingly.” He paused for a moment to look at all three men. “No quarter will be given, none will be expected. You all heard what the colonel said. We have a defined enemy, we have a defined mission.” He paused again and looked squarely at Doc, his expression softening some. “You want to overthink this. I get that, it’s the way you’re built. So think about it this way: how many times have you wondered why the average German didn’t stand up to Hitler? Lots, I bet. I know I have. And I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know I’m not gonna have people fifty or a hundred years from now asking the same thing about me.”
Mike reached out and slapped Doc on the back. “Come on, man.”
Doc said, “I’m with you.”
Sarge put a hand on his shoulder. “Ain’t no one asking you to like it. I sure as hell don’t. Just keep thinkin’ about who we’re doing this for. Friends, family, anybody under the DHS boot.”
“Yeah, which reminds me, I got a call from Thad earlier,” Doc said.
Sarge asked, “How’s he doing?”
“Not good. Said a mailman came by his place and was asking a lot of questions, basically told them they may be relocated to areas where their skills would be best utilized for the common good.”