I stopped before we got to the confrontation at the Red River Army Depot. No sense in speculating over such things now. And I’d left out the attack on the chemical weapons depot at Pine Bluff, too. That wasn’t directly part of our trip, and I wanted to get Dad alone or with Mike and maybe Uncle Billy to discuss what this might mean.
“All right,” I said, breaking the tension, “that’s enough for now. Dad, we can get together after breakfast and go over the supplies we brought. I know Amy has a list somewhere. And I want to hear who all else you’ve been in contact with around here.”
I could tell my father wanted to say something else, but he must have seen something in my look that changed his mind. Some of what I had left to share was just guesswork, but scary nonetheless in the implications. In fact, I debated seeing if Dad was up for a run into town. I figured Sheriff Henderson needed to be aware of what was going on out there before some bullies in a black SUV drove up and started hassling his deputies. Wait, I already did that.
“Okay,” my dad agreed. “Chores, then breakfast, then we go see Billy. We need to discuss the security situation with all these new recruits handy.”
He said it in a way that got a laugh, but I knew he was serious. He might only consider getting two additional fighters, us boys, but I knew Lori and (God forgive me) Amy could do the job as well. As for Helena and Connie, well, time would tell.
We quickly split up into teams, with my father making the assignments. The milk cows, chickens, horses, and even the goats needed attention this morning, just like every day. I took the horses stabled in the horse barn, since that was my old job, and Scott and Amy came along for a quick orientation.
Mom and the Thompson sisters went to the milking parlor where our two milk cows waited patiently to be let in, while Paige led Helena, Connie, and the little ones to the chicken coops to gather the morning’s egg production. Alex, over his protests, was sent back to bed. Dad, hero that he was, would see to the hogs. Hurray for him, I thought darkly. We kept the hog enclosures downwind for a reason, and still the smell was atrocious. Or, at least I used to think so. Now, I would probably barely notice.
As I led the way over to the stables, really a large barn with fenced-off paddocks for the horses to roam a bit, I gave my two companions a running commentary on the operation. I remembered Nick doing the same for me at the Keller farm and felt a sudden wave of nostalgia. Even though we’d only spent a short time there, I’d come to think of them as my second family, and I said a silent prayer that they were holding up under the challenges of the day.
“Why are some horses in here, and others out in the fields?” Scott asked.
“These are the stallions and the pregnant mares. We want to protect the prospective mothers and keep the stallions from fighting,” I replied. “The geldings and unbred mares are fine in the near fields, and frankly, the stallions we have here are pretty mellow for all that, but the idea is to keep the lines unmixed for now. Maybe later we will revisit that formula. Not much call for show horses or barrel racers, and more need for plow horses and general riding stock, really. I’m sure that’s why Grandpa insisted we buy that Percheron stallion and those three mares.”
As I spoke, I approached a familiar stall and saw my boy, Archer, waiting for me. I could tell he’d caught my scent by the way he shook his head, and I figured he was pissed at me for my long absence. I explained as much to Scott and Amy and told them how Archer had held a grudge for over a week the last time I’d been gone for the summer, working in Dallas.
Sticking his head over the half door of the stall, Archer snorted once and sneezed on me, flinging his saliva and mucus in my direction with practiced accuracy. The other two jumped back in horror, but I just laughed. That was my buddy, all right.
“Is he sick?” Amy asked with concern, stepping closer, but not too close.
“Hell, no, that’s just another way for him to get even with me. Better than him pretending I wasn’t here,” I replied with a chuckle as I scooped up a half can of feed and dumped it in his trough. The small fenced area for Archer had abundant grass, and I would be by later to let him out to do some grazing. The feed was more in the way of a peace offering, which the big palomino accepted as his due.
“What kind of horse is that?” Scott asked.
I explained, and then pointed out the different breeds presented in the various enclosures. We had four stallions right now, as well as an ample supply of frozen sperm for artificial insemination, and I counted fifteen pregnant or nursing horses in the large barn. I didn’t know the current number of colts and fillies, but surely, my father had a tally for them. At that thought, I remembered how handy Amy was with inventory and record keeping and realized, once again, how great an asset we had in her. She was more than a pretty face and an accurate, steady gun hand.
“Well, this doesn’t seem so bad,” Scott said, and I grinned as he shook me out of my idle thoughts. We were just distributing a few cans of grain to each stall at this point, which was something even little Rachel could probably do.
“Well, we haven’t gotten to the good part yet,” I replied, and then pointed at the waiting wheelbarrow and shovels. “Time to muck out the stalls.”
Despite mock sighs of dismay, the three of us made short work of the cleanup. Only Trigger, our newest quarter horse stud, was still skittish, and I handled the cleaning in that particular stall. Amy, I noticed, seemed to be particularly attracted to the pregnant mares, and I saw her ruffling their coats and rubbing delicate noses with a gentle but familiar hand.
“You had horses?” I asked softly, coming up behind her with deliberate noise so as not to spook her, or the roan mare she was stroking.
“No,” she replied after a beat, “but one of my girlfriends did. We played volleyball together, coming up through junior high. I used to go over to her house sometimes, and I would help her feed their horses. They are such gentle creatures,” she said wistfully, and again I wondered what her life had been like before. She resisted any inquiries, and from her signals, I knew better than to push. She would talk about her past when she was ready, and not a moment before. I would wait.
“Come on guys,” Scott called from the center of the barn, “let’s get this last load dumped and see about breakfast. My stomach is calling.”
“Man, only you can get hungry smelling horseshit,” I jabbed, but in truth I was feeling it too.
With that, we both laughed and I took over the wheelbarrow from Amy and pushed it out to follow Scott. All the horse dung went into the compost pit, and from there to the gardens for fertilizer. My mother scorned store-bought chemical fertilizers and preferred the all-natural methods. Well, that was the only method now.
“Go green or go home” was the new motto for the modern gardener. Of course, if you couldn’t grow your own food, you either had to turn raider or starve. This was the most real reality show any of us could ever imagine. Elimination meant you got a grave marker, if you were lucky enough to have someone around to throw dirt on you.
CHAPTER
FOUR
After chores and a quick breakfast, Dad asked us to take a walk over to Grandpa’s house. He offered to give Summer and Amy a ride in one of the quads or his pickup in deference to their injuries, but neither saw the need. Amy said she was nearly over her concussion and Summer claimed she was getting pretty good on her crutches. I forced a grin when my father looked at me, expecting me to ask for a ride in my wounded condition.
“Shoot, Dad, I kept fighting after getting gutshot. I can’t let these ladies show me up. You think a little post-surgical ache is going to slow me down?”
Whoops. From the looks from both my little sister and my mother, that was probably the wrong thing to say. Too much of a reminder, I guess. I tried to backpedal. “It was only a little bullet, anyway. A .22, the doc figured, and it barely scratched the bowel. He thought it glanced off the bottom of the body armor and spent a lot of its energy there first. I can’t remember, but no colostomy and I’m
healing up nicely.”
“You don’t remember getting hit?” Scott asked. “I’d figure that would stick out in your mind.”
“Nah. I took a couple of rounds in the armor that didn’t penetrate. Ya’ll know it is heavy as the dickens, but stops even rifle rounds.”
My mother was not dissuaded and demanded I go into Center as soon as possible for follow-up care. I gave Dad a curious look and he nodded slightly.
“There’s still a few doctors around, or so I heard. Clinic is shuttered though, and the pharmacies that didn’t get looted are just about out of meds. Maybe we can go in a few days.”
I allowed that this would be fine. I still had a few doses left to take from my antibiotics, and there were no overt signs of infection. Doc had told me in the old world, I would have been in the hospital for at least a week following such an injury and the subsequent surgery. I did lie around for about that long, but he said it wasn’t the same. Of course, nothing would ever be the same after the lights went out.
So we formed up outside on the front porch and headed out to take the dirt track linking our place to Grandpa’s. Well, Uncle Billy was living there now with a house full of friends. I would have a hard time calling it anything else but Grandpa’s place. Dad still hadn’t given me the details of his death, just that he died saving Paige. I was having hard time processing that the old man who’d had such a profound impact on my life was now gone forever, but I knew Grandpa would happily spend his life to save his only granddaughter.
Seeing how we fell into formation was interesting. Everyone over the age of twelve was armed, but only Dad, Amy, and the Thompsons joined me in spreading out to cover the perimeter in a loose diamond formation similar to what you might see hunters utilize. I brought up the rear, carrying the M4 that was my new weapon while my abdominal muscles continued to heal. Carrying the CETME was not the problem. The recoil was. So I made do with the carbine and noticed my father was carrying his HK91 at port arms. Even Paige was armed, though she carried her bolt-action Remington 243-caliber rifle slung on one shoulder, barrel pointed down. Likewise, Summer made her way across the quarter mile of slightly muddy path with her M4 slung across her chest, prepped and ready to grab.
I saw Uncle Billy waiting for us on the wraparound porch, standing against the wooden slats of the fencing much like Grandpa used to do. My uncle was a big man, tall and muscular, and I knew he’d kept in phenomenal shape, even after he’d retired from the fight game. He’d fought in the heavyweight division and his size was not as impressive in that class of monsters, where he was merely middle of the road. His quickness, however, gave him the edge to dominate bigger, slower fighters. He’d even been a champion for a while, holding the crown against several challengers until recurring knee problems forced his retirement.
Uncle Billy was younger than Dad by several years, but the last four months looked to have aged the man half a decade or more. I knew losing his father, my grandfather, was part of it, but I wondered what other demons were driving this transformation. Maybe the killing, or the helplessness we feel in a world where food is once again a finite resource. Thanks to my grandfather and my father, we had food here, both in long-term storage and also a massive garden that would feed more than our current numbers, I’d wager. Whatever was haunting my uncle, I’d likely never know.
Thinking about food got me to ponder about the broken supply links we all took for granted before the world went to shit. No more bananas from Honduras or apples from Ecuador. Do apples even grow in Ecuador? Or wherever it is we get those things out of season. Oh, man, and chocolate and coffee. I liked coffee okay, but chocolate was something I dearly loved. We had stocks of both, but I knew when they were gone, we were not going to see the like for quite some time. Hazelnuts as substitute, maybe? I’d had Nutella and though it wasn’t bad, it also wasn’t chocolate.
My uncle’s bellow broke me out of my idle musings and brought a grin to my face. “What the hell is ya’ll doin’? You got one girl gimping up here on sticks and another that looks like she took a crowbar to the melon. No offense. Couldn’t you have taken the pickup or one of them quads we salvaged? Or heck, one of them war wagons the kids pulled up in yesterday?”
The shout was clearly directed at my dad, but Summer felt the urge to respond first. “I’m not gimping, you big loudmouth,” she yelled back. “I bet I could outrun your old ass with these crutches.”
I couldn’t help it. Summer had been complaining about having to keep using those “sticks” all morning, resisting her big sister’s insistence that she stay on them until the doctor said she could stop. Then she politely turned down my mother’s offer of a ride earlier. So, I started laughing. Ignoring the painful pulling in my lower abdomen, I allowed the cries of unbridled mirth to escape my lips.
“Summer!” Scott and Lori exclaimed in unison, and then turned to glare at their youngest sibling. Amy joined me in laughter, though I knew it would cause her headache to worsen. We were a fine pair, I thought.
“Shoot, Billy,” my dad replied defensively, “I tried to get her to ride, but the little dickens refused. Tell him, Claire.”
“Sorry, Bill. Sam’s right. That girl is tough as boot leather, just like the rest of them.”
Wiping my eyes, I felt a burst of pride at my mother’s sincere words. We were tough. I didn’t know how much use Connie or Helena might be in a firefight, but as for the rest of us, we had proven ourselves. Even Scott was a known commodity to me after our little scuffle at the Red River Army Depot. He’d taken the shots without hesitation and remained steady when we faced the unknown soldier atop that convenience store. Which reminded me. I still needed to find the alone time to finish the story and tell my father about what we’d seen there. That the Regular Army was willing to engage and destroy a force of the Homeland storm troopers was certainly something to discuss.
“What do you think, Luke?” Uncle Billy asked.
“What? About Summer? Heck, that girl is a wild one. We just feed her raw meat and point her in the direction of anything we think needs killing.”
In response, the thirteen-year-old girl looked up at my uncle and bared her teeth, issuing a high, squeaky growl. Sort of like what a chipmunk might produce. “Ggggrrrrrr.”
With that, my little group of travelers nearly collapsed in a fit of laughter. Uncle Billy joined in, his good nature forcing him to laugh as well. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see even the grim-faced Paige cracked a smile. Well, that was a start. Maybe in a hundred years, my little sister would learn how to laugh again.
“Well, little Missy, I guess you are a badass. But don’t think you can outrun me in a race on crutches. I’ve had five knee operations to get good at that game.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
“Jesus, kid, did you leave anything behind for those National Guards troops to fight with?” Uncle Billy’s exclamation brought another smile to my face. We were all standing in the machine shed, and Scott had opened the rear cargo areas on both the SUV and the Humvee, displaying the stacks of weapons and ammunition crates. I had to admit, the display looked impressive.
“Mr. Messner, this is just what we decided to bring,” Scott explained. “Luke gave a lot of other stuff away to a militia group outside McAlester.”
“Self-defense force,” Amy corrected before I could speak up.
“We don’t call any friendlies a militia force,” Lori said next, finishing my often-repeated refrain. When the teenagers, myself included, erupted with laughter, the oldsters looked at us like we might be rabid. And contagious. I didn’t even mind the spike of pain in my gut at that one.
“Sorry,” I finally said, holding up a hand. “I avoid using the term militia, even where appropriate. Dad, you taught me that, and I just passed it on to the rest of the group.”
“Yeah, I guess I did,” my father agreed. “Even before all this shit, the feds had a real hard attitude toward any group that styled itself a militia. Glad to hear some of my preaching stuck.”
I could hear pride, and maybe a touch of sadness, in his voice as my father spoke.
“Dad, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for what you taught me. Funny thing is, I think the most useful things you taught me came from when we played paintball together.”
“Paintball? You mean that game you play in the woods?” Isaac Sheldon exclaimed. Mr. Sheldon was Alex’s father, and he, along with his wife and their daughter, Sierra, were the others in addition to the Elkins who were sheltering at the Big House. That made a ton of sense to me and I was thrilled when I found out they had found their way to the ranch. Mr. Sheldon was a large-framed African-American gentleman of about forty who had worked at the ranch before the lights went out. He was a horse trainer, and one of the best in the area. He had a way with all animals, but the horses really seemed to gravitate to the tall, barreled-chested bear of a man.
“Yes sir.”
“But what about all time you spent in those shooting competitions? That three gun stuff, and those pistol drills?”
I nodded along as Mr. Sheldon spoke. He knew about a lot of these things because Alex was in the Scouts with me. Marksmanship was no longer as emphasized in the Scouts like it had been in my father’s time, but there was still an element involved with the older boys and young men. Alex was pretty good with a rifle on the range and managed to bag his deer every year without much fuss. And like me, he actually hunted the deer instead of feeding them up on corn from a static feeder every off-season. Feedlot hunters, we called those guys.
“Yes, sir. All those competitions and drilling helped build my accuracy, but not so much in keeping my tail from getting shot off. All offense, you see. No real emphasis on using cover and stealth to come at your targets from an off-angle. That I learned from shooting and scooting with a paintball gun in the woods.”
“Well, you seemed to have done okay for yourselves out there,” Beth Elkins said, speaking up for the first time. With her husband, Mike, on sentry duty and her kids working in the gardens under the watchful gaze of Angelina Sheldon, Ike’s wife, Beth elected to check out the mysterious contents of the two new vehicles hidden in the barn.
Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder Page 3