by Arthur Butt
"Go ahead, Hunter, you heard the man." Kat stood on her toes and threw her arms around my neck.
I sorta put my hands on her hips and whispered in her ear, "You know this doesn't mean anything, don't you?"
Kat murmured back, her eyes twinkling, "Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, Hunter. This is our wedding day."
I puckered my lips and closed my eyes, meaning to give her a quick peck and get it over with in a hurry. Kat transformed it into a much longer kiss, and when I opened my eyes, I saw her gazing at me. I jerked my head away in confusion.
Jeb's family was clapping. The girls shouted at Kat, "Throw the bouquet!"
"All right, here we go," yelled Kat. She spun around while the girls ran into the yard. "One – Two – Three." She heaved the flowers over her shoulder.
Jeb placed his arm around my back and guided me out into the yard. He gestured down the street. "Now you're all married we're gonna have to find a place to build yer house." He pointed to the last chicken coop where a man in overalls and a woman stood. They waved. He waved back. "Right down thar next to Uncle Bob would be fine, got lots of room for the babies to run around in."
This was becoming stupider by the moment, and I didn't enjoy the direction things were heading. "Jeb, I'd want to," I stuttered, "but as I told you, I gotta rescue my pop."
"Can't leave now, son, yer First Creeders, you were married by his book." Jeb replied. "Don't worry. I know what yer wondering, us being strangers and all—"
"But we're –"
"Ya don't have to thank me, son," he said, patting my shoulder. "Tomorrow we'll start on yer house and you'll feel right at home – ya can spend the night with me and the family."
We passed crazy, and I didn't intent to stick around. "Ah, yeah, sure, Zeb. I, er, we'd better get our stuff out of my truck," I said, hoping he'd let us go back to Bev, "if we're gonna stay."
I rose on my toes, searching for Kat. A group of girls and women, who had emerged from the other chicken coops, surrounded her, jabbering away.
"Kat!" I waved. She glanced around and waved back. I hurried over and took her by the elbow. "We'll be right back, folks," I called out, dragging her toward Bev, "wanna be alone with my honey for a minute and fetch our stuff – be a few minutes." I walked her down the path.
"Hey, what's the matter?" exclaimed Kat as I pulled her along. "I thought we were having fun?"
"Yeah, some fun," I said. "They want us to stay and start building a house tomorrow. We're First Creeders now, or something." We entered the turnaround with Bev waiting, and I nodded back to the chicken coops. "You want to stick here for the rest of your life, live in one of those, and make babies?"
She opened her eyes wide and said in alarm, "Oh, my no. I didn't think –"
"Hey, wait up, ya'll!" Jeb and the others hurried behind us. "We'll lend ya a hand with your things."
"Mighty friendly of ya," Bev's voice boomed into the turnaround. "Neighborly, real country folks."
The quills of a startled porcupine wouldn't have popped up faster than those gun barrels.
"Who's there?" Zeb and the others stared suspiciously around the clearing.
"Oh, this is Bev," Kat said, pointing behind us. "She won't hurt you, she's trying to be friendly."
"This gizmo talked?" Zeb gestured with the muzzle of his shotgun. "Ya'll better git back into your creation of Satan and leave. We don't cotton to no spirits in these parts." He made a sign between us, pinky and index finger out making horns, and backed away.
"But –"
"GIT!"
He raised his shotgun and let out a blast. Kat and I dove back into Bev, accompanied by another shot in the air.
"Thanks Bev," I said, scrambling into my chair. "You saved our lives."
"Who me?" she replied. We rode back to the access road. "Them folks are just plum crazy," she twanged.
"What are First Creeders, anyway?" I asked Kat as we hit the main road and crept along. "Ever hear of them?"
"My dad mentioned First Creeders once," she replied, thinking. She peeked over the edge of the road back into the hollow. The men had disappeared, replaced by a hex sign with a five pointed star surrounded by smaller symbols etched in the dirt. "Something about only washing themselves on certain days in a river, eating grasshoppers, honey." She stuck her tongue out and made a gagging sound. "I guess the honey would be all right, but bugs? Blah!"
"I wish you'd said something sooner," I sighed, watching the road. "If we hadn't escaped they'd be waiting for us to make more First Creeders by now." I said to her in a serious voice, "You know everything happening back there wasn't an actual marriage, don't you?"
"You mean you really thought I —" Of course not." Kat reached over and poked me in the ribs. "I enjoyed the expression on your face, though – you were so scared."
I rubbed myself. Kat pokes hard. "Yeah, well, you would've been scared too if you'd thought it was for real."
Kat's eyes sparked and she snapped back, "Why, Hunter Greene, I suppose you think I'm such a terrible person to become –"
"Hey – hey, I didn't mean it the way it sounded," I said, trying to dig myself out of a hole. I couldn't tell if she was putting me on or mad. "We're fifteen, if we were older –"
Kat sat back in her chair, crossed her legs, and tapped her foot. "Good excuse."
I changed the subject before I got into more hot water than I was. "Bev, I have never been so happy to hear you speak up in my life. Those people were bogans."
"Oh, yeah," came her tired reply, "I don't know what I did, but I'm glad I'm not bad."
Chapter Ten
We left the mountains behind (and good riddance, I hoped I'd never see First Creeders again) and hit an endless plain of tall yellow grass scattered with the burnt out remains of deserted towns and houses.
Kat kept her face plastered to the view screen, constantly pointing out the herds of buffalo, wild cattle, and occasional groups of elephants and giraffes we passed.
"Well, what do you expect?" I sighed, when she nudged me and gestured to a small group of zebras grazing on a hill. "When zoos went out of business the animals had to go somewhere. When you see a pride of lions, let me know – them I'll stop for." I'd seen mountain lions and jaguars around Paradise Cove, but never a lion, except on my computer.
When she acted disappointed, I added, "My pop said he saw a tiger – a saber-toothed tiger."
Kat's eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped. "A real saber-tooth?" She stuck her hand to her nose with two fingers hanging down. "Same as this?"
"Yeah, or at least he said he did."
"Where?"
"Up north," I replied, "Used to be a genetic engineering farm there with all sorts of prehistoric animals: mammoths, tigers, and bears. After the collapse most escaped, or the scientists working there released the whole bunch back into the wild. They're breeding like animals which escaped from the zoos."
"Gee," she said with a shiver, "I can understand the dogs and cats going wild, and the farm animals too; they were here already, but saber-toothed tigers and mammoths? Who would have thought?"
On the third day, we ran across an old road with a cloud of dust rising in the distance.
"What do you think it is?" Kat squinted her eyes and stared at the haze. "Another herd of animals, a tornado? Bev, can you tell?"
"Hmm . . . men . . . machines . . . tents," announced Bev. "No atmospheric disturbance I can detect. It's not a storm."
"Men, machines, out here?" I repeated, shooting Kat a puzzled expression. "What the heck? What could they be? Bev, slow down. Maybe they're Morgan's men."
As we drew closer, we passed a sign reading, "MORGAN'S CONSTRUCTION COMPANY" and a few minutes later, line upon line of sweating men with sledgehammers, pickaxes, and shovels, breaking up the old road. More workers hauled the debris away with wheelbarrows. Behind them machinery and laborers laid down a bed for a new highway.
All the men were shacked together with long chains.
The workers didn't glance u
p as we passed. Their overseers did, but made no move to stop us. One raised his wrist to his mouth and whispered into his watch.
An old fashioned, gas powered truck sped our way and halted, blocking our path. The driver emerged and waved his hands over his head for us to stop.
Bev ground to a standstill. "Let's see what they want," I told Kat, "but be prepared to duck and run for your life, and Bev –"
"Yes, handsome?" she purred.
"Keep quiet."
We tumbled out and the driver sauntered over to us. "Where are you kids going, and what are you driving?" he gestured to Bev.
Instead of answering, I asked a question of my own. "Morgan's Construction?" I waved to the sign, "Not Black Morgan? Are you his men?"
"Sub-contractors," the man replied. He paused and wiped sweat off his face. "He supplies the men – we supply the knowhow and machines. He insists we use his name on the signs so everyone will know he's the one doing the building. Now, who are you kids and where'd you steal this tank?"
"Humph!"
"Who made the noise?" He peered over our heads toward Bev. "You have more people hiding in there?" He took a few hesitant steps forward to stare in the hatch.
I said quickly, "Oh, no, it's our ride, settling down."
He shook his head and returned his attention to us. "Anyway, who are you kids and what are you doing way out here by yourselves?"
I couldn't tell him we were joy riding, miles away from any town, he would never believe it, and I didn't want to say we were searching for Pop. He would hold us prisoner for Morgan. I studied his truck, and the rest of the old earth moving machinery rumbling around in every direction, and found an idea.
"Uh, we're trying to find jobs," I replied. "We're mechanics."
Kat glanced at me from the corner of her eye and said, "Or to join Morgan's army."
"Jobs? You two are mechanics?" He broke into a smirk and started laughing. "Soldiers? Ha!" He hooked his thumb toward the sweating men. "You think you can haul rock all day?"
I got indignant and put my hands on my hips. "I said mechanics – techs – not unskilled labor, anything you have we can fix, and we'd make good soldiers, too! Stuff breaks down in the field, you know." I hoped we were good mechanics; half the machines rattling around were made before I was born, and most didn't even have steam engines.
I could tell I'd caught his interest. His eyebrows raised and he said, "Yeah? Tell me more."
"I know computers too," I said quickly. I gestured to his truck. "I built a ground car and kept it running with no parts – had'a make most myself. How many guys you have can do tool and die?" I strolled over to Bev and patted her on the nose. "Rebuilt this heap from scrap."
"Pffft!"
"Seems you forgot to tighten something, your machine has an air leak," the man commented. He paused, thinking. "If what you say is true," he began, "I could probably use you around here." He stared at Kat dubiously. "You say you’re a mechanic too?"
"If he knows how, so do I," she replied, which was a lie. Kat was more the intellectual type. Anything more complicated than a knife and fork left her confused.
When the guy appeared doubtful (I guess he was a supervisor or something) Kat added, "Besides, we have to stay together. We're married."
"Huh, you two? Don't be ridiculous."
She looped her arm around my waist and gazed up at me adoringly. "Aren't we, honey?"
"Uh, yeah. We're, um, First Creeders. We get married early." I thought hard. "Ah, 'Join yourself in youth and do not depart from his ways'." It sounded as if something Jeb might say, and this guy didn't appear the religious type.
Apparently he wasn't. He replied with a shrug, "Well, your problem. Tell you what – follow me down to the repair shed and let's see what you know. Maybe we'll find a job for you."
We climbed back into Bev and trailed him. "Why did you want a job doing maintenance?" Kat said, confused. "I thought the idea was to infiltrate Morgan's army?"
"It was the only thing I could think of at the time," I admitted. "But if this works out it's the perfect cover to enter Morgan City, if he'll hire us." I said to her, "What was the big idea of telling him we're married? Where'd this come from, those First Creeders? I thought we were over the whole discussion."
"Oh, I –"
"You two were married? When did this happen? Was I invited and missed the invitation?" Bev's voice quivered. "Is it too late for me to buy a dress? – I wanna be a bridesmaid!"
"Cut it out Bev, no one got married. Kat was making up a story, forget about it." I said to Kat, "Why?"
Kat's face shaded to a light pink. "Well, all I see around here are men, and you know – if we're going to stay awhile I didn't want anyone hitting on me. I figured if everyone thought we're married –" She blushed a deeper red and stared out the window.
"Dum-dum-de-dum. Dum-dum-de-dum!"
The supervisor stopped outside a pre-fab sheet-metal building. We entered, the noise of machinery blaring in our ears. One of the workers wandered over from a metal lathe, brushing off little curlicues of steel from his shirt and pants.
"Ralpha, kids claim they're mechanics," the supervisor said. "Check 'em out and tell me what you think. I'll be in the office."
Ralpha gave a sour shake of his head, but waved both of us along. "Okay you two." He led us to an old fashion ride-on lawnmower, which must have been a hundred years old. He pointed to the gasoline-fired wreck and said, "You start it running," and walked away.
Kat stepped close to me. "Is this some type of vehicle?"
"Something for cutting grass, I think," I whispered, "before cows and goats were invented. I've seen old solar-powered ones, Pop had a picture in his collection of Mechanics Monthly magazines. This has a combustion engine."
"A who?"
"It runs off fossil fuels."
Kat's eyebrows furrowed. "Oh."
A few of the other workers watched surreptitiously and guffawed. I rolled up my sleeves and said, "Let's get to it. Pretend you know what you're doing."
It took me about three seconds to realize I didn't understand the first thing about lawn mowers, and then I remembered advice Pop gave me, "Make a checklist, Hunter and start at the beginning."
What did I know about combustion engines?
Well, I'd studied the schematics of one in preparation for repairing the hulk Pop found, and knew they needed fuel, some kind of lubricant, and a battery. I lifted up the hood and checked, and then spent time searching for where the fuel entered. I finally located the cap under the seat – the gauge showed full. A switch hung with a button attached, but it was intact. I dropped the seat down. Kat made herself important by pointing at the dashboard and engine, whispering nonsense. After checking everything I could think of, I sat on the seat. "Here we go."
I twisted the key.
Nothing.
"Uh, oh," Kat said, "Our Ralpha guy is walking this way."
He towered over us with a grin. "What's the matter – can't fix it?"
"Uh, simple. I gotta get my tools," I replied, "Be right back."
I ran out of the building and hurried to Bev. "Hey, let me in!" I banged on her hatch.
"Oh, see who's back. What's the magic word?"
"Uh, please, let me in?"
"Better," she said. "Manners are always in order." Her door dilated open.
"Bev," I said desperately, "What do you know about riding lawnmowers with combustion engines? Anything in your memory chips?"
"Those ancient things? Why, cheating on me with an older woman? Cougar dating? I thought you were married."
"You're making no sense and you know it. Hurry up, please, this is important," I begged.
"Wait."
A few seconds later, she printed out two sets of papers. One read, "Startup" the other, "Troubleshooting." I glanced over startup and read things such as "Neutral" "Clutch" and "Blade up." I switched over to troubleshooting. I saw one line marked "Safety switch."
The button, which was hanging.
&n
bsp; "Great! Bev, do you have any tools aboard?"
"Second locker to the right, left-hand side, four drawers down."
I hustled to the cargo bay and yanked open draws, setting out all the tools I found. "All you need is a Phillips-head screwdriver, Sherlock."
I spotted one, snatched it up, and ran to the door.
"Don't bother to thank me," I heard Bev's voice call out behind.
"Thanks!" I shouted back.
I rushed into the building and pushed up the seat. The safety was still hanging down. I slipped it into the slot and tightened the screw. "Watch out," I told Kat.
I sat in the seat, made sure everything was disengaged, and pulled out the choke.
I tried the key.
The engine roared into life. I gave the gas pedal a few experimental taps until the motor roared and switched it off. A few murmurs of approval drifted my way from the other mechanics.
Ralpha was still standing there, watching my every move from his metal lathe. He strode back with a slight nod. "Pretty good, but you should'a noticed the safety switch first time you lifted the seat."
"We don't usually work on machines invented before the dinosaurs," Kat said defensively. "We've never seen anything this ancient. We're more, you know, steam powered kind of mechanics."
"I don't think anyone alive has ever worked on one of these." I added to Ralpha, "Where did you find this reject for a smelter anyway, a museum?"
This brought a chuckle. "Nah, almost. An old barn, but if you stick around here long enough, this will seem twenty-first century; and as far steam power goes, Lithium hasn't been mined in years. You'd better become used to obsolete machinery until Morgan opens the mines again and gets them running."
Ralpha scrutinized us again. "Okay," he said in a grudging voice, "I suppose we can use you around here. You're hired, I'll tell the boss."
We started the next day. It wasn't too hard once we got the hang of the routine. Old machines, broken machines, and twisted parts entered the shop. We fixed each up as best we could and sent the results out to the work crews. Sometimes they returned the next day, more destroyed than ever, or with complaints they still didn't function. Most of the time they worked.