“Not without me you’re not.” Yes, I got the stern ‘wife look’ and knew she would be riding with us. I couldn’t help but chuckle.
We finished our scotch; I threw two logs on the fire and we went to bed. It would be an interesting day tomorrow; one we had not had since Erskine was with us. However, I still had a little nagging doubt about the kid’s sincerity. We’d see.
Next morning Ruth fixed me some sausage and eggs. I passed on the toast, so she made biscuits I had those with strawberry jam - and, of course, the coffee. I’d cleaned out the fireplace earlier and started a fresh fire. The front room was toasty and that along with breakfast made my Monday morning a nice one. Days of the week were moot, other than Sunday, as most were just another day to prepare for whatever our life situation brought at that point in time. Interspaced with that was our preparations for defense and survival, that and being prepared for the long winter months ahead.
My day would have been taking care of the animals then splitting and stacking wood and cutting some of it for kindling and stacking that near the kitchen entrance. If I had time, I would have checked on the herds. However, with the grand, gentlemanly entrance of one Chet Bost, my day was going to be different to say the least.
I gave Ruth a kiss for breakfast, refilled my mug and after throwing another log on the fire, sat in my recliner. I figured I’d take time to enjoy both the coffee and the warmth from the hearth before the day really began.
It was close to ten when Chet, yawning and stretching, came down the stairs. He stopped mid-way down and looking at me asked, “It’s still real, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” I answered with a chuckle. “You ready for some coffee and breakfast?”
“Yes, sir, that’d be great,” he answered and came down the rest of the way, turned and moved over in front of the fireplace. “This is great. I slept better than I have in…I don’t know how long. I actually feel rested. Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” Ruth said, coming over and handing him a mug full.
He sipped the brew with an audible, “Mmmm,” and closed his eyes, smiling.
“What would you like for breakfast,” Ruth asked.
“I…uh I guess I’d need to know what you have first,” he said, timidly.
“We had sausage and eggs, any style, fresh biscuits, strawberry jam and I’ll refill your coffee,” she said. “I can add a glass of milk if you’d like.”
“Where do I sign up?” he answered with a smile. He went around the couch and followed Ruth into the kitchen area, but she told him to sit.
I got up, sat down with him at the table and asked if he’d like to meet one of the horses. He said sure, so I got up and said I’d meet him in the barn when he finished with breakfast, cleaning up and dressing. I told him to dress for riding. I saw his smile as I left.
As soon as I opened the barn door, Dusty began stomping. He was ticked I hadn’t had him out in a while. I took care of the other animals first then went into the tack room and when I brought out his bridle and bit, he froze, ears up and waiting for me. He was more than ready to go. I brought him out of his paddock and tying him to the hitch, went into the tack room and pulling his saddle, blanket, and saddlebags, saddled him. I tied my rifle and scabbard on and made sure I had the extra ammo for the M4 and twelve gauge.
I walked Dusty out the back of the barn and got in the saddle and headed down the back pasture, crossed the creek and turned south to the horse pasture. I untied my lariat and singled out the gelding, lassoed him and went back to the barn. I tied the two horses to the hitches, turned to go to the house when Chet came out. I waved and he came over.
“Come on in,” I said. “This is the guy I think you’ll like.”
Chet ran his hands along the horse, checked his teeth and checked his hooves and shoes. “Those need some work,” he said pointing to the shoes, “but they’ll do for a ride today. Where’re we going?”
“Thought I’d take you across the valley to Doug’s place and you can get the lay of my property along the way. It’ll take us about an hour to get over there and you should get a good idea of the valley’s layout.”
“Am I riding bareback?” he asked with a smile.
“Tack room’s right there. Ruth’s tack is on the left. Take your pick of the other sets,” I said.
He brought out Erskine’s setup and I just nodded. It was an excellent choice and fit the animal well. I didn’t think it was the time to get nostalgic over it and watched as Chet saddled the horse. He did everything right - for some reason that bothered me. I wondered if I was getting old and leery of everything or what. The kid said he was a cowboy, so he had to know horses and riding. I shook my head, untied Dusty and left the barn. Chet came out a few minutes later and climbed into the saddle.
We rode down the lane and after I looked around, I opened the gate with the remote and we headed east. “In the distance,” I said pointing, “is Sheep Mountain. It’s a big one, although not too tall. See those open areas…we see elk in there all the time. If you’ll look to the south, you’ll see the mountain rising forming a huge ‘U’. Albany is to the southwest. To the north is Centennial, about two miles, if you follow this road.”
Crossing the road and down the other side, we continued through the scrub oak and Ponderosa pines. We crossed the creek and I turned to the north. I showed him the small meadow in the aspens I liked to stay in occasionally. I told him this was where I liked to go for solitude.
He asked, “Don’t you worry about the Zs coming in to get you?”
“Not with Dusty here. He alerts if one is within a hundred yards of us and anything else for that matter. He’s the best watch dog I’ve ever had, except for Sam.” As I pointed at Sam, she was over by the fire pit sniffing around. She looked back at me and I pointed to the east, and she took off through the aspens. Together, Chet and I went through and came out in the pasture to the east of the creek. It was another half-hour and we crossed the little creek onto the field above Julia and Dave’s place. I stopped at the top of the rise and pointed to their home.
“That’s the Malone place. The little building to the left is a bus stop for the kids that once lived here. The little building between the bus stop and the house is a small office and library. Anne Burke wrote her novels in there.”
“This is where Anne Burke lived?” Chet asked, amazed.
“Yes, her husband, Sam, is the one who gave Dave and Julia the homestead. Since he passed away earlier this year, they’ve made it their home. They have water and power just like we do.”
“That’s amazing…I mean two places out here in the middle of no-where Wyoming that have power and running water. Especially today, it’s absolutely amazing.”
That tingling hit again, that little nagging feeling. I looked at Chet and he was looking down at the Malone’s place. Without knowing it I shrugged my shoulders some then said, “Come on, let’s go wear out our welcome.”
He laughed and we rode down the hill. As we closed with the gate, it opened and I said, “They know we’re here, come on and we’ll tie the horses over there,” I said pointing to a hitching post we’d put in. We had one by my garage and one at the house now as most of the time we rode horses back and forth to save fuel.
Dave came out as we rode up and said, “Howdy partners. How ya doin’ today?”
“We’re fine,” I said. “You and Julia sleep well?”
“Like logs as usual,” he answered.
“You have a nice place, Mr. Malone,” Chet said, dismounting and tying the horse to the post.
“Chet, it’s Dave, okay…that mister stuff is okay, but around here, let’s keep it informal,” Dave said.
“Got it Dave thanks. You have cattle and animals like Doug?” he asked.
“Not really, we share so to speak,” Dave answered.
“Yeah, we gather steers and other animals as we find them and put them with the herd. When we need meat, we butcher whatever and share the meat. It’s good to have mutual sup
port like that,” I said.
“We shoot an elk or deer sometimes, too. It makes for variety,” Dave said. “We get grouse and geese, ducks and rabbits just for a change.”
“Has the hunting gotten better since the plague?” Chet asked.
“Yes, as there has been no hunting for several years now. We were down in Fort Collins a while back and there were deer, elk, and wild turkeys in the roads. They didn’t even give us a second glance as we moved through. They weren’t afraid of humans anymore.”
“We can tell, here in the valley, that the herds are growing, especially the elk. We had to deal with a bear a few weeks ago. That was intense, to say the least,” Dave added.
“That incident made us aware that not only Zs and other humans, but animal life are now just as much of a threat. There are lions, wolves and now bears in the area. Now, when we go out, we go loaded - well for bear - every time we go out. We have to be prepared for anything now days.”
“I’m lucky I haven’t run into any bears or lions since I left Wheatland. Going back and forth over the mountains, I’m surprised I didn’t. Fortunate I guess,” Chet said.
“Blessed, I’d say,” Dave said. “Come on in and I’ll give you the tour and a mug of coffee. Julia just brewed a fresh pot when she saw you boys coming down the hill.”
He led the way inside and gave Chet the tour of the house. I went to the kitchen and Julia handed me my mug filled with coffee.
“I figured you’d skip the tour,” she said with a smile.
“Thank you, ma’am; you sleep well last night?” I asked.
“Like a log. It took us a while to get the four pups in and once they were down, I crashed.”
“They can be a handful, huh?”
“More than that sometimes…more like tidal waves if you ask me.” I broke into a laugh. “What’s Ruth up to today?”
“She said she was going to make some more apple jam and jelly today. I said go right ahead. Next spring, I want to plant a whole field of strawberries so she can make us some strawberry jam and jelly.”
“That would be nice, but the critters would make short work of a strawberry patch. Maybe we could make a sizable greenhouse to use, that way we keep the animals out and we can better control the growing cycle.”
“Now that is a good idea,” Dave said coming into the kitchen. “What are we growing?”
“You’re silly,” Julia said then, “We were talking about growing strawberries. Doug said he’d like to plant a sizable plot of them somewhere. I told him the animals would have a field day with a strawberry patch and we should consider building a greenhouse.”
“I think it’s a swell idea,” Chet said, “especially since I love strawberry jam so much.”
“You and me both, little brother,” I added.
“Have you ever heard of the underground greenhouses?” Chet asked us. We shook our heads negatively and he continued with, “A man in Montana built one, digging two sixty-foot by twelve-foot and twelve feet deep trenches in his yard. The roof was made of thick glass and it had ridge vents on the ends. He said the vents had to be put in because in the summer it would get up to just under two-hundred degrees in there, burning his plants. He said in the winter it never got below seventy degrees, even when it was below zero outside.
“He grew everything in his greenhouse, corn, and all kinds of vegetables and had tobacco plants. He was a smoker. It was neat. Maybe we could get some glass somewhere and make us one of those.”
“You know, that’s one to think about over this winter,” I said. “Maybe after the spring planting, we can go on a scavenging mission and get some glass like I did for the Underground. Those panels are eight feet long and four feet wide. They’d be perfect. We can use the back hoes and dig one up in the valley and one here.”
“Well it sounds like we need to have a roundtable on this,” Julia said.
“Roundtable?” Chet queried.
“What we call it when we need to discuss important issues about out lives. The four of us get together, either here or up in Paradise, and have dinner and afterwards have a serious discussion about the topic. That’s how we resolve issues.”
“Sounds fun,” Chet said. We all laughed. “What’s so funny? I think that’s a good way of doing things and working out problems.”
“It is, it’s just we don’t really think of them as fun, that’s all. We didn’t mean to insult you or anything,” I told him.
“Oh, okay. I do think it’s a good idea. When can we get together and plan some things?”
Ruth looked at the two of us and said, “How about Wednesday night? You can come over here and we’ll cook dinner.”
I shrugged and Dave looked at me and said, “Okay with me. Is your and Ruth’s social calendar open day after tomorrow?”
I chuckled and said, “Of course I’ll have to check with the boss, but I think it’ll be okay.”
“I’ll make some stew and we can have it with some corn bread,” Ruth said. “Sound good?”
“My stomach’s growling already,” Chet said with a smile.
“Come on, kid, I want to show you the library,” Dave told him. The three of us left by the kitchen door and went around to the library. Dave unlocked the door and we entered. Chet’s eyes bulged at the scene.
“So, this is where Anne Burke wrote her novels,” he said to no one in particular.
“Yes, she did. I even have a few of her hand-written pages for another book that was never finished for publication. I’m going to have to preserve those.” Dave pointed and said, “That row is all of her books in first edition and signed by her. If the world had been the same, these would be worth a fortune.”
The kid didn’t touch them but bent over to gaze at the collection. “Wow, this is great,” he said in awe.
After he got an eyeful, we left and walked around the property. We showed him the little house in back and let him see the fence we’d put in. We saw one Z on the east side and just let it alone. We showed him the south side and the two ponds over there and he asked if they were stocked and Dave said no, they were just for the cattle because they dried up in the hot months.
Back in the front of the house, we said our goodbyes and thanked Julia for the coffee and getting back in the saddle, headed home. We rode south, skirting the ponds and rode towards Highway 11. I stopped on a small rise and pointed out the house on the north side of the highway. I told him it was a nice place but would be difficult to impossible to defend. I then pointed to the left and up the mountain to the area where I’d shown Dave and Julia and told him about the homes there and how we would make an underground that would have tunnels to all three homes.
He thought that an ambitious plan and asked many questions. He asked if we could ride up there and I said not today, as it was getting late and we had about forty-five minutes back to the house, barring trouble. I told him we’d take an ATV, go up to the place tomorrow and look around. We followed the southern rim of the valley and we came out on the road that fronted my place.
Back at the barn, he said, “That was a great ride. Thank you for taking me out.”
“The horses needed the exercise and I needed to get out into the fresh air. It was a pleasure riding with you. We’ll do it more. If you want, you may have that horse and name it if you want. I figure he’s about four years old or so.”
“Maybe closer to five looking at his teeth,” Chet said, confidently. “He’s got a good, strong back, is well-behaved, and has a good head about him. In another instance I’d say he would be a fair lead horse and maybe with some training, a fair cutting animal.”
“You have a good eye for horse flesh,” I complemented.
“Being a cowboy, you have to have a good eye. It’ll most likely save your life, knowing these critters.”
“Right you are. Come on, let’s get these two unsaddled and bedded down for the night.”
Dusty was glad to get the grain with his hay as was the other horse. I put Dusty in his paddock and Chet put
his horse in the paddock Erskine used. It immediately brought back memories and I became despondent.
“You okay, Mister Sutton?” he asked me.
“Just getting some memories about Erskine, that’s all. He, Dave, and I used to go ride all the time. He used the same saddle you chose today, and this is the stall he used.”
“Oh, man, I’m sorry, I’ll move him to ano…”
“No, no, it’s alright. I’ll be fine; it just brought back some memories that’s all. It’ll be okay, really.
“You two ready to eat?” Ruth yelled from the house.
For dinner, we had pork chops and peas on rice - good meal. Chet and I told Ruth about the Wednesday night round table over at the Malone’s’ place and that we were having stew.
“What’s the topic?” she asked.
“Underground greenhouses…where and how to build one up here and one at their place,” I explained. “It was Chet’s idea. I told him you and I were thinking of planting a strawberry crop and Julia said that wouldn’t work around here because of all the animals. They’d eat everything before we could harvest. Chet, here, chimed in with the underground greenhouse idea and after some discussion, Doug called for a round table discussion to plan.”
We could see the wheels turning in Ruth’s mind and, just as we did, she began saying all the other things we could plant in a greenhouse and the benefits. Chet and I laughed, and she gave us an odd look. I said, “We’re laughing because we’ve already gone through this conversation with Julia. Hold your thoughts until Wednesday night and we’ll put it all down on paper.”
Chet helped Ruth with the dishes and afterwards, we sat together in front of the fire. I was reading my Bible, getting ideas for the coming Sunday’s talk. Chet said, “Thank you, Doug, for letting me ride with you today. That was fun and this valley is a beautiful place. You chose well ‘cause, to me it’s almost like a Garden of Eden. You either already have or can produce almost everything you need here.”
“You’re welcome,” I told him. “I’ve never looked at the valley and compared it to God’s Eden, but it might be close. Ruth and I were talking a few months ago about the future. Once the fuel sources run out, we’ll be here in this valley and it’ll have to provide everything we need to survive. We’ll be down to horse travel again and that means it’ll be a two-day or longer trip just to Laramie. To Cheyenne, it’ll be at least two days travel one way.”
I'm Tired of Zombies | Book 2 | Full Scale War Page 11