“Who,” Rachael started to ask, when her voice cracked and she had to clear her throat. “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” Joel said from the other side.
Rachael closed her eyes, put her hand to her mouth and whispered, “Thank you, God.”
“Uh,” Joel started, “can I come in?”
Rachael threw open the door, but stopped just short of letting it bang against the wall. Aurora was asleep, and the last thing she wanted to do was wake up a napping baby. She did throw her arms around her husband in a choking embrace.
“I. missed. you. so. much.” she said.
Joel buried his face in his wife’s hair and started to weep. “I missed you too,” he said.
Behind them, a small crowd had gathered at the arrival of the Hummer that had picked Joel up about a mile out of town and they erupted into cheers and applause. This meant that the women and one family that had chosen to go into isolation with Rachael were finally free to move about, they hoped.
“The kids,” Rachael asked, as she finally pulled back far enough to look at Joel.
“They’ll be here later this afternoon,” Joel said. “They’ve missed their friends, too, so they’re getting caught up before they come home. Is Aurora sleeping?”
Rachael nodded.
“Good,” Joel said with a wink.
Rachael laughed and then saw Dan walking down the road and waved.
“I see Joel beat me to it,” Dan yelled and jogged the rest of the way to the cabins.
Cheers erupted from the crowd again.
“The quarantine and isolation are officially lifted,” Dan said and held up his hands to keep the cheering from starting again. “I see Rachael isn’t holding Aurora, so that means she’s taking a nap. Let’s keep the celebrating to a dull roar.”
There were sheepish chuckles from the crowd, and a few blushes, but most everyone cheered again…quietly.
“I’m really glad that’s over,” Dan said, “and it’s good to see you again.”
“It’s good to be seen,” Joel said and looked at Rachael. “By everybody.”
“By the way,” Dan said. “Do you know why we had the volunteers for isolation that we did?”
“No,” Joel said, after a second, with a quizzical look on his face.
Dan smiled. “Most of the women are pregnant,” he said, “and they wanted to give themselves and their babies the best chance with this,” Dan waved his arms, “going on.”
Joel took a deep breath. “How many,” he asked.
“Seven,” Dan said.
“Wow,” Joel said and shook his head, slightly stunned. “I knew it would happen eventually, but, wow.”
“It’s an affirmation of life,” Dan said. “People get married and, even in tough times, they want to start a family.”
Joel nodded and looked at Rachael again, “That’s pretty much what we did,” he said. “We really had no right having kids as early as we did but that didn’t stop us.”
“Same,” Dan said with a smile. “Poor as church mice and living in a basement apartment, and Marissa and I did the same thing. Anyway, I’ll leave you two alone. Good to have you back, though.”
…
“Do you think I can ride it today,” Bekah asked.
The girls were excited because it was the first time they were going to visit the horses in almost two months. Their last visit had been pretty spectacular since they had been there for the birth of a foal. By now, the foal would be almost eight-weeks old.
“No, honey,” Marissa said. “He won’t be ready to ride for quite awhile. He’s probably grown a lot since you saw him last, but he’s not strong enough to carry you yet.”
“How ‘bout me,” Jessie asked.
“No,” Marissa said, “not you either. I’ll see if you can ride one of the other horses, though. But no promises, and no pouting if I say no.”
Jessie and Bekah nodded in unison.
Marissa was looking forward to the break in routine and, just like the kids, getting away from town for even a few hours. Dan was stuck working out some medical stuff, but she was going to take any chance that presented itself.
“Got your backpacks,” Marissa asked. Bekah nodded and Jessie turned around to show that she was wearing hers. Seeing the backpacks was a bittersweet reminder of everything they’d endured to get here in the first place, and the almost crushing loss when they’d been robbed in the middle of the night on the side of the road. When some of the items that had been taken were returned, including the girls’ backpacks, it had brought a lot of the emotions from their trek back to the surface.
“Water bottles full,” Bekah said and Jessie nodded.
“Let’s go then,” Marissa said. “It’s a couple of miles and it’s going to be warm today.”
…
Travis Gibson had started out with a couple dozen horses when the power went out and had taken on another ten within a week or so when people realized it wasn’t coming back on. Over the last year, through breeding and acquisition, he’d increased the size of his herd to just over a hundred. He’d realized fairly early on that people would most likely need horses for everything from transportation to working the fields and he’d seized the opportunity.
Keeping them all fed was Travis’s biggest problem now, but a recent agreement with some of the local farmers to plant their fallow fields with alfalfa for the winter should hopefully take care of that. The ranch was up to three-hundred acres now–broken into three hundred-acre paddocks–and it seemed like he was building new stables all the time.
When the Army base that had sprung up in the middle of Natchez Trace approached him about purchasing some of his horses, he’d been open to the possibility but didn’t really have enough of them to make it worth his–or their–while. They had, however, been willing to let him use one of their portable saw mills in return for being first in line for some horses once his herd was large enough. They were also supplying a fair amount of labor, since almost ninety of the horses needed to be ridden, curried, combed and otherwise taken care of, just about every day.
Travis saw the girls and Marissa heading to the stables and met them part way.
“Looks like the quarantine’s lifted,” he said.
“Finally,” Marissa said, with only a touch of feigned melodrama. “I honestly don’t know how people did it back before long distance travel was easier and communication to just about anywhere was as simple as picking up a phone.”
Travis chuckled. “I’m guessing,” he said, “it’s because they just didn’t know any different.”
Travis squatted down to be at eye level with the girls. “So, you girls want to see J.B.,” he asked.
“Who,” Bekah asked.
“The foal that was born the last time you were here,” Travis said. “You were the only ones from the town that were here, and we were running out of names. ‘Horse’ was already taken and we couldn’t call him Bekah now, could we?”
Bekah and Jessie both giggled.
“We figured we’d name him after both of you,” Travis continued, “and one of the ranch hands came up with J.B.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” Marissa said.
Travis shrugged. “We really did need a name,” he said and then dropped to a whisper, “and it could just as easily stand for ‘just barely’ since we almost lost him later that night. Besides, look at them.”
The girls were grinning from ear to ear and obviously excited to go see ‘their’ horse.
“Let’s go,” Travis said. “He should be back in his stall with his mother. Now, just like always, you need to be careful and listen and do exactly as I say. He’s still a baby and his mother can be very protective of him, just like your mom.”
…
“Holy cow,” Jessie said when they came to J.B.’s stall. “He grew fast!”
Travis smiled. “Not really,” he said. “He’s hardly grown at all since the last time you were here except for putting on some weight, he just wasn’t walking arou
nd much and there were a lot of people around so he looked smaller.”
Travis made a clicking noise with his mouth and then kissing noises, which set the girls giggling again. J.B. came over to where they were standing and put his head through the gate and nuzzled Jessie.
“You can pet him,” Travis said. “He likes being scratched between the ears and along his neck.”
Jessie and Bekah both looked at their mom and at a nod reached out to pet J.B. He whickered a little and shook his head towards Bekah’s hand, which made her shriek and J.B. pulled away. J.B.’s mom, Sunshine, looked over at the commotion, but didn’t feel the need to interfere…yet.
“It’s ok,” Travis said, and held out his hand to the foal. “He’s as skittish as you are, so just be gentle and try not to make any sudden movements. Remember, you’re as new to him as he is to you.”
“Can we feed him,” Bekah asked.
Travis looked at Marissa for the ok and then went to get some carrot sticks. He’d learned a long time ago that you didn’t carry the treats in your pocket or let the horses know that was where they came from–that was a good way to teach a horse to nip and bite.
When he came back, he showed the girls how to hold the treat out on their hand so that they wouldn’t get bitten: with the carrot stick lying flat on their hand and their fingers bent down and away from the horse’s teeth. Since J.B. was still a baby, being hand fed was a new thing and he was still learning.
Travis showed them there wasn’t anything to worry about by feeding J.B. first, and the foal gently picked up the carrot stick with his lips and then started chewing once his mouth was away from Travis’s hand. Bekah was next, although she was clearly nervous, even though she had asked if they could feed him. She giggled a little as J.B.’s velvet lips probed around on her hand until he found the carrot stick.
It wasn’t until after he moved his head away that she realized her hand was covered with horse spit and she made a face. Marissa made a face of her own at her oldest daughter, one that said ‘don’t you dare make a scene, especially not before your sister has fed him.’ Instead, Bekah just wiped her hand on her jeans.
Jessie, after seeing that neither Mr. Gibson nor her sister had gotten bitten, wasn’t nearly as nervous as Bekah had been. She also didn’t listen to what Mr. Gibson had said and held the carrot stick out in her fist. Before Travis or Marissa could respond or say anything, J.B had reached out and bitten the carrot stick off just above her fingers. Next, Jessie opened her hand and let the small piece of carrot stick lay flat on her palm, like she’d been told to do, and after a few seconds of chewing, J.B. picked it up with his lips and moved his head to chew it away from her hand.
“Well I’ll be,” Travis said. “Lucky that didn’t go worse, but for a bigger piece of food that’s actually how you’re supposed to do it; keeps them from taking too big a bite at first.”
Travis shook his head. “I really wish you hadn’t done it that way, though,” he said. “You could have gotten bitten, honey.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessie said, and looked down while she wiped her hand on her pants. “He wasn’t going to hurt me, though.”
“What do you mean,” Travis asked, “he wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“I don’t know,” Jessie said, “I could just tell he wasn’t going to hurt me.” She reached her hand out and scratched J.B. under the chin and along his neck, and he stuck his head further out to rub the side of his face against her head.
“You’re a good boy, huh,” Jessie said. “You wouldn’t bite me, would you?”
J.B. pulled his head back and blew air through his lips to make the pbbbbh sound horses are famous for and then shook his head.
Jessie turned to her mom and Travis with a big grin. “See,” she said.
Chapter Nineteen
“Dan,” Ty said. “I need to apologize.”
Dan was usually a pretty forgiving guy but he decided he was going to let Ty do most of the talking for a little while. He didn’t know if things would have worked out any differently if Ty had listened to him or not, but he was in the mood to let him squirm a little.
“Ok,” was all Dan said.
“Look,” Ty said. “I was wrong, really wrong. I’m not used to being wrong. I’m also not used to being so completely out of my element. Even when I worked with Doctors without Borders, we knew what we were going into ahead of time, so we knew what to expect.”
Ty paused. “I’m not used to being blindsided,” he said, “or not having the right tools or the right medicine. It was a shock to the system. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. You were right and I was, not right.”
“This is killing you, isn’t it,” Dan said.
“Yes,” Ty said, “for more reasons than you think. I hate being wrong because I hate losing. I didn’t get into medicine to lose patients, Dan. I know it’s going to happen but that doesn’t mean I have to like it, and this was bad. Forget the blow to my ego, this was rough. People need to trust their doctor. I don’t know if they’re going to be able to do that now, and I am a good doctor.”
“I know you are,” Dan said. “Once you figured out exactly what it was, I don’t think anyone could have done a better job under the circumstances. I really don’t. I’m sorry I was being difficult and I wish I could have helped out more. All I knew was that it looked so similar to what we saw in the neighborhood…what killed my son, that it had me spooked.”
“I’ve been living in a dream world, Dan,” Ty finally admitted. “The world I used to live in, where I had tools and medicines and labs…that world is gone. There aren’t any doctors or nurses or paramedics anymore. There are just healers now. I’m willing to work with you, Dan, if you’re willing to work with me.”
“Deal,” Dan said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
…
July 5, 2013 - Fort Rucker, Alabama
Sanford looked at the uniform hanging in the doorway as he was getting dressed and shook his head. He’d spent an hour the previous night trimming stray threads and tightening a couple of loose buttons on all of his pants and coats, but they still looked…vulgar. It was wrong, in so many ways, just wrong, and it was becoming a problem on base.
He noticed more and more equipment that wasn’t being maintained like it should be. Uniforms were a particular problem, and it was affecting morale and performance. Things were starting to slip, attitudes were changing, and as ridiculous as it may sound, it was because little things like uniforms weren’t being held to a high standard. People were growing sloppy and that just wasn’t acceptable.
It was to be expected that the ready stores would eventually run out, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t take care of what they had. If anything they should be taking better care of what limited resources remained.
Sanford looked at his coat and another thought occurred to him. The Colonel’s uniform didn’t look like it was really any the worse for wear after a year. Why was that? It most likely wasn’t because he’d had dozens of uniforms before the power went out, which meant that the Colonel was still drawing from stores when everyone else had been severely restricted.
Sanford finished tying his tie and grimaced at the knot. It was starting to get shiny from always being in the exact same place and from the oil on his hands.
“We’re all equal,” he muttered to himself, paraphrasing Orwell. “Some of us are just more equal than others.”
…
“Sir,” Hodges said. “We’ve tracked them down to Denver.”
“Excellent,” Sanford said but with no real expression in his voice.
“They’re at the Denver International Airport,” Hodges said, “or, more likely, underneath it.”
Sanford still looked nonplussed.
“Seriously,” Hodges asked, completely in awe at how naïve his Major was. “The Denver International Airport. You know; the one that they built for no good reason while there was a perfectly good airport already in Denver? The one that went over budget by tens of millions
of dollars and yet somehow, magically, the money just appeared and nobody said a word about it? The airport where whole buildings were built wrong and instead of being torn down and done again…they were buried, completely intact!”
“Nope,” Sanford said, chuckling. “I take it there’s some conspiracy theory about the Denver International Airport.”
Hodges put his hand over his eyes. “Actually,” he said, “yeah, little bit…, Sir. And it sounds like it wasn’t actually that far-fetched after all. That’s where the most recent communication, today’s, terminated at. I sincerely doubt that if the President is there, he’s hanging out in concourse A or some frequent-flyer’s club.”
“Are you for real?” Sanford asked, then continued when it became obvious that Hodges wasn’t kidding. “Ok, so while we’re at it, any bets on who the Colonel is working for? The Illuminati, the Knights Templar–maybe little green men from Beta Reticula?”
“They’re grey,” Tuttle said. “Little grey men…from Beta…sorry, Sir, it was on an episode of the X-files.”
Sanford glared at Tuttle, but barked a laugh after a second. “Seriously, though,” Sanford said. “Who do we think he’s working for?”
“We need to talk, Sir,” Hodges said.
Something in Hodges tone struck Sanford as a little…off. “I was under the impression that’s what we’ve been doing, Lieutenant,” Sanford said.
“Not,” Hodges said, “like we have been.”
Hodges took a deep breath and tried to think of where to begin. “Ok,” he said, “you hadn’t ever heard of anything odd about the Denver Airport, right?”
“Right,” Sanford said, drawing the word out to be several syllables long.
“You made a joke just now,” Hodges said, “about the Illuminati.”
Sanford made a face and then said, “Oh you cannot be serious.”
“I’m not,” Hodges said, “about the Illuminati, but I guess you could say I’m a little bit of a conspiracy, not theorist, but maybe more of a conspiracy buff. There’re a lot of conspiracies out there, and I’ve read up on most of them. I’d be lying if I said all of them…but all of the major ones and most of the minor ones.”
Dark Grid (Book 3): Dark Coup Page 14