She grinned. “Yeah, right.”
“I’m not saying we didn’t live in a great nation. We did. But that doesn’t mean we were completely free. If the government wanted the land you lived on, they took it. If you spoke too loudly against their policies, they found a reason to lock you up. Our government used an undercurrent of fear to keep people in line, and it was only getting worse when all this happened.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t people rise up and change things? You know, like in the Revolutionary War.”
“Simple. Because people were lazy.”
“Lazy?”
“Sure. As long as there was beer in the fridge, an exciting game on the TV, and a soft bed to lie in, most folks were willing to overlook a few infringements on their liberties.”
“Was my mom part of the… the infringement?”
“Of course.”
She crossed her arms. “I don’t think she knew it was happening. Not really. She wasn’t like that.”
He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I suspect the same problem plagued the Egyptians, the Romans, and every other society since the dawn of time.”
“What problem is that?”
“Those in power convincing themselves that the rights of the many should take precedence over those of the few.”
“But isn’t that the right way? The fair way?”
He looked over at her and smiled.
“That depends, darlin’.”
“On what?”
“On whether or not you’re one of the few.”
By the time they reached Hillsville, Virginia, the sun was already high in the sky. The town seemed to consist of only a single intersection, where Highway 52 crossed Highway 221. Unlike the other communities, Hillsville was bustling with activity. A hodgepodge of colorful tents and makeshift wooden stalls had been set up on both sides of the street, and hundreds of people milled about them.
Tanner stopped the Hummer and took a moment to study the scene.
“What do you think’s going on here?” asked Samantha.
He pointed to a huge banner hanging across the road. Flea Market and Old Timey Days. A large flap of cardboard was stapled below the banner that read, “No guns allowed in Hillsville.”
“I’ve heard of a flea market,” she said. “But what’s an Old Timey Day?”
“Don’t know.”
“Should we check it out? It looks interesting.”
Tanner thought about it. While the stop certainly wasn’t necessary, he didn’t feel a pressing need to hurry off to the tunnels. The mutants would be there waiting, regardless of when he and Samantha arrived.
“Sure, why not?”
“Good. Maybe we can get something to eat too.”
“We’ve got food in the back.”
“I know, but look.” She pointed to smoke rising up from one of the tents. “They’re cooking something.”
As if on cue, Tanner’s stomach growled.
She reached over and patted his belly.
“It sounds like a thunderstorm in there.”
“No wonder. I only had a few eggs for breakfast. Hardly enough to hold over a giant.”
“That’s true,” she said, missing his sarcasm.
Tanner backed the truck up onto one of the curbs and shut it off.
“What about our guns?” she asked, looking down at her Savage .22 rifle.
Tanner studied the crowd. He didn’t see a single firearm in the mix.
“Leave ’em. There’s probably a small town sheriff lurking nearby with nothing better to do than rough up out-of-towners who think they’re above the law.”
She placed her rifle and his sawed-off shotgun on the floorboard and draped a jacket over them.
Tanner climbed out of the Hummer and did a quick survey of the people in their vicinity. No one seemed to be paying them any attention. A woman and her husband stood at the entrance to the market. She played a banjo, and he a fretted dulcimer. They strummed along, cutting in and out of a little mountain piece, highlighting the unique tones of the two stringed instruments. A black banjo case sat open at their feet with a sign that read, “We’re Hungry!”
Tanner leaned back into the Hummer and grabbed his pack, figuring that he might be able to trade some of their supplies for a hot lunch. As he did, Samantha slid out of the passenger side, her eyes wide with excitement.
“It’s like a circus,” she said softly.
“Let’s just hope there isn’t a freak show,” he said, walking toward the huge bazaar.
She followed in his wake, studying the various stalls. Most of them were set up to act as trading booths. Vendors displayed a wide assortment of homemade goods, including soap, jars of honey, dried meat, jugs of apple cider, ground wheat, canned vegetables, freshly churned butter, and plastic bottles of water that had obviously been refilled more than once.
“Do you think they make all this stuff?” she asked.
“Sure they do.”
“But how?”
“What do you mean how? They grow it, kill it, or mash it the same way people have been doing for centuries.”
“But where’d they learn how to do that?”
“Darlin’, country folks have been making food long before there were Piggly Wigglys.”
She giggled. “What’s a Piggly Wiggly?”
“You really have lived a sheltered life,” he said with a sigh. “Come on. Let’s see what these folks have.” Tanner stepped over to a stand being operated by an old woman and her teenage grandson.
The woman smiled to reveal a couple of missing front teeth.
“Help ya?” she said, sounding an awful lot like Granny from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Tanner took a quick look at the goods sitting on her table. On one end were some freshly dug potatoes as well as a pile of okra. On the other were jars of molasses, apple salsa, pickled beets, and something labeled “Ball Busting Chow Chow.”
He picked up a jar of the chow chow and read the handwritten label. The list of ingredients included cabbage, Habanero and sweet red peppers, onion, sugar, and spices.
“You make this yourself?”
“Course I did. It’s a family recipe from me mammy.”
“Is it spicy?”
“Make you sweat like a whore in church.” She looked over at her grandson and cackled. He offered a quick smile before going back to snapping a paper sack stuffed full of pole beans.
“See anything you like, Sam?”
She set down a jar of salsa.
“Not really. I was hoping for something a little… meatier.” She glanced over at the tent that had smoke puffing out the top.
Tanner nodded to the old woman.
“I’ll come back and get a jar of the chow chow on my way out.”
“Can’t guarantee it’ll still be here, but y’all come back anyway.”
They turned and headed in the direction of the tent surrounded by billows of white smoke.
As they got closer, Samantha sniffed the air.
“Yum. It smells like chicken.”
Tanner smelled it too but wasn’t quite ready to place any bets on the particular species being grilled. The man doing the cooking was in his mid-fifties, and his two assistants were portly twin sisters probably half his age. All three were soaked in sweat from working around the large brick fire pit.
As Tanner and Samantha approached, one of the women turned and said, “You folks hungry?”
Tanner studied several chunks of blackened meat cooking on a metal grate.
“It sure smells good.”
“It is good. You want a sample?”
He looked down at Samantha, and she nodded, licking her lips.
The woman slipped a paring knife out from her apron and sliced off a strip of the blackened meat. As she turned back around, the man cooking the food slapped her playfully on the butt.
“Hey!” she exclaimed with a broad smile.
The woman’s sister joined in by swatting at his hand.
>
“How come you’re always slapping her butt and not mine?”
“Cause hers is nicer than yours.”
The woman put her hands on her hips.
“They’re the exact same!”
“No, they ain’t.”
“So, you’re sayin’ you like her butt better’n mine?” The woman’s face was starting to turn red.
“I most certainly do.” Before she could protest, he held up a finger. “But there’s other parts of you I like better. It all works out in the end.”
“How do you figure?” Her tone was already softening.
He reached out and put his arms around both women.
“Cause at the end of the day, I get you both.”
Both women made little snorting noises, but it seemed more for show than anything else. It was a dance they had done a hundred times before.
“Don’t mind him none,” the first woman said, holding the knife out with a piece of meat dangling off the end. “He’s the worst man we ever came across.”
Her sister quickly added, “Which is why we married him.”
Both of the young women giggled.
Tanner took the meat and handed it to Samantha. She smelled it and then took a small nibble. It met her approval, and she quickly stuffed the rest into her mouth.
“Good?” he asked.
“A little stringy,” she said, pulling a little piece from between her teeth. “But, yeah, not bad.”
Tanner turned back to the woman and set his backpack on the table.
“I’ve got a few things, if you’re willing to trade.”
“Sure. Let’s see what you got.”
Tanner dug around and pulled out a pouch of freeze-dried lasagna.
“How about this?”
She picked it up and studied the back of the package, as if making her decision based on nutritional value. Her twin stepped up to see what was being offered.
“What’s he got?”
She handed her the package. “Lasagna.”
“I like lasagna. You?”
“Sure. What’s not to like?”
She called over her shoulder. “Bucky.”
The man turned, a large metal fork in his hand.
“What d’ya say?” She held up the package. “Lasagna?”
He shrugged. “Sounds good. I ain’t had lasagna since I used to date that pretty li’l cheerleader.” He stabbed a piece of the meat and held it out to the women.
“You ain’t never dated no cheerleaders,” she said, wrapping the meat in a piece of newspaper before handing it to Tanner.
“Have so. She was about yay high.” He held the fork out at about shoulder level. “And she had the cutest little set of—”
“Bucky,” both women warned in unison.
He chuckled and turned back to tend to the grill.
Tanner passed the meat over to Samantha and stepped away from the stall.
“Don’t you want any?” she asked.
“Nah. I’m saving room for that chow chow.”
She shrugged and took a bite.
“Okay, but this is way better.”
They spent the next thirty minutes wandering through the market, stopping to look at all manner of food, clothing, and tools. Some of the items were homemade, others were taken from abandoned houses, and a few even had tags from where they had been looted from ransacked stores.
At the far end of the flea market were a series of tents from which people offered training in a host of forgotten skills. Classes included farming with horse and plow, candle making, animal husbandry, woodworking, blacksmithing, weaving, and pottery making. The folks giving the classes all looked to be hardworking farmers with an interest in living like pioneers—a skill that was more valuable now than ever before.
Tanner and Samantha stopped and stood with a small crowd, watching as a blacksmith conducted a class on shoeing a draft horse. The animal stood nearly seven feet tall and had a broad, short back and tremendously powerful hindquarters. Its legs were feathered with soft white fur that reached down to the hooves. Despite its fearsome size, the horse seemed docile and patient, the product no doubt of thousands of years of domestication.
The blacksmith was a lanky man with thick forearms and a bushy mustache. A red port-wine birthmark ran from the top of his scalp to behind his left ear. He wore a thick leather apron that hung all the way down to his knees with the name “Gus” sewn onto the front. A cart stacked with hammers, pliers, files, and blades sat to one side, and a steel conical beak anvil had been set up on a thick stump of wood.
“How about we get a volunteer to help me shoe this horse?” he said, surveying the crowd.
No one stepped forward.
“Come on, now. Anyone can do it. I promise it’s not dangerous.”
A barrel-chested man who stood as tall as Andre the Giant shouted from the audience.
“It might help if you wiped that lipstick off your face.”
He turned to the crowd for their approval but found only furrowed brows and admonishing stares. Andre responded with an emphatic middle finger all around.
Doing his best to ignore the big man, Gus said, “Come on, this’ll be fun. Let’s have a volunteer.”
Without saying a word to Tanner, Samantha stepped forward.
“I’ll give it a try.”
The blacksmith quickly sized her up, as if deciding whether or not she was a worthy apprentice.
“I do believe you’ll make a fine farrier.”
“A fine what?”
“A farrier.” Gus cupped a hand around his mouth as if sharing a secret. “It’s just a fancy name for a blacksmith who works with horses.” He turned back to the audience. “What do you say we give this brave young lady a hand?”
The group offered a brief round of applause.
Andre said something, but the clapping drowned him out.
“Better put this on,” Gus said, handing her a thick leather apron.
Samantha slipped the strap over her head and tied it around back. Once she had the apron on, she stepped closer to the horse and gently stroked its neck.
“I imagine he’s the largest animal you’ve ever seen,” Gus said with an understanding smile.
She shook her head. “Not even close. Just a few days ago, I had the chance to pet an African bull elephant.”
The crowd came alive with friendly laughter.
“Sure you did, dear. All right now, let’s see if we can get some shoes on this horse. You ready?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“You’re already doing the first step by letting the horse know that you’re there. You certainly don’t want to surprise a fifteen-hundred-pound animal.”
“Right,” she said, patting it lightly on the rump.
“The next step is to get into position by sliding your hip up against his hock and gaskin.”
Samantha gave him a puzzled look.
Gus gently inched her into position in front of the horse’s hind leg.
“The hock is this large joint,” he said, stroking the animal’s leg, “and the gaskin is the muscle right above it.”
“That’s not where my hock is located,” snickered Andre.
Several people cut their eyes at him, but no one dared to say anything.
Tanner sized the big man up, deciding on the best way to shut him up. A heckler was one thing. A man who made crass comments to a twelve-year-old girl was another. And a man who made them to Samantha was something yet again.
Gus continued on with his instruction.
“Slide one of your legs inside of his so that you can apply a little pressure. That way he won’t feel like he’s going to topple over.”
“Got it,” she said, working herself into position.
“Great. Now that you’ve got your hip under him, lift his foot so that it folds up between your legs.”
She reached down and clumsily lifted the horse’s foot. When the hoof was facing toward her, she squeezed her knees together to hold
it in place.
“Excellent. You’re a natural. Now it’s time to clean the bottom of his hoof.” Gus retrieved a hoof pick and a wire brush from his cart. “Here,” he said, handing her the pick. “Use this to scrape out any dirt or stones.”
She scraped the curved pick around the outer edge of the hoof, dislodging several clumps of dried dirt. When she had most of the debris removed, she swapped the pick out for the brush and gently scrubbed it across the bottom of the hoof.
“Wonderful. Now use the hook knife to slice away some of that dried flaky sole. When you’re done, the sole should be white.”
Samantha used the edge of the blade to carefully slice away the outermost layer of the sole. Underneath was a white leathery substance.
“This is sort of like peeling a potato,” she said.
Gus smiled. “I’ve never thought of it that way, but yes, I suppose it is.”
When she had the hoof fairly well cleaned up, the blacksmith took a quick look and nodded.
“Very nice. Next, you’re going to trim the hoof wall.”
Again, she gave him a confused look.
“Think of it like trimming his toenails.” He handed her a set of hoof nippers that looked like a long set of pliers.
Her eyes grew wide. “They’re awfully big nail clippers.”
The audience laughed.
“You don’t have to take off much,” explained Gus. “Just trim a little from each side as you work your way around toward the toe.”
She opened the nippers and positioned them over a small portion of the hoof wall.
“Like that?”
“A little more. You only want to leave him with about three inches to the hairline.”
She adjusted the nippers and struggled to snip off a small piece of the hoof wall.
“He’s got some thick toenails!” she grunted.
The crowd laughed again, warming to her little quips.
Samantha continued working the nippers around, and when she finished, she gently ran her hands over the hoof.
“It’s not very smooth.”
“That’s why we use this to dress it.” He traded the nippers out with a rasp. “File the bottom until the hoof is flat and level. But be careful of the frog.”
She chuckled. “A horse has a frog?”
Gus leaned down and touched a small triangular wedge centered in the hoof, and several people in the audience leaned in to see.
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