From the looks of it, the wind had destroyed another third.
Scott parked the cruiser and tried his best to console them.
“Look, with the men in the hospital for the next few weeks, you won’t need as much. You should still have plenty to get you through until the next crop comes in. But if you run short, I will make you a solemn promise, with God as my witness, that I will not let you go hungry. Okay?”
The women looked at him. One of them said, “God bless you, sir. But you’ve done so much for us already, with your hard work, and the coat and toys for Billy…”
“Nonsense. The way to survive this ordeal is to all work together. And we’ve still got a lot more to do. Let’s see if we can get the rest of the crop in before the weather turns bad again.”
Scott grabbed the cardboard box he’d been using off and on over the previous few weeks, and started work.
Randy, as usual, turned and went to the car to take a nap and ignore the work that was going on outside.
But then the most curious thing happened.
Scott heard Randy start the engine of the squad car. He wasn’t too surprised, though. It was a chilly day, after all, and Randy liked to be warm when he napped. He didn’t mind wasting gas to run the heater to make himself that way.
What did surprise Scott was when Randy put the car into gear and drove away, without telling Scott or anyone else where he was going and why.
Scott was left without a radio and a vehicle, and only hoped that wherever Randy went, he came back before they got their next call.
Then he wondered if he could legally arrest a paramedic for stealing a police car.
He needn’t have worried. Randy was back within twenty minutes, with two twenty-something men from a couple of blocks over.
The two stepped out of the back of the squad car, picked up empty cardboard boxes, and each took a row of wheat. As Scott had shown them weeks before, they plucked off a handful of stalks, then beat them against the inside of the box until the wheat kernels fell out into the box. Then they discarded the empty husks and repeated the process.
Scott asked no questions, but he appreciated the help the men were offering.
He got a much bigger surprise when he saw Randy pick up his own box and start down his own aisle. Scott was floored, thought for a moment he was hallucinating, but again said nothing.
-33-
After an hour the crew took a break and the women went into the house to boil some water and make them some tea.
Randy walked over to the squad car to retrieve his cigarettes, and one of the men asked Scott if Randy could be trusted to keep his word.
“I believe so. He’s not the nicest guy in the world, but as far as I know he’s never lied to me. What did he promise you?”
“He said if we helped bring in the crop for these women, he’d bring us each an MRE every week for three months.
“That ain’t much work, and to be honest it’s kind of boring over at our place. We’ve already brought in our own crops, and with the weather turning cold there’s not much to do. Shoot, I’d have come over and worked for free just to have something to do if he’d asked. But the MREs are a nice incentive.”
Then it all made sense. Randy Rhodes had a heart after all. It probably wasn’t a very big one, since it obviously rarely got any exercise. But it was there.
The taller of the men reached over to shake Scott’s hand.
“I’m John Kolinec. This is my brother David. The women were telling us they’ve lost their men to the plague.”
“Yes. They’re still alive, and at St. Mary’s in quarantine. Hopefully they’ll survive.”
“I wish we’d known. We’d have come over on our own to help. Now that we’re aware of their situation, I’ll have our wives come over every couple of days to check up on them. We were lucky in that we got a great crop of corn as well as wheat. We’ll share what we have with them if they run short.”
David spoke up for the first time.
“And we’ll make sure they have plenty of drinking water and firewood. If they start to struggle, we’ll bring them over to stay with our group for the winter.”
“That’s nice of you, guys, and thanks.”
“No thanks are needed. Helping each other through this mess will make us all stronger as a community.”
By the time they’d finished that evening, it was dark and Scott and Randy were exhausted.
“I’ll tell you what, Randy. I’m too exhausted to drive you all the way across town to drop you off. We’re only a few blocks from John’s. We’re all off tomorrow, so there’s no need to get up early. How about if you just crash on John’s couch tonight and I’ll take you home in the morning. And if the other guys start giving you a hard time about anything, I’ll kick their butts. It’s the least I can do for you, for what you did today.”
Randy’s first impulse was to object. But then he thought about it. He was exhausted too. He just wanted to lay down somewhere… anywhere, and crash. After all, he wasn’t used to doing hard labor, and the work he’d done that day wore him down.
Plus, he knew Scott. The half hour drive back to Randy’s house could easily turn into an hour and a half. Scott was a hard core Good Samaritan. Randy knew that if they passed anyone along the way that looked like they needed assistance… an old lady struggling to keep from falling… a kid with a broken bicycle… anyone carrying heavy boxes… Scott would stop to help. He’d done it many times in the past and it had always driven Randy crazy.
But perhaps not anymore.
“Sure,” Randy found himself saying. Even he seemed a bit surprised. “Why not?”
Randy was still a bit apprehensive when they walked into John’s house that night and Scott announced that he’d be crashing on the couch.
But Scott took John aside, and then Robbie, and asked each of them to play nice and dispense with the usual pranks and jokes at Randy’s expense.
“This is the closest I’ve ever seen him to being human. I don’t want to spoil it.”
Randy did indeed crash on John’s couch while the others drank tequila and played poker in John’s den.
About three a.m., Randy awoke and wandered in to join them.
“I’m sorry, Randy,” John quickly said. “We were trying to keep the noise down. We didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I had to get up to go to the bathroom, and it sounded like you all were having fun in here.”
“Fun? No. These guys cheat like used car salesmen. They’ve taken almost two bucks in nickels from me and now they’re working on my pennies.”
Robbie spoke up.
“Oh, quit your whining, you big baby. You should have stuck to something you know, like Old Maid.”
John continued, “Why don’t you join us, Randy? With four, we can play spades instead of poker. You and I will partner up, and we’ll kick these punks’ butts.”
Randy hesitated, a bit suspicious. John had never offered an olive branch before. Randy had always been the odd man out, the butt of everyone’s jokes. But then, Randy had to admit to himself, he probably deserved it.
What Randy didn’t know was that while he slept, Scott filled the others in on what Randy had done that day, helping the women directly and giving up his MREs to pay others to help as well. They hadn’t finished bringing in the crop before the darkness made them quit, but the two men Randy had hired to help agreed to come back the next day to finish it up.
Thanks largely to Randy’s help, the two old women and the boy would have enough to eat to get them through the winter. And two neighbors who agreed to watch out for their other needs.
Randy’s good deed would not go unrewarded. Despite Randy’s initial apprehension, John was sincere. He was willing to bury the hatchet and welcome Randy as one of their own.
Randy took the olive branch and sat down to play cards. He and John trounced the others, but it wasn’t because karma stepped in to punish the poker cheats.
Rather, it was b
ecause Randy had the only sober head in the room. The others had been plying themselves with tequila and whisky shots for hours and were feeling no pain. And Randy had been playing internet spades for years before the blackout. He was darned good at it.
The group played six games of spades that night and didn’t stop until the sun started peeking into the eastern windows. As John blew out the candles that had been lighting the table all night, they finished their very last hand and called it quits.
By the time that happened, they’d accomplished much more than a drunken night of playing cards. They’d gotten to know Randy and bonded with him.
And John had gotten Randy to agree that it was stupid to live so far away from the men he worked with, and really the only ones he ever associated with.
Before dawn broke, John convinced Randy to move into the fourth unused bedroom and join the group permanently. Or, at least until Hannah came back and John kicked the others out.
And the three musketeers had become the band of four brothers.
-34-
The morning after the two men had scouted out the compound, Tom had gone out to see how they managed to get in. He’d noticed the mesquite tree that had been dragged out of the way between his property and Scott’s.
He’d muttered to himself, “Now how in heck did they do that?”
Then he went to the other side of the tree and saw how Tony and Kevin had used Tom’s clothesline to tie up bundles of branches and give themselves a way to drag the tree.
Tom had to admit it was pretty genius.
But genius or not, it was an intrusion that would not be tolerated.
He used his pocket knife to cut the clothesline from the tree. Then he went to the back of his ranch house and cut the other three strings of line from the clothesline poles.
If they were going to try this stunt again, he decided, they’d have to bring their own line.
He searched the ranch house and the outbuildings for any other type of rope or wire that the pair might be able to use in place of the clothesline.
Satisfied that there was none, he grabbed the ladder that the intruders had used to peek over the wall and returned to the compound, where he went to the workshop and fashioned a sign.
Tom was a man of few words. His philosophy was old school: why use fifty words when four will do? So he kept his sign simple:
STAY OUT
OR DIE.
He made the sign with black letters on a white background. Even without night vision goggles, the invaders would be able to make it out with a bare minimum of moonlight.
Tom figured anyone smart enough to figure out how to move the thorny mesquite tree should be able to understand his short message.
He didn’t expect it to keep them away, but at least they couldn’t say they weren’t warned.
It would also give him an argument to use against Joyce and Linda next time they begged him not to shoot the men. He’d be able to say with conviction that they didn’t just wander onto the property by accident, or to shoot the breeze. If they were there, they were up to no good. And that they’d been warned of the risks.
He threw the sign into the back of a Gator and then tossed in several wooden stakes, a sledge hammer, and two spools of sturdy rope.
Jordan called on the radio.
“Hey, Tom?”
“Yeah, buddy, go ahead.”
“Mom is relieving me at the security desk. I’m free to give you a hand now if you need it.”
Tom and Jordan had been bonding quite well lately. In Scott’s absence, Jordan had stepped up to pull more than his share of the heavy lifting. It eased the burden on Tom, and Tom appreciated it.
“Your father will be proud of you when he comes back,” Tom had told him a few days before. “His being gone is not a good thing, but some good did come out of it. It’s given you a chance to prove to everybody that you’re a man now.”
“Sure thing, Jordan. I’d love some help. Bring a thermos of coffee out with you. We’re gonna be out there for a couple of hours.”
Five minutes later the pair drove through the compound’s tall gate and out to the fence line where the intrusion had taken place. Tom selected a good spot for the sign, on his property just in front of the tree they’d dragged, and hammered it into place while Jordan kept watch with an AR-15.
Once the sign was in place, they returned to the other side of the fence line and tied rope around the tree’s trunk. Then they used the Gator to drag it back into its original position.
But they weren’t done. Not by a long shot.
“Let’s go back and get the Bobcat. I need you to help me take the tree cutting attachment off and put the bucket on.”
The bucket weighed over three hundred pounds, and would essentially turn the Bobcat into a miniature excavator. It would allow the Bobcat to dig a trench about two feet wide and five feet deep.
It wasn’t quite deep enough to trap a man who might fall into it in the darkness. But that was okay. Tom didn’t necessarily want to capture the invaders.
He mostly wanted to send them a message.
It took them half an hour to manhandle the heavy bucket into place and bolt it onto the Bobcat.
Then Tom gave Jordan his choice.
“Would you rather use the Bobcat or hammer stakes?”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll drive the Bobcat. I’ve never used the bucket attachment, and I’d like to learn.”
“It’s easy. Drive it out to the fence line and I’ll get you started.”
Tom drove the Gator back to the row of dead mesquites laying on their side next to the fence. It took Jordan, in the slower moving Bobcat, a couple of minutes longer to arrive. Once Jordan got there, Tom had already figured out where he wanted the trench to go.
“Okay, start here. I want you to dig a trench about fifty feet long and as deep as the attachment will go. It should be about five feet or so. All you do is reach the attachment out and place the bucket on the ground. Then drag it toward you. The teeth on the bucket’s edge and its weight will work together to scrape up the ground and fill up the bucket. Then you just lift it, swivel to your left, and dump it.”
It seemed like an easy concept.
“Okay. Got it. What are you going to be doing?”
“I’m going to stake some of these trees down. Next time they try to drag one, they’ll find out it ain’t gonna be so easy.”
“When you get tired, holler and we’ll switch off.”
“Okay, sounds good.”
Tom didn’t expect to get tired. He was in his sixties, but still quite capable of a day’s worth of hard labor. And there was nothing really hard about pounding stakes into the ground with a sledge hammer.
Still, he was impressed that Jordan made the offer to trade out at some point. It told him that Jordan wasn’t afraid of hard labor either. And even more, he was watching out for the well being of the others in the group.
He had Tom’s back. Yet another sign that Jordan had become more a man than a boy.
-35-
While Jordan was digging, Tom hammered a long line of wooden stakes into the ground. One stake on each side of each trunk. Then he cut sections of rope, tied one end to one of the stakes, ran the rope through a lower branch of the tree, and then tied the other end tightly to the second stake.
When finished, he stood back and admired his work.
“Now try to drag these trees, you sons of bitches.”
Once finished, Tom went back to the trench line to check on Jordan’s progress.
The trench was looking pretty good. Jordan was a fast learner. He had a tendency to bump the sides of the trench with the bucket occasionally and knock some extra dirt into the bottom, but neatness didn’t count for this operation. As he got more practice and was better at finessing the touchy controls, he’d get much better at digging trenches.
For now, his work as good enough.
Tom looked into the cab to get Jordan’s attention and slashed his hand across his throat
.
Jordan set the bucket on the ground, killed the engine, and climbed out of the cab while Tom opened the thermos and poured them each a cup of coffee.
“How does it look, Tom?”
“It looks darn good. You’re doing it like you’ve been driving that thing for years.”
“Well, I know it’s a little bit sloppy, but I’m getting better as I go.”
“It looks fine. This trench don’t have to be perfect to serve our needs.”
“Are you tired of driving stakes yet? Want to switch off?”
“Nope. The stakes are all done. I used all I had. If I had another five hundred, I’d stake every damn tree, all the way around the property. But we don’t have that many. This is the place where they came in last time. It’s likely the place where they’ll return. So this was the logical place to use the stakes we had.”
“Do you think it’ll keep them out?”
“Nope. They’ve seen what we have in the compound, and you can bet they’re chomping at the bits to get it for themselves. They’ll come back, and the stakes won’t stop ‘em, just like the sign won’t. But hopefully it’ll slow them down and give us just a little bit more advantage.
“I need to run back to the workshop for a little while. I don’t expect any trouble while I’m gone, because these men are cowards. They’re the type who’ll attack only at night when they think they have the advantage. But keep an eye out anyway. If you see or hear anything that don’t look or feel right, you get on that radio and I’ll come running. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re a good man, Jordan. And you’re getting better every day. I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
“Okay. If we’re gonna be out here awhile, bring some lunch back, will you?”
“You got it, buddy.”
Back inside the fence, Tom headed to the workshop and Linda came out to check on their progress.
“You can be proud of that son of yours,” Tom told her. “He’s left his boyhood behind him. He’s a man now, and a darn good one at that.”
Rise From The Ashes: The Rebirth of San Antonio (Countdown to Armageddon Book 3) Page 13