Been There, Done That (April Book 10)

by Mackey Chandler

  “Sir, rather than wait for a lengthy and perhaps inconclusive analysis by the medical section, I volunteer to be treated with it. Either way we should know if it is effective or deadly pretty fast.”

  Schober looked up with a display of genuine emotion that seemed foreign to his face. “Damn, you are a brave one, Liggett. Far braver and selfless than we should ever expect. I thank you. We thank you. Go on down to the clinic and let them keep you there to monitor closely after you are treated. It is appreciated and we’ll see you are rewarded.

  “Or honored posthumously,” Liggett thought, but didn’t say it.

  * * *

  The next morning Vic packed their camp up and walked around obscuring any traces he could see to mark their use of the site. They followed a slightly different path out of the trees to the Woodleigh’s camp, where breakfast was already being cooked. Vic spoke quietly to the side with Arnold who was smiling and shaking his head no. But he didn’t hand back whatever Vic pressed in his hand. He gave a nod of thanks and Vic finally looked happy and made a little gesture for Eileen to join him by the fire where everyone was eating. She was pretty sure whatever changed hands was the price of their breakfast.

  She could see even from the Woodleigh’s camp that some of the sellers from yesterday were gone, but there was also a few who came in late to replace them. In particular there was a big farm wagon with pneumatic tires, but the tow bar modified into a tongue to make it a horse drawn wagon. They had to have come in after dark, which was scary. Likely they came from relatively far away and had mistaken how long it would take to make it to the fair.

  Perhaps not as scary for them as it would be for others, Eileen realized after looking closer. There was a man sitting in a lawnchair on the wagon with a rifle across the arms and a big curved magazine protruding from the bottom. Another man sat at ground level covering his back. A man was selling something directly off the back of the wagon, but at this distance Eileen couldn’t make out what. She knew Vic had compact binoculars, but didn’t want to make a conspicuous display of wealth by using them.

  Somebody moved behind the seller, and Eileen saw it was a woman, so the seller had somebody covering his back too. What in the world could they be selling to require so much security? She saw it being handed off but it was just a brown blob this far away.

  “After breakfast can we go see what they are selling off the wagon?” Eileen asked Vic. “They seem pretty concerned with security, so it must be high value.”

  “I was over there already,” Arnold’s girl Pearl spoke up. “They have salt. They’re from over in Tehama County, and have a salt lick on their land. They aren’t as organized over there as we’ve managed, and don’t have a decent fair yet, so they came here to trade.”

  “Do you know what they want in trade?” Eileen asked.

  “I asked and they didn’t seem to want to say. They just asked, ‘What ya got?’ back at me,” Pearl said. “I find that kind of irritating.”

  “Would you like to earn four rounds of .22 ammunition, payable when we return home, and you can’t talk about where you got them?” Vic asked.

  “Sure! I mean, maybe. What do I have to do?” Pearl asked.

  “It’s much better to curb your enthusiasm and get the terms before you agree,” Victor counseled her. Her dad behind her smiled at that. “I’d like you to walk around and ask people if they bought salt and what they traded for it.”

  “They may be as tight lipped as the salt people,” Pearl worried.

  “I’m paying for the effort, not a guaranteed result,” Vic clarified. “If you work through to the other side of the clearing and ask ten or fifteen people I’ll be satisfied. I’m sure it’s dear enough in price you can safely skip any family that looks really poor. That should cut down on your time and effort. I’d expect you back in well under an hour.”

  Pearl glanced over her shoulder at her dad, who was poker faced. Since he wasn’t scowling or shaking his head no, she said, “It’s a deal,” and left to do it.

  “Have a couple more hotcakes,” Arnold invited. “I cooked up all the batter and they won’t travel very well. Do you have any particular time you want to head back?” He looked at the sun nervously, because it was above the trees already.

  “Why not wait and leave very early tomorrow?” Vic suggested. “We may get some bargains as people price stuff lower rather than have to cart it back home. It may even be safer.”

  “How so,” Arnold asked.

  “If any bandits are planning an ambush they will be waiting for everybody to leave today. Criminals are rarely patient. They aren’t going to want to sit for hours tomorrow waiting for some straggler to happen along.”

  “OK, but we didn’t bring food for another day. I have lunch for on the way back, but it’s a long walk on an empty stomach,” Arnold complained.

  “I’ll go buy something for at least supper and a hearty breakfast,” Vic offered.

  “Then I have no objection,” Arnold allowed.

  Pearl came and stood until they finished talking.

  “Several people paid for their salt with hardware and fencing materials. One guy out our way agreed to let them come and strip all his barbed wire off his fencing because he doesn’t plan to keep cattle any more. They took copper pipe fittings and a bunch of mosquito netting. Looks to me like they want mostly metal,” Pearl said, “except they bought two chickens from the guy grilling them. And he is cooking his last four if you want to buy any of them,” she said hopefully.

  “I’ll see what he wants, before I talk to the salt people,” Vic promised.

  Four chickens were had for two silver dimes. Vic considered that a lot of people who were smart enough or lucky enough to survive The Day still lived mentally in a world of take it or leave it sticker prices and box store abundance, and hadn’t relearned haggling and negotiation yet. The chicken seller was turning his last chickens over a very low fire and declaring he wanted to start for home as soon as he sold them. He had no idea how desperate that made him sound and how any trader would then know to push to close a deal to put him on the road home like he wanted.

  Another late seller had meal for sale and didn’t look happy. He had a big canister and it was still half full. “It’s Red Maid,” he explained to Vic. “You can use it like corn meal, but it has more oil than corn and is very filling. This is from last year’s seed but ground fresh just a couple days ago. It goes rancid if you try to store it long term after you grind it. We make a mush and fry it or do tortillas. People seem scared to try something new,” He said exasperated. “The Indians ate it, and it kept us alive over the winter.” A few nails bought at least a half kilo of it.

  “If you have the seed instead of the meal, I’ll buy about half the volume as what you have here in the fall,” Vic promised. “Do you have something in particular you want to get for them?”

  “Anything sweet, for a live pig I’d give you twice that amount. Accurate weights or the chance to sort out river rocks to copy your set of weights. Copper tubing, any metal containers like beer kegs or a small lined drum. Plastic bins and glass bottles. They don’t have to have a cap.”

  “So a year from now you’ll have moonshine?” Vic asked.

  “If everything comes together,” the fellow nodded.

  Moving on to the salt people Vic suddenly stopped and looked at a bunch of tools laid out on a tarp. Eileen couldn’t figure why he’d want it, but he got a hard tapered pin about a hundred and fifty millimeters long and about the diameter of a turkey baster on the big end. It looked like something an iron worker might use.

  The salt people refused the most part of Vic’s large nails for two kilo of salt. He didn’t counter offer, just walked away. It wasn’t until later a young man wandered through the thinning crowds and spied Vic with a sack in his hands.

  “You the fellow who offered us forty nails for two kilo?” he asked.

  “Yep, but that was this morning. It’s thirty nails now,” Vic said. “Wait until the sun goes
down and it’ll be twenty.”

  The fellow looked angry, but he controlled himself. “I wasn’t given authority to bargain.” He didn’t bother to introduce himself either.

  “Then they should have come themselves,” Vic said, but careful to keep his voice soft and his face neutral. He wasn’t looking to pick a fight.

  “You’re right,” the guy said, with a look which told Vic it wasn’t all happiness and light among the salt cartel. “I’ll take it, and if he doesn’t like it he can march around and run people down.”

  After he walked away, Eileen spoke up. “If there was any way to get a really large quantity of salt I could make good use of it. Come the fall people are going to want salt to pickle stuff and salt meat for over the winter. These guys will know that and charge an arm and a leg.”

  “I could try to arrange a pre-sale,” Vic proposed. “They might not be thinking that far ahead or aware yet how much the fall will pump demand. Do you know how to pickle and cure meat? I only have a vague idea it can be done, but I’d hate to lose a bunch of food experimenting.”

  “I’m sure I can salt meat. Pickling stuff may depend on if we can get good jars. I may even be able to make fermented sausage and age it if you can shoot a deer or something and be willing to take a chance on it working.”

  “Oh, there’s a ton of canning jars out in the old spring house,” Vic said. “I never thought to mention it to you. That’s older than the house. It’s from the first house that burned down clear back around 1920. That’s the mound all grown up with brush about a hundred meters west of the present house.”

  Eileen didn’t say anything, but Vic could tell she was exasperated with him.

  “Pearl, would you please run and tell Mr. Mast I’d like him to come by and talk to me? Make sure to do it privately and you can tell him I have reason not to want to be seen going to him.”

  “Is this a paid errand again?” Pearl asked.

  Her dad looked up, irritated. “It’s paid by your supper,” he snapped. “When is the last time you had chicken?”

  “Sorry,” Pearl said, and took off like a shot before her dad worked himself up to thinking of a punishment.

  Chapter 21

  “Well you certainly look better,” Schober said.

  “Much more than just look better,” Liggett assured him. “I had sausage and eggs with biscuits for breakfast a couple hours ago and feel marvelous.”

  Schober closed his eyes and cupped his hand over his clutched mouth trying not to think of the smell of greasy sausage, which was like trying not to think of yellow on command. That of course was all that filled his mind.

  “I’m sorry,” Liggett said, the memory of how he’d felt the same two days ago as difficult to remember as a toothache. “Anyway it is remarkable after just two days of treatment. Ed Kearney who looked like he was at death’s door is sitting up and taking some soup and declaring he might want to live, conditionally. Dr. Manson joked that if my ears don’t fall off by the end of a week he’ll authorize it for everybody.”

  “A week be damned,” Schober said. “I bet he’s taking it already. I’m going down to his sterile little clinic and if he doesn’t treat me on the spot I’ll have them dump him a two hour march in the desert with an hour and three quarters of air.”

  * * *

  Pearl returned pretty quickly and sat by the fire again. All Vic got was a short nod and a satisfied look to know John Mast was coming.

  They were sipping a homemade tea the Woodleigh’s made. He had no idea what was in it, but it tasted better than hot water.

  Mr. Mast when he came looked like he was going to walk past, then changed direction and came over by the fire.

  “You got any more of that? It’s getting cool. I could use a good mug of fine Columbian coffee,” Mast allowed.

  “If this bunch smelled real coffee you’d have a riot on your hands,” Vic said.

  “Ain’t that the truth. You want to talk here or walk off a ways?”

  “Here so nobody thinks we’re skulking off to conspire,” Vic said. “Everybody here is tight with me and I don’t care what they hear.

  “Fine, conspire away,” Mast invited.

  “I’d like to buy futures on that family’s salt production. Eileen here has all kinds of uses for it, but I’m scared to tell the world we can afford to buy it. You can make a bit being a broker and maybe a warehouse man to enable the transaction. I’d like to offer two hundred rounds of mixed brand .22 ammo in exchange for two hundred kilograms of salt for fall festival delivery. Are you interested?”

  “What’s my cut if we do a deal?” Mast asked.

  “Five percent of either side, ten kilos of salt or ten rounds of long rifle,” Vic offered. “Or mix ‘em, five kilo and five rounds.” Vic couldn’t see, but Eileen saw Pearl trying to keep a blank face, but she was reappraising how much her four cartridges were worth after hearing this negotiation.

  “That’s a lot of salt,” Mast said.

  “Their salt spring will be bubbling away for years. It was probably here before the Indians. When do you think we’re going to get new shipments of rifle ammo into the contested autonomous territories? Especially now that Texas is telling North America to keep their hands off us?”

  “Probably never, we’ll have to manufacture our own,” Mast admitted. “Any leeway built into those numbers or delivery?”

  “They can split it, half in the fall, and half next spring. I’ll deliver the rounds to you for safekeeping at the start of the fall festival if they agree,” Vic said.

  “I don’t want to come back here. I’m going to go talk to a couple other people packing up to leave and then the salt sellers. They’re the Burks incidentally. They aren’t the friendliest but they had to tell me who they were if they wanted to stay. You send Pearl back around in about a half hour and I’ll walk along with her and tell her if it is a deal or no.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Vic said.

  “That’s some nasty stuff,” Mast said, sitting the cup down by the fire. Vic hadn’t even seen him take a sip.

  “Go check with Mr. Mast,” her dad told her about forty minutes later. She didn’t make any remarks about being paid this time.

  They had the chicken over the fire heating it up gently when she returned.

  “He says you’ve got a deal and they want to split the delivery,” Pearl said.

  * * *

  “You look terrified,” April said. “I assure you, we’re not going to put you against the wall and shoot you after going to the trouble to rescue you. Would it make it easier if it wasn’t all three of us? We’re equal partners and all interested to hear your story. If it’s too much still after all you’ve been through you can have a few more days to recover.”

  Adam was leaning on the table between them like he needed the support, although the medics had cleared him to be interviewed.

  “It won’t be any easier then than now,” Adam said. “I really was ready to flip my faceplate open and die back on the tarmac on Mars. But now that I’m not in the Martians’ hands I find I want to live again.”

  “Fine, it never occurred to me to put you under a suicide watch,” April said. “I’m glad you came to that decision. I assumed it was a threat only made due to the extremis in which you found yourself on Mars, and once we removed you, I just as easily assumed it was past. I admit I have no psych background, although I’m starting to think I should study it just to try to understand my own screwed up thinking. Do you need counseling? I’m not sure if any of our medical people have the training, but I’m sure we could send you to Home and find someone qualified to help you.”

  “You’d risk sending me to Home?” Adam asked surprised.

  “I know the Earthies paint us as monsters,” April said, a little irritated, “but both Central and Home are very safe with low crime and the idea we have duelists lined up every morning waiting their turn to use the public corridor are grossly exaggerated. You’d be safer there than most mid-sized Earthie cities.
Even if you don’t know the local customs people are surprisingly patient and willing to overlook Earth Think among recent arrivals.”

  “We are talking past each other,” Adam decided. “It sounds like we are talking about the same thing but we’re not. It’s like we are on two different frequencies.” He held up his index fingers and waggled one fast and one slow to illustrate the point. April stared fascinated. It just looked unnatural and she had to try it herself. She couldn’t do it. She looked at him baffled, but refused to ask how one did that. It must be like wiggling your ears or rolling your tongue in a tube, an innate skill, not learned.

  “What I’m trying to say… ” Adam struggled to be blunt enough, which was against his nature, “is I never expected to be set free after you let me see what your ship can do, and talked about star travel.”

  “You know, we were really worried about that at first,” Heather admitted. “Now, we sort of figure they wouldn’t believe us if we called a big press conference and formally announced it.”

  Adam looked at them all like they were insane.

  “They don’t believe James Weir jumped out,” Jeff told him, as if that made the point obvious.

  “Well, I read the news too,” Adam said. “There seems considerable doubt about it, according to all the news reports.”

  They all cracked up, since he had just reinforced their point.

  “I take it you don’t agree?” Adam asked, a little offended at the laughter.

  “I met the man,” Jeff said. “He had a firm grasp of the science. He absolutely did take a ship out and disappear. We understand the local traffic procedures and radar coverage. It couldn’t be faked. Besides, we had our own spy drone in position to see his transition and observed the characteristic radiation burst when he exited the Solar System.”