by Nova
The pastor waited for quiet, then he said, “You have proven that to your country before. While never having served in the military myself, I respect your courage and devotion to duty, especially as you are one of the few to have been awarded the Medal of Honor. Now, if you’ll just leave the room while we make our decision.”
We went out and stood in the hall. I leaned against the wall by the door. “How long do you think it is going to take them to make a decision, Max?”
“Oh, I expect they already have.”
He was right. The door opened about thirty seconds later. We had the job.
We left the town hall as a group, including our audience. Old Guy was walking and talking a mile a minute with a couple of the old guys he had been sitting with.
Everyone had hung around to watch Miss Edna Jacobson swear us in. To my surprise, she was the local judge. I was going to have to ask Old Guy about her. There was more to her, and her role here in town, than I had first thought. She was walking side by side with Shelli, and they were chattering away.
We all headed to the diner to celebrate with a free meal provided by Shelli to mark the occasion. Max and I walked together. He had hung back a bit as we left so I had waited with him. As a result there was a decent bit of space between the others and us. I wasn’t all that savvy about the political stuff that had just happened. But I knew enough to know that we had waltzed into a done deal, and that Max had made it happen somehow.
I didn’t really care about the details. I was curious about the power structure, though, and what we would really do versus what was said for public consumption.
“So, Max, what’s the deal with Miss Edna and the tax thing?”
“Miss Edna thinks the lights have gone out for the town, but it is only a matter of time before ‘the authorities’ get them all turned back on. She wants to raise enough money enforcing, and maybe bending, a few of the old rules until that happens.”
“She doesn’t get it, does she?”
“No, and I would have been really surprised if she did. She will. She’s a sharp old gal.”
“And when she says taxes, how do you translate it?”
He looked at me, grinned, and said, “Tribute.” That I understood.
“So when do I meet our two new deputies?”
“They’re at the diner. Got to make sure our people get fed.”
“Yeah. Don’t forget the dessert.”
We both laughed. Then we picked up the pace so we could walk in with everyone else.
The new deputies were waiting for us. I recognized them right away. They were the two that had rescued the girl at the library when I was here before. They recognized me, too.
Max was in a good mood. “Gardener, this is Diesel and Hawk.”
We shook hands, and each said, “Hey. Pleased to meet you.” Then we scanned each other from head to toe.
Diesel was the brother of the girl in the library. He was white, six foot two, one hundred eighty pounds, with brown hair that was streaked by the sun. He was wearing it longer than the last time I had seen him. There was a skull tattoo on his left forearm with writing that looked Arabic underneath it. He had a black semiautomatic holstered in a faded camo rig and an old Palin T-shirt that had achieved the washed-out look a few years ago.
Hawk was his cousin. They looked a lot alike. The difference seemed to be that Hawk liked lifting weights a lot more. He had his hair cropped short and was wearing faded desert camo pants and a T-shirt advertising Pabst Blue Ribbon. Hawk had the same kind of gun rig as his cousin. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he had a metal stud in his eyebrow. Both guys were wearing faded and scuffed brown boots.
I thought to myself, Shoot Diesel, move right a step, and then shoot Hawk. Then repeat, because these two were not going to die easy. I began running through it in my head, picturing different scenarios—a habit of mine when I met people like this.
I guess I had kept eye contact for a bit too long. I tuned back into an uneasy silence broken by Max’s overly loud, “Alright! Let’s get some food.” I let them walk in ahead of me.
Shelli unlocked the door and let us all in. Then she hung out a sign that read Closed—Private Party and started cooking.
I ended up sitting with the new deputies. I wasn’t sure how that happened. I know Max had a lot to do with it and I just went with the flow. Also, it was a four-person booth, and no one else joined us. It felt like I had been set up for a blind date. I am not the most sociable person in the world. I have gotten better at it over the past few years, but it’s not anything I search out or look forward to.
We had two menu choices. That’s how it usually was at the diner. Today, Shelli had hamburgers and stew. The hamburgers resembled what I remembered of real burgers in name only. A Shelli-burger consisted of fried venison with onions between two slabs of homemade bread. No tomatoes or ketchup because of the blight. No lettuce because it was the wrong time of year. No cheese because there had not been any available for the past couple of weeks.
I ordered mine with fried jalapeños, even though I knew I would be dancing on the outhouse seat tomorrow. For a beverage we had our choice of several kinds of flavored water that never seemed to have enough sugar.
I tried to make small talk while waiting for my food. “So, you guys were in the army?”
“Yep.”
“Where?”
“The ’Stan, and a short stint in Africa.” So far only Diesel was answering my questions. Hawk just sat there, looking bored.
I thought, Screw it, and waited for my food. I ate it and liked it.
Shelli had someone helping her serve. She was plain looking but had a nice body. It was clear she knew and liked the guys I was sitting with; she took the time to greet them with smiles. They exchanged banter about people and events I knew nothing about. And Hawk thought he was bored?
The noise level built to a point that made quiet conversation a little difficult. Apparently one of the old guys was spiking drinks with a flask he had. I was sure I heard the word moonshine, followed by laughter. Shit, I thought, the meth of the postcollapse world. I had really hated tweakers. Shit-faced drunks were a lot easier to deal with.
This was when Diesel decided he wanted to talk. “You remember the library?”
“Yeah?”
“Me and Hawk had to clean up the mess afterward that you created.”
“How’s that?”
“Them boys you killed had family—a lot of family around here, family that went looking for us when they came up missing.”
“Yeah. So what’s your point?”
Hawk had quit looking bored.
“My point is I appreciate what you did. I just wanted you to know that it created a mess. One we had to clean up.”
Hawk was nodding his head.
“Well, I want to thank you for sharing that. You need to know something important, though.” I leaned forward like I was about to whisper a great secret. He bent his head forward to hear it. “I don’t really give a shit.”
Then I laughed in his face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Me and the deputies didn’t talk after that. I thought about getting up but I wanted to eat my apple pie. Instead, they got up and left the table. We were all supposed to meet at our new office—I called it “the Headquarters,” to Max’s minor irritation. Max caught my eye as the cousins left. I just shrugged and ate their apple pie, too, when the girl brought it. He came over just as I was finishing the last of the pie. Shelli did know how to bake an apple pie.
“You ready?”
“Yep.”
We headed out, with Max yelling goodbyes and comments to people even as the door shut behind us. His demeanor changed as soon as we got outside.
“What the hell was all that about?”
I shrugged. “They wanted me to know that I owed them.”
“How so?”
“You remember when I was here last? The deal at the library?”
“I heard about it. Now I w
ant to hear your version.”
“Some punks decided to give this girl at the library a hard time. She is Diesel’s sister, by the way. I backed them off while she texted her brother for help. He and his cousin arrived, saved her, and drove off into the sunset. I left. The bad guys followed me into the woods. I shot them.”
“So what was his problem?”
“It seems the bad guys had friends and family who blamed it on them. I guess stuff happened as a result. Or as they put it, ‘We had to clean up after you,’ which seems to have bothered them.”
“I’m surprised. I have never known you to leave anyone alive to be cleaned up. Buried, yes.” He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll straighten it out.”
Max had laughed, but I could tell he really didn’t think it was funny. Max and I had been together for a while now. I could read him pretty well, maybe better than I could read Night.
Just before we entered our office, I undid the leather thong that held the Ruger in place. I didn’t even realize I did it at the time.
Max did not open the door so much as he made an abrupt entry. The two deputies were in what was left of the outer office. Diesel was sitting in a chair, tipped back against the wall. His cousin was on the couch, holding a magazine that had been left behind and laughing as he read aloud to Diesel.
When Max burst through the door they both leaped to their feet. Max kept going. He didn’t lose a step or slacken his stride. When I saw that he wasn’t going to stop at conversation distance, I quickly sidestepped and turned so that I could watch Diesel out of the corner of my eye while focusing on his cousin.
Max stopped maybe an inch from Diesel. Then he said, very slowly, “When you accepted my offer, you enlisted in my own personal Marine Corps. This is not going to be your air-conditioned, goat-fucking, Starbucks coffee–drinking army of one that you are accustomed to. You will not make decisions until I think you are ready to. You will do what I tell you, when I tell you. You bring nothing to me that I cannot replace. You will leave any attitudes, thoughts, or beliefs that are contrary to that behind you. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No, sir!”
“What about your sheep-fucking cousin? I want to hear him.”
“No, sir!”
“Good. This is going to be your only chance. You want to step outside with me? Maybe both of you?”
“No, sir!”
“I didn’t hear you, sheep-fucker.”
“No, sir!”
Interesting. I saw a bead of sweat form and slowly drip down from Diesel’s hairline. I looked at Hawk and grinned. He stayed stone-faced. I don’t think he liked me.
“Good. Because if you ever decide to question my or Gardener’s authority, you will be shot on the spot.”
Max held eye contact for a couple beats more and then stepped back. He kept stepping back until he was almost at the door. He stopped and said, “Gardener.”
I may suck at social situations but I lived for this. I grinned at them and said, “Care to try your luck, gentlemen?”
They did. If it had been just Diesel, nothing would have happened. Hawk didn’t know any better, or he was pissed enough to think he could beat me. They went for their sidearms.
They simply did not understand. I lived for this. While I worked on the farm, digging holes or whatever, I practiced in my head. I would take a break every hour or so and practice for ten or fifteen minutes. Every other hour I changed my reps. I practiced my draw standing, sitting, sideways, basically every position I could think of.
After dinner I would sit on the porch and listen to the conversations until there was about thirty minutes of daylight left. Then I would go down to the berm and shoot fifty rounds. I practiced with the Ruger and the Navy revolver. The kids came with me. They would sit about ten yards behind me in a row: Woof, the boy, and the girl. They would clap when they felt like it, and Woof would bark.
I shot at playing cards, the thin edge turned to me. My goal was to split the cards six out of six times at ten feet. I had six broomstick-size pieces of wood with laundry clips attached to them. Each one held a card. With the Ruger I could slice four out of six on average. With the Navy revolver I had hit six out of six twice now.
One evening Night got pissed at me: “You are freaking obsessed with those guns! What the hell is the matter with you? Why can’t you ever give it a rest?”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought she knew. “Because . . .”
“Because is not a fucking answer!” she screamed.
I shrugged and told her, “Because I want to live so I can come home to you every night.”
She stopped and gave me the strangest look, then rushed into my arms and cried and cried. I will never understand women.
So they went for it. I had my gun out, cocked, and pointed at Hawk about the time he reached the butt of his weapon.
“Bang!” I said. Then I pointed it at Diesel. “Bang,” and grinned at him.
They froze and slowly moved their hands away.
“Care to try for two out of three, gentlemen?”
Both of them shook their heads.
Max laughed. “Okay. Are we done sniffing each other and growling? I hope so. We have work to do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We spent some time talking about patrol schedules, and Max gave us his Five Commandments:
You will not steal or extort money from the citizens of the town, or from strangers passing through, for your personal use.
You will be polite.
You will not verbally or physically abuse anyone in public.
You will not take shit from anyone in public while in uniform. This includes your mom, wife, and pastor.
In any situation involving a local and a stranger, you will take the local’s side over the stranger’s.
He added, “For God’s sake, try to use some common fucking sense.”
Then he handed each one of us a small spiral-bound notebook and a pencil. “Use them. I will be looking at them. I want each man who goes off watch to update the incoming watch on what happened, how it was handled, and anything else of interest. I don’t want to be surprised, and I don’t want any of you surprised. I want to know about strangers as soon as you know, especially if there is more than one of them.”
He paired me with Diesel for the next three days. He told him, “I want you to show Gardener as much of the town as possible in those three days. I want you to knock on every door and introduce yourselves. Talk to the people. Find out if anyone is really hurting. Do they have any special needs? How do they look? I want to know every crazy and near-crazy in town. I want to know who is really hungry.”
Diesel asked what I was thinking: “Why?”
From the look Max gave him, I was glad I hadn’t asked.
“Because if they are starving, we want to get some food to them,” Max said. “Same thing if they need medical attention. From now on these are our people. I expect them to be treated as such.”
He went on. “I also want to know the address of every house you think is vacant. We’re going to have to go back later and check each one of them.” He didn’t wait for us to ask why. Instead he kept going. “Think about it. We don’t need fire hazards. Plus, we might find some useful stuff that’s been left behind.
“Hawk, you have the night shift for the next three days. Here’s what I want you to do—” He paused and looked at Diesel and me. “Okay, you two, hit the streets. Gardener, I want you to come and talk to me before you go home.”
I nodded. Since he was my ride back to the farm I thought that was already the plan. Instead I replied, “No problem, Chief.” I turned around and hit the door before anyone could see my grin.
Diesel and I started walking side by side. It was hot out. The sun hitting the concrete sidewalk bounced back hard. We didn’t have official shirts yet, but we had badges. I pinned mine to my belt loop for that Fed look. Diesel followed suit.
I decided to reach for new levels of maturity. I was on
a roll. Hell, I hadn’t shot them. “You know the town,” I said. “Where do you want to start?”
“I don’t know. I’m thinking we do the better neighborhoods first.”
“They have more shade?”
He grinned. “Yeah. Plus, who knows? Maybe we’ll get invited in for cookies and iced tea. That sure isn’t going to happen in Trailer Town.”
“Look, Diesel, I’m sorry if you caught the blowback from what happened that day.” I bit off what I really wanted to say, which was Hey, asshole, they wanted to kill me. Get over it.
He waved it off, literally. “Like the man said, it’s history. We need to cross the street here. There is a path behind the old auto parts store that puts you out on the street.”
He started telling me about what used to be in the empty buildings we walked past. “I never understood why anyone wanted to start a gallery or a coffee shop here. But I tell you, it sure brought in a better class of women. Even better was, when it went sour, you didn’t have to worry about their cousins, brothers, and uncles.”
“Yeah. I got a feeling that not only am I going to need a mental map of the town, I’m going to need one for all the relationships and family trees.”
He laughed, genuinely, “Just assume we are all related somehow, and you’ll know all you need to know.”
The first house looked vacant. Dead lawn. Dead vibe. I wrote it down. I thought about asking Diesel to do it, but I knew who was going to be getting the information, so I did it. My guess was Night would be updating her maps over the next few days. We rattled the doorknob. It was locked, and I peered in through the window. Empty.
“You know who lived here?”
“Naw. Most of the people I know live near or in Trailer Town. People my age, when we were getting out of school, they usually got out of town. We couldn’t afford a house here and we couldn’t afford one wherever we ended up.”