It was a shallow grave, sure. It wouldn’t have met community standards. But then again, if the world hadn’t gone to hell in a handbasket, she wouldn’t have had to bury the old man to begin with. It was deep enough to keep the buzzards from picking the meat off his bones. There probably weren’t any dogs left to dig him up. Red hadn’t seen a dog in months. Most of them had been killed for food long before. Or had succumbed to the same plague that had ravaged the human population. She missed them. And cats, too. They were two of the things that humans took for granted until they were gone. Then everyone realized just how important they were. They helped the world seem normal.
Red crawled out of the grave and shoved the shovel back into the mound of fresh dirt where she’d found it.
Then she looked at young Jacob, who was getting himself up from his shady spot beneath the tree.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Just out of shape, I guess. Why don’t you sit down for a spell and I’ll get the horses?”
He seemed to have gotten his second wind, but she couldn’t shake the feeling he was still deeply troubled about something.
But she didn’t argue. The heat was building and she was a might thirsty herself. Enough, anyway, to make her feel a little bit light-headed.
The shade felt good as she crouched beneath the branches. She took a blue scarf from around her neck and used it to wipe several beads of sweat from her brow.
She wished she’d thought to bring a couple of bottles of water with her.
But the sight of Luna bleeding all over the bed, knowing he’d likely be dead within the hour, sickened her just a bit.
It wasn’t really her conscience that was bothering her. Surely he deserved to die, and she doubted God would blame her for hastening him on his way to hell. It was just that too many people had died, both good and bad. And she was tired of it. All the dying. All the killing. All the suffering.
She was just tired of everything.
Jacob came back with the horses and she helped him get the old man’s corpse off the horse and into the grave.
To his credit, he grabbed the shovel to relieve her, covering the man’s lower body first. Although they both knew he was beyond caring, it somehow seemed uncivilized to cover his face first. It was as though it were important to let the sun’s rays warm him one last time before he went forever into that cold dark night.
Jacob finished, heaping the remaining dirt onto a mound that loomed full eighteen inches over the flatness of the ground around the grave.
Then he tossed the shovel aside with a lot more power than was needed. As though he were getting rid of some anger, or maybe frustration.
“I’ll say a few words,” Red offered as he stood at the head of the mound, looking down upon it.
But he refused.
“No. I knew him better than you. I’ll do it.”
“Dear God almighty,” he started as he lifted his chin toward the heavens, “We give to you the body of Walt Marlow.
“Walt was a simple man who wanted little for himself. The opportunity to protect those he loved. To live a life free from violence. To live a life that would have been pleasing in your eyes.
“Walt never asked for anything, other than the opportunity to help those around him. It mattered little whether they were friends or family or perfect strangers. He went out of his way to help them all.
“Walt would never ask for your favor, oh Lord. He wasn’t that way. But if anyone deserves to walk the streets of heaven, it’s Walt Marlow.
“So I ask on his behalf, oh Lord, without his knowledge or consent. Please take him under your wings, and bless him, and grant him eternal life.
“As your humble servant, I ask in your holy name, Amen.”
Red raised her head and looked at him, stunned. Moments before she thought him a gainly and sickly boy, a bit on the slow side, barely capable of putting together a coherent sentence.
Yet when he raised his voice in prayer, he somehow gained an eloquence that seemed not to fit him.
He looked at her, then looked away, as though suddenly embarrassed by her scrutiny.
She wanted to ask him… so many questions. But she let it pass for another time.
Instead she asked him something else. Something more innocuous.
“Jacob, when’s the last time you had a really good meal?”
He paused and looked upward, as though trying to remember.
She said, “Never mind. I know of a place where we can get one. Let’s go.”
Chapter 14
At the steakhouse, Red noticed the head of a new steer staked outside. This one almost had a look of… fear… in its lifeless eyes. As though it saw its own impending death. She felt a bit of pity for the beast.
But that wouldn’t prevent her from going inside and partaking of its flesh.
First, though, she needed to attend to business.
“Jacob, you wait out here for just a minute. I want to see if they have someone who can secure the horses for us.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Just inside the door Red encountered the same fat man as before, puffing away on a cigar and seeming not to notice it was stale.
He recognized her immediately, and Red was reminded once again just how scarce a pretty redhead was in this macabre new world.
“Hello, Missy. Back for more?”
“Maybe. Is there someone who can guard two horses for me? Someone I can trust not to ride away with them?”
“Sure. Take them around back. I’ll go to the kitchen and have the cooks open up the back gate for you.”
“Thank you.”
She returned to the front of the restaurant and took her horse’s lead, then walked with him around the side of the building. Jacob followed suit without a word.
On the backside of the restaurant was a courtyard, surrounded by a sturdy eight foot privacy fence.
As they approached the locked gate Red could hear someone on the other side, unraveling a chain which apparently secured the gate from the inside.
The heavy cedar entryway swung open and Red saw another familiar face.
“Hello Jeff.”
“Well hello, Red. This is a nice surprise. When Sal told me to bring in a couple of horses I expected some ugly old ranch hands.”
“Well, I’m afraid you have to settle for me instead. This is my friend Jacob. Jacob, this is Jeff. He’s about to cook you a steak that’ll make your mouth and eyes water in equal amounts.”
She looked at Jeff and asked, “You must spend a lot of time here.”
“Well hell, little lady. Where else would I be? The world has gone to shit, everybody I’ve ever loved is dead or missing, and I eat good here. Not to mention I meet the most fascinating people here. And the prettiest too.”
It was a veiled attempt at flirting, yet not well veiled at all. But Red didn’t mind. She knew she looked a mess, but then again so did Jeff.
Long gone were the days when people dressed to impress, or to woo the hearts of others. These days most people seldom even bathed. Clothing had become functional rather than flattering. Usually people wore whatever was available or didn’t smell too bad, regardless of what it looked like.
She wondered what Jeff might have looked like in another time. Freshly showered and shaved, and dressed in a pressed button-down shirt and new pair of Levis. She imagined him quite comfortable, and maybe even ruggedly handsome, with a saucer-sized belt buckle and Roper boots that had been so fashionable in Lubbock before the blackout.
And a white Stetson hat, cocked slightly to one side.
Jeff himself had wondered about Red the night before, after their previous meeting. Only she wasn’t quite so modest when he envisioned her in his mind. He was smitten and had hoped he’d see her again. He wasn’t counting on it happening so soon.
Red brought herself back to reality and looked around her.
The courtyard had been built with the original restaurant, and Red assumed it was once
used for private parties. A small sound stage against the back of the restaurant once hosted a live band. It had likely seen a fair share of Lubbock’s wedding receptions and going-away parties.
Old Lubbock’s that is. The Lubbock that was once alive and vibrant. Before the blackout took away her luster.
Now the stage was covered with stacked dining chairs and tables. The ones which had once filled the courtyard itself.
The courtyard was now filled with firewood and disposable propane tanks. It was easy to tell the empty tanks from the full ones, the empties having been tossed haphazardly into a large pile. The full tanks were stacked neatly and kept away from the three large barbeque grills.
On the opposite side of the yard were four idle grills, the old-fashioned kind, which used charcoal briquettes. Immediately adjacent to them were two pallets of Kingsford charcoal in twenty pound bags.
She wasn’t aware that Jeff was watching her as she looked around.
And he was apparently good at mindreading.
At least enough to anticipate the question she was getting ready to ask him, and to head her off.
“Sometimes propane tanks are hard to find. Occasionally we run out. When we do, we switch to charcoal, until we can find more propane or until we can get one of the ranchers to send a horse and buggy to pick up our empties and refill them.”
“Where on earth do they refill them?”
“There was a propane plant about five miles from here, on the Clovis Highway. It’s closed now, of course, but the tanks are still there. Huge suckers. Some of the cowboys have figured out how to bleed out enough gas to fill up our tanks, and Sal pays them for their trouble.”
“Oh.”
She didn’t know what else to say.
She tied the horses to a makeshift hitching post someone had bolted onto the privacy fence.
Jeff told her, “Why don’t you go up front and pay old Sal, and I’ll get your steaks started. Medium rare, right?”
“Good memory.”
Jeff turned to Jacob, who said, “Medium.”
Jacob was a man of few words, unless he was talking to God.
Chapter 15
Halfway through their meal, Red decided she’d waited long enough. She was a curious sort by nature, and something had been bugging her.
“Jacob,” she began.
The boy looked up from his plate at her and said, still chewing, “Yes?”
“I have to ask. That was a very eloquent prayer you gave over that old man’s grave. It took me by surprise. And it sounded like you knew him quite well. But I thought he was just a passing acquaintance.”
He finished the bite of steak and swallowed. Then he took a long drink from a bottle of Dasani Jeff had placed on the table along with his meal.
“I tried not to like Walt. For his own benefit.”
Then he went back to eating, leaving Red to ponder his words and try to figure out what they meant.
After a couple of minutes she tried again.
“Look, Jacob… I’m trying not to pry. But what do you mean, you didn’t want to like Walt for his own benefit? Just what does that mean?”
Once again, he finished his bite and swallowed it. Then he looked her in the eyes. She could see great pools of sorrow in his own eyes. They weren’t the eyes of a boy in his teens. They were the eyes of an old man, who’d seen way too much pain in his lifetime.
He chose his words carefully.
“I’ve learned a lot of things in the year since the lights went out. I learned how to survive on my own, to protect what was mine. I learned that it was okay to kill another man when I had no choice. When it was either him or me. I learned to run away from trouble when I could, but to face it when I had to.
“I learned that the worst thing to happen to the earth wasn’t the blackout itself. That was bad enough for damn sure.
“But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was what it did to most of the people around here. Me included, I have to admit. It turned us into animals. I resorted to scavenging through garbage cans and breaking into abandoned houses to fill my belly. I ate birds that fell from the sky, knowing full well they probably died from some disease and I’d probably die from it too.
“But I didn’t, and that made me angry. I hated myself when my mother died in my arms. Yet I kept on living. I didn’t deserve to live more than my folks. They were far better people than I was. It caused me to question my faith. To wonder whether there even was a God. But then I came to my senses and realized there had to be. And that I must remain faithful. Because if anyone on this earth deserved to go to heaven it was my mother and father. And if I didn’t remain faithful I wouldn’t get to see them again.
“It helped me keep from blowing my brains out many a night. And it kept me from turning into a savage, as many other men did. Yes, I ate tainted meat and dirty water. I broke into abandoned houses looking for cans of food. But only after the residents were long dead or had moved on.
“And with God is my witness, I tried to be better than the others. I took their abuse, even when they called me slow and dimwitted. I let them laugh at me and spit upon me. I let them steal from me without retaliating against them. I only killed them when it became obvious to me that they meant me harm. I killed them to save my own life.”
Red was surprised at how easily he’d opened up and poured his soul out to her. She seemed to have inadvertently opened a floodgate.
She got the sense it had been a very long time since Jacob felt comfortable enough to vent to someone. And she was honored that he trusted her enough to tell her things he probably shouldn’t have been telling to anyone.
But she didn’t want him to stop. She wanted to encourage him. Terrible things become even more so when bottled up inside. Stress did horrific things to the human body over time, and everyone needed to relieve that stress from time to time.
Red knew that all too well, because she once vented on a regular basis to her father. Or to her husband Russell. Or her horse Bonnie.
How she missed all of them.
She asked what she thought was a logical question, in light of Jacob’s ongoing confessions.
“How many men have you had to kill?”
“Five.”
She was incredulous.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. But I swear to God, in every case it was them or me.”
“I believe you. It just seems incredible to me that someone like you who is so…”
“Slow? Dimwitted?”
“No. I was going to say sensitive. And kind. It just amazes me that you could face five bad men and survive five times. I mean, you don’t strike me as a very physical kind of guy.”
“I’m not. I mean, I am now more than I used to be. But it was only out of necessity. I didn’t kill because I enjoyed it or wanted to. I killed because I had to. I abhor killing. There’s been way too much of it. At some point the world has to get civilized again. We have to end the violence and realize we’ll all be better off if we work together instead of against each other.”
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my friend. But I think we’re a very long way from that. As long as it’s easier to take from others than it is to grow one’s own crops and hunt and fish for one’s own food, there will be bad men who will do it the easy way. The best we can do is try to keep the good people together and safe until the bad guys attrite themselves out of existence.”
“Huh?”
“Until the bad guys kill each other off.”
“Oh. We should be so lucky.”
“I was under the impression you didn’t know Walt very well. But in your prayer, you sounded as though you knew him quite well. Exactly what was your relationship with him?”
“He took me in and healed me when I was at death’s door.”
“Pardon me?”
Chapter 16
Jacob took a deep breath and explained.
“That’s what he told me later. When I woke up on the cot in the back of th
e motel’s office. He told me I was at death’s door. That I was out of it for three straight days. And then delirious for another day while I was trying to come out of it.”
“What happened?”
“All I know is what Walt told me. To this day I don’t remember the fight itself. Walt said that three drunken cowboys had me cornered in the parking lot in front of the motel. Said I was a pretty boy and they wanted me to be their girlfriend. He said I put up a fight and they started beating me ferociously. They kicked me in the ribs and the head. I still have a scar to show for it, see?”
The boy lifted his unkempt hair to reveal a thin scar that ran almost all the way across the top of his forehead.
“Anyway, Walt said he saw the whole thing. Yelled at the cowboys to stop. But nobody took him seriously. They thought he was just an old man who was all talk and no action.
“So they kept on beating me until I was almost unconscious. Then two of them held me up. The other pulled down my jeans and took out a big knife. He laughed and said he was going to do some cutting on me, so I’d be more girl than boy. And that then maybe I’d let them have their way.
“Now I don’t remember any of this. But Walt said as the man approached I summoned all the strength I had left to kick him under the chin. Walt said I broke his neck and killed him instantly. The knife went flying and the other two let go and drew their own knives. But they were drunk and I was only hurt. I think that’s what saved me. What enabled me to beat both of them and live with only a couple of cuts from their knives.
“Walt said after it was all over the three of them lay dead in the parking lot and I was covered in blood. Some was mine and some was theirs. He tried to help me inside the office to patch me up but I never made it there. He said I passed out in the doorway and went into convulsions. From the kicks to the head, I suppose.
“He gave two men who were staying at the motel a free week’s stay to carry me into the office and put me on the cot. Then they took the three cowboys and piled them in the intersection and set them on fire.
A Lesson Learned: Red: Book 3 Page 5