Sharecropping The Apocalypse: A Prepper is Cast Adrift

by Ron Foster

  Walking onions are a very unusual heirloom onion. They are top-setters, which mean they produce onion seeds from the flowering green tops of the onion. The reason they are called walking onions because the top setters will fall over and re-root themselves literally walking. You can plant a patch once and have a wonderful perennial harvest for years.

  Crick had brought 50 lbs. each of beans and rice and 50lbs of wheat from his stores. The preppers’ survival was soon to be now measured in ounces and days at a time unless other resources were found.

  Finding living quarters for all those folks was going to be problematic. There were a bunch of tents but many people had shown up with trailers and RVs and they soon would be forced to make arrangements.

  One of the old shotgun style houses up by the ruins of the old plantation could be made to serve for some people without much more than a good sweeping out and the addition of a few boards after you chased the snakes and spiders out. The term "shotgun" is a reference to the idea that if you open all the doors to the house, the pellets fired from a shotgun would fly cleanly from one end to the other. Other vacant houses faired much worse and they would take considerable work to make them habitable again. There was lots of still good timber and boards around here though. The salvage of the wood and the chore of getting a dry solid roof over everyone’s heads shouldn’t take all that long if people treated the work like a habitat for humanity affair or just a plain good old fashioned cabin raising.

  This plantation had been around a long time and had several old log cabins scattered around decaying away here and there around the massive property but the bones of a lot of them were still good and strong. The old homestead places reminded Crick of the blues singer Muddy Waters house he had once seen in Mississippi. Dovetailed oak timbers blued with age still standing strong after a hundred years or more of being exposed to the elements.

  The remains of the cabin from Stovall Farms where Muddy Waters lived during his days as a sharecropper and tractor driver are displayed in the gallery. Musicologist Alan Lomax recorded Muddy on the front porch of this shack for the Library of Congress in 1941. Best known for electrifying the blues in Chicago, Muddy is represented by posters, photographs, and a life-size wax statue, displayed along with one of his electric guitars and ZZ Top’s "Muddywood" guitar, crafted from one of the cabin’s timbers. Now how cool is that?

  Even the worst of the cabins could be made to serve some kind of function eventually. If nothing else you could just throw a tarp over where the roof used to be on the more Skeletonized ones and be well on your way to making yourself a substantial little house. Hey! How many damn preppers could even hope to flesh something out like this with nothing more than a camp axe making a family home that would serve for many generations? I know one thing, no one is going to take any time to square timbers or find the heart of an oak to make them out of while just needing shelter but the pioneers of old had the skills, the wisdom, the wherewithal and the gumption to build something once and build it right. That’s the problem with society today, instant satisfaction; gratification where I need it now overwhelms what our forefathers knew that they did not want to undertake such a momentous task more than once if they could help it.

  An old saying is “A man or a woman is a measure of their work.” The reason that some old cabins stand the test of time and serve many generations from the days of pioneering to modern society is somebody somewhere decided that they would build something that would last for another generation in order that they would not have to spend that time on hard labor and instead have an advantage to build something further.

  Some of these cabins that still exist on this plantation have oftentimes had five generations to reside in one from the first man that lived in it. He wasn’t ashamed of his efforts of construction, no he was proud he had talents and was commended on his ability to make the place for himself. The generations that came after this gentleman whine and complain that they have no other finer house to live in and yet give thanks to the man who first constructed it. Hell, they don’t even have a clue how to fix it as age and time makes their poor abode unlivable and yet none of the neighbors, none of the babies introduced in this next world by this one solitary man’s craftsmanship is appreciated or can be reproduced by anyone of his namesakes.

  Crick had shown David around the plantation a little bit and David was as excited as he was about the potentials of this place if enough people wanted to stay and work it. It was going to be hot, brutal hard scrabble community living for a while but for those willing to invest their time and effort into it was an ideal bug out location and way of life to get a new start in this dreadful apocalyptic world we were facing.

  David said he could see it as a decent lifestyle possibly that was going to be slowly developing on this place that might even suit him. That is, if he just looked at sharecropping like an old hippy commune or a self sufficiency based reality survival show instead. He knew better though in many ways, back to the land living was just plain miserable for any length of time and particularly more so if all you had was a glimmer of what the old pioneers knew or had access to. Utopia it certainly was not. However, the key to survival is community and he was going to study this place more in depth, no telling what the future held for him and Julie. Having other like minded individuals and a larger talent pool to draw from had its advantages. Many hands make light the work as the saying goes.

  David wondered how many folks would choose to stay and how many others would decide to take their chances elsewhere because they were better setup if they bugged back home.

  David and Julie had pitched a 4 man tent out in front of Clem`s house, he had an extra three man tent he told Will he could borrow to pitch at what was to be the main campground for the preppers using tents. Dang, a apocalyptic tent city, did that beat a homeless tent city? That is a hard question to wrap his head around David decided. On the one hand, opportunity and access to goods if you could afford them are readily available so David guessed homeless tent city, but the emotional and mental drains would be different. There was a lesson in pondering such a question but for now his thoughts moved on to other things.

  David decided so far Will wasn’t such a bad character, he was just shell-shocked and a bit strange from his experience of surviving on his own and avoiding others. Clem said he would keep an eye on him but he, like David thought that once he started having regular interaction with people he would snap back.

  Loomis told Will that it would be best if he didn’t mention to the other survivors anything about getting caught stealing and everyone on the plantation agreed that this secret would be safe with them. No sense having Will starting out on the wrong foot with anyone and petty jealousies and suspicions were already an endemic fact with the community that would hopefully be resolved now that everyone’s futures looked a bit brighter.

  David eyed the plantations landing and rickety dock and discussed with Loomis and Clem a project idea that the new sharecroppers might get around to building someday. Its construction was simple enough and Bertha and Clem could make the fish baskets easy enough using wild muscadine grape vines which seemed to grow freely around the area.

  “Here comes Crick!” Beauregard called as the sound of the tractors motor was heard chugging around the bend.

  Crick laid on the horn and swung the unwieldy barge around to push it towards the bank.

  9

  Sail On Silver Pontoon

  ‘What in the hell do you reckon that crazy looking thing is Lowbuck?’ Rod said pointing at an old barge that appeared to be being pushed along or propelled by a tractor with paddle wheels.

  “I dunno but I would say its rescue arriving. That has got to be Loomis riding on that thing, check out the hat and if that is Loomis then that has got to be Crick driving that cattle boat looking thing.” Lowbuck said watching the odd craft making its way towards where the fishing pier used to stand.

  An excited murmur arose as the various camps started making their way towar
ds LowBuck and Ramro`s camp to welcome the craft and find out what was going on. When the pontoon barge was about mid channel Crick started laying on the horn and it looked like Loomis was doing a little jig blasting a boat air horn and waving his other hand.

  “That’s them!” Rod said starting to holler and wave at the rescuers and shortly thereafter a crowd formed all doing the same with various exclamations of “we are saved” and giving thanks.

  Loomis made a cutting motion with his hand across his throat indicating that Crick should cut the motor off or idle it down so that he could hear Lowbuck shouting from shore and survey their proposed landing site.

  “I am not sure if you want to push that thing in over here, you might need to find a different spot. I don’t know how deep or how many of those dock pilings still exist under the water over here. They might puncture your hull or something.” Lowbuck called out.

  “Where else do you suggest?” Loomis called out as he pondered what to do next and Crick told him he would have to start the engine back up soon or they would get caught drifting in the current.

  “Throw your anchor out!” Lowbuck called watching the craft being carried sideways in the current.

  The barge had two makeshift anchors Clem had made by welding angle iron to two old car tire rims and Loomis threw the bow and aft anchors out to stabilize the barge about 50 ft from shore.

  Crick climbed out of the tractors cab and up on its hood surveying the shoreline that was pretty much unrecognizable from its former self after being swept clean by the flood and then further set back by the rising water.

  “I can’t make out how deep it is from here.” Loomis called over to LowBuck

  “It’s hard for me to say also, the waters muddier than hell. I could wade or swim out to see about them pilings but on the far side of this butte is a sort of a sand mud bar affair that you can see the depth on. If that thing has enough horsepower you could run those pontoons aground and we can all wade to it and climb on.” Lowbuck called back.

  “Sounds ok as long as you all don’t sink too deep when wading out. Meet us down there and we will check it out. We got plenty of power to get off of a sand bar as long as we don’t sink the pontoons too deep. Tell folks we will come ashore and make announcement as soon as we can about what we are doing when we get to the other side but start packing up after the meeting. I figure it will take us 3 trips to get everyone off of here.” Loomis called back.

  “Sounds good, we are headed that way. See you soon!” Low buck called back and the herd of people on his side started making a beeline hike towards the sand bar about a quarter mile away.

  Crick and Loomis after a bit of a struggle hauling up one of their anchors began following the shoreline towards their next proposed loading point. Loomis stayed up at the front of the barge looking for snags and rocks as Crick maneuvered the craft down river.

  Loomis could see everyone walking down the road above the campsites heading to the sandbar and was taken aback at the sight. Shambling trudging shapes that couldn’t keep up with the main body of the crowd somehow found the strength to keep a slow progress towards the rally point with a few of the healthier souls falling back to encourage or assist them, the younger healthier people out in front of the herd soon distant themselves from the rest as they quickly made their excited way to the sandbar which soon came into sight from Cricks perch inside of the tractors cab.

  Crick made a wide circle in the river and slowed so that he could come on to the sandbar with Loomis’s direction who soon warned for him to direct the barge hard left to avoid some obstruction. After a few moments they were aground upon a sandy bar of earth with a gravely mud mixture underneath and Loomis and Crick threw out the anchors for safety sake and surveyed the gap between them and shore.

  The gap was not more than 25 feet or so but the slippery mud and the branches on the bottom made fording it precarious.

  Lowbuck waded his way out to the barge gingerly walking on the rivers bottom and almost loosing his footing once or twice. Once he got out to the sand bar he walked over to the barge and looked up at Loomis and Crick.

  “Ah hell, I was scared of this Bubba, we to far out of the water for anyone to climb on easily.” Crick said looking down at Lowbuck.

  “I can get up there but I just soon you all come down. Let’s not worry about folks getting on that thing just yet, we can always build us a ladder or something and run some ropes across the gap for them to hold on to while wading it. I saw this is about the best we can do for now, come on down and lets chat a bit first. I am dying for some news, what’s happening on the other side? I take it you couldn’t find any official help?” Lowbuck said as Loomis and Crick started to use the anchor rope to help them climb down from the barge.

  “Hang on guys got a treat for you all.” Lowbuck said to Loomis as his boots touched the ground after disembarking the barge, before he hollered up to the still assembling group.

  “Ready preppers?” LowBuck bellowed up to the audience on the shore.

  “READY!” The dull roar of the Crowd answered him back.

  “THEN RESCUE!” Lowbuck yelled out in a thunderous voice and put a little zing in it by canting back his head like a wolf howling and drawing out the word rescue in a long warbling note.

  A very loud chorus of shrill survival whistle blasts answered him that could have been heard for miles.

  How’s that for a celebration? Anyone who saw a boat or a group of them coming to rescue us was supposed to blow their whistle if they had one or beat on something and the rest of the group was supposed to take up the noise making and this would notify others that might be out hunting or something and attract any would be rescuers attention.” A grinning Lowbuck declared.

  “Sounded about as loud as a tornado siren.” Crick complimented him, his own ears still ringing from the din the grinning preppers had created.

  “Nobody could have missed that racket that’s for sure! “ Loomis declared poking and wiggling a finger in his ear to help regain his hearing.

  “On a serious note guys we got lots of people to weak to come down here on their own. Funny thing about starvation, folks don’t just eat anything if their starving. We got people who refuse bugs etc, you get to where eventually you just don’t care and would rather not eat, and you get to feeling like you don’t want to eat anything even though you know your starving. Then there is the vision thing, you know your starving when you start having problems with your eyes. Moving those folks won’t be a problem but nursing them back to health in our weakened states is a huge problem. Did you find any food over there?” Lowbuck asked hopefully.

  “Not much but we got a plan for food procurement. David brought some fish traps and a bunch of animal snares as well as skills to help us out some. We are setup to receive you all on an old sharecropper plantation. I haven’t been to town looking for help yet, kind of scared to go to be honest from what little bit I have heard about cities and towns these days but we will organize something to see if there is any relief supplies to be had. Meantime everyone will be on the mainland and stay or go as they like.” Crick advised Lowbuck who took a moment to take it all in about this rescue not being all it was supposed to be but in some ways better than expected.

  “Crick has this idea about everyone homesteading that place for awhile however the lands overseers want to call what we will be doing as sharecropping. Don’t fret none about that term, it just means they get a part in anything we grow for them helping us with seed and land and such with a bit of credit until a crop can be made. They are nice old people who have done it for generations so we are dang lucky to have their skills and the use of their land at any price, particularly now I would say.” Loomis offered as an advisement.

  “It ain`t no utopia, nothing but a bunch of old shacks and overgrown fields but it is ideally suited for our needs at this time.” Crick advised

  “Sounds great, the sooner we can get some food and vitamins in folks the better. We can build us a ramp on to that b
oat easy enough we can even rig us a zip line to move packs and tents and such onto that barge easy enough where it sits.” Lowbuck declared.

  “Well that just leaves having a meeting and telling everyone about the sharecropping option and moving this pack of starving bellies over to the mainland then” Crick declared.

  “I figure we can get everybody off of here in three trips, we could do it in two, but no sense overloading the barge. There is plenty of gas in these cars to siphon for the tractor if we ever need too. Hell I might want to stay over here in my trailer someday or could be we can rig that barge someway to haul the cars back and forth across the river.” Loomis said speculatively eying all kinds of possibilities for upping the survivor’s success given time and a bit of ingenuity.

  “Now your talking, I was going to bring up ferrying back the cars some kind of way later on but it is just way too much work to consider at the moment. Crick declared.

  “Don’t you be thinking about putting no paddle wheels on your truck Crick.” Lowbuck said only half joking.

  “You never know, you just never know.. Come on guys lets get this show on the road.” Crick said and waded to shore to brief the survivors about their imminent departure.