And she had a heart of gold.
She was in the corn field at Benny’s place with Thom and Krista, eight and nine respectively. Thom and Krista were the children of the ranch’s foreman, Bud Sykes.
Beth didn’t particularly like Bud much. He was gruff and hairy and didn’t bathe often. But his kids were always well groomed and manicured like their mother Mary.
And his children were nothing like Bud.
The three kids got along famously.
Except when it came to dealing with worms.
Corn husks are notorious for being infested with worms. There’s nothing necessarily big and scary about them, but kids as a rule don’t like worms much.
“Ewww!” Beth exclaimed as she reached up to pull off an ear and a snow white corn worm touched the back of her hand.
Then she stepped back two feet and did a little dance. It was the same dance eight year olds dance when they need to go to the restroom and there’s not one close by.
“Thom, get it, get it!”
Even at eight years of age, little boys like to play the hero for little girls. And the truth was, the worms didn’t bother him much. He’d gone through the cornfields on many occasions and gathered them up to use for fish bait.
They worked better than grub worms.
He reached up and plucked the little critter from the ear of corn, then held it up for Beth to see.
He’d saved the day. He was her knight in shining armor.
The truth was, Thom fancied little Beth.
Of course he was confused, as all the children were. Sal and Nellie called her Becky. She insisted her friends call her Beth.
“Except when you speak to Grandma Nellie. Then it’s okay to call me Becky.”
“Beth,” Kristen asked as they walked through the rows to empty their bushel baskets. “How come they say you’re an orphan?”
“Promise you’ll keep it a secret,” she told them, “and I’ll tell you.”
“But why keep it a secret? Are you ashamed of it?”
“No. Not at all. The truth is I’m not an orphan. I have a mommy and a sister who live somewhere near Kansas City, I think. With my Aunt Karen. I have a daddy too, but I haven’t seen him since the blackout. Mommy says I have to keep believing, because he’s coming to find us. But I don’t know how in heck he’s gonna find me now. I don’t even know where we are.”
“We’re somewhere in California,” Krista said. But if you have a mommy and a daddy, how come everybody says you’re an orphan?”
“Because Sal got flimflammed, that’s why.”
“Sal got what?”
Beth liked it when she knew a fact or phrase that her peers did not know. It made her feel superior and a cut above them.
It made her feel important.
“That’s something my daddy always says. It means the same thing as punked. Sal got flimflammed by Mr. Sanchez into thinking him and Grandma Nellie was adopting me, when actually he was buying me. Like a slave, and no darned better.”
She almost said damned, but was afraid of getting her mouth washed out with soap.
Then it occurred to her that she was more intelligent than most kids her age. And that her mom was way too far away to wash her mouth out, with soap or anything else.
She believed her mom’s promise that her daddy would come for her at some point. But since Sal and Nellie took her away and didn’t tell her mommy where they were taking her, it might be awhile.
So she figured, what the heck.
“Sal was a damned fool for falling for that trick.”
The other two stopped what they were doing and stared at her.
Thom’s mouth dropped.
Krista demanded, “What did you say?”
Beth was incredibly proud of herself, and beamed.
“I said Sal was a damned fool for falling for Sanchez’ dirty trick.”
“You can’t say that word. That’s an adult word.”
“I damned sure can.”
Thom was aghast.
“She said it again.”
Krista offered some older-child advice.
“You better stop using that word, Beth. You’ll get into trouble.”
“Oh, yeah? By who? My Mom is a zillion miles away. I don’t know where my Dad is, but it’s probably two zillion miles away. I’ll probably be an old woman like Grandma Nellie before I see either one of them again. So who’s gonna stop me if I say damned if I want to?”
Her logic gave pause to Krista, but only for a moment.
“I don’t know. But that’s an adult word. It’s not nice for kids to say it.”
“How come? How come adults are allowed to say words we can’t? How come they’re allowed to stay up as late as they want and we can’t? How come they can eat all the candy and junk food they want but we can’t?”
Thom finally found his tongue.
“Jeez, Beth, I don’t know. That’s just the way it is.”
Beth suddenly felt powerful.
“Maybe it’s time for a revolution.”
“A what?”
“A revolution. That’s when you’re tired of something and you say enough is enough. My daddy told me about it. He said that one time they had a war about it or… something. I don’t know. It’s when you want to change stuff.”
“What do you want to change, Beth? You’re not making sense.”
“I want to change everything. I want the kids to be in charge. I want us to be able to stay up all night and watch those movies that they say we can’t watch. And I want to chew gum in my bed if I want to. And if it messes up my hair, I don’t care. I’ll cut it all off.
“And that’s another thing. Who says I can’t cut my own hair? I should be able to cut my own hair if I want.”
Thom tried his best to help her cause.
“Krista cut her own bangs one time and it was a disaster.”
Krista gave her brother the stink eye and said, “Shut up, stupid. It wasn’t that bad.”
“Was too.”
Beth was losing her captive audience and wanted it back.
“Shut up you two. I say it’s time we took charge of everything. We can tell Benny he’s second in charge, but only if he does what we say. If he doesn’t we’ll fire him.”
Thom shook his head, then pointed out the obvious.
“How are you gonna be brave enough to tell Benny that, when you’re scared of a little ole worm?”
“Oh, shut up.”
Thom looked across the yard to the farmhouse, where Benny was sitting on a lawn chair.
“Well, there’s Benny right there, Miss Revolution. Why don’t you go over there right now and tell him you’re taking over?”
“I just might.”
“Well, go ahead then.”
Beth was in a corner she couldn’t get out of. Her dad once told her never to let her mouth write checks her body couldn’t cash.
She didn’t have a clue what it meant. She should have listened a little better to his lesson.
She took a deep breath and stomped over to Benny, full of spit and vinegar and attitude.
“Mr. Benny!” she demanded.
Sal’s brother turned and asked, “Yes, child. What is it?”
Something about the look on his kindly face forced the wind from her sails.
“Oh… nothing.”
Chapter 30
Dave tried to calm Tony’s nerves. In no time at all he’d gone from considering Tony a soulless drug dealer to considering him a friend.
And they were partners now too, for better or for worse.
“Go ahead and make your map,” Dave told him. “But I wouldn’t worry much about them killing you. They need you too much. Or at least,” he winked, “your drugs.”
Tony replied glumly, “That’s what keeps me alive when I go into the den with all the other lions. But Dalton’s Raiders are a breed apart. Logic means nothing to them. When they get riled up, all common sense and logic goes right out the window.”
“
Don’t give them any more credit than they’re due. You’ll be fine.”
It had thundered a bit around the midnight hour, but didn’t amount to much. Tony wiped a few drops of water from the seats of his ATV, and they were on the way.
They spoke nary a word as they rode due west, the rising sun warming their backs.
Each was lost in his own thoughts. Dave recalling over and over again the precious words from his wife and daughter. And wondering if this was the day he’d finally come face to face with little Beth and the monsters who’d stolen her.
Tony’s silent thoughts were a bit more grim.
Tony’s mother had the gift.
That’s what the family called it: the gift. The ability to see glimpses of the future. To tell premonitions of things which were to happen.
It ran in the family. Tony’s mom had it, and his grandmother too. It was said that his great-grandmother foretold her own death.
When Tony was five his mother suddenly cancelled a planned vacation. They were to stay with friends at a resort in Savannah, Georgia.
“Something bad’s going to happen,” she said. But she didn’t elaborate. Couldn’t elaborate. She knew none of the details, only a feeling of doom.
She begged out of the event, and tried to talk their friends into cancelling as well. But they scoffed at her. Called her foolish and hinted she’d been nipping at the bottle.
Three of her friends perished when the resort caught fire at three in the morning.
Tony occasionally had premonitions as well. Sometimes they came true. As often as not, though, they weren’t even close.
By the law of averages, he reasoned, the ones which came true were more than likely just coincidences.
The night before, as he was trying to sleep, he had a vision of his boys crying.
He’d been trying for months to get through to them via the ham. But in his vision, they were calling for him.
And when he heard his wife’s voice coming over the airwaves, it wasn’t Tony who answered. It was Dave.
The words were chilling and unmistakable.
“I’m sorry. Tony went to visit some very bad men. And they slaughtered him.”
Slaughtered. Who in hell talked like that? And who in hell would use the phrase to tell a grieving wife her husband had been murdered?
Tony had been as upset about Dave’s choice of words as in his own death.
He tried to laugh it off. After all, he’d been wrong so many times before.
He’d be wrong this time as well. And later, when the two relaxed at his home on the eastern part of town, he’d laugh and admit his folly to Dave. Dave would likely tell him he was nuts. He’d likely lecture him that with Dave having his back, there was no need for such silly worries. Or sillier premonitions.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he’d say. “As long as I have your six, you’ll live forever.”
Chapter 31
At mile marker 156 Tony pulled next to a Walmart rig with what looked like a mountain of trash piled behind it.
In reality, it was a pile of perfectly good merchandize from the truck which wasn’t deemed vital for survival and was in the way of other items. So it was thrown unceremoniously out the door of the trailer by a series of looters.
In that regard, it looked just like hundreds of other tractor trailer rigs which spotted the interstate highways.
This particular trailer would be Dave’s home for the next couple or three hours.
“I’m going to drop you off here. Take the time to root through the trailer, See if you can find anything of value, though you can bet all the water and most of the food is gone by now.”
“That’s okay, I brought my own.”
Tony wouldn’t let him bring any weapons. Tony was a firm believer that carrying weapons could make a dangerous mission more dangerous by aggravating the situation. It was one of the few things they disagreed on.
So Dave’s backpack held no weapons. But it did hold seven bottles of water and four cans of Campbell’s Chunky soup. His favorite flavor, clam chowder.
He had no place to heat it up, of course, but it was good cold, out of the can.
He’d manage.
Tony pulled out the map he’d drawn the night before and showed it to his partner.
“Okay, take a minute to look this over, make sure it makes sense to you.”
He pointed out landmarks on the map with his finger as he explained.
“I’m not sure of the house number, but it’s on Baker Street about a mile north and west of the checkpoint. To get there, go due north past the checkpoint until you get to a Valero convenience store. Then head west. Turn north again at a boarded up gas station, and it’s about three blocks up. Not far at all.
“The house is directly across the street from an elementary school, on the corner. It’s brick, one story, with a Ford van parked in the driveway. A blue one.
“You can’t miss it because the side of the house is spray painted in yellow paint with the words, “Dalton’s Raiders rule the world.”
“Subtle.”
“Yeah.”
“Think you can find it?”
“Piece of cake.”
Tony checked his watch.
“Okay, it’s almost noon. I should be out by three. If they’re in a mood to visit, it might take a bit longer.
“If I’m not out by five, something’s wrong. They’re either holding me against my will or I’m dead.”
“Tony, I want you to be honest with me. Is your going in there and asking about the red pickup going to put your life in danger? Because if it is I’ll leave you out of it and I’ll go in alone.”
“Honestly, Dave, going in there for any reason is dangerous. I’ve thought many times about just cutting off my business with the Dalton people and cutting my losses. Except if I did that, they’re crazy enough to put out a hit on me and send people looking for me.
“So no, asking about your red pickup won’t make a dangerous situation any more so. If anything, it’ll help the situation. Their booze supply, like everyone else’s, has been running short. The news that I’ll be bringing some in may brighten their spirits a bit.”
There wasn’t much left to be said.
Dave said, “Good luck, my friend.”
Tony got the strangest look on his face.
“What? You don’t want me to wish you luck?”
“No. It’s not that. It’s just that you called me a friend. And it occurred to me you’re probably the only one. I have a lot of acquaintances. I know a lot of people. But they’re not my friends. They all want something from me. Or I pay them to guard my house or the dope I have stashed here and there. But I don’t think I’ve had a friend since… for awhile.”
“What can I say, Tony? We started out with a business relationship, then became partners. Now you’re a friend. I guess you’ve just grown on me, like toenail fungus or something.”
Tony smiled.
“Good luck to you too. And while I don’t believe in your God, if you have a desire to do so, say a little prayer for me, okay?”
“Ha! I knew it. You are a believer. You just don’t like to admit it.”
Tony turned away and drove off, leaving Dave’s question unanswered.
Dave looked toward the sky and said, “God, please look after that little guy. He’s got his faults, like we all do. But he’s got a good heart and he’s a good man.”
Dave hadn’t slept well the night before. He was exhausted from having spent too many hours in the dead of night, staring at the ceiling and thinking about the words his wife and daughter had told him.
And wondering about little Beth. Whether she was alive or dead. Whether she was being treated well. He knew that even slave owners in the old days usually didn’t overwork their slaves. Their lives were brutal, but slave owners knew they couldn’t work if they didn’t stay healthy.
He hoped that wherever Beth was, she was well fed and given ample chance to rest.
He d
idn’t know what the future held for any of them, but he knew what his short term plans were.
He was going to try to take a nap. He had at least three hours before Tony was due back.
And there didn’t seem to be much else to do.
He climbed aboard the Walmart trailer and began picking through what was left on it.
On one of the pallets close to the front of the trailer he found a case of blow-up air mattresses. The case had been opened and several had been taken out.
But there were three left.
“Jackpot!”
It took him several minutes to blow up the mattress. And several more to decide on a place to nap. He finally settled on a spot beneath the huge trailer. It seemed to be ant-free and shaded from the sun, which was now high in the sky.
He fell asleep almost as soon as he lay down.
Chapter 32
Dave was awakened by two men walking past the trailer and carrying on a heated conversation. Apparently one was accusing the other of eating more than his share of… something. The first was denying the charge and leveling his own countercharges.
Before he even opened his eyes, Dave was reaching for a weapon beneath his pillow.
It was a survival technique he’d developed since the blackout. One he’d honed to the point it came automatically, without thinking, any time he was disturbed from his sleep. And perhaps he’d moved just a tiny bit faster in this instance because his subconscious detected a hostile tone in the passing voices.
The problem was, Dave had no weapon.
He didn’t even have a pillow.
And he felt naked and vulnerable.
He should never have given in to Tony’s insistence they move about the city unarmed.
To Tony, being unarmed was an assurance to the factions he dealt with on a daily basis that he was no threat to them. That he was merely a merchant selling his wares.
To Dave, not having a weapon in the new post-blackout world was just stupid.
To Dave, guns were tools. Perhaps the greatest tool man ever invented.
A wrench could remove a bolt. And that was all well and good. But a gun could help remove a threat.
Bolts couldn’t kill you. Threats could.
On Desert Sands: Alone: Book 6 Page 9