After the Fall (Book 2): Catherine's Tale (Part 1)

by David E. Nees

  Kevin turned to Jason for his response.

  “Let me talk to everyone,” Jason said. He walked back with Kevin to the space between the Humvee and the lead pickup, with the group following and gathering around him.

  “What does he mean when he says you’ll take control of the weapons?” Tom asked the lieutenant.

  “He doesn’t know. It just sounds good to Charlie. But he is the chief of police and that should count for something. What I can do is tag them for everyone, with their owner’s names, and secure them in our compound. You know Sergeant Gibbs and Specialist Wilkes. They’re men we can trust. They can be directly in charge of the arms.”

  “You trust this man?” Clayton asked Jason.

  “With my life. And I trust the two men he just mentioned.”

  “I don’t trust that guy doin’ all the talking,” Clayton said.

  “I don’t trust him either,” Jason replied. “How’d he get so important?”

  “He’s a politician. Makes for a good opportunist,” Kevin replied.

  “Who’s the big guy?” Clayton asked.

  “Joe Stansky. He seems to control the resources in town, which makes him pretty powerful. I think he started corralling supplies well before we arrived. I’m guessing he’s been the guy with the real power for some time.”

  “I worry about us getting ripped off when we’re in town,” Tom said. “Why don’t they just trade with us right here?”

  Clayton nodded in agreement. “Save a lot of fuss,” he said.

  “They want to make a big show of this for the citizens,” Kevin said. They’re making it like a holiday celebration. There’s going to be a barbecue and extra food. Anytime you get extra food, you’ll have a big crowd.”

  “You can’t get the whole town together in one spot. Hell, it’ll be unmanageable and we’ll never get our business done,” Jason said.

  “Only certain people, mostly VIPs, the city bosses, and the inspectors get into the main event, which is the trading,” Kevin replied. “They’ll also be having free food at other locations around town to celebrate the event.”

  “So we’ve got some leverage here,” Tom said. “They need this to happen.”

  “Not on this point, it seems,” Kevin replied. “I think Frank and company are fearful of the people seeing you walk around armed and obviously free to act as you please. There’s not much freedom here in Hillsboro.” After a pause he added, “Peace and stability, but not much freedom.”

  Jason thought for a moment as everyone digested what Kevin had said. “We don’t want to give up our weapons, but we also want to complete this trading. We have what they need and they have things we need. It’d be a shame to not make all this work, even if it’s not off to the best start.”

  He looked at Kevin. “I don’t want to stand on principle. I want to be practical. Putting our weapons in your hands…if that would make this happen—and if you can make sure you keep some military presence with us, since I don’t trust this guy Frank or the police chief—I could accept that.” Jason turned to the others.

  “I’ll go along with it,” Tom said. The other farmers nodded in agreement.

  “And your people?” Jason asked, turning to Clayton Jessup.

  “Goes against my grain.” Clayton looked at Kevin. “I don’t know you, but Jason says you okay. His reputation is good with us, so I’m agreed.”

  “Settled.” Jason said. “Let’s mark our weapons and get things going.”

  Chapter 10

  The weapons were collected and loaded into Chief Cook’s police car. They were put under Rodney and Tommy Wilkes’ watchful eyes, and transferred to the army compound. The line of vehicles from the valley made its way through Hillsboro to a parking lot filled with a couple hundred cheering people. A large section was cordoned off with barrels and orange tape. The convoy pulled into the empty area and parked.

  The farmers quickly unloaded a few of the sacks of flour and meal for samples, with the bulk remaining in the wagons. The city had provided stacks of folding tables on the edge of the lot, along with chairs, and the farmers set them up in two rows and laid out samples of their milled grain and mounds of garden vegetables. The baked goods had been carefully wrapped to maintain their freshness, and when the bundles were unrolled, the bread still smelled as if it had just come out of the oven. The enchanting aroma set people’s mouths watering. The clans laid out their skins and produce on mats placed on the ground. Tom, Catherine and Clayton followed the town’s inspectors around as they examined the goods, accompanied by a clump of well-dressed townspeople who didn’t seem to be doing anything but gawking.

  The farmers had a list of items they wanted in exchange, and the Jessups and Earlys had another. The lists were similar, both containing antibiotics, pain pills, diarrhea medicine, boots, and ammunition. In addition, the farmers had brought some broken equipment that needed welding—plows and discs and a hitch—and several drums to fill with diesel and gasoline. The plan was that, after inspecting the goods, the city officials would list what they had of the requested items and the two groups would begin to negotiate a trade.

  The atmosphere was turning festive in spite of a strong militia presence. The smoke from the long row of grills on the downtown end of the parking lot wafted over the area, stimulating everyone’s appetite, including the farmers and clansmen. Soon after the inspectors had finished their rounds, the cooks began serving and calling everyone over. In spite of their misgivings, the farmers, clansmen and townspeople began to relax and enjoy themselves.

  “Mmmm, that’s good!” Anne slurped at her fingers and offered her pinky to little Adam.

  Jason just grinned at her, his mouth stuffed with pork and bread.

  He looked around to find Sarah and Catherine. They were among the army group, sitting with their beaus. “Looks like the girls are enjoying themselves.”

  “I told you when we were getting ready to leave that it felt like a holiday,” Anne said.

  “Let’s hope this is a sign of the rest of the day going well. We didn’t get off to such a good start.”

  Anne smiled at him in agreement. She pointed to a group of well-dressed people. “It’s strange, they’re so dressed up.

  “They probably see this as a holiday like you do. Maybe we should have put on our Sunday best,” he said with a wink.

  “Are you kidding? This was a lot of hard work to get here.” She laughed.

  When Anne and Jason had finished eating, Anne picked up Adam and they went over to Tom. He was seated next to a town official, talking animatedly with him about life in the valley. Kevin had told them that the negotiations would be done in one of the empty stores that faced the parking lot, but nobody seemed anxious to break the moment.

  “Anne and I are going to go to the hospital to see if we can get Adam vaccinated,” Jason said. “We should be able to be back in time for the negotiations.”

  “So you’re leaving it to me, like you threatened?” Tom asked.

  “And like I said, you’ll have Catherine with you.”

  “All right,” Tom replied. “You go. They’re still checking over our lists back at City Hall or wherever. No one seems to be in a hurry to stop eating. See to your boy.”

  “All right, we’ll be back as soon as we can.” He took Anne’s arm and they headed out of the parking lot.

  At the edge of the trading area they came upon more of the militia. They were positioned behind saw horses set up in the street that formed a barricade blocking off the entrances to the parking lot. Two militia members stopped them as they began to walk down the street.

  “You can’t go down there. You’re restricted to the trading area.”

  Jason and Anne stopped. Jason looked at the man in surprise. “We’re going to the hospital. I know where it is. We need to get our baby checked out while we’re here in town.”

  “Sorry. I can’t let you leave the area. Those are my orders.”

  Jason felt his anger rising. This was another affront
and he had no more patience left for it. Anne, seeing Jason’s agitation, put her hand on his arm. “Don’t argue with him. We have our baby with us. We’ll go back and get this worked out with Kevin.” She gripped his arm hard.

  Jason gritted his teeth and nodded. This was not the time or place to make a scene. Without another word to the two men, they turned away, back to the parking lot and the festivities.

  Kevin looked up when Anne and Jason walked back to where he was sitting with Catherine. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “We’re told we can’t go to the hospital. It seems we are all confined to the parking lot,” Anne said. Jason said nothing. Kevin could see that he was struggling to control his rage.

  Kevin jumped up “Let me get to the bottom of this.” He strode off mumbling to himself about how everything was conspiring to make this day a failure.

  After a moment of plowing through the crowd of people eating or inspecting the farm goods with great interest and enthusiasm, he found Frank and Charlie standing with Joe and his bodyguards. The bodyguards stiffened as Kevin stepped right past them.

  “What the hell is going on?” he yelled in Frank’s face, heedless of startled onlookers. “First you set up this stupid tax, then you want to confiscate their weapons, now I find people can’t leave the area. Are you deliberately trying to sabotage this day? Because you’re doing a damn good job of it.”

  Frank stepped back. “What are you talking about?”

  “Jason and his wife just found out they can’t leave the area. They want to go to the hospital to get their baby checked. This is outrageous.”

  “Look, we can’t have these people running all around town. Their business is here, and here is where they should stay. They aren’t here to sightsee.”

  “Everything you’ve done so far has been insulting to these people. Do you get that?”

  “I get that they don’t seem to want to follow our rules. They’ve been pretty clear about that. We can work with them, but they have to respect our rules.”

  “Is that a new rule now?” Kevin said. “We confine visitors to specific areas of town? I seemed to have missed that in the manual.”

  “You can be as sarcastic as you want, but we don’t want them running all over town. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

  Charlie was slow to respond. “Well,” he said finally to Kevin, “Frank and I talked about it, but I wasn’t aware that we made a decision. Apparently Frank thought we did and informed the militia of the fact.”

  “So you are not in charge?” Kevin asked.

  “I’m in charge of the police, and we work alongside of the militia, but Frank is the direct head of that group. You know that.”

  “Yeah, I know that responsibility gets passed around when it’s convenient. Look, I’m not going to argue with either of you. I’m going to transport these people to the hospital myself. If you don’t want an embarrassing scene, better tell your militia to not get in my way.” He turned on his heel and walked away.

  Jason and Anne were standing where Kevin had left them. Catherine had joined them. “I’ll take you to the hospital,” Kevin announced.

  “I’m going with you,” Catherine said.

  “What about Sarah?” Anne asked.

  “She’ll be fine. I’ll have my men keep an eye on her,” Kevin said.

  Anne gave him a concerned look. “Let me ask Tom to watch out for her as well.” She handed the baby to Jason and ran over to Tom.

  When she came back, Kevin told everyone to get into the Humvee.

  “Okay,” Jason said. He told Catherine, “We’ll try to get you back before negotiations begin.”

  After he had dropped Catherine, Jason, Anne and the baby off at the hospital, Kevin drove straight to his headquarters. He stomped into Captain Roper’s office. “Captain, you’ve got to get over to the trading area—”

  “I’m getting ready to head over there now.” The captain gave him a pleasant look. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay, in spite of the city,” Kevin said with great emphasis. “Frank and Charlie seem to have done everything they can to screw this up…from the beginning.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Right from the start, the city screwed things up. They’ve been making up rules I didn’t know about and springing them on the farmers. If I hadn’t been there, we wouldn’t be having the trading day, just a barbecue celebrating nothing.”

  Roper sighed and sat back. “Tell me about it.”

  Kevin proceeded to fill him in on the day’s events.

  “And we haven’t even gotten to the tax issue yet. That’s coming later this afternoon. Look, you’re the commanding officer here. Maybe you can talk some sense into these bozos. They won’t listen to me. They seem obsessed with showing the farmers who’s boss. It’s as though they resent that these people are not under their control.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Roper said, getting up and grabbing his hat.

  “Thank you,” said Kevin. “I’ll stop by the hospital and pick up Jason and his family and then head back.”

  The three nurses doted on baby Adam, and Anne let them take turns holding him. Watching them, Jason suddenly wondered how many medical staff were still at the hospital. He had seen no others on the way in, and no one else either, barring glimpses of figures lying in beds through half-open doors. The halls had an empty, untidy look. The three women all seemed tired with fatigue showing around their eyes, but there was something else…

  “We have some doses of DTP vaccination,” one of the nurses said. “Let me find Dr. Morgan, she needs to authorize the shot.” She headed down the corridor, while the two older nurses continued to play with Adam.

  A few minutes later a woman in a white coat walked up. “I’m Dr. Morgan, Janet Morgan. I remember hearing about you last year.” She shook hands with Anne, Catherine, and Jason as they introduced themselves, then she turned to the nurses and took Adam into her arms, looking at him carefully. “Looks like your son is thriving on the farm. Are you able to nurse him?”

  “I can nurse him just fine,” Anne replied. “Our diet is actually quite varied and healthy, so I have no problem producing milk.”

  Dr. Morgan turned to the two nurses, “Gwen, you and Cecily go over to the north ward. It’s due for a walk,” she said pleasantly. Dr. Morgan returned her attention to Anne. “I’m so glad to hear that. It sounds like you’re doing better in the area of food than we are here in town.”

  “What do you mean?” Jason asked.

  The doctor paused and grinned oddly at him over Adam’s shoulder. “Tell me, do I look thin to you?”

  She did. Come to think of it, so had the nurses.

  She laughed softly at his expression. “You don’t have to answer. I can tell from your expression. You see we have a limited diet. Mostly soups and stews with anything that the food teams have been able to collect. Everyone stays hungry, but at least no one is starving now. Today is a very special day, with you coming to town. It’s like an extra meal for us.” Her face clouded, and a concerned look came into her eyes. “Roberta should be back with our plates by now. I hope she didn’t have any trouble getting our servings…”

  “The people we saw at the meet,” Anne said. “So well-dressed, I didn’t even think—”

  “Nobody’s having trouble fitting into their old favorite dress this year,” Dr. Morgan said, her smile back. She handed the baby back to Anne. “Though I think people are getting tired of the look.” The first nurse returned and spoke briefly with the doctor; she looked irritated and asked a couple of quiet questions, then turned back to them. “We have some of the DTP vaccine, so I’ll authorize one for your son. We should have some MMR shots left, but apparently we can’t find them. The baby should have that as well.”

  “Can you explain these?” Jason asked. “I’m new to this parenting.”

  “Sure. DTP stands for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. MMR stands for measles, mumps and rubella.”

  “If you can
give Adam the DTP vaccine, we’ll come back for the other one. Do you think you’ll find it?” Anne asked.

  “We’ll make sure we find it,” Dr. Morgan said. The nurse flinched at her tone.

  “It’s not easy to make trips to town,” Jason said. “It’s expensive in terms of time and fuel.”

  “I understand. There’s no rush, although I wouldn’t wait months. Just come back when you can combine the trip with something else you have to do. I’ll make sure to keep one dose available for you.”

  “Thank you so much,” Anne said with a smile.

  “Great. Now if you’ll just follow Laura here, she’ll give your baby his inoculation.” Anne nodded gratefully, and the embarrassed nurse led her and Catherine away. Jason would have followed as well, but a look from Dr. Morgan stopped him. The doctor waited until they were alone in the hall.

  “What I’m doing here has to remain secret. No one can know. None of my nurses are going to say anything.”

  “You mean with the vaccinations?” Jason said, surprised. She nodded. “Well, I…don’t think we’ve said anything about that specifically. Or not here. Just that we wanted to get Adam checked out.” He wondered uneasily what Kevin had said. “Are the vaccines that precious?”

  “Well, yes…even though we’re not seeing many pregnancies, I don’t have a free hand with supplies. We’ve gotten a small increase in births since your story came out last year. As things settle down, people seem to be getting less worried.” She grabbed Jason’s arm and leaned closer to him, lowering her voice. “There’s a lot of fear in town. It’s gotten worse over the past year. When I say I don’t have a free hand, it’s not just paperwork. If anyone in authority knew I gave you the vaccine, I could be jailed, my ration card reduced…or worse.”

  “What do you mean, ‘or worse’?”

  The doctor looked around, then walked them further along the corridor, away from one of the patient rooms. She continued in a low voice. “People have disappeared. People who crossed the authorities, or who the authorities think crossed them. Sometimes it’s not clear what happened.” A look of anger or concern crossed her face. “You must understand, people don’t just disappear nowadays. Everyone is pretty much accounted for with the militia in control. All the food is centralized, so we all have to be registered—to have a ration card—in order to eat. And if you don’t show up at your food center, you’re not eating. The only way you could disappear is if you left town…or if something happened to you.”