“Kind of like a mob family structure,” Catherine said. Kevin looked surprised. “I watched some shows on the Mafia before the power went out. They’re organized like an extended family. One you can’t leave or rebel against. This seems to be the same thing.”
“You may have it exactly right.”
As Kevin spoke, he suddenly glanced up. The sun burst over the ridge, lighting up the valley like someone turning on massive floodlights. The birds in the woods had begun to sing in the last few minutes, and now they exploded in a riot of happiness, as if welcoming the new day.
Catherine laughed at Kevin’s astonishment. “It comes rather suddenly here,” she said. “Let’s go back. People will be getting up and looking for us.”
Kevin kissed her. They both felt the energy of attraction surging through them.
“Let’s get married as soon as we can,” Catherine said as they stopped for breath. “Even before this battle or whatever is going to occur takes place. I want you and I don’t want to wait. Who knows what will happen.”
“I can arrange it with a minister in town. Considering Captain Roper’s involvement with Stansky, I don’t want him marrying us.”
“Absolutely not.” She released him and stood, hoisting the strap of the satchel back over her shoulder. “Do you think you can move more quietly on the way back?” she asked mischievously.
“I’m in the army. We’re all about shooting and breaking things.”
“Well, you’re going to need to know about stealth as well, so better start practicing.”
With that she took off through the woods. Behind her she heard the rustling of brush and the snapping of twigs as her fiancé scrambled to try to keep up with her.
Kevin had time to think about what he had said to Catherine on his way down the ridge, and, now that he had decided, he didn’t want to delay telling the others. Over a breakfast of fried pork, berries, and greens, he made his announcement.
“I don’t know what Captain Roper will do when Frank Mason meets with him, but I’ve decided I’m staying. I won’t leave, even if it means resigning my commission and leaving the army.”
Everyone except Catherine looked at him in surprise.
“You’re sure about that decision?” Jason asked.
Kevin nodded. “I’m sure.”
“Well, you’ll still have to go back to town. You can’t just park yourself here, so we’ll still have to be prepared to fight on our own,” Jason said.
Catherine spoke up, “We need to meet with the others, even this morning, while Kevin is here”.
“You’re right,” Kevin said, “We can’t stay here in the valley.” He looked at Catherine with pain in his eyes as he spoke. “Captain Roper will expect us back. And I can’t affect anything if I’m not in Hillsboro. I need to still try to head this off, have the platoon staying in Hillsboro and doing its job. Somehow.”
He looked at Rodney Gibbs next to him. The sergeant was looking pensively at his empty plate.
“What about you?” Kevin asked. “How do you feel about all of this? You’re not involved the way I am.”
“I didn’t sleep much last night.” Rodney gave him a wry grin. “Really, not much since you told me about Captain Roper’s involvement with Stansky and the others. I feel the same as you about Captain Roper.”
“But what’ll you do if he decides to move out? There’s a pretty good chance he’ll work something out with Mason and leave,” Kevin said.
Rodney paused for a moment. “I said, when we decided to work on the farming project, that we can do some good here. Seems to me we haven’t finished that work, so I’m thinking I’ll probably stay. When things are better here, maybe I’ll go and try to find my family, who knows?”
“This could be dangerous…for both of us. Especially if Roper decides to take action rather than give us his permission to stay.”
“Yeah. Thought about that as well. Just have to see how it plays out.” Gibbs stood up and stretched. “I don’t have much appetite to follow someone who will cut and run.”
Kevin broke into a broad grin, jumped up and clapped Rodney on the back. “I’m glad you’re in this with me. Besides, I doubt we’ll be seeing any retirement benefits anytime soon.”
After the group made their way around the valley to inform the farmers of the danger approaching, they came back to Jason and Anne’s farmhouse. They were all standing around on the porch; Anne went inside to get some water for everyone. When she came out, Catherine announced that she was going back to Hillsboro with Kevin.
“Why do you want to do that?” Anne asked, stopping in her tracks. She held a tray full of glasses in her hands. “You’re putting yourself in danger. You know how popular you are with the people. Stansky won’t like you being there.”
“I know, but Kevin and I are going to be married. Now, if we can. I’m going to town to find a preacher.”
“You can’t get married in town, without your family,” Anne protested as she set the tray down on the table.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m going to try to bring the preacher back here. Kevin and I have decided we’re going to get married, sooner rather than later. It may be weeks before Frank Mason can get Captain Roper to leave, if ever. We don’t know what will take place after that, but it doesn’t look good, so we want to get married now, before anything bad can happen.”
“But we haven’t made any arrangements. We haven’t planned anything yet. I thought you’d get married at the end of the summer, when the harvest is in and we go back to town,” Anne said.
“I know, Mom. But things are different now. We don’t know what’s going to happen between now and then.”
“But a ceremony, food, location, how will we arrange all of that?”
“Do I still get to be the bridesmaid?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, you do,” Catherine said, smiling. Turning back to her mother, she said with finality, “I’ll go back with Kevin. We’ll find a preacher and we’ll arrange to bring him back here. We’ll have the wedding in our front yard.”
The front yard. The place where Jason had introduced himself to her mom over two years ago; the place of so much fighting and bloodshed; the place where Jason had defended her family from attackers, and where, later, the whole family had fought the raiding party from Big Jacks’ gang. It had seen so much, and now it would become the spot for a nuptial ceremony, where two people would join together to begin life as a couple in a new reality.
Jason put his arm around Anne. “It’s all right. I think they’ve made a wise decision. And we can get married as well. What do you say? A double wedding?”
Anne smiled. “That would be nice. I guess Sarah and I can inform the others and make arrangements.”
Chapter 25
Jason hiked north to Linville Falls. He was going to try to find the clan’s encampment. Clayton had told him to look for a box attached to a tree near the falls where he could put a note. But Jason didn’t want to just leave a message and have to wait for who knows how long to hear back. He wanted to talk to Clayton right away.
He took with him a map of the region and a compass, along with his .223 rifle and a day pack of water and food. The going was rough at times, but he followed game trails wherever he could. The journey reminded Jason of his initial trek into the mountains after the EMP attack. In those early days he had been so awkward in the woods, not understanding how to navigate the wilderness, how to adjust to it instead of fighting it. Now he moved more easily and comfortably. He realized how much he had learned since leaving Hillsboro. He had become a man of the woods.
By late afternoon when he got close, he could hear the sound of the water and was able to follow his ears to the falls. On arriving, he sought out a tall tree by the river and climbed it. He scanned the forest. The camp could not be far off, not if the message box was regularly checked. Hopefully a cooking fire would be lit soon, giving him a bearing on the camp.
After a half hour of scanning, he saw smoke start to rise about
a mile west of the falls. He got a fix on the direction and climbed down.
In the rough terrain, it took him almost an hour to reach the camp. Just as he was beginning to think that he had passed his objective, he stepped into a clearing and saw armed men approaching with their rifles trained on him. Behind them was a mass of tents. Jason put his hands in the air.
“I’m here to see Clayton Jessup. Is he around?”
One of the men whispered something to another who took off. The others kept their rifles pointed at Jason. It wasn’t long before he saw Clayton approaching.
“What you doing here?” he asked coming up to Jason. They shook hands. He turned back to the men, “It’s all right. This be Jason, the man from the valley I told you about.”
“I’ve got to talk with you and didn’t want to leave a message and wait days for a reply.”
“How’d you find us?”
“Got to Linville Falls, climbed a tree and watched. I hoped I’d see smoke from a campfire since it was getting near eating time.”
Clayton shook his head. “Not much we can do about fire smoke. Got to cook food.” He looked around. “But got to check on guards. You walked right in.”
“I did, but I was probably quieter than most. You’d probably hear others, if there was a group and they weren’t used to moving through the woods.”
“Still, don’t pay to be lazy. Too much to go bad if we let our guard down.”
The encampment was in a clearing about the size of a football field, irregular in shape, bending to the right as he looked at it with a dense cover of trees along its rough edge. He was surprised that he had not seen it sooner, but realized that the tall trees of the forest provided an effective screening. There were about thirty tents on platforms arranged around a central open space. At the center of the camp there was a large fire pit and logs for benches, next to a rough-hewn, windowless cabin which Jason guessed held the group’s communal supplies. Numerous smaller cooking set-ups were scattered among the tents, with brackets to hold roasting spits or cook pots. Interspersed around the tents were garden plots, carefully netted to protect the vegetables from deer and smaller animals.
“So what do you want to talk about?”
“I’ve come to ask for your help,” Jason said. “For your people’s help. We’ve got some trouble with Hillsboro.”
“Trouble? What kind?”
“We’ve learned they’re thinking of raiding us. Stansky and his gang. For our non-hybrid seed. They seem to want us out of the picture. We don’t know when, but it may be very soon.”
“You want us to help defend the valley? That could cost men, husbands of wives, fathers of children. Why should we do this?” Clayton looked straight at Jason.
“An honest question. There’s more reason to help than just being friends with us.”
Clayton took Jason’s arm. “First we get something to eat and drink. Then we talk.”
They walked over to a tent where Clayton introduced Jason to his wife, Lizbeth, and his two sons, Henry and Morgan. After introductions, they sat down on stools, except for Lizbeth who picked up a galvanized bucket and left them. She returned almost immediately, trailing steam from the bucket. After setting it down, she brought out from the tent a ladle, five spoons, and five mismatched bowls of wood and pottery. Clayton ladled the rich brown liquid into the largest bowl and handed it to Jason.
“Stewpot don’t get emptied, unless we can’t find game. Some months we got to go far to find game, others it’s close by,” Clayton said.
The stew was tasty, but Jason couldn’t identify what was in it. He guessed that it had probably started out as a rabbit stew and had changed as different animals and greens were added over time.
When they were done, the two men sat on the ground cloth with their backs against a log while Lizbeth and the boys wiped out the bowls and then rinsed them with water sparingly poured from a jug next to the tent. Clayton sat quietly, looking across the camp. Jason realized that the man was politely waiting for him to explain the problem further.
He cleared his throat and began. “First, we need your help because the guy who runs the town, Joe Stansky, can bring a lot of men against us. He also knows what happened to Big Jacks’ gang, so they’ll be prepared. We won’t be able to surprise them. Second, if we can defeat them, we can drive Stansky out of the city. The people in town will work with us as partners. We’ll have more open trade. Both groups, city people and all of us outside the city, will prosper.”
Clayton had been listening carefully, his face thoughtful. He did not respond immediately. Finally he spoke. “Seems like a high price to pay for easier trading. We doing okay now on our own.”
“You could be doing better.” Jason looked over the camp. “This is a comfortable enough camp, but it’s still camping. You got kids, you need schools for them. And other groups are going to be coming around. Other militias…or the government. They’ll find you eventually. If you start raiding towns, you’ll be considered outlaws. Who knows what that will bring. Here’s a chance to take down a gangster and partner with a town. This could be the start of a strong regional organization that could end lawlessness in our area.”
“You mean join other towns too?”
Jason nodded.
“We country folk. We don’t care to live in town.”
“Look, before the EMP attack you lived in the country, on small farms. There may have been federal aid, but you had to work at growing food, hunting, trapping, and you used the towns to buy what you couldn’t get by yourselves.”
Clayton gave him a sharp look at the mention of federal aid. “We don’t take money from the government,” he said with pride. “Now the towns don’t have anything and there ain’t no government. Looks like the tables turned to me.”
Jason had to agree. Still he pressed his point. “Maybe they don’t have as many things you need, but that doesn’t mean the two groups shouldn’t work together. It’s the way it’s always been done. The towns are going to get electricity going again. They’re working on getting machines running, farming machines that will make it easier to plant and harvest crops. They’re working to improve medicine, maybe even making anesthetics.”
Clayton just shook his head.
“Look,” Jason said. “The population has been reduced, you know that. So many people have died, both in the city and the countryside. Think about this.” He turned towards Clayton. “There are many good farms, productive farms, just sitting idle. They’re south of here, close to Hillsboro. Your people could move onto them. They’ve got houses, barns, farm equipment, all waiting to be put to use. Wouldn’t that be a better life than here in the woods?”
Clayton looked at him. There was a hint of interest in his eyes.
Jason went on. “I know you love the woods. The woods are there as well, not as wild or remote as up here. You wouldn’t be giving up the woods so much as adding farming back into what you do, how you live.” He paused to let that sink in. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t like having good farm land. Your ancestors came to these mountains for new opportunities. They came for good land. Over the generations you lost the best of the land and were pushed further into the hills. In the recent past you farmed what you had, what was passed down to you. Well, now you can give your people better land to farm. Land to prosper on.”
Clayton looked at the ground as if deep in thought.
Jason continued, “The country is going to remake itself. I don’t know how that will work out, but it seems to me you have the opportunity to advance your position, to make something good out of this disaster.”
He fell silent. He had made his pitch. Altruism might not work, but he hoped self-interest would. It had grown dark while he and Clayton had been talking. Some of the older men had quietly gathered around them, intent, listening to all that was said.
After a long silence, Clayton spoke. “I talk with the others. You rest.” He pointed at a lean-to shelter to the left of his tent. Jason saw Lizbeth standing up f
rom where she had been making up a makeshift bed. “We talk about what you said. Give you an answer in the morning.”
A sense of fatigue flowed over Jason. The exertion of the hike, the stress, the threat to his family’s happiness and security began to overwhelm him. He nodded and headed to the shelter. As he lay down on the pallet, his body began to relax. The murmur of the men’s voices came to him in the dark; the words unrecognizable, just a background sound as he drifted off to sleep.
In the morning Jason awoke to the sounds of people stirring, fires being re-lit, pots being jostled as they were set over the fires. He got up and stretched in the cool air. Clayton motioned for Jason to join him. He was sitting in front of his tent on a stool.
“We can help you. Everyone says moving to good farmland is a smart thing to do. Can’t do that with someone like Stansky in the area. What you need?”
Jason smiled. He held out his hand, but Clayton didn’t move. “‘Fore we shake on a deal, what you want from us?”
“I need a fighting group. I know you’ll need some men to stay back to protect the others here, but I need as many fighters as you can spare.”
Clayton thought for a moment. “We talked about that. We can send twenty men. All got rifles, not many pistols, but pistols won’t be much good. What you want us to do?”
“Your men will help guard the valley. If or when Stansky tries to raid us, you’ll be the defense at the bridge, just like the last time. If we can defeat his raiding party, then we head to town.”
“You want us to go to Hillsboro? Fight there as well?”
“That’s your choice, but it will take defeating Stansky in town to make those farms safe for your people.”
Clayton looked Jason in the eye. “You always been straight. You want to make things better. You fight hard.” He paused for a moment, then stuck out his hand. “We in.”
After the Fall (Book 2): Catherine's Tale (Part 1) Page 19