Against the Grain

by Ian Daniels

  Having said my piece I gave one more look to the group and sat down on the floor beside Megan.

  “I guess coffee will have to wait huh?” Megan smiled at me again.

  I gently shook my head as if to say “what am I getting myself into.”

  “So what happens if one of the trucks breaks down or you get attacked by another group and someone gets killed?” Paul’s voice again rose up above the others. I noticed he specified “you,” effectively leaving himself out of the equation. I wouldn’t have wanted him to go anyway, but I also didn’t like the obvious segregation either.

  “This isn’t my first convoy and I’ll have everyone and everything ready to get us through and back home,” I stated in a simple, if not direct answer.

  “But what if we get attacked again here while you’re gone?” Sue asked, worry evident in her voice.

  “I haven’t seen anything to make me think that there is another group close by around here like the last one, but I also wouldn’t be depleting all the able bodies from here either. I’d just select one or two people from each house, six in all would be better, but I can make do with four total I think. That still leaves plenty of protection at each place, and as a whole.”

  “Six people?” Paul asked dramatically, focusing on the higher number.

  “If you guys decide to do it, then yes, six would be the ideal number. I need drivers and gunners, three rigs total for security and redundancy. It’s up to all of you to decide what to do and I know there will be no hard feelings if you decide it’s not worth the risk,” I finished, sharing a nod of consent with Derek.

  He hadn’t asked for this and was as blindsided as everyone else was right now. He also knew what I was getting at and was logical enough to not get hurt feelings if we didn’t get any support from the others.

  “But you do think it’s worth it?” Nick focused a question at me directly.

  “I do. There is a lot to gain and a lot to lose, but I think we can all benefit from this.”

  “Well you’re kind of nuts anyway so if you feel that strongly about it, I’m with you,” he replied.

  “It has nothing to do with me man…”

  “Yes it does,” Breanne spoke up for the first time since the debate had begun. “You’ve done for all of us what no one else could have, and had damn little thanks for it. And now you’re here trying to help another family again. I might not like it much, but if you want to do this and we can help, I think we should.”

  I figured that a tight lipped smile in her direction was maybe more appropriate than more words, and while I wasn’t looking for a majority vote, I was beginning to take a mental head count.

  “You’ve done this type of thing before?” Jake asked. He had a hint of excitement in his voice and eyes.

  Jake might not have a clue as to what to do, but he was bored playing farm boy out here and this was his chance to break the humdrum routine. I wouldn’t say that his reasoning was not in my mind as well and while it really wasn’t fair or right to play the bullshit angle, I was beginning to feel the scales tipping.

  “Armed convoy planning and execution… escort and protection… I’ll hold up my part if you can cover yours.”

  Plus it wasn’t all bullshit. I had helped half the people in this room to get out here safely and under similar or worse circumstances, and that was only a few weeks into the local breakdown. From that time until bringing Megan in, I hadn’t exactly been sitting on my butt either, to say nothing of the time before it all came apart.

  After hearing my answer and looking to his friend Andrew, Jake pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. I knew he was in just for the change of pace alone.

  “Sue? David?" I asked.

  “Breanne’s right. You’re trying to help and we should try to help too,” Sue said quietly, although it was plain that she didn’t much like the sounds of the “armed” talk.

  “Michelle? Paul?”

  “If you think it’s a good idea…” but Michelle was quickly cut off by her husband.

  “I guess I’m the odd man out then,” he barked defiantly.

  “Let’s talk, what are your concerns?” I asked, sounding much more congenial than I really felt towards him.

  “I get the gas going bad thing but you’re basically saying that we should use what we have to maybe find someone out there to trade with. But then we don’t have any gas left to get to them again to do any trading, if there’s even anyone out there,” He summed up.

  “Well, in a manner of speaking, yes that’s what I’m saying. I don’t know what we’ll find, but we won’t know unless we look. We won’t be using all our gas by a long shot and there are other ways to do it if we do find a reason to go back out again. They can always come to us, or we can start looking to the Fossel’s horses as an option too,” I concluded.

  The Fossel family was the other neighboring family remaining down the road. Along with their hay fields and farming equipment, plus the experience to run it, they had a small stable of horses. We helped each other out when we could by bucking hay bales and cutting firewood with them, but they were usually well fed and well stocked and with us taking the brunt of any looters coming this way first, they had it comparatively easy.

  I decided to conclude my side of the debate with one last thought.

  “We need to start looking long term here and that may mean expanding our bubble to farther than the people in this room.”

  From the looks on their faces I had pushed the reality of the long term situation to the forefront of everyone’s minds, right where they didn’t want it to be. I paused for another moment then looked to Megan.

  “Megan?” I asked looking for her input and completing the loop of people in the room.

  “I’ve only been here a little while; don’t think I’ve quite earned a voting spot yet,” she responded.

  I somewhat agreed with her sentiment, but I didn’t want to directly leave her out of the discussion either.

  Hearing that, Sue looked over to Megan sitting on the stool by me and spoke up in her motherly tone. “Honey, you’re a part of this family now, you have as much a say as anyone.”

  Paul didn’t try to hide his distaste at that thought I noticed.

  “I appreciate it Sue, but I think I’ll sit this one out,” Megan said resolutely.

  Looking at Karen and Derek, then back to Megan, I slowly stood. “Let’s give these guys some time to talk it over,” I ushered the others out to the kitchen.

  The four of us stood looking at each other in the small kitchen, not really sure if we were waiting for something or if we just had nowhere else to go and nothing better to do. Finally Derek broke the silence.

  “You know we appreciate what you’ve done, and what you’re trying to do and everything, but really you don’t have to do this. If it’s going to cause problems here or something, we made it this far on our own and we're in the home stretch now," he pointed out.

  "I know man but it’s not just for you. I used to know some families and places out near your folks that I wouldn’t mind seeing again.”

  "Okay but really..."

  "I know,” I cut him off. “I’m going with you either way, if they decide to come too, it’ll be a good thing, but we can get there without them."

  "So what’s the deal with this house you were talking about?" Karen asked me.

  “Two houses actually, down the road about a half mile or so. Nick and I checked in on them just a couple weeks ago. They’ve been empty for a while and they’re sealed up tight. Just need people to live in them again. Speaking of which, I didn’t say it, but if it’s needed, there should be room for your parents too.”

  “Thank you,” Derek said quietly. “I don’t know what we'll find out at their place. They were always prepared for a long winter or whatever but this... they were pretty isolated way out by the lake and well you know…” he trailed off.

  "Let's just see what we see when we get there,” I said, trying not to let him dwell on not knowi
ng if they were even still alive.

  "That’s the other thing, I don’t know, but I’m hoping my sisters will be out there too. Is that going to be a problem?" Derek added.

  "No," I laughed, "not on my end.”

  A long standing and un-talked about elephant in the room between Derek and I was my previous, what we’ll call “relationship,” with his sister Tiffany. It had been a few years now since I’d last seen her, but we were a couple during the hormone fueled days of our youth, and then later on we had an on again off again, ongoing fling.

  Besides Derek and Tiffany, and their mother to an extent, the rest of their family had never really embraced me, their father Stan especially. If Dierks Bently thought a Farmers Daughter was bad, what would he think of me fooling around with the daughter of a Federal Air Marshall?

  What was I thinkin?

  “To tell you the truth, I’m actually hoping we’ll find Tiff and her boyfriend out there too."

  "Fiancée," Derek amended.

  "Oh… cool, good for them," I mumbled slightly.

  "Uh, why exactly are you hoping they’ll be there?" He asked, trying to be nonchalant with the question.

  "Last I talked to Tiff, he was doing a tour overseas."

  "Yeah, Afghanistan, with Marine Recon," Derek informed me.

  “Really? No shit… I knew he was In, but I didn’t know he was a damn recon marine. Well between you, him and your dad, that would be a lot of extra experience that could really help out with hunting, security and training, and it could give me a break from trying to do all of it and more around here,” I told them.

  “Oh, so you weren’t kidding, it’s not just for us then,” Karen piped up.

  At that Megan rushed to my defense. “It’s for everybody. And he’s no good to anyone if he keeps getting exhausted and run ragged all day, every day.”

  I smiled a thank you to her.

  “I’m sorry, I get it. I’m just anxious to get to the end of all this,” Karen acknowledged.

  “We all are.” I said knowingly.

  “Which reminds me, when are you thinking of getting started?” Derek asked.

  “Depends,” I stalled, doing some quick math in my head. “If it’s just us, I can be ready to go in a day. I just need to go pack a bag for it and the trip back. If it’s everybody, it’ll take me a few days to get them all squared away and ready to go.”

  “Um, if it is just you, and we stay there, how are you planning to get back here?” Karen asked awkwardly.

  This brought Megan’s head up. I wasn’t surprised that it was something no one else had really thought of.

  “Just hike my way back. There is a lot to see and do between there and here,” I tried to sound reassuring.

  Back before I was forced to walk in the woods and live outdoors nearly every day, I had done it for fun. I had spent many days, and longer weekends, backpacking the woods and mountains of every area of the Pacific coast to the Rocky Mountains and down into the drier areas of the Southern US for a lot of years. I was long past being intimidated by a long hike. Plus I’d probably just steal a truck when no one was looking.

  Our conversation was abruptly interrupted with the sound of the front door closing a little too forcefully.

  That would be Paul…

  “Well I think you’ve got some company going west,” David joked as he walked in to join us in the kitchen. “Who did you have in mind to come with you?”

  I thought about that for a second. “I’m not one hundred percent sure yet, but I thought I’d ask Andrew and Jake to go if the girls would be alright on their own for a few days. I’ll need at least two others but I really don’t know how I can ask that many to leave here. Karen, can you handle driving the suburban and the kids on your own?”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” she replied.

  “Alright, that’s the main rig. I’d like to run one in front and one behind it,” I began, grabbing a pad of paper and pencil from the counter and thinking aloud as I outlined the set up. “Two in the rear vehicle plus a driver…another person up front would be good but we can make do without…then a driver plus one in the lead…three would be better but...”

  “Why so many?” Megan interrupted my one sided conversation.

  “Redundancy and security,” I explained. “Shooters covering all sides of the group at minimum, but if we have the people, we should have shooters covering all sides of each vehicle. We are going really light on this. I would feel a lot better with another rig and twice the people but we’ll just have to make do.”

  “Shooters…” Sue repeated ominously as she joined us in the kitchen.

  “It’s just in case,” I said, but her look told me I wasn’t any better at disarming her than I was at disarming Breanne. “I don’t think we’ll have any problems, but we just don’t know. It’s also a little show of force,” I said turning back to Derek. “We aren’t looking for a fight, but if someone else thinks they want to try to take what we have, like with what happened to you guys on the way in, if we don’t deter them or can’t drive away from them outright, we’ll be able to protect ourselves this way.”

  “What trucks were you thinking of using?” David asked.

  “Drew’s 4runner would be a good one, and maybe your Dodge if you don’t mind.”

  Andrew owned one of the early models of Toyota’s SUV, deemed the 4Runner, and I was very familiar with those rigs. One of my good friends had one that we used to travel in back in the day. We would get in all kinds of trouble in the woods, mud, snow and in town in that thing. I had helped him do everything from clean it and change the hubs and shocks, to replacing a worn out, but still running 300,000 mile engine. Andrew’s Toyota was in much better shape than my friend’s had been, so I knew it could handle the task.

  David’s Dodge truck was a gas hog, but it had 4 doors, a canopy, and could haul a load or tow anything that broke down. The question was, which one should be in front and which to have in the back? I’d have to work that out later. The evening was getting late and I was sure everyone wanted to get to their homes and in their own beds, even if I didn’t really have that option myself. Besides finding someplace to crash, I’d probably be up half the night making notes of things to do and things we’d need.

  I rejoined the group in the living room who were all still standing around, chatting with each other. When I walked in, the conversations dropped. They probably wanted a speech or something stupid like that, heck it was maybe even appropriate, but I wasn’t going to be making any promises.

  “Thank you all for doing this. I’d like to meet everyone in the morning to go over a few things…”

  “We’re here now,” Jake interrupted me. His excitement was obvious.

  “Okay,” I continued, “I’ve got a lot of logistics to get in order, but Drew, Jake, I’d like to ask you two if you’d come along. Don’t answer now,” I hurried to say, “take the night to talk it over with the ladies and with each other. Let me know in the morning. Drew either way, I’d like to borrow your 4Runner for this.”

  “I go where it goes,” Andrew laughed seriously.

  Sighing and laughing myself, I went on. “Just talk it over and let me know tomorrow. I’d like to leave in a couple days. We need to get the trucks and the people checked out, packed up, and ready to go. I’ll have more for you in the morning.”

  Chapter 12

  The next morning was a late start. Jake and Julie, along with Andrew and Cary, all showed up mid morning to get things started. Derek and his family had been up for a while and were milling around their suburban, half trying to look busy, but obviously not sure of what to do. I was happy to see David out there talking with Derek, coffee cups in hand.

  As I was just coming down from my little camp spot up on the hill, everyone began to gather out back around the picnic table, all eyes on me. All I needed to do now was trip and roll down the hill.

  “Good morning,” Megan greeted me, “coffee?”

  “Sure, thanks,” I took
the offered steaming cup from her.

  I don’t know how, but without it actually happening, she had the ability to look like she had just slept for twelve hours, showered, done her hair, and was dressed in a change of clean, comfortable and alluring clothes. I had slept for maybe four hours, under a bush with a rock as a pillow, in the same clothes I had been wearing for the better part of a week.

  “Our fearless leader,” Jake gestured in my direction.

  “Don’t even start with that. I’m not the… I don’t…just don’t start.” As much as I resisted it, for all intents and purposes, I was the leader of the group going out. I might not have liked it, but that was the reality of the situation.

  “Are we going traveling again?” a small voice interrupted my brooding thoughts. Derek and Karen’s kids had come over to play in the yard with Nick and Breanne’s children, and it was Derek’s daughter Leslie that was now tugging on my leg with her curious question.

  “We’re going to give it one more try, how’s that sound?” I looked down at her.

  Her face wrinkled a little with what she said next. “Tucker and I are tired of riding in the truck, can’t we stay here? It’s nice here.”

  Karen began to take a step to intercept us but I smiled and gently held up my hand to stop her. The other kids were now listening too, so I waved them over as well.

  “Come on over guys, come sit down here. I want to tell you all a story.” Then sitting down cross legged myself, I turned back to Leslie. “Do you know who lived here before us?” I asked her.

  “The Indians!” she exclaimed after some thought, excited that she knew the answer.

  “That’s right, the Indians did. And they were here for a very long time before we all came here.”

  “Once, there was a group of Indians kind of like all of us, and their chief was named Takanin. All their houses were closer to the river than ours here, but they traveled all the way from their homes, right to this very spot to find food, and because it was such a nice place. But then, some other people came to their homes by the river and they wanted what the Indians had. Takanin and his people did everything they could, but eventually they had to leave their homes. Every time they found a place to stay, the bad people would come and they would have to leave again. After a long time, Takanin was all by himself and he went to live out by a lake, close to where your Grandparents live.”