***
Jill sat in the shotgun seat of the pickup truck on the way back from the duck hunt. Seven birds, along with Jimmy and Klutz the mutt, rode in the bed. The dog flapped his long tongue alongside her head right by her open window, enjoying the breeze through the trees.
Up into the hills they wended their way, down old paved roads that turned to gravel and then dirt. For some odd reason, these two – well, three with Klutz – had taken to her like the proverbial ducks to water. Sure, she was used to dealing with men like brothers in the Corps, suppressing her femininity in favor of the warrior culture, but this was something more. In just a day of sitting in a blind and shooting at birds, it appeared she’d been adopted.
They didn’t ask too many questions, and they’d given her a few knowing looks, which she studiously ignored. They’d fed her from their cooler, simple fare but wonderful. “Ma’s a great cook,” Jimmy had said, and his bragging justified itself. She ate fried chicken wrapped up in brown paper, cold potatoes and butter, cole slaw and corn bread and pecan pie, and sipped from a bottle of what they called “corn squeezins.”
White lightning. Moonshine. Maybe that explained their reticence to talk to the sheriff.
Normally not much of a drinker, she imbibed because alcohol also yielded calories. She noticed she had lost another pound or two in the last couple of days. Looking at her hands was like staring at sticks with skin on them. Perhaps that explained these hill folks’ sympathy – they probably thought she was starving and on the run.
Ironically, they were not wrong. Her reasons were just not what they must think.
Eventually they pulled up in front of what Jill would have termed a cabin, given its setting. On closer inspection she had to call it a house, because there was nothing recreational about it. A dull yellow clapboard thing with a corrugated metal roof, it seemed almost a part of the landscape.
Tucked into the hollow between two hills, a functioning farm surrounded it. Garden plots alternated with fruit and nut trees, a henhouse, rabbit hutches, and a barn. A bit farther back looked like several acres of corn. To her amateur eye it seemed prosperous, at least in food, though probably not in cash. Another old pickup truck was parked off to the side.
Once they had stopped, Jill could see a boy of perhaps twelve sitting in a chair on the oversized front porch. He waved with a strange motion of his hand, as if something impeded him. Klutz jumped from the back to charge up the steps and press his head into the kid’s lap, and he petted the dog clumsily.
From the front door stepped a tired-looking woman similar in age to Big Jim, and a pretty young one of perhaps sixteen in a homemade flowered dress. The former held a pitcher full of lemonade; the latter, a stack of beat-up multicolored plastic cups. Both set their burdens on a rough wooden table that occupied one side of the wide frontage and pulled chairs back to sit around it.
“Got seven!” Jimmy called enthusiastically as he picked up the birds in both hands. “We kin have a couple tonight. Got a guest, Ma,” he continued, waving in Jill’s direction. “She eats like Cousin Bee-Bob and looks like to blow away in a stiff breeze, so maybe we should make three or four. Ain’t gonna keep that long in this hot weather anyway.”
Jill didn’t find it all that warm, perhaps eighty-five. On the other hand, she didn’t see any electric or phone wires leading to the house. Perhaps they had no refrigeration beyond the water from the creek she could see running down the hillside behind the farm.
“You come on up here, honey,” the older woman called. “I’m Sarah McConley, this here’s my daughter Jane. The boy over there’s Owen, but he’s one o’ God’s simple children.” She took Jill’s hands in both of hers, her eyes kind. “Oh my, you do look like you could use some fattenin’ up. We’re common folk, but the good Lord has blessed us with food and kindness. You set y’self down now.”
Jill had little choice in the matter, as Sarah kept hold of her hands until she sat. “I’m Jill,” she replied as she was gently maneuvered into position. “Jill Repeth.”
Sarah blinked quizzically. “What’s that name there on your shirt?”
Color drained from Jill’s face as she realized how she’d tipped her hand, but she really did not want to lie to these people. “Something bad happened…I had to get away, so I borrowed this. I’m not…” She ground to a halt. I’m not what? A criminal? A deserter? Face it, Jill, that’s exactly what you are.
She started again. “I haven’t hurt anyone, but I did run away.” She unbuttoned the tunic, balling it up and stuffing it into a cargo pocket, for some reason not wanting to wear that lie anymore.
Sarah pressed her lips together in thoughtful disapproval, but didn’t pursue the matter further. “Jane, you keep Miss Jill here company while I start a-working on dinner.” She went inside.
Jane smiled broadly and poured lemonade out in five tall, well-worn plastic cups, setting two aside and handing one to Jill. “I just love having company. Hardly anybody comes up here.”
Jill tasted the lemonade, then drank half of it down. Cool but not cold, it confirmed her conjecture about the lack of refrigeration. Nevertheless, it tasted wonderful. “Thank you. I’m happy to be here. Everyone’s been so nice.”
“It’s the Lord’s kindness, that’s all. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you, the Good Book says.” Klutz’s tail thumped on the porch as if in agreement.
“That sounds like a good idea,” Jill responded, unsure how to take these folks. The banjo line from Deliverance played in the back of her head, and something in her wondered if anyone could really live this simply. Had she encountered the same family in her own LA neighborhood, she would have thought they must be cultists of some sort, but here, in these hills…it all seemed to fit.
“Do you go to school?” Jill asked.
“O’ course I do. We ain’t billies, you know. Ma and Pa both graduated from high school, and they say maybe I can go to the junior college down in Morristown, if’n I can get a scholarship and state aid. They got a program for vocational nursing. I already take care of Owen, mostly, so it can’t be all that hard. O’ course, with everything like it is…”
Jill turned in her seat to look more closely at Owen, and realized that his chair had wheels on it. Not exactly a traditional wheelchair, rather, it looked like something home-made from bicycle parts, but sturdy nonetheless.
Owen made a sound something like a grunt or moan, and looked at her with a smile on his face, She got the distinct feeling there was more inside him than he could express. “Hello, Owen,” she said, and was rewarded with a clumsy wave and another inarticulate but cheerful sound.
“He wants to come on over. Will it bother you?” Jane asked.
“Of course not,” Jill replied. “But could I trouble you for a little something to eat? I seem to get hungry a lot lately,” she said, watching closely for Jane’s reaction.
“Here you go, Miss Jill,” Sarah called as she backed out the door holding a large bowl in each hand. “Figgered you’d want something before the ducks got done, which will be a couple of hours.”
Cheese and butter and bread filled one bowl, and freshly washed peaches the other. After she wheeled Owen over to the table, Jane plucked one of the yellow-orange orbs and sliced it all the way around the middle with a little paring knife, handing half to Jill. Cutting hers small, she fed Owen and herself alternately, a piece at a time. He chewed open-mouthed and laughed, clapping his hands together.
When Jill bit into her peach half she thought she’d found heaven on Earth, and devoured it and another whole one right away. Then she started on the bread and butter and cheese.
“My, you are a hungry thing.” Jane’s voice held no criticism, only the kind of innocent wonder Jill hadn’t experienced since her childhood. She smiled, embarrassed, but that didn’t slow her feasting down. Her body screamed for calories, protein, and fats, and hummed with pleasure as her stomach filled.
The men had disappeared into the barn, where Jill caught glimpses
of them tending to animals. She thought she could see cows, barn cats, and it looked like a pig and some piglets occupied an enclosure to the side, well downwind.
“Jane, get us some t’maters and squash, will you?”
“Yes, Ma,” Jane replied. Turning to Jill, she asked, “Watch Owen, will you? Just make sure he don’t get ahold of nothing sharp, and only give him a small bit at a time. He can choke if’n it’s too big.” Without waiting for a reply, Jane hurried off to one of the garden plots to pick tomatoes and yellow squash, putting them in her flipped-up skirt.
Jill looked at Owen, and Owen looked back at Jill. His eyes danced, and he grinned. Someone’s trapped in there, she said to herself. She wondered what it was exactly that afflicted him. Was it a cognitive disability, or only physical, like Stephen Hawking?
“So Owen, can you understand what I’m saying?”
The boy squealed, pawing in the direction of the food.
Jill took a piece of cheese, but Owen shook his head. “Peach?”
Squeal.
She cut one of them up, keeping the little paring knife well out of reach, and began to feed him. She knew so little about people like this…how much was delayed development due to lack of a special-needs program? And how much was intrinsic, brain or body betrayal?
Her musing was cut short by Jane’s return. The girl sat down with bowls of washed vegetables to begin cutting them up for cooking, producing another small knife. Soon they were chatting like sisters. For a time, Jill forgot that she was on the run, forgot that her family might all be dead, forgot that her second family, the Corps, would consider her every action since contracting the disease aboard the cruise ship to be unlawful, even treasonous.
By the time dinner was ready the sun was going down behind the hills, though not behind the true horizon. It made for a long sunset, pleasant breezes, and enough light to sit outside on the porch and talk. The table overflowed with food, but everyone seemed determined to eat all they could.
“So you two are farmers?” Jill asked the men at one point. “Or do you have some other jobs?”
“Oh, we do a little of this and a little of that,” Big Jim replied, his face studiously neutral.
“I do some construction now and again for cash,” Jimmy volunteered, “but with a place like this, well…something always needs doing.”
Jill grunted, picking up the jar of “corn squeezins” from which the men had fortified their lemonade, and looked at Jimmy across its open top. He smiled back at her as if sharing a secret, but it seemed a very open secret to her. Then she caught Sarah’s glare and realized that perhaps not everyone was in agreement about the stuff. She put the jar back down and shrugged apologetically.
“You know what’s funny?” Jill asked without meeting anyone’s eyes. “I’m a cop. I’m a military police sergeant. I should be chasing down people like me…people like me. Whatever that means. I never thought anyone had an excuse to run from their own government, but…”
The men chuckled, and even Sarah and Jane looked amused. Big Jim spoke. “Girl, you in Tennessee. Ain’t nobody knows more about resistin’ the gubmint than us. In the War of Succession we saw county against county and town against town – families divided, brother against brother. We had two gubmints to resist, and we made the most of it. Virginia had the biggest battles, but Tennessee had the bitterest. So don’t you worry none; we ain’t much on bowin’ to no gubmint, not when it comes to right an’ wrong.”
The adults – lumping Jane in that category – nodded, and Jill suddenly realized they were trying to reassure her, to tell her something: that they wouldn’t turn her in, and perhaps, that they understood.
“Jane girl, go get the radio, would you please?” Big Jim said. He turned to Jill, “We been listenin’ to the goin’s-on from the Knoxville station. Terrible, terrible things, some of it. Riots all across the country. Martial law. Feds confiscatin’ people’s guns just when they need ’em most. Troops ever’where. We always knew it would happen, didn’t we, dear?”
Sarah nodded, fingers plucking at her needlework. “Just got to hold out ‘til the Lord returns and sets things to right.”
“Now Ma,” Jimmy protested, “this ain’t no Armageddon. Lots of places went through worse than this.”
“Either way,” Big Jim intervened, “we’ll do the same. Keep an eye on our own and our neighbors.” He cocked his head at Jill and furrowed his brow. “You reckon to stay here a spell, or move on soon, Miss Jill?”
Jill opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Staying hadn’t even entered her thoughts. How could these people afford to take care of her, and how would she repay them in turn? “I’ll stay for now, if you please,” she found herself responding with relief. “As long as you’ll have me, until I have to move on. I’ll try to earn my keep.”
“That you will, girl,” Big Jim said contentedly, sucking on his briar pipe.
Jane returned with a radio, setting it on the table and then cranking a handle on it a dozen times. “Survival set. Charges its own batteries.” She switched it on. “Only gets the one station though.”
…And that was Brenda Lee with “I’m Sorry” on your country oldies station. Now we bring you a public service reminder that if you see something, say something! Tell a police officer, tell your local, state or federal officials. What should you tell them about? Anyone who has had a miracle recovery, or who seems to be hungry all the time, might be infected. Anyone who seems furtive, or has a sudden change in behavior, or who pulls their children out of school. Anyone who speaks against the government, or protests against it, should be reported. Anyone who your neighbors are calling a “Sicko,” must be reported. If you don’t know who else to contact, call the Centers for Disease Control at 1-800-336-132.
Now a word from one of our sponsors:
The voice changed from the announcer to a smooth, deep-voiced narrator with a cultured Southern drawl very different from the McConleys’.
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Then the station returned to playing old country songs. Big Jim reached over to turn it down, staring at Jill contemplatively as he puffed on his pipe.
A chill went through her. He knows, or at least suspects. Just stay calm, Jill. These people took you in. They’re not going to suddenly turn around and give you up. Besides, they don’t even have a phone. And there is no fear in this family, only love. If they were twisted, they couldn’t hide it.
She hoped. Everyone seemed to be watching her as the daylight and the conversation faded.
Eventually Sarah went inside and artificial light soon shone from inside the house, harsh white glare from a gas lantern. Jane stood up to clear the table and Jill started to get up to assist when Jimmy put a hand on her arm. “Mebbe you can just watch Owen while we do this, Miss Jill.” He picked up dishes and followed the others inside, leaving Big Jim staring at her.
“Don’t worry, girl,” Big Jim rumbled as his eyes gleamed in the night. “We ain’t gonna turn you in. You ain’t mean no harm to us, and we ain’t mean no harm to you.” He took his pipe out of his mouth, fragrant smoke swirling from it toward her nose. Owen sneezed and moaned, waving his hand. “Oh, pardon,” he said, and changed seats to send the smoke away from them. “I imagine you kin use a f
irearm, ma’am? Other than a shotgun, I mean?” He’d let her take a few shots at ducks that first day, but she’d missed every one.
“I grew up in East L.A., sir. I joined a gang when I was thirteen, and enlisted in the Corps when I turned seventeen. Spent two years deployed to the desert, fighting off insurgents and training foreign police. What do you think?” She smiled to take the sting out of her words.
“Nuff said. I hope it don’t come to that, but with things goin’ the way they is, nuc’lar weapons and all, people bein’ rounded up an’ quarantined…”
“Sir…Big Jim, aren’t you worried about the disease?”
He puffed on his pipe a moment. “They got the internet in Jane’s school, you know. She saw that Daniel Markis fella on the tee-vee, tellin’ about the miracle germ. For a couple days, afore the gubmint took over the news stations, she heard all kinda stories, about people gettin’ cured. The cancer, the black lung that got all my cousins over in Cold Creek, heart attacks goin’ away, even my uncle Clyde that allas was a little teched in the head, they said he was talkin’ like a normal person. Clyde got taken away, and my cousins took to the hills. If the disease is so bad…I think roundin’ folks up is worse.”
Jill’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she couldn’t swallow. Impulsively she took a gulp of the white lightning straight from the jar, coughing a little. Once the spasms passed, she straightened, looking Big Jim in the eye. “I want to show you something.”
Big Jim held up his hand. “Mebbe you want to show everyone.”
“You’re in charge here…”
“Yeah I am, but we’re a family. Smart man don’t leave his family out, less’n he has to.” He grinned. “Not if he wants a peaceful home.”
Jill cocked her head and picked up her lemonade, looking at Big Jim over the rim of the cup. “Well, I may not be family, but I know how to follow orders.” She put on his accent for a moment. “A smart sergeant don’t buck the system less’n she has to.”
“Amen. Why don’t we go inside?” Big Jim stood up. “Here we go, Owen, goin’ inside for family time.” He wheeled the chair and the boy into the doorway, clattering over the threshold. Klutz dodged ahead, bumping into the doorframe on the way.
Jill followed, entering the home for the first time. As expected, the room was rustic and unpretentious, but in the light of the lantern hanging from an overhead beam, it blazed richly with homey decorations. Needlework Bible verses competed with pastoral scenes done in oils, exquisitely carved animals, some painted and some not, and lots of other artistic crafts. Photographs, many old, in black and white and sepia, hung on the walls.
“This is amazing,” she said, looking closely at the nearest wall. “Who did these?”
“The womenfolk did the sewin’. Pa paints, I carve,” Jimmy explained. “Got to have somethin’ to do, don’t you think?”
“What do you do for fun, anyway?” Jill asked. “No television, no computer, no internet, no phone…I see you have some books, and some boardgames.”
Jimmy shrugged. “We get by. None o’ those things was around a hunnerd years ago, even fifty years ago some places in these parts. People got by.”
Big Jim wheeled Owen into a place obviously his, next to the unlit hearth. Klutz padded over to sit at his feet. The boy craned his head around, looking at everything as if checking to see it was all in place. “Unnh!” he said emphatically, making a motion toward one part of the wall.
“That’s right, Owen. I moved the pictures.” Sarah walked over, and then switched two small photographs into each other’s location. “He knows, you see. He remembers everything, and can tell when something’s out of place. If I really want to change something, it’s some time before he takes to it.”
“Autism, sounds like,” Jill remarked.
“Yes, that’s what the doctor said, but it don’t matter what you call it. It’s just Owen.” The older woman walked to a bookshelf and took down a large leather-bound Bible, handing it reverently to Big Jim.
“Thank you, darlin’,” he said, then leafed through it as if looking for some particular passage. “We allas read a bit of the Good Book after dinner. I hope you don’t mind.”
Even if I did, I sure wouldn’t be complaining to these good people, Jill thought.
“Janie, could you please read for me? My eyes are a bit tired today.” Big Jim handed the Bible over to his daughter. “Right there, where the bookmark is.”
Jane smiled, and in a clear sweet voice, read, “The Good Samaritan.” Then she proceeded to relate the parable of a man set upon by bandits.
Left to die, a priest, and then a high-status Levite, passed him by and did not help, Finally a Samaritan, of despicable ethnicity and heretical faith to the Hebrews of the time, was the only one to render assistance. In fact, he paid for the man’s care and promised to return to check on him.
“You know,” Big Jim said in a casual tone, “we’s the Samaritans here. Ap’lachian folk. Get laughed at on the tee-vee, less’n they like our bluegrass pickin’.”
The rest of the family nodded, and Sarah said, “Amen.”
Jill couldn’t fail to get the message. Unless their whole lifestyle was a lie, they had truly accepted her into their family, in a way that usually happens only when the very foundations of society get shaken. She found tears of relief in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she replied. “I have something to show you, though. You’ve been so good to me…I want to be honest with you. It might…well, if they ever come for me, I want you to know the truth about these people. These ‘Sickos,’ as they are calling them.”
Reaching down, she rolled up her utility trousers, exposing first her boots, then the prosthetics that filled them. Eventually she worked them all the way up to her knees, exposing the skin of her stumps, showing pink at the extremities. Then she began unstrapping the left one.
The McConley family murmured sympathetically as they saw, and Jimmy let out a hoot of surprise. “If that don’t beat all. I never woulda knowed if you didn’t show us. You walk around all right.”
“As long as I don’t have to go far, I can stand it. But the fact that I lost my feet isn’t really the interesting part.” Jill finished unstrapping the left artificial foot, and set it aside. Lifting her leg with her hands, she flexed her knee, the stump waving up and down. “Perhaps I should have done this in the daytime, with better light. You’d be able to see that the bottom inch here is pinker than the rest, like new baby skin. I lost my legs over a year ago, and nothing like that happened, until now.”
She took a deep breath and went on, finding them staring at her in fascination. “I was on a cruise ship a few days ago. One morning we woke up and there were miracle cures all over the ship. I heard rumors of some video that said it was a germ that did it. Then the Navy showed up and quarantined us. Food began to run low, and people were eating more. That’s what the disease did, I guess. I know I got hungry a lot. I decided I didn’t want to wait, so I swam to a Navy ship nearby and sneaked aboard. I blended in to the crew, contacted a chaplain, and she got me off with the wounded.”
“What wounded?” Jimmy asked.
“After I left the cruise ship, they blew it up. Killed everyone aboard. Damaged another warship doing it.”
The family gasped. “This is worse than I’d thought,” Big Jim rumbled.
“It’s Armageddon coming for sure,” Sarah declared.
“Now honey, we don’t know that,” Big Jim cautioned. “But it sure ‘nuff looks like bad times. Miss Jill, we can see you’re not some crazy person. Whatever it is, it ain’t a bad thing, far as we kin tell. Mebbe the gubmint will figger it out, and things’ll calm down. Best we just be careful, keep you out of sight, and wait. Stay out of the way.”
“Thank you,” Jill said yet again.
“Don’t thank me yet, girl,” Big Jim replied with a smile. “Like I said, you’ll earn your keep. As much as you eat, you’ll have to.”
“You’ll never meet anyone that works a
s hard as I do,” Jill declared. “I’m no invalid, and maybe…” She gave voice to her greatest hope: “Maybe I’ll actually grow my feet back.”
“Wouldn’t that be a marvel,” Jane exclaimed, throwing her arms around the other woman.
Jill replied, “Yes, it would. And now, folks, I’ve had a really long day. Does anyone mind if I get some sleep?”
Murmurs of assent came from all, and Jane showed Jill to a room with two beds. “We’ll have to double up, though. That there bed’s Owen’s, and we cain’t disturb his routine, so you can sleep with me, head to foot, like we did when we was little. You mind?”
“Oh, Jane, you can put me in the barn and I won’t mind.”
“Maybe tomorrow,” Jane replied seriously, rearranging the bedclothes and retrieving a pillow from the closet. “Here you go. Sleep well. We’ll try not to disturb you when we come in later.”
Jill climbed into the bed and slept, not waking until the morning sun peeked over the hills.
Reaper's Run - Plague Wars Series Book 1 Page 9