Fire From The Sky (Book 5): Home Fires

by Reed, N. C.

  “I did not think of that,” JJ admitted. “I'm so used to thinking digital that it's hard to think even in analog. Going back to tubes. . .” he shook his head.

  “I know the feeling,” Deuce sighed. “I really do. We're not in the stone age, exactly, but we're still pretty far back. And we need to really monitor this asshole, too,” Deuce decided to try and sound like an adult. “I'm telling you, he will be stirring up more people than you realize. For that matter, how many are wherever he is, listening to him in person?”

  -

  “There is no way that Hyatt Holman is just giving us all this time,” Jose mentioned as he and Clay sat outside of Building Two discussing their current situation.

  “Maybe we killed so many of his people he's had to give up,” Clay shrugged. “I admit it would be nice if he at least held off until we get this outfit finished,” he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the classroom. “That would be a big help.”

  “I think your idea about him waiting until harvest comes in was more on point,” Jose said. “Why take it now when he can wait and get it all?”

  “That too,” Clay agreed. “And if that's the case, why send that bunch after us with the truck?”

  “If he did,” Jose noted with a finger in the air. “We have all agreed that the odds are just as good that this bunch had gone nomad and were just trying to raid us for food. They had probably used that whipsaw tactic before and thought it was a sure thing.”

  “Probably would have been if we hadn't been looking,” Clay agreed.

  “So, we're looking at when for the crop to come in?” Jose changed the subject.

  “We’ll have to watch the corn and start pulling it in sometime after Labor Day. The milo will be about the same, though I’ll have to ask my dad for sure. We didn't plant it last year but he normally does. The rapeseed I have no idea,” Clay admitted. “I've been gone a long time for one thing, and for another we never raised it before that I know of. I'm sure the twins will know when to get it but I don't. The thing is the timing,” he sighed.

  “What do you mean?” Jose asked.

  “We planted a lot of acreage this year,” Clay told him. “Over nine hundred acres more than last year, and with a lot of different crops. We're talking about a lot of equipment changes to get everything pulled in, not to mention getting it all into silos. It is a major operation.”

  “The timing, though?” Jose prompted.

  “We have to try and work things where it all doesn't come due for harvest at the same time,” Clay explained. “It actually takes a lot longer to harvest than to plant because we have to off load the grain every so often. If we were a commercial farm then a truck would literally run alongside and take the grain from the harvester as we ran, but. . .we don't do that. We don't have a truck capable of it, either. Never bothered because we didn't use it. Now I wish we had at least one good trailer for the big rigs.”

  “What do you usually use?” Jose asked.

  “There are a pair of trailers we pull behind tractors,” Clay told him. “Works sort of as good, but slower. Then the trailer has to move to a silo, and the elevator has to pull the grain inside. Hours of mind numbing work right there. And then do it all over again.”

  “What are we using this for?” Jose asked.

  “The milo and corn are for the cows, the horses and now the pigs,” Clay said. “Rapeseed is for bio-diesel production. Assuming we can do that. The cotton was an experiment to see if we can make cloth. There's only about twenty-five acres of it so we might pick it by hand but. . .damn I hope not.”

  “Bad?” Jose raised an eyebrow.

  “Hot,” Clay nodded. “Anyway, we also have to cut and bale hay. That will happen pretty soon, actually, the first time anyway. We’ll cut again probably before harvest, and then try to get one more cut before winter sets in. Between the silage and the hay, we should be able to keep the cattle fed through the winter.”

  “What do we eat?” Jose wanted to know.

  “The cows,” Clay laughed. “We’ll probably keep some of the corn by pulling the ears by hand just before autumn. They freeze good and we can strip the kernels and can them, too. I personally don't care for it, but I rarely get asked my opinion about such things. And we have acres and acres of gardens that will provide enough, Lord and the rains willing, to not only feed us now but leave some to be put up for winter as well.”

  “This sounds like a lot of work,” Jose sighed.

  “Brother, you have no idea until you've done it,” Clay snorted.

  -

  Two weeks passed slowly but steadily. Clay, Ronny Tillman and Dee Talbot cut, baled and moved hay over a five-day period, making a good start on stocking the hay needed for the winter. Dee Talbot had made good on her promise by proving she really could operate pretty much anything on the farm, and do so quite well, thank you very much.

  The group going through training was starting to do much better. Everyone was finishing the obstacle course now, though some were still struggling. Still, there was improvement over the group as a whole.

  Shooting was proving to give some surprises but only some. Gary Meecham performed about like you'd expect a gunsmith to shoot, showing competent gun handling and accuracy with rifle and pistol alike. Abigail was no surprise as she had been shooting since she was four, and proved it by shooting better than everyone else. Almost.

  When it came time for distance shooting, little Samantha Walters snuggled down into the dirt and peered through the scope at a distant target on the five-hundred-meter range Jody Thompson had set up, and pinged the metal target on the first try. And the second, the third and finally the tenth as she emptied the magazine without a single miss.

  “I wish to teach her,” Jody said as soon as he saw her shooting. “She has the ability to be a rifleman.”

  “Sam, you interested in being a marksman?” Clay asked her. She looked from one to another for a moment, biting her lower lip.

  “What would that mean, exactly?” she asked finally.

  “You'd be trained more on distance shooting, spotting, and work more from the towers than on the ground,” Clay explained.

  “So... I’d be shooting people,” she said cautiously.

  “You’ll unfortunately be shooting people no matter where you are,” Clay replied. “A hazard of the times, I'm afraid. Right now, we have only Jody and Heath on the team, plus we have Gary and Brick to help out. If you train up like this then your post when you're on watch would be a tower, or the cupola in Building Two.”

  Samantha bit her lip as she thought that over.

  “Will it really help if I do it?” she asked.

  “Yeah, honestly it will,” Clay nodded. “But if you don't think you can do it, then you don't have to. It's a lot to take on.”

  “I’ll try,” she decided at last, taking a deep breath. “I may not be able to look at a person through a scope and shoot them, but I’ll try.”

  “No one knows if they can or not until they try,” Jody assured her. “And remember that if we are engaged, you will have to protect yourself and others no matter what. When you're on that tower, you're overlooking everyone else, watching out for them.”

  “I actually like it better when you phrase it that way,” Sam admitted. “I’ll do my best,” she promised.

  “I have no doubt.”

  -

  “Girlfriend shoots better than you, bub,” Abby teased that evening.

  “Good,” Gordy surprised her. “Gonna be a rifleman, then? Uh, rifle-woman, I guess?”

  “Rifle-person?” Samantha grinned. “Whichever it is, I'm going to try. I don't know if I can do it or not.”

  “No one does until they have to do it,” Gordy nodded. “I'm sure you’ll do fine.”

  “You surprise me little brother,” Abby looked puzzled. “I figured you would at least look embarrassed to be out shot by little Sam.”

  “Nope,” Gordy replied happily. “I figured this would happen,” he added. “I knew from
watching her shoot she would do well on the KD.”

  “KD?” both girls said at once.

  “Known Distance,” Gordy told them. “That's what the range is; the Known Distance Range. When you're training they’ll start throwing stuff at you at different ranges,” he explained to Sam. “You’ll have to estimate distance yourself and then shoot. I watched Heath do it.”

  “Sounds tricky,” Abby admitted.

  “Guess it can be,” Gordy shrugged. “Heath didn't have much trouble, but he's been shooting like that for years. Of course, you have too, so you should do fine. I'm proud of you,” he told her.

  “Thank you, Gordy,” Samantha beamed at him even as her face turned red.

  “Ugh,” Abby made a face.

  “Ain't you got something to do?” Gordy demanded.

  “No,” Abby smiled. “I can sit here and aggravate you two all night!”

  -

  The days were growing longer as they neared the summer solstice. More sun meant more time to get things done, though it was sometimes depressing to realize you still had two hours of light left when what you really wanted to do was go home and go to sleep.

  But work was steadily getting done and the benefits of holding the younger crowd out for the next class was showing. With their work load almost doubled by a shortage of people, the teens were all showing more lean muscle and also more mental maturity. Clay felt reasonably sure that by the time it was their turn, they would all do pretty well.

  Yet even with work going well, things were not all wine and roses as the Old Man would have put it. There were problems, and one of the larger problems decided to rear its ugly head just a week after the longest day of the year.

  -

  “Bossman, Bossman, come back,” Jody's voice sounded urgent.

  “Go for Bossman,” Clay replied at once, walking down the hill from the cabin area.

  “We have incoming traffic, from the Interstate,” Jody informed him. “Four vehicles present, including that Caddy your dad's friend was in last time.”

  “Roger that. Home Plate this is Bossman, how copy?”

  “Plate has you five by,” Deuce replied at once.

  “Sound the alarm, everyone to stations,” Clay ordered. “And if you have help there, get a drone in the air and take a look around us.”

  “Roger that, will do,” Deuce promised. Soon the alarm was going out everywhere. Clay made his way down the hill to his father's house where Greg Holloway was already waiting along with Gordon Sanders.

  “Thought I'd stand here with you this go around,” Greg told him. “Just, you know. . .for moral support or something.”

  “Suits me,” Clay grinned. “Dad, sure you want to be out here?”

  “Son-of-a-bitch may just want to talk,” Gordon replied flatly, his use of such language a telling factor in how he felt about the situation.

  “Three trucks behind the Caddy,” Jody reported. “They're stopping about two hundred yards back, give or take. Caddy is still coming.”

  “Roger that,” Clay answered. “Keep a sharp eye out across the road everyone. Remember what they tried last time.”

  He listened as different people began to check in with Plate, reporting they were in place. Gordy had reported that he and Titus Terry had slipped across the road where they could keep an eye out. Clay hated for the two teens to be so exposed but admitted it was needful. And there was cover available to them, just not as good as everywhere else.

  Something else I overlooked, he thought to himself. Why was it always when the shit was trying to hit the fan that he realized what he had missed?

  “Nice car,” Greg mentioned as the Cadillac pulled into the drive and stopped.

  “Yeah, and he stole it from a friend of mine,” Gordon all but growled.

  “We could take it back,” Greg suggested.

  “I promise you that the only way Len would have parted with that car was over his dead body,” Gordon shook his head. “Nothing to take it back to.”

  “There's your buddy,” Clay said as Holman emerged from the car. He wasn't alone this time as three others got out with him, two men and a woman.

  “Well, look what we got here,” Greg said quietly. “Never thought I'd see the day that Ida May would be standing next to Holman.”

  “Who?” Clay whispered as the four people approached them.

  “Ida May Swinton,” Gordon told him. “She was fairly influential in town, at least before the lights went out. The tall one is Bob Kendall and the dark haired one is Johnny Thomas. A good pair of snakes for a serpent to have as friends. But Ida May I don't get,” he said just as the four came into ear shot.

  “Hello, Gordon,” Holman didn't bother to feign politeness this time. “You know everyone here, I believe,” he swept his hand around to the group. “We've come to collect from you.”

  “I don't recall owing you anything, Hyatt,” Gordon replied evenly. “Other than an ass whipping,” he added just to see Holman flush.

  “Mister Sanders, I understand how you feel,” Kendall began.

  “I doubt that very much,” Gordon didn't bother letting him finish. “You'd have to had fought off an attack on your home, beat back a threat to your livelihood, and made it through an attempt at infiltration designed to cause harm to your family. If you've suffered through all that then maybe you understand how I feel. Have you by any chance?”

  “Well. . .no,” Kendall admitted.

  “Then I’ll thank you not to pretend you know how I feel,” Gordon told him bluntly. “And I still can't see that I owe any of you a damn thing.”

  “Gordon, I've never heard you use such language,” Ida May spoke up then.

  “I've never seen you keeping company with forked tongue devils, either,” Gordon gave as good as he got. “These days have us all acting out of character it seems.”

  Clay was proud of his father.

  “Gordon, there are people starving in town,” Ida May didn't bother to acknowledge the hit, since it was true. “Starving. And you've got food. It's that simple.”

  “We want your herd,” Thomas spoke for the first time.

  “Well, you can't have it,” Gordon replied calmly. “Last I checked, which was this morning, it was still mine. Now, was you interested in buying some cows, or trading for them, I might be interested in that.”

  “No, we're confiscating it,” Thomas shook his head. “We've decided -,”

  “You’ll find that your decisions don't carry much weight out here, Johnny,” Gordon chuckled. “It's cute, though, how you think you can just walk in here and start taking from me. Ol' Hyatt, he thought that the last time he came by, as I recall. Tried to have me shot down right here in my own yard, in fact.”

  “What?” Ida May Swinton looked over at Holman, who said nothing.

  “Yeah, and then sent over fifty men to attack my home and farm, killing Mark Webb in the process. And then apparently sent more to the Webb farm when they went home and killed most of them. Deb is over in our little infirmary right now more dead than alive. Ain't been awake a second in weeks. So, Johnny boy, you can take your decisions and shove them somewhere dark and private. How 'bout that?”

  Damn. Clay was seeing a new side to his father that he really liked.

  “Mister Sanders, there are people in Peabody starving,” Kendall tried again. “We need your herd to feed them. And we have the authority to take them.”

  “From where?” Gordon demanded. “You gave yourself the authority? Is that it? Voted yourself into an office you invented and then voted yourself some power to go with it? I note that don't none of you look hungry. How is that, with so much starving going on in Peabody? That you all look fed, I mean.”

  At that, the three apprentice snakes at least had the grace to look ashamed, though Holman didn't bother.

  “Well, we have to be able to work,” Thomas didn't quite stammer.

  “You mean steal, don't you?” Gordon didn't budge. “Now like I said, if you're wanting to buy some cows, o
r trade for 'em, we're always happy to do business, even with the devil,” he looked at Holman as he said that. “But there ain't gonna be no confiscating of my anything. Period.” He paused and looked at Holman.

  “I'm curious if they know exactly what it is you want from me, Hyatt,” he said, an edge creeping into his voice. “If they know that you actually came out here wanting to kill me and take my wife with you to whatever rock it is you slither under when you're not offending people with your oily presence?”

  “Say what?” Kendall looked stunned at that. “What the hell is he talking about, Holman?”

  “Nothing,” the older man almost spat. “He's just trying to get out of doing his due diligence.”

  “Due diligence, is it?” Gordon laughed. “I guess at least one dictionary survived the fire, then. There's no way you knew that word before now.”

  “Enough of this,” Thomas said suddenly. “Call the men up here and let’s get this done,” he reached into his pocket and removed a badge.

  “By the authority of the Citizen's Committee for Reconstruction and my office as Sheriff, I'm confiscating your herd, any working vehicles you possess and all food stuffs in your possession save a three-day supply for the people who live here. And that's the end of it.”

  “I got one of those,” Greg said calmly, pointed to his belt where his badge was pinned. “Actually, swore an oath to get mine. Got the hell shot out of me during the time after the fire trying to keep it. I figure mine is worth at least as much as yours is, seeing as how I got mine honest.”

  “You're fired,” Thomas said at once.

  “I quit, fucktard,” Greg shot back, laughing.

  “I don't understand why you're having such a difficult time hearing me,” Gordon looked at Thomas. “You can try to make a deal for some cattle, or else you can eat Hyatt for all I care. I'm sure he'd be a little grisly, but beggars can't be choosers, right?”

  “Compass points are clear,” Deuce whispered in Clay's ear.