by John Grit
“That’s what you said about carrying your .44 and loading the shotgun and rifle. Just a precaution.”
“It is. We haven’t had any trouble yet. No one has been around.”
“What about the barn? Someone might steal the cow.”
Nate smiled at his son. “Good thinking. I will need that kind of help over the next few months.”
“Oh hell. You already thought of it. That’s why you found two old padlocks instead of just one. Don’t treat me like Beth. I’m not little like she was.”
“I wasn’t. You’re almost a man now. A father can kid with his son a little, can’t he?” He punched Brian’s shoulder lightly. “Let’s get that lock on the barn. After that, you need to get your lever-action. We’re going hunting this afternoon.”
“Hunting?” Brian squinted in the sunlight. “I thought we were going into town to buy some stuff as soon as we got things squared away here. I don’t like venison much anyway. Can’t we buy something in town? We’ve never gone so long without going to town.”
Nate put a screwdriver in his back pocket. “The same reason we couldn’t take your mother and sister to the hospital.”
“But the police should have gotten the rioting under control by now. The hospitals might be open again too.”
“No.” Nate shook his head. “They’re not going to open anytime soon. And the police are overwhelmed. Many of them died of the sickness just like everyone else.”
Brian’s face showed concern. “How long before things are normal?”
“Not for a while.” Nate pretended to be busy checking the hasp and lock.
“Well, we need to go to the grocery store. I’m not going to live on eggs and venison forever.”
“You like pork chops don’t you?” Nate gave his son a strained smile. “Wild hogs were in the field last night. Tore up a half acre. I found where they went back into the woods and left a trail of corn to entice them back out. Maybe you can get a shot before dark. If not, the corn might bring a turkey out.”
Brian sighed. “Okay, but we’re going into town tomorrow, aren’t we? There isn’t much real food left.”
“There’s plenty of food for now. Let’s go in and get ready. You’ll need to dress warm. Stand hunting gets cold since we won’t be moving and generating any body heat.”
Nate came out of his bedroom with his M14 and jacked a round into the chamber, muzzle pointed at the ceiling.
Brian looked up from the kitchen table. He was wiping oil off his rifle. He stood and stuffed half a dozen 30/30 rounds into his right coat pocket. “I thought we’re not supposed to have a loaded rifle in the house.”
“That rule still goes for you.”
Brian looked up at his father. “You’re bringing your M14? Isn’t it illegal to hunt with a twenty round magazine?”
“You’re the one who’s hunting. Besides, it’s legal to hunt hogs on your own property with anything you want. They’re not considered game animals, just trespassing feral livestock.”
“But why do you have your military stuff? And you usually use your .44 revolver to hunt hogs ‘cause the range is always so close.”
Nate shrugged. “I thought I would get out my load-bearing harness and see if I can still carry all this in my old age. We won’t be needing six extra magazines, no hog is that hard to kill. I just thought I would get it out and use it for old times.”
“Dad, you carry stuff heavier than that every day. And you’re not that old. You’re only thirty-eight.”
Nate’s eyes lit up. “Thanks. But I just want to carry it today.”
“Okay. It looks cool on you anyway. If you had an M4, you would look like you were in the Army again.”
“Ready?”
“Yep.” Brian started for the front door.
“No,” Nate said. “We’ll go out the back and swing around through the trees. We’ll stay downwind that way.”
When they got outside, Nate locked the door.
Brian watched, holding his rifle in both hands, pointing skyward. “Why are you locking the door?”
“I told you there’s an egg thief sneaking around. We don’t want him in the house, do we?”
“Is that what the military stuff is for?”
“I wouldn’t shoot a hungry man for stealing eggs. Nothing else has been taken or damaged…yet. The trouble is—what will he do next? If I catch him, I’ll try to hold him at gunpoint long enough to have a talk with him and let him know we’ll give him what food we can spare if he would just ask first. And I will warn him not to come back sneaking around in the night ‘cause he might get buckshot in him.”
Brian smiled. “Oh.”
They made their way through the trees. Nate took his time, keeping an eye out both for anything moving and tracks in the snow.
Brian followed a few yards behind, much less alert than his father but enjoying the late afternoon hike in the woods and a chance to be with his father on another hunt.
Nate stopped suddenly, looking to his left. Brian searched the woods for what his father was looking at. Then he saw smoke rising through the treetops in a stand of oaks and pines, drifting lazily in the still, cold air a half mile away near the top of a hill.
Brian eased up to his father. “Someone camping up there.” He spoke not much louder than a whisper.
“That’s what it looks like. Doesn’t seem to be a wildfire. Just one thin column of smoke.”
“Maybe it’s the egg thief.”
“Maybe. He’s on federal land and not bothering us at the moment. Keep your eyes open. We’ll go ahead and try to get that hog.”
“He’ll hear the shot.”
“Yes he will. Might warn him not to steal from us anymore.”
Brian sighed. “Sometimes I think you don’t tell me everything.”
“You know as much as I do about that smoke and the egg thief. Come on, let’s get that porker. We need the meat.”
“We could buy some hamburger in town.”
“Come on now, and be quiet.”
Nate led Brian to a thick stand of immature pines and found the oak windfall he was looking for. “Sit down behind this log and get comfortable.”
Brian used a pine for a backrest. “Whoever is up there isn’t too smart. I mean, he must know we can see that smoke. If I was stealing from somebody I would try to hide better.”
“That’s good thinking. But I know you wouldn’t just try to hide, you would hide. I taught you better than that.”
“If you think I’m so smart, why won’t you tell me everything?”
“Like what?”
“Why don’t we go into town any more? We’re not taking care of Beth or Mom, so there’s no reason not to now.”
“The sickness will be anywhere people are. Now let’s stop talking. We need that meat, and talking is not the thing to do while hunting, you know that.” He turned facing the house. His eyes scanned the woods in a wide arc, covering the area behind Brian. “Stay alert. If you see anything, man or animal, whisper.”
“At least the sun will set behind us and to my left, out of our eyes,” Brian said.
“I wonder how that happened.”
“Oh come on. I’m not that stupid. You got us sitting downwind too.”
“You’re not stupid, period.”
“But I was never in the Army and don’t have your training.”
“You have me. And I’m going to be teaching you a lot of things over the coming months. But you have to listen to me to learn. What did I say about talking while hunting?”
“That hog’s not going to hear us whispering, Dad. You’re making me think we’re the ones being hunted.”
“We know there’s a thief in the area, and we know there’s smoke up on that hill. I wouldn’t say we’re being hunted though. We have to be careful now. Things have gotten rough. There might not be much law anymore. Probably a lot of cops have died, leaving them shorthanded.” He scanned the woods while talking. “Now be quiet so we can hear if something walks up.”
“You mean a man.”
“Quiet, I said.”
The sun set behind the tree line and it grew colder. They sat and searched the woods as all color faded to darkening gray. Brian pulled his collar up and stuffed his gloved hands back into his coat pocket. His father had told him years ago that sunup and sunset is the prime hunting time. He also knew from experience how cold you can get sitting at a deer stand. He had worn his heaviest coat, but he was still getting colder by the minute.
Nate tapped Brian on the shoulder. “Don’t move and don’t make a sound. Someone just ran behind the barn. He’s got a rifle or shotgun. He’s no egg thief.”
Brian jerked his head towards the house.
“Don’t move!” Nate hissed. “There’s another one back in the trees to the right of the house.”
“They mean to hurt us.” Brian’s breathing was fast and strong.
“Calm down. They don’t know where we are. Breathe normal. You’re puffing up a cloud of mist.”
“What are we—?”
“Sshh. I’ll handle it. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
The sound of glass breaking just made it to Brian’s young ears, but Nate did not hear it.
“They’re breaking in,” Brian said. “I thought you shuttered all the windows before we left.”
“I see him.”
The man pulled himself partway into the window. A loud boom shattered the peace of the cold twilight.
Brian gasped as he looked toward the house. A man lay in the snow under the window. He did not move.
Gunfire erupted from the woods. Like fireflies, muzzle flashes flickered in the dark of the forest. Someone was shooting at the house. Nate was already aiming. His left arm was in the shooting sling and he in a steady sitting position. He squeezed the trigger and saw the second man go down. Though it was dark in the shade of the trees, he knew his shot was a solid hit. If he was not dead, he would be soon.
He pushed Brian to the ground and against the oak windfall. “Crawl to the other end of the log and get behind that rock. Stay low. On your belly. Hurry!”
His eyes wide, Brian belly-crawled to the rock and sat behind it.
“No. On your belly. And stay there. Just lie there and don’t move. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“An hour!”
“Shut up and do what I say. They’re here to kill us.”
Nate crawled twenty yards farther back into the forest and then rushed another twenty through thick brush while bent down low. His crashing could be heard by Brian or anyone else nearby, but silence was not important at the moment. His gunfire had given their position away, and he could only hope if someone was close enough to hear it would lead them away from Brian. He stopped and stood, taking advantage of the extra darkness under an oak tree in the gathering twilight and looked around, peering into the darkening woods. There was no sound, no movement.
His four years in the Army came back to him as if the decade and a half between then and now had been instantly removed with a surgeon’s scalpel, seamlessly shortening his life. He was twenty-two again. A trained killer. A hunter of men. His wife had known something of his former life, but his children did not. He had always hoped they never would.
In the dark under the forest canopy, Nate found no one but the man he shot. He did not go to the house to check on the man who tried to crawl through Beth’s bedroom window. He was dead. That was good enough for him. There was no need to expose himself in the open.
By the time Nate was able to slowly make his way around behind the farm all the way to the river, it was too dark to see anything, not even tracks in the snow. But there was no one out there. He was sure of that.
It took him another hour to make his way back around to Brian, gathering the dead man’s weapons on the way.
“Brian.” Nate’s voice came out of the dark.
Brian jumped. “Jesus Christ, Dad!”
“Keep it low. I’m sure there’s no one else around, but we can’t be too careful. You only have one life, Son, value it. Don’t give it away with carelessness.”
“I was afraid I might shoot you thinking you were one of them.”
“Good. That means you’re thinking like a man and not a boy. I was hoping you were using your brain. Now I know you were.” He put his hand on his son’s head. He was not shaking from fear, but from cold. “You should have brought a hat with you.” Nate was wearing a boonie hat. “It’s okay now. Follow me. We’ll skirt the tree line and stay in the shade. It’s too dark to walk in the trees, and no one can see us on the other side of the field that way. Just stay close behind me and try to be as quiet as possible. I’ll go slow, and we will come in through the trees behind the house and use the backdoor.”
Brian got up from the ground and stood in the dark. “Is it safe to go to the house?”
“If there’s any more shooting, jump into the woods and crawl behind cover and stay there until I come to get you.”
“So you don’t know if there’s more.” Brian looked around but could see little in the dark.
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s over. Just do what I say and it will be okay.” Nate started walking.
Nate crawled to the backdoor and reached up with keys to open it. He swung it open and rolled out of the way. “Come on.”
Brian broke from the tree line and ran all-out through the doorway and crashed into a chair before he could stop.
Nate closed the door and locked it. “You okay?”
“I think I flattened that chair you left by the hallway though. I can’t see in here at all.”
“We have plenty of chairs. I only have one son. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Follow me.”
They groped their way in the dark and into Beth’s bedroom. It still smelled of her sickness, even with the window smashed and cold air entering. Nate removed the pump shotgun and unattached the wire to the trigger. He put the safety on and pumped a shell into the chamber. Reaching over to the dresser top, he groped in the dark, knocking over the buckshot shell he left there, just catching it before it rolled off onto the floor. He shoved it into the magazine.
“You set a shotgun in the window and didn’t tell me?” Brian’s voice rose in the dark. “And you knew there was trouble and said nothing. That’s not right, Dad. You think I’m just a kid.”
Nate shoved more rounds in the magazine. “I will do anything to protect you. It all worked out well.”
“And you killed them like it was nothing. How do you know they were going to kill us?”
Nate’s face hardened. “Goddamn it, think, Brian! And you say I should have told you? Things have changed. If you were older you would understand that.” He put his heavy hand on Brian’s shoulder. “I will kill anyone who tries to hurt you. And I make no apologies for it.”
Nate looked out the window at the dead man. A circle of dried crimson surrounded his head, crusting in the snow. He closed and latched the shutters.
“Go to your room and get all the blankets you have and your sleeping bag. Take them to the bathroom and put them in the bathtub. Here. Keep this shotgun ready. That means in your hands.”
“What?”
“Just do it. I’m going back out to get the man’s guns.”
Brian heard his father lock the front door when he came back in.
“Come on,” Nate said. They slid along the hallway wall in the dark and entered Beth’s bedroom. Nate unloaded the dead man’s guns, letting the cartridges fall on the bed, and then laid them on the mattress with the actions open. “Stay here,” he said. He came back with the rifle and pistol he took off the man in the woods and unloaded them and put them on the mattress beside the others. “Got that shotgun in your hands?”
“Yes.” Brian’s voice sounded unsure.
“Good. Follow me.”
When they were in the bathroom, Nate asked, “Where’s your rifle?”
“Leaning against the wall between the sink and the toilet.”<
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“Good. Is it loaded?”
“I…I thought you wanted me to leave it loaded tonight.”
“You thought right. From now on all of our guns are loaded except when we’re cleaning them. Understand?”
“Yes.” Brian nodded, his chest pumping fast.
“I know this is all scary, but calm down,” Nate said. “I taught you to treat all guns as if they are loaded whether they are or not. That means never point it at anyone you do not want to kill.”
“I know. Now that we are keeping them loaded all the time it’s even more important.”
“And,” Nate said, “we’re going to be jumpy with the danger of people showing up to hurt us, so we’ve got to be alert and careful at all times. We don’t want to shoot each other by accident.” He spread Brian’s sleeping bag in the bottom of the tub, covering the end opposite the fixtures and all the bottom. “Give me the shotgun.” Brian did as directed. “Now wrap yourself in the blankets. And sit down in the tub.”
“Why all this?”
“I will be a while, probably near to daylight, burying the one in the woods and dragging the one by the window to the river. Hopefully the current will take him downstream and the gators will eat him. If there are any gators left that haven’t froze to death. We don’t need to be smelling him.”
“Can’t we bury him too?” Brian sat in the tub.
Nate handed Brian his shotgun. “We’re both going to be up all night as it is. Burying people is not what’s going to keep us alive.”
“Okay. I’ll stay here with the shotgun.”
“That’s the idea,” Nate said. “When I come back, I will speak out so you can recognize my voice. If anyone comes through that door that does not sound like me or says nothing, shoot—and keep shooting as long as there is anything still breathing. If you run the shotgun dry, grab your rifle and keep shooting. Remember, both will shoot through these walls and kill anyone behind them.”
“Okay. Just don’t forget to speak out.”