by Mic Roland
Chapter 14: Canterbury Tails
The group agreed to mix up their convoy route before leaving Cheshire. They planned to avoid staying on one highway for too long, to be less predictable. 93 was the easiest road for making good time and good mileage. It was also best for fully heavy loads. Arthur suggested they not stay on 93 too long in one stretch, and not to use the same stretches on the northbound and southbound trips.
Arthur wanted to save 93-south for the first leg of the trip home. It would be easier for pulling a heavy load. This meant that the convoy of trucks needed to follow a back-road route north. They took highway 132 North out of Concord. Trees and houses stood very close to the side of the road. The people in the trucks remained watchful, but the mood was more relaxed-vigilance than red-alert. Nobody was visible, either on the road or around the tidy houses. The advantage of the smaller, twisty roads was that the convoy was not visible to any one spot for even a half a minute. Only the periodic radio checks broke the silence.
After awhile, even the taciturn Hendricks brothers seemed to crave a little sound beside diesel rumble and the whine of the tires. Charles tried the radio, but had difficulty finding a station. He did find a faint AM station, apparently out of Concord that reported on the legislature’s referendum. The station announced that Governor Vincent chose not to authorize the federal emergency measures. The radio host, who apparently would have voted yes, got into a lively debate with a guest who agreed with the governor. Freedom versus food. The two of them did little beyond chasing their own political tails before the station faded out.
Tyler wondered aloud about whether he and his household had enough food to get through the winter. The Hendricks was getting an eighth share of the milk production — whatever that amounted to. It was a help, but still not enough. Now that the governor turned down federal aid, Tyler wondered where the additional food would come from later in the winter.
“Hard to imagine,” Tyler said, “that there’s enough groceries stashed in all the pantries in New Hampshire to feed everybody for a whole winter. Something new’s gotta come from somewhere else, or lots of folks are just gonna starve.”
“That’s why we were thinking of you making a wood gas thing for his truck,” Charles said.
“This truck? It’s a diesel. That won’t work. It needs to be a low-compression engine, preferably a carbureted one.” Martin thought about what up-scaling Tin Man would entail. “I guess it would need to be an engine that didn’t have a fussy management computer either. You know, the kind that regulates the spark based on a bunch of sensors. Wood gas bypasses the usual gasoline system, so some of those sensors won’t be happy. They’d probably keep it from running.”
Tyler did not like that news. “Well, shoot. I was liking the idea of keeping my Silverado running.”
“For what?”
“Business. Charles and I don’t have our old jobs anymore. Working around the farm is good and all, but the farm won’t supply everything. Heck, nobody’s farm’s gonna produce everything they need. So, this trip to get some cows and your gasifier thing has me thinking. Everybody’s gonna run out of gasoline pretty soon, if they haven’t already. But, what if I had a truck that still ran? Powered by one of your gasifier things, I could be THE guy to haul stuff around the state.”
“What stuff?” Charles asked. “You were just saying how there wasn’t enough stuff in everyone’s pantries to get ‘em through the winter. What’s to haul?”
“I was thinking about firewood, mostly. Lots of people out in the sticks — too far to carry a cord of wood by hand. Could barter them for stuff.”
“But they won’t have stuff to barter with,” Charles countered. “Their cupboards will be bare, remember?”
“What about fish?” Martin asked. “You think the fishermen along the coast are still catching fish? If so, where are they going to sell them? Without trucks, how far could their fish get?”
“Hey, now yer talkin’. I’ll bet folks along the coast are getting sick and tired of eating fish. I could haul stuff like our extra milk and eggs, maybe a whole chicken or two to the coast and trade for fish. Bet they’d trade two for one: a four pound fryer for eight pounds of fish. We come ahead. That’s an input into the supplies.”
“That’s all fine,” said Charles, “But his gas thingy won’t work on your Silverado, remember?” Tyler frowned. He liked his Silverado. “But hey, what about my old beater, huh?”
“That old thing? It’ll rattle the teeth out of your head,” protested Tyler.
“Bah. Just a little timing gear noise is all. That old straight-six will pull stumps, I tell ya. Won’t win any races, but it’ll always get you there. Hey Martin, I’ve got an ‘81 F250 crew cab. It’s one of the 300 cube engines: got a carburetor, old-style spark and no computers. We just use it to haul the hay wagon and dirty chores like that. Maybe that’ll work?”
“Could be,” said Martin, “but that’ll take a lot more figuring and fussing. 300 cubic inches, eh? The burner and chamber will have to be a lot bigger unit to generate enough gas to feed an engine that size. There may be some other issues too. Sounds like a lot of work. I don’t want to sound all selfish about it, but what’s in it for me?”
The Hendricks brothers conferred between themselves. They did not have a big surplus of anything. They had a good harvest of hay laid up, but Martin did not need thousands of dollars worth of hay. They planned to barter their hay with the many folks who had horses in town during the winter.
They settled on trading for a share of their future profits as trucker-traders. Margaret thought it sounded too much like the cartoon character Wimpy promising to pay Popeye on Tuesday for a hamburger today. Martin agreed that there was the potential for a poor return on their labor investment.
Being all in the same truck meant that none of their conversations were particularly private. Margaret’s reservations prompted Tyler to make his terms more enticing. A quarter of whatever profit they made might still turn out to be nothing, but Martin felt it was worth the risk. He would need help with a project of that size. He wondered what compensation he might have to offer the helpers. Would they be willing to gamble time and effort for possible payback ‘on Tuesday’?
“Checkpoint 20,” crackled the radio.
“Looks like we’re about to make the turn onto the farmer’s road,” said Tyler.
The caravan turned off the highway and threaded down the cracked blacktop road. Near the end of the road sat the low buildings of Winton Carlyle’s dairy farm. The empty trailers made considerable noise over the uneven pavement, so Winton and his family were already outside to greet the convoy.
Everyone climbed out of the trucks and stretched. Martin wondered how Susan was faring with her adventure. Had the false-alarm vigilance at Indian Lakes worried her? Apparently not. She was smiling and busily engaged conversation with Eric Emulari.
Winton gathered his family and remaining workers around. The handshaking and introductions took awhile. Martin knew he would not remember all the names.
“I can’t thank you all enough, Winton said. “I’ve been worried sick about my ladies. The hay problem was going to be an issue later, but with the machinery down, we have to milk ‘em by hand and I’m short half my usual crew. Poor ladies get real sore when we can’t get to them fast enough. Seems like we’re milking around the clock and never get ahead. I hate to see ‘em suffer.”
Winton gave the group a quick tour of his small-scale dairy and store. Red and Margaret went with Winton to look at the cattle that might be loaned.
Martin and Landers stood near the trucks. “Mr. Carlyle was saying he’s found a couple temporary homes for a few more of his herd,” Landers said. “With us taking six, he thinks he can feed and manage what’s left. The deal is that we have to bring them back when this outage thing is over. They’re just on loan.”
“Even if we only get to keep them through the winter,” Martin said. “The food input is a big deal.”
“I sure hope they�
��re getting the Cauloff farm ready,” Landers said. “Having some dairy cows in town won’t feed everyone, but it will be a morale booster. I wonder if we’re going to be able to really take care of them.”
“Margaret did say she’d help train people to milk by hand, but I agree. It’s going to be a lot of work. Margaret can’t do it all. She’ll try, but a lot of other people are going to have to step up,” Martin said.
“Looks like your…house guest has made a new friend,” Landers said. He tipped his head toward the dark red Laramie. Susan leaned against the trailer while Eric was busy telling her some story with animated arm gestures. Susan chuckled from time to time.
“It would seem so,” Martin said.
One of Winton’s crew walked past Martin and Landers with a milk can on a two-wheel dolly. The can appeared to be partially filled, from the way the dolly moved and how the man had to push it. He was walking toward the river, which piqued Martin’s curiosity. Signs on the road said ‘dead end’. The last house was boarded up with plywood. Where was the man taking the milk can?
Martin caught up with the man as he was passing the Laramie. “Excuse me,” Martin said. “But, could I ask where you’re going with that? It doesn’t look like there’s anything at the end of your road.” Martin wondered if it was old milk or some cast-off material. It might not be fit for human consumption, but it might be food for chickens. They had trucks and trailers. Perhaps he might score some free chicken food to help extend his feed supply.
“Going across the river,” the man said. “We cross the old bridge and sell some milk to folks in Boscawen.”
“Old bridge?” Susan perked up.
“Yeah,” said the man. “They closed it years ago, and it’s kinda falling apart, but it’s good enough for walking across, so we do.”
“Ooo. I want to see,” she said. Susan, Eric, Martin and Landers all followed the man down the weedy pavement.
Past the imposing “Bridge Closed” sign and a veritable hedge of brush that had grown up behind it, stretched the rusty skeleton of an old truss bridge. The road surface was gone. Only the wooden timber cross ties remained. Winton, or his crew, had laid down sheets of plywood on the timbers to create a walk-able path across the old bridge. The worker trundled his load around the jersey barrier and out across the plywood path. Martin stayed up on the higher ground to watch the man cross. Susan, Eric and Landers went down to the jersey barrier.
“That’s so cool,” Susan said. “This reminds me of the old bridge up the road from my house when I was growing up.”
“That sounds fascinating,” said Eric.
Martin noticed Eric was a half step behind Susan, looking her over, top to bottom. In her short jacket, her curves were evident. The way his eyes moved reminded Martin of times on the bus when, in the row ahead of him, a pretty girl sat next to a guy. The girl would close her eyes and maybe doze off. The guys would often keep looking over at the girl, eyes scanning up and down. It was the same way he had seen guys scanning every inch of the expensive Italian sports cars at the car shows. It was the look of ‘man, I really want to drive that.’
Susan had not noticed that Eric had stepped up very close behind her. She was focused on the old bridge. “When I was a kid, we used to ride our bikes across a bridge like this one. On the other side was this Christian summer camp thing. They’d always give us ice cream. We were so mad when the town closed the bridge. Stupid town didn’t want to pay insurance on the bridge so they just closed it. It was a perfectly good bridge! Tightwads. Made us so mad.”
“Really,” said Eric. “That would make me very angry too. I know just how you feel.”
Martin could feel himself getting angry. Susan was no sports car to be test driven.
“Even after they welded on these big steel plates,” Susan continued, “ we would just climb around and lift our bikes over the railing. Stupid town. Don’t mess with a kid’s ice cream.”
Someone called to them from the farm. It was time to load the cattle. Martin intentionally hung back. He caught Eric getting a couple more looks at Susan’s backside. He even faked a stumble so he could bump into her. She thought nothing of it, apologizing for being in his way. Martin noticed his fists clenched in his pockets.
The drivers had pulled their rigs around so that the trailers faced the dirt road to the barns. Winton and his wife led the cows, two-by-two, to the trailers. The first two were a brown Swiss named Heidi and a large Holstein named Gertrude. A farm hand had two square hay bales on a cart as their travel snacks. Cows are not fast walkers when they do not want to be. The loading was taking a long time. Eric was telling Susan another story that required pantomime. She was amused. Martin was not.
Margaret came out of the little dairy store with a box. She looked excited. “You’ll never guess what I got.” Martin was in no mood for guessing games. “Okay, fine, don’t guess. You’d never get it anyway.”
She opened the box to reveal a half dozen small glass bottles. “Rennet! Can you believe it? They had rennet and were willing to trade some away.” Martin was not connecting the dots. “Cheese, Martin. With rennet, we can make cheese out of the milk we get. We probably won’t be able to drink it all, so rather than have it go bad or just feed it to the chickens, we can make cheese so we have something for later.”
Martin finally tuned in to what Margaret was saying. “Really? Why would they trade that away? They would want it for the same reason you do. What did you have to trade?”
“Oh, I traded my pistol for it.”
“You WHAT?” Martin did a poor job of covering up his shock and outrage. “You loved that gun. I paid over five hundred dollars for that.”
Margaret rolled her eyes. “I know, Martin. You say that every time I don’t clean it.”
“But…but, now you don’t have a gun. It’s not like we can go buy you another one.” Martin flailed his arms. “What are you going to carry now, huh?”
“You’ll let me use yours,” she said sweetly. “I like yours too. I know you’ll let me use it. You can use that chunky one you got from those hoodlums when we get home.”
“That’s not the point!” Martin raised his voice.
“I don’t know what you’re getting so upset about.” Now Margaret was getting defensive. “You have a safe full of guns. We needed a way to time-shift our food supply more than we needed that one gun. Besides, you got two from the hoodlums, so you’re actually one ahead. Sheesh. Calm down.”
“I AM calm,” he half-shouted.
“Oh right,” she snarked back. “Well, when you’ve cooled off, you’ll see this was a better deal than you think. We’ve got guns. What we won’t have is long-term food.”
“Okay everyone,” shouted Arthur. “Huddle up here for a little briefing before we head back home.” Everyone gathered around the hood of Arthur’s Laramie. He had his map spread out and traced the homebound loop. “I figure we can take 93 as far south as Concord before really encountering much of anyone. Then we go almost all the way past Concord, so if anyone’s watching, it looks to them like we’re taking 93 all the way, but here, at checkpoint D, we turn off and take 3A south. That’s a pretty sparse stretch of industrial sites. Should be pretty empty. Take that down to Hooksett and then back roads to the other side of Indian Lakes.”
Out of the corner of his eyes, Martin could see Eric leaning against Susan, as if intent to see the map. Susan did not seem to notice. Martin did. He doesn’t need to see the map. He’s not driving. Martin’s mood grew darker.
“Okay, everyone. Saddle up,” said Arthur. “If all goes well, we should be home in just a little while.”
Detour
Martin cleared the round out of the chamber of his pistol before handing it to Margaret. He fished out the two magazines from his pockets. She smiled slightly: there was no question that he would let her use his pistol. As he took his seat in the Silverado, he checked the action of his carbine. Margaret was correct. Her trade had not left her defenseless. They had three guns betwee
n the two of them. She was thinking more as a team than he was.
“Um…look,” she began cautiously, “I can tell you’re still kind of upset over my trading my pistol.” She waited for a response, but got none. “And I’ll admit I was a little impulsive and rash. But I had no idea the Carlyle farm had a little dairy operation too. No one said anything about that.” She allowed for a response again. “Or…I would have brought along things to trade with, if I had known.”
Martin was not particularly upset that Margaret had traded away her pistol. He was more upset over something else. She was right, as usual. They did have enough weapons at home to equip everyone in the house. His collection was not the idealized high power arsenal that people argued about on the forums, but then, the Simmons house was not likely to be repelling a platoon of jihadists either. For local trouble, like the shopping cart beggars, his gun assortment was sufficient.