Jules said, “Well spoke, Jeffry, well spoken. As I said, most of you, and that includes the woman who shouted, owe their presence with us to Tempest.”
Shane, Mel’s father stood. “We owe our good fortune to Miss Tempest. On behalf of my family I give her our gratitude.”
I lost control, shrugged off Annette’s restraining hand, stood, said, “Well shit, I’m out of here,” and left the pavilion.
Later, lying on my pallet in the loft, just before I fell asleep, Billy spoke to me. “Girl, you’re in the wrong place. You don’t do crowds of people.”
Sure, I know his voice was only a clump of made-up electrons in my mind, but his advice rang true. I needed to distance myself from the ranch.
************
I awoke to see Annette seated in the loft beside my pallet. She saw I was awake and said, “Christ, you snore like a train—, like a steam locomotive.”
Groggy, I came up with, “Stuff your ears with straw and you won’t hear it.”
She laughed. “Or I could stuff your nose so you’d have to breathe through your mouth. That’d shut your snorting down.”
“Oh, now it’s snorting, not snoring. Well, you’re sitting here so it must be music to you.”
“Yeah, yeah, Vikas is waiting and raring to go play cowboy. Do you know he has an ATV of his own now? They picked up eight of em from Western Auto.”
I glanced out the loft opening and saw the long length of the shadows cast by objects. “What time is it?”
She glanced at her watch, “Windup; Jules got it new at Walmart. It’s six-thirty. Breakfast’ll be ready in thirty minutes.”
I threw back my covers and sat. “I’m ready. Let’s go chow.”
Annette said, Jesus Christ, do you always sleep in your clothing? When the heck do you change?”
“When someone tells me I stink. You’re not holding your nose, so I’m good to go.”
“You’re an animal.”
At the dining pavilion, Vikas, sitting with Preeja and his two children saw us coming and rose from his seat to come greet us.
“Last night you did miss the fight. The woman who spoke against you became hit in her face. I have not seen her this day, but the eye hit is surely dark.”
Following him back to the pavilion, I asked, “Who gave her the black eye?”
“Ah, ‘black eye’, yes, another of the women of her group struck the eye.” Pointing, he said, “Yes, it is the woman with David and his wife.”
The woman with them was One Thumb. Her giving the woman a black eye suited me just fine, “I’m glad to hear that?”
“Yes, it is my good fortune to tell you that it happened. It is to my hope we should catch the cattle today.”
Nodding, I said, “If you want cattle, we’ll go for em.”
Annette said, “Christ, I wish I could go with you. I asked, but the doc said to give the healing process another week before going back to full activity.”
In a serious tone, Vikas attempted to console her. “It is perhaps we will leave some cattle for you to catch.”
Annette grinned. “Naw, go get em all you can. Maybe I’ll jump in on bunny roundup.”
One Thumb left her chair and came to stand beside our table. “The Powell’s, Dave and Deb and I hope you’ll sit with us for breakfast.”
“Sure,” Annette agreed. “How long do you think before the buffet line starts? Maybe we should start it.”
“It won’t hurt.” I started toward the head of the service line. I noticed much of the food was already on the serving tables. A blend of women danced around each other at the grills and a huge stainless gas oven. Already on the tables were a platter of biscuits and a large pan of rehydrated scrambled eggs.
Responding to a wave from One Thumb, Dave and Deb left the table to join us in forming a line. A woman from the Ranger Station was among the women serving as cooks for the day. Coming to the tables with a steaming pan of white gravy, she saw us, and with a greeting smile, said, “Ham will be right up. You can go ahead and start.”
Seated, I said to One Thumb, “Can you tell me your name again so I can stop calling you ‘One Thumb’ in my mind?”
Annette exploded in concert with the Powell’s shocked expressions. “Jesus H Christ Tempest, can you be any ruder?”
One Thumb began laughing.
“You think she’s funny?” Annette asked.
Struggling to control her fit, she gasped, “She’s the funniest, strangest girl I’ve ever met. My name is Demi Connors, but you can call me One Thumb if you care to.”
Deb asked, “I have to know why you think she’s funny.”
One Thumb, laughter under control, responded, “Annette, you were there at the Ranger camp when she came. Remember how she shot everyone in that room and then came out all innocent pretend frightened and followed the rest of the men into the room and killed all of them… then she came in the front door, tiny little thing covered in blood and scared the crap out of us women.”
Confused, Annette said, “Yeah, I remember, but I fail to see the humor of it. Your husband was among those killed.”
She shrugged, “Yeah, that part wasn’t funny, but he fell right in with the raiding and killing—, I was kind of over him anyway, but didn’t the entire thing play out like a sitcom comedy. It did to me.”
I couldn’t help myself. A giggle came out of me. Annette glared and said, “Oh goody, Tempest, someone as weird as you. You two should go make a nest.
“Naw, the sex would be weird and we’d probably end up with a bunch of one-thumb babies.”
Sitting across from me, Dave and One Thumb exploded in laughter, him just as he was drinking water from his glass. He choked on the water and sprayed it across the table onto my face and sweat shirt.
Annette saw my face and started laughing and Deb followed her. I was the only sober one at the table. To Dave I said, “Next time you offer me a drink, let me know so I can open my mouth.”
One Thumb squeaked, “She’s killing me. Make her shut up so I can breathe.”
It took a minute, but the laughter stopped. A moment of silence followed, sort of an embarrassed interlude during which I spooned eggs into my mouth.
Annette said, “Christ, Tempest, Dave’s spit is all in your food.”
I put water in my mouth and sprayed it across the table, most of it going onto Dave’s plate, but some onto his shirt.
To his consternated face I said, “Now we can be spit kin.”
Deb, no less consternated, said, “Hey, wait a minute he’s my—.”
Another outburst of laughing from the other two cut her sentence short. To Deb, I said, “There’s something wrong with those two. They have very weird senses of humor.”
She gazed at the red-faced pair for a long moment and then said, “Yes they do, but you know what, I don’t believe any of us have laughed since this crap began. It felt good.”
To Annette and Deb’s disgust, Dave and I did eat our spat-on food. When we finished eating, leaving the table, One Thumb fell in with Annette and me.
Trailing behind us, she asked, “What are you two doing today?”
I stopped walking and turned. “Annette’s going to continue to recuperate from getting shot and I’m going out to rustle cattle. How’d they cut your thumb off? Did they axe it?”
Annette said, “Tempest!” in capital letters, but One Thumb said, “I wish. No, the bastards used a hacksaw. Two of them held me in a chair while another man held my hand on the table and pulled up my thumb. That son-of-a-bitch George sawed it off slow. When it came loose, the man tugging it tossed it on the table and George said, “That’ll teach all of you not to run. One of you bitches needs to sew this whore up.” A shudder ran through her and then she said, “I passed out and missed the sewing.”
I heard Annette gag and asked her, “Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay. Laughing and gagging about disgusting stuff isn’t the best medicine. I need to get away from you two before I tear my lung back o
pen.”
“Crap, Annette, I’m sorry.”
“I’m okay, but try to keep it in mind for the next few days. I’m going to lie down. Check on me after the roundup. Take One Thumb—, crap, take Demi with you.”
The many other urgent needs limited our ‘Roundup’ crew to me, One Thumb, Vikas and Dave. After hooking Jules’s cattle trailer to a dump truck, with One Thumb riding shotgun, Dave and Vikas followed in the four-wheelers. I led the way to where I knew cattle grazed on land with a dead owner… The place I’d checked on my first walk to Henderson.
The cattle were there. Dave backed the trailer to the loading slot and we were ready. Standing by our two four-wheelers, Dave asked, “What’s the plan.”
I gazed out over the fields. “Safety is the plan. We’re lucky the summer growth hasn’t started; for the most part, we can see the ground. The field looks flat, but at high speeds, even a small varmint hole or rut can flip a four-wheeler. Vikas, keep that in mind. It’s easy to get excited in the chase and forget.”
Vikas nodded. “I will take care.”
I continued, “Okay, I’ve never done this before, so it’ll be a learning experience for all of us. I count thirty head here, maybe a few more. The trailer should hold ten. We’ll use our four-wheelers like horses, separate ten or so cows from the herd and drive em to the fenced funnel and onto the trailer.
“Vikas and I will concentrate on driving. One Thumb, you and Dave will be the rowdies, hooting, hollering, and waving your arms to get em moving and keep em moving. Let’s open the gates on the trailer and get to driving.”
Because of the fencing layout, we had to open two pasture gates between the loading funnel and the pasture where the cattle were. They’d been in the same pasture since the crisis started and had eaten the grass to bare ground.
They were lucky that they had access to a pond; otherwise, they’d be dead. Scrawny, rib bones showing, starvation made them listless and hard to get moving. Vikas and I had to drive right up to them, race our engines while the other two shouted and screamed, but a number began a listless walk toward the first gate.
That was as far as we could move em. On the other side of the gate was fresh forage and boy did they dig in. Nothing we did could break them away from their feast. The rest of the cattle saw them eating and found energy to trot over and join them.
After ten minutes of harassing them without them budging toward the next gate, I led us back to the pasturage entrance. Outside the gate, I stopped to close it. The others climbed off the four-wheelers.
Vikas said, “These are not the cooperative cows.”
Waving to them, I said, “Naw, they aren’t. They’re hungry. We’ll let them eat. A few miles from here is another farm we can check. We’ll leave the trailer where it is and go see if the cattle and the owner are alive. By the time we return, these will be ready to load.”
I led them to a farm that I had visited with Billy to help him weld a ladder back to a grain silo. The farm didn’t have a beautiful ranch house like the place Jules bought, just a regular house with white siding, but he had a huge amount of acreage and at least a hundred head of cattle. From memory, I didn’t remember seeing much in the way of separate pasturage, but did remember several banked drainage catchment ponds.
Driving there, I took it slow. Dave and One Thumb were our guards. To my question about her ability to shoot, One Thumb said, “I practiced with one of the AR’s after you killed the men the first time. I can compensate for my missing thumb.”
“But can you hit what you shoot at?”
“I’ve never shot from a moving vehicle, but standing, yes, within reason, I can hit what I aim for.”
Thirty minutes later, turning from the road onto the driveway leading to the farmhouse, a man and woman coming onto the porch answered the question of occupancy. The man held a long gun, but not pointed toward us. Fifty feet from the porch, I stopped and waved Vikas beside me.
Climbing from the four-wheeler, I said, “I’m going to talk to him. Don’t point your rifles at us.”
Closer to the porch I saw that the short, black-haired, black bearded, barrel-chested middle-aged man held a shotgun. His wife, about the same age, was tall and thin with a very narrow face that reminded me of a hawk. I didn’t know what to expect of them, but it surely wasn’t the high-pitched squeak from the man.
“You’re the third time we’ve had visitors since the shit began. The other two times was the same bunch, first in day to scope us out, then in night to do evil. We deviled them right back off. You don’t look like you’ll be a bother, but I need to tell there are two inside targeting you and your friends. What brings you to our place?”
I figured the truth was my best tool. “We have a settlement growing not far from here, on out past the four-way stop down Tally Store Road—.”
“Would that be Henderson way or Finger?”
“It’s past the four-way toward Finger. The settlement’s on a ranch once owned by a man named Caldwell—.”
“Eugene and Mary Caldwell; I knew em well. It was a sad day when Gene’s ticker quit on him. Who owns his place now?”
“Jules and Maggie Kincaid bought it.”
“Are they good people?”
I knew I’d bumped into a chit-chatter and sought a way out of it. “Yeah, they’re upright. Anyway, the reason we came by is because I remembered this ranch from when Billy Westover came here to do some work for—.”
The man nodded and said, “I knew I recognized you. I heard Billy was stung to death by Yellow-Jackets.”
“Hornets; it was hornets that got him.”
“Yep, hornets are worse than jackets any day. You’re Tempest if memory serves me.”
“Yes, I’m—.”
“Child, let me ask you, does the name Larry Hicks ring a bell?”
Uh, oh, oh boy, that name rang a bell. “Yeah, I kicked his ass at a basketball game.”
“Larry’s my grandson. The way he tells it, you’re the one who left the gymnasium bloody.”
The man didn’t seem mad, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. I figured he could shoot me with any expression he pleased. I needed to get away.
“I had a nosebleed, but I left him marked. I’m sorry we bothered you mister, I’ll say—.”
“Don’t be in a rush. My name is Carson, Frank Carson. My daughter Pam married Carl Hicks, a worthless piece of shit that skedaddled when Larry was born. Larry and Pam are my inside backup.”
Okay, knowing Larry was in the house targeting me made my insides antsy. “Mister Carson, I’d appreciate it if—.”
Damn, I’d appreciate it if he’d let me finish a sentence. Cutting me off, he turned his head and shouted, “Larry, come out here.”
Unarmed, out onto the porch he came, every inch of his six-foot-eight, lanky, blond-haired self.
Mister Carson waved to me and said to him, “Say what you need to say.”
Suddenly blushing embarrassed, Larry stammered, “I er… Look, I’m er, sorry.” Then finding his tongue, “Tempest, I’m sorry for what I did. I was sorry even before you came at me.”
“You never told me that.”
“I wanted to, but I was too embarrassed to speak to you.”
My thought was, ‘So freaking what. Too late now, but then, looking at his face, seeing he was on the verge of tears because he really was sorry, I said, “It’s over. I got my reward with you having to walk the halls with the black-eye I gave you.”
Larry half smiled. “It was a doozy.”
Mister Carson said, “That mess is out of the way. I know what he did because he confessed it in church. Larry’s a good boy who did a foolish thing. Now, back to the main subject; why are you here. You said something about a settlement—.”
I jumped onto his bandwagon and cut him off. “It’s an accidental sort of thing, a few men but mostly women and children. We’re out looking for livestock to take over there. I remembered this place. If you all were dead, we were going to round up some cattle. You’re
alive so I reckon—.”
Okay, he’s the cut-off winner.
“You keep looking for a way to leave. What’s your all-fired rush? Call you friends over and let’s have a glass of tea and you all can tell us about your settlement. Where’s the dark-skinned one from?”
“India.”
“Handsome fella; is he taken?”
“Yeah, he’s married with a couple of—.”
“Are there any single men there?”
I had to think about that. The answer was no, because I’d just about killed every man I’d come across since the crap-hit-the-fan, but without elaborating, I answered, “No, but that can change.”
“It was worth asking. Pam needs a husband. Tell your friends to come on over, but tell em to leave their long guns behind. Let’s have that tea and talk a bit. We’re hungry for news.”
I figured, ‘What the hell’, if they wanted to kill us they already had us targeted. “I’ll get em. You don’t have coffee by any—?”
“Got half a pot from this morning we can warm up.”
I had coffee, Vikas, One Thumb and Dave had tea. The long and short of it is we left their place with news to relay to Jules. Over a hundred head of cattle, eight horses, dozens of chickens and rabbits along with four more people would transition to his ranch. One of those coming was a real ‘Cowboy’. It’s so much fun making Jules… ‘Happy’?
Leaving, walking to our four-wheelers, One Thumb said, “That solves the cattle problem.”
“Yeah, but we can’t leave the other cows hanging. If we don’t take em, we’ll need to leave the gates open so they can free range.” I turned to the other two, “What do ya’ll think?”
Vikas, our wanna be cowboy, said, “Let us round them in.”
“Round em up’s the term. Come on Vikas, we’ve been saying it all day. You may be a foreigner but pay attention so you don’t sound like you’re from another country.”
Vikas said, “I don’t make the sense of that.”
“It doesn’t,” Dave said, “but in a way, she’s right. Don’t try for perfect English; learn to talk like a Southerner. It might influence any ‘good ole boys’ you happen on.”
The cattle, fed, docile… and happy until we forced a bunch into the cattle trailer, were easy to get moving.
Tempest of Tennessee (Episode 3): Tempest of Tennessee Page 12