When driving by some of the farms, people were out working in their yards and fields. They weren’t conducting normal business, but everyone was doing what needed to be done and preparing for what was coming. As we passed different homes, some stared with amazement that we had a working vehicle. Others looked with caution. Then about a ½ mile from the highway an older man, who looked about 70 years old, came walking out into the road and held his hand out for us to stop. He wasn’t doing it in a threatening way, so Tag slowed down to stop.
About 20 yards from the man, I heard Tag say, “Gun in the belt.”
I had my M-4 standing in between my legs, so without the man seeing, I moved my hand onto the trigger.
“How ya doing?” I asked the man as we pulled up to him.
With pretty much a blank look on his face, “Well, as good as can be expected,”
He just kind of eyeballed us for a moment and then asked, “So, you have a working vehicle, huh? How’s that possible?”
I gave him our theory on the EMP and told him what we did know and how vehicles without electronic circuits should run.
“Well if that’s the case, I have an old International Harvester out back. So, by what you’re saying it should run, if I can get the fool thing to start, it has a mind of its own.”
“Yeah, it should.”
“You guys live around here?”
Reluctantly, I said, “Yeah, I own a farm about two miles north of here. Do you know Jake Benson?”
Even though I intentionally didn’t get to know a lot of the neighbors, I knew Jake knew a lot of people in the area.
“Yeah, I’ve known Jake for years. He’s good people.”
“Well, Jake’s our neighbor. We live just to the west of him.” I stuck out my hand to formally introduce myself. “My name’s Vince Johnson, and this is Michael Tageson who’s visiting us.”
I knew not to give our location out to strangers, but there was something about this guy. I could tell he was just watching out for the neighborhood.
“Oh, I know who you are. You bought the old Branson place several years ago,” He shook my hand and then Tag’s, “I’m Charlie Smithson.”
We talked a while about everything that was happening, and I asked, “Are you guys ok? Do you need anything?”
“We’re ok. We have a good water source, and we’re set up pretty good with the groceries.
You having the old Branson place, you’re good with the water. You have a couple of wells on that property and that one in the back field is a deepwater well. They used to irrigate using that well.”
“Yeah, I’ve always been told that’s a good well. That’s where we’ll be getting our water if I can’t get our pump up and running,” He looked at me puzzled, so I continued, “Well, I still have the old well system set up as a standby in case something like this ever happened, but the pump is 220, and I don’t know squat about running a 220 line. Once I figure that out, we’ll have running water.”
“Well hell, I can do that for ya, I retired from the Power and Light Company.”
“Oh man, if you could do that I would owe you big.” Then what he said, hit me. “Hey, you said, if you could get your tractor started. Well, if you need any help getting it running, one of our other friends staying with us is a pretty good mechanic.”
“Well, we might just have a deal. That tractor has always been one of those temperamental things that runs only when it wants to.”
I started laughing, “I know exactly what you’re talking about. I have a 3020 John Deere that likes to torture me. Well, when do you want to do all of this?”
“Well, give me a little bit to grab some things, and I can do it now. But I really don’t want to leave my wife here alone.”
“Well, I can think of a couple of ways. We can either go get our friend and my wife, and she can stay with your wife while he works on the tractor, or you can bring your wife along with you. We can even do the tractor first if you wish.”
“Well, let me go talk to her and see what she wants to do,” and walked into his house.
“Nice guy.” Tag stated.
“Yeah, he is, but I wasn’t sure how he was going to be when we first arrived.”
“I was a bit worried at first too. He sure seems to know who’s who around here. He knew all about your farm.”
Just about that time, we could hear a truck approaching from the south. There was something familiar about the sound of it. The exhaust system wasn’t extremely loud, but it was louder than most. It just sounded like the muffler was on the edge of needing to be replaced. We got out of the jeep, and we stood on the opposite side of the oncoming truck. I had my M-4 in the lowered position, and Tag kept his hand close to his handgun. The second I saw it, I recognized it. It was the same green flatbed Ford that I suspected was eyeballing our gas tank when I was mowing.
When they spotted the jeep, it slowed down quite a bit. It approached slowly. I told Tag to watch them as I guaranteed they were up to no good. When they were within 100 yards of us, I raised the M-4 up and rested the butt on my right hip with my hand on the trigger. I didn’t want to have it in a threatening way, but I wanted them to know we were armed. Just a couple of seconds after they saw it, they floored the accelerator and flew past us. We could see that there was two “punk looking” guys in it, probably in their mid-twenties.
Just about that time, Charlie came rushing out of his house. You could see he was straining a bit to ID the vehicle.
“I’ve heard that truck driving around to the south of us very late last night. I didn’t see it, but I sure do recognize the sound of it.”
I told him the story of when I saw it and gave him their description. I then asked what they had decided.
“Well, my wife says she wants to come along with me and meet you folks.”
I smiled, “Good! But if you don’t mind with these clowns running around, I’d like to go get Red, our mechanic friend, and my son, Mike, who is a Gladstone Police officer. While Red is checking out your tractor, my son can pull a little security.”
“I like the way you think, and that’ll give me time to grab a few things I may need.”
“Ok, well, we’ll be back in a short.” We jumped in the jeep and took off for the house.
“We’re never going to make it to Blake’s,” I said with a chuckle.
When we passed by Jake’s, he flagged us down.
“Hey, I have something for you.”
He walked over and picked up two long bars with what looked like old plow teeth welded at the end. On the other end was about 1 ½” eyelets welded on.
“Will these work for your tie downs for the plane?”
“Damn Jake, that’s just genius.”
“You’ll need to dig deep to set them.”
“No problem. I can use the tractor’s post hole digger, and I have several bags of Quick Set Cement that I bought to use for the front yard fence. Man, I can’t thank you enough. Like I said Jake, you’re a very valuable asset.”
With a smile of pride, “No problem. Oh, and by the way, we’ll have the mobile home ready to move by tomorrow.”
“Jake you're amazing.”
We grabbed the tie downs and drove up to the house.
Kim, Mia, Carmen, Angela, and Lulu were all working in the garden. Mike was in the outer building, arranging his room.
I got out of the jeep and yelled, “Mia, here’s your tie downs.” She walked over and looked, and I explained how we would set them.
“Boy that was quick,” she replied.
Tag, flirting a little said, “Well, we’re here to serve.” She gave him a sweet smile.
I gave Kim a kiss, then looked at Lulu, “Hey, I see you guys have some serious help there.”
She had a big smile, “I’m getting any rocks I see out of the garden. Do you want to see the pile I have?”
I walked over to look, “Well, I’m sure glad you’re here. I didn’t know we had so many rocks in the garden. Keep up the good work and mak
e sure all of them keep working.”
“I will.”
I walked over to Mike, looked into his room, which was all set up, “Wow, you guys work quick. Now grab your guns. It’s time to go to work.”
I told him what was going on and asked him where Red was.
“He’s in the house with Brandy, Wit, and Mo checking the medical stuff we have.”
When we walked into the house, Brandy and Wit had all the bandages and equipment laid out, and they were doing inventory.
Brandy said, “You did a good job building up all this stuff.”
“Thank you. By the way, I have an old army portable hospital bed tucked away in the upper departments of your bedroom. It’s not much. It’s one of those canvas types, but it’s better than nothing. It even has an IV hook. Set it up where ever you want it.”
Wit responded, “IVs. I would love to get my hands on some.”
I just looked at him with a bizarre look, meaning “where are we going to find that?”
“Red, grab whatever tools you think you may need. You get to work on an old tractor.”
“You do realize that farm tractors were not my specialty, don’t you?”
“Are you saying you aren’t good enough?”
He gave me a disgusted look, “Ok, let’s go.”
He walked out to their camping trailer and grabbed his toolbox and then walked to the tool shed and grabbed some of my tools. When he walked out, he grumbled, “God forbid if we need any parts.”
I grinned and turned to Mo, “Mo, as usual, you’re in charge while we’re gone.”
“I thought you were leaving me out. You got it.”
I then walked back to Kim, and she asked, “Leaving again? You sure have turned it into high gear.”
“Yep, and believe it or not, we still haven’t made it over to Blake’s yet.” I filled her in on everything and asked, “You don’t mind company for a while do you?”
“Of course not.”
Then, I must’ve been stretching my back and holding my shoulder, as she suddenly asked, “Your shoulder and back are killing you, aren’t they?”
I didn’t even have to answer as she already knew they were. She said, “Hold on a minute,” and she went into the house and brought me a couple of crackers, four bottles of water, and two pain pills. “Here’s a second one, in case you’re out for a while. Here, Tag, you have to be thirsty,” and then looked at Mike and Red who were just coming out and handed each of them a bottle also.
Red said, “You know Kim, you’re way too good to be hooked up with this S.O.B.” as he winked.
“I tell him that all the time.” She smiled and gave me a kiss.
The four of us jumped in the jeep and took off. When we arrived, Charlie was outside with some tools, some 220-wire, and a separate box, which I assumed was connectors and such.
I introduced Mike and Red to him, and Red said, “So you have a stubborn tractor I hear.”
“Stubborn is a nice way of saying pain in the ass. I’ve messed with it off and on for some time but to be honest, I’m not much of a mechanic. I just tinker to have something to do.”
“Well, let’s take a look at it,” Red replied and grabbed his tools out of the jeep.
Charlie took him to a shed behind their house and opened the two large doors for light. He then pointed at two long workbenches.
“On that bench on the right are all the different parts I bought, but never put on. I have distributor caps, points, plugs, and about everything else. I figured I’d buy them all at once as sooner or later I’d need them.”
Red put on a headlamp and looked at all the parts. Charlie wasn’t kidding when he said he bought everything up front. He even had some body parts hanging up.
Red double checked to make sure the key was in it, and the battery was charged.
“Well, let me get to it, and hopefully we’ll make her a little less stubborn. No promises though.”
“Fair enough. It should be full of gas as I just filled it a few weeks ago, so it should be fresh enough.” He then held his hand up saying goodbye and walked back to the where we were standing.
I had just filled Mike in again on the flatbed truck and told him not to take any chances if it came around. I also told him we’d have our radios on if anything came up.
When Charlie walked up, he asked, “Is that old woman not out here yet?”
Suddenly, from the front door of their house, we heard a woman’s voice say, “I’m coming you old coot. Hold your pants on.” Mike, Tag, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Charlie’s facial expression didn’t change, he just replied, “You know most my life has been waiting for her to get ready to go somewhere.”
“Well after being married to you for 60 years, I’m anxious this time to go anywhere, where I can look at something besides your old crusty face.”
We tried not to laugh so hard, but you could just tell that these two were going to be entertaining.
“Has it only been 60 years? It sure seems longer than that. This is my other half, Martha. I know she’s scary looking, but you’ll get used to her.”
Martha was a shorter woman with grayish hair. She looked a bit older than Charlie, but you could tell she was full of spirit.
We greeted her, and all shook her hand.
“Don’t pay any attention to this old fart; he wouldn’t know what to do without me.”
Then it hit me. Married, 60 years. I knew it wasn’t the polite thing to ask, but I had to.
“Wait a minute. 60 years? What did you guys get married when you were young teens?”
Charlie smiled, “No, I was 22 when we married, and she was 18.”
Shocked, I said, “I’m sorry, but I thought you were maybe in your late 60’s.” while looking at Charlie.
“Ha! He wishes he was.” Martha chirped.
“82? Oh, my gosh, I’ll be long dead and buried before that.” I mumbled.
We had Martha ride in the passenger seat and the 3 of us, rode in the back. With the wire and tools Charlie had grabbed, we barely had the room for our feet. Charlie had an easier time jumping in the back than I did.
During the ride to the house, Martha asked about everyone she was about to meet. She seemed excited to meet everyone. When we arrived, Charlie immediately mentioned the garden and especially took note of our melon patch.
“I didn’t plant any melons this year. I wish I would’ve.”
“Well, we’ll just have to bring you some when they're ripe.”
Just about that time, everyone came walking out of the house to greet them. We all walked in, and Kim had iced tea waiting for everyone.
After socializing for about 15 minutes, Charlie said, “Well, I have some work to do. Why don’t you show me where the water pump is?” Charlie went right to work, running wires, testing the pump, installing a 220 outlet, and connecting it all to the generator.
While we were working, or should I say, Charlie was working while us guys watched, we could hear the women laughing up a storm. We couldn’t hear the conversations, but we continued to hear outbursts of laughter. Obviously, Martha was a hit with the girls.
Within 30 minutes Charlie had me turn on the generator, and he made several tests. All that was left was turning on the bypass from county water to the well, which was under the kitchen sink. I ran in, turned the valve, and then turned on the faucet. First, a lot of air came out with some rumbles and popping noise and then finally water. Everyone cheered. The water was a little dirty when it came out but cleared up within 30 seconds or so. We all praised Charlie.
Kim was joking and looked at me saying, “Now if you can figure out a way to hook up the water heater.”
She meant it strictly as a joke, but Charlie popped up and said, “That isn’t a problem. Your generator is a 7000 watt, so with some rationing of what else is plugged in, I can set it up for you.”
I started to object to all the work he was doing, but he just blew me off and went out and grabbed some more cable a
nd a 220 outlet and asked where the water heater was.
Within another 30 minutes, he had a place to plug the generator into for strictly the water heater. We plugged it in, and we could hear the water heater start to heat.
I immediately shut it down and made the announcement that this was to be saved for very limited times and for showers only.
While Charlie was working on the water heater, we could smell chicken frying. By the time we got everything cleaned up, dinner was ready.
We all sat down to a chicken dinner, instant mash potatoes, green beans, and tortilla bread that Angela had made.
Just about the time, we were sitting around drinking coffee, Mike called on the radio to say Red was done and the tractor was running fine.
While everyone said their goodbyes, Martha, and Kim made plans to get together and can vegetables and most of the meat that was in the freezer.
While everyone was talking, Kim came over to me, “I love them. Martha is a card. I just hope I have that much energy when I’m her age.”
Tag and I drove them home. When we arrived, Red was driving the tractor to check out everything.
When Charlie saw the tractor moving, he was thrilled. “Momma, we have transportation now. It may not be a limo, but we can get around.”
Red pulled up to Charlie, and shut it down, “There you go. I put in the new plugs and points you had but the real cause of it only starting half the time was you had a wire that was broken, running from the ignition switch to the starter. What I’m guessing is the wire only had a good contact part of the time. I ran you a new wire, and it seems to be good to go.” Red said with a bit of pride.
Charlie jumped up on it and turned the key. It started right up. Charlie then parked the tractor back in the shed, and he gave Red a two-handed handshake and did the same to the rest of us.
We said our goodbyes, and we told them they were always welcome at our house, and they said the same. I then handed Charlie a two-way radio and told him that if they needed anything or they were having any trouble, to give us a shout 24/7. We had new friends in our life and someone that, at least until we ran out of gas, made our life so much easier.
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