by Reed, N. C.
“Yeah, but they’re not an Army of God coming to wipe out the heathen,” Clay sounded almost giddy now. “Us, in this case. We aren’t going to have a pitched battle on our hands with thousands of maniacs willing to die for the cause or anything.”
“Hadn’t thought of it that way,” Nate admitted. “But regardless, Boaz and all that Uttermost bullshit is just that. Bullshit. It’s all a lie and has been from the start.”
“That is a tremendous relief off my mind,” Clay let out a long breath. “I’m going to go look at the herd of horses you guys brought back,” he smiled.
“I’m going to bed.”
-
The small herd of horses were off loaded into the quarantine pen so that they could be kept separate from the main herd until checked over. There were three uncut stallions in the group that had to be further separated due to their combative nature. Kurtis was able to deal with them well enough, and Gail Knight was right behind him. Charley Wilmeth was also trying to assist, though her arm was still in a cast from the horrific break she had suffered when her community had been attacked.
“I’m claiming this big boy, right now,” Kurtis announced, patting the big red stallion as he fed him an apple. “Happens that’s okay with you, of course,” he added to Clay, who was leaning on the fence.
“I’m good with it,” Clay nodded. “I’m still trying to work out some kind of payment schedule for everyone on the security teams. I don’t know what we’ll end up with, but as far as I’m concerned, anything that bunch had is yours if you want it, including that horse. Same goes for the rest. Whatever else that bunch did or had, they had excellent taste in horses.”
“Sure did,” Kurtis agreed. “Have to be careful with this old boy, though,” Kurtis patted the red’s neck. “We’ll want to breed him every chance we get for a while. Try to get his size moving through the herd. It’s possible he’d make big mules as well, but I don’t know much about that.”
“We’ll let Terri work that out with Dee,” Clay suggested. “They’ll be down to check the horses in a few minutes. We’ll hold them in quarantine for ten days, probably, but that’s just based on what we’ve done in the past. I wish we could find more meds for our animals,” he said almost to himself.
“Have you looked?” Kurtis asked. “I mean, checked veterinarian offices and the like? Not to mention the Co-ops and places like Tractor Supply? I admit it’s late in the game to try it, but there’s always a chance you’d find something you can use.”
“A lot of that stuff has to refrigerated,” Clay objected.
“And a lot more of it doesn’t,” Kurtis replied. “And even the stuff they ‘recommend’ be kept in the cooler can survive outside it. We used to carry that stuff in a first-aid kit made for horses. Keeping it on ice just makes it last longer, sometimes. Just something to think on,” he shrugged, releasing the red with another apple to munch on.
“I didn’t really know that,” Clay admitted. “I just went with what I always saw.”
“No reason to know it where you are, here,” Kurtis shrugged. “You’re never too far from where you can get what you might need. Where I worked as a kid, we were a day’s ride just to get back to a road.”
“I always thought we had a big place, especially after I bought this place to add to it,” he indicated the grounds of the old Troy farm they were on. “We don’t even rate as a hobby farm where you came from, do we?”
“Well, that ain’t exactly fair, though,” Kurtis scratched his jaw. “A lot of times, spreads out west have to be bigger because their grass ain’t nearly as good as yours is here. For you, an acre of ground will support a cow, even with a calf, pretty much through the season. In places out west, it takes more like three to five acres, sometimes.”
“Add to that the fact that an awful lot of those acres are at high elevations,” he continued. “You can’t really use that land but about six months of the year. A lot of ranches out there will import hay from the Midwest or even down here. Big grain outfits make deals to leave fields fallow to keep prices up, then cut and bale the hay and sell it. I don’t think that’s strictly legal, mind you, but I also never thought anyone cared so long as you weren’t growing crops on it.”
“I didn’t know any of that either,” said Clay, considering all he’d heard. “Well, I remember a terrible winter one year when I was still a kid. Everyone sent hay out to Wyoming, Montana and places like that. We’ve also sent hay to Texas during droughts. Stuff like that. But I left here when I was younger than any of you boys and never looked back until all this come about,” his voice took on an odd quality. “I missed out on a lot. There’s a lot that I don’t know about all this because I missed it all.”
“I hear regret in your voice, Boss,” Kurtis said softly. “Let me remind you, lest you forget it. If you hadn’t left, if you’d stayed here, the Storm would still have happened. We just wouldn’t be very well prepared for it. We wouldn’t be here, with the tools and the knowledge to not only take care of ourselves, but to defend ourselves, too. Not to mention the people we’ve helped along the way. I’m sorry you feel like you missed something, but for the rest of us it was damn lucky that you did.” He placed a hand gently on Clay’s shoulder. “I’d not be here at all, and probably be living like a native of old,” he chuckled. “I never had much as it was, and what little I would have had wouldn’t have lasted long. Thousands of dollars in rifles and not nearly enough shells. Story of my life.”
“I’ve actually been there,” Clay grinned. “Rifle and attachments cost over ten grand and I didn’t have a single round left. Might as well have been a paperweight.”
“For what it’s worth, Bossman, I’m glad to be here,” Kurtis turned serious again. “For whatever you went through, all of you, that brought you home like it did, I’m glad. All of us,” he waved his arm to encompass the entire farm, “are downright blessed for what you guys went through that led us to be here. I’m even more lucky than most. If I hadn’t taken a job hunting a big cat, I’d never have met Shane and the others. Best job ever,” he laughed.
“Thanks, Kurtis,” Clay smiled at the teen. “I really appreciate that.”
“You want to go hunting for horse pills, let me know,” Kurtis started toward the hill and the Bunkhouse. “I’m game.”
“I’ll just do that.”
-
“Well, yes,” Terri Hartwell looked a little unsure as she replied. “Some of those meds are probably still good. They’ll be weaker than when they were in date, but that’s true of human meds as well. But not all of them,” she hastened to add. “There are some that will degrade as they age, break down into separate components and even change gradually. They can’t be used.”
“What about drugs that are kept in refrigerators, like at Tractor Supply or Co-op?” Clay asked.
“Most of that would be low-level worm meds and maybe some antibiotics,” Dee Talbot answered that one. “The worm meds are probably useless by now and may even be contaminated. The antibiotics are hard to gauge, but they’re for bacterial infections and won’t work on anything else. What would really help is if we could get some testing gear.”
“What kind of testing gear?” Clay asked.
“Honestly, there’s nothing we can do about the more involved tests,” Dee admitted. “Not for any of the animals. We would need an entire lab for it, and equipment that we would likely never find. The best we might come up are a few Bovine TB tests and Mastitis strips for cows we’re getting milk from. But we can tell a cow has Mastitis by examination usually, and we can limit the effect of any infections of any kind by keeping the herd separated, just like we’re doing.”
“For that matter, more cattle panels and fencing would be a greater help than any medications you might find,” Terri interjected. “We’d like, ideally, to cut the herd into a minimum of ten groups, mini-herds if you will. Those cattle will always be kept grouped together, which makes record keeping easier and keeps them separated. If one group does contract
an infection, then isolation is the safest way to protect the rest.”
“So, you’d rather have fencing than meds,” Clay sounded as if he were processing that information.
“The truth is, even if you found a few strip tests or skin tests, you have a thousand head of cattle and approaching two hundred horses. There is also something like seventy-five pigs and I honestly don’t know how many dogs anymore,” Dee snorted. “We can worm them all naturally and it work about as well as anything else. Ideally, we will need to plant some tobacco next year if we have any,” she added. “That’s one of the natural remedies. Saving bacon grease, or any pork fat for that matter, is another way, though we can’t give that to the pigs.”
“Cucumber seeds are also effective for that,” Terri offered. “So is diatomaceous earth, but good luck getting any now.”
“Dimatomato-, what?” Clay’s made only one attempt to repeat the impossible word.
“Ancient dirt,” Dee snickered.
“Ain’t all dirt pretty much been here since the beginning?” Clay asked, looking down at the ground he was standing on.
“This is basically rock that has disintegrated over time,” Dee explained briefly. “Certain types of sedimentary rocks will contain the fossilized remains of diatoms, which can then be formed into a substance called diatomite. It’s used in countless products and is good for treating any number of ailments. Some people swear by it for-,”
“Wait,” Clay held up a hand. He had finally heard a word he recognized. “Did you say diatomite?”
“Yep,” Dee grinned at him.
“As in the stabilizing agent for nitroglycerin that lets it be formed into dynamite?” Clay looked shocked.
“One and the same,” Dee nodded. “I’m impressed you know that Clay.”
“Thanks, I think,” Clay raised an eyebrow at her. “Okay, fossil dirt aside, you have everything you need for treating whatever we can actually treat with natural means. Right?”
“Tobacco?”
“We planted twenty-five acres of different kinds as a trade good, mostly as a test,” Clay told her. “We’ll keep it instead and definitely grow more next year, assuming we did a good job with this small crop. Bottom line, you need fencing. Either wire or panels. Any idea how many of them you might need?”
“We’ve accepted that we won’t have enough,” Dee admitted. “This is a huge place and there are too many animals. Cattle panels help and so will wire. In a pinch we can use logs as posts, or even split them and use them as rails. It won’t look good, but it will work.”
“And isolation is the best way to protect the herd, the horses, and even the pigs,” Clay wanted to make sure he had all this right.
“Kurtis was right that his crew probably carried medicines with them when they were far from their base of operations. But consider two things that he overlooked; the meds were returned to the ranch when they got home, and likely refrigerated again, and new medicine was a drive away. Maybe not a short drive, but it was still there. If you ruined a small bottle of something treating sick animals, you could replace it. We don’t have any of that infrastructure left. There’s no point in you wasting your time looking for what little there might be left in the way of medicines or tests because there would never be enough. Not even a tithe of what we would need. Our way is working. I know it’s slow, but it is working.”
“I’m not concerned with it being slow,” Clay admitted. “I’m concerned with damage to the herd. If I take a team and look for fencing, is there anything else I should be looking for that would help?”
“No,” Terri sighed. “I wish there were, and we appreciate you thinking about it, but the truth is there’s just nothing to be done. We isolate and prevent and medicate naturally if we need to. That is all we can do anymore.”
“Relax just a little and remember that cattlemen did this the same way not more than a hundred years ago,” Dee reminded him with a small smile. “It is a royal pain in the ass compared to modern methods, but they are proven to work. That does not mean we won’t have problems, and losses, but we should be able to keep them to a minimum.”
“We’ll need to make more water holes,” Clay sighed. “At least it won’t hurt anything to steal the sign posts this time.”
“What?” the two said in unison.
“Never mind,” Clay turned to walk away. “Thanks for the information, ladies. I’ll see what I can do.”
-
“Yeah, I didn’t consider that,” Kurtis admitted when Clay spoke to him again, thirty minutes later. “In truth I don’t have a clue what they did with that stuff when we would get back to the main quarters. I’m sorry, Clay. I spoke out of turn there, thinking I knew something I don’t.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Clay shook his head. “And don’t ever hesitate to tell me something that might be useful. In this case, you sharing that was what got me talking to those two and has left me with some other ideas I didn’t have. Plus, they tell me we need more fencing to create more separate pastures with. To isolate the herd into small groups to prevent the entire herd from getting sick.”
“More like your quarantine pen?” Kurtis asked. “Which is a good idea, by the way. Especially bringing in stock you don’t know anything about.”
“It was something we always did, just not on this scale,” Clay nodded. “Anyway, thanks for the heads up. And don’t hesitate to mention anything else you think of, okay?”
“Will do.”
-
“Fencing?”
“Yeah, fencing,” Clay nodded as he and Jose Juarez sat outside of Building Two. The original table and three chairs had grown over the months until now there were four rough wood tables with benches and chairs that would seat over a dozen people. It had become a popular hangout.
“Where do we get this fencing?” Jose asked.
“Well, we can always check places in town, like we did for the building supplies,” Clay sighed. “Or we can start taking fencing from other places where no one is using it anymore. Which, if someone really is still at home and just hiding would cause a problem,” he added. “Dee did mention that we could just cut rails off trees to make a split rail type of barrier, but I honestly can’t see that working too well. Or holding for very long, either.”
“Well, as much as I hate to say it,” Jose shook his head slowly, “I suggest we start with looking in town, first. Checking places that sold those panels, for instance, or fencing and posts. From the description you gave before, the town is apparently deserted. And, even if it’s not, those still there are unlikely to need cattle panels or fencing, right?”
“Makes as much sense as anything else,” Clay agreed. “We’ll have to set up a good team, but still cover the farm well. I’d suggest we take the five women who wanted to work off the farm for sure. Vicki said they did okay on the trip to meet you guys.”
“That will work,” Jose nodded, clearly running over what he needed in his head. “When do you want to try and do this?” he asked.
“Might as well do it tomorrow if it isn’t raining,” Clay looked at the sky. “Should be clear to start the day, maybe.”
“Works for me.”
-
Darrell Goodrum winced only slightly as he knelt to untie his boot. He was nearly healed from the beating he had taken at the hands of Xavier Adair but did suffer the occasional twinge of pain. Doctor Thatcher had told him it would fade over time, though never likely leave him. She hadn’t sounded very regretful as she said it, and Darrell couldn’t blame her.
He had been beaten within inches of his life by a man half his size and left lying in a heap on the ground. This had happened because Darrell had been an abusive husband and was on the verge of being an abusive father. His wife, Carlene, was a mass of fractures, bruises and improperly healed broken bones and he, Darrell, was to blame for every one of them. In hindsight, he really had been lucky that Xavier Adair hadn’t killed him.
He had talked at length with Beverly Jackson as he healed, an
d she had gradually pulled his story from him, forcing him to face the fact that he, too, had been abused as a child, and that he had watched his father abuse his mother all of his life. He had grown up in a household where that behavior was the norm and had taken it with him into his own marriage.
When he was finally face-to-face with all that he had done, as well as all that he had endured, he was so deeply ashamed that he had actually considered suicide. Fortunately, Beverly had seen the signs of that and had talked him down from that precipice, reminding him that in the world they were forced to live in now, his wife and children needed his protection more than ever. That meant he had to be there for them if for no other reason. That, she told him, was the way to make up for what he had done. Not leaving them all alone in a harsh new environment.
Darrell had seized at that idea like a lifeline, pulling on it for all he was worth. He had also, in secret, gone to speak with Gordon Sanders. The patriarch of the Sanders’ clan had raised three children, had four grandchildren and had another on the way. If anyone could help him be a better father, a better husband, then Gordon Sanders had to be that man.
Gordon had been surprised when Darrell first visited him and said so openly. Darrell merely nodded as he acknowledged Gordon’s surprise as warranted. But then he began to explain to Gordon why he was there, and the older man’s surprise had turned first to shock and then, surprisingly, to sympathy. When Darrell asked why Gordon would have any sympathy at all for him, Gordon’s reply had been rather simple.
“You should have had a better role model, Darrell. A better example to follow. While you are at fault for what you’ve done, you can’t be faulted for not having been taught better. That was your father’s job.”
After that, Darrell had spoken often to the older Sanders, talking about his childhood and the things he had seen his father do. Gordon had, in turn, spoke of Leon and how the Old Man had always taught Gordon that his family had to come before anything else on the planet. That had been the example that Gordon had followed. While Leon might have seemed to be an irascible old grouch to the outside world, in reality he was an irascible old grouch that cared very deeply for his family and his friends, and would go to almost any lengths to help them or care for them.