Faggione looked at the object in his hand, then back to Sarge before putting the Tootsie Roll back in the corner of his mouth. “If I only had a cigar. I gave up cat shit years ago, just couldn’t get the taste outta my mouth.”
Sarge smiled, gesturing to the two machines behind the master sergeant he asked, “These beauties mine?”
Faggione smiled. “No, they’re mine, but if you’re nice I may let you use them.”
“Very well, I wanna take one for a spin.”
“Not until I check you out on them,” Faggione said.
Sarge jutted a thumb over his shoulder. “Check them out. I have an errand to run.” He stepped up into the smaller of the two machines and started it. Before Faggione could protest, Sarge was pulling out of the bay and racing down the road.
Sarge headed for the barracks, impressed with the speed and feel of the machine he was in. He would have some questions for Faggione when he got back. Pulling up to the front door, Sarge leapt out and ran into the old building, heading straight for the stack of gear they had salvaged from the truck. He started pulling out cases and boxes.
Finding the cardboard box, he pulled two jars out and set them aside, then went back to the cases, looking for one in particular. Finding the small case, he pulled it out of the pile, picked up the jars and headed for the door. Setting the loot in the passenger’s seat, he climbed in and started the machine and headed for the motor pool, keeping a hand on the stash beside him so it didn’t roll out.
When he got to the gate of the motor pool, he stopped for a moment, picking up the small case and opening it. Reaching in, he took out one of the dark silky cigars. Sarge didn’t smoke very often, but he liked the occasional cigar. On a trip through North Carolina he had stopped at JR’s Cigars and bought a box of Rocky Patel 1990 vintage Robustos. Rolling the oily cigar between his thumb and forefinger, he fished out his Zippo, set it on the seat and went into his pocket for his knife. After cutting the tip, he stuck it in his mouth and lit it, drawing the thick smoke in and blowing out a cloud.
Sarge gripped the cigar with his teeth—he had to because he was grinning so hard—put the machine in gear and headed for the back of the building. When he came up to the open bay door, Faggione had his back to him. Sarge stopped and propped a foot up on the dash of the machine and took a long drag on the cigar. When he finished the point he was making to the guys, Faggione turned around, and just as he did Sarge blew a couple of perfect smoke rings at him.
Faggione stood there looking at Sarge. His eyes were mere slits in the hunk of meat on his shoulders. After a moment the Tootsie Roll hit the ground and he stepped towards Sarge. Sarge took the cigar from his mouth, holding it out as to admire it, then looked at Faggione.
“Nothing better than a quality smoke, huh Master Sergeant?”
Faggione crossed his arms over his chest. “What’cha got there, a White Owl, or maybe a Dutch Master? You don’t look to me like the kind of guy that can ‘preciate a decent smoke.”
Sarge tucked the cigar back in his teeth and picked up one of the jars, spinning the lid off. “Not only do I appreciate a good smoke, I also appreciate a good drink.” Plucking the stogie from his mouth, Sarge took a pull from the jar, trying hard not to squint.
“Well, aren’t you just full of surprises.”
Sarge stuck the cigar back in his mouth and grinned at him, then reached over and picked up the case with the cigars. “Would you care for one?” he asked, holding the box out.
Faggione stepped over and peered into the case. “Patel, nice cigar.” He reached in and took one, inspecting the band. “Vintage even,” he said with an approving nod. Faggione reached into his pocket and took out a cutter, clipped the end and quickly produced a lighter, struck it and puffed the cigar to life. Taking in a deep drag, his eyes closed and his head rocked back slightly, gripping it between his fingers he pulled the cigar from his lips, followed by a slow thick cloud of smoke.
“First Sergeant Mitchel, I think you an’ me is gonna get along just fine.”
Sarge smiled, his cigar clamped in his teeth. He took one of the jars and tossed it to Faggione. Faggione spun the lid off and held it to his nose for moment and sniffed. Then put the jar to his lips and took a long drink, swishing the hard liquor in his mouth and swallowed it with no more consideration than a drink of water.
“Mighty fine, mighty fine,” Faggione said.
“Hey, what about us?” Ted asked.
“Forget it, you’re on duty, dipshit,” Sarge replied.
Faggione’s cigar was planted in the corner of his mouth. “Come in here and let me introduce you to your newest love,” Faggione said as Sarge climbed out of the machine.
Danny pulled up beside me. “We got company!” he shouted, nodding his head over his shoulder.
I looked back to see another ATV behind us. When I looked back, so did the other guys. We slowed down, coming abreast of one another. Thad asked what we thought about the guy. We had no idea what he was up to, but decided not to go straight back to the neighborhood. It was Danny’s idea to take a trail into the forest. It was just ahead of where we were and wound its way into the back of the neighborhood without having to get back out on the road. Jeff said he’d take the guy for a tour of the area and the three of us turned off and Jeff sped off down the paved road.
As we rode through the forest, we stopped occasionally to see if we were being followed, but never hearing anyone we eventually found our way back to the neighborhood. The way we came in brought us in beside Miss Janice’s house. Seeing her house made me think of the ATV tracks we had seen and the men she said she saw back there. As we came out of the woods, I pulled up to her house and Danny and Thad followed me.
The three of us sat on the ATVs looking at the house. I knew we would have to go in and look, but even from here I knew it wasn’t going to good. The front door was caved in.
“Who lives here?” Thad asked.
“An old lady. We brought her some food not too long ago,” Danny said.
“By herself?” Thad asked.
“Yeah, by herself. Danny, you want to come with me to look?” I said.
“Not really, but I guess we need to.”
“I’ll go around back and make sure no one is out there,” Thad said.
Danny and I slowly approached the door with our rifles at low ready. Stopping at the shattered door, we peered in. Miss Janice’s feet were sticking out from behind the island in the kitchen. We slowly entered the living room. Danny went to the left and I went to the right. There was a door on my right. I opened it and saw the master bedroom. I did a quick check and found it empty. Quickly crossing the living room, I caught up to Danny as he backed out of the bathroom. Together we cleared the other two bedrooms. The house was empty except for Miss Janice.
She had been strangled. There was deep, dark bruising around her neck. Her eyes were bloodshot and her mouth was open. Looking down at her I could just imagine the terrified scream that those hands choked off, even dead she looked scared. We never said anything, Danny and I. He went to one of the bedrooms down the hall, returning with a sheet. We spread the sheet out over. I knelt down and raised it from her face and closed her eyes, then gently laid the sheet back over her.
Thad was out front when we came out the door. “She dead?”
Danny nodded and we all climbed aboard our machines and headed for Danny’s house. Once there we unloaded all the cans of fuel into his shop, throwing an old tarp over them. Danny stepped back, looking at the tarp, and said, “That didn’t cost us too much.”
“Speak for yourself there, sport,” I said. He looked over, his head cocked to the side.
I smiled, “I’d rather not trade ammo if we can avoid it, ‘sides, I got more cooked an canned pig innards.”
Thad said, “There’s cost and there’s cost, if
you get my meaning. We’re on somebody’s radar now, I guarantee you that. I don’t think we should go back there no more.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re probably right about that.”
Reggie came down the drive towards us and said, “I slaughtered a hog and have it on the smoker. Tomorrow we’ll have some good eats.” That broke the suddenly solemn mood.
“Damn, that sounds good!” Thad shouted, rubbing his stomach.
“Well, I had to. I’m running out of feed for ‘em, gonna have to start slaughtering ‘em all.”
“There’s got to be something we can feed ‘em, I mean, they’ll eat anything,” Danny said.
“I’m open for ideas,” Reggie said, shaking his head.
“Hell, I doubt there’s a chicken or pig left around here, ‘cept for my birds and your pigs. We need to try and keep ‘em around if we can,” I said.
We all stood there for a minute thinking about the problem, trying to come up with ideas, after a minute Jeff spoke up. “I got nuthin’. I don’t know shit about ‘bout pigs ‘cept I like bacon.” This brought another round of chuckles.
Thad said, “Hell, you can turn ‘em out to feed. They’ll keep comin’ back so long as they know you got feed for ‘em. I done it myself.”
“Think they’d eat swamp cabbage?” Danny asked him.
“Course. Damn things are like goats”
It would take some work, but there was plenty of it around, swamp cabbage. Danny and Reggie immediately agreed to head off and see what they could do, how much work it would take to get to a whole heart of one of those palm trees. Danny grabbed an axe and a machete and headed for the gate with Reggie.
Reggie stopped and turned back to the three of us still standing in front of the shop, “How much gas did we get?”
“Filled nine cans. If you need some it’s in here,” I replied, pointing to the shop.
Reggie nodded, gave a wave and turned to catch up to Danny. Thad and I talked for a minute about what we needed to get done. We needed to bury the old lady, but we agreed to wait for Reggie to get back and use his tractor. In the meantime we decided to go up to the barricade and see how the foot traffic on the road looked. Just as we were pulling out, Jeff showed up.
“How’d it go?” I asked him.
“Took him on the scenic tour, like I said. Eventually he gave up. He must have known I could have outrun him, and I’m guessing he put that together with the fact that you guys were gone and figured I was just screwing him around.”
Thad said, “You did good, but I’m warning you guys: don’t think this is over. That guy’s gonna have a pretty good idea of where he lost us, and people already been over those trails out back of Miss Janice’s house. I’ll tell you another thing: you remember the way that guy was looking at you at the market? The guy you said Haywood Jablowme to?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It didn’t piss him off none, you notice that?”
“Yeah, he was a pretty cool customer.”
“What’s that tell you? It means he’s probably got bigger fish to fry. But when he gets around to it, I bet you he’s got the time and the manpower to find where we’re at. And he ain’t gonna forget you pissed on his boots.”
I hadn’t liked the look the guy gave me, but I hadn’t taken it as far as Thad had either. I knew he’d been through some bad shit, and I knew this was something I should listen to him on. “I hear you,” I said. “I don’t know what we can do about it right now, though.”
“We can get ready, that’s what. I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. I ain’t gonna make that mistake again. I mean, shit, you thought you were takin’ care of Miss Janice, right?”
That made me kind of mad. “You saying I wasn’t?”
“Don’t get all pissed, Morg. I’m sayin’ you were doin’ what you thought you should be doin’; takin’ her food, checking up on her. But I’m also sayin’ that that ain’t gonna be enough any more. We gotta get ready for some bad shit, because it’s out there.”
That calmed me down some, and he was right. Jeff wanted to know about Miss Janice, and we told him. That left all three of us in a down mood.
The three of us rode down to the roadblock and were pissed to find it unmanned. No one was there to keep people out. The gabions we had constructed were still waiting to be filled with dirt, but it wouldn’t really matter if they were filled or not if no one was around to keep an eye on it.
We didn’t say anything. Each of us, I’m sure, were running the possibilities through our minds. There had been steady stream of people walking north on Highway 19. It wasn’t a mob, but it was a definite stream, and growing. We had seen some of them on the way over, and a few were passing as we sat our machines. The people walking along the road were carrying backpacks and bags of all sorts. I saw more than one grown man wearing a pack for a child, and it reminded me of the shows about the border where the immigrants would be trying to walk from Mexico to the US with a Hello Kitty backpack. A few of them were dragging rolling style luggage, or maybe a wagon with bundles in it and a child or two.
Our presence didn’t go unnoticed. We drew a few looks from some of the passersby. The gaunt faces showed little emotion; they simply shuffled along. Despair, hopelessness and desperation, that’s what came to mind looking at them, blank windows into abandoned building. We sat for a while watching the march of the hopeless and helpless. Thad spoke up and said he would stay on the barricade tonight and Jeff immediately agreed he would stay too.
“This is what I was talking about; we gotta be prepared, we gotta get organized. We can’t leave this open, not with all these people walking right by the front door,” Thad said shaking his head.
“I’ll bring dinner up to you guys in a bit. Anything else y’all need?” I asked.
“Coffee,” Thad said flatly.
“Lots of it,” Jeff added.
“Alright guys, I’ll bring it down in a bit. You guys have a flashlight?”
“Naw, I don’t,” Thad replied, looking at Jeff who just shook his head.
“I’ll bring one down as well, I’ll even bring the NVGs. Shit we shoulda done that earlier. If Lance and them had had NVGs, well, you know what I mean. I don’t want to lose you guys too.”
Reggie and Danny went back to Reggie’s place. There were plenty of cabbage palms on his place and they would check on the smoker. Reggie pulled the ATV to a stop beside the old propane tank he had converted into a smoker. Lifting the top exposed the whole hog lying on the expanded metal cooking surface. Reggie had skinned the pig, cut its head off and cracked its shoulders and pelvis to lay it out flat. In the firebox on the side of the smoker, a pile of cured oak smoldered, and a pan of water sat on the grate beside the pig. Not seeing anything that needed addressed at the moment, he dropped the lid.
Together, the two of them walked out across the pasture towards the rear of Reggie’s property. Danny was carrying the axe and machete, his AR slung across his back. Reggie had his head down, looking at the ground as he walked. Without looking up, he said, “Wonder how much we’ll get out of one of these.”
“Don’t know. I’ve never cut out a whole one before. I like ‘em though,” Danny replied.
“Never had it.”
Danny looked over. “It’s good. Morgan’s little one loves the stuff. Every time we go in the woods she keeps us busy pulling up palmetto hearts.” A smile spread over his face and over Reggie’s too. Danny was one of those good-natured, perpetually upbeat people and his attitude is infectious.
As they approached the chosen tree, Reggie asked what the plan was. Danny said they had to cut all the fronds off and start cutting the tree open. Reggie stuck his hand out and Danny handed him the machete. Hefting the big blade in his right hand, he lopped the first of the fronds, working his way towards the trunk of the tree. Danny
was standing behind him holding the axe as Reggie hacked at the tree.
Reggie grabbed a particularly long frond and chopped if from the base of the tree, “Sum bitch!” he shouted as turned to run from the tree, swinging the big blade in the air around him. “Shit!” Reggie ran from a hoard of Mahogany Wasps that were tearing his ass up. The bad part was he was still holding the frond their nest was attached to.
“Drop it, drop the palm!” Danny was backpedaling, trying to keep some distance between himself and the hoard. Reggie finally dropped the frond and ran towards the barn where Danny caught up with him.
“Gawd damn they hurt!” Reggie bellowed, rubbing various parts of his head, neck and arms.
Danny was laughing. He was trying not to, but he couldn’t help himself. Reggie looked up at him and said, “That shit ain’t funny!”
Danny finally broke out into uncontrollable laughter, “You were running from ‘em, but draggin’ ‘em behind you the whole time.”
Reggie was pissed and rubbing a particularly painful sting on his cheek under his right eye, “Hey, how’s ‘is look?”
Danny walked up and looked seriously at Reggie for a second. “Hard to tell.”
“What’da mean hard to tell?”
“Hard to tell with all the ugly around it.” Danny broke out into laughter again.
“Asshole!” Reggie shouted and reached out to grab Danny, who easily dodged.
“Come on biggun, let’s go get some cabbage for them pigs.”
They were far more careful on the subsequent attempts and managed to get the hearts of a couple palms. Reggie wasn’t sure if the pigs would eat it, Danny cut a piece off and handed it to him, “Try it.”
Reggie sniffed the white succulent flesh, then hesitantly put it to his lips, taking a small bite. After chewing it for a moment his eyebrows went up, “Hell, that ain’t bad.” The pigs, did indeed like it, not that they were very particular. As Thad had demonstrated, they’d eat about anything.
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