Without coffee or breakfast, Stephen pedaled away from site 199 and headed toward wood station #1. He intended on performing a service check on the smokers, and to make sure that at least two of the woodcutters remained at wood station #1 during the meeting scheduled for nine o’clock. Since he had no idea how long the meeting would last, Stephen would need some of them to remain at the station to guard against thievery, and additionally, to ensure that the wood-hungry smokers kept their bellies full. They were on a strict diet of Maple or Alder wood.
As Stephen neared the wood station, he began to smell the smoke. His boys were already hard at work! Such good kids they were. Stephen felt as though he should reward them with some time off, maybe they could rotate days-off with each other. Set up some type of schedule for it. Or, break it down into three eight hour shifts, maybe? Keep the smokers running throughout the evening? As it currently stood, the boys worked from sunrise until after sunset every day. How long could that be sustained before their morale was completely demolished? Stephen made a mental note to create a definitive shift-work schedule for the boys that would be effective sometime within the near future. He would let his boys decide what day and time it would actually begin.
Stephen’s mind suddenly snapped out of schedule-creation mode. Something was wrong. The smoke he smelled was not of the food-friendly Alder or Maple variety. It wasn’t even Oak. No. It was wrong. All wrong. It smelled like garbage burning in a campsite fire ring.
Stephen had a realization; “Oh, shit, did I forget to tell the boys never to use pine for smoking meats?
He was pretty sure that he had warned them about using pine, it renders meat inedible. He remembered now, he had given them specific instructions never to use pine when they separated the split wood pieces into separate piles. But why would they have used it, then?
Unfortunately for Stephen, the woodcutters, and all the fishermen that spent time harvesting those fish, it wasn’t hardwood that he smelled burning. It was definitely pine. So he pedaled faster and faster. If he could get there quickly enough, maybe it wouldn’t be too late to save the meat!
The woodcutters scampered to the side as Stephen barreled into wood station #1 and rapidly dismounted, leaving the bicycle to fall to the ground on its side as he bounded for the smoking machines. The boys instantly knew something was wrong, their boss was out of sorts.
“Shit!” Stephen screamed after he opened the first smoker. He began opening the wood compartment bays of all the other smokers, hollering in discontent, “Guys, help me get this wood out of here! Now!”
Two of the boys took their hand saws and used them as makeshift shovels to slide and shimmy the half-burnt wood chunks out of the smokers and onto the foot-flattened dirt below.
The other woodcutters that had watched their comrades dangerously unload the fiery hot wood pieces were about to dump their water bottles on the still-smoldering piles in front of the smokers when Stephen stopped them.
“Wait, don’t use your drinking water for that. Just slide all that junk off to the side, away from the smokers and let them burn out,” he said. After pointing at some of the larger half-burnt pieces, he continued with, “If these don’t burn off, give them away to people that need it. They’re still quite burnable. Let them cool down first, of course.”
Prince had been studying Stephen’s odd behavior since he arrived. He asked, “Why did we just take all the wood out of these smokers? They were working just fine, just like you showed us.”
“Wrong wood, Mr. Prince,” Stephen huffed, still trying to catch his breath from the events that had just transpired.
“Wrong wood?” Prince asked, looking very confused.
“Yes! Wrong wood!” Stephen barked. He was frustrated, and even a bit furious, but still didn’t want to take it out on his hard-working boys. There had to be a logical explanation. He took in a deep breath, calmed down, and then asked, “Why on earth did you guys use pine? I thought I told you NEVER to use pine for smoking meats? It makes the food inedible.”
“Yeah, you sure did. That’s why we just used what was already loaded in the smokers when we got here this morning,” Prince replied.
“Who loaded it?” Stephen demanded.
All the boys appeared genuinely confused as they looked at each other. Prince shrugged his shoulders and answered for them, “We thought you did, Mr. A.”
“Well, I didn’t,” Stephen said, exasperated. “Why would anyone want to ruin an entire batch of fish like that? Unless…”
“Unless?” one of the boys asked as Stephen trailed off.
“Unless the fish was irrelevant,” Stephen said to himself. He suddenly realized that Larry Paulson must have set him up! He probably snuck over to wood station #1 in the wee hours of the early morning, loaded them up with pine, and then disappeared again, knowing damn well that the boys would assume that their boss had pre-loaded the smokers for them.
Stephen asked the boys, “How did you fellas get all this fish so early in the morning?”
Craigger responded for the group, saying, “Mr. Reyes and his wife brought them. They told us that every day they would get up super early and have all the fish cut, cleaned, and ready for us to cook. He said that his family wanted to work for you so that you would add him to the list of people authorized to get stuff from the Martinez’ provision piles.”
“Who is Mr. Reyes?” Stephen asked.
Another boy confidently answered, “The Reyes’ are the Chinese people that live at site 120.”
Prince corrected him by saying, “They’re Filipino, not Chinese, you idiot!”
Naturally, all the woodcutters laughed at their racially ignorant associate. Stephen waited for the joviality to die down, then ordered the boys NOT to say anything to anybody about the pine incident. Not a soul…not even their parents. All of them agreed. After all, the fish weren’t completely ruined, it would only take a few moments to reload the smokers with the appropriate wood and fire them back up.
As Stephen slowly pedaled away from the wood station, he kept a watchful eye pressed hard into the trees and bushes along the sides the road, searching for any signs of a beer belly and a balding head that might have been witnessing the events at the wood station as they had occurred in real time.
Maybe Mr. Reyes and his wife had seen something in the dark hours of that early morning, maybe not. Either way, Stephen would need to hurry to site 120 and find out before the 8:30 pre-meeting to the actual meeting. At a minimum, he wanted to thank Mr. Reyes and his family for their diligent fish-cleaning contributions.
*****
The Probsts’ had placed Fish in charge of security at the meeting. It was a serious responsibility, and normally one that would have been carried out by Alexis Tillman. But…(drumroll, please) she had been officially promoted by the Probsts to Sheriff of Deception Pass. She was once again law enforcement, and had almost drooled upon herself when Claudine appointed her as such. Also, true to their word, the Probsts had provided her with the detention unit that she had been requesting for weeks. It was a twelve foot steel PODS container, normally used for handling household goods storage and movement. The new “jail” sat on the gravel pad at the site adjacent to the Probsts’. How they got it there, Alexis had no clue. She had asked, but Claudine waved her off, saying, “Don’t worry about how we got it there, just worry about how you are going to outfit the damn thing with a window and some type of toilet apparatus.”
Hmmm…jail. She could put people in actual jail again. In her opinion, there was no better feeling in the world than locking up a menace to society! Even if society wasn’t the same society that it had been before, the concept remained equivalent. Getting bad guys off the street.
So, she cared nothing about Fish being in charge of security. He’d basically be working for her, anyway.
Everyone was either early or on time for the 8:30 pre-meeting except Stephen. William had asked Fish where his buddy was, but Fish had given him the deer-in-the-headlights look, which meant h
e had no clue whatsoever. They didn’t hear the bicycle crunching through the gravel in the amphitheater’s parking lot behind them and were about to begin the meeting without him.
“Hold on!” Fish triumphantly shouted as he pointed to a sweaty Stephen grinding towards them.
“Sorry I’m late,” Stephen apologized as he laid the bike down and hustled toward the circle of leadership. They had positioned themselves in a location that any early-birds wouldn’t be able to hear anything they said. It was a smart move, because several senior citizens were already seated in the amphitheater, happily gossiping amongst themselves.
Within the circle, Stephen noticed a two new faces amongst the leadership. One of them must have been Bryan, since Stephen remembered that Fish had appointed him as the new night shift beacher team leader in his place. The guy had a gorgeous long rifle, just as Fish had described, and carried himself confidently enough to be leadership material.
Claudine’s reasoning for the pre-meeting was to reiterate the upcoming agenda. She laid out her plan to open the meeting with a few words, then introduce all of the members of leadership to the residents. Once the introductions were completed, she would begin the dreaded town-hall portion of the meeting, which would open a forum to allow the residents to ask questions of their own. Claudine confirmed that she would not be answering any of the questions herself, unless they were specifically addressed personally to her. Instead, she wanted the leadership to answer any questions related to their charge. For example, Ox and Fish would answer security related questions; Victor and Gerty would answer any questions related to the food and supplies at sites 17 and 18; Stephen would answer any resource-related questions; and last but most definitely not least, Carrie would address any health care concerns.
Before Claudine dismissed the leaders, she had one last detail to take care of. She told them, “Someone is going to ask about Julia Hollingsworth’s murder, it is inevitable. When that question arises, let me be the one to respond to it. Understood?”
Fish and Ox looked at each other, since they were supposed to be in charge of security questions, but both nodded to Claudine as if they understood.
While the leaders broke away from the circle, Ox approached Fish with a friendly smile and said, “No offense, buddy, but I think you should let me do all the talking.”
Fish appeared hurt. Even though he was a goofball, he wasn’t completely clueless. He knew that Ox was essentially calling him a dipshit. Ox had sensed Fish’s hurt and clapped him on the back, adding, “Only because I’ve been here longer, that’s all.”
“I hear ya,” Fish acknowledged. “You got it, brother. I’m no good at public speaking, anyway.”
While Fish and Ox had their conversation, Victor and Gerty had walked over to Stephen. Victor held out his hand to him and winked, saying, “Fashionably late, eh? Bold move…I like it!”
Stephen shook the fascinating man’s hand and said with a chuckle, “I tried to make it on time! I had other fish to fry at the moment.”
“Don’t we all, busy is as busy does,” Gerty agreed, and shook Stephen’s hand after her husband had finished doing so.
Suddenly, Stephen realized that for the first time in his life, he had used the idiomatic expression “other fish to fry” in a sense that it actually wasn’t an idiom. It was reality! The fish weren’t fried, however, they were smoked. But close enough!
Victor and Gerty looked baffled for a moment as Stephen burst into laughter. Gerty began to laugh as well, thinking it was something she said. Victor tried not to laugh, but the tension that had built up from the impending meeting and watching his wife bubble over with happiness caused him to grin uncontrollably.
“Okay, what’s so funny?” Victor demanded, putting his hands on his hips.
Stephen caught his breath and then said, “I said, ‘other fish to fry’, but…” Stephen lost it again, and the Martinez’ were forced to grin through another round of Stephen’s private joke laughter with himself.
“Yeah? It’s just an expression, ain’t it?” Victor asked, puzzled.
“I know,” Stephen began, “but I was actually out at wood station #1 checking on the herring smokers!”
Gerty got it straight away, and whooped out a contagious laugh that could make even the grumpiest curmudgeon smile. She put her hand on Stephen’s shoulder and spoke in between gasps for breath, “Stephen, you’re a real kick-in-the-pants!”
Carrie had noticed Stephen and the Martinez’ joyous display, and wanted in. She strolled over to the group, and while towering over all three of them, said in an accusatory tone, “Alright, which one of you three farted? Nothing else could be that funny.”
Of course, that brought on another round of cackling, and Carrie joined in right along with them.
Once they had finished laughing and were able to sustain themselves for more than a few seconds without busting out again, Gerty asked Carrie a question.
“Are you ready for this meeting? I mean, there will probably be tons of questions, especially for you.”
“I guess,” Carrie admitted. She then waved her hand at the early, nosy senior citizens that had already seated themselves in the amphitheater, saying, “But, I’m not exactly thrilled about answering a million questions about arthritis, heartburn and bowel movements.”
“Hey!” Victor barked. “I resemble that remark!”
*****
To facilitate maximum attendance at the nine o’clock meeting, the bridge, gate, and beach teams were fractioned down to nothing more than a skeleton crew at each station. Bryan had assigned Clay and one other beacher that he trusted to roam the shores with the radio until the meeting was over. In his opinion, it wasn’t the smartest move to reduce security to such an extremely low level, especially in broad daylight, but it was the bosses’ orders.
The remaining beachers and gatekeepers had orders of their own. The Probsts had given Fish specific instructions to command the remaining security forces to conduct a clean sweep of The Park by 8:45. All residents should either be gone or be moving their way towards the amphitheater. No soul was to be left in the campground, none. When Claudine said “mandatory” – she meant MANDATORY. The security forces were also ordered specifically not to physically engage any resident that resisted. Instead, anyone that refused to attend the meeting would have their name and site number reported to the Probsts. What happened after that, was up to the bosses.
A small handful of rebellious souls scattered here and there throughout the campground had refused to move when the security forces had approached them. Some even told the security guards to “fuck themselves” and gave up ridiculous-sounding fake names. However, their site numbers were properly memorized or written down.
By 8:55, most of the security forces had completed their sweep and hurried toward the north beach to attend the meeting themselves.
*****
As the residents filled in the seats at the amphitheater, Claudine and William anxiously stood with perfect, political smiles on their faces upon the wooden stage with leaders lined up on both sides of them. Everyone on the stage was shoulder to shoulder in solidarity. Stephen, who was on the far right end next to Fish, peered down the long line-up of leaders, and noticed that Hal and Alexis were missing. They had moved to the rear of the amphitheater and were just standing there next to the tree line. That seemed odd, since every other leader was on the stage. He nudged Fish’s elbow and asked what was up with the two outcasts, and Fish whispered into Stephen’s ear, “Claudine wanted them for security in the rear. She didn’t say why.”
Stephen shrugged. Maybe it was a good idea. If any resident decided to get rowdy or heckle the leadership, the new “sheriff” would be right there in a jiffy to restrain them.
Fish spotted Walter Pullman ambling into the amphitheater, big brown bible in tow. He shuddered, then said quietly to himself, “That fucker gives me the creeps.”
Ox grinned at Fish and whispered to him, “You’re talking about Walter, aren’t you?
”
“Yup.”
“You and me both, buddy,” Ox chuckled. Then Fish nudged him with his elbow and made another people-watching comment.
“Oh, and here comes Terry the golf-club-dude.”
Ox whispered back, “Yeah, that sucks, I was kind of hoping that he wouldn’t have shown up.”
Fish asked, “Why is that?”
“I’ll tell ya later, since you’re in the circle now,” Ox replied in another whisper.
Stephen had overheard what Ox had said to Fish. He would absolutely question Fish later today after Ox told him whatever he was about to tell him. Something about that little chit-chat had rubbed him the wrong way. Wasn’t Stephen in the “circle” as well?
The ambience of anticipation grew stronger as more and more residents filled in the empty seats. Soon, it would be standing room only.
At nine o’clock sharp, as promised, Claudine wished to begin the meeting with her opening speech just as the last of the security forces emerged from the north beach trail and hustled toward the meeting about to begin. She looked down the line of leaders at Fish, who stepped forward.
Fish addressed the pre-occupied, chit-chatty loud crowd by yelling, “Everybody listen up! Pay attention and quiet down, the meeting is about to begin!”
Everyone went silent as Fish stepped back, and Claudine stepped forward.
“Welcome to the first-ever meeting of the Deception Pass survivors group! I know that this meeting is long overdue, but I think that we all agree that it’s about time we get this thing off the ground and get down to some great discussion! What do you think?”
*Loud agreements and applause from the residents*
“First things first, I want all of you to look around at each other. Look at the person seated next to you, then think of your neighbors camped next to you in The Park. Do you know what we all have in common? We’re all survivors. Indeed, we are…BUT! Not only are we surviving, we are thriving! While the rest of the country, excuse me, the planet is falling apart, we are all falling in together to make great things happen for ourselves. Everyone present at this meeting today is an integral part of that success. Without you, we would never have been able to make this happen. So, please…give yourselves a huge round of applause, because I feel as though you all deserve it!”
THE COLLAPSE: Seeking Refuge Page 18