John was the only one still out.
“I’ll have Sara bring you a plate if it’s finished before you get off shift, or you can eat outside with us.”
“I’d rather eat with you, my beautiful princess.”
She smiled again.
And it felt good. More than anything, she needed a few smiles to get herself back on track.
-15-
Both picnic tables were set within half an hour, and Hannah called the men outside the fence.
“I’ve unlocked the gate, and I’m backing away. Come on in and have some grub.”
Scott’s first thought, of course, was of Joyce.
“Linda spent the night with her, Scott, so she wouldn’t be alone. Jordan is up there with her now. He said he’s not hungry anyway. Eat some breakfast and then he’ll step out so you can spend more time with her if you want.”
“Thank you, dear. I’d like that.”
What should have been a celebratory homecoming was again somber and quiet. No one said much during the meal, but there were a lot of looks of longing between the two groups. Hannah would have given almost anything to hold John again, even for a brief moment.
But the one thing she wouldn’t give, couldn’t give, was her daughters’ health. So she stayed far away from her husband.
She told the others at her table, “Believe it or not, I think this is worse than when he was gone. Then I couldn’t see him, and it was easier to put him out of my mind. It’s maddening to see him over there and not be able to go running to him.”
She didn’t know it, but John was expressing pretty much the same sentiment to the men at his own table.
It was a busy and stressful day for everyone. While Scott and the other visitors were gathering the bodies of the outlaws, Hannah and Linda were preparing Joyce for burial.
Jordan dug two graves. The first was for old Blue, and he and Tom buried him in a shady spot under the eave of the house. It was his favorite spot in the yard, and Tom thought it fitting he should spend eternity there.
While Jordan was digging a grave for Joyce, Tom and Zachary went to the workshop to build a casket for her. It was plain, yet sturdy. She’d have appreciated the workmanship the men put into it.
In the mid-afternoon, the men outside the wall had finished the grizzly task of gathering Tony Pike and the others. Their first plan was to bury them. But then John had a better idea.
As a warning to others, they carried them through the break in the fence and through Tom’s property, out to the highway where they’d parked their patrol car.
And there, on the edge of the dirt berm which blocked the access road to Tom’s place, they lined them up, side by side, in a rather grotesque and macabre display.
It reminded Scott of photographs he’d seen of the old west, when a gang of outlaws would be shot dead, then posed upright in coffins for the town photographer.
Scott had found an old hand saw and enough materials in Tom’s work shed to fashion a crude sign. It read:
THESE MEN
WERE WARNED TO KEEP OUT
AND IGNORED THE WARNING.
LEARN FROM
THEIR MISTAKE.
He shoved the sign into the berm next to the bodies. Then they stood back and admired their handiwork.
John asked, “Do you think it’ll keep others away?”
Scott gave pause and answered, “I hope so. But if it doesn’t, I don’t mind killing a hundred more. If that’s what it takes to keep from losing any more of our own.”
The men took a rest break under an old oak tree in Tom’s front yard, before going to retrieve the Bobcat.
After being allowed to creep unattended into the brush, the machine had driven over Tony Pike’s head and kept going. A hundred yards later it finally got stuck in a bar ditch, and ran until it exhausted all its fuel.
They planned to get Tom’s old F-100 farm tractor and use it to tow it out of the ditch, refuel it, and then put it back in the corn field.
But it would have to sit in the ditch a little bit longer.
Linda called on the radio.
“We’ll be ready in about twenty minutes or so. Why don’t you guys start heading over this way?
-16-
The group had tossed around dozens of ideas. Some they discarded outright, others they tried and then discarded. Still other ideas they kept.
They wanted to make this, the first funeral service at the camp, dignified and respectful. Yet they wanted it to be something that would have touched Joyce’s heart- that would touch Joyce’s heart. For there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s mind that she was up there watching.
The casket wouldn’t fit in the house, because it wouldn’t make the turn into the kitchen without standing it upright. That would have been okay when it was empty. But taking it out that way, with Joyce’s body inside it, just would not do.
So Tom and Jordan placed the empty casket on the back patio and the women went to work lining it with cozy comforters. In Sara’s words, “So she’ll be toasty warm until they approve her ticket to heaven.”
The teddy bear was little Misty’s idea. “It’s always good to have a friend along on a long journey, so you can have someone to snuggle with and talk to.”
It had been Misty’s security bear up until that time. She’d never gone anywhere without it to that point. Wouldn’t sleep without it, and sometimes even dragged it to the dinner table.
Hannah wasn’t so sure at first.
“Are you sure you’re able to give Teddy up?”
Misty looked at her and in the biggest voice she could muster, said, “Mom, I’m not a child anymore.”
And in a sense she was right. Joyce’s death changed all of them in various ways. They wouldn’t realize for months how they’d all become a little bit more hardened, a little bit more cynical, and a little bit more suspicious of strangers.
But in other ways, Joyce’s sacrifice would change them for the better. They now knew that any of them could be gone in the blink of an eye. And that the time they had together wasn’t unlimited, and needed to be cherished. Every single one of them secretly vowed to themselves to make more of their relationships with the others. In the months ahead, they would love harder and show affection more freely.
After the casket was prepared, Tom very gently carried Joyce downstairs in his arms. Linda and Hannah had dressed her in her favorite blue dress. They even managed to wash and style her hair while Jordan was digging the grave and Tom was building the casket, although doing so was a monumental task.
It wasn’t one they minded, though.
There was no way to cover the bullet hole with makeup. So Joyce would go to heaven with a band aid on her head.
“You don’t think she’ll mind, do you?” Hannah asked.
Linda responded, “I don’t think so. Not at all.”
Tom and Jordan could have carried the casket to the grave site by themselves, but Linda and Hannah insisted on helping. Misty, Rachel and Sara all grabbed hold as well, although they were limited help. It was just something they had to do. It seemed to be an essential part of saying goodbye.
Tom had cut four sections of rope, each piece twenty five feet long.
He made a loop on each end of each piece of rope, and looped the ropes around stakes he and Jordan hammered into the ground.
The four ropes, stretched across the grave, made a cradle that would hold the casket.
For the first time since they’d moved into the compound, the house was completely empty of life. Never before had they left the security station unmanned, even when everyone else was outside planting crops or doing other chores.
For a few brief minutes, they relied on the four men at Tom’s ranch to provide security from whatever or whoever out there might still do them harm.
They gently placed the casket on the rope cradle, then stepped back. Tom asked them to bow their heads and said a short prayer.
Linda said, “I’ll take the security desk. Somebody has to do it, and I sai
d my goodbyes while we were doing her hair.”
She didn’t get any arguments. It was nice of her to step up to the plate and bow out. Everyone loved Joyce, and no one wanted to miss the service.
Linda opened the gate to let the men in, then stepped well away from them as they entered and took their place on the west side of the grave.
Linda locked the gate behind them and then took her own place at the security console.
She noticed for the first time that Jordan had turned one of the security cameras toward the grave, so that whoever had to pull security could see the ceremony.
Linda smiled and spoke out loud to Jordan, even though he’d never hear her words..
“What a sweet son you are. Thank you, dear.”
Sara, for her part, held down the microphone on her radio during the brief service so that Joyce could hear it as well.
The compound’s residents took places on the east side of the grave, separated from the visitors by twenty feet or so. John looked longingly at Hannah, desperate to feel her touch, hold her, tell her he loved her. Knowing he couldn’t made an already dreadful moment even more so.
Scott spoke first, with an appeal to God. He raised his face toward the sky and said, “Lord, please take this good woman under your wing and protect her. She didn’t deserve this, any of it. But she’s in your care now, and I trust you’ll do right by her. Please tell her how much I love her. How much we all love her. And how much we look forward to seeing her again someday.”
Sara led the group in two hymns, Amazing Grace and Shall We Gather at the River. She looked through an old hymnal Joyce had on her bookcase, and found those two pages dog-eared.
“These must be her favorites,” she told Linda. So she printed copies for everyone.
Tom said a closing prayer, and it was time to lower Joyce into her final resting place. The four visitors on the west side of the grave each took a rope and unhooked it from the stakes.
On the east side, Tom and Jordan took the ropes on the ends. Hannah and Zachary took the ropes in the middle.
Slowly and deliberately, they walked toward the grave, the casket slowly lowering with each step.
By the time they made it to the grave, Joyce was resting at the bottom, and the eight of them tossed the ropes into the hole atop the casket.
They were a mere five feet apart now. It would be the closest John and Hannah would be to each other for several more months, and it broke their hearts.
But their hearts weren’t breaking as bad as Scott’s.
“Do you mind if I have some time alone with her?”
Tom said, “Take all the time you need, my friend.”
All the others walked away, careful to keep a safe distance between the visitors and the residents.
They sat at their respective picnic tables and watched, from a distance, as Scott knelt on his knees before the grave and carried on a long conversation.
They didn’t know whether Joyce could hear his final farewell. But they knew that even if she couldn’t, it was still therapeutic for Scott to get the words out. To tell her what she meant to him.
And perhaps to get out the things he’d intended to tell her before and never had the chance.
Scott joined John, Randy and Robbie at the visitors table, and for the next hour the two tables carried on the most bizarre of conversations, through two way radios, or yelling across the twenty foot span that separated them.
It was a dreadful way for loved ones to visit.
At one point Sara brought young Chris from the house to visit with his grandfather.
It seemed a further insult, almost like rubbing salt into an open wound, that Scott had just buried his love. And now he could see his only grandson from twenty feet away.
But he couldn’t go any closer without risking the baby’s life.
“Someday, little guy,” he called across the span, “I’ll be able to pick you up and carry you and we’ll have lots of fun together. In the meantime, you just remember that Grandpa loves you.”
As the sun sank low in the sky, the visitors went back to Tom’s ranch house for their second night. They were scheduled to depart first thing in the morning, after they came and said their goodbyes.
This had been the hardest day any of them had gone through in a very long time. And the prospects of the next day being any better were dim at best.
Fortunately, John had a trick up his sleeve.
-17-
The sun rose about five thirty that morning. The light coming in through the east windows, which hadn’t been cleaned in many months, bathed Tom’s ranch house in a dusty glow.
Scott stretched and opened his eyes to see Robbie, still asleep a few feet away. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, yawned, and looked around to see where his other friends were.
They were nowhere in sight, although their sleeping bags and air mattresses were already neatly rolled up in the corner.
Probably outside shooting the breeze, out of earshot of their sleeping comrades.
Scott was unworried, so he allowed himself the luxury of dozing off for a few more minutes.
The trip back to San Antonio, after all, would be a trying one. It would be hard on all of them, emotionally, especially knowing the risks their loved ones would face again in their absence.
A few extra minutes’ sleep wouldn’t make their leaving any easier, but it would delay it just a little bit longer.
The patch of light coming through the window started close to the ceiling when the sun rose, then slowly crept down the wall and onto the floor as the morning sun rose higher on the horizon. As it made its way across the floor, it eventually found Scott’s face and woke him up again.
He looked at his watch. It was now almost ten.
Robbie was nowhere in sight now, but his sleeping bag and air mattress now sat with the other two in the corner.
Scott was a little bit upset now that they didn’t wake him. They probably figured that, as hard as the previous day was on him, he needed all the rest he could get.
But still, they had to get back to San Antonio.
He felt bad for making his friends wait so long on him just so he could get some more sleep.
He crawled out of his bag, walked outside, and urinated against an old oak tree. Tom’s ranch house had an indoor toilet, of course. But without power to run the well pump, it wouldn’t flush. Better to go outside and let the rain wash it away than to piss in a toilet that could never be flushed.
He looked around for his friends, and saw Robbie coming through the field from the direction of the compound.
“Well, hello, Sleeping Ugly. ‘Bout time you got your lazy ass out of bed.”
“Yeah, well, up yours pal. Where’s everybody else?”
“They’re gone, Scott. They went back to San Antonio.”
“What?”
“Yep. It was John’s idea. He said after losing Joyce, you need a few more days to spend with your loved ones. He said that even though you can’t get close to them, you can still see them. And under the circumstances it’s better than nothing.”
“When did he hatch this evil plan?”
“Yesterday, while you were saying your final goodbyes to Joyce. We were sitting at the picnic table watching you, and I said I wished there was something we could do to help ease your pain. He said there was, and he told us of his plan. John just looks like an insensitive bastard. He really has a heart of gold. But don’t tell him I told you that. He’ll beat me senseless.”
“You’re already senseless.”
“Well, judging from the company I keep, you’re probably right.”
“So why are you here?”
“John told me to stay here and keep you company. So you didn’t have to sleep here in this lonely ranch house every night, all by yourself. I guess he thinks you’re afraid of the bogeyman or something.”
“What about Chief Martinez? I mean, I’m just there as a temporary helper. I don’t care if I get fired. But what about you?”
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“John said he’d square it with the chief. Chief Martinez considers John the son he never had. He said he’ll talk the chief into giving us a leave of absence for two weeks. He’ll come back and pick us up then.
“That should be long enough to see if there are going to be any more attacks here. And if they are, John made me promise to call them so they can come racing back. He said they’re going to run the generator twenty four hours a day and have a couple of the fellas on the other shift stay at John’s house for the two weeks so somebody’s always there to monitor the ham radio.”
Scott was choked up. He didn’t know what to say.
He managed to get out a squeaky “thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, Scott. That’s what good friends are for.”
-18-
It wasn’t the best of situations, but as Robbie said, it was better than nothing.
Each morning, Linda or Hannah would call the pair when breakfast was ready. They would secure the ranch house and walk over to the compound, where they’d find a hearty meal laid out for them on their picnic table.
While they ate, Scott’s boys and Sara, and sometimes the others, would sit at their own table a short distance away. Communicating across the divide was becoming second nature to them now, and they were able to carry out regular conversations just by speaking in loud voices.
It wasn’t ideal, but they made the best of it.
The process was repeated at lunch and dinnertime. It was the best food the two had eaten in many months, and they found themselves putting on weight. Robbie mentioned after a week or so that he’d better slow down, or he wouldn’t be able to fit into his police uniform when he got back to San Antonio.
When they weren’t in the compound gorging themselves, Scott and Robbie spent their time outside the compound’s walls, doing odd jobs.
They’d pulled the Bobcat out of the ditch and tuned it up. They pulled the punji sticks out of the trench that Tom had dug, in case one of the dogs accidentally fell in.
An Undeclared War (Countdown to Armageddon Book 4) Page 6