The Shadow of Armageddon

by LeMay, Jim

  Nelson O’Conner was a very wealthy man. Chadwick’s goal in taking over Columbia was probably to imitate his success.

  At one point Maude said to Mitch, “It sounds like you fellows have a pretty adventurous life, get to see a lot of different places.”

  He sighed. “A little too adventurous sometimes. Bein’ settled sounds mighty comfortable at times.”

  “Where are you going after you leave here?”

  “We’ll find some town or other t’ sell our truck in. Prob’ly not Nellie’s Fair this year, some other ’n. We’ll stop by a family name a Kane’s house first. They specialize in raisin’ mules an’ kids.”

  “We’re interested in his mules, not his kids,” laughed Lou.

  “We need to buy some to carry our truck – uh, goods.”

  “Why do you say he specializes in raising kids too?” asked Maude.

  “Well,” said Mitch, “when so many folks was dyin’ off, sometimes a whole family died, but then sometimes all except for a little ’n. Billy and Hanna Kane run ’round the country durin’ an’ after the Last Days gatherin’ up all the little ’ns they could find an’ took ’m home. They still take in any urchin that needs ’m. They’s so many kids there I don’t know how they keep track of ’m.”

  “Billy and Hanna are lucky in one way,” added Lou. “They both lived through the Last Days. Few spouses made it through together. They got Chou’s one at a time, early in the Last Days, and helped each other through it. And they missed getting the other diseases that killed people like flu, cholera, dysentery, TB – they missed ’m all. But in another way they were really, really unlucky. They watched their own children die, one by one, from Chou’s. Now they’re out to save all the ones that are left that they can.”

  Matt lay on the grassy slope at the edge of the conversationalists. Sounds of youthful laughter and cheering drew his attention to the far end of the draw. Jack Kincaid had fashioned a crude bow and some arrows that very morning. He, John, Miller, and Rossi were taking turns firing these arrows at a burl in an ancient oak tree. It seemed to Matt that luck would play a greater part in the contest than skill; whoever ended up with one of the straighter arrows would be more apt to hit the target.

  It occurred to Matt that there wasn’t really that much differences in the boys’ ages, especially between John and Jack Kincaid. John was twelve. Jack must’ve been about fifteen, Miller and Rossi a year or two older. Leighton, who may have been about twenty (none of the kids knew their exact ages) sat with the older guys relating the news of the world to the townspeople. He liked to think he was too old to share in childish games and more properly belonged with the adults.

  Maude called to John some time after dark, and the townspeople went home. Matt and Lou left to take their turns at the guard posts. Mitch didn’t trust the younger guys to stay awake at night.

  * * * *

  After the pig roast the men spent longer days scrounging because August was two-thirds gone and they needed to find a market no later than the middle of September. At first Lou and Doc and all of the younger ones wanted to cut their scrounging short, sell whatever truck they had, retrieve their stash, and get far away from Columbia as soon as possible. Mitch warned them that, well hidden as the stash had been, they did not truly know that it was still there. They might as well collect all the truck they could as insurance.

  “You of all people,” Mitch said to Doc, “oughta think a that. We ain’t been back t’ check on it since we buried it.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “It’d be just our luck somebody’s found it. We shouldn’t call ourselves the Mitchell gang; oughta be the Hard Luck gang.”

  But he and Lou soon came to agree with the others.

  The pig roast succeeded in bringing the gang and the townspeople closer together. The latter gave the men vegetables from their garden, and the gang reciprocated with portions of the game they brought in. Stony was allowed time off to collect food. Though Johnson had taught woodcraft to all the men alike, Stony was the best at setting rabbit snares. He knew his game’s favorite food supply locations and travel routes and how to fabricate and set snares with the least disturbance to the surrounding area. By frequently changing his trap locations, he kept the gang supplied fairly regularly with rabbits and other small game. He found wild onions and greens of different kinds in the woods: lamb’s quarter, amaranth, parslane, wild leeks, watercress, and others. Some he fixed as salads, but some, like yellow dock, had to be boiled with multiple water changes because the lateness of the season made them bitter. John went with him occasionally to show where to find walnuts and oyster mushrooms. Matt went fishing with John occasionally though he never caught as many fish as he had the first time. John took him to an old farm pond where they caught several small mouth bass, some fairly good sized.

  Mitch allowed them to leave the guard posts unattended from midnight until just before dawn. He and Doc took the first shift since they were the earliest risers. In the evenings after a long day’s work, the men not on guard duty lay around in the draw after eating to talk and unwind before heading off to sleep. John started hanging around them with, he said, Maude’s and the others’ blessings. Though shy around the older guys, when the younger ones drew him into their conversations and horseplay he responded as any twelve-year-old might. Even Leighton took to him, though John seemed a little apprehensive of Red’s frenetic and unpredictable behavior. When the younger guys were away, on work details or whatever, John still liked being with the older men, though he remained quiet and listened to their conversation gravely. He liked Matt’s company best. Matt decided that John had probably been the only child in this small group of survivors and so had never been around others his age.

  The subject of the gang’s lost companions finally came up. At first it had been too difficult to think about, let alone discuss. Then it had been put off because of worrying about discovery by Chadwick’s men. Now the ambush was distant enough and discovery had been avoided, at least for the present; now it needed to be talked about.

  They had all come to realize, some sooner than others, that the basic nature of the gang had changed. The gangs, traders, and others with whom they dealt had been wary of the Johnson gang because of its paramilitary triumvirate, but they also respected it for Mitch’s and Matt’s skills in trading and negotiation. The gang had thus had a reputation for being canny dealmakers as well as tough adversaries. But the brawn had been lopped off in a single blow. How would they fare with their colleagues and opponents now?

  The older guys sorely missed Boss Johnson for another reason. He was literally their savior. He had taught them all the survival skills they knew by means of a rugged regimen that they, at the time, had cursed as sadistic. He made them run and climb and jump until they could scarcely move. They learned to trap game and cure hides, to build shelters, to recognize edible plants, and even how to eat insects (for chrisakes!) if they were starving. He delivered creative ass-chewings that made each of them secretly determined to kill him some day.

  But they finally came to realize that their chances of survival would have been minimal without that training and took pride in the tough sagacity Johnson’s program had embedded in them. Dodd and Downing, of course, thought Johnson’s attention to the others a waste of time. They wanted to take advantage of the current anarchy to loot whatever they wanted and live like bandit chieftains. But that was not Johnson’s vision. He wanted a small select band of men who could maintain their independence but live, if somewhat loosely, within the confines of the new society’s mores. The older guys knew that Johnson had saved and trained them for his own purposes. They were no good to him if they couldn’t take care of themselves.

  And now, how they missed him. They talked about the scrapes he had gotten them out of, his talent for finding good scrounging sites, his great energy and drive. Though their maudlin moods, Matt noted, made them forget that he had gotten them into most of the trouble from which he had extricated them.

  Johnson h
ad a lot of enemies among the scroungers, traders, and others with whom they dealt. He bullied, intimidated, and insulted them. He loved to fight when he was drunk, and the poor bastard who was too foolish or drunk to avoid Johnson in that mood would certainly regret it, maybe while lying in the hospital, the following day. He had nicknames for most gang bosses and prominent business people that varied from simplistic and downright silly (Cyril Bailey was Breakfast Food Bailey: Cyril = cereal = breakfast food; scrounger co-bosses Rinker and Ditmar were Rinky-Dink) to ribald and/or insulting (Barbara Bergfalk was Bobbie Birdfuck; the co-bosses Dugan and Schmidt were Dogshit; Blake Ashton, a black guy, was Black Ass).

  Most of his slurs would have been considered funny from anyone else, or at best trite. When he met Dugan and Schmidt (“Dogshit”), for example, he might say, “I just saved your worthless asses, killed me a shit-eatin’ dog.” Johnson, though, always added a snide insinuating twist that reminded his victims of some past insult, deceit, or humiliation. Those memories and the knowledge that they were no match for the indomitable Johnson physically, fanned his victims’ anger into impotent rage.

  Surprisingly, Johnson sometimes took pity on his prey. One night he and several others, including Matt, sat in the Rat’s Nest, a watering hole in Nellie’s Fair. An itinerant trader named Geraldo Grimes, who acquired goods at large markets like Nellie’s Fair and traded them in smaller, more distant settlements, approached Johnson in a drunken fury, waving a heavy stick above his head, shouting something about an insult Johnson had allegedly delivered to his wife.

  Johnson sprawled back in his chair, pleasantly inebriated, eyes half-closed, a pot of beer in one hand. Dodd, sitting to his right, grinned and leaned forward in anticipation of what was about to happen to the trader.

  Grimes was a small man and so drunk he could hardly stand. Matt said to Johnson, “For God’s sake, Frank....”

  “Settle down, Pringle,” Johnson said. “You jus’ don’ know the subtle art a negotiation.”

  A horse laugh from Dodd.

  Grimes came to a stop in front of Johnson, wildly waving his club and cursing.

  Only Johnson’s legs moved; the rest of him stayed comfortably sprawled back in the chair. His knees clamped on either side of Grimes’ right thigh, just above the knee. When Johnson’s ankles locked together and his knees tightened on Grimes’ thigh, the trader’s eyes bulged and his tirade broke off with a choking sound that turned into a sob. He dropped the club. Johnson took a drink of beer, then released his would-be assailant.

  “Go on home, now, Jerry,” he said, almost gently. “Sleep it off. This never happened.”

  Grimes stumbled once, then turned and limped away without a word, though tears were streaming down his cheeks, from pain or humiliation, Matt couldn’t tell which. He stopped just before he went out the door and gave Johnson a look of the purest hatred.

  “Boss!” protested Dodd. “Whyn’tcha ...?”

  Johnson regarded him with a drunken grin. “Y’ know y’r problem, Dodd? Y’ jus’ don’ know the subtle art a negotiation.” He threw his head back and laughed, and the others joined in.

  There was no predicting the actions of that enigmatic bully.

  Matt couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they ran into Johnson’s former victims now. Would they remember that the source of their torment, Johnson, was no more? Would they take revenge on the survivors? Hopefully, this was moot speculation. They’d be in faraway Colorado by next summer.

  * * * *

  One evening in the draw when they were reminiscing about their former leader, lionizing his memory, Kincaid said, “I’ve always wondered somethin’. Why do other gangs always have women but we don’t? I think some girls ‘d be nice!”

  Puberty speaking, thought Matt.

  Stony laughed, almost a guffaw, rolled back against the bank. “’Cause, Jackie, women is too disruptive for a gang. Right, Mitch?”

  Some of the older guys laughed, or grinned rather sourly. They knew why there were no women in the gang. The young ones and John, who happened to be present that evening, did not.

  The new leader gave a brief grin, brought his eyebrows together. “Yeah, right.”

  “Whadda y’ mean?” demanded Kincaid. “Tell me!”

  “Well,” said Mitch, “we use t’ have women in the gang. The boss was kinda ol’ fashioned in that he didn’t let women have much say, just let ’m come along for ... well, you know.” (Not old fashioned, thought Matt; anachronistic. Women hadn’t put up with that kind of bullshit for at least a century. The only ones who followed such a gang did so for temporary security and the opportunity to con a lover out of a portion of his truck profit.)

  “In the fifth year after the Last Days,” said Mitch, “they was ’leven of us: the Boss, Dodd, Downing, Pringle, Travis, Doc, Stony, Kirby, Andrews, Klein, and me. Occasionally some guy ‘d take a shine t’ some gal an’ she’d come along with us for awhile. The Boss hissself ‘d convince a lass from some a the little dumps we went through t’ foller him ’round till he got tired a her.

  “Then Jimmy Klein got hisself a high spirited (“and full-breasted,” Lou chuckled) gal with a eye on havin’ a voice in the gang. The Boss took a interest in her right off the bat, let her have her say in the confabs. We all figgered what it was; he had a eye on them big tits. An’ she sure liked to put ’m where Frank could see ’m. Jimmy looked mighty sour an’ mighty nervous in them confabs.

  “Then Frank decided t’ take her in t’ his bedroll. Just like that. When Jimmy found her with the Boss, he valued his ass too much t’ do anything a course. He didn’ say nothin’ the rest a the way back t’ the market, an’ when Jimmy got his share, he split. Somebody tol’ us he went t’ Illinois, joined a gang there.”

  “So what happened t’ the gal?” said Kincaid, wide-eyed, excited, probably thinking, Matt thought, of those big tits. “Where is she?”

  “Nobody knows,” said Lou. “’Specially us. When we got to Nellie’s Fair that year, Johnson took Muriel, that was her name, out a town. Nobody knows where to. He spends – uh, spent – every winter with her. He told us some stuff ’bout her but not where she is. They had two kids, daughters. After we sold our truck and he partied with us a week or so, he went off t’ her and come back in the spring t’ go truckin’ again.”

  Doc said, “Since we don’t know where she is we can’t tell her ’bout Frank.”

  Jack Kincaid was too young and frivolous for the gravity of the statement to penetrate deeply. He persisted, “But why no more women? Other gangs have ’m. Why not us?”

  Mitch said, “The boss made it a rule: No more women in the gang. Too disruptive. It’s been that way ever’ since.”

  It grew quiet as the coals from the dinner fire dimmed. Darkness seeped into the draw.

  Then Matt said, “Do your men a favor, Mitch? Don’t refer to Johnson as the boss. You’re our boss.”

  Chapter Nine

  A couple of evenings later, Mitch called a confab. John was present, as he was nearly every evening now. It was well after dark so Mitch left the guard posts unmanned so everyone could attend.

  “We been here almost two weeks, boys,” he began. “August’s near over, and we got t’ make plans t’ move on. We ain’t got as much truck as we did afore Chadwick’s fellers visited us, but we got ’bout all we can handle without the mules. An’ hopefully this is all we need considerin’ the stash.”

  “Prob’ly more ’n we’ll need oncet we git the stash an’ our savin’s,” said Doc. “We need t’ git t’ market, grab the stash, and head west. I think we oughta git as far as we can afore the snow hits an’ find a place to hole up for the winter.” There were murmurs of agreement all around.

  One aspect of the stash had been left unsaid, though all the older guys surely thought about it. Since the ambush, there was a lot more wealth per man, even after a portion was taken out to replace the scratch and buy mules. The original raiding party had numbered ten gang members (and Bennett, of course, though
he had taken his share and disappeared immediately after the raid). Since then Kirby and Andrews had died in the flu epidemic three years before. With Johnson, Dodd, and Downing lost as well, only five men remained to share the rest of the stash: Mitch, Matt, Lou, Doc, and Stony. Matt was thinking, as the others must have been, that life would be a lot easier in Colorado with the extra wealth that would have gone to the missing five. Their full time scrounging careers were over.

  “In the meantime,” said Mitch, “we know the Missouri River’s south a here somewheres. But we need t’ know exactly where it’s at and, more important, the best route for Stony’s contraptions t’ git there.”

  “Trucks,” corrected Stony. “I’m gonna call ’m Stonebilts.”

  “You need t’ go find the river, Matt,” said Mitch. “Say day after tomorrow? Mainly ’cause if y’ run in t’ a Chadwick guy he won’t reckanize you as one a us, but also ‘cause you’re good at findin’ travel routes.”

  “Let me go too!” said John. Several of the men started. John had become a familiar feature in the draw, but he was so shy most of them usually forgot he was there.

  “I wouldn’t think Maude would be too happy about that,” said Matt.

  “But I know where the river is,” John insisted, more excited than the men had ever seen him. “I been there. Lotsa times.”

  “How far is it?” asked Mitch.

  “Me and Scott use t’ get up early,” said John. “We’d get there before noon.”

  “Who’s Scott?” asked Lou.

  John looked down, was silent a moment, then said quietly, “He’s dead now.” Then looked up at Mitch and the others. “We used t’ go a lot. Went fishing in the river sometimes. Clarence used t’ go with us, too, till his back started hurting too much. There’s a town there. We used to bring stuff back for people to use.” He grinned as a new thought struck him. “We were scroungers like you.”