by LeMay, Jim
“The Green Hills are good scroungin’ grounds though,” had boomed Lou Travis’ deep voice. The big gentle man was Matt’s best friend in the gang. “Got a lot a truck last time we were here. Hardly anyone’s left here to use it and the Green Hills are off the beaten track for most scroungers.”
The first town they checked, though, a large one near the river, had been thoroughly scrounged. From there they followed an unpaved road, so thickly covered by tall grass, brush and saplings it was sometimes difficult to follow, to the east. The few isolated houses and farm buildings they saw had either burned or were near collapse. On the second morning they crested a ridge and started down a wooded slope toward one of the flat creek bottoms. Red Leighton, the young faction’s leader, suddenly raced back from where he had been walking point, to where Mitch led the column.
“There’s a town over there, Mitch!” He grabbed the leader’s sleeve. He was a tall skinny kid with orange hair, a thin, straggly, red-gold beard and an Adam’s apple that bobbed up and down in his scrawny throat when he was excited, which was most of the time.
Somewhat annoyed, Mitch yanked his sleeve out of his grasp, but looked where Leighton pointed.
“See?” insisted Leighton. “On the hill on t’ other side a the crick.”
Mitch’s thick black brows met over his nose in concentration while he stroked a beard the color and texture of steel wool. He finally grudgingly admitted, “I do b’lieve you’re right. I swear you got the eyes of a hawk.”
The town was much smaller than the one by the river but relatively intact. They found the grisly remains of the former inhabitants in nearly every house. Stony said finding so many undisturbed bodies was a good sign that no one had visited the town since the Last Days.
John didn’t like to think of all those skeletons swaddled in rotting garments as a good sign of anything, particularly the small ones of children.
That afternoon, after a quick exploration of the town they set up camp in an old house at the northwest edge of town, behind which a convenient meadow provided grazing for the mules. The ground floor of the house next door would protect the mules from wild dogs at night. The next day they started scrounging. The town’s only two businesses had been a tavern and an automated convenience store, both undisturbed and full of truck. Deteriorating motor vehicles and the remarkably intact houses yielded hard-to-find tools and other valuable truck.
“Hey, Perfessor,” Leighton asked Matt during a break, “Whatcha reckon was the name a this town?”
Matt was “Perfessor” because he had been a college professor. Leighton had started the nickname as a term of derision. Even though the man and boy didn’t get along, Matt showed no offense – perhaps to neutralize the intended insult – and the sobriquet had stuck among the kids.
“Well, from the names of businesses on the store windows I’d guess it was called Dumfrey.” Heavy with sarcasm. Left unsaid was, “as anyone who could read would see.”
“Dumbfuck, hunh?” Leighton cackled. “What a great name for this dump.” Unashamedly as illiterate as the other orphans, he took pleasure in baiting Matt.
The second day they found two churches, one Pentecostal, one Catholic, well-preserved with even intact windows that had kept out the elements. The Catholic church contained the most valuable artifacts. The youths couldn’t know their significance or value or even their names, the crucifixes, chalices, candlesticks and other things. The most valuable were made of gold and silver, especially a jewel-encrusted gold crucifix. They pulled aside its pews and heaped the truck from both churches, even the hymnals, prayer books, vestments and such, in the middle of the floor. Then Mitch said they should have a confab, the term for the gang’s more or less casual meetings.
Stony stood next to the gang’s curmudgeon and self-appointed medic, Doc Garson.
“Now that we got it,” said Stony, “where we gonna sell it? Coleridge Gardens’ market’s too small an’ they only got one church.”
Doc Garson shrugged. “Melt down the gold an’ silver. Then we can sell it anywheres.” A rather tall, dark, slightly stooped man with a long lugubrious face, he seemed Stony’s opposite, a pessimist suspicious even of good fortune, though he and the optimistic Stony, despite their continual bickering, were the closest of comrades.
Stony turned on him. “Like hell we’ll melt it down!” He grabbed up the jewel-encrusted cross and shook it in Doc’s face. “You’d take the jewels out a this an’ melt it down!?” He alone among the older guys had retained a modicum of his former faith. When in Nellie’s Fair he made his confession and attended mass though he seldom spoke of his religious views.
John also thought it a shame to destroy such beautiful objects but his opinion counted for little so he kept quiet. The other young guys, led by the vociferous Red Leighton, agreed with Doc. As usual Mitch didn’t say anything. He would let everyone else speak first.
Somewhat to John’s surprise, since he looked upon religion rather contemptuously, Matt said, “Stony’s right. These beautiful artifacts should be saved for future generations. Let’s make a deal. Spare these few pieces, this crucifix” (its arms were encrusted with jewels with a large ruby where they crossed) “and the chalice and candlesticks to sell to a church or some other religious collector, and melt down the rest.” Later he told John privately that the other gold and silver objects had been cast along with countless others that possessed no great artistic merit. Most were merely plated with precious metals.
“We don’t know nothin’ ‘bout sellin’ t’ churches,” insisted Leighton. “But we sure know guys that pay good for metals t’ melt down, don’t we, boys?” He grinned and winked at the younger guys. Except for John, the others had belonged to Leighton’s gang of orphans in Nellie’s Fair before recruitment by the gang.
“Mitch could sell to the churches easy,” said Stony. “He could sell ice cubes t’ Eskimos.”
“What’s a Eskynoe?” asked Big Miller.
“What good’s all these books?” asked Jack Kincaid.
“Lots a churches are in the market for hymnals and such,” said Stony. “Ain’t many a these books left.”
All agreed to sell the objects of lesser value to churches but a heated debate followed over disposition of those made of precious metals. Mitch occasionally added a comment, such as, “Keep in mind all the churches in Nellie’s Fair. Lots of ‘m prob’ly short of crosses and cups an’ shit.” “Yeah,” grumbled Doc. “More churches than taverns.” Gradually the discussion turned to Stony’s point of view. Somehow, under Mitch’s subtle guidance, the final decision appeared to be a consensus reached by the whole gang: the gold and silver artifacts that brought a good price would be sold intact with the rest going to smiths who worked with precious metals.
“Maybe we can start a biddin’ war between the richest churches!” said Leighton, forgetting his previous argument for melting the precious metals down.
They unanimously chose Nellie’s Fair because it was so much larger than their usual market, Coleridge Gardens. Their usual truck sold well enough at the Coleridge Gardens harvest market because it drew large crowds with disposable wealth from the harvest. Religious artifacts and precious metals, though, were valuable any time and even more so at the larger town with its many churches. Half the gang would take the goods to Nellie’s Fair now while the others finished scrounging Dumfrey. Mitch and Matt would go because they were the best negotiators and Travis because of his stamina and intimidating size. Garson and Leighton would also go, leaving Stony to supervise the other boys, John, Miller, Rossi and Kincaid.
They spent that night in the church with the treasure – even though, as Garson grumbled, it had remained undisturbed for nearly thirteen years – and the Nellie’s Fair contingent left early the next morning.
Chapter Two
Alicia felt another drop of sweat trembling at the end of her nose. It fell to her chin and rolled downward languidly; the heat made even her perspiration lazy. As it dropped to the sweat-soaked cleft b
etween her breasts she felt another drop form in its place. Even this early, at dawn, nothing alleviated the heat, not even the shade of the low white pines they sat under. She had chores; her mother would be looking for her but what the hell. This heat made any kind of work tough.
“This heat makes work a bitch,” said Marianne beside her. She was watching the men arriving to water the fields in the flat river bottom spreading from the toe of the slope below Coleridge Gardens to the river. The corn was already shriveled and no higher than it would have been a month ago in normal years. Most of the wheat and rapeseed plants had blighted leaves and drooping heads. The cabbage, turnips, carrots and other vegetables’ leaves showed as much brown as green. Even the weeds looked desiccated. The air shivered over the men and the shrunken river.
Across the river at a somewhat lower elevation than the knoll the girls sat on stood the ancient three-story hotel, Haas House. She thought it would look elegant except for the corny Victorian gingerbread on fascia and gables and the fake-looking columns holding up the porch roof. It had intimidated her when she was very young. Now, at fifteen, because of its reputation, it merely disgusted her. Today the giant old oaks surrounding it and its numerous outbuildings and corrals infuriated her because they made the notorious place look cool and inviting. She watched the portly landlord, Bernie Haas, appear from a stable leading a horse pulling a cart. The cart bore a barrel.
She nudged Marianne. “Looks like the whorehouse is out of water too.”
They watched the landlord lead the horse and cart down to the boat slip on which those of his customers who came by way of the river beached their boats. He backed the horse and cart until the cart’s wheels were half submerged in muddy river water and set the cart’s brake handle. He filled a bucket from the river, poured water over his head and stretched his back. Even at this distance he looked tired.
Marianne giggled. “I don’t know much about whorehouses, Alicia, but Bernie don’t look much like a man who’d run one.”
“Well, he prob’ly wasn’t old and fat when he came here twelve years ago.”
Marianne giggled again. “An’ prob’ly didn’t have the bald spot. Who was the old lady who run the place then?”
“She didn’t run anything. It wasn’t a hotel then. It was just her and her husband’s house. I think their name was Mason. During the Last Days Chou’s killed Mr. Mason but she got well. Then Bernie Haas showed up with Chou’s and she nursed him through it.”
“He came from Kansas City didn’t he?”
“That’s what they say. Lots of city people tried to outrun the disease. He just stayed there after he got well, didn’t know how to live on his own, to get food and stuff – city people didn’t, you know. She had canned food and a garden and somehow they got by.”
“Then it got to be a hotel somehow.”
“Yeah, kind of by accident. Bernie Haas had a hobby when he lived in Kansas City. He brewed his own beer. At Ms Mason’s, as soon as he grew the right plants and got the equipment he needed he started brewing again. It was the only beer around so when people heard about it they’d drop by to try it. Pretty soon he learned to charge for it; the drinkers paid in meat and produce; he and Ms. Mason started eating good. Ms Mason was a good cook too and that big house had sleeping rooms for a lot of guests. It just naturally got to be a hotel for people travelling up and down the river.”
“And a tavern,” said Marianne. “Even some guys from our tee-totalin’ town slip over there sometimes. It’s a lot busier now than when I was little.”
“Yeah, more people on the roads nowadays. Scroungers, horse traders, tinkers, all kinds of hooligans. Some folks that come to our harvest market stay at the hotel. Haas had to start hiring help even while Ms Mason was still alive. They do a lot of partying over there too. Especially since that scrounger gang started staying the winter.”
“Yeah, you were kinda sweet on that boy, weren’cha?”
“No! He was sweet on me. I don’t hang out with that kinda people.”
“You did with him last year though. Good thing your mom didn’t catch you.”
“I happened to see him at Reverend Gates’ revival a couple of times, that’s all. And I don’t have to do anything my mother says.”
“You fight with her too much.”
Alicia didn’t answer. They watched Bernie Haas fill the barrel with bucketsful of water.
Marianne asked, “Why didn’t your mother try to get Ms Mason and Haas to move to Coleridge Gardens after the Disease? She moved everybody from Trevalyn.”
“She tried.” Alicia looked back over Coleridge Gardens, behind them. From their knoll at its northwest corner she could see most of its houses and ramshackle huts but very little of the Trevalyn ruins beyond. Her mother, Eleanor Coleridge, had been a realtor and land developer. She built the Coleridge Gardens addition to the town’s infrastructure before the epidemic and some show homes, but had trouble selling the lots. Eleanor, her husband Adam and two-year old Alicia lived in one of the houses and sold houses to three or four other families. Occupied houses and show homes totaled fourteen houses. Then Chou’s hit. Everyone in Coleridge Gardens except Alicia and her mother died, including her father, and most people in Trevalyn.
“Mother even had trouble convincing the Trevalyn folks to move here at first even though the houses were brand new. It’d be easier if we all lived together, she said. She’d help them. I think they were just too weak and scared, too numb to know what to do. They’d spent all summer and fall fighting the disease, burying so many, many of their families and others, nursing a few through it. Then she had a good idea. She moved us into what would’ve been the community center …”
“Where you live now …”
Alicia nodded, “… and invited the old preacher to move into our house.”
“Reverend Gates.”
“Yeah. People used to think he was a kind of evangelistic crackpot. He’d never had much of a congregation. Then, the thing he had preached about for years actually happened: his apocalypse. And it started with a ‘Holy Pestilence’ like he said it would: ‘punishment from a just but wrathful God.’ All of a sudden it seemed like he was right. The whole town converted practically overnight. After he moved into our old house everyone followed him to Coleridge Gardens. Turned out, the fourteen houses weren’t enough. A lot of people had to build their own houses and quick because winter was coming.”
“That turned out good for my dad,” said Marianne. “He learned to be a carpenter real quick. He built a lot of these houses, put windows and doors from Trevalyn in ’m.”
“Yeah, he made a lot of fine looking houses.”
“Yes he did. But what about Ms Mason and Bernie Haas?”
“Mother was so busy getting everybody settled in she didn’t get over to see them at first.” Alicia didn’t remind her that, immediately after Trevalyn’s people moved in, her mother had been busy appointing herself mayor and drawing up rules for everyone to follow. “The townspeople beat her to it. A group of them went to Haas House to demand Ms Mason and Haas quit living in sin and marry. I imagine they were pretty surprised. Mother says Ms Mason was a good twenty years older than Haas and it’s unlikely they had any sexual interest in each other. She told them she considered herself a good Christian woman and called their accusations ridiculous and repugnant. She passed on a few years ago but never, as far as I know, ever went to Coleridge Gardens.”
“What did Haas say to them?”
“He told them to kiss his ass and threatened them with a pitchfork.”
Marianne giggled. “Hard to think of that guy pokin’ a pitchfork at them. But like you say, he prob’ly wasn’t old and fat yet.”
The landlord had led the horse and cart up from the river. They saw him pour bucketfuls of water on his extensive gardens, his apple trees and bushes of blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries. A woman with black hair knotted atop her head worked with him.
“She doesn’t look like a whore,” said Marianne.
>
Alicia shrugged. “Who knows? I don’t know what whores look like. I heard that that one’s a Gaian. I think her name’s Carmella.”
“The one that believes in the Little People and all that bullshit?”
“Yep.”
Marianne looked back toward the fields and stood up. “I gotta go. There’s my dad comin’ to water our little patch. I’m gonna help him.”
Alicia also arose, but reluctantly. “Guess I’d better go too, see what kinda disaster’s happening at home.”
Marianne frowned at her. “You shouldn’t fight your mom so hard, Alicia. You’re lucky to have one.” She turned and ran down the slope.
Of course Marianne’s ‘dad’ was not her biological father any more than her ‘mom’ was her biological mother. Since approximately seven out of eight Trevalyn residents had died of Chou’s Disease, only a single member of many families had survived. Marianne, at two years old, had been the only survivor of her family just as her adoptive mother and father had been the only survivors of theirs. Among Mayor Eleanor Coleridge’s many tasks during the first few months after the Trevalyn folk arrived in Coleridge Gardens had been, by cajoling, reasoning, begging or threatening, to form new family groups from the singletons left by the pandemic. Thus had Marianne’s current “family” been formed.
Alicia had spent last night at Marianne’s, and spent a little time at the knoll with her before returning home to begin her own day’s work. Scowling, she went east down the slope, between two of the houses her mother had built and onto the street. The day had barely started and she was already in a foul mood. She hated the heat. She hated that asshole Ronald; if he and her mother were arguing when she got home she would just turn around and leave. She almost hated Marianne for lecturing her about fighting with her mother and even for having such great parents herself. She kicked a clod of asphalt the street had coughed up. Why didn’t Curt and Dick take better care of the damn streets?
She reached the house, trudged up the front steps and hesitated just outside the front double doors, listening. No argument yet. Maybe it was too early for Mother and Ronald to have built their energy up to argument level yet, or too hot. She wondered what her mother had ever seen in this jerk, ten years her junior. Of course she had been a baby when her mother had married him, a little over a year after the pandemic had taken her own father so, as far as she was concerned, he had always been here. Jaclyn had been born a year after his arrival.