by Joel Varty
I lower my voice, “Aeron,” I say, in little more than a whisper. “I need you to look after things around here for a little while. Herb is in charge of the overall running of things, but I need you to get our animals sorted out and the barn repaired. Can you do that?”
He tries desperately not to slide his gaze back to Courteney. “Alright,” he says, eventually. “I suppose you’re right. I haven’t ridden that much in a while, so I’d probably slow you down anyways.”
With that admission comes my own realization that I haven’t spent significant time in the saddle for the last few years myself – and the next few days will probably bring the worst case of boils and saddle-sores imaginable. I push those thoughts from my mind, the plans for the farm still foremost in my mind.
I go inside the house where Angie is supervising the cracking of eggs by Jewel over a bowl of flour. They are making bread. The smell of the old woodstove takes me back to my early childhood when we used to move the stove to the back kitchen every summer so that the house didn’t get too hot.
Angie gives me what I have come to know as “her look.” Jewel, taking advantage of the lapse in concentration by her overseer, manages to get her egg to sluice down her arms to the elbows before dripping slowly into the mixing bowl. Angie doesn’t let her eyes cease their appraisement (and most definite disapproval) of me. “You look like hell,” she says, at last.
I don’t really have an answer for that, so I just try not to smile too broadly. I can’t imagine a better role model for my daughter. I wish we still had my parents around; I could use some advice right now. I know that I am being hunted, indeed that my entire family – Ruben’s family – is being tracked down to get the final ingredient in this biological cocktail that could... what? What was this formula capable of?
I know what it did back in the city – or rather what used to be the city. I think to myself that oak trees make a vast improvement to a grey world of cement and glass. Was I any different from whoever had driven us all from there? Or had we been driven? Hadn’t we actually been trapped there? How did everyone else get out? Where could they have gone? Surely only a few made it through the tunnel, and the rest would have been left behind to wander or drown in the great blasted ditches that surround the area.
“You need to mask your thoughts better, cowboy. I can read you like a book.”
The voice is Rachel’s, directly behind me. I turn, but not before noticing the twinkling in Angie’s eye as she turns her own attention back to the bread mix.
“They’re coming for us,” I say to Rachel. “I need to get out of here, take the focus away from here for a while.”
“You say that, but you’re really going back there to try and save everyone, like you think you’re responsible for those people.”
I can’t manage an answer to that one too quickly, so I take breath.
“If I stay here and do nothing, we’ll be fighting them all on our own.”
“So,” she says. “We can look after ourselves.”
“You know that’s not going to be enough – they’ll keep coming. We were lucky once. Ask Lucia about the kind of people that are after us.”
“She won’t talk to me.”
“Then ask Herb.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No you aren’t.”
“Angie said she would look after the kids while we’re gone – it should only be a few days on horseback to go get this Bill Thomas fellow and bring him back here. He can protect us.”
I take a breath to try and slow the conversation down. Rachel has a way of coming through my arguments and making them seem meaningless. She knows me too well.
“There’s more than that going on here,” I say after a moment. “I promised Bill Thomas and a few others that I would come back for them – not so they could come and protect us, but so that we could find whoever’s out that needs our help.”
I can feel Angie’s eyebrows rising from across the room. She doesn’t speak though.
Neither does Rachel. They both just wait patiently for me to venture forth into their territory with more information. But I am not about to take the bait; I know that too much knowledge in this case is not a good thing for them. And there is no way I am taking Rachel with me and leaving the kids by themselves. I make a quick decision.
“Alright, you can come,” I say, trying to hold my face straight through the course of the lie. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning, and we’ll travel light, so don’t pack any clothes or niceties like that.”
“Just some ointment for your sore backside, huh?”
“You know me too well, sweetheart,” I say, taking her in my arms, hating myself for being able to deceive her so easily. Angie, from across the room, is still silent.
She knows.
…
I throw the saddle on my old horse and the memories come flooding back. He’s a thoroughbred-draft cross and can go all day riding or pulling logs out of the woods. My dad bought him as a yearling and he was the first horse I ever trained on my own. It would have broken my dad’s heart to know that I had given him to the neighbour to be used for pleasure riding. The fact of the matter was that without my dad around I just couldn’t bear to be around the place much.
That’s all changed now.
I ride on over to Don’s place a mile up the road. He’s is out in the field with his ATV, running circles around his herd of dairy cattle. He acknowledges my wave with a nod and drives over to the fence-line at the side of the road.
“G’day Jonah,” he calls over. “What can I do for you?”
“You can stop driving that gas guzzler around for a start,” I say. “What happened to those dogs you used to run with?”
“Since when should I be taking advice from a city slicker like you that hasn’t been around these parts in years?”
“Since right now, when the fuel for that thing is in shorter supply than the diesel in your tractor,” I retort. “So stop being lazy and get your dogs in shape. The cows will be quieter anyways, and give you more milk.”
He grunts in the agreement of man who knows what is right in his head, but his aging body doesn’t want to admit it. “Fine,” he says after a minute. “But don’t expect me to go riding around on one of those four-legged terrors.”
Everyone knows the story of Don’s famous fear of horses. When he was a little boy, his dad brought home a pony that someone had given him. Don, about ten years old at the time, climbs up on this thing and it won’t move. He kicks it and slaps it then kicks it again. Finally his dad gives it a giant swat with the flat of his shovel. The poor pony takes off down the road and dumps little Donnie-boy in the ditch before launching itself across the creek and breaking a leg. I don’t know whether it was out of fear or remorse, but the young man’s dislike of horses had shaped his life in many ways, and it was mirrored strangely by his affinity for cattle and their unique form of complacent, flatulent happiness.
“How’s the milking coming along with no hydro, Don?”
“Down to once a day, thank you very much,” he replies. “Not quite as painful as dumping all of it out – I can’t keep this up much longer.”
“I understand. We need to setup a cooling system and a means to produce cheese, butter and yogurt. You can go back to cooling in the water-hole. I’ll send Herb over and you and he can draw up a plan.”
He stares at me for a few seconds.
“So not only do I have give my product away for free now, but I have to hand over control of it to some other fella from the city? What gives you the right to tell me what to do?”
“Nobody gave me any rights, Don. That’s the point. There’s no government, no police, no lawyers, nothing. If I wanted to lay claim to all the land around here, your deed wouldn’t mean anything if you couldn’t back it up yourself.”
“And I suppose that means having a wife that can handle a shotgun like yours means you can back it up?” He jibs.
“Something like that. But it doesn’t ha
ve to be that way. This place is yours, but you can’t work it alone anymore. We might be able to rig up some sort of power generation eventually but the fuel situation means we’re pretty much going to do everything the old way.”
“How in the blazes are you going to swing that?”
How am I going to swing that, he says, I think to myself, incredulous.
I marvel at the way he has immediately ceded his problems over to me. Where only a minute ago he argued about getting off his four-wheeler, now here he is ready to hand over the reins to his farm. Why do people keep looking to me for all the answers?
“I’m not sure, Don. I just wanted you to know that you’re not alone out here. We can work together to get through this.”
He grunts in response, unconvinced, but unwilling to put forth his own opinion.
“I won’t be around for a few days,” I tell him. “Maybe longer. Make sure you go and talk to Ted – in fact why don’t you and him both come on over for dinner tonight? We can start over again – no more loners out here – we have to help each other out.”
“I suppose I can see what Ted has to say about it,” he says. “But he probably won’t like any more’n me.”
It’s a start.
The rest of the day I spend travelling around the various farms in the area. None of the families have heard from relatives, and they all take the time to write down the names of loved ones and friends that they want me to find. The word that I am leaving to find people spreads quickly and soon each farm or house that I approach has several people ready to greet me at the road. Some have names, more have questions. They all look hungry and worried. Only a few recognise me as the boy who grew up in the area, the ones who do, mention my dad, who used to dispense advise on everything from equipment repairs to marital advice. I guess they miss that.
I find that that there have been very few travellers since the gasoline ran dry, and for some reason the instinct for almost everyone is to mentally lock all the doors and try to shut everyone out. Fear is prevalent on nearly every face. Even those who have lived and travelled this area since I was I kid are now watching me with trepidation as I ride my grey stallion slowly along the road. I find next-door neighbours who haven’t spoken to each other in days, even though they have no food and are drawing water from their wells or from the creek in old five gallon pails.
I start to tell people that it will be all right, that I have a plan in place to help everyone out. They just need to sit tight and band together for the time being. We just need to work together, I tell them. I am going to see what is happening in the towns along the lakeshore where the main highway runs. They look at me with that same look of respect mixed with unease, mixed with outright fear. I tell them to come over for dinner. I hope that some of them bring some food.
Sometime in the mid afternoon I realize that I haven’t eaten anything, and nobody has offered me food or water. Most don’t invite me onto their property, having met me at the road. The immediate reaction to this crisis has led to isolation and I wonder which of these farmers remember the fight in my yard and Rachel gunning down an attacker. I wonder whether they will every trust anyone again.
As I ride under a big basswood tree that overhangs the road, I get a funny feeling deep in my stomach, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. My horse, a stallion named Ernest, gets a bit skittish, and side-steps a bit. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of my dad’s old buckskin coat and worn blue-jeans, but when I turn my head, it’s gone. I rein in Ernest and quiet him with a few pats to his neck and a whisper in his ear. I look at my own countenance – that same coat and faded jeans from my dad’s wardrobe – my own clothes having nearly disintegrated days ago. I ride on slowly.
The feeling does not fade though – and for a moment I am reminded of that night on the tracks, just as I was walking out of the city, like a presence is shadowing me. I look down at my horse and bring my awareness to the far reaches of my peripheral vision. I see it – the flash of color and the hint of movement. And something, not quite a thought, but more like a feeling, searing itself into my mind with the passion of a concerned spirit.
Hurry!
Chapter Twenty Three – Urgency
Jonah
I put the hint of my heels to Ernest’s sides and he lurches forward with the pent-up power of a stallion forced to walk for too long. After a few hundred yards he draws back into an easy canter and I cut across the open fields to sweep down into the valley where the farmhouse and barns sit nestled in a screen of oak, walnut and pine on a little knoll.
Herb greets me at the back door of the barn as I dismount. He leans up against the door frame and takes a puff from an old pipe, looking tired but somewhat content.
“I see you’ve found my dad’s tobacco stash. I thought all that stuff was locked away years ago.”
“No,” he says, pointing towards the front of the barn where there are some old woodworking tools and a long workbench strewn with various items. “It was right there, open and everything.”
Again I get that tingle on the back of my neck, and the feeling that a presence is directly in front of me, beckoning me forward. “Well, I hope you enjoy it,” I say with a shrug. “Is everything in hand for the next while?”
His expression darkens slightly. “That depends on how long a while lasts,” he grumbles. “These farmers around here don’t trust me any further than they can throw me. And the feeling is mutual.”
“They’ve had to look out for themselves for a long time,” I remind him. “Farming communities don’t tend to work together like they used to. There’s a lot of resentment between the folks who’ve bought up land or livestock around here in the last twenty years or so.”
“So where does that leave a homeless accountant from the city, eh?” He asks me.
“You’re not homeless anymore.”
“So you say, but for how long?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he begins, “I don’t want to say anything against Rachel, but she gave everyone a hell of a scare the other day. People don’t expect a woman to be that quick with a trigger finger.”
“Lucia would do the same for you.”
“Oh,” he says, as he coughs out his sarcasm. “That’s a relief, especially when they’re sisters. She’d probably try to shoot me, too, if I ever tried to run away.”
“That’s why I have to leave now,” I tell him. “Tonight.”
“Should I bother to ask why?”
“Everyone is in danger while I’m here.”
He gives me a hard stare. “I didn’t come with you to get away from danger, Jonah.”
His candour makes me laugh to myself, remembering how he’d first seen me, dripping wet and crawling out of a blast hole.
“I also have a promise to keep.” I say, a little more seriously than I intend. “You know that.”
“Ah,” he says with a wave of his hand. “You’re going to save as many people as you can, right? Bring them right here from out of the wilderness?”
“I made a promise, Herb,” I say, now becoming a little upset that my viewpoint seems so far outside the realm of possibility to people who have just seen their worlds turned upside down. “I intend to do whatever I need to do to help my friends.”
“Then why are you going alone?”
“Because I’m also a danger to everyone here.”
“Why?”
“I can’t say.”
He doesn’t respond.
“I just need you to be ready here when I get back.”
“I wish I didn’t trust you, Jonah,” he says, shaking his head. “It would make things a lot easier.”
I can’t help smiling. “Don’t worry too much about the people around here, Herb. They’ll come together eventually, as soon as they see what’s at stake.”
Herb gives his head another shake and turns back inside the darkness of the barn. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he says without turning his head.
I put Ernest in the crossties and rub him down lightly. I bring the other horse I will be taking with me and saddle her up. Once she is tacked up, I lead her out and tie Ernest onto the ring at the back of my saddle. This way he’ll get a bit of a rest after being ridden all day.
As I step back into the sunlight from the relative darkness of the barn, a stark realization hits me: the world, as I once knew it, is gone. Instead of packing the car for a trip to town, I am saddling the horse, and I don’t even what “town” means anymore.
I quickly gather the rest of the materials I will need and pack the oversized saddlebags that I find hanging from the rafters in the shed. No one notices me as I skulk around the yard.
Dusk comes with surprising quickness.
I ride out under the cover of the looming darkness.
I don’t say goodbye.
Part Two
Night falling is our empty demise
We know not where to lie or what are lies
The visions fade with the failing of the light
But between weariness and wakefulness is a welcome sight
A far-off glow, a ray of hope, alone
But watching us
Always
Chapter One – Darkness
Rachel
People come to us in droves. It seems that Jonah has been out all day telling people not to worry about anything, and to come over for “dinner.” It used to make me so angry when he would make plans without telling me, but I have a hard time feeling anything but empathy for those who wander into the yard, not sure whether they should have come or not, not knowing what to expect.
Most of these people don’t even know each other, despite having been neighbours for several years. At first they stand around, unsure of what to do; Jonah is nowhere to be found. But then a few begin to take charge. I start to worry about Jonah, but I can’t help but get caught up in the general spirit of the occasion.
A massive fire is started in a pit, and a side of beef appears on a large spit above it. Other fires sprout up, fuelled by wood that has been carted in, and suddenly everyone is busy, rushing around preparing a meal for everyone else. Tables emerge from somewhere, and the yard is transformed to a gigantic twilight picnic. The general chatter revolves around the food and what a great idea it was to bring everyone together.