The Last Tribe

by Brad Manuel

  “There are wild pigs and chickens too.” Meredith chimed in. “I was reading a book about Kauai at the library during school yesterday.” She continued to give facts, and grinned as she talked about the island.

  Emily enjoyed seeing her smile. Like so many of the tribe, Meredith emerged from her shell the longer she was in Hanover.

  “The reason I came back here was to tell you that I am putting the plane in reverse to jockey down the runway towards the terminal. You need to find a seat and buckle up. It might be a little bumpy as I take this baby over grass and up and down the runway edge.” He looked at Meredith. “I need a co-pilot.”

  “Okay.” She said, dropping her head from shyness. Meredith looked over to Emily. The young girl’s eyes blazed with excitement. She followed Peter up front. The old man moved quickly, and Meredith had to hurry to keep up.

  “Well Emily, I suggest taking our seats in first class.” They shut the cargo door and walked back towards the front of the plane. “I didn’t realize we were taking the cows. That was dumb of me. Are they going to walk up the stairs and onto the plane? Are they going to walk down the stairs in Hawaii?” Paul had logistical questions, which he continued to ask Emily after they took their seats.

  “You worried at all about this?” Emily asked him, ignoring most of Paul’s questions.

  “About taxiing to the terminal? I question why we are taxiing to the terminal when we can just leave the plane here.”

  “No, about flying to Hawaii.”

  “Yes. I’m scared, but it’s the right thing to do. If it works out half as well as we think, we’ll be able to survive. If things work out half as well as we think in Hanover? We die. If they work out half as well as we think in Virginia? We are barely eking out an existence.”

  “How do you mean?” The plane bumped up and down as Peter pulled backwards and jumped the runway curb.

  “Let’s say we get to Hawaii. It’s warm, all the time, so we don’t have to worry about weather. There is water, there are animals. Hawaii presents a lot of givens. There are some variables, like can we grow crops or catch enough fish, but the givens are tropical fruit trees, tropical vegetables, things that are already there. Right? We can’t screw that up. We can’t stop avocados from growing all over the place.”

  “Okay,” Emily replied in a leading voice.

  “In Virginia? It gets cold and things die. We’d have to can and cure for the winter months. We have to figure out how to fish all year around. We get a blizzard or something? We could be socked in, screwed. Do we survive? Yes. Does it suck? A whole bunch. Those things won’t happen in Hawaii. It would be, and I say this with complete confidence, impossible for us to starve to death in Hawaii. Literally, impossible for us to starve. In Virginia? We could starve. Up here? It’s a better bet we starve than don’t starve, particularly in three to five years. In five years? We have to be able to grow and kill all our food. How are we going to do that in New Hampshire?”

  “That makes sense.” She agreed.

  “I am afraid. I’m afraid we’ll fall out of the sky. I’m afraid we won’t be able to land over there, or we’ll have to land in the water, or we’ll meet a number of bad scenarios, but once we get there, once my fears have come unrealized, we have set ourselves up for thrivival.”

  “Thrivival?” She asked.

  “You like it? Combining Thriving and Survival? It’s my word. Hawaii is thrivival, Virginia is survival, and New Hampshire is most likely death.”

  “Why do you need to make up a word?” Emily and Paul thrust forward ever so slightly as Peter put on the breaks.

  The intercom buzzed, “sorry about that folks, came in a little hot. Welcome to Manchester International Airport. It is 10am local time. If you don’t mind, I’m going to run a few quick tests on the engines. You’ll hear some revving and it might get a little loud. I’ll let you know when I am done.”

  “He’s funny.” Emily commented.

  “I think he wants us to trust that he is a real pilot. I hope to God he’s a real pilot. Shit, I could do the pilot impression.”

  They heard the engines come up, revving loudly. They were halfway down the runway, still a hundred yards from the terminal. The plane moved forward and began to pick up speed. The engines revved down and the plane slowed. Peter kept a steady pace until they arrived at the terminal.

  “This concludes our flight for today. Thank you for flying Reinhart Air.”

  Paul yelled towards the cockpit. “Peter, don’t turn the plane off yet, I have an idea I’d like to run by you.” He unbuckled and walked to the front. Meredith and Peter wore giant headphones. “Nice.” Paul told them.

  “Peter,” he continued. “How hard would it be to get the plane up against a gate at the terminal?”

  “Pretty easy, but we still need to move the bridge from the terminal to the side of the plane.”

  “If we want cows and pigs and goats and supplies, all those things will be easier to load from a ramp than a staircase. If we can get a ramp over to the side, like we are truly boarding this plane, well, that will be a great thing. Plus, we can pull back and take off, not worry about a chair truck sitting next to us.”

  “The chair truck would not be an issue, but I get where you are going. Most of your scenario depends on us being able to get power to the terminal, and to one of those telescoping ramps to the plane.”

  “We can get a generator to make the telescoping happen. Just park the plane where you would normally put it.” Paul gave Meredith a thumbs up. “And you keep doing what you’re doing, great work.” She giggled. The oversized headphones slipped off her ears.

  “You got it. Hold on. I might bump into something I don’t see on the ground, but that’s okay. Typically a jumbo jet wins confrontations.” Peter pulled the jet towards the last terminal spot ten yards from a telescoping ramp.

  Antonio retrieved the stair truck, jogging all the way back to the end of the runaway. He parked near the plane door.

  “Before we get out, let’s check supplies. We have enough chips, crackers, and cookies to hold us for a while.” Emily spoke from the first class steward closet. “We also have booze, water, soda, and orange juice.”

  “The fuel gage reads full.” Peter added. “We have enough to get us to Hawaii and back to the California if we needed.”

  “Let’s unload the luggage and head back home. This was a successful trip.” He shook Peter’s hand, and gave Meredith and Emily high fives. “Based on your opinion, we could leave tomorrow?” He asked Peter.

  “We could leave tomorrow. I want to get a good night’s sleep, it’s been a long time since I flew for 12 hours, but yes, we could go wheels up tomorrow if we needed to do it.”

  “Do you know how to open the luggage door to get the bags out?” Emily asked him as they made their way to the back of the plane.

  “I do, but we’re going to need a little luggage ramp car to access it.”

  “I love those things.” Meredith laughed. “It will be just like Toy Story 2.”

  51

  “We have a pilot, a plane, fuel, and a clear runway.” Emily ceded the return driving to Paul. Antonio assumed shotgun. Peter was curled up in the backseat for a nap. Meredith sat next to Emily and listened.

  “Check.” she responded.

  “It’s supposed to snow tomorrow.” Gray clouds hung low over the area and the air felt heavy. Rebecca’s prediction was going to come true.

  “Check.”

  Emily enjoyed the ‘check’ responses. “We have to move supplies and what we want to take. We have to move the animals. And we leave.”

  “Check.” Meredith nodded with finality.

  Emily pulled a notebook from the pocket in front of her seat. She made a list of supply items. There were three lists; Wants, Needs, Haves.

  “Peter?” She asked, knowing he was still awake. “If we can get into a warehouse and find food, how much weight can the jet handle?”

  “With no people? Unless you’re putting the entire
warehouse in, I don’t see a problem. If we get a herd of cattle, then we have another conversation.”

  “Thank you.” Emily made notes. She wanted rice, beans, pasta, and canned food. Similar lists were being made by everyone in the tribe. It helped them pass the time.

  Meredith read the list from the next seat. “We need seeds.”

  Emily looked at her. “I’m sorry, honey, what was that?”

  “Most of what you are writing should be in the ‘wants’ category. We need seeds more than anything else. We have to grow things, lots of things. Cans are heavy and will go bad. We need to learn how to live off the land.”

  “We have to survive once we get there.” Emily told her. “We need to take as much food as we can.”

  “Sure, but not so much that we need a warehouse. There is going to be food there. Craig can catch fish for us.” She giggled, Craig had the reputation of being the best angler. “We should take livestock and food, but not so much food that we raid a warehouse. We can’t live like the past, we need to look at the future. We need to grow, hunt, harvest, fish.” The young girl stopped talking. She felt uncomfortable speaking to an adult so candidly.

  Emily looked at the young woman. There was silence in a car. Paul and Antonio glanced at each other with a look men have when they are uncomfortable, particularly when the situation involves two women.

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” Emily balled up her piece of paper. “We need seeds and livestock. We probably need a month of food to take, and maybe a little more to help us on days we don’t catch fish, but Meredith is right. I need to start thinking like it is, not how I want it to be, or how I’ve been living for the last few months.” She winked at Meredith. “You keep telling me when I’m wrong, when I’m living in the past.”

  Meredith gave her a simple “check,” in reply.

  “You gonna tell her the other problem?” Antonio spoke over his shoulder to Meredith. “About the talk we all had?”

  Emily looked up from her pad and faced her young friend. “What is it?”

  “Some of us don’t want to go.” Meredith admitted.

  “What?” Paul responded from the driver’s seat. “We have to go. Our lives depend on going.”

  “Dude, it’s not like we don’t want to go to Hawaii. I want to lie in the sun and catch fish and crap, but you’re old. You’re goin’ there to retire. I’m seventeen. Who I gonna be with? How am I gonna live my life once the old are a lot older? We don’t have enough people.”

  “Who doesn’t want to go?” Emily asked Meredith.

  “Avery, Antonio, and I have talked about it. It’s like he just said. I want to stay with the group, but my prospects are rotten if we don’t find other survivors. I’m not sure Bernie wants to go either. Kelly is getting the cows healthy in hopes it will convince people to stay here. I don’t know Dan and Karen well enough yet.”

  “Tell you what we can do.” Peter yelled from the back. “We can go over, and if we think it makes sense, I can fly back to San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Tokyo for that matter. We aren’t just considering Americans, right?”

  Antonio yelled back. “What do you mean we can come back?”

  Emily turned around in her seat to see Peter. “Would it be possible to drop paper from a 777 flying over cities?”

  “Possible or advisable?” Was his response.

  “Maybe we can fly over cities and drop paper, notes to have people meet us in San Francisco or Los Angeles to get picked up in a month.”

  “Let me think about it. We might be able to find Antonio some women yet.” Peter worked the problem in his head. Maybe they could put leaflets in the landing gear and fly low over Chicago, opening the landing gear to release the notes. He smiled as he formed the plan in his head. “We need to decide what cities. I’ll make it work.” He said to Emily and Meredith.

  “I wouldn’t mind finding some additional women.” Antonio cracked a smile. “I always want to increase my odds.” He may have matured, but he still relied on occasional swagger. “You know what I mean, Paul?” He gave the driver a punch on his upper arm.

  “I think we all know what you mean, Tony.” Paul did not comment beyond the acknowledgement.

  “You know what we need to do? We don’t want to land, we just want people to figure out how to join us. Right? We should drop leaflets or something, and tell people where we’re going.” Antonio paused. “If you can’t figure out how to get to us, I’m not sure I want you joining the tribe, right? You got to earn your spot on Team Antonio.”

  “We’re not calling it Team Antonio.” Paul said to him immediately. “There aren’t any proposed tribe names, but if there are, Team Antonio would not make it on the list.”

  “You know it would.” Antonio backed up his comment.

  “No, it wouldn’t. I’d vote for The Lollipop Guild before Team Antonio.”

  “You’d rather be the Lollipop Guild? Some Wizard of Oz crap before Team Antonio? That’s cold, damn cold, Paul.”

  Paul drove quickly towards Hanover. Small flakes of snow fell, melting on the windshield.

  “I miss NPR.” Paul said, as the conversation paused for a few minutes. “It was great to drive and listen to stories about beavers or religion.”

  “I liked “All Things Considered”, but their weekend shows were horrible. Who could listen to that “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” crap?” Antonio shook his head as he mentioned the show.

  “You liked NPR?” Paul looked over at him.

  “I’m supposed to be ignorant on national and world topics just because I’m in a gang? Some of those stories were good.”

  “Tony, you are a man of surprising depth and intelligence.” Paul complimented him.

  “Yes I am.” He told Paul. “Yes I am.”

  They rolled into Hanover at 2pm during a driving snowstorm. It hit early, a day before Rebecca forecast. She saw potential for an early storm, but the models presented a low probability for Tuesday and higher for Wednesday.

  “Weather is an imperfect science.” She told them, her hands upturned and out to her side.

  52

  “Snow in April. Why did you bring us here Todd?” Melanie was not happy. Neither was Solange. The temperature was back in the low 30’s.

  “It will all be gone by Thursday, don’t worry. It should warm up.” Rebecca assured everyone. “Until then, we can hunker down. Cozy up next to the fires.”

  During the scouting trip to the airport, the Hanover group made plans for the spring snowstorm. They acquired and set up two ping pong tables in the basement of the Choate Road house.

  Teams were drawn at random, and a tournament bracket was put on the wall. The games ran all day Wednesday. There were singles and doubles divisions, and an under twelve age group.

  It was not a fair tournament. Avery dominated the singles side of the competition, and carried her partner, Jamie, through the doubles. There was outcry throughout the house, accusations of sandbagging the event, withholding information, but in the end, Avery was declared the singles and doubles ping pong champion.

  “Next time you have to play left-handed or something like that.” Dan said to her after his drubbing in the semifinals.

  “I could use my backhand exclusively, but wouldn’t it humiliate you more when I still win?” She had her paddle facing down, making a sweeping motion towards him, shoeing him away.

  “You just made an enemy.” He put two fingers pointed towards his eyes, then pointed them back at her. “Watch your back next tournament.”

  Dan was her most competitive match, which Avery still won 21-11. Regardless of the domination by one player, the event was successful and fun. The twelve and under bracket used a smaller table. Jacob and Brian played a thriller in the final match, with Brian winning 21-19.

  “We have to get a pool table.” Paul told John as they sat and watched Rebecca play Matt. “We need a pool table, maybe a dart board, some backgammon. We should make a true rec room.”

  “We’re
not staying here that long, remember? Maybe you can find a pool table and use it at that location. It would be a lot easier than hauling one in here.” John’s head bobbed back and forth with the ball.

  “We’re so busy too, would be hard to find time to help me.” Paul replied sarcastically. “Did you know the young people are reluctant to move? Meredith, of all people, talked to us about it in the car. It’s not that they don’t want to move to Hawaii, it’s the finality of their numbers. They want more of an effort put into finding survivors before we isolate the tribe.”

  “What did you tell her?” John asked him before yelling. “Oh! Nice point Matt.” It was not a close match. Matt was better than Rebecca.

  “I did not answer. Emily suggested a plan on our way to Hawaii. We will fly over large cities and drop fliers from the landing gear.”

  John nodded, still watching the game. Paul was surprised his brother was blasé about the idea of losing half of the tribe, particularly the younger half.

  “I completely agree with them. We need more people, but we are up against a clock. I have no idea how long the plane will work. I don’t know how long the cars will work. We have to get to Hawaii before the end of summer. We’ve travelled up and down the east coast. I’ve made a specific trip to Boston. If they still want to leave, we can’t stop them.” John turned away from the match. “But I’ll do everything I possibly can to appease their concerns, help them find additional survivors, and convince them that we are executing the best and only option for survival by going.”

  Paul nodded. “Hey, did you know we were taking the cows with us?”

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t we take the cows? What did you think Kelly was doing over there the last five days?”

  “Apparently she is one of the dissenters with regards to leaving and is possibly creating a food source for the people who stay here, but, I also just assumed she is a vet and vets heal animals.”

  “Do you not want to take the animals?”