“Okay,” stated Lizzy, glaring at each player in turn, including Melody who was her partner for the night, “no cheating. Anyone who cheats gets to clean the latrines, twice, and that will be after I use them.”
“We don’t cheat,” protested Lawrence.
“Yeah,” added Harvey. “As bad as you are, we don’t have to.”
Lizzy shot both a dirty look as she began to shuffle the cards.
“We still on the standard wager?” asked Melody.
“Works for me,” agreed Lizzy. “I’m too tired to think of anything else. That good with you guys?”
Harvey nodded. “Let’s keep it straight.”
All club games were played for money. Granted, money didn’t have any real value, not nowadays, and it wasn’t something we used in the Black Hills, having a communal system for the essentials and bartering for everything else. Even so, it was one of those thing we regularly came across while looting. Paper money was usually left to decompose, but the coins were collected. We know their composition, which means we have a ready supply of specific metals small enough to allow for easy smelting. This hasn’t actually been attempted, but you never know when it might be necessary.
The coins used in this case were Silver Eagles. For any who don’t know, these are one ounce bullion coins produced by the federal government – I am referring to the old one in Washington, not the newer incarnation in Hawaii. While we had found a few here and there, the vast majority came from a single bank in Rapid City. Such establishments are typically difficult to loot – I will be the first to say that getting into a locked vault is not easy – but in this case we found the combination written on a piece of paper in the manager’s desk, not the best security practice. Inside, we discovered rolls and rolls of coins, just over ten thousand to be exact. These were taken back to Venusville and deposited inside the militia armory.
As you will recall from my second narrative, Conflict, we had a large chest filled with jewelry for the benefit of the children who liked to pretend it was pirate treasure. Eventually the loot increased to a point where additional chests were necessary. At present, we have nine, each handcrafted of oak and bound with heavy brass straps. They are about four feet across, three wide, and two and a half deep. All are currently sitting in the treasure chamber, a small stone building inside the citadel that wasn’t needed for anything else. We originally intended for it to be a storeroom or something. I forget.
Every so often, the militia will put together a small bag or box and hide it inside the valley. A map is drawn, and the children are set loose to search. Once recovered, the kids get to add it to our ever growing pile.
“Winners stash it for tomorrow’s hunt,” remarked Lizzy. “Jenny already has a place picked out and the map made, so check with her.”
“Winners?” asked Lawrence. “Since when did we do that?”
“It’s always been losers hiding,” agreed Harvey. “Are you changing the rules because you’re losing?”
“We are not losing!”
“We are down by forty points,” corrected Melody.
“Temporary setback,” snarled Lizzy, “and I was just spouting off the top of my head.” She considered the level gaze Harvey was giving her. “Fine. I’ll flip a coin, after the game is over. Heads, the winners hide the loot. Tails, the losers do it. From now on that’s policy.”
“I got no problem,” said Lawrence.
Harvey leaned back in his chair. “Me either. Just be sure to remember to do the toss at the very end.” He smiled. “Wouldn’t want anyone to throw a game because she’s too overweight to walk a few miles.”
Lizzy flung her bowl of popcorn at him.
“Temper, temper,” he chided.
“Don’t fucking temper me,” she snapped back. “I know I have issues.”
“At least you are willing to admit to it,” laughed Harvey. “That’s better than some around here.”
“And,” continued Lizzy, “I don’t give a shit. So, fuck all of you. Here’s your cards.”
She began to deal, and Harvey’s smile grew even larger.
“You better not have a run,” she warned.
Lawrence passed on the bidding, as did Melody.
Harvey paused, considering.
“No delays,” said Lizzy. “Make a bid or leave me stuck with it.”
“While letting you have it, knowing you won’t make it, would be fun, I think I’ll go ahead and bid sixty.”
“Sixty!” Melody was shocked. That never happened. “What do you have?”
“Hold up,” he replied, turning to Lizzy. “Care to outbid me?”
The woman slapped a meaty hand down on the table. “Fuck, no. Show us what you got.”
Harvey laid out his meld. There was a run in diamonds: ace, ten, king, queen, jack. He also had a second jack of diamonds and two queens of spades. The scoring we used was simplified. A run is fifteen points, a single pinochle – jack of diamonds and queen of spades – is four, a double pinochle thirty. Harvey had just set down forty five points. He wasn’t done though. The man also dropped three more aces, giving him one of each suit, another ten points.
“Let’s see,” he began, “that looks like, oh, I think it’s fifty five points. Lawrence has another eight in his meld giving us a total of sixty three. We made our bid. Lizzy, my oh so cheerful superior officer, I don’t think you are going to win this game.”
She stared at the scorecard for a second. “Still a ways to go. We are not giving up.”
The games typically lasted until one of the teams broke five hundred points. The loser’s score was then deducted from that of the winners. This determined the number of Silver Eagles used in the pirate hunt.
“Giving up isn’t something you do,” he agreed, with the faintest hint of approval in his voice.
* * *
“Fucking three hundred and eight coins,” grunted Lizzy. “You have any idea how heavy this is?”
“About twenty one pounds,” answered Melody, seven seconds later.
“Really? You know that, or did you just guess? You better not be fucking with me.”
The other woman shrugged. “I did the math in the my head. It wasn’t that big of a calculation.”
Lizzy set the leather bag on the ground. It had once been part of a Black Hills cow. She wasn’t certain which – there were hundreds of the things with several butchered each week – but the animal was certain to have been delicious. Steph and her cooks knew what they were doing.
“So, sixteen in a pound… You can do all that math in your head? Damn. Wish I could. I barely passed when I was in high school. Geometry was the worst.”
“Uh, Lizzy, there aren’t sixteen troy ounces in a pound. You’re thinking regular ounces. Troy ounces are heavier, almost ten percent heavier. I moved them to normal ounces, and then to pounds.”
The sack was retrieved and thrust into Melody’s arms.
“Your turn to carry, and I hate you.” Lizzy wiped some sweat from her forehead. “Would be a warm day. How much further do we have to go?”
“Jenny’s sitting down over there. That’s probably the spot.”
The woman was a few hundred yards off, relaxing atop a large rock. She gave them a friendly wave.
“How come she never carries this shit?”
“I think it’s because she organizes the hunts,” replied Melody. “It would be unfair to have her carry it too, after drawing those lovely maps the children like so much, but maybe she’ll swap with you for a few weeks.”
“Fuck, no! I do not want to be dealing with whiny brats every day. I get enough of that shit with you all.”
Melody smiled slightly.
“How come you knew the conversion for silver ounces to real ones?”
“It’s troy ounce. They use those for all the precious metals. There’s no such thing as a silver ounce.”
“Whatever.” Lizzy kicked a pinecone. It bounced off a tree trunk and vanished behind some weeds. “Well?”
�
�I just remembered them from school. I’m kind of good at formulas.”
“God. I can’t even remember how many feet are in a mile.”
“Five thousand, two hundred, and eighty.”
Lizzy reached out to give her friend a shove, which sent the taller woman staggering.
“Smart ass. Maybe we should have you teaching. Think you could put up with Laura.”
“Please don’t,” stammered Melody.
Lizzy regarded her carefully.
“I’m not serious. Stop looking like I shoved a porcupine up your ass right after I shot your dog and cooked your cat. You are too good in the militia for me to toss out. Hell, girl, I would fight to keep you.”
Melody relaxed and handed the heavy sack of coins back to Lizzy.
“What, you getting tired already?”
“No,” she replied, “you were mean so you get to carry them the rest of the way.”
That was not the sort of statement Lizzy cared to receive, but it was definitely the type she wanted to hear from Melody. She was steadily improving.
“I don’t have a dog, or a cat.”
“A dog… Fuck that shit. I was just making a reference to something that would be bad. I’d never shoot a dog, well, maybe if it had rabies or was trying to kill me, not a normal pet though.”
“And the porcupine?” prompted the other woman.
Lizzy smiled evilly. “If I found one in the forest, already dead…” She trailed off.
“That’s… I don’t know how to say it.”
“Just use lots of profanity. You’d be surprised how much fucked up logic people overlook when you’re swearing. It’s how I get through life.”
Chapter XIII
Major Briggs, accompanied by his always informative executive officer, Sergeant Brown, flew in for a quick visit. With the raiders no longer an ongoing concern and no other threat in our portion of the country rearing its head, the overhead scouting missions had been cut way back. This helped with fuel, which was an issue that wouldn’t be going away anytime soon, and allowed our pilots to increase the number of flights between the Black Hills and Yellowstone. Those tended to be fast, direct, and extremely beneficial.
“So, guys,” began Briana, “what’s happening in your half of the civilized world.”
“Civilized world?” inquired the major.
“Yes, civilized. I’ve decided that we are the pinnacle of the cultural ladder, although Mary would disagree since we don’t have television yet.”
I laughed curtly. “That lasted for days after we got back. She kept going on and on and on about how she could at least watch reruns in Hawaii. I don’t see the difference. We have DVDs, so she can watch reruns now, anytime she wants.”
“I think it’s the prescheduled programming,” said Briana. “It seems more special that way.”
“I prefer the convenience of deciding for myself.” Briggs looked around. “Where is Mary? She normally comes right over, asking about news, gossip, or sweets.”
“She took Asher to the playground,” replied Briana. “He’s having a play date with some of the other toddlers. It does him good to get out from time to time. He’d be out more often, socializing with the other children, but we don’t have any sort of preschool yet. That is being worked on.”
Ah, preschool. This was one of the things I regularly got an earful about and not just from Briana. The complaints came from a wide variety of parents. With our primitive living conditions, it was difficult caring for children. A few lucky individuals, such as my wife, dealt mostly with paperwork and could keep their little ones with them. For those who worked in the fields tending crops or in the kitchens, it was far more complicated. Others, namely the militia and scavenging parties, simply could not have their children with them when working. In short, childcare was a very real issue. Hence, school became more than an educational system. It was also daycare. The students might not enjoy having close to half again as many hours in the building as pre-apocalypse brats did, not to mention more days of school overall, but it served a purpose.
“Just as well. When she gets back, let her know that I do not have any chocolate, but I did bring some fresh cinnamon, straight from trees grown in Hawaii. It had been gathered by locals on and off the past few years, but proper cultivation is now up and running, primarily as an export to the other nations and for use by those of us not living on the islands.”
“Maybe we can make some sweet rolls,” I suggested. “Is there enough for that?”
“I have two hundred pounds for you.”
Wow. These little luxuries were very much appreciated. I doubted if we would be anywhere near pre-zombie status during my lifetime, but it would be nice if Mary and Asher one day had the convenience of grocery stores and international trade. There was so much that had to come from elsewhere. For instance, if you wanted fresh fruit in the winter, you had to have connections in the tropics, that or a very large greenhouse.
“Everyone will be glad to hear it,” confirmed Briana. “Any other goodies?”
“A few crates of ammo, some of hand grenades, and a whole lot of cloth diapers, fresh from the Hawaiian textile mills.”
“That would be mill,” corrected the sergeant. “There is only the one.”
“True enough,” admitted Major Briggs. “I have designs for some looms you can build yourselves, powering them with generators. They will work with cotton or wool.”
“We do have sheep,” I commented. “Cotton won’t grow here, but someday, someone will be back south again.”
“After we get air conditioning,” added Briana.
I nodded my agreement. I missed Texas. The weather, not so much.
“The last supply flight was light on goods, but we sent back plenty of beef, along with some heavily sedated cattle, breeding stock. The islands are lacking both. Most of the limited livestock they had died early on or was slaughtered for food that first year.”
“I don’t know how much we can ship by air,” I said, “but if the president or anyone else wants, we can do a roundup. There are herds all over Wyoming and around us.”
Briggs shook his head. “It will likely just be the occasional shipment of convenience until we have a clear route to a sea port.”
“Like that will happen anytime soon,” snorted Briana.
“I’m going to have to agree with the wife, although we could possibly open a route to the Mississippi and ship things out into the Gulf of Mexico.”
“The river is still a mess and a navigational hazard,” said Sergeant Brown. “It is heavily polluted too, but that seems to be clearing up. The gulf is best avoided as well.”
“Planes it is,” shrugged Briana.
“Now, what do you two have for us?” asked the major.
“There is definitely someone, possibly several someones, riding about on a motorcycle. This individual has been spotted south of the Black Hills. He sticks to the plains but has come pretty close to the mountains a few times.” I hesitated. “I keep thinking it’s a raider who survived everything, but there is no way to tell. It is pretty obvious that someone is here, with the walls and barricades and everything else we built, but they haven’t approached. Again, I think that means they are up to no good, but with all the bad that’s happened, I can understand an outsider being cautious.”
“I would be surprised if they weren’t somewhat paranoid.” The major grew a tad graver. “Keep an eye out, just in case. For our part, we haven’t seen anything. We still get the occasional walker that stumbles in from the countryside, but the roads and easy routes are all blocked off, not to the extent you’ve accomplished…”
Briana dismissed that with swipe of her hand. “We’ve been over that a million times. The Black Hills are tiny compared to Yellowstone and have tons of cliffs that already blocked a lot off. Way less work for us.”
“We do have an easier time of it,” I said, “which means God loves us more than you.”
“Please.” My wife rolled her eyes. “Oh, wh
ile I’m thinking about it, have you found any other survivors in the area, or anywhere else?”
“Same problems as before,” replied Sergeant Brown. “The satellites have difficulty locating any but the largest groups. If you are under twenty or thirty people, you might as well be invisible. There have been discoveries, and with things calming down more people have been assigned to recovery. Most notable are several bands in the western mountains, Rockies and down into New Mexico. Most of those with whom contact has been made are independents, but a good proportion, perhaps forty percent, are survivors of Salt Lake City.”
“Are there hard numbers?” I asked.
“Maybe fifteen thousand all told,” said Brown, “with six thousand having come from Utah. Strangely enough, they were steadfast about keeping to small groups. Most of these are in contact with one another but are generally spread about in camps or tiny, makeshift forts. Since they’ve been keeping to the higher elevations, growing food has been a problem.”
“Having six thousand who got away and are still alive is nice,” commented Briana. She tugged on her long hair with both hands before placing them in her lap. “But something like forty escaped that place originally. Please don’t tell me the rest have died.”
“Can’t say.” The major frowned. “Still, I am not hopeful. There could be a few thousand more, here and there, but… Most appear to have perished since then.”
And the conversation had started off so well.
“We are also getting some new equipment. That will be sent in soon,” he continued. “The intent is for long range flights to leave Yellowstone and the Black Hills going as far as possible. Pre-recorded messages will then be broadcast on all primary frequencies, stating that government backed safe zones exist in Yellowstone National Park and in the Black Hills. I said, from a security standpoint, that I have no issues with this.”
Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse (Book 3): Salvation Page 34