* * *
Searching the directories and consolidating a plan took all morning. That afternoon, two groups boarded the White Warriors and headed out to their designated pig farms, hoping to find at least one animal. They also brought dried corn which Elspeth had been hoping to use to make whisky. The idea was to capture an animal or kill one. Killing one would put off Masako's crisis only temporarily and was Plan B.
John and George drove White Warrior Number One toward their target destination, the Schultz Pig Farm, thirty miles south. They had assumed this job would be difficult and brought their rifles and two nets. Pierre and Fred drove in the second White Warrior and carried corn and fence. Finding the site of the former pig farm was not difficult, but as expected, no pigs were to be seen. If the pigs had survived the virus, then they had escaped into the forest. The two hunters wandered through the forest for two hours, but did not see any pigs or see any obvious signs. They put out some of the corn near the gate of an existing pig pen as well as inside.
Fred and Pierre had similar bad luck after three hours of hunting. Two cloudy days later, the electric cars were recharged enough for another trip. John and George visited the third farm with the same results. After another two days, the groups each went back to the farms they had visited to see if any of their corn had been eaten.
At the first farm, the corn was gone, but the few tracks they found were not pig tracks, according to George. Most likely, crows had eaten the corn. John said that if it came down to the wire, they would take whatever animal they could find and Pierre would have to experiment with Masako's life. The other group of Pierre and Fred had similar bad luck. They wandered in the forest for four hours without seeing anything alive.
Back at the lodge, it was after midnight and the four were sitting around the fireplace drinking wine, watching the flames and listening to the crackling logs. Autumn had brought cooler weather, much cooler in the mountains. After twenty minutes of silence, George said, "Hey guys, we're doin' somethin' wrong. Right, John?"
"True, George. But what? The virus wiped out most life. Apparently, it wiped out most of the pigs too. As I understand it, the way they breed, if they had escaped and survived, the woods would be crawling with them by now."
"I have another idea."
"Go for it," John said, upending his glass of wine and reaching for the bottle. "I really don't want Masako to die. Life has been too hard these last six months. I've lost too many and too much. I don't know if I can handle another. Cho's death really hurt me," he said, gently wiping his hand across his eyes, hiding any moisture that might escape.
But, the gesture didn't fool Fred. "Hang on, John. "We'll make this happen. We've never failed you before and we won't fail you this time."
John took a sip of wine before replying. "Thanks. I appreciate the dedication. But, this isn't a matter of doing something or not. It’s not even a matter of working hard or not. I wouldn't worry in that case. Whatever we do, however dedicated we might be, the pigs are there or they are not. We can't change that. And if not, then Masako is going to die." John paused for a long second. "We don't have another option. We have to find animals. Life or death, but there may be no animals. We haven't seen many since a few weeks after the panic. They may not be out there." John stopped talking as his voice was becoming squeaky. He took another large drink of the wine and said, "George, I just saw a light come to your eyes. What's your idea?"
George grabbed the wine bottle and poured himself another glass. "A good one, old buddy. Don't know why it didn't come to me before. Wild boars. That's the answer. I'm sure of it."
"Feral pigs? How's that any different?"
"Not the same. Wild boars are not native to America and might be resistant to the virus. Remember the original SARS flue? It was a combination of pig, human and chicken flues. Maybe the boars are different enough from the pigs that some survived. They were originally imported from Europe and put into fenced-in farms where hunters went to shoot them for sport."
"Those things are big, aren't they? Should have giant thyroids." John leaned forward. "You have my attention. How do we find some of these guys?"
"Give me a few minutes," George said, rising and refilling everyone's glass. "Let me check some things."
George returned thirty minutes and two bottles of wine later. "I've been looking through the books and I've found three private game reserves."
"Great. Let's go."
"Sorry to say, old bud, they aren't close by."
"Come on, George. Don't sugarcoat it. Where are they? Give us the whole story. How bad is it?"
"The brochure I found was for a hunting lodge in eastern Tennessee. They guaranteed a kill. They probably had many boars. We could be there with the Dark Dart train in a day. Three hundred miles. What do you say?"
"How did you find this? Just curious."
George shook his head and smiled. "I just don't know how I could have forgotten. Anyway, I used to plan on goin' on a boar hunt. You know, bucket list. One of these operations is in Texas. One of their brochures mentioned this place in Tennessee. Actually, now that I think about it, I once knew a guy who went to this same place."
"Did he kill a boar?"
George reared back and the big Texan's gestures were animated as he spoke. "Yeah, had the head mounted. Kept it in his den. Used to have it in his living room, but when he got married, his wife said it was hideous. Made him move it. Women!"
The others pointed to Marceau nodding off on the sofa and the room was quiet for a moment.
"If we kill somethin', how do we bring it back, John? Those things are heavy."
"We could take Pierre and he could take out the thyroid and we could leave the rest there."
Marceau had been waiting for Pierre to go to bed, and wasn't completely asleep. The conversation awakened her and she quickly rose to her feet, walked over to the table and punched John on the shoulder.
"What! Did you have a bad dream?"
"Oui, it was you. You will leave Pierre here and you will bring back the meat. To me. Do you understand? Waste not, want not. Don't you Americans say that? I have hungered for meat for too long. I have cooked too many beans. I have eaten too many beans. I am tired of beans. You will not waste any meat! Do you hear me?"
John put his hands up in front of him, palms toward Marceau. "Hey, I hear you. Calm down. And I also understand the first rule of survival. Don't piss-off the cook."
"The chef," said George. "She's way better than a cook."
"Right." Looking at George, John said, "Can you put together some kind of flat car for the Dark Darts? Something that would carry a pig or a boar?"
"A pig would be no problem, even a big one, but some of those boars are heavy. Really heavy. And, if you find a cow …. Strain the engine, and the wheels. It would be still be possible if you gut the animal first. Otherwise, it may not be practical. I can tell you what to do."
"Sure. Whatever it takes. We have to save Masako."
"Two days. The problem is not the car, but all the mountains. We may not have the gearing to go up a steep hill with a big load. We should map a route where we avoid mountains as much as possible, especially on the return trip."
"You are sounding confident, George."
"Like you said, 'we have to save Masako.' "
"I'll work on the maps. You guys work on the flat car. Not just Masako's life, but also my life will depend on it." He glanced at Marceau and the room soon filled with laughter.
Chapter 64 - A Short Trip
Three days later, John and Fred sat in the first car of the new Dark Dart train. The second car was a passenger car, like the lead car with seats, but now it was full of food, water, nets, corn, weapons, and camping gear. The next car was the new flatbed to carry their prey and spare wood. The last held the gasifier, the engine, a hatchet and an axe.
George stoked the fire and started the engine. Control cables had been run to the first car to allow control of speed. Brakes were fitted on the first and last cars.
The cars used bicycle technology and bicycle wheels. Should something go wrong, the first car could be disconnected and pedaled home. The engine burped a few times, but then the wheels gained traction and the small train headed out. John and Fred had taken one trial trip in the original, pedal powered, Dark Dart just to make sure the track was in good condition to the east. They had to go twenty miles east to branch to a track which would take them west. On a short trial run, the dart gasifier engine worked well. Stopping from time to time to add wood was easy. A batch of wood lasted a hundred miles.
"This is far better than pedaling, don't you agree, John?"
"I suppose. Kind of boring though, except for the speed. George's speedometer says we're going forty miles per hour. You know, if we hit something at this speed, we're toast. I'll throttle back to thirty. Even then, we still have to keep watch for something on the tracks. These brakes are bicycle brakes and weren't made for this much weight. Especially with all that wood in the back. And with our eyes only being three feet above the rails, we can't see far ahead."
Over the next hour, John watched the road ahead while Fred sat with a rifle on his lap. Fred's hands fidgeted with the gun, running his fingers back and forth over the stock. He crossed his legs one way, then uncrossed and recrossed them the other way.
"What's up, Fred? Worried? Not like you. Even when those guys at the Retirement Home had us at gunpoint and I thought we would die, you weren't nervous. You were solid as a rock. Hard as nails. Tough as leather ..."
"OK, OK, I get it. Cut the clichés." He paused for a second. "Be honest with me John. How close are you and Masako? In a heartbeat, you threw down everything to go hunting for pigs -- for her. Now this. Sounds like you still interested in her. I need to know."
"Still into her, are you?" John threw Fred a sly smile.
"She has that funny laugh. And she's so cute when her hair is wet in the rain."
"More than into her. I'm sorry for the way things worked out. It must have been hard for you at the school when she embraced me. And afterwards."
"Especially afterwards."
"Since you asked, we don't have a physical relationship. Cho had just become a part of me. It wasn't like she was just my girlfriend, although we did have a physical relationship. She was me. I never told her what to do and she never told me. We just wanted to do the same things. We rarely had to communicate verbally. Part of it was the job. Part was personal. Masako is different. It takes an effort to be with her. She's flighty. On to something different every minute. Maybe she's just trying to understand me, but she's difficult to be around sometimes. She will probably lose interest in me before long. I'll become boring. That's what usually happens with me. Women are attracted to me physically and then quickly they find me boring."
"Right, that's what they call humility. Women like that too. But you gave up everything in an instant and went off to save her life. Like that white knight all women dream about. Sounds to me like you are seriously interested in her."
John didn't hesitate in his reply. "I'd do the same for you or George. Pierre or Marceau. Iris. Elspeth, if she were still around. You'd do the same for me. We've been through too much together to not go all-in when one of us is in trouble. I'm not what anybody would call old, but I feel old. I've aged over the last six months more that the previous twenty-five years. I've lost too much in the last six months, and I don't want to give up anything or anybody else in my life."
"Yeah. I guess I know what you mean. We are all part of what little remains of our old world. Our new world is not turning out the way we hoped. Trying to hang on to what we had and at the same time trying to make something better is harder and harder."
* * *
The sun had disappeared below the horizon when the Dart train arrived within two miles of the hunting camp, the closest the railroad came. John and Fred decided to make camp for the night and start hunting the next morning. Before the day's light disappeared, they found and chopped enough wood for the return trip and readied the darts for a quick departure. The first three cars had to be lifted off the rails and reset on the other side of the engine to keep the possibility of carbon monoxide leaks behind them. The engine car then had to be flipped around. George had shown them how to do it and had provided two sets of tools, just in case something was lost.
The morning was dim and dismal, with clouds overhead. After a small, cold breakfast of sweet rolls and water, they put on their backpacks and followed their compass north, toward the hunting camp. As they walked, they kept listening, an ear out for any sound that didn't belong, and especially for sounds of animals. Except for a few birds, the forest was quiet, with the only sounds being the crunch of leaves beneath their feet.
After an hour of hiking, they found the camp. It was a small building with six small bedrooms, a small kitchen, a bathroom and a living room. Two hundred feet behind the building was a chain-link fence with a gate. The building had furniture and clothing scattered around with a few food wrappers on the floors. John figured someone had lived there for a while, but abandoned it months ago. One outbuilding had a dozen large bags of dried corn.
"We brought food for three days, John. If we spread around the corn, we might attract some boars, but I doubt that would work in three days. They have a good sense of smell, but dried corn doesn't have much odor and we do."
"Let's do it anyway, Fred. Help me with one of these bags of corn. We'll pile it around outside, away from the lodge, but where we can watch it."
They spread the corn and then headed off into the woods. After an hour of pushing through the undergrowth, they found the other side of the fence.
"Let's follow the fence, John. If there's a hole in it where the boars escaped, we could start tracking them from there. Maybe find where they went."
"Good idea, Fred. Take the point, I'll follow."
Twenty minutes later, they discovered a spot where two pieces of fence were joined and the connecting wires had rusted. The boars found the point of least resistance and made a hole. Perhaps they hadn't been fed for days and had become highly motivated. Three hundred pounds of hungry boar added up to a lot of motivation. The rusty wires didn't stand a chance. John and Fred squirmed through the hole in the fence and began searching the ground for signs.
"I was talking to George while he was finishing the gasifier train, Fred. He knows a bit about boars. He said they are most active at dawn and dusk. We're near dusk now. Maybe we'll be lucky. He also said hunting was best in early spring or fall."
"You said George was planning to go boar hunting?"
"Yeah, bucket list. He also said the boars had bad eyesight, but a good sense of smell. We should always stay downwind."
"Yeah, that's true with most animals and most hunting. Even people. I remember a few guys in Iraq that I could smell a couple hundred feet away."
"Theirs or ours?"
"Both, I'm afraid. Hard to find a good shower in the desert."
John shushed Fred with a finger to the mouth. He thought he heard something ahead, but with a few steps forward, they saw two birds fly away. Both sighed, disappointed.
"He also said we should watch under oak trees and look for uprooted grass. And, aim for the shoulder. If we hit it anywhere else, we'll have to chase it for another chance. They're fast. So, a chase won't be easy, fast or fun. On the other hand, he said a wounded animal will sometimes turn and charge."
Fred raised his eyebrows. "So the hunter becomes the hunted. Not looking forward to that. Those things are massive and look mean. You notice the teeth on that head hanging on the wall in the building? Wouldn't want those choppers in my leg."
"He also told me how to dress the animal. It turns out that a three hundred pound boar dresses down to only around fifty pounds of meat. In our case, we also have to extract the thyroid or we've wasted our time. I talked to Pierre and he thought we should just take back the whole head and neck. Maybe another hundred pounds."
"That also means that if we kill one, we head home quickly
to keep the meat from spoiling."
"Right, Fred. I hadn't thought of that. I was thinking of staying a few days to look around."
For the last few minutes of sunlight, they searched through the forest without finding anything, not even another bird. They went back to the camp and took separate rooms for the night as each was known for his snoring.
John awoke the next morning to gunfire. Three shots. He jumped up and ran into the living room. Fred was looking out the open front window with his rifle in his hand.
"What was it?"
"Some kind of pig. I think. I tried for a head shot, but that didn't work. It took off like a bat. Hard to believe how fast those things are. The second shot missed completely, but before he was out of range, I was lucky. The third hit him in the hindquarters. He ran off limping. Let's go find him, before he gets too far away."
Thirty minutes later, John and Fred found the boar. They fired a shot to the head to make sure the animal was dead. John put a rope around the hind legs and they dragged the carcass back to the camp. They strung it up on a tree and John followed George's instructions for removing the entrails and skinning, They cut off the head with a hacksaw, followed by the feet. All the meat, over fifty pounds, was put into plastic garbage bags and brought into the cabin for the night.
"Fred, you ever think about some of our habits and how wasteful they are?"
"You mean throwing away the organ meats and the skin?"
"No, I was thinking about these plastic bags. They may not deteriorate, but we will run out of them one day and we will not be able to find any more."
"So, we need to conserve plastic bags?"
"At least rinse these out and reuse them a second time."
The Weak Shall Die: Complete Collection (Four Volume Set) Page 64