With Savanah well behind them, the sense that he was abandoning Jayce in some way––albeit with her blessing––when she needed him most, began to diminish, and he felt he could look forward with some hope to being reunited with his family.
He had no real idea if that fantasy would ever come true, but believing in it at least made him feel they were traveling in the right direction.
“I do believe we’ll find Tally again,” Poppet said as they made their way along another deserted road. Neither of them had spoken for the last couple of miles. They were both still coming to terms with the consequences of everything that had happened to them since Barnard’s Star had spread its spectacular internal and external influence over the people and technology of the Earth. Getting heads around that took a lot of processing. And as Poppet hadn’t spoken of Tally or indeed her own family to Josh since they’d gotten back to U.S. soil, it seemed out of place—a real non sequitur, as Maxine would have said. In all reality, it sounded like Poppet was trying to convince herself more than give succor to Josh. Josh eyed Poppet in her saddle. Her brows were tight, and she was sitting stiffly.
“Are you okay?”
Poppet snorted. “Oh, Josh, I am far from okay. But finding Tally and the others is something that makes this whole thing bearable. Losing Joey on that damned boat, coming back home to this nightmare, and suffering like I did coming off the sauce has been the very worst time of my life. Navigating all that is something I wouldn’t have planned to do, even if at the end it made me a better person. But helping you find Tally…. That’s a good thing to try to do in all this badness. I figure I owe you that, and I believe we will find her.”
“After we make it to the M-Bar, do you want me to come with you to New York? Find your family?”
Poppet smiled weakly. “There’s nothing and no one waiting for me in New York, you sweet, crazy man. When you marry someone like Joey Langolini, you leave all of your real life, and the people in it, behind. My parents are dead, my friends are long gone, and…”
“Your children?”
“Joey and I couldn’t have kids. That’s why we behaved like them. Holidays, parties, lavish and obscene spending—I dunno if you know, Mr. Ex-Policeman—but there’s an awful lot of money to be made from the vices of others. Sex. Gambling. Drugs. I’m not proud of what I got mixed up in with the mob, Josh, and in another time, another world, people like you would have eventually tracked my Joey down and put him away for a million years.”
“I guess…”
“The funny thing is, the trip on that liner was to be our farewell to the life. One last luxury extravagance before fading into the background, unhooking from the crime and the killing, and just living our lives. Sure, Joey would probably have still wanted a gold toilet, but hey, some treasures it’s hard to let go of. And the irony is, he was okay with it. He was okay with the idea of a quiet retirement somewhere nice, away from the hustle… and look what happened.”
Poppet was looking up at the sky now. Through the clouds, up to where maybe the smudge of the new Barnard’s Star might be tonight when the sun went down. “Never make plans, Josh. Never live outside the moment, and make sure you live that moment to the very edge, because life really does pull the rug from underneath you at the most unexpected moments.”
Josh didn’t answer. There was nothing he could say to argue because, right now, Poppet was right.
Maybe when Storm, Tally, and Maxine were in his arms again, he would feel differently.
But not right now.
They made camp in a secluded picnic area off the highway. Josh pitched the tent while Poppet saw to the horses, taking them down to the stream to drink.
Josh cooked up some coffee, and they ate soup cold from cans—both because it was quicker and because they were both half-starved. Josh had never been much of a hunter, but he’d taken a selection of weapons from Ballantine’s and Jayce’s store that might make the process of shooting something to eat a little easier, but for now the cans would do. The chicken soup was rich and filling anyway.
They could see down into a shallow valley, where a ranch was situated at the intersection of two dirt roads. The land around it looked a little dry, and the grass in the pastures was taking on the brownish tinge of hay. No one had watered the land of the farm for some time now, and as Josh looked down the half mile of slope, he saw a solitary goat walking around on its own, chewing on the grass and minding its own business.
There was no activity from the ranch house… no smoke from the chimney and no one who he could see moving about in the yard outside. Of course, that didn’t mean there was no one down there, but a goat was not a prize it would be easy to give up. He’d never shot anything that big before—other than a human, that is—and the sense of it being something he was going to have to get around to sooner or later in this new nightmare existence propelled him down the slope, after calling to Poppet to tell her what he was up to. He carried his Remington Model 700, firing .308 Winchester magnum cartridges. He’d been assured by the reading matter that came with the new gun and its ammunition that it would happily drop a deer. So, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to deal with one goat.
Josh decided to check over the ranch house for signs of habitation before he stole the owner’s goat, and found the place to be in a considerable state of disarray. As he approached, he could see that the windows at the front of the property were broken, the drapes behind them fluttering in the breeze. He could hear nothing as he came into the yard. There was a barn with the door hanging open. Inside, there was an ancient beige Chrysler sedan resting on bricks which looked like it hadn’t seen service since Nixon had been President. There was a bunch of rusted farm machinery that had seen better days, and a line had been strung across the yard from which shirts and jeans were hung as if just put out to dry. But when Josh felt the material, it was stiff and wind-dried. The clothes had been there for a long time.
A pile of rusting car parts inhabited another corner of the yard, there were oil drums on their side, and a telegraph pole leaned sideways like the Tower of Pisa, no phone or electricity lines attached. The yard had a bleakness of not so much abandonment as that of a life lived by trying to scratch a living out of the dirt.
It had been poor people who’d lived there, whoever they’d been. They’d had very little, and it showed.
Inside, the ranch house was dark and gloomily furnished. Threadbare carpets, stained walls, and furniture a thrift store would have turned away. Josh called out several times, but got no answer. There did come a rustle of rats from beneath the floorboards as he moved about, and the drapes moved lazily in the wind.
Josh found the note before he found the body. It was dated the day of the supernova, and it was brief and written by a man who’d had just one more tether to get to the end of. Charles Grover Pattison had not been an educated man, but in broken English, he’d said his goodbyes to the world before the world had said goodbye to everyone else. The banks were foreclosing on his mortgage, the farm was going to be taken away, and he would be turned out of it with nowhere to go, and so he had decided that he would end it all there and then, before the bank sent the men to take his stuff and board up his windows.
The irony was that no one had ever come to take the farm away from Charles Grover Pattison. The world had ended just after he’d thrown a rope over a bannister and taken himself away from the humiliation, the pain, and the injustices as he saw them.
Poppet may have had a point about not making plans and living in the moment, but here Josh had found the body of a man who had been overtaken by the moment and unable to see beyond it. There was no way this man could have predicted what was going to happen the night after he took his own life, but if he’d looked beyond the moment of despair, it might have stayed his hand just long enough for the world to end and for there to be no banks or bailiffs or mortgages to be foreclosed on. The thing that had killed the world for everyone else may have saved the life of this dirt-poor man who’d had the
weight of a dozen worlds on his shoulders. Josh didn’t know if he was making sense even to himself, thinking all this, but now he knew that he had the basis of an argument to counter Poppet’s largely pessimistic one.
Make plans. And carry them through because you don’t know what’s coming around the next bend.
Josh cut the body down, found a shovel, and buried the body in the pasture with a view down the valley where there was a southern aspect that would keep it bright all day.
And then he left the farm to make his way back up to the tent, the horses, and Poppet.
He left the goat to the pasture. It would do fine there, tidily nibbling the grass around the grave of Charles Grover Pattison.
23
They got Storm into his bed, and thankfully Maria just followed them around the house, not straying out of the sight of either Donald or Maxine.
Storm woke sporadically. A thermometer said his temperature was just over one hundred degrees, and as the pain came in waves, he vomited copiously over the side of the bed into a bowl Maxine held for him.
Maxine’s examination revealed a swollen and tender belly on the right side above the pelvis.
“What do you think it is?” Donald asked. The quaver in his voice told Maxine what she could hear him loudly not saying. “Is it the cancer?”
“I can’t be sure, but all the symptoms are pointing me right now towards appendicitis.”
Donald thumped down in a chair, and Maria put a hand on his shoulder and patted it, saying “Donald.”
Storm writhed, but managed to say, “I think the pain isn’t getting any worse… I—” But before he could continue, he again vomited noisily into the bowl.
Maxine went to the bathroom, emptied the bowl, and came back into the room, thoughts racing through her head. If Storm didn’t have bad luck, he’d not have any luck at all. When was the universe going to cut him a break?
“Appendicitis is a medical emergency. If the pain subsides and the swelling goes down, it just might be a grumbling appendix, but that will still need attention—if it doesn’t burst and cause full-scale peritonitis.”
Donald puffed out his cheeks and squeezed his wife’s hand. “Nearest hospital was in Lewisburg, and that’s not going to be working at any level now. Not with everything else going on.”
“I’ll have to go to Pickford, see if I can get anywhere with Creggan.” Maxine ran her hand through her hair. This would certainly bring more of Creggan’s cronies to the M-Bar, and the chances of keeping Maria hidden from them, without Storm to help, were significantly reduced. It was a wholly desperate situation. In some ways, Maxine was glad her previous insistence to her father–– namely, on staying here at the M-Bar––had become untenable, now it had been superseded by Storm’s illness. It would have been a million times worse if they had already been on the road with Storm in agony. How they would have coped out in the open, unable to move on, and at the mercy of anyone of Creggan’s ilk who might come across them, did not hold up under any kind of scrutiny. It was best they were at the ranch, and she felt a pang of guilt for even suggesting moving out to her father.
“Wait!” Donald suddenly slapped his hand down on the top of his thigh. The sound startled Maria, who took a step back and mouthed his name a couple of times before Maxine took her by the hand and sat her down in a chair, making appropriately soothing noises. Donald waited until Maxine had settled her mother before continuing.
“I don’t know why I didn’t mention it already. How about Lawrence Banks?”
Maxine drew a blank as she wracked her brain. “I don’t know him.”
“Doctor… an old geezer. He retired fifteen years ago, by my reckoning. Last time I saw him in town, about two years ago, he was getting ready to move to a place he had in the mountains about sixty miles from here. On the way out to Cumberland. You’d have passed it on the way here. You said you’d been into Cumberland.”
Yes, she had. And had almost gotten herself executed there by a rogue general and his kill-happy lieutenant. They’d been holed up in a hospital of all places, stockpiling drugs and whatever else they could loot. Maxine had gone there to see if she could get antibiotics and painkillers to help alleviate the side effects from Storm’s chemotherapy. She’d gotten away from there with the drugs they’d needed, but had very nearly been taken out and shot for looting. The highways they’d taken from Cumberland into West Virginia had taken them through the Monongahela National Forest and through the Blue Ridge Mountains to the M-Bar, which sat here nestled beyond the foothills of Alleghany Mountain on the outskirts of Pickford. The road back that way would take her at least three days in the carriage, with no guarantee that Lawrence Banks would be there anyway. Pickford was still the best bet, even with the risk of her mother’s discovery—especially since the idea of going anywhere near Cumberland again didn’t fill her with any enthusiasm.
“Hold on. When I saw him in town that last time, he gave me his address and said if I was ever in the vicinity I was to drop in and have a beer.” Donald got up and told Maxine to follow him downstairs into the kitchen. Storm was rested and no longer screwed up with pain. The appendix was indeed beginning to behave itself again, and so Maxine followed her father out. Maria followed behind them, repeating her favorite word under her breath.
Back in the kitchen, Donald opened a drawer below the counter and rifled around inside it. “Darn it…” The next drawer provided the same result, but with the third, he began moving papers and then, with a yell of triumph, he pulled a postcard from the depths of the drawer like a happy fisherman landing a prize trout. “Here it is.” He handed the postcard to Maxine. “There. His address. Lawrence Banks. I’ll leave right now.”
“Dad. Wait. Stop. It’s three days away. That’s nearly a week’s trip!”
Donald shook his head. “No, that’s if you take the I-250 and go slower than a snail on valium. But if I go via Route 51, onto Route 28, I reckon I can make it there in two days. Have Lawrence back here by Friday. Maybe even Thursday night.”
“No, you need to stay here and keep the farm running to all intents and purposes in case anyone shows up to snoop. I wouldn’t know the first thing to tell anyone, and we’d be busted straight away. Show me the route on the map,” Maxine told him. “I’ll take the buggy and Tally-Two. One horse isn’t going to bring you and Lawrence back. And I’m good with the buggy. I got us all the way here, didn’t I?”
Donald looked crestfallen, but nodded his agreement with Maxine’s logic. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. But I’d still get there quicker. I can still ride hard and leave no shadow.”
Maxine kissed his cheek and went out to hook up Tally-Two to the buggy. If she could really get to Lawrence Banks in two days and he was there to be found, then if Storm’s appendicitis held out until the weekend without bursting, there was a good chance they might be able to get through this. She had no idea where the doctor would perform his operation, or how they would keep the area sterile, but those would be problems for later. Packing enough food for five days, plus a pistol and a shotgun with ammo for both, and leaving instructions for Donald on how and when to give antibiotics and painkillers to Storm, she reined in Tally-Two and took the road away from the M-Bar towards the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The route she took, the one indicated by Donald as the fastest to the mountain home of Doctor Lawrence Banks, would take her northeast from the M-Bar and along well-maintained forestry roads that stayed away from the towns and any chances of running into Creggan’s men.
Tally, Henry, and Greene walked the road which would eventually lead them to the M-Bar Ranch even as Maxine headed away from it.
They’d had to go further north than they would have liked in order to avoid routes that would have taken them through large cities, but they entered the Monongahela National Forest continuing to make good progress. In the days that had come and gone since the gas station attack, and Tally’s drop into the sinkhole, an uneasy truce had existed been Tally, Henry, and Greene.
> Tally had found Henry in the forest first. He’d led the attackers away, gotten behind them, and killed four of the six people who’d followed them into the trees. Once he’d accomplished that, he’d tracked back up the slope, found the sinkhole, and then tracked Tally through the brush––which he’d said had been easy because: Let’s face it, you don’t exactly travel through the forest like a Ninja––and he’d caught up with her half an hour later. Tally had been relieved to see Henry coming through the trees and had hugged him tight before telling him what had happened to her. The shock and the euphoria of the fall and then the free-climb out of the hole had dissipated, and all she’d been left with was a white-hot wire of anger sizzling through her thoughts.
She’d been all for leaving Greene to fend for himself and just cutting their losses. Henry had been more pragmatic. Those losses would include a third of their gear and a substantial amount of their ammunition. It was worth finding out what had happened to Greene if for no other reason than to recover their stuff.
They’d found him an hour later, when Henry had picked up his trail near the road, and they’d followed it back down through the trees until they’d discovered him up one.
He’d been twenty feet up in the air with one of the attackers throwing rocks at him in an attempt to get him down from the tree. The attacker had been a large fat woman whose eyes blazed with a deep and unknowable hatred. There’d been blood and spittle around her chops, and her mouth had hissed like a cornered snake. Too hefty and unskilled to climb the tree, she’d still been determined to dislodge Greene; and it had looked like she felt ready to tear off his limbs and wear them as a necklace.
Henry had shot her. She’d been so focused on Greene that she hadn’t even noticed him approaching from behind. She’d gone down with a thud, and Tally had been disconcerted to see the smile that had grown on her dying lips as she fell.
Supernova EMP Series (Book 2): Deep End Page 20