Avenging Home

by Angery American

  Mary laughed. “No. it didn’t hurt his feelings. He said he was used to it. A big black man isn’t many people’s first choice for friends. But that’s what he liked about Morgan. He said from the first moment, Morgan didn’t see him as just a big black guy. He really likes Morgan.”

  “I know dad really likes him too. He’s talked about him before. And that’s kind of weird for Dad. He never had many friends. I mean, he knew a lot of people. A lot. But there were only a few he did things with. But if anyone ever asked for help, he would do what he could to help,” Lee Ann said.

  “He and Thad are alike in that. Thad would do anything for anyone here. After he got home to his wife and son, he was very happy. But bad things happened and he came here because he knew Morgan would look out for him. He said after he lost his family he wanted to come help Morgan protect his,” Mary said.

  Jess nodded. “On the road, all he talked about was his wife and son. It’s like he lived for them.” She looked at Lee Ann. “Just like your dad. All he thought about was you guys.”

  Lee Ann was thinking about what Jess said. She was mulling her perception of her father over in her mind. In the Before, he was the guy that laid down the rules that she thought were draconian and stupid. But looking back to that time, she now realized he was only trying to protect her. To instill values and responsibility in her. She was going to have to remind herself to let him know just how much she appreciated what he’d done for her.

  The girls went into the house and started going through the cabinets. It took several hours for them to go through all the houses in the neighborhood. They thoroughly searched the kitchens of every house. While they were there, they also looked around to see if there was anything else they could use. In the garage of one house, Fred and Jamie found four cases of quart Mason jars. These were a fantastic score that the girls carried out to the road and stacked up to be retrieved later.

  On the last street, the girls met in the road between the last two houses. The baskets were full to overflowing. They’d found so many spices and the like, that they were also packed into pillowcases. Lee Ann dropped a heavy pillow case onto the road. “How many cans of baking powder did you guys find?”

  Fred laughed. “Oh my God. I think every kitchen had at least one, but usually two or three!”

  “I know! What in the world do you use it for?”

  Mary laughed. “For baking silly.”

  Lee Ann laughed. “Well duh. But what’s it for?”

  “It’s for leavening batter. Miss Kay will be pretty happy to have it for sure,” Jamie said.

  Fred pointed to the now even larger pile of canning supplies. “She’s really going to be happy about the jars. Can you believe how many we found?”

  “We need to get one of the buggies over here and load it all up. There’s just too much to carry,” Jess said.

  “I’ll go get one,” Jamie said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Lee Ann said and ran to catch up to her.

  “We’ll be here when you get back,” Fred said.

  At the armory we found Mike and Ted and loaded up. Sarge didn’t like being at the armory and wanted to get out of town as fast as possible. Not that there was much worry about anyone wanting him to stick around. As I was pulling out of the parking lot, Livingston walked up and asked, “How’d it go?”

  “Let’s just say he wasn’t the right candidate,” I replied.

  Sarge leaned forward and added, “You better keep an eye on Porky. I have a feeling he’s going to be nothing but trouble.”

  “We haven’t had any trouble out of them. They came into town a few days ago and haven’t bothered anyone,” Livingston said.

  “Our talk didn’t go well. So bad in fact we took their weapons from them. Shane has them at the PD. They can have them back in a few days after they cool off,” I said.

  Livingston looked surprised. “What? Why’d you take them?”

  “Ole Porky thinks he’s king shit on turd island. And those idjits with him treat him like some kind of royalty.” Sarge wagged his finger at Livingston. “Mark my words, he’s going to be trouble for you.”

  Livingston let us know he thought we were wrong about Hyatt. I told him the man was his problem for now and made it clear to him that there was no way in hell he’d be made the judge around here. With that, I pulled away. It was time to get the hell out of town. As I drove up Bay Street, I noticed the dock along the lake was crowded with people. Some were obviously fishing while others were very obviously doing nothing.

  “You know all those people lounging around out there could be out at the farm,” I said.

  Sarge snorted. “If they want to eat, they’ll have to work for it.”

  “Bunch of lazy asses out there,” Mike said.

  “Mmm, yes. ne’er do wells,” Dalton said.

  As we passed the barricade, Sarge said to stop by the farm. He had something for Cecil. When we stopped, I was surprised with the activity. There were people all over the field and they certainly looked busy. Maybe we’d get some crops this year after all. Sarge spotted Cecil and called out to him, waving him over to the truck. Mike, Dalton and Ted wandered off to check out the camp the Guard set up.

  Cecil wiped his forehead as he walked up. His hands were filthy from working in the dirt all day. “How you fellers doing?” He asked.

  “Fit as a fiddle,” Sarge replied. He looked around and leaned in close to Cecil. Sliding a plastic bag across the hood of the truck, he said, “Here, got a little something for you.”

  Cecil eyed the bag. “What is it?”

  Leaning in as though he were confiding a secret he didn’t want anyone to hear, Sarge replied, “Meat. Brought you some pork and some of that bear.”

  A broad smile spread across Cecil’s face. “Don’t that beat all. I appreciate it, Linus. I get plenty of fish here in town, but red meat and especially pork is pert near nonexistent.”

  “This should hold you over a couple of days,” Sarge said. Then he asked, “You got a way to keep it cool?”

  Cecil shook his head. “Naw. But I got a smoke box. I’ll put it in there. That’ll keep it from going bad, not to mention, flavor it up real nice.”

  “You could dry that bear meat out Cecil. I wouldn’t do it with the pork, but that bear you could just air dry,” I said.

  Cecil picked up the bag and felt its weight. Smiling, he said, “It won’t last that long, Morgan. I’ll eat this up pretty quick. I’ve had a taste for some red meat for a while now, so I know I won’t be able to ration it none.”

  “We’ll get you some more down here. Kay also made some sausage. I’ll get you some of that too,” Sarge said.

  “That’d be fine. Be real fine.”

  Sarge leaned back, resting his elbows on the hood of the truck, and looked out across the field. “It’s looking good out there, Cecil. How’s your help doing?”

  Cecil mimicked Sarge as he rested against the truck. “You know, Linus. I really expected there to be a thin turnout. But look at all of ‘em. And everyone’s working hard, no fussin’. Everyone gets along and just fell in line. It’s nice to see people working together like this.”

  “It’s for everyone’s good. It ain’t like before. You gotta earn your groceries now. You gotta grow it, find it or hunt it down and kill it.”

  “I got high hopes for this patch of dirt.” Cecil pointed out into the field. “You notice anything about this crowd?”

  Sarge looked the people over. After a moment, he shook his head and said, “No. I see everyone working. Looks like they’re all getting after it.”

  Cecil looked at Sarge. “Come on Top.” Nodding out to the field again he said, “What’s the youngest person you see out there?”

  “There ain’t no young people out there. I see what you mean. This is an older lot
out here working today,” Sarge said.

  “Remember all those people we saw along the lake?” I asked.

  Sarge nodded. “Yeah, there’s a bunch of them in town lying around on their asses,” Sarge said.

  Cecil let out a long breath. “It’s sad you can’t get people to understand that these crops aren’t just going to grow themselves.”

  I laughed. “Well, you know they kind of are.”

  Cecil chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

  Sarge was more to the point when he looked over at me. “Smartass.”

  Laughing, I replied, “Whatever, kettle.”

  The guys returned from their inspection of the camp. Sarge asked them what they thought.

  “They’ve got a pretty good set up. Hell, I’d rather be here than at the damn armory,” Ted said.

  “Me too. Anywhere but there,” Mike said.

  I looked out across the field. I was wondering where the chain gang was, and spotted them on the far end. Nodding towards them, I asked Cecil, “How’s the chain gang doing?”

  “Oh hell, they ain’t happy. But they’re working,” he replied.

  “Looks like they don’t have much choice to me,” Dalton said.

  Sarge snorted. “That’s kinda the point.”

  “They got to tussling this morning first thing when two of them found out they was chained up to the old boy that set that bomb. But them guards jerked a knot in their asses quick. Since then, they’ve been quiet,” Cecil said.

  “I was wondering how that would go with the other two,” Sarge said.

  “That guy, Dave ain’t got no room to talk. Hell, he killed his girlfriend,” I said.

  “There’s a difference though. If he were in prison, he’d have to be segregated or the other inmates would wear his ass out,” Sarge said.

  Mike laughed. “Yeah, wear it out literally!”

  Cecil asked, “How long you going to keep them on that chain? And what do you plan to do with them?”

  Shaking my head, I replied, “I don’t know.”

  “Shwack em’!” Ted shouted.

  “That’s your answer to everything,” Sarge barked.

  “It’s the easy answer for sure. And that’s probably what it’s going to come down to. But while that will offer the families of the victims some vengeance, I figure making them work for the benefit of the community for a while has a better return,” I said.

  Sarge snorted. “You ain’t turning into a damn bleeding heart liberal, are you?”

  “What?” I shouted. “Kiss my ass! Dying is easy. But making these bastards work hard every day and getting something out of them before they become fertilizer, just makes sense. It’s not like they’re sitting around in the air conditioning and bitching about the quality of the food.”

  Sarge laughed. “Just checking. I can’t have you getting all soft on me.”

  “I think making them work is a good thing. You’ve got a real nice visual deterrent for everyone in town. I think they should have to walk through town like that. Hell, there’s got to be something in town they could do so everyone sees them,” Dalton said.

  “I’ve got those little garden plots around town. I could put them to work there,” Cecil said.

  Sarge nodded. “That’s a good idea. That way they don’t have to be transported out here every day and the folks in town can see them. They’ll understand that if they fuck up they’ll find themselves on the end of that chain.”

  “There’s already folks guarding those gardens, so it wouldn’t require any additional security. I think I’ll talk to the Captain tonight and get that set up,” Cecil said.

  “Sounds like it’s a done deal,” I said.

  Sarge slapped the hood of the truck. “My work here is done! Let’s get on the road.”

  “What work? You didn’t do shit,” Mike said.

  Sarge shook his head. “You wanna walk home?”

  Ted laughed. “You know he’ll do it! Again!”

  Mike ran around the truck and climbed in. “Not this time!”

  We mounted up and headed back towards home. I pulled into the plant on the way to check on the progress. One of the guardsmen providing security at the plant waved as we pulled in. Terry and Baker were buried up to their waists in a switchgear when we walked up. The sound of a ratchet banging against metal reverberated inside the small space. I stuck my head in and looked over Terry’s shoulder. “What’s up?” I asked with a smile.

  Terry looked over his shoulder. His face was grime-covered and he was sweating. “Oh yeah. Here he is. Work on a power plant, he said. It’ll be fun, he said.”

  Smiling, I replied, “Never said it would be easy.”

  Terry and Baker extricated themselves from the cabinet and looked at me. Baker brushed hair from her eyes. “This is some BS, Morgan.”

  “You going to let this beat you already?”

  “This is going to take way more time than I first thought,” Scott said as he walked up.

  “What? You think you were just going to walk up to this thing and flip a switch and it’d take off and start shitting electricity?” Sarge barked.

  Baker tossed a wrench into a tool bag at her feet. “We were hoping it would go something like that.”

  Sarge guffawed. “Shit, if it was that easy, Morgan here could have done it!”

  Scott wiped his hands on a rag. “This isn’t going to happen any time soon. We’re going to have to go through this thing from top to bottom. It looks as though this thing has been sitting for a long time.”

  “Well no shit, Sherlock. Everything’s been sitting for a while,” Sarge fired back.

  Scott snorted. “No. I mean way before that. This heap of shit has been idle for a long, long time.”

  I shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter how long it takes. This is the only chance we have for power. If it works, that’s awesome. If it doesn’t, all we lost was time; and we have plenty of that.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Terry said. Pointing at the plant, he added, “You’re not the one crawling around inside this heap of crap.”

  Sarge snorted. “What else you got to be doing?” Eric walked up and Sarge looked at him. “Where the hell have you been, Beech Nut?”

  Eric paused and looked around, unsure. “Uh.” He pointed with the wrench in his hand over his shoulder. “I was connecting the leads to the generator.” Sarge didn’t say anything. He stared back at the kid. Eric’s eyes darted around, looking for some sort of indication of whether or not he was or wasn’t doing something he was supposed to be. After a moment, he said, “I’m going to check the torque on all the bolts.”

  With a stern expression, Sarge replied, “You do that.”

  Giving the old man a quick double take, Eric did an about-face and disappeared. Sarge started to laugh and Scott said, “You shouldn’t be so hard on that kid. He’s scared shitless of you.”

  I was laughing and said, “He does have some amazing people skills.”

  Baker rolled her eyes. “Boys.”

  A low thumping sound began to fill the air. We all started looking around, craning our necks to search the skies for the source. After a moment, Mike called out, “Choppers to the southwest!”

  Chapter 9

  We all spun around and looked to see two Blackhawks and two Apache gunships flying low and fast. They made a wide orbit around Eustis. After circling a second time, one of the Blackhawks dropped out of formation. The other ships continued to circle.

  “Let’s get back to town!” Sarge barked as he started to run towards the truck.

  “What the hell?” Terry asked, looking up at one of the Apaches.

  Sarge shaded his eyes with his hand and said, “Something is up if they’re flying in here.” Looking at me, he shouted, �
��Come one Morgan!”

  Running towards the truck, I said, “Who the hell is it?”

  “Gotta be someone with some serious brass in his ass to be out like that,” Sarge shouted back.

  I ran to the truck and jumped in as Mike piled in behind me. He was slapping the back of my seat shouting, “Go, go, go!”

  As we were passing through the barricade into town, one of the Blackhawks made a low fast pass down Bay Street.

  Ted had his head stuck out the window looking up. Pulling it back in, he said, “This should be interesting.”

  Mike slumped back into his seat and moaned. “Man, I miss the good old days of moving in a helicopter. The way a man should ride into battle.”

  “Oh dry up!” Sarge shouted.

  The Blackhawk that made the low pass was landing in the parking lot on the east side of Bay Street. Turning down one of the cross streets, I headed for it. People were coming out to see what was going on. The sound of the machine was getting everyone’s attention. The helicopters continued landing until all four were on the ground.

  As I pulled into the parking lot, Mike said, “What the hell are they all doing on the ground?”

  Ted craned his head to look out the window again. “That’s some fucked-up SOP right there.”

  The first Blackhawk to land, killed its engines. As the blades started to spin down, a man climbed out of the back. I recognized him instantly and wondered what was going on to bring General Fawcett out here. Stopping the truck, Sarge was quickly out and heading to meet him.

  “General!” Sarge said as he offered his hand.

  Mike and Ted were leaning against the truck. Mike snickered and said, “Suck ass. He sucks any harder, his damn eyes will cross.”

  Ted combed his beard and replied, “Be nice or I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “Good to see you, Top,” Fawcett replied as he shook Sarge’s hand.