“Coffee will be ready in a minute, Dad.”
Gordy sat at the table with Calvin and Rick, watching his son and Becca work together to make breakfast. He was pleased that they had both taken to each other so well, but he often prayed that his son could avoid heartbreak.
“So what do you want to discuss that it couldn’t wait until a normal time, Pops.”
“Don’t call me ‘Pops’ Cal, I can still whip your ass,” Gordy said, smiling at his son.
“Ha, maybe we’ll have to see about that later. Stage us a wrestling match out on the ball diamond.”
Rick laughed loudly. “Now that’s something I’d pay to see.”
“Anyone else plan on coming down, or did everyone go back to bed?”
“Mike said he was coming down. He probably went to see if he could get Jimmy to join us.”
“Thanks Rick. Let’s wait a few minutes, give others a little bit before we jump in.”
They sat there waiting, enjoying hot cups of coffee, and idle chatter. Several minutes later Mike and Lisa came through the front door, with a tired looking Jimmy following close behind.
“Tam and Trish are staying with the kids,” Mike told everyone.
Shortly after they sat down with coffee and steaming bowls of oatmeal with hand-made maple syrup and a dash of sugar, Jan and Lynn came in. Gordy waited for them to get drinks and food before he started talking.
“We’ve had a lot of changes lately,” he said, looking around at the faces gathered in the cozy kitchen. “We’ve added several new people to the group, and we have met some difficulty because of it, but we are still together and as strong as ever. Before I go any further, I want to say, Jimmy we love you, and you’re family. Whatever you’re fighting with, you don’t have to do it alone. Talk to us; let us be there for you like you’ve been for many of us.”
Jimmy lifted his head from gazing into his oatmeal, straight into Gordy’s eyes. Gordy couldn’t tell if it was lack of sleep that gave Jimmy’s eyes a glassy sheen or if tears were waiting to fall. Jimmy nodded to Gordy, both to say thank you and telling him to carry on.
“Continuing work on the wall is important, because having the Camp as a place of safety to fall back on for everyone is paramount. But I want everyone to consider that we are building more than just that here.
“We are becoming a community, and we’ll soon outgrow the Camp. Saverton has been cleared out, and we know that there are a lot of homes down there available for use. The biggest problem is keeping everything secure in such a spread out area.
“I think we should consider closing off the only outside access road to Saverton, which is Highway E off Highway 79. If we block that off somehow, just this side of the Woodland Groves turnoff, then we can limit entrance into the town itself.”
Gordy paused to take a sip of lukewarm coffee as well as to let the others consider what he was saying. Alex walked through the front door just as Gordy was setting his coffee cup down.
“I miss anything important?”
Gordy refreshed his coffee and poured a cup for Alex as the others filled him in.
Alex nodded at Gordy as he took the steaming mug of brew, and asked, “What about the length of Highway E that extends around past the dam.”
“That part of the road ends right there in the Thompson Conservation area. Since it doesn’t connect to anything else I think we could just gate it off, preventing anyone that might come up the river and in to town on foot from just walking in.”
“But we can’t just put up a gate at the other end,” Rick offered. “Anyone could smash a sturdy vehicle through it.”
“I’m hoping you guys might have some opinions on how to solve that,” Gordy told him.
“Obviously we would have to dig up the road,” Dean thought out loud, “but that makes it impossible for us to use the road as well.”
“Maybe some sort of drawbridge over the gap?”
“Not a bad idea, Lynn,” Mike said, “but that’s going to take some engineering to do.” Looking to Gordy he said, “If you want this done pretty quickly, which I assume you do, a drawbridge might take too long to build.”
Gordy nodded, taking in their suggestions. “I like the idea, but what would be a faster way to implement it?”
Simultaneously Alex and Jimmy said, “Cattle guards.”
Everyone burst out into laughter, though Jimmy’s was more subdued than the rest.
“How would we use cattle guards?” Lisa asked.
“Well, what I was thinking,” Alex began, “and maybe Jimmy is too, is that we cut a deep trench across the road, maybe five or six feet deep, sixteen feet long, and about six feet wide. Then you set cattle guards down in the top of the hole, mounting them on something so they sit flush with the road.
Then we set up a pulley system, which will be fairly easy, that would either lift it straight up and suspend it there above the hole, or make it so that the cattle guards, when lifted, make a sort of wall or gate as well, standing straight up on the long edge on our side of the trench.”
“Pretty much exactly what I was thinking,” Jimmy told Alex.
“That would take a lot of back-work, since we don’t have excavating equipment,” Calvin said.
“Uh, I hate to sound stupid, but what is a cattle guard?” Lynn asked.
“A cattle guard is just a bunch of metal, usually tubes, welded on a frame. They have wide gaps between the pipes, about six inches. Cows won’t walk across them, so farmers use them so they can have an open gate without worrying about livestock walking off.”
“Jimmy’s right, Lynn. On the rare occasion that a cow does walk across them their hooves slip through, breaking their legs. Doesn’t happen often, but it can happen.”
“Thanks Jimmy, Alex, and thanks for not laughing at me,” she said, smiling.
“Ok, I think we need to look into that, and soon,” Gordy told the group. “Once we’re ready to start on that we can stop work on the wall until it’s done. I really think we should have all hands on it, and get it finished as quickly as possible. Now on to the other subject I wanted to talk about.”
“You really like to hear yourself talk, don’t you, Gordy?”
Everyone laughed at Mike’s jab, though a few others would admit to themselves that they were thinking the same thing.
Gordy grinned hugely and said, “I do when I want to hear intelligent conversation, Mikey.”
Shouts of “Oh Damn!” and “Burn!” resounded through the bunch, which everyone took as intermission for the conversation. A fresh pot of coffee was put on, and the oatmeal pot was scraped clean. People stepped outside to relieve themselves, or get a breath of cool morning air.
Everyone gathered in the spacious living room and Gordy continued.
“As I was saying, before being so rudely interrupted by the peanut gallery,” he said with a smile, “there is something else we need to consider.
“We need to decide if we want to completely isolate ourselves from everyone, and just continue surviving and living here as our own little group, or do we want to reach out to the world around us.
“Since everything began we’ve focused on just surviving, and now we know we can do that. But what about others out there, people who don’t have the resources or ability that we have? Do we just let others die, or should we begin looking for more survivors? This is something that has really been weighing on me.
“We have our cozy little pocket of the American heartland here, and we are working our asses off to make it a safe little pocket. But does it mean anything if we neglect to help others survive as well?”
“Why should we go out there and risk getting eaten by a damn gut-sucker for people we don’t know? It’s their job to survive, just like it was ours.”
Gordy and Jan both looked at their son, surprised to hear him say something so callous. “I would’ve never expected you to think that way, Dean.”
“Oh, I don’t, Mom, I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. Whether or not peop
le are going to say it is one thing, but I’m sure some of us were thinking it.”
“And it’s a valid point,” Rick said. “Most of us here prepared for years for something to happen, and it paid off for us. We have knowledge and skills, as well as the means to implement them. Do we risk our lives to help people who have so far just been lucky?”
“Ok, I see what you guys are getting at here, and I agree that’s one point to look at. But can we really afford to think that way? There is strength in numbers, and safety among friends.”
“True, Gordy, but there are also those human monsters out there that we talked about.”
“I know Jimmy, but I don’t believe we can shut ourselves off from the world because of those types of people. But we will have to put in place strict rules to deal with them, that’s for certain.”
“So, we go out into the wide world of Zoms, and bring back other people? We build ourselves a nice solid community of farmers and fisherman and quilt makers, then what?”
“If you want to look that far ahead, Becca, then I would say we work on pushing back against the zombies that outnumber living people. Maybe we put together crews whose sole purpose is to hunt and kill them, and take back the smaller communities.”
“That’s all good and fine Gordy, but it’s going be more than just zombies we face off against and you know that,” Rick said. “Hell we had more problems with the human element than we did with the zombies right after everything happened.”
“You’re right, and I do realize that. That’s the other reason I wanted to talk about this. There are some pretty bad folks out there that will take advantage of others if given the opportunity and we need to be prepared to deal with that.”
“Sun’s coming up,” Rebecca said.
“I think that’s our cue to get to work for the day. Everyone take time to think about what we’ve discussed. Go over it with anyone who wasn’t here, let them know that we’ll be listening to everyone’s opinions.”
Chapter 28
“I know you wanted to put the bridge just past the Woodland Grove turnoff, but what if we put it just before that?”
“What are you thinking, Rick?” Gordy asked.
Rick stood in the middle of Highway E with Gordy, Mike, Jimmy and Alex, looking in the direction of Highway 79. The men had come out to survey the area and review the plans for the cattle guard drawbridge.
“Look down that way; you see where that driveway angles up to the house in the trees there? If we block the road there, maybe fell some trees or drop a semi-trailer there, then we can use this house,” Rick told them, pointing out the small white house that sat near the junction of Woodland Grove and Highway E. “That closes off the Grove road from E.”
“Use the house for what?” Mike asked.
“We have several people living in the house, and they take turns manning a small guard post we build right here beside the bridge.”
“Not a bad idea, Rick,” Alex offered. “You would have constant supervision of the most direct route into town.”
“Exactly, which is why I’m suggesting it.”
“Ok, sounds good to me, but what do we do about this field here? If we do this right here then they can just drive right around the bridge, which defeats the point of building it.”
“Well, Gordo, I think we trench across the field until we can build a wall along it,” Mike said.
Gordy shook his head, wondering how they would ever complete all the work they wanted to do without heavy equipment.
“Ok, I think it’ll work, but we need to start on it right away. You guys realize that this is going to take a ton of work to make it happen right?”
The other men knew, and let Gordy know they were willing to dig in and get it done.
“Alright then, let’s make this happen. Alex, take a couple of people with you and find us those cattle guards. We need to get some people with sledgehammers down here busting up the road, starting today. We can drive around the work, through the field, until we get it done, and then start working on the trench to block off the rest of the area.”
Alex took Garret and Calvin out in one of the pickups to find the cattle guards.
Mike and Jimmy assembled a pile of sledge hammers, a couple of large breaker bars, and several pick-axes, as well as various shovels. Both men dreaded the difficulty of the work, but looked forward to throwing themselves into something constructive.
Dean, Rebecca, and Rick joined them at the dig site, and together they marked off the area they were going to remove for the cattle guards.
Starting near the edge, they began breaking off pieces of the bituminous surface layer. Within several hours time, and by changing out workers, the group managed to pry loose and break up the topmost layer.
Once they reached the bituminous binder layer of the road everyone stopped to take a break for food and water. Rick stood staring at the cut up area of the pavement as he scooped unheated ravioli and sauce directly from the can.
“I don’t think we need to go as deep as six feet,” Rick said to Jimmy, who had just walked up beside him.
“I was wondering about that. If we go that deep it’ll take a lot more work to shore up the sides, and it would be kind of overkill really. Nothing will be able to drive over that gap once we get done, anyway.”
Rick nodded, “Yeah, kind of what I was thinking. I think we might dig this at an angle too, four feet at the deepest, on the guard side of the trench, angling up to the road. If someone is idiotic enough to try driving over it they’d end up nose down in there, and unable to back the vehicle out. But having that angle there will make it so we can easily pull whatever gets stuck down there out with one of the trucks.”
“Sounds good, Rick. Should make digging it out a little faster too.”
Both men turned at the sound of a horn coming from the direction of Highway 79. Alex was coming down the road, honking the horn twice, once, twice, the signal they had agreed on before he left that everything was ok as they returned.
The old pickup truck drove around the dig area and pulled up next to Rick and Jimmy on the grassy area beside the road.
“Looks like you found ‘em pretty easily,” Rick said, as Calvin, Garret and Alex climbed out of the vehicle.
“Yeah, I didn’t think they would be difficult to find,” Alex said. “This pair was actually sitting in a barn about four miles up the road, they’re almost new. I’d guess that whoever had them intended to replace the ones they had in use.”
“If you found them four miles away, why have you guys been gone for nearly three hours?” Jimmy asked.
“Well, we found something else,” Calvin told him.
Jimmy raised his eyebrows, looking from Calvin to Alex. “Well, what’d you find?”
“I’m not even sure if I can make it run, but we found an old Case 580 CK. It was probably used for digging out ponds, or burying utility runs, pulling old stumps, things like that.”
“Ok, a farm tractor, that’s cool,” Rick said.
“Not a farm tractor, a back-hoe and front loader.”
“Oh hell yes, we damn sure need that! What do you need to work on it?” Rick asked.
“I’ll get some tools from Dad’s old shop, take these two back out with me and tinker with it for a while, maybe get lucky.”
“Ok, that sounds good to me. Let’s get these unloaded and you can head back out. Did you guys clear the place before you started poking around?”
“No, didn’t think we needed to since we hadn’t planned on going in the house.”
“Before you go back out head up to the Camp and let Gordy know what’s going on. You should’ve had bite guards on. Get some and wear them.”
“Sure thing, Papa Rick,” Calvin said, smiling.
Cal, Alex, and Garret squeezed back into the truck and headed for the Camp. Rick and Jimmy tossed their food trash aside, picked up a shovel and pick-axe and joined the others at tearing up the rest of the road.
The work seemed to go a litt
le easier for everyone, as they shared the news of the back-hoe find. Much of the work that needed done around the Camp could be done much faster if they had heavy equipment. People said a silent prayer for Alex, hoping that he had the skills to get the old tractor running.
Chapter 29
Gordy had driven out to see Daniel Brenger, with Jimmy and Dean along for the ride, as soon as the drawbridge was completed. He spent a little time with the man, explaining what they were doing to make the tiny town of Saverton secure for everyone there.
The cattle man agreed to bring his livestock and move to the area, seeing that it was a mutually beneficial arrangement.
They took two days to transport all the cattle as well the personal belongings Daniel chose to bring with him.
Everyone agreed that the horse farm would be ideal for the purpose of protecting the livestock, and set Daniel up in the house.
Several crews worked long hours removing the carcasses of both zombies and horses. Fires burned for several days from burning all the bodies, filling the sky with dark black smoke.
Once Daniel was settled in, and the cattle were tended to, he jumped right in, helping out wherever he was needed and quickly making friends among the group.
Several people made another run to New London, Dean and Rebecca included, emptying out the feed store there. They took everything they could find, even if they had no use for it at the moment, such as goat or chicken feed.
Everyone spent the next week in the Camp, working on the wall, tending gardens, or going through all of the stuff they had brought back from the New London stores.
Everyone except Alex and his crew of two men, usually consisting of Garret and Calvin, though Louis went one day when Garret didn’t feel well, and Everett went just for the ride.
Alex gave a lot of his knuckle-skin to the tractor, but it was worth it when he came rolling up to the Camp late Thursday afternoon in the lumbering piece of equipment.
Calvin drove the truck slowly behind, honking the ‘all-clear’ signal as they approached the gate. Alex parked the mostly-rust colored tractor outside the Cambrey house, not wanting to take it up the graveled hill until the tires could be aired up.
American Revenant (Book 2): Settlers and Sorrow Page 16