Honor Road

by Jason Ross

  Morgan leaned forward onto his desk. “Who was leading them?”

  “We captured the guy. We’re going to want to keep him in a cage, or put a bullet in his head.” Mat described Mr. Loudmouth Leader’s coordination of the ambush and his use of a couple thousand rats as cover for his operation. Mat had spoken with the guy for a couple minutes after they reached McKenzie. His name was Jared, and he was definitely a problem.

  “The guy doesn’t have any formal training. Just big ideas,” Mat reported. “He’s smart enough, and he got people to follow him. We should interrogate him and see what he knows about leadership in the other camps. We’re totally blind when it comes to how they organize. I assumed they were nothing more than mobs. I don’t want to make the same mistake twice. I’ve got a job to finish and an organized enemy’s going to make it harder.”

  “Leave the interrogation to me,” Sheriff Morgan suggested. “Each man to his profession. I have a sixth sense for criminals—in my own, small town way.” That was okay with Mat. He’d never interrogated anyone.

  Jim Jensen spoke up. “The refugees want our food. They’d kill every last pig in an hour, given the chance. The meat would spoil and they’d be hungry again in a day. The guns they demanded at the ambush—they would’ve been for this guy, Jared, and his inner circle. That’s how tyrants work, historically.”

  There was a pause as the conversation reset. Jensen had stated the obvious and thrown in a bit about history; a willowy academic trying hard to be relevant in the presence of two men-of-action. Mat noted the irony; social posturing survived even when the rest of civilization had gone down the shitter.

  Sheriff Morgan nudged the stalled conversation forward. “Right. Good point.”

  Encouraged, Jensen went on. “The rats…” He turned to Morgan. “I’m sorry sheriff but it’s not an unfair moniker given the situation.” He turned back to Mat. “These rats—these threats to our safety and our food supply—will be increasingly dangerous as more arrive and as they become more hungry and desperate.”

  Yeah, no shit, Mat thought. The guy kept talking.

  “Winter is here, which means desperation will peak in a couple months. It’ll be mid-January before the die-off of refugees crescendos. Common colds will lead to pneumonia. Bad water will cause dysentery and probably cholera. I’ve asked to be added to the security committee, because I can accelerate the natural draw-down of the refugees. Speed the process.”

  Mat couldn’t quite follow the doublespeak, but it sounded like some Doctor Mengele shit.

  The sheriff interrupted, "Now, Jim, I'll repeat what I said before, so we're crystal clear: allowing you to present these ideas to Sergeant Best is not an endorsement. I have misgivings. I want to hear his thoughts from a military perspective. If Mat doesn't support your plan it's unlikely I'll support it either."

  Jensen seemed unfazed by Morgan's reticence. In fact, it seemed to excite him. "Fair enough.” He turned his chair to face Mat, which was also weird—Mat was standing up and the science guy was sitting down. "I was there when you came into the town meeting to warn us of the threat from Louisville gangs. You put the scare into me—let me tell you. It got me thinking: how can we defend ourselves from a numerically-superior enemy? Now two months later, we've now got a refugee problem instead of a gangbanger problem. This rat problem is probably worse than gangs, because there are so darned many rats. But that's the beauty of it. My idea works even better with thousands of them." Jensen paused expectantly. He obviously wanted Mat to inquire about his “big idea.”

  Mat hated this shit; hated the long, puffed-up preamble guys like this had to deliver before they shared intel, or gave up their salsa recipe, or whatever they were using to hold an audience captive. Mat had plenty of experience dealing with guys like this in the army officer corps; he usually let them bloviate for a while, until eventually they gave up some bit of meaningful intel. Then he could get to his transport and get shit done.

  Right now, Mat’s head felt like it was full of wet rags, slowly going to mold, and he didn’t want to play the pretend-to-kiss-the-officer’s-ass game. Science Guy could sit there with his eyebrows raised, with a slight, stupid grin, for as long as he liked. Mat had just killed six people. He wasn’t in a mood to stroke egos.

  Jensen detoured. "Okay, so my background is chemistry, but I also teach biology. I was thinking, what can I do? I'm no warrior. I mean, I can do my part with a gun if it comes to that, but that’s not my expertise." He paused again.

  The sheriff broke before Mat did. "Jim, let's get to the point. You're talking about anthrax, right?"

  "Right!” exclaimed Jensen, pleased by the audience participation. “But not exactly. Anthrax was the first thing I thought of, yes, but then weaponizing anthrax is not a simple process. I can do it, and my tests are underway. I looked into botulism, too. That’s the weapon I propose we use first against the rats.”

  “Refugees,” corrected Sheriff Morgan.

  Even the word “botulism” sent a chill down Mat’s spine. Botulism had been the pathogen that had likely killed Caroline. She’d been gone eight weeks and the wound felt as fresh as yesterday.

  Mat crammed the watery-gut sensation down and interrupted Science Guy, "Whether we call them refugees or rats, we need to admit that the camps pose an existential threat to McKenzie. Deputy Smith lost an eye on a milk run, and that run will only become more dangerous. The shit heads in those camps will be eating pork tonight, and that’s a serious problem for us. Today’s ambush will sound like Washington crossing the Delaware to people eating pork for the first time in two months. And, we failed to complete the supply mission. With all due respect, Sheriff, calling them ‘rats’ is a love letter compared to the words my security team uses to describe them. The rats are the enemy.” Mat pointed out a window of the sheriff’s office in the direction of the strand of road between McKenzie and Henry. “I don't know if bio-chem weapons are the right idea, though. Can we even control a biological weapon this close to the town?" Mat recalled the holy fear of bio-chem put into him by the Army. Poison gas and viruses killed indiscriminately; like how botulism killed Caroline. She’d scraped the deadly bacteria off the asphalt in a motorcycle crash. Letting something that vicious off the leash should terrify them. But after what he’d seen in the killing fields that day, he wasn’t crossing anything off the list.

  “...which is precisely why we’re discussing food-borne botulin toxin instead of anthrax,” Jensen explained. He leaned forward, apparently getting ready to restart his monologue.

  Mat held up a hand to stop him. “I’ll keep an open mind until Science Guy here does his presentation to the committee.”

  “Jim,” Jensen corrected.

  “Right.” Mat wasn’t in a big hurry to accept that kind of responsibility. The committee might even be worth something, if they could off-load the guilt of poisoning a bunch of women and children.

  Mat hated the idea of botulism, but one of his men was just killed and another blinded. A damned stadium-load of people had just come at him like an Egyptian plague. If not for the pigs to distract them, those fuckers would probably be cooking Mat’s corpse over a campfire right about now.

  Sheriff Morgan sat back and observed the two men, probably assessing them in his “own, small town way.” He lurched forward and stood. "Very well, Jim. We’ll hear you out at Thursday's meeting. Sergeant Best, would you mind staying for a minute?"

  Jim Jensen left the office with awkward handshakes. The sheriff returned to his seat and sipped from a coffee mug with a government seal on the side. Mat wasn't sure what made a good sheriff at the end of the world, but he thought the big man was probably dead-center in the middle of the target.

  "How are you and William settling in?" the sheriff asked.

  "Good. The house you loaned us is perfect. I appreciate it.”

  “Good. And how are you two getting along with the town?"

  Mat shifted in his chair. "No problems."

  “Is this home yet?”
>
  “Our house or McKenzie?” Mat stalled.

  Morgan held Mat’s gaze for a few seconds. “Mat, you said I’ve got a job to finish. Before.”

  Mat raised his eyebrows.

  “That's what you said a few minutes ago. ‘I've got a job to finish.’ What’s the job and how will you know when it's finished?”

  Mat scooted forward in his chair. “You asked me to protect this town, to reinforce it, to defend against invasion and that's what I'm doing. The eighteen full-time and reserve officers are insufficient to protect the town. Now, we have 150 men and women on the security force. I haven't had time for much training, but we've got checkpoints on every ingress and egress point. We have patrols and we have perimeter guards. We're stretched thin between here and Henry, but we'll add another hundred security personnel over the next few weeks. I’m considering candidates for a quick reaction force. We could’ve used a QRF today.”

  The sheriff held up a hand to pause Mat’s report. “If I was a fancy therapist, I'd wait for you to see this on your own, but I’m just a cop, and we don't have time to do this the slow way. So, hear me out.”

  “Okay, Sheriff,” Mat said.

  “Son, I don't know what you believe about God, but I believe you’re here for a reason. We're grateful an expert on warfare came right when we needed him. You saved us, I believe. At the same time, this town can save you. But you have to let it.”

  Mat's jaws clenched so tight it took effort to move his mouth. “You mean like the town saved Caroline?”

  Mat hated these kinds of conversations—the “let’s talk about all the feelings you’re not seeing,” kinds of conversations. People were on high alert for PTSD in a combat veteran—like a Where’s Waldo of amateur psychology: where’s the PTSD? Let’s probe around until we find it.

  Sheriff Morgan didn’t match Mat’s sudden tension. Instead, his voice went soft. “I am sorry for your grief.” There was heartbreak in his voice, not as fresh and violent as Mat’s, but true empathy.

  Morgan continued, “I’m talking about how this town saved a miserable, divorced, alcoholic patrolman from Louisville. Like how it took him in, gave him a home, a family, and a path back to his creator. This town saved me, but I had to let it in first. I had to open myself up.”

  “Sheriff, I don't…”

  Morgan raised a hand. “You've been here two months. How many of your neighbors can you name? Aside from today's team on convoy duty, how many of your security guys can you name? I mean proper names, not Fat Dude, Toothpick or Science Guy. How many of their wives’ names do you know? People want to trust you, Mat, but you have to trust them, too. They can smell it when you don't. They can smell it when you're not all in.”

  Mat stood up. His face felt hard. “I've got to make my rounds to the checkpoints. Anything else, Sheriff?”

  “Just this, and I'll let it be: a man has to have a home. A place he claims folks as his own, and where he lets them claim him.”

  Mat pulled the office door open to leave. “I'll see you later, Sheriff. If there is a later. What I saw today was two thousand refugees pop straight out of the woods for a whisper of a prayer of a meal. We might want to hold off planning the village hugfest until we’re no longer surrounded by 10,000 near-cannibals.”

  Sheriff Morgan smiled. “I respect a man who meets an attack with a counter-attack. And while I was born on Tuesday, I wasn’t born last Tuesday. Any fool can see you need us as much as we need you, Sergeant Best. You have the look of a man being chased by ghosts.“

  Mat went to close the door, but the sheriff stood from behind his desk, so Mat paused. Respect for elders was a thing in Mat’s family, and it definitely was a thing in the army. He’d never close the door in the face of a man like Sheriff Morgan.

  The sheriff met Mat where he stood. “I’m on your team,” he said. “We’re staring into the shittiest bucket of choices I’ve seen in my sixty-two years on this planet. I want you to know that I’m with you, and when push comes to shove, I’ll have your back. This is me giving you my word of honor.”

  Mat covered the emotion that rose in his throat by looking away down the hall. What Morgan just said sounded like something his dad would say. Mat suddenly missed his family. He missed being surrounded by people who had his back. If he was being honest with himself, he did need a place to settle the whacky shit that’d sprung up in his battered head.

  “I appreciate you saying that,” he admitted, in a voice that sounded too low and husky.

  The sheriff clapped a hand on the crook where Mat’s shoulder met his neck. “Stand or fall—we’re brothers now.”

  Mat nodded, stepped back and slipped into the hallway.

  4

  Cameron Stewart

  “So then, royal son of Laertes, Odysseus, man of exploits, still eager to leave at once and hurry back to your own home, your beloved native land?

  Good luck to you, even so. Farewell!

  But if you only knew, down deep, what pains are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore, you’d stay right here, preside in our house with me and be immortal. “

  The god Calypso, the Odyssey

  Grafton Ghost Town

  Southern Utah

  * * *

  Cameron, Julie, Isaiah, his first wife Ruth, and the kids survived in a one room, old-timey farmhouse in Grafton, Utah. The little cluster of wood plank buildings was a ghost town, and they were its resident ghosts.

  Cameron’s wife, Julie, kept her distance from her Celestial Husband, so he hadn’t felt the need to kill the man yet.

  During their six weeks in Grafton, two important truths clarified in Cameron’s mind. Isaiah, the polygamist, was a nerd; and not only because of his weirdo religion. He would’ve been a nerd in any religion. The second thing was that they didn’t have enough food to make it even half-way through the winter.

  They’d been slowly starving for two weeks now. The four adults rationed themselves about a thousand calories a day, and the kids were getting about half of that. When they arrived, the other wife thought they could stretch the food until spring. Her assumption had been that springtime would bring crops, a renewed wave of wild game and a reprieve from the biting cold at night.

  In any case, Ruth was wrong. Even at a thousand calories a day, the food wouldn’t last to the end of February. Everyone could see that now. They were down to half of what they had when they arrived even though they’d been eating like sparrows.

  Isaiah sat across the rough-hewn table from Cameron, his eyes sparkling with excitement. A candle burned in a sawed-in-half aluminum Pepsi can in the middle of the table. Everyone else had gone to sleep. Hunger did that—made a person want to sleep all the time. Cameron didn’t understand how Isaiah could muster the energy to be enthusiastic about anything, much less boring local history.

  The polygamist nerd whispered his way through a detail-plagued story about the ghost town and its former residents. The nerd got off on Old West history, particularly stories that involved his forefathers. Their three-building ghost town was founded by the ancestors of the polygamist cult they’d just fled.

  In the flickering candlelight, Isaiah’s eyes pleaded for Cameron to like him, and in the snarls and grunts of the human wolf pack, that meant power. Power to Cameron. So he played along with story time.

  “George C. McGammon was the superintendent of the coal mine. He was my great-great-great grandfather on my mother’s side. He built the barn in the south pasture.”

  “Coal mine?” Cameron asked. He waited impatiently for Isaiah to get to the point—say anything that would lead to more food. Cameron thought if the coal mine had bats, they might be able to eat the bats. They’d already caught, killed and eaten all the rabbits on the property. “Where are the caves?”

  “No, silly,” Isaiah chortled. “They’re pit mines. There are no caves. It’s a big hole in the ground, over yonder across the river.”

  Nerd, Cameron thought. “What’s George C. Backgammon, great-great-great-nutter
to your mother’s third cousin have to do with food?”

  Isaiah waved his hand through the candlelight. “He built the impoundment up the river. Well, not this impoundment, but the previous impoundment that got washed out. The dam washed out thirteen times between 1875 and 1915 when they finally built the concrete impoundment.”

  Cameron made the “get on with it” motion with his hands without lifting them off the table.

  “The impoundment dammed the river, and if we restore it, we can divert water to grow crops,” Isaiah explained.

  Cameron sat up in his chair and ran his hand through his dark hair. “There’s a dam?” His thoughts went immediately to fishing. Maybe a pond behind a dam would hold fish. They fished the Virgin River but caught only finger-length chubs. They’d eaten them, of course—muddy-tasting and slimy, but they were food.

  “Well, yes. There’s a dam down by the town of Hurricane, but that’s not going to help us.” The polygamist pronounced Hurricane as hurry-kin. “I’m talking about the old, washed out impoundment above here.”

  Isaiah gave Cameron the lay of the land and the scuttlebutt on what’d been going on in this valley since the collapse. Rockville was the next town up the Virgin River. Rockville and the town downriver, Virgin, were embroiled in some kind of war over water. The families were close enough to hear the shooting but far enough away to have nothing to do with it. The only bridge for miles had been blown up by Rockville to block raiding parties from Virgin.

  The warring towns were ten miles apart, and the ghost town of Grafton sat squarely in the middle—but on the wrong side of the river for anyone to give-a-shit, which was lucky since between Isaiah and Cameron, they had seventeen, twenty-gauge shotgun shells and five bullets for Cameron’s Mosin-Nagant. If they had to fight, it’d be a short battle.

  The other side of the river might as well have been the dark side of the moon—it was alien territory, where men from the towns had the energy and bullets to scrabble for advantage. On this side of the river, the two families slowly starved for lack of anything to put in their bellies.