by Jason Ross
Julie peppered the boy with questions until the truth slowly emerged. At first, Cameron argued viciously with his wife about what she’d found, and he personally verified every aspect of the story. The revelation terrified Cameron, and he resisted the truth of it until he had no choice but to see.
Denny had been hoarding food. He’d found a dead muskrat by the river and sneaked a kitchen knife to pare away pieces of the rotting flesh. He started his own fire with stolen twigs from the family fire, then cooked the carrion where nobody could see or smell. He’d eaten the dead animal down to bones. A week later, he sickened.
Cameron could scarcely comprehend how an eight-year-old boy could grow hungry enough to render a dead animal into food. But the true horror was the abject selfishness of the boy’s act. He’d hidden food from his own family—if a dead muskrat could be considered food.
Cameron’s personal guilt tripled as he poked around the dried bones of the muskrat down by the river, seeking some clue as to how his bright, beautiful boy had come to cheat his own blood. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Cameron’s unruly mind repeated, over and over.
Cameron had screwed Isaiah’s wife dozens of times. The only reason they hadn’t been caught by Julie or Isaiah was because nobody had the energy for suspicion. Rude survival commanded all their attention, and they had little enough energy to spare for that.
Cameron didn’t know and frankly didn’t care why Ruth came to him—pulling him away into the darkest shadows, always offering herself from behind. There was nothing about a starving person’s breath that made one want to kiss, but he doubted either of them would kiss anyway. They hadn’t exchanged a single word of love or even explanation. They humped. He hadn’t a clue why she initiated it. Most nights, he could barely achieve an erection, and his climax grew tepid and watery. Still, he took the carnality offered.
Ruth had probably never been an attractive woman, even before the deprivations at Grafton, but the gathering of her skirts and the animal draw of their rut gave Cameron momentary reprieve from his self-loathing. For a few seconds, in those interludes, he was a man—dominant, hearty and fierce. After sex, he flopped in on himself again, but not in shame over violating his marriage—Julie had grown so surly with hunger that Cameron could hardly stand the sight of her. Strangely, he felt shittiest about Isaiah.
The man had been an unfailing friend, aside from having stolen Cameron’s wife before all this. That time seemed so distant now, a glimmer on the lip of the past. After who-knows-how-many weeks in this square of grass and redstone, Cameron could barely recall his hatred of the polygamist. They’d suffered much together, and Isaiah had rallied to save Cameron’s son. The man had become like a faithful, albeit witless, Labrador retriever, and Cameron had grown fond of him, even thankful for him.
That inkling of brotherhood over the weeks of starvation hadn’t discouraged Cameron as he piled up Ruth’s dress and seized his thin seconds of reprieve from on-marching death. The picked-clean bones of the muskrat evoked the same echo of treachery. Cameron’s ignobility reverberated in Denny. His son, at eight years old, had hidden food for himself.
Cameron rubbed his bearded face. Beneath the growth, he could feel his skin, thin and papery. Something important was missing in their diet and it made their skin crackly. They could only guess at what it was, but it wouldn’t matter even if they knew. They were already eating everything they could find of any nutritious value whatsoever. They’d taken to eating strange weed roots, without any knowledge of their toxicity or nutritional value.
While Denny fought his parasites, Cameron and Isaiah completed the water project. The stock watering tank overflowed with cloudy river water. But this morning, the flow down the eight-inch pipe slowed. The river must’ve risen to the challenge of their stone impoundment and attacked the pile of rocks they’d stacked against it. That was to be expected. They would need to repair and rebuild the dam almost daily against the stubborn will of the river.
However, the delicate sleeving of forty sections of pipes worked better than Cameron had hoped. Even though they lost splashes at each joint, the bulk of the eager water clung to the walls of pipe, and rushed the hundred yards into their catch basin with a happy willingness that surprised him. The stock watering basin had overflowed before they could stagger back to the homestead to check on it.
The drain spigot at the lower end of the big tank had been repurposed to fit the PVC pipe that stretched down the pasture to the cold frame greenhouses, set in the ground around the one room farmhouse. Cameron twisted the ball valve and the PVC jumped as though electrified. Ruth, at the far end, leapt up and down, waved her arms and shouted.
“Stop, stop, stop.”
Cameron closed the valve and went to see what’d happened.
The PVC tubing stopped just below the cold frames. They wanted to see if it’d actually work before completing the final distribution of the water. Now, a miniature delta of washout surrounded the cold frames. The pipe had delivered too much water, too quickly—what Cameron would call “a champagne problem.”
“It’s good,” Ruth explained. “Just too much. It’s going to wash away all our trenches. We need to divide up the stream somehow.”
A hundred feet across the pasture, the stock tank was already overflowing again. They had no PVC cement nor PVC junctions. The PVC tubing they’d scavenged had flared ends and one piece fit into another, but splitting the tube into multiple runs would require plastic tees and ninety-degree turns. Cameron wracked his brain to devise a way to split the stream coming from the stock tank without the proper joints.
“Maybe we could run the tube into a five gallon plastic bucket and send the water out the bottom into three tubes.” Isaiah scratched his ruddy-blond beard as he examined the washout. “We’d use one of the old five gallon wheat buckets as our three-way splitter fitting.”
“How would we attach the PVC to the bucket without glue?” Cameron asked.
Isaiah retrieved a five gallon bucket. “Maybe we can carve three holes in the bottom with the pocketknife, exactly the size of the PVC tubing. We have plenty of extra PVC. With short pieces, we can run it through the hole with the fitting on the inside of the bucket. The fatter end of the tube will mostly seal the hole like a funnel in a bottle top.”
Cameron could see it now. Isaiah’s solution was really quite clever. It’d split the flow into three streams and any extra water pressure would overflow the bucket harmlessly onto the ground. He considered complimenting Isaiah, but Ruth was there, and his dick wouldn’t allow it.
“That’ll work, I think,” Cameron said instead. Even with the thin praise, Isaiah gleamed. “You can plant your seeds and set the frames now,” Cameron said to Ruth.
Over the past two weeks, the women had gathered together wood for the six frames that would hold the milky sheet plastic around their grow beds. Built with a mishmash of lumber they’d pried off the barn, the cold frames looked like clubhouses constructed by children, but they’d function all right.
The grow beds stretched two to-a-row, and three across, making six ten-foot-long planters. Each cold frame lifted away, to be set aside in the warmth of the sun. Every morning, if the weather was nice, they’d set aside the six cold frames and then replace them at night. Hopefully, the warmth trapped in the earth would keep the tender shoots from freezing.
Isaiah had already gone to work carving the three one-inch holes in the base of the plastic bucket. He removed the tiniest, pinky-fingernail shavings with his Boy Scout pocket knife, and checked progress every few minutes against a chunk of tubing. He kept a flat sandstone nearby and sharpened his knife frequently, swirling the blade in a tiny puddle of spit. The man really was quite meticulous. In a world where no scrap could be wasted, patience had become a survival skill.
But it still wasn’t what got a man laid.
Cameron hated himself for the thought, but he couldn’t deny it: something primeval had taken over, and he stood at the apex of the clan. Isaiah either
didn’t know or didn’t care.
The polygamist looked up from his work and noticed Cameron watching him. Isaiah smiled, then returned to his craft. Cam sighed.
He walked away, toward the impoundment dam to check on it. He’d fix it himself this time.
It looked like the water system was going to work, and they’d get water to their garden seeds. What happened then was anyone’s guess, but it was a victory, as was Denny’s recovery.
As he walked, he faced facts: both victories could be placed squarely at the feet of Isaiah. His kooky, Asperger personality had uncovered the solutions, and his dogged work ethic had driven the construction of the water system and the winnowing of the boy’s medicine. Cameron owed him everything, and he couldn’t remember having a more long-suffering friend.
Cam jumped over a dry, weed-choked ditch and came down hard on the other side. His head swam for a moment and he almost sat down. The hunger made him dizzy. It made him maudlin too. Maybe he was giving the polygamist too much credit.
The spinning in his head passed and he continued toward the river. He reached the wide spot in the waterway where they’d stacked rocks to channel a side stream into the corrugated pipe. The water level had risen and rolled away the upper stones atop the little dam. The side stream poured over where it hadn’t before. One stone at-a-time, Cameron carried rocks from the bank and filled the gaps. The flow nudged them around until they settled, or rolled over the top and tumbled downriver. He added dozens of rocks until the impoundment again rose into the side stream. The flow into the pipe strengthened. Isaiah had warned him; if they allowed water to overflow the top of the dam long enough, it’d tear it down. They needed to maintain the impoundment above the waterline so that the flow would go around and into the pipe instead of over the top.
Cameron had taken Isaiah’s word as gospel truth. In many ways, the polygamist was the brains of the operation. Cameron tried to muster the passion to hate him for his practical, unselfconscious competency, but he failed. Cam was so hungry, he could barely feel anything at all. He kicked over a log with his foot—a log he’d kicked over several times before. A new, white grub appeared in the damp. He bent over, slowly, and plucked it up.
Had it even been worth the energy to bend over?
He didn’t know and didn’t care. He almost popped it in his mouth, but remembered the white, writhing worms in Denny’s poop. He stuck the grub in the pocket of his dungarees instead. He’d cook it over the fire, and maybe share it with Denny. Maybe he’d give the boy the whole thing.
He wondered how Denny would feel about that—his father giving him food even when the boy had been holding out on them all. He probably wouldn’t spare a thought for it. Kids took what they wanted, especially when suffering. Their parents weren’t real people to them, truth be told. Parents were caregivers, without their own agonies. He could remember feeling the same about his dad, and to some degree, about his mom.
Cameron staggered toward the homestead, exhausted. He scratched his head feverishly to unseat the dry skin that plagued his scalp. A chunk of hair came free and drifted away on the breeze.
So starvation does that too, he noted.
But there was hope, today. The water system worked. Denny was back on his feet. Soon, maybe, there would be fresh, green, edible shoots in their grow beds. They might be eating sprouts in a few days. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be something.
The wheat in the bucket was almost gone, but they ate a few tablespoons every day. Before the bottom of the bucket showed through, maybe the turnips would fatten and the corn stalks would thicken. Spring would come, albeit not for months, and the nightly frost would give up its siege against all things living.
Isaiah and Julie’s ten-year old daughter, Leah, met Cameron at the edge of the pasture.
“My mom asked me to find you. We’re ready to turn on the water. To test it in the beds.”
“Okay. I’m coming,” Cameron drawled, then shuffled forward. But the little girl didn’t move.
“Have you found any frogs?” she asked.
“Huh?” He had no idea what she was talking about,
“Frogs. You and my mom look for frogs. Did you find them?”
“Um. No.”
“Then you should stop looking,” she said with stony eyebrows. She was a strange child, like she’d grown up too quickly in a world where toys didn’t exist. Maybe that was because of their weirdo polygamist cult. Maybe it was because of Cameron. He couldn’t get it straight in his mind. Hunger blurred the timelines.
“Maybe we should stop looking,” he agreed. The man and the girl turned and meandered side-by-side across the straw-colored pasture toward the homestead.
11
Sage Ross
Wallowa Town
Wallowa County, Oregon
* * *
Sage didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Hound dogs yowled behind him, followed by gunmen. A police Blazer waited for him at the bridge with its lights flickering orange and blue. If he waded the creek, and somehow avoided being seen, he’d be forced to build a fire and dry out his stuff. In other words, it was only a matter of time before he was caught.
Sage had royally screwed up the first real mission Captain Chambers had given him. Some Wallowa shit-kicker had seen him, which wasn’t a tremendous surprise. Wallowa Valley was considerably higher than La Grande, and the mountains surrounding the string of tiny hamlets was winter-bound in snow even though it was early December. Someone must’ve been staring out their kitchen window when Sage slunk by on the hillside.
He’d been skirting the towns and pastures of Wallowa for three days, trying to get a count of the neighboring county’s cattle for Captain Chambers. Sage hadn’t asked why the captain wanted to know. Counting another county’s cattle could be seen as a prelude to theft, but Sage hadn’t drilled down. It wasn’t his place to ask.
This was his first “solo mission” with the captain’s militia, and after only three days in the field, it looked like he was going to get scooped up by the Wallowa locals. Based on what he’d seen so far, they weren’t going to stop searching for him, and unlike his cold, wet ass, they could go home and dry out. Sage had no change of boots in his backpack.
A snowstorm brewed over the big mountains to the north. It was going to dump overnight and he didn’t love the idea of being buried in a tent while they searched for him. The moment he started snowshoeing again, working deeper into the valley, someone would cut his tracks, as sure as there’s shit in a goat.
The good news about a snowstorm: it erased tracks. The bad news about a snowstorm: new tracks could be picked out from five miles away.
He’d gone around the roadblock Wallowa County had placed across the county road by cutting straight across the foothills of Sacajawea Mountain on snowshoes. He’d climbed up and scooted down at least six steep canyons before the Wallowa Valley opened before him like Elysian Fields, where heroes go to die. Sage literally rubbed his eyes when he first saw it.
The Wallowa Valley spread out from a mountain pass, meandered for five miles, then disappeared at the foot of majestic, ice-capped mountains. As far as he could tell, there were three villages plus a couple clusters of homes. There couldn’t be more than three thousand people in the whole county, and Sage could see them all in one glance from the side of the mountain. It looked like a postcard of Switzerland.
There was only one paved road into Wallowa, and the people of Wallowa County had sealed it up tight, not allowing visitors or trade with Union County to the west. Not a soul had passed their roadblock, in either direction, since the collapse. Nobody in La Grande could explain why, and Captain Chambers wanted answers.
“What are they doing in there, and how many cattle do they have in that valley?” he’d asked Sage.
That’s what the captain wanted Sage to find out, and after three days of cross-country snowshoeing, Sage still didn’t know the answer.
He’d seen a ton of cattle—so many they weren’t even countable. Ten
s of thousands, at least. Hay dotted the snow-patched fields, in giant rolls that looked like massive Cinnabons made of dry grass. Sage watched the ranchers move the big bales around with heavy equipment and cover them with white plastic. He worried the captain wouldn’t be satisfied with his reconnaissance of the valley. He pictured the conversation.
“What did you find out?” the captain would ask.
“They have thousands of cattle,” Sage would answer.
“How many?”
“Best guess: forty thousand head of cattle.” Sage figured that using the term “head of cattle” would make him sound a lot more certain than he felt.
“Okay, and what were they doing in there?”
“Minding their own business,” Sage would say. He didn’t know if that answer would fly, but it was all he had.
Maybe getting arrested by the local-yokels would give him something more to report. Or maybe they’d shoot him as a spy, which was precisely what he was.
Sage doubted it. Even in Grand Rhonde, they didn’t execute people by firing squad. They just kicked them out.
He sighed and gathered up his rifle. He’d probably lose the 30-30 this time. A guy can only get arrested so many times and expect to keep his rifle. The hounds grew louder on his trail. It was probably better to surrender to the authorities than make them track him down. In the snow, with dogs, it wasn’t going to be hard—no matter if Sage swam the creek or not.
He stood and walked toward the flashing police cruiser. Next to it on the bridge, a man in a cowboy hat leaned up against an old pickup truck, chewing the fat with the uniformed police officer. As he got closer, Sage read the door of the police blazer: Wallowa County Sheriff.
Sage slung his rifle across his back and raised his hands. The men watched him descend the hillside, but didn’t halt their conversation. The cop stood with his hands on his hips and the other guy leaned against his fender, observing Sage’s long, embarrassing snowshoe flippity-flop across the slope.