I-80, Wyoming
After the President’s message, Buck and Connie settled into a long period of silence. Mac slept on the floorboard in front, probably because he was tired from his water rescue, and the radio continued to spew out the same old stuff about SNAKE, the blue light, and inexplicable phenomena across America.
Outside, the dry scrubland of western Wyoming faded into low hills on the horizon. It was a lot like the boring nothing of Nevada, except the rock was white instead of red and there was greenery scattered in small, weedy clumps. However, there wasn’t a tree in sight.
They made it an hour outside of Little America before he noticed a change on the horizon ahead.
“What’s that?” Connie asked when she noticed it. “Another storm?”
The brown dust was more reminiscent of sand storms back in Iraq, but not quite as high.
“It reminds me of a column of tanks,” he stated, “although I know it’s impossible here.”
“Hmm,” she replied. “Maybe they are tanks headed for the base in Montana?”
“Blue on blue fighting? I don’t think so. Besides, there’s no way a bunch of tanks could end up out here in the middle of nowhere in such a short time.”
They watched it grow for the next several miles until they came over a small rise in the roadway and encountered a line of brake lights.
Connie pulled her feet off the dashboard and sat up straight.
“What now?” he said with frustration. Between the admission by the president a nuclear strike wasn’t in the cards, and the weird things he’d seen since the blue light kicked off the fun, nothing would surprise him on the highway. However, it was a relief not to see a column of tanks.
“What are they?” Connie asked.
“I think they’re buffalo,” he replied with wonder. “About a million damn buffalo.”
Ahead, a line of fifty cars waited at the edge of a galloping herd of shaggy brown beasts. They crossed the highway as if it wasn’t worth an ounce of their attention. The head of the line was to the left, although it was miles in the distance. The rear of the procession was nowhere in sight. The animals came from the right, and the dust cloud created by millions of stomping feet went thousands of feet in the air, so it was impossible to see the end.
Buck picked up the microphone. “You guys won’t believe this. We have to stop to let the buffalo cross the highway.”
He guided his Peterbilt to a halt behind the last of the cars waiting at the blockage, and Monsignor rolled up next to him on the right. Buck touched his forehead in the young man’s direction, acknowledging him.
“This would be a good time to get out and stretch,” Connie remarked. “I can let Mac out, too.”
“That would be awesome,” he replied, pulling a treat out of his stash. “Give this to him after he’s done.”
She woke up Big Mac when she clicked on his leash. “Come on, boy. Let’s go for a nice, dry walk.” The dog nosed around sniffing for the treat, but Connie had it stuffed in her back pocket, so he couldn’t find it.
Buck watched them get out but didn’t follow right away. After pulling the phone from its cradle, Buck typed out a message and tried to take a picture of the herd to send to his boy.
Garth. You won’t believe what I’m doing. Watching the buffalo roam!
He hit Send, hoping to get a reply back so he could get an update on Garth’s gas situation, but the screen stayed quiet. It didn’t disappoint him too much, because disruption was the norm. If it didn’t work while sitting next to the cell tower at Little America, it was unlikely to work fifty miles away. But he would never stop trying.
Once it was in his pocket, he climbed out of the cab to stretch his legs.
Monsignor was the first to reach him. “That was a great idea getting us out of Little America ahead of everyone else, but I bet you didn’t expect to stop again so soon.”
“Nope. I don’t suppose we can drive across this river of buffalo,” Buck remarked while watching the spectacle. “Could be fun.”
The young man pursed his lips, then spat out some chewing tobacco. It reminded Buck of being back in the Corps.
Sparky evidently overheard the question as he strode up. “I think even the great Buck Rogers is going to have to wait for nature to take its course on this one. The water crossing was brilliant, and I’m glad we’re not stuck back there, but I think this is a deal-breaker. It looks like they could push a truck over on its side. Eve is already on the fence about going on.”
“She is?” he replied with concern.
Monsignor nodded.
“Yep,” Sparky replied. “I don’t know her that well, of course, but she seems to always be somewhere else when you talk to her. I get the feeling she’s looking for an excuse to give up. This won’t help her stay.” The other driver pointed from right to left in front of them.
The herd of trotting buffalo had to be a mile or two across and dozens of miles long. He’d seen such things in the movies, but he had never imagined how big and powerful it would seem up close. The ground shook under his boots. A person would be trampled instantly if they tried to cross, and vehicles wouldn’t fare much better.
“We’ll be fine as long as nothing shows up while we’re waiting for the end of this parade. Hey, maybe we should shoot one of them for the meat. That could feed us all for the entire trip.” Buck imagined himself walking up to the edge of the herd and using his 9-mm to bring down one of the giant animals. It would be a challenge, but he guessed he could do it.
“We have no way to store or cure the meat,” Sparky remarked. “Most of it would go to waste, you know?”
Buck laughed inwardly at all the meat he could stuff in his mini-fridge, but hundreds of pounds would indeed go to waste. However, the thought entered his mind that if he and Garth ever needed to escape together to somewhere with lots of food, the windswept plains of Wyoming would be a good choice, given the return of the great creatures.
One man and his son could live a lifetime by feeding on the herd, but he’d read enough books to know that was not how reality worked. A thousand civilian hunters would probably destroy all the buffalo in a few weeks. A Marine division could wipe them out in an afternoon.
Behind them, more big rigs and cars came over the rise and joined the line of parked vehicles. He was part of a herd too, and it was growing.
It brought back the memories of years of stopped traffic and being at the mercy of others. He was going to be trapped, precisely as he had been when those bikers wouldn’t let him reverse. The risk he had taken at Little America would be for nothing if he ended up in a huge jam anyway.
Buck surveyed the land, desperate for a way out.
CHAPTER 14
Near Georgetown, Delaware
Garth and Lydia walked along the two-lane roadway with the gas can and his other supplies. He made sure they moved as fast as possible because he imagined criminals stripping the cab down to the frame while it was out of his sight.
However, no matter what their speed, he made sure Lydia got her candy bar.
“Take it slow, Lydia. You’re going to want to devour this. I always do.”
Garth showed her how to open the wrapper and break off one of the rectangles of chocolate. He tried to be mature about it, but he wasn’t one to talk about taking his time. He usually gobbled them down in seconds.
She broke off one of them, then put it in her mouth.
“Amazing!” she said as she chewed.
“I like to keep breaking them off,” he started to say.
Lydia ripped off all the paper wrapper and jammed half the bar in her mouth.
“It is so good!” she mumbled. “Thank you!”
They walked in silence as each chewed through what was left of their candy. Once he saw she wasn’t interested in portioning it out like his Dad might do, he followed her lead and shoved it in his mouth.
“We should have bought more of these,” Garth admitted.
The food experiment was over too s
oon. Using the sugar rush, he practically power-walked the final hundred yards when he recognized the hard-to-see driveway.
“That’s the place,” he whispered. “Let’s head through the trees so no one on the street sees where we go. I don’t want to get shot or followed, if you know what I mean.”
“Back on the wagon train, we had lookouts to keep watch on the cattle and other valuables. Sometimes Indians would raid us.”
They waited until there were no cars on the road, then jumped into the dense woods. They had to stop moving a few times and hide behind brushy undergrowth when cars went by. Nothing would get a driver’s attention faster than two teens sneaking through the trees.
He came out about halfway down the driveway and decided to walk in the middle. While he wanted to avoid being seen by the cars on the road, he didn’t want to surprise the owner of the house if they were hiding inside. His dad had often cautioned him about sneaking around on other people’s property, although Garth always thought it was to persuade him not to toilet-paper the neighbor’s houses.
Sam was the one interested in TP missions. He laughed to himself.
“Come on,” he insisted.
They fast-walked down the incline and made it to the car, but he never took his eyes off the house. Garth was convinced someone was in there watching them.
“Get in,” he said in a hurried voice.
They both opened the front doors, but he realized that was stupid because he still had the gas can in his hand.
“Oops. I have to fill us up first.” He laughed out loud, but internally his stomach was twisted in a hundred knots.
“Can I help?” Lydia asked in a similarly quiet voice, as if she shared his worry.
“This is a one-man job.” He tried to sound casual as he scanned the house, but seeing it made him think of a task for her to do. “Just tell me if you see anyone. You know, in the woods. On the drive. In the house.”
“Okay,” she answered.
It took him a couple of minutes to figure out there were two locks on the door for the gas tank. The first one was a release button below the dashboard. The second lock on the door itself required the use of a key on the cab’s keychain.
He dumped the two-and-a-half gallons into the tank, all the while casually studying the windows of the house for any sign they were being watched. Even after the can was empty, he stood there fighting the certainty someone was in there.
What would Dad do?
It was tempting to get in and drive away, but nothing besides his gut feeling suggested the house was occupied. If he could fight that for a few more minutes, this was a safe place to enact the next step in his master plan. He might not get a better chance for privacy than what he had there.
His phone vibrated in his pocket and his dad’s nyuck-nyuck ringtone blared.
“Shit!” He groaned. It was a terrible time to get a call. He fumbled with the gas can, spraying droplets down the front leg of his jeans. After putting the container on the pavement, he wiped his hands on his pants, making them smell even more like gasoline. Finally, he yanked out his phone.
The text said, What are you doing?
It still wasn’t the time to engage in a long discussion, so he replied with the single word Spraypainting.
He put the phone back in his pocket, then threw the empty gas container in the back seat. Finally, he pulled out the bag of spray cans, popped the cap off the first, and started shaking.
The spray paint rattle echoed loudly off the nearby garage door.
“What is that?” Lydia asked.
He stopped for a second and handed her his can, then prepared another.
“Shake this for a minute,” he said dryly. “We need to use it on the car.”
Lydia looked at the can like it had three eyes. “Like this?” To her credit, she shook it exactly as he wanted.
He and his dad had once spray-painted some old lawn furniture they kept on the back patio. Garth had taken away a couple of lessons from the experience. One, it took more spray paint than you thought. And two, your hand got tired pressing the spray button faster than you’d imagine.
“You got it.” He finished shaking his, then pointed it at the yellow taxi. Black paint shot out of the nozzle as he steered the jet onto the trunk.
“Oh, my,” she said with amazement. “I never imagined you could change the colors like this.”
She watched him while he went back and forth over the top of the trunk, then a little onto the sides. He ran out of paint even faster than he had anticipated.
Lydia had stopped shaking her paint.
“Do you have the next one ready?” he asked.
She glanced at the can in her hand. At first, she shook it vigorously, but then she stopped and looked back to him. “May I spray this one?”
There wasn’t time to teach her, but he had to admit his experience wasn’t much either. Dad had done most of the painting back on the patio because he said it was important to have an even hand so the chairs looked professional. However, after looking at the mess he’d made of the trunk, he didn’t think she could do any worse.
“Knock yourself out,” he deadpanned.
“How would I do that? Should I hit myself?”
He rolled his eyes and laughed.
“No, please don’t. It means you should do the thing you asked. I won’t stop you.”
She struggled to get the lid off the second paint can, and once she had it off, it took a lot of time for her to line it up where she wanted. However, when she hit the spray button, the paint went on in smooth, even streaks on the driver’s side doors.
“You paint better than I do,” he admitted. “You’re hired.”
“I never get the chance to paint back home. This is boy’s work, to be sure.”
“Hmm, I never thought of it that way. The chore should go to whoever can do it better. In this case, your painting wins.”
“Yay!” She giggled. “I really enjoy this!”
Garth was proud of himself for letting her paint the taxi. It was an adult thing to do. While she did that, he climbed up on the hood so he could reach the boxy-looking taxi sign affixed to the roof. It required a Philips screwdriver to get it off the car, which he didn’t have, so he did the next best thing...
He kicked the plastic box as hard as he could. The taxi sign shattered on contact, sending pieces all over the driveway, including on Lydia.
“Ouch!” she yelped.
“Holy shit!” he blurted at the same moment. “That hurt!”
Lydia laughed a second later. “And my head.” She picked out a large piece of plastic wedged in her blonde hair.
“I am so sorry. I guess I didn’t think that through.” He could tell she was more surprised than hurt, because the piece was small. The taxi sign was gone, which was what he wanted, but he downplayed the painful way he had done it. “Now I can paint up here.”
“You have a strange manner of doing things, Garth. You destroyed that marquee. Won’t you require it again in the future?”
He laughed but didn’t respond.
Behind her, the garage door of the house slowly opened.
He stood on top of the car like a deer caught in headlights.
I-80, Wyoming
Buck knew better than to get his hopes up, but when Garth sent a text saying that he was spraypainting, he immediately texted back. He waited for about a minute, watching more and more vehicles stack up in the line behind them.
“We can’t stay here,” he said aloud, hoping the right people would hear.
“Well,” he said to himself, still looking at his reflection in the chrome around his exhaust, “it’s time for more bold action.”
He made his way over to Connie and Mac, who were standing at the side of the highway.
Connie saw him holding his phone. “Hear anything from Garth?”
“Yeah, but I think our texts are out of order. After he said he ran out of gas I asked him what he was doing to get more, then I told him about
this buffalo situation. His reply just now told me he is spray-painting. I’m not sure what to make of that.”
She laughed. “You are talking to a teen boy, Buck. I’m sure you already know they seldom make any sense.”
He let her laughter infect him. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. If he was unable to gas up his taxi, I’m sure he would have texted to ask for help.”
She didn’t look his way. “Unless he wants to prove he can do it all on his own.”
After she said it, she spun around. “I’m not suggesting he can’t.”
“I know. You’re right. He can figure out how to get gas. I mean every dummy driving on the road today can figure it out. My boy is smarter than the average bear.” He played the past over in his head, and couldn’t recall a single time he had explained point by point how to get gasoline at a filling station. He’d showed him how to turn on the pump and stick the nozzle in the tank, but he always did the credit card, closed things up, and, if necessary, went in to pay the cashier.
The buffalo showed no sign of finishing their crossing. The dust rose higher than before, and the direction of the wind made the debris seem to float alongside the giant animals. It was like watching an endless freight train at a railroad crossing.
He thought for a minute, then typed, Call me ASAP. He couldn’t spend his whole day wondering about missed texts. It was time to hear his son’s voice.
Once his phone was pocketed, he got Connie’s attention. “Hey, if we can hurry up and get through this mess, what do you think about meeting my son somewhere out here on the road?”
Her blue eyes studied him intently, and he saw the inner workings of her mind behind them. “You’re worried about the nuclear threat. You know, I think that’s overblown. I believe, deep down, that you do, too.”
“Three Mile Island was a mess that turned out to be a mistake, but this doesn’t feel the same. If there was nothing to worry about, the President wouldn’t have gone on national news to say everything was fine. He’s the President, for fuck’s sake. He doesn’t need an open channel to broadcast his message around the world.”
Broad America: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (End Days Book 3) Page 11