Solar Reboot

by Matthew D. Hunt

  “Not the town. The people.” Denny looked away to the northwest and pointed, as though there was something just there on the horizon for them to see. But Alex only saw grasslands. “The Cheyenne reservation. It’s in Montana. A few days’ walk from here.”

  Piper gave Alex a quizzical look, her eyes bright. No doubt the prospect of visiting a Native American reservation piqued her interest, but Alex had his doubts. “We were thinking we’d just stick to the roads.”

  “Suit yourself. But if you’re worried they’ll be unfriendly, don’t be. I gotta say, every time I pass through, they’re a lot more helpful than … well, put it bluntly, a lot more helpful than white folks.”

  “You’ve done it before?”

  Denny nodded emphatically. “Oh, sure. I stay off roads and out of towns for the most part, unless I need to pick something up from a store or such like. And a lot of places, walking open country means walking reservations.”

  Alex shook his head slowly. He was surprised to find himself even considering the idea. But with their car wrecked … “You really don’t think they’d object?”

  “They aren’t gonna run you off their land on horseback, if that’s what you mean.” Denny gave him a cool, appraising look, and Alex almost thought the hobo might regret having made the offer in the first place.

  “I only mean—look, it’s just the two of us. Three, I guess, if we all go together. I could understand people not wanting to help a couple of stragglers who don’t have anything to offer in return.”

  The hobo’s wizened old face softened. “I gotcha. But not everyone’s looking for something to gain when they help other people out.”

  Alex raised his eyebrows. “Are you talking about the Cheyenne, or yourself?”

  Denny grinned. “Either or, I guess.”

  * * *

  Once they finished eating, Alex took Piper to the car to get what supplies they could out of it. Max accompanied them, while Denny stayed behind near the cooking fire. There wasn’t much more they could fit into the backpacks—he’d packed in a hurry when they were trying to escape the storm, but he’d still taken nearly all of the essentials. All he managed to do was cram a little more food in, until the backpacks were so stuffed that he could barely zip them shut. At first he put all the insulin and pump supplies into his pack, but then he thought better of it and put half of them in Piper’s. No point in putting all their eggs in one basket.

  “Dad, are we really going with him?” said Piper.

  Alex gave her a glance. “I’m planning on it.”

  She looked down at her feet. “I thought we weren’t supposed to trust anyone.”

  He looked over the top of her head, back to where Denny sat by the fire. The hobo wasn’t looking at them. “Trust is a strong word. I’m not going to let him steal anything from us, or hurt us.”

  Piper looked over her shoulder. “But he’s … he’s homeless.”

  Alex sighed and shook his head. “That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, sweetheart.” She shrugged and looked away. He could tell she wasn’t convinced. He turned around and planted his butt on the car’s rear bumper, looking her in the eye. “Listen. Hey, come on. Listen to me. I told you we had to be careful because I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you to let somebody take advantage of you, or us. But I also don’t want you to be terrified of everyone and afraid to let people help. We’ve got to be careful, yes. If we’re not careful, bad people could try to hurt us. But going through life being afraid of everything, turning down people who actually want to help—well, that could do more harm than good. Do you understand?”

  “I guess,” she mumbled.

  He frowned. Then he saw Max, who was sitting on his haunches and grinning up at them. “Hey, come on. Max seems to like Denny. How bad could he be?”

  Piper snorted. “Max is a dummy.” But the tension in her face fled like a passing cloud.

  “He sure is,” said Alex. “But he’s a dummy who seems to like us. I think we’ll be all right. Max won’t let anything happen to us either.”

  She nodded. Alex stood and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Okay. Let’s start walking. It’s a long way to Montana.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Hernando was right. The truck was impossible to miss, overturned and blocking almost all of the mountain highway. It ran all the way to the mountainside on the one side, and protruded into the opposite lane, so that there was barely enough room there to drive a car through without pitching off the side and into the canyon far below. From the driver’s seat of her Jeep, Cameron studied it for a second.

  “You guys drove through this?”

  “Yeah,” said Hernando. She’d chosen to bring him with her, and put Wade in Russell’s truck. “It was a tight squeeze, and Gina drove it way too fast. The whole time, I was afraid we were gonna go over the side.”

  “Can’t blame you,” said Cameron. She killed the engine and got out. Hernando was quick to follow a second later, and Wade and Russell emerged from the truck. It turned out Russell had a shotgun in his truck, and Cameron had let him keep it, going against her earlier decision. For one thing, Russell had an air of confidence and competence with the weapon that let her know he wouldn’t accidentally blow of his own foot. For another, he’d carefully kept the shotgun secret until Bill wasn’t around to hear it. It was a smart decision, and gave Cameron even more confidence in him.

  They were about a hundred yards from the accident. Over the top of the truck, Cameron could see another pair of cars. It looked like they were right up against the semi’s undercarriage, looking like they’d crashed there.

  “Those cars,” said Cameron. “Were they there when you passed by?”

  Hernando shook his head. “They must have crashed after.”

  “Could be people inside,” said Wade. His hand was already on the pistol in its holster, and Cameron saw his grip tighten.

  “They could be hurt,” she said, staring at him until he met her gaze. He nodded slowly. “We should go check them first—to make sure we’re safe, and to help them if they need it.”

  “No way someone would just sit here if they crashed,” said Hernando. “If there’s anyone if those cars, they’re dead. I don’t fuck with dead people.”

  Cameron had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You came to the cabins and asked us to help you. Now we’re going to make sure no one else here needs our help. You can always sit here and wait if you’re too scared to come check with us.”

  That had the desired effect. Hernando puffed up his chest and glared at her. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t fuck with dead people. Whatever, the cars are probably empty anyway. Let’s go.”

  He took a step toward the truck, but Cameron stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. His glare deepened. “Not so fast. Come with me around that side. Wade and Russell will take the other.”

  Hernando gave a sarcastic little bow and waved her on. “Whatever you say, boss lady.”

  Come on, kid, she thought. I’m trying to give you the best chance I can. Don’t give me another Bill to deal with. But she walked forward without answering, and Hernando was right behind her. Once they reached the truck, both parties split around either side. On Cameron’s side was a crashed Toyota truck, old and spotted with rust. She couldn’t see Wade and Russell on the other side of the semi.

  “Okay, I’m keeping an eye out,” said Cameron, speaking in a low voice. “Go around the other side of the Toyota and make sure there’s no one there, or inside it.”

  “You go,” said Hernando, balking. “You’ve got the gun.”

  “It’s a rifle, not a handgun,” she said. “I can protect you with it fine from right here.”

  He scowled. “Then give me the gun and you go up to the truck.”

  She barely restrained a curse. “God almighty, Hernando, just go. The damn thing’s probably empty.”

  Hernando’s jaw worked and he shook his head like he was going to refuse. But in a moment he started walki
ng for the Toyota. He approached it cautiously, almost walking on tiptoes, and peered in the passenger side window. After looking back to her and shaking his head, he went around the other side. Cameron felt her body tense, just in case. Then Hernando vanished behind the cab, and Cameron muttered in disgust.

  “Stay where I can see you, you dumb—”

  A gunshot rang out.

  In an instant Cameron was on her feet and sprinting for the Toyota. She rounded the back of it just as Russell and Wade came into view from the other side, guns raised.

  There was Hernando—but he wasn’t injured. In fact, he was the one holding the gun. A little smoke still wafted from the barrel of a 9mm clutched in his shaking hand. At his feet lay the bloodied, lifeless body of his target—a raccoon.

  Cameron gave a sigh, but relief quickly turned to anger as she stalked up to him. She snatched the pistol from his hand and ejected the clip, as well as the chambered round. “You idiot. Why didn’t you tell me you had a gun?”

  “I—I thought you were gonna take it,” he stammered.

  “I might not have, but I sure as hell am now,” she said, stuffing the pistol into her waistband and pocketing the clip. “This is why I didn’t want anyone carrying a piece besides me and Wade—do you get it now?”

  From behind her, Wade had burst into laughter and was now leaning over, hands on his waist. “Holy crap,” he said, still chuckling. “That poor raccoon. Did it jump out at you, kid? Was it frothing at the mouth? Rragh, arrrrgh!” he cried, making feral snarling noises that sounded somewhere in between a raccoon and a zombie from The Walking Dead.

  “Hey, shut up, man!” said Hernando angrily. “It popped out of the bottom of the truck. I thought it was someone trying to grab me!”

  “With its tiny little raccoon hands?” said Wade. He pinched at the air with his thumbs and forefingers. “Rragh!”

  “Enough, Wade,” said Cameron. Hernando was already ticked enough—and he was the kind of kid to carry a gun without telling anyone about it. Not that there was anything wrong with that necessarily, and he didn’t seem the violent type, necessarily, but it meant he wasn’t an entirely known factor.

  Hernando turned away from the other men, still scowling. “Anyways, I just—I got freaked out. There’s someone in the truck.”

  Cameron’s heart skipped. “Someone…?”

  “Dead,” muttered Hernando.

  She paused for a second at that before going to the driver’s side window. Inside, she saw the shape of the body laid out across the front bench seat. The head was bent at a terrible angle, but the window was dirty and hard to see through. The door wasn’t locked, and she pulled it open.

  “Jesus,” said Hernando, stepping away and covering his mouth and nose with his hands. He took several quick, deep breaths.

  “He’s definitely dead,” said Cameron, looking the man over. He was middle-aged and portly, with grey hair and a thick mustache. His whole face was a mess. She would have guessed his head slammed into the steering wheel when he crashed. He’d probably died instantly, though she couldn’t find much comfort in that fact.

  “Truck looks fine,” said Wade lightly. He was at the front of the truck, inspecting it where it was wedged up against the bottom of the semi trailer. “A little bumper damage, of course, but I’d bet it still drives.”

  Cameron gingerly leaned into the cab to see the key. It was in the On position. “Out of gas,” she said. “It probably kept running after the accident, until eventually it stopped.”

  “Well, let’s siphon some gas and get it going,” said Wade. “It’d be useful to have another truck.”

  “Jesus Christ, man,” said Hernando. “There’s a dead body right there.” Russell, too, looked grim, and maybe a shade paler than normal.

  Wade rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and that means he’s not gonna give a shit if we use his truck. Grow a pair, kid.”

  Hernando bit the inside of his cheek and cocked his head. Every time Wade called him “kid,” Cameron saw him grow a little more agitated. She’d have to have a word with Wade about it. But now wasn’t the time.

  “How about the other car?’ she said, pointing toward the other vehicle that Russell and Wade had already checked out.

  “Empty,” said Russell.

  “All right,” said Cameron. “Then let’s get what we came here for.”

  * * *

  The semi was sealed with a padlock, but Russell had bolt cutters in his truck. She saw Wade give Russell an odd look, but she didn’t question the presence of the cutters—for one thing, they were useful, and for another, there were a lot of legitimate reasons for a logger to carry them, and she preferred to think that those reasons were the correct ones. The padlock went clattering to the asphalt, and one of the doors fell open to the ground—the other hung there, swinging slightly off the back of the overturned trailer.

  With her Maglite, Cameron inspected the contents. It wasn’t a refrigerated truck, so everything was dry, thankfully, and it appeared nothing needed to be kept refrigerated. She saw multiple pallets of canned food—they’d gone crashing into the wall when the truck overturned, of course, but it looked like a whole lot of them would still be intact. But her eyes caught immediately on a pallet right at the back that had two pieces of equipment strapped on to it, surrounded only by a few thin layers of plastic wrap to help secure them and keep them clean—power generators.

  “Gold mine,” she muttered. Then, louder, she called out to the others, “There’s generators in here and a whole lot of food. Way more than we can carry in one trip. We’re gonna have to go back and forth to the cabins a few times.”

  “We’ll bring more people next time,” said Wade. “Many hands, light work, and all that.”

  “I’ve got a trailer we can use, too,” said Russell. “Shoulda brought it this time, I just wanted to know what we were getting into.”

  “Yeah, that’s all fine,” said Cameron. She stood on tiptoes, trying to see over the piles of fallen food stocks, but didn’t see anything else interesting. “All right. Let’s get the truck running and load up as much as we can.”

  It ended up taking them a couple of hours. First Wade dragged the corpse out of the cab and tossed it by the side of the road—literally tossed it, in such a cavalier way that Cameron almost chastised him for it. Then he made a token effort to scrub the blood off the seat of the truck’s cab, though there were still stains when he was done. They siphoned the gas easily enough, and then backed all three of the vehicles up to the rear of the semi trailer. The pallets couldn’t be moved of course, and Cameron didn’t want to take whole flats of the canned food—individual cans could easily have been punctured by the impact, and even a small hole could lead to botulism if they weren’t careful. So she took the cans one by one and checked them, and then handed them off to Russell, Hernando, and Wade, each one of whom took charge of filling up one of the vehicles. It was slow, grueling work, and by the end of it Cameron felt practically cross-eyed from inspecting all the cans. About halfway through the process, the generators were uncovered enough to be moved, and they brought them out and put them to the side. The generators came aboard last, wedged in between the piles of canned food and the backs of the two pickup trucks.

  “All righty,” said Wade, slamming the tailgate shut. He’d drive the newly-appropriated truck back to the cabin community. “We ready to go?”

  “Yep,” said Cameron. “Take it slow going back—you’ve got a heavy load now, and the roads are slick.”

  “Yes, mom.” Wade grinned and hopped in the cab. Cameron tried not to imagine the blood of the driver staining his jeans.

  The truck started up and trundled off. Russell soon followed in his own pickup, while Cameron and Hernando hopped into her Jeep. But before she started the engine, Cameron gave him a hard look.

  “You get why I was pissed off about your gun?” she said.

  He propped one elbow up on the window and leaned his head into his hand. “Yeah, sure, whatever. It’s just,
look—I was right, wasn’t I? You just took it as soon as you found out.”

  Cameron shook her head. Then she reached into her waistband and pulled out the pistol, holding it out to him. Hernando took it slowly. She pulled out the magazine and passed him that, too.

  “I’m already dealing with enough shit at the cabins,” she said. “I don’t want us to be up in each other’s faces. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. He popped the clip into the pistol—and put the safety on, she was relieved to see. “Sure. That Bill guy is an asshole.”

  “He is. 100% Grade A asshole,” said Cameron. That got a little chuckle out of Hernando. “I don’t think you’re an asshole. Prove me right. Don’t do anything stupid with that gun like you did today. And in fact, don’t even tell anyone you have it. Especially not Bill. Okay? I’m okay if you want to keep yourself safe, just don’t brandish it around like a goddamn cowboy.”

  He looked her in the eye for a long moment. “Yeah, sure,” he said finally, solemnly. “Okay. And, uh…thanks.”

  “Just, please don’t make me regret it.” She fired up the Jeep and turned it around, heading up the road where Wade and Russell had already vanished.

  CHAPTER 17

  The trailer was empty after only two runs—much faster than Cameron had thought. It turned out that a lot more of the cans had been damaged than it looked like from the rear, and most of the damaged ones were towards the front. Once they’d sorted through about half of the cans, she wasn’t finding any more than were intact, and gave the rest of the trailer up as a bad job.

  Everyone in the community helped unload the food into the community clubhouse near the front of the compound. When it was all done, they all stood back in a little group to look it over. There were literally thousands of cans—everything from soup, to fruit, to pickled vegetables—as well as boxed rice and more macaroni and cheese than Cameron thought she could eat in a lifetime. Though she suspected that, if things stayed the way they were, that limit might be tested.