by AJ Powers
“Hey Megs,” Clay said just above a whisper, “what’s wrong?” He could see the concern on her face.
She sat the tray down on the conference room table and helped Clay sit up to eat. She handed him the soup which he begrudgingly sipped on. Megan sat down on the floor and leaned against the bed. “It’s Charlie.”
Clay gave her a look of concern.
She stared at the ground and fiddled with a strand of carpet that was coming undone. “He went to check the library and when he got back he… something just wasn’t right.” She paused for a moment and then looked at Clay, “I think he shot somebody.”
Clay squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. He could relate, that first kill was brutal on his psyche. “But he didn’t actually tell you that he killed someone?”
Megan shook her head. “No, but I could tell just by how he was holding himself, then he said something about feeding the evil wolf.”
Clay knew Megan was right. Charlie had killed someone. He started to get out of bed, and Megan stopped short of pushing him back down. “What do you think you are doing?”
“I need to go talk to him,” he told her.
“You are not ready to get out of bed.”
“I don’t care; I need to talk to him.”
Megan pushed back once more, “Fine, I will go get him in a little bit and have him come to you, okay? But right now, he needs some time alone.”
Content with the compromise, Clay eased back into his bed and sipped on the soup some more. Megan felt his forehead. It felt somewhat normal, a little cool if anything. The fever had broken yesterday and had not returned.
Clay thanked her for the food and turned to go back to sleep. Megan went back to the kitchen and divided the meat Charlie brought home into a few smaller chunks before throwing into the freezer. She fought the urge to go talk to Charlie herself, which was easy to do when every few minutes somebody was coming to her with a problem; a ripped shirt; a crayon that snapped in two; or a bump on the head. It was probably for the best she got sidetracked for several hours; Charlie needed space.
When she finally opened his door, she saw him lying on the bed, facing the wall. At first it appeared he was sleeping, but then she heard the gasp and sniffle.
“Charlie?” Megan asked softly, “Can I come in?”
He didn’t respond, so she walked over and sat down next to him, waiting in silence. She rubbed his back for 20 minutes, listening to his sobs, without judgment. Finally, she asked, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
He shook his head.
Careful to not bombard him, she waited silently for another few minutes before saying “Clay wanted to come see you, but I wouldn’t let him out of bed. I promised him you would go see him. Can you do that for me?”
He broke his empty stare at the wall and looked over his shoulder at her and nodded.
She smiled and put her arm around him, “I love ya, Bub. If you need someone else to talk to, just let me know.”
Megan left the room and gently closed the door behind her. She returned to the kitchen to prepare dinner. She prayed Charlie would get through this traumatic event in one piece.
Charlie eventually made his way to Clay’s room and broke down as he explained what had happened. Clay was grieved with what the boy had to go through. He felt guilty for being bedridden and forcing Charlie to step up in his absence.
“He just wanted some food, Clay, and I killed him,” Charlie said, his lip quivered uncontrollably.
“Charlie, this man put you in a very difficult and dangerous situation. How were you supposed to know if he was telling the truth or not? You were faced with a life-and-death decision that had to be made in the blink of an eye. If you hadn’t shot and he was armed, I don’t think we would be having this conversation right now…”
Charlie conceded, “I guess so. But if I had just given him some of the meat, this wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have hurt us much, and maybe he would have just left me alone.”
“Maybe,” Clay said, “but maybe not. Maybe he would have tried to take advantage of your generosity and take everything from you. Even if he didn’t have a gun, he still could have hurt you.” Clay grunted as he sat up and rested his hand on Charlie’s shoulder. He stared right into Charlie’s eyes. “You made the decision you felt you needed to make, given the information you had. Learn from it, but don’t let it destroy you.”
“Do you think I did the right thing?”
Clay didn’t know how to answer. On the one hand, from the sounds of it, Charlie might have reacted too quickly. On the other hand, Charlie was just a boy facing an unknown situation, alone, that could have just as easily left him dead. The fact was, Clay didn’t know if he had done the right thing or not. How could he judge a kill or be killed situation without being there? In Clay’s mind, Charlie was absolved. At the end of the day, however, Charlie’s actions wouldn’t be judged by Clay.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Charlie said with slumped shoulders.
“Silence doesn’t always mean that, Charlie. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know whether you were right or wrong, but I will say this… I would have done the exact same thing in your shoes.”
Charlie felt better with that response, though it did nothing to remove the guilt weighing him down.
Clay prayed with Charlie, and they both wept for their own reasons. Clay asked God to bring Charlie peace. They prayed for the departed man’s soul and for protection over any people that might have been relying on him as a provider.
That’s when Charlie started bawling, begging for forgiveness.
Afterwards, Charlie went back to his room and skipped dinner. Neither Megan nor Clay bothered him the rest of the evening. Clay, for the first time since leaving for his trip to Uncle Ted’s, ate dinner with the family in the break room. He was very weak and nearly fell a couple of times, but the smiles from everyone at the table made the effort more than worth it.
He didn’t eat very much, to Megan’s chagrin. He had been laying in bed for quite a while and was doing very little physically that warranted the need for much food. He knew his appetite would make a triumphant return soon enough, but until then, he would continue to eat small meals. He was glad that their dwindling supply of food would be able to stretch even further.
Nearly a month had passed since Charlie killed that man. Clay had almost fully recovered, but the muscle atrophy he had developed proved to be quite a hindrance. However, a few weeks of climbing stairs and hoisting water would revert most of that. He was relieved to be back on his feet and active again. He hated to be idle, especially with so much to do and so many counting on him.
He was fortunate to be alive, though. In a joint effort, Megan and the remaining supply of antibiotics slowly nursed Clay back to health. Of course, he was not thrilled to learn that they were less than two months into winter and had no more medicine, but Megan didn’t have many options. He would have been a goner without them.
Clay was trying to hook up some new car batteries to the battery bank, but he was not having much success. Four of the batteries had already died and would no longer hold a charge; many of the others were draining much faster than they used to. It was a matter of time before they would all be depleted.
“I’m going downstairs to do a perimeter check,” Charlie said standing in the doorway.
A week ago, someone tried to break into the garage, then again three days later, somebody had tried to get into the stairwell from the ground level. Neither were particularly uncommon, but seeing them happen so close together made Clay a bit more cautious. As a result, he decided to tighten up security with trips down there at least three times daily to see if anything felt out of the ordinary. He also reinforced the doors on the bottom three floors of the stairwell and garage.
“Do you need help?” Clay asked.
“No.”
“All right. Can you load some more water onto the lift while you’re down there?”
“Sure,” Charli
e said, then left.
Charlie had changed. He was no longer the boy who was eager to learn anything and everything Clay had to teach. The smiles and jokes had stopped too. Clay hoped someday he would go back to being the Charlie they all knew, but killing a man takes a toll on even the strongest of people.
Frustrated with the lack of progress, Clay abandoned the battery project and went to the armory. He painstakingly popped the primers out of each .223 case by hand, using a punch and the bench. Charlie had finished reloading what bullets he had left for all the other calibers. He appreciated Charlie’s initiative but was a little worried he did them all unsupervised while Clay was unconscious in his room. The overall lengths looked good; he just hoped the powder measurements were equally as precise.
Megan interrupted to alert him of a leak in the propane oven. After some investigating, Clay found a small hole in the aging hose going from the tank to the burner. He utilized some electrical tape and sealed the hole. It was a true patch job in every sense of the term, but it would hold for a little while longer. They would likely run out of propane before the end of winter anyway, so there was no need for an elaborate fix. It had been well over a year since Clay found a propane tank with any gas left.
After he finished patching the hose, Megan had a short laundry list of other things for him to do which consumed the rest of his day. Even with Charlie filling in for him while he was ill, the daily tasks and routine maintenance Clay usually handled had piled up. Now Clay needed to tend to them. He went through and prioritized and pushed a few things off until spring, like repairing the greenhouse; it would just be too difficult to do in the winter.
After sleeping for the better part of two weeks, and mandatory rest for the last month, he would spend the remainder of the winter catching up with his backlog of tasks as well as staying on top of his daily to-do list. It would be busy, but he was just happy to be alive to do them.
Chapter 22
Kelsey had just put Dakota down for the night and was preparing herself a cup of tea when she heard a light tap on the door.
It was Watson.
“Hi, Mr. Watson,” Kelsey said with a quiet voice. “What can I do for you?”
“Ms. Lambert, may I come in?” he said, alcohol on his breath.
Before Kelsey could extend an invitation, Watson walked in and pulled out a notebook from an inside pocket of his coat. He flipped through some pages. Kelsey immediately knew what this was about, but wasn’t sure why he was bothering her about it so late in the evening.
He finally settled on a page and began explaining some recent changes to her accrued winter debt. Kelsey mostly scavenged or ran errands for Watson as a means of debt payment, but the winter months provided very few opportunities to earn a wage. Ms. Hawthorne, an older lady with whom Kelsey and Dakota stayed, had taught Kelsey some basic seamstress skills that provided Kelsey a small amount of income during the winter months. However, she was mostly idle so long as there was snow on the ground. This meant that she lived on a form of credit with Watson that deepened the hole she was already in. On average, Kelsey and Dakota would undo nearly half of what she paid off the previous year. At that rate, Dakota would nearly be a teenager before they would escape Watson’s imprisonment.
“So,” Watson said with a tone that Kelsey knew meant bad news for her, “as you know this winter has not been kind to us. In fact, I think it’s probably been the worst one we’ve had yet.”
Kelsey nodded and knew where the conversation was going; it wasn’t the first time.
“I’m not sure if you are aware, but we lost a good deal of our cattle this winter. Sickness, predator attacks, starvation; you name it. Of course, it was more than just the cattle, but that was obviously the biggest loss for us. I even lost poor Boris. Had that old girl 12 years and—”
“So, what is it that you wanted to tell me, Jake?” Kelsey interrupted, her patience running thin with Watson’s rambling.
He gave her an icy stare, “I’d appreciate you not speaking to me that way, young lady. Respect your elders.”
Kelsey wanted nothing more than to reach out and slap him across the face, but she had to swallow her pride and anger. She apologized, “Yes sir, you’re right. That was very rude of me.”
Watson’s furrowed brows eased as he lifted the notebook. He handed it to Kelsey. “As I was sayin’, I had to raise the prices on all the food in the store, and unfortunately, it is retroactive to the beginning of winter.”
“That is total bull—” she raised her voice but was interrupted by another stern—and ultimate—warning from Watson about her manners.
“Little lady, I have a good mind to put you in your place for your behavior. Don’t let it happen again or so help me…” Watson said then looked over Kelsey’s shoulder as he heard a door open. “Evenin’, Ms. Hawthorne,” he said with a polite smile.
“Evening, Jake,” Hawthorne said as she got a cup down from the cupboard. She poured herself some tea and sat down in her chair by the fireplace, making herself an arbitrator of sorts to ensure nothing got out of control.
“Mr. Watson,” Kelsey said as calmly as she could, “this wipes out over seventy-five percent of what I brought you last year,” she said, pointing at the notebook.
“I know, Ms. Lambert,” he said formal and official sounding, “but I’m afraid this is how it must be. I will keep workin’ with you to try and get you out of this debt sooner rather than later. I should have some opportunities for you this summer to earn some extra wages.”
Kelsey remained silent; her expression reflected the contempt inside.
“But look on the bright side,” Watson said with gusto, “winter looks to finally be over, and you can get back to scavenging.” He walked to the door. “Ladies,” he said as he tipped his hat.
The sun was rising just as the farm appeared over the horizon. Clay thought he was going crazy when he saw a tinge of orange painted across the ground. Perhaps the ash in the atmosphere was starting to dissipate; though it seemed unlikely after the ruthless winter they had just escaped. The frosty grass crunched under his boots as he walked the final 200 yards across the field to the gate.
There was a fresh face at the gate, couldn’t have been more than 16 years old; he was not familiar with Clay. After a few minutes of explanation, Derrick walked by and instructed the young guard to let Clay in.
“Derrick,” Clay said, “it’s good to see you!”
The two shook hands and shared war stories about the ravaging winter as they walked towards the shop. The door was locked; it wasn’t quite 6:30 yet. The two chatted while Clay waited.
“So, did you get promoted from gatekeeper?” Clay laughed.
“You could say that,” Derrick said with mixed feelings. “We lost quite a few folks this winter along with more than half of our livestock,” he said somberly.
“Oh, man, that’s rough. Sorry to hear that.”
“However, that opened up more than a few spots for wranglers, so Mr. Watson asked me to help them with the herds and some security detail,” he said with a spark of excitement in his voice.
Clay was happy for him. He had always been friendly and helpful each time the two had crossed paths, and he had a sort of optimism about him that was rare to find anymore.
Margaret arrived, unlocked the front door, and walked inside.
“It was good to see you, Derrick.” Clay said sticking his hand out.
“Likewise, Clay,” he said as he shook Clay’s hand. Derrick had started to walk away but quickly did an about-face, “By the way, I hope you aren’t looking for food because I don’t think Mr. Watson is trading any right now.”
Clay’s hopeful look washed away as he went inside only to be told the same thing by Margaret. They wouldn’t part with a single pound. Watson arrived with Jeremy a short time later, and Matthew tagged along just behind them. Watson only reaffirmed what everyone else had already said.
“Clay, I can’t spare anything. I wish I hadn’t even given you what
I did at the beginning of winter. Most of the cattle we lost had their meat spoiled or scavenged by predators. This is not a good time to ask me for a trade.”
“Jake, please, I am begging you! You’re not the only one who barely made it through winter. We have no meat right now; we’re living off a dwindling supply of canned goods. I just need a little to get us through these first few weeks while—”
“I said no, Mr. Whitaker!” Watson snapped. “Look, I am truly sorry about your struggles, but it is none of my concern right now.”
“Well, you need to make it your concern,” Clay said sharply, shocked with his vague threat.
Jeremy slowly moved his hand to rest on his side arm. He looked at Clay, then over at Watson, who had a rather indignant expression on his face. Watson had a low tolerance for disrespect and viewed threats as one of the highest forms of derision.
“What’d you just say, son?” Watson said with a snarl.
Clay stammered over his words, both embarrassed and fearful for the repercussions that might follow such a threat—heat of the moment or not. “Look, Jake, uh Mr. Watson, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. It’s just been a bad winter for us, and we are running on fumes. I just let my emotions get the best of me is all. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Nobody talks to Mr. Watson that way,” Matthew chimed in for the first time since walking into the room.
Watson gave Matthew a disapproving glare before returning his attention to Clay. “I think it would be best if you went ahead and got on out of here. I don’t have what you’re looking for anyhow.”
“I’m sorry,” Clay said genuinely. “Thanks for your time.”
Clay walked out the door and leaned against the wall just outside. He was still in shock over his reaction to Watson. The old rancher was an ally he couldn’t afford to lose. He would have to do damage control later, once Watson had time to forget about the incident.