The Borrowed World Series | Book 8 | Blood & Banjos

by Horton, Franklin

  Pete, Hugh, and Charlie saddled up and headed for Jim’s house, leaving the two gardeners in their hot, humid domain. Hugh nudged his horse and caught up with Pete, already ahead of him.

  “You keep an eye on your grandfather,” he said. “This heat is hard on older folks. He’ll push himself because he knows we’re depending on him, but he may push himself too hard. Make sure he’s drinking enough, and that he takes breaks and gets out of the heat. Maybe even convince him to drink an electrolyte mix.”

  “I’ll do that,” Pete said. “I’ll arrange my circuit so I can catch him every hour or so.”

  “Good man,” Hugh said.

  When they reached Jim’s house, Pete pulled off. “I’m going to see if my mom needs anything before I start patrol. You guys be safe.”

  “You too,” Hugh said.

  Hugh and Charlie continued down the driveway. In the distance, they could see Gary and his wife waiting on them in the shade of an old cedar tree. Charlie carried a backpack tied to leather strings on the back of his saddle. Inside were objects he’d decided he no longer needed. He had memories of the people he’d lost—his mother and father, his grandmother. He had a new life now. A new family and new friends. He didn’t need to be weighed down with a bunch of crap that meant nothing to him. If he could get something of value for the wreckage of his old life, things that may help him now, he’d gladly trade it off.

  10

  The Valley

  During their ride, they talked to dispel the nervousness each of them felt. None of their clan had been into town since the 4th of July, the day they supposedly turned Jim over for the bounty. That had turned into such a shit show that no one was anxious to show their face in town again. There was all the shooting, they may have blown up a few things. People might have died. They couldn’t live in hiding forever though. Life had to go on.

  For nearly a year they’d been forced to use the back way into town, cutting through fields and crossing a small river, because Jim had blown up the road. His reasoning had been solid at the time. There were people in vehicles wandering into the valley and stealing cattle. Menacing people. He wanted to put an end to that and protect his valley, so he packed a drainage culvert with explosives. The blast took out a large chunk of the road and made it a lot harder to get into the valley.

  Until now.

  The Wimmer family had worked this valley for nearly two centuries. They were farmers and were ready to resume commerce with the townspeople. It was the way of farmers since the beginning and they weren’t about to let the little matter of societal collapse hold them back. They’d settled the valley in a time without electrical power and their people had thrived. They would do so again, electrical power or not.

  Conducting commerce with the town meant reopening the road into the valley and the Wimmers had made it happen. With axes, they cut tall hardwoods from the hillside and felled them into the roadway. With determination and brute strength, they jockeyed the logs into position until they’d spanned the gap Jim blasted out of the road. Long spikes made of half-inch steel rebar pinned everything together into a serviceable bridge.

  The results of the reconnected roadway were obvious to the party of four on their journey into town. Shortly after leaving Jim’s driveway they ran into people they didn’t recognize, a pair of bicyclists wearing backpacks and sidearms. Hugh had intended to keep going but the couple stopped in the middle of the road, forcing conversation. The man threw a friendly wave at the riders as they neared.

  “Hey, we just bartered some corn from the Wimmer family. Anyone down this way trading?”

  “No,” Hugh replied with no attempt to match his friendly demeanor.

  “You sure about that?” the man asked. “No one?”

  “You should probably just turn around,” Hugh continued. “There’s nothing for you down here.”

  The man became indignant at that. “It’s a public road, buddy. There’s no reason we can’t keep riding and find out for ourselves.”

  “Nope, there’s no reason you can’t. Until you step off this roadway and approach someone’s house to ask about trading.” Hugh shrugged. “Then you’ll figure out why I tried to get you to turn around. One of you is going to die and the other is going to be pushing two bikes back to town. Which of you will it be?”

  Hugh didn’t wait for an answer. He nudged his horse and pushed on, forcing them to move. No one else in the party made eye contact with the cyclists. They left them behind to carefully consider their next move. When they were out of earshot, Hugh got on his radio and warned Pete to be on the lookout for them.

  “They have a little attitude,” Hugh said. “Be careful.”

  They passed several more parties and chose not to engage with any of them beyond a nod. They didn’t slow or stop, didn’t respond to questions or greetings. Unfriendliness worked to their advantage. It sent the message they wanted to convey. It let the visitors know that they weren’t welcome, at least as far as some of the valley residents were concerned.

  “People must have been waiting for this bridge to open,” Charlie said. “I’ve never seen this many people on the road.”

  “I guess it’s something new to do,” Hugh said.

  Shortly before they hit town, they reached the log bridge and came to a stop.

  “They put a lot of work into this,” Debra noted.

  “It’s solid,” said Gary. “You could drive cattle across it or pull a wagon.”

  “Or even drive a truck,” Hugh added. “If you had one to drive. That’s the part that worries me.”

  Charlie stopped on top of the bridge while the others rode on across.

  Hugh stopped and swung his horse around. “What is it?”

  “We could burn it,” Charlie said, no touch of humor in his voice. “It’s wood.”

  Hugh grinned. “Who do you think would get the blame for that, Charlie? They’d immediately think of us.”

  “It was just a thought,” Charlie said, clucking at his horse and falling in line behind Debra.

  Hugh watched the boy pass, hoping he wasn’t serious about that idea of his. There was something about that boy sometimes, a dark turn to him that Hugh was uncertain if anyone but him saw. Maybe it was because he spent more time with him or perhaps he just knew what to look for, but it seemed the losses he’d experienced had affected him. Charlie had something seething inside him that could be dangerous if it showed its face. It could simply be a stage he was going through, part of processing his past, or it could be something he’d struggle with for his entire life. There was no way of knowing.

  The rest of the ride went quickly. Minutes after the bridge they passed the river crossing they’d been using all winter. Just beyond that, they turned up the access road to the superstore. After the shooting that happened there earlier in the summer—which Gary and Debra had been part of—the open-air market that had popped up there had fallen out of favor. A new site had sprung up in town.

  The new market was in a large parking lot adjacent to the county government offices and it took the group about fifteen minutes to ride over there. Aptly enough, it was the site of an established farmer’s market prior to the collapse, though much of the infrastructure was useless now. The bathroom facilities didn’t work and the electric outlets served no purpose. Only the long shelters found use, offering protection from the elements for those who got there early enough to claim a spot beneath them.

  Since most people had lost track of what day of the week it was, this market had no schedule. There were people there every day of the week. Since it was the only thing going on in town, it was the epicenter of commerce and the hub of daily activity. Even those not in the market to buy or sell came there just to see what was going on and to hear the latest gossip.

  When the riders reached the entrance to the parking lot, they paused to study the scene before them.

  “There’s more people than I expected,” Debra said.

  “Same here,” Hugh agreed. “That’s hundred
s of folks.”

  “I didn’t know what to expect.” Gary glanced around the group. “How should we handle this?”

  Hugh looked at Charlie. “You have stuff you want to trade, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hugh pointed to the yard of an abandoned dental office. “How about we tie the horses off at the east corner of the parking lot. There’s grass there. I’ll stay with them while you all do your trading. I’ll be close enough that we can group up if things go south.”

  “Don’t you want to look around?” Debra asked. “We can switch out if you do.”

  Hugh shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  Everyone was in agreement that this was as good a plan as any so they got moving. As usual, folks on horses drew attention. They were the one-eyed men in the world of the blind, holding a better hand than those stuck walking. Such visibility always carried the risk of attracting the wrong kind of attention, of being targeted by those needing transportation or desperate for the protein a healthy horse might provide. The valley folks were well aware of that after a year of traumatic experiences. Everyone had weapons on display, rounds chambered, and plenty of backup mags in case things got sparky.

  Some eyes in the crowd followed them as they rode to the abandoned dental office and dismounted in the parking lot. They never knew if people were watching out of curiosity or if it was something more than that. It was the way of things anymore.

  Hugh collected the reins and tied the horses off to a couple of decorative parking lot lights. He liked the location from a tactical standpoint. There were no high shrubs or other obstructions to his visibility, and he had a good view of what was going on at the market.

  He sat down on a concrete parking block and pulled a pouch of deer jerky from a cargo pocket. While he chewed, he watched his people get swallowed by the crowd. He didn’t need to see them. They had their radios. Hopefully, if shit got real, they’d remember to use them.

  11

  The Farmer’s Market

  Gary, Debra, and Charlie decided to split up in the crowd. Though there were other people there carrying guns and others who’d arrived on horseback, there was something in the demeanor of the three valley folks that made the crowd part for them. Certainly everyone in the crowd was hardened now. Everyone had suffered and was struggling to survive, but there was something different about these members of Jim’s group. A wariness. An edginess. A willingness to escalate and pull the trigger that must have been apparent even to those who only glanced at them.

  Debra had bundles of herbs she wanted to trade for things on her list. The mint she’d picked along the creek bank made good teas. There was catnip she’d found growing wild, mullein, and yarrow. She’d handwritten notecards that were attached to each bundle telling how to prepare them and what they were good for. Her needs were baby clothes, diapers, and hygiene items.

  Charlie wandered off on his own to peruse the tables of goods. Other vendors had thrown out blankets in the parking lot and laid out items they hoped to parlay into something they had a greater need for. The first booth Charlie stopped at belonged to an older couple selling old-fashioned honey candy. Charlie had never had it before but it was the first sweet treat of any kind he’d seen for sale.

  “How much?” he asked.

  “I get a .22 shell for two pieces,” the woman said. She wore a long denim skirt and had hair down to her waist. Charlie knew women dressed like that because of a certain church they attended, but he couldn’t remember which one.

  “Ain’t got no .22,” Charlie said. “Will you take .25?”

  “That a bullet?”

  “Yeah, it’s a bullet.”

  The woman conferred with her husband for a moment and he stepped over to speak to Charlie. “Ain’t much call for .25 ammo.”

  “Until you meet a man with a .25 who ain’t got any bullets.”

  The man tilted his head to concede the point. “How many pieces was you wanting?”

  Charlie thought on it for a moment. “A dozen.”

  “I’ll take a dozen rounds of your .25 caliber for a dozen pieces of candy,” the man said, giving Charlie a hard trader’s stare.

  “That’s twice the .22 price.”

  “And I may be sitting on those .25 rounds for a long damn time before I move them. I can sell .22 all day long and get a good trade for it. Can’t remember the last time I even saw a .25 pistol.”

  The .25 rounds in Charlie’s pack weren’t doing him any good. They’d belonged to his dad, to a gun no one even remembered. It wasn’t likely Charlie would ever own one in his lifetime so he thought it prudent to take what he could get for the ammunition. “I’ll take it.”

  He removed his pack and fished out the ammo while the woman wrapped the candy in a clean white sheet of copy paper. Charlie shook out the ammo and waited patiently while the man counted the rounds. The woman held the candy in both hands, not ready to turn it over until she got the nod from her husband. When he was satisfied with the count, he signaled his wife to hand over the goods.

  “Thank you,” Charlie said. He stashed the candy in a side pocket of his pack and slung it over his back.

  Moving down the row of vendors, he wove through the crowd, listening to people haggle over items that would have been trash before the collapse. Camping gear that wouldn’t have sold at a yard sale now brought a premium price. Seventy-year-old hand tools, relics of a bygone era, were now highly sought-after. Even old worn-out shoes were in demand now that no one could get new ones. The standards of what made something “worn out” had changed considerably.

  Charlie stopped at a booth where a hand-painted sign announced “Heirloom Seeds.” The table was packed with baggies and tiny pill bottles. Each had a label scrawled on it with marker. “What kind of seeds are these?”

  A red-cheeked man with a chaw of tobacco regarded Charlie. “All kinds.”

  “What’s heirloom mean?”

  The man spat onto the ground. “A lot of the shit you get at the store now is hybrid. Can’t grow nothing from the seeds that come from that. My family always harvested their own seeds from the crops they grew and I learnt how to do it. I’ve got a good supply so I’m trading some off. This is what you need now since you can’t buy new seeds.”

  Charlie had heard Randi and Pops discussing this very issue. A lot of what they were growing in their gardens this year was from hybrid seeds they’d scraped together from their own homes. It left them uncertain about what they were going to do next summer. Taking some of these seeds back to the valley could be a big help. “What you get for them?”

  “Each pack has fifty of whatever the label is. Normal price is five .22 shells a pack but I also take other stuff too.”

  “I got .25 shells,” Charlie offered.

  “Well, I ain’t a pimp and this ain’t the 1960s. Ain’t nobody carries a .25 anymore. What else you got?”

  His attitude pissed Charlie off but he bit his tongue. This was a trade he needed to make. Charlie took off his pack and stared down inside it. “Got a stack of knives, a couple of old zippo lighters, a rifle scope, and a couple of tiny tool kits.”

  “What kind of tool kits?”

  “Them little kind like you used to get as a gift when you bought something stupid, like subscribing to a magazine or something. A little pouch with pliers and a screwdriver that takes a bunch of bits. There’s a crescent wrench in there too. One of those tiny ones.”

  “Knives, you say?”

  “Pocket knives mostly,” Charlie told him. “Got a fillet knife too.”

  “I tell you what, how about I give you all these seeds on my table for everything in your sack of goodies there.”

  “And how about you kiss my ass,” Charlie said. “I may be a kid but I ain’t stupid.”

  The man spat again and narrowed his eyes at Charlie. “I don’t give a damn if you’re a kid or not. You talk to me that way again and I’ll knock the shit out of you.”

  “And you’ll die before your fat ass gets a
round this table,” Charlie said. “You want to trade or not? Now, I figure folks are needing rifle scopes awful bad now since there’s more people hunting for their food. How about I give you the scope for what’s on the table?”

  “No fucking way.”

  “I’ll give you the scope and two of the tool kits.”

  The man chewed on it. “Throw in the fillet knife and it’s a deal.”

  “I’ll take it,” Charlie said, digging into his pack and removing the items he’d offered, placing them on the table.

  The man slid the seeds across to him and Charlie carefully packed them into a side pocket. “Whereabouts you live, boy?”

  Charlie finished packing the seeds away. He hauled his rifle up and slung it over his shoulder. “Why you asking? You planning on coming for dinner?”

  The man gave a broad grin, strands of tobacco stuck between his stained teeth. “You never know.”

  “I don’t advise it. My people ain’t the friendly sort,” Charlie replied. “But I will see you around. I’d like to buy some more of those seeds.”

  “Bring something worth trading and we’ll do it again.”

  Charlie hit several more booths and traded off nearly everything he’d brought to barter. It was only a small drop in the bucket of the things he intended to get rid of. He had sacks of it at Randi’s house and more at Pete’s. It felt good to get rid of some of it. He headed back to the dental office and found the rest of his group waiting for him, discussing the market.

  “How’d you do?” Gary asked.

  Charlie grinned. “Not bad.”

  “We did okay,” Debra said. “I traded all my herbs, but I’m not real impressed with what I got for them. A handful of tampons, a dozen diapers, and a few sample packs of baby wipes that are probably dried out already.”

  “What did you get, Charlie?” Hugh asked.

  He had a hard time containing his excitement. “Probably a thousand heirloom seeds from one feller. I got some candy for the kids, two unopened packs of some big-sized diapers, and I got three boxes of them things Debra was just talking about.”