He took another bite, forced it down, and thought of her face and her words, “Eat, Armando, eat and be strong. It is fuel, and you cannot stay strong without it.” How many times had she said that to him? How many times had he nodded obediently and eaten whatever was on his plate? He knew too that Cooper would just as soon not feed him. The older man only kept him around because he was small and could fit into tight spaces. A couple of days ago that had come in handy. Cooper had ordered him to find out what lay within a small shed on the outskirts of a farm. It had been difficult, but he had managed to squeeze through between the bottom of the shed wall and the dirt floor beneath. There had been grain, some farming equipment, and several knives, including one tiny and one half buried in the dirt.
Without really thinking about it, Armando had slipped one of them into his pocket. It was a small Swiss army type, just one blade, a space for a toothpick—although the toothpick was no longer there—and a small screwdriver as well. He wondered how he could get away from Cooper. Armando was nearly nine, and he had had to be rather self-sufficient, but making ends meet in the middle of Tennessee was frightening, especially since anyone he encountered was either shooting at them or dead or dying from Cooper shooting them first. Cooper didn’t seem to have any other setting—killing seemed to be his primary way of dealing with people.
“Choke on the blood...you damned whore!” Cooper was still going. Armando’s thoughts turned to the knife in his pocket. How he wished he had the strength to end this terrible man’s life. The tiny, dull knife certainly wouldn’t do it—and he was no killer, despite his genetic inheritance. The fact that he was here, in the middle of nowhere, hungry and cold, was Cooper’s doing. The boy hadn’t exactly been welcome there in the neo-Nazi camp, but when Delwen turned her sights on him, declaring Armando to be Cooper’s illegitimate son, the rest of the camp had been happy to see the back end of him along with this monster.
Armando missed Sully, his only real friend; she had stood silent, tears streaming down her face as he and Cooper had been thrown out of the AR camp. Cooper had been so angry, so furious at everyone, that Armando had wondered just how long it would take before Cooper turned on him. How long before he too was dead by Cooper’s hand? The man might be his father, but he didn’t give a damn about him insofar as he could use him to serve his own needs.
The last of the light disappeared from the horizon. The nights were dark, even more so than the Amerika Reborn camp had been. In the last two years the camp had cobbled together a small system of electric lights that ran off of a series of solar panels they had acquired during a trade or raid, Armando wasn’t sure which. The light from the campfire gave off a dark red glow and Armando knew better than to add any fuel to the fire. They hid in the shadows, traveling mainly at dusk and dawn, and slept during the day.
Cooper was still ranting, although it had grown quieter, and Armando pulled his knees up, lowering his head and hoping the man didn’t turn his rage onto him. The swelling from Cooper’s last fit of rage was finally going down, although his cheek remained mottled in yellow and red bruises. All that Armando could think of as he slipped into a doze was that he wished his mom was still alive. Even if it meant being back at the AR camp...anything but this.
The next morning found them on the outskirts of a small town. It was early still, barely light out, and there were no signs of activity; everyone in town was still sleeping. They edged around the town, Cooper muttering quietly to himself as he scoped out the town’s defenses.
“Sentries, at least one there at the end of the street. Another up in that high hide in the south. Burned vehicles with skeletons...nice touch.” He rambled mainly to himself, noting the defenses, before turning his attention on Armando. “You’ll go in there. Tell ’em you’re an orphan, ask ’em for food. I’ll watch from here and come tonight; you’ll let me in so I get what I need.”
He nodded, narrowed his eyes, “I’ve been to this shithole before. They grow some nice tail ’round here.” He stared at Armando, “You do what I say, or I promise you, you’ll be sorry you were ever born. I’ll come at midnight.” He gave the boy a rough shove toward the small town.
As Armando walked toward the town, the boy thought about the past few weeks. Three times now, Cooper had sent him in to farmhouses, isolated, alone. Three times, the boy had done what Cooper demanded. He’d convinced an old farmer he was all alone, then two men, a father and his grown son, and finally a young couple who had just lost a child to a fever. The last one, that one had been the worst. He didn’t want to think about what Cooper had done to the woman.
He had hid in an outbuilding after being tasked to remove the husband’s body and the bloodstains from the front porch, just in case someone came by. Afterwards he had hid in the shed several hundred feet away and tried desperately to not hear the woman’s screams. When they had gotten back on the road several days later, well outfitted now with a rifle and plenty of ammo, Armando had thought about what Mama would have said to him.
At the camp, she had always kept him out of sight of most of the more militant ones. His skin was dark; not as dark as hers, but still darker than acceptable when surrounded by racist white men. The neo-Nazis hadn’t been eager to include him in their fighting lessons, other than to use him as a punching bag. One or two of those sessions had taught him to lay low, but here, with Cooper, there was no lying low. Mama would have stopped them, threatened them by saying she wouldn’t patch them up if they kept going, but Mama was dead, and he was all alone.
As he put distance between him and where Cooper was hiding, a set of high-powered binoculars in his hands watching his every move, Armando realized he had to make a decision. He thought of what his mother would have said, would have thought, if she had known that he had had a part in the deaths of five innocent people. She would have been horrified and she would have reminded him that God would judge him, most severely, for what he had done. Part of him wanted to wail and cry, to hide his head in her lap and beg her to help him. He was so very lost without her.
As the town drew near, he heard a sentry ring a bell. They had seen him. Soon he would have to tell the lie, how he had been orphaned, that he was all alone. The shame he felt at his part in the old farmer, the two men, or the young couple—it felt like a lead weight in his heart and his steps slowed.
“Reverend.” Jeremy Deeds looked up from the sermon he was preparing to honor Mr. Liles and saw Joseph Perdue standing in his office. According to the town records, the ancient man had died just three days short of his 116th birthday. He had been so involved writing down notes for the sermon he hadn’t even heard the teenager come in.
“Reverend, I’m sorry to bother you, but we have a situation down near the Trade Mart. Some kid just walked in on the main road.”
Jeremy gave Joseph a befuddled look. Kids, and plenty of other people, had been making their way into town for years now, and for the most part things went peacefully. Either way, they had never needed him involved. “The kid is asking for a priest, so Wes sent me to get you.”
“Is the boy ill?” Jeremy asked.
“Not that I can see, sir. Although he’s got plenty of bruises on his face and arms. He just won’t say anything past that he needs to speak with a priest and confess his sins.” Joseph shrugged, “And he looks scared.”
Jeremy stood up painfully. His badly damaged leg, nearly pulverized in a car crash over nine years ago, would always give him terrible pain. During the winters, when he felt every step even more keenly, the congregation had grown used to seeing him give sermons from a tall chair. It was hell getting into it, but once he did he was good for the entire service. Joseph stepped forward to offer his assistance. Jeremy had learned to accept others’ help and he leaned on the young man and slowly walked to the door of the church where a small crowd was gathering, the boy at their center.
The boy was thin, painfully so, with large brown eyes and jet black hair. His skin was tanned and Jeremy could see the remains of several bruises on h
is face and arms. He was dressed in a ragged T-shirt and worn blue jeans that had patches; his feet were bare. The boy stared back at Jeremy, “You don’t look like a priest.”
“And what do priests look like?” Jeremy asked in return.
The boy shrugged his thin shoulders, “I don’t know; I never saw one. Mama said they had funny little collars and they lived in the church.”
Jeremy nodded thoughtfully, “I see...well, I do have a funny little collar I wear on Sundays and I do live here in the church. My faith may be different from your Mama’s, but in the end, we believe in the same thing. Will that do?”
The boy nodded solemnly, “I must confess my sins.”
Jeremy nodded as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“Come up to my office with me, and tell me what you need to say.” He shooed Joseph and the others who offered to help, and slowly made his way back to the office with the boy, closing the door firmly behind him.
A few minutes later, Jeremy stuck his head out and asked for a large lunch for two to be sent up. It was nearly half an hour after that before Jeremy asked for Wes to join them in the office. An hour later, and Cooper watched through binoculars as the church bell rang and people began to gather outside.
He cursed as he packed up his binoculars and began to run north, putting as many miles between him and the small town as he could. He ran for the backwoods, where cars and horses alike would have difficulty following. He was gone long before Armando, surrounded by well-armed militia, led the townspeople to the camp he and Armando had made the evening before.
Armando stared into the distance. The stark dead trees that populated Reelfoot Lake stood in the far distance. He knew Cooper wouldn’t be back, no matter what he had threatened. The priest, no, not a priest, they called him Reverend here, had told him he would be safe and that, no matter what he had done, God would forgive him if he only asked. Armando wasn’t so sure about that last part, but he made a silent promise to his mother that he would do his best to earn that forgiveness.
The Reverend’s wife had been kind as well. Heavily pregnant, and awkward with her big belly, she had still found a place for him to sleep for the night there in the sanctuary. Most of the children the makeshift orphanage had housed were now living with foster or adoptive parents. The large room was still filled with beds, but it was mostly empty. Miss Grace had explained that she knew someone very special who was looking for a child to take in.
She patted his shoulder, “You’ll like Abby; she’s raised two kids of her own and just has Tabitha still at home now. She’s got room and I’ve told her all about you.”
Within a few weeks, Armando had shortened his name to Andy and fit in seamlessly with the Carters. He missed his mother, more than he could even say, but for the first time in his life, he finally felt safe.
Miles to the west, Scott Cooper walked on.
Count Me In
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours - it is an amazing journey - and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.” – Bob Moawad
“Are you insane?” Wes barked at Chris. “Completely certifiable?”
Chris was packing a large backpack at the moment, trying to puzzle out how to fit the clips of ammo and the rest of the loose shells in one of the smaller sections.
Wes stared at the mounds of packs as well as boxes of paints and supplies.
“You can’t just waltz out of here with a bunch of ...” He waved his hand at the far corner that was occupied with a maze of paintings, “A bunch of...art. The roads are still dangerous, the Reformation is a frigging joke, and you are both going to end up dead.”
Chris ignored him. Wes was plain-spoken, and Chris had grown used to that over the years. The older man glared at him for several long moments before stalking out of the tiny house. Chris suppressed a twinge of regret. Despite their difference in age, or a host of differences, Chris had found a solid friendship with Wes. Despite his angry façade and harsh words, the man cared for others far more than he could admit, even to himself. Since the raid that had killed his fiancé and the mother of his unborn child, and even before that, years before, when his wife Sarah had left him, disappearing into the night with their young son and daughter, Wes had been unable to give voice to the part of him that was good and kind. He rarely smiled, other than a sarcastic sideways smirk, and still called Chris “soldier” far too often.
The older man hid behind his gruff exterior so that others wouldn’t get close, so that he wouldn’t ever be given love or acceptance only to risk losing it again. That was what Carrie had once said, and Chris knew she was right. Wes worked hard, spent long hours toiling on the Perdue farm and then heading up to see Jim Dorian, who had recently had a stroke and shortly after that fallen down his rickety old stairs, breaking his leg in the process. The simpleminded man was now in his mid-50s and had trouble understanding why his body was betraying him in such a strange manner.
Outside of the stone house he could hear Wes start his truck up and gun the engine, driving down the rough dirt road and back toward town. They were leaving tomorrow, first thing in the morning. He had hoped Wes would stay for dinner at the Perdue farm, where Carrie already was now, saying her goodbyes. She had put on weight the past few weeks, inching away from the skeletal frame and looking younger and less haunted. It was if the decision to leave had taken a weight off of her she hadn’t realized existed. She had sent letters ahead to the art gallery in Denver, but there had been no response. This wasn’t surprising; mail was still rather spotty and there were still some routes that took longer than others—the highly efficient system of mail delivery had been lost with the collapse of the country and they were still struggling to put it back to rights, along with a host of other creature comforts that most people took for granted decades before.
That evening at the Perdue’s was not easy. Liza, expecting her fourth child, was exhausted and beside herself at the thought of her older sister moving away. The children, even little Abby, were voicing their own distress. Abby climbed onto Carrie’s lap at one point, and said in her tiny baby voice, “Au Cree, no go!” Which caused tears to spring in both Liza and Carrie’s eyes.
Liza’s husband Carl said little. He wasn’t a talkative man, but obviously he too disapproved of Chris and Carrie leaving. Chris turned to him at one point in the evening and asked, “Did Wes say if he would be by for dinner?” Carl just shook his head.
Chris thought briefly of running into town and seeing if Wes was holed up in his house or at Dorian’s ramshackle trailer, and decided against it. Perhaps this was for the best. He couldn’t explain it to anyone. Not Carl or Liza; not even to himself. What mattered was Carrie. If she thought leaving would make it better, then leaving is what they would do. As it was, he found himself thinking more and more of Belton.
Mom, Dad, Jess, and Allen—they were all dead. But the town was probably still there. He found himself wondering about it; how much had it changed? Was there anyone left that he knew? He had resolved to make sure they stopped there, at least for a day, before moving on to Colorado. Just to see the old house, just to say goodbye properly this time, and take a moment to remember the happier times. He knew that Carrie wouldn’t begrudge him that, even if the detour was slightly out of their way.
“Chris?” Joseph was standing there in front of him.
Chris hadn’t even noticed his arrival from town because he was so lost in his plans for visiting Belton. The little kid was now grown into a rather self-assured, yet quiet teenager. He was fourteen now and had taken over Mr. Liles automotive store more than a year ago, caring for the aged old man, crafting leather-bound books out of deer hide Wes shot and then taught him how to cure. The books were then lined with paper from a printing supply company that had sat abandoned for more than a decade. The kid had weathered Fenton’s death, then Mr. L
iles’s less than two months later, with a quiet reserve that belied his years. His blond hair was spiky and short, his haircut a parting gift from Carrie, who wielded more than just a paintbrush with quiet accuracy.
The boy had a box perched near the front door, “I brought you more of the journals. Thought you might use ’em for trade.”
The journals were made from rich cream vellum he had found beneath boxes of envelopes and cheap stationery. The butter-soft deer hide was embossed with his initials. Chris picked one up and ran his hands over it.
“These are great Joe; you really have been improving, and the hide seems quite supple. No more shrinkage?”
The teen winced a bit at the memory of his first attempts at curing the hides Wes had brought him. There had been a trial and error phase, but he had quickly learned how to mend his mistakes and create quality hides. Books were his first project. Now he was starting on working leather belts.
“Yeah, I’ve got the hang of it now.” Joseph paused, looked down at the ground, “I wish I could go with you Chris.”
Chris laid a hand over the boy’s shoulders, but said nothing; he knew Liza would lose it completely if both of her siblings answered the siren call of the West. He felt a sharp pain in his chest, and he couldn’t help wondering how long it would be before he saw the boy again. Tiptonville had been his home for over ten years, and Joseph was the little brother he never had.
That evening they spent a restless night in the small stone house. One last night of banking the fire, checking to see if there was anything they had missed, anything that just had to be included. The van they were using had been the Carter’s—Carl’s mom and stepdad—but they had given it to Chris and Carrie when they first heard the news that they were leaving.
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