Without Law 13

by Eric Vall

  “Tara,” I sighed. “Apologize to Anna.”

  “Ugh,” the platinum blonde groaned. “Sorry.”

  “What was that?” Anna asked since Tara had mumbled the word.

  “I said I was sorry!” the platinum blonde exclaimed, and then she burst into laughter.

  “Good,” the redhead sniffed, then she chuckled as well.

  “You two are crazy,” Paige said with a shake of her head.

  “They remind me of my sisters,” Bailey added with a smile.

  “Ew,” Tara and Anna said at the same time.

  “You all know you love each other,” Kimmy laughed. “Why hide it?”

  “Whatev,” Tara said, and she walked to the back of the trucks. “Shall we get this going?”

  We got the hoses out and rigged them so that the tanks began to fill with water from the lake. While we were waiting, the girls walked out onto a nearby dock and sat down.

  “It’s nice out,” Anna said as she closed her eyes and let the sunshine beat down on her face and neck.

  “I can’t wait till we get that swimming day,” Tara said, and she flashed me a wicked grin.

  “You’ll get your swimming day,” I promised. “But there is something I wanted to talk to you all about.”

  “What is it?” Bailey asked, and her blonde eyebrows pulled together.

  I knew that the girls could tell that I was nervous, and I didn’t want to upset them, but I wasn’t sure how they would take the news I was about to deliver.

  “Well,” I started. “I’ve been thinking about our situation.”

  “What about it?” Anna asked, and her eyes narrowed slightly on me.

  “Yeah,” Paige added. “Whatever you say, we’re not going to be mad.”

  “Alright,” I said with a nod, and I leveled with each of the girls. “I think we should move to the fort.”

  They were all quiet for a second as they stared at me.

  “Is this because of the fire?” Bailey asked quietly.

  “In part,” I admitted. “The fort would be safer when it comes to natural disasters like that.”

  “And there is a water source right there,” Paige noted as she bit her lip.

  “What about the farm?” Kimmy asked with a frown.

  “We’d finish out the season there,” I said. “But after that, we’d move to the fort. We can use the land around it to grow for next season.”

  “You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?” Anna asked, and she looked at me with a cool expression.

  “I have,” I answered. “I think it’s the best long term option for us.”

  “Okay,” the redhead said with a nod.

  “Okay?” Tara asked. “Okay, like, you’re okay with this?”

  “Yeah,” Anna said. “I trust Tav to do what’s best for us.”

  “Thank you, Anna,” I told her with a soft smile.

  “I don’t know,” Tara said. “I’m not too keen on moving in with a bunch of other people.”

  “I bet they’ll give us one of those fancy rooms with a fireplace and a giant bed,” Paige said.

  “Deal,” Tara said quickly.

  “You didn’t take much convincing,” Kimmy chuckled.

  “I was just holding out for the room,” the platinum blonde said with a wink. “You should have led with that.”

  “So you all are okay with this?” I asked. I knew that I was in charge, but I wanted the support of my girls before I told everyone else the plan. If they had reservations about it, I needed to know.

  “I’m okay with it,” Bailey said with a soft smile. “I’ll miss the campus, but we can’t just stay there forever.”

  “I’m cool, too,” Paige agreed. “As long as we can bring some books from the library.”

  “Of course,” I laughed.

  “I support whatever you think is best,” Anna told me.

  “And I’m totally down to have a fireplace in our room,” Tara said with a nod.

  “I’m not surprised,” I chuckled, and I turned to the last woman left. “Kimmy? What do you think?”

  “Me?” the dark skinned woman asked with surprise. “Oh. Well, I think it’s a good idea. I just want everyone to be safe.”

  “So, it’s settled then,” I said with a smile. “We’re moving to the fort.”

  “There is one little problem,” Paige said, and she bit her lip.

  “What’s that?” Anna asked.

  “Betty,” I sighed with realization.

  “Bingo,” the brunette said, and she locked her hesitant eyes onto mine.

  Chapter 15

  It wasn’t just Betty, but all the farmers I was worried about. There was also Briar and the Millers. All of them had owned and operated land near us for decades, and some of their families had been there much longer.

  Betty’s house had just been saved from the fire, and if she didn’t want to leave it before then, she definitely wouldn’t now.

  The Millers home had been taken by the flames, but we had planned to burn it down anyway after what had happened with the cannibals.

  Since Briar’s house was on the other side of Betty’s, I was sure that it had been spared by the fire, but we couldn’t allow the old man to go back to living all on his own. Last time that he’d had that freedom, some nasty people had come through and beat him to hell for no apparent reason. It was too dangerous for him to stay on his own.

  Marla and Justin had the two kids to worry about, so I hoped that might be enough to help persuade them. Even with their house being gone, I wasn’t sure that they’d want to leave the campus. They’d been devastated by what had happened with their home, and now I wanted to tear their new home right from under them.

  It wasn’t going to be a pleasant conversation, but it was one that we needed to have.

  The girls and I arrived back home from getting water and taking care of the crops, and Rolly greeted us with a frown.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as he approached.

  “Nothing’s wrong per se,” he said, but his thin lips pursed with concern. “But Renee called on the radio.”

  “What’d she say?” I asked.

  Part of me wondered if she had found out anything more about the people who had sent out the distress signal. If she had, then I was sure she wouldn’t have said it over the radio, but I had told her to only use it in times of emergency since we couldn’t know who might be listening. The fact that she had reached out was already worrisome.

  “She said that she thinks there might be a small fire on their side of the state line,” Rolly informed me.

  “Did she say that exactly?” I asked, and my eyes narrowed as I thought. I had told Renee to not say anything to give away her position, so I hoped that she wouldn’t have specifically said anything about the state line.

  “Not in so many words,” the old man answered. “She was discreet, but made it clear that it wasn’t near us.”

  “Okay, good,” I said with a nod, then I realized what he had just said about the fire. “She thinks there’s a fire near her, though?”

  We’d just survived out our own fire, but if there was one in the area then it made sense that there could be more, especially with how dry the streams were. It was a hot year, and who knew what the hell other survivors were doing, or what they’d left out just waiting for the sun to hit just right. Since the EMP hit we’d already dealt with meth heads, so someone being careless with a fire or a cigarette wouldn't’ surprise me one bit.

  “Afraid so,” Rolly said.

  “It’s not surprising,” Paige said with a frown.

  “Everything’s incredibly dry right now,” Bailey added. “Anything could have started it.”

  “Did she say anything else?” I asked.

  “She said she needs to put up fire lines, and she wanted our help,” Rolly answered.

  “I’m going to give her a shout,” I said, and I started toward the dorm building.

  “She said she’d wait for you to get back in to
uch with her,” the old man agreed.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, and I headed to the dorm building. Nobody followed me, and their voices disappeared as I made my way inside. It was empty, and I walked quickly to the supply closet with the radio, took a seat, and picked up the mic.

  “Tav to Renee,” I said. “Come in, Renee.”

  Only a few seconds later Renee’s voice came through the speaker.

  “Renee to Tav,” she said. “I’m here.”

  “You’ve requested assistance?” I asked in an attempt to keep everything as formal and impersonal as possible.

  “Yes,” her voice crackled in. “Equipment is needed for fire lines.”

  She was referring to our tractor, and I thought for a moment about how we could get it to her. Our fire had moved east, and for the moment we didn’t need the machine. Besides, Renee had been good to us, and I wanted to make sure that she and the others at the fort were taken care of.

  It would take way too long to drive the tractor over to her since the thing only went about twenty miles an hour at max. And that could open us up to an ambush if we ran into anybody else. I didn’t like that idea one bit.

  Then again, we didn’t exactly have a trailer large enough to haul it.

  Renee needed an answer, though, so I pushed the button and spoke into the mic.

  “Assistance is approved,” I said. “Equipment will be provided ASAP.”

  “Thank you,” Renee’s voice came in sweet and sincere over the speaker.

  “Over and out,” I said, and I hung up the radio.

  If somebody was happening to listen in on our conversation, I didn’t want to give them any reason to think that they could use one of us against the other. I tried to make the relationship seem as nonchalant as I could. We still didn’t know what all these people were about.

  One problem at a time, I told myself, and I headed back out of the dorm building and found the girls. They all sat around one of the picnic tables with cups of coffee in front of them.

  “There’s coffee,” Kimmy told me as I took a seat, and she poured me a cup. It wasn’t hot, or even warm really, but I took it anyway and took a swig of the dark liquid. I’d take all the caffeine I could get right then.

  “What’s going on with Renee?” Anna asked after I got settled.

  “She needs our tractor to lay down some fire lines,” I explained.

  “Are we going to drive it over to her?” Tara asked. “It didn’t seem like it moved very fast when we were in the field. That’ll take forever.”

  “I think it gets up to twenty five,” Paige pointed out. “But Tara does have a point.”

  “I thought the same thing,” I said before I took a drink of coffee. “We need a better way to get it over to her.”

  “We’d need a pretty large trailer to haul it,” Kimmy said, and she bit her lip. “There’s no way we could get it on the back of one of the trucks.”

  “We have our boat trailer,” Paige said.

  “Yeah, but it’s not really designed to hold things with tires like that, is it?” Bailey asked through a mouthful of food.

  “No,” the brunette agreed. “But we might be able to rig it somehow.”

  “How would we do that?” Kimmy asked. “Do you think it could support the weight of the tractor?”

  “The tractor will be heavier than our boat,” Paige said with a nod. “But if we can distribute the weight evenly, then we might be able to get away with it.”

  “Okay, so how do we do it?” Anna asked.

  “I’m not sure just yet,” the brunette answered. “Let me look at the trailer.”

  I nodded and took another drink of coffee as I watched the gears turn in the brunette’s head.

  They were turning in mine, too, and I was trying to figure out how to make her suggestion work. If we could use the boat trailer to haul the tractor, then that would make it a lot easier to take it the hour long drive. If we had to drive the thing, then that hour would easily turn into three, and with everything we’d just gone through, I didn’t want to leave everyone alone for that long.

  I downed the rest of my coffee, then I headed over to where the boat trailer was parked at the far end of the courtyard.

  Bailey had been right, it definitely wasn’t set up to carry anything with wheels, but it looked like it would be long enough to haul the tractor at least. Whether it could stand the weight or not was another dilemma altogether. And we still had to figure out how to rig it so that the wheels could sit on it easily.

  “What do you think?” Paige asked as she came to stand beside me.

  “I think it’s long enough,” I chuckled dryly.

  “I’d say we could lay wood across it and have the tractor sit on that, but I’m not sure wood would be strong enough,” the brunette said with a frown.

  “I think that might be our best bet,” I said with a shake of my head.

  “I’m still not sure it would be able to support all that weight,” Paige sighed.

  The trailer we had was large, with two sets of wheels, one in the front, and one in the back. Each set had three wheels to it, and it was definitely sturdy when it came to our boat, and even a few extras thrown on, but a tractor was a huge piece of machinery. I had to agree with Paige, I wasn’t sure we could haul it safely on there.

  “Oh, I think I got it!” the brunette exclaimed after a moment.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “We don’t have to get the whole thing on there,” she told me with a wicked smile.

  “We don’t?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “No,” Paige said with a wide grin. “If we can get the front wheels of the tractor onto the trailer and attach them securely, then we can put the thing in neutral and leave the back tires off.”

  I felt my eyes grow wide as I comprehended just what she was saying.

  “That just might work,” I told her with a smile.

  “I think it will,” she said, and she lifted her chin up proudly.

  “Let’s go tell the girls,” I said. “We need to give this a try now. I don’t want us gone for longer than necessary.”

  Paige and I informed the girls of the plan, and I let Rolly know that we’d be gone for a while longer if our plan worked. Kimmy checked on baby Anthony before we left, but Betty didn’t have him anymore. Marla had advised that the children stay inside since it was still so smokey out, and once again, I was happy to have her on our team. Everyone worked well together, and I knew that the members of my community had each other’s best interests at heart.

  The fire had moved east, but the smoke was still around, though not as heavy as it had been earlier. Children were more vulnerable to smoke, though, and I was glad Marla thought to keep them quarantined.

  We attached the trailer to one of the military trucks, since it had more horsepower than the jeeps, then we set off for Betty’s once more.

  “Do you think this is going to work?” Anna asked as we turned down Betty’s driveway.

  “It’s Paige,” I chuckled. “And unless we want to drive it over there, this is pretty much our best bet.”

  “Right,” the redhead said with a small nod.

  I pulled the truck up by the tractor, and we all hopped out and looked at the machinery in front of us. I had a feeling that Paige’s idea just might work, so I grabbed the boards out of the back of the truck, as well as the ratchet straps that we brought.

  We placed the boards at the end of the trailer so that the tractor could use them to climb up it, and then I hopped onto the tractor and started it up.

  “Stand back,” I yelled to the girls, and they all stepped away from the trailer.

  If anything went wrong, I didn’t want them anywhere near the equipment.

  I slowly pulled the tractor up to the trailer and maneuvered the tires so they lined up with the planks we had set up. I made sure to go up the makeshift ramps slowly. If they were going to snap, that would be the time they did it.

  Lucki
ly, they were strong wood, and they held up, at least to part of the tractor’s weight. Once the front tires were in position, I put the tractor in park and turned it off.

  “It seems to be working,” Bailey said with a smile as I climbed down.

  “It does,” I agreed as I admired our handiwork.

  We got the ratchet straps, then, and attached them to the front tires and the trailer itself so they were more stable.

  “As long as the ratchet straps hold the front in place, then we should be good to go,” Paige said, but her face showed her nervousness.

  “We should know by the end of Betty’s driveway whether it will hold or not,” Kimmy said. “That’s going to be the roughest part of the drive.”

  “Fair point,” Anna said with a nod. “As long as Tav doesn’t speed too bad, we should be okay.”

  “Hey,” I chuckled. “You’re more of a speed demon than I am.”

  “Whatever you gotta tell yourself,” the redhead teased.

  I shook my head and hopped back up into the tractor to put it in neutral. I felt it slide slightly once it was out of park, and I was ready to make any adjustments necessary, but it seemed to settle into place, so I slowly climbed back down again.

  We put the planks back into the back of the truck, then we all climbed in.

  “Let the real test commence,” Paige said, and she looked at me with wide eyes.

  I nodded at her, then started the truck. I watched out my side mirror as I slowly accelerated. The back wheels of the tractor began to turn, and I pushed the gas a little harder.

  It was nerve wracking having such a huge piece of equipment behind us, but I took it slow. After we made it twenty feet or so, I was fairly confident that it wasn’t going anywhere.

  Still, I made sure to go extra slow down the driveway, and I watched as the tractor dipped and bobbed with the potholes. It didn’t come loose, though, and the front wheels hadn’t moved from their position, so I knew they were secure.

  Once we got to the main road, I heard Paige let out an audible breath.

  “Geez, that made me anxious as hell,” the brunette said.

  “We could tell,” Anna chuckled.