by Billy Roper
Eight reloaded .45 cartridges for his Glocks. Five shells for the shotgun, two of 00 buck and the rest lighter loads. A handful of .22 long rifle, common trade currency, and a few other calibers he could barter with. Nothing for his AR, this time, but he still had a few magazines full. Best of all a dime and a half of silver, close to a week’s wages if you could get it, and seven cans of food, those presented to him as they filed out the barn door to shake his hand and tell him how much they looked forward to the wedding he was going to perform the next day, before he left. The young couple still sat anxiously, waiting to ask him about what they had to do tomorrow. He smiled at their youth, their nervousness, their love. They must have been in junior high when the lights went out. Their children would never know the world that was dying. It was enough to make a man hang his head and pray. Almost.
The Preacher almost told them how fleeting life and love were, and how shallow and temporary the heart’s warmth. He wanted to tell them that there was no use in any of it any more, but he didn’t. It was all he could do to not envy the young man the way the girl looked at him. Someone had once looked at him that way, a long, long time ago.
Instead, he counseled them to love one another, to not speak too hastily, to wait and consider the other’s view, and to hold one another close. He counseled them to see it as the two of them against the world. He counseled them to let noone come between them, on either side. He counseled them to not give it up when they got mad or hurt.
He counseled them, and was just about to blow out the lamps as they left for their last night as virgins when he noticed an old woman hunched in the corner, eyeing him with a mixture of fear and hope. Another lost soul in need of salvation. He’d throw her a rope. “How may I help you, ma’am?”
She wasn’t quite as old as he had thought, perhaps fifty, about his own age, but the last few years had aged everyone so that mileage counted for more than year model. The face framed in silver looked like a map of the world, if it was a world of sorrow. The story began to trickle out, then gushed forth in a flood of sobs. Her son had been in the army when things fell apart. The last letter from him had been sent from Atlanta, where his unit had been trying to put down the riots. That had been nearly four years ago. Nothing since. He offered that transportation and communication was very difficult these days, even for the army, then prayed with her for her son’s safe return. She apologized that she was too poor to put anything in the offering, but raised her head with tears in her once proud brown eyes when he handed the bag of canned food to her. What the hell, he didn’t really like corn, anyway.
Not a bad haul for the night, all in all. No altar call, and therefore no salvations or rededications, what with the wedding the next day, but it was getting a mite chilly for baptisms down at the creek. That would have to wait for next Spring. He went to bed happy, until the dreams came, as they always did, ruining everything. He woke to the sound of a little girls’ screams, and remembered that he had only dreamed her to him again.
The same crowd showed up for the wedding the next day, and the newlyweds gave him a silver dime for performing the ceremony after the potluck, which the bride’s father doubled. He left one of them with his host family as a privately welcome but formally protested payment for their hospitality, which made even the son who had lost his room temporarily grin. This younger generation was learning the value of a deal early on. He had to leave if he was going to make it down the mountain and back up again to Jasper before dark. The younger boy had his horses saddled for him. He rode away waving as the wedding party cheered. The sun had almost touched the mountain in front of him when he saw the Jasper sentry post. He’d made it before dark.
What had been the County seat had half burned when a group of refugees rioted that first winter, the story had it. Without power to provide water pressure, the inferno had swept away most of the downtown buildings, taking many of the rioters with it. By the time the local authorities regained control of the situation, Jasper was a hollow ring. It had never fully recovered, but sentries were still posted on both ends of Highway 7 North and South of town, as well as on three of the side roads. One of them recognized the preacher and waved him through with a question about how things were in the outside world. He was handed a new copy of the Ponca Press in answer. He stuck it inside his jacket with a nod of thanks. Smart-ass.
Harrison had several churches still in business, so he avoided it like the plague that often sprang up there during the hot summers. Too much competition, too much resentment and jealousy, and too much shady politics. Jasper had been the second biggest town in the region, and still was in the top three, although Bartertown was now its leading competition. It did have a hotel that was still open as he rode in behind the sunset. The local militia kept out the riffraff, after the lesson they had learned the hard way, but enough traders and travelers came up and down the highway to keep it going. They even had a decent stable that would feed and water his horses for an extra half dime. After a visit to the latrine and a quick dinner in the famous café across the street that had survived at the edge of the fire, he looked across the black expanse to the scattered lamplights two blocks away for a while as he smoked a hand rolled cigarette in satisfaction. Jangly piano music drew him towards the bar down the street, but it would be bad for business if he went in. His business, that was. Some of the congregation at tomorrow’s service might be there now, but he couldn’t afford to be. Literally. Instead, he strolled back to his hotel room and cleaned his guns by kerosene lamp light just like every night, as if his life depended on the ritual. It did.
Mindless manipulation of cold steel and wood and polymer kept his brain occupied, and away from dangerous thoughts of the family he once had. There had been a woman who never would have stood next to another man to wash dishes, and children who followed his every step. Sometimes he could still feel their closeness. They had never grown up to resent him, or think he wasn’t cool, or rebel against him. They never had the chance.
The slightly greasy soup he’d gotten for dinner hadn’t set well in the preacher’s stomach, so he was back out at the two-seater the next morning when the occasional clatter of wagon traffic over the Buffalo River bridge began to pick up its pace. Already, word of mouth and mail couriers had announced his arrival, and folks for miles around were coming into town for the social and entertainment aspect of his meeting, as well as the spiritual. There were half as many people as there used to be, and less than half of them had wagons, but the riverside street was quickly turning into a parking lot of rigs. Leftover replicas from chuckwagon races sat side by side with truck beds and rear axles hooked to teams, all along the bank. There must have been twenty of them, which by his quick calculation, translated into a big crowd and a big offering. He stopped by to make sure Goldilocks and what’s-his-name were tended to, then walked back across the street to do some shopping in anticipation. Children ran through the swirling leaves at play, calling out to one another in the middle of the road. He was a ghost from the past. They were the future. He felt like an invisible phantom in their brave new world.
The string of tourist and antique shops had been divided up into market space for candlemakers, soapmakers, a blacksmith, and a clothier where two women sat and spun locally carded wool. The strong smell of lye soap from the open-air public laundry made him blink. His eyes, more relaxed than usual after the night’s rest, hurt less than they usually had since he’d lost his glasses. He spent a few minutes trying on used pairs piled up on a table of the herbalist’s shop, but none were very close to his prescription. That didn’t stop him from squeezing into the narrow bookseller’s stall and browsing a bit. He found a paperback edition of ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ and ‘Ecce Homo’ combined into one volume, and three well preserved National Geographics that he paid the old lady ten .22 rounds for after some haggling. He would add them to his collection.
Winter was coming. When the first frost hit, the preacher would end his circuit until Spring thaw, burrowing up in the
well stocked cabin he’d commandeered over at the Boy Scout camp. Right now, he was like a squirrel gathering nuts, getting ready. He crossed back over to the hotel and stashed the reading material away in his saddlebags, then felt a familiar light-headed lethargy. His blood sugar was low. Maybe there was something better than the soup on for breakfast.
Already he dreaded the days of cold when he would be stuck inside alone. His thoughts would hem him in and surround him with memories that only noise and motion could bury. He would see with his mind’s eye the children who never had a future, in his past. He would see his own non-future, in theirs. No matter who won the war, what they inherited would be nothing but empty tomorrows.
Alone, the Preacher kept thinking about the newlywed couple he had hitched. It took a lot of courage to start a life in the dying civilization, and to bring a baby in the world, which is what would certainly come next. Maybe a few of them. A whole passle of them. A family. Those kids would be born with no memory of tv or video games, or airplanes or space ships, would they? That is, unless somebody pulled things together mighty quick. The devil hid in the guise of entropy, devouring what he could. Even the memories of children. Even their tomorrows.
If you enjoyed this collection of short stories about a future balkanized America, we encourage you to check out Billy Roper’s books at Amazon, while you still can. If the scenarios described alarmed you into wanting to get ready, then you can connect with others in the Balk Right through the ShieldWall Network at AryanWarrior.com. Contact the author via e-mail at [email protected].