Story Delilah "Del"

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 6 - 1

“Del, start a pot of coffee … and none of that hybrid stuff you drink either … and make it high test. Then put on a good breakfast. I know you’re tired Baby Girl but I need you to pull hard today.”

“Was I complaining Daddy?” I asked, concerned he thought I was weakening.

“No and for that I’m grateful. But I also know that with you back to being the only female …” He let the rest of it hang because he knew that I’d been grateful, for however long it had lasted, to have had Dee take some of the workload off of me.

“I’m fine Daddy. Don’t worry about it,” I told him despite the fact that he’d pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I tried not to feel like a mule that had been pointed to an overgrown field and been ordered to plow without a driver as I got the eggs that the hens had laid over the last couple of days. Scrambled eggs, busted down gravy, and a stack of corn meal flapjacks was soon being set on the dining room table with real butter and sorghum molasses for those that wanted it. Using the wood stove made the breakfast nook too hot to enjoy a meal in, even that early in the day. To save heating the kitchen up again I set a baking dish with some rice and beans to slow cook with enough food to last for both lunch and supper (I’d just add a salad and some fruit cocktail for dessert at the last meal), sighing with relief that I’d managed to knock more than a few things off my mental to do list before the men even sat down to breakfast.

Micah brought the newest basket of eggs in, handed them to me and then went to wash. Mark was putting Jessie in his highchair and told me, “I filled the wood box on the back porch. Your dad back yet?”

“He’s changing the batteries out. Can you eat and feed Jessie at the same time or do you want me to take him?”

“No. I like to feed him, sometimes it is the only good time we get to spend with each other.”

Finally everyone was sitting. “Aren’t you going to eat Del?” Micah asked.

“I ate as I cooked. I want to be free to make notes while Daddy talks.” I turned to the man in question and asked, “Does this change what you want to get done today?”

“Well, to be honest I was hoping that the boys and I could run off to town and see what is going on but I don’t think we should spare the time now. Mark, I’m going to need your help if you will.” At Mark’s nod he continued. “I want to move the batteries and the charging station out of the shed and down into the basement. I’ve got the place all marked off where I want things put. When I originally put the system in I ran two sets of wiring. One out to the shed that is live and one down into the basement that would give me room to do more fine tuning. Well, there is no more time so I just want to go ahead and move the set up but we need to put the venting in first. That’s half way in but capped off. We’ll start by finishing the venting then make sure the lines are still run sound … check to make sure nothing has gotten to ‘em like mice … and then we’ll move the bank of batteries over and then enclose it with some scrap lumber we brought with us. Del, I know you were going to go back to the farm and try and do some more down there but I’d prefer you to stay out of it until Rudy and his brother are settled up with how they are going to work things. His brother is an all right fellow, went to school with him, but I hear his son is a bit of a persistent Romeo and knowing you there’d be trouble.”

“Daddy! I’d never fall for …”

“Not fall for him Darling … cut him off at the knees when he wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Daddy said with a wink to make me feel better.

“Oh. Well, if he’s a jerk I’d just as soon avoid him.”

Mark was making some kind of choking noise and Micah banged him on the back. He spluttered, “I’m all right. Just thinking of the look on poor Calvin’s face if he made the mistake of assuming you were a regular kind of girl and susceptible to his type of looks.”

I let the “regular kind of girl” remark pass. Ol’ Calvin had started to sound more and more like the kind of male that I avoided.

“Then if you don’t mind Daddy I want to go do a little more foraging and then I’ve got a ton of work I’ve put off here, most of it of the laundry variety. No, I’ll switch it around … laundry first and then foraging; I’ll save the mending for tonight. Have they put the forecast out yet?”

Mark nodded, “Rain late in the afternoon or early evening.”

I said to myself, “Laundry it is.”

“Fine, now that everyone knows what we are doing today I want to try and plan out a few other things. After we move the power system completely under the main house roof I want to see about running some plumbing down into the sub cellar. I’ve got a composting toilet set up in mind and the supplies to put it together. After that I want to put them gorilla shelves together and get them leveled out. Del, once that gets done I’m going to want most of the preserved food to get moved down there. After that we’ll move as much of the remaining storage down there as we can and use the trunks for furniture if we have to.”

Mark asked, “Is it big enough down there for all of that? Won’t it be a tight squeeze?”

“You haven’t seen all of it. When we get the power run back that way … it will come on line once we move the bank of batteries … I’ll show you around. It will feel cramped at first but only until you get used to the shut in feeling; it isn’t too bad in the main room down there. Gonna have to rig a flue to do any cooking but I’ve got ideas for that too. Hopefully we won’t ever have to use it but I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Which reminds me, you better fix you and Jessie a go-bag so that if we have to run fast all you’ll have to do is grab the bag and go down to the cellar.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 6 - 2

I could tell that Mark was thinking a mile a minute and had a ton of questions but I was done and had already had a list a mile long that I needed to do but Daddy wasn’t through.

“I’ve already told you China and Russia have mixed it up. I don’t think that is a good thing and might just be another distraction rather than the main attraction. I hope the US is smart enough to stay out of it as long as they can but my concern is that one or the other will try and force us to pick sides … or incapacitate us to the point that we don’t have the strength to pick sides. Could very well be the original purpose behind these waves of terrorism we’ve been experiencing, there really isn’t any way of knowing, at least not right now. It is all just speculation. But, if that is a correct assumption we could see even more than we already have. It is an even better assumption that things are going to get worse before they get better so what I’m saying is better safe than sorry. I want to use this time to harden our position and to increase our security. I also want to remind you three that while all of them down on the farm are family of some type I want to focus our efforts here … Rudy knows the risks and he’s taking charge down there. I’m not going to tell him what to do or ask him what he has and I want us to keep to ourselves the same way. We’ll work together sometimes but we don’t need to be in each other’s business all the time. Understand?”

Oh I understood all right. Rudy had a habit of taking over. If I was bossy he was a lot worse though we still managed to get on all right despite the difference in our ages and so long as we each had our own “territory.” Makes us sound like a couple dogs which isn’t very flattering, especially to me, but there it is. I may have been a little pooch in the scheme of things but I felt the weight of my responsibilities even at the age I was I allowed that to influence my behavior perhaps more than it should have. To Rudy’s credit ninety-nine percent of the time he did a good job of it but I’d seen his one percent and it really blew slimy chunks and I didn’t want to risk it. Daddy may have been sick but he was still top dog in our pack and I intended on keeping him that way as long as possible. Mark was just relieved because while he respected Daddy because Daddy had always treated him with respect despite our brangling, Rudy used to push Mark around a bit because of his brother in law. I guess a young man’s ego is easily bruised … and hard to mend.

Micah was still anxious and wanted to know, “But Dad, what’s going on? What do you think they’ll do next? What …”

Daddy tried to calm him down. “Son, I’ve told you all I know and right now what they’ll do next isn’t near as important as what we do next. I can’t control them. We can control ourselves. And the best way to deal with the anxiety of the what-could-be’s is to say a prayer and start taking control of the what-we-can-do’s.”

After everyone had cleaned their plates I cleaned up the mess, including Jessie, while they started their work. Leaving the dishes to dry in the drainer I started mine.

Everyone was pretty good about wearing their work jeans more than once but in this heat there just wasn’t any way to get out of wearing a clean shirt every day. Even still I’d been too busy to do the laundry and Dee hadn’t ever thought to do anyone’s but hers and Cici’s. I had already learned that Mark was the one that kept up with Jessie’s laundry but I just grabbed theirs too and all the sheets and stuff from all of the beds.

Micah, at my request, had already started a fire and put the big kettles on it to get water boiling. Jessie was not happy about having to stay in the play pen and was complaining loudly.

I looked up at him on the porch and said, “Look Champ, I’m not having any fun either. I feel like a steamed clam, my hair is limp on one side and frizzing out on the other. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but it is hot. So, cut me some slack, play with your blocks, and then after lunch we’ll hit the woods for some foraging excitement.” I don’t know who looked at me with the stranger expression, Jessie or Mark when he overheard me talking to his son.

First came the sheets. I tossed them in the kettle and let them boil a bit. Daddy and Micah both had reactions to most store bought laundry detergent and softeners – I think it was the chemical scents or colorings that everything seemed to have in it – so I either boiled the whites clean and sun bleached them dry or I made my own detergent. The homemade stuff worked just as well, if not better, than the store-bought stuff and was way cheaper. For softener I just used vinegar in the rinse water, the same as I did for my hair. It was all we had when I lived with the Aunts and I never could seem to stand the slimy feeling of working the store-bought stuff into my hair. I don’t have a problem getting my hands dirty; it was the idea of putting something that felt so gross into my hair that was the problem.

I had enough bars of Fels Naptha, Zote, and Octagon soap to fill the Cumberland River with suds but I was worried about having enough Borax to do the job and keep it getting done. I pulled out my handy-dandy notebook and started a list of things that I needed more of than I had. Borax wasn’t one of those make or break items in the scheme of things but it was one I’d rather have than not. It was the same for more vinegar so that made it to my list as well.

After the sheets, that really weren’t that bad because we had finally convinced Micah how important washing his feet were before going to bed when Daddy assigned him laundry duty for two months straight, came the least dirty to most dirty loads. It was a toss up to which was dirtiest … socks or jeans … but socks lost the toss so they were the last load and I left them in there to boil for quite some time with a little extra detergent since I had been forced to smell them before they all went in.

After loads came out I dunked them in two separate rinses. The first was another boiling rinse to get the soap out and the second a clear rinse with the vinegar in it that was cooler. As I moved the loads between kettles I would run them through the mangler … basically a set of rollers that squeezed all of the water out. It wasn’t quite as good as the centrifugal force of a spin at the Laundromat but it was better than doing it by hand which I could personally attest to.

From there the laundry was hung on my newly restrung clothes line using the old-fashioned peg clips Daddy was fond of whittling when he couldn’t sleep. One of the few things that I missed when we moved to the cabin was a dryer to do the towels in. I did like the fluffy softness of towels dried at the Laundromat but I liked saving my quarters even more. I don’t think the Aunts had ever owned a drier though they enjoyed the automatic washer quite a bit, especially in winter; that let out going to the farm for the towels.

The problem was there wasn’t a speck of breeze in the air. We’d lived in Florida one year and I have to say it reminded me a whole lot of our time there … including the bugs. After I’d dug the third mosquito out of my ear I had officially had it. I picked up Jessie and took us both inside. Sure enough I saw a line of mosquito bites around the neck of his little t-shirt. DEET and little kids don’t mix so I dug out the trusty Skin-So-Soft. I used to pick it up at the flea market all the time since I didn’t care whether a fragrance was retired or not, nor if the bottle was a little dusty. I rubbed the stuff all over both of us and even up into Jessie’s thin hair and inside the cup of his ears; the only place I didn’t swab down were his hands as he still sucked his fingers.

We came back outside smelling like the Avon Lady but who cared, the mosquitoes transferred their attention to another meal source. By the time I was done with the laundry I had sweated most of mine off and reapplied it after feeding the guys lunch. About half way through lunch I caught Mark sniffing Jessie and I had to laugh.

“It’s just Skin-So-Soft,” I chuckled.

“I thought so. What? You think Jessie has fleas?” he asked.

“Fleas? Oh, you mean … no, I know people use the stuff to keep fleas off of their pets but I was using it to keep the mosquitoes off. They were getting irritating and Jessie has a line of bites around the back of his collar.”

“Does it work?”

“For me it does but you have to put it on more often than commercial bug spray. I didn’t figure you’d want Jessie to have anything with DEET on him.”

“No I wouldn’t. Does it work when you are out in the woods?”

“It keeps most things away … sort of I guess … but for the ticks I spray my clothes with DEET and don’t get it on my skin. For Jessie I’ve just been putting him in his footie pj bottoms and a long sleeved t-shirt on top. It gets hot but I keep his cup full of water and a little sun cap on him. Do you not want me to …”

“No! Uh, no. No I was just wondering. Dee always acted like I didn’t know what I was doing when I took him with me places. I was just wondering is all.”

I snorted and then caught myself about to make a rude comment and then changed tactics. “I know she is your sister Mark but … how can I put this … you … you see how Cici is turning out. I’d put a little more faith in what is guiding you with Jessie than on what your sister told you was the best way to raise your kid.”

His fork stopped half-way to his mouth for a couple of seconds and then he kept going at double the pace. When he was finished he hopped up and said, “Instead of the sling you made, let me get you his frame carrier. It might be cooler for both of you.”

Daddy got up from the table too but gave me a pat on his way out telling me in his way that I had done a good thing. Of course Micah then had to add his contribution to the mix by teaching Jessie to blow raspberries while he had food in his mouth. They both thought it was funny and it took me twice as long to feed Jessie than I had anticipated as most of the food had to be put in his mouth at least twice. Honestly, I could have strangled my brother for his thoughtfulness.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 6 - 3

Eventually we headed off into the woods where I thought it would be quieter than all the banging that was going on in and around the cabin but I was mistaken. The birds weren’t just down in the orchard, it seemed like they were all over in the forest and fighting each other for room. The caws, trills, and whistles were deafening in comparison to the quiet I normally found on the trails. The barks and coughs of the squirrels added to the den as they tried to warn off the birds from “their” trees.

I had thought to pick more mulberries but when I got to the biggest tree I had found most of the fruit was gone making me angry that I hadn’t picked more when I had the chance. A smaller tree nearby wasn’t quite as denuded of fruit but I still had to shoo a mess of nasty blackbirds to get a share for my own family. And if that wasn’t enough I had to cover the container to keep the sneaky jays from perching on the bucket edge and eating them as fast as I picked them. Seeing how bad the birds were made me concerned for the rose hips.

Sure enough I had to fight the birds off there as well but instead of the blackbirds and jays it was the cardinals. Thankfully they weren’t nearly as aggressive as the other birds were. I was in a quandary what to do. I thought I’d be able to come back whenever I wanted and pick my fill but with the birds acting so crazy hungry I needed to fill the five gallon bucket with as much as I could because there might not be any tomorrow.

I transferred the mulberries to a small picking bucket I had clipped to my belt and put the more durable rose hips in the bottom of the larger bucket and managed to get three quarters of the bucket filled before I had to give up the battle. The jays had found us and I’d already had two fly at Jessie scaring him to pieces. Nasty, mean little brutes.

I put a bandana over the hips and then carefully put the mulberries back in as another layer. As I was standing up I caught sight of some staghorn sumac … not the itchy kind but the ones with the red berries. I cut some drupes of ripe berries and laid them on top of the piece of cheese cloth I had laid on the mulberries, careful not to squish the softer berries underneath. I had seen lots of staghorn and smooth sumac in my walks but this small patch was the first ripe drupes I had seen. I hoped they survived the birds because in addition to a kind of lemonade that I made with the ripe berries I liked to dry the drupes out and grind them into a seasoning powder for when I wanted to add a lemony taste to dishes and sauces.

My arm was straining by the time I got back to the cabin. Micah, and Sam who had come up to escape the craziness at the farm for an hour or so, saw me first and came to take the bucket from me.

“Thank you. Ugh, that got heavier with every step,” I said wiping the sweat from my face and trying to ease my aching foot.

Sam noticed and asked, “How’s your foot Del?”

“Finer that I have any right for it to be; thank you for asking. If you boys will carry that bucket into the kitchen for me and wait for a minute I’ll make you some mulberry balls. I don’t think these berries will last long enough in this heat for me to be able to do anything with them.”

Sam didn’t know what I was talking about but Micah remembered the treats I used to make for him when we lived here more often.

Slipping Jessie off my back and putting him down to sleep – he was three-quarters there by the time I got home and almost completely dead weight – I took the mulberries out of the bucket and crushed them with a potato masher. Then I pulled out some of last year’s walnut meats, a gift from the Aunts when we first arrived (Aunt Lilah loved cracking nuts even though the doctor had told her to lay off eating them), and ground them up very fine with my little hand crank food processor. I mixed equal portions of both together and then played with the resulting mess a little bit adding a little more nuts or berries as needed to get a soft dough that I could form into balls. The balls were then rolled in sugar.

The boys ate them just about as fast as I could make them and then Daddy and Mark came upstairs to find out what the laughing was all about and got their share as well. I told Mark that Jessie was down for a nap.

“You’ve had him all morning, you’re bound to need some time to yourself.”

“I don’t mind but … well … I want to try and dig some wild ginger. Would you mind if I …”

“Of course I don’t mind. I should have said something earlier. I managed to keep an eye on him and work for your aunts. I’ll set his intercom up and you go do what you need to do.”

Micah got an evil grin on his face and said, “I’ll help watch Jessie.”

I told him, “Oh no you won’t. Not if you’re going to teach him any more of your tricks.” Of course then I had to explain to Mark the new skill of Olympic food spitting that Micah had taught him. Of course Mark thought it was hilarious. Uh huh. I thought, “You just wait until you are the one he is spitting his food at then we’ll see how funny you think it is.” But I took the chance when it was offered and went off on my own.

I really like kids and Jessie was a pretty easy baby compared to many I have taken care of over the years but still, wandering in the woods was a lot easier without carrying thirty pounds on your back which is what I estimated Jessie weighed.

My foraging luck held and I did manage to get some wild ginger, and some violets and wood sorrel too, but the best find was when I took a less beaten track and came upon quite a few wild plum bushes. They were two little glens of them … one of greengage and the others the yellow ones that Aunt Bel called Mirabelles. And wonder of wonders the birds weren’t too bad but I didn’t have much faith that that would last for long.

I hopped and skipped my way back to the cabin since my foot kept jogging out of the question. Daddy caught sight of me and thought something was wrong.

“No sir but I need to borrow Micah if you can spare him. I found a ton of ripe plums and want to beat the birds to them.”

Daddy straightened up, relieved that it wasn’t anything serious and said, “We’ll all come. We’ve finished moving and hooking up the bank of batteries and it is too late to start another big project. If this heat don’t break soon I might just start sleeping down in the cellar; it’s cooler than I expected compared to up here.”

The plums were about a forty minute walk from the cabin down a really old wagon track, one of many that were fading more and more as the years passed. Everyone had two five gallon buckets and we filled them all. Carrying them back though was a bit of a challenge until Mark handed me Jessie to carry and he and Micah took a long thick limb and ran it through several of the bucket handles. Mark put one end on his shoulder and Micah put the other end on his shoulder. Daddy was left with one bucket that he hefted on his shoulder and I put the bucket I was left with in Jessie’s back pack and carried Jessie in my arms.

“I do believe that we over estimated our strength.” Daddy’s dry statement brought a tired chuckle from all of us. But looking at Daddy I could see it wasn’t quite the joke he meant it to be.

“Tell you what, if I could get you gentlemen to take those buckets down to the cellar,” Micah groaned a bit but only half-heartedly. “If you’ll take them down for me, I’ll bring in the laundry and then we’ll have a good dinner and I’ll have a surprise for dessert.”

“Mulberry balls?” Micah asked hopefully.

“Nope, but something just as good.”

Sure enough, they were licking their bowls like puppies to get the last drop of goodness. I’d made a plain yellow cake using a cheap box mix that I had brought from our last house and made up a good hot chocolate syrup to thickly dribble over it. Warm cake, warm sauce, full bellies, and sleepy eyes.

I was laughing and wiping chocolate sauce off of Jessie’s nose when Daddy hushed us all and turned the radio up. There were widespread reports of Muslim attacks on Christians and Jews all across Europe and it was beginning to show up sporadically here in the US. Some kind of jihad had been declared by some extreme cleric living in Great Britain. He blamed the Christians for the bomb, specifically those in the US, refusing to accept that Iran was the author of its own fate. He said that the real truth was that the US military had done it to protect Israel and that all Muslims had a duty to Mohammed to … I don’t know … go out and kill all infidels regardless of age, sex, or what all.

“Honestly, why on earth are they giving that lunatic air time?! Don’t they know they are just spreading trouble?!” I asked, indignant that anyone could be so stupid.

“I don’t know,” Micah said. “Would anyone believe that someone could be so stupid if they didn’t hear it with their own ears?”

My lips thinned as they tried to restrain the words that wanted to come out. Mark said, “One way or the other this isn’t going to help matters. The news already said that China and Russia have gone beyond rhetoric and are now throwing bombs as well as words.”

“Mostly small scale stuff but it makes me wonder more and more if the bomb was a misstep in someone’s grand scheme.”

“What do you mean Daddy?”

“What is this? Hypothesis number five hundred and six? For what it’s worth I’ve come up with another one. Someone … let’s assume it was the little madman in Iran … decided that now was the time to toss the bomb. Maybe it coincides with some anniversary of someone’s death or a prophet’s birthday or something. The terrorist attacks in this country were to keep us busy with our own troubles, if not outright incapacitated. The bomb was to take out Israel, the primary stumbling block for Islamic supremacy in that region of the world. The extremist … aw, this doesn’t get us anywhere. Tomorrow, one way or the other, I want that sub-cellar ready for us to move things into and then I want to give serious consideration to us moving our sleeping quarters down into the basement. There isn’t as much privacy but it is a sight cooler than what we are dealing with right now and I don’t know about you young un’s but I’m desiring to have a goodnight’s sleep without sweating through my sheets.”

The guys were so tired that they all went to bed right after that but I had to do the dishes and by the time I finished with that I was no longer tired. I took the lamp into the butler’s pantry and decided to work on the inventory and to try and design out how the storage should be put together down in the sub-cellar. It was hot and stuffy in the enclosed space and I didn’t have any choice but to open the window; it was still hot but not anywhere near as stuffy.

It was a moment before it caught my attention. I guess I lived in the city too long to really get caught by it immediately. It was the sound of motors and buried in it was the sound of “pops.” As soon as it registered I ran down the hall calling, “Daddy! Mark! Something’s going on down at the farm!”

Micah called down from the loft, “I hear it too Del!”

Daddy came out while throwing on his fatigue jacket and slinging a belt of ammo across his chest (the belt was too big for his waist anymore). Mark was wide awake too and was listening to the sounds as they were carried up on what little breeze there was.

I could see Daddy and Mark going, they were grown men but when Daddy told Micah which gun and ammo to bring I had to bite the inside of my mouth til it bled to keep from screaming out my objection. People didn’t realize that when Daddy said I was both sister and mother to Micah that it ran through my very veins.

He looked at me with huge eyes, scared and I didn’t know what to do or what to say. When Daddy clapped him on the shoulder and complimented him on his speed he seemed to shake himself and pull away from me in a way he never had before and something changed in that moment and our relationship was never quite the same again.

Mark drew my attention with a quiet, “Take care of Jessie for me?” All I could do was nod and nod again when Daddy told me to lock and bar the door and not to come down to the farm for any reason … and to get my pistol and my hunting rifle and not to hesitate to do what I had to if it came to it.

Right then and there I railed against God for making me a girl and then thanked Him at the same time for making me one and having more sense than all the men in the world put together. I guess it has been like that since Eve birthed Cain; females looking around and wondering what on God’s green earth has gotten into the males of the species. On the other hand, I was no flibberty-gibbet to sit wringing my hands and sniffing smelling salts waiting for the men to come marching home again.

I carefully carried a sleeping Jessie down to the basement and put him in the playpen we had moved down there to keep it out from underfoot upstairs. Then I set the intercom up and went back upstairs. After checking all of the windows to make sure the shutters were closed and barred I crept to the front of the house that faced the farm.

I’ve described the front doors and how thick they were but not that they were ornamental too. One of the decorative effects – for security as well – was the small square door set where a peep hole would be. Covering this door on the outside was a cast iron grill just big enough to put the barrel of a rifle through.

Being five foot three on a good day has some advantages. On the other hand there were distinct disadvantages and one of them was the fact that my best friend was a step stool. That night I cracked the little door-in-a-door open and stood on a stool trying to see what was going on.

I couldn’t of course, the tree line worked both ways. No one from the farm could see the cabin, but the cabin didn’t have a good vantage of the farm either. The only thing I could see was the silvery outline of the trees in the moonlight. Being at the front of the house did allow me to tell that there were different kinds of motors … larger ones that were probably cars or trucks, and small whiny ones that sounded like the crotch rockets certain types of young men seemed to underestimate. And the gun shots. There weren’t any automatic weapons but there were semi-autos mixed in with single shots from what sounded like shot guns. I got down and leaned my head against the door and said a prayer of protection for those out in the night.

Then I heard some kind of crescendo occurring … and screams. My nails dug into the wood of the door as I got back on the stool desperately trying to see what was going on. And then one of the smaller motors seemed to break away; it sounded like it was getting progressively closer. A moment later I could tell it was two small motors and then they broke out of the road and into the clearing around the cabin.

They hadn’t expected it. I guess they thought it was just a road to the backside of the property and took it hoping to get over the ridge and away from what was happening down at the farm. They laid both bikes down hard and came up armed … and I had no doubt dangerous.

I won’t blame Daddy for my own actions. I won’t make excuses. I take full responsibility for what I did and come Judgment Day I’ll answer for it. They were running for the house, weapons at the ready. I can still hear the coarse language they used, cursing their bad luck at finally running into a farmhouse “full of rednecks that did more than scream and holler for mercy.”

They were almost on the porch before I accepted that I was going to do what I did. The door was in shadow. They hadn’t even bothered to check their surroundings, their arrogance making them sure of their own victory over any possible resistance. I don’t think they ever saw my rifle barrel pointed at them.

The first shot was a clean miss. No excuses. I’d never fired at a human before … a paper target of one yes, but never the flesh and blood version. The two men stopped, stunned. That gave me enough time to get a clean hit with the next shot. The other man turned to look at his suddenly prone companion and my next shot caught that man in the throat. I won’t describe the resulting mess, I still don’t like to think of it.

The noise of the gun had scared Jessie into wakefulness and I ran down to the basement to calm him. It gave me something to focus on besides the man that was dying a hard way at the bottom of my front porch steps. I rocked Jessie until he calmed and in turn that calmed me. He went back to sleep and I crept back upstairs to listen and heard … nothing. No more motors, no more gun shots, no more screams.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 7: Accelerando - 1

All was quiet, quiet enough to make me sick to my stomach. I could hear faint sounds occasionally wafting up from the farm. Some sounded urgent, some angry, most just sounded ridiculously normal and nothing that my imagination could compute. I waited … and waited … and waited … for what seemed like hours for word to come up from the farm that all was well. Actually it wasn’t quite two hours before I noticed movement in the moonlight.

I saw two figures trudging up the road with either rifles or shotguns in their hands; it was too dark to tell who they were. When they saw the bikes both went tense; I could tell by their sudden change in posture. I took a chance and whistled “Bob White” and one of the men noticeably relaxed and then whistled an answering call to me. That was Daddy because for some reason Micah could never learn to whistle except through his fingers. The person with him was too big to be Micah but didn’t look like Mark either. As they came near the porch I saw it was Rudy and boy did that cause my breath to catch in my throat.

Both men stopped and stared at the mess I had made. It was Rudy that called, “Dellie girl? You OK?”

“Daddy?”

“S’ok Del. Come on out.” Which I did, with haste.

“Where are Micah and Mark?!” I demanded anxiously.

“Easy Honey, they’re fine. They just stayed down to help put things back to rights and … and to help haul the bodies off. Mark asked if you would take care of Jessie.”

“Of course. He doesn’t even have to ask.” I was indignant over the imagined slight now that I knew they were OK.

“And so I told him but he said he didn’t want you to think he was taking advantage.”

I would have had something to say about that if I wasn’t so anxious for someone to tell me what had happened. I had to wait a few minutes more when Daddy asked, “Del, we need you to come down to the farm. There are some injuries … nothing serious so get the look off your face, at least not on our side … but Lilah just isn’t up to doctoring the way she used to and it would be a kindness if you could go down and help her. She’s pulling pretty good all things considered but she is still frail and the younger ones tend to yank away from things that sting.”

I ran inside, put on the sling and grabbed Jessie and my large med bag and a couple of clean, white sheets in that order. On the front porch I rebalanced baby and bag while Daddy locked the house and then it was down the road we went.

Rudy asked if I wanted a flashlight and I told him, “No thank you. The moon is full tonight and I’d rather not ruin my night vision.”

He quirked an eyebrow at Daddy who reminded him, “I’ve been taking Del and Micah hunting since they were big enough to hold a gun. I wanted them to be able to put meat on their table if something were to ever happen to me. Did you think Sam was the only sixteen year old boy in the family that could hunt and trap?”

Rudy got a thoughtful look on his face, “Well, no … but I didn’t know that you kept doing it when y’all would move all over; leastways not until Sam said something at the dinner table yesterday. Did you all really hunt gator in the ‘Glades, Elk in Arizona, and go salmon fishing in Alaska?”

Daddy was getting tired and was concentrating on not losing his balance so I answered, “Daddy was stationed in Florida and Arizona when we went hunting there but the salmon fishing was an invite from a friend I met my first year of college. Her parents own a kind of … well, it’s a way for inexperienced hunters to get a taste of hunting big game in Alaska while not getting eaten by grizzlies or doing damage to the environment accidentally. We’ve been to Central America too. A guy daddy worked with last summer invited us to go deep sea fishing down in Costa Rica where his family has a coffee plantation and that was pretty amazing too.”

“Humph” was Rudy’s answer. But it wasn’t a jealous sound, it was more like a surprised sound, like he was rewriting how he saw us. We weren’t just the farmies turned city slickers that only had a few mental assets to bring to the table. It didn’t bother me that maybe he was going to consider us smarter than he thought. What bothered me was the possibility that he might think that if we had more skills than he thought then maybe to go along with that we had more personal assets than he had credited us with. That was another case that saying “yes” would have been better than giving a detailed explanation. A “yes” would have sufficed and been truthful while the more detailed answer only raised more questions like how did we afford to go on those trips. The answer was simple and straight forward; we saved our money and used those opportunities as family vacations and as pantry fillers.

I waited a few more breaths and then, “I know y’all are probably sick of it already but could someone please tell me what happened? I don’t know what I’m walking into or what kind of injuries.”

Daddy’s tired sigh focused my attention on him. “Sorry Baby Girl … sorrier still that I haven’t asked you for more detail on … on that mess back at the cabin.”

“I did what I had to. I’ll answer for it when necessary. They were armed and were on the porch before I shot. Nothing much else to say about it until the Sheriff gets involved.” I knew my father and I didn’t want him taking responsibility for something that I did on my own.

Rudy looked at Daddy who just looked back at him. “Dellie, Sheriff Noble is dead. Shot in the back when he went to check up on a reported break in at the nursing home in the middle of town. Deputy Larson is filling in until things can be figured out but likely will be appointed after they can get enough of the commissioners together to vote.”

“O … K … So where does that leave us?”

Daddy said seriously, “On our own.”

“But the … the bodies y’all were talking about … all the gun fire … I … I heard it …”

“Dellie,” Rudy started. “You remember the looter laws. Well that’s what those men were trying to do, only on a bigger scale than breaking into the five and dime and yanking off a TV. This was an organized raid and my guess is that this isn’t the first time they’ve done it, maybe just the first in this area.”

“I know for a fact this wasn’t the first time,” and I recounted the few words I had heard the men cursing.

Rudy nodded and said, “There you go. If I needed more proof than what I saw tonight that would put the nail in the coffin.

“Standard tactics … greater numbers, shock and awe, more fire power. Most people would just give up hoping to escape with their lives if they didn’t outright run. But this isn’t the city where the majority of the people go unarmed. Most farmhouses have guns of some type. And it is far enough into this situation that some family groups are smartening up and banding together for security. Rudy already has a patrol schedule set up since they’ve had a few too many curious eyes walking by the gates.”

As we walked into the farm yard and I saw the churned up mess the ground was in Rudy added, “Folks are completely ignoring the quarantine signs now. They either don’t believe them or they are so hungry or needy they don’t care. And when I get my hands on that Ryland Harris I’m going to make him wish he’d never even thought about moving to this county.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 7 - 2

Rudy stomped off, his anger suddenly boiling again, and I turned to Daddy with a questioning look. “One of the raiders let slip they were getting information by hanging out at the local bars, picking up gossip on what families were well set but likely to be unable to defend it. Rudy got angry and grabbed one of the few survivors to get more answers and it turns out from the description most of the information they had was from listening to a man that closely resembles the description of that Harris fellow.”

“I guess I’ll have to look at the raiders wounds too, but family comes first.”

“There aren’t any surviving raiders,” Daddy said after a moment’s hesitation.

“Aren’t … but you just said …”

“They were shot trying to escape,” Daddy told me with a dead calm voice.

When I opened my mouth to ask more Daddy said, “Del honey, don’t ask questions you don’t really want the answers to. You don’t ask and I won’t have to lie to protect you. Understand?”

Unfortunately I did. I didn’t like it but a part of me understood in a way that made me momentarily uncomfortable with myself.

He left me at the porch of the farmhouse and I stepped into the kitchen where Aunt Lilah sat doing her best to tend to several people. “I’m here Aunt Lilah. Why don’t you sit and give directions and let me do the work.”

I got a steel eyed glare for my trouble. “Girl … I do not need you to feed me pabulum. I’m old and getting frail, but I’m not feeble headed. Give me that baby – he’s just about to kick up a fuss at all the ruckus – and you go on ahead and do what needs doing. These young un’s don’t want to hold still for me but maybe they will if you sit on ‘em.”

“Yes ma’am,” I answered with a smile. Hearing Aunt Lilah still be able to throw out that kind of sass gave me hope that she’d be around longer than she had seemed like the other day.

Mostly it was just bumps and bruises though Sam did have a deep sandy gash where some rock had got him from a ricochet off the garden wall. I kept looking around for Aunt Esther. It was Ali, a rather different one than I had been expecting, who told me, “Mother has taken to her bed. You wouldn’t happen to have anything in there to help her sleep? She ran out of her pills.”

“Give her a cup of chamomile tea and keep her away from any more ‘pills.’ She needs to try and integrate into the current situation and how she can constructively contribute, not run away and hide her head and become a burden on everyone else. Aunt Esther has plenty of talents … she ran that huge charity event when someone dropped it on her at the last minute, she’s very organized, she raised all of you by herself after Uncle George died. She is just going to have to get her head around things and she isn’t going to do it by sleeping all the time.” Aunt Lilah nodded in agreement as she continued to rock Jessie.

After I had cleaned and bandaged the last injury in the room I asked, “Anyone else?”

Sam, sticking his head in the door said, “Del, your dad is looking for you. He’s at the gate.”

I picked up my gear and went over to where several people were standing. It took my night vision a while to come back after being inside with the propane lamps but when it cleared I saw Daddy, Rudy, Mark, and a couple of other men I didn’t recognize.

“Del, this is Rudy’s brother John, and his son Calvin.” I looked at both men and didn’t see any injuries though both of them seemed upset. “John’s daughter Cindy was … roughed up … by the raiders. She says … well she says nothing happened but her face is telling a different story and she won’t let anyone … help her; not even her mother.”

I understood why Daddy had brought me to the gate. I’d worked for a semester in the student clinic. It was only supposed to be clerical work but being on the front desk also puts you on the front line and when girls come in looking a certain way you know something has occurred that they weren’t necessarily willing participants in. You have to be careful and channel your feelings so that they don’t cause more harm than help. You can’t let your empathy take over but your demeanor also can’t appear to be too cold or judgmental.

“I’m not promising anything. I won’t push her if she isn’t ready. I’m no doctor and I’m no clinician. And I won’t invade her space unless she gives me permission to,” I told them, drawing the line at what I would do.

I walked over to the trailer and stepped inside. The girl’s mother was hovering solicitously, almost smothering all of the personal space out of the room. “Ma’am,” I lied. “Your husband is looking for you.” I made it seem like I was telling her that he wanted to ask about Cindy but didn’t want Cindy to know he was asking. It worked and she left the trailer.

“I’ve already told everyone …”

“Yeah, I know. But we both know why they sent me over here. And I’ve already told them that I will not invade your right to privacy. However, between you and me that eye and nose needs looking at and those scrapes need to be cleaned up. Let me do that much and if you find you can talk to me fine and if after I’m finished you’d rather see the backside of me you can trust me to do that too.”

She was like wood for a little bit but I was honest to my word and when I was done and she hadn’t said anything I packed up to leave. “Calvin got the looks in the family,” she said.

“Who, your brother?”

“Yeah, he looks like Mom’s side of the family and I take after Dad.”

Whatever it was I figured I better try and keep her talking. “I got split both ways. I look like my mom but inside I’m my dad. I guess you could say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

Silence again and I thought I’d missed it. Then she said, “That’s why I was so surprised you see. I mean look at me. I just kind of got caught up in the moment.”

At my blank look, “They didn’t tell you? I’m the one that let them in. He was flirting with me and I fell for it thinking he really did just want to talk to me and flirt for a minute before Uncle Rudy came to the gate. He acted so nice, so normal.”

“There’s a lot of snakes like that out there. I got caught by one of those a few years ago. Turned out,” and I sighed realizing that maybe I could put my own pain and same to a purpose. “Turned out the guy was married and had a kid on the way. But Lordy he was pretty and made me feel pretty too, at least until I found out the hard way what he really was.”

“Guys are such … such jerks.”

“Not all of them … a lot of them … but not all of them. I’ve met a few nice ones since that time in my life.”

“He didn’t … I mean he tried … but us ugly girls, we … we have to be strong because … because …”

She started to let loose. “Cindy, look at me. I could use all the phrases that the Aunts used to drive me crazy with growing up. Daddy had his fair share of homilies he used to spout at me too. But I doubt they would help right this second. I can tell you I see a handsome woman under those bruises, someone with a face that has character and not some whey faced little model type that seems to be so popular. I can tell you, and it is the truth, but until you are ready to hear it it’s not going to do any good. Don’t let a jerk like that ruin the potential in your life. I’m still trying to undo that mistake and it sucks.”

She nodded and the stuttered out, “He tried, but he didn’t … didn’t … he just grabbed me … in places …”

“Are you bruised or scraped someplace you feel comfortable with me taking care of?”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 7 - 3

The donkey’s behind had done a number on her but it could have been worse, she could have died and never had the chance to decide how badly she was going to let this affect her. Mostly what she wanted at that moment was a bath to wash away the dirt she felt she was coated in and I could understand that. I stepped outside and let her mom know what she wanted most and told her that although she wanted to take this pain away from Cindy she’d be better off helping her to deal with the fact that it had happened. I said it a little more gently than that but that was the jist of the conversation.

I was ready to drop in my tracks but I still hadn’t seen Micah and though I kept looking for him I couldn’t find him. Mark stumbled out of the dark and I grabbed him, “Are you OK?”

He had to think about it. “Mostly tired. I think. I’ve never … Your dad and Rudy said that … that you …”

“I think I’ll play Scarlett O’Hara and think about it tomorrow.”

“Huh? Oh … yeah … Gone With The Wind … Frankly my dear I don’t give a … “

“Yeah, that one. Are you sure you are OK.”

Then he leaned against the barn and said, “I left Jessie. I left him and you are the one that had to protect him. I …”

“Hey, easy. You were looking after my brother and dad too.”

He looked at me and said, “You would think of it like that. OK … OK … but I won’t forget … ever. No matter what happens, you protected my son. I won’t ever forget.”

That was a little too powerful for me and I wasn’t sure how to respond so I nodded and then asked him where Micah was because I hadn’t seen him.

“He’s OK. Shook up a little; we all are. I have to keep reminding myself I didn’t have any choice but your brother is a little younger and he and Sam both are … are having to choke it down and are finding it bitter. You want me to round him up?”

“No. I’ve been trying to let him grow up. He’s doing a lot better than before we moved back. I don’t want to ruin things for him by treating him like a baby or by embarrassing him in front of the other men. He’s my little brother but Daddy reminded me that he is growing into a man and I have to … to respect that even if it isn’t easy for me to let go of him. I haven’t seen Sam’s mom or sisters making a fuss over him. I need to try and give Micah the same space. I just don’t want him to think I don’t care.”

Mark said, “I don’t think you need to worry about that.” Then he nudged me and I turned around. There stood Micah.

“I think Sam wouldn’t mind too much if his mom and sisters made a little fuss; he did get injured and all. I mean, if I was him I wouldn’t mind if my sister gave me a hug if she was worried and stuff.”

Well he didn’t have to say it twice and I’m not ashamed to say that my eyes were a little watery with relief. I told him I was proud of him and he puffed out his chest a little and then before I could go overboard I turned him loose and let him go back to where Daddy was standing with Rudy and his brother. But personally I’d had enough and needed to get out of there.

“Mark, I’m going to go get Jessie and go back to the cabin. Please try and not let Daddy do too much. I don’t think it is just the moonlight that is turning his complexion gray.”

“Yeah, I heard him say that we were going to go back as soon as you finished up and the vehicles … and other stuff … was taken care of.”

I wanted to ask them to hurry up. I wanted to ask what they were doing with the bodies. I wanted to ask a lot of things but instead I took a still restless Jessie from Ali’s arms – he’d gotten to be too much for Aunt Lilah who had needed to go lie down – and then headed back to the cabin.

All of the night sounds that normally didn’t bother me suddenly had me on high alert, making me jump and strain my eyes into the dark of the surrounding woods. I was almost squeezing Jessie too tight in my own anxiety. But more fun lay ahead.

I got back to the cabin and then remembered, from the smell, that there was still work undone waiting for me at the foot of the porch. That wasn’t the only thing waiting there however. A low, canine growl warned me before I saw it. Nature has its own way of taking care of the dead but I didn’t think this was a time appropriate to letting nature have its way. The dog didn’t want to give up however.

I knew that a carrion dog would only get braver and then start going after the livestock … and humans. That’s when I recognized that I’d seen that beast before. I was less hesitant to shoot it once I knew how dangerous it had already proven to be. It did manage to back me up a few feet but I was the super predator and I had a gun. The problem was I also had Jessie.

I held Jessie in my left arm and turned him away from the dog and then pointed my pistol and fired while his teeth were still bared threateningly in my direction. Of course the noise scared Jessie to pieces and set him off. I stepped around all three corpses and got the door unlocked and got him inside. I’d laid him down just in time to hear more ruckus in the yard and I ran back but it was Mark.

I calmed him down and explained and then he ran back to let Dad and Micah know the reason for the gun shot. They’d tried to come running but Daddy simply didn’t have it left in him at that point and Micah agreed to stay with him and let Mark go ahead. I had on my heavy duty oven cleaning gloves and was dragging the monster dog’s corpse away from the house when the three entered the yard.

“Del, what are you doing?!” Mark exclaimed.

“There’s a dog and two … two …”

“They are bringing a four-wheeler up to haul them off with the other ones. Why don’t you go inside. My gawd, it’s that ‘bleeping’ dog of Cici’s,” he croaked out.

Daddy had arrived and I looked at him, but let me decide. “Mark, I did the deed; I’ll see it through to the end.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

About that time we all heard the two motors and tensed up until Rudy and Calvin slowed down and called out who they were. Both four wheelers had wagons attached that had to be emptied before the corpses could be loaded. I handed disposable gloves to everyone that was touching the bodies.

After thanking me for the gloves Rudy’s gruff voice said, “I can guess what the dog was doing. We’ll take it with these other two. You OK Dellie?”

“I’m fine Rudy. Tell Cheryl I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay and help more.”

“Honey, she understands. Ali … well, strange to say it looks like Ali may have found her bottom tonight. I never thought I’d say it but she’s been worth her weight through this; even told her momma to settle down … and believe it or not Esther actually did it,” he said shaking his head in wonder. Rudy looked a little shocky around the edges and I told Calvin to tell Cheryl to get everyone something a little sweet to drink to help with that.

Rudy and Calvin slowly trundled down the track back to the farm. They weren’t being especially careful of their load as I watched it bounced sickeningly behind them, but of their four-wheelers and because it was dark.

“Mr. Nash, how about we just move this stuff into the front room there and take care of it after a few hours of sleep? Del looks dead on her feet and between you and me I’m about there myself,” Mark asked Daddy.

“Yeah son, I’ll admit to needing some rest myself. For safety’s sake can you keep your door shut in case Jessie wants to get mobile before we get these guns put away?”

“Yes Sir. I’ve had him climb out of bed but never roam around the house if the door is shut but to be on the safe side I’ll slide his bed against the door so it won’t open even if he tries.”

Micah wound up throwing a pallet down in Daddy’s room but no one said anything to him about it. Sometimes you just need company.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 7 - 4

I only slept two hours and was shaky when I got up but I had responsibilities that weren’t just going to go away because I’d had a rough night. My mind wasn’t up for a fancy breakfast so I fixed plain ol’ pancakes. I noticed when I did that my baking mixes, corn meal and wheat flour were getting used faster than I expected and then remembered that I’d been feeding more people than I had planned on when Daddy had first asked me to work up an inventory. I added flour and corn meal to my list of “wants” but I also had a grinder I could hook up and grind the feed if I couldn’t get it any other way. Onto my chore list I added keeping a five gallon bucket of the feed wheat and corn cleaned and ready for grinding. We already had many superpails of grains down in the basement but I didn’t want to break into those until we had to. Why is it that chore lists only get longer and never shorter?

I had just poured the first pools of batter onto the griddle when Mark stumbled in with a very cranky Jessie. He wasn’t crying but he was kicking and very irritated. “I’m sorry Del but do you have anything, crackers maybe? He acts like he is starving to death and I know it’s got to be where he was up half the night.”

“Pour him some milk in his cup and by the time he has downed that I’ll have some pancakes for him to eat.”

Mark nearly fell asleep trying to feed his son but wouldn’t listen when I told him I’d watch Jessie so he could get some sleep. “No, Jessie isn’t your responsibility Del. I’ve been taking … “ a huge yawn stopped him mid-sentence “advantage of your help.”

“Mark, I thought we’d already had this discussion.”

“Yeah, maybe we have but …”

“No buts, if you want to be a martyr fine but eat some of these pancakes before they get cold and I’ll go see if Micah and Daddy are ready to get up.”

That day was a quiet one as we all stumbled through our regular chores plus the project that was planned for the day. At lunch Sam came up to tell us that the bodies had been disposed of … on the quiet … by getting in line with the trucks that were taking the bodies found as the flood waters receded. Since the bodies had been bagged in body bags that were being handed out no one noticed that these bodies weren’t flood victims. Who turned them in wasn’t being noted either.

Sam looked as tired as the rest of us. “Dad said there was a whole lot more bodies than they were letting on about. So many that not all of them could have possibly come from the flood unless the floods were worse than they had let on about. But I heard Calvin say that it looked like they were bringing in bodies from other places as some of the trucks were refrigerated step vans and had out of state tags on them and some of the cops had out of state uniforms on. He definitely saw a couple of Kentucky state troopers and a sheriff with an Arkansas uniform on. He said he thought he even saw some from Missouri and Illinois troopers but it was so dark and busy that he wouldn’t swear to it.”

He told us this while I had him sit and let me look at the wound on his arm. “Sam. I thought I told you to keep this clean.”

“I did.”

“No you didn’t. Look at this. How many times have you sweated through this bandage? Enough times that you tried to use duct tape to keep the gauze in place from what I can see.”

“Aw Del. How am I supposed to …”

“That’s not my problem Sam. You see how red and irritated this looks? When is the last time you had a tetanus shot? I forgot to ask last night.”

After a very put upon “humphf” he said, “Two years ago at football camp. We were goofing around on the bleachers and I scratched my leg and the coach wouldn’t let me play unless I got one.”

“Good for him. A coach with common sense. Sam, this isn’t the time to get careless. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a nurse and actually the only training I’ve had is some that I was required to have to work in a day care and some classes I took just because I was interested in taking them. The most I can do is a little emergency stitching … I don’t want to have to stretch that to amputating an arm because of infection.”

He jerked said arm out of my hands, “You’re making that up.”

“Did you know that more men have died of infections and disease during war … any war you can name … than have died of battle wounds? This isn’t funny; it’s serious business. I don’t have things like antibiotics to give to you if this gets infected. When I tell you to keep something clean I’m not just talking to hear my own voice. And you yourself saw what the health care system has devolved into … and is probably going to be like for the foreseeable future if not worse. You have to take more responsibility for your body and its needs.”

Daddy broke in, “All right Del. I think he’s got the picture. Isn’t that right son?”

I think it was Daddy’s deadly serious look and voice that impressed Sam more than my lecture had. Either way I was glad to see that he seemed to take it to heart.

“Uncle Hy?” That’s what all of the kids always called Daddy.

“Yes son.”

“Dad backtracked the raiders and found their stash, or that’s what he called it anyway. We’re going to go get it tonight after we make sure no one is watching and he wants to know if Micah or Mark can come along to help and then bring you all’s share up.”

Daddy decided that the idea called for a visit down to the farm so he walked down with Sam while the rest of us finished up what we had started in the morning.

Mark and Micah went down to work on the sub-cellar while I stayed upstairs with Jessie, tried to finish preserving the plums, changed out my dehydrator trays and got that stuff properly stored, and last but not least dealt with the remaining mess from the raiders.

The guns and ammo had already been taken care of. Rudy had given Daddy the guns and ammo that could be interchanged with what we already had, or at least the ones we carried most often. We had other guns but we also had plenty of ammo for them and I figured Daddy had just chosen not to mention them. I’m not even sure if he had shown Mark at that point. But Daddy did make sure that Mark got one of the shotguns and ammo for the rifle he carried as well as a hand gun and corresponding ammo. Mark’s mouth open and shut a few minutes but a look from Daddy kept any sound from coming out. Micah also got a shotgun since he hadn’t had one before to go along with the rifle and pistol he already called his own.

Daddy looked at me and then just sort of shook his head and rolled his eyes. I’m sure Micah and Mark thought it was because he didn’t think I really needed anything besides my pistol and my hunting rifle. What the two of them didn’t know – I hadn’t trusted some of Micah’s friends at the time so I hadn’t even told him – was that I had bought myself a very special twenty-first birthday present with Daddy’s help.

It was a Ruger Mini-14 Rifle with an ATI stock. I got it at a gun show and the guy threw in several extra twenty-round magazines if I said I’d do some advertising for him to get more women interested in it. It weighed a little more than I was used to at first but the adjustable stock made it worth it. A woman I worked with had bragged about hers and after going with her to the gun range I could see why. It was one of the few tactical weapons that I could shoot without having problems seriously over correcting. Stinking thing cost an arm and a leg and it took me over a year to save up for it. I’d been buying my own ammo long enough that having to add .223 to the .22lr made my wallet sing out in pain.

Daddy had tried to talk me out of it. He didn’t like the .223 rounds for hunting anything deer-sized or better but I was determined. He said I would regret not putting the money into something more practical and maybe I should have listened but I didn’t know what direction the world would take at the time. I’ll admit now that it was the look of the gun as well as the feel that drew me to it. How practical a purchase it has turned out to be depends on which end of the barrel you’ve been standing on.

The rest of the stuff was clothing, stuff that had been dug out the vehicles and the general flotsam that people carried around with them in that day and age. In other words stuff that I would normally have considered 75% junk. There were some pretty decent knives but those were set aside for cleaning and sharpening. I sighed and threw the clothes into a tub of cold water to soak and put the leather aside to clean. I wasn’t very comfortable handling the garments but figured that if no one decided they needed those clothes I could always cut them into strips to make rugs with and after a while the memories of where the material came from would fade.

Daddy and Rudy had combined the cash that they’d found on the bodies and in the vehicles and were saving it to make a mass purchase of groceries to split between farm and cabin, or at least that was the plan. There was a surprisingly good amount which led me to wonder if they had that much money to spend why were they bothering to raid? Did that mean there simply wasn’t anything to spend the cash on, or was it that they enjoyed the terror and mayhem they had created that much more?

Towards the end of the day, after Daddy had returned, the guys managed to finish ninety percent of the basic work that needed doing down in the sub-cellar. It wasn’t pretty or particularly comfortable, but that was where I came in.

Micah, Mark, and Daddy went that night to help bring back the good-sized stash the raiders had been building. “Contrary to all appearances,” Daddy said. “It looks like someone in that group of raiders had half a brain or more. There were a couple of caches marked on a map (that was a little on the stupid side) and they weren’t hidden too well but they had the general idea correct. Lots of canned goods, tobacco products, ammo, some fuel and camping gear. A good supply of liquor. Some medical supplies with a few antibiotics but no narcotics. They even had some women’s stuff. I think, don’t know for sure, that they might have been looking to set themselves up in business once they’d gotten all they could. Black market or barter. And the way the stuff was organized was pretty impressive too. Maybe they took it off of someone else or maybe the big boss was away or got arrested and the worker bees got restless. Don’t know for sure but we wiped all sign that we’d been there away just in case there was another part of the gang still out there some place.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 7 - 5

That was another short night of sleep for them, but not as short as they had expected it to be. It was raining cats and dogs when I woke up and there was no way they were going to be able to cut wood in that weather. Nothing was going to get done outside in that weather so I just went down to the basement and took Jessie with me. He had been sleeping in my room while Mark was away and I saw no sense in moving him so when he woke up I just took him down to the basement with me. It was easy enough to corral him with a baby gate and some boxes and I drug the gorilla shelves piece by piece down into the sub-cellar and put them together.

That part I hated. The banging echoed horribly and gave me a headache even though I was using a rubber mallet. However, once the shelves were together I decided rather than line them up along the walls, which were irregular, I had them come out from the wall in one of the smaller caverns. It looked more like a store room than a library that way and I got several more sets of shelves in there than I would have otherwise. Around the edges of that “room” I would have someone nail in Shaker pegs and I’d be able to hang up stuff that wasted space on the shelving.

There were several small “loops” off of the main cavern we planned to use as living space that weren’t good for much so I decided to put the five gallon buckets in there, at least the ones that I didn’t use to make “furniture” for us to use. I was getting irritated and went up to see if Jessie wanted a snack and ran into Mark stumbling down the stairs from the main floor.

“Sorry. You shoulda woke me,” he mumbled around a yawn.

I just shook my head and then Mark asked me, “What’s up? Has Jessie been a pistol?”

“No. Jessie has been a little darling. I can’t get anything level down there,” I grumbled, pointing to the sub-cellar. “Every time I think I’ve found something level it winds up being anything but.”

From the kitchen I heard Daddy say, “And that’s what you get for letting us oversleep and trying to do everything yourself.”

Having him rub it in did nothing for my mood and neither did the humidity as I emerged from the cool basement. “You know, I think you might have the right idea about sleeping down there.”

They were in a good mood and when I asked them rather grumpily if they had enjoyed the extra sleep Daddy smirked and said, “It helped … and what is under that tarp on the truck will make you feel better too.” That’s when I found out about what the raiders’ caches contained.

Since the farm had so many people they got the greater share but since they had resources we didn’t Rudy wouldn’t let it be the lion’s share. So the farm got two-thirds and we got a third. But being the good negotiator Daddy was I still think we managed to come off with the better deal. He made sure they got most of the convenience foods since that is what they were familiar with and he slid most of the staple stuff that he could into our pile. I use a lot of gelatins and things like that and at the time most people thought of that as poor-folks food … Daddy took that for us. He made a point of separating all of the spices, seasonings, and sweetenings by share but made sure the washing soda and borax was in our pile. He didn’t touch the “women’s stuff” knowing I had a couple cases of my own stashed. He also didn’t take any of the white sugar since he knew that I’d been packing it 25 pounds at a time in buckets for a couple of years but the confectioner’s sugar and brown sugar went into our pile except for a token amount for the farm. Jessie didn’t drink formula so Daddy told Rudy to keep it for bartering with, and the disposable diapers too since I had started using cloth ones on Jessie when his original supply had run out and nearly had him potty trained as it was. Daddy told Rudy to keep all of the baby food and other items like that for barter as well. Back and forth, back and forth.

“It took longer to divvy the stuff up than it took to haul it back,” Micah complained.

Whatever. It gave us a couple of weeks more food when pieced out with what we already had so I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth; especially not as things had really started to deteriorate.

The rationing and price fixing might have been done with the best of intentions but the practices actually seemed to do more harm than good. True, it stopped price gouging but it also prevented businesses from being able to operate except at a loss. If the government had stayed out of it, there would have been turmoil and availability issues but natural market forces would have eventually settled at an appropriate pricing structure and people would have had to deal with it. The way they did it ensured that businesses simply shut their doors when they couldn’t make ends meet and that ricocheted across the already troubled economy.

Most of the rioting during that time was generated out of fear and ignorance … from the hardships people were suddenly facing, many of them for the first time, and because they didn’t seem to have anything better to do than to let their feelings show. The only thing that slowed the rioting down was when the federal government started opening large “soup kitchens” in the urban centers and at some of the suburban schools. It was the carrot and stick approach to crowd control … “stop rioting and we will feed you; don’t comply and we’ll seal off the city and let you burn yourselves down.” By that time people were becoming so debilitated that the strategy worked. And the looter laws, despite a challenge in federal court by the ACLU, were working to slack that type of violence as well.

As the days passed our country began to slowly knit a working response together. It didn’t cover everyone, a lot of people still fell through the cracks, but it calmed most people down by giving them a false sense of security, a sense that something was being done.

It also helped to have a common enemy on our borders. Federal “volunteers” helped hold back the mobs of internationals seeking food and potable water. But as the US stabilized the international scene grew worse.

Fallout, literal and figurative, from the nuclear explosion in Iran killed millions. Millions more continued to die from radiation poisoning from traveling in the most contaminated zones, burns, accidents, poor hygiene, diarrheal diseases, starvation, violence, religious persecution, and many more things that were too numerous to be listed on the news broadcasts. Countries that the US had helped to stabilize in the decades past were short circuiting once required to stand on their own. Countries that had lived off of our food donations or cheap food pricing were rudely shocked when our Congress made the transportation of any food product across international borders illegal, prosecutable as a First Degree Felony, unless it was specifically to feed our active duty military personnel. Many ex-pat Americans were being thrown out of the countries they had sought asylum in in retribution … assuming they survived the violence directed at them.

The unprepared in every country around the globe – both rich and poor – were demanding their governments do something. No one knew what exactly but they all felt entitled to some kind of help. US assets in other countries were confiscated at the whim of whoever was in charge and the US did the same for international assets within her borders, including all banking and investment assets.

As the world deteriorated, so did Daddy. He had a great attitude but there was no longer any hiding or denying the fact that he had lost a significant amount of weight and that his energy level, even on good days, was quite low. Micah was afraid to leave his side and I didn’t intervene. Maybe I should have, but I’d had a lot more time to come to terms with Daddy’s cancer and now it was Micah’s turn to have the memories of helping Daddy so he would have as few regrets as possible.

The world was on the edge of a precipice and it looked more like at least some of us were going to fall over the edge every day.

We were getting by, certainly getting by a lot better than most folks were. Fresh meat only reached our table once a week at best but I had developed a good, nutritious menu heavy on grains, greens, and beans to make up for this. Fat was easy to take care of, at least then. I still had oil and lard down in the sub-cellar’s coldest reaches … which we planned to make colder by bringing in blocks of ice once it got cold enough to freeze water.

The reason why meat was so scarce was because the area was being hunted over. Lots of families had at least one hunting rifle, even after seeing a 35% decrease in the local population … either because of the flood, disease, or moving on to “better” locations … that still left a lot of people to feed. Rationing had kicked in early enough in our area that the pipeline hadn’t completely been emptied of everything but even that was slowly being drained dry. The exodus from the cities had been curtailed when systems of check points and curfews had been put in place in conjunction with extreme fuel restrictions.

A lot of livestock was being culled to feed the hungry, even Rudy had had some of his livestock confiscated for this purpose and the air was blue for days as he came to terms that he was only getting quarter value for the ones taken. He started keeping his best breeding stock under constant guard after people started rustling his cattle, even going so far as to slaughter them right there in the field, leaving most of the carcass ruined since they only took what they could carry.

We found that our forest turned into a haven for some animals … not enough to destroy the habitat but enough that we’d probably provide the stock for “reseeding” the area in wild game once things calm down. Daddy and Mark both were against hunting the larger animals … deer, turkey, etc. … except for the feral pigs that seemed to be showing up in abundance down in the bottom land as they rooted for whatever they could find, but they were nasty looking creatures and some had ribs showing and looked sick. No way, not at my table, not when I could provide a decent meal any other way.

Rudy gave us a milk cow and calf. It was simply easier than transporting the milk up to the cabin every day. Not that I needed any more chores. Milking seems to be one of the few chores that Daddy can still do without getting too hot or tired. Mark and Micah built a cow shed for them to live in at night and we picketed them different places in the woods so that they can eat their fill without us having to use too much feed to keep them satisfied. I used the raw milk to make cheese, cream, yogurt (for Daddy’s stomach), and cottage cheese.

I saw goats in the kudzu back along the spoiled areas between our land and the old TVA work camp and sheds on the other side of the forestry road. I don’t know who was more scared, me or the old Billy and his nannies when we ran into one another. I can look back at it now and laugh but at the time it wasn’t so funny. I thought about trying to lure them in but I didn’t know much about raising goats then and we sure didn’t have the open space to keep them or the feed for them.

Rudy had to cull some of his livestock to control his feed outlay. Also, herds under a certain size were exempt from confiscation so that breeding stock could be maintained. That was a week of blood and guts that I hope I never have to repeat. It was like living in a charnel house with a smell several times worse. Every bit of the animals was used; didn’t matter if it was bovine, porcine, or fowl. The biodiesel that Calvin’s father brewed was used to run several generators that were in turn used to run several chest freezers and upright coolers that held the meat until it could be processed.

I helped to raw pack most of the meat and then Aunt Lilah and I came up with lots of ways to use the rest to save on fuel later … soups, stews, sauces, broths, convenience foods like sloppy joe mix, chili, etc. We made sausages, hams, and shoulders for the smokehouses. I showed Cheryl how to make several different flavors of jerky. In return, when a couple of the geese hatched their latest broods I got my own little flock of noise makers who for some reason preferred living under the house at night rather than in the cute little coop that I had built for them. Ingrates … but there you go, geese like to have their own way just about as much as I do. That meant enclosing the bottom of the house more securely so nothing could dig in and get them … they were particularly fond of getting into one of the smaller granite crevices under the house, I suppose because it was cooler.

Every other week I usually fixed fried squirrel as a change of pace. They were about the only wild varmint still in abundance. Even the blackbirds that had been such a problem for a few weeks were skittish and shy of humans now. Someone had thought of the “Ol’ King Cole” nursery rhyme and given blackbird pie a try … and then spread the word.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 7 - 6

The farm garden was a blessing as well but when the weather stopped cooperating and cool weather brought harvest time near it no longer produced as bountifully as it had. Still, something was better than nothing and that’s what a lot of people were beginning to put in their belly … nothing.

As summer made its way into autumn I had to step up my foraging to help those on the farm in return for the help they had given us earlier. I would trade bushel for bushel … wild greens for the domesticated grapes that grew along the fence behind the farm house, persimmons for winter apples like Granny Smiths, black haws for hot peppers, you name it I did it.

I taught Cheryl, Ali, and Cindy to recognize wild edibles while Calvin’s mother and Aunt Lilah watched the younger three that belonged to Rudy. Aunt Esther was only slowly coming out of her shell but it wasn’t a pretty picture. The only one that could really get her to get up and get moving all the time was Sam who could wheedle her into a good mood almost without fail.

I never took anyone foraging up at the cabin. Part of it was selfish and I’ll admit it. I did not want people to get the idea that they could go wandering up there any time they felt like it. The ridge was our haven, sacrosanct. It was still pristine in a way that the farm and other places were not. There wasn’t trash and human flotsam all over, blowing in the wind. It even smelled better up there … even with the pungent cow dung and the occasional mess made by the geese. I felt freer at the cabin, not so tied to the mundane and minutiae of everyday living even though I worked like a dog just like everyone else. Up at the cabin I worked for myself, for my small family group, at the farm I felt like I was working for the greater good and sometimes I just didn’t feel like the “greater good “ was very appreciative of that fact.

It isn’t that those on the farm were nasty or condescending although they did seem to have some weird view of us being the poor cousins for some reason I never could fathom, but one that bothered me most was that they seemed to continue with the entitlement mentality. They were constantly talking about what the government should be doing to make things better, or what other people should be doing for “everyone’s” good. The conversation around the cabin was always how could we make things better for ourselves without relying on the help of others.

Even Rudy, as independent and ornery as he could be, would fall into the trap of expecting others to take over a problem every so often … like with the roads. Rudy wanted someone in the county to come out and fix them, I said not to worry about it so that it would be less likely that we got the casual visitor … or if he really wanted it fixed then fix it just in front of the farm and throw some gravel or dirt in the holes when they got too bad. No, Rudy wanted something out of the taxes he paid … something out of the system that he had been paying into for so many years. Maybe it was because I was less invested in “the system” by years and dollars but it always seemed to me that we were more successful when the government would just let us alone than when they came in to try and “help make things better.” Not everyone thought that way though.

An example of that was how everyone kept waiting for the grocery stores to reopen; they were eager for them to be open, some were even demanding they be opened and then given money so they could shop there. Not me. I knew I’d eventually need to trade for things beyond the farm but I was content with what we had right then and getting out to forage was like icing on the cake. And I was enjoyed it too; it was like nature’s grocery store only you didn’t need money, only the incentive to get out there and look. I looked plenty, and harvested plenty as well.

In the autumn what you can forage begins to change. I like the fresh greens and flowers of the spring and summer time but the autumn brought with it the things that helped prepare for winter; the plants change and if not the plants themselves then certainly the parts of the plants that can be used. For instance, wild mustard is no longer good for the green leaves or stems which have become too woody or bitter, but as the seed heads dry they are as good as the domesticated ones grown by larger commercial endeavors. And some of my favorites from that season couldn’t be found in most regular grocery stores … hickory nuts, sassafras, Jerusalem artichokes, paw paws, and persimmons.

One particular day I got fed up with the farm a little quicker than normal. Aunt Esther had been quick to criticize my rough appearance. “Brown as an Indian Del, that’s what you are. And look how you’re dressed. Someone could mistake you for a boy with your hair all up under that sloppy hat. What would your mother think if your mother could see you now?”

I thought to myself, “Considering you used to say roughly the same thing to my mother I doubt she would say much at all except to be quiet and mind your own business.” Of course I didn’t say it aloud. Aunt Esther had a gift for annoying me, but she could only make me mad if I let her.

Ali, overhearing her mother, teased me about how I was never going to be anything to Mark but a nanny for his son if I didn’t do something to make him see me as a female. I wanted to tell her then he must be blind or an idiot considering the preceding day he’d been moving some supplies and my case of female stuff rained down all over his head from the top shelf where I had put them out of eyesight. Considering how red we both blushed I don’t think recognizing that we are two different sexes was a problem. And if that didn’t wake him up, me threatening to boycott cooking if I found the toilet lid up one more time surely must have.

Then Rudy started being foul and I was in no mood to put up with it as on top of everything else I was stressed myself because Daddy had had a bad night of fever and chills.

As soon as he started bellowing and belly aching at everyone how he better start seeing people make a little more sweat I kissed Aunt Lilah good bye and put Jessie back in his carrier and headed for the cabin. I could have popped off at Rudy but I’d learned which side my bread was buttered on. Rudy was a pain in the backside but he was instrumental in some of the creature comforts that I was providing for my family and I didn’t want to ruin the relative peace of the relationship.

Cheryl caught me as I left. “Don’t mind him Del. Please. Those town council people were out again early this morning demanding he donate more beef to their food program and when he wouldn’t, saying he hadn’t been paid for the last two after all their promises, they got nasty and said he’d take their IOU again this time or they’d start their own confiscation program and put him at the top of the list. He asked them what army was going to try that one on him or any other farmer out this way and they said they’d surprise him and maybe the townspeople would have something to say about it to his face. He told ‘em to bring it on and then some other really nasty threats were made and now he has to figure out how to guard everything 24/7 with just the people we have.”

“Cheryl, I know how Rudy is. I don’t blame him for being mad or stressed out; he’s got a load on his shoulders. And even at their most polite those council people make my skin crawl. They used to be nice folks as I recall them but I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them now. I’ll tell Daddy and Mark what is going on and maybe they have some ideas. They had mentioned taking out the gully bridge to keep people from just wandering up the way they have been getting into the habit of doing. I know they’ve brought down trees on the forestry road and took the cross ties out of the two bridges closest to us. What I don’t like is how Rudy lets it all roll downhill. Life’s not fair and that’s a fact but he doesn’t have to make it worse, especially not on the folks that are beholden to him.”

“Beholden? Are you talking about you Sugar? Because frankly you scare the jealous bejeebers out of Rudy.”

“What?!” I asked, laughing at the very idea.

“You’re that independent Honey. He just doesn’t know how to deal with it. He doesn’t agree with some of the things your father let you do; working so many jobs, homeschooling yourself, running the house since you were a little thing. He’s talked to me about it.” As I was starting to get mad she added, “The problem is now, nearly too late, he sees the good it has done. It hurts him to think of his girls being forced to work as hard as you did at their age … and are doing now. He wanted his kids to have a better life than he did growing up. I don’t know if you know or not but he had a hard life as a kid, about like mine which is why we understand each other. All of his plans for them are going up in smoke and it makes him confused and irritable to know if he doesn’t push them even harder than he already does he going to handicap them. He knows none of them are ready to stand on their own and there isn’t really anyone to take his place if something were to happen. Sam is too young, Calvin too useless, and John … well, John has his talents but being a father ain’t one of them. And what you are going through with your daddy … that just sends him to an all new level of hurt. He would like to talk to you about a lot of stuff but he has a hard time seeing a man his age going to a young woman your age for advice so he asks Mark but Mark doesn’t exactly trust Rudy I think, seems there is bad blood in the past.”

“Mark hasn’t been disrespectful, he’s thrown in with all of us!”

“Honey, from what I understand even Rudy says that is likely more than he should expect from Mark all things considered. And that’s another part of the problem. Rudy sees Mark and sees that he was wrong … badly wrong … and it makes him wonder if how he is handling things now is wrong too.”

That was more to think about that I had room for in my head at the time but I promised to at least remember it and try and cut Rudy some slack when he got like he did. I thought I was being considerate to get out of there and not cause an argument. I suspect even then that Cheryl had a soft spot for Rudy but I wasn’t sure if Rudy was aware of it or returned it in any way. I expect it would be a risk to start a relationship with a woman when your ex-mother in law lived under the roof you were taking care of.

Trudging up to the cabin I would stop and pick things here in there and put them in the poke sack I routinely carried. Mark and Micah were on the porch drinking the switchel I had left for them.

“Del, what did you say was in this stuff?” Micah asked making a face.

“If you don’t like it, don’t drink it,” I responded, not much in the mood for complaints.

“It’s good, just bites back a little.”

“Del?” Mark asked, catching that I was having an attitude.

“Rudy was in a mood and I was too tired to excuse him of it.”

“Why? What did he say to you?” Mark asked, always prepared to think the worst of Rudy no matter how much he tried to fight it. I wasn’t going to give him the excuse to go defend my honor as I didn’t find that as flattering as some girls might have.

“Nothing … really Mark, it was over something else. Is Daddy around, I don’t want to have to explain it twice?”

The man in question slowly made his way out to the porch, showing as much gray in his face as he now did in his hair. “What’s up Honey?”

I explained about the town council and even Mark felt sympathy for Rudy’s position when I had finished. “Mr. Nash, you want Micah and I to go down and see about pulling down those bridges this side of the cross road? We can dig more on the tunnel when we get back.”

“I reckon you better son,” Daddy sighed with regret knowing he was in no shape to help or even visit Rudy and trying to help him calm down.

As Mark and Micah stood up to go down to the farm I went inside to fix Daddy some powdered blackberry to help with his stomach.

Mark stopped and turned to me hesitantly. “Del?”

“Yeah Mark?”

“I know I said that I’d take Jessie this afternoon …”

“Don’t worry about it. Getting the farm secured is important. Besides, I’ve got all of that stuff from yesterday that needs processing so I’ll be staying here at the house.”

Daddy sat on the porch sipping his home brewed medicine … I had dried and powdered some of the blackberries that I managed to get to before the birds … a teaspoonful of the powder in some cool water, and he would sip on it. Other times all he wanted was my special brew chamomile tea. I thought how I just wished I could get him to eat more.

I lucked out and Jessie was ready for a nap. I put him down and put up the baby gate on Mark’s bedroom door and then went downstairs and got the black haws first to make Black Haw Butter. It isn’t a very sweet condiment but it is very good. You simmer two quarts of black haws for thirty minutes and then use a sieve to press the pulp out so that you have two cups of pulp from the two quarts of fruit. To the pulp you add a half cup of sugar, a quarter teaspoon of ground allspice, two teaspoons of ground cinnamon, and half a teaspoon of ground cloves and then simmer that until it is smooth and spreadable. You put that into prepared jars … you’ll wind up with about five half-pints … and then process appropriately.

I also did a batch of wild grape butter that is nearly seasoned the same way except there is ground ginger in that one and more sugar. I then made some homemade raisins by putting bunches on the solar dehydrator.

I was at it through lunch and into the early afternoon … ground cherry jam, persimmon jam, black walnut conserve, wild grape conserve, elderberry and sumac jelly, bee balm jelly, spearmint jelly, mint syrup, violet syrup, spiced burdock roots, spearmint relish, apple and black haw chutney, mint vinegar, and garlic vinegar. I also started some candied burdock, persimmon chews (Micah and Sam were both partial to these), and sassafras brittle (something that I was fond of).

I was using a lot of sugar but didn’t see any alternative. Sugar is one of the best preservatives there is and I had to take full advantage of it while I had it to use. I knew that come the spring there would be a chance to replace our sweetening with boiled sap and just had to put faith in the fact that God would provide what we needed in the future so long as I used the resources we already had wisely.

Jessie had been up long enough that he was starting to get impatient to get outside again and frankly I’d about had it being cooped up as well.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah Sweatheart?” he said from the rocker on the front porch where he could sit and listen to the radio.

“I’m going to take Jessie and go foraging; see if can I get the last of those Amaranth seed heads and maybe collect some more of those pawpaws. Dinner is ready if the guys get back before I do,” I told him.

“Ok Baby Girl. Watch yourself and get back before the first lightning bug starts its engine, you hear?”

“I will Daddy,” I assured him.

Daddy wasn’t really telling me what to do, more like asking me to be careful and letting me know when he’d start getting worried; he just couldn’t stop sounding like a concerned father despite the fact that I was grown.

I guess I had been out about two and half hours and was on my way back when I heard Micah’s sharp alarm whistle … that and an animal calling whistle are the only two types of whistles he has ever learned to make. The first two times I whistled back they couldn’t hear me … they were making so much noise in the underbrush. Finally they stopped long enough for me to whistle back and Micah knew to stand still until I could figure his location.

He and Mark were off the path I had taken by quite a bit and looking extremely concerned.

“What?! Is it Daddy?” I asked nearly worried to death and breathless from jogging with Jessie on my back and my foraging basket in my hand.

“No, but it ain’t good,” Mark said. “Micah, can you take the bag and I’ll get Jessie. Your dad is probably worried sick by now.”

On the way back to the cabin they told me that they had just finished dropping the second small bridge when Calvin came running with news he’d just heard on his ham radio.

“We thought it was just another rumor,” Micah said, huffing at the heavy load I had turned over to him. It wouldn’t have been so bad if we were traveling a regular speed but we were practically jogging and I still didn’t know what they were having the heebie jeebies over.

Mark said, “You know how Calvin is. He is a real drama king, I thought he was just crying wolf again but if he was I noticed he’d scared himself silly this time. We get back to the farm and find Rudy had shut everyone out of the room he is using for the radio equipment and everyone was stepping light.”

“Yeah, Sam said he’d never seen his dad look like that and that he’d radio’d up to Daddy and they were both listening and trying to analyze what they were hearing.”

“I tried to get Rudy to explain but he told me to head back to the cabin that your dad would fill us in but that we needed to git,” Mark told me trying to talk over Jessie’s complaints of being jostled so roughly. “There was a look in his eyes I didn’t think I’d ever see there. He was scared Del and just barely covering it up and as we started back up to the cabin I heard him ordering the boys to put all the animals in the barn that would fit and to corral the rest of them up the best they could. That was enough for Micah and I, we started jogging only when we got there your dad was frantic because you were still out foraging.”

Micah couldn’t hold it back anymore, “They bombed the UN Del … somebody has gone and done it. There was some kind of big session going on with all the member representatives there except for the President of the UN whose plane got stuck on some kind of trip over in West Africa.”

“Wait!” I made them stop. “What do you mean they bombed the UN? A car bomb? A pipe bomb? A …”

Mark interrupted me, “A dirty bomb Del. It was a small one from what little bit is coming out … but it was definitely a radiological one and it was centered in the UN complex itself. There are also reports of attacks against several of our nuclear reactors. A bunch of places in Pennsylvania, Crystal River and St. Lucie in Florida, a couple of places in Illinois, Palo Verde in Arizona and I can’t remember but several more places. Reports keep coming in. So far the attacks reported have failed but your dad is worried this could be the tipping point we’ve all been waiting for. Now come on.”

We all jogged and I swear if there weren’t tears in Daddy’s eyes when he saw them practically dragging me back.

“I don’t know if this is it or not. I’ve got the animals in the shed and fed and watered the best we can. The geese are shut in under the house. Grab what you can and let’s get down to the basement. I may be jumping the gun here but I’d rather be safe than sorry. We’ll leave the antenna out as long as we can but I want it detached when the radio isn’t in use. Let’s move,” he said … right before falling to his knees in a near faint.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 8 - 1

I’m ashamed to say that I froze as badly as my little brother at the sight of Daddy on his knees and all but insensible. It was Mark that moved first.

“Del … Hey, Del, come on Sweetheart he’s gonna be all right. Take Jessie off my back. Micah, come get on your dad’s other side. Mr. Nash … Mr. Nash … let Micah and I bear your weight. We are going to pick you up. Micah … yeah, now grab … yeah, like that.” They got Daddy into a two-man carry. This saved Daddy the indignity of being tossed over Mark’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and I think he appreciated it ‘cause he nodded weakly.

Getting him into the house wasn’t that hard; the steps up the porch were wide enough for the three of them. Getting him down into the basement was a completely different story. The steps were narrow and steep. Mark wound up having to piggy back him while Micah walked close behind to keep Daddy from falling backwards.

Mark continued to be in charge. “Micah let’s see about bringing down what we can while Del takes care of getting your dad comfortable. Del, I’ll set the playpen up for Jessie. It’s cool enough down here so hopefully he’ll just relax and you can do what you need to unhindered. I’ll come back and …”

“Go Mark. I’m OK,” I told him finally beginning to come to terms with the shock. My heart hurt at the sudden manifestation of just how ill Daddy was but there was no choice. Bad things happen at the worst possible time, it is like a law of nature or something, and we had to do what we had to do.

I fixed Daddy’s cot over in the corner away from both the traffic down into the sub-cellar and in the opposite corner from Jessie who wanted “Hy Paw’s” attention any time he could get it. We were already sleeping down there about half the time anyway because the cool was just too tempting when the nights were miserable; the heat of summer had dragged beyond its normal season. But I wasn’t thinking about convenience at the moment. Right then I just wanted to have Daddy stay still and quiet until I could determine what the best course of action was.

His pulse was erratic and he was still very pale. I checked his sugar level using a sugar meter I had gotten from the doctor well before we had ever thought of moving back to the cabin and it was very low, lower than it should have been. Daddy wasn’t hypoglycemic but I worried about his nutrition because of his disintegrating appetite. And while I was taking a closer look at him, helping him off with his dirty shirt and into a clean one, I noticed that he was bruising way too easy for my comfort. I suspected, but couldn’t prove anemia.

One of the potential consequences of poor nutrition is anemia. Anemia is also a common ailment of many cancer patients. Basically what happens is that the body’s ability to produce red bloods cells is compromised. Red bloods cells are what carry the oxygen around in our bodies. Since treating the cause of the anemia was beyond me I decided to try and treat the symptoms by making changes in diet and with vitamin supplements. I’d bought vitamins as a way to address potential illnesses back … it already seemed so long ago … the first time Mark and I had gone to town when I went to the warehouse store. I had the B12, C, and Folic Acid that Daddy needed but it was still better that he also get the Vitamins from his diet.

For one I needed to add more meat to the diet to help with the B12. To help encourage healthy growth of bacteria in his intestines and to help with his stomach problems I would get him to eat more of our homemade yogurt which was another rich source of B12. Eggs would provide both B12 and Folic Acid. Dark leafy green veggies would help with Vitamin C and Folic Acid. Banana Chips would be his treat … I had several cases of the LTS banana chips in storage so splurging on this one luxury wouldn’t hurt.

I was pretty sure the rest of it was simply stress … although stress and its causes are far from “simple.” He’d most definitely badly overextended himself arranging the animals on top of being worried they wouldn’t be able to find me “in time.”

The first thing that the guys brought down was the radio. Mark left Micah to set it back up in a cabinet the two of them had built for it as a surprise for Daddy’s birthday a couple of weeks previously. While Micah worked on that, Mark brought down the few of his and Jessie’s belongings that remained upstairs. We’d been working steadily to bring all essential and most nonessential items down to the basement and sub-cellar and had nearly completed the task. We’d done it in the evenings after it got too dark or buggy to work outside. It left the upstairs looking a little bare and sterile but no one really cared at this point.

Mark took a break from the stairs and started arranging Jessie’s stuff which allowed me to go up to my bedroom and the kitchen and continue where I had left off moving things, just at a vastly quicker rate. From my bedroom I tossed the few personal items left … like my pictures in frames, hair brush and hygiene items … into a laundry basket left there for just such a purpose. I grabbed all of the inventories and supplies that remained in the butler’s pantry. And from the kitchen I grabbed the everyday dishes, cups, utensils and the few pots and pans that hadn’t been relocated.

That was two trips then Micah and Mark both went while I stayed with Jessie and Daddy and tried to listen to the radio and turn the mess we were making into a little better organized chaos than it was. Daddy wanted to get up but I had to beg him to rest. We’d already planned out how we were going to do what we were in the process of doing … we just hadn’t expected to have to do it quite so quickly.

It wasn’t long before the remainder of the books had come down and been stacked in the sub cellar so they could be put on the shelves the guys had built just for that purpose. They also manhandled several of the smaller pieces of furniture as well as everyone’s mattresses so that they could be put on the bed frames that had been built down in the sub cellar just in case we had the opportunity to do what we were doing then.

Every once in a while Rudy would call to see if we’d pick up a particular change or addition to the information that was coming in. When I told him Daddy had had a spell and that he was resting as comfortably as could be expected you could almost hear the wheels turning in his head of whether or not he should provide some kind of help.

Before he could say it I told him, “All is well and going according to plan Rudy. Daddy is right here and nodding his head in agreement. Hopefully you and yours are having the same results.”

That said just the right amount without saying too much … especially in case someone was listening and looking to take advantage of the situation. When all had been brought down we rested and then would get up and organize for a while, then sit and rest, and then get up and organize some more, then I fixed a light meal, we ate, cleaned up, did a little more organizing, and then sat and tried not to stare at Daddy or at each other too much.

We hadn’t moved completely into the sub-cellar yet. The basement was enough for now; cautionary without being claustrophobic. If something did happen we knew we’d be spending more than enough time down there, perhaps cut off from everyone and everything. And all the while the radio stayed on and we listed to people ranging from calm to positively hysterical, a few were obviously suicidal. This is what the first “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast by Orson Welles must have been like … only this wasn’t fiction. There was no going to be waking up the next day to find out it was a piece of entertainment or a hoax.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 8 - 2

During the night all I could do was pray. I wanted so desperately for things to get back to normal but as the days began to pass the only thing we could do was develop a new normal that only vaguely resembled the old one.

Daddy improved but it wasn’t a dramatic healing. He was still sick, noticeably so, but he got to a level of health that allowed him to manage the cancer and its effect on him better. His mood wasn’t depressed, it actually seemed … anticipatory, like he had a goal. He talked more openly about Momma and his own parents than he had in years.

Micah and I struggled with the reality of his illness more than Daddy did. He had reached a level of acceptance of the ending that we were unprepared for. Personally for me, trying to reconcile the two diametrically opposing goals of accepting my father’s approaching death while simultaneously striving towards the survival of the rest of our small group was emotionally and physically debilitating. I tried to be as strong as Daddy, I knew my duty, but there were times I hid in a dark corner of the sub-cellar and silently howled at the unfairness of it all.

The world stood on the brink, toes closer to the edge than ever before, and no one seemed to really want to do what it took to pull back from the precipice. Contrarily, any work being done seemed to be in preparation for the final leap. It was rather like an unexpected opportunity for the masses to prepare a hole to crawl into. No one had expected to have this much warning and people were confused. Some people used the time well, many did not, never really believing it would happen … or if they did believe that there was any sense in prepping because life wouldn’t be worth living afterwards. Some people, from the sound of the gossip on the radio, believed that if things were going to end … and that there was nothing after the end … there wasn’t any reason not to party themselves to death. I still wonder how many of those suffered needlessly all for the want of a little faith and common sense.

Other countries began to experience the attacks on their infrastructure that this country had been first in line for. The Yangtze River dam in China was destroyed and the resulting deaths and damage were incalculable. Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle airports were incapacitated when trucks loaded with explosives, some of them likely without their driver’s knowledge, were used to damage the runway and air traffic control towers. Hundreds were killed and many more injured because the airport terminals were being used to house tourists stuck without a way home. Water supplies were poisoned. Power generating facilities were rendered useless. Fuel refineries were set ablaze. Internationally the situation was even grimmer than what we had faced in this country, even with the radiological attack on the UN. Every petty (and not so petty) grievance against neighbor was taken up as a cause and acted on … race, religion, and economic reasons were big fights but other things pitted neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother.

It wasn’t that there weren’t problems in the US. Food riots were barely manageable. The Administration attempted to nationalize the entire food production and distribution chain but that caused nearly as many riots as the lack of food did, destabilizing large rural areas and turning people even more solidly against the civilian power structure. There simply wasn’t time to constructively implement the plans they were making … and there wasn’t enough cooperation either regardless of which side of the debate you were on.

The riots weren’t only about food. The traditional melting pot of divergent races, religions, and creeds turned into a cauldron on full rolling boil. Race riots – “my” people vs. “your” people. Revenge – I’m going to get you now for what you did in the past because I may not have the opportunity in the future. Ageism – who truly deserves to be saved, what do they have to offer in the unknown future, what can they contribute now and down the road. Gender wars – one of the more ignorant ones in my opinion considering it took both to continue the species, one cannot reproduce without the other. Every ideology, belief system, creed, code seemed to show the worst of itself. There may have been groups out there doing their best for their fellow men, not repaying evil for evil, not determining who was “worthy” and who was “unworthy” of the limited resources, setting the best example under the worst circumstances … but those groups didn’t make the news.

The infrastructure problems, already cascading into all corners of our existence, became even more pronounced and trying. You learned to live without like you had been doing it your whole life … no electricity, no natural gas, no vehicle fuel, open and undamaged retail stores few and far between, ration books and stamps, corruption the norm rather than the exception, no policemen, no firemen, no schools, lines too long for too few resources. You learned to make do … making your own potable water, acquiring by barter or growing your own food out of necessity if not desire, educating your own children, providing your own security. Commonsense became the most valuable commodity and too few people seemed to have it in any quantity.

You learned to make do or do without but it was a fragile and exhausting existence. One poor choice, one more thing going wrong, and your house of cards collapsed. Some people got the chance to start again, many did not. The network of charities and public assistance that once stopped the fall of both the deserving and undeserving no longer existed. You learned to count on God and yourself, occasionally you were lucky if you could count on family, even luckier if you had a community support group that functioned effectively.

The days crept by without news of any additional successful attacks … at least not on US soil. Mark and Micah completed the few remaining feet of tunnel that connected the cabin and the animal shed and started on a branch off of that tunnel that would lead to the woodshed and from there to the well house. We stopped living in the basement 24/7 but we didn’t move back upstairs either. Daddy spent part of the day on the porch soaking up Vitamin D from the sun … and regaling us all with stories from his youth and trying to impart a lifetime of knowledge to us in what time he had left. He stopped losing weight and his color was better, but it didn’t take a degreed and experienced doctor to tell the illness was unremittingly taking its toll and would, in the end win no matter what we did. But Daddy still acted like whether the cancer won or not he would be the victor.

We focused on trying to complete the projects that Daddy had always meant to do, trying to reach a point of true self-sufficiency and sustainability in case we lost contact … or refused contact … with the farm. Better to be safe than sorry as you never knew what tomorrow might bring.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 8 - 3

Mark was able to borrow Rudy’s bobcat with the front loader, both he and I insisting on exchanging labor for the loan. I helped to strip the orchard trees of the last bit of viable fruit and doing it quickly enough that Rudy insisted that I take some of the winter apples and some of the other softer fruit for our own use. I also helped bring in a whole acre of watermelons and cantaloupes, the remnants of what the Aunts had grown for their church’s fall festival fund raiser and took our share of what was left over after Rudy traded many of the melons for supplies for the farm. I also gave Mark some of my junk silver coins to pay for the bio fuel John brewed that would keep the bobcat in motion for as long as we needed. That was quite a “discussion” when Mark found out about those coins. He had his own coin collection left to him by his father but very little of it was junk silver except for a jar of silver dollars. Most of what he had were those books filled with pennies, nickels and the like and sets of all of the state-run quarters.

With the front loader Mark dug a kind of expedient shelter under and around the shed that we could shove the cow and chickens into and hopefully protect them enough that they would survive. It was like they were weird hobbits, living in a partially underground hovel. Designing a way to deal with their feces was challenging to say the least but we managed a sort of compost pit whose opening was under ground by using an old septic tank and field from my grandparents’ time that had been replaced as a gift to Momma and Daddy when they lived in the cabin as newlyweds. We only found it by accident when Mark was digging the animal shelter. Daddy said he’d forgotten all about it and the long dormant and useless items suddenly became useful and productive again.

We enlarged the woodshed and improved the well house by transforming it into an earthen mound structure like the animal shelter. We cut the late autumn hay and tall grass for animal feed and took the time we should have taken before and moved the barrels of animal feed off of the trailer and into the “found” five gallon buckets I had gotten so long ago. We also reused the ones that I had emptied to this point. Daddy sat in the shade of the porch and helped clean the feed before it went into the buckets; he did what he could and I think it kept him feeling tethered and attached and with us … less likely to simply slip away further down the valley road.

I continued to forage but not far from home and not for long hours at a time as I had done previously and certainly not on my own. Mark was the one that normally came with me. One, we took Jessie so that the little boy could have some outdoor time; and two, Micah just didn’t want to leave Daddy’s side any more than necessary. I think we gathered at least as many acorns, chinquapins, black walnuts, butter nuts, hickory nuts, and pecans as the squirrels did. The barrels we emptied of feed were soon filled with nuts.

I hunted all over for fresh greens to help boost Daddy’s immune system and entice his appetite. Pawpaws, persimmons, ground cherries, wild grapes, huckleberries, and the very last of the rose hips kept me canning when I wasn’t foraging or working on some way to make the basement and sub-cellar more appealing to people who preferred the outdoors to four walls and ceiling under the ground.

I picked and dried flowers and herbs and then at night I would tie them together in garlands and hang them on the walls down there. It served two purposes. One it mimicked the outdoors in a somewhat similar way the silk flowers and ferns that I had in baskets in out of the way places down there and two, the dried herbs and flowers acted like a potpourri and kept musty odors at bay. I made sachets and dream pillows – cedar filled ones for the drawers and closets to keep moths at bay; sachets of lemon verbena, rosemary, and coriander to perk the senses up; chamomile, mugwort, spearmint, rose petals, and lemon grass for a pleasant rest. I even made catnip treats to lure the lunatic female cat into the animal shelter and keep her there when we discovered she had a nest of three small kittens. This wasn’t completely altruistic on my part; she’d proven herself to be good at rodent control and the last thing I wanted to worry about was mice, rats, and who knew what else getting into the hay and chicken feed we were storing.

I worried about what would happen to the world if too many animals were wiped out, especially the birds and the bats that controlled the nuisance insects like mosquitoes, but I could barely take care of my own family. I’d have to leave the wild animals in God’s hands.

I dressed our beds in bright sheets and quilts and put similar types of throw pillows and rugs in our shared living space. It was particularly important to me to keep Daddy’s space cheerful; Micah’s as well. I really worried about the two of them for vastly different reasons.

Mark was a rock, there is no other way to say it. One day about six weeks after the UN attack Daddy had another particularly bad day. He’d fought it most of the morning and then finally conceded that he needed to return to his bed. It was just a bad time for me as I had caught him throwing up blood again. Micah was being … he was being a nearly seventeen year old young man suffering in advance for the loss he knew was coming. I can say that now but then all I could feel was hurt for the way he was being, like it was my fault that I couldn’t fix Daddy and make him well again, like I wasn’t trying hard enough.

Lunch and dinner that day wasn’t my best either, my mind constantly wandering onto the next task before the first one was finished. I burnt the corn bread, scorched the beans, and the crust on the dried apple pie that I had hoped to use to perk people up with was underdone and soggy. Then I dropped one of my better cast iron skillets when I was taking it outside to clean, it hit a rock in my garden border and cracked.

I couldn’t take it. It was either walk away or break down and scream in pain and frustration. I grabbed the ax, went to the woodshed and tried to do something constructive to work off my emotions and instead dropped a log on my toes and nearly took my leg off when I over balanced and missed the wood I was aiming at.

I was nearly ready to come completely undone when hands closed over mine and said, “I don’t care what it looks like in the movies, trying to chop wood when you are upset isn’t the best thing to do. Here, if you want to try this don’t make it so hard on yourself.” Mark proceeded to show me the correct – and safe – way to split wood.

After I had done a couple relatively correct he took the ax away and we sat down on a couple of stumps. “Del, you are going to make yourself sick. You can only be angry for so long before you start self-destructing.”

Sitting there bent over I knew I couldn’t afford to make an enemy of my friend but it was hard to answer calmly and without rancor. “Mark, I’m not … not angry. Not in a way that makes much sense anyway. Things are just hard right now and not getting any better for who knows how long. It is like I’m … I’m grieving even before Daddy … before Daddy …,” I couldn’t go any further.

“You’re right. Angry isn’t exactly what I meant to say. You’re upset and hurting. I wish I could bleed some of it off for you. I feel like if Jessie and I weren’t here …”

I panicked for a moment. “Please Mark, please … don’t take Jessie. I know he is your son and I swear I won’t interfere with that. I’m not trying to steal him from you but he is just about the only bright spot I have in all of this and …”

“Hey! Whoa. Easy Del. Don’t hyperventilate on me. Put your head between your knees.”

Still unsatisfied that he understood I said, “I’m not hyperventilating. I’m serious!”

He put his hand over mine and held it on my knee, “I know you are. I didn’t mean to make it sound like Jessie and I were about to light out of here. If you want to know the truth, I can’t imagine us being any place else but here. It … it scares me to think we could have missed this … I could have missed this … and … and Jessie could be sick, hungry, or … or worse right now. I told you I would never forget what you did that night the raiders came ‘round.”

“Oh Mark. I … I’m not looking to hold something like that over your head. I just … I mean honestly I couldn’t have done all of this by myself either. Micah hasn’t been as bad as I was afraid, but it isn’t over yet. It isn’t his fault that he is has to deal with so much but …”

“But you are human and you are just as entitled to be going through it as he is but he doesn’t seem to see it that way. I don’t know how you are doing it. Cooking all the meals. Preserving all the food. Washing all the laundry … even mine and Jessie’s. Doing most of the cleaning. Being the liaison between the farm and the cabin. Trying to mother Micah and Jessie and … uh … I … I mean …,” he broke off sweating.

“Mark, I hope it doesn’t make you upset but … but I love Jessie. He’s turning into my little buddy. I know I have to be careful, not to confuse him. But it … it feels right … it feels like maybe God put Jessie in a position here so that I could take care of him and God knew that would help me too.”

Mark shook his head, “Here we are, started off talking about you and somehow you turned that around and are now talking about you needing to take care of my son. Don’t you ever act like a normal female?”

“Huh?” I said getting a little hurt.

“No. Seriously. I came out here to try and … take care of you for a change instead of you taking care of the rest of us and we still wind up talking about what you can do for someone else. Del, you are going to make yourself sick if you don’t … don’t let us … let me at least … help you somehow. I know the work is what it is and we all have more than a fair share of it but … but you need to be able to talk to someone, bleed off the hurt … I can see it in your eyes, in how you hold yourself. God help me but it reminds me of how Dee used to act.” He shook his head and continued. “You’re losing weight and you aren’t sleeping. You want me to go on?”

“I told you I don’t need much sleep.”

“Not much sleep is still some sleep; you haven’t been getting any. Every time I roll over at night you are taking care of Jessie or your dad or you are up late doing something down in the sub-cellar or listening to the radio or working on your infernal inventories. Del if you don’t start taking better care of yourself there is going to be trouble … for you, for all of us, including your dad.”

I heard what he was saying but that was easier said than done. “Mark I’m afraid that if I … if I don’t keep going I’m going to miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“It. The opportunity to help Daddy. The opportunity to get that bit of extra food put aside. The opportunity to hear the news soon enough that I can constructively react to it. It … anything … everything.”

“Del …”

“I know it doesn’t make sense but that is what I’m feeling,” I said defensively.

“I do understand. I really do. But you can’t do it all by yourself. You … you reminded me of that back in the beginning. Remember? So now is a time that you need to be reminded of it. Micah can … needs … to pick up some of the slack. He’s been real good about working … lift that barge tote that bail sort of stuff. But he also needs to help with taking care of your dad … not just spending time sitting with him because he is scared but the real nuts and bolts of it; preparing special meals if he can’t eat what the rest of us are eating, changing his sheets, helping him to do whatever he can still do for himself. It isn’t going to get any easier and if … if God forbid … we do have to take shelter in the basement and sub-cellar for any length of time … you can’t keep going like this. And if something does happen to your dad …”

“God Mark, you don’t think I haven’t thought of that?! But what choice do I have? I’m losing Daddy. I have to face that. Micah is a mess even though he is less of a mess than I expected him to be at this point. I have to be here for him and strong because if I crack I have no idea what that will do to him. Daddy needs to … even said he needs to … see that I’m going to be able to deal with things. He says he has to be able to trust me. I see him when he thinks that I’m not looking … watching me to make sure that I’m handling things like I promised I would. I have to do what I have to do. It’s not fun. It’s not fair. But that’s … my … life.” And at that I started crying.

I got up to leave but he pulled me back down and I found out his shoulders really are pretty broad. I was so tired afterwards that all I wanted to do was crash and burn but that wasn’t in the cards.

“Del!! Mark!!” Micah screamed from the front door, nearly screaming. I thought it was Daddy. It wasn’t.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 8 - 4

We listened for hours, trying to figure out the best course of action. Talk flew back and forth between the cabin and the farm. We were pretty sure we would be able to avoid fallout. Pretty sure. Fairly sure. But definitely not positive.

From the information we gathered on the radio the bombs were relatively small as such things went, but they were dirty. First, all across the US and then around the world, word came in of small, dirty payloads going off in major metropolitan areas. A lot of money blew up that day and the plans must have been years in the making and setting up. The ones of most immediate concern to us were one at the Nashville airport, two on the Mississippi River at Memphis, and one on the interstate system at Chattanooga.

We had no idea what prevailing winds would do, or topography, or anything else for that matter as far as was fall out related. There was no consensus on the radio. Actually the radio was strangely quiet. Many of those that had remained in urban areas had either been affected somewhat by localized EMP or had been impacted by the explosions themselves … or had finally made the right connections and were bugging out regardless of what officials were asking people to do.

There was lots of panic but that was a luxury too expensive for us. It was time … time to see if all of what we had been doing up to this point would work or not. There is no perfect solution, except in fictional stories, but we prayed we’d done enough.

We finalized our move into the sub-cellar. It wasn’t anywhere near the crypt that it used to be but it wasn’t like living above ground either. I kept damp sheets hung across the entrance as a sort of odd filter. The ceiling was irregular and Mark and Micah had to remember to duck in a couple of places that I did not. It was cool enough down that there we needed at least a flannel shirt on to prevent getting a chill. Daddy sat in a padded rocking chair with a quilt across his legs and monitored the radio. Mark wouldn’t let Micah curl up bedside him but kept him working; drawing water into a couple of barrels, helping him move the propane canisters that we had managed to save into a anteroom well away from the living quarters, double checking the dug tunnels to make sure they weren’t collapsing and then taking care of the animals and securing the doors to both the animal shed and the house from the inside.

That night Daddy showed Mark and I how to make a homemade “fallout detector” that had been invented by some guy named Kearney. It was complicated yet simple but using it reliably was another matter. It had to be calibrated and we had to calculate the protection factor of the shelter. This caused a huge, nearly hysterical, fight with Micah.

You see, to get a reading on the protection factor of the shelter meant going outside and measuring any fallout that we were already experiencing. Daddy absolutely, point blank, no back up in him at all, refused to let Mark or I do it.

His response was bald and brutal. “I’m already dying. If it is bad out there then what is the sense of you two being exposed? Those anti-nuclear and enviro freaks use unfounded scare tactics to spread bad information but there isn’t any sense in taking chances either. You’ve heard Esther and I. We’ve both made the decision that it is to be us.”

That was one that I still have trouble believing. Aunt Esther’s switch had been flipped and she’d come out of the nearly fugue state she had been in and was stubbornly refusing to let even Rudy or Aunt Lilah do the deed for the farm.

Micah, nearly in tears, “Aunt Esther?!! She’s acted crazier than I’ve ever known her to and you suddenly want to do something just like her?!”

“Watch your mouth boy when you speak to me. I might have one foot in the grave but by God I am still here and I’m still your father. I won’t be sassed and I won’t be treated like some toothless infant. You will sit your butt down in that chair, shut your mouth, and listen to me.”

I could understand Micah’s frustration … and Daddy’s too. I felt guilty about letting him be the one but I also understood the sense of it. It broke my heart to understand it. It made me feel like a traitor. But in war, as in love, sometimes life just isn’t fair.

While Daddy was out Micah either refused to talk to me or he was cussing me like I was some nasty tramp only out for my own preservation at all cost. Mark came close to clocking him a good one but I managed to stop that from happening but there were some hard feelings on both their sides that they hardly tried to conceal. Mark got over it first after a day or so but Micah carried his grudge around and nursed it like a baby even though as it so happens we were all worrying for nothing at the time.

After about an hour Daddy came back in. He was tired but triumphant. “Fallout, if you even want to call it that, is so low I can barely read it. Met Esther half way down the road to the farm and we compared readings. The old girl still has some pull in her after all. They might be getting a little more out in their open areas but not much, differences are miniscule so far. But that could indicate that we have higher readings coming. Remember the seven/ten rule applies. The decay of radioactive particles are front loaded, they lose effectiveness at a higher level in the first days and hours and less as time goes along. We might not be in danger at all but like my Momma used to say to me ‘better safe than sorry’ and I’d rather us take a two week vacation down here and then reevaluate the situation.”

That night Rudy and Daddy spoke at some length about what could be coming and shared their thoughts with some others out there in radio land that were also chiming in.

If they hadn’t already, people were going to start leaving the dense urban areas even if it meant walking. The government wasn’t going to like it because it would complicate any response they would try and make. The military would likely stay out of it as they had their hands full protecting the borders and the military bases that were still active.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 8 - 5

Violence in the suburban and rural areas located along main travel routes was going to spike as people from the urban areas went in search of safety, food, and water … not necessarily in that order. We could expect more problems with organized raiding parties … and some might be our former friends and neighbors. All of this had been kept to relatively low levels thus far but the situation was finally beginning to unravel. By now you had both gotten into position and secured it or you hadn’t, there wasn’t much in between.

Any hope of putting “the grid” back together was irrevocably gone. Power production and consumption was going to reinvent itself as a local phenomena only, at least for a good long while.

We could expect that health care … both physical and mental … was going to be extremely important and nearly non-existent for a good, long while too. People were going to have to change in mindset and the personal accountability that that required. No more unnecessary risks like riding a skateboard down a stair rail and other nonessential behavior that came with oversized consequences. There was too little access to doctors that could set broken bones, do surgery to repair internal bleeding, prescribe antibiotics to prevent infection. Shoes needed to be worn, hands needed to be washed, eyes and teeth needed daily tending, etc. or the results could be painful and catastrophic.

Charity would start at home and after that people would do what they could, not what they were forced to do by the government. There had already been plans put into effect that had large, nationalized food production sites being turned into what was being called “subsidized volunteer food production facilities.” In other words they were large poor farms where people would be put to work in the fields and production lines in exchange for food, clothing, and a relatively secure place to live.

I had no intention that my family would ever wind up in a place like that with all of its potential for abuse, not while there was still breath in my body. I also promised myself that if I had to work my fingers until they bled I’d protect them from the other things that had been discussed as well.

That two weeks we lived like moles was a challenge. The quarters were small and cramped. Personal space was hard to find. Each bed was surrounded by curtains and we had a separate chamber set aside for the toilet but everything else was done in a common area. Of course with the way my luck had been running the stress had my cycle all off and there was that indignity to deal with on top of everything else.

It was very difficult to curb my desire to rush things and come out of the hole too early. I had never thought of myself as claustrophobic but I started understanding how it must feel to be that way.

Every one of us seemed to sleep more than usual; I know I did. Our lighting was limited to wind up and solar powered lamps and played havoc with our sense of day and night. Jessie felt this keenly and Mark and I wound up passing him back and forth trying to keep him entertained. Or we would get worried because he would sleep for really long stretches, much longer than a child his age normally would. Towards the end of the two weeks we were all getting listless, depressed.

“Lack of sunlight Del,” Daddy told me after getting annoyed at my constantly checking on him.

“Huh?” I answered back not quite sure what we had been talking about.

“Lack of sunlight. I think we are all suffering from it. Remember that time you got sick when I was stationed in the NE? The pediatrician said to put a sunlamp in your room and after about a week you were back to yourself.”

“Oh … oh yeah. I kinda do now that you mention it. It was the year that Micah got chickenpox and gave them to me. I wanted to sell him to the gypsies.”

We both got a chuckle out of that. I was ten and he had just entered Kindergarten at the school on base. No lasting harm was done and I only had a few scars, most of them hidden in places I wasn’t exactly going to show the neighbors.

Finally the day came that two weeks were up. Daddy and Aunt Esther repeated their experiment and the all clear was given for us to come up out of the ground. I still wonder if what we did was necessary but since we were unable to measure the fallout during the two weeks I don’t suppose it did any harm.

The cabin and the ridge appeared to have fared better than the farm thought it didn’t do too badly. They only lost one cow and it happened so early on that Rudy couldn’t really tell what the COD was because of the decay. All of their cattle needed to be tended and wouldn’t be winning any state fair ribbons any time soon. Mark … and Micah on Daddy’s orders … went down to the farm and helped muck the barn and do what could be done for the animals. The fowl were … foul. In only two weeks they had gotten shy of people and ornery when you tried to do anything with them or for them. The pigs were hysterically funny and loving being back out in the sun; they nearly knocked the fence down wallowing and scratchy their hairy hides.

While we were underground the radio had gotten progressively quieter. Some of the operators said they were signing off and taking cover. Some didn’t have any cover to take and described the effects they saw from their window … or in their bathroom mirror. We had been very careful to not give our locations away or what resources we had. We had no idea whether any locals were listening and knew who we were though “Big John” had been on the air for a long time before falling silent because of no more fuel to run his generator.

But the lack of communication did cause some problems and one of them was that we had no idea what state other people were in or what state the closest towns were in. After a week and still no communication with anyone close the decision was made that someone had to go look into it. Daddy couldn’t go though he had the most training for that kind of thing. Rudy couldn’t go because of his position (and didn’t that burn his biscuits). John was the only one that knew how to operate the bio-fuel set up (that would change but it was true at that time). Sam and Micah were too young and inexperienced for what was needed.

Mark was suggested but Rudy rejected the idea because of Jessie. Mark said Jessie would have me and everyone was shocked. He looked sheepishly around and said, “Well, who else? I trust Del and know Del would raise him like he was her own, same as she did for Micah.”

Rudy said, “Actually I was going to suggest that Del be one of the ones that go. She could claim to be foraging and she’s knowledgeable enough to pull it off.”

“What?!” No one liked that idea. I would accept the nomination only so long as I could get a promise from one of the other women to check up on my family and take care of them. In the end though I didn’t go because aside from Aunt Lilah I had the most medical knowledge and that wasn’t saying much.

With a lot of roundaboutation eventually it became pretty obvious that Mark had to be one of the ones to go. Unfortunately the one to go with him would be Calvin. Don’t get me wrong, Calvin wasn’t quite as useless as he appears at first glance. He’s definitely a pretty boy but the looks God gave him aren’t his fault. And he hadn’t had anyone to practice them on for a while because frankly I never bit the bait he tried to lure me with in the beginning. Rudy also didn’t put up with a lot of nonsense of that sort.

Again the problem was that Calvin - like Dee - wasn’t an independent thinker and no matter how much he was encouraged to practice the skill to stretch himself he just didn’t seem to get much further with it. When he was done with one job he’d simply stop until someone got him going on the next one. He was a willing worker and intelligent enough, he just didn’t have the gumption to create work for himself.

After the two accepted the task a date and time were picked. “Frankly I don’t know about Calvin but I don’t see any sense in delaying it. There’s been enough talking. The sooner we go, the sooner we come back. We’ve got a bright moon tonight and only a few clouds. What say we leave at dusk, go as far as the first gully bridge to make sure there isn’t any traffic and then go across the fields to Greenville since Kechum is going to be a complete loss and not worth the effort right now.”

Calvin shrugged and nodded and no one had any objection. We’d used some of the remaining fuel to drive down to the farm and haul up some of the remaining produce from the garden so Daddy came with us. Everyone was shocked at his appearance and Aunt Lilah, gripped my shoulder in sympathy.

We returned to the cabin and since it was already later in the day Mark started prepping his gear. He couldn’t look too good or people might get suspicious but he couldn’t look like a complete bum either. “Besides Del, people around here know me and they know that I shave every day and try and dress decent because of Jessie. I’ll look a little worn from the hike one way or the other.”

“Can you trust Calvin? He used to be such a … such a weenie.” No, I still wasn’t sure that Calvin was the best choice to go on this trip.

That made Mark laugh, “Back in school … naw, never mind, not worth it to hash over ancient history. Look, go with a walk with me? Just out to the woodshed since Jessie is napping.”

So we that’s where we walked. He drew in a deep breath, “I … I talked to your dad.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 8 - 6

That wasn’t exactly what I had thought he was going to say. “About?”

“About a lot of stuff but mostly you.”

“Uh huh,” I responded not exactly sure where this was going but getting my suspicions.

“We’ve been friends … more than friends. What I would like is a chance to be more than more than friends. I’m not asking you to make a choice right now. We don’t have a lot of privacy and … and your dad is …”

“Yeah,” I said quietly.

“Anyway, I know there have to be priorities right now and your dad and your time with him is one of them. And then there is Micah and … and I talked to your dad about that too and explained what had happened and that I’d work on getting things back to a better footing. He didn’t condemn me but he did remind me that I was nearly 10 years older than your brother. I’m … well, I’ll be honest and say that I’m not sure that is a good excuse but I do promise that I’ll do what I can to make things better there.”

“Thank you. But, it isn’t all of your doing. If Micah is going to grow up, he has to accept when he makes a mistake and he has to be part of the solution.”

“Sure, but the thing is, see … everything is so … uncertain. I don’t plan on anything happening while I’m gone but it just doesn’t seem we’ve got much say in what other people are going to try and do to us. I’m not going to be stupid about it but … anyway, I wanted you to know how I feel and I … I wanted to know if what I said down at farm was … was OK. That if I didn’t come back for some reason that you would still take care of Jessie … like he was your own.” I could tell he’d really worked himself up to ask me this on top of the other.

Being just as serious as he was I said, “You hit the nail on the head. About Jessie. And … about the other too. I’d like to … see about being more than more than friends … that sounds so juvenile but what else do we call it? But that there is so much going on … can I count on you to wait … until I can … can get my head on straight?”

“Sure,” he answered in relief. “I told your Dad that I would wait … no … no pushing or stuff like that until … look, I’m no good at this Del. I’m just going to have to say it, but I don’t mean to upset you. I told your dad that I’d hold off on making any move on you until after he died and that even then I wouldn’t push you to respond, not until you decided you were ready. I just wanted you to know in advance that it isn’t so that Jessie and I can continue to have a place to live or to shut people up that are bound to talk if we continue living in the cabin together after your dad passes. And I want you to know that I’ll still be there for you no matter what your choice turns out to be. OK?”

Despite all of the problems we were facing and the grief I knew was coming my way in the not too distant future I was happy. And because of that some little imp must have gotten ahold of me because I said, “Sure, and I promise not to try and make a move on you and keep to the promises you made. I’ll just have to control my urges and …”

He shot up off of the long we were sitting on and said rather emphatically, “No. Uh uh. Don’t get cute Del. I’m trying to be a gentleman here and do what’s right. I’m going to have enough trouble dealing with my own urges without hearing about yours and having them to dream about. OK? No teasing, not about this. It’s not fair.”

I couldn’t help it, I smiled. He groaned, “That’s it. We’re done. Let’s go back in the house. I’m sure that Jessie is awake or almost and …” I had a really hard time not laughing.

My humor was short lived though as his leave-taking got closer. I left Mark alone to say goodbye to Jessie and went to see that Daddy needed anything.

“Mark say he talked to me?” he asked in the tired voice that was his normal tone these days.

“Yes. Are you OK with it?”

Daddy paused and then said, “I really hadn’t thought you would marry a farm boy. But then I don’t think Mark’s original idea was to stay a farm boy, he was going to college before he messed things up for himself.”

“Is … is that a problem? His past?”

Daddy paused again, “No. No I guess not at this point. He seems to have set himself on a different path from the one he was traveling that landed him where he was. He treat you right?”

“We’ve just been friends. Nothing … romantic or anything like that ever came up.”

“No?”

“No. There was no reason for it to.”

“And you think there might be now?”

I had to stop and think about that one, “I’m … I’m not sure what you mean but if you mean that I think Mark and I might could mean more to each other than friends then … then yes, I guess … I think we could.”

“You’re not just doing it not to be alone, not just because I’m going to die and leave you and Micah alone?”

“Daddy …”

“Don’t take this the wrong way Baby Girl but I know you. I know the sacrifices you’ve made, sacrifices that you’ll continue to make, for this family. If you thought marrying Mark was the right thing to do for the family you’d do it and hang your own personal feelings on the matter.”

I wanted to tell him the “M” word had never even come up but he was my father and not likely to think of it turning into anything other than that. “Daddy, we aren’t even there yet. And I may be crazy about our family but I’m not crazy, crazy. I’ve had my fill of cardboard cowboys. Mark is my friend and I trust him. We’ll just have to see where it goes from there … but not right now. Right now … right now is not the time to be making those kinds of decisions.”

That seemed to satisfy him and I was glad because I was getting uncomfortable. The idea may have been floating in my subconscious before that moment but it was still a shock to have Mark come right out and confront the situation out in the woodshed like he did. I also didn’t know how Micah would take it and as much as I had quickly come to terms with the potential change in my relationship with Mark, I had a prior responsibility to my brother.

I decided to walk down with Mark … Jessie in the carrier … while Micah stayed with Daddy. We were out of sight of the house when he asked, “Did your dad say something to you?”

“Uh huh, basically asking if you’d said anything to me.”

“Yeah. I actually talked to him before that two-week prison sentence,” he said referencing our time in the sub-cellar. “But then … well, it just didn’t seem like the time to bring it up.”

“You said something before …”

“Your dad kept asking me if I’d said anything yet and then he started asking if I’d changed my mind. I told him that I’d know when it felt right to bring it up and I did.” He was silent for a few more steps. “Did he sound like he … he objected … that he suspected my motivations?”

I shook my head, “It isn’t your motivation he was questioning, it was mine. He just doesn’t want me to feel like I have to do anything for the ‘sake of the family’ or whatever you want to call it.”

“Well, I don’t want you to do it for that reason either,” he mumbled.

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I wouldn’t. If nothing else you are a good friend, maybe the best friend I’ve ever had, even when we were kids and I didn’t know it. I wouldn’t … wouldn’t trick you like that. You know, I could be insulted if I wanted to be.”

“Oh good grief, let’s not get you insulted. You can come all kinds of unglued when you get insulted,” Mark snorted.

The camaraderie was back and I was grateful. Life was complicated enough right now without the rest of it. But something must have showed because Ali winked at us both. I ignored her and walked with Mark over to the gate where Rudy was waiting on Calvin.

And then they were off … down the road … and out of sight.
 

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Very true!
My wife almost jumped for joy when local news opened the weather section w/ "Rain is coming"

After the break they owned up it was likely next Monday, Aug 2nd.

She was fairly open about her disappointment.

Personally, I like these little cliffs; they give me time to catch up on all of Kathy's other threads. Last count was 6 open stories she's putting up. Or was it 7?

Thanks Ms Kathy. ....
 

Sammy55

Veteran Member
I love all the new stories, Kathy! I'm bouncing around between 3-4 of them. I'd do a few more, but I can't read that fast and I think I'd start crossing the stories and characters. There's only so much my oldish mind can remember at any one time. LOL! But I'm really loving them! And I look forward to each breaktime to read some more.
 

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Yes. I have adult onset hyperactivity. Result of a childhood when I was sick a lot and could only play with my imagination. LOL
It would seem you're still afflicted w/ that so, I'll just keep downloading, bookmarking etc and of course, enjoying and learning.

My wife has started plucking recipes out of your portfolio and in the process, started reading the fiction. Good thing she has her own computers or there'd be a thing every evening.

Thank you is so inadequate but it seems to be all there is to say. I can promise I'll keep reading as long as you find time to write and post.

Thanks again. .....
 

RememberGoliad

Veteran Member
Yes. I have adult onset hyperactivity. Result of a childhood when I was sick a lot and could only play with my imagination. LOL

Aw, quit gettin' all snooty with the fancy diagnoses. You just like to chase a lot of squirrels at the same time! :rofl:

Although....think about it....it IS entertaining to watch that unfold....and rewarding to the chaser when the squirrels all get caught! :D

Thank you for chronicling all your squirrel chasing for us! The squirrels around here are sighing in relief, as I haven't had time to chase a single one since you started your story transfers.
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 9 - 1

Life is absolutely never as easy or as fair as we think it should be. Part of the problem is that everyone’s definition of “easy” and “fair” is different.

The night that Mark and Calvin left Daddy took another bad turn, the worst he’d had up to that point. I nearly got sick myself from fear alone. There is nothing as horrible as watching someone you love writhing in pain, knowing that you’ve tried everything and there is nothing left that you can do but pray God puts an end to it without putting an end to the person you love.

Micah turned on me as well, blaming me for everything he could think of including allowing Mark to take my attention away from tending Daddy. It was Mark’s fault. It was my fault. It was everyone else’s fault. All of it. Daddy getting sick. Daddy not getting better. Him having to work so hard which took time away from him being with Daddy. We were being “selfish” and thinking with our hormones.

At first the things he said hurt; I mean really hurt, like the I-had-been-kicked-in-the-teeth-for-no-reason kind of hurt. Then I got a little hot at the hypocrisy of it; who was he after all to talk to me about how hard he had to work all of a sudden. Then I got really angry. And then I just plain wanted to slap the snot out of him.

“Could you … I mean I know you’ll have to try really hard … could you please be a little more insulting Micah? It’s obvious I haven’t proven myself to this family enough. Oh no. I’ve given and given and given … especially for you … and it still isn’t enough. Of course not. It doesn’t matter that I worked my butt off even before the first attack of terrorism to help Daddy to keep a roof over our heads. He paid the majority of the bills but I help to pay for a lot of stuff too – you do remember who had to ride the bus for two months when the money I had saved for insurance had to go to pay off that stupid speeding ticket you got – and I also put in a lot of work to keep the roof Daddy paid for organized and under control and looking nice. I mean, who cleaned up after you and your ignoramus friends when you had your stupid Xbox parties?”

I drew breath to keep going but Micah interrupted me with, “That was then and this is now. Now you’ve got some guy and …”

“Whoa. You better stop right there little brother. I haven’t been shirking my responsibilities. I’ve been sleeping three and four hours a night, maybe five hours if I’m being lazy. I’ve trudged miles around on this ridge foraging. I’ve worked hours on the farm to do whatever I had to do to make sure …”

“So you’re complaining about doing your share now too?!”

And despite knowing deep down he was only being nasty and looking for a fight because he was hurting I couldn’t help but let some of my own fury at the unfairness of it all leak out. “Have … you … lost … your … mind?!! I have not been complaining, never, not even once. You … you …” I had to stop or I was going to say something I would not be able to take back. I sucked in some wind and tried to calm myself down. I finally ground out in a deep growl, “How dare you act like you are the only one grieving here Micah. How dare you. If you are mad at me for not telling you from the very beginning then fine. I wanted to but didn’t. I could have used someone to share the burden and my fear with. But I was trying to honor Daddy’s wishes. He’s my father too. Don’t you ever … ever … presume to tell me how I’m grieving or if I’m grieving. Don’t you ever presume to tell me what I have and have not done for this family and for Daddy. Don’t …” I had to stop again because I was just that furious. I was breathing heavy and in that moment I could have smashed something over his head just for being the donkey’s behind that he was being. I’d been angry at Micah before but never like this. I don’t think I’d ever been angry like this before.

I needed time alone but Jessie chose that moment to wake up from his nap so instead of heading straight outside I detoured to pick him up first so he wouldn’t wake Daddy from his much needed and overdue sleep. I took the little boy onto the porch and started rocking him and let him look around to get his attention away from the crankies. Instead of Micah having the good sense to leave me alone and let me cool off he came out on the porch and started poking the bear all over again.

“See, instead of taking care of Daddy you are taking care of this kid. He’s not even kin to us. Daddy isn’t getting your first attention.”

“I’ve already done what I can for Daddy at the moment. He is finally resting and I want him to be able to stay that way. When I ‘check on him’ he wakes up and right now that is counterproductive. Jessie is a baby. Mark is away taking care …”

“There it is. It’s all about Mark.”

I was trying to stay calm because I was holding Jessie but it was a hard fought battle. “Do … not … be … an … idiot. Mark spoke to Daddy, asked his permission, before I even knew about what was going on. But he laid it out … Mark, not Daddy. Mark said he wouldn’t even try to have anything other than friendship with me until after Daddy …”

“Don’t you dare say it,” Micah said and he looked like he wanted to hit me.

I stood up and put Jessie in the rocker. “Micah. You wanted to grow up … wanted to be allowed to grow up … to be an adult. Well this is what that means. It doesn’t just mean being a kid only with more privileges. It means whether you are big or not you stand in the breach for other people. It means taking personal responsibility and being accountable for all that you do and say, and what you don’t do and don’t say. I have and will continue to do everything for Daddy that I can and that is a fact but at a certain point you have to accept reality. Daddy is too sick. I can’t fix him. We spent over two years going to doctors, specialists, trying all the treatments that modern medicine had to offer … and he is still going to die.”

Wham! Micah pushed me with the flat of both hands. Even though he had looked angry enough to lay a hand on me I hadn’t really thought he would, not really. He’d never done anything like that even when he was at his angriest because we had moved. Because I hadn’t expected it, not from my own brother, I wasn’t braced at all. I went backwards, tripped over the rocking chair and hit the porch railing. I remember hearing a crack but that’s all I remember.

The next thing I heard was, “Dad, I … I swear … I didn’t mean to! It just happened!”

“What in the Sam Hill do you mean it just happened?! Look at your sister!” Daddy said sounding as angry as I have ever heard him.

I knew something was wrong. I could hear Jessie crying so hard he was hiccupping. Daddy and Micah both sounded hysterical.

“What … knock it … stop already,” I finally managed to croak out though I was having a hard time putting a sentence together that made sense.

I opened my eyes … actually I opened the one eye that seemed to be obeying my commands and tried to sit up despite Daddy’s weak attempt to keep me down. Bad idea. Really bad idea. Everything spun including my stomach and I had to roll over and retch the bit of lunch I had left in it.

“Baby Girl … “

“Daddy … just give me a sec.” I took stock. I was sore and my head felt like someone had tried to knock it off. In the background I could hear Micah keep saying, “I didn’t mean to … I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to …”

Finally, just to get him to stop sounding so pitiful I said, “Micah, that’s enough. I know you didn’t mean to.” I was trying to remember what he didn’t mean to do but obviously it had something to do with me and then it clicked as Daddy went ballistic.

Daddy cursed one of the few times in my presence when he lit up like a Roman candle and said, “Like hell he didn’t. He told me he got mad and pushed you. That’s intentional. What he didn’t do was think of the possible consequences. My God … my own son … how many times have I told him men do not touch women in anger … ever … under any circumstances … regardless of who they are or what they do.”

Even in my state I could tell this was bad … really bad. I pulled myself together … or maybe I was just in shock so my feelings were being repressed. “O…k …. We are so not going where this is taking us. Daddy is upset. Micah is sorry. And Del is just fine. Just give her a sec to get her feet under her.”

Micah whispered, “Dad, why is she talking about herself like that?”

I could hear the anger in my father’s voice sizzle as he answered, “She got pushed by a guy twice her size, fell off a porch that is four feet off the ground and her head landed on a rock. What the blippity blanking else is she going to sound like?! Just be feeling blessed she is talking at all! Run down and get Cheryl or Ali and …”

“No. Absolutely no. I banged my head, that’s all. If everyone would just calm down …”

“Delilah Jez …”

“Not all of my names Daddy. That’ll just turn my stomach again. Micah, give me a hand up. God, I’m disgusting,” I said referring to the fact that there was blood on my neck, shirt and on my face that had yard debris all sticking in it. “I need to see if I need butterfly strips or something.”

Instead of giving me a hand up Micah tried to pick me up. “I will hurl on you if you do that again,” I warned him. “Just give me a hand.”

Micah and Daddy were worse than I was about the whole thing. Now really, I’m not Mother Teresa or any kind of saint, I wasn’t then and I’m still not now. And I sure wasn’t happy when I finally got a look at my face in the bathroom mirror, but I was ready for the whole sorry situation to be over with and forgotten. But I wasn’t to get my wish.

Daddy tore into Micah like he had never torn into him; chewed him up one side and down the other like Grandpere Gator. And made Micah feel even worse when he had to do it from a sitting and then prone position as he used up what little energy he’d left had that day. I can at least say that Micah stayed for the chewing out when he could have easily run away … where he would have run to I have no idea but he could have, Daddy wasn’t exactly able to chase him and frankly at that point I wouldn’t have.

I was so not pretty to look at the rest of that day … nor the next. Contrary to what I had pleaded with him not to do, Daddy radioed down to the farm and had Rudy bring up Aunt Lilah.

“Well Hy, she may have a scar and she may not but if she does I don’t think it will be a bad one. But Lord, Lord what was that boy thinking?”

I was tired of being spoken around like I was either in a vegetative state or off on vacation someplace else. I said, “He was thinking that he was hurting and like most boys his age he’s stronger than he remembers he is a lot of the time. It didn’t help that I tripped and then hit the railing. I just want this done and over with.”

Daddy sad sadly, “Don’t cover up for him Del. I still can’t believe that a son of mine …”

“Daddy, don’t do that to him please. There may not be time to get over it and it isn’t a scar he needs to carry around for the rest of his life.”

“What about the scar you are going to carry?”

“May carry Daddy … may carry.” I sighed. “It wasn’t good that it happened but maybe it had to … to air things out. Micah is hurting and he’s … he’s done ok up to this point if you think about it. The whole world has gone to Hades in a hand basket. We need each other while we have each other, not let all of this tear us apart.”

Aunt Lilah patted me on the shoulder. “Hy, if she is prepared to let it go, you need to as well. Neither the boy nor you needs to carry something like that around. He’ll have it on his head the rest of his life if you do.”

“He needs to have something on his head. I still don’t understand how he could do it in the first place, especially to his own sister. And I don’t want to think that it will ever happen again, but what choice do I have? How can I find any peace if I go to my grave having to worry about this happening again just because Micah is angry that life is unfair?”

I looked over and could just make out the hall way mirror on the opposite wall … and the reflection of Micah’s stricken face. They say you never hear anything good about yourself when you eaves drop but I was sorry that Micah had to find that out the hard way.

“Aunt Lilah, I’m fine. Why don’t you and Daddy sit a spell and I’ll be back in a minute.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 9 - 2

By the time I got to the hallway Micah was gone but I heard him down in the basement and followed him there. “Go away Del.”

“Well I’m not gonna. When my little brother hurts I hurt for him.”

He looked at me like I was nuts. “You just don’t quit do you?”

“Depends on what you mean. Until I know what you mean I can’t answer.”

He flopped down in a chair as only a teenage boy can and put his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean for you to fall and get hurt Del. I didn’t.”

“I kinda figured that. You were just mad and it got away from you. Ask me if I’ve ever let my anger get away from me,” I said rolling my one good eye at several memories of my own far too regular stupidity. “I’ve got a log in my own eye, I’m not going to pick at you for the splinter in yours.”

“Aw man, don’t start sounding like the Aunts.”

I bent down beside him and said, “I sound like me Micah. This is who I am. I’m sorry if you don’t think that is enough but I’m not perfect and I don’t have all of the answers.”

“I never said you did or had to.”

“That isn’t how you’re acting. I’m twenty-one years old Micah, feel like I’m eighty-two, and I’ve never had the freedoms you’ve had access to. I know some of it is that I’m a girl and Daddy had different rules for me when I was your age but some of it was rules that I set for myself. I’ve spent my whole life with you and Daddy taking priority over everything else in my life. I’ve worked three and four jobs at a time to help out. I never went to school like you did …”

“Don’t blame me for that.”

“I’m not blaming you for anything. I liked being homeschooled and the control it gave me … not having to constantly be at someone else’s beck and call, telling me what I had to learn and when. The few times the Aunts made me go to public school weren’t fun for me, I was constantly ahead of their games and bored out of my skull and angry at all the wasted time. I also admit that when presented with a choice I willingly made the choice to put you and Daddy first. And I’m still making the same choice. But you have to understand that I’m doing the best I can. I’m running a hard race and I’m still losing. I can’t fix Daddy. I’ve had to come to terms with that and so will you. The real doctors couldn’t fix him either. It hurts. It is going to hurt worse and then … then we’ll learn to live with it. You know what we believe Micah. Parting will only be temporary, we’ll see him again … and Momma. I’ve missed Momma every single day that she has been gone and so has Daddy, but you learn to cope and live with it. And you live to prove that you love them because we know they wouldn’t want us to just lie down and die of sorrow and grief; that would only negate their sacrifices and love.”

“So what happens … what happens when Dad is … what happens when Dad is gone? Where does that leave us?”

I shrugged. “The same place we are now. The world has still gone crazy. Food still has to be put on the table. The earth is still gonna turn on its axis. Life is still going to be as unfair as it always has been. And we are going to miss him. But the sun will still shine, the stars still twinkle, the birds still fly … we just won’t notice for a while.”

“Yeah, and what about you and Mark?” he asked getting angry again.

“What about Mark and I? Nothing is going to happen there until I’ve got my head on straight. Mark talked to Daddy and promised not to pressure me for as long as it takes. He also talked to Daddy about the fight you and he had.”

“What?!”

“Did you expect anything else? You ought to know how Mark is by now. He is a very upfront and on the table kind of guy. He doesn’t hide things too well, never has.”

Then the real reason started coming out, “When you have Mark and Jessie you won’t need me. You might not even want me around.”

“I can say that isn’t true but until you are willing to believe it it won’t matter how many times I say it or how much I mean it. I already told Mark, and he knew it even before I said it, that you are a priority in my life and Daddy passing isn’t going to change that.”

He winced and then said, “I’m not a little kid. Stop treating me like one.”

“I didn’t think I was. I gave you credit for having more sense than to believe that just because there might be a chance that Mark and I could make something of our friendship that it didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have room in my life for you too.”

He didn’t want to admit I had a point so I said, “Micah, what happens to me one of these days when you meet some girl, fall in love, and go on to have a family of your own? Do you expect me to live the same kind of life the Aunts did?”

“Yes. No. I … I guess not.”

I understood his first response had been the truest one. He did see me as an old-maid aunt in the making but I glossed over it and kept going rather than laugh in his face. “Do you expect me to get all freaked out because you have the potential for having a family?”

“No.”

“Then why should I have to worry that you are going to freak out just because Mark and I might … might, not for sure that we will … have the chance to have something more than friendship?”

In frustration he jumped up and said, “I know. OK, I know. But I can’t help the way I feel.”

“Maybe not totally but you can more than you are trying to. You can certainly control the way you act. All I’m asking right now is that you behave in a civil manner with me and with Mark … and don’t let me catch you taking anything out on Jessie, he’s just a baby and will no more let harm come to him than I would have let harm come to you at that age. Once we get that worked out, just … just keep an open mind. Nothing is going to happen for a while. Mark only mentioned it because he wanted me to know how he felt so that I could decide how I felt and we could then decide what to do about how we feel at some point down the road.”

Micah made a face. “That sounds stupid. You are either in love or you aren’t.”

Shaking my head and realizing just how young my brother still was I answered, “Yeah, right. It isn’t as easy as you think it is Little Brother. I thought I was ‘in love’ once and I got my heart shredded and handed back to me. But here’s the thing, Mark isn’t like the jerk was. Mark is … Mark is dependable … and honest, maybe to a fault if that’s possible. And he understands how important taking care of the people you love is. Look at the sacrifices he made for Dee and Cici, not to mention Jessie. He also understands putting others before yourself. He understands duty and honor and things that most of the guys I have met up to this point haven’t.”

“But Del, he messed up bad. He’s been married and divorced and has a kid and he’s kinda young still. He didn’t finish college. He’s dirt poor. Is that really the kind of guy … I mean … you know … you never went for that kind of guy before. What if he is just out for stuff … you know, the cabin, food, a place to live … stuff.”

Not really feeling like it was the time to go into lengthy explanations all I could say was, “I don’t know what to tell you Micah. I don’t see Mark as a ‘type,’ I seem him as Mark. I’m not settling or whatever else you seem to think. And I’m not doing it ‘for the family’ like Daddy is worried about. Frankly right now I’m not doing anything about it at all. It is just a possibility … and I feel like it is a good possibility. Micah, please try and understand … I need this, but not right away. Mark and I just wanted to … to let each other know that we recognized the possibility. The rest can wait after our priorities are taken care of.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 9 - 3

I still wasn’t sure that Micah understood. On the other hand after the porch incident I’d come to understand that I’d have to accept it whether he never understood or not … and do what was best for me in the long run anyway. I loved my family but sometimes you have to do what your instincts tell you to do, what your conscience tells you to do, and not makes everyone else happy and comfortable.

On top of what was going on with Micah, and Daddy’s turn for the worse, Mark and Calvin were late getting back. Since they were walking no one was supposed to start getting concerned unless they were longer than 48 hours. After that second night I was never far from the radio. I didn’t forage, choosing instead to work on my fading herb beds while allowing Jessie to toddle around in the yard, and trying to piece out and lay the grid for some raised vegetable beds I wanted to start in the spring.

All of us at the cabin and the farm were very concerned by the fourth day. Rudy and John were talking about fueling up one of the trucks and going to go look for them. Even Micah seemed to finally understand that “walking to town” was not the same thing it used to be. On the fifth day I was sitting on the porch while I tied together some more herb bundles, thinking that maybe it had been a poor choice to insulate Micah so much from what was going on, when the I heard Micah come stomping up the steps from the basement on a run.

“Del!”

“What’s wrong with Daddy?” I said turning to go inside.

Micah looked at my face and winced. The swelling had finally disappeared but my eye was a glorious rainbow of color from where the bruise above my eyebrow had spread. “Mark and Calvin … they’re back. Calvin has been roughed up and Rudy wants you down there like right now.”

“Stay with Daddy,” I told him as I ran into the house to grab my medical pack and Jessie. I was sure that Mark would want to see his son. I was also sure that I wanted some distance between Mark and Micah until I could explain things.

I wanted to jog down the road but I knew that would be stupid with both Jessie and the large pack to handle. Then I heard a motor start up and after a minute Sam showed up with one of the four-wheelers and wagon. “Throw the pack in the wagon. I forgot you’d be carrying Jessie but I’ll go slow.”

“Calvin’s hurt … what about Mark?”

“Uh … well, he’s been in a fight for sure but he don’t look so bad as Calvin.” Then he added in a disgruntled voice, “And don’t ask me what happened because Dad made me come up here before I could hear.”

“Well I appreciate the sacrifice,” I said in his ear to be heard over the engine. I could tell from the look on his face he wasn’t sure whether I was trying to be funny or not and I wasn’t going to enlighten him.

Sam drove me straight up to the barn where I saw a strange truck parked. I hoped off the four-wheeler and went to go look at what I was going to have to deal with when Mark met me coming around the other side of the truck.

He had a full growth of beard, didn’t look like he’d changed clothes since he was gone … and smelled like it too … and had obviously been in a fight of some type. His eyebrow was split and his ear looked pretty bruised up. His lip had been busted and his chin was scraped up. Jessie had already seen his father and was bouncing up and down on the carrier so hard it made my knees and ankles hurt.

“Daaayyyeeeeee …. Daaayyyeeeeeeeeee … awnt Daaayyyyeeeeeeeeeee!!!!” That piercing little voice was right in my ear.

When Mark went to grab his son out of the carrier I saw his knuckles … most of both his hands … looked they’d been doing hard labor. When Jessie continued to have a fit because Mark hadn’t taken him out of the carrier I looked at him and realized he was staring at my face.

“I fell off the porch, tell you about it later.”

A weird growl came out of his mouth that turned into the words, “Ali has (growl) already (growl) told me (growl, snarl).”

“Well obviously I need to thank her,” I said in a growl of my own. “But this isn’t the time or the place and I want to talk to you about it before we go back to the cabin. I mean it Mark, there are things you need to know. OK? Trust me to have been handling this my way?”

He finally took Jessie out of the carrier … and my back thanked him very much … and after a moment muttered, “Rudy said something similar. I want your side and … and I’ll wait for it … but …”

“No buts Mark. Let me tell what has been going on before you draw a conclusion.”

I heard a pitiful moan from the barn and I looked at Mark who just shook his head. “He did get pummeled but I swear he’s making as much of it as he can now that he is home to be tended by his mother and sister,” Mark said so that only I could hear.

Rudy had his own opinion on the subject, not far off from Mark’s. “Del, there you are. Will you please come do something with this boy so his momma will believe all that noise is just for show?”

Mark was right, Calvin had been pummeled. And he was in pain. But it was also true he was … um … embellishing it just a bit.

“Calvin, I’ll give you a hanky if you are going to start crying,” I told him which caught him in mid moan.

“You are a mean woman Del Nash. I swear you have to be one of the meanest women I’ve ever met in my life. Don’t you care at all how much this hurts? I’m in pain here.”

I’d had just about enough, “Yeah and my Daddy is in pain every minute of every day and he doesn’t act like this. Now, you’re bruised and battered but there is no need to make yourself feel worse by wallowing in it. I don’t see any blood, not even in these scraps here …”

“Ouch!!!” he nearly screamed in complaint at my light poke.

“Sorry, but they’re only on the top layer of skin. Soap and water will take care of everything that ails you. I wouldn’t just sit around either nursing the bruises … you’ll stiffen up and do worse harm.”

I noticed that Cindy covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. Rudy wasn’t quite as polite about it. “Hear that John? Your son is just fine and can get back to work right away helping you with that fuel brewer of yours.”

Esther came out to the barn and after only flaring her nose once told everyone to come up to the house and get out of the dirty barn. “Mark Griffey get on that porch and sit down with that baby before you fall down. Cheryl has something to drink for everyone so come on.”

Mark whispered in my ear, “Wow. I think Miz Esther actually spoke to me instead of at me. I don’t know if that has ever happened before.”

I nearly elbowed him in the ribs but remembered just in time he was probably as bruised as Calvin.

After everyone was sat their story was told. When they were finished the first biting bugs started to make their appearance. Rudy looked at Mark and asked, “What do you want to do with the truck?”

“Strip it for parts so you can fix those that were damaged by the raiders. The suspension and power steering on this one is shot but everything else under the hood looks to be running sound. I don’t want to ever see the thing again. I just want the stuff that is in the back. I’ll drive the truck up tonight and then bring it back down in the morning.”

After hearing his story I couldn’t say I blamed him though I could tell Rudy thought he was being short sighted. He opened his mouth to say so but closed his mouth when I gave my head and small shack and gave him “the eye.” He, in turn, rolled his eyes at me but didn’t say anything for which I was grateful.

I had Sam radio Daddy, who’d just woken up and found out that Mark was back, that we’d be back shortly and Mark could tell him everything then. We got in the truck, Jessie in my seatbelt with me, and headed up the road to the cabin.

About halfway up I said, “Mark, stop the truck for a minute so we can talk.”

He put it in gear and said, “I was wondering when you were going to get around to it.”

“Mark, right after you left …,” and I proceeded to explain everything that had happened while he was away.

“Ali didn’t tell me about your dad. Is he … is he real bad?” he asked going from angry to concerned.

“I’m resigned Mark. I’ll … I’ll fall apart at some point and I might even get nasty about it. But for now I’m holding up better than Micah is. I was scared for a few hours there; Daddy was in so much pain. I think … I think the cancer has spread, or gotten bigger, or something. There aren’t any store-bought drugs that will take it away. All I’m left with is my herbal stuff … wormwood, mullein, skunk cabbage, jimson weed … and Lord, don’t tell anyone but a couple of weeks before we moved here I even bought a bag of marijuana from a guy I was working with.”

“You … did … what?” Mark didn’t know whether to laugh or be scandalized.

“Don’t look at me like that you rat. I was doing it for Daddy. Only problem is the next day he was watching some show from out in California and Daddy got it into his head that no matter what he wouldn’t do that because he said it would be too much like losing control.” I shook my head. “Mark I … I’m getting to where I don’t know what to do to help him. And I think Micah is picking up on that.”

Mark was angry all over again. “That doesn’t give him any right to strike out at you like that. No … let me finish. I know he is a kid. I know … heck I remember … how hard it is to watch your father die. Dee made me sit there in that hospital while my old man was all hooked up to those tubes and wires and slowly stopped being Dad and he became just some body in the bed I didn’t know or recognize. Her reasoning was that I’d regret it if I didn’t. So I know how racked up it makes you feel. And I know how easy it is to start striking out at people but … that don’t make it right.”

“I know that Mark … and so does Micah. He’s ashamed. I can’t even get within a couple of feet of him without him practically dancing to get out of arms reach. It’s almost as if he’d feel better if I wouldn’t forgive him which makes no sense to me. All I’m asking is that you … you wait for a bit and just see how he is before you do something. OK?”

Mark looked away and shook his head, “Boy, you sure don’t ask for much do you?”

“I know it’s …”

“Hard? Dang right it’s hard. Hard enough that I have to keep my feelings under control. Hard enough that I made a promise that I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to keep. Hard enough that I …” He shook himself like an old dog. “And now you want me to control myself even more and cut your little brother slack that I … don’t really want to right this moment.”

I put my hand on his arm. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t say I would,” he said dissatisfied at not getting to act out the way he wanted to.

“But you will,” I said quietly, sure that he’d do his best.

He nodded silently, in an irritated fashion, put the truck in gear and we continued up to the cabin. As soon as we pulled in Mark took Jessie back in his arms and held his son like it’d been a year since they had seen each other. I guess this had been the first time since he’d regained custody that they’d been apart.

I heard Mark’s quick intake of breath at Daddy’s frail appearance when we started toward the porch. He nearly stumbled from the shock of it but he quickly recovered and we continued on.

“Well boy, you don’t look like it was good trip.”

Mark paused, “To be honest Mr. Nash … I can say it … well maybe you ought to just hear it for yourself ‘cause it won’t make much sense telling it out of order.”

I said, “Let’s do it inside and away from the bugs.”

“Speaking of,” Mark said as we moved to the kitchen table. “There’s several rolls of screen in the truck bed. If you want, we can use it to screen off the back porch. Might be enough for the front too.”

Suspiciously Daddy asked, “Where did it come from?”

I tried to shake my head in warning but Daddy could be that way sometimes. I put my hand on Mark’s shoulder and even Micah’s suspicious look got serious at how sad Mark’s eyes got as he looked away. “Dee’s basement.” Mark’s voice was strong but the look on his face must have warned them what he’d found in town.

Whether he really felt sorry for Mark or was just trying to be helpful I don’t know but Micah was the one that said, “Mark, maybe you better start at the beginning after all.”
 

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Chapter 10 - 1

Mark, still tense, tried to prepare himself to tell the story again. Knowing we’d be at the table a while I brought over a basket of corn muffins and added sorghum and butter for those that wanted it, pulled Jessie’s upstairs highchair up next to Mark, and then pulled all the forage out of my sack and made a salad of greens wilted with bacon grease and heat some leftovers for navy bean soup.

Mark and Calvin must have been watched over by angels because they didn’t meet a single person until they got to the outskirts of town and knocked on the door at Big John’s Bait and Tackle. Big John’s sister Miz Louise answered the door with a shot gun.

“I tol’ you and tol’ you we ain’t got nuthin’ for you and that if you showed up here agin’ I’d …” she stopped, startled at the sight of them.

Calvin’s eyes were wide as he stared down the barrel of the old shotgun. “Uh, Mizzus Lou? We ain’t been here in forever and we’re right sorry we disturbed you. We’ll be leaving now if you don’t mind.”

“Calvin Rudolph Carlisle! Boy where are your brains?! No body with any sense at all goes knocking on doors this time o’ night. And Mark Griffey … boy … I oughta …”


To the two men’s embarrassment and confusion the older woman broke down in sobs. “Hey, whoa, Mizzus Lou … uh … wha?” That was Calvin. Mark was more constructive and he helped the woman to a chair in the little deli area and shut the door.

Miz Lou pulled herself together enough to say, “Mark, bar the door son. And can you go let Johnny know everything is all right? My legs are just give out.”

Mark said he walked back to the family’s living quarters and found Big John trying to get out of bed. He had been shot, nothing near fatal, but he lost a lot of blood and even at his age … Big John was Miz Lou’s baby brother … it took a while to get the tank back to full, especially with their nutrition not being what it should be.

Mark said, “Big John convinced us … threatened us more like if we so much as gave Miz Lou a hard time about staying for supper … to stay the night. We had grits and greens for dinner and Cal and I gave Miz Lou some of the dried beef we’d brought with us and some of those sausage sticks you made Del. You should have seen Big John’s face; he was so hungry it wasn’t funny.”

“What happened to his catfish pond?” Daddy asked.

“Been nearly fished out. People would come with nets in the night and take what they wanted instead of thinking about the consequences if they didn’t take it easy. You know how big that pond is. Big John says he is pretty sure there are some small ones in there but he said he hope that if he leaves it until spring the fish population will go back up. He just has to wait the people out and he’s thinking the winter is going to help with that. But that wasn’t all he said.”

“Son, listen to me, if you don’t have no reason to go to town then don’t. It ain’t the place to be. Lots a people from the urban areas are just squattin’ wherever they can find a place outta the weather. Lots of ‘em are sick … dying … bringing God knows what with ‘em.”

Mark and Calvin were shocked. They’d been prepared for some trouble but nothing like was described to them.

Miz Lou said, “They came in waves. The first ones weren’t too bad. Some would stop, most didn’t. Running fast away from the trouble with who knows what destination in mind. They were just running like cows in a stampede. Second wave started almost after the first but you could tell the difference. The first wave people still had some sense, the second wave … well they was all crazy scared beyond sense. They stripped what little there was left off the shelves and most didn’t bother paying for it. If Johnny hadn’t thought to see to us first … well, weren’t enough gold or silver to buy a can o’ beans that didn’t exist so then they started with lead.”

Mark saw Calvin’s confused look and clarified, “You mean they started using guns? Were many hurt?”

“Oh my stars and garters yes. Most of the dead were the infernal locusts though. It only took one riot before word went out to treat ‘em like looters. Not even city folks are stupid enough to hang around when they’s being targeted with a shot gun.”


Big John added, “Then things were quiet for a few days. We thought the worst was over. Then … then the … the walking dead started to arrive … what would be the third wave. Some of these people came through the explosions of them bombs … they looked like them old Jap pictures from world war two … or maybe they got caught by the fallout or something. You boys done good to be out of it and holed up. I’d had been there too if I’d had a place and the where with all to be able to keep us there. The townfolk, no matter what some may say, did what we could for them first ones that struggled in but it didn’t take long before we were overwhelmed. We just laid ‘em on the highschool football field, then the parking lot, then in the classrooms, then after that it was where ever there was an empty spot. As fast as we laid ‘em down or carried off the ones that died more would replace ‘em. The smell of it … worse than a barrel of catfish that had been left to rot in a closed up house in the middle of summer.” He shuddered.

“After a while the ones coming in stopped being grateful and started acting like they were owed something. For their pain and suffering, their losses, you name it, and it came up.”

“From who?”
Mark asked, incredulous at people’s attitude.

Big John shrugged his one good shoulder, “FEMA, the government, the town folks, whoever had stuff that they didn’t. They were angry. And their anger begat violence. And that’s when the next wave of people started trickling in, worse than all the others put together. These were the gang bangers, rapists, prison trash, street people, the bottom feeders. Most of them had walked or stolen to get this far. Their weak had already died or been kilt off.”

“Most of the townspeople and those of us that live on the outskirts decided we’d had enough. There were too many to fight so we went home, locked our doors, and secured what little we had. That’s when the two groups turned on each other. It became a question of who was here first vs. who was stronger.”


Big John looked at Mark, “Some folks … some … tried to act like they were in charge, or they picked sides trying to get on the winning one. They did OK at first but then they found out they weren’t as in control of things as they thought. Some of the townfolks figured if they could just organize things, give those people what they thought they needed, then they’d ultimately control ‘em, maybe set them to work on farms and get some constructive use out of ‘em.”

Miz Lou snorted, “Use? Them kinda people have been useless their whole lives. They don’t know how to be useful and most of ‘em refuse to be teachable. That Ryland Harris was one of the first to get himself kilt … and he died hard as a lesson to others.” This time it was Miz Lou who shuddered.

Mark, more intelligent and intuitive than many people gave him credit for being, looked at Big John for a moment and then said, “My ex brother in law was a good friend of Ryland’s.”

Looking him straight in the eyes Big John said solemnly, “Yes he were. Mark … son …”

“Did Dee stay with him?”

“To … to both their ends from what people have said.”

“Cici?”

“No one has seen her in a while. She started running with that gang of kids that hung around with those bangers that were living in their house. Most of those squatters seem to have picked up and moved. Your sister’s place ain’t sit up too well for hard times living, don’t even think it has a regular fire place in it, only a gas one.”


Miz Lou, having known Mark since he was a boy in her deceased son’s boy scout troop said, “Boy, don’t go do what you’re thinking. That house don’t hold nothing for you but pain.”

Mark, holding in his emotions as best he could said, “It’s not the place I want to go but I have to know about Cici, know for sure.”

Everyone finally found their beds but Mark said he didn’t sleep. He spent the time planning their route and trying not to dwell on what they might find when they got there and what they might see along the way.
 
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