Story This Is Me Surviving (Complete)

[Kathy in FL]

Still feeling cruddy but better. Hubby decided since I couldn't get away to rest that he would steal me and the three younger kids away for a couple of days and come up here to the BOL. Oldest son conspired with him and he is keeping an eye on the house while we have it re-roofed.

I slept nearly the whole day on the lanai. I can't believe it. Yet I'm still tired ... but it isn't a sick kind of tired like I was feeling. My folks are coming over tomorrow. Dad will fuss over me a bit and mom and I will talk about the fact that they are going to be testing her for COPD next week.

Anywho, didn't even remember to bring my notes for the other stories that are being edited so thought since I finished Rocky's story that I would put Kiri's here as well. To that end and for your reading (or re-reading) pleasure here is ...

This Is Me Surviving ....

 

[Kathy in FL]

Prologue

I’m precocious and a bit of a dreamer; at least that is what my foster parents and teachers used to say. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever dream this kind of nightmare would come true. Oh sure, who hasn’t dreamed that some crazy thing would come along and Mad Max would rule the world? But for real?! No, this kind of stuff was only supposed to happen in fantasyland; or if it did happen it was supposed to be far in the future happen to some other more deserving people. It wasn’t supposed to happen to me.

I’m not even sure why I’m writing except that it gives me something to do while I wait out the rain. I mean, if I’m going to be stuck in this stupid storage building I gotta do something to keep from freaking out. When I’m walking I’m too busy keeping my feet from tripping over stuff and too tired from carrying this big backpack to really think about all the junk that has happened. But now that I don’t have that to keep me busy it’s real easy to get scared. I had enough of that yesterday trying to avoid those creeps that were probably only after you know what.

That stupid grief counseling that the court mandated I go to gave me the idea. It isn’t that the counseling was stupid but it sure seemed like some of the counselors were. For a while afterwards I was a real brat and the counselors only made me feel like being brattier. Is brattier even a word? Geez I miss spell check. And my laptop. Writing by hand stinks.

Anyway some of the counselors always struck me as being so holier than thou. When I would get mad after listening to them lecture me about my “behavioral problems” I would ask them what their loss had been that gave them the right to tell me how I should be acting. They would answer, “We aren’t here to talk about me. We are here to help you.” That was nothing more than adult doublespeak that said they hadn’t ever experienced anything like I was going through but that they still knew what was best for me … even though nine times out of ten they didn’t know jack.

But there was this one guy. He was kinda young but old enough that he didn’t do the stupid fake “friend” thing. He knew what loss really was. His dad died during the First Gulf War and he lost a brother in Afghanistan. But he wasn’t anti-military or anything which was better because my Dad had been military. Mr. Kramer … that was the guy’s name … is the one that talked me into starting a journal. He said that a journal was kind of like a dumping ground for stuff that builds up inside you. It gives you a place to take it out and examine it to make sure what you are feeling is for real or gives you a place to put down things you don’t want to forget. I really liked him but not the way all the other staff thought I did. It was more he was a person I could respect because his opinions and suggestions were based real life experience and not something that he got out of a book. He understood in a way all those other jokers didn’t. The administration in its great and infinite wisdom was suspicious because my chart showed I was improving with him when I never did with any of the other schmucks so of course they reassigned me to some other counselor that didn’t have a clue what to do with me or for me. Then they spent weeks trying to figure out if there had been an “inappropriate counselor-client relationship” between me and Mr. Kramer. I really wanted to make a stink but I was afraid to make things harder on Mr. Kramer than they already were. Talk about a bunch of jerks. He finally had to quit and go to work someplace else. Just one more loss in my life and it only made me hate that stupid counseling center even more.

When I was accepted to the IB program at the highschool I was finally able to stop going to “counseling.” They called me “cured” and I called me tired of talking about my feelings to other people that didn’t have a clue. Either way we were all off the hook and could back to our regularly scheduled programming. But the journal idea is a good one. It helped me then so I hope this one helps me now.

After I made my decision to hit the road I read that old journal. I can’t believe I kept it all that time; it sure was a pain to keep hidden from the other kids. It was kind of like a security blanket I guess. But so many other awful things have happened that those feelings weren’t security anymore; they felt like a weight and I had to decide to dump them to make room for all the other things going on. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done, next to burying my family, was burning that journal. I read it one more time, put a match to it and then gave it its own burial in a hole I dug in one of the flower beds that surrounds the building where all us kids were being warehoused.

So here goes. First you are supposed to identify yourself and take ownership. That sounds stupid but I guess it would be more stupid to not do it that way.

My name is Kiri Michelle Snow, I’m sixteen years old and the world as I knew it has come to an end.
 

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 1

My name is a little weird and hard for some people to say apparently. I always hated the first day of school or days when I had substitute teachers because they never said it right. It’s a family name and has been passed down for a lot of generations. I’m Kiri Michelle. My mom was Joyce Kiri. My grandmother got the name from a sister that had died when it was a baby and she was the oldest girl so it was her job to name one of her kids Kiri to keep the tradition going. My great grandmother was Malissa Kiri. Her mom was Kiri Emmaline. It keeps going back a couple of generations from there. It’s all in this big Family Bible that belonged to my great great grandmother, the one called Kiri Emmaline.

No one knows where the name really comes from but I’ve always thought that some illiterate ancestress thought it sounded pretty and named her kid that and that kid was so hacked off that she decided to doom the next eleventy dozen generations to the same torment she had to suffer. Anyway, the way you pronounce my name isn’t “carry” or “curry” or anything like that. It is “key ree” with the emphasis on the “ree” part. Sort of like Marie only “key” instead of “ma.” I’ve never figured out why that is so hard for people. You’d think with all the weird names people give their kids lately that mine would be an easy one.

Since my mom got to pick my first name my dad got to pick my middle name. Unfortunately for me he was a Beatles fan even when the Beatles weren’t cool anymore. So yeah, I’m named after that stupid song.

I really miss my family. They died when I was twelve. We were coming back from one of my brother’s little league games when a drunk driver crossed the line and hit us head on. Everyone said that there was nothing my mom could have done. It all happened too fast. Sometimes I wonder though if Daddy had been the one driving if maybe he could have saved us. I’m not mad at my mom or anything but it is the kind of thing you wonder about when you are stuck in the hospital for six months. I didn’t get to see where my parents and brother were buried for a long time. I didn’t even know they had died for a while because I was in a coma. I used to wish that somebody would have tripped over a cord back then and unplugged me. I’m passed that part but not passed the part where I miss them. In a way I hope that part never goes away. I think not missing them would somehow be worse.

Most kids when they become orphans go to an aunt or uncle or their grandparents. I didn’t get so lucky. We didn’t live near any of our family. My dad was stationed at MacDill AFB in Tampa, FL when the wreck happened and all our family was up in Kentucky and Tennessee where my folks were from. I was born at Ft. Campbell Army Base but only kind of on accident. My brother was born four years later in San Antonio, TX. We didn’t move around a lot compared to some military families I guess. We lived in a nice little house in a kind of run down subdivision but everyone looked out for everyone else as a lot of them were military families. I had enough friends to keep me busy and I was doing really well in school. They wanted to bump me up a grade a couple of times but Daddy never let them; he didn’t want me hanging around kids that were too much older than me, especially some of the boys from our neighborhood.

There wasn’t a lot of money ‘cause Daddy wasn’t an officer but there was enough that my brother and I could join a few extracurricular activities like Little League and scouts and stuff like that. Mom worked part time as a seamstress and part time at this placed called JoAnn Fabrics to pay for things that my dad’s paychecks couldn’t cover right away like school field trips, our vegetable garden and canning supplies, and extras for Christmas and birthdays. She made most of our school clothes and our play clothes were generally hand me downs from our cousins. We didn’t mind because that just the way we were raised and we weren’t really old enough yet to get picked on because our clothes didn’t have fancy labels in them.

Daddy inherited some money when his mom died – that was another sad time – but that was all invested in what Daddy called his and Momma’s “retirement home.” It was forty acres up in the middle of nowhere Florida, the nearest real town this place called Live Oak, if you could call Live Oak a real town. It wasn’t bad, it had a super Walmart, it just wasn’t anywhere close to having all the stuff Tampa had which was the whole point according to my parents. Then Momma’s mom and dad died back to back. My Memaw died of colon cancer and everyone said my Granddaddy died of a broken heart six months later. Momma’s brother and sister didn’t want the farm so everything went on the block that no one else in the family claimed. Momma got a bunch of stuff she called family heirlooms that my aunt and uncle just called old “old junk.” My uncle got the little red tractor that they always called the “A” for some reason. My aunt got a car and her son got the farm truck. After the auction, the taxes were paid off and what was left was split three ways.

With both of their inheritance money, they finished paying off the land, set up savings accounts for my brother and I and then Daddy and Momma built a house, barn, and shed just like they wanted, doing most of the work themselves. All of our vacations and long weekends were always spent up there working on the place. Sometimes family would come down and go hunting or fishing too. Momma called it “Sparkleberry Ranch” after these wild berries that grow all over the place on the land. That’s where I’m headed as soon as this stupid rain lets up.

The reason I didn’t get shipped off to my parents’ family was because I was sick in the hospital for a long time and had lots of “problems” after the accident. Some lawyer had also gotten himself signed up to be my guardian ad litem and he took the drunk drivers insurance company to the cleaners on my behalf. In the process a lot of other people got into my business too and that meant that most of my family was declared ineligible to be my guardians. The only one that made it through their “screening process” was some cousin of my Dad’s who lived in Tampa and who was already a state-qualified foster parent with years of experience with “troubled kids.” I had to call her Aunt Wilma and her husband was Uncle Charlie. They weren’t bad people, they just weren’t my parents. I know I gave them some grief. I’m sorry for that now mostly; they just believed things that were so different from the way my parents believed and they tried to cram what Daddy used to call “all that new age, feel good ****” down my throat too much. All for my own good of course. And for the record I really don’t challenge authority like they used to say. I just think I should be allowed to have my own opinions. I’ll follow the rules, I just don’t always agree with the rules and I have a bad habit about it showing.

Anyway, about that money. It was all put into this trust and I don’t think I’ve ever really seen a dime of it, not really, not that I could put in my hands. The money was used to maintain Sparkleberry Ranch and to pay for a week’s vacation up there every year by Aunt Wilma, Uncle Charlie and whatever foster kids were living with them at the time. I dreaded and loved that week every year we went. Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie also got paid for taking care of me which didn’t help with my “feelings of resentment.”

During that week it hurt to see someone else “living” in my parents’ house but at the same time I got to go back and live there and touch all of my parents’ stuff which made me feel like they were closer. I know they weren’t really there; Dad didn’t go for that ghosty-ghouly stuff. I was “brought up in the church” until I had to go live with Aunt Wilma who had a thing for stuff my parents wouldn’t have touched with a ten foot pole. One of the beefs I always had with Aunt Wilma is that because I refused to go to what she called a church she wouldn’t let me go to what I called a church. It sounds worse than it was but it still made me mad sometimes.

Between the so-called group vacations some local guy came by once a month to bush hog the long dirt road that leads back to the house, around the house itself and in the orchard and the fire break that goes around all forty acres. Personally I think he let that last bit slide most of the time because the saw briers had taken over the five-strand barbwire fence that enclosed the property last time I was there. I guess you get what you pay for and this guy really wasn’t getting paid much if you listened to him complain. I know for a fact he got paid for fuel and labor plus he got to keep the Bahia hay off of the road and the three acre hayfield that is in the middle of the heavily wooded acreage because the lawyer always made me sit and listen to the yearly accounting of expenses. The rest of the money is supposed to be in some kind of secure investment account but I haven’t a clue whether it exists anymore and even if it did if the money is even worth anything.

I learned to live with the way things were. My original plan was to get my emancipation when I turned sixteen but I found out that there were all of these requirements to be able to prove I could support myself and of course I couldn’t with the way things were tied up. So I changed my plan. I would wait and go away to college and then I could figure out what I was going to do with my life and no one could tell me what to do if they didn’t like what I decided. It doesn’t look like it is going to turn out that way either.

The problems weren’t big at first. I had to listen to Uncle Charlie run his mouth all the time at the dinner table about what was wrong with this country. Of course everything he thought was a problem my parents had thought was what made us Americans and made the country great. It was like Uncle Charlie had made some kind of project out of me, constantly bombarding me with crap about the “hope and change” and how it was our moral duty to make sure the distribution of wealth in this country was fair. To say I didn’t agree with him would be the understatement of the century but most of the foster kids ate it up like candy. So stupid. Sometimes I agree when adults say teenagers don’t know their own minds. Some of the kids I went to school with didn’t even act like they had their own mind half the time so they borrowed the thoughts of other people to make up the difference.

See I look at it like this. There were kids in the school where I went that always got things they didn’t earn because it made the school as a whole look good. Some of the jocks got graded on the curve so that they could play even though they hadn’t really earned the grade that showed up on their report cards. Some of the rich kids got special attention because of who their parents were. The PTA parents’ kids always got what they wanted because their parents were the squeaky wheels and made the most noise. Some of the kids were given labels because that was easier than making them follow the rules or live up to their full potential. There was always an excuse for why the rest of us had to give up things so that other students could have a “fair deal” they didn’t do anything to earn. What was going on in the adult world may have been called socialism, special interests, lobbying, or other stuff but it all boiled down to the same thing … excuses; big fat excuses why people didn’t have to be graded on their own work.

Then came the pandemic. Holy geezly crow. Some of the adults acted like nothing was wrong and that the people dying were just made up like scare tactics. Other adults acted like the Plagues of Egypt were about to return. Most of us kids weren’t sure who to believe. Of course what we thought really didn’t matter anyway. They left the schools open and a lot of us got sick.

Then the vaccine came out. Those of us who went to public school weren’t given a choice. The school system made it one of the mandatory vaccines to attend school like the MMR or the one for polio. Some parents took their kids out of school but most of us were stuck … yeah, I guess I just made a pun. That slowed the sickness down a little in the schools but the adults still got sick. A lot of them got sick. The economy got worse just because I guess, and things got scarce in the stores but the world didn’t come to an end.

Everyone was jumping up and down when the “third wave” of the pandemic was over. The new people said the Spanish Flu way back in 1918 only had three waves so now that the third wave was over for this flu we were all safe. Then something happened. The flu hadn’t gone away, it had mutated like scientists thought it would only not quite the way they thought it would. And people started getting sick again, bad sick.

The vaccine we had all gotten in the beginning no longer worked; like the regular seasonal vaccine, it was only good for that one go around. But no one had been paying attention and the flu virus did what flu viruses do and things got really bad, really quick.

The economy and junk was already bad off because the pandemic had been messing around with things for over a year. That wasn’t the only reason but that was the big one people were blaming at the time. Uncle Charlie was so shocked that “his elected officials” weren’t fixing things the way they had promised that he actually got depressed about it. All that hope and change was getting flushed down the toilet like Aunt Wilma’s vomit and diarrhea. See Aunt Wilma got sick with the fourth wave when she hadn’t during the first three. And then some of the other kids in the house got sick. Everything became too much for Uncle Charlie and he called social services to come take us, even me, but there wasn’t any place else for us kids to go.

Finally when the cops caught a couple of the kids stealing from the grocery store so that we could eat they came to investigate. Before their investigation was through Aunt Wilma died. I never heard from Uncle Charlie again. They gave us kids that weren’t sick fifteen minutes to pack one suitcase and one backpack and then they put us on a bus and took us to the school where we were going to stay.

They tried to keep the schools open for a while but there were so many sick kids and adults that it just wasn’t worth it. Those of us who were being housed at the school were moved to a warehouse where they hung sheets up to make dormitories for the different age groups with the boys on one end of the warehouse and the girls on the other end. We were supposed to do school in the common area between but they never could seem to get around to it, especially when they started bringing in the Flu Orphans.

Well, that didn’t go over well; too many kids and too few adults. Most of us older kids did try and help out but I’m not ashamed to admit we were in over our heads. It was the worst babysitting job I’ve ever had. And then the kids in the warehouse started getting sick too ‘cause they hadn’t been screening kids right or maybe it was one of the guards that brought it from home. That turned into a nightmare. There was puking and dirty sheets everywhere. The smell was awful. They would just put the kids that died outside in this van and when the van was full it would pull away and another one would take its place.

Then when the dying leveled off and had almost stopped other things started going wrong. The power didn’t stay on very much after a while and some of the kids started going bonkers ‘cause they didn’t have anything to do. They vandalized all the common areas and even wrecked the plumbing. We had fewer and fewer adults showing up to help take care of us. Then some of the kids started creating gangs and it got really crazy. They moved out all of the really young kids and babies but I don’t know where they took them. But then the worst of the worst happened; the food deliveries started slowing down.

It took months for all of this to happen. Sometimes I would lose track of time, especially when the power was off for more than a day or two at a time.

Well, my mouth got me in trouble one day. This guy who had been bothering me for a while came up to me while I was on kitchen duty and said he’d protect me from the other guys if I would … you know, kinda be in his harem. My answer wasn’t polite. A skillet clunking you in the head isn’t anywhere near polite. But the guy wouldn’t take “no” when I tried to tell him politely when he started bothering me in the first place.

I got scared. I knew I was in trouble when even the adults started avoiding me. So, I made up my mind that it was safer for me to take off on my own than to wait around for the adults to figure out how to fix things. I don’t really look at it as running away. I’ve got someplace to go and its mine. My parents left it to me. And I know things that about the house that Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie never figured out. My dad was really smart guy. I wish he was here so I could tell him that. And he would never let guys like that bother me.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 2

Eventually I figured out either I was going to have to leave or I was going to have to be prepared to be like the other girls and find a guy that would “protect” me. I decided there was no way I was going to start sleeping around just to get something to eat and keep from getting beat up all the time or worse. My parents didn’t raise me to be like that. Besides there is a reason why girls like that are the first ones to die in all those scary movies. They always seem to pick the guy willing to run away and leave them to be monster chow.

Daddy expected me to be a different kind of girl. He didn’t stop me from being a tomboy but he was always on me about being careful about how I played with the neighborhood boys. I didn’t know what he meant back then. I do now. Sometimes I wonder if Daddy hadn’t died would things have stayed the same or would I have gotten into the same kind of trouble and been a disappointment to him. I always try to think about how Daddy and Momma would have expected me to act. I don’t always act that way but I do try and think first.

Daddy used to tell me there wasn’t anything in the world I couldn’t do if I set my mind to it. I’m old enough now to know that isn’t completely true. But I do know if there is something I want I’ll never get it if all I do is sit around and wait for someone to hand it to me. And if I try my best and fail, that is still better than never trying at all. I sure as heck wasn’t going to sit around and wait for some guy to rescue me, especially considering what he was asking for in return.

Part of me felt a little bad about leaving but me staying wasn’t going to make it better for anyone and could get me dead or worse. Most of the friends that I had managed to make over the last several months, those that hadn’t died when the flu swept through the warehouse, had picked sides in the gangs … and not all of them were on the same side. The drama was awful. I couldn’t talk to her because she was having a fight with him over the fact that he used to belong to this gang but had switched allegiances because he was hot for a girl in the other gang. It got to be I wondered who my friends were. When Tony … the jerk that didn’t understand the word “no” … started talking about what was going to happen to me I found it wasn’t a matter of “who” my friends were but “if” I had any at all.

Once my decision was made I packed the few things I had left and kept them pretty close at hand. I didn’t look any different than the other kids. Stealing was a big problem anyway so people had started to their keep stuff with them if they had anything they didn’t want to “lose.” I didn’t have much of anything that was going to be useful and most of what I did have would have weighed me down if I had tried to take it. After dumping all my school books and the broken radio there really wasn’t that much left.

I was down to only a couple of sets of underclothes so I had to take all of that. My shoes were shot and that was probably the only reason they hadn’t been stolen, but they were all I had. At least I had two other pair of jeans plus the ones I wore and my two t-shirts only had a couple of holes and my other shirt still had all but the top and bottom buttons. No jacket but since it was April I wouldn’t need one. No hat so that went on my List. The List is in one of those mini steno pads I used to keep my school assignments and due dates in. It helps me to remember what I need most when I have a chance to get it.

There wasn’t any extra food so that was going to be a problem but I did have a water bottle. It didn’t hold much but it was better than nothing and the lid didn’t leak. I kept my CDs and DVDs the lawyer had had made of my family photos since the originals were all stored up at Sparkleberry Ranch. I had a toothbrush and hairbrush but no toothpaste or shampoo; that stuff had run out a long time ago. I swiped a bar of soap from the bathroom and wrapped it in some plastic wrap. That made me feel bad for a little bit but no one was using soap much these days. The warehouse smelled like a locker room after a football game when I left.

I had my plastic bowl and spork that we were issued when we were first brought to the warehouse and they were pretty sturdy and in good shape except the spork was missing one of its tines where I had tried to pry off pull top a couple of weeks ago. And I had some rags that I kept washed out for my monthlies. All the girl stuff had run out a long time ago and we just had to do what we had to do. The monthlies were the worst but I guess because we weren’t getting as much to eat a lot of the girls weren’t having their monthlies any more. Kinda gross to think about it, but if a girl doesn’t take care of herself that way no one else will. The boys were always teasing us and making us miserable. If I could have a couple of wishes one them would be for boys to have to go through what us girls go through for a whole year before they got to claim their so-called manhood. Bet there would be a lot few dirty jokes if they did.

One of the last things I packed was a knife out of the kitchen. Momma’s butter knives were sharper than this thing is but they took all the sharp knives away when they took the little kids. That didn’t mean that there weren’t those kinds of weapons you find in prisons. We’ve got a couple of Juvie Hall guys in the group that showed everyone how to make stuff. They used to come through and confiscate anything that looked like a weapon or that could be used as a weapon but they gave up on that after a while when it didn’t do any good.

I had planned on taking my sheets with me but someone stole them a couple of days before I took off. I know who but it doesn’t matter anymore. It only hurts if I think about it. She used to be my friend.

That was it. All I had were some clothes, toiletries, and a few personal things. The day before I left I started a twig on fire on the kitchen burner and took it outside and burnt my old journal then buried it. We aren’t allowed outside too much except in the courtyard and I turned around to find one of the guys that wore the urban camouflage uniforms watching me. The weird thing is that he didn’t ask me what I was doing or tell me to go back inside he just stared.

I remember Daddy inviting guys like this to our house for one of Momma’s home cooked meals. They would be older guys with gray in their short cut hair and no wedding band on their finger. They never quite seemed to know what to make of my brother and I and Momma always told us to be on our best behavior when Daddy had friends like that over for dinner and to stay out of the way afterwards.

I went back inside and started to wonder if I was going to be able to sneak out after all. I had to wait until way after the moon rose for everyone to go to sleep. The adults sleep in the common area if the weather is bad but it wasn’t so they were all outside breathing fresh air which was partly why it took so long for things to settle down. The doors all got locked when the last adult left but I had made sure one of the bathroom windows was left where I could get out. I had to stand on the sink to crawl onto the ledge and nearly fell on my backside a couple of times but I got out and onto the dumpster that I had pushed against the wall a couple of days ago.

I had both feet on the ground and was just turning around when I nearly wet myself. It was that same guy and he was still just staring. When he didn’t try to stop me I started walking across the courtyard so I could climb onto the other dumpster I had moved and get over the courtyard fence since I was too big to squeeze through the chained and padlocked gate. I fell getting off the fence on the other side but the only thing I hurt was my pride.

The guy still hadn’t said anything and it was weirding me out but then as I stepped away this gravely voice whispered, “You’ll either dish it out in here or dish it out out there girly. A pretty little thing like you won’t last long.”

Gross. I kept walking. If it hadn’t been so dark I would have run. It wasn’t for another hour that I realized I didn’t really know where I was. Tampa is a big place and everything looks different when the electricity is out. I knew we were somewhere near the school but I didn’t even know what direction I was going. As bad as it was back at the warehouse it was scarier being outside and alone. I realized I needed a lot more of a plan than what I had.

That was when I saw the street sign and finally recognized where I was. I was a mile down the road from the highschool. I headed that way trying to come up with a story to give to the adults I thought would be there. But when I got to the school there wasn’t anyone and it looked like the place had been looted. Papers and books lay all over the ground and they’d been there long enough to get rained on at least once.

I didn’t have to climb a fence this time because the gates were barely hanging on and I could just walk through. I knew the safest place for me to hideout was the old projection booth in the assembly room. My luck was out though because the door was locked. The next thing that went on the List was bolt cutters. I knew where a pair were but I wasn’t going hunting for them in the dark. The School Resource Officer kept a big pair in his filing cabinet to take combination locks off of lockers for when people didn’t use regulation locks issued by the school.

The next place I tried to hide worked out better but I banged my head on the trapped door when I was trying to close it. There is a crawl space under the stage where all the wiring is for the speakers and floor lights. The assembly was so dark it took me forever to find the recessed release handle so I could move the panel. It’s a good thing I’m not scared of much anymore because it was as dark as the inside of a black cat down there and it smelled funny too. But by that time I was too tired to care, not to mention that it was easier to go to sleep than worry about the fact that I was hungry and hadn’t eaten since that morning. It had only been stale cereal with milk from powder to pour over it; better than nothing, but not by much.

I banged my head worse the next morning. I woke up to this munching sound in my ear and when I went to brush it away I touched something fuzzy. I didn’t care, I wanted out of there fast only I couldn’t find the door to get out. I got so turned around and scared that I kicked out the speaker covers and crawled out that way. The thing I had touched was a mouse and it had been chewing off the wispy curls that grow around my ears. There was a whole curl missing. Ick.

I could tell it was daylight because of the light coming around the doors. I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I listened at the door and when I didn’t hear anything for a long time I slowly pushed it open and peeked out. There was no one around and hadn’t been anyone around. I didn’t notice last night but there was a dead furry something that had been drug up under the azalea bushes. I imagine it used to smell pretty bad so if grown ups had been around they would have gotten rid of it.

I ran to the closest girls’ bathroom praying that they weren’t locked. The girls bathroom was so I had to use the boys’ bathroom. Talk about your weird experience. It was so gross in there, but most of the grossness was dry. I hit the first stall but it was too disgusting for words. I started at the other end and found one that didn’t make me want to gag and just managed to take care of things without making a mess. Next that went on my list was toilet paper and wet naps if I could find them.

I’d never been in a boys bathroom before so I wasted a few minutes looking around. I almost laughed and I would have only I thought if I did I might start crying. If I started crying I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop.

After I snuck out of the bathroom I decided I had nothing to lose and headed to the cafeteria to see if there was anything to eat in there. I shouldn’t have been disappointed but I was. There wasn’t anything edible left. But I stopped right before leaving and made myself really look around and see if there wasn’t something that I could use. But the time I had left I had an armful of stuff. There was salt and pepper and some ketchup and mustard packets. I found a bundle of napkins and a handful of those mini straws we used to stick in the orange juice boxes. I got a couple sets of silverware. I got a pizza cutter, a beat up aluminum pitcher, some coffee filters, and a big knife with a heavy handle. I wrapped everything up in this huge sweater jacket that was draped over the chair at the head cafeteria lady’s desk. The sweater made a pillow on hot nights and a blanket on cooler nights. It smelled funny, like somebody had dumped a bottle of perfume on it so when I took everything back to my hidey hole I laid it over the bushes to try and get some of the stink out of it.

Next stop was the Resource Officer’s office because I was not sleeping with the mice anymore. Next time it could be my ear they decided to munch instead of my hair. The administrative offices were a mess. All of the computers monitors looked like they had been kicked in, key boards had keys missing, there were holes in the walls, and filing cabinets were turned over. Betcha a disgruntled student did it; probably a couple of them. But whoever had tore things up was just doing mischief, they weren’t really looking for anything.

One of the secretary’s desks had a couple of boxes of those fancy herbal teas, some sugar packets (only the fake stuff but it was better than nothing), and a tin of shortbread cookies. I was so hungry I ate a couple right there even though they were so stale they barely had any taste to them. Another desk had a whole pile of those diet candy bars, guess even the mice didn’t like them but I dumped them into a file box I was loading up. Beggars can’t be choosers. The principal’s office had a bunch of cool stuff in it … coffee, tea, real sugar packets, hot chocolate, and a really big stoneware mug that said “Every Day is Recess.” The best though was the case of those little pint-sized water bottles in the bottom of one of the filing cabinets. I opened one and guzzled it down to chase the taste of stale cookies out of my mouth and get the fur off of my tongue.

The bolt cutters were buried under a tipped over filing cabinet but I finally managed to pull them out. I had half hoped there would be a gun on something in there but I guess that was pretty stupid. I did find the master keys to all the lockers on campus and I pocketed those real fast so I wouldn’t forget them. Our highschool actually had a nurses station because of our PTA. It wasn’t really useful but I grabbed the big first aid kit that had been ripped off the wall and after fooling with the master keys for a minute was able to get into the closet that held the stuff that was put aside for the migrant kids and their families. There wasn’t much left, a lot of the illegal migrants went back where they came from when all the jobs dried up, but there was a box with some shampoo and deodorant and stuff in it and suddenly I felt all dirty and itchy. Wasn’t a thing I could do about it though until I could find more water.

I took everything back to the Assembly Room and cut the chain off the projection booth door and took all my booty inside. What I hadn’t counted on was how dark it was in there so I just left everything and went looking in all of the janitor’s closets. Nada. Zilch. Nothing. Worse was how rotten all of the mildewed mop heads smelled. I finally found what I was looking for in Coach Adams’ office in the boys’ locker room. There were also big bags of powdered Gatorade that I guess they used to make up for the jocks and about a half a case of bigger water bottles. I hit the jackpot in the girls’ locker room when I found a bunch of feminine hygiene stuff.

When I was coming out of the locker rooms I heard the first vehicles that I’d heard since leaving the warehouse. I ran and hid, nearly dropping the box that held everything I had found except the water. I went back for that after it sounded like the vehicles had kept going on down the highway. I had just gotten back to the Assembly Room when I heard the vehicles coming back. I ran to the projection booth and stayed there for the rest of the day and night only coming out to use the bathroom once after it had gotten good and dark.

The next day I made sure to be more careful. I know nobody saw me but it was too easy for someone to sneak up on me if I got too busy treasure hunting. That day I went through most of the lockers on campus. There wasn’t much but I still managed to find a few things including a nearly new pair of tennis shoes that fit. I also found a couple of knives and even a gun which nearly freaked me out. Now I don’t mind guns and I don’t think they are bad or scary, Daddy had a bunch of them; he just never got around to teaching me how to use one. I mean it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know which end to point and what part to pull, but for all the rest of it I would need a book or something with instructions and I didn’t figure I was going to find a book like that in the school library.

I put the gun back where I found it because not only did I not know how to use it, it was rusty and I couldn’t even figure out how to tell if it was loaded or not. I figured until I had more idea what I was doing the gun wasn’t worth the risk of what I could accidentally to do me with it. Since I don’t know how to use a gun yet I’m concentrating on staying out of situations where I would need one.

I heard the vehicles again about the same time I had heard them the day before. I was on the second floor in Hall 3 and peeked out a classroom window that faced the road. The noise came from two military humvee looking things, only they were convertibles instead of hard tops. There were four guys in each one and the guys wore urban camou and had big guns. They had those military helmets on that strapped under their chins. They were just driving, not really looking around.

I hadn’t seen a live TV show or a radio broadcast in a long time but if there was a lot of looting and riots I bet the people in charge had put curfews into effect. That would explain why there weren’t any cars on the road or people going around. It didn’t explain all of the Twilight Zone stuff but that would explain some of it. It also meant that if I got caught I would be in really big trouble.

I knew I couldn’t live in the school much longer so when I found the maps in the Driver’s Ed classroom I started making plans for getting further out of town. Until I figured out what I could get away with I would have to travel at night which means that I would need to stay close to a road or I’d probably wind up going in circles or tripping over stuff or having to travel through people’s yards which might be even more dangerous.

Then I needed to pick the road I was going to travel on. The Interstate would have been the quickest but I had a feeling that was going to be a bad choice if I wanted to stay away from adults that would try and tell me what I could and couldn’t do. I was already on the north end of Dale Mabry Hwy and that dead ends into US41. I looked at the maps and I could follow US41 all the way up to US441 in High Springs. Then I could take US27 to SR49 and SR49 would run right by Sparkleberry Ranch. I was set, at least until I started adding up all of the miles.

Two hundred miles. I couldn’t believe it. I mean I knew that traveling by car on the interstate it took three hours to get to the property from Tampa but … gee whiz, two hundred miles. I figured that I could hike for eight hours each night if I was careful and didn’t try going too fast. I didn’t have any idea how fast I could walk though so I guessed around two or three miles per hour. That meant if I walked the whole way it was going to take me about two weeks to get there. There was no way I had food and water for two weeks. Those diet bars didn’t go very far and they had a lot of fiber in them so I had to go to the bathroom a lot too. They also made me thirsty which means I was drinking a lot of water and my water was already half gone even though I was trying to be careful.

I supposed I could have stayed in Tampa and tried to make a go of it but there really wasn’t anything left for me there. It took me two days to try and pack everything. I kept having to change backpacks. I finally found the biggest one I could find in the AV room. I think it belonged to one of the chess club members because it had a box of chess pieces in it. I nearly brought the game but in the end I had to leave it because the back pack was a lot heavier than I expected after it was all loaded. The scale in the nurse’s office said it weighed fifty pounds. I knew right then I was in trouble but I didn’t know what I could leave behind.

I did get rid of a little bit of the weight when I took all the first aid stuff out of metal first aid kid and repack the stuff it in a couple of make-up kit bags. I also left the folding chair and just cut me another piece of plastic like I used to make me a tent and ground cloth with. I got rope and stakes for my tent by going through all the sports equipment in Coach Adams’ office.

Finally I was as ready as I was going to be and I Ieft as soon as the sun was all the way down, heading north on US41. I was scared but kind of excited too. Boy was I in for a rude awakening.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 3

I had been walking for two hours when I really needed to go to the bathroom badly. Right there and then I started a new page in my steno pad called “Kiri’s Rules for Traveling.” Rule number one: always go to the bathroom BEFORE you start a long hike.

I hadn’t even made it to US41 yet. At the rate I was walking I was going to be lucky to get that far. But I was getting desperate. There was a mini-mart on the left side of the highway, it had been trashed too and had all the windows broken out. I was careful of all the glass, not because I was afraid of getting cut but because when I stepped on it the sound of the glass crunching was so loud I thought someone would hear me.

There was nothing left on the inside of the store. I guess when the place got busted up the owners sent someone to clean the place out of anything else that was left; not even a Slurpy machine was left behind. If the Seven Eleven sign hadn’t been on the outside of the building you couldn’t have told what it used to be. The gas pumps were even gone from outside.

Because there wasn’t anything to block the moonlight I was able to get to the door for the bathroom easy enough. There was no door knob on the door but the bathroom wasn’t too gross. No toilet paper but I was prepared for that with a couple of napkins.

Since I figured water was going to be scarce on my hike one of the things I did before I left the school was to go around to all the sanitizer stations and pumped out what was left and put it into a lotion bottle that I found in a teacher’s desk. The sanitizer had a little bit of lotion in it where I couldn’t wash it out but I didn’t figure that would hurt anything.

I sure didn’t want to put the backpack back on but I was already behind schedule. I got squared away and ate a diet bar while I walked a little faster trying to make up for lost time.

Two hours later, US41 in sight, and I had to go to the bathroom again so bad I thought I was gonna die. Rules for Traveling Number Two: Fiber bars suck for trail food, save them until the end of the hike. There wasn’t any handy dandy minute market around and all the businesses I tried were locked up tight. I didn’t want to rattle around too much and I was getting kind of desperate. There was no way I was going to go to the bathroom right beside the highway where anyone could see me so I went behind this block of businesses and finally found a private spot that I didn’t feel too exposed at between this big stack of tires and some kind of car fixing place. My stomach hurt so bad and I was so scared that it took forever. I just knew someone was going to jump out and go “Boo!” before I could get my pants up.

Rules of the Road Number Three: Since nothing looks like it is supposed to look in the middle of the night, when stepping off the road always make sure and leave some kind of marker to remind yourself how to get back.

I don’t know how I managed to do something so ignorant but I did. I must have made a wrong turn because I got so confused that instead of getting back out to the highway I somehow wound up in the backside of a subdivision. I still don’t know how I went wrong but boy was I turned around. I only made it worse when I tried to turn around and go back the way I had come and couldn’t even find the big pile of tires.

So I wasted at least an hour probably wandering around in circles inside this business park and when I finally see the highway I start running to get to it. Baaad decision. It was so dark that I didn’t see where the drainage ditch started and I fell in. Lucky for me it wasn’t a bad fall but the bottom of the ditch was full of dirty water.

Rule Number Four: Never run at night unless there is a monster chasing you. Rule Number Five: Never put your spare set of clothes at the bottom of the backpack.

I wasted another hour unpacking and repacking the backpack to get to my dry clothes. Only the bottom part of me was wet but I wasn’t going to walk around in wet and muddy undies and wet shoes and socks. By the time I had changed and figured out how to tie all the wet stuff to the back pack so that it would have a chance to dry while I walked I was so mad I could have screamed a cuss word if I wasn’t afraid of someone hearing me.

I eventually made it up to the US41/SR54 intersection but the sky was already getting that color that it gets right before the sun starts coming up. I didn’t want to risk anyone seeing me so I needed to find a place to sleep. I almost picked Big Lots but there were a bunch of cars parked in front of it though I couldn’t see people to go with the cars. The McDonald’s was burnt to pieces. So I picked the 84 Lumber place. It looked like it had gone out of business a few months ago and it was easy to crawl through the gaps the back fence. My bolt cutters let me into the store and then I found a closet in the back offices that was big enough that I could lay down in and go to sleep.

I was really disappointed that I hadn’t gotten further and had made such bad mistakes. I promised myself right then and there to try really hard to never make the same mistakes twice. Before I went to sleep I ate another one of the diet candy bars. The only good thing about those bars is they have something in them that kill your appetite … besides the taste I mean.

When I woke up it was still daylight so I decided to scrounge around in the office to see if I could find anything of value. There wasn’t much. Most people must have cleared their desks out before everything was locked down. The manager’s office though hadn’t been touched. Roaches had gotten into most of the snacks the guy had in his desk but there was a small jar of peanut butter than looked OK. There were also a couple of gallon jugs of water in the supply cabinet; he must have used them for the coffee machine. I used those two gallons to fill back up the water bottles I had emptied last night and to try and make myself something to eat besides diet candy bars.

It was really pathetic but I didn’t have much choice. I found this piece of sheet metal and I made a very small fire using scraps of wood that were laying all over the place and one of those Bic disposable lighters that I found in a coat pocket with some cigarettes in the manager’s office. I put some water in the aluminum pitcher I brought from school and got it as hot as I could make it. Then I dumped the water into the stoneware mug and added a few packets of ketchup. Instant tomato soup! There are not words to describe how yuck that tasted, but it was still better than having to choke down another one of those fake candy bars.

I knew I was going to have to do something about food and soon. The idea of breaking into houses or stores scared me to death. What if there was someone in there with a gun? What if I was taking the last bit of food they had and it was my fault they starved to death? What if, what if, what if; none of that made a difference - if I didn’t find some real food soon I was going to be the one starving to death.

I ate a spoonful of peanut butter after my “tomato soup” and that helped some but not much. I thought I had found some chewing gum in the manager’s desk but it wound up being that nicotine gum that you chew when you are trying to quit smoking. That kind of habit I didn’t need though I really did think about it. Some of the girls said that the nicotine helped when they were trying to lose weight. I put the gum in with my food supplies though I sure hope I never get so desperate I have to use it.

I got antsy so I went scrounging around in all the desks and cubbyholes in the warehouse and office again and was rewarded with a few more things. The best treasure was a watch. I don’t think it has the right time but at least now I can measure the hours as they go by. The watch is too big so I ran the wrist band through my belt loop. It lights up so I can see the watch face at night if I need to. The other thing I found was a package of batteries that would work in the mag flashlight I found in Coach Adams’ office. I’ve learned to get by with moonlight for hiking on the road but the few times I’ve needed the flashlight it was nice to have.

I kept expecting to see some movement over by Big Lots and all of those cars but I never did. The humvees drove by and used the parking lot next to the McDonald’s to turn around in so at least I knew I’d be leaving those guys behind. I guess SR54 was as far as they patrolled. My curiosity was getting to me and as soon as the sun went down I was ready to go and ran across US 41 and checked out the Big Lots.

The should have called Big Lots “Big Cots” instead. The store had been gutted and was full of cots. All unoccupied thank goodness. They must have used the place as a barracks or maybe to warehouse kids like they did us but there was no one there now. I doubt it was kids though because everything was too neat and clean. I’m getting to be a bathroom aficionado now that I have to find or make them for myself and looking back that was one of the cleanest ones I’ve run into for a long time. There was even toilet paper. I admit I swiped some and took some of the brown paper towels too. I would have taken some of the liquid soap but I had plenty of that at the time.

It was just as easy to sneak out as it was to sneak in. Somebody forgot to lock the loading bay in the back. Things must be really bad if people can be so careless as to let something like that happen and there isn’t anyone but me left to take advantage of it.

That night and the next I did a lot better than I did the first night. I guess altogether I had hiked about thirty to thirty- five miles because I made it to Brooksville. And that is where I got cocky or desperate depending on how you looked at it.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 4

I decided to hide for the day in this place my parents would take us every year for Christmas; it’s called Roger’s Christmas House. I was happy to see it was still there. Even all the goofy Christmas characters were still in the gardens between the different themed houses. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to stay in Storybook House or the Magnolia House when I ran straight into two people.

When I say I ran into them I mean I literally ran into them. They were both older than me but not really by all that much though they acted like they were. The guy had a rifle but I never figured out if he really knew how to use it or if it was more for show. The girl looked like a cheerleader trying to look like she came from the ‘hood. The guy kinda looked like that actor off of the Verizon commercials that said, “Can you hear me now?”

It took a minute or two to get over scaring the mess out of each other. When we did we kind of circled each other like dogs do when they are forced to get to know one another. Eventually we decided to throw in together for the day since they warned me there had been some men roaming around the area high or drunk or both. They said the men shot off some guns the day before but weren’t shooting at anything in particular.

The guy’s name was Jeff and the girl … his fiance’ … was named Janie. And they were so in love, just absolutely destined to be together. How do I know that? Because they told me over and over and over again. I’ve met “couples” like them before. They tell people just how much they are “in love” to try and convince themselves as much as anyone else that will listen. I never understood that. My mom and dad could get goofy and chase each other around the house and stuff sometimes – which was really, really weird to watch – but the mushy stuff always happened in private and they sure didn’t go around telling strangers they just met about how in lllluuuuuvvvvv they were. But each to his own I guess.

Jeff and Janie; how cute. Jeff was twenty years old and Janie was nineteen and they were students at USF where they served on the some kind of pep squad kind of thing to build up school spirit. That’s how they knew they were “fated to be together.”

I was starting to get really hungry and they looked really hungry too. Then Jeff’s stomach growled and it was so loud we all jumped. I don’t know what was funny about that but we all three laughed so hard I got scared someone was going to hear us.

I hate it when people call me “kid” but Jeff was going through an old-man phase and asked, “Kid, you had anything to eat recently?” I told him not much. Then he asked me if the water in my water bottle was any good. I told him it was wet and left it at that. Janie turned into “the mom” as said, “look, we’ve got some powdered soup but not any clean water. You share your water, we’ll share out soup.”

Turns out not only did they not have any water for their soup they didn’t have anything to fix the soup in either. And they were calling me kid?!

Jeff did have a lighter which meant I didn’t have to use mine but he couldn’t build a cooking fire for nothing. I asked him if he’d ever been in scouts and he said no. I looked at Janie and she just shrugged. I was so hungry I didn’t care at that point so I built the fire, heated the water, and cooked. It was just chicken noodle soup but man oh man was it good.

The sun was climbing and I knew I needed to get some sleep if I was going to be worth anything I started looking around for a place to hide. Jeff and Janie got the picture and we all turned in for the day. I was up and packing for the road when I started getting hassled. I thought it wasn’t until you turned twenty-one that your adult gene activated.

Right off they said I should go with them because I was young and needed someone to look out for me. Yeah right. I had a feeling if I hung with them I’d wind up being servant girl to the lovebirds. Besides they were going to the coast where Janie’s parents had a condo. I was kept saying “no thanks” while I wrapped a couple of Christmas ornaments my mom would have loved and tucked them into my backpack where they wouldn’t get broken when Jeff told me something that almost convinced me to go with them after all.

Apparently there had been some type of nuclear threat against the US. They weren’t for sure, it was only rumors that had come over the radio, that someone had bombed a couple of the big cities. Then a panic started that MacDill was one other bigger targets and Tampa and the surrounding cities emptied out as fast as people could get out.

I thought about that for a second and then asked them if that was true where were all the cars? Apparently this had happened a couple of months ago and when all the people got on the road flu and dysentery and all sorts of gross stuff started happening to the refugees. The military and national guard were called in by the governor and the cars were hauled off if they weren’t willingly moved. There wasn’t a lot of fuel by then so people were stuck where their car gave out. The rural communities couldn’t absorb them all and people starting shooting each other for food, fuel, and medical care. And there we had been complaining that the Xbox wouldn’t work in the warehouse. Guess that was the real reason why they took away the TVs and claimed the radios didn’t work anymore. I wouldn’t have wanted to deal with a bunch of panicking kids either. It also explained why we had guys in uniform watching us instead of social workers.

Even though what they told me had been happening worried me I decided to stick with my plan. They weren’t too happy when I told them. They acted like I was being ungrateful that they were willing to take me on. I nearly rolled my eyes but told them how nice it was of them to offer, especially since they didn’t know me, but that I was set on my course. For just a second Janie looked like she wanted to make me do what they said but there wasn’t really anything they could do. We parted ways and I got out of there just as fast as I could. I even cut through some backyards and trees to throw them off just in case they were following me.

I really hoofed it that night and made it all the way to Floral City and by the time I got there I was so tired I could barely see straight. Floral City used to be an important place but that stopped way back around World War One if you can believe the historical markers in the historic district. Maybe it was getting important again because I could tell there were people in this town. Even though it wasn’t daybreak yet I could hear people moving around in a couple of the buildings, especially one called the Heritage House Bed and Breakfast.

I got out of there as fast as I could but the only place I could find to hole up was a shed out in this old orange field. There were still a few oranges on the trees that sat back a ways from the road, but only a few. I grabbed a handful and ducked into the shed via a piece of loose plywood that covered a hole in the building’s siding. The shed didn’t have any windows and wasn’t really a shed but an old well house.

I ate the oranges even though parts of them were drying out. I didn’t have any choice after I ate but to use the corner furthest from me as a bathroom so I dug the best hole I could and then covered it up so the smell couldn’t get out. I curled up behind the big water bladder and tried to get some sleep.

I had a hard time waking up and really didn’t until after the sun had started sinking for the day. I was hot and thirsty and knew I was getting bad off because I had already had to put a new notch in my belt to keep my jeans from drooping. I also knew I only had two days water left at the most. But I wasn’t going to be able to do anything about it in Floral City, too many people around.

I had to wait until way after dark to make my escape and nearly got caught by a dog. Luckily it was still used to people and more curious than territorial. It was the first dog I had seen in a while and I wanted to stop and love on it so bad but knew I couldn’t take the chance. Not quite two hours later I passed a brown sign for the turn off to Ft. Cooper State Park and just beyond that was an airport used by those airplanes that still used props on the nose. I started noticing that I was getting out of “farm country” and back into a place where houses crowded the road; lots and lots of houses. That’s when I saw the sign “Welcome to Inverness.”

I hadn’t gotten very far but I knew that I had to find some real food or I was going to get sick. My stomach burned like crazy when I tried to eat another orange before I started walking and the idea of eating one of the two last fiber bars made me want to puke. And I was already tired enough to go back to sleep. I had to find some food and that meant breaking and entering.

I didn’t like it and I got the shivers thinking about what my Dad would have said if he knew but I didn’t feel like I had any choice. I got off of the highway and started working my way through the subdivision on the west side of the road. All of the houses near the road were trashed and picked over. A couple of them looked like they were still lived in even though they were in pretty sad shape. I nearly turned around until I noticed someone chalked an “X” on the door at all the houses that were trashed and empty. The further into the subdivision I went the fewer X’s there were. Finally by the time I got to the way far back area there were hardly any X’s at all.

I decided to carefully check one of the houses in a cul-de-sac that was kind of set back off of a street that itself was set back. I heard a dog barking but it was way far off. How far off I didn’t know because sounds carried funny when there weren’t any other sounds to compete with it. The mosquitoes nearly drove me nuts as I crawled through the tall grass to get to the back of the house. No broken windows and doors but no signs of life either.

I couldn’t risk making a bunch of noise so I pulled out the bolt cutters and chopped off the doorknob. I was lucky there was no keyed top bolt on the backdoor. And lucky for me too was that when I finally managed to get the doorknob off it fell on my foot and not the concrete. I hopped around for a second waiting for my foot to stop hurting then I stuck my big honking Craftsman screwdriver in the neck of what was left of the doorknob and finally got the bolt to pull back out of the door frame. I was beginning to realize that God must have had a purpose for sticking me with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie after all. I’d sure watched him pull this same stunt with the bedroom doors often enough.

The backdoor opened onto the garage and I was surprised as heck to find a car in there. Everything was covered with sandy dust. The only tracks I saw looked like they had been made by lizards or palmetto bugs. It smelled really funny in the garage, kind of like spoiled food. There wasn’t enough light for me to see so I decided to risk a quick look around with the flashlight. I cupped my hand over the end of the light and only let out enough so that I would kill myself tripping over stuff; good thing too because there were boxes stacked all over on the side of the garage that was supposed to have been where a second car could fit.

And there, hanging upside down from the ceiling, was something that made me feel really, really, really dumb. It was a bike. I could have been riding a bike this whole time. I wanted to beat my head against the wall. I was so mad at myself for not thinking of it sooner. I hadn’t seen any bikes before now, not even at the school, but I hadn’t exactly been looking for any either. And this bike had those wheels that would hold up on either concrete or on dirt. The blasted thing even had those saddle bags that college kids use to carry stuff on campus.

I didn’t have a chance to be mad long though because I was getting dizzy from all the blood rushing to my head. I looked a half a minute more and noticed a stain on the ceiling so had to tell myself to be careful in case there was a plumbing mess upstairs.

The door from the garage into the house was flimsy and all I had to do was stick my screwdriver between the doorframe and the door and lean on it a couple of times and the door pried right open. When I walked through the door I found myself in a neat little utility room. On the other side of the utility room was a clean but dusty kitchen that opened up to a family room on one end and a formal dining room on the other. The first couple of cabinets I opened had pots and pans and dishes in them. Then I got to a cabinet, opened it, and just had to stop and stare.

It was like looking at a grocery store shelf. Everything in there was all nice and neat with cans and boxes all matched up for size and kind. If the house hadn’t been so dusty and smelling funny I would have sworn up, down, and sideways that someone still lived there. There was a box of trail mix granola bars in one of the cabinets and I tore into one real quick. I almost threw it back up too but was able to stop by taking deep breaths through my nose.

I grabbed another bar but decided to wait for the first one to settle before I opened it. I looked through the rest of the cabinets and it was like Ali Baba’s cave. Whoever had lived there even had the good mac-n-cheese; the kind with the squeezy cheese instead of the powdered cheese. They went cheap on the beanie weenies though and gotten the store brand.

Instead of the granola bar I decided on a can of beanie weenies but first I needed to find a bathroom. There was a half bathroom downstairs but it looked like it was in the middle of a renovation because the toilet was against the wall and the bathroom fixtures were all sitting in a box on the floor.

That left upstairs. I was hoping there was a bathroom or I would have to go out into the tall grass and I did not want to get mosquito bit in an uncomfortable spot. I went up the stairs and the bathroom was in working order if you didn’t count that there was no water in the bowl or toilet tank. I sprayed the handy can of air freshener around to hide I had been there. Since I was upstairs I figured I take a look around.

The first room I hit was a little kid’s room but there were boxes all over the place like it was being packed up. The next room was an older kid’s room and it was nearly all packed up except for the Jonas Brother and Taylor Swift posters on the walls. I opened another door and found a linen closet. When I opened the last door I knew I wouldn’t be eating the beanie weenies. I was heaving and heaving and barely got to the bathroom to throw up the granola bar.

I’m no wuss. I saw a lot of kids die in the warehouse and had to help put them in body bags so they could be taken away but I’d never seen anyone with their head half blown off before. There was a woman .. what was left of a woman … on one side of the bed. He must have caught her when she was sleeping. There was a guy in pajama bottoms leaning up against the wall with a shotgun propped up around where the bottom of his face should have been. They’d been dead a long time, long enough for most of the smell to be gone but not long enough to be mummies. The worst was all of the roaches crawling all over everything in that room.

I dared myself to go back and close the bedroom door and then I stuffed a towel to keep the bugs from crawling out. I ran back downstairs, forgetting rule number four, and nearly broke my neck on the stairs. When I picked myself up at the bottom I had to stop and tell myself that there was nothing to be scared of. There were no such things as ghosts or monsters. Those people up there were either in Heaven or Hell and either way it wasn’t my business. I still tied a bandana around my nose and mouth because one way or the other I didn’t want to join them any time soon.

I went to the garage and got the bike off of the rack and set it by the outside door. I went back inside to the kitchen and started pulling all the food out of the cabinets and taking it outside. I loaded the saddle bags with everything I could use and what didn’t fit in the saddle bags I put in a wheelbarrow. I was going to take straight off but decided to take one last look around the garage before I did.

Looking was easy. All of the tubs were stacked really neat and had labels on them. There were two tubs that I had to stop and examine. One was labeled “hurricane supplies” and the other was labeled “camping gear.” The stuff in the hurricane tub was useless. None of the flashlights worked and there were no batteries. There was probably some inside but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time looking for them. The plastic lantern was cracked and was too big for me to big and heavy. The collapsible water jug had a split in it.. The only things I took out of that tub was a small wind up flashlight/radio combination thing and the two boxes of waterproof matches.. The camping gear box was a lot better.

There was a tent in there but it was too big and heavy so I skipped it.. There were a couple of those expensive sleeping bags that are really warm but can still smoosh down into a small bag amount the quarter size of a bed pillow and I took the one that wasn’t dayglow orange.. There was a zipper bag that had one of those fancy backpacking stoves in it and a couple of little thermos looking bottles that were labeled stove fuel and lucky for me the directions were still in there. And the best thing next to the stove were two Katadyn water filters, one for hiking and one called a gravity filter. I knew what those were because that’s what we used when we were building Sparkleberry Ranch and didn’t have electricity to the well yet. The only other thing I took was a flashlight that you stuck to your forehead with a big elastic hair band and one of the mess kits. Anything else would have been overkill and I was majorly pushed for space as it was.

When I had everything packed the best I could and had changed my mind a bunch of times about what food to take I went inside and got a couple of kitchen rags to take and a hot pad – cause bandanas don’t really work no matter what they show in the cowboy movies – and as I was walking out I spied a few more water bottles. I had to stick them in a plastic grocery bag and hang them on the handle bars but I wasn’t leaving them behind. They’d get used up soon enough I figured and better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

There was still a bunch of food left in the wheelbarrow even though I’d taken all the store packaging off the food I took and put it in Ziploc bags. I knew the people that had lived in that house wouldn’t need it anymore but it still felt a little bit like stealing. To try and make things a little better I pushed the wheelbarrow around the corner and into the middle of the road so that somebody would see it sooner or later and then went back and put on the backpack and climbed on the bike.

I’m so glad no one was around to watch me figure out how I was going to get on the bike and get going. I hadn’t been on a bike in a long time and this was one with one of those skinny seats on it and the handle bars down low. I finally got going but I was wobbly for nearly an hour until I could find a rhythm that didn’t make the back pack shift from side to side and didn’t make the water bottles knock me in the knees.

But the one thing the bike did was give me a sense of freedom I hadn’t had in a long, long time. I had to stay on the road but that was OK; it got me out of Inverness quicker and once I was passed Inverness Regional Shopping Center I was back into a long rural stretch. I only got as far as Arlington, FL but I didn’t mind, that’s probably as far as I could have hiked on foot even if I had gone at it all night.

I pulled over at the Lakeside Golf Course and hunkered down for the day in a shed behind the club house. I didn’t bother unpacking anything because I was so tired. I made myself eat some cold ravioli and drink a bottle of water and then I covered my new bike up with a golf cart cover and then climbed under the tent it made and went to sleep.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 5

I slept nearly all day but did wake up when I rolled over and brought the bike down on top of me. Talk about heart attack city!! I got up and took care of my personal needs, noticing that there were tender spots from the skinny bike seat, and then checked to see if there were any people around.

I didn’t see any but I decided not to risk starting up the camping stove, especially since I hadn’t had the time to learn to use it yet. Besides Beanie Weenies aren’t bad cold. I decided to take a couple of the water bottles and turn them into Gatorade for the road ahead. I cleaned my spork, put it away, and then stepped on the can to make it as small as possible. We weren’t exactly in the pristine wilderness but I hated to leave any bigger of a mess than I needed to. Mom always made a big deal of that when she was my Girl Scout leader. Besides, what if someone was following me?

There was some WD40 and graphite in the shed that I used to take care of the bike. Before the sun went down I sat and looked at the map again to make sure I was still headed in the right direction. I was pretty sure I could go twice as fast with the bike as I could on foot. No more than that though or I could run into problems. Even being careful it’s been a near miss a couple of times, especially if I went around a corner too fast.

Best walking distance I made was fifteen miles in one night. I was pretty sure I could do roughly five miles an hour on the bike, depending on how long I could ride. That meant I could probably get between 30 and 40 miles per night. I thought at the time that could cut a lot of days off my travel time. It did up until I ran into trouble but I’m not to that part of the story yet.

I followed US41 from Arlington, through Hernando, and then to Holder and that was eight miles. From Holder to Dunnellon was another seven miles for a total of fifteen. That is how far I would have hoped to have gotten if I was walking. Getting to Williston would have been too much to hope for so I settled on trying to get to this place called Romeo which was twelve miles past Dunnellon. If it was too early to stop when I got to Romeo then I could decide to keep going or not.

I put a couple of those trail mix granola bars in the bag with the water bottles so I could have a snack if I wanted one and set off as soon as it was full dark. That was easier said than done because my fanny was some kind of sore. It was an hour before it got so numb I didn’t notice it anymore.

I made it to Romeo with no problems, stopped for the night, and followed my routine of finding a convenient hiding place to wait out the day by sleeping. I should have known things were starting to go too good. I set out again at sundown and was just outside of Williston when I saw some fires in metal barrels that lit up a road block. I pulled off quick into the bushes to try and figure out what to do next.

It wasn’t long before I was glad that I had pulled over and hidden. A car came out of nowhere and stopped not too far from where I was hiding. The car was a Mustang. I knew that because of the chrome horse on the back end where the trunk was. There were two guys in the car and with their windows rolled down I didn’t have any trouble hearing what they were saying.

Boy, were they foul mouthed! They were complaining that the local cops had the road blocked off again and then spent fifteen minutes trying to decide what was the best way to get around so they could go pick up some person with “the stuff.” I may be a kid in some people’s eyes but come on, it was so easy to see these guys were drug mules and probably users too. If these were the kind of people that the cops in Williston were trying to keep out I certainly couldn’t blame them.

The Mustang turned around and left back the way it had come but I still had to figure out what I was going to do. I pulled out the map and the head lamp and stepped further into the bushes and tall grass that was growing all up and down the highway now that the DOT had stopped mowing things. I squatted down and looked at my map.

Big problem, my maps showed the main roads but not the secondary roads. There was no way I was going to give adult authorities a chance to lock me up in a warehouse again so I backtracked a little bit and then turn north on the first secondary street I could which happened to be 7th Street. I figured seven was a lucky number and kept going.

Now the story gets scary for real. I was pedaling as fast as I could but not fast enough. The Mustang guys must have been pulled over and I didn’t see them. But they sure saw me and I must have been like those fake rabbits they used to make Greyhounds run, irresistible.

There was no way I was going to beat them on the straight streets so I started riding through yards and cutting through hedges. This must have gone on for almost as hour. Every time I thought I’d lost them they’d pick up my scent again. And I was bad lost by this point that didn’t help my frame of mind any. I still get the shakes pretty bad thinking about it as you can see from my handwriting.

I finally got lucky, or an angel gave me a hand, when I biked into this place where a bunch of semis were parked. There was enough room between the trucks for me and my bike but not enough room for the Mustang. I zigzagged through the area and the jigged when they should have jogged and ran their car up in under one of the tractor trailers.

It took me another hour to get to a road that showed up on my map. The problem was it was Alt US27 and not US27/US41 like I needed. I was so far turned around there wasn’t any fixing it that night. There was no place to stay off of Alt US27 so I tried cutting north and didn’t find too much there either, at least not building wise. There was a couple of houses but I wasn’t thinking good and didn’t want to risk getting caught.

I finally found a barn on CR241 that looked like a place nobody bothered with too much, got inside and did my best to hide in one of the old stalls that was furthest from the road. My legs and backside hurt so bad by that point that all I wanted to do was crawl into a ball and pretend the night hadn’t even happened.

I woke up to the sound of a tractor and that’s when I realized I was a lot closer to a house than I thought I had been. There were chickens and kids in the yard and I could hear two women talking while they hung up clothes. I have to admit that it’s true what they say about praying harder when you know you aren’t the one in control. I prayed all day that no one would come in the barn to find out why the dog kept wandering in and out. It finally lost its curiosity about dinner time when everyone went back in the house.

The smells that came out of the house were so good they made my stomach hurt. I could smell fried chicken and fresh bread for sure but there were other smells that were just as good. And there I was stuck eating cold ravioli again. I guess the family in the house lived by “early to bed and early to rise” because things got quiet faster than I expected.

I slowly got out of the barn after I made sure to put everything back the way I found it and had just put my leg over the bike to take off when this voice said, “Was wondering if you were gonna come out of there or not.”

I must have looked scared cause the old man said, “Don’t worry girl, I ain’t gonna hurt you. But since you been staying in my barn I reckon you owe me some answers.”

My mouth was really dry. I took my leg off the bike and turned around so I could look him in the eye. He still had a head of hair but it was pure white. He was wearing a pair of rough Dickie work pants and a short sleeved shirt that flapped over a white tank-type undershirt. I immediately thought of my Granddaddy on this man had lots more hair.

“Where you from girl?”

When I didn’t answer him right away he asked, “Cat got your tongue?”

“No sir. You remind me of somebody and I don’t want to lie to you.”

“Well good cause I’m not partial to liars if you want to know the truth. You come on over here where we can talk better and I’ll give you something the missus set aside for you.”

I don’t know what kept me from running away ‘cause I could have but instead I did what he told me to do and rolled my bike over to some old metal yard chairs that were needing a new coat of paint. He pointed at me to sit down and when I did, he did.

“Now, you eat this and as soon as you’re through I want my question answered.”

I gnawed that chicken leg down and even ate the gristle. And I hadn’t had a biscuit like that since my Momma was alive. It was a real biscuit, not one that came out of a can.

I wiped my mouth and hands and folded the bone up in the napkin. He took it and put it in his pocket “for soup” tomorrow. Then he just crossed his arms and looked at me and I knew it was time. So I told him my story and he didn’t interrupt, not once.

“Well, the easiest way to get back to 27 from here is to keep going north on 241 until you get to 335. Take a right on 335 and you ain’t got but a couple miles ‘til 335 intersects with 27 then you take a left and you just keep going until you get where you mean to get.”

My mouth fell open and the old man laughed. “Girl, I’m too old to try and stop somebody that is as set to do something as you seem to be. I know what it feels like when you got some place to be but you just remember this, you cain’t get through this life alone. One o’ these days you are going to need to stop and find you some friends again. You just make sure they’re the right kind o’ friends, you hear?”

He walked me to the gate and pointed me in the right direction and then I did something I hadn’t done in a long, long time. I gave the old man a hug. He patted my back and then I was off feeling like that angel had been at work again.

The directions were so easy I didn’t have to write them down and just like he told me it didn’t take me long to get back to US41/US27 and I headed north again at this little town called Raleigh. Seven miles down the road was the town of Archer where I got chased by some big ol’ dogs but no one came out to see what they were barking about. Ten miles after that came Newberry and that’s where I’ve been stuck for the past two days.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 6

It started the night I left out from the old man’s farm. About 30 minutes before I saw the Newberry city limits sign it started to sprinkle. It didn’t sprinkle for long before it started to rain. I pulled over under an overhang of a vacant Laundromat and pulled out my rain gear hoping that the rain wouldn’t last long. Boy, was I wrong!

By the time I crossed into Newberry proper it was raining full on and by the time I reach SR26 I couldn’t see to go any further it was coming down so hard. The worst though was the lightning. Twice I’d seen it hit trees only a couple of dozen feet away from me.

I couldn’t pretend anymore that it was going to get better. I was very disappointed. I had to get off and walk the bike because by that point the water was too deep for me to peddle through. When I got off I found out what it was like to walk in water that goes half way up the back of your legs. The water was rushing towards the drainage things on the side of the roads but there was so much water even those things couldn’t swallow it up fast enough; the roads were flooding. And the rain was cold too.

As careful as I was I stepped off the side of the road twice and dumped the bike, me, and everything else into deep puddles of water. The second time scared me to pieces because I felt myself being pushed by the water towards the really deep stuff piling up in the ditches. I finally got up and out of the water but not before I was soaked through.

It wasn’t until I passed 4th Avenue that I could see enough through the rain to spot a house but when I got to it, thinking I could at least get out of the rain on the porch, I realized that though it used to be one of those big, old Victorian houses Momma used to like to read about there was nothing left of it but a burned out shell with no roof. There was a storage building behind it and by that point I just wanted out of the rain and lightning.

The storage building is a like an old carriage house. The doors on the bottom look like barn doors and there is a small room upstairs but it has been a long, long time since anyone lived in this place. There are no windows downstairs and the one small window upstairs is boarded over with old planks. I would have preferred to stay downstairs with my bike but the floor is nothing dirt with a little gravel and oil mixed in and water rushes in from under the doors when it rains. And it’s been raining off and on since I’ve been here, mostly on. So my bike is downstairs hidden under a bunch of old canvas paint tarps and I’m upstairs with everything else trying to avoid the leaks in the roof up here.

It took me twenty minutes after I got inside to decide what I was going to do and another twenty to hide my bike and then figure out how to get up the stairs without killing myself. There are steps missing, broken steps, and creaky steps that sound like they are about to break; and I had to carry all of my gear up them which took three trips. First trip was to make sure I could do it without getting hurt; the second trip was with the backpack and the last trip I took up the saddle bags. The sound of the rain hitting the roof was so loud I could barely hear myself think.

I wanted dry clothes but that wasn’t going to happen; when I fell down into the water everything got soaked including my mag flashlight; the headlamp was OK. I put it on and turned it on and that is when I noticed that the roof leaked. First order of business was to stack some stuff in front of the window so no one would see my light. Then I laid out the plastic that I cut for a tent and laid it across a table and chairs that was up there like when my brother and I used to play fort when we were little. It didn’t give me a lot of head room but at least I wasn’t getting dripped on.

My teeth were chattering and I knew I had to get out of my wet clothes but I didn’t have any dry ones to change into so I wound up stripping down and praying no one would come up those stairs until I could get something dry enough to put it back on. I used my tent rope to make a clothesline away from the roof leaks and laid all my wet clothes out to drip dry.

Next I checked my food. I congratulated myself for being smart enough to repack the mooshable stuff into Ziploc bags. The worst damage was to a Ziploc full of crackers that had turned to crumbs and the labels on some of the cans were coming off. I fixed the cans by using a permanent marker and writing what was in them on the top of the can before getting rid of the soggy paper labels.

I decided it was time to learn to use that camp stove so I crawled out from under the table again and carried it over to the ancient, enamel oven ‘cause I was too scared of causing a fire if I tried to light it on the floor. The directions for the camp stove were as hard to understand as some of my AP Chemistry experiments had been but I finally managed to hook everything up and get it going. I was lucky the waterproof matches really were waterproof because I must’ve lost the bic lighter out of my pocket in one of my falls. While I heated water for soup and hot cocoa I tried to open up my maps so that they could dry.

The map of Tampa was a lost cause; I was upset but not heartbroken. The other maps survived better and now that they are completely dry I’m storing them in a Ziploc bag of their own. The water didn’t take long at all to boil so I shut the stove off and ate my soup and drank my cocoa. It wasn’t long after that that I realized there was light coming in around the window. I moved a little bit of the junk that I had blocked it with and could see that it was raining even harder. I was almost deaf to it by that time and had noticed. The morning was dirty gray and I guess no one saw the sun that day unless it peeked out for a few minutes while I was sleeping.

I was still cold but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. I opened up the sleeping bag hoping it was only a little damp and got a surprise. The stuff bag that the sleeping bag gets shoved into is waterproof. I guess that makes sense but I never would have thought about it if I hadn’t needed it. I felt silly for walking around in the buff like those people that used to live at Paradise Lakes back in Tampa … I think they called themselves “naturalists” or something to make it sound more polite than they walk around buck nekked all the time. At least with the sleeping bag I could finish warming up.

I had a hard time getting to sleep at first but when I finally did it was a deep sleep. I next woke up when there was a huge clap of thunder so loud it rattled the floor I was laying on. Obviously it was still raining and my clothes were still wet. I fixed myself some dinner and with nothing to do I dozed off and on all night and half this morning too.

I woke up about what I thought was lunch time, crept downstairs and dug a cat hole for a latrine and after taking care of what needed taking care of came back upstairs. I was sitting there bored out of my skull when I got the idea for this journal. I’ve been writing for hours but now the light is fading, hopefully so is the rain. My clothes are mostly dry now but they are also crunchy and scratchy and smell the same kind of funny as this building does. I’m going to fix dinner – or what I’m calling dinner – and pack everything back up. If it stops raining within the next couple of hours I’m going to head out and see how far I can get.

P.S. (Later) – rain has stopped and I’m all packed up. I’m leaving even if it isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had because I heard some men walking around right after it got dark. They had flashlights and were going across to what looks like a fire station that is kitty corner to where I’m at. I’ve said my travelling prayers and I’ll write more when I get to the next safe place.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 7

I'm so close! I hadn't realized how close I woke up today. I'm at this place called Ichetucknee Springs State Park.

Last night I left Newberry as soon as I could with a bright moon to light my way. What I saw by the light of the moon made me glad I was finally able to get gone. Cars had been pushed off the road all willy-nilly and lots of houses and businesses had doors that were either standing open or ripped off. Something bad had happened around there.

I pedaled for all I was worth 'cause no way did I want to get caught by anyone that was still living around that place. I made a quick thirteen miles to High Springs. That town looked even worse than Newberry. I think mostly because all the buildings on the main roads were wooden and some kind of fire had come through. I don't know how long ago but it was long enough that the burnt out buildings didn't smell anymore.

I remembered just in time that I had to break off from US41 and stay on US27. I had to u turn at the intersection but that was all. Another 10 miles and I had made Fort White. It was just as bad if not worse than High Springs.

There were still a couple of hours of dark left - not to mention I didn't see a place I was willing to stay for the night - so I kept going, but I got real tired real fast after that. Biking nearly 25 miles will do that to you; it doesn’t matter that I’m a teenager. There was hardly any buildings after you left Fort White and the ones that were there, like the one that said it was some kind of auction house, were pretty messed up. And there were cars all over the place too. I couldn’t figure out what must have happened because there were cars in both the coming and going lanes and in the middle where you are only supposed to turn. Most of the cars looked like they had been ransacked so there were clothes and toys everywhere.

Then I saw a sign for Ichetucknee and I remembered how my family used to go tubing there. I really, really wanted to see it again and I figured I’d be far enough off the road that no one would bother me. I turned into the south entrance in the park and had to slow way down. A little ways in there was a big truck parked across the road, I guess so cars couldn’t get into the park.

I started getting real careful in case someone was around with the same idea as I had. The door to the entrance station was empty and the door was hanging wide open and it smelled like a critter of some type had used it for a bathroom. The further I got into the park the more it felt deserted, like no one was home. I was more scared of that feeling than I was of thinking there might be people and the feeling made me want to find a place to hide real quick.

But it wasn’t real quick. The wind was picking up and the sky was that shade of dark before the dawn that I had come to recognize before I ran across what I was looking for; it was the concession stand and the storm covers were over all the windows. Leaves, twigs, and other trash that was blown all up around the place told me that nobody was using it and hadn’t for a while so I gave it a try.

When I looked at the door on this place I knew I wasn’t going to get in easy. Not only was the door one of those commercial metal ones, so was the doorframe. It also had a keyed bolt above the doorknob set. The windows were all covered but I was in luck that they hadn’t covered the exhaust grill. I stood on one of those big heavy wooden trash cans and used the bolt cutters to snip a off one side of the grilling and then I shoved my big screwdriver under that and pried and bent the grill until I could climb through.

I left my backpack and bike outside, climbed into the hole putting a pretty good rip in the knees of my jeans, and then climbed down using the gas range like a ladder. I hurried over to the door and was rewarded with the locks being thumb bolts on the inside of the building.

I drug my bike and bag inside just in time to miss a blustery, early morning rainstorm; probably the remnants of the storm that had held me prisoner in Newberry. I threw of the thumb bolts and then stood trying to decide what to do. It wasn’t long before I didn’t need my headlamp any longer either; there wasn’t a lot of light but there was enough. The floor was mostly clean so I threw the plastic sheet down and then put my sleeping bag on that.

I was hungry but too tired to cook so I ate my last can of beanie weenies and hoped my stomach wouldn’t be as upset as the last can made me. Just because no one was around it didn’t mean that making certain sounds wasn’t embarrassing which reminded me to use the employee wash room that was tucked over in the corner behind a flimsy wooden door painted the same industrial white as the rest of the inside of the building. It had one of those composting toilets so I didn’t have to worry about the smell so long as I left the lid down.

I barely recognized myself in the mirror over the sink. Daddy would have said I looked rode hard and hung up wet. Some of the country things they used to say drove me crazy but I found out after I didn’t get to hear them any more I missed the phrases. I used to say them to other people just to see the reaction I would get. Some people laughed but most of the time it just reinforced that I was strange and different from everybody else.

I decided I would worry about everything after I’d gotten some sleep. The floor was hard but I was almost too tired to notice it and went to sleep using the cafeteria lady’s sweater as my pillow.

Stupid birds woke me up. I didn’t know what I was hearing at first. As soon as my heart climbed back in my chest I realized it was those big ravens. A bunch of them were roosting or whatever the heck those birds do outside the “order here/pay here” windows. The sound that their claws make when they walk across stuff is nasty. Scritch-click-scratch-peck-peck-scritch and then they let out this really big “caw!” as if I really wanted to hear what they had to say.

There was no going back to sleep with that noise so I packed up and tried to put myself in order. I’d had time when I was stuck in Newberry to finally brush all the tangles out of my hair again. When I was little Daddy wouldn’t let anyone cut my hair, he even trimmed it when it needed it unless he was TDY or something. When they died my hair was passed my waist. When I was in a coma there was this lady candy striper that would do my hair; she even kept coming when I woke up. She left to go take care of her mother right before I had to go live with Aunt Wilma and one of the first things that Aunt Wilma did “to set me free” was to have some beautician friend of hers cut my hair and perm it. I was still in a wheelchair and wasn’t talking a lot yet. I was so upset that Aunt Wilma’s friend tried to talk her out of it but Aunt Wilma said my dad was “archaic” and that the new hair cut would give me a new lease on life. I looked like a poodle that had stuck its tail in a light socket.

My hair is longer and the perm has finally grown out but Aunt Wilma would never let me grow my hair passed my shoulder blades. At the warehouse it got to the middle of my back. There’s no one to tell me what to do or how to look and I think I’m going to let my hair grow passed my rear end just to prove I can. And I remembered to grab all the hairbobs and clips and stuff when I was going through all those lockers at the school; it was getting too hot to let my hair fly every which a way.

I was still yawning so I knew that I hadn’t got as much sleep as I needed but I decided to use my extra time and look around. I didn’t have any use for the Styrofoam cups but I grabbed some more napkins to replace the ones from my stash that I’ve been using as toilet paper and Kleenex. There really wasn’t much but I grabbed some salt and pepper packets and some packets of vinegar and relish. Something had gotten into the ketchup and I didn’t see any mustard at all. The was a rack of candies and I tossed all of it into a gallon sized Ziploc … chewing gum, Rolaids, breath mints, Lifesavers, Sprees, and a few other things; no chocolate which was a bummer though I suppose I should be glad because it gives me zits.

There were a few packets of powdered hot cocoa and powdered apple cider and then these packets of that white powdery stuff people put in their coffee and a couple bottles of that syrup that is supposed to make coffee taste good – hazelnut, vanilla, Swiss mocha, yada, yada. I never understood it when my friends would drink coffee and Aunt Wilma wouldn’t let it in the house because she said it was caused dental bills to go up. Weird huh? I decided to take the packages of coffee anyway because I figured since there wasn’t anyone to boss me around maybe it was time I picked up a bad habit or three.

Yeah, I know that sounds dorky but there really isn’t anyone to tell me what to do anymore. I know I’m going to have to figure some things out before I make big mistakes but I think I’ll figure things out eventually.

The concession stand wasn’t real big and all the good stuff had already been taken away; there wasn’t even any bottled water. That led me to sit down and measure everything out. I had a little over a gallon of water left. I had a couple of days worth of food left but all the granola bars were gone. Looking at the food made me hungry so I ate a can of fruit cocktail and chased it with some peanut butter crackers. I drank the liquid the fruit was in so I only needed a swallow of water to get the syrup off my teeth to be satisfied.

I’ve decided I’m not in great shape but I should be fine especially if I’m as close to my goal as I think I am. After I repacked my backpack for a second time I sat down with my trusty map again and started adding up the miles. Twenty-five miles! That’s all, maybe even a little less as I’m guessing the distance once I’m on SR49. But even worst case and it is twenty-five miles that means I only have one more night on the road!!

I’m definitely leaving just as soon as the sun is down. Look out Sparkleberry Ranch, here I come!!!


-----------------------------

(next morning)

Too tired and excited to write! I’M HOME I’M HOME I’M HOME!!!!!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 8

I’ve gone almost a whole week without writing in this journal. Mr. Kramer would have given me “the eye” for that but I have a good excuse. This living on your own by yourself thing isn’t turning out to be as easy as I thought it would be. You have to do absolutely everything yourself. If it has to be cleaned up, you are the only one to do it. If you want to eat you have to fix it. There isn’t anyone to ask how to do something; you have to figure it out. So far I’m doing pretty good, but maybe having one other person around would be cool.

I’ll start back where I left off and write down all the craziness so I won’t forget how things really were that way if I ever do get to grow up and have kids and they have kids and I actually become a grandmother or great grandmother then I’ll tell them true stories and not exaggerated ones. And if they don’t believe me I can show them were I wrote it down years before they were born and prove I’m not making things up.

I was too excited to stay in the concession stand until it was all the way dark so I decided to walk around and see if I recognized anything. It kinda looked familiar in places but I didn’t have a lot of time to explore like I wanted to. Maybe I’ll go back this summer and figure out how to go tubing down the river again. It doesn’t look like anyone is using the place and it is a state park so I wouldn’t be trespassing; at least I don’t think so.

I stuck my hand in the water near the ramp where you pull the tubes out of the water and man was it cold; like ice water. I nearly fell in because the concrete boat ramp was all slicky from algae. I guess no one has used it or cleaned it off in a while. The water was so clear you could see the bottom even way out in the middle of the river when I was looking from the boardwalk. That’s about all I had time for because it had started getting dark plus no one had mowed the grass in the park in a long time so things were either sandy with no grass at all or the grass was really high which made the skitters worse. The doggone things kept getting inside the rip at the knee of my blue jeans and my knee was covered with mosquito bites which were annoying and itchy.

All the light was going out of the sky when I pushed my bike to the entrance gate and waited on the other side of the big truck. I still had time to kill before I could get on the road so I looked around in the truck. One of the door windows was broke so it was easy enough to stick my hand in and unlock it so I could open the door and climb in. There really wasn’t anything in there but it wasted a couple of minutes until it was dark. I did find a lighter stuck above the sun visor but it was only like a quarter full. I still took it anyway; two little boxes of matches aren’t going to last forever.

When it was dark enough that I didn’t think anyone would see me and my eyes had adjusted I took off. Weaving around the closely packed cars really slowed me down. I would have moved over into the grassy side of the road but that would have been worse. Nobody had kept their cars in the proper lanes and some people with trucks and stuff looked like they had tried to go around however they could get around. The grass was too tall to peddle through anyway, not as tall as in the park but bad enough.

I finally got to CR49 and turned right and it opened back up and I was able to make better time, at least until I got to the next big intersection which was CR49 and SR247. The little town at the intersection is called Beachville and I measured that I had biked about ten miles. There was a gas station there that looked like it had blown up and there was all this debris everywhere and some cars were turned over. The road was still wide at that point so I was able to see by moonlight and it looked freaky, some out of some end-of-the-world movie.

I know I haven’t written about it much because I was trying not to think about it too hard but I kept wondering where all the people were. I mean, I know the places I came through aren’t Tampa but I had only seen a few people here and there. And if I could believe Jeff and Janie some kind of bomb threat made most of the people in Tampa run away. Well, where did all those people go? There were cars all over the place the last couple of days but no people. Did the flu and stuff kill that many? I hadn’t seen any bodies except for those two in that house and it sure wasn’t the flu that killed them. Now that I’m staying in one place I’ve seen a couple more people but I don’t think near as many as I should be seeing.

After Beachville the road finally started clearing up. There were a few cars here and there but they were pushed over to the side of road. There were even a couple of tractors on the side of the road. The road was also getting darker. The homesteads and trees grew a lot closer to the edge of the road. There were some fields but there were also a lot of planted pines and other types of tree farms. The trees were big enough that they took away my moonlight so I had to slow down again.

I had one dog chase me but it didn’t follow me far before going back to the house it had come from. I figured that meant that people still were living in that one. I smelled cows but didn’t see any. And a skunk, I definitely smelled a skunk; that was gross. That smell hung around for a long time and I didn’t have any car air conditioner to thin it out.

There were a bunch of cars at the intersection of CR49 and CR252 too but they were all pushed off to the side. Most of these had their tires missing. I didn’t have time to check out and see if they had anything else missing but I did stop for a potty break and some water. I was hungry but I didn’t want to take the time to dig stuff out of the backpack so I started sucking on some Lifesavers; wintergreen and buttered rum are my favorite flavors but I decided to save those and suck on the weird tropical flavored ones instead. They were OK and they kept my mouth wet which helped.

The trees backed up for the road after a little bit so it was easier to see again but then the moon went behind some clouds and it got really, really, really dark. I could still see kind of but not very far around me. By the time the clouds moved on the trees were practically on top of the road again.

I’d never had to really pay attention to how exactly long it was until you got to the road that goes back to Sparkleberry Ranch and we always came from US90 so when I peddled and realized I had made it all the way to US90 I knew I had missed my turn off. I was really mad and got kind of scared too. What if after being away so long I couldn’t find it?

I knew it wasn’t too far from US90 and I knew what the address was. I remember what the gate looked like and I knew it would be locked but only closed with one of those pinch clips because the electric company had to get back in there for the meters. I finally spotted it but it was no wonder I had missed it. There was a truck in the ditch by the entrance and the grass and saw briers were so bad they hid all but the posts that were made out of old railroad ties. The truck looked kinda familiar but it didn’t really register. I found out why a couple of days later.

I suppose I need to describe how Sparkleberry Ranch is set up. Mom and Dad owned the dirt road that goes back to the house so I guess that means that I do now. The road is a mile long and has two dog legs in it. The first third of the road is only thirty feet wide and is bounded on both sides by twenty-acre lots. Only the one on the south side of the road has someone living on it but the trailer was all torn up with the siding coming off and everything last time I was there. The county must’ve made someone haul it off because there isn’t one there now. The other twenty some family from Coral Gables used to come up and ride four-wheelers on. There wasn’t a house and they used to bring an RV with them. Daddy didn’t care for either of those neighbors because they let their trash blow all over the place and didn’t pick it up which meant it was always blowing into our road.

Momma called that section of the road “Magnolia Drive” because we planted a magnolia seedling at every fence post on the north side. Most of them were still alive and I could tell they’d grown a lot since I was here last because they were taller than I was even when I was sitting on the bike. At the end of that section of the road is a gully that stays wet all year. I remember Daddy telling Momma it was because it had a clay bottom to it. This is one of the places that Momma like to go to pick black berries but we had to be careful ‘cause it could get snake-y. The grass was bad, but not as bad as I had expected. I think it is because it is still April and the grass hasn’t really started growing crazy. The grass came up to my knees but it wasn’t too thick so I could peddle through it. Right after going passed the gully you get to the first dogleg and it makes a sharp turn south.

The road is about forty feet wide for this third and Momma called it the Avenue of the Oaks because of the really big live oak trees that form a dense, moss-covered canopy. Momma had tried to plant some dogwoods along the fence line here but not many are left. Two years after we planted them we had a real dry year and the deer ate the tops out of almost all of them. Momma was so made that she told Daddy to be sure and fill the freezer full of venison as soon as he could. The canopy doesn’t let a lot of light in even in the middle of the day so the grass is never bad here. Plus it is part of an old wagon road so the ruts are kind of permanent. And where the tree roots are close to the surface the tall grass can’t get much purchase to take over.

The end of this part of the road doglegs to the left and the last section is sixty feet wide. This part of the road has oaks on one side too but they don’t cover the whole road. On the other side of the road is an eighty-acre square full of planted and natural loblolly pines. The grass on this stretch of the road was to the middle of my thighs and there was no way I could right my bike through it. After I tripped for the third time I decided it was silly to break my neck this close to my goal so I put my headlamp on. I put it on dim to save batteries. That wasn’t a lot of light but at least I could see the tree trash on the ground and not trip over it. There aren’t any houses that can be seen from this part of the road so that didn’t worry me either.

The road ends right at the NW corner of our forty-acre square. Daddy built a really nice wide gate here with some fancy brickwork and pillars. But the gate was standing open instead of chained closed, that worried me and I began to wonder if someone had moved into my house.

I started to hurry but forced myself to slow down after a few feet. The gate may be wide but the road back to the house isn’t. Daddy left most of our forty wooded and they added new trees every year so that we could keep our “ag exemption.” I’m not sure why that was so important but Daddy thought it was. He said the exemption and the utility easement was the only thing that kept the property affordable whatever that means.

You can’t see the house until you are right up on it and even then if you don’t turn your head the right way you’ll drive right past it. Aunt Wilma was always threatening to have someone come mow down a bunch of the trees but the lawyer never giver her permission; she hated that. The forty is fenced in with five strands of barbed wire or heavy duty posts. Every so many feet instead of a regular post there was a railroad tie. I asked Daddy why one time and he said, “To make little girls like you ask questions.” That was his standard answer if my question was silly or if he didn’t have an answer to give me. The worst trouble I ever got in was one time when Daddy was asking my brother why he’d fallen out of a tree he wasn’t supposed to climb in the first place and I replied for him by saying, “To make grown ups like you ask questions.” I had a hard time sitting down at dinner that night. Daddy would put up with a lot of stuff but sass wasn’t one of them.

The utility easement is where this big ol’ wooden electrical poles run right through the property from one side to the other. There were gates at either end of the easement but nobody ever used them because there was a sinkhole that had developed at one end of easement that was too hard for anything bigger than Daddy’s Kabota tractor to get around and since Daddy wouldn’t give them permission to cut into our woods any more than they already had and the power people didn’t want to pay to fill in the sink hole we were hardly ever bothered by them coming onto our property.

I finally got back to the house and just stared. I’d worked so hard to get here and now I wasn’t sure what to do. The moon was nice and bright and bounced off of the white trim that looked even whiter next to the dark red and gray brickwork and dark green shutters. The other thing that was white and stood out was the roll-down storm doors and the accordion shutters on the windows. I knew I needed to get to the security pole and the keys that locked the shutters before I could go any further and I was dead dog tired. I thought about just crawling up on the porch and going to sleep but that really wasn’t an option.

Momma and Daddy liked to plan for problems; I don’t know if it was the way they were raised or if was because of Daddy’s job or what. For this particular problem Daddy had taken some hard PVC pipe that had a glued on cap on one end and a threaded cap on the other. In this long piece of pipe he put a pole to open the role down doors and a set of master keys for the shutters and main door locks. He buried two of these “just in case” packages; one was in the orchard and the other was way on the other side of the property near a big piece of limestone rock.

I went out to the orchard and over to a concrete patio bench which I moved. I bent down and started digging in the soft sand underneath and within about five minutes I had the PVC pipe uncovered enough I could pull it out of the ground. It took me longer to pry it open and I wound up having to chunk it on the concrete of the porch to crack the end off. As soon as I got the pole out I started opening the roll-down on the front door, but only high enough that I could get to the door lock. Then I had to roll it a little high so I could roll the bike inside.

After shutting and locking the door and rolling the door back down using the widget on the inside of the house I got the shakes so bad and sat down and just cried like a baby. I don’t know why. It took me a long time to stop and I couldn’t until I noticed how I was rocking back and forth and holding myself. That scared me as bad as not being able to stop crying had. Even though I was able to stop crying I couldn’t stop shaking. I don’t remember much after that but I do remember walking into what was my parents’ room, ripping the dust cover off the bed, pulling the covers down, and climbing in.

I must have taken my shoes off but I can’t remember when cause when I finally woke up they were dumped by the side of the bed. I slept a long time but with no clock I don’t know how long. I woke up so hungry and thirsty my whole body ached. I got up and stumbled to find my backpack and drank a whole bottle of water while I dumped the food that was left on the floor trying to decide what to eat. I settled on fruit cocktail again and then ate two packages of peanut butter crackers too.

That didn’t leave me much food and what there was had to be cooked like the mac-n-cheese or the potatoes au gratin. I was still hungry but not hungry enough to go to the trouble of cooking. I ate a package of skittles while I wandered inside the house trying to think what I was supposed to do now that I was home.

Momma and Daddy built the house themselves, or at least as much as the rules allowed. Daddy would get mad sometimes that there were things that he could do but that the State of Florida said he had to hire somebody with a license to do. There were also all these inspections that the work had to pass before the guy from the county would initial it so we could do the next thing on the house. And some of the way Daddy wanted to do things made the county guy give us a hard time. It’s not that it wasn’t up to code, it was that it went way over what the guidelines said we had to do.

I enjoyed how cool it was inside the house and that got me thinking about the time the inspector came out and pitched a hissy about the fact that Daddy had filled all of the cells in the concrete blocks and installed specially made privacy windows. The inspector kept saying it was “unusual” and Dad kept asking him if it wasn’t against the rules why he wouldn’t sign off on it. They went round and round about it like a couple of bulldogs but Daddy won; Daddy nearly always won. Daddy said it was because he had right on his side, Momma said it was because Daddy could be more pigheaded and run them around until they would sign it just to have done with it.. Either way it worked because after a while the inspector would just come out, look, sign the paper and leave without saying a word.

The house is very sturdy. Both floors are solid concrete block with solid Georgia brick on the outside. There are four bedrooms and three full bathrooms; a great room that is the family room with a big fireplace, dining room, and coat closet; a nice kitchen, utility room, and pantry. What was originally supposed to be an oversized two car garage became storage and Momma’s summer/canning kitchen.

The upstairs is kind of weird. Part of the upstairs anyone can find out about and part of the upstairs is secret. On the summer kitchen end of the house the second floor is made up of two bonus rooms; one was going to be Momma’s sewing and craft room and the other was going to be like a library/study area. The rooms are dried in … that’s what Daddy called finishing a room off … but hadn’t been decorated before the car wreck. The other part of the upstairs had two access ways; a set of pull down stairs that was hidden in the master bedroom. You could look at those stairs were all day and never know they are there because they looked like a section of recessed ceiling that had that stuff called crown molding around the edge to hide it. The chain to pull the ladder down was hidden in the fancy looking ceiling light in the middle of the rectangle.

The other way into the secret upstairs area was by a set of very narrow and steep stairs that you got to by going through the coat closet in the great room. I hadn’t dared go up there since the wreck but I knew I needed to just to make sure that some of the secrets that Daddy made were still up there. There was nothing in the coat closet that I had to move so it was easy to slide the hidden panel and climb the stairs. It wasn’t as hot up there as I had thought it would be but it was dusty. I guess Daddy’s system only part way worked.

To keep it from being an oven up there Daddy had built in both passive and solar ventilation. I don’t remember exactly how it worked even though Daddy explained it at the time – I have some memory gaps from the coma – but it pulls the cooler air from down stairs and forces the hot hair out through a duct that empties into the soffit area. There are two dormer windows up there too. From the outside of the house the dormers look like fake ones that people use to decorate their house with but these actually work. You can’t see into the house from the outside unless a light is on so Daddy installed heavy shutters on the inside of the windows to go with the accordion shutters on the outside. That’s why I had no worries about turning on the overhead lights … only they didn’t work at first.

I finally remembered I would have to hook the leads from the lights into the wire that connects to the solar panels on the outside of the house. Uncle Charlie used to wonder what the panels were for until the lawyer said they were for the security lights. Well, they were … just not only for the security lights.

It took a few minutes but the little LED lights started to glow and I was able confirm things still looked like I remembered. In the middle of the room was a great big box that that I knew housed the main central heat and air unit. There was an access hatch up here for if Daddy needed to work on it but you’d never know that if you tried to access the unit through the main intake vent. Daddy had shelves and worktables all around the walls. The room was actually pretty rough; Daddy said it was a work-in-progress. It had this special insulating on the ceiling and walls but no drywall yet. The floor was thick plywood with a couple of hatchways in it so that Daddy could access wiring and stuff for the house. I knew between the ceiling of the first floor and the floor of this hidden room was insulation and sound proofing so that you could be walking around up in the dormer room (that’s what Momma called the room ‘cause she thought it was silly to call it a “hidden room” when we all knew it was there) and no one downstairs could hear you at all unless you really dropped something heavy and even then the sound seemed to come from outside instead of above you.

What I had really come up there was to check to see if the boxes were still there. And they were, a lot more than I remember there being. I guess Daddy must have bought more stuff and not told Momma about it. On the sides of the boxes were the words Provident Pantry and Honeyville. There was supposed to be enough for a family of four for three months which I guess meant that I should be able to live on it for a year but maybe not. The only time I heard Momma get upset at the money that Daddy was spending was the time that he spent some of her grocery money on this long term storage food.

Momma was really upset because she got embarrassed at the grocery store when the debit card wouldn’t work and then they refused to accept her check even though it was on a different account. Momma didn’t raise her voice very much but that time she really raised cane. I remember my brother and I being sent to our rooms and still being able to hear her and Daddy fussing about it. She said that she could preserve better tasting food in jars than that stuff in the big cans and we wouldn’t have to worry about water for it either, and it would have cost less money. She also said that they had had an agreement that Daddy was going to stop bringing all that stuff home from the Base like the leftover pieces from the MREs that no one wanted.

I guess they fixed the problem that night because the next morning they were all lovey-dovey again but a fight like that is something a kid never forgets … especially when my mom was usually really sweet and nice and gave way to Daddy all the time. I never heard them fight about it again but it wasn’t something that was brought up much either, at least not within my hearing.

I went to the boxes and opened the first one and pulled out the first big can. It was labeled Mountain House Chili Mac. The directions on it seemed pretty easy – just add water and cook – but then I read that after you open it you have to use the whole can up within a week. No way; even if I ate the stuff for every meal for a week I might not be able to use it up in time.

Next box I opened was labeled Provident Pantry Creamy Potato Soup. It was just as easy to fix but the directions said it would last up to a year if stored in an airtight container after opening. That I could handle. I decided I would look at all the other stuff some other time, took my can of freeze dried soup downstairs and went out to the summer kitchen to take care of my next important job and this one was Momma’s doing.

Momma came from a family of small time farmers. My grandfather only had 80 and made a living but just barely. Momma said growing up she didn’t notice because all of her friends were in the same boat. She didn’t have a TV until she was eight years old and she was thirteen before they had indoor plumbing and it was only as reliable as the old electric well pump. Granddaddy and Memaw had built a new modern house by the time I came along but they used the old one as a storage building so I saw what it looked like. It wasn’t bad it was just really old. It was an old log cabin that someone had put clapboard siding on and looked all mismatched.

Momma didn’t ever want to have to go to a creek to get water again in her lifetime but she knew that storms knock out power all the time and because we didn’t live at the property full time we never knew what we were going to find when we got there, especially if it was the middle of the night when we arrived. She also didn’t want to have to deal with cleaning up from frozen pipes. We didn’t have that problem in Tampa but north Florida can get below freezing a week or so out of the year. To prevent this Daddy made the plumbing so that the well bladder, the hot water tank, and the well pump so that it was inside an insulated room in the summer kitchen. Also in this room was a handpump.

Uncle Charlie tried and tried and tried to make that pump work. He was convinced that if he pump the handle often enough for long enough it would start spitting out water. When it never worked he used to needle me about Daddy having installed it wrong. I always had to leave the house when he started that up or I was going to laugh myself silly and I would have gotten punishment chores on top of punishment chores. The trick was you had to prime the pump.

I was still laughing at the memory of Uncle Charlie getting all red in the face and frustrated when I remembered what I had to prime the pump with. Water. And I didn’t have that much left. I hadn’t the idea of using the muddy water from the gully but I figured I might not have much choice if I couldn’t get the well primed. I said a prayer, used the last of my drinking water, and then nearly panicked when it took longer for the water to come up the pipe than I thought it should. But once it did I had all the fresh drinking and cooking water I could want.

I wasn’t going to be stupid though. I refilled all of my water bottles and a couple of extra jars from the summer kitchen cabinets in case something went wrong. I also filled bucket after bucket of water to take a bath with. When I found I couldn’t even put my feet in the tub because the water was so cold I decided to let it sit overnight and hopefully warm up some.

With water chores finished I cooked my dinner and then sat down to do some serious thinking.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 9

It had come time to prove that I could be self-sufficient and self-supporting like those emancipation papers had said. I remember the work sheets I had to fill out; they made me feel so stupid and helpless. But now I can at least say that I have the big three – shelter, food, and water. The house is mine free and clear … well, technically it is in trust for me until I turn 18 but since that is less than a year and a half away I don’t figure that is a problem. That’s the shelter. The food is upstairs. The water is from the hand pump.

Next came the tricky part. You had to fill out these papers and be able to tell the judge what you would do if your first plans didn’t work out. The land that this house sits on is mine free and clear too. It is held in trust just like the house and the road. If something happens to the house – like a fire or hurricane – I figure I can live in the woods like Jungle Jane until I can build a shelter. I’m not great at building things but I can follow directions and I can learn.

If something happens to the pump and I can’t figure out how to fix it – like an inside part wears out or the well runs dry – there is the gully and the sink hole that both have water in them most of the year. There are rivers, lakes, and ponds all over the place around here, I’d just have to figure out how to get the water and bring it back. Just in case that happens I put down on my list to fill all the containers I could with water and keep them filled. And I remembered that Momma’s rain barrels were out in the barn. I added attaching the barrels to the down spouts on the gutters to my list. People used to ask why Daddy built such a sharp pitched roof. The barrels are one reason. One of the things that Momma wanted down the road was a cistern but they never got to it. A cistern sounds cool but I’m not sure how to build one. It might be in one of Daddy’s books, I’ll have to look.

Food was iffier than the first two. First off, that Mountain House stuff is going to be a problem. I’m one person, how am I going to eat a whole can of one type of food in a week? The Provident Pantry stuff is much better but I can tell you that neither type is going to last as long as they say it is supposed to? The soup is supposed to be one cup per serving and that the can holds 48 servings. I’m a girl and I eat more than a cup of soup at a time. That means I can’t count on that food lasting as long amount-wise as the cans say it should. And I seem to be hungry all the time now, I guess it is because I was on such short rations at the warehouse and didn’t have much food after I left. Then all that biking to get here. Some days I feel like a cow and could graze all day long. I know some of that is because I get the munchies during my monthlies but that only makes the situation worse. I added taking inventory to my list. I don’t know what I’m going to do about bread either. One, I don’t know how to make it and two, to make it you need flour and other junk that I don’t think I have here.

Momma and Daddy planted an orchard as soon as they bought the land a little over seven years ago; we celebrated my ninth birthday with our first camping trip here. The fruit trees were just starting to put off fruit the last time we were here as a family. I guess they still do ‘cause they did when we’d come during the summer for the Week of Torture. Aunt Wilma always had some bad kids; they used to tear up stuff on the property. They’d pull leaves and limbs off the trees climbing in them. One year a kid got the wire cutters and clipped the barbed wire fence in a bunch of different places all around the property and that made the neighbors angry ‘cause then they had to catch their cows that got all mixed up together running loose on our forty. They put holes in the walls inside that Uncle Charlie had to patch. The patches don’t look bad, it was just the principle of the matter and when I would get into fights with the kids who were tearing things up Aunt Wilma would punish me for being selfish and “make an example of me” because she said I had so much and those other kids had so little. She may have meant well but she just never understood how it made me feel. The lawyer got onto Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie one time and told them that if it happened again the repair costs would be deducted from the fee they got for taking care of me. It didn’t happen after that because there were new rules; Uncle Charlie started keeping the “out of bounds” places locked up.

In addition to the orchard Momma planted a couple of berry hedges – like red and black raspberries. I can’t remember what the other ones were. There are lots of blackberry bushes on our forty too … they are worse than saw briers and they grow everywhere no matter how you try to rein them in. There are a bunch of pecan trees on the side of the forty that used to belong to an old farmstead. I know I’ll get blueberries as long as some animal doesn’t get to them first; the bushes in the orchard are full. I’m sure there are lots of things out there if I just look. I’d also like to try and grow a garden but I don’t have any seeds. You need seeds to grow a garden so I put “look for seeds” on my list.

I don’t know what I’ll do for meat, but maybe I’ll just have to go vegetarian. I like meat so doing that will make me sad but you do what you have to do; beggars can’t be choosers. I might be able to learn to fish but I nearly barfed during biology class when we were dissecting fetal pigs. The idea of gutting and cleaning fish is just too gross. There are squirrels, a bunch of them, I supposed if I absolutely had to I could try and rig up some kind of trap but I’m afraid that I’ll wind up like Wile E. Coyote when he is trying to catch the Roadrunner.

I smelled cows on CR49 but they probably belong to someone. I sure don’t know how to take care of a cow … or a horse … or chickens … or goats … or any of the other animals except maybe a cat or a dog. I’d like an animal or two but only if I can figure out how to keep it from starving to death. I think it is going to be more important to learn how to keep me from starving to death before I take on an animal; just like babies I bet they are more trouble to take care of than you think.

Those were the basics that were the most important except for the next one. I’m a girl. I’m a girl alone. Daddy’s gun safe is in the dormer room but I still haven’t found the keys to it. Daddy hid it different places so I’ll keep looking but I still remember what is in there … a .22 rifle, a shotgun that used to be my grandfather’s, an old German hand gun from WW2 that is kind of beat up that some guy gave him as collateral for a loan that was never paid back, and then a gun that Daddy called a Mark III. The Mark III is the only gun I have every fired except for my brother’s BB gun. I never did hit any of those stupid cans. Daddy just laughed and said it took practice and that he would teach me some day. Some day never came. I’m sure the books are in Daddy’s filing cabinet up there; he never threw anything like that away. But even if I find the books it won’t do me any good unless I find the keys to the gun cabinet. And even if I find the books, find the keys and get the guns out I don’t know if they are going to be in good shape or not; they’ve been in that cabinet for four years and I think guns get rusty and junk on the inside and have to be cleaned in a special way or they can blow up in your face. So, for now at least and maybe for a long while, the guns are out.

I was beginning to run out of things to worry about until I pulled out one of Daddy’s books called Back to Basics. That book gave me lots of things to worry about. My little fuel containers weren’t going to last forever so how was I going to heat up the water I needed to fix the food I had? My clothes and shoes weren’t going to last forever so what was I going to do about that? What happened if my “mode of transportation” broke? I didn’t have any spare bicycle parts though I think Daddy’s tools should still be in the shed. I realized I didn’t have much in the way of toilet paper, Kleenex and stuff like that so I decided to use rags for cleaning up messes and be careful about how much I used when I went to the bathroom. For Kleenex I could use a bandana like my grandparents did, but how was I going to clean stuff when it got dirty? What about soap and shampoo and stuff like that? I’d already gone without for long stretches so I knew it wouldn’t kill me but I like being clean. What about light? I think there is some stuff still hidden around the house, I know there is, I just have to remember where it is and how to get to it. But what if I can’t find it or it isn’t there? What happens when my batteries run out? What about time? No watch, no clock … how was I going to figure out what time it is? Did I even need to know what time it is or does it no longer matter?

And worse, what happens if I get sick or have an accident? Who will help me? That’s almost too scary to think about so I’ve got it at the bottom of my list ‘cause there isn’t anything I can do about it right now anyway.

The sun was going down by the time I finished fixing another cup of soup, cleaning up, and other stuff. Like the debate coach used to say when things were getting too hot, “Let’s table this discussion for another time.” I went to bed when the light went away to save my batteries. Of course the batteries died the next day while I was carrying a couple of more cans down from the dormer room but there isn’t anything I can do about it so I “tabled the discussion.” I’m doing that with a bunch of stuff ‘cause if I think about it too hard I get a stomach ache and have to go to the bathroom.

The next day I decided to take a look around the outside of the house. I was nervous at first, walking around out in the open. But then I felt like a doofus. What was I supposed to do, turn vampire and only come out at night?!

The outside of the house looked in good shape except there is this ginormous wasp nest inside one of the upstairs security shutters. I’m not allergic to bees or wasps but I don’t have anything to kill them with. I pulled out my handy dandy list and added wasp spray to my growing “grocery list.”

The grass around the house isn’t too bad and when I’m ready to cut it I can use the swing blade I found in the shed. I haven’t decided when I’m going to cut it yet because I haven’t decided how “lived in” I want the house to look. If it starts looking lived in and someone stumbles across it then maybe something bad could happen. But, if I don’t take care of things bugs and mice and stuff could get into the house and that would definitely be bad. Daddy made the house as tight as possible but this is Florida and bugs are gonna happen, it is just the facts of life. I just don’t want them to happen any more than necessary.

This next part had me pretty upset for a while but I guess it is just another one of those things I can’t do anything about. For some reason the master key I have doesn’t work on the roll-downs on the bay doors on the barn. I think those locks got changed and I think I know by who. I was getting worried but the master key still worked on the side door so I got in that way. But when I got in I had a shock. Daddy’s tractor and all the attachments are gone. So is the riding lawn mower. I bet Uncle Charlie sold it to pay off some bad debts he and Aunt Wilma had when they remodeled their house. I’d heard them fighting with the lawyer telling them they had to do it to make room for me to live there but the lawyer wouldn’t give them any money because what they did was build them a new master bedroom suite, a new master bathroom, and changed the cabinets and counter tops out in the kitchen.

Uncle Charlie would come up and check on Sparkleberry Ranch sometimes by himself. I bet on one of those times he sold the Kabota and lawn mower. I was just so mad I could have spit. I didn’t know how to drive the tractor and I didn’t even have any fuel for it even if I could have but … like I said, I was mad. It didn’t look like anything else was missing but I’m still not sure. I don’t know what happened to Momma’s jewelry or Daddy’s knife collection but that stuff could be in all the taped up boxes up in the bonus rooms (that was one of the “off limits” areas).

I was so mad I went stomping around looking to see if anything else was missing. Then I went stomping around outside, picked up a stick and started swishing it around. That’s probably the only reason I saw it … him … what used to be him. I know it had to be him because he had the Cargill work shirt on with his name patch stitched to the pocket. Charlie. He’d been dead a long time, long enough that the animals had got to him and not all of him was there and what was there wasn’t too gross. Or maybe I should say he was less gross than the couple I stumbled across on the bike trip. He was over by the old rotten wood pile. There was a broken liquor bottle not too far from the body. I never knew Uncle Charlie to drink but maybe he did and he hid a bottle in the woodpile so Aunt Wilma wouldn’t know.

I’ll probably never know for sure but I’m guessing he must have come up here after all us kids got shipped to the school. How long after I have no idea but he had enough gas to get from Tampa to Live Oak apparently which meant maybe right before or right after the bomb scare. He got here but never made it in the house. I don’t know if he forgot or lost the keys or didn’t have a pole for the roll-downs. At some point he got to wanting what he hid in the wood pile. And … and this is the big jump here … he reached into the old wood pile and in addition to the bottle of liquor he pulled out a snake that bit him. We’ve got rattlers around here and they don’t like being disturbed. For all his pretending he was a big outdoorsman Uncle Charlie was really a city boy. And if he had already been drinking (the truck stuck in the ditch) it wouldn’t have taken much for a poor choice to turn into a last choice.

I dug a hole right beside him as deep as the tree roots would let me and then I used the shovel to roll what his soul had left behind into the hole. I felt bad but I’m not having much luck really grieving for him or Aunt Wilma. I don’t think feeling bad is the same thing as grieving really. Maybe I will later but I’ve seen so much of death that I’m to the point I just turn it over to God. I don’t get to say where people go anyway, they choose that when they’re still alive. It sounds awful now that I’ve written it out but I’d be a hypocrite to lie in my own journal. I’ll find a piece of limestone someplace and mark the spot. That’s about all I can do.

From the woodpile I went to the orchard which is hidden from view too unless you know it is there. Daddy cut the orchard out of a section of loamy soil near the house but left a nearly impenetrable wind break on all four sides. The only way into the orchard is the tractor gate and the walk-in gate. Daddy put gates there to keep animals out; Momma just laughed at him for wasting the energy trying. Most of the trees in the orchard are semi-dwarf. I know I used to know what that meant but … I hate it when I come across a “gap.” Dr. Kramer is the only one that told me not to worry at them. He said it isn’t uncommon for coma patients to have memory gaps; sometimes the gaps go away and sometimes they don’t. By now I figure all the ones that were going to fill back in would have and anything left over I’m going to have to fill in with something new. I spent the best part of yesterday out in the orchard cutting grass and raking it up into tiny hillocks and then hauling the grass off to the hayfield where I hope no one will notice it.

It took me a while to figure out Momma’s drawing of the main orchard. I finally matched up a tree with an old tree tag that was still legible and as soon as I got that the rest fell into place. There are peaches, apples, plums, nectarines, pears, figs, persimmons, paw paws, mayhaws, two blueberry hedges, a couple of pomegranate bushes (I think, they seem kind of small for them to have been planted seven years ago), and crabapples. There is another place on the other side of the house where she and Daddy planted some Chinese chestnut trees, some jujube trees (this look strange but they taste good), and a stand of half a dozen olive trees that they bought from this place in Ocala (that day I do remember ‘cause Daddy thought the trees were awful expensive). There are three different grape arbors but I saw a whip snake slithering around one of the arbors so I haven’t been back. The whip snake has a black head and a long skinny brown body that makes it easy to identify if you’ve ever seen one … but where there are whip snakes you might find coral snakes or pygmy rattlers. Ew, ew, ew. I’ll give those arbors a pass until I find some knee boots and heavy gloves.

There is a stand of trees I can’t find. Momma said she planted Satsuma oranges, loquats, and kumquats but I don’t know where. She wrote in her notes they are all together in the same place because they were more cold sensitive and Ben (that’s my dad) … then there is a smudge … and I can’t tell what she wrote. The yucca trees, or bushes, or things, or whatever they are, are going crazy everywhere Momma planted them. The roots on the yucca are edible. They really aren’t bad but the plants are killers; they don’t call them Spanish Bayonets for nothing. The prickly pears have gotten out of hand in a couple of places too. You just think about walking by and they jump out and attack you.

Some of the other stuff on Momma’s list are blackberries, huckleberries, goji berry (must have been one of Momma’s weird experiments), josta berries, lingon berries, yellow raspberries, red raspberries, black raspberries, wineberries, teaberries (aka wintergreen), bamboo (who knew you could eat bamboo?!), almonds, chinquapin (I have no idea what this is), black walnuts, English walnuts, bush cherries, sour cherries, and elderberries. Where all this stuff is I don’t know and I don’t even know when it is supposed to ripen. I have a feeling I’m going to have to just wait until the berries show up and then guess or match the leaves and stuff up to pictures in Momma’s books. I can tell you though just as soon as I find where they are I’m going to mark it on the map of the acreage that I’m making. Momma’s notes are driving me crazy. She knew lots and lots of stuff about trees and canning and stuff like that but it was all in her head. I like need a Rosetta stone to figure out her directions.

I walked all over Sparkleberry Ranch that day. Probably walked all over it a couple of times since I had to keep criss crossing to try and orient myself to Momma’s drawings. While I was out I saw a few animals and saw “signs” of more. Stepped in a few “signs” too which was nasty. There was a turtle, squirrels, lot of birds, a turkey, quail, and a couple of rabbits. In the sand I saw tracks for lizards, dogs (or coyotes), and snakes. I saw a cat but it wouldn’t come out of the bushes and it was too hot for me to make it run around while I chased it. I heard a woodpecker, a couple of cows from far off, and I think I heard a horse but the cows were mooing at the same time so it was hard for me to tell.

So this is my Promised Land. Hope I can be more like Joshua and less like those other guys that were ‘fraidy cats.

What I haven’t heard is people, music, cars, or anything that sounds like a machine. All the trees kind of dampen sound but I’ve been standing right by the fence looking at the houses and barns that are on three of the four 80 acre sections that surround Sparkleberry Ranch and nothing; no human sounds at all. Tomorrow I think I can convince myself that I need to get closer to at least one of those houses to see what is going on. What do I have to lose? Don’t answer that.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 10

I spend more time trying to figure out what I’m going to do than I spend actually doing it. Take yesterday for example. I woke up, fixed some “scrambled eggs” using this powder from Provident Pantry, and then spent a while deciding whether I was actually going to eat them or not. They were pretty gross but I settled on not wasting food; I don’t think I cooked them right or something. Then I wasted time wondering whether I should dirty an extra dish or not. I wound up just eating them right out of the pan. Those were the little things. And right when I think I make the right choice I find out I forgot something important so I wind up having to figure something else out.

After breakfast I wasted time trying to figure out what to do next. I looked at my list and the two things I needed to do most was gather wood so I could have a cooking fire and make myself go check out at least one of the three houses on the other properties. I picked to gather wood and then had to decide did I want big wood or little wood. I decided on the little wood like from tree trash because I don’t need a big fire, I just need something I can heat water on or do some minor cooking on. I picked up wood for a while until I got hot and hungry again.

I brought in some of the wood and started a fire in the fireplace easy enough but the house started smelling and getting smoky. I finally remembered there was a leaver you have to pull before you light the fire; it opens up something in the fireplace so the smoke can get out through the chimney. That helped but I had to open a couple of shutters and windows to get the house aired out. Plus, having a fire in the fireplace made the house hot and so did opening the windows and letting all the cool air out. As soon as all the smoke was gone I shut the windows and closed the shutters and locked them back tight. I cleaned out the leftover ashes out of the fireplace and dumped them in the coal bucket outside. By then I was really hungry so I ate my last can of ravioli instead.

Then I went back outside to gather some more wood while I figured out a solution to my problems. From now on, unless it is raining or something, I am going to build the fire outside in the BBQ grill. I’ll just need to be real careful and not build a smoky fire.

After I stopped wood gathering I realized that I still hadn’t gone over to any of the houses to check them out. I knew I couldn’t be a chicken. I had considered waiting until it was dark but since my headlamp was out of batteries and the mag flashlight has been iffy ever since it got dunked I figured that it wouldn’t be a good thing to try stumbling around in the night. Besides I reasoned, I have to start being brave about stuff sooner or later. Oh, I can say I was brave for biking all the way from Tampa to Sparkleberry Ranch but I don’t think that was really being brave so much as it was being desperate. I believe God looked after me to get me here but now that I am here I’m having a hard time figuring out how much I’m supposed to start looking after myself.

I knew I needed to get going before it got any later in the day but I wasn’t planning on going without some kind of protection in case there were bad guys over there. I’d already give my guardian angel a work out. I took a knife out of the kitchen. I thought about taking the baseball bat that was in one of the bedroom closets but I figured if I had to run a knife would be easier to run with than a bat, although if I fell the bat would be better than the knife.

See, that’s part of what I mean about taking so long to think about doing something. I’m constantly debating whether do so something one way or to do it another … or to do it at all. I won lots of rounds on the debate team in highschool but this isn’t school, this is real life.. I need to be able to make decisions faster but I also need to be discerning. I don’t have anyone to tell me what to do anymore. Gag, that sounds like something Aunt Wilma would say.

I finally decided to check the house out to the northeast of our forty. It is the one closest to my fence line and it is also the closest to US90. I also thought that if I go to the house I might to be able to see what has been going on close to the highway.

So I walked boldly to my fence, climbed over it, stiffened my spine and walked a few feet at which point I promptly lost my nerve and started cowering in the tall grass like a wuss. I had scared a bunch of quail and they jumped up in front of me. I felt pretty silly after I figured out what it was. Since I was already hiding in the tall grass I decided that it might be simpler if I continued to use it for cover and slowly edged up to the house the long way around.

When I got to the house I eased around to the front porch and decided to knock on the door. If someone was home it would at least show that I was trying to be polite and not a common criminal. Wasn’t hard to guess though that knocking was a silly idea; the storm door was broken and the glass crunched under my feet and the main door had been kicked in. The door was still on its hinges but there was a chunk of wood missing where the doorknob should have been. I used the toe of my shoe to push the door open and it made that sound effect noise that haunted houses use. The smell coming out of that place was pretty bad; smelled like a boy cat had gotten loose in there and marked his territory times a million. Even though the smell made my eyes water I went inside.

The house wasn’t very big so the kitchen was easy to find. Some of the cabinet doors were standing open and some weren’t but either way there wasn’t anything edible in them. There was a rank smell and it was coming from a refrigerator that had been left open. The frig had a couple of opened condiments in it but that was it.

I was totally disappointed. All those books and movies I used to read and watch always made it seem like all you had to do was find a few abandoned houses and you’d be set. The past two days has proven that is so not true. If my parents hadn’t been into the stuff they were into then I would really be up the creek without a paddle, canoe, or even a swimming suit. I figure I have about four months before I’m back to square one so between now and then I better come up with a plan.

The smell didn’t get any better when I went to see what was in the bedrooms and the bathroom. The beds were all messy and didn’t have any sheets on them and the mattresses were stained really bad. I put my hand over my nose and mouth ‘cause the smell was so strong. It was different from the smell in the front of the house but just as bad. There was no way anyone was living in this house which made me feel better about going through stuff. There was an adult bedroom, a boy bedroom, and a girl bedroom. The boy and girl bedrooms looked like they belonged to someone my age, especially the girl’s room. I could tell from the kind of clothes she had in her closet and all the makeup and jewelry that was on the dresser. There was also a highschool yearbook from last school year sitting on top of a stereo. There was a cheerleading uniform tossed over a desk chair … the kind you wear when the weather is cold so I guess whatever happened must have happened at least two months ago, maybe longer.

I needed clothes. I was embarrassed about pawing through this girl’s things but I needed clothes. It was a lost cause; I’m built like Momma and there is no way any of that girl’s under things were going to fit me unless I wanted to stop breathing. None of the clothes fit but I did find a couple of pairs of shoes did and an unopened package of socks. She had other pretty things but taking them would have been too much like stealing. I didn’t need them so I made myself walk away. At least until I saw her school books stacked on the floor by the desk. I figured that was one thing that I wanted that I wouldn’t get in too much trouble for taking.

For clothes I had better luck in the boy’s room and what must have been the mom’s room. Didn’t look like there was a Dad living in the house. The boy was probably in middle school or maybe a freshman in highschool; some freshman boys can be small. I grabbed some flannel shirts off hangers, a jean jacket, a hunter’s jacket (the cloth material the jacket was made out of had deer and leaves all over it), and a pair of hunter’s overalls. It is getting too hot for most of that stuff but I will be able to use it when it cools off later in the year. I think I’m learning to think ahead. I looked under his bed but that was a mistake. It was really gross under there and I’m not sure it was just from stuff leaking all the way through the mattress. Middle school boys can be so nasty.

In the mom’s room I got some of those smocks and pants people wear when they work in a doctor’s office. They had some really goofy designs … there were fish, teddy bears, dancing toothbrushes, and some other cutesy things. I figured she must have worked in a dental office ‘cause no one wears shirts like that unless they have to. Nothing else would fit; it was either too big or too small in places that it was important that things fit right.

In the laundry room I lucked out and found a pair of work boots. They must have belonged to the boy. The boots kind of fit but kind of don’t either. My favorite phrase has become “beggars can’t be choosers.” The boots are better than having none at all so I need to be appreciative. That doesn’t mean I can’t keep looking though.

It was at that point that I realized I didn’t have anything to carry what I salvaged back home. It was stupid going over there expecting to find something and not taking a bag or the backpack to put it in. After a short but panicked search I found this thing hanging on the wall in the kitchen that was full of plastic grocery bags. I uncrumpled them and put what I had found in the bags then sat the bags on the back porch.

I decided that before I left I really, really needed to look over the whole house to make sure I got everything I could use. There was a bucket under the kitchen sink and some partially used cleaning chemicals. There were some scrub brushes, a mop, a couple of brooms, and a dust pan. In the bathroom there was a used bar of soap, some of those little decorative soaps shaped like seashells, some bath beads and bath salts, a plastic shower curtain, and some towels and wash rags. In the utility room there was an opened bottle of laundry detergent, another bucket, a great big jug of fabric freshener, an opened box of Borax, and an opened box of washing soda.

There were a lot of DVDs of movies I hadn’t ever seen but since I didn’t have any way to watch the DVDs I skipped over to the books. Mostly there were just those bodice rippers that Aunt Wilma used to like to read when she didn’t think anyone was paying attention. I did take the phone books that were sitting by the phone. I hope it doesn’t come to that but some paper will be better than none. Ew.

I had more than enough to take back home. First I took everything I had stacked on the porch and put it over the fence. Then I climbed over the fence and started carrying the stuff the rest of the way back to the house. After the first load I took the wheelbarrow back with me but it still took several loads to get it all home. I put wagon on my list, and I don’t mean a little red one like my brother used to have. I’d like to find one of those big ones like the tree nurseries use.

It wasn’t until I was home and thinking about going inside that I realized how much I smelled. And the stuff I had brought from that house smelled too. I got some empty hangers from the closet inside – another thing on my list to keep an eye out for sense they are so useful – strung a clothesline inside the barn and then hung up all the stuff on the hangers. Another item I added to my “grocery list” that day was clothes pins. Who knew that there were so many little things that you used every day and never thought about it? Then I sprayed everything with that fabric freshener. I checked the stuff today and it still stinks but not quite so bad.

Then I went inside and took a bath. It would have been nice to have a shower; maybe I can figure a way to rig one up. It would definitely be easier to wash my hair with a shower. I just about froze. The other thing I’m going to have to do is figure out some way to warm the water up but I don’t have all day to sit around heating water over a fire, not to mention all the wood that would take. That’s like a problem solving project in physics – transferring power without adding work. I think if I find a black container, put water in it, then sit it in the sun I should have warm water whenever I need it. It may not be really hot but it sure as shooting has got to be warmer than the water is when it comes out of the pump.

I slept good that night because I finally had a good meal. I mean who can mess up rice and beans right? The beans were a little bland, I was afraid of experimenting with the seasonings in the kitchen cabinets, but they filled me up and that was a feeling I barely recognized.

Before I went to sleep I decided that it would be better if I made a yet another kind of list. This list would be for all the things I would need to do the next day this way I would know what I needed to do instead of jumping around and wasting time trying to figure it out. That night I wrote down checking out the other two houses, but I also wrote down “bring back pack and bags” and take “take wheelbarrow to fence line.” I also planned out my menu; breakfast would be oatmeal to hold me a long time in case I had to wait until dinner to eat again.

Today has run smoother so I think I’m going to keep doing the list thing. I got up and took care of the breakfast chores and personal chores that a girl needs to get started in the morning. Then I grabbed the backpack, stuffed the plastic bags in it, left the house and locked the house down. I grabbed the wheelbarrow from behind the barn and took off for the house that was due SW of my forty.

It was the same thing as the first one; no one home, door busted in, all the food gone, and no way to tell what had happened or how long ago. That house was a little cleaner than the one yesterday but probably because there were no kid bedrooms. I looked through the inside of the house taking the few things that I thought would be useful. The one thing I found at this house was books, real books like Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H.G. Wells and just bunches of others. The two spare bedrooms in the three bedroom house were nothing but books. This house didn’t smell but the books were musty and dusty. It took me forever to cart over the books to the wheelbarrow and I could only put them in the backpack because the plastic bags just split when I tried to use them.

The lady clothes in the house fit me but none of them were practical and weren’t worth the effort to haul them home. I did find a long blue jean skirt and one blue jean jumper but I’ll have to keep them for inside clothes and I don’t know how I would really be able to do chores in them outside without my legs getting all ripped up by saw briers and blackberries. The rest of it was the same as the other house; opened bottles and boxes of cleaners, linens, scrub brushes, and that sort of thing. I did find some of those expensive smelly candles but no matches.

The couple who lived in that house – there were pictures of them together in the house but no pictures of kids – looked nice and normal if a little old-fashioned. They looked older than my parents did but the house itself hadn’t been here long; it was one of those subdivision looking houses and didn’t fit in with the land around it at all. It would have looked much more at home in Tampa. Except for the busted in door and the missing food it was like they had just left the house for a vacation or something. I tried to leave the house as neat as I had found it but I did leave sand on the floor in a couple of places.

I ate lunch between salvaging the two houses; a spoonful of peanut butter and a bunch to drink. It was hot and sweaty work carting all that stuff back to the house. The second house was the messiest one but the one that I salvaged the most stuff from. It was messy but didn’t stink.

Just like the other two houses all the food was gone but in this house no one had taken the paper products or the cleaning supplies. That was two wheelbarrow trips right there. I also found these really great area rugs that I rolled up (after I had dumped all the junk off of them) and brought them home. I plan on putting those in the dormer room as soon as I figure out how to clean them. I grabbed all the towels, washrags, and kitchen towels and rags too.

This house was a real old farm house like in those historical places Momma and Daddy liked us to visit and it had all these nooks and crannies and I got turned around a couple of times. One time I got turned around I found this room that I think used to be a pantry ‘cause it had all these shelves in there and they were full of canning jars; empty canning jars but I thought they were still be useful. Every jar had a ring and I found a basket with little boxes of sealing lids too. I took Home Ec as one of my freshman electives and I remember being the only one in class except the teacher that knew what all the canning equipment was for when we did a unit on food preservation. I’ve never done it by myself but Momma’s books with pictures and directions are at the house and the equipment should be in the summer kitchen.

Another time I got turned around I wound up in a storage space underneath one of the stairs. There was all sorts of outdoor stuff in there. All the coats and hunting pants were too big for me … way too big … but there was other stuff in there for hunting and fishing. I don’t know what half of the stuff is for but it might eventually be useful. That was it for the inside of the house.

In the kitchen was this built in china hutch and it was full of speckleware dishes, bowls and stuff like that. In the bottom of the cabinet behind some cabinet doors were a lot of big bowls, a big soup tureen, and some big platters. I grabbed those but nearly had a nervous breakdown when that cat I saw yesterday darted out in front of me and I nearly dumped some of the dishes on the ground. It’s a pretty kitty with these weird blue eyes but it can’t make up its mind if it wants to be friends or not. I used tablecloths I found in the china cabinet draws to wrap the dishes up in so they wouldn’t clank while I was pushing them in the wheelbarrow but it helped to keep them from breaking too I guess.

I also decided to take all the wooden spoons, the rolling pin, biscuit cutter, gravy ladles and some of the other kitchen junk. I know I should have most of that stuff somewhere, either in the summer kitchen or packed in boxes in the bonus rooms, but I figured spares couldn’t hurt. That was all I took from the house, but that was plenty. From there I moved to the barn and shed.

The barn was big enough for animals to live in and it still smelled but there weren’t any animals even though there were bales of hay. Whoever took the food must have taken the animals too or maybe someone took the animals. I sure hadn’t seen any cows living at any of the places like they used to. The barn had other stuff in it though like hoes, saws, a big sickle like for old-fashioned hay cutting, a big shovel (I think for manure), and a couple of pitchforks.

There was also this thing called a beaver wheel cultivator; the only reason I know what it is called is because my Granddaddy used to use one in Memaw’s kitchen garden. It kind of looks like a wheelbarrow only without the bucket part attached. The wheel is also bigger and it doesn’t have any rubber on it; it looks like an all-metal wagon wheel. The attachments go right behind the wheel and you stick them in the ground and push like you do a wheelbarrow. Even I could do it when I was seven and eight years old. I should have all the tools I need if I can ever find some seeds.

There is another house way off on the other side of the farmhouse and as soon as I do a few more things around my house I’ll go check that one out. I piled everything into the barn, sprayed all the clothes with more freshener and then decided to fix myself another plate of beans and rice. The beans aren’t making my stomach hurt as much anymore which is great because there sure are a lot of beans to use. Tomorrow I’m getting started on my inventory and looking in the boxes up in the bonus room. I’m kinda excited about doing that and kinda dreading it as well. It will be the first time I get to see my parents’ personal stuff since the wreck … all their stuff from Tampa was just shoved into boxes and brought to the property and stuck upstairs; then the lawyer hired someone to pack away all the personal stuff in the Sparkleberry Ranch house when Aunt Wilma talked about having a big garage sale to raise money for my care and housing. Every box was sealed and initialed and the lawyer made an inventory of each box to make sure stuff didn’t just disappear. But because of the tractor I’m not too sure that everything is up there. There are so many boxes I’m not sure I’d notice if something was missing anyway.

Oh and before I forget, I think today is April 30th. I’m pretty sure it is. I counted up all of the days since I left the warehouse and that is what I come up with.

My list of things to do tomorrow:
Breakfast – granola cereal with powdered milk
Lunch – peanut butter and jam sandwich shake (I used to gross Aunt Wilma out drinking this)
Dinner – bean burger and mashed potatoes
Gather wood (it goes really fast)
Start inventory
Wash out and hang to dry my under things and socks
Find Momma’s gardening notes on when the fruit is supposed to get ripe
Make a calendar with big squares I can write in
Look at Daddy’s books for ideas on what I need to do next

If I can do the main things on my list I need to go back to the three houses and see if they have any office supplies like paper and junk. I’m running out of paper and this pen is running out of …..

 

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11

May 2nd -- Ink; this pen is running out of ink, at least that’s what I meant to write at the end of my last entry. Who would have thought that it would be so hard to find something to write with? Every pen in the house was dead and there weren't any pencils. That messed up my morning because instead of doing things in the order that I wanted to do them I had to stop and go on safari for what I needed.

I woke up to the cat that had been hanging around singing right outside the bedroom window. It had gotten stuffy in the house last night so I opened a window but left the accordion shutters locked shut. It was the only thing I could think of; the more I go in and out the more the house struggles to stay cool even if it is well insulated. The cat must have been somebody's pet. I guess it finally decided to trust me. Good thing too, she had this great big ol' honking tick on her nose despite the flea collar she was wearing. And it is a her kitty and not a him kitty; silly thing rolled over on her back after I took the tick off and made sure it didn’t have fleas before I hung around it too much. And she followed me around all day. The grossest thing though was she brought me a lizard … an extremely mangled lizard … to share. It took a while to convince her that I wasn’t hungry. She finally ate it herself. Don’t think I want any kitty kisses from her. Yuck! But at least I know I won’t have to worry about cat food if she decides to stay for a while.

After I took care of the kitty I ate breakfast and that granola stuff is really good. The powdered milk I poured over it would have been better if I had used colder water to make it so next time I’ll pump water straight from the well first. I also put some of the dried beans to soak in a bunch of water for my dinner that night. I would have forgotten to do that if I hadn’t had it on my list. That’s when I started looking for a pen or pencil not even realizing how hard that was going to be. After an hour I gave up; I was soooo mad. I figured I could put off gathering the wood but I really needed to start the inventory; of course I couldn’t because I didn’t have a writing utensil.

I knew my best bet was to go back to the very first house and look in the girl’s room in her school stuff. I had intended on doing that anyway just not so soon. At least I was smart enough to remember to bring the back pack this time. The cat decided to follow me over to the house but wouldn’t come in; smart cat, it didn’t smell any better the second time around.

Sure enough there were a bunch of pens and pencils on her desk, on the desk in the boy’s room and also in a cup by the telephone in the kitchen. In the boy’s room there were also some big markers and a couple of pieces of poster board; must have been for some school project. Since I was there I grabbed the wooden spoons and stuff like that instead of coming back for them on a third trip.

Finally I was heading back to the house to start the inventory. Major problem; there was a big dog in the yard. As soon as I opened the door the cat sprinted inside and used me as a tree to climb up. I still have the marks on my scalp and neck where she grabbed on. I just barely got the door shut before the dog charged. His big old fat head slammed right into the door and the nasty thing nearly knocked himself out. He growled, barked, and scratched at the different doors and windows like he was Cujo or something. It was freaky. I was stuck in there an hour waiting for the dog to go away; it finally did when some birds took off in the tall grass and it went bounding after them, never returning.

It took forever for Fraidy – that’s what I decided to call her – to calm down. I thought she was going to have a heart attack; her poor little heart was beating so hard. She’s not a very big kitty, probably isn’t very old or she’s a runt or something, and she wouldn’t have even been a mouthful for that dog. It was kind of a Rottweiler looking thing only it didn’t have a stubby tail and its body type was a little off; maybe a mixed breed.

Since I was stuck in there it gave me time to look around the house more. I guess that was a good thing ‘cause I found some more useful stuff but it still felt weird pawing through other people’s stuff. I cleaned out the medicine cabinet but I only took the stuff I knew about. If it looked like a prescription I didn't touch it. I found a wind up clock in the boy’s night stand and an old fashioned pocket watch that works on his dresser top. Now if I could only figure out what time it is. The other thing that the extra time gave me was the chance to realize that you don't always get the chance to get rid of the embarrassing stuff you have hidden. There was some stuff in the kids’ rooms that I’m sure their mom would not have approved of and for a fact that was some stuff in the mom’s room that was embarrassing to me. Right then and there I made myself a promise that I would try to be careful about what I had in my house. Who wants people to find that kind of stuff? I think I’d die of embarrassment if I wasn’t already dead. And who wants to be remembered that way?

Once I got home I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich shake. It’s really easy; you take milk, mix in a little peanut butter and a little bit of jelly and then mix it together like a smoothie. It tastes a lot better than it sounds and since it was a healthy snack (and cheap) Aunt Wilma didn’t complain too much thought it did gross her out.

After my lunch I got started on the inventory. The big cans of food in the dormer room were easy. As I brought stuff downstairs to put into the cabinets in the summer kitchen I would write it down. It feels like there is a whole lot of food and I’m sure there is; but I’m also sure that it won’t last as long as would like it to; no grocery store to run to when I use it all up and no money to buy anything if there were stores selling. I thought about leaving the big cans up there but I need the floor space; I’m going to make a place for me to hide for just-in-case. The book called Diary of Anne Frank gave me the idea only I sure as heck don’t want my story to end the way hers did. The few bits of food that don’t need water and cooking are going to be my emergency snack stash for up there and I’ll add to it if I can.

It was messier to inventory all of the stuff in the barn which meant I got stuck taking another cold bath (gotta find a way to heat water up or keep hot water on hand. I brought in everything but the clothes and put it away; that took a lot of time. The clothes are still out there. I figured out a way to wash everything but I’m only going to be able to do a few pieces at a time.

That night I fixed the bean burgers and they were really easy. I took my soaked white beans and cooked them for an hour and a half in a Dutch oven for about an hour and a half. That took a lot of my wood but I planned on gathering more wood the next day. I also put some of the dried chopped onions in some water to rehydrate. While the beans were cooking I took a hip bath out on the lanai. I stank so much I was afraid of being in the house too much. I was also scared someone would come by and catch me in my all together so I moved a screen outside and set a big, galvanized tub out there. I could only kneel in the tub but I didn’t really want to sit in that cold water anyway. Fraidy thought I was nuts. I was so cold by the time I finished washing my hair that I thought I was nuts.

I put my hair up in a towel and then finished fixing the burgers and making instant mashed potatoes. The instant mashed potatoes were easy; just following the directions by adding boiling water. The burgers took a little more work but are worth it. Even though Aunt Wilma and I didn’t always get along it wasn’t always her fault and this was one of the recipes she would teach us to cook.

First you take some stuff mix and add in some egg (I used breadcrumbs from the cabinets here and added powdered eggs that I added water to) and let them sit. Then you heated a little oil in a skillet and sauté your onions only I didn’t have oil so I had to dry fry them in a little non-stick spray. Then you take your cooked and drained beans and using a fork mash them up until they are all kinda like baby food consistency. Add your onions to the beans and mixed it up. Then add you stuffing/egg junk to the bean/onion junk and stir it up until it’s is sort of like play dough. Make patties out of the bean play dough and fry them in your skillet with non stick spray, oil, or butter until they are browned on both sides. I was really hungry so I made two patties. I used my ketchup packets to add a little more flavor to my burgers but sometimes we used to make gravy for the potatoes and that worked too.

It was easy to get to sleep that night but Fraidy woke me up again the next morning. I’m going to have to figure out what that cat wants. She won’t come inside but that might be a good thing but she wants me outside all the time and that doesn’t work either. I’m a people not an animal that lives outside all the time.

Today my list of things to do went better. First thing after breakfast (I fixed a bowl of grits and put in a little powdered cheese) I had to do was gather wood. It’s not hard; the turkey oaks drop tree trash year round and since no one had been through to bush hog all I had to do was bend over and pick it up. Eventually I got smart and took the wheelbarrow with me. I stopped after four big loads of wood and I piled them on a gray plastic tarp that I found in the barn. There was a blue one in there too but it stood out too much and you could see if from a long way off.

Next I took off to that fourth house I spotted. If I thought the first and third house had been a mess this one could have been on those TV shows that Uncle Charlie used to watch called Clean House and Hoarders where people were so messy they needed professional help to get things organized and redecorated. I think who ever lived there must have been addicted to shopping. There were a lot of unopened UPS and Fed Ex boxes and a ton us stuff with that label that says “as seen on TV.” It was kinda funny at first but after a while it got to be sad ‘cause a lot of the stuff was just plain silly.

Some of it I figure I can make use of but some of it was kind of weird. Like there were all these Mr. Potato Heads dressed up like different professional football players; they were called Sports Spuds. There were boxes and boxes of junky kind of food like all these different flavored coffees and big containers of popcorn seasonings. There were three of these popgun things that shot marshmallows but there wasn’t a kid’s room in the house. There were “Sham Wows” that were this towels that are supposed to be 25 times more absorbent than a paper towel. There were aqua globes that you filled with water and stuck in house plants in case you forgot to water them. There was a ton of costume jewelry that never looked like it had been worn. There were clothes of all sizes in every room of the house. There were lots of fancy picture frames but none of them had pictures of real people in them – they were the pictures that came with the frames – but they were set around the house like they were family members. There were four sets of fireplace accessories but not a fireplace in the house. One room that was supposed to be a bedroom was full of nothing but Christmas decorations, most of them never even taken out of the packaging. There were lots of DVDs and CDs that were still in the plastic but I didn’t see a DVD player or stereo though it could have been buried some place.

Another room was full of all of these collectible dolls; all those eyes staring at me creeped me out. Another room had a John Deere, Rooster, and Hunting theme to it. I think it was supposed to be a man’s room but I don’t think a guy would appreciate a frilly and ruffled bright green and yellow bedspread even if it did have a tractor on it. Another room had lots of musical instruments and stuff in there. Then I went into the kitchen.

The kitchen was so fussy and had so many gadgets and gizmos in there you couldn’t really see the counter top and hardly any of them had ever been used by the looks of them. There were a ton of plastic containers. It took me a few minutes to realize that no one had ever taken the food out of this house, not that there was much to take. Judging by the dried toxic waste that had oozed out of the big freezer out in the garage the home’s owner must have most eaten TV dinners and junk like that. But the cabinets did have some canned goods like soups and single size cans of veggies. There was a lot of that junk that people take to work for lunch shoved into the closet that served as a pantry. But oh my word! There was enough junk food to satisfy my highschool football team. There were also a bunch of cases of canned pop. I mean I got zits just looking at it all. And Aunt Wilma would have had a coronary; to her sugar was a cuss word.

I started hauling over stuff right away. The problem is the house is so much further away than any of the others that it is taking forever to haul stuff home. And the ground I’m walking across isn’t exactly a sidewalk. I think I’m almost half way done with that house but I sure am tired tonight. I brought back a box of Zebra Cakes and a couple of cans of soda with the first load so I could have dessert after dinner. Now I wish I hadn’t because I can’t get to sleep. I’m writing by the wind up flashlight I found in that house with the hunting gear. The stupid thing has an alarm on it too and I nearly stopped breathing when I accidentally turned it on and then had a hard time figuring out how to turn it off. Fraidy fell off the window ledge she was sleeping on which was the only thing funny about the whole incident.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and finish up taking the stuff from that house – most of the food is going in my hideaway in the dormer room. I have the stuff I’ve already inventoried in one of the barn bays and this new stuff is in another barn bay. I’ll inventory for a little while during my break between chores, and then I’m going to work on finishing up how I’m going to wash clothes.

But I’m going to have to be careful. While I was fixing dinner – I splurged and let myself eat one of the cans of chicken and stars soup along with nearly a whole sleeve of crackers – I heard what I think is gun fire. There was a bunch of pops but not like the machine gun sounds you hear in the movies. The pops were close together but didn’t sound all the same, maybe like there was more than one going off at the same time. I’ve tried to count the pops in my head and all I can say for sure is that there was more than a dozen but less than two dozen. Maybe someone was hunting but somehow I just don’t think so.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 12

May 3rd -- That’s so it. I’m done doing the salvaging thing. This is so nuts and it’s too hard. I think I’ll just figure stuff out on my own. I finished getting stuff out of the fourth house but it was depressing doing that. It makes me feel so bad. And seeing how alone that last lady was made me really take notice of how alone I am. I am NOT being a wimp. I can do the work, it’s not that. But I don’t know if all of that is worth it. I’m not finding the kind of food I need, mostly just junk although the soups were good. And trying to transport things uses up time and energy that I’m beginning to think I’d be better off spending on other things.

One of the things I remember Daddy always telling me when I complained of something being “too hard” was that I need to “work smarter, not harder.” When I was little he would have to explain what he meant to me, now I have to figure that out on my own. The further away from Sparkleberry Ranch I have to go the more work there is going to be to transport anything I find back. If I don’t find anything – especially if I don’t find food – then that work will be wasted. I think I would be better off spending that time and that work on going over Momma’s notes about when things are supposed to ripen around here and looking through Daddy’s books to find out how to make things that I need.

All of this would be easier if there was someone else here besides me. They wouldn’t have to be my friend if they didn’t want to, just someone to share the work with. I didn’t have a lot of friends in school but I had some; I even made some friends when we were all stuffed together in the warehouse even though some of them died and the rest changed and some even turned on me. I can live with that if it happens, I don’t like it but I can live with it. Part of me has always felt alone since the wreck but there were still people around. Doctors, nurses, hospital staff; counselors, therapists; Aunt Wilma, Uncle Charlie and the parade of other foster kids. Teachers, coaches, kids in the hallways at school. There were people walking, driving, playing, fighting … there were warm bodies taking up space all over the place. But here? Where did everybody go?!!

It’s like I stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone or maybe that old Vincent Price movie The Last Man on Earth (only without the vampires).

Fraidy is cool but she’s just a cat. She’ll listen to me when she is in the mood but she doesn’t talk back. I pray and stuff like you are supposed to but I’m still lonely; maybe I’m not doing it right. Even Adam had Eve and Noah had his family during times there weren’t too many people on Earth; you’d figure there has to be someone around here someplace that is as lonely as me. And this loneliness I feel is a different kind of lonely from what I felt after the wreck. Before, even when I drove people off or they didn’t want to hang around because my emotions were too big I could still turn on the radio, tv, or even pick up the phone and talk to whatever therapist I had that week if I wanted to (or needed to) but there is nothing here, no body to turn to, no voices but my own. Gah! That makes me sound like a drama queen or some kind of Goth Girl; I don’t know how to say it any better.

It has been since Williston since I talked to anyone and had them talk back. I saw the best of people and the worst. Here … it is like, I don’t know what, but it isn’t like I imagined it would be. I never thought I needed people, not really. I always said I wasn’t a “people person.” Sometimes being around people was OK but I never thought about needing them. I’ve tried really hard not to need people since my family died; it didn’t seem loyal somehow. But now … now I’m feeling like that again. Like I need someone or I’m going to turn into that crazy lady with the house full of junk that never gets used. I don’t want to be that person.

I spent most of today hauling everything that might be useful back to my place. It is all sitting in the barn waiting to be inventoried but just the thought of all that is depressing. It’s an awful mess in the barn which is making me itch to do something about it but I have to clean everything before I bring it into the house and put it away. I’ve always had a lot of chores and for my work experience credits at school I worked at the “Good Eats” restaurant but I’ve never worked this hard in my entire life; as soon as I wake up to when I go to sleep. I don’t exactly see that changing anytime soon either. Gather wood, pump water, cook, clean, haul stuff back home, inventorying, take care of Fraidy, yada, yada, yada. And I need to start reading more of Momma’s notes and looking at some of Daddy’s books but I don’t have the time for it.

Time is another reason I don’t want to look through any more houses. I think anything else would be too far away and I could only carry so much and have to walk a long time. Maybe when I am more settled I can take my bike and ride places but the bike doesn’t go as fast on dirt roads as it does on black top. There were two houses on the other side of the fourth house. I walked over to them both but it was a waste of time. They were even more picked over than the four houses that I’ve already looked through. Both of them were a waste of time,

And while I was out walking between those houses I saw that mean dog again or it was one that looked just like it. It barked at me but didn’t charge me. I thought I was going to have to climb a tree there for a second but it stayed a long way off. I’m carrying a baseball bat now whenever I leave the house. I don’t want that dog chewing on me. I’ve been dog bit before and it hurts! The dog that bit me was only playing, can’t imagine how much it would hurt if a dog bit me when it wasn’t just playing. That’s another reason why I don’t want to go so far from home much anymore.

One of the things I’m going to try and see if it helps me with my work load is to go to sleep when it gets dark and wake up with it gets to be day time. The waking up part isn’t hard; Fraidy is a pretty good alarm clock even if she doesn’t have a snooze button. The going to bed though is going to be harder. I’m used to staying up as late as I want, even on school nights, so long as I was studying and not disturbing whoever my roommate was. It is going to be hard making myself go to bed early like I’m a little kid but I remember Momma saying that a schedule was important. A schedule also helps you get your work done by dividing it up into manageable chunks so that you don’t get overwhelmed or start running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Less frustration sounds good to me.

From here on out – well, at least for a little while – I’m going to focus on making my place better. There may not be anyone to help me but I can help myself by making a plan and getting organized. I started by making a list of all the things that I think I want or need to do and trying to put them in some kind of order of importance. There are some things I have to do every day but they shouldn’t take up all my time. Then there are things I should be doing; I’ll spread some of those things throughout the day. Lastly are things that I want to do but they aren’t needs; I’ll try and do one of those or part of one of those every day.

Tonight I was too tired to do much more than look at Momma’s notes. It is really cool, she has this calendar and she wrote in there the times when she first started seeing fruit get ripe and when she started to see enough fruit get ripe to really call it harvest time. And on each page of the calendar is a list of gardening chores that needs to be done that particular month. In her gardening journal … the one that she used to keep for our veggie garden and flowers at our regular house … she used to go on and on about the Farmer’s Almanac. I wonder if one was published for this year and where I could find one. I bet if I could get over to the library they would have one there but I can’t remember exactly where the library is around here, only that it was a ways by car.

While I was looking at Momma’s notes I saw that I only have about two weeks before the blueberries should be ripe. It’s not like all of the blueberries get ripe on the same day; I’ll have to pick blueberries every day and what I don’t eat fresh I need to figure out how to preserve them. I’ve set aside two hours tomorrow to look at Momma’s books for ways to do that. I would have started on that tonight but I wanted to get some of my other notes in order. I think if I take this on like a really big school project I’ll be able to wrap my head around it better. Just instead of a grade I’ll have a better life … hopefully.

My big chore tomorrow is that I’m going to wash clothes. If anyone sees me doing this they are going to think I’ve gone crazy but since I’m going to try it first in the bathtub I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed by an unexpected visitor.

First I’m going to put one of those extra shower curtains on the floor so that if I make a mess it will be easier to clean up. Next I’m going to get a load of like clothes together and I’m going to start with whites cause I need to wash my under things out. I’ll put a couple of layers in the bottom of the bathtub. I’ll pour bucket after bucket of water into the tub (with the drain closed) until the clothes are covered by at least a couple of inches of water. I’ll put in a little soap and next will come the silly part. I’m going to stomp on the clothes like people used to squish grapes for making wine. Stomp, stomp, stomp. I thought about using a spoon or a stick but it is just easier to stomp them down with my feet. Then I’ll let them soak for a bit and then stomp them a little more.

Then I’ll open the drain and let the water out. And stomp on the clothes to get as much water out of them as I can. I’ll close the drain and then pour rinse water over them and stomp them some more to get all of the suds out. Then I’ll drain and stomp them again. Once as much water has drained out of them as I can get I’ll pick up one piece at a time and wring it out by hand. From there I’ll hang them out on the clothes line that Uncle Charlie strung up a couple of years ago for Aunt Wilma to use. If I make too big of a mess I’ll have to move things outside but it sure would be easier on me if “the stomp” washer works.

Tomorrow I also need to make myself keep going on the inventory of stuff I have stacked in the barn so that I can wash it, bring it inside, and find a place to put it away. Once I get my inventory done I will see what I have and what I really need vs. what I really want. I hate to keep harping on need vs. want like I’m some old granny but since I don’t have an old granny around to tell me these things I need to tell them to myself. Somehow it is even worse to lecture myself because there is no way to walk away when I’m talking to myself. Too weird.

I also found a way to clean the rugs. I was trying to sweep all the dirt and stuff off and it just wasn’t working. Everyone time I turned the rug over to do the other side I would just turn it over into the dirt I had just swept off. I got mad and slammed the broom down on the rug and the dirt and dust puffed up and I could see it in a sun beam. That’s when I remembered. To clean rugs when you don’t have a vacuum you beat them. I threw the rugs over the clothes line and started hitting them with the broom. Dust and sand flew everywhere. The rugs are clean but my arms are sore and tired.

I carried the rugs upstairs and it already looks nicer up there. And I also took a couple of the mattresses off of the bunk beds in one of the bedrooms and put them up there. What a pain that was but it is worth it. With the mattresses moved to the dormer room I can dismantle one of the eight bunk beds and move the pieces out to the barn or shed. I can use the wood for something else later on down the road. I’ll take two more mattresses up there tomorrow; I’ll stack the mattresses two on bottom and two on top, add an egg crate I found at the lonely lady’s house and then use kind size sheets to cover everything with. That will give me a nice big bed to roll around in up there if I want to. Storage cube will be the “night stands” and will hold my upstairs food stash.

The other thing I want to do is empty one box – just one box – of my family’s stuff from the bonus rooms. There should be more of mom and dad’s stuff in those boxes and I know the picture albums have to be in there too. I’ll start with just one box at a time rather than trying to do it all at once. Besides, I have to find places for everything I unbox and I still haven’t figured out where to put everything.

And I also promised myself that I would spend twenty or thirty minutes looking for those hidden things that I know are in the house. I can picture Daddy’s face while he was telling me about them but I can’t quite remember what he said. I hate what that coma did to me. Where ever that stuff is I hope there is not some secret key or code I’m supposed to remember to unlock the hiding place. That would be awful!

But right now I’m putting myself to bed. The sun is almost finished going down and I have to make sure that I have everything put away and locked down for the night before I have to use a flashlight to find my way.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 13A

May 5th – My vow to go to bed when it gets dark lasted only one night. Last night I didn’t really have a good excuse for staying up passed dark, tonight I do.

Yesterday I kept to my plan until late afternoon and got a lot done. I got four loads of laundry stomped clean and hung out to dry and all but the coats and a blanket dried on the line completely. I brought the coats and the blanket in and hung them on the retractable clothes line that is in the summer kitchen. Now I know why Momma pushed Daddy to let her put one of those things in the house; they are dead useful. The floor in there is slate just like the tiles on the lanai and water doesn’t hurt them. Daddy also put a drain in the floor just in case there was a flood from the plumbing so if there was a lot of water dripping from the clothes on the line it can just be pushed to the drain. When not in use there is a plate that is screwed down and you’d never know it was there because you can toss a rug over the top of it.

The morning started out really nice. I was relieved that I wouldn’t be trekking back and forth to some house that stank, was messy, or freaked me out in some way. For breakfast I fixed myself some orange creamsickle milk … it’s basically just Tang and powdered milk mixed together with some water … and ate some granola and dried strawberries mixed together … yummy.

Right after breakfast I started my first load of laundry. It looked as silly as I thought it would; I saw myself in the bathroom mirror. And doggone that water was cold on my bare feet and legs. But now I have clean clothes to wear so the silliness was worth it. My legs weren’t nearly as sore as I expected them to be, probably because I worked all the kinks out of them on the bike ride from Tampa and by walking all over forty acres and beyond ever since.

While each laundry load was in a soak cycle I would grab things out of the barn, inventory them in my notebook, and find a place for them in the house. I made a good dent in that job yesterday but I could only do laundry, wash, and inventory for so long before I became tired and muzzy headed. I stopped and for lunch I had a cup o’ soup. I would have saved stuff like that for my dormer room stash except that the Styrofoam cups make the soups get gross if they aren’t used soon enough.

Guess I should talk about the trash I’m making. I’m not making much but it does pile up faster than you think. What I’m doing is what I remember my mom doing but with Aunt Wilma’s kind of overboard modern hippie environmentalism take on it. I can kind of understand Aunt Wilma’s point of view, they sure has heck pounded it into us at school. Momma still had it better I think. She said we get certain things in this life … blessings, gifts, things we work for, etc. … and it is up to us to be good stewards of that stuff; because one of these days if we aren’t good stewards we’ll find it all gone or taken away. But unlike the radical environmentalist who think we are supposed to do our part to take care of stuff because they belong to everyone, Momma believed we were supposed to take care of stuff because things are on loan to us from God … kinda like he’s holding the mortgage on things and we’re working for the day we get something even better in Heaven.

Anyway, Momma used to recycle just like Aunt Wilma did only Aunt Wilma, once she had put the papers, glass, and plastics in the tubs at the curb she didn’t think about them anymore. Momma didn’t recycle stuff by sending it away, she recycled stuff by keeping it and turning it into something else. She has about a dozen books on composting which is basically recycled stuff to make new dirt. I don’t how many books there are on turning “trash to treasure.” There are books on turning old clothes into new clothes or into other things. I found a really neat pattern last night that even I can do and that is take old blue jeans, cut them in squares and then sew them together to get this really neat looking blue jean quilt. There was another pattern for turning old jeans into long skirts; I saw those things for sale in the mall back before things got crazy but Aunt Wilma said they were way overpriced even when they were on clearance.

Momma had lots of ideas of what to do with what most people called trash, I remember she did but I can’t remember exactly how she did it. I know it is in one of her notebooks around here somewhere. Until I find that notebook I’m dividing things up into the recycling cans out in the barn – cardboard, plastic, Styrofoam, glass, metal, etc. But the Styrofoam cup from my soup reminded me of a little “recycling” project one of the other foster kids taught us. If Uncle Charlie had known he’d have had a fit.

See this kid Max was a pyro-geek. He got into trouble because people thought he was a fire bug but he wasn’t, not really. To Max fire was special, something to be studied and used like a tool. When he grew up he wanted to be a scientist that could control fire, make it do what he wanted it to. Yeah, he was a little crazy, but it was a cool kind of crazy. He taught the rest of us kids how to take Styrofoam and make homemade napalm. When you add a little gas to Styrofoam it melts. The gunk that is left will stick to anything. If you light that gunk on fire it makes a really hot fire that burns for a long time. I found a small gallon can of really, old nasty gas in the barn at property three. I brought it home just in case it might come in handy. I’m thinking that if my wood ever gets so wet that it won’t light but I really need a fire for some reason then I can make that Styrofoam gunk and put a little dab on the wood and it will burn long enough to get some of the wood dry so that it will burn.

I figure if Styrofoam can be used for something this cool with so little work, Momma is bound to have some neat stuff that I can do with the rest of the trash I’m making.

After lunch I decided to take a break and go pick one box to open up of my parents’ stuff. That’s when the trouble started. It took me a while to realize that none of the house keys fit the heavy door at the bottom of the stairs that led to the bonus rooms. I have a feeling this was the lawyer’s work rather than Uncle Charlie’s. It took a while for me to figure out how to bring into the door without doing major damage. For some reason the hinges on this door were on the outside. I popped the hinges with an awl and hammer. This wasn’t a pre-hung door so with patience and a little bit of force I was able to get the door open. I need to change the doorknob but heck, that is something else that I learned from watching Uncle Charlie. It can be irritating but it isn’t rocket science.

I went up the stairs and it was like stepping into Wonderland. You know what they say about potato chips? You can never do just one. Every box reminded me of things I hadn’t even realized I had forgotten. I would bring down one, meaning to only open it but the first one was just full of kitchen stuff and it was easy to empty and put away. The second one had dishes in it … those old white and green Correll dishes that Momma had always been so proud of every time she found a new piece at a yard sale. I sat those by the dish drainer to wash so of course that wasn’t really like putting a box away so I got a third and then a fourth and then a fifth, sixth, and seventh.

And then I started running across the stuff that was more personal – Daddy’s military fatigues, Momma’s sewing box, my brother’s Matchbox cars. Before I knew it the sun was going down and the house was a mess. I was tempted to leave it like that but in the end I was too wide awake and too emotionally exhausted to go to sleep so I found the wind up lamp, hung it on the candle sconce attached to the wall and did what I could to make things neater. Even after I washed up and climbed in bed I lay awake for a long time, movies of better times running through my head.

The next morning I was fuzzy headed but Fraidy, who had actually decided to stay inside last night when it started to rain, needed out and was passed being dignified about it. Breakfast was oatmeal because I had to use a candle lantern to heat up a cup of water hot enough to work with the instant stuff. It was very misty and stayed that way off and on today, like the last of some unseasonable cold front had tried to take a Florida vacation and failed.

No way was I going to be doing much outside during the morning so I decided to continue with the boxes up in the bonus rooms. I eventually found Momma’s jewelry box and my Dad’s mom’s jewelry box too. I found Daddy’s Case knife collection wrapped up with table cloths that I remember my mother pulling out only for company or big family get togethers. I took the jewelry and knives right to the dormer room; both looked out of place but I didn’t care. Even all of the clothes had been packed away neatly. I tried to see if I could smell Daddy or Momma but the clothes were too old and had been packed with packets of cedar balls.

At lunch time I knew I had to get out and walk around a bit. I kept feeling tears roll down my cheeks even though I couldn’t remember starting to cry. I grabbed a green rain poncho, locked the door, and then went for a walk with the wheelbarrow to pick up wood, even though it would be wet.

I hadn’t been to the CR49 since I first cruised in from my long bike trek. In fact, all of my walks had been away from CR49 and running parallel between CR49 and US90. I decided to walk up to see the blackberries, I didn’t really think they would be ripe yet but I wanted to check on them to see if there were any berries making.

I was pushing the wheelbarrow down the Avenue of the Oaks where it meets up with Magnolia Drive when a bunch of deer came bounding over the fence and down the lane straight at me. I was wondering what in the bejeebers had scared them when I heard those popping sounds again but much, much closer.

I also heard motors. I only knew at that moment the sounds were the first motors I’d heard in a long time. It turns out the motors belonged to dirt bikes running around on the old ATV trails on one of the twenties that bordered our road.

It didn’t take me long to find the good sense to dive into the bushes and grass at the dogleg in the road. I pushed the wheelbarrow ahead of me and then tipped it on its side so it didn’t lay some much grass over. The sticks I had collected sent every which way giving even more camouflage.

I listened to the motors for a while and right when I thought they were going to stay in the area they were so that I could escape home things really got crazy. First a guy comes kinds of running-stumbling out of the loblollies on the other side of the gully. He actually falls into the gully but he lands in a patch of thick blackberry canes and kind of just disappears. I didn’t have time to wonder about that more than a second when two of the dumbest stumps in the forest make an appearance.

No one with any real sense goes mud boggin, big wheeling, or biking in an area they haven’t already scouted out at a reasonable speed. One, you never know what might be around the next corner and two, you never know what you might run over. The gully straddles the property line right there so Daddy never ran the fence passed the tip of the gully; however, the people that owned that twenty did by giving up some of their property so that the fence was on their side of the gully. Their ATV track had a lot of clay in it so stayed fairly weed free all year, but the land around that piece of fence was always overgrown and unless you knew the fence was there it was easily missed.

Well, first guy comes plowing through hitting the loblollies and tall grass and then smacks into that fence. I swear it looked like some of those old Looney Tune cartoons Uncle Charlie laughed so hard at where a cartoon character will run into a fence and it stretches out but never breaks. The barbed wire never really did break but it stretched out pretty good. But motorcycles can’t stay airborne forever either; it drug the fence and rider down where they lay still on the side of the gully farthest from me. The first dirt bike and rider hadn’t hit the ground yet before a second comes plowing out of the tree line right behind it. With the fence partially out of the way, this rider only caught it the top strand with his front tire. This caused the bike and rider to flip end over end and they landed hard in the muddy bottom of the gully.

It was only have the noise of the dirt bikes cut out so abruptly that I could hear hooves running. I really thought it was the deer for a second except that it was too big of a sound. It was horses and the first rider through the loblollies drew his horse up so fast it reared up but the other horse riders were spread out enough that they didn’t plow into the poor thing and push it down the steep side of the gully. The gully itself is about fifteen feet deep so it was too difficult for the six horsemen to climb down into it to check on the dirt bikers.

That’s when I realized they weren’t friends. The horsemen weren’t exactly gentle with the dirt bikers and it was just something about the weapons of the two groups that were different. The guns that the horsemen took away from the dirt bikers looked kind of fancy with black stocks. The guns the horsemen had looked a whole lot like something my dad, uncles, and grandfather would have had; brown stocks and some were rifles while others looked like they had two barrels like a shotgun.

I heard one of the horsemen tell the others that the rider hung up in the fence was dead; the wire had cut an artery and he bled out. The rider at the bottom of the gully was still alive and they roughly tied and dumped his unconscious body across the back end of one of the bigger horses; the horse didn’t appreciate it one bit, I don’t think the dirt biker was going to either.

There was a whole lot of talking and swearing that I won’t repeat. I just stayed put and listened to what they were saying though it didn’t make a lot of sense. They sounded like they were the law but I was to find out later that they weren’t, at least not officially. They drained the fuel tanks and stripped off some parts from the bikes and then pushed the leftover carcass into the loblollies to hide them. They stripped the body of the dead guy and left him naked after they dumped him with the dirt bike remains. They said at least it would give some of the families some peace and when one of the guys questioned why they were bothering to take the dirt biker with them the guy who looked like the leader said, “information.”

The leader of the horsemen wasn’t anything like you normally think a guy in that position would look. This guy kinda reminded me of the banty roosters my friend from school used to raise for 4H … small and arrogantly grouchy. The leader was smaller in size than any of the other horsemen by at least a head and on the scruffy side; I could tell if that was the way he normally was or if it was just the nature of things these days. He strutted around while the other guys did the work like he was thinking important thoughts and acting as guard. But all the men seemed to accept that he was the one in charge. It just looked weird when you normally think of guys like that as being the biggest in the pack.

It took them a while to get organized and then get out. The few times that any of them looked in my directions my guts got all loosey-goosey. I was relieved that none of them saw me; there were just too many adults in one place after not having to deal with them like that for a while. I have a feeling they would have made me go with them or would have taken Sparkleberry Ranch or something. They were enjoying what they were doing a little too much for me to feel like trusting them.

The horsemen finally left with their prisoner when it started to rain again. They cussed and fussed about that too but it did make them go away faster so I kept thinking, “bring on the rain.”

I waited a couple of minutes until after I was sure the horsemen were gone and then I crawled through the grass towards where I had seen that other guy fall into the blackberries. I got over there to find the guy slowly pulling himself out. He lost his footing and rolled into the gully all the way. I heard him groan and mutter, “Oh crap that hurts.” While I was trying to decide what to do he crawled out of the gully on my side.

The guy was all beat up – two black eyes, swollen nose, and busted lips all of which distorted his looks. His shirt wasn’t much more than rags and through the tears I could see a lot more bruises, scraps, and cuts like he had been worked over. I could see his hands were all scraped up too like maybe it hadn’t been a one-sided fight. He crawled over to lean against a tree but couldn’t get up so sat on the ground where I noticed he was started to shiver really bad.

OK, it was stupid but I couldn’t just let the guy be without giving him some help. I went over to him but stayed out of arm’s reach and just looked at him. He was bigger than I was by quite a bit. He was built lean without being skinny. He had a lot of muscles but they were muscles from work, not from working out so he wasn’t really bulky. Dark headed with a farmer’s tan and I saw his eyes were chocolate brown when they finally got around to noticing me.

He jumped and then I jumped then I couldn’t help it. Stupid stuff comes out of my mouth sometimes, “Were they ripe?”

The guy just looks at me and then asks, “What?”

“The blackberries. Were they ripe?”

I think the guy would have laughed if he hadn’t hurt so much. He did snort, “No.”

Then it was his turn to get a look at me. My braid had all sorts of junk stuck in it from where I had crawled through the grass and I know for a fact I was dirty too. He would have seen a girl with dark brown hair, on the short side at 5’2”, green-eyed and thinner than she had been six months ago.

“Your dad or brothers around? I … I need some help. I need to get back home to help Uncle George. Mick is too young to do everything himself and Brendon is next to useless.” Then he just sort of closed his eyes and fell over on his side which was so not good. The rain was starting come down a little harder and if I knew Florida weather it was going to get harder before it let up.

I thought about my choices. I could stay here with him until he woke up again. I could just walk away and let God sort things out. Or I could try and get him back to the house and then decide what to do with him. The story of the Samaritan popped into my head and I sure hope it was God giving me a hint of which one I should pick.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 13B

I wasn’t sure how I was going to get him back to the house until I remembered the wheelbarrow. It looked awful funny once I finally got him up and into the barrow so that he wouldn’t fall out. The guy is no lightweight that’s for sure; but I’m not either. At “Good Eats” I moved around cases of frozen chicken, fifty-pound bags of flour and sugar, and did a lot of overhead lifting. Couple that with all the work I did at the warehouse moving bodies around when the flu ran through our numbers and I was capable of doing what needed doing. It wasn’t easy, but I did it.

We were slowly moving along when he woke back up. “Hey, I’m not dead. Not yet.”

“No kidding and if you don’t stop moving you are going to get dumped on your head. You aren’t exactly a ballerina you know.”

He tilted his head back and got an upside down look at me. “No guys around?”

“Like I’m going to tell you that,” I replied huffing more because the guy expected me to talk and push him at the same time.

“Stop and I’ll walk.”

I stopped but just to huff at him some more, “Look. I can push or I can talk, I can’t do both. And I want out of the rain so just take the ride with good grace OK?”

I don’t know how much he heard because he was out again. I managed to get all the way to the sugar sand trap where the road crosses the utility easement before running into any more problems. We weren’t far from the house but I was running out of steam fast. I finally had to pull the wheelbarrow instead of push it across the easement and then turned around and got going the right direction again. My arms and legs were shaking by the time I pushed the wheelbarrow passed the barn and up to the porch.

“It’s raining,” the guy said making me jump and nearly dump him on the ground again.

“No kidding. Look, if you were serious about wanting to walk now would be the time.”

“Give me a hand,” he mumbled.

It wasn’t easy but I got him out and even though he tried to walk on his own it was less nerve wracking for both of us when he leaned first on me and then on the front porch pillar while I unlocked the door. I could see it was a major effort for him to pick his feet up to step over the threshold of the door. I closed and locked the door and helped him into the bedroom that still had a bunk bed put together.

“Look, I don’t want to take anyone’s bed,” he wheezed.

“Don’t worry, you’re not. Um, look you’re wet. I can help you get undressed but not if you are going to be a baby about it. You’re too big and if you fall you’ll squash me.”

He looked at me hard and I thought he was mad until he shook his head to clear it and said, “No. I’m bad off but not that bad. I need a sheet or something.”

I brought him the sheet and a couple of towels and then thought about my dad’s clothes. The jeans and fatigue pants wouldn’t work, Daddy was shorter in the leg and thicker in the waist than this guy but there were some running shorts with a pull string waist that could. The t-shirts were the right size, they’d just fit different. Socks were socks. I went back to the room to find the guy sitting on the bottom bunk wrapped in the sheet shivering. His clothes were folded on top of his shoes by the bed.

I gave him Daddy’s clothes and left to go take care of myself. When I got back he’d managed to dress himself except for the socks which I helped him with much to his embarrassment. It was weird but I wasn’t embarrassed at all. It just seemed like the right thing to be doing.

“Where is everyone?” the guy asked. When I didn’t answer right away he said, “You’re here by yourself aren’t you.”

I wasn’t too comfortable answering personal questions and it must have shown. “Look, I’m not like those guys but if … look, who were your family and I can probably tell you how you could find someone that would have a good word to say for me. Or you could go up to the church and … “ and he had to stop when he got really pale in the face.

“You wouldn’t have known my parents I don’t think. They’ve been dead for a few years. I doubt you knew my aunt and uncle ‘cause they didn’t really get on with the locals, they only came here for a week out of the year. And you aren’t much of a threat right now and if you were I’ve dealt with enough bigger boys that I can defend myself so don’t sweat it.”

He just looked at me for a second and then said, “Fair enough. So you aren’t from around here, you weren’t up here much and didn’t have much to do with the locals. You live on the south side of US90 and it has been a while since things have been mowed. You must be the Snow girl with the big mouth.”

My “big mouth” must have fallen open ‘cause he grinned in a my-face-is-beat-up-and-swollen kind of way. “Relax. My uncle’s cousin was Ruf Henderson, he used to do the bush hogging here. Used to talk about the people that owned the place and how the daughter could be a pistol with a mouth and had freaky green eyes. And don’t worry about it, Ruf had a way of milking a story to make it sound worse than it was.”

Then the guy actually winked at me, or tried to. We finally got around to talking a bit more. The guy’s name is Rand Joiner… not Randall that was his grandfather’s name. He went out of his way to be nice but not in a I-want-something-so-I’m-going-to-be-nice way but in a I-don’t-want-to-scare-the-little-girl way which I thought was a little insulting considering he’s not that much older than me. He’s twenty and was a student at UF when they closed the school for the term because of the flu getting so bad all of a sudden. During the summers when he wasn’t taking classes he lived with his aunt and uncle and helped on their farm the same way he had when he was growing up. Rand was an orphan like me only he was ten when his parents died. His parents were older when he was born; his mom was 42 and his dad was almost 52. When he was ten his mom got cancer and died really fast and his dad died of a heart attack a few months later. He went to go live with his Aunt Rachel and Uncle George; Aunt Rachel was his mother’s sister and when he was eighteen she died of cancer too so it was his Uncle George and his cousins Brendan, Laurabeth, Charlene, Janet, and Mick when the pandemic hit.

He was very tired after we exchanged personal info and went to sleep without meaning to I think. It was still raining and the only good thing about that that I could think of is that it would wash away any footprints we made and perk the grass back up to hide our path in case someone came back.

The wood was still wet so I used a metal bucket and a cake rack to make a grill and set it on the lanai. I put some charcoal I had found in one of the garages that I had gone salvaging through in the bucket and created a grill like Momma taught us to make in girl scouts. While the charcoals were burning down I put some water on to boil, no since in wasting the fire.

With the hot water I made Sherpa tea, another one of those things from girl scouts that Momma taught us. You take two cups of powdered milk, one-third cup of sugar, two tablespoons of instant tea with lemon in it, and mix it all together. For every serving you mix a cup of boiling water with three tablespoons of the mix. It’s basically doctored up warm milk but it’s good when you get wet through.

After the water boiled I poured most of it into a thermos carafe and set it in the kitchen with the Sherpa Tea Mix. With the rest I used to make some chicken noodle soup using a Lipton dry mix. Lastly I made some hot water hoe cakes by mixing cornmeal, a little boiling water from the carafe, and a little salt together into a batter and frying it in non-stick spray. It wasn’t the greatest meal but I hadn’t ever had company by myself before.

I went back in the room and Rand was sort of awake and when I asked him if he was hungry I took his stomach growl for a yes. He wanted to get up and come to the kitchen to eat but it took him so long to try and get up I finally told him I’d bring it to him in bed. He just grunted but said thank you when I handed him the bowl of soup.

After he ate he slept for a little while longer. Once he was asleep Fraidy decided it was safe to investigate him and declared him a non-threat by purring and laying day at the foot of the bed. For some reason that made me feel better and I could go do the things I needed to do. I put the rain poncho back on and took the wheelbarrow back to the barn, brought in some wood for the wood box so it could hopefully dry overnight, cleared the screens on the water barrels, filled up a five gallon bucket with water and put it by the toilet in the bathroom closest to the bedroom Rand was staying in. The last thing I did was bring in a few more things in from the barn.

It was getting dark by the time I carried the last load to the porch and started to bringing it inside. I heard a thump in the hallway and looked up to see Rand trying to walk.

I said, “Bathroom is across the hall.”

Rand sighed and said, “Already found it, thanks. You know, I didn’t know where you were. Those guys could have come back. Girls shouldn’t …”

I figured the sooner I dealt with this the better and told him, “Look, don’t take this the wrong way but I’m sixteen, not six. I’ve been on my own one way or another for weeks now and before that life wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. I may not be Laura Croft but I’m no wimp. I can take care of myself.”

He opened his mouth to say something but shut it. I guess guys really do start getting smarter sooner or later. He shrugged and said, “Maybe, but you still need to be careful. We’ve been having a lot of trouble with this kind of stuff going on for a while.”

That’s when I asked him if he would tell me what had been going on. He was amazed at how insulated I had been at the warehouse. I told him that it didn’t feel like they had been doing it to protect us but because they didn’t want to deal with it.

Basically the pan flu had started making a comeback right after Christmas, he’d gone back to school and didn’t think much of it but within a week of school opening all the dorms were quarantined and most of the off-campus housing too. Professors were falling like flies so that not even the university’s plan to have classes online was working. They wound up shutting everything down. His Uncle George called him asking him to come home to help because most of his hired hands were down sick or members of their family were. When he got there he stayed in the shed until he was sure he wouldn’t get sick.

It was in the weeks following that that the cities started going nuts because supplies weren’t being shipped around like they were supposed to. Infrastructure broke down a whole lot faster than anyone imagined but this area wasn’t doing too badly. But then people started leaving the cities because the utilities had broken down, violence had escalated, and supplies were just too hard to come by. The exodus from the cities was heavy but not as heavy as hurricane evacuations. That changed when some kind of detonation went off over DC and some smaller regular bombs went off all up and down both costs of the US as well as some up and down the Mississippi. According to the news this meant that most likely the bombs had been put in place using shipping containers.

A bomb had gone off in the Port of Tampa but we’d never heard about it at the warehouse. The coastal bombs were conventional, not nuclear or biological. The only nuclear one had been the one over DC but that didn’t mean that people’s fears could be controlled. All of the military bases as well as the National Guard facilities were rumored to be targets, Florida was no exception, and people panicked. What had been a steady stream turned into a tsunami and things got bad crazy real fast.

Rand’s Uncle George was one of the smart ones and had locked down his farm and cattle at the first sign of trouble in DC. They also sat back far enough off of any major road that they were spared the locusts that left the cities. People were going, they didn’t know where, they were just going.

Local law enforcement was overwhelmed and they gave up and got out of the way. Grocery stores, mini-marts, and restaurants were wiped out within two days leaving nothing for the locals. Refugee camps became hell holes of filth and disease. Right when everyone thought everyone had died that was gonna die, another small nuclear device went off in NYC and things got crazy all over again and more people died. State and local governments tried to do what they could but it’s just not set up for the kind of things that people were expecting of it; everyone wanted to be taken care of but no one wanted to do the work or make the sacrifices.

The feds started rounding up people from the refugee camps and relocating them to places it was easier to serve. Rand’s Uncle George said he suspected it had more to do with convenience than service. “They’ll put these people in places that make it easier to control them. They want to minimize the threat of riots and maximize discipline. Can’t says I blame them but I don’t care for the consequences neither.”

Even locals volunteered to be relocated when they were told they were guaranteed food and a job to help them get back on their feet. Not a single person has been heard from again that has left.

Locally there were a couple of gangs that used the area to build their meth labs. Those gangs have used the area to avoid the military and local law enforcement who have orders to institute zero tolerance for all drug activity … that means shoot on sight as necessary to eradicate the problem.

When I asked him about the horsemen being the local Law he said no, not really, they were vigilantes. The gangs have killed a lot of people around here looking for food and fuel. “In this area we have the remnants of gangs from Atlanta, Valdosta, Tallahassee, and Jacksonville … not to mention our own home grown crap heads.”

The rate of violence is still very high; whole families can be wiped out overnight. There are shootings in broad daylight and not all of them gang related. “There are always going to be a certain type of person that will use a situation to exact revenge or take advantage; gang members are the only ones that do that.”

Rand said that if he had to guess the population in this area was maybe 15% of what it was before Christmas. “There isn’t much fuel to be found around here. Where the gangs get it I don’t know unless it is shipped in through Tallahassee maybe. That means most people stay very close to home. Everyone’s world has shrunk to the size of their own neighborhood.”

I asked him, since he admitted living north of US90, how he had wound up so far from home. “Even the gangs are getting desperate for food lately. Some of us are experiencing raids for the farm animals. Those butchers don’t want to trade like decent people, they just take. What’s worse is that they’ll shoot five cows to take just some meat off of one cow. They’ll shoot up a whole hen house just to bag a couple. They either don’t know or don’t care about the waste and the misery they are leaving behind.”

Rand had been working out back of the barn when he heard Laurabeth scream and a gun go off. He came running in time to see some gang bangers running off with a struggling Janet. “She’s younger than you are, only twelve, and she’s been frail since before Christmas when she had the flu. Uncle George, Brendon, and the girls were shooting at the gangbangers left in the yard so Rand took off after the ones that had Janet. He was able to get her loose from the truck they had thrown her into the back of as Uncle George and Brendon came running up the road. He saw them grab Janet but right after that the lights went out. Someone had hit him in the head.

He glossed over the next bit but basically they beat on him pretty bad until he got loose and started running. He’d been on the run for two days and had gotten caught once right before I saw him. That’s when they sent the dirt bikes after him to play “man hunt.” I filled in the blanks for him after that, describing what I had seen.

“That short man on the horse must have been Jared Harbinger. You stay away from him. You stay away from his two sons even more. Those three are bad business.”

“Look, I don’t think you’ve been listening when I told you about some of the foster kids I lived with or how I’ve been …”

“It has nothing to do with that. Jared used to be an OK guy; rough around the edges but OK. His wife died last year from the flu and his daughter was raped and killed by a gangbanger. I can understand his damage. Lately though he’s gotten a little power hungry and a lot crazy. His sons are more than damaged though; they’re just plain bad and always have been. They are about five or six years older than I am and they’ve always … look, they like younger girls, girls that don’t make them feel inadequate. Girls that don’t know any better, girls they can control. Since everything has broken down and they’re dad has gotten crazy, they’ve only gotten worse. They aren’t just bent, they’re mean and don’t know what ‘no’ means.”

I promised him I wouldn’t try making friends with the Harbinger brothers any time soon and that seemed to satisfy him but used up the last of his energy at the same time. He still insisted on walking around and checking all the windows and doors which I thought was sweet but kind of silly. He crashed and burned really fast after he drank a cup of Sherpa tea but I was wide awake. I got the wind up lamp and I’ve been writing all of this out ever since but I’m really starting to yawn so I’m going to go to bed. Tomorrow looks like it might be a pretty interesting day.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 14

May 6th – I woke up this morning even before Fraidy sang out. I slept better than I expected to, of course I locked the bedroom door like us girls always did when there was a new foster boy in the house. A few extra precautions go a long way. I hadn’t really expected trouble, Fraidy likes Rand but like Daddy was always saying, “Better safe than sorry.”

I decided on something special for breakfast. I know it is kind of silly but I like cooking better when there is someone to share it with. I made thin pancakes and then filled them with warm apple pie filling. I squirted a little bit of caramel ice cream topping on them that I found in the junk food from the lonely woman’s house and then I made something Momma taught me – whipped topping from powdered milk.

First I set a metal bowl and whisk into a pan of freshly pumped well water. If the power was on you would put them in the frig for fifteen minutes but the really cold well water was just as good. Then you take one-third cup of powdered milk, one-third cup of ice water (pump water was ice cold so I used it), one-quarter cup of granulated white sugar, one teaspoon of lemon juice (from some of the packets that I found at the concession stand), and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. You don’t have to use the vanilla but it does give the topping more flavor. You mix all of the ingredients together in the icy cold bowl and then you whisk it until peaks form. This means that you beat the heck out of it until you start to feel like you arm is going to fall off.

When I looked up from beating the topping Rand was standing there looking at me like I had two heads. It was kind of funny. When I explained what I was doing he looked at me like I was growing a third head but he sure didn’t have a problem eating what I fixed. He finally laughed when I told him to slow down or he was going to make himself sick. “You sound like somebody’s granny.” I was very tempted to stick my tongue out at him but I didn’t; that would only have made him feel more superior, boys are like that. And Rand may be twenty but he doesn’t seem all that different from some of the boys that were at my highschool. Well maybe he does but he doesn’t at the same time. Oh, I don’t know how to explain it but I know what I mean.

After breakfast he told me that he needed to figure out a way to get home to his family. He kept asking me if I wanted to come home with him; he was sure his Uncle George wouldn’t have a problem since I knew how to cook. Apparently the girls were still mostly experimenting because his uncle had taken over all the household duties when his wife died and the girls were never encouraged to learn until recently when there wasn’t time for Uncle George to do everything. Even if I hadn’t had Sparkleberry Ranch there was no way I was going to go be chief cook and bottlewasher to some family out of the blue. I’m not housekeeper material and my mouth would probably get me fired before I even started. I liked working at Good Eats but that’s because I didn’t have to deal with the customers and everyone else left me alone most of the time.

The problem was that Rand was in pretty bad shape no matter if he acted like he wasn’t. That’s another thing boys tend to do; they make a mountain out of a mole hill over a hang nail but it their leg was hanging by a single piece of flesh they’d act like they were ready for the Super Bowl. Guys are so weird. I told him if he moved any slower snails would leave him in the dust but there was no talking Rand out of it and I just had to respect that. If it had been me I would have been trying to get back to my family as quickly as possible too.

He had finally stopped asking me to come meet his family after a while so I had to stop asking him to wait a while longer before he took off. I think they call that Detent or something like that; an immovable object meeting an irresistible force. Sounds dorky put that way. Basically we just agreed to disagree and got on with what needed doing.

I found an umbrella that he could use as a walking stick to help him keep his balance and then made him some peanut butter crackers and some dried fruit to take in a poke sack so he’d have something to eat along the way while he put his jeans back on. I sewed up the holes as best I could but I’m not sure how long that’ll hold if he plays rough in them again. I also put a couple of bottles of water in there for him. He was surprised about the water; his family gets their water from the ag well that is used for their cows, it comes from a windmill pump and they just bleed it off from a spigot.

I decided to walk with him as far as the CR49 gate and then decided to walk with him to the intersection of CR49 and US90. I didn’t have anything to do that couldn’t wait and I kinda felt bad about him leaving. I think Rand thought he could convince me to just keep going to meet his uncle. I was thinking of a polite way of trying to get away when we heard hoof beats again. I was all for stepping into the tall grass and weeds but Rand said to wait, that the gang bangers never used horses. Then the crazy guy whistled really loud when he saw the riders and they galloped over to him.

A couple of grown up men and some teenage boys got off their horses and surrounded Rand. I had guessed that the one that grabbed him and hugged him was his uncle so I started back home since Rand didn’t need me anymore. I had gotten several yards away when a boy ran up beside me telling me that Rand wanted to introduce me to everyone. I just wanted to get away before someone figured they had to do something about me. I felt bad about making Rand hobble back towards me so I met him half way while the other boy followed behind.

The center of attention is not my favorite place to be. I wasn’t in the mood to argue but didn’t want to make a bad impression on people that I planned on being neighbors with; on the other hand I didn’t want to be pushed around either. I can be polite enough when it suits me and I didn’t want to shame the memory of my parents by acting like a donkey’s back end so I let myself get introduced.

The man who had hugged Rand was his uncle. I offered my hand to shake and he grinned like I was a cute little thing. Oh brother. No need to wonder where Rand got that particular bad habit from. The other two men were just as nice in that old-fashioned kind of way that some grown up men are. One was called Pastor Ken and the other was a man named Mr. Pike. I don’t know about Mr. Pike but I could tell that Pastor Ken is already working on plans in his head of what the community should do about me. He’s a smart one and didn’t say it out loud but I could see it in his eyes. Nice people are like that and you have to be very careful of them. They go out of their way to try and get tangled up in your life and trying to get untangled has a bad habit of hurting their feelings. They are well-meaning but they have a hard time understanding that there are people in this world that just don’t want to be “helped.” Aunt Wilma was like that and made it worse by trying to manage everyone’s business since they couldn’t seem to do it the way she thought best.

Two of the teenage boys were sons of Mr. Pike, the younger boy that had chased me down was Rand’s cousin Mick and he’s thirteen. The other teenage boy is Rand’s cousin Brendon and boy is he trouble with a capital T. The girls must really go for him. He’s what some of my friends would have called an Adonis and he totally knew it. He kept waiting for me to notice how pretty he was and I just kept ignoring him. I nearly laughed when he kept moving trying to catch my attention without looking like he was trying to catch my attention. Some boys are just so obvious. I figure he has enough girls eating out of his hand I’m not going to belly up to the bar and be another one.

Uncle George … I can’t seem to think of him any other way in my head … did indeed ask me to come back to his farm. I finally convinced everyone that I wasn’t budging but I figure I’ll have some trouble with that along the way now that people know I’m out here and “helpless” since I don’t have a grown up – particularly a male grown up – to take care of me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it but people don’t understand me much. Uncle Charlie used to say I was sixteen going on sixty. And now I’m nearly 17 and after that I’ll be 18 and hopefully no one will be able to tell me where I can live and where I can’t. I’m not stupid enough to think turning 18 will make everything perfect, it’ll probably just bring more problems, but it sure would solve some of my problems right now.

I know I shouldn’t but I’d lie about my age if I thought it would help.. In the end they’d make me prove it and I can’t so it’s just better to stick with the truth than have to remember some made up story that would just trip me up at some point.

It started to rain again and the men wanted to “escort me home.” Normally the idea of riding on a horse would have sounded neat since I’ve never ridden one but I really didn’t want any more people knowing where I live than necessary until I figure out how I was going to handle their well-meaning busybody-ness. What’s done is done but I still need to make sure that people understand that I’m not budging.

Rand tried one last time but Uncle George laughed and told him to stop because it was “only making the girl more mule-ish.” Sounds like something my dad would have said. I could tell Rand was just about give out at that point which made me glad that I wasn’t going to have to worry about whether he made it home or not. They finally got going with Rand riding double with Mick. It was an effort for him to get on the horse and his cousin Brendon basically had to boost him into the saddle. He was still wearing Daddy’s t-shirt but I didn’t mind, somebody should get use out of them and Daddy would have been the first to say that Rand was a “good ‘un” and tell me not to fuss about it.

As I walked back home I couldn’t help but stop and look at the gully and think about how I had listened to the men telling Rand that Jared Harbinger had heard about the attack and gone looking for him with some of his community volunteers. I don’t know what to think about that. I know people need to stick up for themselves but I’ve always heard that vigilantes are dangerous. And I watched a man die violently on my property and that can’t be changed back ever. But if Harbinger hadn’t chased the gangbangers and drove them to their reckless driving then maybe it would have been Rand that died. I know you have to stand up to bullies but I wonder where to draw the line; when do the victims that stand up for themselves turn from being defenders to being bullies themselves.

When I finished walking back to the house the sun was right over head so I figured it was noon so that would make it lunch time but I wasn’t hungry for some reason. I decided to continue unboxing stuff from the bonus rooms and spent the remainder of the day doing that. I found lots more books, dishes, and my mom’s thimble collection. I found candles but they are shaped funning from being up in the heat for so long. I think they will still work if I need them to. The votive candles are a little squashed looking but will work with the candle lantern. I suppose I better not use them unless I need to because I sure as heck don’t know how to make candles that don’t come out of an arts and craft kit.

The best find though was a couple of boxes of our old camping gear. I pulled out the sleeping bags, but one has a bad dry rot place on it at the end. I think I’ll be able to cut it off and then turn it into a blanket for the bed for the winter though that seems a long way off. In the camping boxes I also found the old cooking gear; it won’t do me any good without propane but I might be able to use the parts for something. Also found Daddy’s tackle box; I wonder where his fishing poles went to. The tents, old Miss America lunch box that Mom used as a girl and then turned into our family’s first aid kit, and lots of other odds and ends were in there. The best thing though was Daddy’s fire starters.

I’ve got to figure out how to use them. I know you scratch one piece over the other but I couldn’t get it to work. I don’t think those things can break or go bad so I must be doing something wrong. I wish the packaging they came in was still around so I could find the directions. I’ll figure it out; it can’t be all that hard. I need to do it soon though ‘cause I only have a few matches left. If it was winter I’d just keep a fire going but it’s already getting hotter than blue blazes.

“Hotter than blue blazes” is one of those things that my parents used to say. They also said things like “slower than molasses in winter,” “barking up the wrong tree,” “don’t count your chickens until they’re hatched,” and “even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and again.” It makes me smile to remember all the weird ways they had of saying things. Good memories. I guess that is as good a way to end this day as any. At least the memories don’t hurt as much as they used to.

I have plenty to do tomorrow so I better get to bed and get some sleep. Fraidy wanted to be out and about again tonight. I suppose she is hunting … I hope she doesn’t bring me another lizard; that is disgusting.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 15A

May 7th – Today is Sunday but I didn’t realize it until a couple of hours ago; I had other things on my mind besides wondering what day of the week it was. After some pretty weird dreams I woke up thinking about how I was going to save matches. I have maybe two dozen left out of the box if every one of them fire up. I decided one way was to use one fire to make as many meals as possible. I experimented and I like the results so well I’m going to do one experiment a day.

This morning my experiment started by digging a hole in the ground away from as many tree roots as I could. The hole wasn’t big, basically about 24” wide and 24” deep which was easy in the sand around the house. Grass doesn’t grow between the back of the house and the tree line that starts about fifteen feet out so all I had to do was rake the oak leaves back before digging the hole. I laid a good fire in the hole and started it with the help of some dry Spanish moss. Speaking of Spanish moss, I don’t plan on ever forgetting again that that stuff can have chiggers in it. Argh! For a while there I was going crazy with the itches.

Anyway while the fire was burning down I put the grate from the grill over the hole and then put two speckleware coffee pots full of water on it to boil water. When the water boiled I poured enough in my bowl to make instant oatmeal, a mug full for tea, and the rest went into a couple of thermos carafes for later. While the water had been boiling I put some dried pink beans into a Dutch oven and then poured a lot more water over them than they would need to plump up and cook in. I also added some dried chopped onion and a little salt and pepper. Last I put just a little sausage flavored TVP in there. TVP is OK but I wouldn’t want a steady diet of it; but when you don’t have fresh meat it isn’t anything to turn your nose up at. We used it at Good Eats to stretch the meatloaf sometimes or added it to the spaghetti sauce; no one noticed.

When the fire had burned down to coals I took the coffee pots off the fire, moved the grate, and put in the Dutch oven with the beans and stuff in the hole. The lid was down on the Dutchie plus I added a “hat” of aluminum foil for a bit of extra protection. I knocked some of the coals onto the aluminum foil and then filled the hole back in with sand. I stuck a stick where the pot was buried so I could find it again without too much trouble.

Right after breakfast I started gathering more wood. I brought in seven wheelbarrow loads to try and get ahead and stacked the wood neatly in the barn so it would be out of the weather and away from prying eyes. Hopefully that’ll keep the snakes out of the wood too. I saw a snake crawling over the old wood pile and I’m not sure what kind it was. I don’t think walking up and asking it would do much good either. Avoidance is the better part of valor in my mind these days when it comes to snakes.

With the wood I even brought in a load of branches that are about as big around as my wrist to some that are as big as my biceps. I’ll use the saw on those tomorrow to cut them down to better lengths. I was getting bored of gathering wood by lunch time so I stopped. I ate granola and dried fruit and drank cold water flavored with a lemon packet and a sugar packet. It tasted more like lemon water than lemonade but I was so hot I didn’t care. And by then I was feeling the first chiggey itch. We always kept plenty of calamine lotion at the house because some of the foster kids didn’t have a clue about country living and would go traipsing through the woods without socks, in shorts and tank tops. Someone was always playing in the poison oak. I’m one of those rare individuals that don’t have a reaction to either poison oak or poison ivy … chiggers on the other hand make me feel like I have aliens crawling under my skin. I slathered the calamine on thick and then went out to the orchard to do what needed doing.

I took the sickle and the swing blade with me and “mowed” the orchard. First I used the big swing blade down and across the wide paths between the trees and then closer to the trees and bushes I used the smaller hand sickle. Man oh man, what back breaking work! It was worse than that time I got suckered into the Lutz Trash Bash by my Debate Coach. There were six of us covering one of the trashiest two mile stretches of road in the area and jerks would come by as we were picking up litter and honk their horn and then throw more trash out of their windows and laugh like it was the funniest thing ever. Ignorant jerks.

After I cut the grass I had to rake it up into mounds. I forget how many loads of grass I hauled off but instead of carrying it off into the woods I took it over to the nearest fence line and dumped it on the other side. There were some mangy, skinny cows off in the distance. They’d eaten over the whole field – I guess it was their pasture at some point – where they were roaming and I don’t guess they were getting anything extra from their owner. Whoever owned them wasn’t moving them around enough because even I could tell they weren’t giving the grass and weeds time to grow back. The cows had even eaten all of the palmettos and the oak sprouts on their side of the fence and stuck their head through the fence and eaten what they could on my side of the fence as well.

By the third load of grass I dumped the cows had come over and were jerking the grass out of my hands as I was trying to toss it to them. I had one butt me through the fence. I don’t think she meant to but I landed on a cactus and it took me a while tonight to get the last pokey out of my backside. Darn cows. I feel so bad for them. I suppose it can’t hurt to throw a couple of loads of grass over the fence each day. It’s not like I don’t have a lot that needs trimming up.

After I had finished “mowing” the orchard I took a good look around. Just like Momma said there would be there were a couple of blueberries that were ready to eat. I pulled them and put them in my shirt pocket then took the tools back to the shed and hung them up and locked the door for the evening. I went inside and put my blueberries in a plate and washed my hands really well. It was time to finish preparing my dinner.

First I took a clean, empty thermos and put in a little instant rice; just enough for my dinner. Then I put in an equal amount of still extremely hot water from the thermos carafe and added a couple of pinches of powdered margarine from a big can of the stuff I found in the dormer room. You don’t have to put butter in with your rice but to me it gives instant rice a smoother flavor. I closed the thermos up and set it on the counter and then went outside to dig up my beans.

Something had knocked over the stick that I used to mark the spot so next time I do this I’ll use a rock or something. It took me a few minutes to remember where I had buried things and then some more time to un-bury them. The coals were still hot so I made a sort of s’more out of some marshmallows, a candy bar, and a couple of cookies that I found over in house number four where I got all the junk food from. I knocked the dirt and coals off of the aluminum foil I used to cover the Dutch oven and used that to wrap my s’more in before setting it on the now just warm coals.

I was nervous about opening the Dutch oven. I figured if things didn’t work out I would at least have some rice and a s’more to eat for dinner; but I was hungry. I finally got up my courage and carefully took the lid off with a heavy stick. I got just a little sprinkle of left over sand in the pot but I was able to keep most of it out. Next time I’ll use a brush or something on the lid before I open it up or be more careful to cover the lid better while it is in the ground.

The experiment was a success. There were a couple of beans that were a little chewy on top and a couple of beans on the bottom that were a little burnt and I put a few too many onions but despite that the beans weren’t really bad at all. The rice turned out OK too. Beans and rice – oniony beans and rice – hit the spot after all the work I did today. I don’t know if I’m fit for company to be around but since there isn’t anyone else around who cares. My belly is full and that’s more than some can probably say. The s’more was a little rich but still oowey goowey good, and I’m saving the blueberries for breakfast.

After dinner I covered the hole with a piece of sheet metal to save having to dig a new one in case I want to try this again another time. I cleaned up the dishes and utensils using the second carafe of hot water. And then it was time to clean myself up. While I shivered in the cold bathwater I kicked myself for not putting a bucket of water on to the coals instead of the s’more.

Now that I’m sitting up here in the dormer room all fresh and clean listening to Fraidy purr as she licks her fur back in place sitting in a sunbeam I’ve had time to think about what I learned today.

1. I can be resourceful if I put my mind to it. I remember a lot more from scouts and of what Momma and Daddy taught us while camping than I thought I did. I just have to actively try to come up with new ways of doing things and not just assume something will turn up when I need it to.
2. Make a chore worth more than just one job. I needed to cut the grass in the orchard but it also was a way to feed the cows. Tomorrow I need to cut the grass under and around the clothes line so that will be the cows’ food for tomorrow.
3. The cooking pit is a good idea but I can make it better by starting the beans the night before and making it enough to cover both lunch and dinner the next day instead of just one meal. And once I dig the pot up I can use what is left of the heat in the coals to warm wash water in one of the metal buckets.
4. Thermos cooking is another good thing to do and I need to figure out how to cook more food that way.
5. Wear gloves when I work and I won’t have so many hurts the next day. If I keep this up I’m going to run out of Band-Aids fast. I’m wearing four of the things right now, not including the one on my backside from the cactus trying to turn me into a pin cushion.
6. Never underestimate a hungry animal. They might not mean to hurt you but hunger can make them desperate.
7. You eat more food when you are working hard than when you are at rest, that means cooking more food; and that means that the food I have isn’t going to last the four months I thought it would if I’m not careful.

I’m going to try and learn something new every day. And I think experimenting will be a good thing too. I also need to think about stopping earlier in the day as far as working goes because I need to have daylight left to read by. The only thing I have had time to do tonight was write in my journal and make a big year-long calendar.

I was going to use the posterboard for the calendar but there aren’t twelve sheets of it so I decided to use a big roll of bulletin board paper I found in the neat little house (house #2). I figure someone in that house was a librarian or a teacher or something like that. I think I did a pretty good job; there is lots of room in each day’s square to write. In each square the things I do will be in ink and the things that I plan to do will be in pencil. I used the markers from the first house and the craft supplies from house #4 to mark off special days. Next Sunday is Mother’s Day and that has been hard for me ever since the wreck. Aunt Wilma used to offer to take me to the cemetery for that day so I could put flowers on their graves but after the first time I never wanted to go back again. I cried so hard I puked down the side of Uncle Charlie’s new car.

I remember when I was little Daddy having a bit of a tiff with his sister over the fact he didn’t see the sense in spending a lot of money on my grandmother’s headstone. He gave in when his other siblings had their say but basically Daddy thinks too many people treat cemeteries like the old Egyptians did. Expensive funerals, being buried in fancy and expensive coffins, and headstones that are as pricey as pyramids. Then people would come back and “worship” the dead with more reverence than they treated the person when they were alive. Daddy kept fussing that his mother wasn’t in the coffin or in the ground, that she was in Heaven with better stuff than any funeral parlor could give her. That kind of talk makes people uncomfortable. And I guess I know who I took after the most. Momma always said I got my Daddy’s stubbornness. Things eventually smoothed out but Daddy wrote up a paper saying what he wanted when he died and it wasn’t a sad, expensive funeral. He wanted people to have a party to celebrate his “home going.” He felt very strongly about this; Momma did too but not so loudly as Daddy did. As far as I know it didn’t happen. I was in a coma and they couldn’t have an open casket so everything was done very quiet. Daddy and Momma were passed caring at that point but I don’t think they would have minded; guess I’ll find out one of these days if it even matters by then.

But that made me feel guilty about not saying any words over Uncle Charlie even though he had come to Sparkleberry Ranch without me or not even thinking about that dead guy over in the loblolly pines just laying out in the open. Uncle Charlie will be easy. I saw a piece of limestone that will work for a marker just on the other side of the fence where the cows were. I’ll get it tomorrow. I never really connected with Uncle Charlie; I always found him too superficial or something. It’s like he didn’t want me to get to know the real him. I honestly don’t think he liked me much but he at least tried not to show it and I know he really did love Aunt Wilma and her crazy causes. They were like peas in a pod, only Aunt Wilma was the louder pea.

The gangbanger is going to be harder but I suppose it is the right thing to do, whatever that means. I’m not looking forward to the burying part though. I keep having these memories of those two people in that house I went into when I was on my bike trek.


May 9th – I’m sitting here by the window in the dormer room playing catch up in my journal while I try to wrap my head around the last two days. Didn’t write anything yesterday; didn’t get finished with all the stuff I had to do until dark and by then I was just too tired to stay up.

For one thing I overslept on Monday and Fraidy made a mess that took me a while to clean up. I don’t think kitty is going to be staying inside until I can figure out a litter box for her. That was just too nasty first thing in the morning and the family room stank so bad that I couldn’t stand it. I put some perfume on a piece of cloth and sat it out but that made it worse; for a while there it smelled like someone had pooped really cheap perfume, most definitely not cool. I gagged it was so bad and I thought I was past being grossed out by anything. I’m not sure I want to know what she has been eating.

For breakfast I just fixed a glass of milk and put some dried fruit and granola in a bag and took it outside to eat while the house aired out. That gave me the time to get the rest of the sleep out of my brain and make a list of the things I wanted to do that day. I should have done it the night before but I forgot. It just feels stupid to put down on my list of things to do to make another list of things to do, but it looks like that’s what I’m going to have to do. Sometimes my short term memory for details doesn’t work so good. The doctor’s say that is from the coma but it isn’t near as bad as it used to be. Lists and calendars help me though so that’s why I use them. So do pictures and diagrams and written directions. It’s mainly when people are talking at me that I have a hard time.

I guess that might be one reason why I have trouble being around people. After the coma I was diagnosed with this stuff called APD or auditory processing disorder. One of the doctors said I may have had it before the accident but was able to compensate for it enough that no one noticed. It is very “mild” but it can be a pain in the rear bumper. For instance, if more than one person is talking to me at a time or if someone is trying to talk to me while a bunch of other sounds are occurring I don’t “hear” the person talking to me even if they are right next to my ear. Their voice blends into all the other sounds around me. I can “hear” them only if I concentrate really hard on what they are saying, usually I just read their lips. I also have to look at the person that is talking to me and sometimes I stare really hard which freaks people out. Not many people got it, or if they did they would forget, so I had to ask people to repeat themselves all the time which is totally embarrassing. People used to think I had a hearing problem so when they talked to me they talked really loud which always made people look. I hated that. It isn’t my hearing that is the problem; it’s that my brain can’t always decode the sounds my ears hear. I just gave up after a while; it was simpler for all of us. My grades stayed really high and I only participated in things at school that didn’t make my APD obvious so Aunt Wilma didn’t blow a gasket and left me alone about it. The only exception to my rule was Debate and our coach used to laugh and tell me to keep staring at my opponent because it shook them up and made them lose their stride. Not exactly fair of me but it wasn’t fair that I got stuck with this stupid disorder either. At least it is good for something … and I have a real talent when it comes to ignoring someone that I don’t want to listen to. All I have to do is hone in on another sound and “poof” it’s like the other person isn’t even talking anymore.

So lists and calendars and schedules rule. Ra-ra-ra-ship-boom-ba. Of course that is only if I remember to use them which I ought to know by now that I have to. But I forgot and that’s all there is to it. No excuses. Maybe I didn’t want to think about what I had to do.

It was no good putting it off for long; but things just got all turned around no matter what I tried. First I went to go get the limestone rock for Uncle Charlie’s marker. The cows were back and practically ran me over looking for grass. I couldn’t do anything so I had to backtrack and get the swing blade and cut the grass under and around the clothes line to give them something to do while I got the rock.

Have you ever been goosed by a cow? Let me tell you it makes you feel pretty stupid. I was bent over trying to lever the rock up out of the sand when I got a nudge to remember in a place that no one should be nudging me. I jumped pretty high and squeaked. I have a feeling if cows could laugh those would have been rolling on the ground. I wiped the cow slime off of my pants … yuck … and finally managed to get the big rock over to the fence and dump it into the wheelbarrow. If the rock had been any bigger it would have had to stay where it was.

I caught my pants on the barbed wire climbing back over and poked myself pretty good. There was a little bit of blood but it made me glad that the owner of Good Eats had made all of the employees get a tetanus booster when they started to work at the restaurant. Story was she had lost a brother to tetanus way back in the 1940s when she was a little girl. I guess it was her way of making the memory of her brother serve a higher purpose or something. I looked up tetanus once just to see how bad it was or if it was a blow off thing. After reading about tetanus I promised myself I would never let my tetanus booster run out. That is some nasty stuff. I wonder if we’ll ever have tetanus shots again?

I wheeled the rock over to Uncle Charlie’s grave and then just dumped the rock on top of where I remembered it being; the rain had flattened everything out so I’m not exactly for sure. I had a hard time coming up with something to say that didn’t sound all preachy and insincere. I figured I owed the man sincere if nothing else. That’s when I realized I wasn’t talking to Uncle Charlie or some group of people, I was talking to God. After that it was easy, I just thanked God for putting Uncle Charlie in my way even if I didn’t always understand why things had to be the way they were. I said I was thankful for the things I had learned from Uncle Charlie even if he hadn’t really meant to teach me anything. And I said I appreciated him and Aunt Wilma taking me under their roof. Like I said, I think I owed the man’s memory that much.

Next came the part I really wasn’t looking forward to, but I made myself take a break first and drink some water. No lunch, I knew that would be a mistake.

Got a bandana to cover my face with and took the gloves and shovel with me as I walked to the dogleg turn by the gully. The wind was blowing my direction as I got out of the trees and the smell was really bad. Worse were the turkey vultures that were all over the place. I nearly turned back. I knew I shouldn’t though because just in case I needed to make sure none of that gangbanger wound up in the gully … a place I might need to get water from at some future point.

I walked around the gully and climbed the fence. I pushed my way through the trees and grass, knocking vultures out of my way every once in a while. I knew I was headed in the right direction because the smell was getting worse. When I got there my brain just sort of turned off, I turned around and walked all the way back home and then just sat on the porch for a while.

He hadn’t been all there, just like Uncle Charlie, only it was worse because he was … fresher I guess you would call it. God created the order of things in this world and I know it got corrupted by Adam and Eve’s fall from Grace but man … I just can’t understand why things have to be the way they are sometimes. What used to be a man had obviously been partially tore into by a predator, vultures couldn’t do that. It wasn’t a gator because there wasn’t the right kind of water close enough for that. Maybe coyotes … or dogs. All I know is that insides were outside and outsides were spread around. God is just going to have to clean this one up because I now realize that there are some things I just can’t do. Maybe if it was closer to the house I could force myself to but I just can’t do that right now.

I just didn’t feel like doing anything else the rest of the day so I went up to the dormer room and started looking for Daddy’s gun cabinet keys again. I found the keys in the first place I should have looked. Momma used to say that Daddy would find the oddest things funny. It must have tickled him to hide the keys in relative plain sight. They were in his filing cabinet taped to the inside of a hanging file entitled “lost and found.” I didn’t find it funny but I can see Daddy thinking it would have been.

When I opened the Sentry gun safe I got a surprise; there were five long guns in there. Three are rifles and two are shotguns; I know this because the rifles have smaller diameter barrels while the shotguns have great big ones. There were also a couple of more handguns than I expected to find. There was the German officer one that had the “SS” engraved on the butt of the gun and the Mark III that looked like a cool James Bond gun just like I remembered but there were three more and I didn’t know what they were. They all looked alike and they came in hard-sided gray plastic boxes. The guns were black and there was a book in the box that said “Smith & Wesson” on it. I guess at some point I’ll need to read one of those books and see what I’m supposed to do with them.

The other thing in the gun safe was a big manila envelope with “JOYCE” written on it in big, black letters. Joyce was my mom’s name and I wondered why dad would put that in there. I opened it and inside was a bunch of legal papers: insurance, military records, deeds, and stuff like that. There was also a set of blueprints for this house and the out buildings and aerial photos of Sparkleberry Ranch itself. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it except that on the aerial photos I realized Daddy had drawn in where he had buried the two cache tubes for the roll down poles and extra sets of keys. I had already dug up one set and the other one was marked right where I remember it being buried.

That made me look at the house blueprints closer. At first I thought I was only looking at Daddy’s notes of things he wanted to do to the house or where he had put in access panels for repairs and maintenance of plumbing and wiring and stuff. But when I matched his pencil marks up with the dormer room I realized that the room dimensions were wrong. I walked back to the part of the dormer room that was over my parents’ bedroom and comparing the drawings to the room again saw an “x” that corresponded to a cabinet. I opened the cabinet and instead of it having a solid back there was a vent cover. Using the solar lamp for light I took a screwdriver and removed the vent cover. There was a small finished cubby hole behind the wall. Nobody could stand up in it but I could squeeze in there and squat if I didn’t mind the claustrophobia. There were metal boxes lined up on top of little wooden pallets and when I opened them up they were full of bullets … a lot of bullets … boxes and boxes of bullets. About half of the metal boxes had little boxes in there that said .22LR on them. Some of the remaining boxes had shotgun shells in them in all sorts of colors; I remember what those were from my Granddaddy’s farm. The rest of the metal cans had boxes in them that said 9mm. I guessed that this was one of my dad’s “surprises.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 15B

I knew there were other surprises and I saw some other X’s marked around the house, the barn, and the shed but it was getting too late at that point to go hunting. I was too … something … to really eat but I fixed some milk and soup and made myself eat anyway. I cleaned up the fire pit, put Fraidy outside so I wouldn’t have another mess to clean up, put away my dishes and decided to sleep up in the dormer room. I feel safer when I’m up here. It doesn’t matter that I keep the accordion shutters closed and the roll down doors down, it just feels … it feels like Daddy is watching over me when I’m up in the dormer room. I know that isn’t true but it feels like it.

It took me a while to fall asleep and I woke up to Fraidy’s normal singing only it was right outside the dormer window that I had left cracked to get some air. Somehow the crazy cat had gotten onto the roof and knew just where I was; silly ol’ thing. I opened the window all the way, removed the screen and then opened the accordion shutters just enough for her to come in. The sky was beginning to lighten so I knew it was time for me to get up. I relocked the shutters and put the screen back in and by the time I turned around Fraidy had climbed onto my bed and gone to sleep. Silly ol’ thing.

I went downstairs, got dressed and made a command decision that my outside chores could wait. I wanted to know what those X’s were about. But first I needed breakfast since I hadn’t eaten much the day before. I decided to do another experiment.

Working at Good Eats taught me a lot. One of the things Mrs. Belle – that was what the owner asked us to call her – taught me was how to cook things in a skillet you didn’t normally think could be cooked in a skillet. One of the favorite week day breakfast take outs at the restaurant was Pan Biscuits. They could be made with dried fruit and we sold six or seven different flavors that depended on what Mrs. Belle could get on sale through her supplier. I had a box of dried cranberries so that is the flavor I tried to make. I had never made the biscuits on an open flame before but I was willing to give it a try.

In one of the Swiss Colony gift packs from house #4 was a baking mix. I took a cup of it and added two tablespoons of dried milk, one tablespoon of sugar, and the little box of cranberries. Then I added one-half cup of cool water and mixed well so that there weren’t any dry lumps left. Mrs. Belle always said, “mix it don’t play with it.” She meant that you mixed it only as much as it needed mixing and then you left the dough alone.

I heated my skillet over the open fire and then sprayed in a really thick coat of non-stick spray. We used olive oil at Good Eats but I didn’t have any. You dump the dough into the hot skillet and then spread it out. I had to keep moving the skillet around because at the restaurant we had it over a low heat for five minutes. At the end of five minutes I sprayed the uncooked side with spray and then flipped the giant “biscuit” over. I had burnt the bottom a little bit but it was still looking and smelling good. You let that side cook for five minutes on low heat and then you take the skillet completely off the heat, flip the biscuit onto a plate and drizzle it with honey. Gosh that was so good. I hadn’t realized how much I had been missing bread.

When I took the skillet off the heat I put water on to boil. When the water boiled I poured it into the thermos carafes again. The coals of the fire were burning down but they were still hot so I put a big metal bucket of water to absorb what heat was left.

After breakfast I went on a treasure hunt. I started in the house. There was an X in the summer kitchen, an X under the kitchen sink and an X up in the second bonus room. The X in the summer kitchen was behind Momma’s cookbook shelves I took all the cookbooks off the shelves and still couldn’t figure out what I was looking for. I was getting frustrated so I looked at the blueprints again and realized that the X looked like it was on a door but there wasn’t a door there. I opened the cabinet door beside the shelves thinking maybe Daddy’s X was in the wrong spot. I looked and on the side of the cabinet next to the shelves there was a latch. Only a short person would notice it, anyone taller than me wouldn’t see it unless they bent down and were looking for it. I pulled the lever and the shelves made a popping noise and moved a little bit but still wouldn’t move. After playing with it for a good fifteen or twenty minutes I finally figured out you have to pull the release latch, push the shelves and then pull on them. If you didn’t push the shelves the hook from the latch didn’t fully disengage. I don’t know if Daddy built it like that or if something needs greasing but I finally was able to pull the shelf and it swung open just like the door on the blueprint.

There was a long narrow room that ran the whole length of wall with the summer kitchen on one side and the formal dining room on the other. I found Momma’s “fruit cellar.” Daddy had built her tall narrow shelves that had extra strips of wood across the front to keep the jars from falling out. The shelves were full of empty jars. I smiled thinking about how much Momma must have loved this. Then I noticed a box on one of the lower shelves … it had a bunch of rings and lids in there. I knew that if I could figure out how to make the boiling water bath canner work on an open fire I would definitely have the jars and lids to can with.

I put the cookbooks back where I found them if not quite the way they came off the shelves. I’ll have to fix that another day.

The X in the kitchen was easy to locate but there wasn’t anything there. Either there had never been anything there or someone had found it already. It was just a very small box behind the wall so I don’t know what it was supposed to hold.

The X up in the second bonus room was a pain in the tush to get to. I had to move out all of the boxes I hadn’t gone through yet and then I had to move some furniture that had been stored up there. That wasn’t a total waste of time because I found my great grandmother’s treadle sewing machine. I think it is missing the belt that fits on the wheel that makes the needle go up and down. I might be able to rig up something but I still have to find needles and stuff like that to make it work.

I finally got back to the wall and moved a desk that was in the way. There was another big vent cover like in the dormer room. I wiggled around and unscrewed it and there was another finished cubby hole kind of storage area.
It was full of those big cans but there were no paper labels on them. I pulled one out, it wasn’t very heavy, and then I remembered. Momma had gone in partners with a couple of women and had a friend to get them permission to use the LDS cannery. I remember going with Momma and her telling me to sweep and pick up litter so that we could show our appreciation by leaving the grounds cleaner than how we found them. I remember asking Momma what LDS meant but I can’t remember if she ever told me. Of course I know what it means now. I pulled out can after can -- #10 size now that I’m thinking about it right – and saw that Momma had written what was in each can on top in black marker.

Some of them had dried beans in them and wheat in them. Some of the heavier ones had dried veggies and fruits. One said it had Tang in it and one of the really light cans said Kool-aid packets. The heaviest cans had rice and sugar in them. I counted, there were forty of those cans in there; not as many as had been in the dormer room but it for sure added to my supplies. Then in the back corner there were big glass jugs with Heinz vinegar labels; I checked and the seals were all still good. There was three little barrels of honey, four of sorghum molasses, two of cane syrup, and one of maple syrup. I don’t remember seeing the containers of sweeteners before, that must have been something that Momma got from her brother and sister in Kentucky. Now I guess I understand why Momma fussed at Daddy that time; she could can things herself and it would be cheaper that buying it from somebody else.

That was it for the house and I was eager to see what was out in the barn and shed. The barn hideaway was the easiest to find and the room was also the biggest. It was behind Daddy’s work benches. There was a closet there that was supposed to be for coveralls and stuff but it was empty. In the closet were pieces of the pot belly stove that we used in the lean-to when we came up to the property in the winter before the house was finished enough for us to sleep in. But that wasn’t what the X was for. There was a short door inside the closet and when I opened it I saw a long narrow room that I could stand up in, even a grown man could stand up in it. There were shelves all down one side of the room and the shelves had all sorts of little bins and containers on them. The bins held nails, screws and lots of stuff like that. In a box in the corner of the room were long fluorescent bulbs; I guess those were spares for the barn and shed lights. There were all sorts of old hand tools but they were all kind of greasy like they’d been oiled up or something. I had found Daddy’s junk room. Momma never cared what Daddy drug home – well, she didn’t care much – so long as it wasn’t left out for my brother and I to get into. Daddy was always bringing home stuff from flea markets and yard sales and from out at the base; Momma was just as bad but Daddy would even do something called dumpster diving and that did make Momma cringe. I think my parents would have been called pack rats if Momma wasn’t such a bear about keeping everything neat and organized.

Last place I looked was the shed. It took me a while to figure out that the bench that was inside the shed opened up for storage and in the bottom of the storage was a false bottom that lifted out. Inside was a concrete lined space and in this space were two little canisters of propane. I guess Daddy meant to have more in there but there hadn’t been time. Two was more than I had before but I left them were they were. Daddy stored them in the shed for a reason and I had enough mess in the house. Besides something had been chewing on the paper labels on the canisters and that was pretty gross. I figure from the way it looks that it was roaches.

I completely skipped lunch but I was starving by the time I’d found everything. I was tempted to use the camp stove and propane that I had found but I decided to save it for an emergency since I was doing fine without it so far.

For dinner I put some pasta in the thermos and dumped the near boiling water over them and closed the thermos and set it on the counter while I took my first really warm bath in a while. Wow, I couldn’t believe how much cleaner I got. It was really gross scrubbing all that dirt and dead skin off but I feel so much better it was worth turning into a prune. Tomorrow the hair gets the same treatment. The other gross thing though was I found a tick behind my earlobe. How gross is that?! I bled like a stuck pig when I finally got it out and I put lots of peroxide and then triple antibiotic salve on it. Yuck. It has to be from carrying that grass to the cows. I’m going to need to be more careful. I’ve been checking Fraidy every day and so far so good … no ticks, no fleas. I don’t know what I’m going to do when her collar runs out of juice.

The pasta noodles were OK but were still chewy. I probably didn’t put enough water in there or too much pasta. It didn’t matter, I added the squeeze cheese and I ate yummy macaroni and cheese for dinner. I cleaned up, put Fraidy out, yada, yada, yada and then came up to the dormer room to think.

It’s been an interesting two days but now it is time to get back down to business. The mysteries have all been solved and I’m 99.9% sure that I’ve found everything there is to find. These are the tasks for tomorrow: cut grass for the cows from around the where the garden is supposed to go and then lay tarps down to start killing the grass and stuff underneath, take the food out of the cubby closet in the second bonus room and put it in the summer kitchen, gather some more big wood and stack it in the barn, try and finish inventorying and bringing in one-third of the stuff that remains in the barn, open and put away two boxes of my parents’ stuff, look for canning recipes for blueberries in Momma’s books.

I have felt really close to Momma and Daddy the last two days; like they have been looking out for me somehow. But just like eventually I would have had to grow up if they were still alive and do things for myself and make my own way in the world I think maybe the same thing is going to happen from here on out. Their sacrifices gave me a place to go and a chance to get on my feet, but from here on out I have to start planning for a future that doesn’t include stuff that they left hidden. One day I’ll use up all the stuff, probably sooner than I expect. When that happens I have to be able to provide more stuff for myself. And I can’t wait until the last second to do it. You can’t cram for this exam.

Uh oh, I hear a boy cat off in the woods; I sure hope Fraidy is fixed.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 16

May 10th – I am so sore I’m tempted to never pick up another gun in my life. I said tempted, not that I wouldn’t. Everything hurts. I guess I can’t blame the gun for that but still.

It was raining this morning so cooking another batch of beans in the ground was out. Heck, a fire outside was out so I had to make a fire on the charcoal grill that was still on the lanai because I hadn’t gotten around to putting it back in the shed where it belonged. I fixed an omelet with some cheese and meat stick chopped up in it. The cheese and meat stick came from some more of those Swiss Colony gift boxes from house #4. The omelet turned out to be not so bad this time; either that or I’m getting used to those powdered eggs.

It was only sprinkling by the time I finished cleaning up after my breakfast so I took the swing blade and cut grass out of where Momma had always planned to have the garden. If I am going to have any kind of garden this fall I have a lot of work to do. I carried the grass to the cows but there was only nine cows this time. Off on the other end of the pasture I saw vultures circling. It didn’t take two years of calculus for me to figure out what had happened; how it happened really didn’t matter so much. But when no one ever came to take care of the carcass I started thinking maybe these cows weren’t being taken care of at all. It made me think that maybe, if I watched for a little longer and saw that no one ever came to check on them I could choose to take care of them myself. I wrote down on my notepad to think about how I could fence the cows up on my forty and give them new pasture. The where was easy. The SW quadrant was the lowest point on the property and it was full of palmettos and scrub along with sparkleberries and blackberries. There was barely a person path through there but I bet cows wouldn’t have any problems; and there would be plenty for them to eat for a season or two so they could fatten back up. The fence though would be a problem. And I needed to be able to have a good enough reason to keep the cows too. They will be a lot of work and I know a girl cow has to have a baby cow before she will give milk. There aren’t any boy cows over in the pasture that I see which means no babies which means no milk … so why would I keep the cows?

After feeding the cows – and I think they aren’t quite as skinny as they used to be – I got out the old plastic visqueen that Daddy salvaged from some building site after it went bankrupt and was abandoned. I laid this down in strips where I wanted the garden and used giant metal “staples” to hold the plastic sheeting in place. I used to help Momma do this every season at our house in Tampa. There she did it to kill the nematodes that tried to ruin the garden every year. Here I was hoping to do that but also hoping to kill all the grass and weeds so it would be easier for me to turn the dirt over the first few times. I’m sure as heck not going to have a rototiller to do it.

Next I worked on inventorying and bringing in a bunch of stuff from the barn. The problem I was having was keeping everything organized as I brought it in. All those fancy gift packages of food from the lonely lady’s house and all of that junk food needed to be put in the summer kitchen which is where I am going to keep the food. But when I started doing that I realized I was going to have to unpackage everything. When I did that I realized my recycling boxes would never hold it all. I unpackaged things any way and used a lot of the plastic containers I had found to organize all the bits and pieces in the cabinets and on the shelves. The trash was making a mess so I found several trash cans out in the barn that I used for my overflow of recycling junk. I put in my notebook that I needed to find a way to use the trash pretty soon or I was going to have to burn it.

All that organizing also made me realize that I had made a mistake bringing all the big cans from the dormer room downstairs. It was just too hard to find room for cans that big. I sure wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to find room for the cans in the cubby hole up in the bonus room. I decided to compromise. I kept or brought down one can of each item and put them in the summer kitchen pantry cabinets, especially the sweeteners. The rest would either stay in the cubby hole or go back to the dormer room and I would try and figure out a way to store it neatly and out of the way. I put that at the top of my list to do tomorrow.

I managed to bring in the last of the edibles from the barn, inventory them, and then put them away before I got frustrated and bored with doing that. I was going to start gathering wood but it started to rain again. Besides I was getting hungry and regretted not planning ahead better.

I was hot, hungry, and getting irritable at how hard it was to make sure I remembered to do everything in the right order. I missed having a microwave where I could just nuke something if I got hungry. I just ate some more granola and some dried strawberries and made myself a glass of milk. That satisfied me but didn’t fill me up but it stopped my stomach from complaining.

It continued to rain so I decided to work on the bonus rooms. They were a horrible mess where I had kind of been throwing things around and then when I shoved all the boxes and furniture to the side to get to the cubby hole I just made it worse. I started by cleaning up bonus room one which was the one where the stairs are. I put a futon I had uncovered in that room, a coffee table in front of it and two end tables on each end. I put lamps on the end tables but they were only for decoration and to get them out of the way. All of the pictures I found I took downstairs; I’ll figure out where to hang them over the next week or so. There was the curio cabinet that Daddy made Momma for their fifth wedding anniversary and I was surprised that none of the glass had broken I carefully moved that to a corner where it is out of the way and put all of Momma’s breakables in there. They don’t have any rhyme or reason to them and there are too many in the cabinet but I figure I can redecorate once I get things more settled.

I carried down all of the clothes and dumped them in one of the spare bedrooms, the one that would have been mine had things been different. I’ll put the clothes away after I make sure they are worth saving and I need more hangers which means going back to at least one of those abandoned houses some time soon. I put Momma’s notebooks and cookbooks in the summer kitchen on the shelves in there since there is still plenty of room. Daddy’s books and papers I took up to the dormer room. I had just about had my fill of organizing for the day so I decided to do something that I needed to do.

I opened the gun safe up and looked at all the books. The shotgun looked like the simplest to figure out. On the book it said it was a Remington Model 870 Express Deer. I guess that means that it is used for deer hunting. I had seen plenty of deer on the property and I knew eventually I would need to figure out how to get meat on my own so I figured that would be the one to start with. First I followed the directions for checking all of the pieces of the big gun over. Next I cleaned it using the directions in the packet of papers and the directions in the gun cleaning kit that was also in the bottom drawer of the gun safe. I didn’t think it was a good idea to load it in the house so after I crawled into the ammo hole and grabbed a handful shotgun shells I took everything outside.

The directions were easy to understand but I was still a little scared. Before I loaded the gun I picked something to shoot at. There was a dead tree about 30 yards to the north of the house on the other side of the area we used as a campfire ring. I moved just on the other side of the fire ring and I followed all the directions for loading and making sure the safety was in the right position. I pumped it and did everything right, I’m sure of it. Then why do I feel so stupid?!

I aimed, pulled the trigger, and … I felt like one of the cows kicked me in the shoulder. The blast from the gun was so loud and it pushed me backwards. I wasn’t expecting it and just when I thought I had my balance I tripped over the logs around the fire ring and fell backwards. I cracked my head on the ground and my teeth clacked together and I bit my tongue hard enough to make it bleed. The only good thing I can say is that I never dropped the gun and kept the barrel pointed away from me the whole time.

My shoulder is actually bruised; kind of a purple and rose color. I spit blood for nearly thirty minutes until my tongue stopped bleeding all the way. Needless to say I think I started with the wrong gun. But I couldn’t believe it when I saw that I had actually hit the tree … it wasn’t the part of the trunk I was aiming for but I still hit it. When I’m not sore anymore I’ll go down to the rifle; I think you can hunt with rifles too.

The other problem with the shotgun was that it scared Fraidy to pieces; she wouldn’t come to me at all tonight. That was pretty awful but I guess we’ll both just have to deal with it. It isn’t like I want to have to be responsible for the guns, but if I’m going to feed myself I don’t see as I have much choice.


May 11th – I wasn’t really aiming at him, I swear. I mean I don’t think I was, not at first. But he was coming at me, I just wanted himto stop, to go away, to not be able to do what he said he was going to do.

This day … I know I’ve got to calm down but I am so scared. What if the law finds out? Should I try and report this? What if their friends find out and come after me?

The morning didn’t give me a clue as to how this day would go. I got up and Fraidy finally decided I was worth knowing again. I fixed pan biscuits for breakfast but this time with raisins. Right after breakfast I cut grass for the cows from around the house and then picked up some tree trash that had come down in the rain yesterday. I was still sore but not too bad. I went up to the dormer room and tried to decide should I try a rife or one of the hand guns. I settled on a rifle because it said on the paper work that it was a “junior size” model. This was another Remington only this one was a “Rimfire” and had a “bolt action.” I went through the whole routine again of checking over all the parts and cleaning the gun before I felt comfortable enough to take it out of the house.

I put the book in my back pocket and put a box of the .22 bullets in a bag I slung across my shoulders. I decided to go to the hayfield to try and spare Fraidy’s nerves. When I got up there I took my time and made sure that I was doing everything the way I should. The thing held five bullets and it was loud but didn’t have the kick the shotgun did. It was also easier to hold on to. By the fifth bullet I was actually hitting the target … not the center of the target and I wasn’t too far away from it but at least I was hitting it. Or at least that is how I felt at the time.

I could blame my APD but that’s no excuse. I just wasn’t paying attention like I should have been. I was standing there proud that my latest bullets had all hit the target circle that I had drawn on a dead tree when from behind me I heard the high pitched sound of accelerating motorcycles. I turned around just in time to have one of two riders take a swing at me that caught me a glancing blow between the top of my nose and my eyebrow. I’ll thank God every day that I didn’t freeze ‘cause if I had I surely do believe I would have been dog meat.

I don’t know where my thinking was coming from but somehow I just knew that if I got into the trees they couldn’t go as fast and I might have a chance of doubling around and getting back to the house. If I could get in the house I thought I would be safe. I ran and ran in all sorts of directions but every time I tried to take off in a direction I wanted to go one of them would cut me off. They weren’t wearing helmets so I could see that they were laughing at me. The few times I stopped long enough that I was able to read their lips I wish I hadn’t; the nasty stuff they were saying was scarier than the guns they were shooting off.

They almost had me when I ran across the utility easement but I ran really close to the edge of the sinkhole and the bike closet to me skidded in. I didn’t stop to see what happened, I just kept running. Since the trees didn’t slow them down I was hoping the palmettos would. I left the trees and headed up a path between two large and tightly packed patches of palmettos. The path zigged and zagged and I kept running. There was a short straight away and I just knew I was going to be caught. Right after the dirt bike accelerated I guess it hit one of the palmetto roots that run across the surface of the ground; some of them are bigger around than my thigh. The front wheel hit one and it went end over end once and then came down hard. The guy landed and didn’t move. I found I was blocked in so would have to go back around the guy to get away.

I snuck by thinking he was playing opossum but his eyes were wide open and the handle bars of his motor bike was lying right across his throat. There was blood coming from the guy’s nose and mouth. I was pretty sure he was dead at that point but I wasn’t taking any chances. I took the gun that was lying beside him. I didn’t want him shooting at me anymore. I ran back into the trees and stopped to listen, trying to hear where the other guy was. I was halfway back across the utility easement when I heard the other guy screaming, “You *****, you killed him!!!” My heart nearly came out of my chest; it literally felt like someone had hit me with a hammer and my left arm felt tingly like I’d touched an electric fence.

The guy now chasing me hadn’t been running all over forty acres trying to get away. And he was fast. I ran as fast as I had the energy left to do and fell on my knees where I had dropped the rifle on the outskirts of the hayfield. I wasn’t thinking, only reacting. I tried to load the rifle but I kept dropping the bullets and I couldn’t remember exactly what to do with the bolt thingy.

I swear I didn’t mean to. It really was an accident. I just wanted him to stop. I heard this loud growl and turned around to see this big guy with crazy eyes running at me and he was pointing a gun at me. I don’t remember picking the other guy’s gun back up. I really don’t. It was just there in my hand. I pulled the trigger and the guy stopped and his face changed from scary to surprised. I honestly just wanted him to stop. I know he was screaming at me but I couldn’t hear him and I refused to read his lips. There was a poof in the sand beside me and I realized he had pulled his trigger so I pulled the one in my hand once, twice, a bunch of times … I don’t know how many … until the little thing jumped out that said the gun was out of bullets.

He was on the ground and he wasn’t moving. I don’t know how long I sat there. It must have been a long time because suddenly the sun wasn’t high in the sky anymore and the shadows were longer.

I still wasn’t thinking right. I can look back at it now and I know I wasn’t thinking right. I don’t know if I’m thinking right right now. I remember thinking that these guys were just like the other guy that was laying the loblollies. That thought kept running through my head over and over. Then it hit me, those two guys were just like the guy in the loblollies and the same thing would happen to them if I didn’t take care of them.

I got the wheelbarrow and moved the bodies just like I moved that guy Rand. I took them deep into the same twenty acres where the other guy but passed what remained of him and dumped the two bodies into the old septic tank where the RV used to park. I don’t know where that idea came from, it was just there. I’d be doing one thing one place and then I’d look around and be doing something different in another place, like a DVD that had skips in it. I remember dumping the bodies but I don’t remember walking home. I remember looking in the barn and seeing the two motor bikes in there but I don’t remember putting them in there. When I completely woke to myself I was planting oak saplings that I must have cut down with the hatchet that was lying on the ground at my feet.

I looked to my left and saw that I had “planted” five of them already. The saplings were taller than I was even cut off like they were. I had shoved the sharp end into the ground so far that it would stand up on its own. I had also run twine from a big tree on one side of the driveway to the house to a tree on the opposite side. The “planted” trees leaned against this twine.

I was confused. I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m pretty sure that I was trying to hide the entrance to the drive way up to the house. I may have been crazy when I thought it up but it isn’t really a bad idea and I’m going to finish it tomorrow. The house is really hard to spot from our road but camouflaging the drive way that leads back to the house will make it even harder to see. I don’t need to get a car through there so it’s no big deal.

It was dark when I came to myself, probably because part of me realized it was too dark to work and that I needed to go inside. I locked the barn after putting the hatchet away where it belonged. I was standing on the porch when it hit me. I puked until nothing but bile would come up. Even then I couldn’t stop. I wound up belly down on the porch trying to catch my breath. Fraidy came up to me and gave me a nudge like she knew something was wrong but didn’t know what to do for me. That helped me to get up on my knees. I crawled to the door, got inside and was finally able to stand up with the help of the entry way table.

I rolled the door down and then stumbled to the kitchen looking for something to drink. The first couple of sips of water didn’t want to stay down but the next few did. I came up to the dormer room and switched on the solar lights but when they proved too bright for my mood I turned them back off and turned on the solar lamp and just decided to write it all out, like bleeding off poison. But now the lamp is going out. I still can’t sleep. Maybe if I just lay dow ….

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 17A

May 14th – I haven’t felt much like writing the last couple of days. I probably wouldn’t be doing it now except he is doing it; I mean writing on some paper I gave him for in his own journal. I didn’t know guys liked to do that but he said he does. I hope he’s not just trying to fool me. I don’t think he is but you never know.

Nothing has made much sense until today and I’d say today was still on the iffy side. I don’t suppose this will make any sense at all if I don’t start back where I left off.

I don’t know what happened when the lamp ran out of juice on Thursday night because I kind of ran out of juice also. I never made it to the bed. I woke up the next morning on the floor right by the window seat where I had been writing. I could barely move and I was fuzzy headed like you get sometimes when you are sick. The only thing I could think about was getting down the stairs so I could get to the bathroom. I crawled to the stairs and then sat on the top stair and went down on my bottom one at a time. Finally at the bottom I was able to use the stair rail and get up and I limped really fast to the bathroom in my parents’ room. Luckily there was enough water left in the five-gallon bucket I keep in there to “flush” with.

When I was able I finally took a good look at myself and the picture I made brought all that had happened the previous day back to me. I had just changed clothes but didn’t take a bath. I still had some spots of dried blood on me. My hair was wild and going every which direction and even had a small twig stuck in my braid. My nose hurt and I had a black and swollen eye that was really ugly (still do though it isn’t swollen any more). My nose was all stuffed up and that was only from the neck up. My arms looked like I had taken a rust brush to them. My knees were scratched and bruised and my ankles were cut to ribbons.

I thought about taking a bath but knew that I would be working outside as soon as I could get up the nerve to go out the door. Part of me remembered all of those counseling sessions that I had been through about trauma and all that junk. Another part of me kept telling that part of me to just shut up. It was like I had two whole debate teams going on inside me. Taking a bath won. The water was cold so I only stood up in the tub and wet myself down, soaped up, scrubbed and then rinsed off. Took less water that way anyway and I didn’t have to sit in the dirt I was washing away. Wish I could have washed away everything else as easily.

I didn’t feel like cooking so I made oatmeal honey balls. All that is is rolled oats mixed with enough honey to make them stick together into balls; more of an energy food than a true meal. I like it but it makes you real thirsty and too much will upset your guts.

With breakfast over I went to stand by the front door. It took a lot for me to go outside but I remember the Bible saying “Fear Not!” and stuff like that. I also remember Daddy telling me that caution is good, fear is paralyzing; of course he was talking about dealing with bullies but in a sense this was the same thing. Bullies had tried to hurt me and take away my freedom and maybe my life. If I stayed hiding in the house then the bullies won. It still wasn’t easy … it was really Fraidy that finally helped me.

She was sitting on the end of the porch just looking at me like to say, “It’s about time you showed up.” She would only come so close and then she would walk away to the end of the porch again, teasing like cats can do. I dared myself to go as far as Fraidy and if I was too scared I could turn around ‘cause I wouldn’t be too far from the house. We played that game for a while and I wound up as far as the barn. Finally I figured if I had made it that far I could do what had to be done.

My “fence” had fallen down during the night. The twine was still there but everything else was on the ground. I was ready to cry again but then I heard the cows mooing and they sounded so pitiful. I picked up a couple of the leafier saplings and carried them over to the fence and they practically jerked them out of my hands. There were only seven cows. I don’t know what happened to the other two. I thought maybe someone was taking them away but now I don’t know, it might be something else I saw.

I got the swing blade and cut some more grass and threw it over the fence. By that time the sun was straight up overhead so I decided it must be noon. I went back to the house and ate some peanut butter and granola and then made myself drink a glass of milk. I wasn’t very hungry, just thirsty, so after the milk I drank a couple glasses of water. Mostly I was thinking … and I admit delaying a bit.

Since the saplings wouldn’t stand up my next idea was to try and make a potato vine fence. I took the hatchet and went out in the woods where I knew long thick potato vines grow in the trees. You can just about swing on some of them like Tarzan. In fact I had to climb a couple of trees to cut some down. I drug them home and laid them out. After going to the barn and getting a hammer and nails I nailed the potato vines in horizontally between the two trees on either side of the driveway. Then I took shorter and more flexible sections of potato vine and wove them in vertically. I had to use the ladder to get the highest parts finished but when I was done it looked like a woven lattice, like you see on a pie.

All that did was say “Hey! Look here, I’m trying to hide something!!” I took pruning shears and cut some vicious saw brier vines and some scraggly blackberry canes and wove them into the lattice of potato vines. It still didn’t look much better but I figured I could plant some honeysuckle or Jessamine on it and it would eventually fill in the gaps and make it look more natural.

All I was trying to do was make the house less noticeable at that point. It was already hidden but I wanted it more hid from the casual observer. The tall grass growing in our road helped and the trees and underbrush grew tightly together all around the remainder of the home site which included the barn, shed, and orchard. The barn is practically invisible as it is set back from the house and the road and surrounded on three sides by a dense growth of oak saplings that grow so close together they are hard to walk through. The orchard I’ve already described. Behind the house is a big open area but it has a dense canopy and the oak sprouts, blackberry canes, and cactus are beginning to take over in the few places the grass isn’t growing. The open area is surrounded by areas that have never seen a tractor or anything else and on the other side of that, what was supposed to be the fire line around the inside of our fenced forty acres, has grown wild and the cedar trees that Momma and I planted on each fence post on that side of the property are now all taller than me though most of them haven’t filled out all the way yet; they are tall and skinny. In that quadrant you can’t even walk the fence line anymore and the fence itself has disappeared under saw brier vines and moss that falls from the huge water oaks back there. There is plenty of Devil’s Walking Sticks back there too that make it dangerous to just push through willy nilly without really heavy clothes on.

So my front entrance is “hidden” and my back is covered and inaccessible except on foot and only then if you know the places you can push through. I tried a few places and the paths have become so overgrown even I have trouble making my way from one side of the bush to the other. I was thinking of clearing the old paths but now I’m not so sure.

By the time I finished that I was sore again, tired, and my black eye was stinging pretty bad where the sweat kept rolling into it. It was late afternoon but there was still plenty of light left. I put my tools away and headed out to the orchard. I saw a whip snake slither away so I was careful. Whip snakes aren’t poisonous but they are kind of high strung, you never know if they are going to run away or act big and bad and strike trying to scare you off. The blueberry bushes are pretty well loaded and by the time they are finished ripening I’m going to have a mess of them. This time out there I didn’t do much but graze down the rows. Every one that was really ripe I pulled off and ate. By the time I got to the end of the two rows of bushes I must have eaten three or four cupfuls. The whip snake is probably keeping the birds out of the orchard so I’m not too worried. There are going to be more than enough berries for me and them … I hope.

I wasn’t real hungry any more but I had enough commonsense to know I couldn’t keep going eating the stuff that was easy to grab and didn’t require cooking. For one thing that was using up my emergency stash and for another I didn’t want to get sick or so weak I couldn’t run if I needed to. I built a fire in the pit and as the wood burned to coals I boiled water and prepared a Dutch oven of beans, this time enough for two meals. I put some of the boiling water in my thermos carafes, some in a mug for cocoa, and poured the rest in the bathtub with some more water to cool it off and then dumped in my clothes and underthings from the last couple of days. I had just left them in the middle of the bathroom floor and they had soured and were stinking up the place. Lesson time for me: at least hang the dirty clothes up so they don’t sour otherwise I’ll be doing a wash load every other day.

I locked things down early. I tried to get Fraidy to come inside but she only blinked at me and went back to sleeping up in one the trees she likes to stay up in like a mountain lion. I left her alone figuring she was turning into a night hunter. I was still really sore and decided I needed to do something about that. I don’t like pills much but I was grateful for the acetomenaphine I found in the medicine cabinet.

There was still some daylight so I looked around to see what I could do. That’s when I noticed how dirty the house was. Momma would have been ashamed at how it looked. The kitchen wasn’t too bad, just needed some minor picking up and putting away of the dishes in the dish drainer, but the great room was a pig sty. There were boxes and junk everywhere from where I was inventorying and then trying to find a place to put everything. I nearly had everything inventoried I just hadn’t done a very good job of finding a place to put stuff away. It took me two hours but I got everything neatened and organized.

I was so tired by the time I finished I just went up to the dormer room, undressed and fell across the bed. I’d been a lot better off taking a couple of more pills because when I woke up in the morning I could barely move. It was worse than the day before. I finally got downstairs, dressed, and used the still hot water in the carafes to make instant grits. I wanted another cup of cocoa but the other one had given me a big fat zit on my chin; it hurt almost as bad as my eye did.

I went out and cut grass for the cows and threw some palmetto fronds in there for something different. There were still seven cows thank goodness and to me they looked like they were happier if not too much fatter. At least they were swishing their tails and not just leaving them limp and hanging. They also looked like they had more cow slobber on their noses and mouths. I figure that has to be a good sign.

Yesterday I was so sore that I decided to work around the house instead of going off all over the place. I was glad to have my meals and cooking already taken care of. And I knew I needed to do something about getting better with the guns. I had gotten lucky, or my guardian angel had been looking after me, but I’m pretty sure it was the noise of me practicing that brought those two men snooping around. I’m still trying to figure out what to do about that even though today I kept getting nudges to just get out and do it. I wish He would stop it.

It was work but I finished inventorying everything left in the barn and bringing it into the house. Putting it away wasn’t as fun mostly because I am realizing as much storage as the house has, there still isn’t enough. I need more book cases upstairs in the bonus rooms; I’ve got a lot of reading books just piled in stacks against the wall. I don’t have enough hangers so I divided the clothes up into different closets (like all the jeans in one, all the t-shirts in another, etc.) and what I couldn’t hang up I folded and just put on the closet floor. I’m using my parents’ bedroom furniture for socks, under things, night clothes, and stuff like that. I don’t have enough cabinets to put away all Momma’s sewing stuff like patterns, material, and all the other odds and ends.. There are also things I don’t have enough of like pens and pencils, writing paper, and the sorts of things you don’t realize you need until you need it and you can’t make it yourself.

I was wondering where I could put all of the office supplies I do have when I decided to take it up to the dormer room except for a small supply I put in the coffee table drawer. Those cabinets and drawers that Daddy built up there were mostly empty and I figured that is as good a place for that stuff as any. Also managed to get most of the boxes and bags emptied that were left from Momma and Daddy’s stuff. I’m not sure what to do with all of my brother’s clothes and toys; it hurts to think about it. Most of it I just left in boxes stacked in a corner upstairs. I finally found all the photo albums and photo boxes but I haven’t been able to look at them yet; it’s like with brother’s stuff, it’s still too hard..

Also managed to start a bean stew for my food the next day; again to save my matches. My bean stew isn’t exactly like Aunt Wilma’s because she cooked hers in a crock pot but I figured – and was right – that the slow cooking the beans did in the ground was just about the same thing. I put in some dried chopped onion, dried chopped garlic, some paprika, a half-cup each of four different dried beans (I used pinto, white, kidney, and black), seven cups of water, a bay leaf, a little bit of dill weed, salt, pepper, a bouillon cube, and a handful of dried potato chunks.

I did the whole routine – boiled water while the coals were making, yada, yada, yada.

I went to sleep thinking, “Now that wasn’t so bad. You got over it a lot easier than you thought.” I got up this morning kicking myself for the jinx.

I dreamed all last night. I kept waking up to the sound of gunfire in my ears and everything going red. Then just before the sky started getting some color to it I said to heck with it and just got up. I’d sweated through my sheets last night which meant another load of laundry. All this was made worse when I looked at the calendar and realized that today was Mother’s Day. That took my appetite away.

My soreness wasn’t quite so bad but I still took a pill. I learned in the hospital that sometimes it was just better to take your medicine than to try and be tough and prolong the agony. I tried really hard not to look in the mirror as I cleaned up. I was a mess. My eye still looked bad. My nose wasn’t really swollen any more but that wasn’t much of an improvement. The zit on my chin wasn’t the size of Mt. Vesuvius any more but that wasn’t saying too much either. It seems I can’t get a break. It’s not like I have any reason to be vain of my looks. If I had been inclined the wreck would have taken care of that. I have scars all over. Some of them are little tiny things that no one notices but me. But I’ll never wear a two-piece bathing suit. It would have been kinder had they just put a zipper on me from my chest to my belly button. The scars on my legs aren’t too bad but every once in a while someone would ask me why they looked like they’d been beat up by a weed whacker. I had a lot of surgeries to put me back together. I even have scars on my back but those aren’t very noticeable ‘cause they are down low … but I never will wear low rider jeans either.

I pulled myself back together and tried to stop feeling sorry for myself; it’s not like anyone will ever see those scars but me since I don’t have to go to the doctors any more. As far as I know there aren’t any doctors around even if I didn’t need to go to one.

I had granola with milk and realized I would need to make my own granola before too long the way I was eating it but I have honey and oats and there has to be a recipe in Momma’s books that I can use. It was still just half way light when I went to check on the cows. The grass was still too wet to cut but I figured I could give them some palmettos to tide them over. When I got to the usual place I throw the grass over I didn’t understand why they were all bunched up against the fence until I saw what I think might be getting the cows. I’m still not for sure though.

There were about two dozen of them trotting in a straight line across the field. That Rottweiler looking one (or its twin) was with them. All of them were big and most were the kind of dogs that can be scary … Doberman, pit, Rottweiler, German shepherd, and mixes of those breeds. Not one of them was a small dog. No way do I want to run into a dog pack. He might not be able to convince me to carry a gun because of more bad guys – I’d just try and avoid people like that – but I might just do it for those dogs. A man I can run from but I wouldn’t get two steps before those dogs were all over me. I had already experienced that when that Rottweiler tried to get in at me at the first house I was salvaging from.

There were still seven cows and it wasn’t until the dogs moved through and away that they unfroze and started milling about. They were happy to see me … or cow happy anyway. I can’t pretend it’s really me they want to see, it’s the grass and stuff I bring to them.

I was tempted to sit down and mope but I knew I had to go get my sheets and get them washed before they ruined the mattress. I had a mattress pad on the bed but it needed washing too. I dumped them in the tub and poured water over them and stepped on them a little bit to get them soaked and then started the laundry routine I had developed. While the sheets soaked I went to pick up more wood and brought back a bunch of broken branches that were about as long as my leg and big around as my wrist. A tree had blown over at some point in the past and was so brittle in places I could rip the smaller stuff off without too much effort.

I am piling the wood in the barn but I guess I’m going to need a lot more wood than what I’ve got before the cold weather gets here. It doesn’t snow but I remember it could get pretty darn cold compared to Tampa. But working on the idea of how to get more wood and where to put it also helped me to think of a possible solution to the lack of matches. A magnifying glass.

I went back to the house, cut grass for the cows, washed up, and hung out the sheets. It was a pain to wring the water out enough that I could get them out of the house without making a mess. Then I set to experimenting on starting a fire using the magnifying glass. To make it easier on myself I decided to go get some sappy pine needles to experiment with. Where all the loblollies grew over the fence on Magnolia Drive, there was a thick carpet of them. In my mind I was also using this as a justification for walking back down my road to the gully area. I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t chicken, that the bullies wouldn’t keep me from going anywhere on my own property that I wanted to.

While I was up there I stepped into the dense pines to take a bathroom break. When I came out a wagon pulled by a couple of big mules was coming down my road from CR49. There were also two guys on horseback. When they saw me the guys on horseback galloped towards me. I panicked. I admit it. I just dropped the pine needles and ran.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 17B

All I could hear was the pounding of the horses’ hooves. I didn’t even realize someone was calling my name. The horse overtook me easily and got in front of me. The guy jumped off his horse and grabbed me. I was kicking and trying to get away and then he shook me pretty hard. I drew back to try and poke him in the eye when I finally realized who it was but it took me another second to focus on what he was saying.

“Hey kid, take it easy. I’m not going to hurt you. Hey, don’t you recognize me? It’s Ra … Whoa! What the heck? What happened to you?”

He said some other things but when he finally let go of one of my arms I nearly fell down I was shaking so bad. I heard Rand shout, “Laurabeth! No … the rest of y’all stay over there a sec. Uncle George can you give me a hand please?”

I was already realizing I’d made an embarrassing mistake but when the young woman Rand called Laurabeth put her arm around me and started talking to me like I was a frightened little kid I felt even worse. I tried to tell her I was OK but my teeth were chattering so bad that I had to scrunch them together hard and could only shake or nod my head in response to her questions of whether I was OK or not.

I was still shaking pretty bad but I finally got my teeth under control and was able to answer their questions better. They didn’t ask me much except to make sure that I was all in one piece. Uncle George said, “I apologize for dropping in like this but Rand wanted to check on you and to share some information with you we came by in church this morning.” He hemmed and hawed a bit more after I apologized back for not recognizing them. No one was saying much of anything until Laurabeth came over again and the Rand and his uncle walked back to the wagon like they were checking things over.

Laurabeth is nineteen years old and has that auburn color of hair most people have to use a bottle to get. She was also a lot nicer than I expected after the way I acted. She said, “Um, look, what Dad and Rand would like to ask but they don’t want to upset you again is what happened. Will you tell me and I can tell them? Um … did someone … ?”

Nice people. They just can’t bring themselves to walk by without trying to help. She was giving me time to think about it but I figured if the Jew could stand to be helped by the Samaritan then I could stand to be helped by Rand and his family. Sometimes you’ve gotta look at things from the other side. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do to me but it was for sure they weren’t going to just walk away until they made sure I was OK so I gave in as gracefully as I could.

I told the story to Uncle George except I left out everything about the shooting practice. He wanted to know if I was telling him everything and at first I thought he had somehow figured out I had left out the rifle but when I looked at his face it was all red and Rand looked a little green around the gills. Laurabeth put her arm around me and ask what I guess they had been wondering all along. “Did those two men … hurt you … you know … “

Oh. They thought … well, it was pretty obvious what they thought given how I looked and the way I panicked. I promised them the men hadn’t though I admitted they’d pretty much been promising that was going to happen once they caught me.

Uncle George and Rand went to go check where I had dumped the bodies leaving everyone else with the horses and wagons. While they were away Laurabeth introduced me to everyone that was left. The other horse was being ridden by a young man named Jonathon. He was Laurabeth’s fiancé and two years older than Rand and built a lot thicker though he wasn’t fat at all. I recognized Mick who was holding the big mules still so they wouldn’t walk away with the wagon. In the bed of the wagon were two girls. The older of the two girls was named Charlene and she was my age, though a couple of months younger. The younger one was named Janet; she was fourteen with hair so blonde it was almost white and very frail looking.

We had all been standing around not quite knowing what to say when Uncle George and Rand came back out of the loblollies.

“Young lady, you had an angel watching over you,” Uncle George said gently.

I told him I knew that but what came next turned things upside down. Rand explained that the reason they had come over to begin with was because they had announced at church that tomorrow was the next “work for food” opportunity. How this works is that normally every other work day they alternate by last name -- one is for people whose last name begins with A through M, and then the next is for people whose last name begins with N through Z. Each person who shows up and gives a full day of work for whatever project is organized gets a box of food stuff. They’ve been doing it for about four months this way. This time however they are asking one person from every family to come regardless of last name, but only one person from each family.

Rand explained, “You were asking me why there weren’t cars lined up along the road up this way like there are in other places, this is why. We were having work days very regularly there for a while but there hasn’t been one for three weeks. You would count as the one from your family.”

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it and nodded instead. Uncle George said, “Honey, none of us are so rich we can afford to look a gift horse in the mouth. There’s no need for them to know you are the only person in your family. You do have something with the address for this place, a utility bill or something?”

I told him that “yes, sir” I did – and I do. I have some legal correspondence with my dad’s name on it made out to this address.

But then they started trying to manage me. Uncle George told me he’d feel better if Rand stayed here for the night, like he did before, and escort me to the meet up point and then keep an eye on me during the work day. My opinion of that must have showed because he sorta smiled and said, “I know Little Miss Stubborn but look at it this way. Rand stays here with the horse. In the morning you can ride double and get there faster, plus it will be faster for him to start out from here rather than from our place. You get someone to teach you the ropes and next time maybe you don’t need anyone’s help. He’ll be able to introduce you to the right people and I feel better knowing that you won’t be trying to figure things on your own. How’s that?”

I just gave in. He’s too nice to stay mad at. They “took their leave” never even going back to the house. They needed to get back to their place, Brendon had stayed home to look after things and if they didn’t show up soon he’d worry and might come looking for them.

Rand rode to the gate with them, shut it, and then came back to where I was standing. “Does it really bother you? I can sleep outside … “

I rolled my eyes at him because he was being a doof and totally not getting it. I told him Fraidy liked him and I’d dealt with enough foster boys that I could tell a good ‘un from a bad ‘un but that I didn’t like being managed like I was helpless. When I just started walking he shook his head and followed. It bothers me that he thinks I’m some kind of cause he needs to work on.

I slowed down when we approached the house and thankfully he didn’t have anything awful to say about my trellis fence. He didn’t ask why just said that I’d need to watch the ends in case they split when he saw I’d used nails to attach them to the trees. I led him and his horse through the brush and then just kind of stood there not knowing what to do next. Rand was letting me take the lead which was kind of nice but I didn’t know what to do until his stomach growled. His face got red and I couldn’t help it, I laughed; the first time in days.

I left him taking care of Hatchet – that’s the name of his horse – and went to take care of lunch. I’m glad I fixed as much as I did. Instead of having two or three meals for me we split the whole thing between us for lunch. Rand acted like he liked the bean stew and asked how I had it fixed so fast. I showed him the cooking pit and he looked at me and then asked me if I would write the directions down so he could give them to Laurabeth.

He asked me what I did all day by myself. I told him about picking up wood and cutting grass for the cows. I asked him what he did all day with people underfoot and he laughed and told me about helping his uncle with the animals, the garden, and all the stuff that has to be done on a farm. We were running out of things to talk about when the cows mooed so we walked over that direction to have something to do. He agreed that the cows looked pretty pathetic but they seemed frisky enough when I threw over some palmettos.

While Rand was playing tug with one of the cows with a palmetto frond I asked him some things that I’d been wondering about. Did he know if the cows belonged to anyone? Who did all the other properties around belong to and were people still living there? What would the law have to say about what I’d done to those two men?

“Well, when you start talking you really start talking don’t you,” he grinned.

After a moment where he looking like he was wondering how to answer me he smiled sadly and told me that I wasn’t to worry about what I had done to those men. The gangs … and they were the only ones that rode motorcycles around here … had done a lot of killing, stealing and had hurt a lot of people. The law wouldn’t have anything to say about it because there wasn’t really any law around here anymore. “That’s why Mr. Harbinger and his ‘community volunteers’ have been tolerated even thought not everyone agrees with the way they’ve been handling things lately.” He told me that I’d defended myself against deadly force so even had there been lawmen nothing worse than what had already happened would have occurred.

I was trying to think about there not being any police when he went on to tell me the property the cows were on was part of a big estate. “Mr. Duval Sr. died during the first round of flu and his kids and ex-wives were fighting it out in court because he hadn’t made a more recent will that included his last set of kids that he had had with his fifth wife.” Rand laughed at the look on my face. “Yeah, the old guy was crazy, for a fact. I used to earn extra money for school by working as a field hand at some of his different properties. Uncle George didn’t have much good to say about him but like everyone else Mr. Duval wasn’t all bad. He sure paid better than what I could have gotten bagging groceries at Winn Dixie.” Rand said if no one was taking care of the cows they were abandoned property.

I was going to ask him more about “abandoned property” when he went on to tell me there was a family two properties over and across CR49. “I don’t know them that well except for Momma O. Her husband was my 8th grade Sunday School teacher but he’s dead now. Her daughter and son-in-law live with her these days and from what I understand her grandsons help keep things running. They’re both older than me by a few years.”

He went on to tell me the only other people that he knew down this stretch of CR49 were the Hendersons and they had a big dairy and grain sorghum operation. “They are one of the few independents around here that still have fuel and apparently they have a lot of it. They keep to themselves pretty much. When things started getting really bad they moved some trailers onto their land and their hired hands moved there with their families. You won’t see them much unless there is a big county-wide meeting.”

When I asked what had happened to everyone else he got solemn and told me that some people had died of the fourth wave of flu, some folks had died because they couldn’t get their medication any more, the gangs murdered a lot of folks before people started killing them right back. “It wasn’t any one single thing. The population has just been chipped away bit by bit. Every family will have a different story to tell. They aren’t bad people, they just don’t tolerate strangers well right now.”

I got a little more daring and asked him what exactly “abandoned property” meant. He explained that when food and stuff had gotten short around here the local authorities issued a statement that Chapter 705 of the Florida Statutes would be enforced. “Everyone has read that chapter backwards and forwards around here. Basically it states any property left unclaimed or uncared for more than ten days is considered abandoned property and can be claimed by other people. Yeah, I know that is stretching the law so far it’s in danger of breaking. I think it was just a justification for what people were doing to survive. The Feds have something similar going called ‘redistribution of resources.’ We haven’t had any trouble with the Feds around here though you hear about it sometimes through the rumor mill. ”

He said if I didn’t see anyone take care of the cows for ten days I could take them for my own but if the legal owner did come looking for them after that I might have to turn them over. “No law these days but most everyone tries to do the right thing. As puny as these cows look I don’t think you have anything to worry about. But why would you want them and where would you put them?”

I shrugged. I figure I have another week before I have to decide that. Then I asked him about houses. “You talking about this house? Yeah, if anyone had known it was back here they probably could have taken it and no one thought anything of it but if you showed up and there had been someone living here and you could have proven ownership in some way then they would have been expected to move out and give it back. At least that is the way it is supposed to work. But something tells me you aren’t asking about this house.”

He’s patient, I’ll give him that. The way he listens you feel almost forced to answer. I finally told him what I had done at the four houses that I had “salvaged” from. He asked if I would show him where they were and while we walked to the first one – he kept his rifle with him the whole time – he told me that I was lucky if I had found one abandoned house that hadn’t been completely emptied much less four. “Some of those early work days we spent going house to house and hanging up public notices stating that if no living relative (they needed proof of kinship) stepped forward then the goods within the house would be collected and redistributed to those in need. We got more than a few bodies out of some of those houses too. It was a terrible job.”

We only went in the fourth one and I could tell Rand had done this before. He seemed to know all the places to look and what to look for. When he asked me if I minded if he took a few things out I asked him why I should mind. “Finders keepers.” I sighed and rolled my eyes at him again … he makes me want to do that a lot … and he smiled and grabbed a bag and took a coat, two pairs of shoes and some of the other guy things that were in the tractor bedroom. I found some more pens and pencils all rubberbanded together in a desk that was sitting in the den and Rand and I split them along with the stack of writing tablets that was in one of the desk drawers.

At least now I don’t have to feel quite so bad about taking things from those houses. Rand said that to his knowledge no one had any claim on any of them. “I don’t see any public notices so this house might have been missed; I don’t know about those other houses since you said that had all the food removed. One of the gangs could have done it too I suppose.”

As we walked back to the house Rand got quiet. I knew that quiet. It’s the lack of sound that comes right before someone tells you something that they don’t think you are gonna like hearing. Sure enough Rand wants me to keep the fact that I’m all on my own here to myself, to lie if I have to. He didn’t even want me to tell his girlfriend who was going to be there with us tomorrow. “Julia would probably be on your side – I know she would – but her brother is a big mouth and if he finds out it’ll be all over. And I hate to say it but he’s friends with the Harbingers and I don’t think you want that kind of attention. Plus people talk … me staying here with you and no one else around … well, people can be nasty minded.”

I know about people talking but it is pretty rude for people to assume that just because I’m letting Rand help me a little bit that that would mean that I’d put up with anything else. When I told him so he laughed all the way back to the house. “You remind me of Missy.”

When I asked him who Missy was he said she was Uncle George’s daughter from his first marriage. She got a little wild when she was a teenager and Uncle George who was raising her let her go live with her maternal grandparents. “She’s funny. She works the big supply depot they put in at the Lake City Municipal Airport. That’s where a lot of stuff that is gathered on the work days is sent for redistribution. No one messes with Missy; she’ll put you in your place real quick. But at the same time, if she considers you a friend watch out … you won’t be able to ditch her. If you think Uncle George and I are trying to manage you, Missy is even worse … but she means well.”

I knew I needed to think about dinner but when I asked him he said he wasn’t going to hog all of my supplies and that he was still full from the bean stew. I thought about telling him that I had plenty but I figure that information is no one’s business but my own. Rand may be nice but I haven’t known him long to trust him that far yet.

While Rand went off to check on Hatchet again I went out to the orchard and low and behold it looks like I am really going to have to start picking the berries for real pretty soon. I ran back to the house and grabbed a small bucket and went back to the blueberry bushes and picked a bunch. I knew exactly what to fix that Rand wouldn’t be able to fret about … blueberry dumplings.

“Knock, knock.” I turned around real quick to find Rand at the gate. I know I’ve written that Rand makes me want to roll my eyes a lot but it bears repeating. He came in and looked around. “You’ve got way more fruit here than you can eat fresh. We have a farmer’s market planned for next Saturday and you could probably bring some of these and trade for something else if you want. You’ll still have a lot going to waste though and that’s a shame. These trees look like they are setting up really nice.”

I snorted, not falling for it. I’d dealt with way too many therapist to fall for that kind of information gathering. I told him I knew how to can the fruit. “Maybe I’ll trade you in on one of my cousins.” When I asked if they’d ever really had to cook or preserve food before now he said, “No Granny. Uncle George took care of everything after Aunt Rachel died. I think it was his way of trying to work through his grief. They are learning now though. At least they don’t burn the water anymore.”

When his stomach growled again I gave him a handful of berries and asked him what he thought of dumplings for dinner.

Dumplings are so easy. I made them all the time at Good Eats. You just make a soft dough and then dump clumps of it in something boiling until they are cooked through. Stew with dumplings, soup with dumplings, vegetables with dumplings but one of my favorites is stewed fruit with dumplings. I washed and picked over the blueberries to make sure that there weren’t any bugs and then I put two cups of water for every pint of fruit I planned to use on to boil. When the water boiled I added the fruit and enough sugar to sweeten everything and continued to boil the water and fruit until a syrup formed. Then you drop rounded spoonfuls of dough into the boiling fruit and syrup and cook for about ten minutes.

Gosh it was so good. Rand nearly licked the silver off of his spoon trying to get the last bit. He’s cool in a dopey big brother kind of way. A couple of the foster boys had been like that too though most of them had just been plain trouble.

Rand had intended on picketing Hatchet under a tree for the night but when I told him about the dogs he asked if I minded him going in the barn. There will be horse poo to clean up tomorrow but I’d rather do that than worry about him getting eat up all night.

We got to one of those awkward nobody-knows-what-to-say moments again and that’s when he asked if I minded telling him about those men again. I did mind but I figured he wasn’t asking me to be mean so I told him. Then he looked at me and asked me why I had been in the hayfield and what I had been doing that I hadn’t heard the motorcycles before they were right on top of me. I explained about my APD but he just kept waiting. That’s when I told him about the rifle … not about anything else, just the rifle.

I expected him to lecture me or be upset I hadn’t told him before but all he said was, “Look, I understand that this is your house and whatever is here is yours. To be honest, one of these days I hope to have a place of my own; I have to have one if Julia’s dad is ever going to take me seriously. I’m just telling you so that you’ll know that I really do understand; but there are things that are easier to learn and to do with help. I want to help, to pay you back for not leaving me to die in that gully, but it’s harder for me to do that if you don’t trust me.”

I want to trust the guy although he’s looney if he thinks he has to pay me back. However I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him he sure was asking a whole lot so instead I got the rifle out of the coat closet (the doorway to the dormer room hidden behind coats) and brought it to him. He looked the gun over and told me that I needed to keep the barrel wiped down and he gave me a few more pointers and pestered me about practicing some more. He said if I worried about the sound of gunfire drawing the attention of the gangbangers then maybe I could pick a spot away from the house … like over by one of the abandoned houses.

Then he asked if I had tossed the gangbangers guns into the septic tank. I told him they were out in the barn with the motorcycles. He told me he’d look at them tomorrow and see what kind of bullets they used … I told him the bullets that were in their pockets were out there too. It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Locked in the barn is not doing you a bit of good. I’m not saying you have to where a gun on each hip and carry a bazooka but you need know how to defend yourself.” I told him I’d give it some thought.

This time the quiet was better, the friendly kind where you are talked out but it’s OK ‘cause the other person is talked out too. That’s when he asked what I did at night and I told him that sometimes I wrote in my journal. Then he told me about his journal and he asked if I minded if he wrote while there was still a little light left. He said that he shared a room with Brendon so didn’t have a lot of privacy and the house was rarely quiet until everyone went to bed.

So that’s what we’ve been doing and that’s why, even though I have company, I’ve been able to write this all down. The only other thing we’ve really talked about was that we’d need to take our own canteens and eating utensils for tomorrow. Apparently they provide a mid-day meal of sorts, and that they have a truck of potable water, but not cups, plates or spoons. I got out a couple of plastic bowls and a spoon for each of us and two ruck sacks to carry them in. Rand already had his own canteen with him.

The lights gone and I’m finishing up this last paragraph by moonlight. I’ll have to be up extra early tomorrow so that I can feed the cows before we leave but that’s OK. Best of all, I’m going to get to ride a horse tomorrow!
 

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 18

May 15th -- I remember this debate case statement we were given for one of our matches: “Disasters bring out the best in people/Disasters bring out the worst in people.” The teams stalemated every time because the burden of proof for both statements was so easy to come up with. I think it’s because the truth is that it is both. I certainly saw that today.

Oh, I forgot to mention yesterday that I now have a working clock and pocket watch. Rand said the time might be off by five or ten minutes either way but no one is paying it that close attention right now. I had set the alarm for 4:45 but Rand still woke up ahead of me without a clock to go by. I woke up when I heard him moving around in the bathroom, bumping into things ‘cause of the dark.

I guess I hadn’t noticed yesterday that Rand had shaved for church. But this morning he was scratching his face like it itched. He noticed me noticing him doing that and he got a little red but explained that he only bothered shaving on Sundays now and it itched for a day afterwards. At least I could cover up my hairy legs with jeans. Guys have to leave their faces hanging out all the time. So maybe guys have some junk they have to put up with too … I still don’t think it is fair they don’t have to put up with the monthlies but I don’t guess there is anything I can do about that.

I found out something about Rand that is not too cool. He’s a morning person. He’s a happy morning person. He talks in the morning … a lot. Ugh. He just laughed at me and said Laurabeth and I have something in common … poor Laurabeth if she has had to put up with this happy morning person every morning for years. I looked in my match box and I’m down to about a dozen matches. I took one out only to find Rand ahead of me making a fire in the grill for coffee. I asked him how he had known where the matches were … my way of checking to see if my short term memory was on the fritz or if he had been snooping … and he showed me this thing he called Bob.

I told him I thought guys only named their cars and I thought he was going to laugh so hard he was going to choke or something. I didn’t get the joke – and still don’t really think it is funny if you want to know the truth so it must be a guy thing. He explained that he didn’t mean “Bob” but B-O-B which stands for a “bug out bag.” It’s basically some kind of emergency kit he carries in a tool belt kind of thing on his hip. I thought it was where he kept his bullets but he showed me that it is really full of a bunch of odds and ends for emergencies in case he gets caught away from home. He suggested I make one for myself even if I was just walking around my property because he said his had been dead useful on more than one occasion, especially the first aid stuff. I might do that. I can always stick it in a purse or something that I can sling across my shoulders.

I don’t like being laughed at, especially not that early in the morning, but he didn’t do it to be mean so I didn’t burn his oatmeal. That’s what I fixed for breakfast because I swear Rand’s stomach talks almost as much as he does. He was kind of easy taking the first few bites but then he really went to town. He asked what it was and I told him oatmeal. He said that it wasn’t oatmeal ‘cause they have oatmeal all the time at his house and it didn’t taste like what I fixed. I said then he wasn’t having oatmeal because what I fixed was oatmeal. He shut up for a couple of minutes and then said I was probably right because Laurabeth and Charlene were the ones that fixed it. There is no way his cousins can be as bad at cooking as he makes them out to be. I think he is just being silly on purpose.

I put a nosebag of some granola and dried fruit in with the plastic bowls and utensils we carried just in case we didn’t get fed like Rand expected we would. Now I’m glad I did. It was just barely gray when we left the house. Rand took care of Hatchet and scooped the poop and I went and cut some grass for the cows. They were bunched up against the fence again and I could just barely see the dogs crossing the field in the early morning mist. I turned to see Rand watching the dogs too.

He said the dogs must have built themselves a den somewhere nearby if I’ve seen them cross the pasture twice the same way in the early morning. He handed me one of the guns that the gangbangers used and told me to put it in my bag along with the bullets. He said the gun was called a Hi-Point or something like that and that it uses 9mm bullets. He said that he’d ask his Uncle George who the best contact would be for 9mm ammo and what they would take in trade. I didn’t tell him I already had a bunch for obvious reasons and ‘cause I know he’s just trying to help but he ruined it by saying, “The gun isn’t loaded. I don’t want you shooting your foot off. I’ll show you how to load and fire it before the day is over with.” I felt like hitting him with the handle of the swing blade. For a nice guy he can be very irritating.

I forgave him though once we finally started to the meet up point because he let me ride Hatchet. I’ve never ridden a horse before today except for once for not even a minute at Girl Scout camp. It’s like sitting on top of a barrel, a barrel with really long legs. We rode double and I didn’t know how to hold on until he said I could hold his belt loops like Janet does if I wanted to. That helped. I didn’t feel like I was going to fall off quite so much. I have to say even though it was fun my backside isn’t too happy right now. It was OK to the meet up place but coming home was another story. I felt like I’ve been bouncing up and down on a hard bleacher seat for hours.

Turns out the meet-up place was the big parking lot in front of Walmart. We took US90 to US129 where we turned north almost until we got to interstate 10. Or maybe I should say the parking lot of what used to be a Walmart; it’s nothing but a burned out mess now. In fact most of the buildings along US129 into Live Oak are like that, even the big church on the corner. Rand told me it was because refugees came off of the interstate and almost wiped the town out. “It was like a Biblical plague of locusts. It was even worse than a lot of the big city riots they were showing on television. The town lost four deputies in as many days. Was a bad time around here, not many people dared leave their homes because when the stores emptied people would barge right into houses looking for whatever they thought they needed. The farms around here were hit really hard; luckily there aren’t any field crops near the interstate, most of that is way back to 49 and 252 and into Gilchrist and Lafayette counties. Columbia got hit pretty hard and so did Alachua because of I75.”

We were early, it wasn’t even 7 AM yet, but there were people ahead of us. The sign in line was already several yards long. About then a girl ride up with some other people and Rand’s face lit up and he jogged over to help the girl down. I didn’t exactly need to be Einstein to figure out this was Julia. In addition to the smooch, Rand had this really dorky look on his face like half his brains had trickled out of his ears. It was really hard not to laugh.

The girl seemed nice enough. I expected a girlfriend type person to be more bent out of shape about me hanging around but she wasn’t. We got in line together and I found out she was a morning person too. Ugh. The line moved pretty fast until it was my turn. Rand and Julia had already been assigned to a road work crew together since they both had horses but I had to fill out a form and we got separated. I could see Rand starting to go all fuss-budget until a woman showed up and spoke to him. He left with a wave and a thumbs up.

The woman came over to me and I could see she was twenty-something and had the same white-blonde hair color hair as Janet and Uncle George. I was meeting the infamous Missy. And Missy is most definitely cool. She got me through all the forms and proof of residency stuff without me having to lie about anything. We went over to a bunch of trailers and she said, “No favoritism even if you do know my dad. You’ll work your butt off or I’ll send you home.”

I was on the crew that made up the food boxes for people who finished their work day. Missy told me, “Cut off for each work day’s sign up is 8:00 am because all crews are expected to be working no later than 8:30. We are supposed to get a final number no later than 9:00 am and that’s when our work will really start. We take the number of people that sign and divvy it up what food supplies we have as fairly as possible. Thankfully we don’t have to do a bunch of individuals this time but family boxes instead. With individuals you wind up having to do the math down to quarter pounds and lower sometimes to make sure everyone gets exactly the same amount.”

I like math and didn’t understand the fuss until I actually had to start doing it. Missy … or Ms. Crenshaw as I had to call her when other people were around … took the inventory and divided it up. “I wish we could take into account whether someone is single or whether they have a family to feed but the logistics of that would be a nightmare. The only way to make it as fair as possible is that everyone that works gets the same share. Once people start bringing their work ticket up to the table, and that won’t happen until after 4:00 pm, I want you to stay back until our guard gets in place. If things get too wild I may ask you to go sit in one of the trucks until Rand comes to pick you up. We have had a little trouble at the last two stops along this route. People don’t like the amount or what they’re getting … or they start trading with each other which causes a lot of confusion.”

I thought of what my Kindergarten teacher used to tell us, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.” Seems to me that some so-called adults need to learn that.

Until the numbers came Missy had us getting organized. We set up a bunch of tables and each table had four or five red lines dividing it up. Each of us on the work crew had our own table. We were expected to make up four or five food boxes at a time; I got the only table that had six divisions on it. I saw some of the other women on the crew smirking so I figured something was up. Ended up fooling them. Having to fill six boxes at a time actually made the work go faster. Right at 8:45 the numbers were turned in; 256 people signed up in time.

Missy did the math and then turned to us and smiled really big. “Good news, we’ve got enough that all we have to do is break it down into pounds and half-pounds this time. But ladies, I’ve had a little trouble with people trying to put the ‘good stuff’ in their own family’s pile. That won’t be happening again, not on my watch. From here on out, preparers will not be distributors. Depot staff will distribute and we’ll be monitoring to make sure nothing shifty is going on. And you can get the look off your face Doris Vayne; I really don’t care what you think about this change. If it isn’t to your liking you can leave and go one home.”

“Doris” was one of the women who had been smirking; she wasn’t smirking any more. Missy wasn’t finished however. “The other change is that canned foods and convenience items are being reserved for Special Populations such as the folks at the hospital, the nursing homes, and most of you should know who else. There are still a few but mostly what we have today is commodities including grains, sweeteners, dried vegetables, powdered milk, and the like. We are out of tobacco and coffee and I’m not sure when we will be getting any more in. Since about half as many people showed up as expected it looks like we have an abundance of paper products to hand out which should make up for that some. Anyone with questions about these changes can see me at the end of your shift. Now, let’s get to it.”

Rand wasn’t kidding; Missy managed people pretty good. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Missy had everything down to a science. The only thing was trying to not make a mess with the loose stuff and making sure that everything was measured correctly. There were bins of wheat (not flour but the whole grain), cornmeal, dried fruit, dried veggies, white sugar, brown sugar, powdered milk, mixed nuts in the shell, sunflower seeds in the shell, salt, pepper, baking soda, baking powder, and some spices and stuff. Another truck held paper goods like toilet paper, Kleenex, feminine products. The third truck was the “wet” supplies and it was the biggest mess. There was honey, molasses, and cane syrup. There were oils like corn, safflower, and olive. And then there were vinegars and other liquid flavorings. The last pile was a crate of miscellaneous odds and ends.

Missy came over and got me started since I was the only one that had never worked the supply crew. She walked me through scooping the staple goods into paper bags and making sure they weighed the correct amount. Showed me how one type of dried fruit was used until it was all gone then they opened the next bin and used it until it was all gone. That meant that even if the truck held five different types of dried fruit, each food allotment only contained one type. Same with the dried veggies. There were plastic containers that the “wet” items went into and once they were filled they were taped securely closed. The paper goods were doled out by some of Missy’s regular staff. Then each food box was given one item from the miscellaneous crate … could be anything from a package of cookies to packets of Kool aide to a box of baby wipes.

Once I had six sets of stuff on my table I took a large burlap bag and carefully piled everything in the bag and then sewed it shut with a big upholstery needle and raffia string. Missy said it didn’t have to be neat, it just needed to be knotted tightly closed to remind people to wait to start looking in their bag and going through it until after they had gotten it home.

When I asked Missy where all the paper bags and burlap bags and plastic containers came from she told me there were drop stations ahead of each work day. For every paper bag or plastic container turned in people would get an extra credit in their ration books; every burlap bag turned in would get them three. “It doesn’t add up to much if you think about it but it’s an incentive to get people to recycle them which takes the burden off of our station to requisition containers.” The ration book is a new one on me and I forgot to ask Rand about it in the melee that happened later.

A little after four o’clock people started coming in with these stamped and dated cards. No one is supposed to know the card color ahead of the work day so that they can’t be counterfeited and each crew chief is assigned a different shaped punch that is used for additional security. The people go up to the first line, their card is checked against their sign in information, if it matches they get a hand stamp and then go into the line where they can pick up their bag. If the card, color, punch or any part doesn’t match what was written down at sign in then they have to wait for it to be cleared up, however long that takes.

I didn’t think it was going to be work but it really was. There were 256 civilian “volunteers.” There were six of us preparers. That meant each of us were supposed to prepare about 42 bags of food. For me that meant I had to do seven tables of six bags each. Wowzer. Between 9:00 am and when the first group started to trickle through I had made up 35 bags but then things got crazy and I lost count.. It reminded me of the dinner rush at Good Eats.

I saw Rand and Julia go through and he told me he’d be back to pick me up when Missy punched my ticket. It was a guy in the last crew to come in that turned everything nasty. Basically he started shouting because he had a family and some of the other guys who were single were getting the same amount. The single guys said it wasn’t fair when families got so much more for the same amount of work. A couple of the men started to brawl and then things got out of control.

Missy was one of the first to go down. She had her back to the crowd and was trying to get her crew and staff up into the trucks so they wouldn’t get hurt when the brawlers ran into the distribution tables and Missy disappeared under a table and a bunch of other people. That’s when I heard whistles blowing but by that time lots of people were fighting and not all of them were men.

I ducked down by the wheels of one of the semi trailers and tried to stay out of the mess. I spotted Missy trying to crawl away from the broken tables but every time she tried to get upright she’d get knocked back over. I could see blood on her face already and knew if she didn’t get out of there she could get trampled to death. I looked around for some help but all the adults were either running away from the fight or running to it.

I grabbed a couple of cans from the Miscellaneous Crate and dumped them in a burlap bag and started making my way over to Missy. When people started getting too close I’d swing the bag. If they were smart they moved. If they weren’t smart they got smacked by a load of cans in the back or gut and that moved them. When I got to Missy she wasn’t moving much but it was all I could do to keep people from stepping on her any more. I couldn’t bend down and help her.

About that time some really big guy with a blonde flat top showed up and picks up Missy and starts heading toward the trucks. I’m suddenly looking at a horse’s belly from where I’ve been tossed over a saddle … that thing on the front, the saddle horn, knocked the wind out of me. Rand had used Hatchet to wade through the crowd; apparently being stepped on by a horse or kicked by one moves you out of the way even better than a burlap bag of cans. Even after Rand put me on my feet between two of the semi trailers it took me a minute to get my breath back.

The big guy … found out later his name was Major Sawyer … told us to stay with Missy and then he went out and started shouting orders and I heard some screams as some crowd control started happening. Missy was a mess but she had starting cussing by the time the medics showed up. She had quite a vocabulary; most of it wasn’t really what you would call curse words per se, it was more like creative descriptions of people’s lack of character and mental capacity. I was trying not to smile but when Rand looked at me all sour-faced I lost the battle and had to put my hand over my mouth to stop the snickers. Then the medics started smiling. My personal opinion is that if she still had that much inventiveness then there was nothing wrong with her brain even if her head had gotten stepped on.

There were some people who didn’t want to disperse. They were complaining that they hadn’t gotten their supplies or that they had been stolen or that the bag had ripped or whatever. The Major summed it up by saying, “Forget it people. This station is closed. If you have problems, take it up with your neighbors that started this riot. And don’t make it worse than it already is; when word gets back to command they may just close the work for food program in this area all together.” Now that last bit shut people up and I saw some scared eyes staring at the mess that had been made.

The Major was nice enough but he said that we’d need to go because they were securing the area. Missy told her staff to make sure that we both had our food bags and then I saw the Major slip something to Rand. The medics took Missy away after she told Rand not to worry her Dad, that she would get word to him as soon as she could. The Major told Rand that he’d see to Missy’s care personally. I think there is something going on between Missy and the Major but I didn’t feel it was my place to ask.

As we were leaving the Major pointed to my eye and asked if I had gotten hurt in the fight. I told him no but he had one of the medics look at it anyway. It got a clean bill of health and told to stop getting into fights. I opened my mouth to defend myself when I figured out he was ribbing me. Gosh, it doesn’t matter how old they are, guys are just trouble with a capital T. And silly too, for a fact.

Rand tied the two bags across Hatchet’s saddle and we started walking out of town. It was spooky. It went from there being a huge crowd and fight to no people, like everyone had found a place and hid. We almost got run over at the corner of US90 and SR129 by a bunch of military vehicles that were going really fast down the highway. Some of them almost didn’t make the corner. Rand said they must have been called in as backup in case people started to change their mind and come looking for trouble again. “Word is going to get around fast that the Major said the program site may close. Some people might think they have nothing to lose at this point.”

I asked him what happened to Julia and he said she left as soon as she had gotten her food allotment. Her brother had been there to escort her home. I asked why her brother hadn’t been the one to work and all he did was laugh. I took that to mean that Rand’s opinion of Julia’s brother wasn’t very high.

We kept walking and Rand’s stomach growled so I asked him if he was hungry. He told me yes that the lunch had only been a sandwich and an apple and he was saving the apple for Janet. I pulled out the nose bags I had put together and handed him one. He grinned and dug into his. He asked me what kind of lunch I had gotten and I just shrugged. I really hadn’t noticed whether we got lunch or not, I’d been so busy making up bags that I hadn’t even noticed when lunch had come and gone. The oatmeal for breakfast was really filling. Rand got upset when he figured out I hadn’t eaten and tried to give me what was left of his granola and dried fruit. I told him I was fine, I hadn’t been out on the interstate stripping down cars like he had. He grumped and proceeded to read me a lecture on paying better attention and not letting things like free lunches get passed me. I just nodded my head like I was listening; guys seem to like that. I was really thinking about the day and what I needed to do tomorrow as I already had some plans.

We were exiting the city limits when we saw Uncle George coming lickety split with the wagon from one direction and a truck coming from the other. They both pulled up short right where we were at. The driver of the truck was the medic that had looked at my eye. Rand calmed Uncle George down … apparently someone named Marjorie Mitchell had come home with a story of having seen Missy “trampled near to death” that sent him tearing here to check on everyone … and the medic assured him that while Missy was pretty banged up she was still full of vinegar and would make a full recovery if she would mind the Major. That is another thing that makes me thing that Missy and the Major are more than friends.

The medic said, “Mr. Crenshaw, the Major sent some stuff along for your trouble and for the young lady here for defending one of his staff members.” He then took several large bags out of the truck bed and put them in Uncle George’s wagon. Uncle George for his part told the medic, “Please tell the Major that should Missy … or either of them or both … need a bed, we’ve got the room.” The medic grinned and waved as he pulled out.

You could tell that Uncle George was having a hard time pulling himself together. Rand went over and put his arm around him. I didn’t know what to do so I just stood there trying not to be obvious. After a moment Uncle George sniffed real big and squared his shoulders and things were back right again. “Now young lady, exactly what did that man mean about you defending one of his staff?” That meant I had to tell the story to Uncle George’s satisfaction. I laid it on heavy about being tossed upside down on Hatchet so he wouldn’t pay too much attention to the other stuff but he didn’t fall for the misdirection way Aunt Wilma always had.

I got hugged. It felt funny but funny in a good way, not funny in a bad way. But it was weird too. I barely know the man but “uncle” somehow feels right when I think about it. How strange is that? I’m pretty sure Momma and Daddy would like Mr. George Crenshaw quite well. While I’d been explaining Rand had rearranged the bags and put them all into the bed of the wagon. One of the bags had a piece of paper stapled to it that said “Miss S.” Rand asked me if the S was for Snow or for Stubborn. Ha ha; very funny. He needs to take that act on the road.

Rand put me up on Hatchet and told me to hold on while he got in behind me. Uncle George followed us to my gate and then all the way back to the house this time but like Rand he didn’t say anything about my funky looking lattice barricade. Rand got down and helped me down; I was pretty sore at that point which made Rand grin and made me want to kick him in the ankle.

While Rand was looking around to make sure no one was hiding in ambush, Uncle George said, “I was going to try again to get you to come home with us but I can see why you’d want to stay here. But you listen to me, if you ever get in trouble, you run to our place. Don’t worry about anything else, we’ll figure it out. You hear me?” Rand had already drawn me a map and made me memorize the directions just in case I lost the paper.

I knew it was getting late and they knew it was getting late. They needed to go but neither man felt comfortable leaving me. I figured they were being so nice I told them to wait a second. Rand followed but stopped at my porch to put down the two bags giving me time to go out to the orchard. I had picked a sack full and was running back when we met up and we walked back to Uncle George one last time.

He didn’t want to take the blueberries but I said they were for the girls to make dumplings and then told him how I’d made them. “Dumplings are real simple and once they get the hang of it it will make them feel so good that when some weiner-headed boy makes fun of what they put on the table they won’t care.” I was looking at Rand when I said it and he got that “What? Who me?” look on his face. Uncle George finally smiled, if a little sadly.

It has been a full day and I’m really glad to be home. It’s quiet without Rand or Uncle George around but I’ll be glad to sleep in the dormer room again. I was surprised as all get out when I dragged the heavy burlap bags inside and opened them. The one that I had earned by working was full of the stuff like I had packed in all the other bags but instead of dried fruit there was a big bag of gingerroots. The other bag that Major Sawyer had sent had several packages of toilet paper in it, a big package of feminine stuff, a big bag of wheat, another of cornmeal, and a third of sugar. The rest of the bag was filled with what looked like all the odds and ends from the Miscellaneous Crate.

That’s what I meant about seeing both the best and the worst of people. The work day wasn’t so bad until the end but I’m glad it’s over. It was nice earning something but I’m not too sure that I want to go on another one any time soon; some folks around here seem pretty touchy.

I almost didn’t notice it but written on the back of the note that had said “Miss S” Rand had written, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your shooting lessons. I’ll see you on Saturday after the Farmer’s Market. Until then, don’t go any place outside the house without that rifle. And keep it loaded brat. Uncle George will have my head if anything happens to you. I wouldn’t like it too much either. – R”

I just don’t know where he gets off trying to order me around. It’s OK for now I guess but I’ll have to put my foot down eventually.

Something good did come of today. That woman Doris helped me whether she meant to or not. I overheard her bragging to her friend how she was canning over an open fire outside. Ding, ding, ding … we have a winner. I spent a couple of hours tonight after my evening chores going over Momma’s recipes for canning blueberries. I’m ready to give it a try so that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow assuming it doesn’t rain.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 19

May 16th --I think for the first time in a long time I’m starting to do what Daddy always talked about, “Work smarter, not harder.” He also used to say, “Prior planning prevents poor performance.” That’s the way I want to be. I feel really, really good - like something has changed. I’m happening to life, not just life happening to me.

Before I went to bed last night I washed and laid out all of the stuff I would need for today. There was the big speckleware canning pot and the jar rack that fit down inside it; several pails of water (so that it wouldn’t be as cold as when it came out of the pump and take more wood to heat up); a couple of cases of pint jars, rings, and seals; a pound and ounce food scale; a jar funnel made just for canning; a jar lifter, a timer, big glass mixing bowls, a pitcher and several wooden spoons. I even put a bib apron out like we used to wear at the diner.

I was so excited this morning that I didn’t even mind Fraidy the Alarm Cat going off so that she could get her water dish. I jumped up and got my morning chores done real quick. The cows aren’t inhaling the grass as fast as I can throw it over so I hope that means they are learning that it’ll be there and they aren’t starving quite so bad any more.

I needed to wait for some of the dew to dry before I started to pick the berries, but I couldn’t wait until it got too hot, so I hurried up and built the fire pit. I used the hole I keep dug out but I added a layer of bricks around the hole like a ring. Daddy had kept all the extra bricks that weren’t used on the exterior of the house – they are solid Georgia brick and should hold up to being around a fire better than cinder blocks would. Daddy had also kept the heavy rebar grate that we used on our fire ring when we were building the house. That thing is heavy (and dirty) and I had to roll it from the barn to the back of the house because it was too heavy for me to carry very far. After I got the ring of bricks leveled out I removed a brick on each side so that I could add wood to the fire without having to move the grate and to give the fire air … not enough air, not enough fire.

The grate was way bigger than I needed for the canner but I just centered everything to make best use of it since I didn’t have anything better. It didn’t hurt anything and it gave me room to put a coffee pot of water on the outside to heat up water with. I also set up a hard topped card table with some towels on it so I would have a workspace outside so I wouldn’t have to keep running in and out. I threw some extra towels in a plastic lounge chair nearby so they’d be handy when I needed them.

I started the fire and then let it burn down so that the flames wouldn’t touch the bottom of the canner … I wanted heat, not necessarily flame, just like when I was cooking the beans. Then I put the canner on and filled it half full of water to let the water start heating up. I’m glad I started it when I did and next time I’ll know I can’t have the canner so far from the coals ‘cause it took longer to heat the water than I planned and I got ahead of myself in some of the other jobs.

From there I grabbed a bucket and ran out to the orchard where I picked a mess of ripe blueberries. It only took me a couple of bushes before my bucket was full. I took them back to house only to find the water in the canner was nowhere near warm enough yet. I set the berries in the relative cool of the summer kitchen and then went back for more berries. After three loads of berries the water was still just barely simmering so I stuck some more wood down into the fire and I figured by the time I finished preparing the berries the water should be hot enough.

I remembered just in time that I would need to get my jars hot even though they were already clean so I used the jar lifter to put them down in the canner to heat up while I fixed what was going to go in them. The problem for me was that a lot of Momma’s canning recipes call for a lot of white sugar. There are some that use honey but not a lot of them. Looking at my inventory sheets last night I tallied up that, between what was in the stuff Daddy bought and the stuff Momma canned plus what I found and what I earned, I have about two hundred pounds of white sugar. That sounds like a whole lot only Momma’s notes say that a pound of sugar only has two cups in it. When you look at it like that, and read how much sugar it takes to can stuff, that isn’t much sugar at all. So for my first try at canning I decided to use a recipe that didn’t require any sugar.

I washed and picked over the first bucket of berries and then measured eight pounds using Momma’s scale. I dipped out a pitcher of the now boiling water and poured it into another pot that I carefully put the eight pounds of berries into. I left them in the water for 30 seconds. I started hauling the jars out of the canner as quick as I could and dumping the boiling water back into the canner and sitting them on the towel on the card table. I had my seals and rings in a mesh bag that I set into the boiling canner at that point.

Using the jar funnel I filled each pint jar with berries, leaving what is called “head space” of one-half inch. That means that I filled the jars full but left a half-inch empty space at the top. Then, using the water I had boiled the berries in, I filled each jar with the purplish water up to the same half-inch mark, making sure to wipe any drips off the jar rim when I moved the funnel to the next jar. When all the hot jars were filled with hot berries and hot liquid, I drew the mesh bag out of the canner and dumped the contents on my work surface. I had to move quick cause those rings and lids burnt my fingers. I put a sealing lid on a jar with the gummed side down and then put a screw ring over that and tightened it down.

Next I used the jar lifter to set the pint jars down into the canner. Momma’s notes said not to pack the jars too tight or they would knock against each other and crack while they were boiling. The canner I was using was Momma’s smaller one and it holds nine pints which was good because that’s how big the first batch of berries were. I had to add a little more water from the coffee pot to make sure that the water covered the top of the jars plus one extra inch. I put the lid on the canner and then had to wait until it came back to a boil. While I was waiting on that to happen I got the next batch of berries ready. Once the water in the canner was boiling … not fake boiling where you only see oxygen bubbles but real boiling that makes the top of the water move around real strong … I set the timer for 15 minutes.

Today I got four batches of berries done and I am pooped. You wouldn’t think it was so much work … Momma always made it look so easy. The first two batches I made like I just described, then next batch was blueberry pie filling (that used three cups of sugar to get five pints of filling), and the last batch was blueberry preserves.

The blueberry preserves were really easy to make too. It was five cups of blueberries, two teaspoons of cider vinegar, two and a quarter cups of sugar, half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground allspice, and a quarter teaspoon of ground cloves. Cook everything together until it thickens. Then ladle into jars and go process in the canner same as with everything else. The recipe only made five half-pints but the work was worth it.

Momma always said she liked making preserves better than jelly ‘cause it was less work, less mess, less waste. I remember one summer vacation her and my aunt making these on my grandfather’s farm. When all the jars for a bath were fixed and there was a small piece of a jar left, it would be given to us kids to spread on my grandmother’s homemade biscuits. Yum, yum. I felt good about accomplishing stuff today but I remember when the family was all together it was so much fun. Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie were always too busy to do stuff like that and too out of touch with the rest of the family. I guess that one of the reasons that I like Rand’s family so much is they really seem like a family and not just a bunch of people living under the same roof.

I did find out that preparing to can is half the battle so tonight I cleaned everything back up and laid it out for tomorrow. I don’t think I did half bad. I haven’t had much time to do anything else today but can and gather wood; keeping that fire going takes more than I imagined.

As each batch came out of the canner I set it on towels in the kitchen and then laid a towel over the top of the jars too. Momma said that was to prevent a stray breeze doing something to the jars it wasn’t supposed to. I’m not sure if that is an old wives’ tale or not but I followed Momma’s written instructions to the letter just to be sure. As the jars sealed some of them would make this neat “pop” sound. And tonight I used a permanent marker to label and date all of the jars. I can’t put them away until they cool and that won’t be until tomorrow. I’m only waiting on one jar of preserves to seal and if it doesn’t I’ll just keep that one and eat it myself with peanut butter for my lunches.

It came to me while I was making the preserves that I’m missing an important piece of the puzzle for me. I don’t know how much of everything to try and can. I’ve got a lot of jars and lids, but how many of them do I use to can different things. One way I thought about it is that there are 52 weeks in a year, if I have blueberries once a week then I need to fix 52 jars. Right now I have 18 pints of whole blueberries, 5 pints of blueberry pie filling, and 5 half-pints of blueberry preserves. That’s 28 jars which means I still need 24 jars of blueberry stuff. I think I want more blueberry pie filling and more blueberry preserves too but the whole blueberries use less sugar. I want to can blueberry juice too because I like to make blueberry lemonade. Blueberry syrup would come in handy for drizzling over biscuits or pancakes but I have to draw the line some place.

And on top of that I have to figure out if I have enough blueberries to do what I want to do. Momma and I planted twenty blueberry bushes but only sixteen of them have survived because I wasn’t here regularly enough to take care of them the way they needed. Momma tested the soil all over until she found just the right place to put the blueberries. I need to read Momma’s notes again. There is some special blueberry fertilizer in the shed but I don’t know what to do when that runs out.

Now if I’m understanding Momma’s notes I should be getting about five pounds of berries per blueberry bush. Sixteen bushes times five pounds means that I should have ninety pounds of berries or thereabouts when all is said and done. I figure I probably used 24 or 25 pounds up today … I think. And there are still tons of berries out there. I’m afraid they’ll go to waste before I can get them all preserved. Some are already falling on the ground which is gonna draw mice and rats if I don’t hurry up.

After thinking about it, tomorrow I am going to can five more pints of blueberry pie filling, five more half-pints of blueberry preserves, six pints of blueberry syrup, and if there is any time left I will make blueberry juice. I’m also going to have to build a second fire ring so that I can cook the stuff that is going into the jars; it was too crazy trying to cook over a single fire today.

If I had a refrigerator I could spend one day picking berries and the next day canning them instead of having to pick them for each individual batch. The few that I picked this morning that didn’t get used are already mushy so I mixed them in with some cornbread mix and had cornmeal flapjacks for dinner.

Gee whiz, Fraidy just started crying at the window and she scared me to death. I nearly fell off the window seat. I didn’t know what was going on until I heard a coyote and then a couple of others join in. My cat isn’t stupid; she knows who’ll keep those big ol’ mean coyotes from snacking on her. As soon as I got the screen out and the shutters open she shimmied in and ran over to my dad’s bench and crawled under it. I hope she doesn’t make a mess again.

It’s my bedtime anyway. The sun has been down almost half an hour and I want to get up before first light so I can get ready and get the cows fed early.


May 17th – Terrible start to this day and a rough ending. Fraidy woke me up walking all over my head telling me she wanted out. I let her out the window and shutter and was tempted to go back to bed but I could hear the birds waking up so knew that was a no go. Morning chores were fine and I didn’t even have to make breakfast because there were left over flapjacks for me to nibble on and all I wanted to drink was water.

Everything was fine until I went out to feed the cows and found only six of them; the carcass of the seventh was visible over in some leafless and dead bushes. I don’t think coyotes did it. The belly area was all hollowed out so it was probably the dogs again. I am so mad. There wasn’t anything I could do. God will use it to feed other, smaller creatures but I just wished that I could save the cows that were left. I even prayed about it but I’m not too sure I’m happy with the answer I got.

I went back to canning and got the preserves, syrups, and pie filling done and was picking more berries when I heard the cows making a whole bunch of noise. I grabbed the rifle … who knows what I thought I was going to do with it but it seemed like the right thing to do … and go running to try and save “my” cows. There were men there on horses herding them away from the watering hole. They were poking them and shoving them ‘cause they didn’t want to go. Six men to one of me, even being upset I knew that wasn’t good odds. Then I heard one of the men shout, “Mr. Henderson! You want us to do anything with this carcass? It looks fairly fresh!”

A man who looked to be a little older than Uncle George rode up on a big black horse and said, “Bring the wagon around, we’ll give it to Peters for tanning.”

So I figured I had to be looking at the Henderson man that Rand told me about. He was smart too because he rode up to where you could tell I’d been feeding the cows but he was slow and watchful. That’s when I stepped out of the bushes. He didn’t even jump but his horse jingled around a little bit. He got more careful as he looked at me … not like I was dangerous careful but like he was gonna handle me careful. All I did was stand there.

“You been feeding them?”

“Yes sir.”

“Are they yours?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that one but I had to be honest or get in trouble. “Not really.”

“Then why were you feeding them?”

“’Cause they were hungry and pitiful and a little grass and palmettos wasn’t going to hurt me any.”

He smiled a bit and said, “You may look like your momma but you are your daddy on the inside ain’t ya girl?”

That shocked me and he said, “Yes, I knew your folks. They bought this land from my brother. I was sorry to hear of their passing. Your aunt and uncle about?”

I knew I was treading on dangerous water here. “No sir.” But that is all I said and kept my mouth shut.

“Hmm. Like that is it? You be careful, Julia Winston has run her mouth a bit. I heard it from my granddaughter that Rand Joiner was helping ‘a little girl and her family’ over this way.”

It took a lot for me not to spout off about who was she to call me a little girl when she wasn’t but a couple of years older than me but I just gritted my teeth. Mr. Henderson spit from where he’d dipped some snuff and winked at me like he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“You know these cows need to be looked after better?”

Again, what was I supposed to say? “Yes, sir.” Then I got my courage up and asked, “Can you keep the dogs from getting them?”

Mr. Henderson scrunched up his face like he was thinking and then asked me, “What dogs?”

“There’s a pack that has been getting to them. There used to be ten but sometimes when I come out in the morning there is one less. I feed them but a cow can’t protect itself against two dozen big dogs and I don’t think I can either.”

“How do you know it’s dogs and not something else?”

I went on to tell him how I’ve watched them come across the field in the early morning hours and the direction they go and how I found one less cow this morning and he could see what it looked like. Then I asked him again if he could keep the dogs away.

“No dogs get my cattle … and no girl, you can get that look off your face, we ain’t gonna eat them either. They’re too scrawny right now and besides they’re dairy cows now beef cattle. We need more breeding heifers.”

I watched them lead the cows away and then Mr. Henderson left telling me to not wander around loose because he could vouch for his men and their morals but there was some in town he couldn’t. He also told me to make sure I locked my doors and windows at night. I got the message, it was the same thing that Rand told me … behave and be careful and stay out of trouble. I swear, I’m sixteen not six. But I guess they mean well … I have to figure people like Mr. Henderson aren’t comfortable with a sixteen year old girl raising herself but are independent enough themselves to let me try and prove myself. Whatcha wanna bet though somebody from the Henderson place checks up on me every so often now.

Stupid cows. There was no reason for me to cry about them but I cried like a baby while I picked a bunch of blueberries to make juice with.

It’s a good thing making blueberry juice is so simple or I probably would have made a huge mess. You just put the blueberries in a pot, cover them with water and cook them just below the boiling point … the way you do when you are heating milk on the stove top … for thirty minutes. Then I poured the berries into Momma’s jelly bag and the juice dripped through the colander and was caught in another pot. For every gallon of juice I made I added a cup of sugar and heated it until the sugar was dissolved then poured it into pint jars and canned it the same way I had everything else. I wound up with two gallons of juice or eight pints.

I had settled down and had all the jars put inside and was cleaning up my mess for the day when I jiggled when I should have joggled and really hot water came splashing out of the canner before I could get out of the way. I got a lot on my left foot, some on my pants and a good splash on my left hand. Man oh man I was hopping and around and kicking off my shoe and skinning out of my pants right there in the yard. Mmm mmm mmm, talk about stinging bad. Then I ran to the bucket of water that I keep handy when I’ve got a fire going and just stuck my whole foot and hand in it until the burning stopped.

I suppose it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been and at least there wasn’t anyone around to see me strip right out in the open like that. My foot and leg aren’t even red anymore; my hand seems to have gotten the worst of it. The top of my hand has all these tiny blisters on it. I wrapped some gauze around it because the first aid book said not to use any cream or anything but gee whiz I sure do wish I dared to use some of that burn cream that was in the kit. My hand is itching like crazy where the baby blisters are touching the gauze. I also took some ibuprofen since the first aid book said that would help.

It was a stupid accident and I didn’t mean it to happen, but I suppose most accidents are like that otherwise they wouldn’t be called accidents they would be called something else. It was slow going making sure everything was clean up after that. How I’m supposed to can tomorrow I don’t know.


May 18th – I’m getting a little sick of blueberries. I know I shouldn’t be but I am. For every bucketful that I pick there seems to be a hundred more still on the bushes. I made sixteen more pints of blueberry juice and canned nine more pints of plain berries. Not much more to say. Hit my hand picking up wood and I nearly said a curse word. Had to say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” loud enough that I could stop myself from even thinking one. I’m sure the birds watching me dance around thought it was being silly but it helped me feel better.

Saying cuss words – and I confess that I’ve said a few – always makes me so guilty. I heard Daddy say a couple every so often but never when he thought brother or I were around and always under his breath like he didn’t want people hearing him say them. I never heard Momma say a curse word at all … I can’t even remember her saying “dang” or “shoot.” Mr. Henderson is right; I may look like Momma on the outside but I’m not near as sweet on the inside. I know I should work on that but I’m not sure right now is the time to do it.


May 19th – If I never seen another ding blasted blueberry it will be too soon. I’m being ungrateful. I know I should feel blessed to have all these berries but it’s like some bottomless basket; every time I think I’m coming to the end of them the next day there are more and more and more. And I can’t just let them go to waste. Every time I get tempted to I hear Daddy saying, “Waste not, want not. I taught my little black-headed baby better than that.”

That’s what Daddy used to call me, his “little black-headed baby.” He called Momma “Punkin.” He used to call my brother “Shadow” or “Barnacle” depending on how close he was trying to follow Daddy around. I can still hear Daddy’s voice, Momma’s not so much. Momma was more soft spoken and sweet. I don’t guess I’ll ever stop missing them.

Today I made another 18 pints of juice and 18 pints of plain berries and I am calling it myself done. Tomorrow is the farmer’s market and I’m going to take two big buckets to see if I can trade them or … heck, I’ll give them away if someone looks hungry enough. If I don’t have enough berries canned from all the work this week it’s not for lack of trying. I only have me to feed after all.

I’ll get up early – I can’t believe I still miss those stupid cows; all they did was cause me work – pick two buckets of berries and then walk back towards town. My hand doesn’t hurt as much so it shouldn’t be a problem. The farmer’s market isn’t actually in town but in the parking lot of an old strip center right on the city limits … the center of town is a mess. For sure I’m glad I don’t have to walk any further than the city limit sign.

I found another place I need to weave in some potato vines. A small pine tree died and it dropped its needles to the ground suffocating the grass underneath. Now there is a bare patch that is thin enough to easily get through. If it wasn’t so close to the house I would just let it fill in naturally but from the road you can now see the barn and that defeats the whole purpose of the other lattice I built.

Fraidy opted to stay inside again tonight. Wonder if she knows something I don’t?

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 20

May 20th -- Well, I’ll say the day has been interesting, I’ll give it that. I woke up to find my world covered in a very dense fog. It was freaky; I opened the window and shutter for Fraidy to go out and I could see, even in the dark, the fog tried to roll into the room. Fraidy wouldn’t go out into it so I shut everything back up and she followed me down stairs.

She went onto the lanai finally but she wasn’t acting real confident about that either; I think she had something against getting so wet. I still didn’t know how bad the fog was until morning started trying to trickle through the wet blanket that was wrapping everything up. That sounds poetic, like something I would have written for school, but the truth is it was just wet and nasty. It was only pretty when you didn’t have to be out in it.

I did my morning chores by lamplight. I had laid out what I wanted to wear but I must have changed my mind about ten times. I wasn’t sure whether to dress up, dress down, wear work clothes, don’t act like I had any spare clothes or just what. To be honest it’s not like I had a lot of different options, mostly it would have just meant the difference between wearing a nice scarf or wearing a bandana or wearing work boots or tennis shoes. I finally decided I was being awful silly and just wore jeans, a bandana to cover my braid, and work boots. I wore a decent t-shirt but I put a lightweight hunting vest over the top of it more because it had a bunch of pockets than anything else.

In the pockets of the vest I put some bullets for the rifle, a couple of plastic bags, a couple of Ziploc bags, and some odds and ends of snacks including some raisins that made me wonder if I can dry blueberries the way you can dry grapes to get raisins. I know Momma has a book on drying foods around here someplace, it’s just a matter of finding it.

I put a thermos of blueberry-lemonade together. That’s basically some blueberry juice, a little bit of sugar, a packet of TruLemon, and enough cold water to thin it out so you don’t suck your teeth in on the sour. I was going to put something more into my backpack but I decided against it because I fixed grits for breakfast which would hold me over and I didn’t know what other people would have with them. I learned fast once I got to highschool that it is better to not stand out until you’ve got the lay of the land. If people think you are too different they’ll gang up on you and make your life a misery.

It was light by the time I was ready to step outside but the fog had barely started to burn off. I went to the orchard and picked a bucket full of blueberries but quickly decided that I was only going to be able to carry one and not the two I had intended. One, my hand still hurt if it got hit or stretched too much, and two, that bucket and berries was going to get heavy quick. I decided to bring gloves just to be on the safe side. I also covered the open end of the bucket with a piece of cheese cloth and a piece of string to keep bugs out but let the berries breath so that they wouldn’t get nasty. Lastly, I had to carry the rifle. I was supposed to meet Rand at some point and I didn’t need a lecture. Just for good measure I put the Hi-Point and the bullets for it in my backpack.

I locked everything down and started walking about 6:30 am. The stupid bucket was already heavy by the time I got to the main gate at CR49. I had to stop for a break at CR49 and US90. It wasn’t long before I figured out that the farmer’s market was a big deal. In a matter of minutes of starting west on US90 I was walking in a drib and drab crowd of people all heading in the same direction. Some people were riding bikes and I wanted to give myself a dope-slap for not thinking of mine. There were enough people on horseback to remind me I wasn’t in Tampa anymore and the wagons made me realize there weren’t any cars or trucks around and that I hadn’t heard any since the work day.

It was people’s moods though that really kind of upset me. Hardly anyone was talking and if they did it was in whispers. No one was saying hello to each other, not even waving or nodding like they knew each other. It was totally different than at the work day. I didn’t understand what had happened to change things.

I was relieved to see Pastor Ken and he was driving an old-fashioned horse-drawn buggy. It reminded me of the one that “Doc” used to drive on that TV show Little House on the Prairie, it even had a black roof on it to keep sun and rain out. The pastor had people talking to him so I sort of hung back. I didn’t want to interrupt and draw attention to myself; besides, my manners are better than that. He pulled his buggy off to the side of the road to speak to some men and not be in the way of traffic so I just kept walking. I did manage to make eye-contact with him and he recognized me. It made me grin when his eyes got wide. He wasn’t really startled, he was just being silly. I found out later he does a killer Donald Duck impression that the little kids all love.

I got in line to go into the fenced off area used by the flea market when the rough looking guy at the gate pulled me out. “No one under 18 unless accompanied by an adult.”

Here was the first test of me being on my own. I could turn around and leave or I could stand my ground. In my best grown up I-have-to-deal-with-this-all-the-time voice I said, “People often mistake my age.” True, but not the way he took it.

He gave me a hard look and then said, “We need proof of residency and a picture ID.” I knew right there he was yanking my chain because no one else had shown any kind of papers or ID. That’s when Pastor Ken walked up behind me and said, “I can vouch for where she lives and any paperwork should be available through Major Sawyer’s office.”

The guy wasn’t happy. I didn’t get it at all. What was the big deal? Then someone else behind me asked, “What’s the problem Harbinger?”

The guy changed his tune pretty quick. “Oh nothing Mr. Henderson. This … lady … hasn’t got any proof that she is from around here and … “

“Don’t be an idiot Freddie. The Pastor’s already vouched for her and I know for a fact she is a resident of the county. My brother Sam and her parents were friends. Stop wasting everyone’s time, we’re here to do business even if you and your father aren’t.”

OK, pieces started falling into place. The guy was one of that Mr. Harbinger’s sons and was one of a pair that Rand warned me about. I kept my “bored adult” look on my face and tried to not give into the temper tantrum I felt coming on. I don’t know for sure whether the creep had pulled me out of line just to give a “young girl” a hard time or to do me a “favor” so he could have one in return. I don’t know whether Rand just dislikes the Harbingers – granted it sounds like for good reason – or exactly what is going on. What happened later kind of cleared things up but I still like to make my own opinions of people; gossip can be wrong and I ought to know that as well as anyone since I’ve been on the target of it often enough.

You could tell that “Freddie” didn’t like being called an idiot and I found out later that Mr. Henderson called him Freddie rather than Fred to make him feel like a kid. He wasn’t a kid though; he was about 25 I guess. But he was smart enough to know that Mr. Henderson isn’t the man to make into an enemy so he waived me through without another word. I noticed that just as soon as Mr. Henderson and his men were out of earshot ol’ Freddie went back to picking and choosing who he was going to be trouble for.

Pastor Ken came in and asked me how I was doing and told me where he would be if I wanted to stop by. He had a couple of camp chairs and a table and I guess from what I saw he just hangs around for people that might need someone to talk to.

I could already tell that the day was going to be a warm one. It wasn’t even 8:30 in the morning and I had sweat dotting my upper lip and I was noticing that a lot of folks must be out of deodorant. I wandered around looking at all the stalls that were set up. Some were really fancy with a big table and one of those folding sunshades big enough to have a picnic under. Some were nothing more than a blanket on the ground. There were some food stalls but mostly it looked like a giant garage sale.

I just looked around for a bit, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Crenshaws or Rand but they weren’t there so I had to figure out things on my own. I noticed there was a huge line at this kiosk being run by guys in military fatigues. Every time I tried to get over there and look I’d get the “move along” look by the guards stationed on that end of the market area.

“Trying to figure out what is going on?”

I nearly came out of my skin. How a guy that big can move that quiet I don’t know. It was Major Sawyer and he was smiling like he’d pulled one over on me. The smile only got bigger when I rolled my eyes to let him know that I didn’t think his sneaking up on me was all that funny and that I wasn’t scared of him either.

At my “yes sir” he explained that people that still had money would line up and when it was their turn they’d have a chance to exchange it for something called “Sand Dollars.” It was the currency being used in Florida for local trade. I’m not certain of all the details but the Major said there is worldwide financial depression going on, that the dollar did something called devaluing, and even though every other country had the same thing or worse happen to them that it has caused a huge mess of epic proportions and that the old paper money means almost nothing so it is being collected at the state level. If I understand it correctly so many of the big wigs in Washington DC have died that there is a huge confusion and every state is having to do what it can just to get by.

He said more but most of it didn’t make any difference to me. I didn’t have any cash to exchange except for the jars of coins I found in Daddy’s stuff, just a bunch of dimes and nickels mostly except for that jar of silver dollars. I knew Momma collected some coins in her blue coin books and she collected all those state quarters that came out but I never knew Daddy did it too. I can’t imagine their hobby stuff is worth all that much and I wouldn’t want to trade them anyway. That would be like trying to trade my old stamp collection or my brother’s game card collection. It would just be too sad.

I looked around and then asked him about the ration books I had heard about. He said that a lot of stuff is in short supply but for special items like fuel, it wasn’t just in short supply the government was telling people how much and when they could buy it. The ration cards would get stamped at every purchase, kind of like a coupon. People got a new ration book each month when the old one was turned in.

That’s when he asked me if I had picked pick up my ration book yet. I said no and that it wouldn’t matter because I couldn’t buy anything anyway. I said, “What am I supposed to buy things with, my looks?”

He got a real serious look on his face and said that he hoped I hadn’t said that to anyone else. I didn’t get it and I guess it must have been obvious because he pulled me to the side and explained something to me. He said that some women and girls were buying things “with their looks.” It took me a sec to understand what he was trying to tell me. I guess it isn’t that farfetched. You used to hear stories on the news all the time about women turning to prostitution because of drugs or dancing in one of those adults-only type clubs. I told him I’d watch my mouth better and that satisfied him; at least he acted like I had a brain in my head and wasn’t embarrassed about explaining the way things were to me. I think I can see why Missy likes him. He had to go handle some Major-type stuff but the last thing he mentioned was that at the end of the month, with enough ration points left, I could actually exchange the book for whatever items hadn’t been bought up. He said Missy had my book and that she’d explain everything else some other time but it might be a while until I saw her. I didn’t think much of what he said but looking back I guess he had assumed I knew what had happened.

I knew I needed to do something with the blueberries so I walked around for a while and listened to people haggle and barter. I honestly didn’t see too much that I needed or wanted. I just kept walking around and was staying out of trouble until I nearly got run over by some men that had started brawling.

I ducked into a booth and came up against someone and stepped on their foot. I turned around to apologize and had to look way up. It was Freddie Harbinger. I jumped back from him and almost landed in the middle of the brawl again when he grabbed my arms and pulled me back. Now most people would have just assumed he was saving me from getting trampled but I can guarantee that there was no reason to pull me in quite so close and hold my arms as long as he did, especially when I was trying to get loose from him.

I don’t know what would have happened if Mr. Henderson hadn’t come along again. He wasn’t there for me of course. He was kicking the backsides of the men that had been brawling and telling them to knock it off or take it outside the fence. He actually wound up grabbing the two guys by the scruff of their necks and banging their heads together twice before they’d stop fighting. Then he put his boot to their backsides again to get them gone from under foot. That’s when he noticed me.

“Girl, what’re you doing? Didn’t I tell you to stay out of trouble?”

I told him I was trying. “Sure you are. Freddie, from the look of things she’s trying to tell you she don’t need your help any more. Come over here girl right now.”

Good ol’ Freddie snickered but I didn’t care. I got behind Mr. Henderson as quick as I could, but I refused to rub my arms even though they felt bruised. I would have kicked Freddie if I thought I could have gotten away with it but I had my bucket and I didn’t want any more trouble than what I was already in.

“Are you finished with your business here girl?”

I told him I wasn’t trying to do business with the Harbingers, their booth was just next to the brawl and where I had jumped to keep from getting squashed like a bug.

Mr. Henderson said, “You might want to take off and go home now.” But I told him I was supposed to meet Rand there and pick something up from Missy; I added the last ‘cause it sounded better than if I had just said the first since people were being nosey and listening in.

Mr. Henderson got an odd look on his face and I could hear the people in the Harbinger stall snickering and laughing. I didn’t get the joke but Mr. Henderson said, “Joiner likely won’t be here today. There’s no need for you to hang around.”

I was going to ask him why but he had a look on his face that said it wouldn’t be a good question to ask at that moment. I turned around when I heard someone say, “Oh Fred, don’t.”

It was Julia … Rand’s Julia … only she was letting that big donkey’s behind Freddie Harbinger put his arm around her. The thing is she didn’t really sound all that sorry for the way Freddie was laughing, more like she was kind of acting like she was sorry but was really just showing off.

I swear, no matter how much things change there are some things that will always stay the same. It was just like being back in school and watching all of the stupid things girls and guys would do all in the name of “love.” About the only thing that Aunt Wilma and I never disagreed about was the fact that I never wanted to date or anything like that. I did once have a guy that I liked and I thought he liked me but then he stabbed me in the back and I found out he only acted like he liked me. He wanted help with a big school project that he had to pass because his dad said if he hadn’t brought he grades up his dad was going to take away his car and didn’t mind letting “the weird girl” think he liked her … at least for a while. That hurt, not as much as feeling stupid did but the things he said still hurt.. And that was all it took for me to really see some of the ignorant things that went on. Even my friends did the dumbest stuff. One day they were going to marry the person they were “in love” with and a couple of days later they were gonna die from heartbreak. What was stupid was that a couple of days after that it would be someone new they had the hots for and it would all start over again. I gave up understanding why, I just knew it happened. Aunt Wilma said that they’d out grow it when highschool was over but Julia was the same age as Rand and Freddie Harbinger was even older and it sure didn’t look like they had outgrown it to me.

I wanted to say something nasty but since I didn’t know what had happened I decided silence was better. I looked up at Mr. Henderson and noticed he had one eye cocked up like he was surprised at something and not necessarily in a bad way; only he wasn’t looking at Julia but over the heads of some people who had also turned to look at someone coming.

I turned around but was too short to see him until he was right there. Rand looked bad, worse than I did after my tussle with the gangbangers. He eye was black, his cheek was bruised, both his lips were split and he was walking slow like he hurt in other places too. His cousin Brendon was with him as was Jonathon.

I had lost track of what people were saying because I was concentrating on looking at all of Rand’s ouches but when it got real quiet I did her Rand say, “Yeah, and if you and your cousin hadn’t held me your brother wouldn’t have gotten in as many licks as he did. By the way, where is he? His face must be just about as pretty as mine.”

Freddie didn’t like that and I could see a fight brewing with Julia egging it on and eating it up so I decided to pick sides and go after the one that had started this whole thing in the first place. I was talking at Rand when I said, “Well, I guess I misjudged her all right. Any girl that would handle things the way Julia did isn’t to be trusted that’s for sure.” Then I turned to her and said, “And since you seem to be so comfy hanging all over Freddie like that in public you must be even getting more comfy with him in private. You make sure you use protection, word is he gets around if you know what I mean and he doesn’t seem the type to man up if you get pregnant. Better safe than sorry.”

Mr. Henderson started hustling us away while Julia started fussing at Freddie for letting me talk to her that way. Brendon was making this noise like he was trying really, really hard not to laugh while Rand and Jonathon looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Girl, you something else. Rand, unless you’ve got business here I’d suggest you cut your visit short. You’ve made your point.”

Rand told Mr. Henderson, “As it happens I do have business. I need to give Sawyer a message from Missy and I have a couple of items to pick up as well.”

Mr. Henderson just shook his head. I’m sure he thought we were all crazy. “Well, do it quick. I’ll keep an eye on the Harbingers and their friends but I don’t plan on doing it all day.”

I tried to ask Rand what had happened but all he said was, “Later.” Jonathon shrugged while he kept an eye out. I thought maybe Brendon was going to tell me but all he could do was laugh every time he looked at me. That wasn’t helpful at all.

Major Sawyer was easy to find, he kind of stands out. The errands included exchanging some paper dollars for Sand Dollars (and they got back a whole lot fewer Sand Dollars than what they had handed over), buying a bag of rice and two of flour, and then stopping at a stall being run by this older lady who told Rand, “Boy, you look like something the cat dragged in.”

Rand called the woman Momma O and bent over and kissed her check where she sat even though you could tell it pained him to do it. He introduced me and I got the feeling she was weighing me up and down and decided that she’d hold off on making a decision until she was more certain of what I was worth. That was fine, I’m not quite sure what to make of her yet either. When Brendon handed her a package she said, “George always has made the best dried venison.” She handed Brendon a bag and said, “You tell Laurabeth to put those someplace they won’t get wet and out of the sunlight and that she needs to get those black eyed peas in the ground.”

Seeds, this woman had seeds for trade. Rand was hustling me off when the woman asked, “What you got in that bucket girl?”

“Blueberries.”

“Where’d you get them? I didn’t hear anyone was trading blueberries.”

“I brought them.” And when she gave me the eye like I was fibbing Rand finally stepped in and said, “She really did bring them Momma O. They are off some bushes her mother planted.”

“Well, let me see ‘em.”

I looked at Rand but he wasn’t much help. Even I could tell he was hurting so rather than make a fuss at the old woman I took the cheesecloth off the bucket and showed her what I had and told her they were picked fresh this morning.

“Hmmmm. Well, what will you take for them?”

I knew what I wanted and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask, all she could say was no. “I want to plant some vegetables.”

She looked at the berries and ask, “Are they sweet?”

“Yes, ma’am. Even the ones that I canned without any sugar in them turned out good.”

Her eyebrows hit her wig. “You telling me you know how to can girl?”

“I don’t mean to be rude ma’am but my name is Kiri, not girl, and yes ma’am I know how to can. Momma showed me how when I was growing up and then I read her notes and figured out the rest.”

She made me explain everything to her and then seemed surprised that I’d done things right. “Well, you’ve missed just about everything except black eyed peas, ‘lopes, limas, and eggplants. You promise me you not gonna waste these seeds and I’ll give you a little of each one and take these berries off your hands so you don’t have to carry ‘em around.”

I told her, “Give me my bucket back and I’ll let you do me that favor.”

She laughed real big and said, “You’ll do girl, you’ll do. Rand, I expect to see this girl … Kiri … in church soon. You hear me?”

That was it. We left the market, picked up their horses from the corral that was being run by some of Mr. Henderson’s men, and headed east on US90 but no one was saying anything. Rand walked beside me but was hanging onto Hatchet’s saddle for support even though I don’t think I was supposed to notice.

“I see you remembered to bring the rifle.”

“Yeah, but you don’t look like you are in the mood to do any lessons.” He got a little hot under the collar like guys do when their pride has been upset but I cut him off. “I don’t mean anything bad by it. Your business is your business. I’m just saying I understand if you aren’t in the mood.”

“Daddy told him the same thing,” Brendon volunteered. Rand gave him the evil eye for his trouble but it slid off Brendon like burnt egg off a non-stick skillet.

“I promised her I was going to teach her to shoot and care for the guns. Now with Harbinger taking notice of her no thanks to her big mouth,” he said while staring right at me “it’s even more important. And how the heck do you know Henderson? I thought I told you to stay away from his place.”

I explained and by the time I was finished he was limping so bad he couldn’t hide it. I told him not to be stupid and get up on the horse but he just kept walking. Brendon was nice enough to say, “He probably can’t. We had to help him on at the house this morning.”

I don’t think Brendon is going to make it long in this world; he’s even worse than I am about opening his mouth when it would be better to leave it shut. Jonathon though just shook his head, dismounted, hefted Rand onto Hatchet before he could protest and then tossed me up behind him. “Look, I don’t have all day. I want to get back to Laurabeth.”

When we got to the intersection at CR49 they mumbled and grumbled about how long was Rand going to be. I had my own reasons for wanting Rand to stay so I asked, “Is there any reason you all can’t go on home and Rand can sleep at my place like he has before?”

The three of them looked at me real hard. Jonathon said, “That makes sense and you couldn’t really do any chores around the place in the shape you’re in anyway.”

I swear, if it isn’t their idea guys can be so slow to agree to a plan. Finally they gave in and Jonathon said he’d be by late tomorrow after delivering some stuff to the Henderson place and they’d ride back together. My take on that is that no one goes alone – especially Rand – for a while until this whole fight thing blows over.

Rand was silent all the way back to the house. When we got there he told me to get down and go do what I needed to and he’d take care of Hatchet. I figured out what the problem was when I came to the door to ask him something and saw him having a hard time getting down. I am not stupid. He obviously didn’t want me seeing how bad off he was so I stood there and let him be a total guy about the whole thing. He finally got down and caught his breath so I felt it was safe to come back out. Still, I checked him on my way to the wood pile. He was wobbly but not bad.

I asked if he was thirsty and when he finally answered yes I gave him a cup of my still cold blueberry lemonade. I almost laughed at the look on his face. I told him there was plenty more if he wanted it and left the thermos for him. I hadn’t planned on company but I figured he deserved something in exchange for teaching me to shoot so I grabbed the old box oven that had been in the camping gear and took it onto the lanai. I grabbed the small bag of charcoal and started some of them up. I also grabbed the fireplace shovel I’ve been using to dig out the ashes in my fire pit.

While Rand did whatever it was he did with Hatchet I mixed up a blueberry gingerbread recipe I found in Momma’s notes. It used a box of gingerbread mix (the only one I found while scrounging through the last house) and made it the way you are supposed to and then dumped in a cup of fresh blueberries. I dumped that mess into a prepared baking dish. The coals were ready so I put a coal in for every 45 degrees that I needed into the box and then set the cake rack in there on top of the little metal legs. That’s to keep the dish off the coals. It kind of looks like a regular oven only there are coals on the bottom instead of a heating element.

That done I boiled some water for rice and put some veggie bits to rehydrate. I also pulled out a can of chicken and set it on the counter. The pit was still hot but not burning so when I was done boiling water for cooking a set two metal buckets of water on there to catch the heat. By the time I was done with dinner prep the cake was finished and I set it on the counter to cool.

The smell of the cake had drawn Rand around back and he just sat there watching. When I got to a stopping point I asked him if he wanted to eat or if he wanted to shoot. His stomach growled but he said that he wanted to shoot for a while. And we did. I used up all of the ammo I had and then he made me use some of his. I’ve got to find some way to give it back without hurting his feelings and without letting on that I’ve got all that Daddy hid, I’m just not sure how to yet.

We didn’t stop until Rand was satisfied that I could load, aim, and shoot without hurting myself. I was feeling pretty good until I got a good look at him. There were dark smudges under his eyes and he was really hurting; I could tell, but he didn’t say anything.

I asked him could we stop because I was tired and he gave in without a fuss which told me how bad he must be feeling. We walked back to the house and I walked slow like I was pooped and played it up a bit by telling him I was up early and walked all the way to the flea market. When we got back to the house he was still awful quiet. I couldn’t tell which hurt worse, his body or his heart.

I took the buckets of water off that were steaming hot and put a couple of pieces of really dry wood into the pit and they started up right away and the flames licked at the old skillet I set on the fire grate. I drizzled in a little bit of oil that came from the work day bag and got it hot. Then I dumped in the cooked rice, canned chicken, the rehydrated veggies, and some soy sauce and stir fried it up real quick. It wasn’t like you would get from Little Panda but it was still good.

Rand ate and said thank you but I could tell he wasn’t real with it. The gingerbread blueberry cake perked him up a smidge but not much. He offered to help with the dishes but I told him to sit ‘cause this was a trade for the shooting lessons. He just nodded and sat. It was late afternoon and I was wondering what on earth I was going to do with Rand sitting around all mopey when I guess he just needed someone to talk to.

“Julia and I have been dating since highschool. I … I just can’t believe … I don’t understand what happened. It was all fine one day and the next I was getting the crap beat out of me by those Harbinger bast .. jerks. I know we’d been having problems but I thought we worked all of those out. Her father is friends with the Harbingers and he never was happy with us dating. The only thing that made him happy was when he found out I was going to college and getting a business degree. Lately he’d been giving me a hard time again about a lot of stuff, even more than before. He kept commenting that when Uncle George was gone I’d be living on my cousins’ charity like I always had. Julia … she agreed to give me time to … I can’t believe how she acted yesterday and today. That’s not the girl …“ and he just kind of slumped even further.

I didn’t know what to say to help my friend to feel better so I just told him the truth as I’d experienced it. “Big life events change people. A thing as big as what we’ve all been living through … well … that’s going to change people even more. I’m not the person I would have been if my family hadn’t been killed. I watched kids that were my friends avoid me like the bad things that I had gone through were somehow contagious; like since my parents died so could theirs. The last couple of months I watched people I liked lie, cheat, and steal for food. My best friend stole my bedding knowing I wouldn’t be able to replace it unless I stole some from someone else. And I sure haven’t always behaved the way I ought.”

He was listening so I said, “On the other hand, I found courage I didn’t know I had on my escape from Tampa. I’ve faced things that have made me stronger. I’m getting the chance to be better than I was, maybe a chance to be better than I ever could have been if this hadn’t happened. My Daddy always said it takes a lot of beating to make a sharp sword. Maybe that’s what we’re going through right now. The people that take what they think is the easy way in the end won’t be as sharp as the people that take the beating and keep on ticking.”

He was so tired but he said, “Are you positive you’re sixteen?”

I told him, “Almost seventeen thank you very much and I can go back to being snarky and telling you exactly what I think of Julia if you want me to?”

He smiled real sad like and it made me angry. But it also reminded me that I didn’t always made the greatest choices and that I’d been given more than a few second chances. “Look, if the Harbinger brothers are as rotten as you make them out to be then Julia ought to figure out real quick she goofed. If you care about her that much maybe you can let her know you’ll take her back.”

He didn’t say anything to that but that was maybe because he was three-quarters asleep. I remembered how I felt so I ran and got him some ibuprofen and he took a couple and then went to sleep sitting up on the sofa. I didn’t know what to do at that point so I just went about finishing my chores like normal, brought in some wood, planned tomorrow’s menu, planned what I wanted to accomplish tomorrow, and then since Rand is still snoring I snuck upstairs and brought my nightclothes and journal downstairs and I’ve been sitting at the breakfast table ever since. But the sun is going down and I need to lock things up and figure out some way to move Rand so he is at least laying down; he’s just kind of sprawled every which direction right now.

The juice out of the can of chicken and a few scraps from dinner convinced Fraidy to stay in tonight. I’m going to take the buckets of water to the bathroom, clean up real quick and then go to bed. I was going to give them to Rand to soak in but it’s not worth waking him up over. I hope he feels better tomorrow. I feel bad for Rand but on the other hand I hope he isn’t one of those guys that moons forever for a girl that he can’t … or shouldn’t … have. When my guy friends would do that it made me want to throw something at them.

 

[nancy98]

Just as good if not better the second time around Miz Kathy. Thank you.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 21

May 22nd – I have the house to myself again. Rand left late yesterday but by the time I finished all my chores and looked through some more of Momma and Daddy’s notes it was too dark to write and I really had too much thinking to do anyway. Sometimes writing helps me to think and sometimes it just slows me down.

It’s a relief to be by myself again. I don’t mean that in a bad way, Rand is good company, it’s just I have a lot to think about and a lot I need to do but couldn’t because with him around I couldn’t get to the dormer room. He was also a little hard to be around, not that it wasn’t my own fault for inviting him to stay.

I feel bad for him, his broken heart is for real; the beating he took just added insult to injury. I just don’t know what to do or say to help him. He’s a twenty-year-old guy; I don’t think he’d appreciate advice from a sixteen year old “kid.” The few times I tried he would get all stressed like he was trying to not get mad at me. And I don’t know how far to take this friend thing either. He said himself once he is only around because he thinks he owes me. If I get too invested I could wind up with hurt feelings and that’s the last thing I want to deal with on top of everything else that is going on.

But he is a nice guy. That’s the thing, he really does mean well even if he is kind of managing and bossy like I’m a little kid that is half crazy and needs looking after. I’m none of those things and I wonder if that is all he sees me as or if maybe … oh forget it. All that stuff just gives me a headache. Rand is Rand and I am me and if he can’t live with it I’m not about to change. I like him and his family, they seem to be good people to have on your side, and the rest is just going to have to take care of itself. If I get hurt then I’ll have learned another lesson and deal with it.

Rand was still asleep when I got up yesterday but I noticed that the ibuprofen I had left on the table for him were gone and the water bottle I left was only half full. The wind-up flashlight I left for him just in case was wrapped up in the covers with him so I knew he woke up at least once during the night.

I tried to be quiet as I put together a breakfast of cheese grits with TVP bacon crumbles but Rand woke up at the sound of the first cabinet door opening. He was so different from the other time he was here that I got a little worried. The happy morning person was nowhere in sight. He was trying to get up and having trouble so I went over and gave him a hand up. I don’t why he had to act so weird about it, he would have done the same thing for me. I put out two more ibuprofens for when he came out of the bathroom.

Broken heart or not, Rand can eat. Where a thin guy like him puts it is beyond me. He must have a hollow leg. He was quiet but he ate and he didn’t say no to a second helping when I scooped it into his bowl. I had made sure I had enough so that even if Rand had eaten a third helping there would have been enough but since he didn’t I poured the leftovers into a glass dish and set it in the useless microwave. For lunch I used the congealed block of grits to make fried mush just like my grandmother used to. But that was later.

Rand just sat there after breakfast and I wasn’t sure what to say to him. It was weird. I’ve never seen him like that and I’m pretty sure it’s not normal for him even though I haven’t known him that long. He was just staring off into the distance so I went ahead is did what I would have done even if he hadn’t been around. I started picking up wood.

I had brought the first load back to the house and was putting it in the barn when he limped out. I put the ax in the wheelbarrow and went back to the downed tree. I need wood and I figure at the rate I can get things done it will take me all summer and fall to keep up with my daily usage and get ahead to what I will need for winter.

There wasn’t a lot of talk; mostly he was fussing at me in a kind of half-hearted way about not using the ax right when I was trying to get some bigger limbs off of the tree. And then fussing at how dull the ax was. I just let him ‘cause getting angry seemed to do him more good than sitting around moping had.

After four loads though I had had enough of wood and his bossing me around. I knew when I started tuning him out that I was reaching my limit. I told him if he wanted to go whack at the tree some more and make himself feel better that was fine but I’d had enough of him whacking at me with his mouth and then I grabbed a bucket and went out to the orchard.

I’d picked half a bucket of berries when I started feeling bad about snapping at the poor guy. When I finished the bucket and walked back to the house he was sitting on the porch. “I’m sorry kid; I’m in a bad mood. That’s no excuse to take it out on you. Laurabeth and Charlene would have already thrown something at me.”

“Good for them. And I’m sorry too. I know you aren’t feeling good … just … look, I know you won’t like me bringing it up and I know it’s none of my business. What Julia did was wrong, at least from what I know. I don’t like her much now and I meant it when I said I didn’t trust her any more. If you two do get back together and it makes you happy then fine but …” I didn’t know how to tell him I thought the girl he was in love with was a less than polite word without hurting his feelings.

“Rand, I’m not real sure why you go to all this trouble to be my friend but … thank you. I could have figured things out eventually, but your family being nice to me has helped and I won’t forget it. But Julia is another story. I’m not sure that she’s a person I want to get to know so … whether you two get back together or not I’d appreciate it if you … look, I’m not comfortable with her knowing where I live or much of anything about me. Her being friends with people that did this to you and played dirty at it … I don’t need that kind of trouble. I just … “

“It’s OK. After this … I don’t know if I could trust her very much either even though part of me still wants things to go back to the way they were before.”

“Yeah, well, as long as we’ve got an understanding on that. I won’t go out of my way to be rude to her if we wind up in the same places but … I can’t promise not to pop off at her if she gets in my face. And that Freddie Harbinger … eeewwww.”

“He didn’t bother … “

“Oh relax. Nothing happened but let’s just say he was living down to his reputation.”

At least he was talking a little bit and not chewing me out. I thought while he was willing to talk (and eat the berries I was trying to prepare for making more juice) I’d ask him something that had been bothering me.

“Why was everyone so … I don’t know … different I guess from on the work day?”

“Different how?”

“On the work day there was smiling and kidding … at least at first … but on market day everyone seemed to have the mully grumps.”

“Mully grumps?”

“You know … they weren’t talking to each other, no one was smiling, everyone was acting stressed out or sad or something.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes and I thought he’d gone to sleep but then he said, “I guess you didn’t hear did you?”

I wanted to ask him “Hear what?” but he went on pretty fast. Apparently Major Sawyer wasn’t kidding when he said that command … whoever they are … wasn’t happy about the near riot. That was the third town that there had been problems at and the second where civilian staff had been injured. All work days and other forms of community assistance had been summarily put on hold until further notice. On top of that – and unrelated despite people trying to say otherwise – is that rationing has gotten even tighter. The fact that there wasn’t that much food at the market yesterday confirmed everyone’s worst fears.

“Uncle George has been holding back cash for years to have a stash at home. He’s just that way. But when the banks started going belly up in ’09 he took out almost everything he had and put it in small bills and hid it. We had a blow up about it when I was home for spring break that year. I thought he’d gone crazy. They kept telling us at school everything would right itself with enough time. Turns out the old man is crazy all right … crazy like a fox. It’s helped keep the pantry full but it’s getting harder and harder. Laurabeth is doing her part and has started a garden and we have been having fresh stuff on the table but … were you serious about canning berries or were you telling Momma O a tale.”

That drives me crazy. Right when I’m finally getting some answers to my questions Rand switches gears and starts asking me questions. I asked him what did he think I was doing with the berries in front of him, making a mess just to pass the time?

That got a grin out of him big enough to make him wince when his lip re-split but settled down and watched while I did all the work of cooking the blueberries and then dumping them in the jelly bag to drain. He kept talking while I worked so I didn’t mind too much.

At first everything was all right. Work was hard to come by but you could still find it if you were willing to take a pay cut. The farm still managed to do all right because of the contracts that Uncle George already had in place. But when the contracts expired and they would only renew at less than 50% of what they had been previously things got tougher. The cost of feed went up, cost of fertilizers went up so that it almost wasn’t worth trying to grow your own feed, what you could get for your cattle and crops was going down. Uncle George sold some of his cows at a loss just so he wouldn’t have to watch them starve to death. He got rid of all but one of the big chicken houses. He hired family to help on the farm rather than pay the field hands he used to bring in seasonally. It was just stop gap measures. And then just when everyone thought things were turning around and that the pandemic was winding down the fourth wave hit and things went crazy all over. Bomb threats, actual bombs, food riots, no fuel to be found for miles at a time and what was available cost an arm and a leg, people dying of the cold over the winter, you name a bad thing it was happening.

“Uncle George locked down the farm and we didn’t lose much but for a while there were regular battles with people trying to break into the barns and outbuildings. Jonathon’s family all died and Uncle George had him moved out to the farm with us. Janet got so sick we thought we were going to lose her. The rest of us had already had the flu, I spent a week quarantined in my dorm during the second wave sick as a dog but Janet … There was no room at the hospital and Uncle George went about two weeks with no sleep, refusing to leave Janet’s bedside. We thought we were going to lose him too for a while; he was having bad chest pains. We were all a mess but managed to pull through but you can see how Janet is. Uncle George is very careful with her and the only time she leaves the house is once a month for church. Jonathon can’t stand to be away from Laurabeth for more than a couple of hours. And … and people started changing and it was hardly ever for the better.”

Rand had been trying to keep up with what was going on out in the rest of the world outside Live Oak but news was scarce and what there was had been put through the washers before it was released to the public or was nothing more that flat out propaganda. There were detonations of regular type bombs in several major cities, another bad one in NYC, and it wasn’t happening just in the US but all over the world. Israel has basically shut its borders and brought out the heavy artillery against those that oppose its existence.

“I’ve heard there was a nuclear bomb that had been aimed at Israel but something happened and it failed and came down in the country that fired it off. Uncle George said God swatted it down. I’m not sure what to think but after that the Middle East came unglued and we haven’t gotten good info out of there since.”

The rest of the world was also hurting pretty badly. When the US stopped sending aid workers and supplies to all those places it used to people started dropping like flies. China and Russia tried to step in take the US’s place but it didn’t take long before it change from humanitarian aid to true imperialism. People weren’t any more grateful for China and Russia’s help and would battle against them leaving those two countries fighting wars on too many fronts. Somebody goofed and somehow Russia and China came to nuclear blows with one another but there were only a few bombs dropped, That happened last month and everyone has been holding their breaths ever since. No one is certain whether a limited nuclear exchange will cause the weather problems that they predicted for all out nuclear war or if the misery they caused one another is just something to add on to the tally that the world is currently experiencing.

“Pretty much we are being told that most countries outside of the Middle East and Africa have turned turtle and are trying to just deal with their own country’s problems. India and Pakistan and still posturing … do you get what I’m talking about?”

I told him I’d been in the IB program so I wasn’t a complete idiot. I knew in general what shape the world had been in even if I didn’t always understand why. Then he said, “Well then just let me say, anyone that thought they could win a fight decided the time had come to do take it outside and just do it … only a lot of those people and places found out their ego was bigger than their ability. It’s caused a lot of misery around the world and we’ve still got a long way to go before things get better. And all we can do right now is try and survive our own troubles. So, since you seem to be at a stopping point let’s go practice and see if you can get any closer to actually hitting the target.”

Smart aleck. I was hitting the target before, just not those stupid little circles he drew. He made me shoot the rest of the bullets he had brought except for a handful. It didn’t take very long. I felt pretty bad about using all of them up but he had me pick up the metal things that had come out of the gun after I fired each bullet (he was too sore to bend down and pick them up) and told me not to worry about it. He had a standing offer by a friend to come over and help him put in an addition on his house and in exchange he could use his reloading equipment.

I’m not sure what that means but I think it means taking the metal pieces and refilling them with the stuff that makes a bullet. Apparently if they are in good shape they can be reused a few times. “And Uncle George always kept extra ammo on hand just because when you are living on a working farm it is a good thing to do. And don’t get your feathers ruffled, he’s already told me it is OK to get you started. We’ll have to figure out what Clyde will take for trade to get you your own supply but I’m thinking your cooking might be one thing he won’t be able to turn down.”

Clyde is a bachelor friend of Uncle George’s and Rand. I kind of doubt that he’ll trade for my cooking but it’s worth a try. What can he say except “no”?

On our way back to the house it started to rain and we both got soaked. That meant that canning the blueberry juice was out and I fussed a little bit at it. I thought it was going to go to waste when Rand showed me how to keep it kind of cool and it lasted until I could get it done today. We put a large picnic cooler in the coolest part of the summer kitchen and filled it about half full of fresh, cold well water. Then we set the blueberry juice into the cooler and added water until the water covered all but the top of the jug I had poured the juice into. The lid of the cooler was able to close and when I checked it this morning it was still pretty cold. I’ll have to see how I can use that for other stuff.

I had to use the last of my wood out of the inside wood box to make lunch with. I used a heavy skillet heated up and oiled good. I sliced the leftover grits and fried them on each side until they were golden crunchy. I opened up a jar of applesauce and that was lunch plus Rand ate even more blueberries.

I know that wasn’t much of a lunch for Rand but it filled me up enough that I gave him most of everything. I was feeling a little closed in and awkward so I took a moment to step outside to get some more wood from the barn since it had stopped raining. When he came back in he was reading one of Momma’s notebooks I’d left out on the counter in the summer kitchen. He asked for some paper and pencil and started making notes. He was involved with whatever he was doing … it was one of the Y2K books that I had pulled down to look at the recipes … so I went back outside and was looking for Fraidy. That’s when I heard the jangling of a wagon coming.

I ran inside to get Rand and we came back just in time to hear Missy say, “Jonathon, if you made a wrong turn … “ in a frustrated voice.

Rand grinned and limped out to meet them and I followed more slowly. I’m still not sure I like it when people come back to the house.

Long and the short of it was that Missy was going crazy stuck at her dad’s home and had somehow convinced Jonathon to let her come along. She didn’t look too bad; a scab on her forehead and a bandage on her wrist was all that I could see of her ouches. Jonathon had delivered whatever it was to the Henderson place and now he was ready to get home. Missy just needed a bit to “freshen up” and I didn’t have much choice but to invite her around the fence. It was funny to see her mouth fall open but then she looked at me and grinned and said, “I swear I’ll never tell but don’t blame me if this isn’t just the funniest thing … Julia is making it out like you are some poor little waif with nothing but the clothes on your back and lookie here.”

She also gave me my ration book and repeated what Major Sawyer had said about if I had any points at the end of the month that I might be able to trade them in on allotments that hadn’t been claimed. She told me from the look of things I was better off than a lot of folks and it got me worried enough for me to worry.

I told her that it wasn’t just Julia that I didn’t want knowing and asked her to please not go around telling people where I live or what I had (and didn’t have). She answered me by saying, “Aw honey, I know, I’m just having a little fun. Trust me, I wouldn’t have the job I have if I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I’m just happy to see Rand looks so much better … well, he sounds it anyway. What did you do?”

I hadn’t done anything and told her so and she said that it didn’t matter, Rand still seemed better than she had expected. “Sugar, it was awful. Daddy was getting really worried when dark started coming on and Rand wasn’t back from the Winston place. He and Bill, that’s Major Sawyer to you chickadee, took the wagon over to see if he’d even been there or if there was other trouble and they found him just lying in the yard.” She had to draw breath she was so mad and I didn’t blame her. “They’d just left him lying in the yard like he was an old dog. Thing is I don’t think anyone had expected Bill to be there or I don’t doubt they would have done something to Daddy too. Now they are trying to tough it out over what’s happened but word has gotten around and the Winston and Harbinger families and their kin aren’t having too much luck getting supplies up at the depot like they had been. And now word of that is spreading and people aren’t sure what to do; they’re looking for a side to pick and they thought Harbinger was it and now they find out he ain’t nothing but a big … well, let’s just say he isn’t all that he was making himself out to be. Julia’s Momma came over to ask why Daddy had set people against them. Daddy wasn’t there but Laurabeth flat out told her that they should look in the mirror and think on what they had done if they wondered why people were starting to be set against them. She called Julia a … well, you never mind what she called that she-cat. Not everybody cares of course. Some people still think might makes right and are backing the Harbingers and their crowd but mark my words … “

Rand came around the corner and in a snippy voice said, “She doesn’t need to mark them. None of this is her problem so just leave her out of it.”

I still don’t have a clue why Missy winked at me but it was kind of funny to see Rand huffing and puffing like that. Before they left I picked another bucket of blueberries and gave them to Jonathon to give to Laurabeth and Uncle George. When Rand started squeaking I told him it was either give them away or watch them fall to the ground in waste because I couldn’t keep up with them. That only half way appeased him but Missy put an elbow in his ribs that took his breath away. He was still wincing when they headed home with Hatchet tied to the wagon.

I spent the rest of yesterday doing what I said and this morning I spent washing bedding and my clothes. The afternoon was spent canning more blueberries. They look like they are finally slowing down so I figure whenever something gets ripe I’ll have a week or maybe two at the most to get as much done as I can before things give out. I could be wrong about the bigger fruit trees but I’m going to go with that in my planning. Anything more than that will be icing on the cake … or at least I think so.

The next thing that should get ripe is the blackberries and boysenberries. I love blackberries but until I finish with these blueberries I can’t even get started on thinking about them no matter how much I want to. I’ve looked in Momma’s books and most of her drying books are on using an electric dehydrator and that doesn’t do me a bit of good though I did find Momma’s dehydrator in with a box of other small appliances in the bonus rooms. There are a couple of designs for drying stuff without electricity but neither one is something I can do right now. One is a drying oven that uses a small fire underneath a big metal drum kind of thing. The other is a solar dryer but it uses plexiglass and screens and I’m not sure how well I can do that one either. Before I start a project like that I want to be sure that I can finish it.

Right now I’ve got the garden seeds to deal with that I traded for with Momma O. I know the garden plot isn’t ready for me to plant in yet so I thought about something I saw in one of Momma’s books called container gardening. Tomorrow I’m going back to those four houses and I’m going to grab all the dirt from the dead houseplants and stuff out of the sheds that might be useful. I’m going to use those barrels that the trees originally came in that are still sitting in the shed and I’m going to fill them up and plant those seeds. I haven’t got anything to lose and a lot to win if it works.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 22

May 23rd – Tired … tired, tired, tired. But feeling pretty good. I think I may have picked the last of the blueberries for canning. There are still some that are kind of pinkish like they are trying to ripen but not enough to really bother with except to use for fresh. Today I think I picked the last full bucket and had blueberry dumplings again with enough left over to can one more batch of blueberry preserves. I was reading Momma’s notes and she made it out that blueberry season should last longer … like a whole month … but I can’t see that happening unless you start counting from when the first one ripens until the last berry falls off the bush. The only other thing I can think of is that the bushes haven’t been fertilized real regularly for the last two years and maybe that is why. I’ll make note of it in my gardening calendar pages and will just have to see how it goes next year.

And there is going to be a next year. I’m feeling better and better about that. Today I went salvaging again. All four houses seemed to have at least a half bag of potting soil out in their sheds and some dead houseplants hanging around. While that seems kind of useless it isn’t to me. Every little bit of dirt was a bit of dirt I didn’t have to dig up by hand. Those big tubs were hard to fill. I think I made the right decision to line them up in the orchard. I don’t know if that will keep the deer away but I hope so. The deer haven’t found my fruit trees yet so maybe they’ll overlook the containers too. Or maybe it is the tall gates and brambleberry hedges that have kept them out. Momma made some notes on deer that I need to read.

When I went salvaging the super neat little house gave me the most useful things. I guess who ever lived there was kind of yard proud though most of it is dried up and kind of crunchy now. There were several bags of top soil and potting soil and all sorts of odds and ends like fertilizers with different numbers on them, milorganite (treated sewage), bone meal, blood meal, lime, sphagnum moss, lots of specialty plant foods and lots of other science experiment kind of stuff that plants really like apparently. I’m not sure how all of that stuff is going to come in handy but I hauled it all back to the house. I figure when I do start a for real garden that this stuff will help me get a good start. I don’t know what I’ll do after that; I need to read more of Momma’s gardening books and see what I can come up with.

Following some of Momma’s hand written notes she said to get a tarp and put a shovel of top soil, a shovel of sand, and shove of potting mixture and keep doing that until I had what I needed for filling the pots. It got to be a mess on the tarp – I don’t think Momma was thinking about anything but small pots – so I started mixing the stuff in the wheelbarrow so I wouldn’t have to bend down so much or slice the tarp when I was trying to scoop it up with the shovel. I had twelve barrels to work with and that was a doggone lot of dirt to fill them up. My back and shoulders ache like I’ve been rearranging cases of frozen chicken parts for two week straight at the diner.

In the bottom of each barrel I put some old newspaper I had found to cover the big drainage holes so soil wouldn’t fall out. I went to all that trouble to put it in there, I want it to stay in there. Next I added a layer of gravel that I shoveled out of house number one’s drive way. I had to do it by the bucket full and dump it into the wheelbarrow. That was a treat. Not. Then it was time to start filling the pots with dirt. Whoa baby, I had no idea how much work that was going to be. It took me hours to get all of those things filled up and just as soon as I finished the last one it started to rain. All I can say is that the rain will save me from having to carry bucket after bucket of water to make the dirt all wet before I plant my seeds tomorrow.

I made myself practice shooting even though no one is around to make me. I haven’t seen anyone … or heard anyone … since Rand and his family left. I’m hoping that is a good thing but after everything that Rand said about what is going on I don’t know. And I don’t know how many bullets I’m supposed to shoot when I practice so what I did was just fill each gun three times. The noise and the jumping of the guns don’t bother me so much as they used to now that I know what to expect. The pistol … that Hi-something or other that was the gangbanger’s gun … still feels funny in my hand and I’m not sure I’m standing right but I’m getting better.

The poor tree that I have been shooting at needed a break so I started lining up old cans I found on some tree stumps and rocks. I’m hitting the cans more often than not but I’m standing pretty close. Next time I practice I’ll stand further back.

I finally have enough hot water to take a bath that wouldn’t freeze a polar bear’s tush off. That’s where I am going because I’m tired of being dirty and stinky; and that’s all for tonight.


May 24th – I am sore today but all of the seeds are planted. I was starving this morning when I woke up so I fixed an omelet with cheese and onions. My breath wasn’t pretty but my stomach was happy. There is a can of dried mushrooms so I might try and make a mushroom omelet someday soon.

Right after breakfast I grabbed my seeds and headed out to the orchard. I topped off a couple of the barrels that looked like the dirt had compacted down. I keep rethinking the fact that I’m not adding any fertilizer but I’m worried that could kill stuff before it even has a chance to grow. The potting mixture and top soil is already that Miracle-Gro brand that has fertilizer in it. I’ll just have to keep an eye on things.

I planted four of the barrels with black eyed peas. I looked all over Momma’s square foot gardening books for “black eyed peas” but didn’t find it until I looked in the index and saw they are called “cowpeas” or “southern peas” by most people. For these seeds I could plant eight to a barrel since I was counting a barrel as a square foot; it was bigger than a square foot but I figured it would be too hard to do it any other way.

Three of the barrels I planted Lima beans in. Lima beans aren’t my favorite but when you are hungry they are as good as anything else. I figured one of these days I might appreciate those lima beans so I planted them and I also sowed them eight seeds to a barrel.

The eggplants are kind of iffy. There were only a few seeds in that bag and the book said I should only sow one eggplant per square foot but I went ahead and planted two because the barrel is bigger than a square foot. I’m not partial to eggplant unless it has the slime factor fried out of them. Grilled they are OK and we sometimes did that at the diner but to be honest they just kind of give me the heebie jeebies. They look like pods that some alien laid or something. But again, if I’m hungry enough I’ll eat them. I’m not that picky.

The cantaloupes were an even bigger problem. I love melon; I mean I would eat it every day for breakfast and dessert if I could. Momma used to make pickled cantaloupe and cantaloupe preserves too. But I remember Momma used to have to give those suckers room to grow when she planted them back in Tampa. They had runners on them that went every which a way. For the melons I planted two per barrel and planted three barrels of cantaloupes. If all six plants actually make I hope to have all the melon I can want … for a little while any way. I’m also going to plant some of the cantaloupe seeds in the flower beds that are on the sunny side of the house. Momma had Daddy dig that all out and put in good dirt so I’m pretty sure that it should be OK. I just have to take off the bark mulch and pull back the plastic that is underneath. Nothing has ever been planted in there, Momma just never got the chance and Aunt Wilma was never inclined to when she would only get to see it once a year.

Got another little afternoon shower so I didn’t even have to cart water over. I think I’m going to set up a rain barrel out in the orchard so I don’t have to carry water any more than necessary. We’ll see.

By lunch I was hungry again and I was craving meat. I haven’t really had any in a long while, not real meat. It could have been worse I suppose; I might not have the beans or the TVP to try and offset my craving. But sometimes when you want something that is all you want and no substitution will do. Like pizza, I think about pizza sometimes but I try not to. I know Momma used to make a pizza in the Dutch oven but I haven’t had time to look for her recipe file yet … and it’s gotta be there someplace, Momma was a bear for writing stuff like that down and adding it to her recipe collections.

I decided to crack open one of the cans of freeze dried chicken. What I saw when I opened the can didn’t look too good but I figured that since I had already opened the can I had to use it. Glad I did because it actually wasn’t too bad. I made chicken salad casserole. I wish I had some sandwich bread or crackers but I made some pan biscuits and they weren’t bad either.

First I took two cups of the freeze dried chicken, two cups of freeze dried celery, and two teaspoons of dried chopped onion and rehydrated them. I wish I hadn’t used so much celery but I thought it was a good idea at the time to stretch everything else. I also rehydrated a cup of freeze dried cheddar cheese and that was kind of weird looking but actually turned out good. I wondered why Daddy had bought all that freeze dried cheese on top of all of the powdered cheese but now I think I know … just don’t eat it straight out of the can, I tried it and I almost couldn’t make myself swallow it. Major double eeewww.

I dumped the chicken, celery, and onion into the Dutch oven and added some salt, some sweet hot dog relish from some packets I had collected along my trek, and about a cup of mayo. I’m in trouble with the mayo though because it has to be refrigerated after opening and I didn’t think about that until it was too late. It’s a small jar and I put it in the cooler with well water so I hope that it keeps until I can use the rest, I just don’t know what I’m going to use it for yet.

After I got all of that mixed up I put the rehydrated cheese on top and then sprinkled some crushed potato chips on top of that from that stash of junk food from the fourth house. I’m probably going to wake up with another zit in the morning but I don’t care. A girl needs her junk food every once in a while.

I baked the casserole kind of chicken salad thing in the Dutchie for fifteen minutes by putting hot coals on the top of the lid as well as around the bottom. I checked it but it needed a few more minutes and then it was done. There was a lot more of it than I had expected. I had it for lunch and dinner and there was still a spoonful left that I just couldn’t force myself to eat so I gave it to Fraidy. She picked out all the chicken and left the celery. I’ve never had leftovers before. I dug a hole outside and buried them. So today’s lesson is to be careful about how much I cook. It might have not been very wasteful this time but next time I could do worse … so I don’t want to have a next time.

The casserole leftovers made me wonder how Rand is doing. I never really had a bunch of friends but I could always pick up the phone and call someone if I wanted to know how they were doing. Now I guess if I want to know I’ll have to find another way. I’m thinking about riding my bike over there and paying a visit but I don’t know yet. I wasn’t invited exactly, only in an emergency. But maybe if I find something that could be useful to them it would be OK.

I can at least tell Rand that I’m practicing … oh, wait, I can’t because he doesn’t know about all of Daddy’s ammo. Maybe I could tell him that I found some more, but that would be kind of lying. Maybe I can just give him blank face if he says something’ that usually drives people crazy and they start going off about something else and we get off the subject I didn’t want to talk about. I guess I’ll just have to play it by ear.

Before I closed up for the night I put some beans to cooking in the ground. I’ll have beans tomorrow but instead of rice I’m going to fry some cornbread. I’m getting a little sick of rice. I’m thinking that instead of trying to plan my menu day-by-day I should try and plan it for the whole week and that way I wouldn’t get so burned out on stuff.


May 25th – I’m bored. OK, not really, but yes I am. No fruit to pick, no plants to plant, no cows to feed, no reason to cook much because I did most of it the night before. I spent the first half of the day picking up wood. I’m not going through as much since I’m not canning but since I know I’m going to need it shortly for the blackberries I might as well get a jump start.

I tried using the ax on the downed tree but could only whack off some of the smaller branches. I wound up using one of Daddy’s saws and got a lot more done that way. I stopped when the wind picked up. For some reason I’m scared the tree is going to roll over on me if I cut the wrong limb. Maybe stupid, maybe not … better safe than sorry.

The wind brought rain with it so I’ve been stuck inside. I had to dig my beans out in the rain which was so not fun but at least they were ready and not still crunchy. I fried up cornbread on the grill and to make it a little different I added some seasoning to the batter.

I took a box of cornbread mix, added powdered eggs and powdered milk, then added a little poultry seasoning and close to a cup of water to get the batter just the right consistency. After that it is easy, you just cook dollops of it the same way you would pancakes. Next time I won’t add quite so much poultry seasoning … it was a little too much something … but it made a nice change and it helped with the beans since they turned out a little bland because I didn’t add enough salt.

I was at loose ends once it started raining so I cleaned around the house but I’d been picking up after myself as I went so there wasn’t that much to do. The kind of stuff that was left like dusting and sweeping I just wasn’t in the mood for doing. I did sweep off the front porch and the lanai but that didn’t take long and I was at loose ends again.

With all the extra time I had I decided to look through some more of Daddy’s and Momma’s notes. I’ve got a ton of ideas and absolutely no way to get them done. Daddy had notes on how he would build a stockade around the house but it included using the PTO on the tractor to dig the holes and fence posts and wood that he planned on buying … that never happened. There were notes on expanding the solar power by buying more panels and whatsiwhosits but that never happened either. He was going to have a big propane tank brought in and filled and a kerosene tank too but … well, you get the picture. My parents had a lot of plans but ran out of time to accomplish them. I guess that happened to a lot of people.

Now I have to make my own plans and they don’t include having access to a ton of fuel like Mr. Henderson seems to. They don’t include being able to power my house with solar panels, though I’m sure there are people somewhere that are doing that. I don’t have a ton of anything. They sure don’t include going the way of the Harbingers and just taking what I need from other people.

I need to figure out how to get enough that doesn’t include the expectation of it being given to me for nothing in return or finding it lying out with no one else already claiming it. I might be able to put that “abandoned property” rule to good use but not for food.

Work smarter, not harder. I have to think like that all the time now. One of the things I thought about came from a funny place. I was rearranging some of the books up in the bonus room I want to turn into a library when I ran across my old Little House on the Prairie books. I read the paper back versions until they fell apart so for my tenth birthday Daddy bought me the whole series in hardback. While I was remembering that I thought about Ma Ingalls. Momma always reminded me of Ma Ingalls. She was sweet and could do all this stuff for our family and kind of kept us together.

One of the other similarities between Momma and Ma Ingalls was how they did house work. Both of them had specific tasks for each day of the week. I vaguely remember asking Momma about it one time and she said that she had learned it from her mother and that it was just the way women used to do things before so many of them went off to work outside the home. She said it helped keep things neat and organized. I think I’m going to do that as well. It will at least keep me from having to guess at what I need to put on my daily chore list.

Ma Ingall’s Chore List goes like this:

"Wash on Monday,
Iron on Tuesday,
Mend on Wednesday,
Churn on Thursday,
Clean on Friday,
Bake on Saturday,
Rest on Sunday."

Well, I can tell you I’m not ironing anything if I can help it. I have Momma’s old sadirons but no way I am going to iron my t-shirts and blue jeans, there’s no sense to it. And the sheets and bedding get pretty straight on the clothes line and I sure as heck am not going to iron towels and washcloths. That would just be plain silly. And if there are a few wrinkles in things there is no one but me around to see them and I never cared too much about that stuff.

Mending might be a good chore to keep but I think I’ll change it to a sewing day. Momma taught me to sew and one of my grandmothers taught me to crochet while the other taught me to cross stitch and do needle point. I need practice but I know I can do it because I would always do something like that for Aunt Wilma as a Christmas gift. It seemed to surprise her every year that I’d go to the trouble when I could just buy something at the store. And I’d make new pillow cases for Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie every year for their anniversary and Aunt Wilma actually used them so they couldn’t be that terrible.

I don’t have a cow to churn butter from so that one is out and not much reason to bake bread either right now since I can just make biscuits as I need them. I am going to keep the wash day and the cleaning day but I’m going to switch it around some.

So here is my cleaning chore list:

Gather wood on Monday
on Tuesday
Sew on Wednesday
on Thursday
Clean on Friday
Wash on Saturday
Rest of Sunday

I’m not sure what I need to do on Tuesday and Thursday yet. I know I’ll figure it out sooner or later. I have a bunch of daily stuff I have to do like dishes, cooking, taking care of Fraidy (when she lets me), gardening, preserving food (if everything grows like it is supposed to), and then I’ve got some ideas of other things I want to do as well.

Today is Thursday which makes tomorrow Friday and a cleaning day. But I’ve already cleaned everything pretty well except for dusting and moping. What I am going to do tomorrow is go salvaging at the houses for book cases. If I can’t find ready-made book cases that I can move by myself I might try taking them apart and then putting them back together. If that fails I’m hoping to find something that I can use to build book cases with.

That is probably going to take most of tomorrow, but it should count as something that goes with cleaning day. I’ll be getting the books up off the floor upstairs.


May 26th – The only thing that makes this stupid goose egg in the middle of my forehead worth getting is I now have a whole wall of book cases up stairs that match. I found them in three different houses. The one house – the little neat house – that I thought would give me exactly what I needed wound up giving me nothing; well, except for some book ends that have come in handy. All of the books cases at that house were either these big, heavy things that I would never be abe to move or were built into the wall.

I found three in the first house, two more in the really messy house, and then three of them in the fourth house that always gives me a funny feeling to be in. I guess they were having a sale at Walmart and everyone must have got them at the same time. Two of them are painted black and the rest are stained to look like wood. OK, so they aren’t as fancy as the ones at the neat little house but I could move them and that is about all I care about at this point. They have a Better Homes & Gardens sticker on them so they can’t be that awful.

Once I had found the first ones in the first house (one was in the girl’s room, one in the boy’s room and one out in the living room) I had to unload all of the stuff on them. That was kind of depressing. In the boy’s room there was a girly magazine and a pack of cigarettes. I would have laughed if it hadn’t been so sad. It seems the stories about some boys hiding stuff like this from their parents were really true and not just silliness you saw in the movies.

The empty shelves weren’t really heavy, not at first anyway, but they were awkward to carry and I wound up having to take the shelves that were adjustable out of them. That’s how I came by the goose egg. I was moving a book case around and one of the shelves slipped out and conked me in the forehead. I was bent over trying not to cry like a baby … who was there to see anyway … when I looked under a table slid up against the kitchen wall and spotted a box full of cans of cat food and some kitty litter. That explains the boy cat smell in the house.

The three shelves from that house smelled just a little but by the time I got them back to the house using my handy dandy wheelbarrow technique of moving, they were already smelling OK. I left them out on the front porch for good measure until I went back for the other book cases.

After I moved all the junk off of a book case and then got it out of the house it generally took me twenty minutes to get it to my fence, heft it over and then use the wheelbarrow to get it the rest of the way home. Even that got easier though when I found a dolly at the messy house. So yeah, figure an average of twenty to thirty minutes per book case just to move them. I was at the moving part almost four hours and that didn’t include finding them, unloading them of whatever was already on them and then getting them out of the house. The fourth house was a real trip because I had to move so much stuff just to get to the book cases and then move even more just to get the book cases out of the house.

I was another hour and a half figuring out how to get the book cases up stairs because the stairwell was closed in and made a right hand turn half way up. It made me understand why the lawyer hadn’t kept more of our furniture from the house in Tampa.

I took a short break and went practice shooting. My head hurt so bad that every time I shot my head felt like someone was hitting my forehead with a hammer. I didn’t even practice as much as I should have, I just couldn’t stand it.

After I finally got them upstairs it was smooth sailing. I had already put the books in piles the way I wanted them on shelves so all I had to do was load the bookcases and stand back and admire what I had managed to accomplish all by myself. It would have been nice to show off to someone else but that wasn’t going to happen so I decided I was finished working for the day and went back downstairs, took care of my dinner and mess and then grabbed some of Momma’s books and came up to the dormer room to review my day.

One of the things that I need to think on is where to move all of the photo boxes that I found. Well, I thought they were photo boxes but I knocked the lid off of one – I’ll admit I’ve been avoiding looking in them – and the box didn’t have photos in it but oversized index cards. Each index card was a different recipe. Each of the two dozen photo boxes held different types of recipes. One box was marked beverage, another was marked “fish & seafood,” and another that said “game.” Each of the boxes also had dividers in there that separated stuff; like in the “game” box there were tabs for venison, boar, alligator, and a bunch of other stuff I have a hard time imagining that I would eat. Some of the boxes looked like they were labeled the same, like there were two marked “fowl.” But, one of them said “fowl-chicken” and the other said “fowl-other.”

I pulled out a couple of the index cards and they are all in my mother’s handwriting. I can’t for the life of me remember these things; I know she collected recipes and cookbooks but … it bothers me that I don’t remember these. They must have been a lot of work and they must have been important to her. You’d think I could remember something about a collection like this. Now I wonder if I have lost more memories than I thought or if I was just more clueless than I thought. I miss my mother. I wish she was here for me to ask. How am I supposed to figure all of this stuff out without her?


May 27th – I was kind of out of it when I woke up this morning. I kept dreaming about my parents and little brother. But it was all pictures and no sound and I kept asking them what they were saying but they just laughed and kept on talking like I was funning them. What made it worse was that I knew absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt what they were saying was important but I couldn’t hear them. I woke up at four o’clock bad sick to my stomach and I barely got to the trash can before I puked up a bunch of acid. It’s been a long time since I did that. I mean I’ve puked but not acid from being stressed out. I used to take Tagamet and Zantac it was so bad. I hope I’m not doing that again. I plan on being real careful, there is not doctor for me to visit to fix it.

I drank a glass of milk real slowly and then went outside to try and clear my head. Fraidy thought it was cool that I was outside so early. She kept rubbing against my leg to get some attention. When the sky was pink enough that I could walk around without tripping over stuff I walked out to the orchard to get the kinks out of my muscles and to check on things. I pulled off a cupful of berries and took them back to the house with me.

I think the garden is going to take the place of the cows as far as work goes. I am watering the containers every day that it doesn’t rain. Since it didn’t rain yesterday or today I had to water … which meant running back and forth to the rain barrel. I think I will try and move a rain barrel out there. I saw a drawing in one of my dad’s notebooks on make a “tarp funnel” for a rain barrel to catch water. I wonder if that is why Daddy bought all of these tarps I keep finding all over the place. There is a bunch of them stacked in his hidden storage room in the barn. One of them was nibbled on by something but the others were just fine. I found tarps at the four salvage houses too; it will be a long time before I run out of those suckers.

The blueberries I kind of stewed into a filling while I gathered together what I needed to start the day. When the berries were finished I made a little pat-in-the-pan crust … a real easy pie crust that you just kind of use your hands to make and pat out. It’s not pretty like a rolled crust is but it’s hard to make a mistake with it. Then I made fried pies. Fried pies are really easy. Pinch off some dough, flatten it out, put your filling in the middle, fold one half over and seal it with a fork around the edges. Then you just fry in a skillet of butter. I had powdered butter and I had non-stick spray flavored like butter. I went with the non-stick spray. I made enough fried pies for breakfast and lunch. They were good. I remember when I was really little and watching my Aunt Flossie (my grandfather’s sister) make them for the first time. She stood me up on a chair and I got to stand right by the stove and flip them all by myself. I thought I was hot stuff.

Today is Saturday and I kept to my new schedule once I had gotten up and moving; I washed clothes. I didn’t have a lot to wash so I went over my whole “wardrobe” and made a list of things that I needed or could use more of. I also decided to go back to the salvage houses and grab anything that was made of jean material and to try and fill in the gaps I was finding in my wardrobe. I found Momma’s pattern for making jean skirts out of old blue jeans and I am determined that once I can figure out had to fix the treadle sewing machine that I am going to make that blue jean quilt.

My problem is under things. I wonder what other girls are doing. The elastic is going in two of my bras and I’m a little bit on the bosomy side so it’s not like I can just go without. And it is kind of freaking me out thinking about having to wear someone else’s. It doesn’t look like I’m going to have any choice except that there weren’t any that fit me in any of those houses. The idea of traipsing around the county looking through a bunch of abandoned houses hoping to find something that will fit me the way it is supposed to is just … icky.

There was stall at the farmer’s market that had all these bras and slips and stuff hanging on strings between the poles holding up a canopy and there was more stuff laying on tables but I didn’t really look at what they had. There were women and girls over there though, and a couple of men too that just handed lists to the lady manning the stall; I guess they were shopping on behalf of their womenfolk. I just couldn’t bring myself to look and now I wish I had. I need to get over myself I guess.

After I hung the last load of blue jeans that I washed out to dry I made myself practice double since I had cut it short yesterday. I took five steps back from where I normally stand and it took me several tries before I could hit the cans again. I finally remembered that I should save all the “spent casings” of the bullets. By the time I picked up all I could find it was time to go back to the house and check to see if I could bring the clothes in off of the line and to start myself some dinner. Nothing sounded good so I just ate granola and dried fruit. I know I shouldn’t skimp while I’ve got the food to eat but it’s just not as much fun eating by myself, it’s just more work.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I think I’m going to give biking over to see the Crenshaws a try. Laurabeth seems the type that wouldn’t die of embarrassment if I asked her about bras. And if Missy is still there I know she’ll clue me in. Besides, I’m interested in seeing what they did with the blueberries and whether Rand’s face has healed up.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 23A

May 28th – So much for biking to see the Crenshaws. I woke up to rain and it has been raining off and on all day long. There isn’t much I can do in the rain … maybe should say there isn’t much I should do in the rain. I don’t want to get sick after all. So I stayed inside. I was going a little nutty and thinking about breaking the schedule that I had set myself when I realized I could use the extra down time to look through some more of Momma and Daddy’s books. I would still be “resting” from hard labor but using my time wisely … I even read an old Sunday School lesson that Daddy had stuck in his notes on stewardship that gave me a lot to think about.

I noticed yesterday that the blackberry canes were really starting to fill out. A couple of more days … maybe … and I’ll be back to canning like a lunatic. The question is again though what to can and how much of it? Blackberry juice for sure and that is made the same way as the blueberry juice I canned up. And I also want to make up some Blackberry Vinegar because that is what Momma always let me drink when I had a fever that wouldn’t go away. One of the good things about the vinegar I realized after reading the recipe is that it is made with honey and not white sugar. This will be a recipe that saves me sugar.

The other stuff that is on the list of options for canning include: blackberry syrup, pickled blackberries, blackberry shrub, blackberry jam, blackberry-honey jam, blackberry catsup, spiced blackberry jelly, whole blackberries, and just for the heck of it since so far it looks like I’m going to be drowning in blackberries I want to try and make blackberry chutney. I don’t know what I’ll get to eat it with but it might be a nice gift … for friends and stuff I mean like the Crenshaws or Major Sawyer or even Pastor Ken.

The blackberry-honey jam uses honey instead of sugar as the sweetener and preservative. I’m going to make a batch of each and see which one I like the best. I’m still hunting for great grandmother’s non-alcoholic blackberry cordial recipe. At Christmas time, even all of us younger kids were allowed a little sip of this and then we poured the rest of it over the homemade yellow cake we always had for dessert.

I also took some time to fill in more of my big calendar. After the blackberries and boysenberries ripen the beginning of June I should start seeing plums by the middle of the month, but Momma’s notes say that not all of the trees should ripen at the same time. That will be cool if it happens, there are a few different plum trees out there and I’m not sure I could keep up with them if they all ripen at once. I’ve got the trees all labeled now and it looks like all of the trees have baby fruit on them but some are falling off too. I think that is supposed to happen … a natural thinning process that lets the fruit that doesn’t fall off get bigger and stay healthy. But birds will knock fruit off too and so will rain and storms. This is crazy, it’s a wonder there is any fruit left for people to eat with all that goes on.

Before the end of the month I have to pull out Momma’s tree nets and put them over some of the trees. Like the pie cherry tree that is supposed to start making at the end of June. The middle of July I should be able to eat apples, assuming I have time to eat because right after the apples Momma’s wrote I should start looking for the nectarines and something called rabbit-eye blueberries … which I have no clue what she is talking about. I thought blueberries were blueberries and if she planted some someplace else I have to find out where. Figs should also start appearing the middle of July but I haven’t a clue whether I like them or not. I like fig newton cookies but … what else do you use figs for?

Pears and peaches will come the beginning of August. Crabapples are the beginning of September and the grapes are supposed to be ready then too. October is more apples with persimmons the beginning of November. It doesn’t look like I’m going to slow down until December which is OK but I’m going to need something besides fruit to eat. I’m trying to figure out when the seeds I got from Momma O fit into the calendar of things to expect and do. I would really like stuff besides that to eat but where do I get the seeds? I wonder if Momma O has more and if she would be willing to trade some fresh fruit for the seeds.

I also need to find out when the pecans are supposed to be ready. Momma said that some of the pecan trees start dropping nuts as early as the beginning of October but that sometimes you won’t get any pecans at all either because the trees don’t make or because the squirrels get them all before you can get any. I think that I’ve found the chestnut trees that we planted. Momma’s notes say they should start dropping in September but when I haven’t a clue. Usually Momma wrote early, mid, or late but not for this one which must mean she didn’t know exactly when or that the tree has a mind of its own and drops when it wants to.

According to Momma’s notes I missed the Mayhaw season. They ripen the end of April or the beginning of May. I guess I just missed it or the birds got them all or something. Then there are other things I’m running across. Why couldn’t she put everything in one place? I keep finding answers to some of my questions only to wind up with more questions and no idea where to look for the answers.

Let’s see, there is something called a Pignut Hickory I am supposed to have several of in the tree line in the widest section of the main road but I don’t have any pictures of what the leaves look like so how am I supposed to know what is a hickory and what isn’t? Momma said there are two mockernut trees someplace as well. What the heck is a mockernut?! The other trees that are someplace on the property are American Beech, elm, holly, white cedar, red cedar, blackjack, camphor, chinkapin, and I don’t know what all since I haven’t finished reading that part of Momma’s notes.

Daddy’s stuff is practical the same as Momma’s, just about different stuff. His notes are on attracting and hunting wild game like deer, turkey, quail and gator. But he also had in there how to do things like catch armadillos and boars (that’s a feral pig I think). The best way to skin a snake and eat it pretty much grossed me out but I guess if you are hungry it’s better than eating air. He’s got notes for taking care of livestock but a lot of that includes things I don’t know if I could do like trimming the cow’s toenails or how to not irritate a llama so it won’t spit at you. I had no idea my dad even cared enough about llamas to find out how to keep one from spitting on him.

Some of my parents’ notes just seem so out there. Maybe they were just gathering every bit of information they came across and would have at some future point gone through it to see what they really could use and what they couldn’t. Like I can understand why Daddy would have notes for building a smoke house or how to build the solar stuff even but I don’t get why he would want to know how to pan fry grasshoppers. With Momma around I just don’t see having to go that far.

Only I guess Momma isn’t around and neither is Daddy. I hope things never get so bad that I have to eat bugs. Maybe that’s why they saved information like that … for just in case. But man, I hope that type of thing never comes around for me. The very idea of eating that stuff makes me want to gag.


May 29th – It was nice to not do any real hard work yesterday but it sure made picking up wood today hard. The wood being wet didn’t help either. And there has got to be a better way of chopping that stuff up that doesn’t make you feel like your arms are going to fall off at the end of the day. Matter of fact, I think I’m just going to go to sleep. I’ve added ten more wheelbarrows full of small wood to my piles … and laid it out neater too … and I sawed a bunch of bigger logs off of the fallen tree. Those I had to saw into chunks no longer than half the length of my leg or I couldn’t lift them up into the wheelbarrow to bring back to the house.

I know those pieces are too big for the fireplace but I couldn’t cut them with the ax. I managed to cut a couple of the logs in half lengthwise with the saw but they wouldn’t stand still so that I could cut the halves in half. I know it isn’t supposed to be this hard. I’ve got to be doing something wrong. If I see Uncle George or maybe Rand at the end of the month ration book thing I’ll ask them, and just hope they don’t laugh at me.


May 30th – I have a new friend. He’s a little fond of his own voice but I think I can live with it. Fraidy isn’t too sure she likes him but on the other hand she licks her lips every time she comes near. It’s a rooster. A little one too. I don’t mean young I mean little. I think he is what is called a Banty rooster. He sure seems full of himself.

I can’t believe how easy it was to catch him. I just put a bowl of blueberries in an old dog cage that Daddy built near the barn … it was supposed to be a dog run but we never got any dogs to put in it.

That bird thinks he is hot snot and is crowing like crazy. I hope he doesn’t draw the bad kind of attention from something that might try and catch him. I mean he’s a funny little thing but not exactly an indoor pet. I helped Daddy build the dog run … rooster run now … so I know nothing can dig up under and get to Pretty Boy. That’s what I named him, “Pretty Boy.” Daddy set the big cyclone fence posts down in concrete footers that wrap around the whole run. They go down two feet if I remember. Daddy said he didn’t want dogs he put in there being able to dig their way out or something to dig their way in. I think he was thinking about breeding hunting dogs like my grandfather used to. Granddaddy always kept his best hunting dog Queenie away from the boy dogs when she was in heat or when she was having puppies. I liked Queenie, she was a bird dog and just about as sweet a dog as I’ve ever been around but some of her puppies were nasty little boogers; they were always biting my ankles when I went out to help Granddaddy feed them.

I didn’t know what to put in Pretty Boys new home but he’s a bird and I figured he might like a branch or something. Once he got over his indignation at me dragging a big log in there so he’d have something interesting to look at he really took to it. He’s so funny; he looks like an oversized canary when he hops up in the branches and starts crowing. I put some cut grass near the log but I’m not sure if roosters nest the same hens do. I’m also not sure what roosters eat. I know they can free range like a cow ... well, that’s what Daddy’s notes say anyway … but I don’t know what they actually eat. Bugs maybe? Pretty Boy liked the blueberries well enough but I don’t think he could live on them. He certainly has had fun scratching around in all the leaves at the bottom of the dog run but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing either. And the big dog watering contraption I found in Daddy’s junk room seemed to suit him as well. It was one of those things you fill up and then turn upside down and as the dog licks the water up it refills itself until the jug is all gone.

I also built a compost bin after I practiced shooting. It’s kind of lame looking compared to the ones in Momma’s books but I think it will get the job done. My materials came from the second house. I think the pallets out in back of their patio used to hold sod as there were a couple of squares of dried up grass sitting on one. There were three of them. I looked around for something that would make a gate or door for the fourth side and didn’t find anything. Some of the examples of compost bins only have three sides so I guess that is OK.

It was a pain trying to get all three sides to stand up so I finally had get the post hole digger and take two pieces of scrap rebar and bury them standing upright on each end of the “U” the wooden pallets made once I had wired them together at the corners. I tried nailing them together but I kept spitting the wood.

After I got the bin to stand up I put a layer of dry crunched up leaves on the bottom. Next came some green grass cuttings. They were kind of long when I cut them with the swing blade so I tried to chop them up with a hoe into smaller pieces, not sure it worked too well but it didn’t work bad either. On top of this is supposed to go green kitchen waste, unfortunately I don’t have any yet. If I had built the compost bin sooner I would have put the leftovers from where I made blueberry juice and stuff but at least now I know what to do with the leftovers from all of my other canning that is going to be coming down the road. I tried to make up for the lack of kitchen green stuff by pulling weeds around the acreage. There was a bunch of dollar weed by the gully and I went up there to pull it. There was also a bunch of weeds in the ditches beside my front gate so I went up there too. I needed to check on things anyway.

When I was up there I hid in the bushes when I heard a wagon coming. “You can come out of the bushes girl, I already saw ya.”

Mr. Henderson was grinning so I didn’t figure it couldn’t be too bad. He got nosey and wanted to know how I’d been doing and if I was keeping busy. I told him I was fine and busy enough. He laughed and called me full of sass when I asked how he’d been doing and what he’d been up to. He said he couldn’t keep his cattle standing but that if I wanted to get in on the ration book exchange tomorrow I’d better get there early in the morning … before first light if I could manage it … because he heard a lot of people were going to try and come up and get whatever it was they could. I asked him if he was going to be there and he said “nope” and left it at that. He also told me that they were making people check all of their weapons before entering the distribution area so I had to be prepared for that and he also warned me to make sure I got back what I checked in, including the same number and type of bullets.

He left after telling me to mind my p’s and q’s because his granddaughter shared that Julia Winston still wasn’t too happy I’d gotten away with talking to her that way at the market. I wasn’t surprised; I hadn’t meant to be gentle but to make a point. I just wondered how far out of her way she was going to trash what little reputation I might have claim to. I was also wondering if she had decided that the pasture was greener with Rand and if so, what she planned to do about the mistake she had made … and what Rand would think of it all.

So, that is why I’m going to bed so early tonight. If there is going to be a big crowd like there was at the market and at work day I’m going to have to start walking at four in the morning. I’d ride the bike but at some point on the trip I must have picked up a bunch of sandspurs; the front tired is completely flat and the back tire is half way there. I found that out tonight when I was taking it out of the barn. Wouldn’t you know it? Just when I remembered to use it, it isn’t useable.

And, though it was a hard decision to make I’m going to take some of that change out of Daddy’s collection jars. Something just doesn’t set right with me about getting something for nothing. It’s like before I knew those four houses fell under the heading of abandoned property. I felt guilty. I might only be able to get one or two things but it will be one or two things on my own terms. I worry about losing my independence; like all those strings that Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie tried to tie on me because they were the ones that stepped up and took me in. And when people give you something for nothing they eventually want something in return at some point. I’d rather pay the price up front that I can afford than have a debt like that hanging over my head for who knows how long.

I made extra pan biscuits with dinner so I’ll have them for breakfast. I’ve already made a nosebag of granola and dried fruit and also put a miniature block of summer sausage and small block of cheese from the Swiss Colony supplies. I’ve got a canteen of water but I’m not going to bother flavoring it this time. My nerves have my stomach tumbling and I don’t need any more reason to get an acid upset stomach.


May 31st – I woke up bright and early this morning. Well, early … not so bright. My guess is that three-thirty in the morning doesn’t look pretty on anybody. It was too early for breakfast so I stuck the biscuits in one of the big pockets on what I’m calling my traveling vest (the hunting vest I wore at the farmer’s market) and my lunch foods in the other one in case I had to be out long.

The mist was heavy so I wasn’t too worried about my seeds; besides, it was too dark to go tripping around with a watering can. Even Pretty Boy and Fraidy were still asleep when I put my feet to the road. It was so quiet it was spooky. This is how it had been when I was escaping from Tampa. The closer I got to US90 the more noise I could hear. People were already plodding down the road to get in line. Not a lot but enough. With people around it was even spookier, we were like ghosts all traveling in the same direction.

I guess we were all lucky that there were no clouds and the moon was bright. Everybody was moving slow so it wasn’t like I was going to be run over but I kept looking around every few minutes just to make sure. No one was talking and from what I could see of people’s faces, no one was in the mood to talk so I kept to myself and out of the way as much as possible.

I came up to a girl, a little older than me, that was carrying a little kid. Her shoe was untied and she was trying to balance the toddler and bend down at the same time. I taped her on the shoulder and made motions that I would tie it. When we kept walking it was side by side. We still didn’t say anything, not even when we got in line to enter the distribution area.

The line hadn’t started moving yet when the little kid shook a sippy cup that was tied to a string and said, “Thirsy Momma, so thirsy.” The girl looked like she was about to cry. I didn’t see any canteen or anything. I took the cup, figured out how to get the lid off and poured water to fill it up. The kid almost couldn’t wait for me to make sure the lid was back on before he started sucking on it frantically. The girl looked ashamed but I didn’t know what to say so I just shrugged. When I offered her the canteen she jumped and shook her head like I was offering her poison or something.

Finally the line started moving and the poor little kid laid his head down and went back to sleep. It wasn’t until we got inside the gate that the girl looked at me and said thank you but I only knew it because the sky had finally started to lighten and I could read lips. She turned and left in a hurry before I could say, “Your welcome.” She disappeared into the crowd while I was still signing in my rifle.

Once I was passed the check in point I was at a loss what to do and then I saw his big ol’ flat top off over to the side. A young man in a khaki-colored t-shirt got the Major’s attention when he nodded my direction. “Well, hello there Shorty. Missy was wondering if you’d show up today or not.”

It was awful hard to ignore the Shorty remark but I guess he does that to a lot of people considering he is well over six foot. I asked him if I could ask him something and he said sure and we stepped off to the side. I told him I wanted to do things the right way and try and pay for my share. He gave me one of those condescending, “isn’t she cute” kind of looks some guys can give. Well, he did until I showed him the change I had stuck in a Ziploc bag. I told him I had forty dollars in change and I wanted to pay my own way.

He looked at the change a little more closely than I thought was necessary then he shoved the bag back into my vest and walked me over to a portable building and took me inside. He nodded to some guy in there working on a radio and then had me sit down in his office. I thought he was going to exchange it for sand dollars but instead asked me where the money had come from. I told him, I trust the Major but he doesn’t have to know that there is more where that came from.

What he said surprised me though, “Girl, that’s more than change you have in your pocket. That’s silver in those old coins. And that could get you in lots of big, big trouble.”

I didn’t understand and he told me that the federal government had been confiscating privately owned precious metals for about two months, including old coins and something he called blanks. I tried to tell him it was just coins I took out of my father’s collection jar. He said, “Be that as it may, you put that stuff back where ever you found it and then lose it for a while … a long while. If people find out that I’ve seen it and not confiscated it I could get in trouble too.”

I don’t want the Major to get in trouble so it was easy enough to do what he asked me to do. I got up to leave when he said, “Where are you going?”

I told him home since I didn’t have any money to spend. That’s when we went round and around about the stupid ration book. I tried to explain to him that I didn’t want to take something for nothing and why but I don’t think he got it because he kept scratching his head and finally said, “Lord, preserve me from innocents and idealists.”

I don’t think Major Sawyer has a high opinion of too many people. The next thing he said to me kind of confirmed that. “Look here girl … Kiri ... a lot of those people out there waiting their turn to suck up what is left over from the monthly rations aren’t thinking twice about what that means. Most of them keep expecting to get this kind of help week after week, month after month, until things get back to normal. They don’t care. They feel entitled. You know what that means?”

Of course I know what that means. Just because I’m a teenager doesn’t mean I’m stupid. The look on my face must have been enough to let the Major know that I did because he continued, “You’ve heard of the story of the ant and the grasshopper … tell me they haven’t taken that out of the curriculum too … good. You know the moral of the story. Well, I would say at least three-quarters of those people out there are nothing but grasshoppers. They are only thinking about today, maybe tomorrow, next week at the most. Anything beyond that they are either too scared to think about or are positive that things are going to get better, back to normal.”

He took a deep breath and looked like he was chewing over what he wanted to say. I thought he’d almost given up saying anything at all and then, “Kiddo, things aren’t going to get better next month. Not next year either. Probably not for another five or ten years if then. I mean, things might get better at an individual level, but at a collective level it’s going to be a very long while before the world can get anywhere near back to where we were before this whole mess started, and that’s if things don’t get much worse than they are right now. There are too many people in the world with weapons they have no business being in charge of. Did Rand tell you about China and Russia? Well, things are worse than we knew at first. Our satellites are still working and all over the world there are … “

“Wars and rumors of wars?”

“Hell kid, don’t go all freaky on me.”

“Uh, sorry. Just seemed appropriate.”

“Yeah, more appropriate than I’m comfortable with so don’t worry about it. I’m due to retire in six months. I had thought about staying in, I’m not that old, but now that I’ve met Missy and … well, I’ve put in my twenty and I’m getting out … if they’ll let me out. You don’t say anything about that either. But I’m trying to tell you that you are going to have to take advantage of the ‘right here, right now’ because there might not to be any of it before too much longer. The way things are going there may not even be any of it next month, and that is definitely something you don’t go around talking about, you hear?.”

“Then why are you telling me?”

“A lot of reasons kid but mostly because you remind me of Missy. Now you take that ration book, you stand in line, you take what you can get and then you get home. You hear me? I know some of the kids around here are trying to put together some type of social gathering after the distribution center closes but I think that is a lousy idea. Too many people are running on too tight a string. There is bound to be trouble. You … go … home.”

I told him I hadn’t heard anything about a social gathering and I wasn’t interested in doing things like that anyway. He told me good and then walked me back out and put me in one of the lines that had already gotten a lot longer than they were when I had first walked in.

Unfortunately Julia Winston was in the next line over from me standing with someone that turned out to be her mother. Her mother said something nasty that I was getting preferential treatment since I was “friends” with the Major.

I had to nip it in the bud before the somebody got in trouble and I’m sorry but the lie is what came quickest to my lips. “I forgot to check my bullets … OK?” I said in a kind of whiney voice like I was embarrassed about getting caught and just wanted people to leave me alone about it.

They ate it hook, line, and sinker because it gave them something else to smirk about. It was easy to ignore them after that, especially when the lines eventually took us into separate … well, they were kind of like bathroom stalls. I think they were supposed to look like old fashioned bank teller windows with walls for privacy up on either side but they still looked more like stalls to me.

I handed in my ration book and the guy just looked at it and then took it over to someone else, who then disappeared with it into the back. The guy who I had originally taken the ration book from me came back and asked real casual like, “Haven’t done any shopping this month?”

I told him I hadn’t known what to do with the book until someone explained it and hadn’t had any money to exchange for sand dollars at the last farmer’s market. He made some kind of note on this tally pad he had and when the other guy came back and said whispered something to him he made a couple of checks and then directed me to follow him through this little swinging door and down a ramp to another building.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 23B

I’ll admit it; I was getting more than a little nervous. It was like that long walk to the Dean’s office right before they slap some major in-school suspension on you. I walked into another little cubbyhole office to see some guys loading up a table with stuff in plain brown bags and stacks of some cans that had white labels and black lettering on them.

Some woman comes over to me and hands me a clip board and says, “Sign here.”

“Sign here for what?” I ask her.

“Geez kid … I don’t have all day, just sign and stop playing dumb.”

Missy shows up in time and just says, “Sign it Miss Snow and I’ll explain it to you.” She gave the woman a dirty look that had her hopping off in another direction a little faster than she might have otherwise.

“I don’t have a lot of time Sugar. Rand is out back with his horse and a couple of pack mules. You two are going to have to load this stuff and Daddy’s and then get out of here fast. And I mean fast. What we have left is going to be gone in less than an hour and we have hours’ worth of people left in line. It’s going to get nasty. I’d get some of my people to help but we are already breaking down what we can so that we can jump and get going, hopefully before most people will understand what is going on. The Supply Depot is already on lock down and when we leave here I might not see you for a while.” She gave me a hug and then one to Rand who stepped in through a door I hadn’t noticed before running back the way she had come.

Rand just said, “Grab something.”

By the time we had finished loading, some of the smaller packages stuffed into my backpack, we could hear that the sounds of the crowd were already restless, bordering on nasty. The medic that I remembered from the work day ran up and handed me my rifle and another gun to Rand, laughed at me and said, “Bullets … I’ll have to tell the Major how you saved his bacon with that one” before running off again.

Rand looked at me with a question and when I opened my mouth to explain he just motioned me to be quiet while we left the distribution area by a back gate and walked the animals through areas that I hadn’t even known existed. I had finally figured out we were paralleling US90 when there was something like a roar of sound behind us.

A voice ahead of us whispered, “Well, that ties it. I gots ta get going Rand if I’m going to get this to your uncle’s place and get hunkered down in mine before things spill out too far.”

Then a figure came running through the bushes. It was the girl with the little boy. She fell down, dropping everything but the baby. She was scared to death but when she saw the other guy she gasped out, “Clyde!”

“Hush Melinda or you’ll have ‘em down on us.”

Long and the short of it, and it wasn’t until later that Rand explained things to me, I was witnessing a little “As the Stomach Turns” soap opera installment. The girl looked like she didn’t have too much more left in her. Clyde jumped down, threw girl Melinda’s stuff in the back of the wagon and then tossed her and her little boy both into the back of the wagon as well while saying, “I don’t want to hear a single word about it Melly, you are coming home with me and to hell with what you, the Harbingers, or anyone else has to say about it.”

A salute to Rand and he was gone and Rand was pulling me to keep up with him and the mules. I would have gone down several times if he hadn’t had my arm. My legs were really aching and I was having trouble keeping up because the pack was heavy. Rand didn’t even slow down until we had both gates locked behind us and were standing in my front yard.

“I’m going to put this stuff on the porch, you drag it inside, don’t try and put it away … just get it all inside. Then you start filling up your wood box while I take care of the animals. Where’s that cat? You get her inside too if you can.” I didn’t understand what was going on but I knew it was bad just from the way Rand sounded.

I was still filling the wood box when Rand came in with some bigger wood logs in one arm and Fraidy in the other. “I put your rooster and his water in the barn; he should be OK in there for a while. I’ll check on him later if I’m able. Where’d he come from?”

He was asking me where the rooster came from when he was running around acting like he was?! I had my hands on my hips and my mouth open when Rand’s stomach gave out a giant growl. I thought, “Oh, for Pete’s sake” and gave him one of the biscuits that was still in my vest. He mumbled an embarrassed thank you while I went to get him some fresh water.

He was leaning on the kitchen counter catching his breath when I came back. “Look, I know … I … I invited myself over without even asking first. I guess you probably …

I finally shook my head at his sputtering and just said, “Rand, spit it out already. Just explain what is going on.”

“I saw you get pulled into Sawyer’s office. You didn’t really forget to check your bullets did you?”

He must have been close by to hear me tell Julia that. I told him actually I had but that wasn’t why Major Sawyer had wanted to talk to me. I didn’t have to explain the real reason because Rand assumed it was because the Major was “explaining” some things to me.

“It’s worse around town than even Sawyer and Missy know. Harbinger and his clique are really starting to make noise about having more say in what goes on around here. I can see both sides of the argument, Missy and Sawyer can’t, at least not yet. People around here are pretty … well, they are used to doing things the way they’ve always been done. Problem is the infrastructure is gone. So are a lot of the people that kept things balanced, who never would have let a man like Harbinger get as much power as he’s gotten recently. The man’s got some good points to his argument but he’s going about winning the debate the wrong way.”

I asked him what that had to do with me and why everything is flying apart and why were we sitting in the heat and the dark like mice with a cat stalking around.

“Not the best analogy, more like the wolf’s at the door. Let me try and explain better. Since the farmer’s market where you could see how short food is getting, even food being brought in by the military, people are getting worried. Then some of the people that were already worried started getting angry. Harbinger made a lot of promises that he can’t fulfill now. As bad as Harbinger has been there are some that are worse. First he helped out by using the abandoned property ordinances to get food back into the pipeline. Then he went further and started putting together possies to take care of the gangbangers that were escaping that the military didn’t have time to deal with. There were a lot of both of those in the beginning and he started making friends. Lately he’s been keeping a sort of balance by “encouraging donations” from people that have “too much” so that it can be handed out to people that don’t have anything. Most of us went along with it at first because we thought it was the Christian thing to do and because the food really was getting to the needy.”

He stopped to cough a little and then drink some more water. “But for the last little bit here, the balance has been shifting. The needy aren’t getting their needs met and no one has any spare to just give away for free when they have their own families to be responsible to and for. The … let’s call them the less desirable elements of the community … that had backed Harbinger’s group only did it because of what he could give them. The less he has to give them … the less he does give them … the less loyalty they are giving him. A lot of those people have been joining ranks with the gangbangers and taking what they want rather than waiting for a hand out. Harbinger still has a lot of friends, but they are the kind of friends that expect things in return.”

“So things are bad, that still doesn’t explain … “

“I’m getting there, give me a chance. This is a lot more complicated than … look there are a lot of people that think they know THE way things should be run. Right now Harbinger is the loudest and has the most support but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others out there too. And then you’ve got the military crowd, agents of the government that people had thought would have everything under control by now. And people are angry that they don’t. It’s just … “

I broke in and said, “You are talking about anarchy. Too many people thinking they are in charge or should be in charge and their rules are the right rules but in reality no one is really in charge and the rules are changing so fast that no one knows what they are.”

Rand quirked up his lips, “You’ve got to be the oldest sixteen year old I’ve ever met. Yeah … yeah, that’s a good, short definition of what is starting to happen. And it is coming to a head. You heard what happened when the food ran out. Too many scared people that waited too long to take action.”

“Why are you here? Why aren’t you with your Uncle George helping to defend … “

He stopped me short, “Do you care if people talk?”

When he changes the subject, he really changes the subject. I had to stop and think for a second and ask, “About what?”

“Do you care if people talk … about me staying here?”

“It’s not like I know a lot of people who would care one way or the other. There’s your family and that’s about it. Besides, what’s to talk about?”

“Well, Julia has started … “ and he blushed.

Oh for pity sake. I told him, “Look. I already know Julia is mad because I yanked her chain hard at the market. Ask me if I care. Her mother isn’t much better from what I’ve heard and witnessed, not that that is a whole lot. What are they saying about me that you think I’m going to be so upset over?”

He chewed his lip and then got serious and said, “About us. Maybe I’ve made a mistake by staying here but … “

I got it and told him that just because people talked didn’t make it so. That as long as his family understood then I didn’t care about what other people said. He looked at me a long time and asked, “You sure?”

After I told him that I was for sure and rolled my eyes he was a little easier. He said that in that case he had invited himself over until he was sure that any major blow up was over. “And look, don’t get all bent out of shape thinking that I think you are too young to look after yourself. I do but you are proving me wrong … but there is no way you are prepared for what might be coming over the next couple of days. And part of what might be coming is my fault. The Winstons and the Harbingers have been friends for years and I guess they’re happy now that Julia is seeing Fred. What they aren’t happy about is how they’ve been portrayed in the community since I tussled with Ron Harbinger and Fred and his cousin Rickie played dirty. That caused them problems they didn’t realize it was going to cause them. It gave some people pause that had been giving Harbinger unconditional loyalty. And Julia … well, she’s starting to say things like you were the reason that she and I broke up and …”

That’s when the water I was swallowing went down the wrong way and it was a few minutes before I could stop coughing and laughing at the same time. Rand didn’t get it so I tried to explain it to him. Julia was the “pretty girl,” and I was the weird chick from out of town and younger on top of that. No one in their right mind that knew Rand would think that he would throw Julia over for me after dating her for nearly five years.

“That’s not funny Kiri.”

“Sure it is. All of this is as bad as being back in highschool. Julia is just trying to make herself look like the injured party. I don’t want to hurt your feelings Rand but she must be dippy to throw you over for a scuzzball like ol’ Freddie.”

He turned unexpectedly angry, “Has he been bothering you?”

I told him no but with his warning and with my experience of the guy at the market it didn’t take a genius to pick up on the obvious clues. “Any guy who will do what he did in broad daylight right in front of his girl will do who knows what when she isn’t around. She’s going to be so sorry one of these days and then she’ll come running back to you.”

“Let her run to somebody else. After some of the things she has said to me and about me the last two weeks I don’t want whatever she offers.”

He can say that but I don’t know that I necessarily believe him. That’s a long time to date someone just to turn about and suddenly decide you don’t want to be with them every again.

We left off talking about his private life after that and stuck to the basics like how had I been and how he was feeling and what each we had been doing since we last saw each other. He stepped outside and since the noise was still off towards town followed me around while I watered my veggie barrels and we saw to the animals in the barn again, already having to scoop some poop that Rand threw onto my compost pile. Pretty Boy was pecking at the feed that the mules and Hatchet dropped and while Rand filled a big container of water for them to drink from and made sure there was nothing in the barn they could get into, I went to fix lunch and dinner. After all, the world can be going crazy but people still have to eat.

I boiled a bunch of water and decided that it was now or never to use that big can of Mountain House chili mac. I cooked that up with enough left over for dinner too. To go with lunch I made fried cornbread and dinner was a bunch of pan biscuits that we had preserves on for dessert. I also used the fire pit to get beans cooking for tomorrow.

Rand didn’t ask where I got the food from. I found out in a roundabout way he thought it was from the house that originally had all the hunting and camping gear in it. I didn’t say yes either way but it still felt a little bit like lying. He helped me to put things away and was fascinated by the “fruit cellar” that Daddy had built. There was nothing in there except stuff that I had already canned and more canning supplies so I didn’t see any sense in hiding it from him. Besides he kept looking at the blueberries and then looking at me like he couldn’t compute something. It was funny.

We talked about my parents and about his. I found out he was the first person from either side of his family to go to college and that he had been a surprise that his parents hadn’t quite known what to do with after they had made up their minds that they weren’t having kids. His memories of his parents were good, just different from mine.

“It was Uncle George that taught me hunting, camping, fishing, and that sort of thing. My dad worked so many hours delivering stuff in Orlando that there wasn’t any time for it. Aunt Rachel and Mom didn’t always get along either. Aunt Rachel was different from Uncle George as night and day. She wasn’t real satisfied with where life had taken her. She was more … something, mellow maybe … after my Mom died and then when she got cancer too but it was still always Uncle George that was the more demonstrative of the two. He’s the one that made me feel like their home was my home too and not just a rest area until the next thing in my life came along.” After that I remembered to ask him about the scene between the girl Melinda and Clyde.

Clyde is Rand’s friend with the reloading equipment. His father and Melinda’s fathers were real close growing up. Clyde got his degree and went to work for the forestry service. When Clyde’s parents retired and moved away to Phoenix, Clyde moved into the garage apartment on Melinda’s parents’ tree farm. “Everything was going fine until Melinda turned up pregnant and claimed the baby was Ron Harbinger’s. Well the stink hit the fan. Melinda was a minor at seventeen and Ron is twenty-seven or twenty-eight now, I forget exactly. Either way, old enough to be arrested for statutory rape back then. But somehow the whole situation got turned back on Melinda. She could be really wild and the Harbingers used that against her and nothing ever came of it. There was a big blow up between Melinda and her parents, she stomped out and her father changed his will leaving everything to Clyde. Clyde, knowing Ron from school, believed Melinda but the damage was done. Melinda’s parents saw the little boy only once before they both died of the flu. Melinda had finally been granted child support payments by the court after Ron had been forced to take a test to see if he was the boy’s father. But I don’t think he ever made a single payment. Clyde has been trying to get her to move back home but Melinda is the most bullheaded … well, maybe the second most bullheaded person … “

I threw a pillow at him and when we were done laughing I told him to tell his friend Clyde to stop trying to get Melinda to move back home because it is the right thing for her to do and tell her to do it for the boy. I told him about how she would let everything go but the baby and wouldn’t even put him down to tie her own shoe. Wouldn’t take any water for herself but let me fill the boy’s sippy cup. “She loves her little boy. That will be the way to get to her.”

Rand went to walk the property line which gave me time to run up to the dormer room and get a few things including this journal. I’ve been writing things out ever since trying to get the day straight in my head but it is getting too dark to write and Rand just stepped onto the porch. Hopefully tomorrow won’t be quite as bad as Rand thinks it might.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 24

June 1st – I don’t even know what category to put this day in. Parts have been bad, parts have been weird, but parts have been … I don’t know, better than just OK.

I stopped writing last night when Rand stepped onto the porch but that doesn’t mean things had stopped happening. As a matter of fact apparently a lot had been happening while I was sitting writing in my journal. I opened the door and Rand barked at me, “Did you even look to see who it was?”

I would have gotten snippy at him except the front of his shirt had blood on it. He locked the door and rolled down the security door before going over to lean against the kitchen counter. He just stood there with his head down. I got him some fresh water and after a moment of looking at it like he didn’t know what it was he finally started drinking it.

“I went to school with Dickon Brown ever since I moved to live with Uncle George. He’s been one of my best friends. I hadn’t seen him lately. His family lives all the way over off of River Rd and … “

I could tell he shuddered but it was too dark for me to see his face. I got the wind up lamp – one of the things that I brought from the dormer room – and turned it on and he jump like he had been stung by a hornet. “Where did you … ? Never mind. How much battery do you have left?”

I showed him it was a little wind up lamp … I’d forgotten to charge the solar one (now put on my daily to-do list) … and he tinkered with it a second before wondering aloud whether it could be seen from outside. I told him no since I had already checked. The roll-downs don’t let anything out and neither do the accordion shutters because they extend out from the windows on all sides. On top of that I told him Momma sewed black out curtains to the inside of all the drapes that were hung at every window and that we can pull those closed if he wanted to. He wanted to so I went around the house doing that, mostly by feel, while he took the lamp to the bathroom to change his shirt and wash up.

I was trying to be patient but by the time he got out of the bathroom and I put his shirt to soak I had more acid in my stomach than I could handle and nearly ran into the wall trying to get to my parents’ bathroom so I wouldn’t embarrass myself and have a mess to clean up.

I hate puking. I really hate puking in front of other people. I had heard him rattle the door knob but was too busy trying to make sure everything made it to the bowl. I was shaking in embarrassment when he popped the lock and came in anyway when I wouldn’t answer. He opened the cabinets until he found the wash rags and wet one with the pitcher of water I keep in there and washed my face. I tried to make him leave – with hand signals since I didn’t have the breath to talk yet – but he ignored me. When I finally stopped being sick I could have just crawled under a rock but Rand turned out to be pretty cool.

He asked me what was wrong and I explained about how when I get stressed out my stomach sometimes develops a mind of its own. He said, “Yeah, I used to do that during finals week. Didn’t matter how much I had studied all semester, I was convinced that something was going to go wrong and I’d lose my scholarship.”

He made it easy not to be too embarrassed which isn’t something I expected from a guy. I finally pulled myself together but then I started worrying that he would think I wasn’t strong enough to handle whatever was going on. Before I could even say something he told me, “And no, I don’t think you are being a ‘baby.’ But you need to tell me if something is bothering you. I can’t read minds. If it is … um, girl stuff … and you don’t want to tell me, fine but you still have to tell me it’s girl stuff and that you don’t want to talk about it. Things are too crazy for me to try and guess. Deal?”

I told him “deal” and we shook on it which was a little silly but it made us both smile. Then we went back to the kitchen and he asked me if there was any way to get on the roof so he could see above the trees. I asked him why go on the roof? And then I led him up to the first bonus room whose window overlooked my road, We had to open the window and shutter and it was hot up there (heat rises and it will get warmer up there as summer comes on) but this time of year it is hot anywhere you go; at least the air was fresher than what was down stairs with the windows and the shutters all closed up.

When we settled down, him in a chair by the window and me on the futon and the lamp off but within hand’s reach, he finally told me what had happened.

“I walked the fence line, what I could of it anyway – the quadrant where this house sits is totally overgrown and impenetrable by the way – and didn’t see anything, but I could hear stuff off to the west. I used your road to try and get closer to see what was going on. As soon as I got out of the trees on that piece between the two bends in the road I heard shouting and motorcycles coming from that piece of land where you dumped … well, over in there,” he finished trying not to upset me again.

“It wasn’t too much longer before I heard some shots and then the motorcycles speed off. I was debating what to do when someone came stumbling out of the trees closer to the highway. He got hung up on the barbed wire but eventually made it over but fell down and didn’t move after that. I knew I couldn’t leave whoever it was in the road for anyone to see. When I got up there I realized it was Dickon. He was already dead; his wounds didn’t look that bad so I don’t know for sure what killed him. I carried him back into the trees. The fight, riot, or whatever you want to call it is spreading out from the center of town now. I think the gangbangers are going to use the confusion to hit as many places as they can and cause as much misery as they can. For all I know other people could be doing it as well.”

We really didn’t talk much after that. I fell asleep on the futon but was shaken awake sometime during the night by Rand who asked me to keep watch while he got a little sleep. I did and once heard a really large bang that was big enough that even though it was far away I could still almost feel it. Rand woke up on his own and told me to lay back down which I was happy to do. When I woke up the sun was already up and I could smell smoke which scared me the rest of the way awake.

“Easy. It’s blowing from town. Some buildings must have been set on fire last night. It’s pretty wet and it’s starting to rain again so I doubt it will go far.”

Rand said he needed to take care of the animals and check things out. He asked me if I could cook in the fireplace and I said yes but it heated the house up really bad so he said just to skip it. I pulled out the trusty can of granola but realized I was getting very close to the bottom; there are several more cans in the dormer room and in the hole in the wall in the second bonus room but I didn’t have time to dig them out.

Rand came back in with a scratch on his cheek, “Your rooster makes a good watch dog. I’m lucky his spurs haven’t grown in yet.”

I handed him a luke warm cup of instant coffee using the left over water from last night that was in the thermos. He grimaced but drank it anyway. He also ate the bowl of granola and milk I gave him but instead of putting the dried strawberries on it he handed me a shirt pocket full of blackberries and told me there were a bunch of ripe ones in the orchard.

When Rand walked out there with me – allowing as how I needed to check on my things – his “bunch” and my “bunch” didn’t line up. Most of the berries were still red like a raspberry instead of dark purple or even farther away from being ripe. I did gather the ripe ones but there was barely half a bucket. Maybe if we had walked all over the property I could have come up with a full bucket but Rand wouldn’t agree to that. The ones I did pick I had to fight the mosquitoes for. I brought them in the house and gently washed them to get the rest of the mosquitoes off.

Next, while Rand wandered around the yard trying to figure out what the noises were that we were hearing off in the far distance I dug up the beans and brought them inside and stuck the whole Dutch oven in the fireplace, leaving some hot coals on top to keep them warm.

The coals in the ground were hissing like crazy as the light rain hit them so I covered the hole with a piece of scrap of sheet aluminum. I planned on lighting another fire in there later. With this done I was hanging at loose ends and Rand was eager to get back inside and lock everything down.

I could see how dark he was under the eyes and asked him if he couldn’t just take another nap until lunch time if I promised to stay upstairs and keep watch. It took some weaseling but I finally got Rand to agree to a nap – and he calls me stubborn – and he was crashed in no time flat. He insisted on sleeping on the futon though.

While he slept I decided to get out Momma’s stuff and see if I could rip out the seams on a couple pair of blue jeans that I had found. It wound up taking me longer than I thought it would but it gave me something to do while I kept watch. I also thought out what I could use as a belt for the treadle sewing machine. I found a spool of leather for women’s belts in Momma’s crafts supplies. It was way too wide but I think I can cut it down to make it work using Daddy’s big shop scissors. And in the drawer of the sewing cabinet was a computer printed manual for the sewing machine … Daddy must have found it on the internet when he had promised Momma he would refurbish it someday … and it shows how to rethread the belt. Pretty simple, well maybe, if I can rig up some type of metal staple to hold the two ends of the “belt” together.

I had finished ripping out the jeans and was practicing one of the crocheted edges I remembered on a piece of scrap fabric when I looked over and saw Rand watching me with only one eye. He asked me if I’d seen anything and I told him no and that most all of the noise had stopped too. He got up and I went downstairs and dished out some lunch. I hadn’t fixed any bread but Rand didn’t seem to mind.

After lunch we checked on the animals again. Fraidy showed herself for a few minutes and deigned to be petted and scratched before slinking off into the bushes. Pretty Boy behaved this time and didn’t attack though he wasn’t too happy that we didn’t let him out. We left him pouting in the pile of branches I had stacked in the barn.

We both needed to walk off some energy but Rand wouldn’t go further than where I used to feed the cows. We had just started back when Rand practically tossed me into a big clump of blackberry bushes and then put his hand over my mouth when I started to give him what for over it. A horse and rider was coming up to the fence fast.

Rand had chambered a round in his rifle when the man whispered frantically, “Wait! Joiner … it’s Mitch Peters. You and my brother Jace used to race down on 252 before the sheriff set up that course at the old concrete plant. Got some news and a warning from Mr. Henderson.”

Rand motioned for me to stay put while he went to meet the man. They were quiet but I still heard them.

“Mr. Henderson sent me around to tell you to find a hole and crawl in for a while. Things have come unglued. Downtown is on fire, some idiots tried to bust the gates down at the Supply Depot, and the gangbangers are running around doing everything they can to make things worse.”

Rand whispered, “Have you heard anything about Uncle George’s place?”

“They are holding out. And folks know he’ll shoot to defend his kids and worry about who he is shooting later. But that’s not your problem right now. Freddie Harbinger is dead and his brother Ron has been shot and no one knows if he’s gonna make it. Old Jared is all the way crazy and out for blood. Word is if you didn’t do it you had a hand in it.”

“What?! I didn’t … “

“I didn’t say you did. Mr. Henderson said anyone who did a fool and his voice is carrying some weight. Not everyone is crazy but some people think you could have. You know how people are. And Mr. Winston isn’t helping ‘cause his daughter is missing. It’s all circumstantial but it don’t look good.”

I made them both jump when I came out of the bushes saying, “He wouldn’t do anything like that. More than that, he couldn’t have. He’s been here taking care of me since the distribution area closed.”

“Doesn’t matter. People believe what they want to believe.” Then turning to Rand he said, “Just keep your head down. It’ll get straightened out after the crazies and gangbangers run out of energy; until then just hang loose. No heroics, no theatrics. And Mr. Henderson said to keep an eye on the girl or he’ll know why not. Now I’m done playing messenger boy. We lost a dozen head before we could get the cattle into the secured stockyard. I braved the loonies to get away from Mr. Henderson chewing on our … “

Rand cleared his throat but I didn’t have any trouble following Mitch Peter’s train of thought. I might not have had many dealings with him but Mr. Henderson didn’t strike me as an easy man to be around when he was in a temper.

After the horse and rider couldn’t been seen for the trees we headed back towards the house. It had finally stopped drizzling but that only made things more hot and miserable and that pretty much summed up Rand’s temper. I handed him the swing blade and pointed at the next area of grass I had intended to cut for the cows. I figured he could chop off some imaginary heads while I went and fixed blackberry dumplings. Momma always cooked a treat for Daddy when he was in a foul mood and the way Rand ate I figured one way or the other he wouldn’t say no to dessert.

It was a good thing that I did fix the dumplings because it took dinner and two helpings of dessert before Rand would talk in words of more than one syllable and stop clinching his teeth and fisting up his hands. I mostly just stayed out of his way. I think by way of an apology he helped with the dishes and then carried the Dutch oven when I started a batch of baked beans with bacon-flavored TVP for tomorrow.

“I have shares with Uncle George and when the weather gets cold we’ll butcher some hogs and I’ll make sure you get some real bacon.”

I told him, “That would be nice but don’t go to the trouble. I don’t have any way to refrigerate it so it would just go to waste.”

“You need a smokehouse. I’m surprised your Dad didn’t build one.”

I explained about how they’d had a bunch of plans but ran out of time to do anything about them. He got thoughtful looking … kinda cute in a goofy way … and he mentioned that if I was really interested in learning that he’d show me how to build a smokehouse out of an old refrigerator. He laughed at my expression and told me they were called “white trash” smoke houses by some people but they worked just as well as the others, they just weren’t as pretty. I told him I didn’t need pretty but that I’d have to learn to get my own meat before I would need a smokehouse.

We went back and forth on that subject for a few minutes then he said he was going to keep watch. I stayed downstairs, he looked like he needed some space to think and so did I. It’s weird having Rand around like this. I like it which only makes it weirder. It’s nice having a friend … a real one for a change … but I need to remind myself that is all he is, not that anything really would ever come of it. He’s older than I am and with Freddie out of the picture I bet you that Julia is going to turn up and cry on his shoulder about the terrible mistake she made, and how things have been so awful, blah, blah, blah. And nice guys like Rand usually fall for that stuff. I want my friend to be happy but not with some girl like Julia ‘cause unless I’m really wrong about her, if he takes her back she’ll turn around and do him like that again someday.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 25

June 2nd – Rand is going nuts being out of the loop and he’s beginning to drive me nuts. He’s wondered aloud several times who shot the Harbinger brothers and where Julia was. I do too if for no other reason than she would help clear Rand’s name, but it is pretty obvious he still has some feelings for her regardless of what he has said. After nearly five years it would be stupid to think otherwise I suppose.

Something needs to give soon though, good or bad. For some reason Rand reminds me a little of my dad. Isn’t that crazy? Daddy was the same way, he couldn’t sit still except if he was hunting or fishing or working in the air traffic control tower. Momma said that was because his mind was telling him he was still doing something useful … his mind had a focus and was using up the energy that his body normally did.

I told Rand I just couldn’t sit around another day with the blackberries getting ripe and wasting on the vines or getting eaten by the deer. I reminded him that I was counting on everything the orchard produced to keep food on my table. He wasn’t happy but he understood. Well, he did after I plied him with a not half bad mushroom and cheese omelet. I think it was the cheese that did it. Cheese … unless it is powdered or comes out of a can … isn’t to be found much anymore. The Florida weather doesn’t really support hard cheese making to begin with. I know how to make queso blanco because Mrs. Jimenez taught me to help her make it for the Fiesta Menu at the diner but that’s a soft cheese that has to be used up right away or refrigerated.

After the breakfast dishes were washed and put in the drainer I got all of my canning equipment set out and got water heating on one of the fire pits. Then we went outside and Rand followed me around like a body guard; more than once I nearly tripped over him. I started by picking the blackberries out in the orchard and got two full buckets from out of there. I brought them back to the house and put them gently in a colander and poured a little water over them to clean off any stray bugs. I dug the beans up out of the other fire pit, put them in the fire place and got a fire going and set up on the second pit and I went back and forth pretty much through the whole day canning.

By lunch I already had eight pints of blackberry juice, two pints of blackberry vinegar, four pints of blackberry syrup, and nine pints of plain canned blackberries; that was three canners full. By lunch time I also had a very cranky Rand to deal with. It wasn’t that he was being nasty, but he was stalking around like the Dean used to when he didn’t have anyone to chew on. I promised him if he walked with me to pick some wild blackberries I’d stay at the house and wouldn’t stray so he could go roam around the property. It didn’t take too much persuasion. But first came lunch.

To go with the baked beans I made fried rice cakes. Rand tried really hard not to make a funny face while I was making these but after a real gentle bite on the first one I had a hard time not laughing at how fast he put away everything I had dished onto his plate. In fact when we locked the house and headed out to go berry picking he was stuffing his face with the last rice cake.

My Momma would have been in berry picking heaven. She loved to pick blackberries because her daddy used to take her when she was a little girl. I remember going with Momma and Granddaddy when I was a little girl. I don’t remember liking it then because I was scared of snakes but now, picking berries seems somehow restful and productive at the same time. Like one of those “zen” things you would always hear about but be clueless what they meant.

In an hour we had all three of the buckets I brought full of berries. We would have had more but I think Rand might be a nervous eater because he ate just about as many as he picked. As promised after Rand walked me back to the house and made sure I kept the rifle and pistol near at hand at all times he went “walking the perimeter.” I left him to it. I was kind of relieved to have his nervous energy focused on something besides me.

Rand was back every hour until dinner time and while he was gone I was able to get eight half-pints of pickled brambleberries, one pint of blackberry shrub, 6 pints of blackberry jam, two half-pints of blackberry catsup, and two pints of spiced blackberry jelly. I should have stuck with plain berries and juice today because when I started experimenting I had to make several different batches just to get a canner full so I wouldn’t waste fuel.

For dinner I took the leftover baked beans, added beef flavored TVP that I soaked in some beef broth and then added a small can of pineapple tidbits that I found in the stuff that I got on ration day. I mixed it up and reheated it and served it with a box of crackers from the same place. I’m glad I opened and checked them because the crackers were on their last leg. They weren’t far off from their expiration date but they must not have been stored very well because you could just tell they weren’t far from going rancid. We had that happen at the diner every so often and it is usually because they sat in a hot delivery truck or warehouse too long.

After dinner there wasn’t a breath of wind and the mosquitoes got so bad Rand came back in almost as fast as he left. He clumped upstairs to “watch” and I’ve stayed down here cleaning up and writing in my journal. I feel bad though I don’t know why. He’s basically babysitting me; I don’t need it but I’m sure that is what he thinks he is doing. If he was home he’d have lots of things to do and he wouldn’t be so bored.

I guess I better go upstairs and check on him. If he starts growling at me I may just have to back him up some with a little growling of my own.


June 3rd – If I ever again want something to happen just to break the tension I hope somebody to kicks me.

Rand was cranky last night but not as bad as I figured he was going to be. We took turns on watch again after we smelled smoke and heard some commotion coming from what Rand said wasn’t too far on the other side of the waste collection site. Basically that meant that whatever was going on was just on the other side of US90 where CR49 intersects with it. The waste collection site is where you take (or I guess you could say took) your garbage because they don’t have curbside pick-up service out in the county.

We both got enough sleep last night but just barely. Breakfast was cheese grits with sausage flavored TVP mixed in. Not a lot of talking was going on. I didn’t know what to say and Rand seemed to get more wound up as the minutes passed. I made him some fresh coffee (instant, but that’s the only kind I know how to make), put it in a thermos, and he was out the door in a flash. I know he was taking care of the animals while I picked more berries out of the orchard and from right around the hedges that enclose the house because I caught him watching me while he walked the animals around the yard. But as soon as I came back to the house he put the animals back in the barn and took off with a nod in my direction that basically said our arrangement of yesterday was still in place.

I was just wondering what to do about lunch and taking the last load of plain berries out of the canner when Fraidy came zipping around the corner of the house and flew between my legs and into the house, nearly making me drop the pan I was carrying. I didn’t have much time to wonder what was going on when I started hearing pops from up the road and horses screaming.

I grabbed my rifle and came around the house to the sound of a wagon moving a whole lot faster than it should have. My road dead ends into a barbed wire fence at the place where I used to feed the cows. I wasn’t’ sure what to do but the sight that met my eyes as I peeked around the potato vine lattice just about scared me to death.

Mick Crenshaw was pulling on the horses reins … wagon reins … whatever … he was pulling hard and was also leaning on what I guess was a wagon brake. The horses were still pulling but right before the fence Mick was able to draw them to a stop; well I mean they were stilling rearing and not behaving but at least they had stopped running. I ran out and poor Mick was white as a sheet. I asked him what was going on and the kid cried, “They shot Daddy and he fell beside the wagon and the horses took off … I’ve got to …”

I broke in and asked him where and he said in the wide section of the road where the pine trees grew on one side. I told him to take care of the horses and then took off at a run. I don’t know what I was thinking but something said I needed to get up there fast. God must have put wings on my feet because I wasn’t even winded when I got up to the gate. I slowed down and climbed over the gate without opening it into the tall grass and then crawled around to a Pindo Palm.

I probably didn’t need to creep and hide because every man there was focused on their own little drama but I was anyway and put my rifle up and tried really hard to aim it without actually letting it go off. A man I recognized as Mr. Harbinger … both from seeing him on his horse the first day I met Rand and from people’s description of him since … had his back to me and a gun aimed right at Rand. Mr. Henderson was trying to talk him into putting the gun down or at least aim someplace besides at Rand. A younger man … later found out this was Rick Harbinger, a cousin to the two rotten brothers and a rat extraordinaire on his own … aimed what looked like a shotgun at Uncle George who was still sprawled and bleeding on the ground though conscious and groggily moving around trying to get to Rand.

“He shot my boys! And that one there was trying to keep me from getting justice for them!!” Jared Harbinger snarled, spit flying from his mouth like a mad dog.

“For the last time Jared, Rand wasn’t anywhere near where your boys were shot. He was here and I’ve got people that can vouch for that,” Mr. Henderson responded sounding just this side of losing his temper. “Brett Masterson has already confessed to shooting your sons because he found out they were messing with his youngest daughter.”

“You lie! You’re trumping those charges up against my boys when they cain’t even defend themselves. You’re protecting the real murderer. I’ll get the truth out of him one way or the other. Shoot … “ Both Harbingers had sick grins … Jared Harbinger because he was in the throes of some kind of crazy and his nephew because he was enjoying what was happening too much.

I’ve been getting pretty good practicing on those cans and I wasn’t even as far away as I would normally have stood. I knew Mr. Harbinger had just told his nephew to shoot Uncle George. I knew it in my heart. I also knew I couldn’t let that happen. Rand and several other men cried out, “No!” I prayed I was doing the right thing and pulled the trigger. A spreading red spot appeared on Rick Harbinger’s right shoulder throwing him back. His shot went wide of its mark, missing Uncle George, but peppering some of the other men that had been with them that hadn’t gotten out of the way quick enough.

I didn’t waste time. I saw Rand throw himself over his still mostly insensible uncle while Mr. Henderson and the men with him drew guns on the men still standing with the Harbingers. But I came up behind Jared Harbinger and just kept coming even when he turned to try and face me. If he hadn’t been crazy and not real with it I wouldn’t have been able to pull it off. If I hadn’t been so far on the other side of scared I wouldn’t have had the adrenaline and will power to pull it off. What’s that old saying? God looks after fools and children? Something like that anyway. I’m sure Uncle George and Mr. Henderson are still debating which of those categories I fall into.

Mr. Harbinger was all but tripping over his own feet as I forced him to back up until he couldn’t go any further because he came up against a fence post. He’s a short man but he is still several inches taller than I am. Those inches where his downfall because I had stepped up into his space so that there wasn’t any room between us. There also wasn’t any room between the barrel of my rifle and the underside of his chin. I said as loud and as convincingly as I could thinking of all the cowboy movies I had ever watched with my dad, “Mr. Harbinger, you make me shoot you and I won’t even cry at your funeral. I don’t know what your problem is but Rand Joiner has been at my place since we took off from the riot. He’s been keeping me safe from the likes of people like your sons. Put down your dat burn gun and stop all this craziness!”

I think a skunk could have walked through and no one would have noticed. After a few seconds of struggle where I just leaned on him harder and jammed the barrel up tighter he finally let Mitch Peters take his gun. By that time though I had gotten crazy angry myself. It was losing my parents all over again because someone didn’t care about what their actions meant to other people. I was crying but didn’t realize it at that moment.

It was Mr. Henderson who came over and gently pried the gun out of my badly shaking hands and then dragged Mr. Harbinger over to some of his men. Someone made me sit down and put my head between my knees. I looked up and it was Pastor Ken. He told me to sit there for a minute and went to Uncle George and started checking him over. I found out later that Pastor Ken had had a day job as an EMT for the volunteer fire department.

Mick came running up the road crying even worse than me, trying to get to his dad. Rand grabbed him and held him and after a couple of minutes Pastor Ken let Uncle George sit up. “It’s just a graze; the fall out of the wagon is what knocked him out.”

I’d been avoiding looking at Rick Harbinger; sure I had committed murder. But when I could finally bring myself to I saw he was gritting his teeth and cussing while someone held him down with direct pressure on his wound. After Pastor Ken examined him I heard him say, “In and out. You still need to get him over to the clinic to make sure it’s cleaned out and bandaged properly.”

I noticed another wagon coming around the corner and when they stopped men started loading both Harbinger men and a couple of the other injured that had caught some of the shot gun pellets … or whatever you call that stuff inside shotgun shells. One man in particular looked like he had an armful of bloody bug bites.

The blood on the man’s arm is what finally did me in. I crawled off into the bushes trying to puke quietly so no one would notice. It didn’t work. A wet bandana was laid on the back of my neck and Rand said, “I thought Pastor Ken told you not to move.” All I could do was heave and shake my head and try and push him away so I could die of embarrassment in private.

Eventually I allowed myself to be helped out of the bushes. I could tell the men were trying to not embarrass me and it choked me up but it also gave me a chance to stiffen my spine.

Mr. Henderson was shaking Uncle George’s hand, “George, glad things turned out better than expected.”

“You and me both old friend, you and me both. God was watching out for us.”

“Hmmm. May hap he was this time.” And then with a sigh, “I’ve got to get back to my place, things still ain’t as calm as I’d like.”

“I understand. Go on, we’ll be fine.” And with that Mr. Henderson and his men left.

Rand looked pretty torn but I knew what he needed to do. “Get your uncle home. I’ll be fine.”

They all fussed, even Mick, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t leave my home to the mercies of whatever was going on. They kept at me the whole way back to the house. They kept at me even after Rand had gotten Hatchet and the mules out of the barn. He finally had to give up and made me promise to not go far from the house until Mr. Henderson or he came by to tell me things had calmed down. He promised to be back as soon as he could to check on me and I told him they’d need him at home if his uncle was going to be down for any length of time.

The finally left when it was obvious Uncle George needed to be taken home and put to bed sooner rather than later.

After they left I didn’t have the heart to do any more canning. The water had nearly boiled away in the canner and I was lucky not to have the pot crack. In fact, all I did was bring stuff in, make sure to cover the fire pits after I put the fires out with some damp sand, shut the house up and make my way up to the dormer room where I’ve been ever since.

It’s getting dark and the pops and bangs have started up again. Sounds like they are coming from all over. I hope that Rand got his uncle and Mick home safe and sound. And I hope whoever is fighting will just stop it. Enough people have died over the last year. It would be nice if those of us that are left could pull together and find some way back to whatever is supposed to approach normal these days instead of acting like a bunch of mean kids in an out of control kickball war.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 26A

June 4th – Supposed to be a rest day according to my schedule but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I know I should, if for no other reason than it’s the Sabbath and that is what Momma and Daddy would have expected, but I still can’t. I’ve got some leftover feelings about what I did yesterday. They are kind of rattling around in my head. I don’t want to talk about them and don’t want to write about them. I’ll just have to deal … but it’s awful hard finding things out about yourself that you don’t know if you like or not.

Sat down and had a good talk with myself. There are a lot of things I don’t know and there are a lot of things I figure I don’t know that I don’t know … but I do know that I’m not living with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie anymore. I always complained – sometimes out loud and sometimes just grumbled inside me – that things were different than what my parents would have wanted. There were things that were important to them that they wanted to be important to me too (like the Sabbath thing). Now I wonder if what I’m doing is what my parents would have wanted or would my parents even like the person I’ve been or the one I’m turning out to be. That bothers me more than just about anything else that has gone on for the last few years.

I’m here, living off of what Momma and Daddy were building for themselves, their “retirement home.” Don’t I have some kind of obligation or something to do things the way they would have? I can’t see Momma ever being in a situation where she would kill a man. Daddy I can see doing it defending us; he was in the military too so he was prepared to do that kind of stuff if he had to. I just can’t see Momma being able to do it. But Daddy’s not here to do it for me in case it needs doing. I don’t have someone around to protect me. Rand and Uncle George and Mr. Henderson don’t really count ‘cause they aren’t around all the time and when they aren’t around I have to figure things out for myself. Besides, I can’t expect someone else to take care of me forever. I have to be able to do it myself. Isn’t that one of those responsibilities you get when you grow up?

So I guess that means I have to be prepared to be more like Daddy than like Momma. It’s just I had hoped that when I grew up I could find some way to be more like Momma on the inside than I’ve been. My plan had been to come live here and things would just fall into place and I could learn to be nice and sweet like her. I guess I missed out on that chance if it was ever anything more than a fantasy to begin with. Maybe if I had been more like Momma on the inside before I wouldn’t have constantly been tangling with Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie or with the people at school or the counselors (although I think even if I had been sweet I still would have argued with those crazy people). I could get along with people when I had to but sometimes I just didn’t want to. I was angry mostly, for a lot of different reasons, but I’m beginning to think that wasn’t always a good enough reason for how I acted. Now I don’t have that excuse anymore.

The problem is there are other reasons to get angry and upset and hurt and it is so confusing trying to figure out what person I am supposed to be. I want to make my parents proud of me only they aren’t here to see any of this. They’re gone. But I’m not, I’m here. Now I have to find out how to make me proud of me and I think that is going to be harder than it would have to just do it for Momma and Daddy who I know would have loved me no matter what.

The pops and bangs haven’t really let up. Only calling them pops and bangs isn’t really what they are. They aren’t just sounds, they are people trying to hurt each other. Sometimes you can tell they are far away, sometimes it sounds like they are closer. Sometimes the pops and bangs are close together and sometimes they are so far apart I think they – whoever “they” are - declared a cease fire, only to they start up again after a little while. It makes me angry that they won’t stop. Hasn’t there been enough of that kind of stuff already? Haven’t we got enough problems without people going out of their way to cause more? I wish there were still cops around so they could go arrest those people and throw them in jail. I wonder why the military people like Major Sawyer aren’t arresting those people. Aren’t they kind of like cops?

Fraidy wouldn’t leave the lanai except to chase a couple of lizards that she brought back to eat. That was gross but since I didn’t have cat food I just ignored it as much as possible. Later in the afternoon I stumbled across one of her hairballs and I heaved as I swept it out into the yard; there were little pieces of … things … in it. Ew!

I promised Rand that I would stay around the house and I have. Mostly. I went up the road just a little way to gather more berries after I had picked all of the ripe ones in the orchard and in the hedges around the home site but I didn’t go far and I came straight back. I canned berries all day long, mostly whole and juice but I made some honey blackberry jam to compare with the jam made with sugar and even tried out a couple of pints of blackberry chutney. It was kind of bizarre adding onions to blackberries but it is supposed to be good on meat if I ever get some. I threw the remains of the berries that I “juiced” into the compost pile.

I guess I should be scared but I’m not. A little something or other – I don’t know exactly what to call it – from thinking about the stuff I’ve been thinking about but not out and out scared like I suppose some people would be. I’ve got things to be worried about, like the crazy Harbingers coming back or some other of those people that were with them deciding me and my stuff are ripe for the picking, but all of that seems kind of far away. That part of it is almost like being in a movie about my life rather than it being for real. Mostly right now I’m wondering if I’m changing in ways that are good or not or if maybe this stuff I’m feeling has been part of me all along and I’m just now finding it out.


June 5th – Wood gathering was the chore of the day and I certainly need it after all the canning I have done. It was also kind of nice to be so busy that I didn’t have to think about stuff too hard. The little wood just doesn’t cut it for prolonged cooking or boiling. It’s not bad for frying or for heating a small amount of water, like what I put in my thermos to make rice with later in the day, but to get the boil I need for canning I need bigger chunks of wood that make good coals and lots of heat.

I was trying to see if I wrote down how I’ve been saving my matches. I think I must have forgotten to. I don’t have many matches left and having to restart the fire yesterday didn’t help. At the end of the day I don’t really put my coals out, I just cover the holes with the sheet metal. In the morning, even though the coals are going to be well burnt down I can usually get a fire going from them if I use something for tender and use a lot of patience. A couple of times it hasn’t worked out but the majority of the time it does. I can’t believe I had Rand right here and didn’t ask him if he knew how to work the fire starter I found in my father’s gear.

The first bit of wood I picked up was all the tree trash within the home site, there was more than you would think. Some of those oaks drop small limbs like birds molt feathers. But I need bigger wood. There was a dead cedar tree that I thought I could tackle not too far from the backside of the barn. It didn’t have any green left on it and was so dry that I could just crinkle the outer limb and remaining needles with my hands. I tried pushing it over but the thing was twice as tall as I was and still had a decent root ball I guess. That left me two main choices. I could go after the easier wood at the fallen tree thereby breaking my promise to Rand to stay near the house, or I could try and cut the cedar down. I opted to try the cedar first.

OK, I’ll admit that I know nothing about chopping a tree down. From watching a TV show I know vaguely that if I chop it down wrong that it can fall on me but I figured the cedar wasn’t that heavy, just tall. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Long and the short of it, next time I try and bring down a tree by myself I’ll stop and just get someone else to do it. Trees on the ground are fair game; trees still standing I’m going to steer clear of.

I chopped and chopped and when the stupid thing did start to fall I must have done something wrong because it twisted and I had to jump out of the way. It still grazed my shoulder and snagged my hair pulling out what feels like a good hank of it. A few scratches on my ear and cheek complete the clueless dork look. On the other hand in compensation by a little after lunch time I had a neat stack of sawn logs that helped keep my fire going so I could can more blackberries. It could have been worse but I guess “live and learn” is something I did today or may that should be “learn and live.”

For dinner tonight I had rice patties. They are similar to the rice cakes I fixed for Rand but more flavorful. You start with one and a half cups of cooked rice and then add the equivalent to two eggs mixed with two tablespoons of water. To that mess you add two teaspoons of instant onion soup mix and one-quarter cup shredded sharp cheese. The instant soup was out of a box of stuff that I salvaged from one of the houses and the cheese was another one of those Swiss Family gift pack items. Once you have all of that gunk mixed together you form it into patties and then fry the patties in a skillet. You are supposed to use oil to get crispy edges but I just used the not stick spray. I made enough patties for dinner and should have enough for a nibble for breakfast. I may scramble a little powdered eggs to go with the patties but maybe not; it is awful hot in the mornings now.

I guess I’m a little lonely. Not too bad but I didn’t even have the pops and bangs for company today, but I shouldn’t complain about that. I thought for sure that would mean that Rand would come by to check on me but … oh who am I fooling, this is my journal and I can say what I want. I bet Julia has shown up and he’s all torn about what he is supposed to do … help his uncle, try and work out his relationship with Julia, or babysit me. Guess this is as good a time as any to make sure I understand that I need to be independent.

Listen to me, sounding like I’m having a pity party. I’m not, just you can get used to stuff and I guess I got used to Rand being an exclusive friend to me. But that’s a pretty selfish thing. There are other people in his life who need him for real and not just for company. If he is working out things with Julia then I should wish him … both of them … good things. Of course I don’t really know that is what is keeping Rand from coming over. It could be something totally different. I’ll admit that I hope … oh, I’m going to bed because I’m getting silly.


June 6th – You know, the nerve of some people. I had the distinct displeasure of meeting Mr. Winston Sr. today. I was picking berries when Mitch Peters led some men down my road. I was up at the hay field, a little further than I know Rand meant for me to wander, when men on horseback came through … and I am going to figure out some way to lock those gates if I have to build the locks from scratch. I had my rifle with me and seeing as how I guess most of the men had heard the story of me shooting Rick Harbinger and then going up against the elder Mr. Harbinger they didn’t exactly crowd me.

Mitch’s horse was prancing a bit and he had just said, “Hello Kiri, have you … “ when a man about Uncle George’s age cut him off and said, “Girl, you better not be holding my daughter someplace around here.”

OK, apparently there is something in the water in Live Oak because I swear I just can’t figure out why people are always looking at me like I caused something. Mitch introduced me and the short explanation is that Julia is still missing and somehow since they had searched “every blade of grass in the county” that meant that I had to be hiding her since I was jealous of her, blah, blah, blah.

I’ll admit my head isn’t always screwed down tight and when I’m being verbally attacked for no reason my mouth usually goes into overdrive. I said, “Well, she isn’t around here and I haven’t seen her since she and her mother were being nasty to me the morning of the distribution area riot. Where’d you lose her at?”

Mitch rolled his eyes and looked like he wanted to swat me. I have that effect on people for some reason. The story as I got it is that Julia and his wife had made it home safe and sound but that Julia was gone the next morning. One of the other men there … turned out to be Julia’s brother … let slip that she had a habit of disappearing out her bedroom window when her parents weren’t giving her her way. And apparently she had wanted something and her parents refused to cave to it.

“Um, don’t take this the wrong way Mr. Winston but if I was Julia and you were my Daddy I’d be worrying about how long it would be before I was able to sit down after I got caught for sneaking off without permission, especially if I did it during something as dangerous as what was going on then and caused him to be worried sick.”

Julia’s brother snickered at that but a glare from his father silenced him … sort of. As soon as his Daddy turned away he started smiling again. “If I was your Daddy girl I’d … “

“Well you don’t have to worry about that do you? My Daddy was a good, upstanding man and didn’t go accusing people of things there was no way they could be part of.”

Mitch broke in, “Now Kiri, Mr. Winston is just … “

“I know what he is just. He’s worried about his daughter and I don’t blame him but that doesn’t make his worry justification for attacking me. Now look, have you even thought about this from a girl’s perspective at all? Hmmm? I didn’t think so. Does she have any girlfriends around town that she is particularly close to … maybe one that has helped her out of trouble before? Does she have someone that she could talk into hiding her until things calmed down and she was less likely to catch heck for going out without telling you?”

Mitch Peters was just sitting there rubbing his mouth like he was trying to hide a smile. Mr. Winston was sitting in his saddle grinding his teeth and breathing so hard his nostrils flared. Suddenly Julia’s brother goes, “Cindy Travers … I bet you anything … she hid Julia … “

“That’s enough!” Mr. Winston roared at his son who must be dumber than a stump because as bad as I can be I still would have shut up if my Daddy hollered at me like that unlike the brainless wonder who said, “Well, geez, I was only trying to … “

“Listen you little (I refuse to write the nasty word he called me), if I don’t find my daughter unharmed by nightfall I will be back at first light with as many men as it takes and I will pull your house apart and … “

I’d had enough. “Mr. Winston, you come onto my land and to my house uninvited one more time with violence in mind and I will treat you to the same kind of hospitality that I gave the Harbingers and the gangbangers that have come around.”

I’d meant it as a bluff … I think … but as soon as the words left my mouth I knew it could be true, that I could do what I threatened. I’d done it twice already; the more you did it the easier they say it gets. Some of the men weren’t sure what to think of me. They’d heard how I had responded to the Harbingers but I don’t think any of them had thought anything about the others I may have had to defend myself against and all of them had already had dealings with the gangbangers. Even Mitch was looking at me a little different.

They left after that and I made sure to close the gates and tighten up the thumb lock on each gate chain. I thought when I escaped Tampa I had escaped the person I had been and could be the person I wanted to be. I mean I didn’t shoot people in Tampa but I could be mean when pushed. There people had learned to leave me alone and that suited me. Here I thought I’d be able to be … nicer or calmer or something … but I’m learning that isn’t going to be as easy as I had thought it was going to be. Figures.


June 7th – Mr. Winston didn’t show up today so I guess he found Julia. Part of me hopes he blisters her rear bumper but she is nineteen so I don’t guess that is really all that likely to happen. She should get in some trouble though for making people all upset like she did.

My big accomplishment of the day was to get the treadle sewing machine fixed. It didn’t take me near as long to get it hooked up as I thought it would. The wheels squeaked something awful but I kind of fixed that with some olive oil dripped onto where the metal was rubbing the wrong way. The moving parts inside the sewing machine were also dirty so I cleaned them a little bit too.

I only canned two full loads of blackberries today; that’s 18 pints. I have way more than I probably need at this point and I have got to save my jars for the other stuff that is coming in. I give a couple of the plum trees another week and I can start picking from them. One or two may be ready to eat before then but I’m not sure. They sure aren’t as big as the ones that I used to see at the grocery store but I guess those big, fancy ones were grown someplace special or on special farms.

While I waited for each load of jars to finish I worked on the treadle belt. I finally figured out what to use as a staple to hold the two ends of the belt together. I took a metal coat hanger and cut a piece out of it. I used an awl … it is like a really sharp screwdriver … and poked a hole in one end of the “belt.” I made a hook from the clothes hanger wire, put it through the hole, and then pinched it flat with a pair of pliers; nearly pinched my finger too. Then I wound the belt around the wheels of the treadle and sewing machine like the print off showed and got the two ends to meet. Actually I had to cut off a couple of inches because I had mis-measured the length I needed. Then using the awl I made a hole in the other end of the belt, threaded the wire through that hole and mashed in flat too. It works.

I had the belt jump off the wheel once but I fixed that by taking another quarter inch off the belt and snugging the wire down a little better. After I did that it ran really smooth. The sewing machine was real easy to use too. The bobbins look a little different from what I’m used to but nothing that I couldn’t handle. I snagged up the thread twice before I figured out how to adjust the tension. And a broke one needle which is probably the biggest tragedy, I only have a few packages of those in Momma’s sewing chest.

I celebrated fixing the treadle by making a blue jean skirt. That’s how I broke the needle, by hitting a seam and straight pin too fast. It was actually just bent at first but when I tried to straighten it broke. If (when) I bend another needle I need to figure out how to unbend it the right way. I know how to fix a dull needle but not a bent one.

The skirt was super easy and a good first project for me to get more confidence. I wasn’t having to start from scratch and most of the work was already done once I had ripped out the inner thigh seems. I pinned and sewed together the two legs to close up the front of the skirt. That left the back all open but I put a fabric panel in there I cut from a cotton lace table cloth that I found while salvaging. The skirt comes down to the top of my feet and hides the scars on my legs. It is pretty cool but I don’t know where I’ll ever wear it. Maybe I’ll just wear it for myself around the house sometimes.

Speaking of my legs, I never had shown them much except when forced to … I even wore tights when I had to wear a skirt for something … but I’m getting a little grossed out at how hairy my legs are getting. Tomorrow I’m calling it a day early and giving myself an “End of the World Spa Treatment.” I mean a bubble bath, a new razor, the works. It’s not primping, who else is going to see and notice that I shaved my legs or not?


June 8th – Oh gosh, I feel so good. I soaked and soaked and soaked in a nice, hot bubble bath. Of course I can’t step outside for the mosquitoes … I forgot that mosquitoes are attracted to perfumes. But I should be back to my regular smell tomorrow and the bugs should leave me alone.

I did as much grungy work today as possible. I scrubbed the barn floor. I scrubbed some algae that had started growing on the side of the house that got the most shade. I cut out all of the dead lantana and weeds from the flower beds on that side of the house too. I moved a rain barrel out to the orchard to make it easier to water my container garden. I scrubbed the bottom of a couple of pots that were getting blackened from the camp fire style cooking I was doing. I used Spanish moss and some sand just like they taught us in Girl Scouts. Gave me a great scouring action but left me wet and dirty. And I cleaned out Pretty Boy’s rooster run. He didn’t like me messing around in there and ran out into the yard and he gave Fraidy fits for a while but once I was through he came back inside to inspect my work and then hopped up on his log and crowed which I took as a good sign. Maybe I’ll let him out more if he’ll go back in his run at night where he’ll be safe.

The work was dirty but not really hard and that’s about all I did. I could have picked more blackberries … the more you pick the more the vines seem to make … but I just couldn’t get excited about it. I did eat a bunch fresh and gave some to Pretty Boy who went nuts for them. I also made another “friend” but I doubt he’ll hang out long. I didn’t even bother naming him (or her). It was a box turtle or a gopher tortoise or something like that. He ate a bunch too before heading off into the underbrush.

Rand said that with all of the blackberries I have all over my land that I probably have deer (was nearly run down by some the day I met him), wild turkey, quail, and foxes. All of those eat blackberries. He said most omnivores like the berries and will eat them when they can. I guess that means I have to watch out for raccoons too … beastly pests. They used to get into the dumpster behind the diner all the time and get stuck. They could be mean little freaks too when they’d been trapped for a while.

I decided to splurge and use one of my cup o’ soups for dinner and for dessert I’ve been enjoying a thermos of cold blackberry lemonade. I left the window and shutter open as long as I could up in the dormer room to air it out up here but the sun is just about set and I think I’m going to catch a little extra sleep. The work today must have wiped me out worse than I thought.


June 9th – Supposed to be a cleaning day today but I didn’t get much cleaning done. I’ve got a cold. And I’m going to bed. Not even the chicken noodle soup I ate for dinner helped.


June 11th – Why is it that company shows up right when you don’t expect them to? I’m up and moving but not feeling one hundred percent. I didn’t have any choice yesterday but to wash out some of my under things so I did that and hung them on the line outside and then laid down in the lounge chair on the lanai. I hadn’t meant to go to sleep but I guess I did.

The next thing I know I wake up to see Uncle George leaning over me with his hand on my forehead. It just about scared me to pieces ‘cause I couldn’t figure out if I was for real awake or dreaming. I blinked my eyes straight and saw Rand poking at the fire pit fussing to his uncle that he should have come back sooner.

As soon as I could convince them I just had a cold, probably from washing my hair and sitting in front of an open window at night, they left off fussing enough that I could catch my breath. I couldn’t believe it but it was close to lunch. I knew Rand’s stomach would start making noise soon so I got up to try and figure out what to do about it but then he got cranky and told me to stay put and turned into a fuss budget all over again.

Uncle George hemmed and hawed about whether I should go to the clinic … what if it was the flu and that sort of thing … but I told them about having the flu during the second and fourth waves so they didn’t need to worry. That surprised them and I told them the first time I’d been sick a week and the second time less but I’d been helping with the other sick kids where we were warehoused so didn’t know for sure how long or how bad.

Uncle George hadn’t heard about the warehouse, he thought I had just “run away” or something. It made me tired telling the story all over again. Rand plunked a glass of Tang in front of me and the look he gave me dared me not to drink it. I don’t know what his problem was, it’s not like I got a cold on purpose just to ruin his day.

I know they were talking to each other but I was pretty groggy. Uncle George came over to me and said that Rand was going to stay for a couple of days until I was better. I told them that it was just a cold and that I’d be fine, they didn’t need to go to the trouble but that only made Rand crankier.

For some reason Rand getting cranky was funny to Uncle George and he gave me a smile and told me not to worry about it. Rand needed a break from what was going on at home anyway. I tried to get interested by that statement but for some reason I couldn’t. I know Uncle George left and then Rand told me to go inside and lay down and I was just too tired to fight about it.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 26B

I woke up a few hours later and smelled something so good it actually made me hungry. I felt all weak and wobbly when I got up but after I tidied myself up and took care of the necessities I felt a little better. I followed my nose and Rand was leaning over a big pot stirring something. I coughed and that brought him around fast.

He grinned so I must have looked better than I felt. Well, I finally got a chance to taste squirrel stew. It was my turn to bite into something real easy but it was actually good. I mean really, really good. I told him I didn’t know he could cook and he said he could when he had to. Apparently he hadn’t even had to leave the home site to get enough squirrels for the stew.

He said something about using some of the canned veggies I had in the kitchen but I wasn’t really listening. The stew had filled me up and made me feel good enough that a nap sounded like a great idea again. I slept again but I don’t remember going to bed.

I woke up the next morning with my laundry on my mind. I had forgotten to bring it in but when I sat up I noticed it sitting on the dresser. I got dizzy from being so embarrassed. Rand not only saw my under things, he took them off the line and brought them inside. I could have just died. I’m still trying real hard not to think about it because every time I do my ears feel like they are going to catch fire and light the rest of my head up.

The sky was just getting pink when I made my way to the kitchen but Rand was already up and making pancakes. He’s really funny to watch when he cooks; he’s so serious about it. He told me there was juice on the counter and it was apple juice made from some of that apple-flavored stuff from one of the #10 cans.

I felt better, just kind of hollow. The drink helped but the pancakes helped even more. I tried to convince Rand that I was fine and that he didn’t need to babysit me and that’s when he said, “I don’t mind if you don’t and if you want to know the truth it’s a lot easier to be here than to be at home right now.”

We sat after breakfast and got caught up on what had been going on. He apologized for the problems with Mr. Winston and I told him not to worry about it because it wasn’t his fault that Mr. Winston was donkey’s behind. He nearly snorted coffee out of his nose over that one but it was nice to hear him laugh even if I did wind up having to wash mocha java off my pants leg.

The reason I didn’t see more fighting over here is because of Mr. Henderson. He and his men patrol this whole area pretty much. He and Momma O and her family are about the only ones left … aside from me … in this general area and even though we are spread out the gangbangers have learned that Mr. Henderson has no mercy and even less tolerance for them. Of the three my place is the closest to US90 which is probably the only reason I’ve run into the gangbangers that I have.

Where Uncle George’s place is though is another matter. And it wasn’t the bangers that caused the most problems. All those factions he told me about that wanted to be “in charge”? Well they started fighting. It was like the stories of the Hatfields and McCoys. Any little imagined injury became an excuse to try and get back at one another. The fights started out with fists but a lot of them ended with blood and guns.

And the Supply Depot was attacked several times. Yesterday they finally got word by way of a patrol that Missy was just fine but that Major Sawyer had been hit twice; the first one didn’t do much but make him mad, but the second one has him laid up for a while. All non-essential off base excursions have been cancelled so it may be awhile before anyone gets to see them.

“It was after the worst of the fighting was over though that my problems started. Julia was missing and her dad and his friends came over to the farm and search it. Uncle George didn’t mind at first because he said we didn’t have anything to hide but they started tearing things up so we had to put them off at gun point. Clyde and a couple other of the neighbors on our side of the road came up and helped and they made a bunch of threats. If I had known you were sick … “

I tried to tell him that it was OK but when Rand is bound and determined to feel guilty about something you can’t stop him.

“Then Julia was found hiding out at her friend’s house and the … uh, ka-ka really hit the fan. It’s been a mess. She keeps running away from her dad and coming over to Uncle George’s place trying to force me to take her back, saying it was all a mistake; that she didn’t know what Fred was really like, stuff like that. At first I believed her but then something … I don’t know. I had actually gone over to talk to Mr. Winston when I heard Julia and her mother talking. Julia’s pregnant. It can’t be mine because we haven’t … well, not since last summer when we decided we … there was this Bible Study at church … anyway, it can’t be mine which means she’s been fooling around with someone since before she broke up with me to go with Fred. And I don’t even know who it is and … “

Wow, guys hurt too. I mean Rand was really hurt. Oh he didn’t cry or anything like that but I could tell all the same. But he was angry too. Then he said, “On top of that Uncle George has finally agreed to let Laurabeth go ahead and marry Jonathon. That’s meant trying to figure out who is going to be sleeping where. The girls all shared the big bedroom while Brendon and I share a room and Mick has always had the little under the stairs room to himself. Jonathon had fixed a place up in the barn loft but now everything is getting turned on its head. Now let’s add even more ruckus … Brendon apparently has been hiding that he and Alicia Morrison from down the road have been seeing each other since middle school but didn’t say anything because Alicia’s family was … well, they were weird if you want to know the truth … and Mr. Morrison and Uncle George had taken a dislike to one another from the get go for some reason neither men ever said. Only now Alicia’s family is dead and there is just her and her baby brother who happens to be a friend of Mick’s Brendon is asking Uncle George if they can come live there.”

I asked him if he thought Brendon was being honest and he said, “You know, I wanted to wonder that but you just have to see Brendon. It’s like the person he really is comes out when Alicia is around. He’s the young man Uncle George always wanted him to be and not the goof ball we all thought he is … was … you just have to see him. It’s … it’s bizarre!”

“You said ‘when Alicia is around’ like the decision has already been made.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it has. Having her move in has actually helped. They combined the two households and Alicia’s parents still had a lot of food. It’s weird organic this and all-natural that but it’s food. And Alicia can cook. Brendon told me her father was pretty brutal and a whack job, practiced his own made up religion and that her mother was no help, just sat around all day like a shadow agreeing with everything her father said regardless of how out there is was. She and her little brother look so relieved that the dude’s gone that … never mind, that kind of stuff is best left unsaid. The man’s dead and he’s getting his reward one way or the other.”

Poor Rand. I guess coming to my place really was a vacation compared to what was going on at his. We fixed lunch together … fried cornbread and mashed potatoes with a little bit of canned beef and gravy poured over the top of that and then he asked me if I felt like walking a little bit.

I did but he only meant around to the front of the house. There was a pile under a tarp on the front porch.

“I saw this drawing in one of your dad’s books and it gave me some ideas. I had time on my hands hiding out in the barn to avoid Julia. All I need to do is find some screens and we can see if it works.”

He’d built a solar dehydrator … the one with the plexiglass front. I couldn’t believe it. He finished setting it up not too far from the house on the sunny side. “You’ll still need to protect the plexiglass out of season or during storms but I put a lock on the doors … see this latch? … so animals shouldn’t be able to get in to get to whatever you are drying.”

I still have a hard time believing he’d go to all of that trouble but he said that if it worked maybe I could dry extra fruit that he could take home to his family. You know I agreed. In fact tomorrow I’m going to try a batch of blackberries. It was too late in the day after he got the screens from the salvage houses and stapled them to the frames he had already built.

I asked him where he had gotten the plexiglass and he said that it was left over from a project his Uncle George had done a couple of years ago and that I wasn’t to worry because his uncle knew all about it and thought it was a good idea and that if it worked he wanted Rand to build one for them too.

It was getting late in the afternoon and I was winding down again. I asked Rand if he minded if I made dinner a little early and he offered to make it but I told him no since he was working on the fruit dryer. Besides I wanted to try making something that I’d seen in one of Momma’s cookbooks.

First I started some rice soaking and while that was going I set up the box oven and got it heating to 350 degrees. After the rice was cooked I added two eggs (made from powdered), some minced onion (from dry), and some butter (a little powdered butter mixed with a little olive oil). You pretend that mess is your pizza “dough” and pat it out into a twelve-inch circle on a flat pan. You have to bake it for about twelve minutes to set it and then you take it out and top it with pizza sauce, pepperoni, and cheese and then cook that just like you would a regular pizza.

You should have seen Rand’s face, it was hysterical! We both wound up laughing and I felt a lot better. He asked if he could look at some more of Daddy’s books and I showed him where they were on the shelves in the bonus room. Maybe I should show him Daddy’s other files in the dormer room … but, I don’t know if I’m ready to share that secret yet. While he’s been doing that I’ve been writing in my journal.

He’s been making a ton of notes so I guess he is finding some good stuff. I’m glad someone else besides me gets to appreciate the work my parents did. But now I’m getting so tired I just about can’t stand it. I’m going to bed but Rand said he’s going to stay up for a little longer using the lamp he I don’t mind. I’d stay up too but I really am tired.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 27

June 12th – I’m still snuffy but am feeling much better than I did. But for some reason Rand acted like I had lost my marbles when I asked him to show me how to chop down a tree the right way. Boy did he cut up a fuss when he found out about the cedar tree. He squawked even louder when I told him I chose the cedar tree because I was trying to stick to the promise I made him about staying close to the house. Sometimes he is really hard to reason with. I don’t know what the fuss is about, nobody ever complained when I did guy stuff before. Not a single person at the diner said anything when I helped empty the delivery trucks or moved cases of frozen chicken, or fifty pound bags of flour and sugar or other stuff like that. In fact, Aunt Wilma was always on about women’s rights and discrimination and that sort of thing.

I’m beginning to think that maybe Rand is just kind of old-fashioned about some stuff. In other words he can be perfectly sane one second and a flaming chauvinist the next. And I told him so to his face. After his jaw stopped swinging in the breeze he started laughing. I haven’t a clue what he was laughing about, I was totally serious. He said we’d make a trade, if I fed him for a couple of days then he’d cut me some wood. I wasn’t going to pass that kind of deal up but somehow it still feels like Rand got something over on me and I’m not quite sure how.

I’d already fixed omelets for breakfast, this time with chorizo and cheese. I also fixed pan biscuits and he ate them with sorghum that I had added a little bit of powdered butter to. It wasn’t quite the same as mixing real butter with good old Briar Rabbit but it wasn’t a bad substitute either as far as taste went. While Rand finished the last biscuit I put a jar of sun tea out on the porch.

Right after breakfast he took off to the fallen tree and I decided to play with the solar dehydrator. I had admired it yesterday but I finally got a chance to really look at it all put together today. The frame of it is made with 2 x 4 lumber. The side walls and the back wall is made of plywood. It has a chimney on it that is painted black that looks like an old piece of metal duct work from out of a house. The Plexiglas is in three pieces; the first piece is angled for the roof, the second piece is the front of the dehydrator and the last piece Rand explained is part of the air inflow chamber at the bottom of the dehydrator and runs at the same angle as the “roof” piece of Plexiglas. At the tallest the dehydrator is a little over seven feet tall if you didn’t include the chimney that is another two feet above that. At the shortest place (the front) the dehydrator is just a tad over five feet tall. It holds five big racks; that’s what Rand needed the screen for. He said he could have used small gauge rabbit wire but stuff would have fallen through the holes as it dried. The whole contraption he had stained a really dark mahogany color, nothing light colored was allowed, Rand said it would reflect the heat rather than absorb it if it wasn’t dark. There were even a couple of parts, like the chimney, that he spray painted a flat black color.

The way he explained it worked is that dry outside air is drawn into the dehydrator at the bottom through the air intake. The sun beams down on the Plexiglas and heats the air as it circulates inside the dehydrator. Hot air rises so it will escape from the dehydrator through the chimney taking some of the moisture from the drying food with it. As the day heats the air flow in and out of the dehydrator will speed up, taking more and more of the moisture with it.

I filled two trays up with blackberries first thing this morning and by the time things cooled off … well, relatively cooled off … I could tell the berries had shrunk quite a bit, but they weren’t all the way dry. I’m going to try letting them dry another day and see if that is enough.

After I played with the dehydrator for a while it was time for me to work on my end of the bargain. It is getting to be so hot during the day that I don’t like to do any kind of cooking where I have to stand over the top of things. Just messing around putting the blackberries on the screens I had sweated what felt like a gallon of water. I was glad that Rand had taken a big jug of water with him. I knew that the opened jar of mayo wasn’t going to last in this weather even if I did keep it in the coldest water from the well. I decided to make a big batch of mayonnaise biscuits for lunch and dinner with maybe a couple left over to in case Rand got the munchies.

Mayo Biscuits are really, really simple but it meant heating up the box oven again. I was lucky that there were still coals left from breakfast so I used them to warm the box oven up to 375 degrees. I also warmed up water by sitting an old heavy metal dishpan practically down in the coals by putting the rack as low as it would go. While that was happening I mixed three cups of self-rising flour, three heaping tablespoons of the mayo, and a cup and a half of milk I made up from the powdered stuff. I mixed that all together and then dropped clumps of it into muffin tins and then put them to bake once the oven had preheated. In fifteen minutes they were done.

On the heat remaining in the other fire pit I threw a few scraps of wood and then made rice and lentils for lunch using some beef bouillon as the seasoning as the two were cooking up. I also threw a few raisins in there. It wasn’t fancy, but it was too hot to get fancy. I did remember to bring in the sun tea and set it in a pan of fresh cold water from the well. It wasn’t the same as having ice but at least it wasn’t tepid either.

It was getting a little past lunch and Rand still hadn’t come back to the house; I realized I had stopped hearing the thwack of the ax some time ago. I was getting worried so I grabbed some water and took off to where he said he would be. I met him coming back pushing the wheelbarrow. He must have come back for it earlier and I not noticed. As soon as he saw the water he put the barrow down and grabbed it and dumped some over his head and then shook like a dog when he felt how cold it was.

“Boy, it sure is hot.” Uh huh, he is the master of understatement. I offered to push but he said another time. We got up to the house and we walked around to the lanai. He laid out flat on the lounger and I brought him some more water. I know he must have got too hot because he didn’t feel like eating. After a bit he ate a biscuit but not with his usual gusto. I wasn’t sure what to do so I got a palmetto frond and trimmed it off so that it was like a fan. When I started fanning him he looked up surprised from the doze he had been in.

“You don’t have to do that.”

I told him I didn’t mind and kept doing it. He looked at me funny, like … like … like he was trying to figure something out. I wasn’t sure what it was but it must have been something important from the look on his face. I was too scared to ask ‘cause I’m not sure I want to know. I just want him to know that his friendship means a lot to me but that I don’t always expect him to work so hard for it.

Rand got up and said he wanted to go bring in the wood he’d taken off the fallen tree and bring it up to the barn where he could chop wood in the shade. He still didn’t look like he felt good but he didn’t look like I could argue him out of it either.

I just ate a biscuit and saved the rice and lentils for dinner. It saved me from having to cook again and that didn’t exactly break my heart. I’d just hung the sheets Rand had been using out on the line to air out and freshen a bit when I heard some horses on the road. I knew it was riders and not a wagon because there wasn’t any rattling; instead there was the clink-squeak from leather saddles and metal bits and pieces and the sound of horses blowing air out of the their noses.

I grabbed the rifle without thinking and went to look through the bushes when I heard Rand yell “haloooo” getting the riders’ attention. It was Mr. Henderson, Mitch Peters, a younger man that looked a whole lot like Mitch who turned out to be Chase Peters, and a girl that had to be his granddaughter that he had spoken of before.

I heard Rand say, “Things must be better if you let Cassie out riding.”

The girl answered in a laughing voice, “I told Poppy that if I didn’t get out of the compound for a little while I was going to kick over my traces and make a run for it.”

Mr. Henderson snorted at that but when he looked at the girl I’d never seen him so soft around the eyes. Cassie must be able to twist “Poppy” around her finger pretty good. Rand called me out and smiled with what I think was approval when he saw the rifle. Introductions were made and I invited them up on the front porch for something to drink.

I grabbed the sun tea with only a little regret at spoiling the surprise for Rand and ran it outside with enough clean glasses for everyone. I found them talking about the dehydrator and whether I had tested it or not. I was just about to say that I was in the middle of the first try when everyone took their first sips. Cassie automatically assumed that I had a generator and I looked at Rand for help when Mr. Henderson said, “Cassie honey, you’re running off at the mouth again. Just be happy to have something cool to drink.”

Cassie didn’t look upset but I didn’t know what to make of it. I looked at Rand and he winked. What the heck does a wink mean? They left after asking if I minded if they stopped and picked some of the blackberries at the gully because apparently Cassie had suddenly developed a craving for blackberry cobbler. I warned them about the snakes that could be found down there and they were off.

Rand just laughed and asked how did I like my first visitors and I told him I like it better when it is just him and Uncle George. That made him laugh some more. Rand obviously has a weird sense of humor.

I started coughing again and Rand told me to go lay down and I told him I wasn’t a little kid and didn’t need a nap. Somehow though I wound up lying down anyway and must have slept because I woke up and it seemed like some time had passed. Sure enough I had been asleep a little over an hour. But I have to admit I did feel better.

Rand discovered just how cold the well water was when he tried to take a shower before dinner. I heard a “yaa hooo” and then a little two stepping in the shower. When he came out a few minutes later we looked at each other and we both broke down laughing. I don’t know what is so funny but I’ve laughed more in the last two days than I think I’ve laughed in the last two years.

We ate the lentils and rice and then we both settled down … me with my journal and him going at my father’s books again. He just asked me if I know how to play checkers, I guess he saw the old board game sitting in the corner because I hadn’t found a place for it yet. I told him it had been a while but we are going to try and play so I’m done writing for tonight.


June 13th – Rand had to go home today. It happened so fast. Brendon came galloping up mid-morning and told Rand that Uncle George had fallen from a ladder and hurt his foot, possibly broken a small bone - Pastor Ken wasn’t certain - and he wrecked his wrist too. Then poof, Rand was gone.

It’s a good thing that I discovered the ripe plums out in the orchard or I would have gone into a blue funk. The tree is still full of unripe fruit but that just means that I’ll have more time to can stuff instead of trying to get it done all at once and a good thing too, I’m still not one hundred percent up to speed.

There were only enough plums to make two batches of plum preserves leaving me a couple to eat fresh for my lunch. The plums were tart; not the pucker up tart but the sweet kind of tart. I’ll probably leave some on the tree longer for fresh eating but the tart ones are good for canning. For each batch of preserves I took five cups of pitted plums, one cup of water, and four cups of sugar. I cooked this down for about fifteen minutes and had to stir it all the time to keep things from sticking and then put it in the jars and processed it. Each batch gave me five half-pints and they all sealed which is nice. After they are finished cooling I’ll put them away with the others.

I realized when I went in there that I need a better way to organize things. I have to think about jar size but I also have to think about what is in the jars. I figure it will be better to start the right way than get a closet full and then try and rearrange it. I hope one of these days to have enough vegetables to can but that means I have to get up the nerve to use the pressure canner. But up side to this is if I can use the pressure canner Rand has promised me that he’ll go in shares and bring in a deer and maybe some pork or beef depending on how things go with the farm animals.

Rand told me that they’ve got one cow that is still giving milk but it is barely enough to give everyone some to drink and have for cooking. He said that the cow needed to be freshened. He acted like I should know what that is but I wasn’t going to reveal my ignorance by asking him to explain. I feel dumb enough as it is sometimes. I looked it up in a book on cows that either Momma or Daddy had bought and I think, If I’m understanding it, that sometimes cows need to be bred to keep up with their milk production. That would explain some other things that Rand said about why they are working with Mr. Henderson … if anyone would have a boy cow that they could use to freshen up their milk cow then it would be him. Only the book says not to call them boy cows, they’re called bulls. I knew that but I’m glad I didn’t call them boy cows when Rand was here. I don’t need to give him any more reasons to laugh at me.

When I checked the blackberries tonight they were still just a little bit sticky so I’m going to leave them in the dehydrator for a little while longer tomorrow and see if that takes care of it. Momma’s book said that the dried berries should feel dry to the touch but still be pliable. I guess that means if I let them get like little rocks I’ve dried them too long.

I haven’t really done too much today but I’m already tired and with no reason to stay up I’m going to bed. Fraidy has been playing cat and mouse with me today and is pouting; I don’t think she likes Rand going home. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t my fault but there is no reasoning with a cat; they are going to think exactly what they want to think. She finally came in but she is still being standoffish. How does a cat that small stomp around that loud?


June 14th – Rand came by for just a few minutes this morning. He couldn’t stay long but he wanted to check on me. That was nice. He told me that his uncle also twisted his back and is in a lot of pain so he probably wouldn’t be back as often as he’d meant to be. I told him not to worry about and that it was silly to think that I needed babysitting all the time. I told him I knew he had things to do and people he needed to see. I think he was going to say something else but didn’t which is good because I’m getting tired of people thinking that I can’t do this … making it on my own I mean.

I also told him if he didn’t stop trying to do too much he was the one that was going to get sick. That unpuckered his eyebrows and made him smile again for some reason. I swear, with all the boys that came and went from foster care you’d think I’d have some kind of handle on the way guys think. But no; they must all be a little on the crazy side or something because I just flat out don’t understand why they do some of the things they do or smile or laugh at some things and not at others.

I sent a jar of the three different preserves home with Rand as a thank you after I saw he had saddle bags on Hatchet this time. I hope the jars made it; I wrapped them in a couple of tea towels to keep them from clinking together. I also gave Rand the two left over biscuits from my breakfast which he all but wolfed down.

He got serious again and told me to stay around the house as much as possible. He said he knew he couldn’t ask me not to leave the house but to be careful if I went too far from it and to hide from anyone that looked like they were wearing uniforms … police, sheriff, military, anything. He said they’d heard stories of people using stolen uniforms to get people to drop their defenses and then … well you can imagine what happens. And also, to be careful of beggars that might come around though he thought my place was too out of the way from where most people were. He said he’d heard that people were starting to get hungry and that the fighting destroyed a lot of people’s food reserves if they had had any to begin with. The only sort of good thing was that the fighting also used up a lot of ammo but that was why people were starting to get sneaky, like with the uniforms.

He kept adding to the list of things to be careful of and I finally told him I wasn’t a nincompoop and did have some commonsense. The way I said it was supposed to make him laugh and when it didn’t I thought he thought I really was useless but then he said, “I know you’re not. But you are out here alone and I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place and … “

His voice just kind of trailed off so I don’t’ know what else he was going to say. He just kept looking at me and it made me feel funny so I told him to give me his canteen so I could fill it up. I did that and brought it back to him and he said he had promised to be back as soon as he could but he didn’t look like he wanted to leave at all. I had to promise him all over again that I would be careful and he finally left but he still looked upset.

As I watched him leave I realized that there is now horse poo on my road. I don’t want people to see the horse poo because then they might think that someone lives back here. I took the wheelbarrow and shoveled the stinky stuff … some of it is from Mr. Henderson’s group and some from the other people that have been around … and then took it back and dumped it on the compost pile. Nasty. It may look like mud balls that have hay and grass mixed in but it sure doesn’t smell like it.

Today I got quite a bucket load of plums. I can tell they are getting a little sweeter which is nice for me. When plums are too tart they make my jaw ache with the first bite. I made two batches of Plum Delicious. This is sort of like a plum puree but it can be made into a filling as well later on. Momma even used to freeze this in little paper cups for brother and I to have frozen fruit pops on hot summer days. Sometimes it is really, really hard not to cry when I remember things like that. My little brother was a brat but he was my bratty little brother and I’ll never know what he would have been like as a grown up. He never even got to be a teenager. It was very, very hard not to hate the drunk who stole my family from me. There are still some days that I get really close but he was just a pathetic kid – the same age as I am now - and his actions wrecked his own life as much as it did mine. I can’t even remember what he looks like; I never had to testify in court against him. I did have to talk to the prosecutor and the judge but that was it.

And that is all I want to think about that time right now. It makes me hurt and when I hurt I’m not … Dr. Kramer used to say that when I hurt I could lash out and be “less than constructive.” That about sums it up I guess.

So back to the constructive stuff I did. The Plum Delicious isn’t that hard to make. You start with five pounds of plums and then dip them in boiling water to split the peels and make them easier to get off. Then you squirt the pit out of the peeled plum. You dump the peeled and pitted plums in a big enamel pot on low heat. Low heat is one of the hardest things I have trouble with cooking on an open fire but I just pull the pot to the side as far as it will go and still get evenly heated.

Next you add a quarter cup of honey and a chopped apple to the mix. Now, I didn’t have a fresh apple but I do have dried apples and I just dumped about an apples worth in there after I had soaked the slices in some water to plump them up. You simmer this mess for 15 minutes. Then take it off the heat and drain off all the extra juice. I didn’t throw the juice away though, no way; it makes a good drink or juice to pour on a yellow cake.

Once you’ve drained off the juice you put the fruit part back into your pot and you are supposed to add currants to it. Momma said she couldn’t always afford the price of currants in the grocery so she would throw raisins in there instead. That’s what I did, five tablespoons worth. I also added a splash of lemon juice and lime juice, a quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one cinnamon stick and another tablespoon of honey. Stir that all up and simmer it another 10 minutes. If you want it a little sweeter you can add about a tablespoon and a half of maple syrup but the honey had done its job and I thought it was sweet enough. After that you just can it like you would preserves.

I canned this in pints instead of half pints since I would want this mostly for pies. Besides, I need those half-pint jelly jars for other things later in the season. And I switched the blackberries out and put on some new ones. It gave me a chance to use Momma’s doo-hickey thingamagig called a Pump n’ Seal.

The Pump n’ Seal looks like a reverse miniature bicycle pump. Instead of putting air into something it takes air out. Over at the fourth salvage house I found these special Ziploc bags that had a little airlock like thing on the bottom that was supposed to allow one of those gimmicky air sucker outers to get the air out. I didn’t see the machine but you can never have too many Ziploc bags so I took them.

Well, it turns out the Pump n’ Seal works with those Ziploc bags too. I dumped the dried blackberries in the Ziploc bags, sucked the air out with the Pump n’ Seal and then put them in the fruit closet in one of those clear plastic shoe boxes. That was even easier than canning though I’m going to keep doing that as long as I can.

But that “as long as I can” thought made me sit down and think tonight about other stuff. I’ve started a list of things that I need to keep an eye out for because it is the kind of stuff that when it runs out I’m going to have to figure out how to do without it. Like canning jar lids; the rings are reusable but the flat seal is not … not for canning anyway but maybe for something else. Laundry detergent; I’ve still got a bunch, or it seems that way but what happens when that is gone. White sugar; I’ve got honey to sort of replace sugar but even that won’t last forever. Salt; I don’t even know if there is a substitute for salt. Spices, flavorings, and extracts; I know Momma sometimes made her own flavorings and extracts but I don’t know how (I’ll be looking through her notes) but spices are from faraway places like Sri Lanka, Madagascar, Spain, Turkey … not a single one I know of comes from Live Oak, FL.

I thought about all of this while I crocheted a lace edge on a pair of pillow cases for Laurabeth and Jonathon. I don’t know when they are getting married so if I have time I’ll cross stitch their initials and some flowers on there too. I could do the edging without paying too much attention to it because it was one of the really simple ones and it left me time to think some harder thoughts than just June weddings and roses. It made me wonder what my future holds.

Now I know there was a time when people didn’t have all the stuff I have right now and they survived but I’m not too sure I want to go back to living like ancient people did. It’s bad enough I have to haul water to the bathroom for the toilet to flush, take a shower by dumping a bucket of water over my head, or cook all my meals over an open pit instead of in a microwave like civilized people did. OK, the microwave bit may have been taking this too far but I know what I mean. I just don’t want to go back to only being a wandering hunter-gatherer. I like my bed. I like a roof over my head. I like walls to keep the boogerman out. And I like the friends I am making here. But if I don’t get some things figured out I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to stay here and not get sick because the only thing I have to eat is whatever fruit happens to be in season.


June 15th -- Hah! Didn’t need Rand to figure out the firestarter thingy after all. I just needed to figure out the speed to scrape it at. The sparks are really hot, one of them hit my hand and I have this little red dot that still stings a little bit.

It rained overnight. I’m not sure if it ruined the berries drying in the dehydrator or not. I wiped off the inside of the Plexiglas because it was pretty fogged up but I think it should be OK. It may just take longer for the fruit to dry. But the fire coals were next to useless; I had forgotten to cover the holes with the sheet metal before I went to bed last night.

I finally figured out how to make the firestarter spark but couldn’t make it light up the little twigs so I tried to think of something fluffy. That’s when I saw the purple head of a thistle flower, and right beside it one that had gone all puffy like a dandelion. I gave it a shot and I have to admit surprised myself when it worked. The fluff lit up, lit up the little twigs I put on the burning fluff, so on and so forth. Of course I’m sneezing like a son of a gun now because of the stupid thistle stuffing. It’s worse to me than getting pepper up my nose because it takes its own time about going away. I nearly put the fire out the first couple of times I sneezed.

It was too close to lunch to bother fixing breakfast so I just left some big wood to settle down into coals and boiled some Mexican rice-a-roni out of a box that I had dumped some beef flavored TVP into. It made enough for lunch and dinner. While that was cooking I went out and picked more plums. And got stung about six times by wasps for my efforts. I finally got smart and put on gardening gloves and that solved that particular problem.

I may have gotten a later start than I wanted but I got quite a bit of canning accomplished anyway. Let’s see, two batches of Plum Jelly (I tried a recipe that didn’t require pectin so I hope it sets), a batch of plum butter (gosh that was a lot of cooking for a little bit), whole plums in white grape juice (used cans grape juice that I found at the last salvage house but there isn’t much more where that came from), a small batch of Chinese plum sauce (only three jelly jars worth), and a batch of whole plums canned in plum juice.

I noticed when I was dumping all of the leftover plum stuff into the compost pile that the pile was starting to smell a little … ripe, kind of fermented or something … so I dumped some dry leaves over the top of it and then some grass on top of that. I’m not sure if it was the fruit or the horse and mule poo causing the smell but I don’t suppose it really matters. Stink is stink.


June 16th – Bake a cake and someone will show up to eat it. I was in the middle of carrying a dustpan of dirt outside when I heard a wagon on the road. I grabbed the rifle and checked out through my hidey hole and it wasn’t a wagon it was a buggy … a Pastor Ken type buggy with a Pastor Ken riding in it.

I came around and said hello. He said he couldn’t stay long, but he didn’t refuse when I offered him a piece of yellow cake drenched in plum juice and he made out that he could afford to take a few minutes break. While he ate told me he just wanted to know if I was going to be at the church service they are having this Sunday. I hadn’t known they were having a church service and he was surprised. He didn’t know what to say and then it came out that he is going to marry Laurabeth and Jonathon instead of having a regular service. It isn’t going to be a big fuss apparently but he thought I would like to go since it is not too far up the road. They are having it at the old Sheriff’s Boy’s Ranch thrift store since the church in town burned down. He told me the parking lot is big enough to accommodate horses and wagons and bikes. He talked a little more and I persuaded him to take some plums with him (he is looking thinner than when I first met him) before he left.

I was kind of numb, and I admit my feelings were a little hurt but then I told myself it was Laurabeth’s wedding and she didn’t really know me so I couldn’t have expected to get invited. I went back to work cleaning, dusting, and sweeping trying not to think about it too much.

I was beating a rug on the clothes line when Mitch and Chase Peters showed up. They too got a piece of cake and were asking me if I was going to be at the wedding. I think I’m going to nickname Chase the Cheshire cat; I don’t think he ever stops grinning in the silly, lazy way guys that are used to being admired do. After they left I was able to finish my house work.

I had decided to take a day off of canning but once I finished cleaning I kind of wished that I had more to do to keep my mind occupied. I was up in the bonus room looking for something else to clean or do when I saw a horse coming down the road. I recognized Hatchet but not the rider.

I ran down the stairs grabbed the rifle and had started out to the yard when the guy went, “Whoa! What did I do?!”

It was Rand but I’ve never seen him so messy and he had been out in the sun enough that his skin had gotten so dark I didn’t recognize him from the upstairs window. He had sawdust everywhere and a bandage on his hand. I apologized and told him I hadn’t recognized him at first. “Yeah, I’m a mess,” is all he said in a tired voice as he sprawled on the front porch.

The kind of tired he was didn’t look good on him. I could tell he’d lost weight just over the last couple of days. Before he could say anything he said, “I can’t stay long, I meant to come out first thing this morning but Jonathon is in such da … uh, blasted … rush that he started before I’d even finished my cup of coffee and it takes me and Brendon both to help left the walls.”

He told me they had started to enclose the backporch to make another bedroom but then Uncle George decided it would be better to enclose the porch, turn it into a new kitchen area that wouldn’t heat up the house so much and turn the old country-sized kitchen into two bedrooms. “The problem is that when we started doing that we realized that we’d have to reinforce and even out the floor and completely reframe things and raise the roof a little. It’s been a mess and to do it we have to dismantle Jonathon’s old house to get the building supplies and that has taken even more time. This heat doesn’t help.”

I told him to sit and ran to get some water and I grabbed the cake pan and a fork as I was coming back through. I gave him the cake pan and he just kind of stared at it and then started wolfing it down. He mumbled something and then swallowed and asked could he have it all. I told him I wouldn’t have given him the pan if that hadn’t been the idea. It wasn’t anything but a little snack cake and it had already had three pieces cut out of it so there wasn’t a whole lot left.

He was mashing up the crumbs with his fork to get every bite he could when he finally slowed down and remembered why he came. He asked if I would like to go to church on Sunday and watch Laurabeth get married. When he said something about me not looking surprised when I said yes, I explained that Pastor Ken and the Peters brothers had been over and I didn’t get any further than that before he grouched, “What were they doing over here?”

I told him that I guess they had come to spread the news about the Sunday service but he didn’t look any happier. I don’t know what his problem is. I’m not exactly excited about having so many people dropping in unannounced either and I told him so. When he asked what about him I thought he was being silly and told him that too and that of course it wasn’t the same because he was a friend and I didn’t know the others very well. “Pastor Ken is OK but I’m always worried that he is going to start meddling and trying to do things for my own good. Mitch works for Mr. Henderson but that brother of his is silly and I didn’t have the foggiest idea what to say to him when he got that weird look on his face.”

Then Rand got the weird look on his face too and I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. I told him he had Chase’s weird look down perfectly. Rand looked surprised for a second then smiled and shook his head. Then asked if I had had any problems and if I still had plenty of wood. That taken care of I could see he was trying to judge where the sun was in the sky and I told him he better go.

He kept asking me if I was sure I was OK by myself and I reminded him that I had come all the way from Tampa by myself, actually having my own roof over my head and something to do was easy in comparison. That only made him roll his eyes and say “don’t remind me” but he left after I gave him some plums to snack on while he road home and after he promised to come pick me up after he had made sure the family got to the church Sunday morning.

I was glad I hadn’t acted like my feelings were hurt. Maybe I’m better than I used to be. He sure didn’t mean for me to get hurt feelings so I guess things worked out just fine. I’m going to stop now and try to get a little more finished on those pillow cases. I hadn’t thought I’d need to finish them so soon.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 28A

Jun 17th – I don’t have a lot of time to write, not to mention that I’m too tired and kind of freaked out.

I did laundry today like I had planned but I realized while I was doing this that I didn’t really know what to wear to Laurabeth’s wedding … well, I knew half of what I was wearing, the blue jean skirt. I didn’t really have anything to go with it though and I also knew I didn’t have time to make anything from scratch so I started looking through Momma’s clothes. The only thing that came close to something appropriate that I would wear was a short sleeved cotton button down shirt but it is PINK! Oh my gosh but I didn’t have any choice. I tried the shirt on and it fit through the back and sleeves but it flapped in other places. Luckily it was already cut to be a fitted shirt so all I had to do was deepen the darts in the front and back. Yeah …only … it took me three freaking tries to get it right.

While I was doing that I had to finish the laundry and finish the pillow cases. At least the million degree heat let the laundry dry quickly. I have to water my container veggies in the morning and afternoon to keep them from wilting. I also had to clean my boots because there was no way that I was going to wear heals. I tried on a pair of Momma’s and aside from the fact they were too big I looked like a dork. Did I mention the shirt is PINK?!

I’ve never been to a wedding before … well, I was a flower girl once but I was so little I don’t remember it so that doesn’t count. Of course I’ve seen that sort of thing on TV and heard about what is supposed to go on but I don’t think this is going to be anything like that and I don’t want to make a fool of myself.

I wrapped the pillow cases in tissue paper with some yarn to keep it closed. I saw some paper over at salvage house four but I didn’t have time to go get it and I couldn’t remember seeing anything but Christmas paper anyway although who knows with all the mess that is still in that house. I should have checked to see if there was any scotch tape but I didn’t. I have electrical tape, duct tape, aluminum tape, masking tape … no scotch tape. I really think life just conspires against you sometimes. The yarn is just going to have to do.

On top of all that I was just beginning to relax when I remembered Pastor Ken saying something about everybody bringing a dish of food to contribute to a kind of dinner on the grounds thing after the service. It was too late in the day to bake a cake, not to mention it started to rain in the middle of me getting my own dinner, so I think I just have time to get up go pick some plums and wash them and put them in a bowl and get washed up and dressed before Rand gets here. Argh!!!!


June 21st – You know, it’s a good thing I have such a strong constitution or the things that life keeps throwing at me would have made me want to punch my own ticket a long time ago. And yes, I know that isn’t a very nice thing to say but this is my journal so I can say anything I want to.

Sunday morning was really pretty but I was almost too nervous to notice it. I picked a big bucket of plums and decided it was just easier to leave them in the bucket and then transfer them to a bowl when I got to the makeshift church. I thought about bringing some preserves but I didn’t have anything to put it on. I got washed up and dressed and then French braided my hair and put a ribbon in the tail. I had borrowed the pearl studs out of Momma’s jewelry box but I guess they are my studs now. I was tying my boots when Rand knocked on the door.

I ran to answer it and when he wouldn’t move so I could get out, I pushed him back so I could close and lock the door. I rolled the door down – I found a new place to hide the rod when I’m away from the house long enough that I want to lock it all up – and when I turned around he was still just standing there.

“What?! Yeah, I know. It’s … it’s PINK but I didn’t have anything else to wear OK? No laughing allowed.” I put the pole in the hiding place, grabbed my bag with one of the pistols in it and put it over my shoulder, then turned around to see he was still just looking at me.

“You’re wearing a dress.”

“I know. And … Oh no!!!” I looked passed him and realized he had brought Hatchet and I was wearing a skinny skirt … a long skinny skirt. I had wondered if I was going to be able to get up into the wagon with it on. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to ride Hatchet, my legs would show.

I went to get back inside to change into pants when Rand grabbed me and said, “No! It’s OK. I just … I’ve never seen you in a dress before.”

“Well duh! When would I have worn one? I can’t ride Hatchet this way and … “

He laughed and said, “Sure you can, you’re just gonna have to hold on.”

I never felt so … so something … before in my life. He had to lift me up into the saddle. He put the bucket in my lap. And then he climbed into the saddle. He must have seen how nervous I was and said, “Trust me. I’m not going to let you get hurt.” That’s the words that came out his mouth anyway but it sounded like he meant something else. “Just hold the bucket on your lap with one hand and hold onto me with the other.”

That was really awkward but it was kind of nice too. OK, I admit it, I like Rand in a girl liking boy kind of way but I really didn’t want to mess up and lose his friendship. He’s twenty. I’m not quite seventeen. He was just dating this gorgeous girl for almost five years that broke his heart by being unfaithful. I’ve never even had a boyfriend much less anything … well, anything like what he had with Julia and all the, uh, “benefits.” He has this fantastic family. I’ve got nothing and no one left walking this planet. He knows everyone it seems and has a bunch of friends. The only people I know around here haven’t exactly seen me at my best and I can name my friends on one hand … good friends on a single finger, him. Fat lot of good my good intentions did me.

Knowing all of that didn’t stop me from secretly enjoying the ride. I tried to get him to let me down before we got to the building and people saw but he said, “No!” and tightened his arms so I couldn’t wiggle. We were so close I couldn’t even tilt my head and look up to see if I had made him mad or anything. We rode all the way up to the building and over to where Uncle George’s wagon and team were tied. Brendon was standing there with a girl that, if possible, was even fairer skinned than Janet who was standing on his other side. Mick ran over when Rand took the bucket out of my hands and handed it to him.

Rand climbed down and right when he reached up to help me down I felt myself being pulled off backwards. I panicked and jerked away and practically threw myself at Rand who I was lucky caught me. Rand must have thought I was hurt or something because he looked like he was about to take off to the other side of Hatchet where Chase Peters was standing grinning.

Before he could do something I hollered, “Chase Peters don’t you EVER touch me again without my permission!”

He looked surprised and then got that stupid I’m-too-cute-to-get-in-trouble look on his face and said, “I was just trying to be friendly.”

“Pulling someone off a horse backwards is not a good way to be friendly. It is however a good what to get yourself klunked in the head!”

Then I realized where I was and I wanted to die of mortification for letting my mouth run away again. I just knew I had embarrassed my friends but when I looked they were all smiling … Brendon was even laughing. Then Chase said, “Oh well” and walked off grinning too.

I looked at Rand and asked, “What was he oh well-ing about?”

All he would say is, “Don’t worry about it. Chase just thinks he’s a stud.”

I told Rand he most certainly was not and I’d tell him to his face if he tried something like that again … and that I needed to get the plums out of the sun which finally had him laughing and over being upset. He’s a protective kind of guy for people he thinks are under his care. That’s what has made what happened later even worse for me to think about. I guess he figured since he brought me he was responsible for me. I was going to tell him not to worry about it when he introduced me to Alicia and re-introduced me to Janet. I guess Alicia is a year or two older than me but she doesn’t look it except around her eyes. Her eyes … they remind me of some of the foster kids that came through Aunt Wilma and Uncle Charlie’s home. There was no need to tell me she’d had it bad. It was written right there for anyone to see if they bothered looking. Her brother who had been hiding just on the other side of the wagon had eyes that looked even more hurt. Sometimes you wish you could dig people up just to kick ‘em around like they deserve.

We all walked over to the building and went in the boarded over doors that had been propped wide open. The long windows that ran along the top of the walls let in enough light that the inside of the building didn’t look dim at all. Rand took the bucket from Mick and while everyone else went towards the front where a bunch of mismatched chairs had been set up we went towards the back of the room where a couple of tables had been pushed together and there were some dishes and pans all lined up looking nice. And then I handed my grungy and out of place bucket to Mamma O.

“Girl, where did you get these plums?”

“Same place I got the blueberries … ma’am.”

“Humph. Grab a bowl off that shelf over there and let’s put ‘em on the table at the end here. If we put ‘em at the beginning there won’t be any left by the time most folks get through the line.”

After I did that Rand took me to sit with his family and whispered, “I’m standing up as Jonathon’s best man. Stay here and save me a seat and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I looked down the row and saw Uncle George looking proud, sad, and in pain at the same time. His foot was wrapped up in what looked like several yards of ace bandage and was propped on a cushion-topped stool. I waved and he gently waved back at me and I saw his wrist was in a brace of some type.

I had leaned back in my chair when a nasty voice came from behind me in a whisper, “Don’t even think that this makes you any kind of competition.” Julia is demented. Why on earth she thought I was trying to compete with her I have no idea and still don’t. I just tuned her out and listened to the old-timey pump organ that some woman was playing at the very front, beside where I saw that Pastor Ken had taken his place.

I basically just followed what everyone else did. I stood when they stood and looked where they looked, sat when they sat and clapped when everyone else was clapping as Pastor Ken pronounced Jonathon and Laurabeth man and wife. Janet whispered that the dress was the one that their mother had worn and I could see that some powerful memories were working on Uncle George.

Jonathon and Rand looked nice too in suits though both of them looked like they couldn’t wait to rip their ties off. Everyone was sweating buckets and there were lots of hand fans moving the musky air around. With the ceremony over the newlyweds stood up for everyone to shake their hands and I just stood back while their family went up first. Rand came over real quick but before he could say whatever his mouth was open for Julia stepped up to him real close and put her hands on him and said, “You always look so good.”

Rand got a real uncomfortable look on his face and his ears turned bright red. People were starting to look and the only thing I could think of was to laugh and say, “Julia, you’re letting your mouth overload your butt again. Rethink your strategy and come back another day for a different try.”

Rand and a bunch of the men around started wheezing and coughing all of a sudden. Well, like I said, I’m not always at my best when someone is pushing me. Momma would have handled it different, but I’m beginning to understand I’m not her and what made me the way I am is a lot different from what made Momma the way she was. After Julia had stomped off in a huff I looked at Rand and asked him if it had been OK and he smiled and said, “Any time you want.” I’m not sure what that was supposed to mean but it sounded like he wasn’t mad so I relaxed.

The food was served in good time and there was enough for everyone but not really any seconds. I noticed some people were looking hungry even after a full plate of food. Then I saw a little girl and boy all hollowed eye sitting in the corner with their empty plates still in their laps. I went over to them and divided up what was left on my plate between them. A woman came rushing over and I stepped back real quick not wanting her to think that I’d been messing with her kids or anything, but she grabbed my arm and mouthed the words “thank you” like I’d done something really good before telling the kids to eat up in an over-happy voice.

I had been enjoying myself up to that point. But after seeing the kids I looked even harder at the people around me. Not a one of them looked completely healthy. Even Momma O, big woman that she is, looked like she’d lost a dress size or four since the Farmer’s market. Then I thought about how Rand always seemed hungry and all the people they had to feed at their house.

“Don’t.”

Rand startled me. I turned around and asked, “Don’t what?”

“Don’t start worrying. You can’t do anything about it. A lot of people had a chance to prepare before things got this bad and didn’t. They expected the military to keep delivering. They are playing catch up but I think most of them will make it. The ones who won’t … there just isn’t any way to take care of your family and take care of everyone else too.”

I started to tell him that I didn’t have a family to look after when I realized that maybe I did … if they’d let me help, if they want to have anything to do with me again. Before I could go much further with that thought things started happening that have kept me hopping the last few days.

A boy of twelve or so suddenly rushed in the door. He was bleeding from a cut on his head and had obviously been beaten. “Senor Henderson … Senor Henderson … que usted necesita dejar muy rápidamente. Mis hermanos están viniendo y son muy enojados.”

Mr. Henderson went running over to the boy but he passed out. “Silvo … Silvo … anyone understand what he said?”

“He said that you need to get out of here in a hurry, his brothers are coming and they are very mad.” Everyone looked at me with suspicion. I just looked at them and shrugged. I can’t help it if I’ve been taking Spanish since middle school and aced all the course work. Then Mr. Henderson cocked his head right before the rest of us heard it. Motorcycles.

The men … and not a few women … started grabbing for their weapons. The horses and mules in the parking lot were whinnying in fear as the motorcycles started coming through at high rates of speed. “Take ‘em out boys just try not and hit the horses.”

A few horses did get injured but mostly because they’d pulled loose and took off or had fallen down and skinned themselves up a bit. But the sight of so many armed people made the gangbangers fall back even quicker than they had arrived but not without a couple of them getting taken down.

“All right people, we need to break up and get home. Try and do it in groups as much as possible. Looks like we might be in for some more trouble. Don’t just stand there people. Move it!” Mr. Henderson can be loud even when he isn’t shouting and when he says move that’s exactly what your feet tell you to do.

I was looking around for my bucket when I heard, “Oh Laurabeth what a horrible thing to ruin your wedding day.”

I swear that she-cat just seems to go out of her way to make people miserable. What on earth did Rand ever see in her? I marched over and then poked her in the back moving her out of my way. “Laurabeth, ignore her. You got what was important out of this day and no one can take that from you. You and Jonathon are now forever and ever married and you did it with your Daddy’s blessing in front of friends and family. What came afterwards is just that, afterwards … it doesn’t erase what has already happened. Why don’t you go give your hubby a smooch and embarrass him while I deal with Miss Julia.”

I didn’t have to deal with Miss Julia because as soon as she saw how hacked I was she scurried. I know I can’t do too much to her because she is pregnant but I swear if she doesn’t knock it off she’s going to be giving birth ball headed.

Finally we got out the doors after the first press of people had left. Rand was looking around frantic. “I can’t find Hatchet!”

Uncle George was looking bad. He really had hurt himself in the fall he took and trying to help defend his family had reinjured all the stretched muscles and stuff. Jonathon and Brendon were getting Uncle George into the back of the wagon when they called over, “Rand, we need to go! He’s probably half way home by now!”

With a last look around he rushed me over to the wagon and then tossed me in even though I started to fight him, “Don’t Kiri … just do what I ask for once without getting all … “

That’s when the gangbangers came back, and they were back with a vengeance. We were on the road and heading in the direction that I knew Uncle George’s farm lay when they started throwing things … and the things started exploding. I guess they were grenades. They exploded and made holes in the road and that’s all I really care about knowing. The horses were going crazy and it took everything Jonathon had to keep them from running away. Then a grenade landed so close that the buggy tipped up on two wheels. Alicia and I were thrown out and Jonathon lost the reins or something like that and the horses bolted.

I shook off being rattled and then stood up and dragged Alicia with me. I took off towards my land and looked back to see Rand trying to holler something. I must have said that I couldn’t hear him out loud because Alicia said, “He said to get home he’ll come back as soon as he can.”

I told her it sounded like a plan and started dragging her through the trees, lifting my long skirt and tucking it in my waist band to keep it from tripping me up. I wasn’t real thrilled with showing off my messed up legs but it was either be modest or be quick, I chose quick.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 28B

Some of the motorcycles left the road and started trying to following us. The difference between people on foot and someone on a motorcycle is obvious but it isn’t all good on the side of the machine. People can climb under and over fences, motorcycles can’t. We climbed a fence and I pushed her down behind a big oak tree and then did what I had hoped I wouldn’t ever have to do again. I aimed with the pistol and shot once and twice … the first motorcycle was down. My third bullet hit the leg of another rider and he laid down the bike he was on just in time to get in the way of the last rider that had diverted to come after us. I shot them while they were down.

With Alicia screaming what was I doing, I ran over to the bangers and took their weapons and ammo since they didn’t need them anymore. I’m a slow learner about some things but when a lesson sticks, it sticks.

I ran back and handed one of the guns to Alicia and started dragging her again trying to put as much distance between us and the mess going on at the road as possible. I finally stopped to get my bearings when Alicia fell down for the umpteenth time. She never complained but I knew that I had to stop before I was literally dragging her through the blackberry canes and saw briers. I looked and then realized one of the houses I saw was the front of the first house I had ever salvaged anything from. I asked her if she could go a little more and she nodded.

I took the gun from her and gave her the bucket. We could still hear motorcycles and explosions but nothing close. I still looked around carefully and a good thing I did. Two of the creeps had gotten ahead of us and were trying to cut us off on foot. They got sloppy when they assumed we were nothing but two scared young women. I was a scared young woman, but I was also a scared young woman with a gun that I wasn’t afraid to use. Five shots and two dead bangers. I dumped the ammo from all five bangers into the bucket for Alicia to carry and I put the extra weapons in my bag. It was so full it was dragging a rug burn on my neck as we ran.

That was the last of them. I got us both home and Fraidy was going nuts and so was Pretty Boy. I opened the door, pushed Alicia inside with Fraidy and turned to go put Pretty Boy in the barn when I saw Hatchet, his sides heaving. I knew I needed to do something for him but I’d never taken care of a horse before.

Alicia came up behind me and said, “I’ll take care of him if you’ll help me get the saddle off; that thing is heavy.”

I’m glad someone knew what to do for Hatchet, he looked pretty bad. I guess he considered Sparkleberry Ranch his home away from home and had headed this way in all of the confusion.

Alicia wasn’t kidding, the saddle was heavy – something like fifty pounds if I had to guess – and the blanket underneath it stunk like sweaty horse. Alicia took care of Hatchet while I pulled a couple of Daddy’s saw horses out and put the saddle over them and hung the blanket on the wall to dry.

It took a while but we managed to get Hatchet calmed down and taken care of. Alicia showed me that Rand kept some extra feed for the horse in his saddle bags but she said it had to be done right after the upset he had had. I left her to it and went out and listened. I still heard motorcycles but I also heard the deeper roar of other kinds of engines too. And the rat a tat tat of what I think are called automatic weapons. Sure didn’t sound like my .22 and I was just glad to be out of it and praying that the Rand and his family made it home safe and sound. If I’d only known I’d have been having kittens.

The animals all cared for, Alicia and I went inside and I locked everything down. Alicia was all give out and it wasn’t long afterwards that she was asleep in one of the spare rooms. I changed into jeans and a t-shirt and hung the skirt and shirt in the bathroom. They are still salvageable, but they are going to take some work to fix but I’m considering just putting them away someplace. I don’t know that I want anything to remind me of the last few days.

I realized I was thirsty and a little hungry so I downed a can of fruit cocktail and decided that whether it heated the house up or not I was going to have to cook some dinner and it had to be something that would last.

I burned a couple of logs in the fireplace to make coals and then set to work making Casserole Bread. First you scald a cup of milk and stir in three tablespoons of sugar, one tablespoon of salt and one and a half tablespoons of shortening. Cool the mixture to lukewarm then pour one cup of warm water into a large bowl and sprinkle with two packages of yeast. Stir until the yeast is dissolved then stir in the cooled milk mixture. Add four and a half cups of flour and stir until it is well blended, about 2 minutes. You have to cover the messy dough and let it rise in a warm place until it more than doubles in bulk — about 40 minutes. After that is finished, stir the batter down and beat for another 30 seconds the pour the batter into a greased 1 1/2-quart casserole.

I’d taken the coals from the fireplace and used it to preheat the box oven to 375 degrees and the dough went in there for someplace between 50 and 60 minutes. The smell of baking bread woke Alicia up and we got to know each other a little bit. When the bread was cool enough to cut I gave her a couple of slices with some blueberry preserves on it but by the time she was finished eating her eyelids were drooping again and it was getting dark outside.

She told me what I needed to do for Hatchet and waited for me to come back inside before she went back to sleep. I think sleep was a way for her to get away from worrying about her little brother, Brendon, and the others. I fell asleep at the bonus room window listening to the fight that was still going on and wondering what to do.

I woke up when a bird ran into the window after a bug that turned out to be a tree frog. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the bird or the frog. I was awake and my heart was beating fast but when I turned around I got startled again because Alicia was sitting there just looking at me.

She said she had been awake for about an hour but hadn’t wanted to bother me. I asked her if she had eaten and she looked like … I don’t know … like she wouldn’t know how to take advantage of something that was simply sitting on the counter like the remaining bread was. I went downstairs and we opened my last jar of peanut butter and had peanut butter and jam sandwiches for breakfast.

We went out to the barn and took care of the animals and while Fraidy followed us, she didn’t want to stay outside. That more than the unnatural silence that hung on everything told me that something was wrong. I grabbed the trays out of the dehydrator and was thankful for blessings when I realized the plums I’d had on the trays weren’t ruined. Alicia took them in for me while I walked around the yard trying to figure out what had me so twitchy.

Then I heard some horses coming down the road and motioned for Alicia to stay inside. I’d come out with the rifle so all I had to do was get over into the little blind I used to peek out and see who was coming when I saw a man being pushed down the road by a couple of others. Of the six I recognized two. Mitch Peters, beaten and bloody had a piece of duct tape across his mouth and he was being pushed along at gunpoint by five others, one of whom was Rick Harbinger.

They were all being quiet so I knew they were up to know good and poor Mitch looked like he could barely breathe. I guess I’m kind of losing it because all I could think of was “In for a penny, in for a pound.” I aimed the rifle and it barked one, twice, three times. Tin cans … tin cans … When my eyes stopped burning I could see one man running down the road limping and Mitch wrestling with the other one. A gun went off, the bad guy jumped, and then Mitch aimed at the last man who dropped and didn’t move.

Mitch ripped the duct tape off his mouth and said, “Rand … “ He’s eyes just about bugged out when he saw it was me. I helped him up to the porch and Alicia ran to get him some water. Then we both heard horses coming lickety split. Mitch couldn’t move as fast and I was just about to shoot when he said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa ! That’s Hoss and Bradley, we work together.”

The two big men slapped Mitch on the back nearly sending him to the ground. “Old son, you in better shape than we expected to find. Chase is up to the big house all tore up but they think he is gonna to make it. You the last one unaccounted for. We caught your trail sign and been following as close as we could. We heard the shots and decided to come ahead on. How in hells bells did you take out all five.”

“I didn’t. I got two … she got the other three,” and he threw his thumb back in my direction. What, these men have never seen a girl with a gun before? I thought this was the country.

Mitch and his buddies offered to take us with them to Mr. Henderson but I said no in case Rand came today. Mitch was trying to pressure me when the one called Hoss goes, “Joiner ain’t gonna be coming today. I hate to be the one to tell you but we hear he got hit. Don’t know how bad but it didn’t sound good.”

I think my blood must have turned to ice water. I don’t know how I knew but I knew right then I wasn’t going to Mr. Henderson no matter how much Mitch Peters pleaded. I was going to going to go to the Crenshaw farm and no one was going to stop me.

The three men finally left, taking the corpses of the fallen men with them, and I turned around and spent the rest of the day making sure that I could do what I planned on doing. Alicia strangely enough agreed whole heartedly with me and did everything she could to help. We baked two more loaves of bread, ate sparingly, and I picked through what I thought would be the best food to take with us when we went. Fruit cocktail, instant rice, and then I bagged up some stuff from my #10 cans into Ziploc bags. All of that fit into Hatchet’s saddle bags. I put two bags of flour and some canned veggies in a couple of canvas bags that I roped over the top of Hatchet’s saddle; I was turning the pour thing into a pack mule.

We were leaving at night. I knew how to travel at night and avoid being seen. I’d never tried it on a horse so I was going to be walking and leading while Alicia rode since I didn’t know how good her night vision was. I outfitted both of us with guns and ammo from the stuff I took off the bangers but I also took my own rifle and ammo.

I knew the mosquitoes were going to be bad so I used the unscented Deep Woods Off that I found while salvaging on us. I didn’t want the smell of bug spray giving us away in case we had to pass close to people … but I didn’t’ want bites, ticks, or chiggers either.

Luckily the bottom half of Alicia is about my size and I gave her a pair of jeans to wear. She already had sensible shoes but I gave her socks and had her tuck the pants down into the top since I had a feeling we were going to be travelling through some tall grass; ticks are nothing to fool with.

Alicia is so fair she almost glows, even in the dark so I asked her to tuck her hair under a dark bandana. The top she was wearing was already dark so at least she stood out as little as possible. We just had to have some faith.

It was just shy of midnight when we left. It had been a mess trying to get Hatchet’s saddle back on but we finally managed it. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about leaving the barn in the middle of the night either. I scattered the last little bit of the horse feed on the floor for Pretty Boy just in case I didn’t get back as quick as I hoped and then shut and locked the barn door and headed out. The last two things I had taken out of the barn I stuck on my belt. The first was the giant screw driver that had been so helpful on the trip from Tampa and the second was a pair of heavy duty wire cutters.

With the horse I couldn’t just cut across the field until I got my bearings straight. Everything was quiet except for Hatchet’s hooves when they landed on the grassy right of way. The closer we got to US90 the more agitated Alicia got but she didn’t tell me to stop. We passed the burned out S&S with its Shell fuel sign lying broken in the middle of the parking area. We crossed 90 and I used the big screwdriver to pry the lock off of a gate. Then I turned us northeast, angling to pass behind the building where the wedding had been held, where I had to use the wire cutters for the first time (but not the last). The closer we got to that point the more destruction there was. Bodies and parts of bodies that had obviously taken the brunt of an explosion of some type. Most of the corpses were clothed like the gangbangers in their stupid “colors” but some of the bodies were wearing military issue fatigues. There were only a couple like that but it was enough for me. I wanted to stop and do something for them but I couldn’t afford to and I figured God was sorting it all out even as I was worrying at it.

We kept going until we got near the road that the Crenshaw farm was off of. Alicia, shaky and gray in the moonlight, pointed to where I could see some men in a ditch. You don’t sit in a ditch full of leaches and ticks and other creepy crawly things unless you were stuck or you were up to no good. Beyond them I saw some more men; one group facing the house that Alicia whispered belong to Clyde and another group facing the lane that led down to the farmhouse.

I had Alicia stay with Hatchet and then I did whatever was popping into my head. I still don’t know where it was all coming from. Maybe watching all those cowboy shows and war movies with my Dad when I was little. It sure as heck wasn’t something that I thought about doing and practiced on a regular basis.

At the end of what turned out to be the Winston’s drive way was an aluminum fenced post lying on the ground. I picked it up, snuck up behind the two guys in the ditch and brought it down fast, first on the head of one and then on the head of the other with nasty squashy sounds. They sank down into the ditch water and never came back up. I made sure they didn’t. In for a penny, in for a pound.

The other men on the other side of the road never even turned around. The next part was the hard part. I had to do it just right or I was toast and the whole plan was going to fall apart and I would really catch heck from Rand. I got on my hands and knees and slowly crawled across the road behind the group of men in front of Clyde’s house. He was closer to the road and I hoped if there was anyone home that would mean they were closer to helping me out if I needed it.

My shoe scrapped some gravel and made one of the guys look around but I was practically on top of them and couldn’t miss. There were only two and hadn’t been expecting to be hit from behind. The guys in the other group heard my shots and that’s when I realized I really, really, really didn’t know what I was doing. But Clyde did. The guys in the other group forgot and showed themselves and – boom, boom – two big shots came from an upper window of Clyde’s house. After that I heard clattering and running as he came down his stairs and hit the porch, then the ground, then came over to me to drag me to better cover.

“There’s men over in those ditches,” he said.

I told him, “Only technically. Seeing as how they didn’t come up for over five minutes you’ll probably have to fish them out before they contaminate things.”

Clyde looked at me in a way I was getting used to. People back in Tampa used to wonder if I was crazy. I think people here in Live Oak are convinced of it.

Clyde had to check on the ditch himself before he would believe me. What did he think they were going to do? Jump up and do the fandango or something? Then he let out this piercing whistle and men poured out of all the houses around and stripped the bodies of the bangers for anything worth anything.

I finally went back and got Alicia and Hatchet and complimented them both on doing what I’d asked even though I knew they must think I’m crazy. Alicia even smiled but whether it was at what I said or the look on Clyde’s face when I said it I don’t know. Just then Alicia started running and I saw her jump into Brendon’s arms. I figured they were entitled to the mushy stuff so I just led Hatchet back to the house that Rand had described.

I kept my mind blank while I walked back. The fact that only Brendon had come out wasn’t a good sign. But then Mick vaulted the porch and ran into me so hard I nearly went down. His thin arms had me in a power hug and then he was pulling me to the house. Charlene came out and she pulled me further into the house.

“Daddy is in a terrible state and Rand is even worse. Laurabeth is with Jonathon who got kicked by one of the horses but nothing is broken, he’s just sore and bruised. Alicia is missing and Brendon is going crazy and everything is so … “

I told her to relax, Alicia wasn’t missing and the only crazy that Brendon was going was with the mushy stuff with her out in the front yard. And then I heard a load of creative cussing the likes of which I haven’t heard since Coach Echeverria’s foot got ran over by one of the cheerleaders during driver’s ed. But I knew that voice and when he finally stopped and I was able to tell he was demanding to know what happened I told Charlene I’d tell him. Her response was, “Be my guest. He’s been awful.”

I walked into a bedroom to see him trying to get up, “You can’t be serious about running around with no pants on.”

He grabbed his sheet real quick and looked at me and said, “How the … ? Oh you did not … I ought to … “

“I’ll tell you how later after you’ve rested. Whatever you think you ought to do forget it, you couldn’t catch me right now anyway. And of course I did, I had to bring Alicia and Hatchet home didn’t I?

It took him a while to stop doing the gasping fish thing where his mouth just kind of opened and shut but no sound came out. I made him lay back down and in the process saw that he was badly bruised with a deep furrow where he’d moved around so much he’d made the bandage come undone.

I was totally fine until he stopped being a cranky stinker and then I just sort of crumpled up and started crying. I hadn’t meant to cry. It ruined the whole image of me being able to do whatever it took and then some. I just couldn’t help it. I finally stopped crying and he let me sit up but I got a chair and sat close to his bed. I guess we both fell asleep because I opened my eyes and it was suddenly daylight.

Rand was still sleeping but I could hear quiet movement downstairs. I got up and went to see if the supplies I had brought were inside. It was Laurabeth and Charlene. Laurabeth came over and threw her arms around me. I patted her back because I wasn’t sure what all was going on.

“Oh Kiri, Rand was just frantic yesterday. We had gotten home and he and Brendon were all set to go back for you and Alicia but then those awful men showed up and started shooting and the horses went crazy. Brendon was able to jump free but Rand … you saw the bandage … and he fell right under the horse. Jonathon went to pull him out and got kicked. Nothing is broken but he is so sore he can barely move. And Daddy … don’t get me started on how awful Daddy has been. And the new kitchen isn’t finished but this one is all torn apart and … “

Then it was her turn to dissolve into tears. Brendon was back on watch and the other men were all in a healing sleep so it gave the five of us along with Mick and Alicia’s brother Tommy a chance to try and put things to some semblance of order. I couldn’t do anything about fixing the bedrooms but the only thing left in the new kitchen area was to move things into the new cabinet locations, move the dining room around and to fill the wood box, none of which was rocket science so we were able to do it just fine.

The wood cookstove had come from Alicia’s old house and she knew out to operate it so she got lunch started using some of the stuff I had brought to piece out what was in their pantry. When Laurabeth started to say something I said, “Not a word. Don’t tell your Daddy or Rand unless they make a point of asking. They’d only get cranky all over again.”

It wasn’t long after that that Jonathon woke up and then Charlene carried a cup of coffee to her father while I took one to Rand. I knew he wasn’t going to like what I had to tell him so I figured to get him caffeinated up first. But before I could even get halfway up the stairs, who do I run into but Julia’s mother. She sounded like Fraidy when she hissed at me and then brushed past me like I was something nasty her husband had brought in on his boots.

Trying not to wonder why Mrs. Winston was in the house I walked into Rand’s bedroom and got a shock. Julia was getting undressed and trying to get in bed with Rand. He was still out cold. I knew a set up when I saw one and grabbed her by the hair and whispered in her ear exactly how bad an idea it was to try and pull a stunt like she was thinking about.

I’m not big but the kind of angry I can get can make anyone scary. The clothes went on a whole lot faster than they came off and she left the room even quicker. I realized you could just see a little bump in her otherwise flat stomach that looked out of place.

“Why do I have a feeling you just saved my life again?”

Rand was real groggy and in a lot of pain but he’d seen Julia scuttling out the door. I dug the Aleve out of my bag and gave him two with his cup of coffee. “I didn’t make it so it should be drinkable.”

He smiled despite everything and said, “Don’t avoid the question. What just happened?”

I was in the middle of explaining when Mr. Winston jerked the door open, his wife hovering behind him. He turned to her and said, “I thought you told me you saw Julia come in here.”

I got laser eyes from Mrs. Winston as Mr. Winston stomped off. I know most folks think I’m mostly just a kid, and a strange one at that. I’m also beginning to accept the fact that I likely created at least half of my own problems because I didn’t know when to keep my mouth shut. But the one thing that I learned from dealing with all the kids that came and went at Aunt Wilma’s house is that there are some people you cannot back down from. Trying to just avoid trouble with those types only guarantees it.

I stepped out of the room and grabbed Mrs. Winston’s arm and got her attention before she could squawk. “I know Julia is pregnant. So does Rand. And Rand knows the baby isn’t his … he says there’s no way it could be his and I believe him. So will a lot of other people, especially if I start helping them put two and two together.”

I’d scared her but she was no coward, “You’re nothing and nobody girl. No one will believe you over Julia.”

“You’re right about me being nobody, but Rand and his family aren’t. People like them. If nothing else people are going to wonder and I won’t stand by and let Julia get away with what she is trying. You be sure and pass that along before I’m the one that goes to her daddy and gives him the news he’s going to be a grandpa in however many months.”

I made an enemy but sometimes that happens. They paid me back before the day was too much older. Rand was trying to get out of bed when I got back and demanded to know what was going on. I stayed with him about an hour then he dozed again. I hadn’t had the heart to get him worked up so I didn’t say anything about leaving.

When I went downstairs I found that my “exploits” of the last couple of days had preceded me and the Winston’s were wringing everything they could out of it. Alicia tried to apologize but I told her, and meant it and still do, not to worry about it, all she had done was tell the truth.

Uncle George and Clyde called me outside. Alicia put her hand on my arm but I don’t know if it was to give comfort or get it. I went outside where Uncle George was leaning on a crutch with Clyde looking at the bangers’ weapons that I had brought.

I got grilled; boy did I get grilled. The Resource Officer at my highschool couldn’t have done as good a job. I was crispy all the way through. They also made me feel like … well more than I already do … that there is something off about me. I don’t think they necessarily meant to and that’s the only thing that I could grab onto to keep from lashing out. I had to keep reminding myself that they weren’t hurting me on purpose.

All day, every time I turned around, I found Julia or her mother giving me the shaft in some way. It was subtle but not much different than what I’d endured in school. I’d walk in a room and it would get quiet like they’d just been talking about me and felt guilty. I’d get sidelong glances. Julia offered me boatloads of false sympathy … as long as there was someone there to witness her performance. The two younger boys would just out and out stair, until someone jabbed them to stop it. But no one seemed to have the nerve to just come right out and say something. I got so fed up I started making it worse. I knew what I was doing but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. Always being the outsider sucks, I couldn’t have admitted that not too long ago but now … now I can. Unfortunately that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

The only relief I got was when I was hiding out in Rand’s room or out of the house and working. I helped Mick and Tommy clean up the yard. There was a mess to clean up that’s for sure all up and down the county road. A couple of people had lost animals so there were attempts at preserving the meat and you’d be walking along and suddenly get that slaughter house smell straight in the face. The Winston’s house was a trashed mess. I was over there and doing fine. Mr. Winston and JR didn’t seem to mind so long as I kept my mouth such and worked. But Mrs. Winston came over and ran me off in as humiliating a way as she could manage. In front of the neighbors she made it seem like she needed to keep an eye on me because I might be looking for salvage items … in other words stealing from them while they were down on their luck.

That was the last straw. I was more determined than ever to leave. I tried to tell Rand one more time but he was in so much pain that I chickened out. I went off by myself after asking Alicia for paper and something to write with. I doubt I did a very good job of it but I tried to write a note for Rand explaining why I couldn’t stay.

I avoided anyone from the house for what little remained of the day, not because I was really angry any more but because I’d finally gotten my anger half-way under control and didn’t want to get riled up all over again and say something to make things worse than they already felt.

I stayed quiet at dinner – a neighborhood stone soup kind of thing – but it wasn’t easy. Then Alicia told me that Rand was asking for me again so I went up there and kept him company until he went to sleep again, this time with the help of something Uncle George slipped in his drink. I sat there a while longer until the house got quiet and the moon came out.

It was a lot easier to get out of the house than I expected, everyone was exhausted. I was off the porch and going cross ways through bushes and trees when Clyde stepped out and said, “You sure you want to do this? Rand’s gonna be hurt.”

“I left him a note.”

Clyde’s snort made it plain what he thought of that. I admit he made me feel like I needed to defend myself which is probably the only reason I bothered to try and explain. “Look, I get it, but the fact of it is I make people uncomfortable. And no one knows what to make of my friendship with Rand which is bound to cause him problems sooner or later no matter what he says. They are being nice for Rand’s sake now that they all think that I’m some kind of weird … I’m not complaining, really I’m not. I know me and this isn’t exactly anything new. But knowing me I know I’m real close to saying things to people that would only wind up hurting Rand worse if I stayed. It’s better for the peace if I just go home.”

Clyde still looked disappointed in me but he let me pass. I wish I could say I didn’t care what this stranger thought of me but a part of me does just because he is Rand’s good friend and that gave me even more reason to get out of there.

The sun was just beginning to come up when I got home. Fraidy nearly knocked me down twining between my legs. At least someone was happy to see me. I unlocked the door, went in and locked everything behind me. I went up to the dormer room, cracked the window for air but left the shutters closed and fell across the bed and went straight to sleep.

I woke up with my boots still on to hear the noise of more explosions only this time they were on the other side of town. There wasn’t anything I could do about it so I got up and tried to be as normal as possible. I’ve taken care of my animals, canned the last of the plums, fixed trays of fruit for the dehydrator, gardened, cleaned my rifle and pistol, and tried really hard not to think about the fact I have probably lost the best friend I’ve ever had.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 29

June 22nd – OK, no more feeling sorry for myself. I did what I did. There were some things I could have done different but I can’t go back and change that. Time to grow up and no more pity parties. There is work to be done.

I had to scrub the barn down something fierce. Between Hatchet and Pretty Boy there wasn’t much place you could put a boot without stepping in something gross. And not all of it would come up with the shovel so I had to drag buckets and buckets of water in there to get everything clean.

Daddy built the “barn” to be more like a giant shed and workshop. It has a concrete floor like a garage because Daddy didn’t want to have to put more gravel in there ever couple of years when the tractor pushed it down. It is really nice, but isn’t all that great as a barn because animal pee and poo just sits there. Nasty.

Pretty Boy enjoyed being out in the yard and strutting around. He caught a locust almost as big as he is and mangled it all to pieces while eating it. He hung out where the cantaloupe vines are starting to spread. I’m glad too because the more bugs he eats the less bugs there are to eat my plants. The ones in the containers aren’t being bothered but the ‘lope vines in the ground look like they are getting gnawed on a little bit.

I think Fraidy and Pretty Boy have come to an understanding of some kind. I was sitting on the porch taking a break and eating the last few blueberries I scrounged off the bushes as well as some blackberries and a couple of plums for lunch. Fraidy was lying at my feet in a sunbeam and then Pretty Boy struts over and jumps up in my lap to see what I’m eating. He likes fruit. Fraidy looks up and jumps in my lap. I thought I was going to have a face off right there but then Fraidy looked at Pretty Boy and sniffs him and sprawls across my lap which forced Pretty Boy up on the arm of the lawn chair. Fraidy purred while I scratched her chin and Pretty Boy liked the blackberries I fed him. I felt pretty special … until Pretty Boy took a dump and Fraidy started using her claws to knead my leg. I like animals … I think … but boy do they know how to give you a reality check and put you in your place. So much for being the top of the food chain.

It also made me wonder if I was going to turn into an eccentric old lady like in some of the books I’ve read. Lots of animal friends but no human ones.

Watching Pretty Boy scratch around reminded me that I need to figure out how I’m going to grow a garden. There is no way I’m going to live off of black eyed peas, egg plant, cantaloupe and okra for the rest of my life. I still haven’t asked Momma O if she has other seeds that she’ll trade for. I figure I need to move quickly before other people start getting the same idea. I’ve got some plums left and I don’t think she lives too far away. It’s worth the chance. I might also be able to entice her with some of the pie cherries that are going to make. All three little trees are loaded with green ones so I’ll have tons more than I need … I think … and surely a bucket of cherries ought to be worth something to her.


June 23rd – Met the rest of Momma O’s family. I’m not sure I’ve ever been in lust before but looking at Momma O’s garden must feel something like that. It’s all green and frilly and I could have just wallowed in it. When I told her so Momma O laughed herself into a coughing fit and told me to come up to the porch and “sit a spell.”

I’m leaning more to the liking her side than I was before. She’s nicer than she lets on but nosy. Man is she nosy; she just about had my life story out of me before I could get a breath to think to not tell her so much. She was real interested in the solar dehydrator that Rand built and told me to tell him to come explain it to her grandson Paulie. I found out later “Paulie” is six foot three and built like two football players put together … and that Momma O is the only person that calls him Paulie. Everyone else calls him Paul or Jr.

Like I said, Momma O is nosy. I got up to leave with some watermelon seeds she said I could plant next month and some pole beans and squash seeds that she said I could plant in August and with the agreement that if I can provide her family with some fruit … all she has is a fig and a pear tree … that she’d start putting back some more seeds for me. She told me again to tell Rand to come see Paulie about the dehydrator so I told her she would probably see him first. She wanted to know why I thought that and I just shrugged not wanting to get into it. What she said next though leads me to believe that woman must have a crystal ball hidden under the big apron she always wears.

“So, Julia has him convinced that the baby is his.”

Before I thought I said, “No!”

She just kind of looked at me and then laughed at my expression. “Child, Julia and that mother of hers aren’t as wiley as they think they are. They’s some of us that know somethins goin’ on. Girl is built like a skinny post and she suddenly starts eating like a field hand and gots a glow, what else are people gonna think? Now you sit back down here and tell me what’s what so we can keep that boy from falling into their trap.”

So I sat because even if Rand isn’t my friend any more I wouldn’t wish a fate like that on my worst enemy. I told her all the things that I hadn’t told her before and she said, “Well, you’re right. There might have been a better way of handling things but then again, I weren’t there. Julia weren’t always like she is now. She was just the nicest young thing; spoiled but not bad enough you could hold it against her. When Rand left to go to Gainesville instead of staying and going to the community college like Julia wanted him to she got upset; most of us figured she couldn’t be doing nothing but acting a little wild and what Rand didn’t know about wouldn’t hurt him none. When Rand was around she was the sweet thing she’d always been and we figured he’d graduate and move back and everything would be all right again. Looks like Julia went wilder than I gave her credit for and overplayed her hand this time. Getting out from under her thumb wasn’t a bad thing for that boy all in all. Rand’s done some growing up the last couple of years too which has probably made him less susceptible to little Julia’s pouts which likely hasn’t suited her too keenly. And as for you losing his friendship … you might be surprised. The boy’s got some sense and he’ll likely figure things out given enough time. Just let things be child and try and accept whatever His will is. I’m sitting here to tell you that fighting that doesn’t do a hill of beans worth of good. He’s mysterious and will only reveal His will for things when He is good and ready. Seems like the less patient we are the longer He takes to let us in on things.”

She gave me a lot to think about but I still don’t see how Rand can forgive me for making things so hard for him at his home. I was thinking so much that I didn’t notice the stupid snake until I nearly stepped on it. If there is any creature that I can come close to saying I hate it is snakes. I tolerate them but that’s about it. I usually do everything I can to avoid them although the whip snake out in the orchard and I have learned to co-exist. So long as he eats the things out there that will eat my fruit I won’t chop his head off with a hoe.

I didn’t move and it finally settled down and slithered off to the other side of the road; coral snakes may be small but they scare me to pieces. It wasn’t until I unfroze that I saw the dog down in the ditch. Its sides were heaving and it was whining like it was in pain. It puked and I figured the dog had tangled with the snake before I did. I know dogs don’t always die from snake bites so I didn’t put it down right away. But once the poor thing went into convulsions and went all stiff I decided it was more merciful.

I was shaking so bad it took me a while to aim. I didn’t want to miss and cause it more pain. I didn’t get a chance though.

“Move girl, I’m a better shot.”

Mr. Henderson took care of the dog and then started lecturing me for being out in the open just standing around day dreaming. I told him I wasn’t standing around, that I had been avoiding a snake and then waited to see if the dog needed some mercy or not. The men Hoss and Bradley were with him and were trying not to smile because Mr. Henderson threatened to paddle my behind if I didn’t get it on home. He told me no more wandering around, people were getting desperate and there was no telling what could happen over the next couple of weeks.

So I came home (and not because he told me to either but because that is where I had been going in the first place), put my seeds in a cool, dark, and dry place like Momma O told me to and then started cleaning house. I got most everything done that was worth doing and then sat down to look at Momma’s gardening books.

I was trying to picture doing a garden of any size turning the dirt over by hand like the books explained when I looked outside to see that the sky had darkened up. I went downstairs and the wind nearly jerked the door out of my hand. Fraidy skittered in and stalked over to the hearth rug and gave me a look that said, “About time!” I was looking all over for Pretty Boy because it was time for him to go back in his run for the night but when I finally saw him he wouldn’t go, he kept running over to the barn door. Well, I’m dense but not dumb. I opened the barn door and he ran inside and hopped up on the pile of small branches in there and started to preen his feathers back in place. Crazy bird.

I grabbed some kindling for my wood box and right as I stepped up on the porch the first fat drops of rain came down. I’ve been sitting up here in the dormer room listening to it for over two hours now. I’ve had to close the window ‘cause it was blowing so hard that even with the shutters closed the rain was coming in. Its dark and now it is stuffy and hot so I’m going to bed to see if I can actually get any sleep. It’s awful noisy up here on top of everything else.


June 24th – The only laundry I was able to do today was my under things and that still made a mess. I had to hang them on the retractable line in the summer kitchen. It’s been raining off and on all day, actually since last night.

The house is still all stuffy and hot. I haven’t been able to open a window because of the rain blowing in. The few times it has stopped I’ve done what I could by opening the door to the lanai but that hasn’t helped much. Fraidy has stayed on the lanai except for a few times when the rain got really hard then she would come and run up on the door so hard it shook. I still don’t understand how a cat that small can do stuff like that; she must be all muscle or something. She certainly knows how to get her way. I was worried that she would starve so I rehydrated some freeze dried chicken for her. She liked it well enough; at least I haven’t found any hair balls today.

I went to the barn to check on Pretty Boy and I know it’s just a symptom of me being crazy but I swear he’s lonesome. I don’t know where he came from in the first place or how he escaped getting eat up by the dogs, coyote, foxes, and cats all around before he showed up in the yard. I wonder if there are any more where he came from. Momma O had some chickens but none of them were small like Pretty Boy. The way Mr. Henderson talked about my rooster and calling him a runt I don’t think he has any like him either. I think my poor rooster needs a girlfriend but I’m not sure where to get one. Poor thing.

I’m trying not to think about me being lonely. It’s my own fault and even though I know Momma O said that maybe … I can’t count on maybe. My great grandmother used to say “a hive of bees in May is worth a load of hay” every time anyone would answer a question with “maybe.” I still don’t know what that means. It makes about as much sense as how I feel right now.


June 25th – It is Sunday … Laurabeth and Jonathon have been married one week. Whether I had intended keeping the Sabbath of not, God made sure that I kept it today. It’s done nothing but rain all day and now the wind has picked up too. The sky looks too scary to think about. I used to like storms – they made my inside and my outside feel the same – but not today. Today I’ve felt like crawling the walls. Fraidy didn’t help; we keep giving each of static cling shocks. I’m going to bed and I hope it finally stops raining tomorrow.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 29B

June 26th – This started out being the worst day and ended up … well, I’m not quite sure how to describe it if you want to know the truth.

In the middle of last night the storm suddenly got a lot worse. I thought bombs were falling until I figured out it was thunder and lightning rattling the whole house. Fraidy jumped on my head with claws out and I had to unhook her from the top of my ear.

It was so bad upstairs that I couldn’t hear myself think so I ran downstairs and then WHAM!!! I’ve never been close to where a big bolt of lightning hit before but apparently when it happens you just know. That was the worst one. About an hour later the thunder and lightning let up but not the rain and I fell asleep on the sofa.

The next morning I woke up at my usual daybreak and was relieved not to hear rain for a change, especially after last night. Then I remembered the bolt of lightning and ran upstairs real quick and turned on the switch for the solar lights. They were dim from not charging the last couple of days but they did come on. I turned them off and was relieved and didn’t think much more about it.

I came back downstairs and was rolling up the door to the lanai when I realized I couldn’t make it go up more than a few inches. Normally Fraidy would have been out anyway but she tried to poke her head out twice only to draw back in, sit down and look at me. I didn’t want to but I got down on the floor and looked out. The only thing I could see were leaves.

My heart started beating a million miles an hour. I unrolled the front door and still in my jammies I ran outside and around back.

In case I’ve never described the lanai it is actually a great big porch built under the house roof. It’s twenty feet wide and runs nearly the entire length of the back of the house, not stopping until the big three-sided window set up where the breakfast nook bumps out from the house. The outside supports for the lanai roof are steel posts wrapped in white aluminum and there are white aluminum kick plates that run around the entire bottom area of the lanai. The screened areas are wide and tall and I remember my dad having to special order the screen because they hadn’t thought about measuring for the screens before they actually built it.

What I saw when I came around to the back of the house would have made me lose my breakfast if I had actually eaten anything yet. The roof was OK but some of the soffit and fascia had been torn free. None of the supports were messed up but two of the kick plates and four screens were demolished. There was a tree, or a half of a tree anyway, in the lanai and the topmost branches were what was keeping the roll-down from going up.

I followed the part of the tree that was still outside the lanai and saw that the tree I used to think of as “Fraidy’s Tree” was split in half … looked like it had actually exploded from the inside out. The part of the tree still standing had burn marks on it and still smoked a little bit. That scared me near to death and I ran and got buckets and buckets of water until it stopped that.

My jammies are ruined … or they would be if I had anything else that I could wear to bed. I finally went back inside and changed and tried to decide what to do. I had a glass of milk and a handful of granola after I realized the tree had taken out the grill on the lanai and was covering both of my firepits.

Knowing nobody was going to ride to the rescue I started with the easiest thing for me to do. I got the limb lopper and started cutting the branches away from the roll-down. It took me most of the morning just to get most of the small stuff off – the stuff that was as thick as my thumb. I had seven wheelbarrow loads and all I could do was dump it in piles out beside the barn; it looked like a bunch of misshapen beaver houses.

Then I went to work using the saw. I sawed and sawed and sawed. I got most of the branches that were as big as my wrist but I was hot, sweaty and tired of getting scratched by the tree and bitten by the mosquitoes. I filled the wheelbarrow up three times and it still didn’t look like I was getting anywhere.

Next I tried the ax. What a joke, all I was doing was making toothpicks and I couldn’t seem to hit the same place twice in a row no matter how much I tried. So I tried going at the tree from the other end. I was able to saw off a good sized splinter – heck, the “splinter” was half as tall as I was and nearly as big around on one end. I couldn’t lift it up into the wheelbarrow because every time I would have it up there the barrow would turn over before I could get around to the handles; Rand hadn’t been that much trouble.

I had no choice but to try moving it by hand. I pushed, pulled, and dragged it and was doing OK … not great, but OK … until I hit a soft patch of bare sand. The sand would build up in the direction I wanted to the log to go and cause such a drag I couldn’t go backward or forward. I knew I would have to change tactics when I nearly dropped it on my toe. I thought back to my world history lessons and remembered that men used to move big logs and stones by using crowbars. Daddy had a crowbar, a long one that we found on the property after we bought it. Daddy said it probably belonged to the lumber company that had taken out the trees for the utility easement.

I got the crowbar and tried and tried … I even added a fulcrum … but the sand was too soft and I was too weak. I even tried standing on the crowbar but I couldn’t stand on the crowbar and push the log at the same time. The last straw was when my sweaty hands slipped and the crowbar bounced up and caught me a glancing blow under my chin.

I was so mad I screamed, threw the crowbar like a spear and shouted, “I can’t do this by myself!!!”

“Whew! Something you finally need help with. You know a guy likes to know he is needed for something.”

I whipped around and Rand stood there with Brendon and Mick. I started seeing spots and my rear bumper met the ground.

“Hey! You OK?!” Rand asked as he limped over.

Mick said, “What did you do Rand? You made her faint!!” He looked like he couldn’t decide if he was going to cry or get mad.

Brendon saved me some embarrassment by joking, “Naw bro, she’s just overcome with the sight of us good-looking men.”

That did it, “Kiss my left big toe Meathead.”

Brendon acted like I’d shot him in the heart which got Mick smiling. Rand on the other hand still had serious on his face and bent down to where I was still sitting. “You OK?”

“Yeah, I just … after … I mean … why are you here?!”

“We’re gonna talk about that after Mick and … Meathead … leave. Look, I’ve got a favor to ask and no matter what you don’t have to say yes. Understand?”

I said yes because I think I would have said yes no matter what he asked right then.

“Can I camp out here for a while? I can’t even tell you for how long. Things are just … The house is too full and it’s not just the Winstons being there. Sawyer and Missy showed up and got married without Uncle George knowing about it and things are … “

Brendon, his normally oh so helpful self said, “What Rand is trying to say is that Dad is off his rocker and the house is busting at the seams. Things are getting worked out but … Mr. Winston and JR are actually not too bad but Julia and her mother are damn near … “

“Watch your mouth!”

“Well pardon me St. Rand of Joiner. ‘Scuse me milady,” he added with a stupid bow. “Things are unsettled and Rand is odd man out so we want to know if we can store him here for a while to get him out from under foot.”

Brendon really is a handful. I don’t care if Rand says that Alicia is taming him. I stepped in before he and Rand really starting going at it. “Of course! As long as you want but … you aren’t serious about ‘camping’ are you? The skeeters will eat you alive.”

“I tried telling him that too,” Mick piped up.

Brendon snickered and I wasn’t sure what the joke was but Rand wanted to know if it was really OK and I told him not to be a dork which made Brendon laugh even harder. I just don’t understand Brendon sometimes and I hope that Alicia knows what she is getting into. I think he’s three fries shy of a Happy Meal most of the time.”

Mick ran to get Hatchet and two mules. Rand said the mules were his. He raised them for an FHA project when he was in highschool. Brendon unloaded feed from the wagon and came running out of the barn with Pretty Boy on his heels shouting, “Call this crazy bird off already!” I was honestly tempted not to when I saw Rand was finally smiling a real smile.

The mules and wagon both were loaded down with stuff and it was set on and around the front porch. Rand looked a little embarrassed as he pointed to all the stuff lying around and said, “It’s not just me … one of the things that they’re doing is converting the attic to a room for the boys. They needed the space. I understand if you don’t … most of this stuff was my parents’ …”

I told him he was being a dork again and that there was plenty of room and he could do whatever he wanted to. Brendon snickered and Rand nearly punched him. I’m not sure what that was all about but I guarantee that if Brendon doesn’t knock it off Rand is going to knock his head off sometime in the near future.

Then all three went at the tree and got it cut back out of the lanai. I noticed Brendon doing most of the heavy work with Rand giving him a dirty look every once in a while. I kept them supplied with lemonade because I wasn’t allowed to “get in the way.” It gave me a chance to wash out my jammie bottoms and try and get them dried out and take care of the cuts all over my feet and ankles where I had forgotten to put on shoes for a while.

When they were finished all that was left was the half of tree trunk. Brendon said, “In a few days, after we get the roads cleared and take care of the trees over near our place I’ll bring Dad’s cross cut and we’ll cut this down into more manageable pieces.”

Rand just nodded as he sat in a chair, his eyes barely open. Brendon then said, “Kiri, can I have some more to drink?” as he nodded his head towards the front of the house where I had put the pitcher in a cooler.

He hurried me around front and started whispering and I finally got a look at the new-improved version, “He’s not going to give me any time to tell you so listen fast. He’s still banged up pretty good. Dad wasn’t happy about him making the trip so soon but it really will help things to calm down at the house. We found out about Julia. Don’t you worry about that part of it any more. Mr. Winston has been a lot cooler than any of us expected but things are still … Look, just don’t let him try too much … Man! This is good lemonade. It doesn’t taste out of a can.”

Figuring Rand must be coming I said, “I made it with those little packets of TruLemon I showed you instead of the other stuff. It tastes more like the real deal … and I used honey instead of white sugar.”

Rand was walking our way with a grumpy face on that cleared up when he heard us talking lemonade. Brendon even asked if he could fill up his canteen with it and take some back for Alicia, Janet, and Tommy and I said sure. No wonder Brendon was able to hide how he felt about Alicia for so long, he gave an Oscar-winning performance and it was only about lemonade.

Brendon and Mick left and Rand and I were alone. He did look tired so I started carrying his stuff into the house. “Wait on that. I want to talk.”

I thought maybe he needed more rest so I told him I’d work for a while and he could figure out what he wanted to do. “What I want is for you to sit down here. With me. And talk. About why you left the way you did.”

So we sat, him in the rocker and me on the edge of the porch, and we talked. I figured I owed him some hollering time but I apologized first. “Rand, I’m sorry. If I had stayed I would have made a mess of things. You’ve seen my temper. I’m not nice to be around some times.”

“You said that in your note. Why couldn’t you have told me that in person?”

“Because you were really in pain and … I … Rand I tried, I just chickened out.”

“Why?”

“Why did I chicken out? Because I didn’t want to get you upset and I knew you would try and talk me out of it and I was afraid that I would stay just because you asked me to … and I’m pretty sure that would have been a mistake.”

“You made me mad. You …”

“I’m really sorry Rand … “

“You talked. Now it’s my turn.”

I was positive I wasn’t going to like hearing what he had to say but I shut up. “I was mad. And my feelings were hurt.” That made me feel about two inches tall. “But what hurt more than you leaving was the fact that you didn’t tell me to my face. To me that was the worst part. I couldn’t tell if what you wrote was what you meant or if you were just trying to pacify me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that but I know I felt like crying. I didn’t want him to see my eyes watering so I turned my face away.

“Kiri, next time, have more faith in me. OK? That’s all I’m asking.”

I couldn’t believe it. “Aren’t you still mad?” I forgot and looked at him and he must have seen my face. I swear I’ve never done so much crying before in my life. Every time I turn around I’m crying in front of this guy like I’m some kind of baby.

He came over and sat by me on the porch. “Maybe a little. But mostly because you didn’t even tell me how you were being treated, I had to find out from Alicia. She’s the only one that even seemed to notice what was going on. You also didn’t tell me the whole story about how bad it was for you to get to the house and then the next day. I assumed that … that Mitch shot all those men … you could have told me.”

“What was there to tell? It just happened the way it happened.”

“We’re going to have to agree to disagree about that and when I ask about how things go from now on … I mean all of it Kiri.”

“What?! And have you see just how weird I am? Don’t you get it? I … “

“Kiri, I don’t think you’re weird.”

“You’ve got to be the only one left on the planet that doesn’t.”

He shook his head and said, “OK. This next … Kiri, I’ve been confused as heck. I thought maybe it’s just that … I keep forgetting your age and I shouldn’t. I probably don’t have any business … at least that’s what Mrs. Winston … “

“Whatever she says, don’t listen to her. She’s a mean woman Rand. Even if you hadn’t wanted to be my friend any more I still wouldn’t have let her and Julia trap you into anything.”

“Thank you. But about this ‘friend’ thing. Alicia told me some stuff that cleared a few things up for me but before I think I’ve got the answers I think I do I want to ask you a couple of things and I want a straight answer. OK?”

When he said “friend thing” I got worried but his eyes didn’t say that he wasn’t mad at me. “OK.”

“Alicia said that when you two were getting to know one another you talked about … guys.”

OK, this was weirding me out but I promised him straight answers. “Yeah. So?”

“She also said that it came up that you’ve never … dated. Was … was .. that because of something your aunt and uncle …”

“No. But Aunt Wilma was cool about it and told me I didn’t have to if I didn’t want to.”

“Soooooo … you never dated because you didn’t want to?”

“Sort of.”

Rand looked like he was getting a little frustrated but I didn’t know what to do to help him because I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You sure don’t make it easy on a guy. What I’m trying to ask is … look … have you ever had a … a … guy friend?”

“Sure … I had friends; I’m not a complete social outcast. Us weird kids stuck together … mostly anyway.”

“I don’t mean a friend who was a guy, I mean … dang it Kiri have you ever had a boyfriend?”

When I didn’t answer him he said, “Kiri?”

“No. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’m nearly seventeen years old and I’ve never … never … never anything … never had a date, never been to a dance, never even come close. I may be weird but I’m not stupid OK? I don’t know what Julia has been saying but … “

“Easy, easy. I’ve learned my lesson with Julia and her mom. It’s nothing bad and how many times do I need to tell you I don’t think you’re weird. It’s just I didn’t know … look, sometimes I didn’t know if it was just me or whether things were … flying over your head. You didn’t seem to get things and then some of the things you would say just confused me.”

I thought I had it figured out. “Rand, I promise I’ll never embarrass you. I know it’s got to be hard on you being my friend and … “

“See, there you go again. It’s not hard on me being your friend. You drive me crazy. You confuse the heck out of me. But I’m finding I like that. At first I thought maybe you were like Julia and … Whoa! Where are you going?!”

“I AM NOT LIKE JULIA!!!” I was so mad. Thinking I was weird was one thing but thinking I was like his old girlfriend was something else all together.

“No kidding. Come on, come sit back down. I’m … I’m too tired and sore to chase you.”

He said that the way that Brendon would have so I wasn’t for sure whether he meant it or was play acting to get his way but since I knew he really was hurt and sore I sat back down, just not next to him.

“Look Rand, I’m … I’m sorry I yelled at you. Just … I don’t do so well with the 20-question game. If there is something you want to know then ask. If I’m able to answer you I will. Just … just … trying to …”

“OK, fair enough but don’t blame me if this comes out all callywumpus. I’m worried about losing your friendship too you know. And don’t look so surprised, guys think of that kind of thing too. I’m used to … look, there is no way to explain this without bringing Julia into so don’t get mad. Julia always handled all this … this emotional stuff. I never had to think about it much. She always told me how I was supposed to show her affection, how she expected to be treated. She let me know what she expected and when and why. With Julia I never had to guess because she made sure to tell me every little detail … and I went along with it like that because frankly my mom and Aunt Rachel were the same way. You’re different. Boy are you different.”

I was getting more confused by the minute, “I already told you I’m … “

“Don’t. Don’t say you’re weird. Different. Eccentric. I personally like to call it unique … don’t say weird.”

I was getting embarrassed and didn’t know where to look. I just wanted him to get to the point.

“Kiri, I like you. I more than like you but I liked you first and still do enough that I don’t want to mess the friendship part up either. And if that is all there is I can learn to live with that … but I need to know where I stand. I like knowing where I stand with people. I don’t like being confused about this. It’s driving me crazy; making me cranky and hard to get along with … and that isn’t a good thing right now. I need to know if you have a problem with me more than liking you or if you feel the same way.”

“No.”

“No what? No you don’t have a problem with it or no you don’t feel the same way?”

I couldn’t even look at him. “No, I don’t mind if you more than like me.”

“What about the part about whether you feel the same?”

“I … I … I more than like you too. But … Rand I don’t know how … I … this is …“

“Hey. Whoa. I didn’t mean to scare you. Relax. I just needed to know. We don’t have to do anything about it. We’ve been doing OK so far, right?”

I was scared and nervous but I knew the answer to that question, “Yes.”

“Well, we’ll go slow. You’re … sometimes I wonder if Mrs. Winston was right. No, don’t fly off the handle. Just let me finish. You’re sixteen and I’m twenty. You might be the oldest sixteen year old I’ve ever met but that doesn’t change that you’re still sixteen. And you’ve never had a boyfriend before. We don’t want to mess that up do we?”

I didn’t know how to answer that and Rand didn’t seem to need an answer. He scooted over close to me and we just kind of sat shoulder to shoulder the way we have so many times before and after a little while I realized I wasn’t scared anymore. The whole “boyfriend” thing was big … huge … but if things aren’t going to change too much I think I can handle it. I just hope I don’t mess it up. I wonder what his family thinks of this? I can’t do this if people are going to give Rand a hard time about it.

I had to help Rand stand up because he had gotten stiff sitting down on the porch edge. We spent the rest of the afternoon bringing his stuff in and putting it in one of the spare bedrooms. We set one of the bedrooms up for him. Rand wanted to make sure that I understood he wasn’t asking for … “benefits” … or anything like that. Now that was embarrassing but Rand insisted that I needed to understand that he wasn’t out to take advantage of me or anything. To be honest I’m glad. It’s like something I never really thought about to have a boyfriend much less it be someone like Rand … I’m not ready to think about any “benefits.” Just thinking about that makes me sick to my stomach. But how long will a guy like Rand be satisfied with things being that way?

Things are changing so quickly. I’m changing so quickly in ways I don’t know if I like or not. There were people who didn’t like me before but I’ve never had anyone try and kill me on purpose. I certainly never imagined that I’d have kill someone to survive … much less all the … I still have a hard time thinking about some of the things I’ve had to do. I know it was me or them but I don’t know what to do with how that makes me feel. I’ve got to live with it; I just don’t know where to stick it in my head.

Dinner was pretty awful but Rand ate it anyway. I just heated up some canned soup because both firepits are still closed and the grill is mangled beyond all repair and quite frankly I was just too tired to get creative. Two things are at the top of my “to do” list tomorrow; go to the salvage houses and see if there is an old charcoal grill at one of those places and dig two new fire pits. I also have to rake up all the little baby fruits that have fallen in the orchard … Rand said it would be OK, that there actually wasn’t as much on the ground as he had expected, probably because the orchard is fairly protected on all four sides. In fact, I’ve got to take some time just to sit down and make a list of things that I need to do. My head is all in a swirl.

After we ate … I refuse to call that sorry excuse a real dinner … I was cleaning up the dishes when Rand stopped talking in mid-sentence. I peeped around the corner and he’d fallen asleep. It’s only once he’d fallen asleep that I really got a good look at his face. He looks pretty awful, like he’s running on the ragged edge. I’ll have to see if maybe from here on out I can feed him better. I’m not sure if food will help, but it sure can’t hurt.

After Rand fell asleep I went up to the bonus room and did my best to sew up the tears in my jammie bottoms. It looks like a weed whacker got a hold of the pants but I guess that is appropriate, that matches the legs underneath. The sun is low in the sky and I know Rand is going to want to take care of the animals before it gets dark so I’m putting this journal away for now. I hope he lets me help. Maybe if I tell him it is because I want to learn how to take care Hatchet and the mules.

Momma O was right. God does seem to let us in on things in His own good time. It sure would be nice though if He would send a script down every once in a while so I could peek a couple of pages ahead.

A couple of months ago things were so much simpler. It was the end of the world and all I needed to do was make it from Tampa to here. I wasn’t looking any more into the future than that. Now, looking to the future seems to be about all I think about. I can’t just live in the here and now. I heard a guy on the news once calling the 21st century the era of the just in time life. But that era is dead and buried. Now I wonder if we are going backward or forward and how long is it going to take us to get there?

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 30A

June 27th – The day has been full but full in a good way up ‘til the end.

I set the alarm and actually managed to wake up before Rand did. I thought it all out before I went to sleep last night. My plan was to save the propane for emergencies-only but I figured the tree and everything else was pretty close to that. I also wanted something special to celebrate … well celebrate that Rand and I … wow, this is hard even to write in my own journal which is uber stupid. I wanted to celebrate that Rand is my boyfriend. There. See, I can say it … write it … whatever, I know what I mean.

I pulled the stove out and took it to the summer kitchen door that I rarely use. Daddy almost didn’t put a door in there because that would have made three doors but Momma asked for one and Daddy hardly even told Momma “no” about something ‘cause she so rarely asked for anything. Eventually he was going to build her a covered patio out there so that she could do the messy stuff outside and then just walk it straight into the summer kitchen and do whatever she had to do like canning and stuff. He never got the chance. Sometimes, if I really think about it, I know that it was a good thing that they went together ‘cause I don’t think either one could have made it without the other. They were like two peas in a pod, two sides of the same coin, all those clichés that sound silly until you realize there is a lot of truth to them.

So I didn’t have a patio but I did have the outside AC air handlers. The big unit that was for the downstairs came up to my waist and made a pretty good table to sit the propane stove on. It gave me a whole big cooking area and boy did I cook. I fixed pancakes, hash browns, and grits with sausage TVP mixed in. While the last pancake was puffing up I fixed Tang – or whatever that “healthy” powdered orange-flavored drink is supposed to be. I put everything on a tray and was taking it to Rand right as he came stumbling out of his room.

The look on his face made me start laughing and I nearly dropped everything. He caught it and carried it to the breakfast nook while I opened a couple of windows and then opened the screens just enough to open and push back the shutters to give us some light. He thought it was for both of us and I told him that I’d eaten while I cooked. He wanted to know how he was supposed to eat it all and I told him, “Ha! Don’t forget, I’ve seen you eat.” He grinned and ate every last crumb.

I know it was silly but something about it made me smile almost all through him eating breakfast. I had to get up and clean the pans so he wouldn’t catch me staring. I bent over to put away the pans and when I stood up Rand was right there close; it’s like I stood up right into a hug. Rand wanted to know if it bothered me and I said no, that it just made me feel funny. He said, “Good. Look, I’ve kind of got a suggestion but I don’t want you to get your feelings hurt. OK?”

I thought I’d messed up the food somehow but I wasn’t going to let that show but all he said was, “Look, I really like … Kiri it would help if maybe you could make breakfast thirty or forty-five minutes later. That way I can get up, make sure the animals are taken care of and then wash up.”

I was so relieved that it wasn’t anything bad that I asked him why he thought that would hurt my feelings. “Because whether you realize it or not you … I worry about saying something that you might take as a criticism. You’re sensitive which makes me think that maybe you’ve had a lot of that and I don’t won’t you to think that I’m like everyone else and picking on you.”

I think maybe my crying like a baby so much has him thinking that I’m soft or something. I tried to be real diplomatic – a novelty for me - and said, “Rand, if I thought you were like everyone else I wouldn’t have thought twice about you after your family took you home the first time we met. I knew right away that … look, I just don’t know how to explain it. I care about what you think because I knew you were different; I knew it right from the start for some reason. I care about what your family thinks because they are your family and … well, I know that is important to you. There are some others too … like Mr. Henderson and Pastor Ken and maybe even Momma O … but only kinda sorta, unless it has something to do with you then a lot sorta. I know that this doesn’t sound very nice Rand but … well … I don’t have a lot of use for people. Too many have … oh, it doesn’t matter why but all I know is that you’re completely different, that’s all. And like you said you weren’t a mind reader, we’ll I’m not either. I’d rather you tell me stuff like this up front and not worry about hurting my feelings. I know that … well, I know I don’t know everything and that we’ll have to compromise. Is that OK? Do you understand what I mean?”

He looked at me real hard and I wanted him to understand more than anything what I was trying to say. Then he said, “I think I do. You may have to remind me a few times but I think I see what you are trying to say.” He must have liked the smile I gave him because he hugged me again, which I liked, and then he left real quick to go take care of the animals and mumbled something about being back in a little while.

After Rand came back in and washed up he caught me working on my to do list which included going over to the salvage houses and looking for a grill, hangers, and looking around to see if I could figure out some magical way to fix the lanai so that there was some place to go to get away from the mosquitoes without getting stuck inside.

He said, “You know, it would be a good idea to go over those houses … four of ‘em right? … with a fine tooth comb. I know you said you did but … you’ve got the room here to store stuff and you might as well take advantage of it. If someone else finds those houses I doubt they’ll care that you found them first.”

“Well, technically I didn’t find them first, someone took the food and stuff from the first three and I just sort of lucked out on the fourth house.”

“Maybe but that last place especially is so full of stuff … Do you mind if I come along and look around again?”

I gave him a look that told him he was being silly again. Instead of climbing the fence we took the long way around through the gate at one end of the utility easement and road the mules – whose names are Bud and Lou – across the unfenced “yards” of the houses closer to US90. While we road he answered my questions about Bud and Lou.

I asked him how come they were bigger than Hatchet? I thought mules were smaller than horses. “Bud and Lou’s dams were draft horses on a Mennonite farm outside of Valdosta. The stallion that sired them was on the tall side for a donkey. Uncle George thought I had lost my mind when I told him what I’d helped do and that the Mennonite agreed to let me work for them instead of paying cash. I worked my butt off that summer but at the end of it I had Bud and Lou and they’ve been faithful ever since. Bud is the straight man of the team and Lou is the comedian. Watch your braid around Lou, he’s fond of chewing on them. Janet has stopped wearing ribbons when she is around these two because she swears they snatch them and won’t give them back.”

The first house smelled so nauseating now I could barely stand to go in it and the heat made everything smell rancid. Had there been something in there I desperately needed I don’t think I would have taken it anyway. Rand made me stay outside but came back pretty quickly heaving and hacking and with his eyes watering. He said that the ceiling had fallen in the boy’s bedroom and there was mold and mildew growing everywhere. “There’s even mushrooms coming up in the carpet in what looks like the mom’s bedroom.” The outside of the house wasn’t much better. Time and the weather and the fact the house hadn’t been in very good repair when I found it were all taking their toll.

The second house I told Rand was what I called the “neat house.” He showed me though that the house was primarily just for looks and really wasn’t as solid as what Daddy had built. “See what you are calling built in cabinets? They aren’t really. This is just a drywall alcove that they put shelves in and then used wood trim pieces to make it look like a cabinet. The trim pieces are stained nice but they’re the cheap stuff, probably something they picked up at Lowe’s. And the shelves? They’re particle wood. Someone knew how to make something look nice but it would have taken a beating after a few years.”

He also showed me what I thought was expensive furniture really wasn’t. The drawer facings were wood and plastic trim but the drawers were pressed board. “You can tell this was a house that didn’t have kids in it. Stuff like this is something that adults can keep nice but kids would be so rough that the new would wear off of it real fast. Aw, don’t look at me like that. I’m sure they liked it and were probably nice people just trying to have nice looking stuff but I’m trying to think about what is going to last for a long, long time. My dad was always on my mom for buying new furniture every couple of years. He told her it would have been cheaper if they had paid extra and bought the good stuff in the first place instead of replacing stuff several times. It was an argument he never won. Aunt Rachel was even worse. She had the good stuff – it was just an older style – and she was always on Uncle George to buy new furniture but he wouldn’t because he said there was nothing wrong with what they had that a little polish wouldn’t fix.”

While we were in there I asked him if there was anything he needed and he said, “A few things.” Since he didn’t tell me what they were I don’t know. But I think he was looking for razors and shaving cream because he kept looking in the nightstands and bathrooms of the houses we went into. I guess he found some stuff because I saw him put something in his pockets. He jumped when I asked him if he’d found what he was looking for. I didn’t know guys got embarrassed about razors and stuff. Of course, I didn’t exactly want him seeing me looking for new pajama bottoms either.

I also saw him looking through all of the men’s clothes but nothing fit right. I told him if it came close but was too big or a little too short I could maybe alter it for him. That’s when we got off to talking about the fact that I could sew and when I told him I made the skirt I had worn to Laurabeth’s wedding he acted like I had done something like walk on the moon. Honestly, who would have thought that he’d make such a big deal about it and then want to see the treadle sewing machine when we got home?

The one thing that the second house did have is a screened in porch. Rand says that if he can take some of the parts off of it he might be able to splice them together and fix the lanai a little better than putting plywood or sheets of aluminum siding over where the tree had taken everything out. “It won’t be a perfect match but it will do the job.”

I made him laugh when I told him, “You’ll never notice it on a galloping horse.” It’s one of the things my grandmother used to say, especially if something wasn’t a perfect match. Mom said she used to tell them that a lot when she was a little girl when they finally noticed that they didn’t have quite the same kind of new clothes the other kids had. My mother started school in her brother’s bib overalls that he’d outgrown several years before and a shirt that had been patched a couple of times that used to belong to her sister. My mom was one of those people that understood what poor really meant. But she always said that while they were poor in the pocket book they were rich in the Spirit. My dad always said that that attitude is one of the first things that attracted him to her. When I asked what were some of the other things he said, “Never you mind. I’ll tell you when you’re older.” I think I know what he was referring to but no one likes to think of their parents like that … it’s a little on the freaky side.

Rand made a pile of some other stuff out of the house and shed under a shade tree then we went on to the third house. There he piled a bunch of tools and stuff that I hadn’t bothered with because one, Daddy has enough tools in the barn to last a life time and two, they were too heavy for me. When I shook my head and told him he was as bad as Daddy had been he looked and said, “How?”

“Daddy was forever going to flea markets and yard sales and picking through the tools. The only thing that Momma ever asked was for it to be kept out of the way so that my brother and I couldn’t get into it. She said we got into enough as it was and he was as bad as we were about dragging out toys and not putting them away.”

That made Rand laugh and we went over the rest of the house with him agreeing that there really wasn’t much else worth anything except he did find some flannel shirts and a couple of work-alls that will fit him once I take them up in a couple of places. Rand’s tall, he says 5’11”, but whomever these belonged to before must have been as thin as Rand but at least as tall as Major Sawyer.

That reminded me to ask him about Missy and how his uncle was taking her getting married without his permission. “Well, technically she didn’t need his permission. She’s … 25, 27 … I can’t remember which. She’s several years older than Laurabeth anyway. Uncle George was just getting comfortable with the age difference between the two of them … he still sees Missy as his little wild child. It was easier for him to see Laurabeth get married because she was always the “good girl” and the steady one and you’ve met Jonathon. He’s better now that the shock has wore off and it didn’t hurt that Sawyer came bearing gifts.”

When he saw I didn’t understand, “I forget with everything at sixes and sevens you haven’t heard. They closed the Supply Depot and there was a major pull out of the military. No one knows where they went or why just that the message came down to make it so. But the National Guard was completely put back under the control of the Governor who pulled them to Tallahassee and a couple of other strategic locations. That left Sawyer in a bad way; he’s injured and not ready for active duty and so close to retirement that he didn’t want to redeploy. They let him go; they are calling it terminal leave but if things were normal he’d probably qualify for disability. It’ll be weeks, maybe months before he is one hundred per cent. Things were going down so fast that … don’t say anything to anyone … there was only one shipment left to be picked up … some food, ammo, and that sort of thing. The Colonel that was Sawyer’s boss left him in charge of it but when no one showed Sawyer tried contacting someone to find out what the hold up was. Before he could get it all out this Colonel gets on the radio and says that every item that was supposed to be picked up was. There was a kind of wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing going on so Sawyer thinks it was this Colonel’s way of making sure that Sawyer wasn’t just dumped down a dark hole in the middle of nowhere with nothing for his twenty.” I didn’t ask what it all was because I figured if I was supposed to know he would have told me.

We had lunch on a bench at the fourth house. It was just some granola and dried fruit with water to wash it down but Rand said he didn’t mind because breakfast had been filling. While we sat on the bench he put his arm around me. I didn’t know what to do and when he realized I wasn’t relaxed like him he asked me if I was OK. We’d agreed to be honest with each other so told him I didn’t know what to do he said I didn’t have to do anything; we were just sitting there resting before we headed into the jungle. Actually what he said was just as silly as the way he said it. “Before we head off into the wilderness with mountains of lace covered furniture, valleys of John Deere décor, rooster wall papered cliffs, and to wade through rivers off wall-to-wall stuff.” I laughed and everything was easy again. I don’t understand how he does that.

But to be honest his description may have been silly but it wasn’t all that far from the truth. There were a lot of little things like paperclips, post it notes, pencils, picture wire, clothes hangers, and stuff like that so Rand said to gather up the pillow cases off of the beds and we’d use them as bags. I was grabbing about the fourth pillow when all I could do is holler, “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew!!!!”

Rand nearly broke his neck running to find out what the problem was. I pointed and he gingerly lifted up the pillow and then just about fell down laughing. It’s not funny! How would you like to be going about your business and pick something up to find a bunch of wriggling, squiggling, pink baby mice. Yuck! And I am so not scared of mice I just happen to find them absolutely disgusting. They poop everyplace and they eat stuff and they make incredible messes that are totally unhygienic and gross. Bet if he had worked in a restaurant he would have hated the very thought of mice and rats too.

I told him we had to check absolutely everything again because I didn’t want any mice in the house. He said he checked it before he loaded stuff into the mules’ carriers. I told him I didn’t care if he wouldn’t check it here it was gonna go in the barn until I could check it there. He finally gave in when he saw how freaked I was.

It was getting passed time to go home and I was checking over things one more time (and trying to hide the sweat pants I found to use as jammies) and when I came out with my mouth open to say “all through” Rand shushed me with a hand up. I could tell that Lou and Bud were nervous and how quiet it had gotten. Then I heard them … the whuffling and the quiet snarling and snapping, the low growls.