Working With Cedar: The Early Years, page 5
“A floor does not a bed make.” Betty pushed herself to sit, grunting as she did. Nash saw her move her head to sweep the room. “Dead bodies; I don’t like waking to them.” She struggled to her feet, reached a hand to Nash and said, “Let’s gather the weapons and ammunition, and leave. We can eat … Well, er, shoots, we don’t know where we’re going, but we can eat anywhere other than here.”
Nash accepted her help and duplicated her survey of the room. He mentioned that Ellen had managed to squirm several feet from her position when they’d lain down.
Betty strode to her and squatted to check the binding cords. “Damn, she found a piece of glass. All she managed to do with it is cut her fingers and nick her wrists.”
Ellen, sounding even more nasally than before, said, “You’re lucky I didn’t get loose.”
Betty didn’t respond to her statement, instead, she said, “Hey Nash, you want to smell a murderer that stinks of piss and poop?”
The very thought made him shudder. “No thanks. If her knots are tight, what I really want to do is go.”
Betty stood. “I don’t disagree.” She gave Ellen a solid kick on her butt. “That’s your reward for trying to get loose so you could kill us in our sleep.”
“I hate you. One day I’ll kill you for this.” Ellen’s nasally tone robbed her words of the menace she intended, but that didn’t stop Betty from kicking her ass even harder.
“Threaten us again, Go ahead, and open your mouth. My foot likes you.” Ellen didn’t respond. Betty said, “She’s learned her lesson for this morning.”
They gathered two dozen rifles, six shotguns, and sixteen pistols. Opening two steel ammunition cases stacked beside the front door, Nash found they each held eight pipe bombs.
While Nash struggled to find space for the weapons and bombs, Betty brought out crates and boxes of ammunition of many different calibers. After stuffing the last of the booty into the trailer, it took their combined weight to shut and latch the hardcover. Betty did most of the labor involved in reattaching the trailer to the Jeep.
Betty’s last act was to call Ellen’s daughter to the door leading to the bedrooms.
“Nichole, open the door a crack and let me see just your hands. Not your head, just the hands.”
Nichole showed her empty hands. Betty called out, “Sammy, Bill, let me hear you. Shout hello.”
Nash heard their muted hello. Betty shouted, “Good boys. You’d better stay in the bedroom.” and then turning her head to him, “The boys are only ten and twelve, but never trust the spawn of murderers. Those two were raised listening to their parents preaching hate and distrust.”
Speaking to Nichole, Betty continued, “Nichole, in a few minutes you will hear an engine crank. That will be my friend and me driving to get stuff from the tool shed. Your mother is still alive. She’ll try to get you to come out, but you’d better not until you hear us crank up a second time. If we catch you in this room, we won’t shoot you, but I’ll shoot your mother’s knee. Do you believe me?”
“Yes mam, I won’t come out until then.”
Leaving the room, walking toward the front door, Nash saw something on the floor that made him abruptly stop, causing Betty to bump into him.
Pointing with his maimed hand to a lump of bloody meat on the floor, he said, “Dang it to hell, Betty, that’s my finger. What’d you do, just toss it over your shoulder?”
Nash could hear an ‘almost laugh, in her answer. “Did you want a formal burial for it?”
“No, and you’re not funny. You could have put it someplace so I wouldn’t see it.”
“All I’ve got for you is, oops… Now go, please. There are worse things to see in here than your finger.”
Nash drove the jeep to the end of the driveway, put the vehicle into neutral and said, “Betty, you’ll have to drive. I can handle the steering wheel one-handed, but what if something happens like last night. Without two hands, I would have lost it when the SUV rammed us.”
They switched seats. Not putting it in drive, Betty asked, “Should we go back to where we camped yesterday?”
“No. Take us to the freeway. Along the way, we’ll look for a safe place to make plans. Retaking the supplies opens several avenues. Either way, we won’t stay in this area.”
“You afraid ‘Big bad Ellen’ will find us.”
“Ha, ha, very funny, and no, but I do feel we are much too close to civilization. Those ‘vectors for infection’ everyone keeps mentioning, remember?”
Betty shrugged. “Are you thinking about hiding in the woods, sleeping in a tent? I’m not much of a camper, never a Girl Scout, but I am in good physical shape. You seem in shape as well. Hiding in the woods will be the best way to avoid people. Do you think you have enough food in the trailer to last nine months to a year?”
It was Nash’s turn to shrug. “Maybe, I don’t know. I haven’t done an in-depth inventory to the point of counting meals.” Reflecting further, “No, we don’t have nearly enough to last that long. We’ll need to supplement somehow.”
Betty asked, “Do you have a map of Georgia?”
Nash opened the dash glove box and pulled out several rectangles of folded paper. “I have Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee.”
“Good. Keep your eyes open for a place where we can eat and look at the maps. Without a destination we’ll get nowhere.”
Nash, still upset about her cavalier treatment of his finger, chuckled and said, “Very astute, I’d have never thought that.”
Betty said, “It was an asinine observation, wasn’t it. Now if you want a real funny, how long do you think Nichole will wait for the second cranking before she unties her mother?”
Nash laughed again, “Is second cranking any kin to the second coming?”
Betty gave his shoulder a good-natured punch. “Absolutely, I belong to the church of the Second Cranking. Now quit squirming on the seat before you rip your stitches loose.”
“But my butt itches.”
She glanced toward him, giggled and said, “But me no Butts. You’re a big boy, live with it.” As Betty turned away to shift the transmission to drive, she said, “I like laughter and a man with a sense of humor. Keep a keen eye for a place to pull off, I’m starving.”
Nash didn’t say, “And I really like your blue eyes,” but it was in his mind.
He drew his pistol and laid it on his lap. A place to eat wasn’t the only reason to keep a keen eye. He didn’t intend to let trouble come as close as it did when they were last on the road.
Leaving behind yet another house full of dead murderers, it came to Nash that his finger did deserve a decent burial.
They passed by an isolated metal building with a sign ‘Small Engine Repair’. The roadway was barely wide enough for Betty to make a U-turn. Behind the building, hidden from the road, using the hood of the jeep for a desk, they unfolded their maps to plan their uncertain future.
WORKING WITH CEDAR AUGUST, 2068
Nate Chalmers prods my side with the butt of his rifle. Wake up, Nash.”
“I’m not asleep, fool. Ask before you take a liberty like that.”
“Could’a fooled me. Ya ain’t got much done on them coffins.”
Nate has no idea how badly the word ‘coffin’ cuts into me. To walk past it, I say, “You know, Nate, you’re one of the main reasons the children are so illiterate. They hang around you too much.”
“If you weren’t so damn upright and demanding, they’d hang around you. Kids like grownups that come down to their level, play in the mud puddles and get dirty, teach em stuff like root-the-peg, such stuff like that. Peggy said you wanted to talk to me.”
“I do, but first…”
Nate anticipated my question. “We ran em ta ground, five, six mile this side of Crump. We’ve got the bastards trapped inside a concrete-block warehouse close to the Crump flea market. Helmsley thought to starve them out rather than chance losing more of us in a shootout. Told him I wasn’t waiting till they starve. I’m here ta mix up some ANFO. Figure sixty pounds of the shit will take away their shelter. Leave em exposed to the elements, so ta speak. Lead’s an element, ain’t it?”
“Yep, lead’s an element. Are you planning to head right back out?”
“I have to. Besides mixing the ANFO, I’m ta bring back grub for the men keeping the gang corralled. What’d ya want me for?”
Not wanting to tell my business since it was useless, I say, “Just wanted an update. It would be nice if you and the boys try to bring in the leader alive.”
“You know that’s not the rule. We catch violent transgressors we interrogate them and then kill them on the spot. That’s yours and Betty’s rule, I’ll remind ya.”
“That’s why it’s the rule. Keeps us from dirtying ourselves, but I sure would like to wallow with that son of a bitch.”
“Pigs wallow with pigs, and you ain’t no pig. If you like, I can shoot him a few extra times just for you.”
I picture the bastard’s head bouncing with the impacts, and tell him, “Yeah that would please me. Shoot his head, if you will.”
“Helmsley will be pissed for the waste of rounds, but I’ll do it for sure.” Nate hawks a wad of phlegm and spits it through the barn opening. “A twenty-five-footer for sure, that one.”
Disgusting, but he and Penny are always the last two standing at the line at our annual Spring Festival spitting contest. The pleasures of our post-societal community are simple and cheap. Toss watermelons, judge pies, cakes, and animals. Potluck dinner and a whooping good hoedown come evening, that’s how simple folk living simple lives celebrate life.
Nate’s good, but Little Billie loved working with explosives, New Year’s. Fourth of July, Spring Festival, he’d put together a fireworks display for the young ones. Exploding rockets, methane gas bursts, giant rooted-in-the-ground sparklers; not much of a show compared to pre-plague extravaganzas, but plenty enough to satisfy the current batch of rug-rats.
I force my attention back to Nate. “You should try to keep one of the raiders alive. Find out the location of their main camp.”
“We had two prisoners, wounded em on the chase. We was so hot on their sorry asses, the bunch didn’t slow down ta help em. One of the prisoners died ‘natural’ soon enough from his lung-shot. The other one died from lead to the head from Abe’s pistol.
“Abe interrogated them separate, and what they told us agreed. The gang’s roamers, they got no permanent hideout… Nash, they got past security using a filthy trick none of us was expecting and hurt they us, Once I blow the building, that gang’s history.”
Nate turns his head, hawks another wad and lets it fly. Observing the flight, I say, “That was pitiful.”
He nods agreement. “Spit wad was too thin. I’ll be getting on now, seeing as how ya got catching up ta do. I reckon you got four or five hours of good daylight left. Walter Boggs with the ethanol crew ain’t half-bad at fine work. Want me to send a boy over ta draft him?”
Standing to follow him from the barn, I say, “You do that.”
Nate continues a couple of steps and then turns to say, “I’m right sorry about what happened. I know that don’t help none, but there it is anyway.”
“It’s appreciated.”
Back at my workstation beside the workbenches and trailer, I watch until he disappears through the door to the Quonset kitchen. He’s right about Walter’s carpentry, but I’d prefer Nate’s hands with mine.
Taking up my plane, looking at the stack of boards still on the trailer, I know what Betty would say. “Get it done, Nash”.
This time I manage to keep my concentration of the job, even eat the supper Penny had one of the children bring over.
Walter showed up an hour before sundown and I set him planing the remaining four planks. I had to dress my draw-edge with a file before starting the final smoothing. The tool is long enough to bridge the width of the planks. Bob Grimes, our smithy, made it from a section of a mower blade.
The way he set the wooden pulls make it look like bicycle handlebars. Held at the proper angle the draw-edge acts as a scraper to smooth and flatten the board.
The sun touches the treetops. Walter has planed two of the remaining boards and I match him by sliding a second smoothed plank onto what I will call my ready pile.
Knowing I reached my limit, I say, “Walter, I thank you, but I’m used up. It’s time for me to call the day.”
Walter shrugs and says, “Parsons predicts rain on Thursday or Friday. Spoke with him only this afternoon. Says tonight will clear, and what with a full moon, I may as well keep working for a while yet.”
I again glance at the sky. The low sun is a bright orange eye, burning and huge. Turning, I locate the pale disk of the moon, big, already high over the east horizon, promising to shine like a lantern once the sun drops.
Reach to shake hands and thank Walter, say to him, “Yep, it will be a bright night. I recollect you’re close to thirty-five, too young to remember the polluted air the moon fought to shine through, but now, on cloudless nights, the stars alone are bright enough to light a path. Nature can do wonders when it’s not fighting an enemy willing to kill itself.” Then I thought to modify that, “Mother nature did do a wonder. She put a hurt on us forty years ago. She managed to kill most of us and she’s worked to undo our mess ever since.”
I wiggle my hand so Walter will notice it. “Walter, I appreciate your help. How’s tomorrow look?”
He took my hand and held it. “Morning’s free. I won’t work past midnight. I’ll see you after breakfast.”
“After breakfast, then. Can I have my hand?”
Walter releases it and says, “I thought to say something, but saying something won’t erase anything.”
“No it won’t, but I appreciate the thought.”
I admonish him not to leave my jackplane where dew can lay on it. My scraper finds a home on top of a hay bale in the barn and I go to the community-shower behind the far end of the kitchen.
At home, the closed door to our empty bedroom does not beckon my body. I am weary and sore, a blanket and pillow … the couch in the living room takes me into dream. Drifting into the past, my mind invents the scent of Betty’s hair and I feel her presence close beside me as we peruse the maps.
GEORGIA JUNE 2023
Decisions to make
Nash spread a map of Georgia onto the hood of his jeep. Standing close beside Betty, he caught a faint floral scent wafting from her. “You smell like a flower. I hate to think how bad I must smell.”
Betty placed a hand on the map to keep the breeze from lifting it. “You smell my washed out perfume …Gardenia. Actually, you have no odor, probably because we went through several wash and dry cycles last night.”
Staring at the map, thinking, Gardenia was now his favorite flower, Nash said aloud, “I have no idea which way we should go,”
Betty bent to study the map. The move brought her closer to him. Unlike being near Jill, he liked her presence in his space.
Pointing with her free hand she said, “Cities of any size are colored yellow. Here’s where we are, just north of Atlanta. You mentioned vectors. Any place on this map that is yellow represents major sites for the possibility of the Ebola virus.”
A stiff breeze prompted Nash to place a hand on the bottom of the map to stop it from fluttering. “Let’s break it down. Look at how many highways and other roads there are north of the city all the way to the Georgia state-line. It’s very populated going towards Tennessee or South Carolina.”
Betty said, “Yeah, and see all the green representing the national parks, especially ‘The Great Smokey Mountains’. That’s the sort of area survivalists will head to.”
“What’s the difference between survivalists and preppers?” Nash asked.
Betty expression, thoughtful, lingered for a long moment before she answered. “Both terms have been sensationalized on TV and cable. I’ll try to define them without the extremes.
“A survivalist prepares to live off the land. That in itself has various forms. Urban survival entails themes such as stocking weapons and ammo, martial arts training, preparing the home or hideaway in such a way as to be defendable. They are prepared to scavenge what they need. That would be the hallmark of a survivalist in an urban setting.
Another aspect of the survivalist would equate more to a frontiersman. They study and train to live in the wilderness off the grid far from others, to let nature provide for them, hunting, trapping, and foraging for wild fruits, roots and vegetables. They study primitive skills like archery, fire making, and stuff like that.”
“To sum up, survivalists in general don’t stockpile large amounts of supplies. They’re mostly loners who want to survive, come what may.”
“And prepper’s?” Nash prompted.
“Preppers prepare. That’s what they do. What they all have in common is they ready themselves, seek a hedge against a calamity. Like survivalists, many preppers stockpile weapons and ammunition. While there are solitary preppers, the tendency is toward familial or communal efforts to get ready for disaster.
“Prepping can be urban or rural. Urban prepping entails stockpiling lots of food and water along with weapons for self-defense. The trouble with that is eventually they will deplete their supplies and end up as survivalists without true survival skills. I fear many of them will become killers. Take what they want from others who have it.
“Rural preppers tend to seek living off the grid for long-term self-sufficiency, but strive to have conveniences like their own power source, solar, wind, or fueled generators. They rely on wells or rainfall for water. Usually they will have goats, chickens and rabbits to provide meat, and they plan extensively for gardening, including preservation and storage for their harvest.”
Betty shrugged and said, “Believe me, that was definitely a poor unenhanced explanation of the terms.”
Nash said, “It was a good enough explanation to tell me we’re screwed. I’m not a survivalist, nor am I a prepper. All we have on my part is a trailer-load of hasty, last minute shopping.”
