America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere (9 page)

"Wow," Kate said. "Sunny side up too. I'll dip
one of those biscuits into the yolk. I love egg yolk," she
confessed to both of them.

"Best part of the egg," Mike agreed. "Man, this
is a good life right here."

"It is," Janet Dove said. She left them to
their coffee as she left to prepare their eggs.

~

The morning passed quickly for Mike. He, Kate,
Patty and Ronnie spent the morning searching the store room of the
small mom and pop store Janet had spoken of, and another that was
diagonally across the road from it. Between the two, they found all
sorts of useful things, besides just the flour and Bisquick she had
told them about.

Batteries, disposable lighters, key-chain can
openers. Ronnie spent a few minutes with a small battery powered
video game, and then set it aside.

"No need to start that shit again," he said
with a grin as he tossed it onto a stack of old
newspapers.

There were bundles of the local newspaper near
the front door, everyone looked at them twice, but in the end no
one felt tempted to cut the string that held them together to read
one of them. And back against one wall, the mother lode of seeds,
apparently ordered for Spring and not yet put out. There were
several large boxes, and a couple of boxes of books on gardening
apparently meant to be put out of the same time.

They carried everything out onto the pavement
where one of the Suburbans was parked. A small, black metal ladder
lead from the heavy duty rear step bumper to the large metal rack
that had been mounted to the roof. The rack had sides that stood
about one foot from the deck of the rack. Designed to form a long
metal box to pack things into.

Mike and Ronnie filled the rack as Kate and
Patty filled the rear cargo area, and the two five gallon gas cans
mounted on the rear tire carrier that also held a spare tire. The
ladder to the top rack was incorporated into the swing out tire
carrier. The whole unit worked well and was problem free, swinging
easily out of the way to allow access to the rear double doors and
the interior of the Suburban.

They were both surprised how much the rooftop
rack could hold. They had lined the bottom of the rack with a blue
waterproof tarp and then wrapped the whole load with more of the
same when they had finished. Bungee cords pulled tight kept
everything in place.

"I wouldn't have believed you guys could put
that much stuff up there," Patty said.

Mike grinned at her, "Believe me," he said,
"neither did we."

"You know, you're right about the vehicles,"
Ronnie said.

"How so?" Mike asked.

"Gives us more stuff to drag around. But I have
to admit, stuff we will need," Ronnie said and laughed.

"Wait until Bob and Janet hear about the
seeds," Patty said.

"Hell, there's everything we could possibly
need to grow right there," Mike said.

"We should still look for hybrids," Kate
said.

"What kind?" Mike asked.

"Any kind. They have genetically developed
corn, tomatoes, peppers, you name it. Grows faster, resistant to
this and that, grows bigger, higher, more protein," Kate
elaborated.

"Where could we find it?" Mike
asked.

"I don't know," Ronnie said.

"I bet Janet or Bob would know," Patty
said.

Kate nodded. "Probably one of
them, what do you call it,
feed
stores?
I've seen them in farming
communities, you know, on A&E," she finished.

"Yeah, I've seen those shows too," Patty
said.

"Like small towns," Kate agreed. She hesitated,
“So... what did you two think about what Bob had a say?" She asked
at last.

"We wanna do it," Ronnie said,
"but..."

"We were wondering what you were going to do,"
Patty said. She looked at Kate and then Mike.

"I think it's good," Mike said. "But I won't go
anywhere Kate wont. So I can't commit until she does."

"She does," Kate said. "I wanted my man and my
best friend too. I got what I wanted." She smiled.

"We're going," Patty squealed, launching
herself at Kate.

"I can't believe it. We'll get to raise our
kids together," Kate said, every bit as excited as
Patty.

Mike and Ronnie stood back, arms folded across
their chests and watched as the two hugged, squealed, and
congratulated each other.

"Dude," Mike said.

"Dude," Ronnie repeated grinning.

"Don't you two pick on us," Patty said. Her
eyes were bright.

"Wouldn't think of it," Mike said.

"Me either," Ronnie said.

"Sure you would," Kate said. They let go of
each other and turned to the men.

"You're sure?" Kate asked Mike.

"Yep," he said.

"You?" Patty asked Ronnie.

"Yes, ma'am," Ronnie said.

"Yes!" Kate said and grabbed Patty
again.

"Yahoo," Patty said as they jumped up and
down.

"Yahoo?" Mike asked.

"Old cowboy thing," Ronnie said.

"You," Patty said slapping Ronnie's shoulder
softly, then pulling him to her and kissing him.

"And you too," she said giving Mike a sisterly
kiss on the cheek.

"Come here," Kate said. She kissed Mike and
then gave Ronnie a kiss on the forehead. "I guess we're pretty
happy," she said.

"I guess you are, Babe," Mike said and kissed
her back.

~

At midday, Mike and Ronnie left Kate and Patty,
who we're still going through the two smaller mom and pop stores,
finding all kinds of surprises, and headed over to the garage area.
Molly and Tom were finishing up bumpers on the last of the trucks,
while Bob was helping to remount the last two tires on the last of
Jeff's Hummers.

"Ronnie and I want to take one of the pickups
down the road a bit, Bob," Mike said.

"Sure," Bob said. "Anyone but that one," he
pointed at the one Molly and Tom were working on. "But that one
will be done in an hour or so if you want to wait."

"Nope," Mike said. "One of the ones outside
will do just fine. Can we take you with us, or are you really
busy?" Mike asked.

"Can if you want me. Sent Tim and Annie off to
spend some time alone. We're almost done. There's really nothing
left but that bumper and a test drive, and Molly and Tom can take
care of that."

"Good, we need your opinion," Mike
said.

Bob put some muscle into the last lug nut he
was tightening and then handed off the lug wrench to
Jeff.

"Jeff, you want to come along?" Mike
asked.

"Let me finish these lug nuts, and I'll be
right along," Jeff said.

A few minutes later the pickup truck pulled
out, followed by the hummer, and headed down the road following
Jan's general directions.

About a mile down the road, Mike spotted the
old partially collapsed barn and pulled down off the broken
pavement and headed towards it. He stopped the truck and backed
around, facing the road.

"Stiff, but it walked right down off the
pavement like it was nothing, and in two wheel drive no less," Mike
said.

Bob and Jeff walked up "What have we got here?"
Bob asked?. He looked over the barn, picking up on the faint
clucking sounds coming from the interior.

"Guess you found Jan's chickens," Bob
said.

"Yep, and that's what I wanted to talk to you
about... chickens. I don't know anything about them," he said, "or
cows, or horses, or... What else is there I should know about,
Bob?" Mike asked.

"Um, well, what for?" Bob asked.

"For everything. All of it, because me and
Kate, Ronnie and Patty are going in with you on this wilderness
idea. We talked it over; we're going to do it," he told
him.

Bob's face lit up, "Really?" he
said.

"Really," Mike said. He looked over at Ronnie.
“Watch him in case he starts jumping up and down," he
said.

"Did you tell Janet?" Bob asked.

"Nope. Thought you would,
should,
" Mike said. "But
I was wondering if chickens can travel. If, since we will need
chickens, we should take these," he said.

"We could," Bob said, "but we'd probably lose
an awful lot of them, we got quite a ways to go. Plus, they'd stop
laying almost immediately."

"Why?" Ronnie asked.

"They don't like change, noise, different, and
anything else that upsets their normal routine," Bob told him. He
paused. "We're going to have to change our direction of travel,"
Bob continued. "If we're going to the place I picked. Who all is
going?" he asked.

"All of my people want to," Jeff said. "I was
going to get with you about it myself. But, well, this seems to be
a good time for it."

"I can't speak for anyone except the four of
us, but, Sandy and Susan made it clear they want to go as well,"
Mike said.

"Tom and Lilly also want to go," Bob
said.

"That leaves Nell and Molly and Tim and Annie,"
Mike said.

"No, Tim and Annie said they want to go to,"
Ronnie said. "And last I knew Nell wanted too. So really that's all
of us, except the little ones. That's twenty four people. Wow,"
Ronnie said.

"We should discuss it further tonight," Mike
said.

"So animals, how are we going to
do it, Bob?"

"Well, to be honest, I hadn't thought quite
that far. But I've been thinking cattle trucks," Bob
said.

"What's that?" Jeff asked.

"They're just big trucks with a stake rack. You
can run twenty cows up in one, I wouldn't try it with horses. But
we need that kind of space. I think we'll have to drive them, cows
and horses together. They graze with each other, they should herd
with each other," he seemed to be thinking out loud.

"You lost me, Bob. Drive them in trucks?" Mike
asked.

"No. Drive them on the ground, as
in cowboy style. I don't think we'll be able to get those trucks as
far back as we want to go. It's pretty wild country. But, even if
we did, we have no fences. We have no homes. We have crops to
plant. It would be better to go with what we need, seed, food,
tools, get ourselves established this year, get a crop in the
ground. Next year we could come out and get horses, cows, other
animals. Or, drive them in with us and, well,
turn them loose
. Most of them will
stay near us, some would go wild pretty quick though.” He shook his
head slightly “We're going to have to sit down and talk this out...
all of us... and also make sure everyone wants to go," Bob
said.

"If we kick it open, we'll probably get some
more good feedback," Ronnie said.

"That's the best way to do it," Jeff
agreed.

"I like both ideas. Maybe we could take some
animals with us then come out for more in the Spring? Most likely
by then there will be a million and one things we need anyway,"
Mike said. "But yeah, we can't discuss it like this. Everybody
needs to be in on it."

"Well, we can't take these chickens with us,
but it's early, I bet we could get a bunch of them ready to eat,"
Bob said.

"Never did that before," Jeff said. "How's it
go?"

"Me either," Ronnie said, looking a little
nervous.

"Ditto," Mike said.

"Well, gotta learn some time," Bob said. "Ain't
hard."

~

By the time the four men had gutted and plucked
the feathers from twenty chickens, it was well after noon and
everybody was covered with blood and feathers.

"Let's get these back to Jan," Bob said. "then
we'll get down to the stream.”

"I second that," Mike said. He was trying to
blow a small downy feather off his nose, reluctant to touch his
nose with his hands which were blood sticky, and looked themselves
to be feathered. "Hey, didn't Janet say there was a well here
somewhere?" he asked hopefully.

A few minutes of searching found the water
where it bubbled up fresh and cold and ran down into the trough.
They all got cleaned up before they left.

~

Janet gratefully accepted the chickens when
they handed them over to her.

"I had thought of that as well, but I couldn't
find two men willing to take me down there," she said.

Bob kissed her on the cheek. "We saved you the
drive," he said.

"Why, Bob," she said, embarrassed.

"Everybody's going," Bob said, "With us.
They're all coming with us."

Janet grabbed Bob's face between her palms and
kissed him hard, pumped one fist in the air and said,
"Yes!"

"Jan," Bob said, surprised. Then they both
laughed and hugged. "We are going to talk it over tonight. We're
not sure of Molly and Nell. Other than that, everybody else is
in... including Jeff's people."