American Apocalypse Wastelands (18 page)

I sniffed the air. It occurred to me that if it was squirrel piss, I might be able to smell it. I wasn't sure exactly what squirrel piss smelled like, though.

Max gave me his “Knock off whatever crazy shit is going on in your mind and focus” look. I really hated meetings, and this one had not even started.

They were waiting for us, sitting in high-backed, black leather executive chairs. The council table was solid looking and very heavy. I bet if they flipped it over and took cover behind it, we would have a hard time digging them out.

I knew Shelli and nodded to her. The rest I had seen around. The pastor turned out to be the guy who had been sitting in the diner with his wife when we met Old Guy. His comb-over was looking very sharp today. We even had an audience of five people. You got to love concerned citizens. I was surprised to see Old Guy in the audience.

The other woman on the council looked like every old white lady I had seen around here. The only difference was, she wasn't carrying an extra hundred pounds. I realized then that the real fatties were disappearing. Maybe poverty had turned out to be the best diet ever. I added that to my Ask Night Later list. Some days it grew to be almost as long as the list of things she wanted me to do.

The pastor sat in the center. The two women flanked him, and Bob was on Shelli's right. The pastor and Grandma had plastic bottles of water and notepads in front of them. In front of Shelli sat a silver metal reusable water container with a hand-painted scene of something flowery.

They had set up two chairs in front of the table, facing them. I knew where we would be sitting.

“Please take a seat, men.” Pastor had taken charge. I bet he was a meeting person.

We settled in. I winked at Grandma, who grinned back at me. That caught me by surprise. I had expected either no response or a frown.

The pastor steepled his hands on the tabletop. “We have considered your proposal and we have several questions for you.” I groaned inside. “We will begin with Mrs. Edna Jacobson on my right. Mrs. Jacobson?”

She leaned forward. For a second I saw her as she was when she was younger. She must have been a hellcat and a lot of fun at the rodeo—or whatever the hell they did around here back then.

“Taxes. We need money. You boys going to collect them?”

Max answered, “Yes, ma'am. As long as they are fair.”

That set her back a bit. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean this: We will not assist in collecting unfair or excessive taxes. We are not going to be used as tools for one person's, or several persons', enrichment.”

“What makes you think anyone here would be interested in doing something like that, young man?”

Max looked around the room. “Pretty fancy meeting place for such a little town.”

Someone in the audience snickered. I thought Shelli was going to bust out laughing. I thought,
Oh well, back to digging holes. At least this meeting will be shorter than I expected.

She stared at Max. “That was then; this is now. Please answer my question.” Then she softened. “We need to fund a couple teachers and a list of other things that don't concern you. Else my town will die.”

“Ma'am, I understand. I just wanted that out front.”

“Thank you. You also answered my other questions with that answer. I have no desire to see my town run by gangsters. That is all.” She nodded at the pastor.

“Miss Shelli Peterson will now ask you her questions.”

Shelli asked boring questions about patrol coverage and whether we were familiar with the town's rules, ordinances, and the laws of the county. She asked Max questions about specific ones, and he had an answer for each one. So they had been doing more than chowing down on apple pie and messing up her sheets while he was visiting her.

The pastor snapped me back into the moment when he said, “Please explain your policy about the use of force.” I was really glad that Max was doing all our talking.

“I don't believe in using more force than is needed at the time,” Max said. He went on a bit more with some highsounding bullshit and finished with, “Like the police force I once was a proud member of, I plan on using ‘To protect and serve' as our primary guideline in all situations.”

Someone in the back began applauding. A few others joined in briefly, then it died out.

The pastor waited for quiet, then he said, “You have proven that to your country before. While never having served in the military myself, I respect your courage and devotion to duty, especially as you are one of the few to have been awarded the Medal of Honor. Now, if you'll just leave the room while we make our decision.”

We went out and stood in the hall. I leaned against the wall by the door. “How long do you think it is going to take them to make a decision, Max?”

“Oh, I expect they already have.”

He was right. The door opened about thirty seconds later. We had the job.

 

We left the town hall as a group, including our audience. Old Guy was walking and talking a mile a minute with a couple of the old guys he had been sitting with.

Everyone had hung around to watch Miss Edna Jacobson swear us in. To my surprise, she was the local judge. I was going to have to ask Old Guy about her. There was more to her, and her role here in town, than I had first thought. She was walking side by side with Shelli, and they were chattering away.

 

We all headed to the diner to celebrate with a free meal provided by Shelli to mark the occasion. Max and I walked together. He had hung back a bit as we left so I had waited with him. As a result there was a decent bit of space between the others and us. I wasn't all that savvy about the political stuff that had just happened. But I knew enough to know that we had waltzed into a done deal, and that Max had made it happen somehow.

I didn't really care about the details. I was curious about the power structure, though, and what we would really do versus what was said for public consumption.

“So, Max, what's the deal with Miss Edna and the tax thing?”

“Miss Edna thinks the lights have gone out for the town, but it is only a matter of time before ‘the authorities' get them all turned back on. She wants to raise enough money enforcing, and maybe bending, a few of the old rules until that happens.”

“She doesn't get it, does she?”

“No, and I would have been really surprised if she did. She will. She's a sharp old gal.”

“And when she says
taxes
, how do you translate it?”

He looked at me, grinned, and said, “Tribute.” That I understood.

“So when do I meet our two new deputies?”

“They're at the diner. Got to make sure our people get fed.”

“Yeah. Don't forget the dessert.”

We both laughed. Then we picked up the pace so we could walk in with everyone else.

 

The new deputies were waiting for us. I recognized them right away. They were the two that had rescued the girl at the library when I was here before. They recognized me, too.

Max was in a good mood. “Gardener, this is Diesel and Hawk.”

We shook hands, and each said, “Hey. Pleased to meet you.” Then we scanned each other from head to toe.

Diesel was the brother of the girl in the library. He was white, six foot two, one hundred eighty pounds, with brown hair that was streaked by the sun. He was wearing it longer than the last time I had seen him. There was a skull tattoo on his left forearm with writing that looked Arabic underneath it. He had a black semiautomatic holstered in a faded camo rig and an old Palin T-shirt that had achieved the washed-out look a few years ago.

Hawk was his cousin. They looked a lot alike. The difference seemed to be that Hawk liked lifting weights a lot more. He had his hair cropped short and was wearing faded desert camo pants and a T-shirt advertising Pabst
Blue Ribbon. Hawk had the same kind of gun rig as his cousin. His arms were covered in tattoos, and he had a metal stud in his eyebrow. Both guys were wearing faded and scuffed brown boots.

I thought to myself,
Shoot Diesel, move right a step, and then shoot Hawk.
Then repeat, because these two were not going to die easy. I began running through it in my head, picturing different scenarios—a habit of mine when I met people like this.

I guess I had kept eye contact for a bit too long. I tuned back into an uneasy silence broken by Max's overly loud, “Alright! Let's get some food.” I let them walk in ahead of me.

Shelli unlocked the door and let us all in. Then she hung out a sign that read Closed—Private Party and started cooking.

I ended up sitting with the new deputies. I wasn't sure how that happened. I know Max had a lot to do with it and I just went with the flow. Also, it was a four-person booth, and no one else joined us. It felt like I had been set up for a blind date. I am not the most sociable person in the world. I have gotten better at it over the past few years, but it's not anything I search out or look forward to.

We had two menu choices. That's how it usually was at the diner. Today, Shelli had hamburgers and stew. The hamburgers resembled what I remembered of real burgers in name only. A Shelli-burger consisted of fried venison with onions between two slabs of homemade bread. No tomatoes or ketchup because of the blight. No lettuce because it was the wrong time of year. No cheese because there had not been any available for the past couple of weeks.

I ordered mine with fried jalapeños, even though I knew I would be dancing on the outhouse seat tomorrow. For a beverage we had our choice of several kinds of flavored water that never seemed to have enough sugar.

I tried to make small talk while waiting for my food. “So, you guys were in the army?”

“Yep.”

“Where?”

“The 'Stan, and a short stint in Africa.” So far only Diesel was answering my questions. Hawk just sat there, looking bored.

I thought,
Screw it
, and waited for my food. I ate it and liked it.

Shelli had someone helping her serve. She was plain looking but had a nice body. It was clear she knew and liked the guys I was sitting with; she took the time to greet them with smiles. They exchanged banter about people and events I knew nothing about. And Hawk thought he was bored?

The noise level built to a point that made quiet conversation a little difficult. Apparently one of the old guys was spiking drinks with a flask he had. I was sure I heard the word
moonshine
, followed by laughter.
Shit
, I thought,
the meth of the postcollapse world.
I had really hated tweakers. Shit-faced drunks were a lot easier to deal with.

This was when Diesel decided he wanted to talk. “You remember the library?”

“Yeah?”

“Me and Hawk had to clean up the mess afterward that you created.”

“How's that?”

“Them boys you killed had family—a lot of family around here, family that went looking for us when they came up missing.”

“Yeah. So what's your point?”

Hawk had quit looking bored.

“My point is I appreciate what you did. I just wanted you to know that it created a mess. One we had to clean up.”

Hawk was nodding his head.

“Well, I want to thank you for sharing that. You need to know something important, though.” I leaned forward like I was about to whisper a great secret. He bent his head forward to hear it. “I don't really give a shit.”

Then I laughed in his face.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Me and the deputies didn't talk after that. I thought about getting up but I wanted to eat my apple pie. Instead, they got up and left the table. We were all supposed to meet at our new office—I called it “the Headquarters,” to Max's minor irritation. Max caught my eye as the cousins left. I just shrugged and ate their apple pie, too, when the girl brought it. He came over just as I was finishing the last of the pie. Shelli did know how to bake an apple pie.

“You ready?”

“Yep.”

We headed out, with Max yelling goodbyes and comments to people even as the door shut behind us. His demeanor changed as soon as we got outside.

“What the hell was all that about?”

I shrugged. “They wanted me to know that I owed them.”

“How so?”

“You remember when I was here last? The deal at the library?”

“I heard about it. Now I want to hear your version.”

“Some punks decided to give this girl at the library a hard time. She is Diesel's sister, by the way. I backed them off while she texted her brother for help. He and his cousin arrived, saved her, and drove off into the sunset. I left. The bad guys followed me into the woods. I shot them.”

“So what was his problem?”

“It seems the bad guys had friends and family who blamed it on them. I guess stuff happened as a result. Or as they put it, ‘We had to clean up after you,' which seems to have bothered them.”

“I'm surprised. I have never known you to leave anyone alive to be cleaned up. Buried, yes.” He laughed. “Don't worry about it. We'll straighten it out.”

 

Max had laughed, but I could tell he really didn't think it was funny. Max and I had been together for a while now. I could read him pretty well, maybe better than I could read Night.

Just before we entered our office, I undid the leather thong that held the Ruger in place. I didn't even realize I did it at the time.

Max did not open the door so much as he made an abrupt entry. The two deputies were in what was left of the outer office. Diesel was sitting in a chair, tipped back against the wall. His cousin was on the couch, holding a magazine that had been left behind and laughing as he read aloud to Diesel.