Finest Hour (5 page)

“If that was you, you’d appreciate some help.”

“That’s true, but I wouldn’t expect any either.”

She watched over her shoulder as the bearded stranger flipped them off with what was left of a bloody finger. When he was out of sight, she turned back to Tanner.

“You’re not much of a people person, are you?”

“You’re just now figuring that out?”

“I suppose my being around all the time is hard on you.”

“You have no idea.”

She smiled, not at all minding the jab.

“Once I get married, I’ll move out. Then you’ll miss me for sure.”

“You’re getting married?”

“Someday.”

“I see. And what’s your husband going to be like?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes turned dreamy. “Smart, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And he’ll have to like my sense of humor.”

“Good luck with that one.”

“Funny.” She paused a moment. “He’ll have to be tough too.”

“I would hope so, on account of all the trouble you get into.”

“I guess he’ll be a lot like you, only smaller and more handsome.”

Tanner couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I understand more handsome. But why smaller?”

“I can’t very well marry a giant.”

“I’m a giant now?”

She shrugged. “Not big enough to climb down a beanstalk, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Much, thanks.”

“I only hope my husband likes you.”

“Why wouldn’t he like me?”

“You can be kind of…” She hunted for the right words. “You know… kind of rough with people.”

“It’s not like I’m going to challenge him to a wrestling match.”

“Promise?”

Tanner growled.

She giggled. “Anyway, don’t worry too much about my moving out. I promise I’ll come to visit at least once a week.”

“Oh, goody.”

Samantha leaned back and began to daydream about what the future might hold.

Tanner drove on for another few minutes, finally passing the city limits sign for Boone. The town was already stirring with daily activity, folks heading out to work the farms, others on their way to the college to start preparing the day’s community meal. Boone was as close to a functioning society as any they had come across since the pandemic. A good part of that, thought Tanner, was due their having achieved a sense of security for the remaining residents—a feat achieved in no small part thanks to Mason’s efforts.

They cruised down King Street, passing a police cruiser. A uniformed man with a prosthetic leg stood next to it. As they passed, the officer offered a friendly wave, obviously inviting them to stop to chat. Tanner replied in kind but didn’t slow down. Experience had taught him that encounters with law enforcement rarely ended well, and even with Mason’s connections to the town, he thought it better not to push his luck.

When they were a few miles east of Boone, he turned the Hummer north on Highway 221. For the next two hours, they stayed on the two-lane highway, passing through a host of small communities, including Jefferson, Independence, and Galax. Each looked very much like the others, historic brick buildings now dark and empty, roads jammed with cadaver-filled cars, and disheveled survivors out scavenging from homes and businesses. What had at one time been vibrant bastions of Appalachian culture were now one step away from being decrepit ghost towns.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Samantha said, watching as a mother nearly dragged her small child behind her as they searched for supplies.

“What’s sad?”

“People having to live like that.”

“Ah, it’s not so bad.”

She looked over at him.

“They don’t have any food.”

“No, but they have their freedom.”

“They’ve always had their freedom,” she scoffed. “We live in America.”

Tanner smiled but said nothing more.

“You don’t think people were free?”

“I guess that depends on what you call free.”

“Free means you can do whatever you want.”

“Darlin’,” he said with a soft chuckle, “we could never do what we wanted. Not really.”

Samantha sat forward. “What do you mean?”

“The government forced us to do lots of things.”

“Like what? Give me an example.”

“How about giving them a piece of every penny we earned?”

“We had to do that?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. And if you didn’t, you’d end up in the cell right next to mine.”

“What else?”

Tanner thought for a moment.

“They made young men register to fight in wars halfway around the world.”

“They forced people to fight even if they didn’t want to?”

“Sometimes.”

“Anything else?”

“My personal pet peeve has always been against certain local governments not allowing people to own guns.”

“But we had police back then. Why would you need a gun?”

“Same reason I need one now. To keep people from taking advantage of my good nature.”

She grinned. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m not saying we didn’t live in a great nation. We did. But that doesn’t mean we were completely free. If the government wanted the land you lived on, they took it. If you spoke too loudly against their policies, they found a reason to lock you up. Our government used an undercurrent of fear to keep people in line, and it was only getting worse when all this happened.”

“If that’s true, why didn’t people rise up and change things? You know, like in the Revolutionary War.”

“Simple. Because people were lazy.”

“Lazy?”

“Sure. As long as there was beer in the fridge, an exciting game on the TV, and a soft bed to lie in, most folks were willing to overlook a few infringements on their liberties.”

“Was my mom part of the… the infringement?”

“Of course.”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t think she knew it was happening. Not really. She wasn’t like that.”

He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way, I suspect the same problem plagued the Egyptians, the Romans, and every other society since the dawn of time.”

“What problem is that?”

“Those in power convincing themselves that the rights of the many should take precedence over those of the few.”

“But isn’t that the right way? The fair way?”

He looked over at her and smiled.

“That depends, darlin’.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not you’re one of the few.”

By the time they reached Hillsville, Virginia, the sun was already high in the sky. The town seemed to consist of only a single intersection, where Highway 52 crossed Highway 221. Unlike the other communities, Hillsville was bustling with activity. A hodgepodge of colorful tents and makeshift wooden stalls had been set up on both sides of the street, and hundreds of people milled about them.

Tanner stopped the Hummer and took a moment to study the scene.

“What do you think’s going on here?” asked Samantha.

He pointed to a huge banner hanging across the road.
Flea Market and Old Timey Days
. A large flap of cardboard was stapled below the banner that read, “No guns allowed in Hillsville.”

“I’ve heard of a flea market,” she said. “But what’s an Old Timey Day?”

“Don’t know.”

“Should we check it out? It looks interesting.”

Tanner thought about it. While the stop certainly wasn’t necessary, he didn’t feel a pressing need to hurry off to the tunnels. The mutants would be there waiting, regardless of when he and Samantha arrived.

“Sure, why not?”

“Good. Maybe we can get something to eat too.”

“We’ve got food in the back.”

“I know, but look.” She pointed to smoke rising up from one of the tents. “They’re cooking something.”

As if on cue, Tanner’s stomach growled.

She reached over and patted his belly.

“It sounds like a thunderstorm in there.”

“No wonder. I only had a few eggs for breakfast. Hardly enough to hold over a giant.”

“That’s true,” she said, missing his sarcasm.

Tanner backed the truck up onto one of the curbs and shut it off.

“What about our guns?” she asked, looking down at her Savage .22 rifle.

Tanner studied the crowd. He didn’t see a single firearm in the mix.

“Leave ’em. There’s probably a small town sheriff lurking nearby with nothing better to do than rough up out-of-towners who think they’re above the law.”

She placed her rifle and his sawed-off shotgun on the floorboard and draped a jacket over them.

Tanner climbed out of the Hummer and did a quick survey of the people in their vicinity. No one seemed to be paying them any attention. A woman and her husband stood at the entrance to the market. She played a banjo, and he a fretted dulcimer. They strummed along, cutting in and out of a little mountain piece, highlighting the unique tones of the two stringed instruments. A black banjo case sat open at their feet with a sign that read, “We’re Hungry!”

Tanner leaned back into the Hummer and grabbed his pack, figuring that he might be able to trade some of their supplies for a hot lunch. As he did, Samantha slid out of the passenger side, her eyes wide with excitement.

“It’s like a circus,” she said softly.

“Let’s just hope there isn’t a freak show,” he said, walking toward the huge bazaar.

She followed in his wake, studying the various stalls. Most of them were set up to act as trading booths. Vendors displayed a wide assortment of homemade goods, including soap, jars of honey, dried meat, jugs of apple cider, ground wheat, canned vegetables, freshly churned butter, and plastic bottles of water that had obviously been refilled more than once.

“Do you think they make all this stuff?” she asked.

“Sure they do.”

“But how?”

“What do you mean
how
? They grow it, kill it, or mash it the same way people have been doing for centuries.”

“But where’d they learn how to do that?”

“Darlin’, country folks have been making food long before there were Piggly Wigglys.”

She giggled. “What’s a Piggly Wiggly?”

“You really
have
lived a sheltered life,” he said with a sigh. “Come on. Let’s see what these folks have.” Tanner stepped over to a stand being operated by an old woman and her teenage grandson.

The woman smiled to reveal a couple of missing front teeth.

“Help ya?” she said, sounding an awful lot like Granny from the
Beverly Hillbillies
.

Tanner took a quick look at the goods sitting on her table. On one end were some freshly dug potatoes as well as a pile of okra. On the other were jars of molasses, apple salsa, pickled beets, and something labeled “Ball Busting Chow Chow.”

He picked up a jar of the chow chow and read the handwritten label. The list of ingredients included cabbage, Habanero and sweet red peppers, onion, sugar, and spices.

“You make this yourself?”

“Course I did. It’s a family recipe from me mammy.”

“Is it spicy?”

“Make you sweat like a whore in church.” She looked over at her grandson and cackled. He offered a quick smile before going back to snapping a paper sack stuffed full of pole beans.

“See anything you like, Sam?”

She set down a jar of salsa.

“Not really. I was hoping for something a little… meatier.” She glanced over at the tent that had smoke puffing out the top.

Tanner nodded to the old woman.

“I’ll come back and get a jar of the chow chow on my way out.”

“Can’t guarantee it’ll still be here, but y’all come back anyway.”

They turned and headed in the direction of the tent surrounded by billows of white smoke.

As they got closer, Samantha sniffed the air.

“Yum. It smells like chicken.”

Tanner smelled it too but wasn’t quite ready to place any bets on the particular species being grilled. The man doing the cooking was in his mid-fifties, and his two assistants were portly twin sisters probably half his age. All three were soaked in sweat from working around the large brick fire pit.

As Tanner and Samantha approached, one of the women turned and said, “You folks hungry?”

Tanner studied several chunks of blackened meat cooking on a metal grate.

“It sure smells good.”

“It
is
good. You want a sample?”

He looked down at Samantha, and she nodded, licking her lips.

The woman slipped a paring knife out from her apron and sliced off a strip of the blackened meat. As she turned back around, the man cooking the food slapped her playfully on the butt.

“Hey!” she exclaimed with a broad smile.

The woman’s sister joined in by swatting at his hand.

“How come you’re always slapping her butt and not mine?”

“Cause hers is nicer than yours.”

The woman put her hands on her hips.

“They’re the exact same!”

“No, they ain’t.”

“So, you’re sayin’ you like her butt better’n mine?” The woman’s face was starting to turn red.

“I most certainly do.” Before she could protest, he held up a finger. “But there’s other parts of you I like better. It all works out in the end.”

“How do you figure?” Her tone was already softening.

He reached out and put his arms around both women.