Half Past Midnight (20 page)

“Yes, sir!”

“All right. And you know what happens if you disobey?”

“You’ll spank me?”

“
And
you’ll lose the knives. Those aren’t kid’s toys. You can’t treat them like it.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

I held his eye for a minute to make sure he understood how serious I was, then turned back to Travis and winked. He stifled a smile. “I’ll wrap Megan’s set in with the rest of the stuff.”

“Thanks. So, you want to see what I brought you?” I pushed the bundle of tanned goatskins across the counter, then started rummaging through the leather goods Travis had made. There were three leather aprons with various pouches and loops, designed for working the forges, and another pair of throwing knives in arm sheaths for Megan.

Travis ran his hands over the cured goat skins. “Kelley tanned ’em?”

“He did.”

Travis harrumphed. “Man does good work.”

“Yep.
He
doesn’t make crap, either.” I unrolled a sewn cloth bundle on the counter. “And here are the tools you wanted.” I laid out several punches of various sizes, a half-moon shaped blade, and two small curved knives made to his specifications for working leather. He turned to me grinning from ear to ear.

“Lordy, lordy. These look like they’ll fit th’ bill jus’ fine.” At that moment, I was struck by how much the leatherworker’s expression resembled Zachary’s from just a few minutes earlier. “You ain’t got no idea how much easier you jus’ made my work.”

“Glad to hear it. So we’re square?”

“Ah believe so.” He stuck out his hand, and we closed the transaction with a handshake.

“Good. Then we’ll see you next time we’re in town. I know Ken will probably want a pair of boots like these when he sees mine.”

“Well, send ’im on over, an’ I’ll give ’im a good deal.”

“I’ll do that.” I saw Zachary trying to strap the right-hand sheath on his arm. “Here, Zach.” I helped him lock it in place. “Now, let’s go. There’s more to do.”

The next few stops were pretty straightforward. At the first, I traded a pair of razor-sharp eight-inch combat knives with staghorn handles for four automobile leaf springs and made arrangements to pick them up on my way out. Each spring was nearly four feet long, and they would be too heavy to lug around the market. At the second stop, a meat cleaver got me two solid walnut table legs. I figured each leg would yield enough wood to make at least five or six knife handles, maybe more if I could split them straight enough. Without a power saw, that was never guaranteed.

Finally, we got to Sarah’s shop. She greeted me as we walked in. “Heya, Sensei, what can I do for you?”

Sarah was another one of my students. A tiny slip of a girl, she moved like a tiger on amphetamines in a fight. She was also head of the scavenging committee and, as such, was often able to find items that others couldn’t.

“Debra wanted me to see if you have any more of that condensed milk.”

“Yessiree. I have three cans left. Four, if you don’t mind going past the expiration date.”

“How far past?”

She pulled the fourth can out and checked the label. “What is this, March?”

“April.”

She thought for a second. “Looks like four months over then. You feeling lucky?”

“What do you want for them?”

“What do you have?”

“Need any nails?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, no use for them.”

“Goat jerky?”

“No thanks.”

I opened my backpack and dug through it, looking for something she might have use for.

“What about that?” I looked up to find her pointing at the PRD dangling from my neck.

“The radiation detector?”

“Yeah. I could use something like that.”

“I don’t know, Sarah. I only have a few left.” That was true enough. Between the ones I’d given Ken, Cindy, Amber, and the trucking crews, plus the ones I’d already bartered away, I only had six left. Those last six were still in the wrappers, though, and they weren’t doing anyone any good there. “All right, but you’re going to have to sweeten the deal for one of these.”

I got the four cans of condensed milk, as well as two bags of macaroni, a can of aerosol cheese, three cans of corn, a jar of local honey, and a hydrometer. Megan wandered in while we were dickering and helped me load the items in my backpack.

“Dad? This one’s swollen.”

Sure enough, the top of the can bulged outward with the pressure of growing bacteria. Obviously embarrassed, Sarah grabbed the corn from Megan. “Shit. Sorry about that. I try to check them all before I bring them in. That one must’ve gotten by me.” She grabbed another one from the shelf. “Here you go.”

“No harm done.” I handed her my PRD. “Wear it in good health.”

Slipping it over her head, the girl nodded. “That’s the idea.” She stuck out her hand. “Pleasure doin’ business with you.”

I handed the backpack to Megan, and she “whuffed” as she slid it over her shoulder. I slung the other bundles over one shoulder and hefted the table legs. “All right, guys, one more stop and we can head back.”

Zachary and Megan both grinned. We were all looking forward to the next stop. We tromped back down the street, making our way to a quiet little side alley, then knocked on the door of a house on the outskirts of the market.

Our knocking set off the dog alarm, and loud barking underscored our arrival. From further back in the house came a sharp command, “Blackie, Cricket–quiet!” Several seconds later, the front door opened, and an elderly woman squinted out at us. She smiled in recognition. “Hello, Leeland. Hi, Megan, Zachary. Ain’t you two growin’ up!”

The kids returned the smile and replied in unison. “Hi, Miss Phillips.”

By this time, the dogs had also recognized us, and the barking gave way to wagging tails and whining. Judith Phillips pushed open the screen door and stepped back in invitation. “Well, don’t just stand out there in the heat. Come on in and sit a spell.”

We slipped past her and into the darker confines of her home. All the windows were open, but the temperature inside was only a little cooler than out.

“Sorry, Judith, but we can’t stay. I have some goods I need to pick up on the way out and, if we don’t get back pretty soon, Debra’s gonna wonder what we’re up to.”

When I saw the disappointment written briefly on her face, I felt more than a small twinge of guilt. But she covered it gracefully with a smile and ruffled Zachary’s hair. “Well, then, let’s head out back and look at some puppies.”

Both of the kids scrambled for the back door. Seconds after the door opened, I heard excited barking, the yipping of puppies, and the giggles of a happy ten-year-old. I smiled and offered my arm to Judith. “Shall we?”

She took my arm, and I paced myself to her gait as we walked through her den to follow the kids. Judith was a sweet old lady, a bit too frail to walk very far, and always seemed so lonely. She was in her late seventies, and her health was questionable at best. I had met her three months ago when I’d been asking around for some kind of dog to help manage the goats. Word of mouth led me to her door, and her Catahoulas.

Catahoula leopard dogs were reputed to be ideal herding and hunting dogs. They were supposed to be very smart, and fiercely loyal to their packmates. The trick, I was told, was to make sure they recognized their two-legged packmates as dominant. They sounded like exactly what I wanted. Better yet, Judith had let me know that one of her bitches had puppies on the way. Now two months old, those pups were weaned and ready to leave their mother. We had visited more than a few times in the last several weeks so the dogs would get used to us, and we were ready to take one home.

When I opened the back screen, Judith and I found Zachary sitting on the ground giggling, while six puppies crawled all over him, tails wagging so hard their entire bodies swayed with the activity. Each one whined with pleasure as they tried to climb his body, licking any exposed skin in a frantic competition for his attention.

Megan stood to the side, cooing over another pup she cuddled to her cheek. “All right, guys. We need to pick one and get home.”

Zachary latched on to a particularly energetic black and white speckled puppy. He and Megan replied at the same time, “This one!” And each of them had a different dog.

“Sorry, guys. Pick one or the other.”

Judith patted my arm and shushed me. “Take them both. You’ll be doing me a favor. I can’t afford to feed all these little mouths, and the kids will take good care of them.” She turned to the two of them. “Won’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Four pairs of puppy dog eyes looked my direction, and only two pairs actually belonged to the puppies. I knew when I was beaten. “All right. Let’s get home.”

* * August, Year 3 * *

“Leeland, the dogs are in the garden again!”

At the sound of Cindy’s complaint, Mark and Brad looked at me and grinned. “Go on,” Brad told me. “We’ll finish up here.”

“You sure you got it?”

“Go! You don’t want to get Cindy mad at you.”

“Thanks.” I stripped off the leather apron and hung it on a peg beside the forge, then trotted to the garden. Sure enough, two gangly, six-month-old speckled pups were chasing each other around the well-tended rows of garden vegetables, scattering cucumbers and winter squash as they ran. Cindy chased them around, trying to shoo them out of the garden, but it appeared they thought it was all part of the game, and they chased around her as well.

Cindy saw me and threw up her hands. “They’re going to ruin the garden!”

“Ginger! Oreo! No!” The pair immediately stopped and looked at me. “Sit.” They hadn’t learned too many commands yet, but they knew
no
and
sit
well enough, and my tone told them they were in trouble. They plopped their tails in the dirt immediately and, as I advanced, they cowered, half-rolling into a submissive pose. I approached the gate and opened it, giving them the only other command they had learned well–“Out!”

Tail tucked between her legs, the black and white Oreo came through first, obviously fearful of my tone, but more afraid of disobeying. The red and white Ginger was less afraid, but seemed eager to please. Both of them came directly to my side and sat panting. “Good girls.” I didn’t think they would understand if I fussed at them for the damage their rampage through the garden had caused, and I didn’t want to confuse them by scolding them after they had followed my commands so well. Cindy didn’t see it that way, though.

“They are
not
good girls. Just look at what they did!” She indicated the damage to the vegetables.

“I’m sorry, Cindy. How’d they get in?”

“They jumped the fence again.”

I sighed. Ken and I had originally built a four-foot-high chain-link fence around the garden to keep out the goats. The dogs had learned to jump that a month ago, so we’d replaced it with a six-footer. We had assumed that would be tall enough to keep them out. So much for assumptions.

“I’m really sorry, Cindy.” I entered the gate to help her salvage what we could from the damage.

“No.” She stopped me as I approached. “I’ll take care of this; just get those dogs away from here!”

I’d never seen Cindy so angry. “All right. I’m really sorry—”

She cut me off with a raised hand. “Just go.”

I hurried away. Some days, I regretted bringing the puppies home. Ostensibly, they had been Debra’s birthday present, and she had loved them. But we soon found that two gangly, four-legged furry balls of youthful energy were sometimes more than we’d bargained for. “Ginger. Oreo. Come.” I took them back to the house to look for Zachary.

I found him in the barn, milking the nanny goats. “Zach, are you about done there?”

“Yes, sir, this is the last one.”

Grabbing a length of rope from a hook on the wall, I tied the makeshift leash to their collars and watched as he moved the pail and released the nanny from the milking stanchion. When he stood up, I stuck out my hand for the bucket of goat’s milk. “Here, then, let me take that.” I traded him the bucket for the dogs. “Would you please take the girls out to the woods and wear them out? They got in the garden, and I think Cindy’s about ready to fix Catahoula stew for dinner.”

His eyes lit up as he handed me the bucket. “Sure, Dad.”

“I know how much you hate playing in the woods.”

Mouth upturned, he shrugged. “Yeah, but if you’re gonna insist.”

“Just make sure you keep them away from Cindy and the garden.”

“Yes, sir.” And with that, he became a fading blur, running with the pups toward the tree line at the edge of the property. I turned to take the milk to the house and reflected again on how much life had changed for us—how it had slowed down, allowing us time to realize what was really important, things like allowing a young boy to enjoy time with his dogs.

I frowned, remembering other things were important, too. Just a few years ago, we would have been shopping to get him ready for his next year of school. Now, there
was
no school. We were still too busy with day-to-day survival. I mulled that over on my walk to the house and, the more I thought about it, the more dour my mood became.

Debra interrupted my musing as I arrived at the back door. “What’s got you looking so down in the dumps?”

“Just thinking about how much everything’s changed. I mean, Zach should be in school. Megan should be getting ready for college. I would be back at the shop…” That, of course, made me think of my parents, and though my grief had lessened considerably in the last two years, my chest still tightened with emotion, further darkening my mood.

“Yeah, maybe.” Debra took the milk pail from me. “But we’re alive.” She raised her eyebrows, and I had to concede the point. “And every day above ground’s a good day, right?”

“I suppose.”

“So yeah, we’ve lost some things. But it’s not
all
gloom and doom. We’re regaining a lot of lost ground, and we’ll get the school going next fall. It’s not like we’re going to let civilization completely fall apart. We just need time to regroup.”

I took a deep breath and got my emotions back in check. I could always count on Debra to snap me out of it whenever my temperament took a dark turn.