Lethal Seasons (A Changed World Book 1) (20 page)

Nick pulled the car to the side of the driveway and the other two vans followed.

“They fear the vehicles,” Wisp said.

Nick radioed to the other cars for everyone to get out. He got out with his hands in the air. “I’m unarmed,” he shouted. “I’m Nick from High Meadow. We’re just looking for a safe place for the night. Maybe barter for some dinner?”

A soft murmur called his attention to a group of men at the top of the stockade wall. More guns. There was a bit of a discussion before someone answered. “What’s High Meadow doing with vans like that?”

Nick looked back at the slick black vehicles. “Well, that’s kind of a long story. But we’re not looking for any trouble. We’re willing to put in some work for food if you’ve got it to spare.”

There was a little more discussion. “What kind of work?”

Nick raised his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “A couple of us can do anything, dig ditches, chop wood. I’ve got some scientists...” Nick paused, not sure what they could possibly offer a dairy.

“What kind?” The voice sounded very eager. “You got any chemists?”

“I am,” Jonas raised his hand and stepped forward.

A smaller door in the gate opened and a broad shouldered man stepped through. Nick realized the men must be related. All of them had thick builds, cornflower blue eyes and shaggy blond hair. The man hesitated by the door, giving them all a thorough look. His eyes lingered on Wisp, then wandered to Mike’s family and on to Jonas. He gave determined nod. “I’m Bert. Welcome to the Creamery. Sorry about this, but we’ve had a bit of a rough time lately.”

Nick waited for Bert to approach, then met him halfway to shake hands. “I understand. Had some rough times myself.” He gestured back at the vans. “They’re sort of borrowed. I didn’t think about what we might look like driving up in them. Are you the folks that put out the flyer about cheese?”

Bert grimaced. “Yeah. Turns out it’s not such a good idea to advertise.” He glanced back at the stockade.

Nick looked a little closer at the men with guns. None of them held the weapons with confidence. One man, a youngster really, had both hands on the stock, neither near the trigger and Nick was going to bet that the gun was unloaded. These folks had recently been forced to mount defense. “I’m sorry to hear that. Your flyer really cheered me up. I was looking forward to working out some trade with you.”

Bert brightened. “What have you got in mind?”

“I do the trading for High Meadow. We’ve got some crops in the ground that we might be able to trade. What sorts of things are you looking for?”

Bert got a thoughtful look on his face. “Sounds like we should have a talk. You’re welcome to come spend the night. But I’m sorry to say we don’t have much more than cheese to share right now.”

Nick laughed. “I’ve got the perfect thing!” He sprinted back to the second van to break out the box of bread, and looked up to see men with guns, a lot closer. He grabbed a loaf and held it out. “Bread!”

Their looks changed from animosity to pleasant curiosity.

Bert grinned. “That’d be mighty welcome.” He waved to the men atop the wall and the large gate wobbled open.

Nick noted that the wall wasn’t all that well constructed. Definitely a rush job. He thought about asking Martin to come down and sort this place out. Once inside, it was even more obvious that they were scrambling to shore up defenses. The wall was only half finished and petered out a few yards in. They were living in what was probably an old hunting lodge. It looked ancient, constructed entirely out of logs, but carefully tucked into a shallow hillside. Thick beams supported a deep porch where women and children watched their approach.

There were a few introductions as they filed into a high ceilinged lobby where trestle tables were set up. Nick had thrown a few things into a box to share: two loaves of bread, a box of coffee, a small sack of sugar and a larger one of flour. He handed the box to an older woman who thanked him without even looking at the contents. She had only gone a few feet when she realized the bounty he’d gifted them with. She gasped, soon surrounded by two other older women. Nick smiled. It felt good to share.

Dinner was cheese and tomato sandwiches with a thin vegetable soup that had probably been watered down to stretch. Nick smiled at everyone as he sorted them out. The spouses that had married in were obvious in contrast to the clan’s strong genes. There were a couple of dark-haired women, a redheaded man whose genes held strong producing three children with strawberry blonde hair, and a wife with white-blonde hair like wet silk. She looked willowy and frail next to the solid, curly-blond women of the house.

Talk at the table stuck to generic topics of weather and wildfires. What condition the roads were in. Where was the closest train station. Mostly folks just ate. There was dried apples and coffee for desert. The Creamery families seemed cautiously pleased.

Nick sat down with the elders of the clan. They had been living here since the area got depopulated. They had been building up the herd since the hoofed-flu took about ninety percent of their stock. They had just reached a point where they could market some wares. Their flyer had brought in bandits and troublemakers. They hadn’t had any troubles before.

“We’ve got a Watch at High Meadow,” Nick said. “We don’t get much in the way of bandits either, but a couple armed guards gets them moving on their way.”

“We can hardly spare a man,” grumbled an older man who looked enough like Bert to be his brother. “Cows’re a lotta work.”

“It isn’t easy,” Nick agreed. “You need to bring in a guy who has the experience.”

Bert’s brother frowned at him, his blue eyes suddenly cold. “Like you?”

“Me?” Nick forced a chuckle. “I don’t do that stuff. I can talk to Martin, the head of our Watch, if you like. He might be able to give you some suggestions.”

The icy blue eyes warmed a bit. “We don’t have much to offer.”

“A warm place to sleep, food and company is all most people are asking for,” Nick said.

“Well we’ve got the space and the company,” Bert said bitterly. “Damn bandits cleaned out our larders.”

“I’ll do it.”

Nick looked up to see the last guard standing nearby. He still had his nametag on. “Stan,” Nick said. He gestured him over. “Why don’t you folks talk a bit, see if it might work for both sides.” He slipped away from the discussion to check on the rest of his charges. Wisp had stayed with the vans preferring a meal of train food to the gathering of so many busy minds. Jonas was deep in conversation with an younger man and woman. Nick looked around to see how people had fallen out into groups. Mike’s family was sitting with a family with children of the same age. He wouldn’t be surprised to find a few more people staying behind.

*    *    *

Melissa sat quietly at the table chewing the dried apples. She gave the room furtive glances trying to judge the various knots of people. No one looked familiar to her. She was relieved and a little concerned. How long had she been held in that white room? The memories had no anchor, all the days of captivity had been the same. She didn’t know how she fit into this group of pale, shaggy victims. Noticing the beards and unkempt hair on the others made her very aware of her own grubbiness. Her hair was disgusting. She tried to wash up in the cubby the night before, but she needed a whole lot more than a sink-bath. Maybe that was what gave her anonymity. Cleaned up, people might know who she was. That thought gave her a new set of worries. Since she didn’t know why she’d been imprisoned, she didn’t know if being recognized was a liability.

The thin woman with long blonde hair brought her a cup of coffee. “Hello.” She spoke loudly and slowly.

“Hello. Thank you,” she said taking the coffee. She wanted her voice to sound normal, but it creaked like an old wheel.

“You are safe here.”

“Really?” That came out a little sharper than she’d meant.

The blonde sighed. “As safe as we can be in times like this.”

Melissa felt bad for bringing up the obvious. She didn’t know what more to say and was glad when the woman moved on to hand out more cups of coffee. Memories and thoughts were still circling her head like gulls over a trawler. She couldn’t reel any of them in long enough for more than a glimpse. There was something wrong. Something so very terribly important that she was forgetting about, and it scared her to death.

“Without leadership, people scramble for mere survival. Without foresight, communities work for the wrong goals.”

History of a Changed World
, Angus T. Moss

In the morning, Jonas and Stan were waiting in the hall outside Nick’s bedroom. The guests had been put up in the hotel portion of the lodge. The rooms were small and a little dusty, but welcomed. A hot shower and real bed had Nick feeling more like himself.

He opened the door to find the two men leaning against the opposite wall. “Problem?” Nick asked.

Jonas and Stan exchanged guilty glances. “We’re staying,” Jonas said.

“Okay.”

“You’re good with that?” Stan asked. “Cause I know we probably owe you.”

Nick waved his concerns away. “Nope. You guys hitched a ride. This is where you want to get off. That’s fine with me.”

“They want to look into some different kinds of culturing,” Jonas said. “This really is more interesting to me than the work we were doing.” He shuffled his feet and ducked his head shyly. “Cheesemaking was a hobby of mine.”

“Perfect match then,” Nick gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Haven’t had a good blue cheese in a decade.”

Jonas’s grin widened. “Thanks Nick.”

“You don’t know,” Stan said quietly, “but I was in the army. The real army. The gig at Rutledge’s was boring most of the time. And the people he hired,” Stan’s mouth tightened as he shook his head. “Some of them were nuts. They’d do anything he told them. And Rutledge was nuts too, you know.”

“You knew about the prisoners?”

“Rumors. There were a couple of us guys trying to keep things above board. We knew there was something weird going on. But nobody that knew would talk to us. Rutledge was always sending guys out on searches. Didn’t know then, but I’m guessing it was for people.”

Nick forced his face to remain placid as thoughts of Lily and William got his blood pressure up. “Any idea why he wanted them?”

Stan twitched a shoulder in a shrug. “I hate shit like that. Here, things are nice and clean. Good folks farming. There aren’t any secret agendas.”

Nick nodded, meeting his eyes. “They seem like good people.”

“They are. I want to help keep them safe.”

Nick shook hands with Stan. “Do that.”

Jonas and Stan hurried down the hallway ahead of Nick. He was glad that they were staying in a place that suited them. And he had to think that the Creamery clan would be glad of a couple more single males.

He headed down to the lobby following the smell of fresh brewed coffee. There were biscuits with cream cheese and apple butter set out for them. Nick saw that most of his people were at the table. The Creamery clan was probably already at work.

“Good morning!” He was greeted by the willowy blonde.

“Thanks for putting us up,” Nick said.

She held out a cup of coffee to him. “I think you more than paid for it.”

“I know where you can trade for coffee and tea. Cheese is a pretty rare commodity. You should be able to barter for almost anything. Have you got someone in the family to travel for trading?”

She shook her head, her long blonde hair sliding over her shoulders. “We need all hands on the farm. Cows can’t wait to be milked.”

“Maybe I can help,” Mike said. Nick noticed that he had a little more color to his face today. His voice was stronger and his family didn’t need to constantly reach for one another. “I’m Mike.” He offered his hand.

“Deidre,” she responded with a hearty handshake that nearly took him off his feet.

Nick left them to work out the particulars. Creamery seemed to have plenty of space. Another couple with two girls could be a good addition. He slathered some biscuits with cream cheese and apple butter then carried them out to the vans. The stockade gate stood open. In the bright light of morning, he could see the fields, with their stubble of tree stumps, dotted with brown cows. Wisp was leaning against the fence watching them. Nick offered him a biscuit.

“Nice,” Wisp said as he accepted the food.

“Are they contented cows?” Nick asked. He popped the last bit of breakfast into his mouth and licked the apple butter off his fingers.

“Very,” Wisp said with a mouth full.

“You been here before?”

“I’ve stayed in the woods above here. The people seemed pretty nice from a distance. They take very good care of their animals.”

“Well I’m glad we found this place last night. I needed a good night’s sleep.”

“We should make it to High Meadow by tonight if we push through,” Wisp said.

“Mm.” Nick stared at the cows, the sun warming his shoulders. He almost wanted to stay another day. “I think we should barter off some of this stuff. They seem like they’re in pretty bad shape.”

Wisp looked up the hill to the treeline above the lodge. “The woods here are full of food.”

“Maybe they don’t know that,” Nick said. He dusted the last crumbs off his shirt and headed for the van.

“Do you want me to forage for them?”

Nick stopped and turned back looked at Wisp. “You don’t feel the need to help them?”

“Life right now is a barter. What do I get for feeding them?”

“Their good will? A place where you will be remembered as a friend?”

“I try not to be remembered at all.”

Although he said it without undue emotion, Nick felt a deep sadness at Wisp’s aloneness. He lived a silent solitary life in a very dangerous world. “I would appreciate it if you would gather some food for them.” He handed Wisp an empty box.

“As you wish. When will we be leaving?”

Nick glanced toward the sun where it was sending beams through the tree branches.” Say about an hour?”

Wisp took the box and melted into the woods. Even though Nick was watching him, even though he knew where he would enter the woods, as soon as Wisp stepped into the shadows at the edge of the trees, he vanished.

Nick took a quick inventory through his precious supplies. Some things they needed more than others. He had wondered why the Creamery folks weren’t using train food to get by until Bert told him the closest train station was about five miles away. That was a long walk with a sack of food. He wondered if this might be a better place for Harley’s horses. But he was getting ahead of himself. He put together three boxes of supplies including the largest first aid kit, industrial sized cans of vegetables, some spices, a canned ham and three small salamis. With only seventeen of them left, he decided to leave one of the vans, too. Aside from a tractor, the Creamery didn’t have any vehicles, and could surely use one. So he shifted the supplies he was keeping to the other two vehicles. Almost as an afterthought, he added a couple guns and some boxes of ammunition for Stan. By the time he was done, Ruth and Kyle had come out to check on him.

“You plan to give all of this to them?” Ruth asked with suspicion in her voice.

“No way,” he snapped back. “I’m bartering for cheese. That stuff’s like gold. I want some for us, and I can barter the extra away for things we need.”

Ruth cocked her head at him. “Where do you normally get things like this?”

Nick gave her a a smirk. “We don’t.”

He drove the third van up to the lodge with the supplies he’d chosen for barter. After announcing his intention to Deirdre, she sent the youngest child, a girl around ten, running off to find the grandfather, Abel. The old man came limping out of the barn with a tight look on his face.

“I’m told you want to trade?”

Nick beckoned him to the back of the van to show his goods. Abel shook his head. “I heard Bert tell you, all we got is cheese.”

“Abel, that’s gold. You may only have cheese, but you are probably the only dairy in the country with it!”

Abel gave him a look of disbelief. “Anybody can make cheese. Ain’t hard.”

“
If
they had cows,” Nick said. “Believe me, they are very rare right now.”

“I can’t give you my whole lot for this. Gotta save some back for the family. Bandits did a job on us, all right.”

Nick lowered his expectations. “What have you got?”

Abel led him to the side of the lodge where an entrance to the cellar had been enlarged to accommodate a ramp and a wide door. He took Nick down a flight of steps into a clean bright room. It was a working room with tables and vats and an industrial stove in the corner. Jonas was already set up with a computer and stacks of cups around him. He gave Nick a distracted wave before diving back into his alchemy. The room had a pleasant smell that he couldn’t quite place.

“This is where we age ‘em,” Abel said pulling open a heavy door. “We were lucky, the bandits took all the food outta the kitchen larders. Didn’t check down here.” Inside tall racks held wheels of cheese. Nick’s jaw dropped. Rack after rack retreated into the huge room.

“Wow.”

“Well, you might think it’s a lot, but this bunch here, it ain’t ready yet.” Abel led him past the first few rows. “This is the year old. It’ll do, but I prefer at least two years. Now back here we got the really good stuff.”

Nick grinned. This was more than he had hoped for.

They ended up lugging a dozen small wheels and three massive ones up to the van. He got a crock of cream cheese, three blocks of butter and a small urn of fresh milk. He hoped the air conditioning in the car would keep it all fresh until they could store it at High Meadow. By then Wisp had arrived with a box full of mushrooms, last year’s walnuts, enough greens for one dinner, a double handful of asparagus stalks each thick as a thumb, and a kerchief full of blueberries. The women thanked Nick for the canned food and grilled Wisp on the locations for the fresh food.

Bert was grinning from ear to ear. “I sure am glad I didn’t turn you away last night.”

“Me, too, “ Nick said, admiring his cheeses before closing up the van.

“You folks must have a pretty big settlement.”

“Nope. I’m going to barter some of this for stuff we don’t have. There’s a settlement with sheep that’s got spun wool to trade. They’ve got some weavers starting up too. Another place out toward the coast does tea and coffee. I know they’ll really like this stuff.”

Mike sidled up to him. “Can I take notes?”

“I’ll let you know next time I’m going out. You can join me.”

Mike blinked at him. “Really? But isn’t that your route?”

Nick chuffed out a denial. “I’m not a travelling salesman. I barter for what we need with what I’ve got. It’s not a competition, Mike.”

“I’m grateful,” Mike said offering a handshake. “The last few years have been a nightmare.”

“Why were you...locked up?”

Mike shrugged. “I’m not sure. Competition? I ran a small manufacturing plant. We made fine gauge needles. The kind they use for the vaccine.”

“You think Rutledge kidnapped you for your plant?”

“For my equipment more likely. He tried to buy me out, but I said no. It’s our family’s business. We’ve been making needles since they were invented.”

“So he kidnapped you and took what he wanted,” Nick said, frowning at the thoughts forming in his head.

“Who would stop him?” Mike asked sadly. He looked up the driveway to the big house. “I hope we’ll be safe here.”

“You will be,” Nick said with more force than he intended. He had to believe that this settlement would survive.

They left the Creamery folks in good spirits. Nick and Wisp driving one van, Ruth and Kyle driving the other. The rich smell of cheese permeating both vehicles. Bert had given them directions to the nearest highway with warning about a bridge that had collapsed. They would need to go out of their way one more time before crossing the river and working their way back to the road that lead to High Meadow.