Renewal 10 - Blind Force (2 page)

Now Gary found himself cruising down Highway 55 in the small hours of a Saturday morning, too wired to relax, and too tired to sleep. The convoy had stretched out over two miles behind him because even though he was traveling less than twenty miles per hour, he had no more patience for the trucks that would only go fifteen. He directed his driver to pass right through Manchester. He knew that the Jenkins farm was burned to the ground, but he didn’t have any other place to go.

Wyatt  Jenkins seemed to know. He was waiting on the scorched front steps of his former mansion when the convoy rolled into sight. Before the first truck turned through Wyatt’s gate, he knew the numbers were all wrong. He made a quick count of trucks and came up with roughly two hundred. Either Gary had lied about his forces, or the fight had started ahead of schedule.

Wyatt couldn’t wait to hear that story.

Chapter 10 – 3

Bill was chattering about a long eventful day as Terry drove him back across the open fields to Teeny Town. The leader of the community had been grim for days, and Terry was glad to see him looking hopeful for a change. Tam Rogers had knocked the Dragon army down to a size that Teeny Town could handle. With help from Larry Harris and his people, the ten state police who had been loaned to Bill for the duration, and hopefully a few forward thinking citizens of Coffee County, the community might just pull through. The citizens were the big unknown. Bill had made several attempts to sway the people in his direction, but he knew that they had been subject to many years of the Jenkins’s influence and may not have the gumption to make a tough decision if it came down to do or die. For the first time since they first encountered the Grand Dragon, Bill felt as if they had a reasonable shot at victory.

They rolled through the western gate just past midnight, leaving Kirk to deal with the Dragons who Bill had cleverly picked up and taken right into custody. He would love to be nearby in the morning to see what happened when those men discovered their plight, but he would have to give that particular pleasure to Kirk, who would be playing unpleasant mind games to get more information. Bill expected that there was not much to garner from those men. If they were left on the roadside to fend for themselves, they probably weren’t important enough to know much of anything. On the other hand, the watch posts Kirk had left around the Jenkins farm might just yield some useful information about the current strength of the Dragon army. Bill hoped that was the case. He needed to know hard numbers.

Terry noticed that Bill was slowly losing his limp as the men wandered back to Bill’s house. The town was dark, as it was supposed to be during times of threat, but even Terry had made this walk often enough to find his way without trouble. When they walked in through the kitchen door, dense shades were covering the glass, and Aggie was waiting at the table with a single candle and a plate piled high with sandwiches. Bill gave her a kiss on the top of her head as he walked to the refrigerator and pulled out two big brown bottles of beer.

“How’d it go?” Aggie asked with a look of concern.

“Better than I would have guessed,” Bill replied as he waved Terry into a chair and slid a beer to his young friend. “Kirk and John did a bang up job at the Cox and Talley places. We talked to both heads of the family. They agreed to stay out of the fight, but I’m expecting Garrett Cox to show up anyway.”

“He is a sneaky bastard,” Aggie said lightly.

“Yeah, after our little ‘talk’, we probably could have recruited his son right on the spot. It’s a safe bet that Derek will not think too much of his father after tonight. Kirk was in the thick of his torture act and Garrett seemed just fine with letting Kirk do some damage to his boy,” Bill paused to take bite out of a sandwich. “George Talley spoke up first.”

“George never should have been mixed up with the rest,” Aggie said.

“He was, though. We’ll see what he does next,” Bill said through a mouthful.

“What about Tam? How did she do?” Aggie asked.

“Oh, she did as well as she usually does. I’d guess she took out at least half of the Dragons without putting any of her people in real danger. Maybe more. I hope we’ll find out first thing in the morning.”

“Good. I wonder if she thinks we owe her now.” Aggie said absently, and then refocused on the men. “Well, speaking of morning... Now that I know you two are home safe, I’m going to bed. Good night, boys.”

“Good night,“ Terry said. “Thanks for the sandwiches.”

“I’ll be up shortly,” Bill said between licking his fingers.

Aggie snorted. She knew the odds. Both men watched her leave the room and take the turn at the foot of the staircase.

“I forgot to ask where Sally is,” Terry said.

Bill looked at the chalkboard nestled between the two doors leading out of the kitchen. “She’s out on patrol until two, looks like.”

“So there’s time for a little more of the second winter...” Terry said hopefully.

“You know the drill. Two more beers, my man.”

Chapter 10 – 4

The way Sally Bean managed her greenhouses was beyond me. Lucy seemed to understand perfectly. As she explained the difference between cold crops and warm crops and heating systems and climate to me one cold afternoon in January, I tuned her out completely. I was too busy noticing how much she had changed. She had just turned sixteen on the 4th, and she was talking like a grownup. Even more surprising, she was talking to me that way. I rewound my mental clock to the time before the Breakdown when she was another typical teenage girl. She had worried about parties and boys and grades and clothes, and had ignored me like the lesser spawn that I was. Now we were sitting in Sally Bean’s giant kitchen, on the modern end so we could gather the heat pouring off the woodstove, and she was having a perfectly grownup conversation with her little brother.

In any case, Sally had devised a method of pulling fresh food out of those greenhouses all winter long. None of it was food I really wanted to eat, given a choice, but after the previous winter, I was adjusted to the idea that food was precious and not to be wasted. I would even eat cauliflower, which still looked like brains to me. Granted, the winter was much milder than last year, but not even remotely mild by any traditional Tennessee standard. We saw many days of subzero temperatures, but never the arctic, freeze-your-eyeballs cold we had survived before. We saw snow that never melted, but the ring of woods around Sally’s farm caught the major drifts and kept her home clearing relatively free of heavy snow. We also saw mild days when the thermometer approached the freezing mark, and we all went outside just for the sheer fun of being under the sky.

No amount of cold saved us from the daily chores. There was livestock to feed and water, and to set free on mild days, only to round up when the sun sank below the horizon, and the night came with no real hint of how cold it might get. To be safe, we always packed the animals back in the barns at night. Bear was in no way a herding dog breed, but he was helpful just the same. With Bear’s prodigious size, even the most ornery bull we had would not tangle with the dog. As a bonus, the dog probably had a better vocabulary than I did. We’d just ask him to do something in plain English, and he’d do it. After each task, the dog looked inordinately proud of himself, even cocky, but I figured you can’t call anyone cocky unless they fail, and Bear never did. He was a bit sensitive to the cold with his short black fur, and we gave him the courtesy of leaving him by the stove on the days when it was too cold to let the livestock roam free.

Another gradual change caught my attention. Margaret and Jackie were still inseparable, but Jones had drifted in a direction that was well under way before I noticed. Anytime we were all together, there was a good chance that Jones would sit next to Arturo. I noticed that he was a bit uncomfortable with her attention at first, which is why I probably forgot all about it. A month later, Arturo and Jones were quite happily sitting close together on the couch. I still didn’t change my concept of their relationship until one night when I saw them get up together and hold hands as they went down the hall to the room Arturo had been sharing with Jimmy. Then I paid attention.

Jones was also spending lots of time with Jimmy. The youngest member of our family had grown enough to gain four inches in height and to lose the soft edges of his speech. In fact, he sounded almost exactly like Tommy, who was only weeks away from his tenth birthday and had grown half a foot himself. With little else to do in the cold winter days, I noticed those things, and marveled at the simple fact that the world had ended and we were still growing and living just like we would in any place, or any time. I don’t know why it startled me every time I stopped to see it.

Knowing what I know now, it was obvious that Jones had picked Arturo for her life, and that meant picking Jimmy as well. She approached the boy with that awkward method that grownups use when they decide a child is important, and begin to seek that child’s approval. Of course, Jimmy hated it. Well, he didn’t hate it, I suppose. He just didn’t want it. A sure sign that Jones was trying to be his friend was when Jimmy showed up looking for someone to play one of the board games in Sally’s collection. He seemed to think that no grownup would stoop to the level of Candyland, but Jones crossed the line without hesitation, forcing Jimmy to play along out of politeness.

That was another big change brought on by a winter spent with our motley collection of people. We learned to be polite whether we liked it or not. There is no way to cram thirteen people into one house without enforcing some hard rules of etiquette. That’s not to say that it was hard. There weren’t beatings when we were rude. It was just a tacit understanding that we all learned over time, and as a result, Jones became one of our favorite board game players. In the process of all those games, she learned as well. Without anyone ever saying it out loud, she understood the secret of getting along with children. Talk to them as if they are just people. The minute you try to kid-talk a kid, you’ve lost them.

By the time some brave crocuses and buttercups began to appear by the road, only six weeks late, Jones was good friends with Jimmy and clearly in love with Arturo. My parents shared many quiet smiles as they watched the connection grow stronger. I don’t think they really thought through the implications.

In early April, Arturo asked my dad if he would officiate over his marriage to Jones. He asked at the dinner table, where Dad would not have objected even if he wanted. He had no objection until the second question followed.

“You see, David,” Arturo said. “You’re the closest thing we’ve got to a justice of the peace, and I don’t think the official rules really matter anymore. It only matters to us.”

“You know I’m honored, Art,” Dad said, “And you too Jones. I’m honored and grateful that you can both find happiness together.”

“Thank you, my friend. I have another question,” Arturo said with some hesitation.

“What is it, Art?” Dad was serious. He had picked up on Arturo’s reluctance.

“I was wondering if I could have the station wagon. I’d say borrow it, but I don’t know how long I’ll need it.”

“You’re leaving?” Dad said, as if the thought had never occurred to him.

“We’d like to go looking for our families. My folks may still be alive up in McMinnville, and Jones has people up in Kentucky. I’m not sure we can ever settle in until we know. So yes, we’re planning on leaving in the next month or so,” Arturo said.

“I don’t know what to say,” Dad replied.

“I’d like to say we’ll be back, but you know the odds, and it’s not fair to have you waiting,” Arturo said with tears beginning to show. “It’s just something we have to do, you know?”

Dad leaned way back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. He thought for a minute and finally replied, “I’m caught off guard. We’ve been working for the long haul here, and it just never occurred to me that it wasn’t what you wanted. That said, of course you can have the wagon, and whatever else you need. None of us wants you to go, but there’s no way we would let you leave without being as prepared as we can make you.”

“Thank you, David. Thank you all.”

The dinner table was quiet after that.

Chapter 10 – 5

Terry loved Bill’s story, but he didn’t really understand how important it was until just then. Arturo. Leaving. Crap. Terry rounded up his plate and empty bottles, and set them in the sink. He grabbed the half-devoured plate of sandwiches and placed it in the refrigerator, for once ignoring the miracle of steady power. He walked back to the table. Afraid to speak, he just gave Bill a wave, and turned to leave the room.

“Terry...” Bill said.

Terry turned to face the man.

“That’s exactly how I felt.”

Terry nodded silently and climbed the stairs to his room.

Seated on the edge of his bed, Terry realized that he actually did think of this place as his room, and that was new. He didn’t know how he had crossed the threshold into Bill’s family. Maybe it was the strong feelings about a man he had never known leaving that family over thirty-five years ago. Maybe it was everything he had already experienced at Bill’s side in the short months he had known the man. Maybe it had something to do with Sally, but he wasn’t quite ready to admit that to himself.

He settled for sliding the boots from his feet, dropping the gun belt from his hips, and sliding the heavy cotton pants to the floor. He unbuttoned his shirt and thought about taking a shower, but he didn’t want to make that much noise when Aggie was sleeping down the hall. He flipped his pillow on end, slid onto the bed, and leaned back against the wall as he tried to relax. It wasn’t working.

He went through every event of the long day. It had started almost twenty-four hours ago, and still he could not sleep. He went through the dying faces that his mind had dutifully recorded in perfect slow motion. He couldn’t avoid the fact that he had run up a body count. He had lived for twenty years without killing a single person, and now it was less than three months later and he would need a piece of paper to tally them up. He had waded in head first with a practical attitude towards killing. It was Terry or the other guy. Only now, he understood that no matter how practical he thought he was, each life that he took was a burden that never went away. The burden was about to get much heavier, he expected.