Shortage (Best Laid Plans Book 2) (31 page)

Both Trev and their friend stared. “What?” Trev asked.

Lewis's lips quirked upward in a wry smile. “You think I'd have a problem with our friends staying in the best possible shelter? We built that place to be comfortable through the winter but we weren't there to use it ourselves. I'm actually happy you guys moved in instead of someone else because I can trust you took better care of it.”

“We did,” Matt promised. “But now that you guys are coming back to Aspen Hill do you want us to move out?”

“And go where?” his cousin asked wryly. “You said refugees are living in your house now.” He shrugged. “Anyway there's enough room in there for 10 people, and more people means it'll be easier to protect.”

“Right. Only with me and Sam married over the winter that means three couples in there. And kids. I hope that won't be too much of a bother for you . . .” Matt trailed off sheepishly.

Lewis dropped his face into his hands with an annoyed sound. “You know, Matt, a good friendship is built on giving as well as receiving.”

“Oh I know. Believe me, you guys are first on my list of people I'd donate a kidney to.” Their friend shifted uncomfortably. “Look, Mayor Tillman was talking about construction projects once it looks like we've got a long streak of good weather ahead of us. We'll build ourselves some houses and get out of your hair.”

His cousin slowly raised his head to reveal a relaxed smile. “I'm just giving you a hard time. Why do you think the shelter has so many cots in it?”

Matt gave him a relieved look. “So getting back to the subject of food for sale, how much do you guys have?”

“We left about a year's worth in the cache.”

Their friend's smile slipped as he did the math. “For two people?”

“For one person.” Lewis shook his head. “Believe me, I wish it was more too.”

“Well we knew however much it was, it wouldn't be enough,” Matt said heavily. “It'll still help. My family's got some seeds to plant once it warms up, including heirlooms from my mom's garden, and others in the town are also waiting to plant. This might help us survive long enough to get to our first harvest.”

A somewhat heavy silence fell as they all contemplated insufficient food and starving people. Trev shook the grim thoughts aside. “You're welcome to sleep in here. It'd give us a chance to swap tales: you can tell us about what's been going on down in town and what you've heard of the outside world, and go on and on about the the bliss of marriage like I'm sure you're eager to do, and we can tell you about trees and snow and the occasional rabbit and deer. Play your cards right and we might even bust out our recorder and harmonica and play you a duet.”

Matt snorted. “Does this place have room for three people?”

“Sure, we can push the chairs over by the door and tip the table on end and fold the legs. No cot, unfortunately, but we've got good sleeping pads and you'll have the best spot in front of the stove.”

Their friend reluctantly shook his head and stood. “Thanks, but I already feel bad about ditching Jane and Tom to come talk to you. I should probably go camp down with them. You're welcome to sit with us around the fire until it's time to turn in, though.”

Trev shared a look with his cousin. “Well, I was just planning on hanging out here bored out of my skull like I've done every night for the last few months, but if you insist I suppose I can come hang out for a while.”

Lewis snorted. “For news of the outside world I'd sit in a stand of dead thistle.”

They banked the stove and closed and locked the hideout, then Lewis led the way back down towards the overhang. As they went Trev fell into step beside his friend. “So what's the story with Jane?” he asked, trying to act casual but probably not doing a good job.

Matt grinned. “Sounds like she made an impression right off the bat.” Trev shrugged. “Well I think Chauncey said it best. Plenty of people have an engaging personality, but according to him Jane has a
disengaging
personality.”

That made Trev laugh in spite of himself. “Hey, he said that exact same thing about Lewis when we took his class!”

His friend smiled slightly, then got serious again. “I suppose you've got some similar personality traits, Lewis. But from what I've seen even though you've got no problems being alone you also don't have too many problems being around other people.”

He waved towards the overhang. “On the other hand Jane is polite, professional, and definitely competent, but it's obvious when she's around other people that the only thing she really wants out of a social interaction is for it to end. She'll answer any question or comment you might have, in as few words as possible, but she literally offers nothing to the conversation, and doesn't seem to notice or care if the silence gets awkward. And the moment she can get away with it it's back to solitude. Disengaging.”

“Okay,” Trev said. “Only she wasn't very polite with us.”

“Really? That's unusual.” Matt grinned at him. “Maybe it's her way of saying she likes you.”

Trev tried to laugh that off, but even though he knew it was a joke he was still secretly pleased at the thought. Maybe it was the winter of forced isolation with only his cousin for company talking, but even if Jane had been a bit, um, curt with them earlier he was willing to entertain a glimmer of hope.

She
was
cute.

Chapter Fourteen

Homecoming

The evening around the campfire didn't turn out to be quite the wellspring of news about the outside world that Lewis had hoped for. Matt mainly wanted to talk about Sam and the wedding, while Tom was mostly interested in talking about the hardships the town had gone through.

It was from the older man that they learned about the attack on the shelter just before Catherine had sent Matt looking for them. Lewis wasn't pleased about that at all, and after that mostly grumbled about the damage to his door and whether the wind turbines on the vents and the hat on the stovepipe could be cleared to working condition again, if they hadn't been already.

His cousin was also more than a little irked that the attackers had used some of his gasoline, and was less than pleased when Matt couldn't tell him that the shed had been locked tight once again. Even Matt's assurances that the family was guarding the shelter and nobody would mess with the stuff in the shipping container didn't completely mollify him.

For Trev's part he tried a couple times to strike up a conversation with Jane, only to have Matt's assessment of her confirmed by her terse answers as she stared into the flames. He didn't think she said more than half a dozen words the entire time, and on his third attempt to tease some sort of discussion out of her the redheaded woman abruptly stood and walked to her tent, disappearing inside without a word. Trev worried that he'd said the wrong thing until Tom assured him that it wasn't unusual for her to just leave without excusing herself.

A bit later Tom also called it a night, looking more than ready to sleep. That left the three of them sitting quietly around the fire, playing chicken on which of them would be the first to break up the party. Trev was almost surprised when Lewis spoke up.

“I'm glad you managed to make things work with the refugees, but should you be letting them guard the town?”

Matt shot him an annoyed look. “There's no “them” anymore,” he corrected sharply. “It's all “us”, residents of Aspen Hill. We buried the hatchet last fall and pulled together to survive the winter. I'd especially avoid calling Jane or anyone from her group a refugee. She doesn't see herself as one.”

“I suppose you're right. As long as the town survives everyone who lives there has a home.” Lewis abruptly stood. “Speaking of which we should probably get an early start tomorrow.” They said their goodnights and Trev and Lewis made their way back to the hideout. They'd have to be up even earlier than the others to pack up everything they planned to take with them.

Trev must've been more excited about his return to civilization than he'd thought, because it took him longer than usual to get to sleep. And in spite of his weariness he was up and out of bed the moment his cousin showed signs of stirring.

They planned to leave behind everything that had already been there when they arrived, since it was all stuff they already had down in the shelter, which meant they'd only be taking what they'd brought or found since. In fact, the wagons wouldn't be quite as weighted down for this trip since they'd eaten through a bit of their food.

They still had enough to last them both for nearly four months, which Trev felt fairly proud about: through hunting, fishing, and foraging they'd managed to gather over half the food they'd eaten during the time they'd spent up here, only needing to dip into the food storage for two months' worth. Or at least the equivalent, since while packing up they'd emptied the icehouse of the roughly 70lbs of meat they still had in there to take with them, to replace what they'd eaten from their stores.

They hadn't quite reached self-sufficiency, yet, but then again they'd eaten well all winter without having to go below optimal caloric intake.

Lewis also loaded the deer and rabbit skins he'd laboriously cured over the winter, and then they piled their camping gear and other equipment on and stacked the weapons they'd taken from the bandits along with their own weapons and ammo up top, wrapped in their sleeping bags to protect against any accidental banging.

His cousin had been about to load Jane's .30-30 with the other weapons, but before he could Trev intervened. “I'll take it,” he said, casually picking up the rifle and slinging it over his shoulder.

His eagerness earned him a knowing look. “Don't mind lugging the extra weight down if it means you get to be the one handing it to the cute redhead?” Lewis asked. Trev felt his face flush and his cousin grinned. “I thought you didn't like her.”

“I've been snowed in on a mountain for four and a half months with just you for company. I'm willing to give her a chance.”

“You think
she'll
give
you
a chance? She didn't seem to like you either. Besides, you heard what Matt said about her disengaging personality.”

Trev shrugged. “I get along with you, don't I?”

Lewis held up his hands. “Hey, if you want to give it a shot go for it. I just figured after Mandy it would be once bitten twice shy.”

He could've done without the reminder. “Do you honestly think Jane's anything like her?”

His cousin paused in rearranging the large but fairly light tarp-wrapped bundle of solar panels and batteries he'd scavenged over the winter atop the stuff on his sled, frowning thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it, from what I've seen she's pretty close to the exact opposite.”

“I can't think of any higher praise.” Trev stooped down and grabbed lengths of cord to tie down the stuff on his wagon, and once that was finished covered it all with a tarp and tied that down as well. By the time he finished Lewis had already tarped and tied down his own wagon, so Trev picked up the towing rope. “Ready?”

Lewis nodded and went over to secure their lock on the hideout's door. There was no need to lock up the empty icehouse, and if anyone had the desire to steal something from the outhouse they were more than welcome to it. Just like that they'd done as much as they could to secure this place in their absence, against intruders and elements both. With a last look around his cousin picked up the rope to his wagon and motioned for Trev to lead the way.

Always planning ahead, Lewis had suggested that they carve runners to tie to the wagons' wheels to turn them into sleds, in case they needed to get their stuff out fast while the snows were still piled high. Trev had been happy to take on the project, as much because he thought his shoddily built moving dolly wagon with its small multidirectional wheels would be easier to handle as a sled as because he agreed that it was a good precaution. It was also something to do on long winter nights.

Now he was glad they had, since it meant they were ready to go with no need for major preparations.

Instead of taking the wagon sleds up to the logging road and following it all the way around the way they'd brought them in last fall, which would've been a pain
and
taken forever, instead they pulled them down the slight slope to the cliffs and found a sturdy tree. Lewis got out the pulley and hooked it to the trunk, and together they lowered the wagons one by one to the slope below, where Matt was waiting to catch and untie them. It went off without any disasters, and in around fifteen minutes they'd retrieved the pulley and were heading down the gap.

The snow made getting the sleds down the hill a bit more doable, but they still had to contend with deadfall and densely packed evergreens. Matt, helping Lewis with his wagon since it was still the slightly more weighted down one, joked that they should just let them go and pick them up down at the river, which neither Trev nor Lewis found amusing. Anyway they probably wouldn't go more than five feet before getting caught on something, since that was about how often they had to manhandle the things around branches or logs poking up or around tree trunks.

They were all relieved when they reached the bottom of the slope with no mishaps.

The river was another major hurdle they had to deal with. For it they untied the tarps and wrapped them around the wagons as well as their contents, making a neat little bundle with the edges bunched up and tied at the top to be as waterproof as possible. Then they threw the pulley rope across the river and had Jane, Tom, and Trev half drag, half float the wagon across to the other side while Matt and Lewis got the other one ready.

Lewis's tipped over, unfortunately, but with some care they managed to get it across the river without banging the precious solar panels, and when they opened up the tarp they were relieved to see that aside from a little patch of dampness on the tarp around the panels no water seemed to have made its way in. They hurriedly tied the tarps around the cargo again and made final preparations to set out.

As they worked Tom ambled over. “That's a lot of food,” he observed idly. “You must have brought a ton up.”

Trev did his best not to feel suspicious of the small talk. “A bit more than this. We were able to live off the land pretty well, believe it or not.”

“Oh, I believe it.” The older man pointed at Jane. “Eight people survived the winter off the meat she brought in, with only a bit of help from me and my boy.” His expression suddenly grew sad. “Was fourteen to start out with, and eleven when we got to your town. Which isn't any criticism of her, mind you: she worked miracles with what she had. But it was a hard winter for all of us.”

It was hard to think of a response to that, so Trev rested a hand on the older man's shoulder, then made his way over to where Jane stood inspecting the road south with Lewis's binoculars. Speaking of hunting . . . “Here,” he said, unslinging her father's rifle and offering it to her as she let the field glasses drop on their string.

If he was hoping to improve her mood by returning the .30-30 he could keep hoping. Jane gave the weapon an impassive once-over before looking up at him with narrowed blue eyes. “Just the rifle?”

Trev wasn't sure what she meant. “I also wanted to apologize for how I acted yesterday.” She gave him an impatient look as if that wasn't what she'd meant, and he turned his attention back to the gun in her hands. “We left it with all the rounds we found with it. We do our practicing with our own weapons that we have more ammo for, since if we did end up needing an extra rifle we wanted as many bullets as possible for it.”

She continued to look at him and he tried to think of what else she wanted from him. “We haven't touched it aside from inspecting and cleaning it every month or so, along with a few minor repairs Lewis did like tightening the stock so it doesn't wobble and smoothing the bolt mechanism. It's in better condition than when we found it.”

Jane checked the safety and drew the bolt, checking the chamber and the in-built magazine below the bolt assembly that held 7 rounds counting one in the chamber, even going so far as to empty the magazine and inspect the bullets. There had been 5 in there when they got it, all of which seemed to pass her inspection since she quickly loaded them once more and slammed the bolt home, chambering a shell before reengaging the safety.

She seemed familiar with the weapon, which supported her claim that it had been her father's. Not that he'd doubted her. “It actually looks pretty good,” she said, looking up and meeting his eyes. Trev couldn't help but notice that they were much more enjoyable to look into when they weren't narrowed his way. “Thanks.”

“We take care of our equipment,” Trev said, doing his best to make his shrug look nonchalant. “If you want we can carry it in one of the wagons on the trip down.”

In answer she slung it across her back on top of the scoped G3 variant she'd brought with her, borrowed from the town's storehouse. It was a nicer rifle than her father's and should've been on top for easy access, but Trev supposed familiarity and sentimental value could trump more practical considerations. Or maybe she just hadn't thought that far ahead.

That seemed to settle the issue for her, because she turned her attention to the aforementioned wagons and raised an eyebrow. She didn't ask any questions, but Trev felt like he had to explain. “We carved and polished runners to attach to the wagon's wheels, just in case we had to make a getaway with all our stuff. We can take them off pretty easily once we reach spots with no snow.”

Jane made no comment, and didn't even excuse herself as she walked over to Matt to ask if they were ready to go. Trev considered trailing along to try to keep the conversation going, but if his friend was right about her social preferences he'd probably just annoy her. That just meant he'd have to take his opportunities to talk to her as they came, without trying to force the issue too much.

In a way the trip down was much easier than the trip up last fall, in spite of the snow. They had more people to help with the wagons on rough stretches, and pulling sleds across snow was a lot smoother than jouncing the wheels over rocks in the road, at least where the powder wasn't so soft they sunk right in and had to be laboriously dug out or a path tromped down for them. Wherever there was a crust, though, and especially since most of their path was downhill, the sleds were more eager to get where they were going than the people pulling them. The challenge there was keeping them under control.

In any case for the most part they managed a much better pace than they had last fall, possibly even twice as fast, following Matt, Tom, and Jane's footprints in the snow. Taking turns with the sleds they managed to keep up the pace with fewer rests, going slower than Matt's group had managed but not markedly so.