“We know what her chances are.”
Cal closed his eyes and shook his head in disgust.
“I’m not being a dick here, Cal. I’m just being honest.”
“Cal,” Louise called him weakly.
“Yes, I’m here.” Cal rushed to her side.
Her eyes were open. “I’m in this room.”
“What?” Cal asked.
“You’re talking about me like… like I ain’t here. I am. I hear you.”
“I’m sorry.” Cal grabbed her hand. “I am so sorry. Look, we aren’t staying. We aren’t. We’re leaving.”
“Good,” she said. “Good.”
“I’m gonna take you out of here. Jake… Jake if he will, can drive us.”
“Absolutely.”
“We’re gonna shoot for Parkersburg or maybe even Charleston,” Cal said. “Get you some medical attention there, see if they can—”
“No.” Louise cut him off. “No. They’re right. You can’t waste medicine on me.”
“We have to fight,” Cal said. “We do. You said it was good we’re leaving.”
“Yes. Leaving this place. I want to leave. I… want to go home. Ripley. We can’t be far. I don’t want to die here. I want to die at my home.”
“You’re not dying.”
Louise closed her eyes tightly. “I wanna go home, Cal, please.” She opened her eyes, looked at him, and squeezed his hand. “Please say you’ll take me home.”
“If he don’t,” a woman spoke up as she entered, “I will.” A middle-aged woman with a hardened face, and a twang to her rough voice, stepped closer. “I’ll take you home. I’m headed there. Ripley. I’ll take ya.”
“Excuse me,” Cal said. “Who are you?”
“We met.” She shook his hand. “You may not remember. I’m Helen. Helen Watson. Me, my son, and my husband tugged you off that boat.”
“Oh, wow.” Jake walked up to her and shook her hand. “Thank you very much.”
Helen nodded. “I was coming back to check on her. I was speaking to that other fella, Rick?” She said his name as if she were guessing it. “He just got back from a run. I spoke to him. He’s gonna stay back and help out here with my son. I’m headed down to Ripley, steal some of their volunteers for up here. The ones that can’t help out… elsewhere.”
Cal shook his head like a confused cat. “I… I’m lost. Ripley, her hometown, it has medical help?”
“About as much as here,” Helen said. “Like here, it’s secluded, hasn’t been touched or visited by the invasion. Right now, it’s also a temporary hub. We have a better place, we’ll go there. We’re pulling resources and I am talking to every able-bodied person I can find. While you two aren’t all that able bodied… yet. You will be. And your state right now, might work to our advantage. Especially you. You don’t sound like you’re from around here,” she spoke to Cal.
“I’m not. I was on vacation.”
“Oh, good,” Helen said. “I spoke to the other guy. He doesn’t look American, but he is. He’s so damned Americanized he wouldn’t pass for anything else. But you, Cal, you may be able to help.”
Jake held up his hands. “I’m confused, and I am missing something. We volunteer here at this medical camp. I mean, I am happy to get Louise home, but they need us here.”
“I’ll get people for up here,” she said. “People that can’t do what we need them to do.”
“And that is?” Jake asked.
“Fight,” Helen answered, then glanced at Cal. “Infiltrate as an innocent bystander, not from this country. I can’t get into details, mainly because I’ll probably get them all wrong. We have a man in Ripley who can explain it all. We can get her home, comfortable, and get you to set up.”
“So, you’re starting a resistance?” Jake asked.
“Starting? Honey we have one. We’re making it bigger,” she said. “Don’t know if you know this, but this country was attacked and invaded. We have a few hundred thousand Chinamen soldiers, screaming, ‘we’re here to save you,’ when we know they’re not. They not only came to our backyard and picked a fight, they took our country. And we”—she winked—“we’re gonna take it back.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Swall, CA – San Joaquin Valley
They weren’t kidding around.
At the crack of dawn the next day, just when Joe was having his breakfast, his workers showed up. The workers that were promised to him by the Asian man in a suit that came with the mayor.
All of the workers were young and fit, and they didn’t say much. In fact, Joe swore they looked at him like he was some sort of prison warden.
They tossed out, “Yes sir” and “No sir” like Joe was some kind of big shot.
He wasn’t.
He never presented himself that way and his own workers treated him like a pal.
Where were his workers?
In fact, Joe didn’t know a single person that showed up at his farm. They all arrived in the back of a truck, filed out, and waited.
Saul said he had the same experience. Only he called his workers, ‘Grown up Children of the Corn’ people.
Joe explained what they had to do and only a few times did he have to stop and show them again. They were spot on, worked fast and moved toward the quota. A quota Joe thought was ridiculous.
He had to deliver six cartons of product a day. Six days a week. They gave him three days to get his first delivery in.
The workers produced well that first day, two cartons and Joe was impressed with that because they had not done so before.
When they were done for the day, they stood quietly, waiting on for the truck which arrived promptly at six o’clock.
Joe had a plan and he’d share it with the workers after they trusted him. He’d have them produce seven cartons a day, reaching their quota on Friday and when they came to work on Saturday they could just relax.
But like they didn’t trust him, Joe was uncertain about them.
When the day arrived to deliver that first quota, they had already produced enough for the next day, but Joe didn’t bring it. He figured if he showed up with more they’d raise that quota.
He wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to turn it over. All he was told was take the daily quota to the distribution center.
Where the heck is the distribution center? Joe wondered. He figured worst came to worst he would head to the mayor’s office.
Joe didn’t like him.
The mayor was on his short list of people he was going to have a word with after the war was over and done.
On the morning the quota was due, Joe left the workers, loaded his truck, and headed into town.
The second he pulled into town, he felt as if it were surreal and his mind went immediately to the actor William H. Macy.
There was something about Macy that Joe just loved. He always judged celebrities on who he’d sit down and have a beer with, and Macy was one of them. The type of guy who would hang back on the porch, sipping a cold one, and enjoying Fat Joe’s tomato salad.
He hadn’t thought about Macy until he arrived into town.
Swall was a pretty little town, one of those places that could be on a postcard and a tourist attraction, had it not been so deep in the state of California. It was a town of farmers and Joe was one of them.
They knew him at the post office when he dropped off his crates and at the Print and Go where there was a UPS counter.
But it wasn’t freaky.
Until that day, and Joe thought he stepped out of his truck into the movie Pleasantville. That’s what made him think of William Macy. He half expected everything to turn black and white. Had it been that town in that movie, it would have made sense. The streets were busier than he’d ever seen them. People were dressed in their Sunday best as they walked the streets, waving to each other and smiling.