Trev handed out more can openers and they all got to work opening cans and filling their bellies with real, solid food. The rose hips had felt like manna from heaven, but even while eating them the last few days Trev had craved something more substantial. Now he finally had it.
They gorged themselves that evening, eating extra to make up for the lean days, and then at Trev’s insistence they took out as much food as they thought they’d be able to carry with them to Aspen Hill. Terry and April transferred the lightest of their things to Aaron’s small backpack so they could fill their only slightly larger school packs, then got to work finding a way to load the wagon to capacity beneath their few possessions.
As for Matt and Trev’s backpacks, they were larger and could hold more and Trev actually had to empty a few things from his friend’s pack to lighten it, reminding him of the harsh lesson he’d learned his first day. Matt protested that he was willing to overburden himself if it meant having more food when they got home, and Terry quickly offered to share the load, so Trev stopped arguing and focused on his own pack. He also planned to pick up everything he’d unloaded a mile down the road, assuming it was still there, so he packed with that in mind.
In the end it felt like they barely made a dent on the cache. Trev had them help him cover it up again with blankets and the tarp, then they filled the hole back in and covered it with a carpet of leaves and sticks to camouflage it once more.
That night they slept in the clearing right on top of the cache. For Trev it was the best night’s sleep he’d had since the FETF camp, with a full stomach and the comfort that the long, harrowing journey was nearly over and they were almost home. It didn’t even occur to him that he was facing the same 50 mile trek that had nearly defeated him the first week after the attack, and yet after all the traveling he’d done it felt like no more than the final stretch.
Chapter Fifteen
“Aid”
Just before noon on the 22nd day after the Gulf refineries attack found Sam making her way to Roadblock 1 for a shift.
She’d done four so far, all fairly uneventful. The biggest trouble they’d encountered was a brief scuffle between refugees and “townies”, as the refugees had taken to calling the residents of Aspen Hill, at the spring a couple days ago. A few of the men manning the roadblock with her had hurried to break it up, sending the refugees back to camp and the townspeople back to their homes, and that had been that.
At least within the town itself. Troubling news had been making its way around the roadblocks that people were being robbed outside of town. Some blamed bandits, others came to the more logical conclusion that the refugees were causing trouble, but either way Mayor Anderson and Officer Turner had tightened the town’s borders even more and cautioned the residents of Aspen Hill to stay behind the roadblocks and patrols.
When Sam arrived at the roadblock she saw that the town’s lone policeman-turned-leader was there for an inspection, currently talking with Chauncey Watson, who she’d done a shift with, and a tall man about her age with light brown hair and the lean, wiry look of someone who ran track or marathons. Or in this case went on frequent long patrols, since from the descriptions she’d been given she guessed this was Lewis Halsson, Trev’s cousin. Matt had told her about how draining the shifts had been the few times he’d helped out, and from what she understood Lewis did them frequently.
When Lewis saw her he broke off his conversation with Chauncey and Turner and came over, offering his hand. “We haven’t had a chance to be introduced yet. Sam, right? You came down with Matt.”
She nodded, warily accepting the handshake. “You’re Trev’s cousin Lewis.”
He nodded back. “That’s right. Guess they haven’t come back yet, and I don’t suppose you could’ve heard news about them. I haven’t been getting anything that could tell me how they’re doing on my shortwave radio, either.”
“We’re praying,” Sam replied. “Mona says that’s all we can do at this point.”
“Right.” Lewis agreed. Then he paused, looking a bit uncomfortable. “So I had a visitor from your house a while back. A lady named Amanda Townsend, said you sent her along to get food since Trev promised to take care of her.”
At the mention of the refugee woman Sam’s mood immediately soured. Hard as she’d been trying to get along they’d been fighting lately, partly because of Mandy’s bad attitude and partly because Sam kept confronting her about doing her fair share to help out. Or doing anything at all for that matter.
“Yeah, she came back with enough to last her a week.” Sam didn’t mention that in spite of needing Mona to prepare the food for her, and in spite of the Larsons’ generosity feeding her up to that point, the woman hadn’t shared any of it. And after what she’d gotten ran out she’d gone right back to eating the Larsons’ food again without a word of gratitude. “Did she tell you why Trev made that promise?” she continued, more coldly than she’d intended to.
Lewis’s expression flashed briefly with anger before going carefully blank. “No, but I heard it from other people. It’s a bold-faced lie. Also I would’ve preferred that nobody but people I trust know where I live.”
A somewhat uncomfortable silence fell. Sam wasn’t sure what she believed, but she wasn’t about to express her doubts to the man’s own cousin. Finally she cleared her throat. “So are you on shift at the roadblock?”
Matt’s friend shook his head. “I’m in charge of patrols for the northern border so that’s where I do my shifts. I just came down to talk to Officer Turner about a few things. Chauncey was here too and since he also listens to his shortwave radio, way more obsessively than I have time for in fact, we got to talking about events out in the wider world.” He motioned, an offer for her to join him as he made his way back over to the other two men to continue their conversation.
“What news is there?” she asked, following.
Turner heard her and answered. “Well Chauncey here has been following a network of amateur radio operators spanning most of the country.”
The retired high school teacher nodded. “Even with the internet and phones down there’s still a lot of information being passed around if you know where to look and can make some good friends over the airwaves. I was just telling these guys about those refineries the President was talking about building the day after the attack.”
“You’ve heard something about them?” Sam asked, excited in spite of herself. Those refineries represented hope, a chance that all this madness the country had sunk into might be ending sometime in the not so distant future.
Chauncey snorted. “Something? Those projects are half of what gets talked about on the radio, them and the entire mess surrounding them.”
“Mess?” she repeated in dismay. “So the construction isn’t going well?”
The radio operator laughed outright, either not noticing or not caring how he was bursting her bubble. “It isn’t going at all. All those cities full of starving people, because the government decided that instead of diverting all remaining resources to bringing supplies to the big cities to cushion us from the collapse they’d try to build refineries from scratch. That on top of using all the resources not going into the construction to keep our soldiers supplied so they can defend our borders and keep the peace in the major cities. If our country still had a robust economy and could depend on outside help that sort of juggling act might have worked, but we’ve spent decades spiraling our national debt out of control and alienating the rest of the world.”