“Yeah,” added Stanley. “He knew he wasn’t going to make it and brought the car down and left a note for us to use it. We went to check on him when we found it. He was dead.”
“And we need to do something with his body. And the others I know are out there,” said the Chief. “I just don’t know what.”
Calvin and Nan looked at each other. “We might be able to help with that,” Nan said.
“Yes,” Calvin added. “With our equipment we can dig graves and haul bodies if we need to. Clear the ash where needed. But we have a pretty limited supply of fuel.”
Nan looked at Calvin questioningly, but didn’t contradict him on their fuel situation. It had occurred to Calvin that not everyone needed to know everything about them. Tom was eyeing their gun belts and holsters.
“That would sure help,” Bill said. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do. Only a couple of the town council made it. The mayor didn’t. We’ve talked to state emergency management and they told us were on our own for a while.”
Tom started to edge around toward the side of Nan and Calvin. “You know, Chief. We’re basically in charge. We ought to think about commandeering their equipment if it works.”
“Hold your horses, there, Tom,” the Chief said. “And come back around here. What’s the matter with you? They just said they’d help out.”
Tom stopped flanking the two, but didn’t move back. Calvin edged Nan slightly behind him and his right hand drifted to the gun belt, near the holster, his eyes narrowing as he looked at Tom.
“Well, we at least ought to disarm them. We don’t need a bunch of guns around at a time like this. Look what’s already happened.”
“That’s enough, Tom!” There was a distinct note of anger in Bill’s voice. “We’re not a bunch of jack booted thugs out to rule the town. We have a job to do. That’s to protect and serve this community. I aim to use every resource I can, but we’re not going to usurp the Constitution. Not on my watch.”
“Come on, Tom,” Stanley said. “We talked about this. It’s going to take a community effort to get through this. Trying to strong arm people is not going to help.”
“Well look at what happened to the Chief! He could have been killed. That was some of our upright citizens that did that to him. If I ever find out who shot at us, I’ll…”
“You’ll arrest them and they’ll be tried,” Bill said firmly. “We are officers of the law. Not a judge, nor jury, nor executioners. Some things are different now, yes. I don’t want to hear any more about it. If someone is making trouble, we’ll do something about it. But the Stubblefield’s are already trying to help. I aim to let them.”
The Chief looked over at Calvin and Nan. “Thank you for your offer. We’ll see about supplying some fuel for you to use. When can you start?”
“With the radiation levels where they are, I don’t think we should be out of shelter more than four hours or so. It takes us close to half an hour each way, so that gives us three hours a day to get things accomplished. We can bring the equipment in tomorrow and get started.
“I think it’s best if you and the townspeople get together and decide what the priorities are. We’ll provide the equipment and a little manpower, but it is up to you guys to provide the plan.”
“Okay,” Bill said. Tom seemed to be settling down.
“We just want to help where we can, without getting radiation sickness or shot or anything,” Nan said.
“Nobody is going to get shot that doesn’t deserve it,” the Chief said. He looked a bit surprised when the other four suddenly laughed. It dawned on him then, what he’d said. “You know what I meant,” he said with a chuckle. “Now,” he continued, looking at Nan and Calvin, “Is there anything we can do to help you at the moment?”
Calvin shook his head. “No. I want to get back. We just wanted to see how things were going and if we could be of help. We’ll be in tomorrow morning with the equipment and we can get started.”
Bill stood up, with another wince, and shook Calvin’s hand. “Okay. Sounds like a plan. We’ll get with the others and come up with more of a plan for tomorrow.”
For the next several days Calvin and Nan did some very unpleasant work. Those that had survived in and around town had begun to make themselves known. New council members and a mayor had been elected and they had wanted individual graves dug. Calvin was able to talk them out of it, with support from the Chief.
Calvin dug a wide trench and the bodies were laid in it side by side. Someone was marking down the exact location and markers would be set, sometime. It took several days, working only three hours a day, to get the work completed. But it was finally done, except for those that would die from radiation exposure. There were several that were very sick and would not get better.
It was a heart wrenching time and Calvin and Nan went home every day with tears in their eyes. Though there were no tears for the occupants of another trench grave that Calvin had to dig just after the last local had been buried.
The small grocery store had become the local meeting place. Calvin had used the Unimog to clear the parking lot of ash. The town council was allocating what resources were left, and people were trading and bartering for things in the parking lot, too.
Nan and Calvin were in town again, working with the city council and the Chief, planning a scavenging trip using the Unimog, one of the Stubblefield Jeeps, and a couple of old farm trucks that still ran, when a carload of outsiders roared into town. They stopped at the store and clambered out of the VW van, guns waving.
Other than the near riot at the store a few weeks earlier, there had not been any real trouble in the town. But Nan and Calvin, and the police force weren’t the only citizens going around armed. Before they could think about it, Calvin, Nan, and the others returned fire when the group opened fire on the crowd as they moved into the store. It was a short battle.
One man from town took a round in the arm. The Chief got the first aid kit out of the old Ford that was their new squad car. Tom and Stanley checked over the marauders and found two of them alive. One man and one woman, both severely wounded.
“What do we do, Chief?” asked Stanley.
“About all we can do is bandage them up with what we’ve got and get old Broderick the vet to take a look at them. County says they’re going to send over a doc to check everyone out, but that’s going to take a while yet. I’ll call it in and see what the county wants us to do with them in the meantime.”
He looked over at the Ralph Clemens, the local that had been shot. “Ralph, too, I guess.”
“What about right now?” Tom asked, as Sally, the woman that had bandaged Ralph, began to work on the two injured marauders. “We can’t take them in to the county jail at the moment. At least we haven’t taken out the old cells at city hall yet. Put them there, even injured?”
“Yep,” replied the Chief.
“Just one, though,” Sally said. “The woman just died.”
Stanley went to get a stretcher from the ambulance shed for the man. Sally stood up to talk to the Chief. Of the five ambulance attendants in the town, Sally was the only one that had made it through the war. Two had been gone on vacation when things started, and the other two had each tried to shelter in place for their families. Neither had been successful.
Sally had become hardened to illness, injury, and death since the war, being the only one with anything other than advanced first-aid training in town that was ambulatory. There were three nurses, all employed by the county hospital. All three were down with injuries or radiation sickness. And Betty Lou hadn’t been back to town since that first day.