He looked away. “Well, I’m Hunter now. I hunt for stuff. My parents named me Michael, but they’re gone.” Hunter choked down the lump that always caught in his throat when he mentioned his parents. He made fists to keep his hands from shaking.
Catherine patted his knee the way his mother used to, surprising him out of the dark spiral of his thoughts. He remembered his parents less every day. He hated revisiting the nightmare of their last moments. Catherine scooted next to him and rested her head on his shoulder. A secure happiness overcame him, which he couldn’t explain.
“I like it under my tree,” Catherine said. “Don’t you? It’s nice and shady. She’s a good tree, full of life and happy memories. I like her bark the best. It’s so big and knobby. Here, feel.”
She grabbed Hunter’s hand and placed it on the tree. The bark felt big and knobby, just like she said. He smiled.
Hunter stuffed the leftovers into his backpack. “Catherine, would you like to go to Independents with me?”
She bounced beside him like a loose ball. “You mean to live with you?”
“Well, not with me, but with the other kids there. I can’t leave you here all by yourself.” Hunter gauged the sun’s position. “We better go now if we want to make it home before dark.”
“Don’t you think home is a cozy word?” she asked. “Home, home, home. How will we get home?”
Hunter thumbed at his motorbike. “I’ll give you a lift on my two-wheeler.”
“I need to say goodbye first.” Catherine jumped up and turned toward the cottonwood. She gave the tree a big hug. “I love you, tree, but Hunter is taking me home. Be good. Make sure you get lots of water and plenty of sunshine. Maybe someday we can come back for a visit.”
She looked back at Hunter with wide blue eyes.
Hunter shrugged. “Sure.”
He helped Catherine climb up behind him, and then he started his Kawasaki and told her to hang on. She fastened her arms around his waist and squeezed like she was giving him the Heimlich maneuver. Hunter groaned at the long trip ahead, but hoped finding Catherine would spare him from Jimmy’s anger when they reached Independents.
TWO
Jimmy stood in the middle of the cabbage field outside Independents, working his shovel and feeling the sun solidify his farmer’s tan. A late-afternoon breeze kicked up, cooling the sweat on his skin. His stomach growled as suppertime approached. He removed his hat and scratched an itch he’d been trying to ignore for the past hour, hating his nagging worry that the irritation might be related to the plague. Every little itch, soreness, or cough terrified him. He was tired of being scared, but he wasn’t ready to die.
Jimmy’s thoughts shifted to his brother. He wished Hunter would come back home. It was one thing to lose his parents, but his anxiety reached a whole new level at the thought of losing his little brother.
He slapped his hat back on top and drew his forearm over his cheek to clear off some dirt. Sweat transformed the dirt into mud smearing across his face. He lifted up his shirt to wipe away the mess. The shirt smelled like hard work and manure.
Farming required hard work; manure came with the job. Work was a four-letter word most kids—including Jimmy—never wanted to hear before the plague. Then, when he was eleven and his brother was nine, his parents suddenly died. Everybody’s parents died. Everyone around the world over the age of seventeen trembled, convulsed, vomited and died, leaving behind a bunch of kids who didn’t understand why.
Jimmy and others realized they had two choices: work or follow their parents.
Six years later, Jimmy provided fresh food for more than a hundred kids living in Independents. It was a lot of hard work, but they all liked to eat. Jimmy hoped that wherever his parents were, they’d be proud of him.
He finished wiping his face, lowered his shirt and caught sight of the missile hurtling at him a second too late. The mud-ball hammered his chest with excruciating force and clung there.
“Ouch! What the…!” He bit his tongue and tolerated the pain in silence.
“C’mon, let it out just this once. You know you want to.”
Samuel smiled from among the cabbages fifteen feet away. Jimmy couldn’t believe the boy snuck up on him decked out in a tie-dyed shirt and red bandanna headband. But there he was, his best friend with a muddy hand.
The mud-ball rolled off Jimmy’s chest and plopped back to earth, leaving behind a splatter trail staining his shirt. He stabbed his shovel into the ground, arched over and hauled up mud. Cold and wet, they oozed between his tightening fingers as he launched one handful and then the other.
Samuel ducked the first, but Jimmy anticipated that move and slung the second low, hoping it would tag his opponent’s head or where it hurts. He’d be satisfied with either target.
It slammed him where it hurts. Samuel’s eyes widened more than Jimmy thought humanly possible as he sunk to his knees in the muddy field.
“Holy shit!” Samuel screamed and doubled over.
“I wish you wouldn’t swear like that. One of the little kids might overhear you using that kind of language.” Jimmy yanked his shovel out of the trench where water now flowed, tipped his hat back and smiled.
Samuel looked up, red-faced and furious. His eyes watered. He inhaled several deep breaths, blowing them out with gigantic jets of air. “All I wanted… was one little cuss word… Why’d you aim for my nuts?”
“I thought that was where you kept your brains.” Jimmy walked over, held out a muddy hand and hoisted him up.
Samuel squawked and teetered until he reacquired his balance, then glared at Jimmy. “That was not cool, man. You might have caused some serious damage and ruined my chances to help repopulate the world. Next time, think of all the things my future children will accomplish before you throw low.”
“I was trying to do the world a favor by stopping ignorance at the source. But then again, you do make a pretty decent field hand.”
“Yeah, well, I’d rather be a spoiled rich kid with a swimming pool, rubbing sun lotion on my sexy girlfriend.” Samuel motioned out towards the field. “By the way, the cabbages are saturated. Good job.”
Jimmy shrugged like he hadn’t spent the better part of a broiling afternoon sorting out his irrigation problems. “How’s the greenhouse? Were you able to patch the holes?”
“It’ll hold until the next hailstorm, but we need more plastic panels before winter.”
Jimmy nodded and added plastic panels to his ever-growing mental list. “Are you ready to head back home? I have to try and find a clean shirt before supper.”
Samuel made a minor adjustment to his pants. “Sure, let’s go before I start swelling.”
He seized the shovel from Jimmy and slung the long, worn handle over his shoulder. They dragged their boots out of the muddy field and headed for the white painted houses and brick buildings of Independents.
“Looks like we can pull them soon,” Samuel said, nodding toward the cabbages. “That’ll make Brittany happy. She loves cabbage in her meals. Of course everyone else will throw a fit.”
“Oh, they don’t mind. They like having fresh food to eat.”
Samuel patted Jimmy on the back with his muddy free hand and gazed skyward. “Greg would be proud.”
Sadness wedged its way inside Jimmy, probably in the exact location where it settled in Samuel after Greg died. Samuel rarely spoke about his brother, but Jimmy knew he missed him.
“He left us in pretty good shape,” Jimmy said.
Samuel nodded. “Yeah, but you really made this farming thing work. He knew you were the one smart enough to handle it. He told me so.”