“I’m not dead, but I almost was. I was captured on the ridge up there by the Missouri Guard. They were going to execute me.”
Elsie sucked in her breath. “I’m sorry.” Peter shook it off as if to say no need. “How’d you get off that ridge, Peter?” Elsie asked.
Peter looked at her and shrugged. The knowledge that he would certainly have been dead by now was fully upon him as he stared at Elsie. He smiled a crooked smile and said one word…
“Ace.”
The sounds of gunfire from the battle grew louder as Mike, Steve, Val, and Kent moved to the southwest. They came to a ridge, approaching from the northeast, and they crawled up to the top of it to see if they could make out what the fuss was all about.
What they saw shocked them. At the top of the ridge were a number of dead bodies. All of the corpses were in uniform, and Mike, crawling to one of the men who had been shot in the back of the head, saw the insignia for the Missouri National Guard on the uniform.
Looking down from the ridge, they could see that a gunfight had erupted around a small cabin. Forces in the woods opposite the front door of the cabin were pouring fire into the structure, while every once in a while random and impotent shots would ring out, fired from the windows of the cabin itself.
Staying as low as possible, Mike, Steve, and Val moved quickly, checking the bodies of the dead soldiers for weapons, ammunition, or other valuables. Even on the ridge above the valley of death, there is salvage to be had. Kent, meanwhile, had come across another body—this one looked to be the corpse of an officer—and he discreetly secured a pistol he found on the ground near the body. He was an intellectual and not a fighter, and prior to the end of the world, he’d have never considered hurting anyone. Sometimes, however, a gun can come in handy, and Kent figured that such a time had now presented itself.
Mike never saw Kent take the gun. He was now busy spying out the battle taking place below him. He heard a sharp crack from the distance ring out. He could not make out from where the shot was coming, but he saw one of the soldiers from among the contingent assailing the cabin fall dead.
Another crack from the distance, and another soldier fell. Mike’s eyes began to scan the hills in the distance to the east. He knew from his training what was happening…
Sniper.
CHAPTER 33
Veronica said, “Okay, now this is what we’re going to do, boys.” They looked at her expectantly. “My dad was a resourceful guy. Back when he was doing work on the faraway settlements in Trinidad, he saw these Indian guys packing straw into their tires, because there was no compressed air to be had.”
“Yes!” Calvin said, excitedly. Veronica and Stephen looked at him with startled looks on their faces. It was something in the way he said thatYes! He made it sound like he had more important things to say on the manner. So they let him speak.
“My dad, he was a pharmaceutical engineer back in China. Back before the crackdown. During it, really.” He paused and looked at them.
It should have been strange. Just last night he’d rescued these two strangers from a gun battle, and now he was telling them things… things about his dad. It should have been strange, but it wasn’t.
He continued. “Yeah, so my dad, he told me this story about how the Chinese government sent him to the outback, you know, down in Australia. They wanted him to find this one plant or something, to make an assessment of its chemical potential on the spot.” He paused. “They were testing him.” Calvin felt a little flush rise in his cheeks, just a hint of anger. He looked at the two of them, and then remembered where he was, and what he was doing. He blushed in full.
“But anyway, he told me some natives did just that. They simply rolled the car over on its top and filled all four tires with straw, all at once. My dad said those guys were like a Daytona pit crew, just all wild and crazy. Detailed and quick and efficient. They packed the grass and straw together, wetting it down. If they had water handy, they’d mix it with thick mud, like cob. They’d bend it into the curves of the tire and then pound it in with rocks.” He rubbed his face with his hand. “If they didn’t have water, they just packed the grass and straw really tight… just pound it as tight as they could get it with the stones.
Veronica and Stephen smiled at the image.
“Strong at the broken places…” Veronica whispered, under her breath.
“Ma’am?” Calvin stuttered.
“Oh, ‘strong at the broken places.’ It’s something Hemingway wrote. I was thinking how the straw in a way becomes strong, inside the tire, by bending, by bonding with the others, by utilizing both its tensile and flexile strength.” Her voice trailed off at the end of the sentence. She’d seen the hurt in Calvin’s eyes when he talked about his father. She’d also heard the anger in his voice, although she did not know where that anger came from. Veronica knew, without his having to say it, that Calvin had lost his father. She wanted to say something to help him, but she realized that, in this time, there was not much room for such niceties. Still, she wanted to him know. She wanted to say the words… We know. We’ve lost someone, too…
“And I was also thinking of you, young man!”
Veronica turned to Calvin, who looked startled. “You’ve lost your father. Anyone who has eyes to see can see that. My son has lost his father, too.” She paused, and looked at Stephen. “And I have lost a husband. But, we become strong at the broken places. Even here.” She placed her hand to her heart, her hand in a fist. She tapped her heart two times. Calvin looked at her, and he wanted to say something, anything, to let her know that he understood.
“And here you are, young man. You have been given to us a second time. First, with the truck and now, well, with the truck again.” She indicated with her hand to the tires. “You know how to do this good work, because your father passed that knowledge down to you.” She looked at him as if to say that Stephen would be his brother now. As if they would look out for each other, and she would play mother hen. “So… Do you see?”
She pointed to the tires, ground down to the nubbins. She pointed to a toolbox and a jack that she’d pulled out for them. She pointed to the ruts in the ground and the tires buried in them. “Strong in the broken places.” She clapped her hands together. “Let’s go. Let’s get this done!” The boys grinned. They were laughing to see her happy. She had the kind of smile that made a person happy just to see it.
“Calvin, you organize. Stephen, help him and keep him honest. Do one tire at a time, and do it right the first time. Do you hear me? The first time! Lay it in thick. And tight. Pound it in with a rock… I am going to walk out on the road and keep a watch out. If you hear a shot, any kind of gunfire, hide in the forest and wait for me. Do you hear me?” The boys nodded. And with that, she was gone.
Calvin unfastened the green tarp, and then pulled it down from the bed of the truck. He laid it out on top of a small, raised area of grass that stuck up above the snow. The truck, sliding off of the roadway, had dug deep and muddy ruts into the snow, and now the brown ruts were stark against the frozen white. He and Stephen shoveled wet mud onto the tarp until they had a good coating covering the center of the green, maybe three inches thick. Then they walked over to the fence line and anywhere else where the grass grew up through the snow, and they gathered armloads of organic material… grass, straw, weeds, and hay… anything.