Doing The Apocalypse Shuffle

Ron Foster

Alabaama, USA

© 2015  by Ron Foster

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1515217077

ISBN-10: 1515217078

Printed in the United States of America.

Acknowledgements

SilverFire.us

My dear coconspirator Pat Lambert

1

Start The Dance

"A hungry man can't see right or wrong. He just sees food." Pearl S. Buck

This sure wasn’t any vacation that Farley was going on, but to his way of thinking it felt just like one. A pleasurable one at that!  So far this mostly fun day spent with fellow survivors had been pretty good. This evening was probably the closest thing to a real vacation that he would ever experience in this grimy grid down world. New friends and new hopes in the form of a vacant lake cabin for his use welcomed him. The day for him didn’t start out this way though; no, it hadn’t started out for him very well at all.

Farley had got up early this morning on the far side of the lake after a fitful night’s sleep. He rose just as the sun came up and his waking moments had been filled with angst, dread and remorse. He knew that most of these bad feelings and thoughts that were weighing heavy on his over stressed mind stemmed from his apprehensions and emotions about his bleak and uncertain future as a lowly “Bugged Out of the City” survivor. It wasn’t just the disaster that had him down in the dumps; it was also the problems aplenty that he had somehow managed to find for himself on his way down here. It was not death that bothered him so much, but the dying which could be terrible. A few close calls and one major altercation had pretty much set him on edge already and speculating about what he might need to duck or dodge today in order to survive needled at his resolve.

A few days earlier Farley had been forced to leave his home for good, never to return. This decision was brought on because of the many dangers of societal breakdown and mayhem in the city. When he cranked up his van early one auspicious morning to leave this putrid hell hole, he had just the thoughts of plain escapism survival and moving his preps on his mind. He had not even considered or thought much about, let alone done any planning for being inadvertently and hazardously broke down on the side of a side of a back road all alone, out of gas and out of luck, but it had happened. Now he had managed to overcome the gas problem, well partially anyway. He had just enough hard won fuel now to move himself and his goods another 60 miles further on maybe and he had rejoiced at being mobile once more. However he still found himself struggling with the notion that he seemed to be taking the road to “anywhere” just as long as it led him away from the dangers of where he had been formerly staying.

Well “the road to anywhere” wasn’t exactly quite a true or an accurate statement to be making. He had originally had in mind an actual specifically defined place that he had deliberated on to bug out to. However, he had not arrived yet because he had relied on bad memory and directions had gotten him confused and turned around by detours and road blockages and unfortunately run out of gas much earlier than he had planned on early in this adventure.  The worst part about all this that put the icing on the cake was that he still basically had no way of knowing that he even had himself a home to call his own and move into whenever, or if ever, he managed to finally find his way to his ill defined and partially forgotten destination.

You see, Farley kind of undertook this little get out of the city crazy mission with not much more than a poke and a wishful hope to accomplish bugging out to the lake with all his supplies and himself intact. That geographic area he had once visited on vacation seemed like the best choice to get to for his immanent survival so not much else planning wise was considered by him of outcomes, other than his overwhelming desire to leave a bunch of crazy starving folks in the city far behind.

That he needed to leave right then and not wait any longer to go somewhere far away and safer was evident because the city and the society that had once lived in it had pretty much hung on to the precipice of remaining civility about as long as it could. With wanton and vicious violence beginning to become even more prevalently brutal, uncontrolled fires began raging here and there more frequently in the suburbs. It wasn’t a choice of holding out and bugging in anymore, now he had to leave.  The city that remained smoldering behind him was nothing more than a place of misery, sickness, brutality, destruction, terror, starvation and death.

He had figured wisely and rightly so that there was no other choice for him but to choose to go down the preppers highway of calculated or misguided hopes and find new digs for himself and his preps because to stay in the city meant for him to die a burning or sudden violent death. He didn’t need to see the whole staircase to be encouraged to take the first step. He only wanted to be at least two steps out the backdoor before death started knocking at his front door.

He had no doubts in his mind that “bugging out” for most people was nothing more than a suicide mission and that undertaking such a road trip only worked as an inevitable delay to their ultimate and untimely demise.

For far too many preppers thinking of undertaking such foolishness, they didn’t realize these trips to unsettled areas would only result in them being racked with despair, fatigue and disappointment and would buy them little time. Death by starvation is slow. Death by foolishness or bad judgment can arrange for you to meet your maker much sooner.

There were many people in this world who had learned these lessons the hard way and for most of the unprepared civilian majority there was only death to look forward to.

Not very many people will consider that these emotions that you might feel in a bugged out situation could affect your survivability sharply. All too often these emotions can eventually turn into an all encompassing feeling of hopelessness for some, they find themselves wanting to give up or say to themselves ‘is this effort worth it’ or question themselves if they are up for the task.

People with alleged stronger psyches might also find themselves trying to contain unwarranted rages that sought to misguide them, they may harm themselves or others by lack of patience or by lashing out at the problem instead of calmly assessing a situation. All these thing need to be considered. Vigilantism will occur and many will forget this old adage.

“Hunger makes a thief of any man.”  Pearl S. Buck

However for himself he held out a lot of hope to enjoy a much better fate. He considered that for him with a bit of luck, maybe some divine intervention and his own studious application of a vast array of hard won survival wisdom and skills along with the preps he had access to, that his chances of living out his days much longer than most of the humanity he had left far behind were pretty good. He damn sure didn’t want to be around when the cannibals he suspected must exist these days started starving. No, he had hauled ass out and never looked back.

There were now more dead people in the city than the living and those numbers were steadily increasing in the countryside as the grim reaper and the savage remnants of civilization collided. The functioning and adaptable living had been getting rarer and scarcer for weeks now and those still hanging on were getting meaner and more desperate and despicable by the day. To be a true survivor, knowing change is the only constant, you must be adaptable to survive. Women tried to sell their bodies, gangs formed and warred, children and pets went missing, rape, brutality and murder was the order of the day.

Food was more than scarce, it was unobtainable. There was nobody left to trade with, only other people to die with. Death doesn't bargain, death is when the monsters or marauders get at you. Death wasn’t going to get next to him so easy though, not without a fight and not without a long sweaty run for the money he had decided a long time ago.

Farley had prepared for various disasters and practiced his preparedness skills to escape and evade death as best he could and for as long as he could for quite some time now. Matter of fact, you might want to say that he had kind of dedicated a pretty big part of his life to just that premise of surviving, both before, during and now he believed forever, after the solar storm that had taken the electrical grid down.

Farley was what you would call a dyed in the wool prepper; he had been an old prepper both in spirit and in practice long before the term or vernacular was ever coined or became popular. He had prepared himself mentally for the challenges he expected if a long duration calamity occurred and he had also invested his meager resources to buying physical and tangible resources to help him overcome adversity.

He had accumulated and experimented with various kinds of bug out bags and all the gear he now had stowed in his van as both a hobby as well as an edge to surviving the apocalypse that he evidently foresaw a reasonable chance of happening. He had managed to put together for himself over the years a decent food storage plan and when it came to whosy-what’s it survival gear he had lots of it.

He laughed to himself about his childhood memories of how the corny old timey cartoons he had grown up with once showed that a bug out bag for that depression era for travelers who were down on their luck back then had resembled a Hobo’s stick with a bandana of goods tied to one end of it. What was supposed to be carried about in one of those handkerchiefs anyway?

Then as his mind moved on, he also considered the fanciful black and white mental pictures of all those western movies that he had watched glued to the TV set, of saddle bags, cowboy hats, six guns and repeater rifles along with a bedroll carried on the back of every horse going west of the Pecos for the riders to overcome Indians and outlaws as they set out on adventures. Those were simpler times and it was easier to tell the bad guys from the good guys as well as you got a lesson in discerning what was right from wrong by the color of their hats. Male heroes that were bigger than life, great actresses of compassion, wit and fortitude.

The occasional big screen film reference or classic book allusion sometimes came to his mind of the great mountain men who helped settle and explore this country. Stories about the groups of Hudson Bay Fur trappers and the gold miners heading north in 1886 further expanded his whimsical imagination of setting off to the forests and mountains with nothing more than maybe a pack mule full of supplies and an odd character of questionable repute to share the adventure with.

Maybe they had thought to bring along on their journey a buckboard or a sturdy wooden wagon with them to bring back a bounty of gold and riches they had found come spring time when they could travel after the snow melted. A Conestoga wagon would have been even better; ah, the rolling land ships of the Great Plains and the western pioneers! Farley wished he had a set up like that, a canvas covered old time RV, all provisioned with food and tools along with a team of strong horses to pull it! Hell yeah! That sounded great about right now! Damn sure would be more civilized to be heading off to the great unknown with a group of dedicated 1800’s people sharing goods and dangers in the wilds of America than trying to navigate the same spaces alone in a modern 21st century post apocalyptic world.

Oh, those sure were indeed some memorable and glorious times of watching historical legends and Hollywood hype conditioned for the silver screen, he knew. Tales that screenwriters produced then were mostly meant to be just for Saturday matinee entertainment and followed censorship that ignored the hard living and dying facts of the rewritten text books of the times. Farley knew most of the information of this spaghetti western era of filmmaking was inaccurate but these memories had formed his childhood and fired up his boyhood imagination.

So did, without a doubt, the ever encroaching current realities of true survival hunting and trapping he needed to be remembering now. The adolescent pleasures of fishing and camping in the woods were blurry but sparked a grin thinking about where it was a daily occurrence for young boys and lots of young girls to go entertain themselves in the woods happily all day long living out and performing for themselves the imaginary adventures of every Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone Walt Disney film or TV show ever made.

What a lot of those movies didn’t teach preppers or kids about then or now was that frontiersmen depended more on their survival skills than their guns to feed themselves. No amount of purchased gear can insure you survive, only knowledge.

As a youth if you were lucky, you learned rather quickly in the Deep South just what worked for wood lore or fishing knowledge and what didn’t. Could be if you forgot that something only worked in Hollywood movies or somewhere in your own over active imagination you managed to survive without any major trauma. In Farley’s day this meant that hopefully nature or some kindly old Uncle  would take you under his wing and like it or not was often around to take you aside and straighten you out if you were lucky enough. Could be you learned because you had been wisely listening to advice from those that had done and did or you found yourself heeding signs and warnings  from natural events to avoid pitfalls. Didn’t matter, you learned somehow.

You survived and hopefully didn’t wear any scars from the experience of living life and avoiding the dangers of the woods and didn’t mind passing it along to younger brothers and sisters.

That’s what Farley needed to do now, pass on some wisdom  and woods lore to those less informed. Farley had managed to somehow become the unelected leader of a small group of survivors that needed his assistance and he their friendship and support.

Times and technology had changed so fast that Farley was considered a dinosaur by some of the younger generations because of his admission of not even having more than a basic cell phone to his name just a couple months ago. That technology and knowledge put those young guys and gals in forefront for modern survival skills when the grid was up, but his remembering so much primitive or back to basics survival things now put him far ahead of the pack.

He could also say his knowledge of the use and function of the actual modern day traps and snares that he had brought along with him allowed him access to major technology that they might never be able to posses personally.  Nobody was building modern day traps and snares anymore and he doubted anyone would ever trade such a rare commodity. That he had a sufficient amount of them to put in service for food procurement now was akin to a marvel.

Farley was all they had as the latest greatest thing that a lot of people could have hoped for to have around technology or survival wisdom wise. A leftover relic from the past that now regardless of the fact that he only had only a glimmer of an idea of what an X box or a game station was previously, knew this new/old survival game expertly.

His current young acquaintance aggravated Farley no end though, constantly bemoaning the fact that he missed the grid up days with free access to plug and play electricity of playing zombie blasters on his smart phone and trying to explain to Farley all sorts of odd sounding hunting games that lived on the internet or on applications he had never heard of…

Farley had run across in his travels two displaced souls previously that either fate or bad luck had put before him to look out for that were about as adept in this world as his old country boy self would have been seeing himself dressing up in a top hat and going to an Italian opera recital in New York City.

That sort of thing just didn’t translate to his laid back self or for that matter anyone else he knew. Farley figured that being merely uncomfortable in a situation didn’t translate into being able to avoid it wisely or be sociable enough to get help from others to try and understand it if you were forced to live it.

Well, that was not quite true, Farley lived to try to get people to understand things especially be it physical or mental survival and he was in his element as far as that application of wisdom was concerned. That they thought his preparedness tips and tricks were now cool versus media hyped odd “Doomsday Prepper” crazy survivalist lore was something they sought out and asked for rather than criticized.

It wasn’t an easy job teaching these greenhorns. He hadn’t even had a chance to teach his new charges the basics of what wisdom was written in the annals of an official Boy scout manual yet about putting their pinkie toe into the wilderness before they were depending on him for everything and anything from who has the roll of Charmin for a toilet break to “Hey you idiot don’t reach under that log without looking, there might be a snake under it to bite you!” Farley took it in stride though and did his best to bring them up to speed as quick as possible.

Questions about what did a poisonous snake look like and what was not one as well as their habits and the habits of other critters mixed in with other numerous rules of life they should have learned growing up at least a little bit in his opinion consumed most of his day lately.

Farley could be said to be a natural born teacher and leader but his patience had let him down more than once trying to talk to generations or people who had a different way of looking at or approaching things.

His new found crew was a mixed bag of stranded and bewildered people to say the least. A formerly mentally medicated woman far from home along with her young teenage son that was a bit of a wild child, a Retired Air force veteran who just happened to be a Chinese American with California like liberal tendencies and his Vietnamese wife that seemed to enjoy fussing about most things in general.

The “Tribe” as everyone now called this weird association of individual relations with each other and this place they all now called home had begun only yesterday it seemed like when Farley had inadvertently stepped into everyone’s lives. That a fanfare of problems came with him that he couldn’t help they accepted, that they couldn’t sustain themselves alone wasn’t his fault or responsibility rather something they all had to accept and so they were now committed to each other. He didn’t know how or for that matter why, but something in him had said take this group on to insure his own survival and he had done so gladly but with reservations.

He was aware of the dangers that other people bring with them during a time of mass chaos and civil unrest. The world is a dangerous place and without law and order it's a hundred times more dangerous. He thought about that and called himself lucky for finding these friends. With others he tried being as careful as he could be under the circumstances.

Farley remembered move in day at the military lake resort fondly but still wondered what he had got himself into this time as he reminisced to himself about that day.

“Miss Feng, your husband Charlie said it would be all right if we camped out here for a few days down at the cabins if it was all right with you, in exchange for a few chores around here by me.” Farley had begun the discussion on that fateful day not long ago with an Asian women speaking pidgin English.

“In exchange for what he say trade? He no tell me about this? I no problem you stay at cabins but what did crazy old man offer you without talking to me first? Crazy man!” Charlie’s wife Feng had blurted out upon his first broaching the subject of him and Becky and her son possibly moving into some vacant vacationer cabins for the duration.

“Miss Feng you know all about my obviously bad and unfortunate encounter with that insane old man and the axe so we decided that it might be a good idea for me to just hang out here and lay low for a bit. Charlie and I decided in lieu of me paying any kind of rent or making other arrangements that I could fix the security gates and see about some tasks around here like doing some light construction or getting some wild game for the stew pot.” Farley said before being harangued by the small feisty Asiatic woman again that he couldn’t just think he was going to sit around with Charlie and drink beer and stay there for free by not doing any of that work he proposed.

Once a pause in the bickering amongst them all had ceased and a chattering truce was called, Farley had set about doing the chores he had contracted for and had undertaken much more than he had even planned on doing for securing the welfare, comfort and safety of everyone involved that he had in his own optimistic euphemism referred to as having been ‘taken under his wing’.

Farley, Becky and Jeremy went to check out the cabins and chose which ones they wanted. The inside of the cabins were pretty much all uniformly  the same and they finally decided to choose the last two on the end going towards the Wu’s house.

Farley mentioned that when they ended up moving over here full time later today that they should park their vehicles at one of the other cabins they were not occupying rather than their own new homes. By spacing them out, he hoped that to any outside observer that might find their way over to this place or remember it for looting or foraging might think there were more people living here than just them.

He scratched his head and tried to think of any other possible ways to get the same effect but couldn’t come up with anything other than maybe occasionally moving their cook fire around. They had enjoyed a communal meal with Charlie and his family today getting to know each other but for now Farley figured they would eat at their own respective cabins mostly and Charlie and his family would eat at their place.

There would be some barter going on between Farley and Charlie Wu regarding  Farley’s long term storage food versus some supplies that Charlie was in control of that were left behind in the lake resorts snack bar and small store.  Charlie had been the civilian military employee administrator for this Air Force recreational facility and possessed the keys to the kingdom as it were of this now abandoned and forsaken place.

Charlie and his family had been mostly subsisting on frozen hamburgers and hotdogs kept cold by the use of an emergency generator but fuel for it was running out. For Farley and crew finding someone possessing such a bounty of these types of delicacies though was like finding a fountain in the middle of the desert. This small amount of food stores left wouldn’t last long though and needed to be eaten up well before the gas ran out.    Farley was going to try his hand at making hot dog rolls soon in his Dutch oven but he said that he couldn’t guarantee what kind of results he would have other than it would be some kind of biscuit shaped like a hot dog bun.

Farley figured they would be sharing a communal meal together off and on often enough if for no other reason than splitting up big cans of long term freeze-dried food was easier that way, as was tasting everyone’s different way of cooking and sharing the task. Later on when their supply started getting low, the communal pot was probably the best way to go though when they became more dependent on hunting and gathering but that wasn’t necessary right now. What was necessary now was the bonding and formation of their survival family or tribe as they began to refer to the arrangement.

“Farley, did you get yourself and everything moved in all right?” Charlie asked as he walked over to Farley’s place from Becky’s cabin.

“I pretty much got enough stuff unloaded for now I suppose. I got a lot of goods I brought along with me in that van and I haven’t wrapped my head around how to distribute or store it best. You know, Charlie, that driving all these preps and other crap around is kind of like being a Brink’s truck driver hauling gold or something and having no place you feel comfortable with delivering it at. Well let’s put it a different way now, once that driver decides to just park it, where do you stash all that bullion? I need to spread it out and cache it here and there but I am not comfortable doing that just yet. I have many practical and personal reasons to consider. You got to understand that I have been standing armed guard over my food and supplies with a gun 24/7 and for me to be even be considering leaving stuff behind tomorrow is hard even if I know I should be back in a few hours but it worries me. Oh, I know you all won’t bother my stuff at all or I wouldn’t be leaving it but I am not here to guard it either and it wasn’t too long ago I was worrying about having to walk away from it when I needed it most when I broke down on the side of that road.” Farley said a bit somberly.

“I can see your worries about even setting a bowl of rice down while you’re eating these days for fear of it getting spilled or something. The loss of even a grain of rice these days can be a tragedy. You can put some of your stuff up at my house if you want and get it when you come back. I can’t guard it too well seeing that I don’t have any firearms as you know but it will be at least harder to find and get to besides here.” Charlie offered.

“Thanks, I was considering that. We got to do something to remedy that gun situation. I got a few ideas how to go about that but we will discuss that in the morning. I only have my two weapons so I don’t have anything to lend you.” Farley said.

“Darn, I am sorry to hear that. I thought for sure with all that stuff you said you brought with you that you might have something to lend or sell to me. That’s one reason I waited to talk to you alone. How you planning on remedying that, if you don’t mind me asking?” Charlie asked.

“Oh, guns are not nearly as hard to find as you might imagine. This country is full of them, it’s the procuring one without getting shot or worse that is sometimes the problem. I will tell you an odd little secret. Where do you think the easiest place to find a pistol is nowadays?” Farley asked.

“I dunno, that’s a good question.” Charlie responded waiting for the answer.

“Cemeteries… Isn’t that bizarre? Folks committing suicide often go to cemeteries to die so they can be around their loved ones. Course these days whatever you might find would be rusted to hell and back but it’s not a bad place to find ammo and parts. I tell you another thing, lots of people have done themselves in outside like on their front porch for some reason. It’s spookier than hell to see a real corpse sitting in a chair having done themselves in by committing suicide, by overdosing on drugs or something on someone’s patio like its Halloween or something.” Farley said flashing back on some of the more gruesome sights he had seen so far in this apocalypse. He had still not gotten the stench of rotting bodies and pets out of his nostrils yet that seemed to follow him just like the screams and the acrid burning house smoke from the city that was forever etched into his senses and memories.

“Damn, Farley, that’s creepier than hell to even consider. I won’t even bother to ask you if it’s really gotten that bad out there. I know it’s got to be much much worse than I can even imagine. It really scares the hell out of me to even think about that picture you are painting of so many people giving up and taking their own lives, not counting all the other deaths that must have occurred in the millions from countless causes.” Charlie said.

“Its famine, pestilence and death that exceed even biblical proportions that waits out there.”  was all Farley said before locking up his van and foreboding emotions.

.

2

Ponder The Problem

Farley surveyed the clearings and wooded sites around the cabins and tried to picture in his mind what they might want or need to stay here indefinitely. The cabins lacked fireplaces for heating and something needed to be done before winter about that. Being ever resourceful, Farley had the answer for at least one of the cabins and had anticipated the need for a small heater or cook stove.

He had in his preps two possible solutions; one was a Silver Fire hunter model that could be used as an emergency heater if you put an iron griddle on it to radiate heat. The Rocket stove design did not make for an ideal heating source because it was highly insulated and the sides and bottom of the stove did not get hot.

Silver Fire Hunter Model coupon code Foster

You could get some heat produced just from the exposed flame but fuel consumption was an issue because you could only burn small pieces of wood at a time. He had purchased a small steel barrel stove that could burn larger pieces of wood that was meant for a solution to that problem. It was actually meant for outdoor use but the purchase of an elbow joint from the hardware store and a few sections of pipe from the manufacturer allowed him to configure it to run out a window.

Great Northern Camp Stove

Farley didn’t worry very much about heating the cabins right now; he could concern himself with that later when it got closer to winter. On the other hand, being able to cook indoors if it was storming outside was something to consider but not likely.

The summer heat was oppressive enough inside the cabins and he speculated on finding himself some table or box fans and running them off a marine battery using his inverter. He only had his car battery at the moment to consider for that task but a trip back to that boat Marina and some luck should remedy that shortfall for an energy source nicely.

Becky remarked about how lucky it was that they were to be staying in the comfort of the rental cabins and that they would have to ask Charlie where the campgrounds normally stored its supplies of toilet paper and such.

“Hey, we need to find us some buckets to haul water indoors for the toilets and for doing dishes with and such, but on the bright side we got something approaching indoor plumbing so that is sweet!” Farley responded thinking it was nice to just have to fill the toilets tank once in awhile to try to time a flushable bathroom break as best they could.

“I wish we could figure out some way for us to rig up a pump or something  to get running water and reduce how many trips we have to make to haul water up from the lake.” Jeremy said thinking about the never ending chore of going to fetch water.

“I am thinking on that problem, Jeremy, first thing we got to do is figure out a rain water collection system for ourselves. Finding any kind of empty 55 gallon barrels these days is going to be problematic but we should be able to find some kind of suitable containers. Now as for pumping water to the cabins, I have got a few ideas in mind that might work. That boat repair place on the highway is going to get a visit from me, I am thinking sometime tomorrow after we pick up your car.  There are all kinds of marine bilge pumps and such that they should have around there. Some boats use 12v electric bilge pumps so I can check out their parts department or go looking in the boat yard for something that I might be able to take one off of. There should also be around there somewhere various types of hand pumps that people put in their boats to help bail them out.” Farley said pondering his growing list of scavenging goods he wanted to acquire.

sump pump or bilge pump

“That’s all 12 volt type stuff isn’t it, Farley? I say that we should add some boat lights to the list but how will we charge the batteries once they get run down?” Jeremy said knowing a lot of the rudiments of electricity.

“I was just considering that, Jeremy, thank you for reminding me about the lights, but back to your question about how to charge batteries. I need to look for Marine Alternators, specifically the ones that have the voltage regulators built in. We are going wind power!” Farley said excitedly and began to explain how they could build the blades for a wind turbine out of PVC pipe by sawing it in half at specific angles.

“Before the grid went down, I used to look at all the different kits or pre-built wind turbines made out of marine alternators or treadmills on EBay. Preppers and cottage industries used to have a lot of different wattages and types of those things offered for sale. I had a setup that was 1500 watts that I bought once but I traded it off to a homesteader because I needed the cash. They are very simple and useful designs and they are a hell of a lot cheaper than commercially made ones. I think that I only had like a total of 300 dollars invested in mine but I never got a pole made or purchased for it.” Farley said thinking back.

“Mom, do you have any paper and a pen in your purse? I want to make us a list of what Farley and me need to go scrounge and look for.” Jeremy said excitedly.

“ I am going to lend you some paper and a pen Jeremy but you and Farley are going to have a long talk with me about this so called “scrounging” you are thinking you are going to try doing. Its stealing, Farley, and you know it!” Becky said as she rummaged in her purse and gave both an icy looked that said “watch out”.

“Yea, we need to talk about that some in more detail later.” Farley admitted as Jeremy wore an “Oh no! What’s up?” look while eying both of them curiously.

“Ok, back to MY list.” Farley said stressing the “My” in his statement inferring that he was the only one that was going to go out and collect pilfered items he was needing for his projects.

“I am still coming along to help you aren’t I, Farley?” A greatly deflated Jeremy asked while he prepared himself to take notes.

“We will talk about that later, much later.” Farley said carefully with a wincing glance at Becky and then began telling Jeremy what to put down on his list.

1. Buckets (Plastic and Metal)

2. Marine Batteries

3. Battery connectors and 12 gauge or better                 wire.

4. Marine alternators

“Hey, Farley, didn’t you say you could make yourself a wind turbine out of a treadmill motor?” Becky asked.

“Yea, I sure can but a marine alternator is much better for what I have in mind. Why do you ask?” Farley questioned.

“I remember the brochure said there was an exercise room on this place somewhere. I bet they would have what you need in there.” Becky said.

“Cool! Now that you mention it I remember seeing that place marked out also and forgot about it. Those tread mill motors are easier to turn or spin than a lot of alternators so we will see about that. Thanks, Becky.” Farley said thinking treadmill motors took much less power to spin than ones made to run off engines.

“There are probably lots of things you could use right around here going to waste instead of burglarizing the neighborhood.” Becky said dryly.

“Uh yea…. I see we are going to have that foraging conversation sooner than we had thought. Ok, Becky, I will attempt to confine my scrounging to only stuff on this facility as best as I can but we are still going to have that talk about what I need to find that is not here. Let’s just imagine for now that this list that Jeremy and I are building of possible items we might need or want, is temporary. Now if I mention a place or vacant store close by that I can find something at easily that’s just because I haven’t thought about looking for that item around here, ok?” Farley said with his own dead pan stare.

“I will help you with that, you make your list and we will show it to Charlie and Feng to see if they know where you can find those items first on this resort, ok?” Becky said reminding Farley he was out numbered when it came to the number of people around that strongly disapproved of his so called scrounging or parts foraging.

“Ok, I understand you loud and clear, let’s just go back to the list, OK? Now then, Jeremy, my scribe, are you ready to get back to creating my list of mad scientist items? Add DC to AC Inverters, we might find one of those on some fancy boat but it will be mostly 12v although there is a lot of 24v in use sometimes on bigger boats. Lots of times there will be some kind of 12v specific appliances like a wet dry vac, fan, etc. around to be used on boats so I will keep my eye out for those. In the meantime, I have two inverters in my stash of goodies so I am not sweating that one. The boat rental place on this facility has a battery charger we can hook to one of those gas powered generators around here in the meantime so I just have to think about running a small battery bank for now. That reminds me, I have to figure out how to get gas out of that underground gas storage tank down there without blowing myself up. Put an ear syringe on that list. I need one as a foot valve to make what is called a well bullet. If I can’t find one of those somewhere then just a piece of rubber can work, also. There are lots of ways to build these.” Farley said and went about describing how it would work and how one was made.

A simple method for getting water out of a deep well without electricity is shown below.

Attach a rope to the PVC pipe and lower the bucket down the 4 to 6 inch well shaft

and let it sink into the water.  The rubber flapper will act like a foot valve and rise up against the wires when it hits the water.  This will allow the water to enter the

pipe.  When you start to pull it up, the weight of the water will push the rubber flapper down against the reducer and seal the bottom of the bucket.

Another way to do this is:

From the inside, the valve looks like this. Notice the rubber flapper is covering the holes in the cap but is still a good way from the edge.

Here’s the outside view of the valve. You can use a nut with a nylon insert so you don’t  lose parts down the well.

Test the valve by filling the sink with water and slowly forcing the end cap into the water. This flapper valve works by uncovering the holes slightly when water pressure from the bottom is applied. In practice, the weight of the finished well bucket is enough to open the valve.

When you lift up, the weight of the water inside the cap causes the rubber flap to close and seal off the holes. Here you can see as I lift the cap out of the sink that there’s water staying inside the cap.

“That sounds like a great idea, Farley, how much gas do you think is in that tank?” Jeremy asked.

“I have no idea, Charlie should know and they probably have one of those long square wooden sticks with calibrations on it to figure out what it’s holding exactly. That gas won’t stay good forever and lots of times you can get water in those kinds of underground fuel tanks from condensation I have heard but unless Charlie knows how to determine that, I have no idea.” Farley declared pondering just how long they would have access to that precious non-renewable commodity.

“Oh, by the way Becky, Charlie and I cut us a side deal on the gas for my van and to fill up your car so don’t worry about that. I am trading him some cans of dehydrated Sweet and Sour pork of all things for Miss Feng’s birthday next week. That is our big secret and she can’t find out about any part of that deal or Charlie will have our hides. As far as she knows we paid some cash and barter for the gas so we will just leave it that and say nothing further if she ever brings it up. Now back to our list. When you get back to where you were staying, grab anything and everything you might find useful. Normally I would say get the bed linens and towels, etc. but it looks like we got enough of that sort of thing around here already. Uh, wait a minute, Becky, do you have something special that you need to be adding to my list?” Farley asked, regarding her.

“I don’t know yet Farley, I am still thinking on it. What are you hinting at anyway? Oh, I get it, feminine products. You’re right I will be out soon; you think they had some in the store here?” Becky asked.

“I imagine they might have had some in stock but certainly not an aisle full like a drug store or something. Ask Miss Feng about that and I will keep it mind if I run across any. I can’t think of nothing else in that cottage you need then except collecting everything that you brought with you. I think we have pretty much everything we need right here but for the hell of it Jeremy, remind me to lend you my linesman pliers so that you can cut the cords off any electrical appliance in there. You can strip the insulation off them cords later and harvest the copper wire so I can show you how to make some animal snares out of that easily replaceable item. That reminds me, we might have us a raccoon when we get back but I doubt it. They are mostly nocturnal creatures so it’s rather doubtful. Could be we might get a muskrat or nutria but that trap hasn’t been set too long.” Farley said.

“I told Fong about our trap Farley, and he told me that we weren’t going to catch anything, he even laughed about you saying you could do it. We are going to show him big time how good of a trapper you are ain`t we, Farley?” Jeremy said confidently with a grin he was going to show up his new friend.

“That remains to be seen; you can’t just set one trap and hope for success. That’s the thing I am going to teach you boys, you need to set out many traps to insure even a little bit of success by increasing your chances of a possible catch. Besides, I know more theory of how to do it than actual continuous tried and true practice. I am pretty rusty and have probably forgotten a lot of what I used to know. Yes, I have indeed trapped and snared animals many times but that was many years ago. However, I remember a story my buddy Buckshot Hemming told me a long time ago. He was a commercial fur trapper, which means he did trapping for a living and has years more experience than me knowing the ways of animals and how to set traps and snares. Now commercially manufactured traps and snares can get expensive and one year when he wanted to extend his trap line he spent the summer carving figure 4 deadfall trap triggers and hauling rocks and logs to likely places for the winter trapping season in Dakota, I think it was. Well, I forget how many he actually set or his number of successes per trap he had but it was pretty dismal and he said he would never do that again and couldn’t believe all the time and effort he had put into it. Now listen to me, Jeremy, and have some patience before you get your hopes up too much and get discouraged with the trapping ways I will be teaching you. That story came from a man who was well versed and experienced with trapping a specific territory and an old woodsman that had been doing that sort of thing since he was young enough to run a trap line to bring in income.” Farley said deflating the boy’s ego and his confidence in his new found friend’s trapping skills for the moment.

“But you did say that he had successes, you just got to set a bunch of them to increase your chances right, Farley?” The boy said looking for further hope and clarification on the mastery of such skills.

“Of course we will, but we are not limited to just using that one kind of trigger or trap either. Now Buckshot also taught classes in survival trapping as well as he wrote a book and numerous articles on the web teaching modern methods of trapping so the preppers who found themselves in this kind of a situation had a means of understanding the shortfalls of primitive trapping and ensuring their success with modern methods like using aircraft cable steel snares and locks as well as body-hold Conibear killing traps and old fashioned footholds. Now, I was never one for a foothold trap, I don’t like those for my own personal and moral reasons but a Conibear body-hold killing trap that is quick and humane and I have a decent selection of those in my gear. Buckshot’s favorite survival trap is the 110 conibear, for example, for small animals and I have over a dozen of those. Speaking of which, that crazy smart old trapper taught me a trick on how to catch a fish with one that I got to try out just for the hell of it. In theory I can see it working but I never had the inclination or opportunity to think about doing it until now. I will do it just for entertainment versus practical purposes right now because I have probably a hundred easier ways to catch a fish but we will see.” Farley said.

“You got any of them aircraft cable snares you mentioned, Farley?” Jeremy said wide eyed at all the fun and possibilities he foresaw tromping the woods with Farley trying to catch game.

“Yea, I got maybe 4 dozen in various sizes but they don’t last like them steel conibears do. See, when an animal fights that cable it gets kinked up and twisted and becomes unusable rather quickly sometimes. You can salvage parts off damaged snares though and build new ones though. Now I will let you in on a little secret, snaring is my particularly most successful forte and trapping for us all is going to use up all the ones I have a lot quicker than I ever anticipated. My number one thing that I can do though to feed us regularly is the highly illegal but very effective practice of deer snaring. I got maybe a dozen snares for that specifically made and maybe a half dozen or so large animal snares I can convert or rig for that purpose so that is going to leave me light a whole lot quicker than I want to happen. With those things it’s all about my placement and not the quantity I set so I put out fewer so we will be ok awhile in that department.” Farley stated.

“You must be awful strong to be able to bend a tree down big enough lift a deer up into the air.” Becky said eying him differently thinking he was going to do some kind of Hollywood spring snare movie act by dangling a poor deer sky high from a tree.

“No, I don’t do it like that to catch them, I could I guess…. But I don’t... Dang girl you have been watching too many of them old Tarzan movies.” Farley said chuckling his outright NO to the Hollywood notion of its necessity but he was still alluding to the fact that he could perform the task of doing it if he really wanted too.

“No, Becky when you go to snare a deer there are several ways of doing it but none of them are the strangle and dangle methods that I use with bent saplings which is effective on small game. You see what I basically do to construct a deer snare is to arrange a noose in a position over a trail that I want to make the deer stick his head into. They are predictable enough creatures so I can accomplish that task in a few ways I learned from Buckshot as well as a guy’s book called the Rural Ranger I once read but he and that guy wouldn’t tell me specifically how to do it and made general allusions instead to using sticks to get the deer to duck his head. I guess he was scared he was giving away too many poaching notions or something. Anyway, it’s not as hard as you might think to get a deer to put his neck or foot in a noose if you know what you are doing. What you are trying to accomplish is either to make the animal choke itself out with a non-releasing snare lock or hold the animal in place with a releasing snare lock that lets up on the pressure once he quits fighting it or you can hook the thing to a drag to slow his ass down and wear him out so you can catch up and dispatch him after trailing it for a bit by walking.” Farley declared looking towards his audience for understanding.

“Why don’t you just let it “choke out” as you refer to it and be done with it as you so aptly said? It sounds awful cruel to me to just hold it in place or make it drag around a log or something before you come after it to kill it.” Becky said looking at Farley like he had just grown horns and a forked tail or something.

“Well, that’s a valid point to bring up but I would appreciate if you would quit looking at me with such distaste. I am not a violent man or a sport hunter, Becky. I am a skilled hunter for the table and a sort of prepper survivalist that can feed himself and others when needed. I take no pleasure in killing anything and indeed if you ever go on a hunt with me you will observe that I take a moment of silence to thank whatever animal that has given its’ life to sustain me and mine. I am not a cat that toys with its prey, ever. My methods sometimes might seem cruel in some ways but I take great care to avoid any unnecessary suffering or pain if I can help it. I do this for personal as well as practical reasons but first and foremost is my love of all life in general. Things are not always as cut and dried as they appear to be sometimes, Becky, and you will see and hear of many things that I might say or do that seem wrong just because the wisdom of it may not at first be apparent. For example, the question you asked about killing an animal by choking it out in less than a minute versus holding it or chasing it. It’s summertime right now and if I put a deer snare on the end of my trap line and killed an animal it might spoil in the heat before I got to it thus ruining the meat. I also don’t want it fighting the snare until I get there and having no access to water in its panic, so depending on the lay of the land I might allow it to pull a drag that will mark its trail well for me but wear the animal down while giving it some hope and comfort until I can take care of it. Dispatching animals is not something you have ever had to do for yourself in your modern grocery store world, Becky, so don’t judge me. Your world comes in prepackaged meat from the supermarket that you understand nothing of its processing practices or the horrors those animals go through to get on your dinner plate. Me? I take life and give life to us from now on in my own weird holistic ways, you might refer to as sometimes savage ways, but you will need to learn them before you judge me. And yes, I said you will need to learn how to trap and track also because now because that is a life skill just like balancing your checking account that must be dealt with and everyone needs to know how to perform to some extent. And I will tell you another thing; I am not going to be cleaning every animal or fish that I bring back to camp.” Farley declared.

“So I am going to be your squaw woman or something that you expect to work in the fields and quietly wait on Lord and master to come home from hunting and throw a couple rabbits on the ground in front of me and say clean these for dinner?” Becky said getting that crazy ire of hers up.

Farley eyed the sparks coming out of her green eyes and gave her the fire from his before trying to seek the middle ground and some calmness between them by stating that he only meant that we were all in this together now and we had to share the same survival skills whether or not we had a taste for them or not. He carefully explained that if perhaps someone got hurt that everyone must be familiar with the skills it took to live day to day and that was that. As for the squaw remark he told her in no uncertain terms he took umbrage with that analogy and that yes her normal duties would be tending the home cook fires but he expected nothing more from her than what she was comfortable doing at home to support him and Jeremy’s efforts out in the woods.

Farley then stated that he would be most likely the main provider of everything else in this tribal camp and if that included stealing he would do that too and if he someday didn’t come back because he got shot doing it, so be it, it was up to her and the rest to fend for themselves. Farley could be a bit blunt and long winded at times.

Becky looked at him long and hard as well as mad as hell for a moment before tearing up and apologizing to Farley for what she had not understood before. That Farley seemed to understand this new violent world they had got thrown into together by chance wasn’t his fault and she wouldn’t blame him for such anymore.

His seeming awareness of what to expect from himself or be expected from them in the gloomy predictable futures he predicted was beyond all strange but admirable in her eyes. Farley had been a gentleman to everyone’s circumstances and he had offered what at first she thought was a bounty of his preps with ulterior motives but she could now see the color of his soul and it was full of compassion and caring as well as a man-sized obligation that he had undertaken to help them all survive as best he could.

Farley’s day of getting fussed at was not over today by a long shot though as he spied an irate Miss Feng headed his way.

“Why you tell Charlie you not going to just stay here and no steal?” Miss Feng began before an “Oh shit” look came over Farley’s face and he began to stare angrily at everyone and in particular Charlie who was sort of looking cowed in back of his wife.

“You go home, Farley! You no good, you lie to me!” Miss Feng said running up on Farley and starting to try to push him away before her husband intervened.

“What the hell you talking about lady? I haven’t done anything..” Farley began before she resumed her tirade.

“Charlie say you say you going to go steal us some guns. I don’t want no stolen gun you hear me, Farley? You no welcome here no more and you take your woman and boy back home, far away!” Miss Feng challenged, confusing everyone present.

“What the hell is she talking about Charlie? We were fine earlier.” Farley said trying to figure out just what had riled the woman.

“I just told her I wasn’t going to hold you to not going scavenging and told you something about one of the officers deer camps not far from here.” Charley squeaked.

“Damn, you couldn’t have lasted at least a day longer before bringing that up.” Farley said disgustedly in Charlie’s direction.

“See, I told you! You were going to lie to me too!” Becky said looking an awful lot like Miss Feng at the moment and moving closer to her side as the men folk milled in confusion.

“Damn it man, you picked a hell of a time to get some shit started.” Farley groused at Charlie before shutting down the hub bub of accusations and snarls from the women in his direction with a loud ass “HEY’ trying to command their attention and say something more.

“You Promise, Farley, you say Promise! No stealing from nobody for three weeks you say!” Miss Feng shouted accusingly and feeling emboldened by Becky taking her side, took a threatening step in his direction to look like she might just get brave enough to slap him for his alleged misdeeds that he had got caught contemplating.

“Hold on now for one damn minute! I don’t know what anyone heard or thinks I am about to do but give me the benefit of the doubt for the moment. I ain`t done shit except being open and honest about what I was considering doing and let me tell you all something about that. I wouldn’t be considering doing a damn thing about anything but living my life if I didn’t have all of you alls safety and welfare to consider. I have offered you my food and my life to support you and I don’t take too kindly to being talked to like no errant schoolboy about what I may or may not do to keep us all alive. Why I could take this place and burn all these cabins down and you would be dead in place with nothing but this knife in my hand if I was as bad as you all are making me out to be. I want you safe, secure and independent and if that takes me going balls to the walls fighting for you or providing a so-called stolen gun for you, that’s what I am offering. What the hell are you offering me? You think about that! You want me to leave I will leave, but I tell you one thing, the way you ingrates are positioned now it’s nothing but Farley against the world and you hiding behind him. You dang sure are not making me confident you would patch me up if I try to stand for you. We got two guns, one asshole meaning me, that might even be willing to lend them to you and fight a bear tooth and nail against with nothing but my pocket knife for you but you got to work with me!.” Farley declared mad and disgusted he might end up risking his life for all of them trying to procure them some defense or food with not even a bit of respect about not trying to scold him as something less than inferior in their worlds or nothing more than a thief.

Miss Feng and Becky finally settled down but it was understood Farley was supposed to begrudgingly behave for three weeks and have this discussion again before going out robbing the neighborhood as they called it.

3

Moving Day

Farley got up the next morning and set about finding some sticks and twigs to fire up his Silver Fire rocket stove and fix himself and Becky some coffee. Charlie was supposed to come by at 7 am, have a quick cup of coffee with them and then see them off to go pick up Becky’s stuff at her old cabin on the other side of the lake. Farley grinned to himself that they had lucked into the mother lode when it came to coffee because the concession stand Charlie had taken over was well stocked with it as well as cream and sugars. Farley normally just drank his coffee black but figured he would start adding sugar and cream for the extra little bit of calories he could pick up. He normally didn’t have breakfast before the grid went down but now that he was getting up earlier and doing more he found himself wanting an early lunch or if he did decide he wanted breakfast on a particular day then it was skip lunch and have an early dinner later on. He was still trying to get used to this formula and getting hungrier all the time, mostly he figured it was having the extra time on his hands that made him think about eating so much.

Becky and he had talked about the meal situation and the need to stretch supplies and she pretty much went along with whatever he wanted to do. Farley always liked a big Sunday dinner in the middle of the day and Becky had been used to the same southern tradition so this day of rest and reflection would carry on and they would reserve the few special delicacies or meals Farley had in his preps for these occasions as long as they lasted.

Farley worried about how long his food storage would last but he was all in with the arrangements and considered it something that they would all have to overcome together as well as suffer together when that inevitable day came around when the preps run out.

Jeremy opened the door to his cabin and waved to Charlie before walking over carrying a small white garbage basket over to where Charlie was heating up a pot of water to make some instant coffee. At the top of Farley’s “To Find Someday List” was an old style stovetop percolator pot. The cabins they were staying in had electric pots with paper filters that could be used he guessed in a pinch by just pouring hot water over some coffee grounds but he longed for some real percolated coffee. Charlie had told him of the bounty he possessed in a couple of cases of canned commissary coffee and Farley planned on experimenting with it first chance he had when they got moved in here and settled more permanently.

“Morning, Farley. I got to go haul some water from the lake for the toilet; do you want to walk down there with me?” Jeremy asked.

“Yea, I will go down with you. Gimme a minute to mix me a cup of coffee and then we can take off. Your Mom up yet?” Farley asked.

“Yes, we been up a long time, you’re the one that slept in today. I noticed your light on late, what did you manage to find to do?” Jeremy asked.

“I was listening to the radio and working on my gear. Nothing new to report on the radio by the way. Hey, make yourself useful and go carry this cup of coffee to your mom for me please and tell her I am heading her way shortly. I will meet you over there in a minute but I got to go back to my cabin first and get me something to haul water in also.” Farley said fixing himself his own cup of coffee and then rising to proceed to his cabin.

When he started to return he saw Becky and Jeremy at the cook stove and Charlie and crew were coming down the road on the golf cart. He waved to them and then turned himself about and went back in the house again to grab a project he wanted some help with from the group before joining them.

“Hi folks, did everyone sleep well I hope?” Farley said greeting them.

“

“Just fine, how about you?” Charlie asked.

“That is one comfortable bed, Inn Keeper! Hey, either of you ladies sew very well? I got a project I hope you might be able to help me with.” Farley said holding up a leather belt.

“I got this sewing awl thing in my preps but I never used it before and this belt is too big on my skinny losing weight self. See, the way it’s made won’t allow me to punch me another notch so I can adjust it.” Farley said displaying the item.

“I have had to take mine up a few notches also, Farley. I guess we all have that same problem these days or our pants would be falling off. Give it to Fong, he is good at leather work.” Charlie said as his nephew came up to receive it and examine it.

“I never seen an automatic stitching awl like that before but I guess I can figure it out, it looks like it will do the job fine. You got waxed thread and everything for it, I see.” Fong said studying the automatic stitcher.

“Yea, speaking of loose clothes and belts needing notches and such, I have been wishing that I had my skinny jeans with me for weeks now.” Becky said gathering the loose fabric at her waist to demonstrate how much weight she had also lost since the grid went down.

“Me, too.” Miss Feng said which was worrisome because the lady was tiny and awfully thin already.

“Guess I will grow in to these shorts I got that are getting too big now.” Jeremy said causing everyone to pause and think about the two growing boys they had to feed and clothe.

Farley thought about how he had not gotten rid of any clothes that in good times he had to go to a larger size with because he knew there was possibly another day during disastrous times that he might need those same clothes to fit him again.

“I wonder if your feet lose weight also.” Fong said wiggling his toes in sneakers that had been purchased a half size bigger in hopes to somewhat keep up with his teenage growth rate before the disaster.

“Let’s not get all depressed talking about us getting all skinny and thin, I am going deer hunting in a day or two and we will have us a big barbecue and everyone can eat their fill.” Farley said as Fong offered to go fill Farley’s water bucket at the lake with Jeremy.

“Take the cart but don’t you boys be speeding or doing anything else foolish.” Charlie told the boys to their delight and they left with Fong driving.

“Those boys seem to be getting along great now, I guess they have forgotten all about their little scuffle.” Becky remarked referring to the no- holds-barred fight they had gotten into when they first met.

“Yes, them good boys. They be good friends now fight, no more” Feng said, shocking everyone that her opinion could change so quickly and so drastically about her thoughts about Jeremy who had bit her Fong in that memorable tussle.

“I will make all of you all some of my good healing, great for what ails you tea. I have some very good Shoumei white tea I will share with you for this auspicious day.” Farley said.

“What’s white tea?” Becky asked.

“Well, all green tea gets cured with formaldehyde often times. White tea is made from immature tea leaves that are picked shortly before the buds have fully opened. The tea takes its name from the silver fuzz that still covers the buds, which turns white when the tea is dried. The exact proportion of buds to leaves varies depending on the variety of white tea. For example, White Peony contains one bud for every two leaves, while Silver Needles, is said to be the creme de la creme of white teas, it is made entirely from downy buds picked within a two day period in early Spring.” Farley said before continuing to explain why he was so enamored with this type of tea.

“Now it’s not the exotic appearance alone that explains white tea's sudden surge in popularity. The secret lies in what happens after the buds are plucked. Tea leaves that are destined to be sold as white tea undergo even less processing than green tea leaves. Instead of air-drying, the unwithered leaves are merely steamed. This results in a flavorful pale tea with a sweet, somewhat silky flavor. People who have tried both note that white tea lacks the "grassy" aftertaste that some people say is  associated with green tea. Furthermore, studies indicate that white tea is better for you. Leaving tea leaves so close to their natural state means that white tea contains more polyphenols, those are the powerful anti-oxidants that fight and kill cancer-causing cells, white tea contains more of these than any other type of tea.

That’s one good reason  to drink white tea but another is a 2004 study at Pace University which concluded that white tea can help your body's immune system fight off viruses and dangerous infection-causing bacteria. Recent studies at Pace University have shown that there is a major health benefit of white tea extract -- it can kill bacteria, viruses, and fungi in the body with more success than other teas.

The study focused primarily on the bacteria that cause Staphylococcus infections, Streptococcus infections, and pneumonia. The same study concluded that fluoride-rich white tea helps prevent the growth of dental plaque, the chief cause of tooth decay. Past studies have shown that green tea stimulates the immune system to fight disease." says Milton Schiffenbauer, Ph.D., a microbiologist and professor in the Department of Biology at Pace University's Dyson College of Arts & Sciences and primary author of the research. "Our research shows white tea extract can actually destroy in vitro the organisms that cause disease. Study after study with tea extract proves that it has many healing properties. This is not an old wives tale, it's a fact."

“Because white tea kills lots of bacteria on contact, I myself use it for toothaches, sore throats or anytime I get the cold or flu. I like it with honey and I have a whole bag full of those serving size ones you get at fast food restaurants like Church’s Chicken.” Farley said, getting some packets out of a brown paper bag.

“That’s like me collecting takeout packets of soy sauce, duck sauce, mustard, ketchup, etc. I have a bunch of those at my home in Ziplocs but I carried a lot with me also, they are back at the other cabin.” Becky said.

“I love hot Chinese mustard sometimes! Me and you are going to have to barter some on my return!” Farley said thinking that any kind of hot sauce, soy sauce, etc. was like gold now to change up the flavors of a bland diet or to apply to all that rice he had brought with him.

“Miss Feng, when we get back if you have any sauces or mustard you want to trade for I will make you a good deal.” Farley stated thinking just a little of something could make a meal more diverse or palatable.

“I may have something in my cupboards for you, Farley. What time you think you might be back here today?” Feng asked.

“Shouldn’t take us more than a couple hours max, we are not stopping anywhere.” Farley declared.

“Good, we will see you all for lunch then. Miss Feng says she is going to cook  us up some amazing dishes in her kitchen with what you brought in your preps along with what we got on hand of our own, it’s going to be a true feast. We wanted to have a nice welcoming celebration for you and yours and as sort of an apology for fussing at you so much last night.” Charlie declared.

“Hey I am in on that if we get back soon enough to fix something, I am going to make some hamburger baked beans that can be a side dish or a meal in them themselves, if that would be alright.” Becky declared and then explained her recipe.

“Damn that sounds good, I think I am going to be too full to even think about hunting a deer!” Farley declared to which Becky beamed a smile at the praise.

“We may not never eat like this again for some time to come but a celebratory feast for today sounds great and if we don’t make pigs of ourselves, we will even have leftovers for the next day.” Charlie declared.

“That’s the thing; we have to be careful and strictly limit ourselves to a small taste of everything based on us each eating only a moderate plate. I don’t want anybody getting sick around here. Your bodies are no longer used to consuming either rich or large quantities of food anymore. We aren’t that bad off yet but dumping a bunch of food on a starving body has been known to even kill folks. Back in World War II the Nazi’s were starving people to death in concentration camps and when the allies came in to rescue them they gave them poor souls lots of food that the ravenous survivors went crazy over and gorged themselves with. Many died after the first day of being rescued, unfortunately, until the horrible mistake of allowing them that much food was recognized.” Farley said giving a historical reference that food could cause lots of harm just like giving someone too much water after they had become dehydrated in the desert.

“Now as for us dying off from eating too much food, I say that don’t sound like such a bad death to me right now, Farley, but I got your point. Feng you and Becky keep an eye on those boys, they got them an appetite that could beat mine in the best of times.” Charlie stated and Feng and Becky both agreed that growing boys and especially teenagers had voracious appetites regardless of if they were on a starvation diet or not.

“Charlie, my friend, I have been thinking that I need to leave most of this food and supplies here in case we run into a problem or robbers on the road. I need you to open up that utility shed of yours so I can drop off some of my excess gear on our way out.” Farley said surprising him that he would put this much trust in him so soon in their arrangement.

“I will open it up for you, Farley, and nobody will touch it until you get back.” Charlie assured.

“I also unloaded some canned goods in my cabin so try to keep an eye on things down this way if you could.” Farley began before Miss Feng objected that all they had was some target shooting bows and arrows for that task and couldn’t assure him anything.

“I thought about that but it can’t be helped and I am not expecting trouble anyway. I left mostly camping gear and such in my cabin and we won’t be gone long, but I would feel better having the majority of my long term storage food in that utility shed that’s harder for folks to find. We got to find us some more guns for defense of this place somewhere and soon. No, Miss Feng, we are not starting that argument again, I was thinking about something else. How much money or trade goods do you have available, Charlie?” Farley asked him directly.

After an uncomfortable moment of exchanging glances with Miss Feng, he told Farley they had maybe $1200 in cash and some small bits of gold jewelry unless Farley could trade off some gas or something else around here.

“I got a hundred dollars mad money left and some jewelry I can offer to throw into the pot. Whenever I go off on a trip I always try to gather up my valuables and take them with me in case the car breaks down or something else happens.” Becky declared offering what she had for the community benefit.

“The only place I know of to even ask around here about any possible guns and ammo for trade is that bait store and they aren’t the friendliest folks in the world as I have already told you.” Farley said eying Becky for a second who only raised one eyebrow at him.

“You be careful over there, Farley. I thought you had decided that you weren’t going around there for awhile?” Charlie said.

“Well I wasn’t and I still don’t want to really but like I said I don’t have much choice at the moment. Gas beats cash at the moment but I hate giving any up let alone telling folks I have any extra for trade I would let loose of. Let me ponder on that for a bit. Guns and ammo might be difficult to trade for in these hard times, but offering food or gas should be able to find some weapons if the cash don’t work. Lots of folks sometimes have an extra gun they might be willing to let go of in order to fulfill another need.” Farley said starting to think the matter over.

“I don’t mind giving you some cash and gas but I am not willing to trade any our food stores we got left just yet unless you think it’s absolutely necessary.” Charlie said looking towards Feng who looked like she was dying to get into this conversation but was being quiet for now.

“Well I don’t mind trading some of my own food for some security although I am of the same mind as you are regarding its value. Hell, what is the value of anything these days? It is hard for me to even consider or estimate the prices of anything or for that matter what even might be able to be found to trade for.” Farley said trying to envision about how to even go about soliciting a gun sale or making offers towards one.

“Here comes the boys back.” Miss Feng said pointing towards the road.

“I tell you what, Charlie, you give me $500 in cash and I will see what

I can do about finding you some kind of better weapon or weapons. I doubt anybody will be trying to trade off anything fancy but you never can tell. I am thinking that old .22 rifles, maybe a .38 pistol or an old shotgun or something will be what’s available or possibly being offered for barter if food has become more important than protection in desperate times. Any type of firearm that is serviceable will beat that bow of yours so we aren’t going to be too picky. Normally you’re talking a hundred, two hundred dollars for such items but now? There is no telling. We got to weight the trade in our favor some kind of way with the value of your items. Do you have any other gas cans besides those boat gas cans?” Farley asked.

“I got some 5 gallon ones for the generators, I guess I could spare maybe 2 of those. Why don’t you want to just utilize the boat cans?” Charlie asked as Feng and Becky were having some kind of conversation with the boys that seemed to want to include them but was being held off for the moment.

“Oh, those are ok, they are just a pain in the ass to pour into a gas tank and although I don’t think folks would mind much how they were getting their gas, it still brings to mind where we might have acquired them from. Gimme one of the 5 gallons and two of the boat cans to take along with me and I will see what I can do. That bait shop might be closed or they could say that they got nothing at all to trade for so it might not even matter what we got to offer. That place isn’t exactly a trading post and they have already told me in no uncertain terms that they weren’t offering any food for any price. Still and all that’s how trade gets started, somebody needs something and someone else brings something around for trade and word gets out. Then for some reason things magically begin appearing and trade starts for the same reason.” Farley declared before asking the women and the boys did they need them for something because they were looking awfully insistent about getting a pause in the conversation in which to speak.

“The boys say they saw strange men in a boat!” Miss Feng said with her hand on Fong’s shoulder pushing him forward slightly to tell the men what he had seen when they went to fetch water.

“They wasn’t doing much, just fishing along the shoreline.” Fong began.

“They had them a bass boat and were fishing with the trolling motor. We watched them for a bit and asked them if they were they catching anything when they got close enough.” Jeremy chimed in.

“They told us they were not  having much luck catching anything and asked how we were doing.” Fong said excitedly recalling the event.

“What did you tell them?” Farley asked concerned his mind whirling with possibilities of if this casual conversation indicated any kind of dangers they all needed to anticipate.

“Oh, we told them that we were just fine but had to hurry back to our parents with the water we had collected.” Fong said smiling.

“Tell him what you said to them, Jeremy.” Becky interjected.

“I asked them if they were in the military and when they said no I asked them if they hadn’t seen all the signs that said no trespassing.” Jeremy said with a grin.

“I told them they better find themselves a different place to fish then because the military police would give them a ticket if they were spotted!” Fong said proud of that bit of subterfuge he had undertaken.

“What did they say to that?” Charlie asked as Farley looked at everybody also highly interested in the outcome.

“They just said they thought the place was closed and that it would be all right for them to fish around here. I told them no, it was for military personnel and their dependants only and we had to get back because our folks were waiting on us.” Fong said.

“They asked if there was somebody in charge they could talk to about getting some food and I told them I didn’t know anything about that and they could talk to the guard at the gate if he didn’t try to arrest them. I might have messed up by saying that, Farley, but I couldn’t think of nothing else at the time.” Jeremy said looking at everyone for acceptance or rejection as to what he had told the fishermen to try to scare them off.

Farley and Charlie looked at each other for a moment with some concern until both praised the boys and said that they had done well but it was likely that those two men might just try coming to the gate, regardless, in hopes of getting a handout or some information and that worried them immensely.

Becky comforted Jeremy that what he had said couldn’t be helped now and in the heat of the moment it was a very smart thing to have come up with to say, but that didn’t console him much or keep Fong from messing with him some about it.

“Damn, Charlie, now we got us some new problems to take care of before I leave possibly. You got any old uniforms around?” Farley asked.

“No, not really anything serviceable, I got just the dress blues I had planned on being buried in. What exactly do you have in mind, Farley?” Charley asked quizzically.

“You probably already guessed what I am thinking of but you’re going to be playing a gate guard for a little while we are gone.” Farley began to explain before Feng started chattering away in protest in that sing song hard to sometimes understand Asiatic voice of hers.

“You get that man killed you no good, Farley. He no military police, he don’t even have gun.” Feng screeched at him and began tugging on Charlie’s sleeve like it was a pump handle.

“Now just calm yourself down for a minute, Miss Feng! He has got something better than a gun going in his favor if you will just settle down and listen to me for a minute. He will be safe. What he has going in his favor is a commanding military presence and demeanor as well as his years of acting with authority according to that armful of stripes he has got. I bet we can continue to bullshit the hell out of anyone that might be coming by today until we can figure out something better if we just take us a few minutes to concentrate and to come up with a plan.” Farley said as Charlie looked at him skeptically with an “are you out of your mind yet?” look.

“I am listening to you, Farley, but I do not like any of it so far. Suppose I am standing in that gate house and somebody comes by and wants to nose about. I don’t look like an M.P. and anybody with any military experience or common sense will know no one of my rank would be standing duty and besides I don’t have a weapon.” Charlie objected.

“Well, give me a minute or two I am working on the details of it. The main thing to do in my mind is to keep anyone approaching that gate from getting close enough to see anything is amiss. Now the way we will do that is that you can be exiting the gate as someone is approaching and you confront them before they get there in your official truck and be in full uniform.” Farley advised starting to put a plan together.

“That might just work buddy, might not be such a bad idea after all. I could get out of my truck with a scowl and approach them with a clipboard or something in my hand but I would have to know exactly when they were approaching the gate to pull it off.” Charlie said contemplating.

“Now that is a problem, humm how do we go about doing that? Hey, you don’t have any of those wooden barricades they use to say that a road is closed or that men are working or something do you? You know the kind with the flashing yellow lights on them?” Farley asked as Charlie tried to think about where some might be.

“Yea, we got some of those I think, but they would be in that maintenance shed I don’t have a key to.” Charlie advised before Jeremy chimed in that Farley could probably get into it with his axe of his like he had done with the front gate.

“Scrap that idea for now Jeremy we will have a look at it later. Charlie, we don’t have time for all that before I need to get going. You got any of those fake rubber training guns or a maybe a display one around here somewhere?” Farley asked thinking they might have some R.O.T.C or Civil Air Patrol training aids somewhere about.

“No, nothing like that around here comes to mind.” Charlie said thinking about it for a moment.

“Ok then, we will try to go about doing it a different way. Follow my lead here for a minute. I think you need to park your truck on the exit side of the front gate facing out. When you see someone coming then you drive towards them with the lights flashing and confront them before they can get close enough to the gate see anything. Kind of like you were leaving anyway or just playing sergeant of the guard and saw them. I know it only has caution lights on it but that’s all we got. I am going to leave that black .22 survival rifle of mine here and from a distance it looks like a military weapon to untrained eyes. Can Feng or Fong shoot?” Farley asked.

“No, they can’t shoot. I might be able to hit something with it if I had time to get familiar with it but it doesn’t look nothing like an M-16 up close and even the dumbest hillbilly around here would know something was wrong with me carrying that puny rifle on a military post.” Charlie objected and looked at Farley like he was positive now he was going crazy or something.

“I ain`t telling you, Charlie, to be carrying it with you to greet anyone or for that matter be thinking about threatening anyone with it. What I was getting at was Feng or Fong playing guard inside the shack and waving you through the gate leaving the resort. One of them could be carrying it and all anyone from a distance would see was a glimpse of it. The shooting it part was just for back up if you needed it to make a point or cover your escape.” Farley said gaining ground and interest in his plans.

“I don’t have any clothes that would fit either one of them that looks like a guard’s uniform.” Charlie said thinking.

“I have some military issue camouflage shirts. Just roll the sleeves up and fold the waist around the back.” Farley said.

“Well it could be that might just work if someone was far enough away, but that seems like a lot to go through. Tell you what, just lend us a shirt and Fong or Feng can just reach out the door of the guard shack and wave me on. Anybody close enough to be looking will see just the arm, the rifle and the camo and that should be enough to make them think the post is secure and guarded.” Charlie said thinking it through.

“Sounds like a plan, Charlie, that will work. You know what? While you all are waiting you ought to cut some head silhouettes out of some of those pictures of officers you got hanging around here. We can stick them in the windows of the gate keeper cabin and somebody might take them for real people when no one’s staying up here after I weld that gate shut when I get back.” Farley said adding an idea that was more busy work than anything else but was still maybe a decent decoy of sorts.

“Good, that’s what we will do then and you hurry your butt back here in one piece, ok?” Charlie said.

“You got it.” Farley said and they all set out to get ready for his departure.

4

Barnett’s Bait Store

“I doubt that anyone will even bother to come by this campground but I am sure that you will handle it just fine if they do.” Farley said and Becky, Jeremy and he left as Charlie closed and secured the gate in back of them.

“Well, we are back on this danged road again, same protocols you all, keep your eyes open and remember if we get in trouble for any reason keep your head down.” Farley said as he sped up after reaching the main road.

“I wish that we were already moved over here and you welded that gate shut already, it felt good to be staying there even if it was a strange place, kind of homey in an odd sort of way. What do you really think the chances are of those fishermen coming over for a visit, Farley?” Becky asked already wishing this trip was over.

“I would say that there is about a 50/50 chance of that happening. I doubt they would come today, but you never know, do you? They will probably have to think about it amongst themselves for a day or two before they decide whether or not it’s worth it to try it. The radio is saying that all military installations and bases are on high alert and that no civilians should approach or trespass near them under threat of arrest, detention or be shot as a possible enemy terrorist. There might be bigger problems going on that they are not talking about. I wondered how long it would take for them to start using the terrorist word and applying it to civilians. Evidently several bases have had problems with people trying to trespass to get on them or could be some gangs or desperate people have performed some kind of direct assault against the facilities. The radio announcer I listened to reading the government warnings was kind of vague about whom it was exactly that has been attacking service members or facilities but evidently there have been a number of shootings occurring nationwide.” Farley explained from listening to the radio broadcast last night that he had not mentioned yet.

“Oh great, I could of gone all day without hearing that, Farley. Now we are going to be considered terrorists for trying to live on that military resort.” Becky said angrily.

“That’s doubtful Becky; don’t worry yourself, that resort is not a regular military post or base. Also, you need to remember that we actually have us permission and a somewhat official invite to stay there but I would still advise all of us to avoid any military folks we might see from now on or in the future.” Farley said turning towards the Marina.

“We aren’t stopping at the Marina are we, Farley?” Becky said more as a statement then voicing an actual question.

“Nope, I told you already, I am going straight to your old home and straight back to your new one. We will look at the bait shop on the way and if it looks clear of problems then we will stop on the way back and see if I can do any trading.” Farley said.

They carefully drove by the vacant Marina and by the looted and ransacked convenience store and then turned and made their way towards the bait store several miles up the road.

“I could apologize to that Mr. Barnett fellow if you want me to Farley; it sounds like he has already said he was sorry to me in kind of a third party way by telling you.” Becky offered.

“Just play it by ear darlin’, we will pretend that nothing much happened and leave it at that. I am guessing he will probably do the same.” Farley decided.

“You got much stuff you got to pack up, Becky?” Farley asked studying the road and the occasional houses they passed, curious if he could spot anyone and evaluate the situation better.

“No, we don’t have very much that has to go.” Becky said before Jeremy chimed in he thought it was lot of stuff to load up before his mom hushed him.

“Well I do have some lawn chairs and other vacation type comfort stuff besides our clothes but it’s not very much actually.” Becky reiterated.

“Well, I ain`t trying to rush you by any means but let’s just get it and go. I got lots of room in the van now and I am not going to be very concerned with perfectly packing it all pretty and orderly so just remember I warned you. I want to get back by that bait store and get that over with as quick as I can so we can get back to the campground and weld that gate shut and enjoy Miss Fengs’ feast.” Farley said.

“Oh, I will hurry, I am just as anxious as you are to get back myself. Well, the bait store is still open, looks like they got themselves at least one customer today.” Becky said indicating the extra car in the parking lot up ahead.

“Yea I see that, interesting. Hey, I am going to stop here for a minute and run in and ask Barnett a stupid question or directions or something so I can see who that is that’s parked over there. They might have what I want if those folks in the bait store don’t have what I want or offered gun wise. Let me see if they are friendly or not and if they are willing to even talk about the subject. You all hang out in the van or parking lot for a bit if you don’t mind and I will be in a hurry to get back to you.” Farley said eyeing the place.

Farley reached up on his dash and grabbed a baseball cap with a Cat Diesel logo embroidered on the front, slicked his hair back behind his ears and hid its length under his hat a little bit and got out and entered the establishment.

“Hi there, Mr. Barnett, hello Frazier! I had to come back down for a few things.” Farley said cheerfully as they looked up and returned his greeting.

“Hello friend, good to see you again. Something in particular you need today?” Barnett said forgetting Farley’s name but recognizing him from his previous visit.

“You come back for some more worms?” Frazier asked.

“No, I think that I got enough of them squiggly’s for now, thanks. You mind if I just browse around for a bit?” Farley asked while casually observing a middle aged man and a lady eying what was left of the beer.

“Sure, you go right ahead and have a look around, nothing new to see though since you been in last.” Frazier said looking at him like he expected Farley to keep up the conversation anyway.

“I didn’t think you would, oh yea, the reason I come in today was I need some bar oil for my chainsaw, I saw that you were in the business of cut firewood and figured you might have a jug of it for sale to me instead of these little bottles you got on the shelf? I need some 2 cycle engine oil, also.” Farley said as he was walking down an aisle eying everything left while chatting over the counter.

“A big jug like that might be a little pricy for your tastes; things aren’t what they used to be, you know, that stuff is sort of in high demand.” Mr. Barnett said sliding into his usual price gouging manner that told you that you didn’t have to buy it if you didn’t want to, that was his price and he didn’t have in mind lowering it any unless it was in his favor to do so.

“I figured bar oil might be a bit high but I reckoned that it should be cheaper buying in bulk or bigger quantity just as it has always been since the crap hit the fan. That item will be more than plentiful enough you know and demand is going to slack off, I imagine. Won’t be any need for folks to be buying it because people just won’t have the gas to run a chainsaw anymore, unfortunately.” Farley countered.

“Well, seeing that you put it that way, maybe it should be more reasonable then. You might be just right that it will be sitting on the shelf longer than I thought it was going to. I tell you what; I will make you a onetime special good deal today on both of them items that you wanted.” Barnett said with a crocodile smile that said he hoped Farley had some more of those old silver dimes to trade he had with him last time to trade at a reduced rate of exchange.

“Are you still deciding if you are going to give me two hundred dollars worth of credit on that gun, Frazier? That number sounds fair to me if it sounds fair to you.” The man who was in the back of the store said, freezing Farley in his tracks with a jar of pork rind bait in his hand that he had been examining more closely with feigned interest so as to be able hang around the place and try to pick up on some gossip and conversation.

“You want to agree to that, Mr. Barnett?” Frazier asked while looking down at something holding his interest lying on the back counter out of Farley’s view.

“Yea that’s fine Frazier, go ahead and give him 30 bucks for the extra ammo he offered also.” Barnett said glancing at the parking lot and asking Farley if his boy was with him today.

“Yea, he is out in the car with his momma, hey which one of these catfish stink baits work best to try for blue catfish rather than them mud cats?” Farley asked.

“That boy can come on in anytime he wants to you know, that is if he ain’t holding no grudge. I am sorry like I said for that little misunderstanding you know, just one of them things. I hope he knows we ok, ain`t we buddy?” Mr. Barnett said making sure Farley had tried to patch things up with Becky and Jeremy like he told him to from his last visit.

“Oh yea, we are all just fine and the lady sends her regrets for snapping at you, no worries there. I told him and Becky I wouldn’t be in here long; we still got to go help finish picking up friends stuff today and moving them over by us. I just had myself a short list of things I wanted today and needed to ask a question or two, too, if you don’t mind.” Farley said.

“Sure ask away, what did you need to know?” Barnett said hooking his thumbs in his suspenders.

“Last time I was in I noticed you had some ammo for sale but I didn’t know if you had any guns available for purchase.” Farley said walking over to the counter where Frazier was standing.

“We don’t normally stock guns, Farley, we just help a good customer or a friend out once in awhile to make a trade or selling a personal one sometimes. Ammo licenses are one thing and firearm dealer licenses are another if you catch my drift.” Barnett said finally getting off his stool to walk toward where Frazier and Farley were standing.

“Is that one going to be for sale?” Farley asked looking down at an old single action western style Ruger Blackhawk in .357 that was lying on the worn boards in front of Frazier.

“Could be but I ain`t priced it or cleaned it yet. I also like to test fire them, too.” Mr. Barnett said not wanting to name a price on it when the guy that sold it to him was still hanging around the store.

“Can I see it anyway while you’re considering it?” Farley asked Frazier who just reached down and handed it to him with a smile.

“Nice, I always liked these old style pistols. How much is ammo going for today, Frazier? Say on .22 caliber.” Farley said admiring the pistol and aiming it at a far wall to check the sights for any obvious misalignment or defect.

“I don’t have any .22 rounds left except maybe a half dozen small 50 count boxes of lead round-nose standard velocity. I want $16 a box, limit one to the customer.” Barnett said.

“Damn, having a limit reminds me of that stupid Wal-Mart rationing, that stuff was hard enough to find before the collapse. How much is this .357 pistol and some ammo for it?” Farley inquired after the man who had sold the pistol left.

“I want 2 bucks a round and that’s cheap, I only have one box of it though, of 50. I got some .38 you can shoot in that thing also, though. I will take a buck fifty a round for them or .75 cents a round if you don’t mind old military and police surplus.

“Ok, that’s not too pricey, I guess, how much you want for the gun then?” Farley asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Cash or trade?” Barnett said, looking back at him.

“Either or, how much cash you want for it?” Farley asked.

“$500.” Barnett said without batting an eye.

“Damn, Barnett, you are kind of proud of it aren’t you? Those things sell retail new between 500 to full retail $600, I tell you what, I have in mind that I will give you $350 for it and buy whatever you got in stock of that pricy ammo for it.” Farley countered.

“No, I couldn’t do that; I might be able to give it to you for $450 though.” Barnett said after a moment of thought.

“Let me see that old hog leg gun again, well it’s well used, got a tiny bit of holster wear showing on it. Three eighty would be a better price to my mind.” Farley offered.

“No, I think I will have to stick to four fifty. Guns at any price can be considered a good deal these days.” Barnett said casually looking at him.

“What else you got in here for sale today?” Farley asked.

“That’s it, well I take that back, I got an old police model .38 special I will take $300 dollars for, it ain`t much to look at but it shoots and has lots of service left in it. It’s a Smith and Wesson round handle.” Barnett said reaching under the counter and pulling it out for Farley’s inspection.

“I mean this ain`t much to look at, that ugly thing looks like it was carried by a swamp game warden and never cleaned since it was taken out of service.” Farley said making Frazier snicker at his comment as Barnett attempted to wipe off with a rag some of the more obvious grime that was mixed in with tiny flecks of rust.

“Ok now, no more dickering I will take six hundred for the two pistols but that’s my final price Farley, take it or leave it.” Barnett declared.

Farley stared at the two pistols for awhile pondering the deal and finally agreed to the price but he hadn’t decided yet exactly in his own mind just how much cash and barter he wanted to do to trade on them yet.

“Let me look around a minute, Barnett, and see what all else I might need before we settle up accounts. I got the cash on me but I think that I might want to barter some; folding money is hard to come by these days.” Farley said dismissively contemplating how he might better come out ahead in this transaction.

“Oh take your time and have a look around, I will trade with you some maybe, make me an offer when you’re ready.” Barnett said hoping for some more silver coins or bullion.

“Hey I bumped into who maybe might be a friend of yours the other day, said he was a sales rep for I think it was South Bend fishing tackle, he asked me if I wanted to buy a fishing pole.” Farley said chuckling.

“Old guy? Reddish kind of hair?” Barnett asked.

“No, he looked like some kind of oriental. He had a whole truck full of fishing gear he said he would sell.” Farley said nonchalantly.

“Don’t ring a bell, we usually catalog order all our stuff from the warehouse, though. Where did you see him at?” Barnett said looking to Frazier for confirmation that they didn’t know who Farley was talking about.

“Oh down by the turn off to the horseshoe bar, he was parked in their lot and I pulled in hoping the place was open. It wasn’t, the door was busted in and he said he was just parked reading a map and trying to get directions. I showed him roughly where on the map he was and got him turned around. He said he had himself a place on up the cove a bit.” Farley said doing the usual not mentioning this lake had a bunch of coves but not specifying the one you was actually talking about.

“You see him again you be sure to send him my way and maybe I will do some business with him. You would think fish poles wouldn’t sell to folks on the lake but people seem to be wanting to buy them these days along with the rest of the paraphernalia except for them over-priced tournament lures that usually don’t sell no way.” Barnett declared.

“He is lucky Dump Truck didn’t run him off, you be careful around that place, Farley. It might be busted in but the owners are still watching the place, why I don’t know because there is nothing in there to get except maybe some tables or bar napkins.” Frazier said.

“Yea, whoever broke in there evidently didn’t believe the sign Connors put up in the window saying “I took the booze with me, so leave this place alone or get shot.” Barnett said in raspy voice full of mirth.

“I guess not, the door doesn’t have a bit of glass left in it now.  They have some two by fours nailed across the opening here and there with a hand drawn “trespassers will be shot and shot again” sign that kind of freaked me out though when I pulled in. That big sign has somebody’s half ass rendition of a skull and cross bones on it also with two bullet holes in it.” Farley said describing how the building was now secured.

“Shit that skull and bones is meaningful. Connors has been known to want to shoot at people before.” Frazier warned.

“Thanks for the heads up guys. I only pulled in there because I saw the fishing supply truck sitting in the lot and hoped that the bar might possibly be open for business like you all were.” Farley declared.

“I would avoid that place entirely if I were you, Farley, just like Frazier said for you to do. However Connors says that he might reopen that place someday again if he can find some more booze. Even if he does you won’t catch me in there with that squirrelly son of a bitch, though.” Barnett said.

“I take it Dump Truck used to be the bouncer there or maybe he will be again?” Farley asked.

“You must have been there before yourself, Farley, do you know old Dump?” Frazier asked.

“No, it’s been several years since I stopped in there during the day time for a beer and I think it was Margaret’s then. I used to go in a Bar in Bessemer and they had themselves a bouncer named Dump Truck so I just put two and two together.” Farley said with a smile.

“He stays back in them woods somewhere over there; he rides an old Harley and has a full beard if you happen to see him. Pretty nice guy most of the time, kind of runs the show and performs everything from doorman to bartender to manager for Connors. Anyway until you see an open sign back on the place, avoid it.” Frazier said.

“Ok, I will try and track down that fishing equipment guy for you. I could go look him up I think. I have a general idea where he was going so I might go have a look see if you were maybe willing to offer a small commission or finder’s fee.” Farley said with a slight grin.

“I might be able to give you something small like $25 for a referral if you want that and he actually shows.” Barnett offered.

“Hell, it might just cost me that much in gas to track him down. Speaking of gas, I got four boat cans full the boys on my end of the lake chipped in for trading purposes, that is if I could find me some guns or chickens for barter or exchange. Barnett, you willing to do some price adjustments or barter for those gas cans?” Farley asked

“You got all the guns I had on hand for trade today, but they come in and out the door fairly regular and I can use all the gas I can get. As for chickens now that’s a specialty item, I know chickens used to be not worth very much but a good laying hen these days is worth more than the meat on the bone, it’s days of eggs or more chickens if you’re lucky but for a can of gas now my friend we might could make us some arrangements.” Barnett said.

“Ok, 4 cans of gas and some cash against guns and chickens, Damn is there something wrong with that statement?” Farley said with a grin enjoying the banter.

“You get that gas by regular trading or by borrowing?” Barnett asked spoiling the moment.

“Told you, me and some friends started us up a little enclave, kind of a screwed up situation if you ask me but we sort of tribed ourselves up and are sharing what we got for the common good amongst us all.  We had us 5 boats with gas cans or tanks, 8 cars and we said hell, with a little bit of ingenuity we can fill some gaps with those resources. So everyone got together and pooled their gas resources to possibly trade for some guns or chickens. Who the hell needs a gas sucking 250 Mercury Cruiser these days if you can run a trolling motor and go fishing better?” Farley declared.

“How are you going to charge them engines marine batteries once they go dry?” Frazier asked.

“Oh I always been one of them nuts that thought solar power was cool and have a portable 120 watt set of solar panels that can be used to take care of some of those needs. We have got us a retired fourth grade science teacher living over there that says we can build us some wind turbines, too. We are all going to try to get by this disaster by all rowing in unison, if you know what I mean.” Farley said laying on the BULLSHIT pretty deep.

“Seems like you got yourselves a pretty good plan going, folks sure do need to think more about how to cooperate these days. I wouldn’t mind finding out more about that solar stuff myself, hell if we got anything we have got plenty of sunshine these days.” Frazier exclaimed.

“It is basically simple, hell I can even understand it when that science teacher talks about it. He already did a good thing for them folks over there before the disaster and had a couple people that nominally invested in some 10-15 watt solar panels that can charge a trolling motor or a car battery, my big rig can do the job quicker and better and handle more of a load so we are studying up on how to pump water or fix something to make ice with.” Farley declared and didn’t miss for a second that his standing in this little outpost of commerce had gone up three notches from the time he first came in the store.

“Ice? Seriously? You all got a way to make ice over there?” Barnett said incredulously.

“Well not quite yet, Smitty, that’s the insurance salesman that everybody bitches at cause they bought insurance from him that is pretty worthless now and the fact that he seems to have less than the rest of us when it comes to basic poor man or lake living skills, he has a portable icemaker that doesn’t work any more and I am going to try to either fix it and get it producing again or figure out how many batteries it takes to run one of those on a refrigerator. It’s a huge experiment with half remembered things by me and the truth is I don’t remember much when it comes to electronics math. The schoolteacher is trying to figure it out for me but we will get it done one day.” Farley declared enjoying the fix it or invent it talk all men sometimes enjoy.

“If you ever manage to get ice then you sure got yourself something special there, boy.” Barnett told Farley.

“Don’t you know it? Hopefully it wont be too long until I get it all worked out. Ha! I bet you lower your price on beer to me if I could trade you back with cold ones!” Farley said laughing.

“How much ice can one of them things, I think you said a portable maker, produce in a day, Farley?” Frazier asked and for once since the first time Farley had seen him put his rifle down and forgot about it as he engaged in this conversation.

“That one Smitty has got said it was rated at 30 lbs. of ice per day, so that’s about 3 good bags of ice. We can do it, I figure, because all those boats don’t have to be water ready and just like pooling the gas we are all dedicated to the cause. Everyone agreed the marine batteries off the boats that chipped in on the gas could go towards making us a communal battery bank to try for lights or running water. We plan on just keeping one motor boat up and running and the rest can sit at the docks or run off of trolling motors.” Farley said weaving his elaborate ruse on the fly that he was somehow settled in and living with several lakefront households.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

“You work that ice maker thing out, Farley, and then you come back and visit again real soon. Let’s see now, you said you got 20 gallons of gas for trading.” Barnett began.

“No cans included because the owners want them back.” Farley declared.

“Ah hell, go find something to put that gas in Frazier.” Barnett told him.

“How about I pour it in my car? Ok Barnett, I was just kidding, I am on it.” Frazier said and then set about finding something after Barnett raised his eyebrows at him about his joke.

“My current selling gas price when I can get it is $20.00 a gallon, might go up to $25 soon enough. I will give you $10.00 a gallon, man has got to make himself a profit.” Barnett said.

“Yea this man also has to make a profit, how about that, you give me $15, Barnett.” Farley said.

“I will see you in the middle at $12.50.” Barnett said offering his hand.

“Not so fast, Barnett, you are probably going to jack your selling price to $25 probably the very second I get out the door and besides if you don’t, $5 a gallon is more than a decent profit for you to make on gas. Hell, before this crap hit service stations were lucky to make a nickel or a dime off of it.” Farley declared.

“Well, I ain`t no service station. Take the $12.50, Farley, and I will throw in one chicken.” Barnett said with a grin.

“Holding out with a chicken, you are a piece of work. Barnett. Ok. deal.” Farley said shaking hands.

“That’s $300, in your favor and you get your cans back. That leaves you owing me $300 more, you want to dicker some more or do you want to pay cash.” Barnett said still hoping for some silver.

“What are you paying for gold these days, Barnett?” Farley asked.

“Coin, bullion or jewelry? Barnett asked.

“Gold is Gold, Barnett, you have just got to adjust for the karat percentage. I got a 14k man’s plain wedding ring that weighs about 10 penny weights (DWT).” Farley said.

“What’s a penny weight?” Barnett asked confused.

“It’s a gold measurement that lots of jewelers use; there are 20 penny weights to an ounce. I haven’t weighed that ring on a scale but I used to be in the business and my estimated weight of it in the palm of my hand is pretty accurate. If you got a gram scale around here we can weigh it but I ain`t going to be much shy off of my estimate. Remember, we are talking Troy ounces not Avoirdupois, I know the difference. There are 14 ounces to a pound when we are talking about dealing in gold or precious metals.” Farley said wisely and warning Barnett not to try and pull any unscrupulous buyers tricks.

“I know the difference, I ain`t trying to cheat nobody.” Barnett said huffily.

“I didn’t mean to say you would even ever consider it, I was just saying I know the business of buying and selling precious metals pretty good. Hell, if you got any metal you want to sell I might even be willing to buy some off you for green cash if you want.” Farley suggested.

“No, I like holding onto the metal better. Have you heard on the news the Government might do a referendum and reissue or devalue the green back?” Barnett asked.

“Yes, heard that bit of troublesome news on the radio last night, more bogus bullshit by government, I say. Since 1930 they have been dinking with the dollar and some well known economists were saying that it was already devalued to 4 cents before this crap happened. I guess that it’s all relevant in the way you look at things. An ounce of gold back in the 1930’s would buy you a fine suit of clothes and some shoes; it will still do the same today. When it comes to cash or gold it’s still a buyer-sellers market of what we are willing to exchange.” Farley declared.

“Yea you got that right, my buy price is $800 an ounce, 14k is 58% pure so $464 an ounce that puts you at about $230 for that ring if your guesstimate is right.” Barnett said before the door opened and Becky and Jeremy wandered in.

“Hi, Miss Becky, nice to see you, son.” Barnett said addressing them and acting like a totally changed man from the one they had first met.

The pair returned his greeting just as nicely but were still taken back a bit by his change in demeanor.

“Farley, it’s hot as hell outside, are you going to be shopping much longer?” Becky asked.

“No, we are winding it down now; I had more business to discuss than I had originally thought I would, sorry about that Becky.” Farley said.

“There is cool water in that crock over there, I dug that thing out of the attic weeks ago and that’s what passed for refrigeration back in the day but it still does a good job now.” Barnett said indicating a big stoneware jar over in the corner.

“Thank you Barnett that sounds like a good idea.” Becky said escorting Jeremy back towards it to get themselves a drink and stay out of Farley’s way with whatever it was he was negotiating on.

Farley produced the wedding ring and Barnett weighed it up and found that Farley was about a gram and a half off and so he owed him a bit more cash than they had originally settled on.

“I need more than just one chicken, Barnett; we need to get back on to that subject. You got any scratch feed to go with that bird?” Farley asked.

“No, I only got the one chicken available here today; Frazier will get it for you, it’s back there in a crate. I had 6 chickens for sale this morning but folks have already bought them.” Barnett declared.

Farley was curious as hell just what kind of trade goods or prices were exchanged for those yard birds but he didn’t want to push the subject any further. “Have you got any egg laying mash available?” Farley asked, referring to a grain mix that had calcium in it to harden egg shells that was necessary sometimes in a hen’s diet.

“I guess I could give you a little bit of it and maybe enough cracked corn so you can get her acclimated to wherever you’re going to pen her up at so she don’t run off the first time you try to free range her, but that’s all I can spare.” Barnett said watching Jeremy turn suddenly at over-hearing Farley had somehow got a hold of a live chicken.

“The chicken is outside boy if you want to go out to see her. She is around the back in the shade of that big oak tree on the left.” Barnett told him and after Jeremy asked his Mom if he could go see it, she decided to go along with him.

“I take it that there is no seed and feed store close by or for that matter still open these days?” Farley said studying Barnett.

“Well there is one store that might be still be operating about 18 miles from here but the government come in a few weeks ago and declared it a state asset. The owner Mr. Jones liked to have got himself shot over that shit by telling the government agents that he operated a private enterprise and that he was a freeman to boot and he wasn’t going to allow them federal folks on his property but some soldiers grabbed hold of him and it was go to jail or comply so he ended up complying. They took all of his accounting books also and them federal bastards ended up taking over all the big farms around here and were starting to visit the little ones appropriating cattle and such before a big stand off with the farmers and the National Guard almost caused lots of bloodshed. The way I hear that it all went down was that the Fed ordered the Guard commander who just on a off chance happened to be from around here to go out and enforce the governments emergency powers mandates and he was doing so before the farmers organized themselves and their neighbors and had themselves an armed mob stationed on one of the big cattle farms and said no more and threatened to shoot anyone trespassing on the property. Because that Guard commander was from around here and he was a pretty well respected man, it luckily turned out ok for everyone. He was a timber dealer by trade in his civilian life and he had done business with several of them folks. He said the hell with enforcing this crap when confronted by the angry farmers and citizens and he told his troops to load up and go home. The government threatened to send in the regular army to put down the dissent but they never appeared. I guess because they were too busy off somewhere else and that commander for whatever reason is siding with the state and the citizenry and even though he has not come right out and said it I believe he would use his troops to try to repel the federal regulars if they were sent in. Hot damn, Farley, you might just get to see the old stars and bars flag flying over Alabama again. Texas already has seceded from the union so the government has it’s handsful there and those screwed up big northern cities like Chicago, Detroit, etc. are all burning with riots out of control, hell Louisiana is saying they are exercising their sovereignty and trying to get the government out of their oil and gas refineries and threatening to halt the flow of oil out of state on that pipeline. Course the government is not ever going to allow that and since the Mississippi river flooded its banks and put them half under water they can’t say much or lose what Federal aid they are getting.” Barnett said describing how an about 140 mile rift from St. Louis to the Gulf of New Mexico had changed the landscape of America.

“These are trying times indeed, Mr. Barnett, a lot of folks might be wailing and gnashing their teeth over this death and devastation we have going but me, well I kind of like the fact that this country is going to have to go back to its roots of help thy neighbor and stand up for freedom and liberty even if the big man in the sky has already drop kicked us over the goal posts of life. Hey, I am enjoying the hell out of this conversation, but I really do need to get out of here, we got to get back to talking about those chickens before I leave though or my clan might not see itself through winter. How many chickens would $500 green back dollars buy? Now that’s all the cash I got in the world to invest and it ain`t even all mine so shoot me a good deal, ok?” Farley said putting all his cards on the table.

“You ain`t going to like my answer, Farley, and I don’t even want to hazard to give you a quote. You’re asking way too early in this little fiasco but I don’t blame you and some may say you are being pretty smart by doing so, but not me. I will allow you to purchase only 5 more chickens but I won’t have them available for you until Monday week. Me and you can seal our deal here and now if you want to and at today’s prices for future delivery but it’s got to be up front money or barter for me to secure them for you. I got lots of other folks that I know better than you and ones that have been trading with me longer to consider so you are damn lucky I am even am entertaining doing business with you before them. However, you’re a resourceful fellow and I think we are going to be able to do some pretty good future business. You got any of that silver left?” Barnett said scrutinizing Farley.

“I got some silver left but it’s mostly in the form of 2 rolls of pre-1964 nickels.” Farley offered.

“Shit, I don’t like that 50% silver content stuff; folks don’t recognize it like they would a silver dollar or those mercury dimes you traded me. You sure you don’t have any other better coins to trade with me?” Barnett asked.

“No, buddy, that’s it, but hey look at it this way. You know you are going to need change for your cash register and that don’t take into account that fake plated crap that passes for current minted dimes and quarters these days if we are trading in real metals. You should take what’s on the table now that we have agreed on for the guns and such and you call it square for me to receive 5 chickens Monday week and I will give the nickels to you upon delivery.” Farley said putting down his best offer.

“That sounds fair and you do have some change coming to you but after what you said about them nickels, I think I need them now. You trust me with them nickels for a week and I will throw in an Araucana rooster, you familiar with them?” Barnett said referring to the breed that causes brown egg laying chickens to lay colored eggs as well as their own breeds colors.

“Yea, I know about them big flashy roosters and that them Easter looking eggs they produce are supposed to be better for you and all but you got me buying a pig in a poke here. Exactly what kind of damn egg laying chickens are you offering me in trade anyway? You haven’t got around to telling me that part of the business yet. I don’t want a giant rooster trying to service a bunch of bantam hens.” Farley said chuckling while thinking about the diminutive hens.

“I ain’t going to do you no wrong, Farley.” Barnett said with a grin at the mental spectacle of that unlikely union.

“I am not up on my chicken breeds but Frazier can recognize a few and the sellers tell us a bit about what they are offering but I will get you the best birds I can. That Araucana is coming off my spread because I want me a bunch of bantams that don’t eat so much. How about some good generic big brown chickens? Or if you don’t want those, I got access to some white ones that come out of those chicken houses that are just layers but they aren’t as good as the ones used to free ranging a bit.” Barnett offered.

“I will take the brown ones or even some of them wild looking black fighting rooster ones with the colors but don’t try passing off no ancient non- laying birds. If you got access to chicken house birds then you got access to some grain so I don’t care how you do it but find me 50 lbs. of some kind of feed and we got us a deal and I am all in.” Farley said reaching in his vest and handing over the two rolls of nickels.

“I like the hell out of that vest of yours, Farley, but I like even better what you always manage to pull out of it.  I got to see about getting me something similar to wear. Now then, you be back here anytime Monday week after 8am and pick up your chickens and feed. That surplus .38 ammo you got on your ticket is good stuff and accurate. I am going to throw in a extra box for you so you or whoever can do some practicing and if you will let me I would like to give your missus and that boy a friendly little gift for your good trading and that previous misunderstanding we had.” Barnett said.

“That is fine by me and I am sure they will appreciate it.” Farley said beaming a smile at Barnett and shaking his hand.

“You all come in here a minute, if you would.” Barnett said walking to the backdoor and calling over Becky and Jeremy who were under the shade of the oak tree laughing about something with Frazier.

“Yes sir?” Jeremy said standing in front of the door waiting on his mom and Frazier to catch up.

“What’s your name boy, I seem to have forgotten it.” Barnett said looking down on the young man in an old timer’s friendly manner reserved for such moments.

“Names Jeremy, Mr. Barnett.” Jeremy responded quite nervous.

“Me and you and your Ma had us a little misunderstanding and I want to set it right.” Barnett began before Becky interjected that wasn’t necessary.

“I know we are all ok now, but I wanted to give you a little something anyway. I got a jar of sweet clover honey for you, Becky, a friend of mine who raises bees around here fixed for me and Jeremy, you can have this if your paw paw says it’s all right.” Barnett said reaching in his pocket and pulling out a folding fishing knife complete with hook disgorger and scaler.

Jeremy’s eyes danced and sparkled at the magnificent gift he held in his hand admiring it before mumbling thanks and smiling before saying that Farley wasn’t his real Pa but he was grateful beyond words to Barnett before Farley started shoving everyone towards the door saying it was past time to get this show on the road and for Jeremy to go load the chicken in the van.

After collecting his guns, ammo and a couple small sundries they said their farewells and Farley and crew left enjoying a more comfortable and congenial  atmosphere than they had ever  anticipated or wished for from  this backwater bait store.

“What were you and Frazier laughing so much about, Becky?” Farley asked as Jeremy giggled.

“We were talking about how that chicken looked like it was wearing pants.” Becky said smiling brightly before Jeremy interjected Frazier said it reminded him about how Farley’s hair looked after he had gotten windblown from having his window down on the trip over here.

Farley took it in stride and laughed and told them that kind of a chicken was called a “silkie” and that Frazier reminded him of the ass end of a north bound mule and chuckled about the comparisons.

5

Homecoming

Farley paid special attention to observing the country boy’s trailer on the way in but there wasn’t a vehicle or person in sight.

Becky watched Farley and Jeremy with special attention noticing that being around them boys seemed to give them extra apprehensions but she didn’t know why and Farley just muttered something about he had a bad vibe about them boys and left it at that.

“You think we caught us a raccoon in the trap,. Farley?” Jeremy said excitedly referring to the trap they had set the day before.

“No telling but I must admit at the moment that I am hoping we didn’t.” Farley said not relishing the task of having to clean the critter if they did.

“I am with you, Farley, I hope you didn’t catch one either. Its not like I wasn’t up for trying one of those interesting sounding raccoon recipes you told us about but I kind of got the idea Miss Feng is going to out do herself cooking up a home style Asian recipe tonight.” Becky stated.

“Me too! Who in the hell would have ever thought I might get to enjoy some Chinese takeout or eat in during the apocalypse.” Farley said laughing.

“I still hope we caught one, we could make Fong clean it because he didn’t believe we could catch one.” Jeremy offered.

“Oh, don’t worry yourself my friend, he is going to get plenty of chances to do just that. As for catching a raccoon, I can probably tell you right now that we did not.” Farley said catching a whiff of skunk as he pulled in the drive way.

“What is that god awful smell?” Becky said scrinching her nose.

“Skunk! You never smelled one before? Sorry Jeremy but I bet that’s what we dropped a rock on sometime in the last few hours. Might not be but it sure smells like one and it ain`t been too long since one sprayed something or got itself killed in that trap we set.” Farley said as a chorus of ‘PU that stinks!’ occurred as they excited the vehicle.

“Well the trap worked, Mom!” Jeremy said not put off too much by the stench and taking pleasure in the fact that Farley’s instructions and his help had produced something even if it was just a stinky old skunk.

“Yea, I can smell that it did.” Becky said disgustedly holding her nose.

“Looks like one of them giant damn skunks they got around here from what I can see. Jeremy, don’t you be going down there investigating that thing in the trap, its going to be bad enough around here smelling that thing without that scent permeating your clothes while you are poking about.” Farley said dreading loading the van with that oppressive smell in the air.

“You don’t have to tell me twice. Farley, out of curiosity, can you eat a skunk?” Jeremy asked.

“I suppose you could but I haven’t heard of anybody doing it or thinking about it. They make skunk hats and fur coats so somebody probably has tried it once the smoke cleared and I have heard of no spray live traps for them but I ain`t studying one.” Farley said reaching in his vest for a Bandanna to wear over his nose exaggerating the stench curling his nose.

They loaded the van in record speed and then got back on the road as quick as they could. Still no sign of life appeared around the country boy’s house but going by the bait store they spied that pickup truck of theirs in the parking lot.

“I am going to have to ask Barnett who them folks are and what their story is.” Farley said as he slowed down just long enough to try to catch a glimpse of them before picking up the pace and heading towards their new home.

“Farley, what are skunks good for?” Jeremy inquired.

“What do you mean what are they good for? They eat insects and plants and such I guess and pole cats remind everyone that god’s creatures big and small command respect. I never really thought much about it.” Farley said his mind a thousand miles away thinking about if those fishermen might be paying Charlie a visit right now and that he himself personally was warned that the bar was being watched and kicking himself that he hadn’t inquired in some way about that marina that was giving him conniption fits to revisit for scavenging and supplies.

“So are you going to weld that gate shut when we get home?” Becky asked. trying to start up a conversation.

“Yes, that is about the best thing I can think of at the moment. There is no way to man that thing daily or worry about who might come visit. We just got to be aware where a threat might come from and be conscientious of it, other than cutting down trees and sealing road access, I don’t have a better solution. We can’t keep Charlie on guard duty 24/7, oh, he or I might consider manning it for a few more days but it’s doubtful. I will have to ask Charlie if there are any motion sensor lights or emergency power outage lights around we can use to give folks further pause about approaching it at night, though. There are two main gates quite a distance apart, maybe people will think there is only one main access and not try the other. Gas is short or non-existent now and peoples’ travel will be highly conservative or greatly restricted. I am hoping we just rest easy, stay low and live in seclusion but those few ideas are the best I have at the moment.” Farley said somberly.

“Well I personally feel safer here than at my old cabin. I feel pretty good about everything and really appreciate what you’re doing for us, Farley.” Becky said.

“Glad to have you, hey hang on,small detour we got to go on. That sign gives me an idea.” Farley said looking at an oyster bar turn off sign he was approaching.

“You thinking that they’re open?” Becky said looking at him like it was crazy for him to even consider it.

“Nah, I don’t think that they are open but their dumpster or whatever might be used for trash will be. When I saw that sign I immediately thought of oyster shells. I used to buy powdered oyster shell for chickens or the garden. Pure calcium, don’t you know? Anyway if they have a bunch of shells there I want some for the chickens. Hey Jeremy, I have got a job for you and Fong maybe. If you all want to earn a little money or trade goods you can pulverize oyster shells for me and then maybe I can sell them to Barnett or his clientele!” Farley declared.

“Cool, I can do that. We can get some hammers or something to smash them up with.” Jeremy exclaimed.

“Damn the folks that own this work quick. Looks like the place is battened down and secured and ready for a hurricane.” Farley said noticing the sheets of plywood covering the windows and door. A “No Trespassing” notice was scrawled in big black painted letters across the ply board covering the windows and a sign saying the place was empty leave it alone was placed over the door. Evidently it worked because the place was unmolested.

“Remember what they said at the Bait store about messing with buildings around here.” Becky warned.

“I ain`t going to be messing with the building. I just want to have a look in the trash.” Farley said as he circled his van around the back of it.

“Well to me we are still trespassing so please be in a big hurry, Farley.” Becky said warningly.

Bingo! Sure enough there was 55 gallon plastic trash cans full of shells as well as a bunch left in the dumpster. Farley grabbed a garbage bag out of his van and filled it about a third of the way up with oyster shells and loaded up and got back on the road.

“That didn’t take long and there are enough shells in that bag to last me a while but I got to figure me out a way to get Barnett to trade with me for them without him figuring out that he could just send Frazier over here and get those shells for themselves free.” Farley said.

“You could say we got them in our parking lot, you know some folks here at the lake have that conglomerate of sea shells they dredge off the ocean floor for that.” Becky responded.

“Yea, that might work, but he would still probably think about this place eventually. We will dream up something, right now the only thing I am worried about is getting back and securing our home front better. Jeremy, are you and Fong buddies now and over that tussle you all had?” Farley asked.

“Yea, we are just fine, I like him.” Jeremy answered.

“You two got to get along.” Becky began before Jeremy assured her that Fong and he were fine and that he looked forward to seeing his new friend soon.

“Let’s tune in and get our daily dose of broadcast dribble.” Farley said turning on the radio.

“First today we have State and Local news. The governor reiterates that people should stay at home and only travel if it is absolutely necessary. Some assistance is available for travelers along any hurricane evacuation route but this will be suspended indefinitely in the coming days as fuel shortages are also affecting relief efforts. Do not expect any outside help except as offered or available from your local emergency management agencies. To seek aid or assistance tune to your local broadcast stations that will be listed at the end of this message.” The radio droned on before becoming too static to listen to.

“I could find another station maybe but it sounds like more of the same BS they been feeding us. I think they just change the tape recorder cassettes every day and give us more of the same with slight new twists on road closures is about it. Lots of HAZMAT related spills going on they can’t get cleaned up, lots of fires they can’t put out, lots of false encouragement and questionable advice. Hell, they are still talking about your local emergency management agencies being in charge of giving assistance, what a crock. They are all bunkered in somewhere seeing who may or may not be answering their phones somewhere else and asking each other what to do. Damn local city offices do whatever the state says to do for a hurricane and not much more. Do you know how many City Emergency Managers they got for the city of Montgomery?  How many people we got living there, a quarter million or so? They got two, that’s it, with out state agency help they can’t do anything and they definitely don’t have a plan except to sit next to a phone and wait on somebody to tell them to call somebody else to tell them they need to go take care of something. Shit, I would bet you they probably aren’t even in the city at the moment.” Farley declared pretty much dismissing any action out of that state service except to serve as communication links between the state and the fed as the national system melted down. They didn’t have a plan, no one had a plan and if they did have any pre-positioned supplies normally available for the citizenry for hurricanes and tornados it was distributed months ago or commandeered by government administrators under continuity of government or police action orders. To tell people to seek aid from nonexistent or imaginary resources, as far as he was concerned in his limited scope of experience or current knowledge of real world events, bordered on treason to him and he couldn’t stand listening to it.

“Farley, I asked you not to dump a bunch of negativity and doom and gloom crap on me all at once, I can’t handle it.  The government says there is hope and I want to believe in that.” Becky scolded.

“Oh yea, right, sorry about that, Becky. I apologize, that was short sighted of me. I forgot that sort of political talk bothered you. We ok?” Farley said hoping he hadn’t over stepped the boundary that would sink her into depression and focus her anger at him for saying there was no hope except themselves.

“I am really trying and making an effort to be more realistic, Farley, but it is just way too soon for me to try to think like you do. I accept your apology and we are fine, I am not mad at you.  I am just kind of fragile sometimes now, if you know what I mean. Hey, by the way, I asked Frazier if they stocked any ladies supplies and he said they used to carry a small amount of them but between what Barnett kept for his female relatives and what the Church bought they were out of stock permanently as far as he knew.” Becky said bringing up a delicate subject that Farley had questioned her about earlier.

“Now that’s an interesting bit of gossip, he said the church bought out all of Barnett’s stock?” Farley said contemplating that bit of information he might somehow find useful.

“Yes, He said that the preacher and his deacon wife along with the head church lady and her assistant came by in that big white Cadillac of the reverends and pressured Barnett for all the pads and tampons they had in the place plus half the aspirin and any other meds like antacids to sell to them at cost or better for the community church. Farley, you should have heard him carrying on how the preacher made the first request to buy those things and got tongue tied and then the ladies surrounded Barnett like Esther and her bible thumping crew off Sanford and Son and backed that old store keeper into a corner and told him that it was his god given opportunity to support their church and the fine young ladies of his community in their hour of need. It seems everybody got the religion inclinations and started filling up the pews shortly after the President declared a state of National Emergency and the regular church going members that had their own businesses increased their tithes and leaned on the ones that had strayed from going to church every Sunday to contribute what goods or services they could and made available resources only to the members of their congregation.  Well, they are Baptists; the 7th day Adventists did something similar up the road and the Protestants and other smaller denominational churches around here were kind of slow on the uptake of resources and have them a “Converting” factor going on around here that has got the clergy in a quandary as to whether it’s their denominations words or resources influencing this great crossover or redemption they are experiencing. Seems like the likely choice of redemption or salvation is no longer based on getting your ticket to heaven on baptism practices of being sprinkled on the head or being fully immersed or whether now you accepted Jesus as your savior but instead is based on whether or not you will cross the tracks to accept a different form of worship and blessings in the form of which church has what goods or services to offer you for joining up with them. Frazier said he thought it was funnier than hell that in this little war for acquisitions and souls that the “First Advent Baptist Church of Peace and Harmony” decided to hit the rest of the competing churches low and buy up every menstrual pad and tampon in the county.” Becky said losing it as Farley busted out laughing at the well-thought out biblical or commercial end to the monthly miseries as he put it.

“They best watch what they are doing regarding influencing faith, or shared beliefs based on resources; it's possible that you can end up with a "spy" in your group, someone who's loyal to another camp just a few miles away; their survival strategy is often to infiltrate other camps and steal goods or gain intelligence.” Farley said.

Jeremy didn’t quite get it but understood and anything that made his mom and Farley laugh like they were doing was fine by him and he saved his embarrassing questions for them to answer later.

“Now, Becky, damn that was funnier than hell, I really got to wrap my mind around this now because trade and everybody that trades together or has a monopoly on a product is my gig as  you already well  know. If churches are buying up supplies for their congregations that means they are tradesmen and trading posts in and of themselves because they must evidently have access to certain goods. We ourselves are trying to establish our tribe as one that has something to potentially offer, if you get my drift.” Farley said pausing and still smiling to himself about her remark about that preacher and his church ladies hitting Barnett low on giving them a cost price on feminine products. Being saved religiously or otherwise took on a whole new meaning now in regard to houses of worship!

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion." - Alexander the Great

Farley slowed the van down while getting ready to turn into the campground and took off his sunglasses so he could get a better look around.

“It appears all quiet, looks like we are finally safely home, folks.” Farley said honking his horn so Charlie would know they were approaching the first gate.

Jeremy got out of the van and ran over to remove the lock Farley had broken off and open the gate. He was surprised to find the old one was now gone and a new padlock had replaced it.

“Hey, Farley, there is a new lock on here!” Jeremy exclaimed and looked over at Farley who was watching the road to the resort. They both heard the sound of Charlie’s truck horn as he began coming up the drive.

“I guess he put it on there, I didn’t even think to ask Charlie if he had another lock to replace the old one. Matter of fact, I bought one at Barnett’s today.” Farley said exiting the vehicle with Becky to go stand by Jeremy at the gate.

Charlie pulled up to the gate and got out of his official government truck in full dress uniform with clipboard in hand and mockingly challenged them saying that this was a “Federal Facility and that it was closed to the public and a restricted area for military personnel only until further notice.”

“Geez buddy are you kicking us out before we even get moved in, Charlie? Did you have a little change of mind after we left?” Becky said smiling.

“Damn, I told you to make your bed this morning, Jeremy. Look here, you little rascal, you have done pissed off the warden.” Farley quipped back.

“That is Master Sergeant Wu to you, Farley.” Charlie said, back pointing with his fingers counting the stripes on his impressive looking sleeve.

“Oh, woe to me! Master Sergeant Wu is after me!” Farley said giving him a crisp military salute that made Jeremy and Becky laugh.

“You all hang on a second and I will get this gate unlocked for you. I guess you were gone about twenty minutes when it occurred to me I had another lock to put on that gate and since it’s hard to see the entrance from the reception center or I might have been off taking a piss or something, I put it on there thinking a shiny new lock looked better for appearances sake. I wanted it to look like we were on our toes and operational rather than someone seeing that one you busted open.” Charlie said before telling them that he had already sent Fong back to tell Feng they had arrived on a bicycle he had remembered was stored in the camp grounds custodians’ office.

“So did any visitors decide to come around today?” Farley asked, getting ready to go back to his van and drive it through the now open gate.

“Matter of fact, we did get some. You go get your van inside the perimeter and after we secure the gate I will tell you all about it. Everything’s just fine, matter of fact what happened is funnier than hell.” Charlie said rushing Farley to go ahead and hurry up and move his vehicle out of the road and follow him down to the reception gate.

“Visitors, huh? I am dying to hear this story. They were the friendly kind, I hope.” Farley said as Becky and Jeremy loaded up with him to sort of play a mad game of chase after Charlie’s truck to get down to the gate house and secure their borders and chat.

Charlie motioned them to have a seat at the picnic table that sat next to a now defunct ice house like shed containing the machine with a bill board on its side showing a map of the campground and started to fill them in on what they had missed since they had been gone.

“Well, I guess it was about 1:30 or so and I was halfway expecting to see you all returning and was looking out up the road or I would have missed them. I saw this big black dualie truck easing up the road all slow and quiet like.” Charlie said pausing for effect as everyone looked back in the direction of the main gate for confirmation that it wasn’t happening again.

“They were definitely scoping the place out and being very cautious just like you thought they would, Farley, but me and Fong saw them first and started that little deceptive ruse we talked about. I came out of the office and got in my truck, started it up, pulled next to the door at the gate shack, said a few words and Fong climbed up on a chair and pointed his arm out the door in that camouflage shirt you lent him and waved me on through.” Charlie said chuckling.

“All any one from that truck could see was just an arm in uniform doing the cadence of a ‘pass through move the vehicle along’ signal and then I went to meet them at the gate with an ugly ‘I don’t like you. I don’t like any civilians’ look on my face before getting all professional and nice with them.” Charlie said his eyes sparkling with mirth before excusing himself to Becky and whispering to Farley that “he was right and that even though he was so nervous he felt like he was going to cough up his own asshole because he was so nervous about approaching that truck, he just went into his normal military manner and training and got a grip on himself and that he scared them more than they scared him.

Charlie said he got out of his vehicle at the gate just like he did with us and acted liked he owned the base and every soldier guarding it and how dare these people take up his valuable time trying to trespass upon his and the well posted federal governments’ facility.

The government and Charlie’s years of military experience as a top ranking non-commissioned officer made it a walk in the park for him to berate, as well as be nice,. to those men that seemed to have no military experience at all but did have the traditional southern respect for the services and elders in general.

Charlie said they were quite apologetic about getting him out in the hot sun today to talk to them when they didn’t belong here and that they were fixing to turn around right when they saw his truck and waited on his further instructions.

Charlie said he told them no harm done but it was best if they didn’t come back and to be careful about hunting and fishing too close to this military preserve. Charlie said he then also asked them directly if they were the two fisherman that had confronted his boy and his friend at the fishing pier this morning and Charlie said after a bit of hemming and hawing they admitted it was them but they hadn’t thought they were trespassing or upsetting the boys any.

He went on to further elaborate that he didn’t have any problem with them personally and besides on a good day the lake was supposed to be for the fun of all and that the Air Force and him in particular recognized this fact, but it was kind of like taboo now to be getting too close to military facilities, what with the terrorists and the grid going down and everything, everyone was kind of on edge.

Farley and crew had all been wearing themselves great big shit-eating grins throughout the new “base governors” statements of the occurrences around here since they had been gone but the next round of questions and answers had them chuckling uncontrollably.

“Now you all quit making me laugh, I got more story to tell and it gets better!” Charlie said as the giggling and the outright outrageous laughter ensued seeing Fong riding an old three wheeler that probably came off the flight line at an Air base somewhere crest the hill with his mad momma in a golf cart passing him by to be the first to arrive.

“Charlie, you should have put Miss Feng on sentry duty at this gate, I doubt anybody could have passed her by!” Becky said observing the golf cart and hearing a growing volume of static Asiatic expletives being voiced that seemed to get even louder and as she got closer and evidently she didn’t care if she were understood or not by anyone present.

Becky waved at the feisty diminutive lady and was rewarded with a smile that assured her and the rest of the people that she was mostly happy fussing and not particularly mad about any one thing.  She didn’t have Farley in her sights for taking longer to get back than he said it would take though.

“You bad man, Farley! No good, number 10, Farley, bad man where you been all day? Red necks come here today you no show?” You been gone way long time!” She gibbered as Farley tried to get his mind to translate what she said in Pidgin English as well as look at Fong or Charlie for translation or support.

“Where you been? What you do? You say you supposed be back early?” Feng said in a rush to get her new girlfriend in agreement with her against the men in a confidential way that left no doubt that in her mind all men needed supervision and any woman speaking any language had to know better than us.

The statement tickled Becky almost as much as the assembled men folks who bit their tongues and just let her vent. Miss Feng dismounted her golf cart chariot and grinned at the assembly to consider the friendship they shared and their love for her and her outrageousness was apparent.

“Hug your sweetie, Wu, and get her calmed down. We are all gathered in one place now and this day is ending up not so bad at all. We got guns and ammo now thanks to our efforts or me being a good trader if I feel like crowing a bit and you fended off a threat quite handily, I must say. Talk more on that one, please.” Farley said studying a happy Fong headed his way ringing a cheesy tin bell attached to the handle bars on the trike but it seemed almost as loud as Miss Feng’s jabbering to announce his arrival.

“Today is going to be our little thanksgiving celebration for arriving safely and working on plans for committing to surviving together, tomorrow the work of doing that task begins, well not quite yet, let me weld that damn gate permanently shut first and then we will set about having fun.” Farley declared.

“I am actually looking forward to all that work, Farley. Just getting by day to day waiting on the next meal watching the rations dwindling is pretty worrisome as well as boring. It will be nice to have some positive projects going on to focus my time and energy on.  What kind of project do you suggest we start on first?” Charlie asked, anticipating the many things Farley said they needed to be doing that were necessary.

Author Note: Try to have yourself at least two or more plans or projects going at all times. That way you have things to think on regardless of weather, materials shortage, or whatever other variables may come up, you will be able to keep yourself occupied. This also helps to prevent disappointment and keeps your spirits up. This is very important in the wilderness or a bug out situation to keep your mind and senses right.

“Great question, Charlie. Where to start indeed, my friend, I have been pondering on that very subject myself some. Becky suggested we do some physical exercises in the morning but I never liked doing PT much and we are going to get plenty of exercise tomorrow already so we are shelving that idea for now. I say we start a 2 hour class on lake survival: you listen, and I talk and walk and point out or show you things I want you to know about on the way. How’s that sound? Assembly will be at my place at 6 am tomorrow, then we all assemble ourselves the next day at your place, then Becky’s and so on.” Farley said working out in his mind what was most important to start on.

Survival and safety was at the top of his list as well as familiarizing himself and his charges with the territory. Good old “stay out of the trouble” advice or watch out over here is one of the best survival lessons one can learn- Stay out of the trouble, practice avoiding it. Life is very real and it is easy to forget how brutal “real life” or nature can be. With real life, I mean life without our civilized society to patch you up or just life without all the support and help we take for granted.

When you have to deal with young people or inexperienced people in general and there are. criminal elements or gangs fighting around you, then it is the perfect combination for some people to act like fools.

“Wow, I feel like I am back in the military!” Charlie said with a grin at having to get up and meet at that early hour.

“Yea, it’s a little early to start stirring around fully but we all go to bed early so it’s not a big deal. You will get used to it. Besides we are going to be doing it at 5 am or sooner in the coming weeks, fishing or hunting. You got to see what’s going on during these hours, get with the rhythm of the land and nature. That’s why I want to move the meeting area around every other day, gives everyone a chance to spend a bit of alone time coming and going to observe or reflect on things for themselves. You will also be able to notice if any game is moving around or acting differently. It’s a pretty good distance to walk between camps and doing it at dawn will teach you a lot.” Farley stated.

Before you can be successful at harvesting wild game, you have to do some pre-work. The first thing you need to know or figure out is what kind of animals are in your area. Then you need to learn their habits, habitats, breeding cycles, and choices of food. What do the tracks look like, how do they react to various weather patterns, are they a prey species for another animal?

Generally speaking, small game animals are most active in the early morning and early evening. They are usually very wary of being spotted by predators and tend to cling to areas of dense vegetation and cover. Not so much at this resort, though. A lot of these critters had been imprinted one way or another by the constant presence of man. The animals still naturally travel along the edges of open ground however, using fencerows and waterways as a corridor. They are predictable and habitual; keep in mind, that trait is just like us. Try to break up your patterns of movement. The animals as well as people tend to travel the same trails and will usually choose the path of least resistance. All of these traits can be exploited to put meat in your cook pot.

“I always get up early so no problem for me.” Feng said looking at Fong who was definitely not a morning person no matter how much sleep he had gotten.

“Oh, I will be up, are we having breakfast in the morning, Auntie?” Fong asked hoping he wasn’t going to have to be up even earlier than anticipated.

“I suggest you skip it but if you all got the food and want it, go right on ahead but be on time. I am just going to grab myself some coffee and eat an early lunch. Hopefully, I can show you some greens in the form of wild edibles to forage on as we wander the trails. You can try them out later for yourselves and start adding to your diet by foraging all these little fields we have between us. The longer we can stretch our food out and get our bellies to accept, expect and want wild foods to eat, the better off we will be here. I know we will have leftovers from that little bit of a wanton party we are throwing but try some dandelion greens or something anyway. Got to take the bad with the good and you will have less of a hard time forcing yourself to be rationing the good.” Farley chuckled.

“So you saying some of those plants you are going to show us don’t taste so good?” Becky asked questionably.

“Well, let’s just say some of them take an acquired taste. I am not big on anything but iceberg lettuce salads so your taste and mine will be different. They all have their flavors from mild to wild and taste better than plain old grass, you might say. I have several ways to cook them but they are best just dumping dried herbs or a sauce on them to my tastes.” Farley declared not even considering a vegetarian diet be it one cultivated in the modern world or wild. He wanted meat; everything else to him was secondary.

For the most part he knew that plants are low in calories. They excel at supplying trace minerals and vitamins, but lack the cellular structure to provide you the energy-rich food you need in a survival situation. That energy comes from animal products in the form of protein and fat.

6

The Utility Shed

“Hey Charlie, let’s go look at that maintenance shed you said that you didn’t have a key for.” Farley said thinking that there should be all the gardening tools they needed in there to add digging up a garden place to his projects for the next few days.

“Sure, I will show it to you but it’s going to be a pain to get in. That thing has got a heavy steel door and deadbolt security lock on it. It isn’t like you can beat the padlock off it easily like you did the gate.” Charlie said envisioning how much trouble they were going to have with it even if they did have an axe to think about using.

“I have a little something put away to help us with that chore that you probably never have heard of. Hopefully we are going to get in there like magic!” Farley said with a grin.

Charlie looked at him skeptically and asked, “Ok, Mr. Magician, how you going to pull this off? You got a chainsaw that will cut steel or something?”

“No, I am not talking about anything so destructive as that. What I got in my bag of tricks is a set of what you call “Bump Keys”. Think of them sort of like master keys or skeleton keys. If I have one that will fit the pattern of whoever manufactured that lock, and I think I do because commercial industrial locks are quite common, eventually I am sure I can get in. I say eventually because I know how to use them in theory but I have never practiced or played with them except on a house door.” Farley said.

“What is there to practice if they are master keys? I have a master key to those cabins and it works like a regular key.” Charlie inquired.

“Well, it’s not quite the same; what you actually have is a pass key for a certain set of locks keyed similarly. A bump key is made to get into locks by the same manufacturer that can be keyed differently. They call them bump keys because you give the key a little rap or a bump with something like the rubber handle on a screwdriver while you are trying to turn it. It takes a little bit of a feel for it, like lock picking, but this is faster and easier. I can easily get into those cabins Kwikset locks, by the way, in about a minute.” Farley declared.

“Farley, were you some kind of a burglar before the grid went down?” Charlie said eyeing him.

Farley laughed and assured him that no, it was a skill and some tools he had picked up to add to his preps just in case a need or an emergency like this arose. He also said he had one of those sillcock keys to open up the fire hydrant like water spigots you see on lots of commercial buildings and apartments. They were just an unusual something he had added to his bag of tricks to help him overcome a need he had anticipated.

“Pretty slick, Farley. Well, come on, let’s go try our hand then at safe cracking.” Charlie laughed and they went by Farley’s cabin, got the keys and proceeded to the maintenance shed on the far side of the property.

“Schalage, oh hell yea, I got one of those manufacturers keys.” Farley said searching his key ring for it after looking at the locks manufacturer codes stamped on them.

Farley jiggled and fiddled with the lock tapping the key while trying to turn it when finally, after about 5 or 10 minutes, he cried “Eureka” as the mechanism gave and the lock opened.

“Good deal, Farley! Let’s go see what we got!” Charlie said as an exuberant Farley opened the door.

When their eyes adjusted to the dim interior of the building, which was only illuminated from the light from the door as they entered, they saw two big tractors with bush hogs on the back and a couple smaller lawn tractors.

“Let me get this garage door open so we can see better.” Charlie said and set about doing so.

“That’s a lot better, looks like we just got ourselves pretty damn wealthy. Hey, they got the keys in this one.” Farley said examining a big tractor.

“I am really glad for that, I didn’t know where they kept the keys at. Hey, this one has its keys in it also.” Charlie said going over and looking at the other tractor.

“Way cool, I got a set of operator keys for bull dozers and backhoes and such but I never got around to buying me any tractor keys. I guess I should have bought me some but I could never decide on what models to look for and money was always tight.” Farley said.

“With the amount of stuff you brought with you and managed to somehow accumulate, I suspect you made quite a lot of investments. I had heard of preppers before but I never met one until you come around, don’t sound like such a bad idea now. I wish I had of stored some stuff for emergencies. I always thought preppers were kind of “out there”, if you know what I mean. Do you have gas masks and stuff like them doomsday preppers on Natgeo?” Charlie asked.

“No, the need for a mask was not a risk I felt like I needed to prepare for. We both have worn them damn things, they are hotter than hell and unless you are just wearing them during a tear gas drill or some other short period they are not very practical.” Farley declared.

“Well, there’s a lot of lawn gear in here, there’s shovels and rakes over there. We got some mechanic tools, oil, a few chainsaws, hey now, we got some more gas cans!” Charlie exclaimed.

“We are always going to need gas and cans; hey, I got me an idea. Does Feng have any food coloring in her kitchen?” Farley asked.

“Uh yea, she has some, uses it for making cakes and such, why you asking?” Charlie questioned.

“Well, if she has some green coloring or dye we could add it to any gas we are trading and call it agricultural gas. The reason being is that we will then have an excuse for having access to all that gas we got in the underground tank. That is, of course, whenever I figure out how to get into those locked covers. I will tell the folks down at the bait store I got me a farmer with some agricultural or AG gas for trade. That will up my value as a trader and keep the heat off of me about where I am coming up with all that gas. We got to be very careful about being followed home when we are trading, anyone who thinks we are carrying anything valuable or have access to anything edible might try to follow us home or rob us on the way.” Farley said while contemplating if he had any use for a couple rolls of barbwire that he saw sitting over in one corner of the garage.

“What do you have in mind for those rolls of wire?” Charlie said noting Farley’s interest in the items.

“I am not sure yet. I was thinking about stringing a fence across the road with a restricted access sign on it and putting a short fence on either side like an inspection point. That would be a visual deterrent but if I drove the tractor in and out and mowed the lawn there occasionally it would be an even better visual deterrent indicating recent activity of the sort not normally occurring these days. Who else besides the military would have enough gas these days to be maintaining and mowing check points or for that matter part of the sides of the road? If a hunter or traveler that made it this far out ever saw me mowing it, so much the better.” Farley said contemplating how that would appear and if it was an excessive or frivolous waste of fuel or not.

“That idea does have some merit, Farley. On the other hand, what other message does it send to any would be observer or person that discovers it. Does it say we got stuff, come have a closer look?” Charlie said pondering worriedly.

“You got a point there, like I said I am still thinking on it. Oh, by the way on that point I can kick myself for not thinking about it already, but last night I looked out on the lake and could see here and there camp fires on the far shores. You can see those things burning for miles across the lake. That means building night fires or burning any trash around the lake cabins becomes taboo from now on. Of course on the other hand, lighting all them fire pits the resort so nicely installed for us over there and some of them other ones down by the RV camp sites would, if we ever needed or wanted to make it look like we had a slew of folks staying over here. I am not saying we need to do it any time soon, but it’s not a bad idea to pick up some fallen tree branches around those places and have some fires ready to go should we ever have a call to do a bit of decoy work. Tell the boys when they are out on their wanderings to start accomplishing that task for us, Charlie, if you don’t mind.” Farley said contemplating the notion of having several campfires going to possibly scare someone off in an emergency situation.

“Might not be a bad idea to stash some gas out in the woods around them so you could light them in hurry if you wanted to.” Charlie said considering the same idea and providing a rain or shine solution to igniting them.

“Good idea, if I get the time and materials I ought to try to rig us up some electric lights off a marine battery or something for those campsites, then we would have an instant “Folks are living here” look to it; course what would be kinda cool to get that same effect would be to find a bunch of those cheap Wal-Mart solar landscaping lights and have those suckers turn on and off every night.” Farley said envisioning dozens of small lights twinkling on a darkened shore or seen from the woods marking out numerous campsites.

“Farley, I am still trying to wrap my head around exactly what this place is supposed to be right now. The military abandoned this place after the disaster, why would you think the military  would actually keep this place open other than that bullshit I told those fisherman about it being a rest and relaxation area for returning foreign deployed servicemen?” Charlie asked.

“Training maybe? Hell, when I transferred over from the Army Guard to the Air guard one time, part of Combat Crew training was playing escape and evade on the bases’ golf course at night in Oklahoma. The Air Force uses what it’s got, realistic or not, for training exercises; this campground would be a step above that and woodland skills like lashing together a lookout tower out of logs or something would add to the effect. That reminds me, Charlie, out here I guess you and me need to go back to wearing uniforms of a sort, I have some BDU,s and you wear whatever you got, not that dress uniform thing you got of course but something that looks like a serviceman wandering around at a distance.” Farley said thinking about how easy it was with just a pair of binoculars to make out people at a distance from one shore to another on the lake.

“I will find something, sounds like you don’t want very much going on close to shore is that it, Farley?” Charlie asked.

“Well, it’s not so much that, it’s just we need to be very aware of our actions and appearances sometimes. Light discipline or a lack thereof creates impressions, especially in a darkened world. I would suspect that drones or observation planes or helicopters are being used by the government to try to get a handle on the numbers and concentrations of survivors regardless if they can help them or not. Any type of military attached installation will probably have its own designation but I think that it’s doubtful a deactivated place like this warrants any particular attention. As for what we are or trying to appear to be or actually are, I just don’t really know.” Farley said thinking that just day to day surviving around here was going to take all his time and energy without worrying about any kind of psychological warfare actions or lack thereof.

“I say we just let the weeds grow and keep our heads low.” Charlie said evidently as overwhelmed with all the tasks that needed to be done now as Farley was to consider taking on anything new that might end up being more harmful than helpful.

“You and I need to come up with something to use for a makeshift plow for these tractors but I am kind of short on ideas at the moment.” Charlie said studying the three point hitch attaching the lawn mowing bush hog on the back.

“I have been pondering on that also; eventually I can find me something to try to build us one out of maybe but for now I am thinking a harrow or drag of some sort will be the easiest thing to create.” Farley said and began describing how to accomplish this task using wood or pipe.

“That sounds simple enough, we put enough weight on it or figure out how to make the tractor push it down into the dirt with the hitch and we could turn over some dirt a hell of a lot faster than by hand.” Charlie said watching Farley draw the outline for one on the dust of one of the tractors hoods with his finger.

“Getting our garden in and planted is priority one, figuring out how the hell we will water it is another matter we need to be studying on. Hauling water as you know takes up entirely too much of our day already.” Farley declared.

“Maybe we can use the tractors to haul 50 gallons or more at a time?” Charlie said.

“We can rig up something suitable for that, I am sure, we got us a couple trailers parked out back for those things but filling or finding water barrels is another thing. Trash cans might work for that maybe but I need to get my hands on a water pump or at least a boat bilge pump or something to fill them with.” Farley said his mind traveling back to wanting to pilfer the marina once again.

“Farley, why don’t you ask down at the bait store if they know anyone like a contractor around here that has one of those pumps they use to empty rain water out of excavations?”  Charlie asked, knowing where Farley’s mind was probably going.

“That’s a good idea, however I keep wondering how long that bait store place can or will exist. Not having food for sale in there reduces their chances of being targeted but evidently they are eating something and looking well so you got to wonder what they got most to rely on food wise that others don’t have. It wouldn’t take much to rob that place and there are plenty of people that might have some determination to give it a try soon and make them tell where some food is or just to swipe what beer and such that is left. It’s a world that pretty much exists as a world without rule of law for the most part, so you got to look at all angles and possibilities. They are also our canary in the coalmine, as it were, as to what the conditions are or will be outside this place. That’s sort of their protection, I guess you might say, it’s the only place you can get local news or a chance to maybe find some goods if you got something to trade with but that’s the lynch pin that is going to get them possibly whacked. A lot of people won’t have anything to trade at all and if they have a gun or a knife they might in their desperation give it a try. I tell you what I hadn’t considered though that is interesting, is all those churches organizing like they have. Close knit groups of believers bent on as it were to add the element of religion to a threat or assistance the same as all history presents to us is something to consider. If you add desperation and disaster to the mix, it is often times hard to figure out exactly how a person or a situation will pan out based on holier than thou and you’re an outsider for not participating in a political community or belief system.” Farley said pondering if such groups might spell trouble for them.

“For that matter, Becky was a pretty devout Christian that had taken to forcing everyone to listening to her say grace over dinner. It hadn’t been her usual routine or habit before the disaster and now Jeremy said she was also reading her bible quite a bit more frequently and longer than she had in the past.” Farley said speculating if that meant anything else other than seeking answers and support from her faith.

“Farley, not to mean any disrespect to her but since we are not very religious folks around here, do you think she will grow to resent us or want to go to one of those churches to seek others out that share her spiritual beliefs?” Charlie asked stopping Farley with that statement to quit going through a shelf of insecticides to see what kind of stocks they had of that all important item that he had forgotten might be needed in his long term preps.

“Damn, Charlie, you said a mouthful there. I don’t think she will start asking to attend church or push religion at us too much for awhile but it is something to consider. I am sure she understands our need to remain secluded from others but that gospel is based on followers. I am not somebody who does the congregation thing but I can quote you some scripture from when I was forced to go to church or Sunday school as a kid. Once I found the scripture in the bible that said ‘build me not a church and when two or more are gathered in my name so be it a church, I started looking down on those that built expensive structures instead of investing in the community. Why, if you took all the money they pump into those cathedral-like edifices they were told specifically not to build, I bet you could fix a lot of woes for the people that are too poor to even attend one. I never found me a reverend or a preacher that could give me a plausible answer to the “give my father not gold or silver” thing or an answer to why churches are built at great expense instead of being simple assembly halls.” Farley said pondering these meanings and reflections that influenced how he viewed his own beliefs in a higher power.

“Farley, you need to have a talk to her about talking any religion when you go trading down to the bait store. You are still going to try for some more stuff once you pick up those extra chickens they owe you, aren’t you?” Charlie asked.

“Oh yea, I am not going to be going around there as much as I might of originally thought about. However, if the world is continuing just like it always has after a disaster and folks are trying to rebuild, I sort of like us to stay in touch with the community and be part of it. Now, telling Becky to watch it about not talking religion is another whole can of worms I just as soon not open very soon, especially since she is focusing more on including it in her life. I just as soon not compare notes with her on any aspect of it but I will mention something about in the end days or end of times the bible warns us of following or believing in false prophets. Those fire breathing end time Southern Baptist preachers and Radio evangelists are having a field day at the moment. I never realized how many of those Christian stations must have their own generators and enough fuel to keep broadcasting. I had to force myself to listen to a few of them in order to try to gauge the messages or directions they were giving out to the listeners. One thing I am particularly concerned about is that for years FEMA has reached out to preachers as leaders of communities to help get government messages of submit to authority and surrender your guns based on biblical texts. So far I think for the majority of the spiritualists I have listened to fall into about three or four circles of thought. You got the doomsayers of the approaching apocalypse listed in Revelations, the few that remind us “no man will know the exact time when judgment comes, the love thy neighbors and support the weak and elderly and the FEMA inspired folks sending mixed messages of politically organizing grassroots support for questionable mandates with the “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” so the farmers don’t shoot government officials appropriating crops and livestock on sight. Then you got some reverends quoting various parables about beating swords into plowshares or the opposite tact that if you don’t have a sword, to sell your cloak and buy you one. Anyway, that’s enough talk about religion, I will say something to Becky and we will just see how things develop. I guess we are about done here and should be getting back.” Farley said after grabbing a couple cans of bug spray to take with him.

“I suppose that door will be alright left open or you could lock it and I will leave one of the garage doors unlocked.” Charlie said speculating on how long it had taken Farley to get into the building and the chances of anyone trying the door.

“Just leave the last bay open and we will lock the access door.” Farley said agreeing to Charlie’s plan.

7

The Setup

“Hey, Charlie, where did the maintenance guy that had the keys to that shed go off to? Any chance that he would come back here if wherever he went got too hard to live around?” Farley asked.

“That would be Bobby; he lives about an hour from here. I thought about him awhile back but its been over 12 weeks since I have seen him last so I guess since I haven’t seen him by now or anyone in his crew they aren’t coming would be my best guess.” Charlie said not knowing Bobby had lost his life 4 weeks ago from a heart attack from lacking his medications.

“Ok, I was just checking. Anyone else that might show up around here that you know of?” Farley asked.

“Nobody I can think of, I don’t know any personal details about the lawn and maintenance crew people, the snack bar people, the boat rental folks and everyone else got told to report to personnel and I was told to shut down the facility. Then nothing more, everyone was gone, phone lines are dead and I didn’t go to the base, figured it was kind of futile.” Charlie said.

“I am kind of like you in thinking that if anyone was coming they would have already been here but you never know. Hey, day after tomorrow I think I will take a boat out and do a bit of reconnaissance around here and play fisherman; you got anything with an electric motor?” Farley asked.

“No, all we got is small gas engines or paddle canoes.” Charlie explained.

“Well, that will have to do, I guess. Tonight let’s try to see what time campfires start up and stop and observe from different vantage points and make us sort of a map of known inhabitants.  That information will help me on my scouting some and if we try to make it a regular practice to observe that sort of thing we might get a better feel for the situation around here especially if some place always has a fire and suddenly doesn’t one evening.” Farley said trying to get a feel for what he now called ‘their’ neighborhood.

“I think there is some solar or battery lighted channel warning buoys on the far point of this reservation, do we leave them lit or maybe try to turn them off?” Charlie asked.

“We leave them lit, I guess. I suppose anyone that sees them has seen them before and knows what’s over here already. Hopefully everyone close by is short on gas and not venturing out much although someone who actually lives around here might think to come over here looking for supplies; I would have by now.” Farley stated.

“Well, just keep in mind a few people have already done that, Farley. We can’t be living in fear everyday and there are not enough of us to really consider standing any kind of regular guard duty. If someone actually wanted to try something it would probably be dusk or dawn anyway and we got that one covered by making sure we are all together at those times. Other than organized possible marauders, it’s just opportunists that hopefully will think twice about this opportunity.” Charlie stated.

“I agree, the longer the lights are out the less we need to worry about as people become less mobile and the population is further reduced. Let’s go down to the fishing dock and see if the boys are doing any good.” Farley said.

“Ok, we can do that, let’s get together after dinner for a beer and we can do some of that campfire spotting you were talking about.” Charlie said thinking that was a perfect excuse to sneak off from his wife Feng.

“I guess the evening assembly area for us is the pavilion, it’s inland far enough that the campfire shouldn’t be able to be seen from the lake. The only problem with that is it’s so far from the cabins and we end up with everyone carrying flashlights around if the moon isn’t up. I think we ought to blackout curtain one of those cabins for our club house or recreation hall but it’s so dang hot this time of year we would melt without having at least the front windows wide open. That would leak out some light but hopefully not enough to be seen easily from the lake much. I got to try and find us some old board games like monopoly or something, playing cards is going to get old by themselves in a hurry I think.” Farley said thinking that their occasional night time group get togethers were really going to get boring or aggravating but it beat going to bed early all the time.

“Farley, Fong wants to go to the bait store with you next time you go and I must say Miss Feng and I have more than our share of reservations about that as you can understand. Thing is as you know Feng has a birthday coming up and he wants to see if there is anything there that he can trade for as a present for her. I told him I doubted there would be anything suitable in there and that it was very dangerous for him to be going off of this place but he kind of has his heart set on it.” Charlie said giving Farley a new quandary to think about.

“Hoo Boy, you’re a regular fountain of good news today. You know Miss Feng is going to have ten fits about sending her nephew off with me. I will look around the bait store and if they got anything at all suitable I will get it and bring it back for you all. Did you tell him that you’re already giving her that food we traded for? You know the yummy cans of sweet and sour pork along with some of those MRE pound cakes? Maybe you can tell him it’s from both of you all.” Farley said not wanting to incur Miss Feng’s ire and not really happy about dragging Fong along with him down to the bait store, either.

“You and Jeremy have talked about trading so much that he wants in on the action, kind of like a right of passage or something. Just like when you gave him a knife to carry and Miss Feng had to go along with it and say he was grown up enough to have it and times have changed. I, unfortunately, see his point a little and take his side: we need to teach them boys to trade and for that matter drive and a host of other things that they need to know to grow up quickly so what do you say, Farley?” Charlie asked.

“I say it’s too soon but you got me on that birthday argument, maybe I got something or perhaps Becky does that would suit the bill?”  Farley offered.

“Well, that might work and I appreciate the idea but I think it’s the adventure he looks forward to as much as giving her a gift.” Charlie stated.

“Damn, I like the boy and ordinarily wouldn’t mind a bit taking him anywhere he wanted to go, in fact I would be honored to but you know these roads can be dangerous and that bait shop isn’t the friendliest place in the world. Besides, I can’t imagine what he might even be able to find there and might just get disappointed and take the risk for nothing.” Farley objected.

“I know. But like I said before he is bound and determined to do it. I overheard him talking to Jeremy about it and they were running down what inventory he could remember trying to come up with ideas.” Charlie said.

“You mean I got to take both them boys on a shopping trip?”  Farley said incredulously.

“That’s what I am asking you to do. I would go along with you all but I need to stick around here and keep Feng calmed down and Becky said she would help.” Charlie declared.

“This sucks! So you have already talked to Becky about it? Hell fire, I am surprised she went along with it. I am even more surprised she is not insisting to go along. I will take them then, but I still say it’s a very much ill advised thing to be doing. Birthdays, Christmas, holidays in general are now pretty much just another day and changed forever.” Farley declared.

“Ah thank you so much, Farley, I will square it with Miss Feng but you know she will be mad at us both for a little while. I am going to tell her the boys need to know the trails and roads in and out of here so she doesn’t get too suspicious about what we’re up to. I also think it would be good for them boys to have met a few of the locals around here.” Charlie concluded.

“Well, I guess we will go tell the boys and then I am going to have a little talk with Becky about not bringing it up to me when you two were first considering it. I don’t think it’s too cool to just drop that bit of news on me all the sudden without giving me a longer amount of time to consider or talk it over amongst ourselves. You keep Miss Feng from giving me too many fits you hear, Charlie? She can over do it sometimes you know.” Farley said, feeling like he had been backed into a corner.

“I will handle her for you and I hope you will please be patient with everyone.” Charlie said

“There’s the dock; I wonder where the boys are at.” Farley said as they parked the truck and got out to look for them.

Farley called the boys names out and was rewarded with a holler back that they were busy with something further on down the shore and him and Charlie started wandering their way.

“What are you guys working on?” Charlie asked

“We are resetting and re-baiting the Yo-Yo reels. We only caught one bluegill today off the dock and we cut him up for bait to try to catch some catfish along the shoreline this evening. ”Jeremy said indicating the automatic fishing reels he was setting up.

“Hey Farley, does the bait store have any of these for trade?” Fong asked raising the bobber on the rig he was setting up to insure the bait would remain on the bottom.

“What kind of knot is that you got on that hook? See, if I pull on it hard, it will come loose. One more time now, this is the easiest and best fishing knot I know of.” Farley said, demonstrating.

“About those Yo-Yo reels, I didn’t notice any but I will ask next time I am in. You can make you an automatic fishing rod with a snare trigger though it’s just not as easy to find a place to rig it because nature doesn’t always cooperate and provide you a sapling where you want. Don’t matter though; you can set them just like putting fishing rods out. You got some string or paracord in your pockets like I told you to always carry around?” Farley asked.

Bits of string and odd things should always be in boy’s pockets and Farley enjoyed their occasional challenges to him to come up with a new use or survival trick with various items like a marble, safety pin, steel washer or whatever else had managed to find it’s way into their pockets.

Once they both affirmed they had some cordage and their pocket knives, Farley set about teaching them how to make an automatic fishing pole or fish snare, as Fong liked to call them.

“Now that is really neat, Farley, how about something if you lost your fishing hook and needed to make something?” Jeremy asked.

Farley thought about it for a minute and chose to tell them one of his more unusual ways to accomplish the task with a soda can pop top.

8

A Trading We Will Go

“Charlie I really wish that those women would quit with the ‘be careful, look out for the boys’ etc. reminders. They started up on bugging me and asking for reassurances last night and they haven’t let up on me yet this morning. Where are Fong and Jeremy anyway? I told them we were leaving here right at 8:30.” Farley said looking for the boys.

“That’s my fault they are not here on time, I guess. They were here waiting long before you got back from checking gates but I sent them after some stuff I thought they needed to bring along with them. They had their “short term survival gear” with them that you have had them putting together but Miss Feng and I have been listening to you talking about preparing  for the unexpected and we made them go back and get some longer term get home stuff like a real blanket, a change of clothes and a tarp. Those boys don’t have any rain gear though so they are going to have to make do with some industrial strength garbage bags I got and a couple of those disposable shower caps we put in the guest rooms.” Charlie said looking to Farley for approval.

“Good thinking, Charlie! I have a couple extra of those 99 cent ponchos somewhere in my junk I can provide them with but they are in various kits in the van. I don’t know how I overlooked getting them better prepared in case we broke down or had ourselves some kind of a problem on the road. It would take us a few days to get back here if we had to walk it all the way so I am very remiss in not telling them to pack for a camping trip. I just got too much to remember sometimes, I suppose. I told them both no sandals and grab their sneakers, wear long pants, dark colored shirts, gave them each a MRE entrée and a dessert. I also told them not to be snacking on them etc., but danged if I didn’t forget the basic rain and sleep gear. I feel like sometimes I am a cross between a glorified scout master and a military survival instructor trying to force feed info as quickly as I can.” Farley said mentally kicking himself that he had only barely covered to those staying back at camp what to do if they didn’t return on time. Designating rally points and approximate times it would take everyone to get to them was confusing enough but Farley had also touched on what he and the boys would do if they returned and the camp was under attack or something.

“You are doing fine, Farley, the ladies are used to running down their own lists of things for them boys or us  to remember so we are both doing fine. Hey, here comes your navigator and copilot.” Charlie said observing the mad dash of a golf cart heading in their direction.

After another round of farewells and explanations, Farley finally got the van out on the road and headed in the direction of the bait store and relaxed a bit.

“Now boys, that store owner Barnett is short tempered and a shrewd trader so you be minding your P’s and Q’s when we get in there. Try not to talk too much about anything to do with about how we are getting by and definitely say nothing about where we are staying at. You see something you want to buy call me over and get my opinion on it but don’t interrupt the adults talking. I want to try to find out as much as I can so I need to engage them in conversation and Jeremy, you keep yourself and Fong away from the nudie magazines and such. Barnett will be watching you all like a hawk around them things as you well know.” Farley said envisioning the stores’ layout and Barnett’s comments on shoplifting or otherwise taboo items he had in his store.

“I already told him all about Barnett and Frazier.” Jeremy said as Fong agreed he wouldn’t stray over to the adult section.

The trio rode along just making small talk while looking at the sights and side of the road in case they were lucky enough to spot a bunch of turkeys or something and Farley slowed as they passed the Marina to observe it better.

“If you want to visit the marina, Farley, we won’t say nothing.” Jeremy said hopefully knowing that Farley was itching for a chance to do so.

“You know better than that, you little wharf rat, that’s the last thing I am ever considering doing with you two along. I am just looking to see if anyone has messed with it.” Farley said gruffly.

“Just saying.” Jeremy said quietly with a snide half grin at Fong in the backseat.

“Hey, it looks like the lounge up ahead has got some company parked in front of it!” Farley said looking down the road and seeing a motorcycle parked out front by the white trailer announcement sign on wheels sitting by the road.

Farley slowed and studied a rather large bearded man sitting on his motorcycle and appearing to be drinking a beer before he made up his mind to go ahead and pull on in the parking lot and greet the man.

“Hey Farley, you know who that is?” Jeremy began.

‘Yea, I think I do. Barnett said he was safe just to be on the lookout for him.” Farley said as he waved out the window and entered the parking lot and Farley didn’t miss that the man changed hands with his beer to make his pistol more readily accessible.

“Hey, Dump Truck! Is the bar open again?” Farley asked with a smile.

“No, it’s not. Guess it will never be. I guess you haven’t heard my boss got shot and killed last night. He got killed deader than hell over there at the oyster bar.” Dump Truck said taking a swig out of his beer and eyeing Farley and the two kids that he had with him in the van.

“Well news doesn’t get out much nowadays. Any idea about who shot him and why? Does anybody know yet?” Farley asked looking over at the small cooler that Dump had next to his bike and wondered if he had another beer in it he might be able to get.

Dump noted Farley’s glance but continued to talk “Naw, we don’t know why, the owners pulled in there going to get something or another and they spied him and a fellow named Spivey shot over there by the dumpsters. The gas had been all siphoned out of the car and the boy’s wallet is gone. Everyone knows Connors always had a pocketful of money walking around but what those two were doing back there behind the oyster bar no one knows. I wouldn’t have even known about it myself for a day or two unless Cramer sent that son of his Alex, by to tell me. I’m just out here kind of reminiscing and having myself a kind of a funeral wake for old times sake you might say. You want to have a beer and attend a wake?” Dump asked, studying Farley’s face.

“Don’t mind if I do! You boys stay in the van for now.” Farley said getting out and walking towards Truck’s bike.

“I’m sorry. I can’t remember your name.” Dump said, studying Farley.

“Farley Wilkes. Good to meet you over a beer but I wish it was under better circumstances.” Farley said offering his hand.

“Do I know you? You come in this bar very often?” Dump asked.

“No, you don’t know me. I have been in that bar a few times before but I don’t remember seeing you. Of course that’s been a while since I have been in. The reason I know your name and you is because Mr. Barnett down at the bait store mentioned that you were taking care of this place and we had us a laugh about your unique name. Not that there is anything wrong with your name, mind you, it’s just that I had myself a bouncer once with the same name. Me and Barnett talked about what a small world it was and who else but me could have found somebody else named “Dump Truck” and he told me to look out for a big bearded man on a motorcycle in this vicinity. That’s a fine bike you got there, by the way.” Farley said as the two did their meet and greet under these unusual circumstances and amusingly unusual names.

“I call that Harley “The Creature”. I will tell you about that fine ride later. I saw Barnett yesterday as a matter of fact, he did mention you and told me you drove a white van and had yourself a crazy wife and a boy. Those two boys can get out of the truck if they want to. I know it’s hotter than hell in there and there isn’t anybody going to eat them out here!” Dump said with a big old belly laugh.

“Come on out boys and meet a Dump Truck!” Farley said with a grin, watching the two boys anxiously getting out of the van to come join the adults but being cautious and curious about their safety meeting the bear of a man Farley was talking to.

Dump reached out and shook Jeremy’s hand making that half of the boy disappear while his other hand lightly tapped him on the opposite shoulder making the other side of the boy disappear briefly. Fong cautiously stretched and extended his own hand out to the Sasquatch towering in front of him while standing just as far away as he could so that his own shoulder could not be reached.

Dump Truck comically put his hands up in the air and waddled a bit doing his mean bear interpretation and said “Grrr!”  Then he turned back with a wink to resume talking to Farley after his comedy act produced lots of friendly grins from the enchanted duo. The two boys attempted to perform for themselves a sneak attack circling around for a quick look at Truck’s bike by skirting the men talking to see it from it’s back but Dump was quick to turn and say “You can look but don’t touch!” to which both boys instantly put both their hands behind their backs and put on their best innocent looks.

“Is it all right to talk openly in front of the boys?” Dump asked, nodding his head back towards them.

“About what? You mean the conversation about Connors?” Farley asked questioningly.

“Yeah, I’m not going to get all gory or nothing, I just didn’t think you would want them to hear such stuff these days but I guess we can’t shield everyone as much as we want to.” Dump said looking at him seriously.

“Yeah, go ahead. Was that just a rare occurrence, maybe an unfortunate incident like a robbery or crime that happened or ya’ll been having other problems around here with desperate people?” Farley asked regarding the big man whose leather vest did not conceal the Glock pistol of unknown caliber Farley was surreptitiously sizing up.

“That’s a .40 cal.” Dump said after seeing Farley’s brief glance at his side.

“What’s that hog leg you’re wearing?” Dump said observing Farley’s single action Ruger.

“.357” Farley said with an amused look that said they both knew it could get more than the job done.

“You any good with it? Haven’t seen too many people toting many of them old Western style pistols these days but I like old style.” Dump said.

“I used to have me one of them in .41 magnum no less, that I could walk stairs with fanning the hammer but I haven’t played with this one much. That’s a Barnett trade by the way. I was upgrading to a .380 to have something more potent for deer and such around here. Well, in particular, I wanted it for one big ass black bear I saw not too long ago which I thought might be disturbing my backyard too often.” Farley said looking off down the highway leading to the place.

“Would that be the two legged or four legged variety?” Dump asked.

“It was the four legged variety, seems like some damn campers or somebody might have fed that bear before because he didn’t run when I hollered at him the first go around. Either way, I didn’t have anything but a .380 pistol and that might do the job on a small bear in a pinch but I am not about attempting it and wanted a lot more muscle to rely upon.” Farley said cocking one eye towards Fong who was trying to sneak a feel of the leather saddlebags on the bike to which Dump said “No touching” without even turning around, interpreting what that look Farley had just made was meant for.

Both boys decided it was time to stand in front of the bike and observe it. At that point, Farley suggested they ought to go find themselves a place in the shade so he and Dump could talk a bit further.

“I didn’t really want to talk very much in front of them boys; it is easy enough to be having nightmares these days. But there is something you need to know. We have had a bunch of unexplained killings and murders around here and I was going to suggest for you to stay off the road with them kids and maybe even stay away from Barnett’s for awhile. There was an old couple that came in Barnett’s to trade day before yesterday and it wasn’t but fifteen minutes after they left that somebody found their car wrecked and them shot up on the side of the road so somebody’s set up to rob people coming or going, we think. You live around here?” Truck said gesturing if Farley wanted another beer.

“Yes, thank you my friend. That stuff isn’t too hot; you must have had that beer sitting in the lake or something.” Farley said noting the beer’s temperature.

“Yeah, I did and I got it wrapped in towels soaked in water, but I was careful not to get no lake water around the bottle caps, though.” Dump said noting how hard Farley was wiping off the neck of the bottle before he took a sip.

“Us river dwellers know something about that, don’t we? Leave beer in a hot cooler of lake water all day and take a sip, it’s worse than drinking out of the lake isn’t it?” Farley said wondering what kind of protozoa might be growing in the handsome beard he was facing that had a little fleck of beer foam on it’s corner.

“Hey, Farley! I hear a four wheeler!” Jeremy yelled out and the two men paused talking to listen for it.

“I hear it, sounds like it’s over there by the railroad tracks. I don’t know who lives back there but that’s a pretty good distance from the main road.” Dump said listening carefully.

“Problem?” Farley asked.

“Not that I know, of course you don’t know nothing about nobody these days. How far you say you lived from here, Farley?” Dump asked once again.

“I didn’t say; not far though. I take it you live close by?” Farley countered.

“Close enough to be remembered.” Dump said with a smile.

Farley studied the man for a second while returning his smile and said “Let me offer you a couple dollars to chip in on this beer for this wake we’re having. You expecting anybody else to attend this, how do I say, ‘funeral’?” Farley asked.

“No, I reckon I’m the only one deciding to have this wake today. They made me dispose of the body by the way. Wouldn’t have anything to do with him themselves, didn’t know what to do with him they said. They just told me he was dead and his friend was dead and did I want to go see about it or did I know anything about it. I got on my bike and went down there and saw the body, saw the blood dried. I tried to do me some detective work but I didn’t see anything other than that they were dead and they had got robbed. I went and got my buddy Luke to go back along with me with his truck and we rolled the bodies up in sheets and put them down there at Danner’s Cemetery for them to deal with. I would of dug them a hole and put them in a common grave but that’s the only funeral parlor I know that’s still digging holes and saying services, that is if you got any money or trade or you’re a member of the Mount Mariah Church. It seems that church and that funeral parlor are serving most, if not all, of the churches around here. That is the ones that aren’t doing their own burying and blessing in their own church town. Leastways, they are the only ones that got ready built commercial coffins to supply you with. That old bastard Cruces Latimore, the funeral director, had me and that pulpwood crew that doesn’t mind digging holes go by the other mortuaries in town that were closed and basically we did us a midnight raid and stole all the coffins around here, if you want to look at it that way. It’s not that we were doing anything wrong mind you, those other mortuaries were doing nothing for the dead and the folks that run them were either dead, not coming to work or you couldn’t get in touch with them so we took us a contract from Latimer to go out and collect every dang coffin we could find. Now you know that’s a hell of a note to consider. I was never one to pre-plan a funeral or anything but part of the pay that he was offering was that we could pick out our own coffin from his stock before we went out stealing coffins at the other places. I got me a fine one reserved for me by the way. Looks like I’ll be buried like the Governor with a silver coffin and silk lining. The pulpwood guys said they are going to bury me by the river; I got me a plot and everything. Anyway, I am not selling cemetery space today; I’m just telling you that all those coffins we stole are getting filled up faster than one might think. And those that are filling them up aren’t just dying of natural causes and so just be aware. Funny thing about a lot of them closed coffin funerals that we’re doing these days, because you know there’s no embalming these days you got to get them before they get too ripe, is the level of violence they died under. Do you know or has Barnett told you that crazy old man Finch came in his place telling them some kind of story about some old guy that tried to crack his head open with an axe? That’s who they think might be committing some of these murders because a lot of the bodies have been cut up.” Dump said taking a slug out of his beer.

Farley turned and looked over at the boys to see how big their ears were sticking up from that last statement and while they were pretending to look at the road a little more intense asked Dump who was the crazy old man Finch that he was talking about.

“Oh, he’s just a hard drinking old cuss that needs his crazy meds you might say. Said it took almost a full week to get off the couch somebody had drug him onto. That’s what I can’t figure out, if they were going to kill him why did they drag him to the couch? Who knows, that crazy old man might have hit himself with his own axe. He lives down there next to Longshore Drive and the Willy boys said they might have seen your white van down that way when they were out turkey hunting. You wouldn’t know nothing about that would you, Farley?” Dump asked regarding him.

“I know some skin head redneck boys come down the road and interrupted my camping down that a way but I never heard of that old man before. I hollered at them two country boys and they hollered back at me , I said no and they headed back home, as far as I know. How about them two? They looked a little squirrelly to me. You reckon they might have accosted, who’d you call him, Finch?” Farley said getting on his bicycle backpedaling around this ring Dump truck appeared to be putting him into.

“Oh, those two? I call them Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. They aren’t smart enough to get themselves in too much trouble because they don’t  have no way or  much money for bail to get themselves out of the trouble they created they are already dealing with. They’re ok though, just a bit slow on the uptake and a tendency to get riled over stupid shit. It wasn’t them; they just said there was a white van that had a bunch of men holler at them to leave it alone.” Dump said.

“They looked like they might have been out hunting but these days when a man with a shotgun eyes your ride on the side of the road you got to wonder what his intentions are. I just hollered at them that I was taking a whiz and to carry on that I didn’t need none of their help. That’s the country way as you well know, be friendly, be a little bit belligerent if you see the need and be respectful.” Farley stated.

“Oh they weren’t mad at you or nothing, you just gave them a scare of sorts. Who did you have with you? I bet they got a laugh out of you running them boys off.” Dump said looking for further information.

“They were just some hunting and drinking buddies, they are lake folks and we weren’t worried much about them Willy boys stopping by and just announced we were around.” Farley said uncomfortably.

“They said you had a big blue Buick car with you that looked like Finch’s, that car is sort of an icon around here cause we watch out for that crazy bastard’s driving, so that’s one reason they stopped.” Truck said regarding Farley’s sudden expanded interest in the world away from this conversation.

“Oh, that was Warner’s car, that’s one of them pillow of air cruise master cars that Buick used to make. He insists on taking the gas guzzling son of a bitch on every road trip we make. I accused the man of having hemorrhoids or something about that insistence of his not to ride with us on whatever we chose as a main vehicle but I think it’s more that he just wants his own way home when we get tired of his bitching about what he misses for his comfort. Look man, I could stand here and jabber all day while drinking your beer and giving my condolences during this wake that we are supposed to be remembering but I got to be moving on because we are expected back. We are going to Barnett’s place and I will tell him you said ‘hey’, ok?” Farley said looking at Dump who seemed to have some reservations about him leaving so soon.

“You be careful up there, you sure you heard me about saying avoid the place for a bit?” Dump asked with a cock of his head.

“I heard you, not sure exactly what you meant by it, do you want to elaborate a bit more for me?” Farley asked, catching the man’s gaze.

“Long gray-haired man in an Army vest, Finch said…” Dump Truck said sliding his hand back towards his pistol.

“Wasn’t there I said…” Farley stated opening his fingers ever so lightly like a gun fighter getting ready to reach for his own.

“Wouldn’t be like anyone would object to you having a problem with that man; of course on the other hand some folks just like excuses to bother others, if you know what I mean.” Dump stated relaxing.

“Well, I am glad you’re not one of those folks and I will lose the vest.” Farley stated flatly.

“You got anything to say to Barnett or something to trade that won’t cost me so much if I talk to you first?” Farley offered.

“Funny you should say that: I got a goat we butchered this morning I would be willing to sell a quarter haunch off of, I need everything you need though so what all  is it that you are offering?” Dump asked, putting Farley off guard with confusion on that last statement.

“ I like goat if it ain`t an older than dirt bearded pissing billy you put to rest, what is it you have in mind that you might be willing to take for that gourmet piece of meat you’re offering?” Farley asked, contemplating some of those worn out male goats he had seen in his life that run around pissing on their goat beards during mating season in an attempt to attract the females of the species and remembering the stench.

“What do you got? I am open for pretty much trading anything.” Dump tried to say disarmingly.

“Is this the place in a trade where the first one talks loses? You ain`t said much about that meat you’re offering and I am not saying shit about what I may or may not have until learning more, so do you want to make me a price or want me to make you an offer? You got any use for a pound of eight penny nails?” Farley said getting real country and real cheap for a minute.

“No, I don’t think a pound of plywood nails would get it but that many straight nails is kind of scarce right now and might have their uses. I was thinking more like ammo, booze or cash.” Dump said countering Farley’s low ball proposal but also speculating on did it have any merits.

“Shit back to the nails, you got any of those commodities you mentioned for trade today? Goat meat is great but I could offer you double weight in a deer haunch maybe with a side of what was once and still is a $55 brand new spin casting reel with line, you refuse that and we don’t really have much more to talk about.” Farley said ready to break the ice on this new glory hole of trading he was about to work up.

Dump was silent a minute and looked around a bit as they boys couldn’t stand being away from such interesting fellows any longer and had to get in on the hoots and hollers of a trade going on next to them as it started to develop.

“I ain’t trying to rob you, Farley, the deer haunch was a good offer if it’s as fresh as what I put on the table. I got me a reel and a rod but I can always improve, you got that reel with you?” Dump inquired.

“Tell you what, old Truck. I shot that deer yesterday morning and hung him up in muslin to keep the blowflies off of him and let the carcass cool. Now you and me know if I kept him in the shade and let that meat mellow a bit it would be just getting tasty before going bad day after tomorrow, so that’s the weight of my trade. He was a four pointer so I guess he might have weighed maybe 155 to 165 pounds. That beats that 60 to 80 pound goat you’re offering in haunch size. Hey, we kept the skin but I don’t think either one of us wants to swap green deer skin against green goat skin, so let’s get back to dickering.”

“That fishing reel I was offering in there was just a sweetener. An ice breaker you might say. I got a few new pieces of those from bumping into a wholesaler I told Barnett about that wants to unload some angling gear for some food. Seems to me they have quite interesting new fishing gear at the store down there so I guess everyone needs a new fishing pole these days and I have something of value.” Farley said contemplating on how to unload his new found wealth without a price or a taker yet in his endeavors.

“You got that deer meat with you? Cause we got to go up the road some to get that goat. I got them Jones boys processing all that meat but I told them exactly how I wanted it. It isn’t far, you can go with me to fetch it or I can bring it back here. I just as soon you go with me so I don’t have to strap a goat leg on the back of this motorcycle.” Dump said.

“I tell you what if you can strap a damn deer haunch over that queen seat of yours and take mine with you. Because like I said, I got to be carrying on. That is however, if I could trust you to meet up with me around 2:30 this afternoon to finish our exchange. That way you get as fresh as I got and I get what you got and I trust you for it.” Farley said making the offer.

“You got it. I’ll be back here and see you at 2:30. That’ll give me time to get some coals going and have that thing roasting. Need me some bullets, Farley. Tell Barnett our side of the lake will make a deal and reserve us some calibers if you don’t mind, I’ll make you a list. Most folks don’t have the gas around here to run up and down the roads to find what kind of trades he’s got and I’m kind of limited on my time also. Tell him to reserve a few calibers I’m going to write down for him for this end of the lake and we will be there to trade day after tomorrow. I will make you a list.” Dump said taking off his vest and hanging it on his handlebars as the heat seemed to even be having its’ effect on someone who was used to wearing such garb.

“What kind of rounds you hunting for outside of 12 gauge, normal pistol rounds, etc.?” Farley asked thinking to himself what did that leave or what might they have and interested in the answer.

“Pretty much anything ammunition wise we’re willing to trade for. A lot of these yahoos down here got them .270 rifles, you know them old bolt action expensive scoped deer rifles? Got some weird shit like 16 gauge shotguns that used to be easy to get. Just tell him we’ll take any spare ammo he’s got.” Dump said readjusting his knife and patting Fong on the head who was getting too close to his hip examining it.

“Shit man, you might as well ask for the moon. Nobody’s got any ammo, nobody’s got any food, nobody wants to sell you any ammo for fear of you using it on them, but I’ll ask. Anything else?” Farley asked, pointing with his thumb towards the van for the kids to load up.

“Ask him if he’s got any Twinkies!” Dump said with a wry smile.

“Yea, they’re supposed to never go bad, huh? I tell you what, if he does have any damn Twinkies, me and the boys get first call on them and I might trade your gargantuan ass for them later!” Farley said with a laugh and a reiteration of they would meet today at 2:30.

Farley and the boys jabbered together riding towards the bait store talking about anything and everything. “There’s the three mile marker, boys.” Fraley said referring to the sign that announced Barnett’s bait store on the side of the road before you started seeing various and sundry one-liner signs announcing worms, bait, beer, ice and sundries ahead with various colors of paint and distances.

“Now, what did I tell you…” Farley began

before both boys chimed in with ‘no nudies, no condoms, no interrupting, no sampling, no shoplifting, no asking dumb questions’ and to assure Farley that they had heard him and everyone else for the last two days now telling them to behave themselves, that as far as they were concerned, Farley was God as long as they were in the store. Farley laughed and reassured the boys they had nothing to worry about and that he was their best buddy and were they ready for this adventure as he pulled into the driveway.

Farley pulled in and as soon as he did he said ‘Oh Hell’ to himself. On the side of the building at the old picnic table appeared to be two damn near bald freckled faced redheaded boys about the same age as his charges and what appeared to be their backwoods Mama and Papa.

Farley got out and said ‘Howdy’ to the family that appeared to be of all things divvying up worms on a concrete picnic table and entered the store.

“Hey, Barnett, Hey Frazier! Ya’ll doing well?” Farley asked as he entered the store.

“Hey Farley! You back kind of quick aren’t you?” Frazier asked reaching to shake his hand.

“Too quick for what? To shake your hand, Barnett? Hope you got some goodies, it’s been a week. Hope you got my chickens for me, don’t you?” Farley asked not too comfortable why he was arriving late after the appointed time.

“I told you I can’t be holding onto things in these days like in the past. You be on time or you forget about it. Not that you got anything to worry about, they’re here but I was giving up on you.” Barnett said in a huff.

“I’m sorry my friend, couldn’t be helped. I had something come up that you might be interested in. I got AG gas to trade and I got 55 gallons worth. Not with me mind you, I only got fifteen out on the van but I owe you in my mind so I don’t have to buy any crap .38 pistols again. Do you know that damn thing got a bad cylinder on it you sold me? It backfires! it’s a damn hazard and I want to return it!” Farley said acting indignant.

“Hey, I shot that gun but I didn’t do all six cylinders but you know, I could have been had. I’ll exchange it. What’s this about you got AG gas?” Barnett said stroking what looked like he was attempting to grow like everybody else in this day without razor blades.

“You know if you own a farm you can get a tax break on dyed green diesel or green gas so you can’t resell it. I got a farmer up the road that threw in his lot with us to survive under what we’re going to call Farley’s tribe these days. He raises millet normally under a Sylvester Super Chicken contract to create feed for those big chicken houses but since they aren’t paying them or supplying them with feed and such he’s kind of in a quandary on how to feed his family and workers in these dire times. Gas is gas. I swapped him to get down here, told him I was trading, didn’t tell him about you or how I found you. I just said I would get some value for what he was offering. Now then what do ya’ll have? I got gas, they want food first and guns and ammo or goods last.”

“What do you mean you want ‘goods last’?” Frazier asked speculating.

“I mean toilet paper’s fine but that don’t beat gas. Fishing worms they have no use for but zip lock plastic bags are on the list. Chickens, everybody wants chicken. You got any more besides mine I’m supposed to pick up today?” Farley asked.

“Got four of them old leghorn chickens. I got a bunch of eggs. I wish like hell everybody would remember those are fertile eggs and if you quit eating them and let the hen sit on them a bit they might grow into chickens!” Barnett said.

“Well, if you ain’t got nothing to eat, you eat the damn eggs. Let’s not go there.” Farley said regarding the two men.

“Hey, let’s get off the subject for a minute. Them two boys are doing something specific today and I appreciate you alls’ indulgence. They want to find a birthday gift for that Asian boys’ Mama and I would appreciate all your patience and help trying to help them do that. Now don’t get me wrong, I know it’s a tall order. I told them they probably couldn’t find anything at here but it’s important for them and by the way that little goomer over there’s name is Fong.” Farley said pointing in his direction.

“Now don’t have too much damn fun over there with him, Frazier, he’s a good boy and a friend of Jeremy and his Daddy by coincidence happens to be I just found out, that fishing tackle salesman’s boss I was telling you about. You know the one that had all that fishing crap in the truck to trade? We are now all staying together more or less and they are back there with the rest of my crew and sent me down here to see about putting on a party, a birthday party. Now if ya’ll got any birthday paper and candles or any stupid ass party hats back at your houses that aren’t in the store, I’m interested in those also. But you be kind to them boys please and price them right. I want to make it a happy party. I doubt we will ever be able to have another like it. The families sent me down here to help pick out gifts and supervise the boys, if you know what I mean.”  Farley said lowering his voice to clue them in that this was to be treated as a special occasion.

“Oh sure, we can do that. We got fishing decorations, Farley. Well what I mean by that is that we got decorations for fishing tournaments and theme parties if you know what I mean. I can show you where they are at. We even got them firecracker pull toys that shoot confetti as party favors that the boys might find particularly interesting. And I got me an extra 160 count pack of them Black Cat brand firecrackers back at the house that might be loads of fun for you and them if you’re going to Fourth of July it.” Barnett said.

“That will work! Now ya’ll are in the spirit of things! Thanks!” Farley began before the screen door opened and two little buzz cut haircut freckle faced boys walked in the store to see what was going on and check out the strangers.

Fong and Jeremy turned around from them studying fish scalers and one or two knives to give Miss Feng as a present and lots of ideas about whether she might like a mounted deer head because of the limited inventory in this place and commenced to doing what all young boys do of sharing their experiences with others.

“Hey! I’m Jeremy, this is my friend Fong. We got to figure out how to find his Mama a birthday present today. You got any ideas?” Jeremy stated eying the boys for a possible friendly or unfriendly tussle later on or just enjoying someone new who was approximately their same age moment with the two younger folks sharing their space.

“This is my brother Jerome and I am Frankie. We live down by Blake’s Bend.” The new boys said to introduce themselves and after shaking hands they all got down to business.

“How about you maybe giving your mom some earrings made out of some of these fish lures?” Jerome offered.

“Yeah, you could add feathers to them off of some of them other lures if you could get them cheap enough.” Frankie offered.

“No, I don’t think so. We thought of that but we don’t have any earring backs to put that stuff on. She doesn’t fish either so one of these expensive lures won’t help either.” Fong said.

“How about getting her a knife sharpener? It’s made for hooks but it’ll sharpen a knife.” Fong said.

“Well, that’s a maybe. But it isn’t girly enough, if you know what I mean.” Jerome said.

“You look kind of girly to me.” Frankie said being a smart ass.

“Hey you boys, you need something? No horseplay in here.” Frazier warned from over the cabinet hearing the conversation to which everyone turned into instant angels.

“I just don’t know, Farley. Frazier, go ask Lynette back up to the house what it is that those boys might be willing to find in here to get his Mama for a birthday present. Farley, I got to ask, is that, what do you call him Fong boy related to you?” Barnett questioned.

“Might as well be a relative, I reckon. I swear them two boys wake up and go to sleep the same time I do and are hanging about from sun up to sundown. Hey now Barnett, what would you take for that no longer working pizza warmer display thing you got over there? It can’t be worth much, they don’t work anymore and ain`t nothing but a reminder of better times. I got something I want to make with the Plexiglas out of it or I’ll just take the Plexiglas if you got use for the rest of it. What do you want for it?” Farley asked, inspired.

“What do you want that thing for?” Barnett asked studying Farley’s expressed interest in it.

“I need to make a box out of something to hold a project.” Farley said

Farley looked over at Jeremy and Fong who were also eying the pizza warmer with evident interest several feet away.

“Hang on, Barnett, let me go help them boys a minute.” Farley said before walking over to them.

“What’s up guys? Why the interest in this thing?” Farley asked  in a hushed tone indicating the food warmer.

“How much you think he wants for this considering it doesn’t work?” Jeremy asked.

“It will work I’m telling you.” Fong whispered at Jeremy.

“Work for what?” Farley asked.

“Fong and I got us the idea we could make us a chicken incubator out of that thing. You got any idea if it’s too hot with the light bulb that’s in it?” Jeremy asked.

“Damn, you kids are geniuses to think about that. Yea, I don’t know about the bulb but we can think about something!” Farley said in amazement.

“Damn a chicken brooder or incubator. Now I would have never thought of that in a million years! Why we could get this thing and a bunch of fertile eggs, and Miss Feng would have the dandiest birthday gift ever!” Farley thought seeing a bunch of little chicks going cheep cheep at that little old cheap Asian woman.

“Hey, Barnett, what will you take for this old food warmer unit over here? The boys got them an idea that they want to make a terrarium or something for a pet turtle.” Farley said as both the boys looked up with a ‘do what?” look at Farley to his reference for an aquarium for a non-existent turtle.

“Let me get this straight… them boys want to put a turtle in that old food warmer, well I guess it makes sense it’s nothing but plexiglass and a bottom, won’t hold much water but I guess ya’ll figure that out. I’ll take five dollars cash or trade for it.” Barnett said happy to get it off his counter since it no longer had a purpose to serve.

“You heard him boys, it’s five dollars cash or trade, work on paying the man.” Farley said waiting to watch the show that was coming on.

“I think it’s only worth about three dollars.” Fong said taking after his Aunty Feng to which Farley stifled a chuckle.

“Give him three fifty and call it square.” Jeremy chimed in negotiating how much change the two of them had in their pockets.

“I tell you what boys, if you two little heathens can pick it up and carry it out of here by yourselves you can have it for $2.50, that is if I don’t have to rent you a broom and a dustpan to clean up the mess when you drop it!”  Barnett said.

“Well, we can get it out of here and you said $2.50 if we can get it carried out the door, is that right?” Jeremy said.

“And if it gets dropped going out the door we even rent your dustpan, right?” Fong said grinning.

“Yup! That’s right, boys. If the two of ya’ll can get that thing out of here I’ll sell it to you for $2.50 and if it gets dropped and needs cleaning up it’ll cost you an extra dollar. Is that fair? Is that a deal?” Barnett said sticking his hand out to shake with Jeremy and Fong.

“That’s a deal. Me and Fong will get it out of here for $2.50 regardless of breakage and if we have to borrow the broom and dustpan for breakage then we owe you an extra dollar.” Jeremy said shaking the man’s hand and Fong joined in.

“Ok, I got to see this! Frazier, look here we got us a show for today. Those two boys are going to move that heavy thing out of here all by themselves!” Barnett said settling his bulk down on the worn out bar stool in back of the counter.

“I didn’t make that kind of deal, I didn’t say all by ourselves, I said me and Fong would get it out of here. Farley, I want you get yourself up and tote that thing out of here for us!” Jeremy said, surprising Farley who was grinning like hell and commenced to manhandling it out the door smiling all the way as Frazier gave his boss playful hell for getting one-upped by a thirteen year old.

“Now it was a fair deal, you told me and Fong we had to get it out of here by ourselves and I told Farley to do it for us. We got it out by asking and since he’s done doing it here’s the $2.50!” Jeremy said with a shit eating grin on his face to which Barnett and Frazier broke out into belly laughs and happily received their pittance thinking it was a turtle shack that they had just been beat out of.

Farley came back sweating and bitching about his exertions and laughing all the way that his two little traders had made the best deal of the day and asked Barnett how many chicken eggs he had for sale because they had them a birthday party to go to and they had to make a cake and some kind of tapioca pudding or soufflé or something for everybody living on their end of the lake.

“Farley, you ain’t told us yet exactly where it is you live over there, anyway. I ain`t seen ya’ll before and I meant to tell you them Willy boys said they saw your van up the road around some trouble we had around here not too long ago.” Frazier said.

“Hey hold on now a minute, I don’t know nothing about no Willy boys and just because ya’ll got a little spooked about some good trading doesn’t mean you can say I did something wrong.” Farley said indignantly.

“No, we were just asking you because they were saying they saw a van something like yours around…” Barnett began before Farley cut him off.

“I don’t know anything about anything and all I said to you was how much was some eggs and you two started getting upset over being beat out of $2.50 which to me is worrisome. But if you must know, me and my crew were on the side of a road taking a whiz when the Willy boys looked like to us that they might be going to rob my van and I said something to them! That’s it. We separated with no hard feelings between us.” Farley said giving a hard glare to Frazier and Barnett.

“No, no, don’t get me wrong, didn’t mean to rile you, Farley. I was just asking you because you were around to ask about it and wanting to sell you some eggs and don’t choke on the price of $6 a dozen nowadays.” Barnett said with a glare.

“Damn! That’s some expensive chicken fruit. I reckon it’s worth it to make everybody happy. I’ll take them if there’s no negotiation in price but I think $2.75 sounds better.”

“No, that’s the price; I’m not adjusting or negotiating food prices at the moment.” Barnett said with a calm, slight smile.

“No worries. Here’s $5 and one makes six and those eggs are mine now, right?” Farley said handing him a $5 bill and an additional $1 greenback.

“They’re yours then.” Barnett said. “And you can pick up your chickens in the back.” Barnett added, still smiling.

“I bet some of them damn eggs you just sold me come from some of my own chickens, you old scumgullion!” Farley said forcing a laugh.

“Might be.” Said Frazier with the same wry smile Barnett was wearing.

“Well, we won’t have that problem any more boys! Because you just sold them the best chicken incubator ever and the eggs to go in it!” Farley said laughing all the way out the door.

9

Plotting And Scheming

Farley and the boys were giddy riding down the road about how they out-traded Barnett and didn’t realize how long the trading had taken before they were supposed to meet back up with Dump Truck but evidently he hadn’t left because they found him napping under an old oak tree at the bar. Farley pulled into the parking lot and both boys bailed out of the van hollering ”Mr. Dump! Mr. Dump!” to which Farley chuckled at hearing one more funny version of his name.

“We just got back from Barnett’s and traded for a mess of chickens!” Jeremy said beside himself.

“What kind of chickens? How many did you get?” Dump asked slightly slurring his words because he had evidently killed whatever extra twelve pack he had found, telling by the cans in his vicinity.

“Don’t ya’ll be counting your chickens before they are hatched, boys!” Farley said with a smile.

Farley told Dump all about how the boys had got one over on Barnett and after a good laugh Farley said he was going to run the boys home and come back.

He came back in about a half hour and pulled into the parking lot.

“Dump, do you know anyone that might have any guns for sale or trade?” Farley ventured after making small talk with Dump upon his return.

“Well, no offense meant to you, Farley, but trading guns with strangers is not something I like to think about much, but I will consider it. The guy that owned this place had a bunch of them but they are mostly locked up in a gun safe that I don’t have the combination to and I am still trying to wrap my head  around what happened to him and what all this means. Take this place for example, the man’s dead and no next of kin in this state that I know of so does that mean I can claim it? And if I do claim it, what am I going to do with it? It’s not likely this bar will ever open again unless some miracle happens and the power goes back on. I helped Connors get the booze out of here and know where it’s at but it ain’t that much of it. Folks around here put a hell of a dent in the liquor supply the first few weeks of the disaster. We just set some candles and a few old lanterns out and it was business as usual for awhile. That reminds me, lots of folks around here will have heard about Connors’ death and will be after his stuff if they know whereabouts he lived. I best get myself on over there today and clear out whatever I want before the grave pickers come around, I guess.” Dump said.

“I am of the same mind as you on that. I imagine it won’t take very long for someone to be paying that place a visit then. No offense, Dump, but you are looking a little buzzed and I don’t think rolling up on a burglary in progress cross-eyed sounds like such a good idea.” Farley said, studying him.

“I ain’t that drunk, buddy, but you got a point. What time is it anyway? My watch quit a couple weeks ago.” Dump said sounding more sober.

“It’s about four I would say. I got to use the clock in the van to tell because I don’t wear a watch. You got about three maybe four hours until it gets dark, I would say.” Farley said eying the suns’ position.

“We always been damn careful about letting anyone know exactly where Connors lived but there have been more than one or two ladies that got to spend the night there, if you know what I mean. Farley, I am kind of in a bind here and I think you might be able to help me out if you want to. I don’t have anything but this scooter and that van of yours would be handy for what I propose to do, if you’re willing to help.” Truck said scrutinizing the man.

“You wanting me to go to a possible firefight with you and help you tote shit off.” Farley said, eying the big man back.

“Something like that, I don’t expect a problem, though. You see, being a bar bouncer and student of life has kind of given me an insight if you will, on people but I have also been wrong many times. You seem all right though to me, Farley, and if we are talking about doing any kind of gun trade I guess we are going to have to accept each other and the cards fate has dealt to us. I propose that we head towards Connors’ house and grab anything useful. I will tell you now he ain`t got much food, he was never one to eat at home much and we were struggling to call in favors or offer cash  for canned goods before his demise. If we could get into that damned safe of his we would have plenty of cash but like I said I don’t have the combination, besides lots of folks would rather have a can of beans these days over a hundred dollar bill so that’s a waste of time and energy for us to even consider breaking into the damn thing even if it were possible. I wouldn’t even know where to start trying to get into that thing without a power drill and we know that isn’t going to happen. In regards to guns for trade you were asking about, I know he had a Mossberg pistol handled 12 gauge next to the door, if it’s still there. It has a few tweaks on it like a heat shield, sidesaddle and a forward charging grip but it’s stock otherwise with a brass bead sight and a regular feed tube. That one I will trade with you for if you will burn your gas, donate some labor and be my backup with a gun on this mission.” Dump said, watching Farley’s eyebrow cock as he contemplated the offer.

“I would say that’s a pretty good deal if I could live to enjoy it. You sure who ever murdered him isn’t there right now after something else? Sometimes the better part of valor is to avoid a fight but then again if there is something worth fighting for I would consider it unless I know whatever son of a bitch might have just stole that same shotgun of his had it pointed at me. They ain`t worth a shit for hunting without a stock but for home defense or sneaking around an empty warehouse they do have their points. What’s he got that thing loaded with?” Farley questioned wondering what he had to possibly face out of that scatter gun.

“Reduced recoil 2 ¾” double ought buck, he didn’t believe in anything less and had no neighbors to worry about with over penetration or distance. The first round in that thing, mind you, is a three inch Remington Express round of No. 4 buck though, more lead, more distance he said cause he didn’t know how far his initial contact down his driveway might be. He was kind of wild if you know what I mean and he thought he might level that thing at somebody past 50 yards away. I told him that was a hip shooting gun not an aiming one but he couldn’t be deterred.” Dump elaborated.

“Is that first round 42 pellet no. 4 or has he got three inch 15 pellet double ought in it?” Farley asked.

“I think it’s number 4, he figured if he sprayed and prayed 42 rounds of .25 caliber that it was dang good to hit something. Oh by the way, if he didn’t give it away, he bought one of them Ruger 10/22 rifles with a 25 round clip in camo for us to plink with. I remember him commenting one time that by the time he emptied the .22 out one round of the no. 4 buck would be the same and I joked with him about that being a poor man’s machine gun because I could empty 6 rounds out of that shotgun I could put 252 rounds of .25 caliber downrange in comparison to hopefully 25 well-placed rounds of .22. In other words I could either make you duck like hell or ventilate a flock of geese into slivers!” Dump said laughing.

“Is that up for trade?” Farley asked with a smile.

“Not for just helping me out with the deal but yea, if it’s still there we can swap something for it, maybe. What do you got to swap for anyway, Farley?” Dump asked speculatively.

“Oh, I got a little bit of stuff but it’s a collective lot. I kind of collected up from everybody, got a little silver, a little food, a little gold, if you know what I mean.” Farley said getting ready to dicker.

“Well, I’ll trade with you but how do we go about setting prices nowadays, for example I wouldn’t give you two cents for a 1965 Mustang with no gas in it but I’d give you $25 for a big can of beans if that’s all you had to trade for. ‘Course I would have a hard time negotiating with you if all I had was $20 dollar bills and no change. I guess price is only based on circumstances now. You want it, I got it and what are you willing to give and what am I willing to take? Is that the name of the game these days?” Dump said reaching for another beer.

“Well like I said that damn cruiser model isn’t worth a damn for hunting and I’m more worried about hunting than somebody breaking into my house right now so I say it needs a price reduction. I say that gun was worth about $300 new before the fall, $225 -$250 in a pawn shop and it isn’t worth a damn if you ain’t got no ammo to go with it, because I ain’t got none. But even if it’s empty, I want it. I’ll go help you for the rounds it should have in it but there’s got to be more ammo around there somewhere.” Farley said, enjoying this trading banter.

“Aw, hell, that damn thing has got two side saddles on it, not just one; it’s got two sidesaddles on it plus what’s in it so that’s eighteen rounds at least. I am not going to charge you for the ammo and I agree with you about empty guns being useless but let me add on the fact that he bought a lot of combo guns that had a certain stocks or extra gun barrels laying around that place and you can make it how you want, if you have a mind to. I tell you what, he had him one of those things we converted one time from a shoulder stock to a pistol grip for the “coolness” factor and I like to never got off the standard stock until I went down to the pawn shop and got in their bin of useless tools and things for a 2 foot long screwdriver.” Dump said, waiting for Farley’s reply.

“Oh yeah, I love those bins $2.99 -9.99 buy everything from electricity meters to Exacto tools. What I have to get me is one of those gigantic pry bar looking things. We had tools but we didn’t have one of those. Anyway, there’s not enough room in the gun cabinets for extra tools and ammo, there should be guns and slings and all kinds of extra crap all over the place.”

“I had me a buddy named Neil one time that took advantage of that situation once when people were selling off those extra shotgun barrels when they bought themselves a combo on Ebay. One time he blessed me with a stock barrel that was brand new. You see a short barrel non-choke 12 guage is made to spread lead pellets at a close range but a modified choke barrel with those high visibility sights and maybe a ramp is made to reach out and touch a duck or a deer at a distance. ‘Course some of those come with what you call a “slugger” barrel that is somewhat rifled for a SABOT round or a Foster rifled slug so that it shoots more like a rifle than a smooth barrel shot gun. Now in my neck of the woods, I never had any call for having to have a slug barrel because I trust my own skills like everybody else that shoots shotguns to put a rifled slug through a smooth bore barrel at 75 yards, because the rifling on the slug compensates for that. But to each his own. In other words, if all you have is a slug barrel to go with it I can’t put a value on it and I’m happy and content to put my trust in a short barrel and the rifling on the slug to compensate. Now a modified choke is another matter. If I feel the need for distance, achieving a tighter pattern of lead going down range is a big plus and I’ll offer you a premium.” Farley said speculating on how to take a weapon made for close range human deterrents versus long range interaction with all animals.

“Well, I won’t charge you extra and I know there’s various kinds of stocks and shotgun barrels from 21 to 28 inches that you can have free range on, but that Ruger 10/22 and all it’s niceties like a 3x9 scope is a different matter.” Dump said making his final offer.

Farley tried to hide his excitement of being able to convert a close range weapon into a long range weapon for free and make it more practical but he could not hide his immediate smile too much from the Dump.

“OK, we’ll go down there but all I got is a .380 pistol and a .22 survival rifle to back you up with. You got a rifle hid around here somewhere besides that Glock pistol you got on your hip?” Farley asked, eying the man.

“Well, it isn’t legal but I got me a 12 gauge single shot Savage in my saddlebags.” Dump said with a grin.

“Sounds like something an old heathen like you would have!” Farley said enjoying his buddy’s resourcefulness.

“Well we ready to go on this mission then, huh? I could ruin their day at a hundred yards and you can splatter them at ten! So we got a deal then, Dump?” Farley said, extending his hand.

“Hey, everybody can hear my scooter coming from a mile off so before we get there I’m going to park it and get in the van with you. Now old man Connors has got a combination lock key pad on the gate, I got the code to it, and I know the batteries are still working to it ‘cause it’s on solar power, so we will know if anybody busted through there or not. There ain`t no way around that gate because it’s got a ditch on each side other than going straight through so them castle gates will either have been breached or not, which is to our advantage. If they are breached, I say we leave the van and walk up and try to figure out how many people are occupying the house and make a decision from there.” Dump said starting to speculate on his plan before Farley objected.

“Hell no, if we get there and somebody already busted that gate that meant they spent some time busting into it and if he’s got all that crap and gear you say, I just as soon leave it alone. Dump, I ain’t no sissy or whatever but like I said, the better part of valor is choosing my damn fights and I choose not to fight things for stuff I don’t really need at the moment. I know he was your buddy and all that and you’d love to go wreak havoc on somebody but we can’t drink so well if we got holes in our bellies, if you know what I mean!” Farley said sounding to Dump truck like he was going to try to crayfish out of a full confrontation.

“I didn’t say we have to do the charge of the Light Brigade up there, I just said we have to take care of it.”….Dump began.

“Hell no! If there’s any kind of confrontation down there we don’t need it, buddy! We ain’t got shit to prove and whatever is there we don’t need that badly. I myself personally, don’t have a damn thing to prove or want from the place if there’s any kind of trouble that comes with it. I like you my friend, but I’m not dying over nothing or getting revenge for your boss that I never met!” Farley said adamantly.

“Aw hell, I thought you were Indian. Isn’t it a good day to die?” Dump said drunkenly belligerent.

“I’ll watch you if you just want a witness to your dumb ass death, what’s the old saying “fools charge in where angels fear to tread.” I am not doing it, I could sit out there and take pot shots at them from a distance without a scope and stir up a hornet’s nest of God knows what, but I don’t need to do that. We can always come back another day. I got lives depending on me, shit we’re eating turtles over there where I’m at and those things have proven smarter than we are. Now a turtle like an ostrich, ain’t the brightest creature in the world but they got two things going for them that you and me might need to consider: they both hide their heads when danger is apparent and although the speed of the two of them differs in getting away from a problem, they both are very adept at it. You ever seen a turtle dive into the water when it thought danger was threatening or a fish to get after? You ever seen an ostrich drop down to make itself small if it had an enemy on the savannah?” Farley asked.

“Man, you ain’t no fun! Ok, point noted. If there is anybody there, we wait, we watch, we fight them another day on our terms.” Dump said.

“Now we can be contradictory and do what in the military was called suppressive aggressive or interdictory fire, hell we used to call it harassment fire just to scare the bejesus out of somebody or pop a cannon off and hoped they moved on. That means you or I pop a cap off at them as long as they are staying anywhere around that place and either let them stay or threaten to attack them as they leave.” Farley said getting into his devious guerilla fighting style that peasants used to take down rulers in history.

“Ok, Dump I got to go home for a few and tell folks that me and you are going off to play for a bit. That should take me about 30 minutes until I get back here, you hang tough for a few and although I know you’re acting fine, lighten up on that beer my friend, we got to go to work.” Farley said, regretting putting his down also.

“No problem, hey why don’t I just follow you and then we go? Where do you live at anyway?” Dump said broaching a question Farley was dreading.

“You know what is a hell of thing, Dump? Here me and you meet up at the end of the world as we knew it, share some beer and I am willing to go play backup in a possible firefight with you in order to get me a shotgun but I ain`t willing to tell you exactly where I am living yet.” Farley said regarding the man.

“Now that is pretty screwed up, Farley, but I guess we really don’t know each other that well. Hell we just met, this is a strange thought to think about, reminds me of a bar fight. You can take a group of strangers all sitting at a bar and us men folk like me and you start sizing each other up and taking sides before we even get to know one another. We will sit there and talk, get drunk, tell personal secrets about our lives, etc. but we never reveal much about where we stay or who we give our phone number to. I understand, Farley, no worries and hurry back.” Dump said wondering himself why it was ok for Farley to go off and carry back Lord knows who with him if he had a mind to steal his scooter or something but for some reason he trusted the man.

“Yea I guess we just keep it as that I “live back that way and you live off over there somewhere” for a little while.” Farley said grinning.

“Well, Connors’ house is back yonder way but you will soon know where that is at. Hey, Farley, you got me at a disadvantage here, you got to haul all that gear and stuff we got to get from Connors back to my place.” Dump said contemplating with a fake “what the hell?” look on his face as he proceeded to twirl the end of his moustache in comical contemplation.

“Dang buddy, that’s right! You are going to have to show me Casa Dump Truck today! Now you got me wondering what kind of a place that you got. I envision a garage and yard full of rusting steel junk that needs to be repurposed for projects.” Farley said with a smile.

“Well, you are partially right, I got a big garage, a three bay affair but I live upstairs over the office. It’s an old cinder block country affair that used to serve as a country auto repair place before they changed the county roads. Ha! It isn’t like my house is a secret from any one; you know what’s painted over the side of the roof?” Dump said chuckling with a devilish grin.

“What?” Farley asked, as curious as can be.

“Both sides of the roof have painted on them “See Dump City!” Truck said with a loud laugh.

Farley about fell out laughing, imagining such a structure and its owner and pegged it right that Dump had a table or two around the place made out of old wooden cable or wire spools.

“You see there are still a lot of old barns and buildings and such around that I have seen in my travels that had that “SEE ROCK CITY” logo painted on them and one day I was watching a Clint Eastwood movie where he made the inhabitants paint the town red before he would help them so I got a bit of a buzz on and a paint brush and decorated the house. That reminds me, don’t drink any moonshine made by a fella called Furley Turnipseed. That has got to be the worst tasting, most mood changing firewater that might yet still be available around here. Come to think about it, how screwed up is it going to be when I introduce the two of you? I can’t even conceive of drinking that rot gut with a Furley and Farley to keep up on names with. I can see it now, when I say hey Furley meaning Farley and vice versa but I can dang sure tell you two apart otherwise. Why I bet I could stick four Farley’s in that mans overalls. I kid you not, that boy has a belly so big that he hasn’t probably seen his feet since he was 14 and a set of ears that looks like a Volkswagen going down the road with both doors open!” Dump said laughing.

“You ain`t right boy!” Farley said chuckling.

“Now you got me to thinking, Dump, how much of a batch of shine do you think that old man can brew anyway? What I’m asking is does he have one of them big two hundred fifty gallon tanks or is he a small distiller?” Farley questioned as Dump was busy second guessing himself if he actually needed or wanted another beer before going on their mission.

“Hell, he’s got a three hundred fifty gallon thump still that I know about. Now I’m pretty sure if he had enough mash around to do a run he would be cooking. But finding sugar and corn or barley these days would probably be monumental. You want to go in the liquor business, Farley?” Dump asked.

“No, I was thinking more on the line of mixing it with gasoline if Furley has the skill to get that high a proof of alcohol consistently.” Farley stated.

“Oh he’s consistent, you better mix that shit fifty-fifty with water if you got any sense. In my opinion, he makes that stuff like the comic strip Lil’ Abner where they make the ol’ pickle juice with skunks and such. Now don’t get me wrong, you can pour a little of that stuff out and it burns blue fire when you light it and you can tell whether it’s drinkable, but the taste, tastes like the bottom end of a Libby’s corn can with rubbing alcohol in it Neither Furley’s booze nor him is aged to perfection and that wife of his is one ugly woman. I tell you what boy, that ol’ woman’s face would make a freight train take a dirt road. But she’s a kindly woman to everyone but Furley. What’s funny Farley, is that woman of his is the most suspender grabbing person that you will ever see and if she don’t have a mitt full of his overalls normally, she’s reaching for them to grab and get his attention about something. It’s funnier than hell because he’s got a habit of carrying a can of Red Man in the front of his overalls and when she gets to jerking on it you can see the can pop out the top of ‘em!” Dump said laughing. “That woman can make and cook some biscuits though, “Cat head biscuits” she calls them. You know what cat head biscuits are Farley? They the size of a kitten’s head when you cut a biscuit piece out of the dough before you stick them in the oven and the size of a cat’s head when they come out!” Dump said.

“Oh yeah, Dump, I know all about those things – cathead biscuits, many a grandma has made those things for me. I bet there are a hundred recipes for those things, you got baking soda or baking powder or you just set them in the window to rise. I still have to smile to myself every time I go in a grocery store that you will occasionally see a sack of flour with a dish towel attached to it! Some folks still make those don’t you know, Dump?” Farley said with a smile.

“Aw hell, most everybody thinks the first step of making biscuits these days is to whap a can of Pillsbury biscuits against the counter. Now in our times, it sounds funny for us to hear how our grandmothers would tell the folks making their dresses or underwear out of flour sacks let alone no matter how many of us moved out of the house ended up with how many kitchen towels that were passed down to us that came out of them flour sacks. I guess these days everybody’s going to have to relearn things but I can’t see anybody making things out of flour sacks or worrying about finding clothes because in modern society, there are closets are full of pre-made goods. Farley, on a somber note, there’s a lot of dead around here and whoever got Connors had to be just plain wicked to cut him that many times. What’s the old saying? Desperate people do desperate things and nowadays everybody’s desperate, but that looked like a psychopath or something like the cops say, there was anger or insaneness there. That wasn’t just a normal robbery for money or food.” Dump said somberly.

“You said this wasn’t the first occurrence of somebody getting cut up like that. I assume Connors was armed, he’s a bar owner, right?” Farley questioned, cocking one eye at him.

“Oh, he was always armed. He had his favorite pistols but you never could tell what he was carrying because he was kind of like a collector if you know what I mean. That’s another thing, Farley, there should be lots of different kinds of holsters, shotgun barrels, ammo pouches, butt packs, etc. around that place that’s not in the safe that we can gather up and salvage. Those are trade goods, they may not be what somebody wants but try and find you a leather worker these days.  Barnett as you know has been kind of setting himself up as a trading post, could be we find a little value in those types of items. We need us a safecracker is what we need, Farley. Or at least, somebody that’s got some kind of idea of going about getting into one of those things. I would take a cutting torch to the hinges but as far as I know that one is made so that doesn’t happen.” Dump said looking towards Farley who was studying the roads in the distance and wanting to get back to his makeshift tribe and inform them of his plans.

“I have no idea of how to get into one of those damn things, either, so as far as I’m concerned that’s what going to be classified as a ‘never’. I’m never going to get to it so I’m not going to worry about it and neither should you. Those guns are gone as far as we’re concerned. Now if he has as much money and as many guns as you’re talking about, I’m sure he’s got guns stashed in every room of that place. You got as many guns as you got rooms and I can guarantee you they aren’t locked up. Which brings us back to a new consideration that I’ve been thinking about, this little snatch and grab you got me going on?” Farley said pausing.

“And that is what, Farley?” Dump said narrowing his eyes.

“Well look at it this way, normally if somebody says let’s go rob something it’s share fifty-fifty or whatever. We aren’t exactly going to rob nobody and I figure you got full rights to whatever is there but the question remains is that you’re asking me to put my life on the line for a $350 shotgun and you’re going to be loading up on thousands of dollars worth of guns and gear as well as food, and in my calculations that just doesn’t seem fair for me to put my life on the line for.” Farley said taking the fun of what was once a lark and a drunken deal to what was now a more sobered and studied appraisal of the situation.

“Farley, if you don’t want to go just say so, I don’t know you from Adam as you say but I’m damn sure not giving you fifty percent just for you hauling it around in your van. Now, I can see how you’d be wanting a better deal than I offered you and I can make it up to you but I ain`t giving you half!” Dump said adamantly.

“Don’t get me wrong I wasn’t asking for fifty-fifty, I was just saying you got to sweeten the pot a little bit and seeing there’ll be extra ammo and whatever available, that means I might be wanting part of that.” Farley said countering.

“I have no problem gifting you an extra gun or maybe two and a bit of ammo to go with them, but keep in mind, Farley, if I wasn’t sitting here buzzed I could go round up half the county but you’re sitting here with me convenient at the moment.” Dump said with a sneer.

“Hell, I’d be proud and happy if I had an extra pistol and some ammo.” Farley said extending his hand.

“You got it, brother.” Dump said amenably then shook his hand and scared the shit out of him by grabbing him in a bear hug.

Once Farley got his breath back from the big heathen that just got done squishing him he got in his van and proceeded home to tell his tribe he’d be back in a day or so.

Farley wanted him a new toy.

Photo c. Patricia Ann Lambert 2015

10

The Departure

Farley pulled into the back gate and unlocked what was as far as he was concerned, the last functioning lock on this place. Note to self: find usable padlocks, Farley said to himself with a grin that his set of bump keys made anything he could find ineffective to normal folks depending on that type of security. Locks were only made to keep honest people honest, Farley thought. What is honest these days? What’s the new definition of that? And how in the hell was he going to explain to Becky and Mr. Wu that he was going off with a biker to collect a murdered man’s supplies.

Farley looked over on the side of the road and saw of all things an armadillo “hot damn- possum on the half-shell”! Those dang things had finally made their way all the way up here from Texas. What most people don’t realize is documented and looked upon as truth or fallacy that there was evidence or conjecture that they carried leprosy or not. Folks been eating them those armor plated things for years but if there’s one thing nobody wants it’s that dreaded disease and Farley wished he had the internet to ask those questions but it was a foregone conclusion in this world. No, its knowledge that you carry in your head or an old paperback book on the shelf that would determine a man’s fate from here on out, Farley mused. Things like how much to plant, how to handle insect problems, first aid for unknown ills, what roots, berries and leaves were medicinal and how to identify them was all contained in a non-electronic world of voices gone past. The latest greatest knowledge that so many of us were dependant on stored at the touch of a finger was past now, only those individuals with access to old paper books and what they carried in their heads was useful now. Memories would dim, books would be lost and would this survival knowledge ever be recovered or remembered in these post-apocalyptic times? No one man is an island or a rock, as Farley well knew.

Farley unloaded at Charlie’s house with all the repercussions and scolding Farley predicted and all he said was ‘It’s all right’ before he started to explain that he had to go do something that they weren’t going to approve of but he didn’t have much time to go explaining about. He was kind of gruff and condescending and after he saw the words would have no meaning for them, wished them well and left to go on his mission with sayings that would be ok and they would remember the crap that he had taught them.

“What’s up, Dump? I’m back! You ready to go?” Farley said as he pulled in front of the horseshoe bar seeing Dump sitting on his hog like he was ready to leave out before Farley got back.

“I was considering looking for you but I didn’t know which way you were going, so let’s do this!”

“You want another beer?” Dump asked.

“Does a dog have fleas?” Farley said reaching for one.

“Let’s do it!” Dump replied.

Farley followed Dump on the cycle for about eight miles of country road before arriving at a red dirt hill going up to Connor’s place. Dump set his motorcycle helmet on top of his seat and grinned at Farley and said “Hey, look! That gate’s only about a hundred yards from us. Let’s walk up there first and see if it’s been messed with or not before we drive the van up.”

Farley said ‘Fine” and then advised Dump to get on the far side of the road and they’d go up that way and see if the gate had been breached or not. After careful walking and listening, they approached the gate and saw that it had not been broken into and gave each other a high five that the road appeared to be clear.

“Go back and get the van; matter of fact, you walk your ass back there and get the van and I’ll have the gate open by time you get up here!” Dump said with a grin.

“Damn! Back to walking again, huh?” Farley said proceeding on his way before turning. “Hey Dump! You know this walking thing is something we’ve got to keep in mind. How much gas you got, man? The reason I’m asking is you probably get something like a hundred miles to a gallon of gas and I can’t even consider what a quarter of a tank is.” Farley considered.

“I’m sitting on about half full, are you sure you got enough to make it up and back?” Dump said questioningly not knowing Farley was sitting on damn near full.

“I got it, let’s do this!” Farley said resuming his way.

Dump and Farley drove up to the house and noting nothing was amiss as they presumed, set about looking over the goods in the house for future potential use after Truck used that key to get them in.

Farley was impressed that evidently his former boss had trusted him enough to supply him with the ‘keys to the kingdom’.

Farley’s idea of a gun in every room did not prove true although they searched high and low for whatever might possibly be there. They did end up with a couple firearms and the traditional ‘It’s a snake!’ gun at the back door but evidently most of the firearms and ammunition were under lock and key. The booze on the other hand in back of the well-stocked bar in the rumpus room was something that became a distraction and even though they were not supposed to be imbibing they decided to partake of a shot of Jack or two after the scowls were off their faces and the grins began again.

“Yo, Dump, does he have any boxes around here? Seems like its moving day, you know what I mean? I mean it would take me a liquor store of boxes to carry all this out with us!” Farley declared contemplating the amount of bottles behind the bar.

“That’s a damn good question! How in the hell are we going to carry all this shit out of here?” Dump asked.

“I don’t know, dump all the dressers out and use the drawers?” Farley questioned.

“Yeah, like your mini van could fit a chest of drawers in there!” Dump said studying the wealth they couldn’t take off with them.

“Screw the whiskey! Let’s go in the kitchen. How much food did he have or whatever? Whiskey is nice but I want some rice and beans, you know what I mean?” Farley said heading in that direction.

“I don’t know what he had.” Dump said, following him in to what looked like Old Mother Hubbard’s bare cupboards.

11

Planning The Birthday Bash

“Hey Farley, you got any ideas what we can give Miss Feng for her birthday? I was going to give her a fancy hair comb that I had with me, problem is I still like it for myself. Those boys came up with the greatest gift imaginable so far!” Becky said.

“Charlie asked me the same thing yesterday and I’ve been pondering on that question myself. We could give her some jewelry but she wouldn’t want it because she’d think I probably stole it from somewhere. Wait a minute now, I got it! Go find Charlie and bring him down here. We got to go in this together.” Farley said with a big grin.

“What is it? Tell me!” Becky implored.

“No, I am not telling you. Go find Charlie and come back here while I see what we can put together to make the gift while you’re gone. I haven’t done this in a while and I got to see if my old fading memory serves me.” Farley said smiling gleefully antagonizing Becky by not giving her any further hints.

“Damn it, Farley. Don’t be a pain in the ass. Come on now tell me what it is you have in mind!” Becky said reaching over to snuggle Farley and trying to con him into telling her by teasing and flirting at him.

“No, that’s not going to work! No cheating now! Go find Charlie and I’ll tell ya’ll what we got in mind.” Farley declared.

“Ok I’ll be back in a minute but this better be good after you putting me through all this misery! You sure you won’t tell me before I leave?” Becky said looking at him all puppy eyed.

“Now quit that and go get Charlie!” Farley chuckled giving her a hug back and sending her on her way.

Becky took her car instead of walking to go get Mr. Wu and Farley just shook his head at the waste of precious gas but it would have taken her at least 20 minutes to walk over there and twenty more to come back if she hadn’t taken her vehicle. Farley went back to his cabin and commenced to rummage around finding bits of this and bits of that to create what he thought might be one hum dinger of a birthday gift if he could manage to pull it off.

“Damn it, I got everything I need to get this thing done except some alligator clips! Now where the hell am I going to find me some alligator clips in these days and times? Hmmm, what can I use instead? Paper clips? That might work, I don’t know about the plating on them things, though. Darn that Miss Feng, I know I could get exactly what I want from that marina up the road, but my three weeks ain’t up yet. At least I had fun with Dump going through that house the other day and I can still remember Miss Feng’s face when she saw me carrying that pillowcase of goods I brought home with me saying “You bad Farley!” until I calmed that old woman down. I swear I’m going to ask Charlie one of these days if he’s sure or not if she wasn’t Viet Cong instead of being on our side! I best not start that shit!” Farley said chuckling to himself, trying to figure out what a replacement for alligator clips was.

Farley was still rummaging around in his stuff and staring at various odds and ends trying to figure out what he could use to complete the birthday present when Charlie and Becky drove up.

“OK, Farley, tell me your big damn secret now. I got Charlie with me. What is it you got in mind that we should give Miss Feng?” Becky asked as Farley smirked at her that he wasn’t going to tell her just yet, enjoying the moment.

“Come on, Farley, tell us what it is! Miss Feng is beside herself because she can’t come along she has an idea it has to do with her birthday and she’s going to be needling me as soon as I get home anyway. The longer it takes you telling me the more hell I got to pay when I get home!” Charlie said smiling at Farley to hurry up and spill the beans.

“Aw, come on now! It isn’t often I can create my own form of entertainment around here, are you up for a guessing game? I’ll give you a hint!” Farley said before two synchronized moans shouting “FARLEY!” encouraged him to quit bedeviling the pair.

“OK, I will tell you. This is a good one! I thought about this long and hard. You know that woman isn’t the easiest to buy for in the world and those boys came up with the gol-durndest idea I heard in a month of Sundays! So it’s pretty difficult to one up or compare to that idea. That’s pretty neat; I still can’t imagine how they came up with making an incubator out of a pizza warming display! Them two boys are some ingenious little critters!” Farley said, laughing.

“Damn it, Farley, you’re doing it again! Would you hurry up and just tell me what it is!” Becky said threatening him playfully with a table lamp next to him.

“OK, unhand that thing, Becky, and I will clue you all in on what it is.” Farley said, pointing at his bedspread that didn’t contain anything but a few wires, a jar, a transistor radio battery and what looked like a couple bits of silver wire.

“There it is! Isn’t it magnificent?” Farley said smirking.

“What in the hell do you think you are doing, Farley? Tell us what it is and quit toying with us. I told you that old woman was beside herself with curiosity and anger she couldn’t come along and I need to be getting back there before she blows a fuse!” Charlie said.

“Well I did tell you! We’re going to give her health and wealth for her birthday! But I’m missing some parts.” Farley declared.

“You going to be missing some of your own parts if you don’t explain what that pile of junk is all about!” Becky said, tired of Farley’s aggravating toying with them.

“We’re going to make her a colloidal silver generator! Why those things are about as useful as can be right now. It’s a business, it cures what ails you, she can dose the boys with it and it doesn’t taste bad and it will keep her busy and out of our hair!” Farley said still smirking.

“Now what in the hell is a colloidal silver generator? You aren’t just making that up to screw me more are you?” Becky asked eying the pile of junk next to Farley.

“Now calm down, this is for real. I ain’t making up anything, Becky. Silver is a cure all, don’t you know?” Farley began before Becky informed him she had her own cure for his meanness that he seemed to be relishing way too much in explaining whatever goofy idea he seemed to be taking his dear sweet time getting around to explaining.

“See, back in the day folks used to take a silver dollar and drop it in the milk jug to keep it from spoiling. Now hear me out, I ain’t bullshitting you, that actually works! See, silver in scientific studies was proven to kill, I think it was, over twenty six hundred germs on contact and no, I’m not talking about ones that come off of vampires or werewolves. I believe it was back in the 1930’s that modern medicine of that time came up with this cure all for man’s ills, but it was just too expensive back then for most people to be able to afford because the processes and technologies back then were just too complex to produce it easily. That’s the funny thing, they got all those cancer drugs and stuff nowadays that cost thousands and it’s not even comparable today. Now bear with me, Becky, I’ll get back to it now. The process today to make this magical elixir that I’m going to explain to you in a minute, and you hang in there too, Charlie, is simplicity itself! Now hear me out. You both know what electroplating is, right? Like for cheap costume jewelry, etc., well this works sort of the same way. If you want to plate a piece of metal with silver or gold or whatever, you hook a pure piece of precious metal to electricity and put a coating on the base metal. When you do this kind of process, you are transmuting the molecules of the precious metal through a medium like water and bonding them to another agent. Now when you leave those molecules suspended in the water and they got no where else to go we call that a colloidal medium. When you look at the water that you’ve done that to, it looks like regular water, you cannot tell that the bits of precious metal are suspended in that solution but they are there. Did you know that silver is the brightest of all metals? Now Biblically speaking or supernaturally talking, we know that light has been said to chase away evil. The silver has the properties of being able to reflect or absorb light and we know from our elementary science that light in it’s various forms is known to kill germs. Now I’m not saying that we are creating light we are merely turning this into another form. Colloidal silver can be ingested or topically applied to do many miraculous things. For example, you might not know this and I’ll be damned if I don’t know why it took modern science so long to catch up with what we already knew to be something as beneficial to the body as the discovery of penicillin was. For example, have you noticed now you can get bandages such as Band-Aids that have silver on them? And because the stupid doctors over- prescribed antibiotics and created superbugs that the chairs and sofas and such in hospitals now contain silver-impregnated fabrics so as to not pass on diseases by mere contact. The military even picked up on this and all your underwear and socks and such now contain either silver fibers or are electrostatically charged with silver to reduce microbes that can either infect you like foot disorders or it’s just there so you don’t smell like a goat after wearing them for a week or two.” Farley said clapping his hands together and saying “Hot Damn! Health and wealth! Do you get it?” to his now enchanted audience.

“Now what in the hell does them few bits of wires and those batteries have to do with the present? Hey, did you get those batteries out of the smoke detectors? I know you said the process is like electroplating but you also said it was a very difficult and expensive process and that’s why in the 1930’s it didn’t become popular. Where does the rest of this Frankenstein machine exist at that you said you were missing the part for?” Charlie asked.

“This isn’t another excuse of yours for us to let you go out pillaging is it, Farley?” Becky asked skeptically.

“No, it’s all right there, that’s it! All I got to do is find a better way of connecting those wires to those silver leads. Of course, I could just wrap the wires around the silver and be done with it but since it’s a birthday present I wanted to make it nice, pretty and easy. I need me some little alligator clips. I see ya’ll are still looking at me skeptically. I didn’t just invent this; this is true medicine that has been known for ages. Do you know why we call royalty ‘Blue Bloods’? That’s because this type of medicine and knowledge was only reserved for the rich and wealthy all the way back to the Middle Ages. Now before I finish the rest of my story, let me tell you this first. In normal usage, colloidal silver has no side effects but if you abuse it and overdose on it like some of those folks did back then, your skin will take on a grayish or bluish hue and you’ll look like a Smurf! But that effect only becomes apparent when you mega dose that over a long period of time.” Farley said fiddling with the bit of wire like it was the most important thing in the world to tell somebody and his disbelieving audience looked up at him like they were still waiting for the punch line.

“I see ya’ll still disbelievers, huh? I got in my preps my own commercially made version of what we’re doing and it’s the same damn thing that we are making except it don’t have a pretty box already made up for it.” Farley said reaching over to display his own unit for creating the best medicine he knew in a grid down apocalyptic world.

“Look here, here’s the directions come with the thing and a listing of the many studies and benefits of this thing so ya’ll will quit being such doubting Thomases.” Farley said as he handed them the directions.

Becky and Charlie examined Farley’s commercial silver colloidal maker and read over the paperwork describing it’s many benefits and both of them started grinning about how Farley actually had come up with such a wonderful present of health and wealth for Miss Feng.

“Now that’s cool as hell, Farley! You ought to give it to her. you came up with it!” Becky said somewhat deflated at the notion she couldn’t share in the giving because after all it was Farley’s thoughts.

“Becky, you got to contribute to this and you are going to have to give up something here that I happened to notice you have. You know that cobalt blue bottle dropper of Patchouli perfume you got around? Silver needs to be stored long term in something like peroxide does that doesn’t get light but isn’t that weird though? Silver is the most conductive and reflective material known to man to reflect or collect light but to keep the suspended particles in a water solution it needs to be hidden from light. You need to pour whatever is in that bottle in something else and wash it out good, and add your special gift that can no longer be found, to the present.” Farley said elevating her spirits.

“Now Charlie, as for your special addition to it, all you have to do is hand it to her and tell her that you are bestowing health and wealth upon her or if you want to you can take these various parts and pieces and find a special container to put them in. Now back to me wanting alligator clips. Can I go to the marina?” Farley asked with a wry smile.

“You are a dog, Farley! A sweet dog but a damn conniving one! And I suppose if we give you permission to go, you’ll be absconding with your stuff too, it isn’t just going to be parts for the birthday!” Charlie said with a smile.

“You aren’t going to that damn marina, Farley! I know if you came up with this idea you ought to be able to come up with another idea of something to use that you could find around here that don’t require your pilfering ways!” Becky admonished.

“I tell you what we ought to do now, she’ll have a conniption fit but since it’s her birthday and it’s a present she won’t voice it very loudly at first. What we ought to do is once you decide, Charlie, what you are going to put the makings of that silver generator in, we’ll put it inside of a tackle box and wrap it all up! She’ll think we’re giving her fishing tackle and won’t know what to do at first.” Farley said with a grin.

“I have been thinking about what kind of box to put that stuff in; she isn’t going to know what the hell it is anyway until we tell her. I suppose I could make one for her out of an old desk drawer or something but other than that I don’t have too many ideas.” Charlie said looking to Farley and Becky for any suggestions.

The trio pondered that question for a moment and then Becky came up with the perfect solution.

“I saw at the check in desk a brass unicorn box they were using for stamps. Why don’t you put it in that one and polish it up real nice for her? But we don’t have any wrapping paper, Farley, how are we going to fix that?” Becky asked.

“Oh I got that! I saw a Home and Garden magazine with lots of flowers and stuff in it; wrap it up in that and it’ll be pretty and functioning.” Farley stated happily.

“Hell yeah!” Charlie said giving Farley a high five as Becky gave him a hug for coming up with such a stupendous idea.

“Oh shit! Here comes the wicked witch from the West!” Charlie said looking out the window at the approaching golf cart. “I guess her patience has run out!”

“I told you! Let me go head her off and tell her that me and you ain’t over here just drinking beer or having a party that she wasn’t invited to. But I’m surprised she decided to head this way so soon.” Charlie said as he proceeded to walk out the door to Farley and Becky’s giggling about him being put on the spot.

“Lizards! There’s lizards in house! You got to come, Charlie, catch him!” Miss Feng said eying Farley like he was probably the one that set it loose.

“Why you got to come all the way down here to tell me that? You could have got one of the boys to get it!” Charlie said wondering if it was just a ruse to get her down here to see what they were up to.

“Where them boys at anyway? Everybody secret secret around here these days. No worry about Miss Feng got Godzilla lizard in her kitchen!” She declared.

“Yeah, where are those two little heathens, anyway?” Farley asked, thinking about it.

“They’re probably down there at the fishing pier.” Becky said knowing that they were busily watching their egg incubator to see if any chicks popped out and not heeding her advice about a watched pot never boils.

“Farley, you go find boys. Tell Fong it lunch time! And I no have me water for toilet and I need now!” Miss Feng said.

“Why me?” Farley questioned before thinking ‘oh hell, it beat staying around here anyway’ and headed out the door.

“I want to talk to you, too. Farley being dinky dau again and I worry about. You know what he do? And don’t you laugh, Becky. I saw him running around other day with you bra on his head singing Mickey Mouse or something! But I worry. He no stay in house when everybody else go to bed. He creep around at night. What he do, Becky?” Feng asked.

“What do you mean he do? You know him, he disappears sometimes.” Becky said, not adding that it was usually because Feng or her was fussing at him.

“I get up middle of the night go take pee and damn Farley I see sneaking down the road. What he do Becky? He supposed to be in bed, be asleep and not being bad Farley.” Miss Feng asked questioning.

Charlie looked over at Becky with a look of bewilderment not having heard about Farley’s alleged night jaunts.

“Miss Feng, I don’t know. He goes back to his cabin and says he’s going to bed. I see the light on in his cabin and he says he’s listening to the radio and going through his stuff but I didn’t know he left his cabin.” Becky said now concerned about what Farley was up to.

“I see him with Jeremy one night when the moon was high, both sneaking around when sane folks in bed! You ask boy what Farley do.” Miss Feng declared looking around to see if she could catch sight of the boys or Farley supposedly looking for them.

“Wait a minute now! Farley was sneaking around after midnight with my son? Why that little goomer. I’m going to have to have a talk with him! What do you think they were doing, Charlie? You think he was checking fish lines or traps at that odd hour and if he was, why was Jeremy sneaking out and not telling me?” Becky declared adding an extra check mark to Farley’s misdeed shit list.

“I got no idea! He ain’t said nothing to me. This is the first I heard of it. You reckon Fong is in on it too?” Charlie asked contemplating why Farley might be sneaking around let alone involving Becky’s boy Jeremy in whatever he was doing.

“No, me check, Fong in bed like good boy, asleep. Only crazy Farley wandering around when sane folks in bed!” Miss Feng said eying Becky like she knew something she wasn’t saying.

“Don’t be mad at me, Feng! I didn’t even know Jeremy snuck out before let alone with Farley! You know Farley sneaks off and drinks sometimes by himself but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t do that with my boy around.” Becky said more confused than ever.

“I guess I need to go talk to that man, this sounds kind of serious. I know he isn’t doing anything too terribly wrong but I damn sure want to know what it is that he is doing!” Charlie said starting to rise and go find him.

Charlie walked down the road after thinking about taking Miss Feng’s golf cart but he knew better than that and left the ladies to contemplate and speculate on Farley’s evil ways. Now the major question was where is that son of a bitch at and where were the boys at? He kind of guessed that they were over by the maintenance shed where Feng’s chicken incubator was hidden at until her birthday so he proceeded in that direction.

“Dammit! What in the hell could Farley possibly be doing sneaking around at night? Now if he was off pilfering like he wasn’t supposed to be, he damn sure wouldn’t be walking the camp trails at night, let alone be bringing Jeremy along with him. And if he wasn’t checking fish lines or traps, what else could he be doing?” Charlie said to himself quite vexed by the situation.

Charlie approached the amphitheatre to take the shortcut trail to the utility shed and was rewarded with the sound of giggling boys. Farley was evidently regaling them with one of his wild tales and Charlie approached around the back path to get there so as to not be so apparent in his approach. He liked Farley and he knew he was a pretty good soul normally, still in all he reminded himself, it was still a Farley and he wanted to know just what in the hell they were up to. As he approached by the side trail to the meeting place this camp had for celebrations and such, his nostrils caught the smell of wood smoke and something else kind of acrid.

“What the hell is that smell? I have told them boys the only fires that were allowed were the cook fires. Farley didn’t have time enough to start a fire to smoke any meat or anything and why in the hell would he be doing it back here, and for that matter what in the hell was it he was smoking? He already told me he wasn’t studying eating no skunk.”

As Charlie eased himself around a bush to get a better look and sneak up on the boys and Farley, he saw an unwelcome sight.

That son of a bitch has got him a moonshine still! And he’s got the damn boys helping him with it!

“Farley, you son of a bitch! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Charlie hollered while walking out into the clearing as Farley and the boys turned to look at him with ‘oh Hell, we’re dead’ looks on their faces.

“We’re making turpentine.” Farley tried to say before he noticed that Charlie wasn’t going to buy that. Jeremy gave it a try and said “Actually we’re making ethanol for the cars to run on when the gas runs out.” Fong on the other hand knew better than to even try to lie to his uncle and just sort of tried to stay quiet.

“Don’t give me that shit! I done saw you, Farley, drinking some of that damn brew you’re supposed to not be making! I can’t believe that you got them two young boys over here helping you run a damn still!” Charlie said like it was the end of the world as he knew it.

“It don’t taste too bad, you want to give it a try?” was all Farley could say and poked a dipper in Charlie’s direction.

“Aw hell, I’ll try it but what in the hell am I supposed to say you been up to? The girls sent me after you. You are caught by the way, Farley! Miss Feng saw you and Jeremy sneaking down the trail the other night and you got her to answer to, my friend!” Charlie said as the ‘oh shit!’ looks on everybody’s faces sunk down to a state of affairs that it was time for Farley to go to the woods again and could they come with him!

Charlie sipped out of the dipperful that Farley shoved in his direction while he was trying to regain his composure and figure out how he was going to get out of this situation with kid gloves and tried a new bent on explaining themselves.

“OK Charlie, you are a man of the world and you have been a soldier once or twice to trading with civilians on foreign bases and you know the value of this crap! I needed me something a little extra to trade since you won’t let me go out and look around folks houses for extra goods. So with a little bit of ingenuity and, how do I say this, you’re out of sugar now, I came up with a solution! These boys here got kind of sneaky and curious and wanted to find out what it was that I was doing hauling them sacks of sugar out of your kitchen and followed me one day. They said they were going to turn me in if I didn’t let them participate in helping run this still! So now you got me! I don’t let them drink by the way; I think I do that enough for everybody around here. But I have been teaching them a science lesson of sorts in the basics of chemistry and distillation. Do you think that might let me out of this hard corner you got me in?” Farley asked with a grin.

“No, I think you dug that hole about as deep as you can bury yourself in with this one. You done some shit, Farley, but this stunt takes the cake! There is no way in hell I think you can excavate yourself out of this! Miss Feng has already got it in for you with your partying ways and getting her nephew to help you is sure to put your neck in the noose now along with Becky going to give you hell!” Charley wheezed, shaking his head and trying to get his breath back from that rotgut liquor that Farley had somehow managed to produce.

“Those two damn little heathens blackmailed me! You know when we’re having problems with weapons and stuff we could have made Molotov cocktails for something, anything to be able to fight back with. I came up with a new old way to solve the problem for barter material. White lightning is top shelf trading material, you know.  That and I like the taste of it.” Farley said, backing like a boxer getting on his bicycle to move around the ring in order to avoid his opponent.

“That rope a dope shit isn’t going to work on me, Farley! It isn’t going to work on them, either. You done put yourself in the stew pot and I don’t know how you’re going to get out of there without getting scalded!” Charlie said fuming and taking another sip from the ladle.

“How did you build this damn thing anyway?” Charlie questioned.

“Oh, little bit of this and a little bit of that. I wasn’t going to have the boys out here at all at first but like I said they got me. Hey, check this out, Fong repel borders!” Farley said as Fong went over and got a Palmolive bottle full of his elixir and a lighter and shot a twelve foot flamethrower stream of fire towards the lake. “How’s that for a defensive weapon?” Farley said trying to undo the mess he had created.

“Damn, that’s even worse, now you got them playing with flammables and explosive liquids!”

“Well, can we tell them I thought about going into the tincture business? You know botanicals and herbs and that I needed something resembling vodka to do it with?” Farley said grasping at straws.

“No, I don’t think that will work too well. You done turned their two little darlings into moonshiners and they aren’t ever going to forgive you for that, Farley!” Charlie declared.

“But he doesn’t let us drink it!” Jeremy squeaked.

“Damn right he don’t and it’s a good thing too! I catch you drinking that crap you are going to find out what a mean grandpa is all about!” Charlie said dismissing the boy as Fong put his hands up like he was surrendering from being caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

“Houston! We got us a problem! Man, I can’t see any way out of this damn situation except that nobody needs to say a word about this situation! How about that, Charlie?” Farley said exasperated.

“That won’t work, either. You’re caught, son. You know that old woman of mine! Man, I guarantee you she’s going to get it out of me eventually or she’s going to saddle up and corral one of the boys and get it out of them and I am not getting in Dutch all the time for crap you come up with, Farley!” Charlie said not wanting any part of Farley’s lack of judgment.

“Ok, I got it: you know if I mix this stuff with gasoline 50/50 we can run your generators and the cars a lot longer. That’s transport, refrigeration, battery charging, etc. I am going to give to Miss Feng 25 gallons for her birthday. She can use it to trade, make tinctures with or mix with gas to run the generator and I will hook a hot water heater to it so she can have a warm bath.” Farley said, looking like he was going to get a bit tipsy by nervously sipping on his recipe for inspiration as he tried to come up with a story.

Charlie regarded him for a moment looking at Farley’s sly grin of achieving a “Eureka moment” before busting out laughing and declaring, “Farley you got balls like a big brass monkey and some of the damndest, weirdest ways I ever seen about getting out of trouble but that offer of a hot bath once in awhile might just work. Congratulations, boy, you have achieved the impossible!” Charlie said as the boys whooped up this getting the hell out of the frying pan and the fire moment.

“That story might work for Miss Feng. If I tell her, your good intentions might not get lost in the translation but I don’t think Becky will buy it and will probably see right through you. That woman studies you by the way, Farley. I see her looking for hidden meanings in what you say or admiring you when you do right. You better have all your ducks in a row and a straight face if you are going to pull that one off. Did it for Miss Feng! Ha! That is funnier than hell and what’s worse is that you might very well get away with it! I better heed my own advice and not bust out laughing when I hear you trying to tell it to her. Boys, if you get caught up in this grandiose bending of words, you best say that you didn’t understand what was going on because your butts are on the line also.” Charlie said with new admiration for the man to fabricate such a tale to save his ass that somehow seemed to end up being believable. The only problem was he wasn’t sure if everyone could carry it off with out letting the cat out of the bag.

“OK, we got to act like this stuff is poison and not fit for human consumption. It needs to sound like you will die by just getting it on you at a certain stage if you’re not protected so they won’t think about us possibly consuming it.” Farley said polishing the apple for sale.

“That is going to get you in a world of trouble, Farley, you need to rethink that. You putting those two young boys in danger is bound to be going to cause you a world of grief worse than having them help you make a batch of moonshine.” Charlie cautioned.

“Wise words, buddy. You got any suggestions then?” Farley said revaluating the situation.

“Well, you could allude to just adding food coloring to it like you did about making something appear to being agricultural gas for trade that they understood.” Charlie ventured.

“Yea, I could say something about if you add it to shaved ivory soap you get napalm or something or other but they would be back on my case again.  Guess the main thing is I don’t get caught drinking it and you neither, Charlie, or them two song birds are going to try to peck our eyes out. Hey, they don’t know shit from shinola when it comes to different forms of alcohol. We can tell them this stuff is like rubbing alcohol that everybody knows you can’t drink and that they are dumb to even accuse us of such!” Farley said loving it when a plan came together.

“You just ain’t right, Farley, that’s one devious mind you got working for ya.” Charlie guffawed and shook his hand.

“You know what’s a bitch, Farley, after you give it to her for her birthday, she’s going to send Fong down to help you make it and if he don’t she’s going to fuss at him to get going!” Charlie laughed.

“I could also put a small amount of it in a solar hot water heater I been thinking about so it won’t freeze this winter.” Farley said coming up with a further use.

“I love it when a plan comes together! Hey, Jeremy, you going to make sure Fong gets up and helps us run the still?” Farley said.

“Boy, I heard some whoppers in my day, but Farley, I don’t know about you!” Jeremy said slapping his buddy Fong on the back that now he was going to have to get out there and carry the load and thump the still and tend fires instead of him sneaking out in the middle of the night.

Charlie said “Farley, I still am not over how actually funny this might turn out. You painted your damn self in a corner and the only one looking like they may be a pole cat would be Miss Feng if she don’t accept your present! This is going to be one hell of a birthday party! Too bad we can’t drink some of this shine to celebrate it!” Charlie said, grinning at Farley.

“Who said we can’t? How are they going to know any damn difference with what I spiked the punch with. They already know I’m going to do or try something like that anyway. Don’t drink the fruit punch, by the way boys.” Farley said, messing with his moonshine helpers.

“Farley, you are what my old school teacher used to call a scoundrel!” Charlie said.

“Yea, but I’m a damn good one!” Farley said chuckling.

“Now then, you boys blackmailed the hell out of me to let you help out in this little endeavor and you nearly got me fried so guess what I got on you now? If I hear one word spoken about this stuff, I’m gonna go off and get amnesia and leave you with the ruckus you created.” Farley said, patting Jeremy on the head just to piss him off because the boy hated that and Farley knew that just to aggravate his new charges once in a while.

Charlie laughed seeing the boys’ response as he reached over and did the same thing to Fong saying “I got ya!”

.

“Now the shoe’s on the other foot isn’t it, you little hobgoblins!” Farley said as the two boys looked at each other and went ‘Uhhhh” as they realized Farley wasn’t going to let them get away with putting it over on him.

“Hey, Jeremy, you know next time I need water from the lake to fill up my toilet we got us a new word I’m going to whisper to you, you know what that word is? Moonshine!” Farley said while contemplating a new way to mess with the younger generation.

“Works both ways, Farley! Don’t you start nothing! Next time you want to come over to the house and act all innocent and tell me to go to bed, I’m going to tell you the same!” Jeremy said.

“OK, truce then! We know nothing, we say nothing, ain’t that right, guys?” Farley said as they all a round of high fives.

The motley crew gathered up and put the fire out on the still and headed for home and tried to put on happy faces to go see the Feng.

“Where you been? What you do?” Miss Feng questioned as she inspected her nephew for cuts and bruises and wondered why Farley seemed to be suppressing a grin.

“Now, Mama, they were just down there skipping rocks on the lake, doing what boys do. We just hung around awhile and checked on the smokehouse” Charlie began before Becky started questioning Farley on the same subject.

“You been up to something, you are smirking about something, Farley! What are you smiling about?” Becky asked.

“Nothing much we were just talking about all the surprise things we have for Miss Feng’s birthday. Aren’t you a darlin’.” Farley said patting the diminutive woman on the head to piss her off just because he could.

“I tell you, Farley; no pat me on the head! Big tall ugly Farley! Why you pat me on the head? I no like.” Miss Feng said pushing him away.

“Because you so cute!” Farley said leaning to give her a kiss on the cheek and then going ‘oh hell’ as he noticed her eyes narrowing as she smelled his breath.

“I don’t understand you, Farley. You walk outdoors sober and you come back stinking! You been drinking with my boy?” Feng said hands on her hips.

Becky reached over at Farley and grabbed his shirttail and said “What the hell? You have only been gone an hour! Where did you find something to sip on this early in the day?” Becky said in anger just to be on the side of Miss Feng, Farley’s favorite nemesis.

“Now that’s a hell of a thing. I get run off walking a mile or so to round up the boys and some woman wants to spank me because I forgot I had a few of them itty bitty miniatures like you used to get on the airplane in my vest pocket that I forgot that I had left over from one of the Prepperstock’s I had attended. I showed it to Charlie and we both went what the hell does cinnamon flavored rum taste like and it was just the one, so we gave it a try.” Farley said trying to appear sober.

“Yeah, right, how many did you actually have?” Becky asked and Miss Feng looked at Mr. Wu considering the same.

“Now sweeties, don’t be fussing today, we just had us a little wandering and pondering. The boys are here and we’re all safe and it’s Miss Feng’s birthday party in a few days so we are allowed a few secrets we don’t want to discuss! And we were just having us a conversation about how this lovely day should be spent.” Farley said.

Charlie who was the far more sober of the two for the moment saw the opportunity to save Farley’s ass and said, “We thought that you shouldn’t do any cooking for your birthday at all and we were just going over the menu.”

“It smells like brandied cherries were on the menu.” Becky said before going ‘oh hell, don’t say anything about booze around Miss Feng’.

The boys decided they needed to help out on this little bit of conversation here and told everyone that they had set out extra lines to try to get a great big blue catfish for the menu because Miss Feng seemed to like that kind of fish better than whatever else lived in the lake.

Miss Feng chattered and stuttered and said in her beloved broken English what wonderful boys they were to consider such and Farley and Charlie, in spite of themselves, could not stop grinning at each other. They did however, look over at the boys to tell them not to lay it on too thick or they would surely get caught and the conversation moved on to the here and now and more important things.

12

Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep Will Scatter

You become the monster you fear the worst, so the monster won't overtake you.”

Suzanne Weyn, The Bar Code Tattoo

Becoming what he feared the most was what Farley feared most. A gun prepper gone looting is the same as a desperate unprepared marauder. For many preppers before the collapse their solution to helping themselves after a disaster somehow fixated on guns and ammo. They got more prepared to shoot someone rather than prep more food or learn more about self sufficiency.

The will to succeed is important, but what's more important is the will to prepare.

-Bobby Knight

That there were now plenty of armed people in the world looting to survive he had no doubt. The monsters he feared were good people gone bad, bad people gotten worse, preppers turned marauders. There is nothing more primal than a hungry man seeking food; actually there is nothing more primal than a hungry man with a child and a wife.

He does not care about laws, rules, the prepper community or anything similar.

He has simple tasks that he will try to do at all costs, to feed his kid, his wife and himself, to have safety. Does he obey the invisible rules? No, in most cases he will not. Who would just go into the forest to die because it is not appropriate to cause problems for your neighbor or because they were a fellow prepper?

If you looked at Farley for the last few months you would not find desperation, but determination, will and hope, but he felt himself changing. It was happening and Farley needed to deal with it, he was becoming the enemies he feared because he feared they would fear him and shoot him as one of them, the enemy.

That Farley would be fearless in trying to protect everyone they had no doubts, that this testosterone fueled trait of his would cause both them and him grief was pause for conjecture as he seemed to like to wave caution to the wind and want to do stuff on his own that needed reeling in from time to time.

If Farley got mad about something he was wont to go out and try to take care of it himself, he made it apparent he didn’t think you would be of any help to him and most likely get him killed and yell at you to stay in your place. Such outbursts usually came after he was taken to task for undue risks that could affect them all and if his begrudging explanation and apology was not readily received he would get mad and go demonstrate some kind of bullshit macho getting his pride and his honor confused schoolboy resistance to the notion by standing in front of trouble when he shouldn’t.

When you want a thing done, 'Don't do it yourself' is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

Robert Baden-Powell

Take for example the last time he had stormed off and said I am going looting or whatever you want to call it whether you all like it or not and grabbed nothing but his gun and survival vest and disappeared for two days.

The women worried, the boys cried and everyone started thinking the poor old bastard had died before Farley’s drunk ass had come wandering in about 10 o clock one evening with a bag of can goods he wouldn’t fess up to where he got them from and a deer haunch that came with a harrowing tale true or not of how that was all the meat he could salvage from the situation he regaled them with before passing out with a grin.

That the apocalypse was working on Farley’s mind was evident to everyone. You could catch glimpses of him in the early morning hours practicing hand to hand fighting with open palms and knife when he thought nobody was looking. He had accidentally drawn his small blade on young Fong and he said when Farley did it he looked into the face of the devil himself when he accidentally surprised him trying to figure out what kind of animal was robbing his traps.

Farley said he had seen a black bear in his trap line running but not to worry because the creatures were normally more scared of man than we were of them but thought a bobcat had declared our reservation as his hunting territory and that Farley thought it was necessary to drop everything and go try to kill it because it would reduce our hunting chances.

Charlie and Miss Feng saw the black bear Farley said was in their area one day when he was out on trap line. Farley’s trap line was 5 miles in a circle around them and you never knew if he would be home for breakfast or dinner or not because Farley in their opinion would whine he couldn’t make it back to camp, he was too tired etc after servicing the route. That he found occasional booze in a house close by and had a party to his own self was no longer talked about.

Farley provided, Farley was the strength of the group; Farley carried the weight on his shoulders of this entire clan and left his goods behind when he went out foraging.

The group was tighter than it had ever been before, Fong taught Judo to his new nemesis brother Jeremy. Miss Feng and Becky did dishes, cooked, cleaned and looked out for the boys, fished and guarded. Charlie took on a grandfather’s role as well as master of this former Air Force resort while Farley did what Farley’s do and stamped everyone’s name on the land.

Farley just wasn’t happy unless he was trying to out do himself explaining a security or survival trick in order to prove a point. If nobody seemed to be listening he got depressed and considered himself taken for granted with complaints or arguments for them to try to do or listen better before he quickly got over it and was back to joking around. Because it was known by all that Farley had at one time served as an enlisted man in the military, the thing that got him most in trouble was when he hollered at them about their own safety and security they felt justified in telling him that neither they nor he was in the military and for him to address them differently.

Well in his mind he already had been patient and as far as he was concerned he was treating them with kid gloves at first by not giving them near the hell he remembered receiving or giving instructions while training troops for battle or just learning  a job that has serious consequences if one makes mistakes. Farley was getting better though at modulating his tone or way of saying things and they were learning he didn’t really mean anything by being gruff, it was just his way of getting points across and not directed at them personally.

“I never look at the masses as my responsibility. I look at the individual. I can love only one person at a time. I can feed only one person at a time. Just one, one, one.” Mother Teresa

Charlie had a single shot 12 gauge Farley had manage to abscond with somewhere and a handful of ammo, the kids were trained in the better aspects of cheating like hell to catch a fish, small game or how to eat somebody’s cat or dog if you had too which didn’t go over well with their parents and Farley had banished himself to the solitude of the woods once more.

“Starvation, not sin, is the parent of modern crime”

Oscar Wilde

“Give him some time.” Miss Feng said regarding Farley and all of their conjectures of this strange man’s attitudes to having to go out daily for their survival versus hanging around doing chores in camp.

“We don’t speak this way very often but I thought about that and we actually had that discussion once when he conned me into going skinny dipping with him. All he wants is being hugged on like he is a good dog or something and that’s weird to me. He has a lot of ghosts bothering him if you know what I mean. It’s like hug him and pat him and he will go to sleep like a baby, next minute he wants to protect, he is up and around 24-7 and waiting to defend us, very confusing man.” Becky said.

“He is just acting like an old soldier, he tries, and he really is the only outsider here because we have our own thoughts or family to depend on and he spends long periods alone. He asked us to take him in, we try, he tries but there is a wall I think he builds around himself so he doesn’t hurt.” Charlie said sagely.

“I think he is dinky dou” Miss Feng said referring to the Vietnamese word for crazy.

“I think he is gotten very tired and just don’t know what to do anymore.” Charlie said.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” Mother Teresa

“I think I came home too soon, we got more problems than me!” Farley said exiting the woods on their late night campfire,

“Holy shit Farley I told you don’t do that!” Jeremy said to his sudden appearance sneaking up on the group.

“You no good sneaky man, glad you home but you bad!” Miss Feng said before rushing to his side noticing blood on his brow and vest.

“Ah you old Momma San I am fine. Quit petting and patting me.” Farley groused as everyone started worrying about the blood he had all over him.

“I was going to jump in the lake before coming home to you all and clean up some but this brandy I found is not so dandy when you’re too drunk to skewer a deer properly!” Farley said setting his weary bones down on a log next to their camp fire.

“Are you ok? What happened? Where you been?” Miss Feng asked began a host of other questions  before Farley got the point across what was on him was not his blood and look at the cool spear he had made!

“I tell you what I could have lived for a century and never had such a scare as I just had. I was bird-dogging a game trail to see where it went when low and behold a house in the woods presented itself.”Farley exclaimed.

“Why Farley you got to be no good leave steal all the time?” Miss Feng said evidently irked at him once more for his ghosting ways when they argued.

“Just listen to me for a minute and it will be all right folks, I told you I had to venture out farther each time as other people are out there hunting also.” Farley said happy to be home but disgusted that his tribe didn’t understand the difference in him only having an eight shot 22 rifle and a 380 pistol most of the time against every deer rifle, battle rifle or high capacity pistol carrier these days. He felt under gunned in someway but more outnumbered than anything else.

“I was out picking up traps, that’s not setting them, I spent a lot of time and energy setting them out the first go round in what I guessed were bad places and was moving them to another location trying to be more successful when I run up on this house in the woods that looked like a Taj Mahal to me. After sitting in the woods for an hour or so watching it I crept up on it to find out was it occupied or not and found guess what? People! About 6 that I know of, that thing is a hunting lodge of sorts I am guessing and the damn thing is occupied. I got spotted and ran.” Farley managed to deliver before the hell raising began.

“Shut up! Shut the hell up.” What’s done is done, I could have maybe hollered at them and parlayed but they run out like they were going to chase me down and shoot me.” Farley said before elaborating on a big a frame house he had found that just invited his bump key to try get into and he had got caught sneaking towards it.

“Yea I was going to play thief in the daylight but I had no idea anyone was at home.” Farley said explaining that he was approaching it sneakily and he was damn sure a thief, albeit a thief with a conscience.

“Anyway even if I had walked up on it hollering hello I don’t think it would of turned out good because those people didn’t look like they belonged there either. They had on a mixture of camo and regular clothes, and he figured whoever owned that property had plenty of money to well, look different and be dressed different in his thinking.

That this latest worrisome problem was brought to them by Farley because he wouldn’t leave places alone was diminished by the facts that the man could produce regardless of his somewhat obstinate temperament and declarations that he didn’t need them to survive on his own but they could see through this bluster. But Farley was changing; dancing with death was tiring. Doing the apocalypse shuffle was all he knew. How can we know the dancer from the dance?

“There is a monster in all of us.” Farley said.

“There is a monster in all of us.” The woods murmured back.

Dance till the stars come down from the rafters

Dance, Dance, Dance till you drop.

~W.H. Auden

THE END BOOK TWO OLD PREPPERS DIE HARD

Be Prepared... the meaning of the motto is that a scout must prepare himself by previous thinking out and practicing how to act on any accident or emergency so that he is never taken by surprise.

Robert Baden-Powell

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”

― Stephen King

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If you would like to read more of this series please review, I thank you!

Photography by Pat Lambert