Copperheads - 12 (13 page)

Butter understood, and given what he had learned about those days, he thought Hannah had made a very wise decision. The raiders would have returned. They would have brought more men and weapons.

May’s voice interrupted his thoughts, “I remember that first step back on dry land. We were so scared, sure that the devil himself was going to rise and drag us down into hell. I felt so exposed. We were no longer protected by the deep moat of water that had surrounded us for months.”

Scanning the marina, Butter observed, “It looks like your place didn’t suffer much damage while you were gone. Either that, or you’re secretly a master carpenter.”

His attempt at humor worked, at least for a moment. “Yeah, our property was relatively untouched. Someone had raided the residence, but it hadn’t been torched. We found the marina, toolshed, office, and almost all of the docked vessels were mostly unscathed. Someone had broken into the vending machines and made off with all the sweets and chips. The supply closet was missing all of its toilet paper. There wasn’t a drop of gasoline anywhere, even the old push lawnmower having been drained bone dry.”

“So you guys were all right? No roving gangs of black hats? You had a roof, your old beds, your clothing.”

May’s eyes became sad again. This time, her reaction seemed different. “We were okay after settling down and getting our land legs back. Those first few days back on shore are a bit of a blur now. It was later that week that the wind shifted, moving around the compass all afternoon. The arrow landed where it normally does, blowing from the southeast and bringing in the humidity from the Gulf of Mexico. It also blew in the corpses.”

Butter’s eyebrows rose, as May’s account increased its pace. “April and I were fishing down at the pier when the most grotesque odor came rolling across the water. Ten minutes later, April gagged, pointing and turning away. When I stepped over to see what had grossed her out, that’s when I spotted the first rotting body. There it was, bobbing gently into the marina, covered by a thick, black, layer of flies.”

Again, she laughed. “We hightailed it back to the house, screaming like a couple of little girls who had just seen a rattlesnake. We were so freaked out, that we forgot our fishing poles. All that afternoon, the stench got worse and worse. It finally reached the point where mom was considering abandoning the house.”

May pointed toward Butter’s rifle. “You never go anywhere without that, and I can certainly understand. We were the same way, only with our fishing poles. The day the bodies began washing up, we started worrying that someone would steal our primary source of catching food. Anyway, Mom made us go out the next morning. We all were holding makeshift masks over our noses. The sight was bizarre. There were at least seven bodies pinned against the marina’s bulkhead by the wind. The flies were swarming in dense clouds. There was an armada of vultures circling overhead. The smell was nearly unbearable.”

“We had to pull them out and bury them,” Hannah said, her face twisting in disgust. “We needed the fish to eat and the water to drink and wash. It was too dangerous to wander further around the lake to get more water. We had no choice.”

Grimacing, Butter said, “That would not have been any fun. Even with everything I’ve seen since the collapse, I think I’d still want to toss my cookies.”

“April took it the worst,” May grinned. “She kept saying, ‘Do you really expect us to eat or drink anything out of that water? Ever again?’”

Again a chuckle at the memory. “Mom let her rant for a little bit, but then the protests got old. Mom kept asking her, ‘Do you want to live?’”

The storyteller’s voice took on a dark and despondent tone as she described the body recovery. She recounted how the next morning, with sheets of painter’s tarp and homemade masks smeared in vapor rub, the three of them began the task of fishing out the dead and dragging them to the shallow graves as far away from the house as they dared venture. Some of the deceased were reasonably fresh and whole, other bodies shredding into small pieces or losing entire limbs as the women struggled to pull them ashore.

It was amazing to Butter that May could retell the story, even adding a bit of humor in now and then. He sat and listened, letting her get it all out. Then, after a pause to point out a good-sized turtle surfacing nearby, the young woman’s voice turned low and serious. “For the rest of the summer and into the fall, we survived on a diet of fish, roadside greens, and whatever other wild harvest we came across. We never ventured far from the marina, rarely saw any other human beings. When other people did wander down the road or drift by in a boat, we would hide.”

“I bet you guys were scared more than not,” Butter added, amazed that three, lightly armed women had survived that period.

“We never ventured out at night. From dusk to dawn, we huddled together behind blackened windows and heavily barricaded doors. We spent the time reading or talking by candlelight. It helped keep the fear away.”

“How old is April?” he questioned, trying to paint more details into the picture forming from her story.

“April had just graduated from college and landed her first job as an elementary school teacher when chaos exploded in our little world. I was about to become a freshman at the local community college and thinking about joining the Army after I graduated. Both of us were avid readers. Like so many sisters, we were polar opposites when it came to boys, politics, music, and literature. I remember those nights. Sometimes we would fall asleep debating each other over the smallest thing.”

“Mom passed the hours playing solitaire with an old deck of bicycle cards and making lists of chores that needed to be accomplished the next day. It was all pretty tranquil until October. The winds changed again, this time shifting to roar out of the north and bringing a deep chill with them,” she said, shivering at the memory.

Butter knew that Lake Amistad’s southern latitude normally meant mild winters. Snow was extremely rare this far south in Texas, a light frost only the occasional visitor. May seemed to read his thoughts, “Since its creation, this reservoir has never experienced even the thinnest layer of ice,” she said. “Just our luck that it almost froze that winter.”

“The temperature dipped into the low 40’s and stayed there for days on end. I know that doesn’t sound like much if you’re suffering sub-zero weather in Chicago or Detroit. Hell, our weather would have been considered a blessing to those poor souls. But to us, it was an extreme hardship. Texas homes aren’t built for cold weather, and we don’t have any sort of wood-burning stove or fireplace. There wasn’t a single heavy coat in our closets.”

Butter was now hanging on the pain in her words. “What did you guys do?”

She didn’t answer for a second, ignoring his question at first. “The worst part was the lack of food. When the temperature dropped, the lake’s schools of bass and crappie headed for deeper, warmer waters. Day after day, we returned from the fishing pier emptyhanded. The plants all went into hibernation. The ducks migrated south. Our already bare cupboard soon gathered nothing but dust.”

“Ouch,” he said, the ache in her words making it obvious what was coming next.

“I’ll never forget the hunger,” she whispered. “I was already pretty thin, but starvation is a whole different animal. The headaches came first, followed by the inability to focus, and then the loss of short-term memory. I couldn’t sleep. After a while, even accomplishing the simplest task became nearly impossible. I remember crying one morning because I couldn’t figure out how to tie my shoes.”

Butter’s grip on her hand tightened, “You made it. You’re here. You survived, and only a very strong person can make it through something like that.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly. “It got worse. Much worse. It seemed like Mother Nature’s cruelty knew no limits that first winter. I am sure it was one of the coldest on record … if there had been anyone around to keep such statistics. The sky was grey and overcast for days. The wind howled out of the north. Since then, I’ve learned that staying warm forces the human body to consume more calories. The constant cold made our situation all the more desperate around here.”

Something changed in May. Butter felt her frame tense, and her expression became angry. “One morning, April announced that we had to leave the lake. She said that we hadn’t seen anyone else in the area for weeks. She argued bitterly that we had to go and find food if we expected to survive.”

“Mom kept asking her why she thought every crumb and morsel hadn’t already been found and eaten. She kept saying, ‘What makes you think we have enough strength left to even walk a few miles? No. We are staying here in our home. The weather will break soon, and the fish will return.’”

Butter frowned, “Where did April think she would find food?”

“I don’t know. None of us were thinking clearly. You can’t focus your mind when you’re that weak. I remember April saying that she hadn’t eaten anything but one scrawny frog leg in the last week. She kept saying that by now the raping and pillaging would be over … that people surely had begun to organize and rebuild. There had to be someone that could help us, she argued. Good people must still be alive somewhere.”

“Mom didn’t buy it. She and April wasted so much energy fighting. I can still hear them, mom yelling, ‘What makes you think that evil has played itself out?’ And then, ‘You and your bohemian attitude. You’ve been like that since you were a little girl. Never afraid of strangers, always optimistic and hopeful. Always assuming people were good and trustworthy. I love you for it, and yet it has always worried me to no end. Your naivety will get you killed, especially in these times.’”

“I take it your sister didn’t listen?”

“Back and forth the debate raged. Mom and I trying to convince April that the world outside the bubble of our little, isolated marina was still a dangerous place. She wouldn’t budge though, convinced that we were starving for no good reason, absolutely certain that there must be help out there somewhere.”

Now May’s voice grew low, telling the story like she was reading from the pages of some novel. “The next morning we found the note. It said, ‘I am going to find food and help. I’ll be back in a few days. I have to leave now, while I still have the strength to walk. I love you both. April.’”

“Not good,” Butter mumbled, now fully understanding what had happened to the mysterious April, and what the sister she had left behind was forced to endure.

“I exploded out of the door after reading that scrap of paper, the adrenaline surge giving me more strength than I knew existed. I jogged down the long lane leading to the marina and began the trek south along the road toward town. In less than a mile, I heard a strange sound drifting past. It was a noise I hadn’t heard in months. An engine. A car … or truck. I thought for a second that maybe April had been right. Maybe civilization’s recovery hadn’t expanded to our little spot on the lake, and we had been suffering for no good reason.”

Butter could understand her logic. The three women, holed up in the remote marina, wouldn’t have had any idea what was really happening in the world outside.

“I kept going, wandering alongside the road, ready to run for cover or dive into the underbrush. Some little voice kept telling me the situation was dangerous. When the motor sound grew louder, I really got scared. Who had a car? Who had gas? It was all so … so … surreal. Strangers were dangerous; the pirates had proven that. Somehow, I managed to keep going, but every step was hard. I was like an edgy rabbit ready to dash down its hole.”

“And?”

“When I crested the next rise, I saw it. A dark spot against the brown and auburn shades of the horizon. I darted off the road to hide behind a small bush. The engine stopped, and then I could hear voices. I just stayed put for a while, listening, trying to get my heart to stop pounding. It was like this tug-of-war inside my head. The strangers might have food. They also might kill me … or worse. If it hadn’t been for April’s little disappearing stunt, I would have probably tried to run for home.”

“So what did you do?” Butter asked, clearly intrigued by her story.

“I had to find April,” she answered with conviction. “But I was so weak when the adrenaline rush wore off. I stumbled from that cluster of scrub to a small gully that let me get a bit closer to the pickup without being seen. I don’t remember ever being so terrified, but I wasn’t about to let the only sign of civilization I’d seen in months drive away before I knew what was going on.”

Then the girl changed again, her eyes growing wet before any more words came out. “I spotted a handful of men gathered around the truck, the black barrels of their guns pointing in the air,” she sniffed. “They were huddled around a rear tire, almost as if it had gone flat. There was something else in the back of the truck bed, an odd shape. A cage.”

Butter’s eyes opened wide. He hadn’t been expecting that turn of events.

“I could hear them. Spanish words drifted across the sandstone and shale. They were shouting questions like, ‘Where did you come from?’ and ‘How many people are there?’”

“They were shouting at April, weren’t they?” Butter asked, already knowing the answer.

Nodding, May replied, “Yes. I couldn’t hear her response. Either I was still too far away, or she wasn’t answering. Something in the men’s tone caused a streak of icy cold to pulse through my core. These men were hostile. They had guns. They were interrogating someone, and in my heart, I knew it was April. Just then, one of them bent over and yanked my sister upright. I was stunned, watching as she was shoved violently toward the back of the truck and then crammed into that damn, awful, horrible cage. The metallic clank of the door slamming shut was so clear, it almost made me puke. I hurried to stand up too fast, became dizzy, and fell to the dirt.”