Joshua (Book 2): Traveler (5 page)

“We’re going to be fishing for people.”

“People?”

“That’s what I said. What did I just tell you about the road? Who’s on it?”

“Stupid people.”

“And?”

“Lazy people.”

“And?”

“People that want to be victims. Are we going to rob them?”

“Maybe, I doubt it though. Most people on the road have already been robbed, probably many times. They don’t have much left to steal, but they do have something else we can use.”

“What’s that?”

Rob stopped, looked right at him and tapped the side of the boy’s head with his finger, “Information, James. These people, they do a lot of traveling, they see a lot of things, know a lot of things. They know who’s giving out food to refugees, and who has electric lights. They know who’s not freezing in the winter, or still don’t look half-starved even though the last grocery store closed four years ago.”

“You mean like the stuff I told you about the Whitmans?”

“Yes, is that still bothering you?”

“I guess it is ...”

“James, you’re going to have to get past your feelings of guilt, if you want to survive out here.”

“I’ve been surviving.”

“Really? How were you doing? You didn’t look like you were doing too well when we picked you up.”

“I was doing okay.”

“When was the last time you ate before the Whitmans?”

“I told you, three days.”

“And before that?”

“Four days.”

“That’s not surviving, James, that’s slowly dying. You can’t live very long on two meals a week. If we hadn’t found you I doubt you would have lived to see twenty.”

“I ...”

“Let me ask you, your parents, they probably used to take you to church when you were young.”

“Yes ...”

“And they filled your head up with nonsense like ‘thou shalt not steal.’”

“Yes they did, what’s wrong with that?” The boy was becoming indignant now.

“Nothing is wrong with that, in that world. That’s your problem, James, you’re still living by the old world’s rules. This is a new world and it has new rules. If you keep trying to live by the old ones you’re going to die young.”

“But ...”

“‘But’ nothing. There just isn’t enough food for everyone, really not enough of anything for anyone anymore. Whatever you need to live ... well, there’s a shortage of it. That’s what I was talking about when we first met. You are going to have to decide how much you want to live, how far you’re willing to go to survive. You’ve stolen before, you’ve already admitted it.”

“Yes ... but not too much.”

“Not too much; that makes you feel better about it, doesn’t it?”

“I only stole what I needed; you guys stole everything the Whitmans had.”

“We stole everything because we needed it. How are we to know when we’ll get another chance like that? How are we supposed to know how long it will be before we find food again?”

“Well ...”

“‘Well’ nothing, we’re both thieves, James. But unlike you, I recognize to succeed, to thrive in this new world, you’re going to have to always put yourself first. Thinking of other people will only hurt yourself, or your family. You don’t want to hurt your new family, do you?”

“No, I don’t want to hurt you guys.”

“Look at Peavey back there.”

The boy turned back to see Peavey marching about thirty feet behind quietly listening to their chatter, but still keeping alert for any danger nearby. Cornwell was an equal distance ahead and also enthralled.

“Peavey is just five years older than you. He’s like your big brother. Like the rest of us, he wanted you to join our group. Are you telling me you would take food away from him and give it to some stranger you don’t even know, just so you could feel better about yourself? I can’t believe you’re that selfish ... that you would put your feelings ahead of the welfare of your own family. You know what your problem is?”

“I don’t have a problem. What problem?”

“You just want to be a little thief. You just want to take a little from people so you can tell yourself you’re not really hurting anyone. You know why that is?”

“Why?”

“Because of what I was saying before, because of that brainwashing you had as a child.”

“I’m not brainwashed.”

“Sure you are and I can prove it.”

“How?”

“You’ve already told me over and over. You would rather starve than have bad feelings about stealing from others. You’ve still got a bit of a conscience left in you. We’re going to have to fix that, kid, before it gets you killed.”

The rest of their journey was made in silence, keeping near cover and out of sight. The boy spent the trip following right behind Robert and thinking about their conversation and if there was any truth in it at all.

When they did arrive, they immediately set up for the task at hand. Cornwell and Peavey took cover behind a culvert north of the highway with Robert and James hidden from view by a turned over panel van about one hundred yards south by southeast.

With less than an hour of waiting, they spotted their first target approaching from the west. An older couple, about sixty or so, wearing nothing but mismatched rags, they were soiled from head to toe. The man pushed a red plastic shopping cart that now held their entire lifetime’s efforts.

As they approached the culvert, the man stopped, whispered to his wife, and both immediately began backing up and turning around.

Rob stood up and produced a shrill whistle, right then Cornwell and Peavey jumped out and stopped the two at gunpoint. Robert and James came running and surrounded them.

The old man had no argument left in him after the last four years of living in hell. He spoke to Peavey, “Listen, fellas, we don’t want it. Here, take it,” and pushed the cart right at him.

Peavey stood there silent with his rifle still trained on them.

“Please don’t hurt us. You can have all we got, but please don’t hurt me or my wife.”

Robert let the old man know that he was in charge, “Mister, maybe we don’t want your things,” he said while casually pawing through their possessions in the cart, “we might even be able to help you.” Searching through it, there was nothing really of interest, some more dirty clothes and a blanket, old photos, and a dozen or so cans of various vegetables, most of them rusty and bloated. “Mister, we’re going to have to search you, you understand why?”

“Yes ...”

Peavey and Cornwell thoroughly searched them both for weapons and none were found. The couple just stood there unfeeling, like being abused was daily routine.

Rob went on with that reasonable voice. “As I was saying, we might be able to help you. Cornwell, what’d you bring along today?”

Cornwell removed his pack and put it on the ground while Peavey still kept them covered. He opened it up and started pulling prizes out. “Well, let’s see. Here’s a good one,” he held up an extra-large can of beef stew. “Meat and potatoes, how long has it been since you’ve had meat, old man?”

The old man’s eyes grew large.

Robert went on with the sales pitch. “We’ll give you that stew, and we have more we’ll give you, if you help us out. Cornwell, what else you got in there?”

Cornwell started pulling more goodies from his bag and placing them on the ground. “There’s also four cans of peaches, three cans of baked beans, and one can of pineapple.” He looked up at the couple, neither of them able to hide their desire. “Either of you like pineapple? Pineapple comes all the way from Hawaii. You hardly see any around these parts anymore.”

You could easily hear the eagerness in the old man’s voice, “What kind of help do you need? What do we have to do?”

Rob continued with his friendly tone, “Not much at all. You see, we’re looking for some friends of ours. We’re not from around this way and we’re kind of lost. Maybe you know where they are.”

“Maybe, how would we know your friends?”

“Oh, that’s easy. I bet everybody around here’s talking about them. You see, they have a lot of food. You might’ve even smelled their cooking or heard about someone that did. Our friends, they’re really nice too, they’re so nice that they’re probably giving it away to people down on their luck, people like you.”

“I think I know the ones you’re talking about. If we help you find your ‘friends’ you’ll give us all that food?”

“Well that depends entirely on you ... and how helpful your information is.”

Although willing, the old man was still not trusting. “How do I know you’ll give us the food after I tell you?”

“How do you know I won’t have one of these guys shoot you if you don’t? I guess we’re just going to have to trust each other.” No one could tell if Rob was joking or not.

After a moment considering it, the old man went on, “Okay, I see what you’re saying. There’s this nice family northwest of here, they wouldn’t let us stay with them but did give us a few days’ worth of food.”

“This junk in your cart?”

“No, all good stuff. This stuff here, we found it in the trunk of a car back down the road about five miles. We’ve been avoiding eating it unless we absolutely have to, and I think we’re about there.”

“Maybe not, keep talking; where were these people?”

“I don’t know exactly where, I’ve lost track. I know they were north of the town of Mendon. It’s been over two weeks, I can’t remember much more than that.”

“Well, that’s a lot of country to check. You’re going to have to narrow it down some if you want to be paid.”

The old man thought hard with the rest of them standing around watching the gears turn; the wife was no help at all. Just as they were all sure this was leading nowhere, the old-timer finally came up with a thought. “Wait! I remember now! You could see a water tower from their house, off in the distance. It was about a mile south of them. That should make it easy to find your friends.”

“How many were living there?”

“I don’t know exactly; while we were there I saw three or four men and at least two women.” The old man turned to the wife, “Isn’t that right?” and she silently agreed.

“And you’re sure they have a lot of food?”

“Oh my, yes. More than I’ve seen in a long time. Come on, pay us. That should be enough for you to find your ‘friends.’”

Rob was feeling charitable today. “Okay, you’ve helped us a little. We still have to do some searching though. I tell you what; you can pick out three items.”

The couple chose the stew and one can each of peaches and pineapple. They were sent on their way much happier than when they were stopped.

As they were going, Rob blocked them, “I don’t have to threaten you, do I? About what’s going to happen to you if you’ve lied to us?”

The old man stared at him, the understanding in his voice and eyes, “No.”

Rob let them go on and Cornwell broke the silence when at last they were out of hearing range, “We going to stake out this road the rest of the day or head on back?”

“We’re going to head back; this lead sounds like a good one and I want to get started on it right away.” He checked his watch, “Only twelve minutes until eleven hundred hours. Let’s go over behind that truck, we’ll have our dinner and I can check in at the top of the hour.”

They all sat behind the truck out of view from the road, having good food and some soft conversation, waiting for eleven hundred hours to come.

The boy still had plenty of questions for Rob, “What are we doing?”

“Eating.”

“I meant what you said about waiting for the top of the hour?”

“I’m sure you’ve noticed our radios.”

“Yes, you don’t use them very much.”

“That’s because they’re old. We only have the three and it’s hard to keep them charged.”

“How do you charge them?”

“We have a solar unit that does the job well enough. Unfortunately, the batteries don’t hold a charge very long anymore. At most we might get two or three hours out of them before they run down again. So we try to conserve them. What we do in situations like this, where one team is away, we’ll only turn them on a few minutes and check in once every hour. Even then we only stay on as long as we need to. Of course, if there is an emergency, that’s another thing altogether.”

“Oh ... what are we going to do now?”

“Well, in a minute I’m going to call them up and tell everyone to start packing. We’re going to find that place those refugees told us about.”

“What’s wrong with the place we’ve got, I like it.”

“It’s too vulnerable, too many ways to attack it. We’ve already been there longer than we planned. That was meant to be a temporary camp. We only set it up to find you, remember?”

“Oh yeah ...”

“Besides, winter will be here soon enough, we got to find a place to sit it out. This place that couple told us about might just be it.”

At the top of the hour, Rob called Alton and told them of their newest target. He gave the map coordinates and told his second in command to pack up and meet them at the rendezvous point as quick as he could.

As they were putting on their packs getting ready to leave, Peavey suddenly had something important to say, softly, “Boss.” With his rifle, he pointed out an unknown backpack sitting against the backside of the truck.

Robert noticed it and made a gesture with his hand. He, Peavey, and Cornwell spread out while keeping their rifles trained on the van.

After a tense moment, Rob at last spoke, “Whoever is in the truck, come on out.”

There was a minute of nothing but silence.

Rob now shouted in a more aggressive voice, “You in the truck, come on out! If you don’t come out now were going to unload our guns into it. It’ll look like Swiss cheese when we’re done!”

Finally the silence had something to say, “Okay, we’re coming out! Don’t shoot! Here we come! The back door of the panel van dropped open and two people squeezed through with their hands in the air. “Don’t shoot us.” It was a man and a woman, they appeared in their mid-twenties, and like the other couple they were skinny and their clothes were dirty and disheveled; it was all the fashion this year, and the three before.

Rob let them know he was in charge, “Just stand still. Search them.”

Peavey and Cornell made a detailed search of the two and their bags; the only thing of interest was a Glock found on the man. It held seventeen rounds but only nine remained. Cornwell handed it over to the boss and Rob started speaking again with his fake friendly tone.