Renewal 6 - Cold (3 page)

Mr. Carroll had apparently been keeping a close watch for the car, because he swung the barn doors open as the car bounced through the door and crunched to a stop. The station wagon was loaded to the roof and beyond, with a bundle of items strapped to the top. Dad was stepping out of the driver’s side door before Arturo shut off the engine. He walked straight over to Mom and asked, “Are you sure that’s my kid?”

Mom started to laugh until she saw the look on his face and then gave a serious reply. “Yeah, he’s yours. No mailmen in our family. What happened?”

“Well, we took George’s advice,” Dad replied, “And we went to the small mom and pop shops in town. The streets were mostly empty, but there were people holed up from the cold in some of them. Most of them were happy to give us some supplies since they already had plenty of what they srocked, but the Co-op was different.”

“What do you mean?” Mom asked.

“There were some rough characters manning the place, and they seemed to know that they were sitting on the key to long-term survival. They demanded payment.”

“What kind of payment?”

“The kind we don’t have.” Dad said. “They said if we didn’t have food, they would take our guns or, get this, women in trade.”

“Women? What it this, 1845?”

“Exactly. When I said something to that effect, the man behind the counter pulled out a shotgun. Then our dear oldest son,” Dad waved in Kirk’s general direction. “He pulled out his handgun and shot the man in the face. Needless to say, his friends were not happy about it and there were guns appearing everywhere. Kirk calmly shot five men faster than they could react. When his clip ran out, he used that crazy machete on the last two. It was honestly the most brutal thing I’ve ever seen.”

Mom stared at him with an open mouth.

“Look at him,” Dad said. “He’s not even upset. He looks like we went to the Dairy Queen.”

I can say this. Women are far more practical than men. Mom looked hard at her husband and said, “Well honey, I guess that’s just the world we live in now.”

It was Dad’s turn to stare open mouthed.

“Think about it, David. We can’t count on anyone or anything that we can’t do for ourselves, and if anyone is standing in the way of what we need, then they are a problem that must be solved.”

“I can see surviving. I can’t see killing people unless they are ready to kill us.”

“Well, if we need something and someone stands in the way, then they are killing us. Right?”

“I’m not sure I can take it that far.” Dad replied.

“To me, the world is officially that far.” Mom said. “Get used to it.” She was wearing her end-of-argument body language. “If we want to make it through to spring, you need to decide that our family is worth it, David. It’s worth fighting and killing as far as I’m concerned. Now that we’ve crossed the line, we have to take it as far as necessary.”

Dad mulled the idea over in his mind, measuring a life of principles and standards against our new reality before he finally replied. “Yes, you’re right.”

In the end, they had retrieved a great deal of critical supplies from town and had gotten us a few steps closer to the ability to survive the long cold winter that was almost upon us.

Chapter 6 – 5

Gary Tucker looked across the hallway. Through the bars, painted the same nauseating gold color as the entire jail, he could see a cartoon character of a man. The man was dressed like the star of an old-style Western movie, complete with the black duster, black shirt and pants, and black boots. The only thing missing was the spurs. He was bored. The cowboy looked bored as well.

“Hey, Man. What brings you here?” Gary asked.

Jerry Doan Jenkins looked up at the man in the cell across from him. He was a fat older man, wearing a pair of stretchy navy blue pants, and a blue pinstriped shirt. “Bullshit,” Jerry said. “Pure bullshit.”

“Well, that goes without saying. What’s the official reason?” Gary asked.

“I went to claim my land, land I won fair and square, and found myself outnumbered. Now I’m here,” Jerry whined. “I mean, shit. I’m the mayor. I had every right...”

“Well, sure. You had the right. Everyone has the right. If you can take it, it’s yours. Am I right?”

“Yeah, well. I couldn’t take it. That asshole, Bill Carter, was ready for me. I wonder who tipped him off.”

“Bill Carter...” Gary mused. “What’s he look like?”

“He’s about our age, tall, gray hair around the temples. Overconfident asshole.” Jerry said.

“Sound like the guy who sent me here, too. I thought it was the state SWAT team.” Gray said. “Where are you the mayor?”

“Manchester, basically all of Coffee County. I’m the mayor and the head magistrate. I run that county.”

“Not anymore, my friend.”

“Don’t worry. When my son finds out, he’ll get things under control.”

“Same here. Some of our guys got away. They’ll be talking to my son soon enough.” Gary said.

“I heard about you. The cops were talking. You took out a whole platoon of state cops?”

“Yeah, we came in from the water. They weren’t expecting it. We had them rounded up in about fifteen minutes.”

“What’s your deal anyway? I heard you burned a couple of black cops alive.”

“Oh, that... Well, we found a building full of white robes and hoods back in Columbia, along with some pamphlets. I figured anything that intimidates people works in our favor. We borrowed the ideas of the original owners and decided that we would scare folks by burning non-whites on crosses. We called ourselves ‘Knights of the White God’. It worked well enough until Nashville. Most of southern Tennessee just gives us whatever they’ve got.”

“Clever,” Jerry said.

“Yeah, well, who knows what happened to the guys who used to wear those robes? Sumbitches called the KKK. Nowadays, you take whatever advantage you can get.”

“Sure enough. I just keep my people poor and dole out rewards for good behavior.”

“Well, I find that it helps to have a banner to rally around. Keeps the men motivated, you know?”

“Yeah, my men were surely not motivated. They died.”

“Sorry to hear that... Hey, what’s your name?”

“Jerry Doan Jenkins. What’s yours?”

“Gary Tucker, Grand Dragon of the Knights of the White God.”

“Well, Gary Tucker. I’m guessing that we both have the same problem... Bill Carter.”

The men nodded at each other through the bars.

Chapter 6 – 6

Gary Tucker Jr. ran the operation. He was known by the entire organization as Junior, which he didn’t appreciate but tolerated because the exchange for his father’s power was a good deal. Junior could have anything there was to have: women, cars, guns, whatever he wanted. All he had to do was keep up with the details while his father ran around spouting his racist bullshit, which mattered less to Junior than which girl kept his bed warm at night. The whole shtick made for a good system, though. His father had cobbled together an organization while the rest of the world was still learning what the Breakdown really meant. Starvation and wild fear ruled the countryside when Gary Tucker stumbled over the key to his success. Direct the fear, direct the people.

Junior was making one of his endless lists when he heard the trucks roaring in from the north. He walked down the stairs of the old cement factory offices, and waited in the parking lot for the trucks to pass through several layers of security. His first clue was when only three trucks drove in. His second was when his father was not among the returning men.

A man who was known only as Polecat, undoubtedly for some horrible childhood skunk mishap, climbed out of the leading truck to report.

“Junior, they got your father.”

“Who... got my father?”

“The state. We took the state salvage yard in Nashville. They sent in more cops. We took them too. Then they sent in some kind of special soldiers. They destroyed us. Me and the men here escaped. We saw they had your father, but they knocked us down so fast we figured we’d better come back for help.”

“So, you let these men take my father.” Junior said with dripping disdain.

“We couldn’t save him. They killed forty of our men. Only the eight of us left.”

“How many men attacked?”

“We only saw four or five of them before we left, but they were everywhere. Our guys were dying all over the place,” Polecat said, somewhat defensively.

“I see. Well, it’s lucky you were able to escape from four or five men.” Junior was rubbing it in – hard.

“I’m sorry, sir. We thought it was better to get away and report, than to die and have no one know about it.”

Junior sighed and eased off. “You have a point there, Polecat. Now that I know, we can do something about it.”

“Yes, sir. Yes...” Polecat agreed with relief.

“Ok, since you lost the salvage yard, you get to take it back. Go get Hank Taylor’s company and get my salvage. I’ve got to go to Murfreesboro.”

“Will do, sir.” Polecat ran out of the cement yard before it could go worse for him. His ragged band of survivors followed right on his heels.

Junior went back inside the building and cranked an old style phone on the wall.

“Yes, Mr. Tucker?”

“Jake, pull a company together, with enough wheels for a trip to Murfreesboro. We’re leaving in two hours.”

“Yes, sir.”

Junior thought about the ramifications for a few minutes. “Well,” he said to the empty room, “It had to happen sooner or later.”

Chapter 6 – 7

By September, we had the stoves installed and running. Most of August had been a mad scramble to collect, cut, and split as much firewood as possible. Mr. Carroll had two chainsaws that we used until the two-cycle engine oil ran out. We could siphon gas from almost anywhere, but the oil for the premix was very hard to find. After that, we were down to the axes and other cutting tools Dad had taken from the schoolyard, and whatever tools George had stashed around his place. In one fortunate turn, George had found a rusty two-man buck saw that we used to fell trees and cut the larger logs into split-able and burnable lengths of wood. Since Kirk had demonstrated his ability to sharpen steel, he was given the task of keeping all the tools in top condition. All of us took turns at the splitting and managed to build some muscle along the way.

The barn was rapidly filling with firewood. We had staked out the northeast corner of the barn as living space. Dad was already concerned that we would not be able to heat as much area as we had allocated, and he was right. He made a daily plea to Mom for us to set up our living space in the stalls, on the argument that smaller spaces would heat more easily. She argued that we were doing fine out in the open floor of the barn. The tents were originally positioned for some semblance of privacy and social order, but they had been moved closer to the stoves by then. Dad and Arturo were making regular trips out into the county to find anything useful. They had managed to come up with enough winter clothing, blankets, sleeping bags, and pads to deal with a fair amount of cold weather. The problem was that by September, the cold was far beyond fair.

George had stacked the remainder of his round bales around his own house, in hopes of adding some insulation value to the old structure. His own wood stove was running flat out; faint gray smoke billowed from his flue all day. He was a strong old man, but he didn’t have the stamina of the younger men. Dad worried constantly about George overdoing it and keeling over from a heart attack. To compensate, he pushed Kirk and me harder in hopes that George would see the wood stacking up and would ease off in his own effort. It never happened. George could work non-stop, albeit slowly, from dawn to dusk, and all we could do was work alongside him.

Dad’s salvage trips were largely successful. The weather was helping him, along with Kirk and Arturo, to get into town, grab whatever they could find, and get out. Usually, they saw no one except for the curious. Occasionally they ran into trouble, but after Mom expressed her view of the situation, Dad let go of his old moral code long enough to deal with the problem. Every time he was forced to kill, it took a little bit of his spirit. Every time Kirk was forced to kill, however, it seemed to have no real effect. Over time, Kirk naturally became a sort of family killer. The only problem was that it became Kirk’s solution for everything, and my parents clearly struggled with how to find the line between dealing and killing. In the end, they simply dropped the responsibility for the decision, and that’s how Kirk became a fourteen year old man.

In mid-September, we finally met the Carroll’s nephew and county deputy, Rodney Banks. We had expected him to show up all summer, but he never had. Finally, here he was with a bullet hole in his gut. The Carrolls were his last living relatives, and when he had gotten shot trying to protect the supplies in the county garage, he knew better than most that there were no more hospitals. He had made the long, delirious drive over icy roads to the Carroll’s house. His arrival put us all on alert, triggered by the rattling gate chains and a blast from George’s air horn. The remaining law in the county had abandoned the police vehicles on Breakdown day. The blue pickup truck could have held anyone. Even George did not recognize the truck until it pulled up in front of the house. By then, all of the men, myself loosely included, had showed up in the driveway, bundled against the cold and armed to the teeth.

Rodney was unable to open the door, much less get out of the truck. Dad and Kirk approached in their own tactical manner, refined by their many salvage attempts. Arturo was still struggling to get around and stood back with me, calling out advice on the fly. They opened the door and found the front seat saturated with blood. Rodney was holding onto the edge of consciousness as they hoisted him out of the truck and carried him inside. Martha Carroll had watched out the window and hustled to get some blankets laid out on the couch before they carried the deputy inside. Dad directed the effort to set Rodney gently on the blankets, and then used his belt knife to cut away the shirt around the source of the blood. The rest of us crowded into the living room and watched as Dad took one look and turned to George, shaking his head.