Renewal 9 - Delay Tactics (8 page)

“I hope so, too. Do the other two families have enough to feed an army?”

“The Cantners do fairly well with their big farm, and they don’t seem to waste as much on bullshit as the Jenkins and the Coxes. The MacMillans are small potatoes compared to the other families. Dusty used to tell me that they would be paying Jerry Doan Jenkins back for three generations, they had borrowed so much. The big thing we don’t know is whether Wyatt Jenkins has enough money stashed to finance the whole deal. He sure can’t feed an army off his own land anymore.”

“So you think the Coxes may be in the fight. What about the Talleys?” Terry asked.

“I think we won’t have to worry about the Talleys anymore. George was never a bad guy. He just happened to have a bunch of jerks in his class of people, and you know how it is. You do what it takes to get along.” Bill rolled down his window to spit, and left it open for the breeze.

“We may be facing three families worth of fighters and who knows how much Jenkins money. Do we know what that means in numbers?”

“Pretty much. The money doesn’t matter unless a whole lot of Coffee County folks are greedy enough to sign up for the fight in exchange for a few bucks. It’ll be over before they can do anything really dangerous with the money. In terms of manpower, we outnumber the families since the Jenkins raid so that’s not a worry. The worry is what the Junior Dragon brings. He may show up with ten times what the families can field, or he may not show up at all.”

“You think Bedford County can do that much damage?”

“I’ll say one thing. I’ll bend over backwards to keep Tam Rogers as a friend.” Bill said.

Terry looked at the blank clock display on his dashboard and asked, “How far do we have to go?”

Bill watched the cones of the headlights until he recognized the gutted and blackened machine shop ahead. “Fifteen... Twenty minutes, and after that it depends on what Tam’s people tell us.”

“So, plenty of time to tell me what happened next, then.” Terry said, leading Bill to his favorite subject.

Bill laughed, rearranged the chaw in his mouth and started talking.

Chapter 9 – 12

Every day that went by without the bottom dropping out of the thermometer was a more hopeful day. August came and went with nothing worse than a New England summer to show for it. The weather was still wetter than Tennessee is supposed to be in late summer, but Dad kept saying that was a good thing. The more rain, the more the dirt fell out of the sky and the faster we could get back to normal. That didn’t stop us from another frantic firewood effort to prepare for the cold. “Better safe than sorry” was almost a mantra every morning as we stretched sore muscles and prepared for another round of daily chores. There was always plenty to do before we could even begin to cut wood.

Joe Miller was our constant companion, now that he had literally given away the farm. He figured it was our problem, and he was free to spend his time doing whatever he wanted. After his solitary battle with nuclear winter, what he wanted most was the company of other people, Not just any people. Men. At least once a day, he would say, “Spend too much time around women, and they start expecting you to keep spending time. Right, men?” Kirk and I agreed, and then went back to what we were doing, since we actually had no idea what he was talking about. I mean, ninety-nine percent of our lives consisted of Mom and Lucy, and they were both happy to get rid of us.

Aside from speaking wisdom over my head, Joe was a good guy to have around. He even taught Dad hundreds of methods for getting the most out of green timber. How to cut it, how to split it, dry it, cure it for lumber, and even carve it with an old pocket knife that never left old Joe’s side. We used George Carroll’s tractor and fuel to haul the wood in from way out behind the creek. Dad hadn’t decided what to do closer to the house yet, and deliberately left that timber alone. Joe’s... Well, our farm across the road looked like it had enough trees on the hillside to burn for a thousand years, but Joe told us, “Only if you treat it right,” and proceeded to give us a masters course in Tennessee forestry for the next five days.

By the end of September, the weather was turning cold. The wind felt like November as I remembered it, and the sky was laden with unending overcast. Still, it was a different flavor of clouds than the previous year. Instead of the turbulent black mass of the previous fall, this was medium gray to silver, and didn’t give me the feeling of living under the shadow of an angry fist. That’s not to say we were off the hook. By my birthday at the beginning of December, we were all huddled around Sally’s big woodstove. Most of the livestock were sheltered in several barns with the heat of the stoves we had brought with us to keep them alive. The best part about my birthday was that no one mentioned a word about Juannie, even though I was sure I could feel her memory hanging over all of us like the heavy quilts hanging on the walls.

Well, that’s not entirely true. The best part was presents. Mom and Dad gave me a knife. It was a Buck folding knife with an antler handle and a pristine stainless blade. It came in its own special wooden box, which it promptly vacated to move into my pocket. I tossed out the cheap Chinese knife I had been carrying since the Breakdown to fend for itself in a dresser drawer. Lucy, Tommy, and Kirk joined forces to make me a gift. They rolled it out of the hallway with obvious pride. The wooden contraption was meant to be a scooter, I think. It was an unnatural marriage of boards and metal wheels from old roller skates, hammered together with many large, bent nails. I set my foot on it and was about to give it a kick across the kitchen floor when Mom said, “Outside. Only outside.”

Kirk’s comment was, “We tried to make you a skateboard, but that thing was dangerous!” Everyone laughed at the idea that something could be more dangerous than what we were seeing in front of us.

Arturo’s gift was a promise to give me driving lessons in the spring. “Parents can’t teach their own kids to drive,” He said. “That’s just asking for headaches and hair loss.”

Jimmy’s gift was a special birthday performance of a song he made, “Especially for Bill.” It was a very good song, but the dance that went with it, even better.

Margaret and Jackie, who had become inseparable, gave me a knitted thing. Don’t ask me what it was because I tried to find out on the sly, and everyone I asked gave me a different answer. I was afraid to wear it on the wrong part of my body, and afraid not to wear it and give offense to the ladies who made it. I compromised and gave it a visible place of honor in the room I shared with three other boys. That seemed to do the trick.

Jones gave me a hug, which I have to admit was pretty thrilling. She backed away before it became even more embarrassing than the stupid look on my face, but the damage was done. Aggie walked up to me with her red face glowing, and kissed me right on the lips, thus staking her claim in front of God and everyone. I was too stunned to notice the array of smiles aimed in my direction when she pulled away with a distinct smack. All those faces are burned into my memory and I still blush when I think about my first real kiss, even to this day.

Sally Bean stole the show, to my relief, when she showed up with her present, a giant carrot cake made with her own greenhouse carrots and many treasures from her enormous basement food supply. The thirteen candles were full-sized dinner tapers, but on the monstrous cake, they looked just about right. Jimmy led the singing of Happy Birthday and helped me blow out the candles.

That’s the day I became a teenager, even though I had been counting myself a man for quite some time.

Chapter 9 – 13

The horseman was standing by his mount on the shoulder of the highway. In the darkness, the black horse looked huge like a dangerous hole in the night, waiting for someone to get too close and fall in. He held up a hand as we made the final turn onto 41A from Magnolia Lane. The last mile had been a roller coaster ride up from the Normandy Road. Aside from the original sharp hills, Terry had contended with giant holes, pavement that was more like heavy black gravel, and vegetation that grew out into the lane like it was on the last phase of a world domination plan. He heaved a sigh of relief when the road ended, and pulled the breath back in when he was startled by the horse.

Bill’s window was still open. Terry pulled up even with the rider, and Bill recognized the man in the yellow glow of Big Bertha’s running lights. “Evening, Jeff. How are things?”

“Howdy, Mr. Carter. Everything is fine. We’ve been making some sport of your friends from Columbia.”

“Jeff, I’d like you to meet Terry Shelton. He’s one of our new boys. Terry, this is Jeff Rogers. His mother is the one I was telling you about,” Bill said.

The two young men greeted each other through the truck window. Once the pleasantries were exchanged, Bill said, “Where’s your mama?”

“She’s about three-quarters of a mile ahead, a stub of road on the left with a little white house on the corner. If you start down a steep hill, you missed it,” Jeff said.

“Thanks, Jeff. We’re going to see the show,” Bill said in return.

“Well, if today is any way to judge, Mom throws a heck of a party. By the way, you should have plenty of time. The Dragons are very cautious now.”

“Ok. Thanks again, Jeff. Come over and visit,” Bill said with a wave.

“Same to you, Mr. Carter.”

Terry pulled away from Jeff’s position and headed down the road at a steady thirty miles per hour. None of the houses he passed showed any signs of life. He had just enough time to start speculating about how wide the Tullahoma danger zone spread when Bill pointed to the left and said, “There it is.”

The house was a convenient landmark, but completely unnecessary due to the large number of horses milling around the yard. Terry pulled onto the side road and Bill turned on the cabin lights so that no one would mistake them for Dragons. Another young man waved them around the back of the house, where Terry pulled Big Bertha to a stop and shut off the engine. Bill was already out the door before Terry had all the switches flipped the way he wanted them. He dropped to the ground and locked the doors. He found himself facing a man his own age.

Bill introduced him. “Terry, meet another one of Tam’s boys. This is Dennis, sixth in line if I remember... Dennis, this is Terry Shelton.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dennis.” Terry stuck out his hand.

Dennis grabbed it in a firm grip and gave it a couple of sharp pumps. “Good to meet you, Terry. Mom’s got a good spot picked out down that way. I heard your leg is banged up, Mr. Carter. You up for a walk in the woods?”

“Just take it slow and I’ll make it,” Bill replied with a smile.

Five minutes later, Bill was hugging Tam Rogers. The introductions were made once again, and the two leaders walked a short distance away to talk shop. Terry and Dennis were left standing in a gap in the trees at the top of a steep bluff overlooking a third of a mile of the highway. In the dim light, Terry could just make out a pair of structures just on the far side of the road. He tuned in as Dennis was talking, “And that was the store that Mom said used to be famous for selling alcohol to kids. They called it ‘The Holler’. This valley is the same place we beat the last of Tullahoma’s fighters, so we’re pretty familiar with it.”

“I remember Bill saying you rode all over these hills, shooting at the bad guys down in the valley,” Terry said.

“Well, I wasn’t there back then, but that’s what I heard too,” Dennis replied.

“Is that the plan tonight?” Terry asked.

“No. It’s a little simpler tonight. You’ll see.”

“I met your brother back up the road. He said you’ve been busy with the Dragons all day,” Terry said, pumping for information.

“Oh, yeah! You should have seen it. First we slathered the highway with mud and spikes and barriers just over a hill. Then we blocked the road further west with about four hundred riders. That crazy little rooster came up and started sassing Mom. She gave him shit until he lost it and tried to run us all down. We were heading out when they started hitting the barriers, so I didn’t see it, but it sounded terrible. Good terrible. They lost a big chunk of their army right there.” Dennis grinned at the result.

“Wow. That’s really smart,” Terry said, trying to imagine all those trucks crashing.

“Mom’s idea... Then, there’s this big bridge over the river just this side of Shelbyville. Mom had our guys cutting the steel to weaken the bridge. When the trucks came across, we thought it wasn’t going to fall, but then it did. Maybe fifty trucks sank in the water. The trucks that were left on the west side hightailed it back to where they came from.”

“Nice!” Terry said.

“Yeah, thanks. So this is our last shot at slowing them down, maybe taking a few more out, and just basically putting the fear of God in them. We’ve been shadowing the convoy from the ridgeline since the bridge. Now they’re stopping to check every little creek crossing. I figure some gunfire in unknown territory should make them pretty nervous before they get to your neck of the woods.

“I’ll say...”

“I think you’ll like this,” Dennis concluded.

A blue-white beam of light shone on the trees about a half-mile away. The word spread quickly in a wave of murmurs, and Bill returned to the viewpoint with Tam.

“Here they come,” she reported.

The train of headlights looked feeble from way up on the ridge. Terry tried to get a quick count, and figured there were about two hundred trucks coming down the highway at a crawling pace. They started down the long slope from the far side of the “Holler” and chugged along until the lead pair of trucks reached the lowest point almost directly in front of the watcher on the ridge. The trailing trucks passed the last turnoff back up at the top of the hill, and two tall trees, one on each side of the highway, simultaneously fell across the roadway and burst into flames, blocking any hope of retreat for the Dragon army. The lead truck could not see the burning roadblock, but the following trucks surged away from it, creating a wave of confusion in the convoy. Gary Tucker did notice that.