Second Chances (75 page)

Jackie took off with Jesus while Neal went into a spirited negotiating session with Joe over parts. Dunn checked in on them, and smiled grimly. Neal had come with a few tools and the clothes on his back. Joe wasn't about to give anything away on credit. Good.

Dunn spent a lot of time, more than he wanted on the radio with some kid at Chamber's base negotiating the details of their initial trade. He didn't trust anyone else to handle it; They'd sell them short and screw them come winter, so he made certain he took the task on himself. They finally settled on his group trading sea salt and leather products with Capital Base in exchange for the work the road crew had done in improving the Dunn's fortress, plowing the roads and airstrip, and the better ham radio and medical supplies they were going to leave behind. Dunn seethed a bit; he'd thought all that had been for free. Gratis, he thought, then remembered the maxim about there was no free lunch. Chambers was a sneaky guy, shifty, Dunn thought. Well, two could play that game, he vowed.

------*------

Mitch understood Dunn's position right away, he was powerful, and his base was strategically located as a cross roads between north, south and the east. He wasn't certain why the guy was so standoffish to him though. He let Jolie carry the negotiations with the excuse that he was busy running the base. He did listen in from his office though.

“Something as simple as salt...” Jolie said after they signed off. Mitch came in and smiled to her.

“It's what built Rome,” Mitch said with a shrug. “Sometimes, relationships are built on the small things.”

“True.”

“One step at a time. I'm more interested in this Corporal Klinger and Professor Hinkley. If he's anything like Evan, we're going to do well there. Or they will,” he said.

“Sodium bicarbonate?” Jolie asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Baking soda,” Mitch said. “The stuff we sent to Copper Town to neutralize the acid slime from that thing,” he explained. She nodded and then made an oh face, eyes wide. He nodded again. “Yeah, that's right. It's a bigger thing than you thought.”

“Didn't they find it in Mountain?” she asked, pointing to the map and Chief Robert's group. He nodded. “So, competition?”

“We can always use more. Just getting people to trade is good.” From what he understood of the situation after briefly talking with the corporal, they had found it around mineral springs in the mountains above their base while looking for metals. Professor Hinkley had figured out how to process it for baking bread and for other things. He had a regular chemical works going, cruder than Mitch's, but still viable. They weren't producing as much baking soda as the Mountain Village, but every little bit helped.

“Well, I've got a list. One from each of them. “You know this is getting complicated? And Paul's complaining a lot about his people needing a break,” Jolie warned.

“I know. And despite a few requests from him, I'm not taking the motor home away from Sam, nor are we going to make another anytime soon. So no, he can't take the Fen family out on his road trips no matter how safe they appear.”

“He wouldn't anyway,” Jolie said, shaking her head. “Frances wouldn't allow it even if he demanded it,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“Well, that's good then,” Mitch said. “Shoot me the lists. The southern people just got priority though over some of the others,” he said.

“Even Chief Travis?” Jolie asked.

He shook his head no. “No. I'm going to have to talk to Paul. He's doing a circuit, right?” She nodded. “That lets each community recover and build up more trade goods while he's out at other places. They stockpile the surplus for him making the trip more worthwhile. But if he's going on these long road train voyages south, it might pay to create a second more local convoy group here. Say under Gary or one of the other guys who are interested,” he said.

Jolie frowned then nodded. “Are you thinking about letting Laurence take the local group? With Gary?” she asked hesitantly.

Mitch frowned. He knew Laurence wanted to get into driving more like his dad. Paul allowed the kid to drive the run up to Iron Village but refused to allow him to tag along on the longer trips. The stated reason was that he wanted the lad to stay in school and help out his mother out with his siblings. Laurence was visibly chafing under such restrictions.

“I'm not sure I want to wade into that mess,” Mitch admitted. “We'll see. At the very least, he can do the Iron run with Gary.”

“Okay,” Jolie said, making a note. “What about drivers?”

“The local runs we can use the KITT system for some of the vehicles,” Mitch said. She blinked at him then frowned. “I know it's a risk, but it will free up manpower to watch out for animals,” Mitch said. She nodded.

------*------

Klinger, Dunn and the others shook hands when they left. Jackie was still out, so they left on their own. Sam's crew busied themselves wrapping up their own gear for their departure. Jackie returned to report the islanders had rigged an airstrip. “They don't have fuel, but they do have wool,” she said with a grin as she climbed out of her aircraft. “They are from the Falklands and Argentina if you can believe it.” She went on to describe her brief visit and then gave Jesus the information he needed to fly to the island and institute trade. “It'll be worth it. Especially in the winter with that wool,” she said to him. Jesus nodded, looking at his wife and then the colonel. Dunn didn't comment.

The next morning Jacklynn took off at first light. Sam's road crew followed in her wake, trudging back north. Dunn watched them go with mixed feelings.

Chapter 37

While Jacklynn was exploring the southeast, Jamal staged the long range drone in the west at an improvised landing strip near the Mongol Village. He found the edge of the southwestern coast on one run, as well as a broad river and swampland. Axel drove the teen up a wall looking over his shoulder and pointing about this or that feature on the camera feed.

A week later, despite opposition from Jack, back in Copper Town the small group relocated to a new base camp five hundred kilometers further west at the base of the hills and two hundred kilometers out from the mountain range that seemed to curve along an unseen arch across the continent. From there he sent the drone out once more while Axel and the small crew with him went out hunting. Axel had managed to talk six people from the Mongols into tagging along for the hunting. They set up a slaughter assembly line with a couple guys out hunting and four or five others working on the various stages of slaughtering the animals. They quickly learned to avoid the larger herbivores; once they fell they were tons of immovable meat that attracted every predator in the area. Smaller animals roughly the size of a cow could be gutted then pulled into the back of a pickup and hauled back to the base camp.

Jamal took the drone to the western coast and then moved it down to a peninsula and then back up. At the base of the peninsula where a river from the distant mountains fed into the sea, he found another village. It was small but well-built with stone and clay. The people there were dressed in hides and homespun clothes. They looked up from where they were working around their home to wave then went back to work.

They had a couple close encounters with long-legged crocodiles before Axel realized the meat they were smoking and storing was drawing the predators in. They tried relocating twice, each time north stretching their range into their fuel reserve.

Jamal was given one last flight to map the coast line before they returned to the Mongol Village. Since it would be his last for some time, he pushed the plane as hard as he could. He flew it through a wide mountain valley north until he found a crop of hills at his turn around point. He had planned to head south to find the coast and then map it on the return but a radio call made him put the plane into an orbit.

“This is Sal Woodward. Hang on, just hang on there; let me get someone else!” An excited scratchy voice said over the GAURD channel. Jamal grinned and waved to Axel. Axel came over cleaning his hands on a rather filthy rag.

“Yeah kid, what's up?”

“Someone's on the radio!”

“Yeah, so?” Axel demanded. “Is it Jack? Tell him we'll be home in a jiff. Keep his shirt on,” he grumbled, turning away.

“No! Not them, a new village!” Jamal said, pointing to the video feed.

“Hello the drone, this is Gerald Paxton,” a voice said then cleared his throat. “Is anyone receiving? Hello?”

“Well kid? Aren't you going to answer him?” Axel said gruffly.

“Me?” Jamal asked, voice squeaking in surprise as he looked up at Axel with wide eyes.

“Sure you. Go for it,” Axel said, patting the kid on the shoulder.

Jamal ignored the smell of grease in his excitement as he picked up the radio transmitter and keyed it. “This is Jamal Long; I'm the pilot. It's good to hear from you,” he said.

“Well, howdy, Long,” Gerald said with a smile in his voice. “What brings you up here?”

“We're scouting, trying to find all the communities so we can set up trade and stuff,” Jamal said, with his own smile projecting in his tone and excitement. “I'm sorry; I don't remember you from the meeting,” he said.

Gerald laughed. “It's not a problem. Are you headed this way?” he asked.

“No,” Jamal said, wrinkling his nose. “We're at our max range and we've run into the red on our fuel reserve. We're due back to start our return tomorrow morning. But I thought I'd try one more time...and well, I hit the jackpot.”

“Meaning us,” Gerald said chuckling. “Well, good to hear from you.”

“And you,” Jamal said. They exchanged information briefly including radio frequencies and a plan to meet up again in a few weeks if possible then Jamal reluctantly signed off and directed the drone to return to him. He sat back with a sigh.

“You did good kid,” Axel said. Jamal slouched and then looked up and behind him comically. Axel snorted. “I know you wanted to do more; we were all hoping to run into another community. Next time,” he said.

“Definitely,” the young man vowed.

“Come on. As soon as that thing lands, we've got to tear her apart and pack up. We're going home tomorrow. I could use a shower and a beer,” the mechanic said. Jamal nodded.

------*------

Mitch found out about the girl talk when Selma ribbed him after a particular wild night with Sandra. He was embarrassed and annoyed by the gossip; it was inevitable he knew. But his love life on display wasn't something he was at all happy about. “Hey, I need to talk to you,” he said, tracking Sandra down. She looked up in surprise as he closed her office door. “I'm not happy about having our love life trotted out for everyone to discuss or our relationship. I know you have friends, occasionally need to vent because I'm an ass, but...”

She blinked at him in surprise. “You...”

“Seriously. I know we tease each other in front of other people, but she got into more detail than I'm comfortable with. And she said that everyone knows about it,” he said, feeling his temper swell.

“Now wait a minute Mitch, I didn't tell her...”

They argued on back and forth for a good ten minutes before they finally wound down. “For spats, this is pretty minor. More like talking it out,” Sandra observed, crossing her arms in front of her. She still felt a little defensive, but she recognized she had been in the wrong a little. She wasn't thrilled about admitting it though.

“I'm not a scream and throw things type. Neither are you fortunately,” he said.

“I've got Irish in me, but I try not to hold to stereotypes,” she laughed. “And for the record, you aren't an ass often, but you do have a nice ass.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“And it's all mine,” she growled possessively to him.

He chuckled, taking her into his arms as the tension wore off. “Now that's more like it. Kiss and make up time?”

“Oh most definitely,” she said, smiling as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a hungry kiss. “Then you can make it up to me with a foot rub and by spoiling me rotten,” she said. That got him chuckling. She silently resolved to dial down the gossip, or at least get the girls to not pass it around before his wandering hands drove such thoughts out of her head.

------*------

Two days after Piotr's first day of summer Paul pulled in with the first convoy load to trade with Colonel Dunn or actually, to pause before they headed south the next day to the meeting site for Corporal Klinger's group.

Ciara was happy about the visitors and some of the gear they brought. Diego loved the feed supplement while Ciara and Mya did the cooking for everyone. Carlos was almost pathetically grateful for the simple farm equipment.

The colonel was a bit put out that a lot of the trading had been done without his knowledge. Apparently he'd been out hunting, and Ciara had handled it. They had words later that evening, and it got rather heated.

Junkyard Joe had also been put out that they had offered up a few pieces of machinery in exchange for the farm and ranching gear when he found out the next day as they loaded up. “It's okay, we'll pick up some of it when we come back. We'll take the small, lime yellow Toyota pickup there for Klinger's people. We'll pick up the rather battered blue Ford F-10 on the way back,” Paul said.