CHAPTER THE SECOND
Saturday morning, September 1st
“Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honour.” Ecclesiastes 10:1
“Maggots”
“W-what?” Sarah hadn’t been able to concentrate for days. It was as if when the electricity went off, so did her brain. All she was doing was reacting. Reacting by running here, and running there and doing exactly what she was told. It wasn’t normal! Mr. Phillips had been right about her dad. He knew exactly what to do, what was happening, and what ‘lead poisoning’ was. Dad run into to town as soon as she had arrived home that day, but it was too late. Mr. Phillips had suffered his own lead poisoning in the robbery that emptied his store. Dad barely got back out of town with his old pickup intact. He had muttered something about stubborn old coots and started ordering everyone to get busy packing an emergency backpack. He wanted some essentials ready in case they had to leave quickly.
As it turned out, no mob came roaring out to their insignificant farm. Instead, a sheriff with about a hundred deputies had arrived in town by nightfall. They had papers with orders to bring order. They said they came from Austin, so Dad said to stay out of their way. Again, he was right, because only those who complained or asked too many questions caught their arresting eyes. Dad set the family to organizing long term supplies and planning winter food stores.
In addition to having Sarah make a hundreds of arrows, he had accumulated quite a stockpile of his own ‘poison lead’, which he packed and hid. The Announcement, as people were calling it, had changed the way a lot of things were done. All work at the plant had shut down for retooling, so he stayed home and started to make and erect solar panels. She didn’t know they had those! He said that making the battery for storage was the real problem, but he was working on that, too.
He had surprised her again by telling her to go help Daniel at the river. It had been one of their hiding places. They had built a large platform above the river. They used the high water marks from the last flood as a guide, and started to build a place big enough to serve as a kind of vacation home. They put a lot of work into it, and it became like the elven home they had imagined for themselves, and was looking like a tree house with extra stilts. The best part was that it was invisible from the road because one had to walk up to it to see it.
Sarah shifted to the present. “What about maggots?”
“Maggots can infect a wound, but sometimes they can help by eating the dead flesh and preventing gangrene,” her father droned on. “ You just have to get them out of there before they start to change into flies. It’s one of those things that modern society considered gross and unsanitary. Last year’s flu should have told people that our drugs are inadequate. We have to go back to the old ways. That’s why your mom is so important. She has all those home remedies locked in her brain. I’m glad you know so much about animals, but you or Daniel needs to absorb your mother’s knowledge, also. Don’t expect the world to get better any time soon. That knowledge may save all our lives.”
“When the horses or the goats had problems with flies and worms, we always bought medicine for them. Are you saying that was wrong? If not, what will we do when they get sick?”
“No, honey, but we won’t be able to buy that medicine anymore. Others have already confiscated it for government use. We have to find other ways. Some of our animals may die, but the strong will live.” He put his hand on her shoulders. “It’s your job to find the herbs that work.”
“Ok, dad. I know we tried planting camomile and comfrey for them. Will we be able to keep doing that?”
“Until someone tries to remove us from our farm, we keep on doing what we do. We’re so small, it will take them a long time to get to us. This new regime seems to be interested in dividing up the bigger places. We’re also off the beaten path. We just can’t buy anything for the animals. If we can’t make it or grow it, we can’t have it.”
Already, mom had locked away all the honey, sugar, salt, and cocoa. Those had become so precious, that she refused to use them except for emergencies. After the riot at Super S, their doors were locked. The sign said that all the food was gone. Other places, like EZ Mart and various restaurants hired guards and tripled or quadrupled prices. Mom had always kept several weeks and months supplies of food, so their pantry and freezer were full. Also, there was the garden, the goats, the chickens, and the fruit trees. Even the cactus was edible. Dad did indeed have a generator, but he limited it to running the freezer. No lights and no air conditioning were allowed. That hurt mom the most. The heat bothered her immensely, so every afternoon, she lay under an old scrub oak on her folding chaise lounge, drinking weak tea or dozing. At sunset, she did some cleaning or tried to crochet. Early mornings, she wrote in her journal while Sarah took care of the animals.
Sarah wondered what her mom would do when the medicines ran out. There were several months worth, but how would they get more? News was limited, because the electricity was not yet working outside of public buildings or for those who had generators. What they did hear came from friends and relatives who managed to flee those cities. It wasn’t good. Most places were experiencing either martial law or total anarchy. Washington DC had become a pile of rubble, and rumors flew about who did it. Was it Terrorists from the Middle East, Terrorists from the Right Wing, Terrorists from the South America? Even space aliens were blamed. After The Announcement, when electricity stopped, no more news of any kind came from there. Not even Baltimore was broadcasting anything. New York City was in flames, but a plucky few had worked to save their own neighborhoods. At least some of the city stood, and found the means to tell the world.
No one had a clear idea of anything, except that The Announcement came from what was left of the Pentagon. Mid-America prayed, because prayer was their backbone. The deep south also lived up to their Bible-Belt label. Since both places had a lot of farming, they had little problem with hunger. Rural areas fared better than urban areas. Urban areas had more rioting, more deaths and fewer resources. Tales of starving city dwellers scared the outlaying farmers. Daniel thought that roving bands of scavengers would hit in the winter as people migrated south. He spent all his time finishing the elven tree house and fortifying it with traps and alarms.
While Sarah hadn’t really considered their relationship to be romantic, Daniel’s new actions showed that he obviously did. It was apparent that he expected her to live with him. Sure, they’d kissed a couple of times, but she never wanted a boyfriend, and told him so. She just wanted a friend, but it was obvious now that he wanted more. With everything else that was changing, how could he expect her to move in with him? Mom needed her, and Dad needed Mom! Sarah needed her dad, because of all the people in the world, she trusted him to know what to do!
As the vulture flies, Wilson was only about five miles northwest. A cloud of vultures were circling above the town. Sarah finished her chores early, so decided to buzz into town while it was still morning. She wanted to see if anyone had electricity, or news, or if there was anything left of the place. As she approached the feed store, she almost wished she hadn’t come. The sheriff was standing on the dock with his shotgun across his arms yelling at a crowd.
“I repeat!” he shouted. “The whole country is under emergency law!”
“You mean martial law! This is America! You can’t do that!” Shouted one of the ranchers, Mr. Weingartner.
“Hell, this is TEXAS!” shouted Mr. Ramirez. “We already fought a war with an overstuffed general trying to control us!” Sarah thought she heard him mutter under his breath, “And my family was there fighting against that bendejo.”
“Mine too, Nacho!” shouted a younger man with bowed legs. “We can recreate new articles for the Republic of Texas!”
“Hear, hear!”shouted several more in the crowd. “Succession!”
Sheriff Serna pointed his shotgun to the sky and fired a shot up and away from the crowd. “QUIET! This is exactly why I’m here! You yahoos are going off half cocked. There is a national emergency! Since the explosion at the White House and the riots in Washington DC, we thought that everyone: the president, the vice-president, and the secretary of state, and both houses of congress were all dead! The joint chiefs took over and declared martial law. Today, however, the president re-emerged from hiding and announced that the current state of affairs needs to continue a while longer. The difference is that the president himself will be in charge, instead of the joint chiefs. THIS IS GOOD NEWS, PEOPLE! It will last only as long as the emergency!”
“Yeah, right,” muttered Weingartner to the ground.
“Now listen up people,” the sheriff continued. “During this crisis, there will be rationing.”
“No!”
“Over my dead body!”
“Shut up and let him continue!”
“Thanks, Walt,” Serna continued. “Each of you will get his fair share, but starting today, this feed store will now be run by my deputies!”
“What in the sam hell are you talking about! This store belongs to the Riddleman family! Where are they? Why aren’t they here?” demanded Oscar Ramirez.
“They are no longer available, so we are turning this into a government run co-op to make sure that you folks get the supplies you need to run your farms and ranches. People in the cities need to eat!”
“Why you, sheriff? What happened to ol’ Bill Riddleman? Why can’t he run his own store?”
“Mr. Riddleman met with an accident during the unfortunate disturbances on the day of The Announcement. Rather then let the only feed store in town close, the Governor ordered us to keep it open. After what happened at Super S, last week, can you blame him for sending law enforcement?”
“Why hasn’t Super S re-opened?” As soon as she spoke, Sarah was sorry she had. All eyes were pointed in her direction. She felt exposed and suddenly cold in the late summer heat.
“Now, that’s a good question, young lady,” the sheriff replied. “Fact is, that was my next announcement. My deputies and I will be running the grocery store, as well. All these illegal vegetable stands and makeshift lunch wagons are being shut down and those food stuffs brought to the store to be inspected and distributed to the people. Until we get some trucks moving again across the nation, all our food will have to be local. Food from other countries has been banned, but we will not starve! You do know that there are some very hungry people in your own town, don’t you? Some don’t even have a roof over their heads! That’s why the new state housing authority will be converting that big bank building of yours into indigent housing. The bank folded folks, so the building was useless anyway.”
Sarah’s head spun. People were yelling again, but she couldn’t hear what they said. Instead, she put her bike in gear and rode towards the river to see how Daniel was doing. She had packed a lunch for the two of them, and brought some of the frozen food in a cooler for later. Dad was right after all. Jennifer, too. Jennifer had stopped by the house, but only stayed one night. She said that her sister lived in Corpus, and she wanted to be with her family. She argued when Sarah tried to return the money.
“You keep it, darling. It’s not going to be worth anything. Spend it quickly, or keep it as a souvenir! I have my tools and my talents. I’ll get by.”
She had given half the money to Daniel. She supposed that he was going to use it to start fires in the winter. She knew what to look for, but still had trouble seeing the tree house from the paved road. She followed the trail to the public fishing spot, then followed the Ramirez River around the bend to a less obvious trail which lead to a fallen tree that straddled the Texas version of a river. Daniel’s grandfather had come from Tennessee, and laughed that Texas rivers barely qualified as streams ‘back east’, and the Ramirez wasn’t even a good sized creek. Until the Flood of 2002, that is. People around the area still referred to that as a historical landmark, even though is was a decade gone. Older folks also remembered the Flood of 1998, or the snows of 1988, or any of a dozen or more hurricanes. Hurricanes went by name rather than years, so they were harder to follow; Cecilia, Beula, Rita, Ike, Jaime. All had their places in Texas history.
Mom said that no one outside of Texas remembered Rita, because just about 45 days earlier, another hurricane had hit New Orleans. She also liked to tell the story about the con artist who called her cell phone about donating to the Katrina Relief Fund right after Rita hit. The call had originated from Virginia, so Mom ask how she could get some relief money and told the woman about Rita. The woman hung up, and no one ever called about relief funds again! Cell phones hadn’t been working right for almost a year, so it seemed funny now that one had worked while the land line was out. Sarah wished they did. It would make all this running around unnecessary.
Sarah reached the downed tree and beat twice on a log that was hollow before crossing the river. On the other side, she shook a sapling three times. She continued across the sand bar to another downed tree that connected to the island. Once on the island, she quickly found their tree. A rope hung near the truck, so she yanked it three times and yelled her name. Daniels voice filtered down with his own, and a rope ladder appeared. She climbed it through the leaves to emerge into a 15' x 15' room with small windows on each wall. Besides her friend, there was a single bed, a dresser, a book shelf, and a shallow, but wide cabinet. There were rugs scattered around the floor and two sleeping bags on the bed. It looked like a cozy little cabin. Instead of a stove, however, there was the portable solar oven that Daniel had made for the Science Fair during his senior year in high school.
They hugged, but Sarah resisted a kiss.
“I brought us both lunch, and Dad sent some frozen food that you should be able to eat tonight and tomorrow.”
“Your dad knows about the appetites of twenty year olds, doesn’t he?” Daniel smiled. What you brought smells good!”
“How can you tell?” she demanded. “It’s wrapped and you haven’t had a bath for days!”
“Well, there is that, but I did go swimming first thing this morning!”
“Swimming?”
“Yeah, I fell into the water while trying to string another trap,” he laughed.
“I was just kidding anyway.” She dug into her backpack. “Mom tried to make some soap. I’m not sure it was successful, but here it is.” Sarah handed Daniel a misshapen brown glob that almost resembled a bar of soap and a similarly sized box labeled ‘Ivory’. “We still have some commercial soap, but she wanted to make sure that we could make our own, too. I think I learned a few more Russian words while she was doing it, too!”
“You mom’s not Russian, is she?”
“No, she just wanted to learn the language. She claims that profanity is what one learns first, because those are the words that most people speak loudly and the most emphatically. For instance, how much Spanish have you learned since you’ve been here?”
“I see what you mean,” he laughed. He stopped abruptly and looked at his hands. “Sarah, we have something I don’t want to lose. Please consider what I’m about to say.”
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