Daunting Days of Winter (21 page)

He felt like a cowboy in an old western movie, riding unannounced into town, a wary sheriff keeping an eye on him, the townsfolk nervous as children scampered out of his way, though in the movies the townsfolk never looked as hungry or as worried as they did now. Kyle had picked up a few letters along the way to be delivered to people in towns further along his route, the recipients’ names and towns printed neatly on the outside of envelopes. There was no postage fee, but the senders usually offered some food, a couple of bullets, or something else of value for his troubles. To this point, Kyle had picked up sixteen letters and already delivered three of them to grateful family or friends, anxious for news from their loved ones.

Garfield snorted, and Kyle walked back to him and checked the straps of the saddle, making sure there were no saddle sores on the horse and that everything was secure. He took a few grains of Frank’s powdered bleach and dropped them into his canteen, then closed the lid and shook it vigorously. “You ready to go?”

Garfield ignored him and continued to graze. Kyle circled the horse, checking the bottom of each hoof for embedded rocks, then mounted up and continued on his way.

CHAPTER 27

Tuesday, February 7
^th

Deer Creek, MT

Ty Lewis knocked on the door, then stood back and waited. The door opened a few inches, and Jennifer peered out through the crack. “What do you need?” she asked, squinting in the sunlight.

“Hi, Jennifer,” Ty said, rubbing his arms to ward off the cold. “I promised Kyle I would look out for you guys while he was gone, so I’m here. My daughter said you weren’t at school today.” She nodded. “Can I come in? I don’t want to let all your warm air out.”

Jennifer hesitated, then pulled the door open wide enough for Ty to come in.

Ty hurried in, and closed the door behind him. “Feels good in here,” he observed. “Mind if I sit down?”

“How long are you planning on staying?” Jennifer asked, her arms folded tightly across her body, her head dipped low.

“I don’t plan to stay too long, Jennifer, but we need to talk. What you’re doing isn’t healthy.” He smiled and tried to make eye contact, but she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“How do you know what’s good for me and what isn’t?” she snapped. “Maybe this is how I like things. Maybe this is all I can do.” A tear welled up in the corner of her eye, and she wiped it away. “Maybe you should just leave me alone,” she said, raising her voice and motioning for Ty to leave.

Spencer heard his mother and ran up the stairs from the basement. He looked at his mother, then over at Ty, then wrapped his arms around Jennifer’s leg, giving her a hug.

“Hi Spencer,” Ty said. “You doing okay, buddy?”

He nodded his head innocently and looked up at his mom.

“He doesn’t exactly understand why his father’s gone. After Kyle’s miraculous return, to have the town try and kill him then run him off is a little hard for this family to wrap our heads around.”

“You want to come over to my house and play with Zettie tomorrow?” Ty asked Spencer. “You know her from school, right? I think she’s your age.”

Spencer nodded again. “She’s in my class.” He looked up at his mom. “Can I go?”

“That would be fine, if it’s okay with Mr. Lewis.”

“Of course it’s okay, Spencer. When I get home, I’ll tell her to get her room cleaned up. Hope you like to play with dolls,” Ty said, flashing his teeth in a broad smile.

Spencer shook his head vigorously.

“How about trucks and legos and stuff? I love my girl, but I kind of hoped for a little boy, so she’s got a few things like that too. Does that sound better?”

Spencer nodded shyly, and his mother rubbed his head affectionately. “That does sound better, doesn’t it? Why don’t you go back downstairs for a few minutes, while I visit with Zettie’s dad.” She watched Spencer leave, then turned back to Ty. “So why are you here?”

“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see you. I stopped by a couple of times, but Carol said you weren’t up to talking yet.”

“She told me. I’m sorry to be such a bother. You don’t need to worry about us.”

“I promised Kyle I would, and I meant it. How would it look when he gets back if I haven’t kept my promise?”

Jennifer looked at Ty with dead eyes. “What makes you think he’s coming back?”

The look on Ty’s face spoke volumes. He was about to say something when Jennifer raised her hand to stop him.

“I don’t mean that he would choose not to come back, but what if something happens to him? The first time, I was so naïve thinking he could just somehow cross the country and get back to us. He did it, but he was so lucky. After listening to his stories, and thinking about what he went through, there’s no way that should have happened. The world is all screwed up, Ty. My fourteen-year-old son has been stabbed, and he’s had to kill armed invaders. I’ve killed someone, as has Kyle. That Smith girl was murdered, raped, and dumped in my house. This world is falling apart. How can I even hope that Kyle will make it back with everything that’s going on?”

“You don’t have a choice, Jennifer; it’s not just you. You have your kids and your friends. People look up to you.”

“Who looks up to me?” she retorted. “No one cares what I do. My kids, maybe, but I even wonder about them lately. I feel like I’m going over the edge, Ty, like I should be locked up in an asylum.”

“More people than you know watch you. My wife and I…you don’t understand. Last fall, this whole thing went down less than a month after we buried our daughter. We’d been home from Georgia for less than a week when the EMP hit. Our world was still spinning from losing her, and then all this?” Ty looked around the room, motioning to the dead lights and the condition of the house, then looked back at Jennifer. “We were ready to give up. I didn’t want to go on. It was so hard. Trust me, I kind of know how you feel.”

“What made you keep going?”

“There were a handful of things, but one of them was you.”

It was Jennifer’s turn to be puzzled. “Me?”

Ty nodded.

“What did I do? I only just barely remember seeing you at the town meetings. Did we even talk?”

“It wasn’t anything you said, Jenn. It was just you, your spirit.”

She still didn’t get it.

Ty grinned and chuckled. “We watched you. For some reason, you were kind of like our beacon of hope. Someone, I can’t remember who, told us your husband was gone, that you were all alone with your kids. Yet at the meetings, you always seemed so happy, so hopeful. My wife mentioned it to me one evening when I was really low. Said if Jennifer Tait could be happy and hopeful under similar circumstances as us, why couldn’t we?”

Jennifer listened, staring at the floor.

Ty continued. “She was right. The next day the weather was really nice, and I took a long hike and asked myself what good it was doing for me to be walking around like a man half dead, feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, it hurt, and it still hurts more than I can describe to have lost our little Lonnie. I’m sure it always will, but hating life just made it worse. You helped show me that, Jennifer.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe you.”

“You can believe it or not, but it’s true. Come by and ask my wife if you’d like. Talia didn’t go on the hike with me, but she knows the story.”

“I was just naïve then. I didn’t know any better. Sorry to let you down now.”

Ty forced a smile and watched Jennifer for a minute, but she wouldn’t look up. “Jennifer, you’re a big girl. I can’t tell you what to do. I understand how tough it is, but hating people isn’t going to fix anything. I can’t promise you things will be great or that Kyle will be back tomorrow, but I can tell you it’s easier if you choose to smile. No one’s out to get you. Everyone’s just afraid and still figuring out how to deal with life. Give them some time.”

“I’m the one that needs time, you know,” Jennifer snapped before catching herself. “I will think about it though. I want to be happy, Ty, I really do, but with Kyle gone on top of everything else, it’s too hard.”

Ty took her hand and gave it a squeeze as he stood to leave. “I’m here to help if you’ll let me. If there’s something you need, please tell me. How about if I come by for Spencer after lunch tomorrow, okay?”

Jennifer nodded. “Thanks for stopping by. I do appreciate you thinking of me.”

Ty let himself out, and Jennifer sat back down on the couch.

“So what are you going to do?” Carol asked from the kitchen.

Jennifer jumped. “I forgot you were in there.”

“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help hearing the conversation.”

‘It’s your house; don’t apologize.”

“He made some good points, you know.”

“I know,” Jenn said, nodding. “But it’s so much harder this time. I’m terrified Kyle won’t come back. I keep thinking of him dead or hurt somewhere on the road, and it terrifies me. I really hate to say it, but if he’d been shot last week, at least the uncertainty wouldn’t be hanging over my head every day like it is now. I understand why the families of people who go missing struggle so much. I think not knowing can almost be worse than death.”

Carol stood in the doorway of the kitchen. “We all have tough things to deal with, Jennifer. I know you know that. Just realize that you’ll make it through this. You’ve got a lot of friends pulling for you.”

Jennifer nodded and went and helped clean the kitchen. She was about to go downstairs when someone pounded on the front door. She jumped to her feet and hurried to it, pulling it open. Ty stood on the front porch again, this time out of breath.

“Is Carol here? There’s an emergency. We need a doctor!”

CHAPTER 28

Tuesday, February 7
^th

Billings, MT

The road ahead looked like a World War II movie scene, with charred pieces of steel littering the highway, blackened vehicles on the road, and partially collapsed and burnt out buildings along the perimeter. It was just as the ranchers had described to Rose during her two-day stay with them while Blitz recovered from a leg injury, a deep gash inflicted by barbed wire buried beneath the snow.

Rose had met the ranchers, Paul and Mindy, at their home a few miles south of Huntley while seeking help for her wounded horse. The couple had been kind enough to take her in and help doctor the wound on Blitz’s leg, which, fortunately, hadn’t been too severe. Two days rest had done wonders for both her and her animals, but once refreshed, she had been anxious to get back on the road again, despite Paul and Mindy’s concern for her wellbeing as a woman traveling alone.

Now picking her way through the debris, Rose was feeling uneasy. What lay before her was the most graphic depiction she’d seen of the destruction that had followed the September attacks. Two oil refineries on the south side of Billings had lasted three days past the event before erupting in a series of explosions that shook buildings for thirty miles and launched pieces of shrapnel thousands of feet. No one knew what had triggered the blast, at least no one who had survived the explosions and the ensuing destruction, and there was nothing to be done except watch the fires burn themselves out, leaving charred buildings as semi-permanent reminders.

Fires had raged for five days following the blasts, burning through entire blocks and killing an untold number of residents who were unable to flee quickly enough. Those on the periphery of the blast zone who had escaped from the fires had then found themselves in a desperate situation, as there were no relief services to step in and provide assistance after homes and all personal possessions had been lost in the destruction.

Churches attempted to help but were quickly overwhelmed by demand and unable to resupply, and their efforts soon fell short, resulting in a large homeless community that was struggling for survival against both hunger and nature on the edges of the Yellowstone River.

From the road, Rose could see makeshift shelters lining the river’s edge, constructed of whatever materials the homeless had been able to scavenge: old cars, cardboard boxes, pieces of steel tanks that had been blown apart by the refinery explosions, sheets of drywall, and even fallen trees stacked to provide shelter from the wind, a scene more suited to the slums in some nameless place in India than a modern-day city in America. Rose half expected to see naked, starving children with distended bellies bathing in the river and likely would have, she thought, were it not for the sheets of ice extending from the shore, preventing access to the water except in a few isolated locations.

Smoke rose from several of the shelters, and people wandered from shelter to shelter, gathered wood, fished, or sat and stared vacantly at the tumbling water. She gripped her rifle in her hands, her eyes scanning the road for any sign of threats. Paul and Mindy had warned her about the community at the river, but to avoid the highway would have meant either going through the heart of Billings, or circling so far north or south that it would have added several extra days of travel.

A quick trip, armed and read, was Rose’s response to the threat, and so far she had proceeded without incident. Smokey and Blitz were making good time, and most people had paid little attention to her, absorbed instead in their own struggle for survival.

Rose kept to the north side of the road, moving the horses at a brisk pace, and veering onto the pavement only when debris or interchanges required it. Her heart raced as they hurried along. The road, much as it would have been when the EMP hit, was filled with the heavy traffic of a holiday weekend. Cars, trucks, and semis, all obstacles that could easily conceal an ill-intentioned person, were everywhere. Even the shoulder of the road and the grassy area alongside it were not free of vehicles, making the journey a challenge for a person maneuvering two horses.

“Hey, can you help me?” She had made it most of the way through the city. In fact, she had just started to breath easier as the city fell away behind her when she heard the voice call out. She slowed and looked around, not seeing anyone.