Authors: Doug Kelly
“Do
you know anybody in this town, or have any relatives here, maybe?” asked Richard.
“No,
my husband is—,” she choked up, but maintained her composure, “was in the
military. We moved around a lot. We were each other’s best friend.”
“Richard,
here’s the axe and machete,” said Kevin. “Get some wood together. I’ll use some
grubs as bait and throw some lines in the water. We are going to try to find
some food around here.”
Richard
nodded, and the woman sat down at a picnic table with her baby. Richard lit a
cigarette and began to gather wood for a fire. The woman held the baby close
and wished her husband could have gotten the chance to see his beautiful
daughter. Beth pulled a small picture of her husband out of her pocket. She
turned the photo over and read the back. He had written, “I love you” in red
ink. Her eyes welled and a tear hit the picture near the red ink. The three
words began to smear and then disappeared in an incoherent trail of red on the
back of the photo.
The
highway paralleling the river went through the small town. Dylan and Kevin
walked to the road from the river and followed it to the town’s outskirts. At
the edge of town, the name of the highway changed to Main Street, and looking
several blocks down Main Street, they could see what looked like a convenience
store with its front door propped open. They thought it would be hot in the
store, with the sun shining through the large glass windows, and no air
conditioning or even an electric fan. As they got closer, the men could see a
sign in the window that warned, CASH ONLY, and wondered to themselves how much
longer that would last. From the sidewalk, they peered inside the store through
the open door. The men saw a clerk leaning against the counter by the dead cash
register, with his back to the door, fanning himself with a flat piece of
cardboard. The clerk heard the men enter the store and turned, wiping the sweat
from his brow with a rag, and staring at Dylan and Kevin as they came in. The
clerk had an awkward movement and tilt to his head as his gaze tracked the men
walking through the store.
Their
plan was to use cash to buy supplies. Dylan surmised, and Kevin agreed, that
merchants would first stop using credit cards and then only accept cash. They wanted
to use their cash before people realized it was also worthless. Food was their
main priority. After the cash ran out, or people stopped using it, they would
have to scavenge and barter, but they had nothing to barter with.
“Cash
only,” said the clerk.
“We
have cash,” Kevin replied.
They
found a short aisle with dried foods. Using a dusty blue plastic basket, they
took all the bags of rice, beans, noodles, and spaghetti that were on the
shelf. Dylan found some dishtowels for sale. He grabbed two for Beth to use as
diapers for the baby. They sat the small basket of dried goods on the counter
and noticed that the man had a glass eye, explaining his strange stare. The
clerk grabbed the basket and pulled it toward him.
“One
hundred dollars, please,” he stated flatly, without adding up the individual
items.
Dylan
replied angrily, “What kind of shit—”
The
clerk immediately pulled the basket off the counter, halting Dylan’s response.
“We
get it, here’s your cash. Bag it up,” Dylan said, trying to conceal his anger.
The
clerk stared directly at the men as he slid the cash off the counter and onto
the palm of his hand. Fanning the twenty-dollar bills, he tilted his head
toward the outside light from the window and panned over the paper bills with his
one good eye. Satisfied, the clerk placed the money into his pocket, bagged the
items, and then slid them halfway across the counter to Dylan and Kevin.
“Thank
you and come again,” the clerk said sarcastically.
“What
a deal,” Dylan said, as he grabbed the bags close to his body, holding tightly
with both arms.
“Yeah,
what a deal. I would have given my right eye for this stuff,” Kevin said, as he
looked directly at the clerk’s glass eye.
The
clerk held up his middle finger and pointed to the exit.
Dylan
and Kevin walked back to the campsite down a nearly vacant Main Street. There
were no moving cars, no electric lights, and only a few people out walking. At
the end of the block, they turned the corner at a large old brick building on
their way back to camp. Around the corner, they found themselves staring
directly into the face of a horse, mounted by a man in uniform. They stepped
back and saw that it was a police officer, with his hand on a pistol holstered
to his leather belt.
“Not
from around here, are you?” the man on the horse asked in an offhanded tone.
“Nope,
just passing through,” replied Dylan.
“Just
keep on passing through.”
The
officer watched them walk away toward the river and disappear into the bushes
and small trees. They set the dry goods on the picnic table and Kevin got to
work preparing to boil some of the food. Dylan handed the towels to Beth,
explaining that they could use them as diapers. She unwrapped the sleeping baby
and put the blanket she had been using to hold her child onto the ground. Beth
cleaned the baby as well as she could and wrapped her in a clean towel. Richard
had found a working faucet at the campsite. Beth used the clean water to rinse
the soiled blanket.
She
had just finished rinsing her hands when Kevin announced that the food was
ready. They ate small portions of boiled rice and noodles, then Dylan removed the
equipment from his raft so he, Beth, and the baby could have room to sleep.
After covering themselves with the tarp, they immediately feel asleep.
With
his eyes still closed, Dylan sensed dawn’s morning light and decided to get up
to start the day. He moved the tarp, startling Beth, which in turn startled the
baby, and the baby’s crying woke the others.
“Don’t
tell me, I know. I’ll get the fire going,” Richard said to Kevin.
“I’ll
check the lines for fish,” Kevin replied.
Dylan
looked at the two saplings that he had chopped down to make into bows for
hunting. He was ready to get started on them. He burnt the end of a
pencil-sized stick, and used the charcoal to mark dimensions on the oak staves.
Dylan retrieved the paracord from the backpack and unraveled it the length of
the staves. He folded the paracord in half and marked the midpoint of its
length with the charcoal pencil. Placing his hand around the stave just above
the midpoint and then just below it, he made two additional marks to define the
bow’s handgrip. He held each stave at one end and peered toward the other end,
slowly rotating the wood. He needed to identify the curvature of the former sapling
to find the future front and back of the bow. Each stave had a slight curvature
along its length. The convex side would be the belly of the bow, and the
opposite side, its back. This natural recurve would allow for some eventual set
in the wood from the stress of being in the strung position. Dylan was ready to
start carving the belly of the bow away first, by working from the grip toward
the tip.
Dylan
found a gap in the slatted wood planks of the picnic table. He inserted a stave
into the gap, wedged it there, and used the gap to hold each stave like a vice.
Starting at the bow’s handle Dylan held his knife with both hands, blade
perpendicular to the wood, and pulled the blade back. The knife released thin
shavings of wood. With each pull of the knife, he removed more wood as he got
closer to the bow’s tip. He did this to allow for an even bend to the wood. The
stave began to have a taper from the thickness of the handle toward the
thinness of the tip. After he roughly carved the staves, he peeled away the
remaining bark. The wood just underneath the bark of the stave would be the
back of the bow. Satisfied, he decided to stop and allow the wood to dry
further before doing any additional carving.
Kevin
proudly brought back three large catfish. The smell of the cooking catfish from
Richard’s campfire teased their hunger. They shared small portions of rice,
beans, and pasta, the catfish adding the missing flavor to their meager
breakfast. Beth ground some dry cereal into powder, mixed it with water, and
fed her crying baby.
With
their morning hunger temporarily suppressed, they decided it was time to get
ready to leave. Kevin got the map out to identify their next destination. It
would be Great Falls, a much larger town than their current location and it had
a military base. The military base would be an uncertain variable. Dylan
expressed his concern and reminded them that a large group of people with
weapons could be dangerous. There were also five dams to portage around within
about ten miles, starting at Great Falls. They agreed to drop Beth off
somewhere on the riverbank, near the city, then continue downstream without an
excursion into the town. Getting around five dams would take time, and could
take all day. They planned to stop just before the city, and at daybreak, pass
through Great Falls and get around the dams. If the current was swift, they
could make it to just outside of Great Falls, and camp there for the night.
Before
they left, they took advantage of the faucet at the campsite. After filling all
the water bottles, each person had their turn trying to clean their bodies as
best they could with the cold water from the camping spigot. Beth rinsed out
her baby’s nighttime diaper and placed it flat on the raft to dry as they
floated downstream.
This
section of the river had many curves. Small islands divided the waterway at
several points, offering a riddle as to which side was best to pass. At midday,
they came to a road crossing the river in front of them. Beth recognized the
bridge spanning the water. It led to a small community near the highway that
went into Great Falls. They stopped under the bridge for shade and decided to
try using their remaining cash to get more food. Richard took the opportunity
to smoke. The tendrils of cigarette smoke wafted around Beth and her daughter.
She glared at Richard as she moved further away to cleaner air.
“Let’s
not stay here very long,” said Dylan. “I don’t think we should build a fire. We
don’t need the attention that would bring.”
“You
have all my cash,” said Richard. “I’ll wait here while you’re gone. Get what
you can.”
“Somebody
has to stay awake,” Kevin said, looking at both Richard and Beth.
“No
problem, I have to watch the baby. I can sleep as we float if I really need to.
By the way, there should be a little store close by on the right side of this
road.” Beth pointed upward, toward the bridge.
Kevin
nodded and then prodded Dylan with a small stick. Dylan hesitated and walked
back to the raft. He reached to the floor of the raft and retrieved his pistol.
“I
should carry this from now on. It needs to be a habit for me,” Dylan said, as
he tucked the pistol into his pants, concealing it with his shirt.
The
two men climbed the steep embankment and stood on the road. They looked back
down and motioned for Richard and Beth to move further underneath the bridge
because they saw them from the bridge.
The
midday sun was hot and it drained their energy away as they walked on the
blacktop. The gentle breeze was welcome, but only offered minor relief from the
heat. A small store came into view and they walked toward it, passing a few
abandoned cars on the way. Some of the car doors were open and the cars had
obviously been relieved of anything the looter thought had value. They decided
to check the next vehicle for items they might need. Stopping at a pickup
truck, they peered through the open door into the cab. The glove compartment
was open and empty. With probing hands, Dylan felt underneath the seat. Hidden
farther back he found sunglasses, and placed the sunglasses on his face to
model his newest accessory.
“You
look stunning,” Kevin said, sarcastically.
As
they got closer to the store, a woman was visible, nervously looking through
the glass door. She did not see the two men yet. There was a sign on the door
that stated, CASH ONLY, NO PHONE, and NO RESTROOMS. She turned toward them just
as they approached the door and the woman jumped back, startled. The men
stopped walking as she opened the door, but stood there blocking the entrance.
“Can
I help you guys?” the woman asked, trying to hide her apprehension.
Dylan’s
sunglasses protected him from the glare of the store’s glass window. His hidden
eyes glanced into the store. He saw a man trying to conceal himself behind the shelves
of the first aisle, and peeking over it at them.
“We
want to buy a few things,” Dylan said, trying to smile.
The
woman looked at the sign on the door and tore it off.
“We’ve
decided not to sell anything. We’re closing now. Goodbye.”
Dylan
cautiously stepped toward the woman, and said, “Hold on. We just—”
As
Dylan spoke, a small gust of wind blew his loose shirt back, revealing the
pistol. Seeing the pistol, the nervous woman screamed. Instantly the man hiding
in the store ran down the aisle toward the door. At the doorway, he leveled the
shotgun and pointed it at Dylan and Kevin. Both men raised their hands above
their heads. Dylan began inching backwards and Kevin followed.
“Nobody
is going to rob me! Keep walking or I will fill you full of lead,” the man
said, as he continued to point the shotgun at both of them.
“We
have cash. Look, I’ll show you,” Dylan said, as he slowly moved his hand toward
his front pocket.
“Move
your hands another inch and I’ll kill you. My neighbor was murdered last night
by thugs like you. It’s not going to happen to me,” the man said, as he jabbed
the shotgun toward them in short, violent strokes.
“Okay…okay…we’re
leaving…we don’t want any trouble,” Dylan replied, as he began to back away
from the man at a quicker pace.
When
the man began to slowly lower the shotgun, they turned and continued walking
away at an increasing speed. They repeatedly looked over their shoulders at the
man holding the shotgun as they retreated, feeling some relief when the man
relaxed his arms and the shotgun finally pointed down. However, at that moment,
from a distance up the street, they heard another man’s voice yelling at them.