The Last Tribe (72 page)

Everyone put down the listings. 

Rebecca asked a simple question. 
“Why don’t we take the farm listings, take the giant map, and see if everyone
wants to head up to the new location?  It is much cooler up there, and if we
want a resort, Princeville is beautiful.  We can fish just as easily on those
shores.”

John picked up his walkie-talkie. 
“Hey, Matt, we’re done here.  We’re going to the hotel, pick up our stuff, and
move to the north.”

“We’re moving already?  Rebecca
found our spot?”  Matt radioed back.

“Yes, we’ll get up there and find a
trailer, come back for the animals today.  Let’s make our move this morning. “ 
John smiled when Matt referenced Rebecca.  As much as he tried to lead, she was
the default oracle.  John was a fantastic field general, but Rebecca was
clearly in charge.

“We found a Walmart.  We’re going
to grab some stuff.  We’ll see you back at the beach.”  Matt replied.

John switched radio channels and
had the identical conversation with Emily.  When they arrived back at the
beach, Craig and Antonio were sitting next to Peter and Todd.  They were
talking and laughing as Hubba lay in the sand at the old man’s feet.

“What’s with the laying around?” 
John asked.

“It’s like fishin’ with dynamite. 
We couldn’t get them off our lines fast enough.  I bet we have four pounds of
fish in the container, filleted and chunked.”  Antonio pointed to the plastic
bin.

“Seriously, it was like the fish
wanted to get caught.  They had six good sized fish in less than a half hour. 
Tony would cast, hook a fish, hand it to Craig to clean, and I would fillet.  I
couldn’t keep up.” 

Todd explained with amazement how
easy it was to catch the fish.  “Even Peter was yanking them out like it was a
cartoon.”

“I may have kept my angling skills
a secret until now, so I wouldn’t have to walk that hill in Hanover every day. 
My wife and I had a condo in the Marathon, Florida for years.”  Peter said
coyly.

“You old dog.”  Antonio chided
him.  “You sandbagged us, and stayed off fishing detail.”

Everyone smiled at the old codger. 
“Well pack up.”  Dan announced.  “We’re moving north.  Now that we have lunch,
our decision is that much easier.  All we have to do is cage the chickens
again.”  He turned to Paul.  “I hate catching those chickens.”

The plan was relayed to the fishing
group, and they prepared for the trip.  Instead of caging the chickens, Dan
backed his SUV up to the door of the chicken room, and a few of the men went
into the room and tossed the chickens directly into the back of the SUV.  Dan
and Paul volunteered to drive the truck north.   A few cages tied to the
headrests separated them from the free roaming fowl.

“You can listen to your loud
dinosaur music with the chickens.”  Rebecca told them. 

The SUV already smelled.  “Sunroof
open, windows down, we’ll be fine.”  Dan assured Paul.

As the tribe pulled away from the
beach resort, the temperature was already climbing into the low 80’s.  Matt’s
group had the find of the morning, a large moving van acquired from a rental
agency near the stores downtown.

Emily radioed Kelly with the news
of their departure for Hanalei and the discovery of a van.  “I can drive it.” 
She crackled back over the walkie-talkie. 

Antonio and the van were dropped
off at the airport rental lot.  He sat in his Mustang convertible, and waved
goodbye to the others.

Kelly herded the cattle into the
back of the truck.  She brought the cows during this trip, and would make two
more with the hogs, and the bull.  She drove the Kauai coast towards the lush
green farmlands on the north shore.  Antonio drove his convertible behind the
truck.  The convertible top was down so he could enjoy the sun and the salt
air.

Forty-five minutes after shutting
the doors at the airport, the van pulled into rich, fertile farmland at the top
of the Hanalei wildlife preserve.  John gave Kelly a map with a red circle
around a farm.  She stopped the van in a driveway and saw their goats munching happily
on overgrown vegetation. 

Fences surrounded the property. 
The goats stood in one section of a large pen area.  A stream ran through the farm,
and Kelly walked the livestock down the ramp of the truck and into a beautiful
grazing field.  Wild chickens and roosters ran about.  Kelly saw birds flying
in and out of the trees to the south. 

“Welcome to your new home.”  She
said.  The cows grazed immediately.  Some drank from a large water trough
filled from a hand pump tapping an underwater spring. 

The temperature was moderate. 
Livestock shelters were built up around the fields for relief from the sun. 
Some of the shelters were in disrepair, but with only a few cows, Kelly knew
this farm would work perfectly.  She pumped water into a trough in a different
paddock, preparing for the arrival of the pigs later that day. 

There was a farmhouse near the
barn.  Antonio sat in his car listening to music.  Kelly pointed to the house,
then to herself, letting him know she was going inside.  He nodded and did not
turn down his music.

Both the screen and storm front
doors were unlocked.  Kelly took a step inside and into a good sized first
floor.  The house was nice but not extravagant.  A living room to the right was
bright with sunlight from a bank of windows running the south side of the
house.  The air was stale and smelled of death.  Kelly did not have to look,
she knew there were bodies upstairs.  She opened all of the windows on the
first floor, and propped the storm door open for a breeze to flow in and out of
the home. 

Kelly found two fireplaces in the
house, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. 

“I could live here.”  She said to
herself.  “I hope I don’t live alone, but if I do, I can make it work.”  She
opened a back door and walked onto a lanai on the field side of the house
overlooking the farm.  It had an outdoor shower that worked off a cistern next
to the house.  She pulled a chain and cold water rained out of a round
showerhead. 

Done exploring, she made her way
back to Antonio. 

“Is it going to work?”  He asked
her, yelling the question over his music.

“Yeah, once we get rid of the
previous family.”

“Damn, I knew you were going to say
that.”  He shook his head in disgust.  “I have a feeling we’ll be doing a lot
of that over the next week.”

Kelly agreed and slid into the
passenger’s seat.  “Let’s see what this thing can do.”

Antonio grinned and hit the gas. 
Both of their heads shot back as the car flew down the dirt road.  Antonio spun
the wheel and turned them around towards the coastal highway.

As they passed the farm, Kelly
waved to the grazing cows.  The van was parked in the road.  Antonio avoided an
accident, but came closer than Kelly would have liked.

It was noon and a temperate 82
degrees.  Soft puffy white clouds drifted across the blue sky as a stiff breeze
blew from the ocean.  Antonio screeched to a halt at a semi-circle driveway
filled with six SUV’s in front of a seaside estate.  A realtor’s sign stood
next to the mailbox.

Kelly and Antonio walked through
the front door into a gorgeous, fully furnished house.

“This is a nice place.”  Kelly said
to the young man.  Antonio was struck dumb by the opulence. 

Neither of them had been in a house
of this expense or quality.  They heard voices and continued through the home
towards a beautiful lanai with a saltwater pool and panoramic views. 

“You made it!”  Bernie yelled. 
“Wash your hands before you eat.  There is water!  It comes from a natural
spring, and solar cells power a pump.  How crazy is that?  You can wash your
hands in a sink with a faucet and not from a rain barrel or bucket of icy snow
water.    There is even an electric on demand water heater, so, get ready,
there is hot water.”  Bernie gave Kelly a hug, grabbing Antonio’s shirt and
pulling him towards them.

“Bernie, calm down.  Where can I go
wash my hands and eat.  I’m starving, and I’m the one who caught the damn
fish.  Am I the only one who works around here?  Tony, start the cars. Tony,
catch the fish.  Tony this, Tony that.” 

Bernie gave him a stern look.  “You
need to watch your language around the children.”  She pointed towards a half
bath near the pool.

“I’m sorry.”  Antonio replied.  He
walked towards the bathroom muttering under his breath about all of the work he
was doing.  When he returned, he went straight for the food.  The ceviche was
in a large serving bowl with a ladle to spoon out individual portions onto
plates stacked on the table.  A bag of tortilla chips and boxes of saltine and
melba crackers we open to accompany the meal. 

Todd added fresh avocado, mango,
and cilantro to the fish.

A platter of sliced pineapple, star
fruit, and bananas was also available.  Antonio grabbed two bananas and a
several slices of star fruit.

“Are we all going to live here?” 
Kelly asked.  She was not up to speed on the living arrangements.

“Rebecca picked this place for
herself.”  Bernie told her.  “We have to find our own slices of paradise.”

“What is she going to do with all
this space?”  Kelly looked around in wonder at the enormous home.

“Location, location, location.” 
Rebecca said to Kelly before enjoying a tortilla chip covered in fresh fish. 
“We are close to a bay for fishing.  We are within a mile of the farmland.  We
are on springs for fresh water.  There are a dozen homes on this road.  We will
stay close without crowding each other.”  She ate another bite of food.  “This
is the place for us.  This is where we should settle.  I mean, why not?”  She
pointed towards the private beach.

“And you get this great house.” 
Kelly said to her, a knowing smile on her face.

“Well, I may have selfish
reasons.”  Rebecca was not embarrassed about her selection, and the other
houses on the road were of similar grandeur. 

“Okay.”  Todd said behind them. 
“It’s lunch on day one.  We’ve accomplished a lot already, but we have work to
do.  Dan, Hank, and I are going through the houses along this road for
removal.  We’ll do the same down at the farm houses.  We will be busy for the
rest of today and maybe tomorrow.”  He took a drink of water.  He enjoyed the
water from the tap, a pre-rapture luxury taken for granted.

“We need to retrieve the supplies
from the plane.  We need to figure out a system of distributing food.  We need
to figure out how to split up the chickens or if we are going to keep the
chickens in one location.  I know there are only 24 of us, but this is also a
society.  We should decide how it is going to work.”

Kelly ate her food, and chimed into
the conversation.  “I need to eat, I’m famished, but then I am making a swing
down to the plane.  I need to get the hogs and the bull.  You can have the
truck when I have finished moving our animals.”

 “I don’t want to concern anyone,
but we need to think about our next meals.  Sure, we have food we can scavenge
or that we brought, but I was thinking of throwing down some traps or trying to
find something that we can cook.”  Greg’s traps were in the airplane, but he
thought about using his bow to snag a few of the chickens running around.

“You just want to get out of
working in the hot sun unloading the plane.  I can walk outside and kill a few
of the chickens at sundown.”  Matt eyed his brother with skepticism. 

“You plan on catching, cleaning,
plucking enough chickens to feed everyone as the sun goes down?  If it was just
you and me, sure, but we’ve got Craig, Jaclyn, Jacob.”

“Greg’s right.  He’s on food for
tonight, protein at least.  Everyone else should go down to the plane, help
with the animals, or help watch the kids.”  John had no desire to go to the
plane and unload, but it had to get done.

Melanie found Kelly.  “Were the
farm homes nice?  I know my kids will want to live on the ocean, but I am
excited to start a farm.”

“The one I put the animals next to
is very nice.  We’ll have to clean it out first.”  Kelly made a face, “but it’s
a beautiful home with a spectacular lanai.  It might be a better home for you
and the kids than just me.”  She described the farm and home in detail.

“I doubt we’ll get our own places,
do you?”  Melanie was feeling the young veterinarian out.  “I know Rebecca
enjoys her space, but I don’t want to live on a farm by myself.  If the house
is as big as you say, I hope you would consider staying there.  You don’t have
to raise my children, but we’d love to include you as part of the family, even
more than we already do.”

“If it doesn’t work,” Kelly told
her.  “I can always move.” 

Kelly did not live alone before the
rapture, and the few weeks she hid in her building were not pleasant.  She did
not hesitate to accept Melanie’s offer. 

“I’ll make sure the men get those
bodies out today or tomorrow.”  Melanie gave her a wink. 

Todd, Dan, and Hank assembled for a
walk through the neighborhood homes.  The afternoon would be spent opening houses
and determining which ones were available for immediate occupancy, and which
ones needed to be cleared.  Tomorrow they would find a pickup truck or van to
use for clean-up duty.  

Melanie approached their strategy
conversation.  “The farmhouse needs to be taken care of.  I’m not telling you to
do it right now, I’m just telling you so you know it has to get done.”

“Noted.”  Dan nodded.

“If you need any help, I can’t lift
as much as you burly men, but I have a strong stomach from working at the
hospital.”  Melanie did not mind dead bodies.  She had no love for the smell,
but could handle the task.

“You take care of your kids, we’ll
get your house cleaned.  We are going to wrap the bodies in sheets and take the
mattresses out too.  Everything goes into a van or truck, and we’ll find a
place to bury or burn it all.”  Todd hoped to be as brave as he sounded when he
encountered the bodies.

“Just thought I’d offer, but you
have it under control.  The kids and I will be down at the plane loading the
supplies.”  Melanie rubbed Todd’s back and walked towards the porch.

“Let’s start on the ocean side of
the road, cross the street and come back the other way.”  Dan pointed west, and
the men walked off the back lanai towards the road. “Princeville is that way.” 
Dan pointed toward the town.  “Let’s see how far we get.” 

They each had a backpack filled
with snacks and water.  They wore yellow latex gloves and white mouth and nose
shields.

“Let’s do it.”  Hank walked between
the two men as they approached the front door of the house neighboring
Rebecca’s.  “I put the over under at 3 homes with people.”

“Pretty low, what’s your theory?” 
Todd asked as he tried the front door.  It was locked.

“These are expensive homes,
probably second or third homes.  The rapture hit in July.  If you live in
Hawaii, and there are a few months you decide to go somewhere else?  It’s the
summer.  Maybe ski season, but really, if you have to go back to the continental
U.S. it’s in the summer.  If this is your vacation home, you’re not coming in
July.  These places are empty.”

“I stayed at the Princeville resort
for a few days.  It was before I was married.  Nice place.”  Dan made a move
towards the beach side of the home.

Most of the ocean view houses had
open floor plans and large lanais.  This house was no exception.  The back
lanai was open into the living room.  There were plantation shutters, but they
were not pulled shut.  Todd jumped over the knee wall and into the house.

“I don’t smell anything.”  He gave
a thumbs up.  “I’ll walk around to the front door and open it.  Meet you up
there to move to the next home.”

They spent two hours walking up and
down the road, breaking into houses when necessary.  They found one set of
corpses on the entire street.  From the pictures in the home, it was a retired
couple, older, living alone.  They were decomposing in a large bed in the
master bedroom.  An open bottle of pills on the nightstand led the men to
theorize the one died of the rapture and the second committed suicide.  The couple
would receive a burial on the central part of the island. 

The farmhouses were occupied by
dead families.  It was bad work, but the men used a pickup truck they found
near the Princeville Resort to clear out the bodies.  Instead of two days, they
were done in one afternoon.  Todd, Hank, and Dan agreed to meet at sunrise to
bury the bodies. 

“Let’s see how long the walk to the
ocean is.  If walking is our mode of transportation, it will be good to know
how long it takes us to get fish.”  Todd was tired, but knew he would be making
this walk for the rest of his life, and he would often be tired while doing it.

It took them twelve minutes to get
to the first house on Anini Road.  They guessed it would take twenty minutes at
a leisurely stroll, but the men were hungry and thirsty, and ready to dive into
the water.

 “About a mile?”  Dan said when
they were in sight of the house.

“Yeah, that’s what I’d guess, maybe
a little more, but a mile give or take.”  Hank felt better after the walk.  The
fresh air helped him forget the rancid smells at the farmhouses.  The walk
stretched his legs and back, both tight from the twelve hour flight the day
before.

They walked down the road to
Rebecca’s house.  She and Avery were in a discussion.  The men waved, and went
into the water, clothes and all.

“It’s the way it is Rebecca.  I’m
sorry.  This isn’t a private Greg and Rebecca vacation.  We are all in this
together.  Living in a big house by yourself, well, it’s not happening.  I know
you and Greg love each other.”  The comment made Rebecca blush, but she did not
drop her gaze from Avery.  “And I know you value your privacy, but we are part
of a cooperative now.  You can have the first floor master.  Hole up in there
whenever you want, but you have to live with people.  Unless you start your own
family, and even then you’ll probably want people to help you, you have to
accept all of us are in your life.  We are part of your family.  You’re not an
only child.”  Avery made it clear to her friend that other people were going to
live in her house.  Meredith and Avery were definitely moving into the home.

“But there are homes right next
door.  Why do you have to live with us, when you can live in the same
community, but in a different house?  That doesn’t make sense.”  Rebecca did
not argue as fiercely as Avery expected.

“We need to eat meals together,
work together, help each other.  I can’t be there for you if I’m living ten
homes down the road by myself.  That’s not a community.  No walls like the old
days.  No locking yourself in your house and shutting out the world.”  Avery
put her hand on her new friend’s arm.  “Besides, I’m moving in.  You want this
house?  You’ll share it with me and Meredith, and anyone else who wants to live
here.  You don’t want to live with me?  Move, but I’ll probably move with you.”

Rebecca believed Avery, that she
would follow Rebecca and Greg from house to house.  Rebecca also believed in
the fundamentals of Avery’s position.  This was a community.  Moving into
twenty different homes was against the fabric of what the tribe was trying to
build.

“We get the big bedroom on the
first floor, and if one of you is a slob, you’re out, or I’m out.  I will live
with people happily.  I will not live with a slob.”

“Deal.  Believe me, you’re making
the right decision.”  Avery was used to getting what she wanted.  It might take
more tenacity now that she was not the beautiful tennis princess, but Avery had
plenty of tenacity. 

Hank came up from the water.  He
felt refreshed from the awful job he just completed.  “How did you two get out
of unloading?”

“I don’t know.”  Rebecca told him. 
“Honestly, we were just standing here, talking, and everyone left, and Ahmed
told us to stay here and keep things under control.  We were both like,
‘okay.’”

“We didn’t want to be total
slackers, so we gathered fruits and vegetables from all around the homes.  We
started a map of the local fruit.”  Avery pointed towards a table with a bounty
of fruits, peppers, avocados, and a large white paper.  “Then we became
slackers.” 

“We even found some onions.”  Rebecca
added.

Hank walked to the table and looked
through the vegetables and at the map.  He could not believe how much food was
available.  Flocks of wild chickens wandered around, fruit fell off the trees,
fish almost jumped into the nets.  Kauai was a Godsend for their group.

“We cleared the homes.  The
farmhouses might take a few days to air out, and we’ll have to move new beds
into the bedrooms, but everything is done.”  Hank sat down at the table,
grabbing a banana from the basket.  “What are you two talking about?”