Dark Coup (26 page)

“And then the ranch has a working water pump,” Eric said.

“And we’ll have something we can sell,” Kyle added.

…

“How’s J.B. doing,” Jessie asked when they saw Mr. Gibson.

Travis laughed.  Dan and Marissa took turns bringing the girls out and they’d been to the ranch at least every other day since the quarantine had lifted and asked the same question each time.  “He’s fine,” he said, “just fine.  He’s out in the paddock with his mother if you want to go see him.”

Jessie and Bekah both looked at Marissa and then took off at a run when she nodded.  “They do love that horse,” she said.

“The feeling seems to be mutual,” Travis said.  “I’ve been around horses most of my life and while it isn’t unheard of, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen one so young be so…attached to people, least of all kids.”

Travis shrugged.  “It doesn’t hurt that Jessie and Bekah are well behaved,” he said, “but Jessie really does seem to have more of a bond with him than anyone else.”

“They’re going to be heartbroken,” Marissa said, “when he’s old enough to be sold.”

Travis had a twinkle in his eye.  “Well now, about that,” he said.  “That’s still a long way off and even then he may not sell, or I may just decide to keep him.  I can’t get rid of all my stock or I’d be out of business.”

Marissa nodded.  She and Dan had been talking about what it would take to get a horse and how much work it would be to keep it.  They hadn’t bothered asking how much a horse would cost because everything was pretty much barter and they didn’t feel like they had much to barter
with
.

The first thing they’d need to do is get out of the house they were in now and build something that was on a good chunk of land.  Marissa almost laughed out loud at the thought. 
“Here we are,”
she thought,
“a year into the apocalypse and I’m still thinking about a different house and getting some land.”
  She shook her head.

“I see you’re still building a lot,” she said as they walked over to the paddock where the girls were.  “The Army doesn’t need the saw mill back?”

“We had some negotiations a couple of weeks ago,” Travis said.  “I basically bought the mill for a few horses and their continued care and feeding since they don’t have anywhere to keep them, or really anyone to take care of them.  Seemed like a pretty good trade at the time and now I don’t have to worry about when they’re going to want it back.”

“How many more stalls are you planning on,” Marissa asked.  She’d been amazed when Travis had told her that he could theoretically double the size of his herd every four to five years.

“Short term,” Travis said, “I’d like to get up to five-hundred stalls.  Eventually, I’d like to have a thousand, but I’m not going to need that many for at least another twelve to fifteen years.  Assuming I’m still around, knock on wood.”

He’d lost his wife to a car accident a few years before the power went out and although he didn’t
think
anything would happen to him, the drunk driver had proven that it wasn’t always up to you when you checked out.

“Oh c’mon,” Marissa said.  “You’re as healthy as a …” She stopped when she realized she’d been about to say ‘healthy as a horse.’

“Horse,” Travis asked.  “Dan certainly seems to think so.  He made a point to get out here once a week during the quarantine to make sure we were still here and doing ok.  We were pretty lucky, though, since we hadn’t had any contact with the new group and almost none with the rest of the base.”

“I’m glad it worked out,” Marissa said, looking at the girls who were now petting J.B. and feeding him apple slices.  “For everybody.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

July 10, 2013 - 16:00 - Promised Land

The group gathered around Mallory was the same as before–with the addition of Joel–when the radio came to life.  After a brief introduction, Mallory mentioned the fact that their conversation was secure, but not private.

“Understood,” Sanford said.  “That’s the nature of HAM radio, and since we could pick up all the other units using it, we assumed that everyone could hear what we were saying.  We took that into consideration when we finally made the decision to make contact.”

“You obviously have a plan,” Mallory said, “or at least some idea of what you would like to accomplish; aside from the end goal.”

“I want to play some of the Colonel’s conversations first,” Sanford said, “and then yes, I have a few suggestions.”

…

After twenty minutes of listening to the Colonel argue with, get chastised by, and ultimately threaten his handlers, as well as finally get some useful information out of them, the recordings were done.

“That was…enlightening,” Mallory said.  “Disturbing, but enlightening.”

“The question that remains, for me at least,” Sanford said, “is what is
really
going on in the rest of the country?  How is the rest of the United States really doing, civilian and military?  The Colonel has been told repeatedly that the rest of the country has basically already been subdued and that the Southeast is the last holdout.”

Mallory snorted.  “I find that hard to believe,” she said.  “I’ve never lived there, but I just can’t see Texas rolling over any quicker than we have.”

“My point exactly,” Sanford said.  “Or Utah, Wyoming, Montana or a half-a-dozen other states I can think of off the top of my head.  On the surface it sounds good, but if you think about it for just a few minutes it starts to fall apart.  I don’t think they planned on anyone else hearing their conversations
or
having time to really consider the implications of what they’re saying.”

“So,” Mallory said.  “What do we do about it?”

“I think we need to make contact with them,” Sanford said.  “We need to make direct contact with other bases and groups of people around the country.”

“Okay,” Mallory said.  “And I suppose you’ve thought about how we might do that?”

“Actually, yes,” Sanford said.

…

“I’m not sure,” Mallory said, “if that’s just risky, bold, or outright insane.  I’m leaning towards the latter.”

“Yes,” Sanford said, “it’s risky, but it’s a calculated risk.  Sitting here and not doing anything is what’s insane.  We know what’s going on is wrong.  The Colonel has you squarely in his sights, and we
need
to know what’s really happening everywhere else.  This is at least doing
something,
and you can’t just hunker down with the civilian population there.  We
have
to take the fight to the enemy.”

Mallory knew Sanford was right, not that she needed convincing.  Everything they did, every move they considered, needed to be in light of the fact that they weren’t safe…they were, in fact, at war.

“I know,” she said.  “I didn’t say it wasn’t worth doing, just that it was nuts.  They’ll be going in blind with no prior contact and no idea what the situation is on the ground ahead of time.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” Sanford said.  “And ultimately it’s not my call to make.  They won’t be coming from Rucker, they can’t.  They’re your birds.”

Mallory paused as she thought about their options.

“So we send them out with a cover story,” Joel said with a shrug.

“Go on,” Mallory said.

“Well,” Joel said, “I just came up with the idea so give me a minute.”

Stewart stifled a chuckle but he, too, started thinking about what cover story would pass muster.

“We have a suggestion,” Mallory said over the radio, “but haven’t fleshed it out yet.”

“I’m all ears,” Sanford said.

“We craft a couple of cover stories for them,” she said, “at least two.  One for groups that seem to be loyal to this…cabal in Colorado, and another for groups that look like they’re pushing back.”

“And a way for them to tell the two apart,” Halstead added.

There was silence on the air for several seconds as both sides began trying to work out details amongst themselves.

“How about Diego and his men say they represent the group in Colorado,” Sanford finally said.  “I’m pretty sure we have enough information to put together a convincing cover, at least until or unless a group actually tries to verify their origin.”

“They’re from a unit that was overrun by rebelling civilians,” Stewart said.  “Wait, no, bad idea.  Worst-case scenario is the group they are in contact with decides the rebels need to be put down…never mind.”

“They’re just in transit from one base to another,” Joel said.  “They just need to fill up on the way to transfer the Black Hawks.”

“How about the truth,” Stewart added, trying to make up for the bad idea he’d just had.  “Assuming it ever happens, once it’s obvious that the base is in the rebel camp they could just be honest about why they’re there.”

Halstead nodded and added, “They may even be in communication with other bases,” he said.  “It’d probably save time in the long run.”

Mallory shared their ideas with Sanford.

“Yeah,” Sanford said.  “I think that’ll work.”

…

“Where in the world,” Travis asked, nodding to the two pickup trucks full of coal, “did you get all that?  I know it wasn’t my old supplier because he cleared out months ago and there weren’t more than a couple of pounds left when I went by.”

“For the time being,” Eric said, “that’s for me to know and hopefully you to never find out.  I’ve got a couple of pieces that I need forged though, and I figured a hotter forge would probably be better and now was as good a time as any to bring this to you.”

“He’s in the shop now,” Travis said, “working on some horseshoes.  Let’s take him some coal and show him what you need done.”

Eric reached into the cab of his truck and pulled out the two pitman arms with the broken ends and then grabbed a burlap sack with about fifteen pounds of coal from the back.

“Looks like a linkage of some kind,” Travis said when he caught sight of the broken pieces.

“Pitman arms for a gear assembly,” Eric said.

“Whatever it was must have been pretty rough,” Travis said, “or they weren’t taken care of for the ends to come apart like that.”

“They’re from a windmill gearbox,” Eric finally said.  “I guess there were some really bad storms a couple of years ago and the wind wheel hadn’t been locked like it should have been.  It could have been worse; the gearbox could have torn itself apart.”

The smithy had an open front and they could hear the farrier hammering on what Eric assumed was a horseshoe as they got closer.  Travis waited until a break when the metal needed to be reheated and got his attention.

“How’s this batch of charcoal working out,” Travis asked.

The farrier shrugged.  “About the same as the last,” he said.  “I’m finally getting used to the difference in how long things take, that’s all.”

Travis held out the bag of coal.  “Will this help,” he asked.

The farrier opened the bag and shook his head.  “Travis,” he said, “your timing is abysmal, you know that?  You wait until I’m finally getting into the groove with the charcoal and then you show up with real coal.  How much can we get?”

“I’m pretty sure we can get you as much as you need,” Eric said.  “I’ve got two pickup truck beds full outside right now.”

The farriers face lit up.  “I think I’d be willing to forget everything I’ve taught myself about using charcoal if that’s the case.”

“There’s something Eric needs you to look at,” Travis said.  “See if you can fix or replace a couple of pieces.”

Eric handed over the pitman arms.

The farrier examined them for about a half a minute, including tapping them on the anvil and striking them with a hammer in a couple of different places to see how they sounded.

“It sounds like cast iron,” the farrier said, “but it’s lighter than I would expect it to be.  I’m positive I can make replacements but I won’t know if I can repair them until I heat ‘em up.  I’d want to have the replacements already made before I did that.  How quick do you need them?”

“They’re for the ranch,” Eric said.

“In that case,” the farrier replied, “do you have a couple of hours to kill?  I’ve got some stock that I can use for the replacements this afternoon.”

…

Kyle and William were in the hangar Kyle had set aside as a workshop.  William slowly spun the axle for the wind wheel with a handle to check the function of the gearbox now that it was reassembled.  The pitman arms had fit almost perfectly and required just a little filing to clean up the hole on one end.

After examining everything in the gearbox, Kyle took over and cranked the wheel as fast as he could for a minute.  As far as he could tell, it all seemed to be working properly.  The last thing to do was fill the oil reservoir and make sure the oil rings were working right to keep things lubricated.

“How’s it going,” Eric asked as he walked into the hangar.

“Pretty good,” Kyle said.  “He did a good job and I’m just about ready to button this up.  We have wooden templates of all the parts so, theoretically, we should be able to build more.”

Kyle looked over at William and said, “Couldn’t have done it as quick without William here.”

William blushed but didn’t say anything.  He’d been very quiet ever since the group had split off from Earl’s group.  Every once in a while Kyle could get him to break out of his silence, and it was happening more often the longer they were on their own and the more time they spent together, but it still took a lot to get him to talk.

“Let’s make a couple more sets of templates,” Eric said

Kyle nodded.  If anything happened to the set they had he’d be taking this one apart again to make new patterns.  The workshop now had a drill press, table saw, and band saw powered by a propane generator from one of the RVs.  Eric had also gotten several wood planks in different thicknesses appropriate for their templates from the ranch the last time he was down there. 

“Up to giving me a hand on the blanks,” Kyle asked William.

“Yeah,” he said with a small smile.

He was warming up to Kyle, but it was going to take time.

…

Randy Carlisle, the farmer who had been their initial contact with the loose-knit group of farmers and ranchers frowned.