Against the Grain (11 page)

She didn’t drop things easily either, but fortunately I had an answer for this one.

“Dinner.”  

“What?”

“After dinner I’ll lay out what I have in mind and see what you guys think.”

“Well, I’d offer to make up a bed for you, but we seem to be running short on rooms right now. Are you taking off again tonight?”

“Jeeze Bre…lets just get dinner over with first,” I sighed.

This was shaping up to be a long night.
 

Chapter 11

Later that evening I joined everyone in the living and dining room for a big community dinner of venison stew and fresh baked bread. At least one member from each of the collected households from the Ranch families was there, and with me and Megan, and now Derek and his family, it was a packed house. I tried to sit off in a corner apart from the main throng of people to gather my thoughts, but that lasted all of three minutes.  

“Mind if I join you?”
 At least this interruption was a welcome one. I gestured with my hand for her to have a seat in what I hoped was a welcoming manner. I wasn’t feeling all that friendly right now, and realized I should be trying to get into a better mood. It would help when I presented my plans to everyone after dinner.

I suddenly found myself without anything to really say, but Megan didn’t seem to mind. We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the others' conversations until finally she spoke up.

“So is it weird that we somehow know all these people? You, me, Derek, Breanne… and if it wasn’t for the world basically ending, we probably wouldn’t have ever seen any of the others ever again.”

“You know what, it is kind of weird,” I laughed. The circumstances that brought this whole group together might have been terrible, but we wouldn’t all have rekindled the friendships we now had if it wasn’t for the rest of the world going to crap.
“I always have enjoyed the little ironies in life.”  

“And how are you doing?” Megan asked
me after another brief moment of silence. “I mean, you seem to go nonstop without a break, and I kind of caught a tone when you guys got here today. I guess I get it, but you do kind of seem to take a lot of crap for what I think you’re trying to do.”

“Yeah, I seem to,” I replied. There really wasn’t much more to say than that. I had been through it with Breanne earlier and I really didn’t want to rehash it again now. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought them here,” I confided in her, referring to Derek’s family in the next room, “but hopefully I can at least give a good explanation of why I did it in a little bit.”

“It’s not just that. There are some people here that worry about you too you know,” Megan tried to lock her eyes onto mine, but the attempt made me feel somehow uncomfortable. Her naive innocence made it hard to take her too seriously. While I appreciated the sentiment, she was too new around here to really have that good of a feel for everyone just yet. I wasn’t trying for an appreciation award, but I was pretty sure where I stood with most of the members of this family. I knew that a few of them would be just as happy if I stopped coming around altogether.

“Well, we’ll see what happens. If I can get this right, I can take a back seat and be less of a problem for everyone,” I said almost to myself. “So how are you doing here? Given any thought to the future?” I changed the subject slightly.
 

“Everyone is really nice here and I love helping out with the kids, but I haven’t really thought much about what to do next. Future plans don’t really seem to be something to p
ut much credence into lately,” she smiled sadly.  

“I know what you mean,” I said hoping it somehow sounded reassuring.

What she had just conveyed did in fact accomplish one thing, it had cemented the plans that I had recently been forming and were now swirling around inside my head. I had seen the trend coming back around for a while now; with things in the world not recovering, not getting back to normal on any sort of a pace that we could really see, hope was starting to fade again. I wasn’t going to offer hope, but I could offer the opportunity to shore up our ability to outlast the crisis. With these new faces at the Ranch came some new issues along with some of the same old ones, but they also brought options of new solutions to explore.  

“Listen, it’s not like we can really go get coffee or see a movie or anything, but would you want to do something together sometime? Kind of get our minds off all this doom and gloom?” I was sounding a lot bolder than I was feeling, but asking Megan out on a pseudo-date seemed like it may help to settle her nerves a bit.

“I’d like that,” she smiled a little brighter this time.  

It was pretty spur of the moment and I hadn’t been planning on saying anything, but my confidence was up just enough now with that little victory, I felt like I might have some momentum to work off of in the next battle royale I was about to start. Taking a deep breath, I got up and stuck my head into the dinning room. “When y’all are ready, I have something I’d like to run by you,” I announced to the room.
 

A few minutes later I took one more quick mental picture for a head count to make sure everyone was accounted for, and except for the kids who were either playing in the other room or had already drifted off to sleep, everyone was here and staring at me. I knew I should start off with some niceties or some great introduction, but I didn’t have one prepared, so I just jumped right in.

“As you know I’ve been riding with Derek, Karen and their kids for the last two days, and I’m planning to stick with them for the rest of their trip to Derek’s family home out west of here… if they’ll have me,” I paused, looking sideways at Derek.

“Of course man, thank you,” he replied.

“Could we talk in the other room for a minute?” Breanne broke in, but I waved her off.

“I know this is not the best way to have this conversation, but there are a lot of parts to it so I’m going to lay the whole thing out here in front of everybody first, then we can dissect each piece,” I quickly continued on.

“I want to see that they get where they’re going safely and I think I can help make that happen. I have a little experience with this type of thing, but I’ll say right now that I could use some help.”

“Of course we’ll do what we can,” David offered, but he sounded unsure of what they really had that could help.

“Thank you, but let me tell you the type of help I need first before you volunteer anything,” I told the whole group.  

“One rig traveling alone with a couple adults and two kids is really a recipe for disaster, as we’ve already seen. Just recently everyone living here has been introduced to the type of people that are out scavenging through this area, and Derek and Karen have a very real idea of the hazards on the roads, so what I’d like to do is take two trucks from here with a small group to help get them out to their family’s home.”
 

And the noise started.

“Hold on, hold on,” I held up my hands and cocked an eye towards the few people who I knew were not an active part of my fan club, “let me lay this all out first, then you can kick me out for good.”

“I’ve been able to check out the areas in a good twenty mile circle from here, but we really don’t have any idea of what is happening any farther out than that. That’s information I’d like to have, but it’s also probably something I can do on my own if it comes down to it. I do know that we are not the only ones like us around, and if there is trade or other opportunities available, they are worth knowing about.”

I paused and surveyed the room again before continuing on.

“Look, I can’t forecast what is happening in the world, but I think we all are getting the idea that overall recovery to the way things used to be is not happening as fast as we may have hoped. What we see here and now is our world, and our lives, for the foreseeable future, so we need to do what we can to make the best of it. That being said, if we get out to Derek’s parents and do not find what they are looking for,” I adjusted my speech delicately to help the next part go over better than my earlier idea had, “I’d like to give some thought to them taking up in one of the empty houses down the road.”

There were a few more murmurs and a surprised look between Derek and Karen. Paul’s voice caught my attention above all the others.

“More mouths to feed?” He said it as if they would be a non contributing burden.
 

“If they have made it this long then they are self sufficient enough to pay their own way. An addition of the right skills and mindset around here could compound drastically,” I pressed on in answer to his rude and ignorant protest.

“I know this whole family and will vouch for them myself. If I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t have brought them here in the first place,” I gestured to Derek and Karen and at the same time snuck a quick look to try and judge Breanne’s face.

I also had known Derek’s mother and father pretty well. She is, or was, a heck of a quilter and an outstanding cook, and he was a retired Air Marshall. They had lived out in an old farm house for a lot of years and if they could be convinced to come back here too, they would definitely have some skills that would benefit this group as a whole.
 

“So the pros look like the development of information and relationships, and possibly another good family around here, and cons are the use of resources… both goods and people,” I continued. “There is a lot of gas in the trucks that left as is, will go bad before we will ever be able to use it. The gas is one thing, but the people are the real important aspect here. Doing this would leave this place a little short handed for a few days, but I think there is a lot to gain in that gamble. I think we have an opportunity to get some information and to help some good people out, and we need to strike while it’s hot.”
 

Having said my piece I gave one more look to the group and sat down on the floor beside Megan.
 

“I guess coffee will have to wait huh?” Megan smiled at me again.

I gently shook my head as if to say “what am I getting myself into.”  

“So what happens if one of the trucks breaks down or you get attacked by another group and someone gets killed?” Paul’s voice again rose up above the others. I noticed he specified “you,” effectively leaving himself out of the equation. I wouldn’t have wanted him to go anyway, but I also didn’t like the obvious segregation either.

“This isn’t my first convoy and I’ll have everyone and everything ready to get us through and back home,” I stated in a simple, if not direct answer.  

“But what if we get attacked again here while you’re gone?” Sue asked, worry evident in her voice.
 

“I haven’t seen anything to make me think that there is another group close by around here like the last one, but I also wouldn’t be depleting all the able bodies from here either. I’d just select one or two people from each house, six in all would be better, but I can make do with four total I think. That still leaves plenty of protection at each place, and as a whole.”
 

“Six people?” Paul asked dramatically, focusing on the higher number.

“If you guys decide to do it, then yes, six would be the ideal number. I need drivers and gunners, three rigs total for security and redundancy. It’s up to all of you to decide what to do and I know there will be no hard feelings if you decide it’s not worth the risk,” I finished, sharing a nod of consent with Derek.

He hadn’t asked for this and was as blindsided as everyone else was right now. He also knew what I was getting at and was logical enough to not get hurt feelings if we didn’t get any support from the others.

“But you do think it’s worth it?” Nick focused a question at me directly.

“I do. There is a lot to gain and a lot to lose, but I think we can all benefit from this.”
 

“Well you’re kind of nuts anyway so if you feel that strongly about it, I’m with you,” he replied.
 

“It has nothing to do with me man…”

“Yes it does,” Breanne spoke up for the first time since the debate had begun. “You’ve done for all of us what no one else could have, and had damn little thanks for it. And now you’re here trying to help another family again. I might not like it much, but if you want to do this and we can help, I think we should.”

I figured that a tight lipped smile in her direction was maybe more appropriate than more words, and while I wasn’t looking for a majority vote, I was beginning to take a mental head count.

“You’ve done this type of thing before?” Jake asked. He had a hint of excitement in his voice and eyes.

Jake might not have a clue as to what to do, but he was bored playing farm boy out here and this was his chance to break the humdrum routine. I wouldn’t say that his reasoning was not in my mind as well and while it really wasn’t fair or right to play the bullshit angle, I was beginning to feel the scales tipping.
 

“Armed convoy planning and execution… escort and protection… I’ll hold up my part if you can cover yours.”
 

Plus it wasn’t all bullshit. I had helped half the people in this room to get out here safely and under similar or worse circumstances, and that was only a few weeks into the local breakdown. From that time until bringing Megan in, I hadn’t exactly been sitting on my butt either, to say nothing of the time before it all came apart.

After hearing my answer and looking to his friend Andrew, Jake pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. I knew he was in just for the change of pace alone.

“Sue? David?" I asked.

“Breanne’s right. You’re trying to help and we should try to help too,” Sue said quietly, although it was plain that she didn’t much like the sounds of the “armed” talk.