Bishop's Song (18 page)

“Good,” replied Bishop. “Now I’ve got one more deal I want to make. I’ll throw in an extra pound of salt, and
10 shotguns shells in exchange for a bushel of those apples.”

Matt didn’t hesitate, nodding his agreement.

With Grim and Deke hefting their share, the bartered goods were quickly unloaded, the empty spot in the truck refilled with the box Matt had provided and a large basket of apples. The men all voiced mutual “Good lucks,” and “Take cares,” and then the trio of Texans was headed back toward Martinsville.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this shit again,” announced Deke
, leaning around the edge of the cab so Bishop could hear him clearly.

“Maybe they’re all out of arrows,” Grim chimed in.

“Throw the apples at them,” Bishop barked out the cab window. “Throw a bunch of them… toss them all if anyone’s awake.”

Grim was upset. “What the hell is he talking about, Deke? Has he lost it? Throw apples at the zombies?”

Deke’s expression changed from a look of pure puzzlement to a smiling nod. “You know, that’s not a bad idea. As a matter of fact, that’s one hell of an idea. C’mon Grim, let’s see if you can make the Yankee’s spring training this year.”

Slinging his rifle, Grim bent
to pick up a handful of the orchard projectiles. “I think you’ve both gone over the edge, but what the hell. Maybe that archer will do the William Tell trick,” the operator grumbled.

The crowd in Martinsville had thinned somewhat,
but they weren’t nearly as surprised by the appearance of the truck this time. They had also improved the roadblock – a little.

As Bishop approached the center of town, men scrambled to form up in the street, many standing behind the makeshift barrier made of a picnic table turned on its side and a knee
-high stack of old tires and rubbish. Bishop considered both the men and their fortification pathetic. The truck could easily push through with little chance of damage.

“Whatever you do, don’t throw any
apples in our path. Throw them off to the side, so I don’t have to run over anyone,” he instructed from the cab.

Deke’s
voice answered, “Fire away!”

Bishop turned on the
headlights in time to see the first apples arching through the air, one of them pelting a man with a tangled gray beard right in the chest. It took the two throwers a few tosses to get the range, but in a matter of seconds, a virtual blizzard of fruit was flying toward the men at the roadblock.

At first, Bishop didn’t think his idea was going to work.
He was just about ready to plow into the throng when someone shouted, “They’re throwing apples! Apples everybody, apples!”

A few of the defenders looked around, one man finally spotting the missile that had just struck his shoulder. Bending, he held the prize in the air
like it was a hard-earned trophy, his voice joining the growing chorus. “Apples!”

Meanwhile, Deke and Grim were playing baseball from the bed of the truck
, their arms looking like windmills as they threw as fast as they could. Regardless of the threat, obstacle course and overall danger, Bishop had to smile at the commentary coming from the pickup’s bed.

“Two down, bottom of the ninth,”
Deke’s voice rang out. “Strike three!” he yelled, doing his best imitation of a baseball commentator.

In less than 20 seconds, the citizenry of Martinsville changed their focus from stopping the truck to collecting food. In 45 seconds, they were scrambling, clawing and fighting with each other over the small, round prizes. One man stood calmly chewing his catch – an island of tranquility surrounded by hailstorm and riot.

Bishop hit the gas just as Deke and Grim exhausted their ammunition
, the battery of fruit-projectiles abruptly stopping. As Bishop slowed to push aside the hastily erected barricade, he noted men scampering around, using their pockets, shirttails and even armpits to hold apples. Three other residents were fighting over who had first spotted a particularly well-thrown example.

The diversion worked.

In a matter of minutes, Martinsville was in their rear view mirror, and Bishop was again driving in the open countryside, Deke and Grim both bragging on their battlefield performance.

“Did you see that dude I nailed in the nuts
with my curve ball?”

“Yeah, but that
was nothing compared to the guy who tried to catch my high heater - he took it right on the nose.”

Bishop smiled at the competitive banter, glad they had
absconded without having to seriously harm any unarmed people… people whose only sin was their desperation and hunger.
That could have been Terri and me back there
, he considered, the thought burning off layers of his escape euphoria.

He drove the rest of the way back to the park in silence, visions of a thin, haggard Terri holding a starving child in her arms.

Hunter announced the end of his nap with a half-hearted cry that interrupted Terri’s attempt to catch a short snooze for herself. She didn’t mind, having been unable to nod off. Sleep was going to be a rare commodity for the next few days.

It wasn’t the infant’s need for feeding and changing that kept her from resting, but rather the upcoming meeting
s with the representatives of the federal government that consumed her thoughts.

Diana, Nick and
she planned to extend every courtesy, despite the initial holier than thou attitude and demeanor displayed by some of the participants. At one point, Terri thought Nick was going to put one of the men on his ass, and she would have applauded the event.

Hunter didn’t seem to care about the upcoming powwow
s. His fussiness ceased the moment his mother’s face appeared over the rails of the crib, his small mouth moving in what she decided was an attempt to return her smile.

“You need
a clean diaper,” she sniffed, and lifted the tiny body onto her shoulder.

As she gently laid
the baby on the changing table, she tried to pull herself up to a better mood.
After all
, she thought,
I still have disposable diapers. Using cloth would be a huge hassle
.

Lifting Hunter’s backside, she
slid a clean one underneath and then pulled the sticky tabs tight around his mid-section.
I need to send Sheriff Watts a note, thanking him for this wonderful shower gift
, she remembered.

Hunter, as usual, was hungry. Grabbing a bur
p rag and landing in one of her more comfortable chairs, Terri began nursing the seemingly insatiable child. “It’s a good thing you don’t have a twin. You wouldn’t want to share,” she whispered, rubbing his cheek. “I would have to ration both of you, which would make you both mad.”

And that was the crux of the problem – distribution of limited resources.

Terri completely understood President Moreland’s predicament. On one hand, a portion of what he still considered his people, were eating well. On the other hand, thousands were dying every day from starvation. Wouldn’t everyone be better off if the resources of one region were shared with the other?

“But we earned it,” she said to Hunter, with only a half-hearted conviction. “Okay, maybe we inherited part of it and earned the rest. But still, we could have ended up like the rest of the country if we hadn’t…
.”

Terri had to reprocess the concept. “If we hadn’t what? Killed people? Been better shots? Been more aggressive, or kind hearted
? What did we do to earn this blessing?”

Hunter didn’t answer, but that was okay with his mother. Debate had
raged in the council chambers for hours over this very subject, and there had been no resolution. As a matter of fact, the topic had divided the citizens of the Alliance like no other.

Currently, anyone who could
make it into Alliance territory was welcomed, fed, given shelter and then employment if at all possible. Many of the newcomers were near starvation, more than a few suffering from dysentery, bronchitis and phenomena. Those who were too sick to work were taken care of by government resources and volunteers. It wasn’t unusual to see shock or other mental issues among the immigrants.

“See, Hunter, we’re not stingy, greedy
people like some say. We help those who need it.”

But
all of the previously empty, existing homes were at close to 100% occupancy, a shortage projected the following month. This fact, combined with the rumored outbreak of plague back east, had led to groups of Alliance citizens asking their elected officials to stop the open door policy.

“We’ll eventually be overrun,” several had commented. “There’s just not enough to go around,” others had argued.

The entire mess was complicated by the behavior of the US government, and their anticipated demand that the Alliance share their bounty. Share? “More like give,” Terri said to the child in her arms. “They want us to just surrender our resources so they can distribute them to someone else.”

Despite the concept rubbing her the wrong way, honesty demanded that she give
the idea merit. Would the nation, as a whole, recover quicker if the people of West Texas did without?

Was it worth war?

Another segment of the local population had taken the tried and true approach of capitalism. “We’ll just figure out a way to make more,” some had ventured. “Give the assholes back in Washington what they ask for. We’ll just increase our production somehow.”

Terri knew that answer was wrong. Her instinct told her that if the Alliance did manage to increase their output, Washington would only come back and want more. After a while, what would be the point of working harder if someone was just going to come and take it away?

Hunter signaled his full tummy, pulling away and gazing at his mother. Terri rearranged her blouse and then lifted him to her shoulder, tapping lightly on his back to stimulate the air bubbles in his system. The technique produced a robust noise, so loud Terri had to laugh.

“You remind me more and more of your father every day
,” she joked.

Hunter responded by spitting up all over her clean blouse.

Growling, Terri set the child down on a blanket and went to fetch a clean top. As she changed, she smiled, pretending to scold the youth despite the cheery voice.

“You won’t have me around to throw up on forever, young man,” she
teased. “One of these days you’ll have to fend for yourself.”

Hunter kicked and flung his little arms and legs, enjoying his mom’s antics and attention.

The incident immediately produced an analogy. She knew that one day soon, Hunter would be weaned, and after that, would feed himself. Eventually, as an adult, he would have to be self-sufficient, even producing his own food. Hunter would be motivated to do so by a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that her breasts couldn’t provide the nutrition his maturing body would require.

“That’s the problem,” she said to the child at her feet. “When and how do we wean the US government? At what point do they become self-sufficient? What size breasts do we need in order to keep feeding the rest of the country?”

Rural Arkansas

July 8, 2016

No
specific borders had been defined as far as Operation Heartland was concerned. The general orders, issued by the Pentagon to field commanders, stated that the “primary concentration of assets” was to be 150 miles east and west of the Mississippi River.

According to Matt, it was left up to individual commanders
where they exerted their influence and control. The ex-MP also divulged that some regions had more turf than they could handle given current levels of manpower and mobility. The Memphis region was one such example, with the 150-mile western line of demarcation including Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas.

“There’s no federal government
presence in Little Rock,” Matt had described. “As a matter of fact, it’s off limits for some reason. Rumors speculating why abound, but you won’t encounter any military forces before West Memphis, and probably not before you reach the bridge crossing the Big Muddy.”

The rescue plan called for traveling at night, a tactic Matt had
encouraged. “With no electrical lights and candles in short supply, there are very few people up and about after dark. Even if there are functioning local cops, their numbers are few, and half of them are as desperate as the civilians. Survivors, for the most part, hide behind locked doors at night.”

The sun was just rising above the Arkansas hills
when the trio made it back to the park, Deke and Grim teasing Bishop, calling their chauffeur Mr. Johnny Appleseed and christening the truck the Red Delicious Express.

After identifying a safe place to park, the plan was to
sleep during the day, the men taking shifts for sentry duty.

Bishop had the final watch, his thoughts consumed with Terri and Hunter. His son was only a few weeks old, barely a presence in his life
, and yet he felt a strong urge to hold the child.
He can’t walk or talk or do much else, yet I miss him
, he thought.

Deciding a cup of coffee would help him make it through the long night of travel ahead, Bishop s
at around the campfire heating water. After scanning the perimeter, he settled in to wait for the liquid to boil. He wondered how many soldiers had toyed with the embers at the edge of just such a fire, missing their families on the eve before the dawn’s battle.

I’m only going to be gone a few weeks at most
, he realized.
A lot of men have had to leave their homes for months or years. How did they cope with that? How did they make it through?

Bishop thought about ancient warriors,
legionaries from Roman times and Royal Marines serving aboard slow-moving ships at sea under the flag of the worldwide British Empire.
Those men had to leave for years at a time. Was it a job only suited for men who didn’t feel the pain of separation?

Technology had probably
improved things a little
, he decided. American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan deployed for a year or more, but they usually had access to email, limited phone time and sometimes even video calls.
That would take the edge off the hurt
, he realized,
but the longing would nag and persist
. Still, he’d give anything to hear Terri’s voice on command.

The occasional news story, covering a
soldier’s return home to meet a child born while he was at war, popped into Bishop’s head.
How did the wife deal with that? What was it like to sit in some foreign country and wonder if your new child had ten fingers and ten toes?  

I
’m just being a wimp
, he decided.
A lot of guys suffered much worse than I have. Suck it up. Get on with it.

Movement from the
hangar distracted Bishop’s thoughts, the figure of a sleepy-looking Grim darkening the doorway, stretching his arms high above his head. The timing of the contractor’s appearance reinforced Bishop’s determination to complete the mission.

If I’m feeling these emotions over a wife and child that I know are safe and among friends, imagine what Grim is feeling given his
family’s situation
, Bishop admitted.
I don’t know if I would hold it together as well as he has.

“I’m heating up coffee water,” Bishop informed the new arrival.

Before Grim could muster an answer, Deke’s voice sounded from the doorway, “Anybody made coffee yet?”

After the java was poured, the three men
studied the most detailed map they possessed. Traveling on the interstate was strictly nonstarter after Bishop had relayed the story of what he had discovered on I-10 heading out of Houston.

Choke points, such as bridge crossings were discussed at length, procedures established to ensure safe passage. The overriding principle was always the same.
People, all of them agreed, were to be avoided at all costs. Nothing else could endanger their quest as much as other human beings.

The resulting route, highlight
ed on the folds of the map, was a zigzag affair across the Arkansas countryside, with Memphis as the final destination. All three of the travelers dreaded that final leg of the journey, but no other solution for crossing the Mississippi had been found. They would simply do their best to arrive at the Tennessee border without trouble and trust in the plan established on Matt’s back porch.

An hour later
, they set off, Bishop driving without lights while using his night vision. Grim and Deke rode in the bed, boxes of supplies arranged to provide semi-comfortable seats while at the same time protecting the two 50-gallon drums of fuel stored there. They all knew the arrangement wasn’t bulletproof, that one stray round igniting all that gasoline on everyone’s mind.

Bishop had decided not to remove the fuses that would disable the pickup’s lights. He’d implemented that tactic on the bug
-out from Houston so his brake and dome lights wouldn’t illuminate their position by accident. This was a different trip through less populated territory, and it had been decided that the truck’s high beams might be useful in some situations. There were also three rifles aboard – more firepower and better odds of surviving an encounter than Terri and he had possessed on their excursion.

Their chosen route wo
uld crisscross through the mountains and hills, eventually snaking through expansive, flat farmlands.

For the first few hours, t
hey observed no one, and only occasionally did the glow of a candle or fire show on the horizon. It was as if the people of the Razorback State had simply disappeared.

The black is cold, white is hot landscape displaying on Deke’s thermal imager presented a picture of geometric equality and uniform shape. Without depth perception or previous knowledge, he wouldn’t have had a clue what he was viewing. It could have been a modern art sculpture, a Euro-style housing complex, or its true composition – a dam over the Arkansas River.

“What’s the name of this place again?” Grim whispered, resting on one knee slightly behind Deke.

“Toad Suck Dam,” replied his boss, having trouble keeping a straight face even after repeating the location’s name several times.

“And how did it earn that lofty mantle?”

“No fucking clue. Now shut that pie hole of yours and open those eyes.”

For the third time, Deke swept the area,
detecting nothing but the river meandering its way slowly southward and the unusual structure of the combination dam and bridge.

The
weir’s flood gates rested between the oddly shaped pillars of the bridge, those supports resembling upside down pyramids with a rectangular base. From Deke’s angle, the structure looked odd, out of place, given the background of the rural surroundings.

Shaking his head at the design, he turned to Grim and
instructed, “Let’s go across. I don’t see a soul on this side of the river. Let’s make sure there’s no one waiting with a surprise on the other side.”

“How would they be waiting with a surprise? We haven’t seen a single car or truck all night. It’s 2
a.m. How would they know we’re coming?”

Deke shook his head at the stubborn co-worker. “You know the procedure. Getting hit by hostile fire halfway across a bridge doesn’t make for a lovely evening. We’re going to follow the rules
, Grim, even if we never see another human being again.”

“You’re right. My bad. I’m just anxious to see my kid
and my wife. Don’t pay me no mind.”

Each man took a side of the narrow, single
-lane road that topped the dam. The river was about 300 yards wide at this spot. The bridge, with its adjoining abutments, was almost twice that length.

The two men had worked together for years. Having been taught in the same schools and serving in the same units, they functioned as if controlled by a single mind. Each would take turns
bounding, or leap-frogging the other, one always scanning forward while the other covered the rear.

They were
one-quarter of the way across when Deke held up his fist, signaling an immediate halt. He could see a heat source in the thermal, but at this distance, it was nothing but a blob.

The water,
streaming over the dam’s spillway, eliminated noise as a sensory input. It was too dark for the human eye to detect anything of value on the far side of the river. They were completely dependent on the electronic device.

Deke moved to Grim, hoping his side of the bridge would provide a better angle.

“What’s up?” his partner asked.

“I’ve got
a heat source in the scope,” Deke replied. “Could be human, could be deer… hell, might even be a cow.”

“After seeing those
shuffling skeletons back in Martinsville, why am I skeptical that beef is walking around fresh on the hoof?”

“Agreed. Let’s go check it out.”

“After you, fearless leader.”

The two men continued another hundred yards, the image slowly reve
aling the clear outline of a human shape. Again, Deke signaled a stop, moving to Grim’s side.

“I’ve got
one man, armed. There are two campers, a fire that’s just about burned out, and a big stack of fishing poles leaning against a tree. There’s junk spread all over the place. They’ve been here for a while.”

“What’s the call?”

“He’s not aware of us yet. Appears to be sleeping in a hammock. I suggest we go see what the deal is.”

Grim considered the idea for a minute, finally turning toward his boss and
asking, “Should we call up Bishop?”

“Yeah… we’ll have him bring the truck up a bit. He can be
our reserve. If we get into trouble, we might need the help.”

Turning his face away from the potential threat, Deke keyed the radio’s microphone. “We’ve got
what appears to be campers up here on the east side of the bridge. You’re clear up until that point. Come on just in case we get in trouble. Stay dark.”

“Affirmative on no lights. I’m mobile,”
Bishop’s voice responded through Deke’s earpiece.

Turning back to Grim, Deke said, “Look at the color of the concrete they used on this bridge. It’s a light gray. They’ll see our dark shapes against this background as we approach, even in this
low light.”