Renewal 6 - Cold (2 page)

“How did you know where to look?”

“Lots of shot-up trucks in Viet Nam. The engine was turning smoothly, so I knew it wasn’t in the block. Air cleaners make a big target and usually leave clues.”

“Well, thanks for the lesson, George.”

“I’m a bundle of surprises, which reminds me... bundle up. I have another one for you.”

Kirk and I watched easily through the gaps as Dad marched down the slope with George. They were heading for a patch of scraggly trees and brush a hundred yards to the west of the Carroll home. The men pushed a path through the thicket and disappeared for a few minutes. George walked back in our direction, and cranked his tractor to life. He had changed the hay wagon for a flat platform that jutted out from the 3-point hitch. He drove it down to the thicket, and simply backed it over the brush in a gap between the larger trees. All we could see was the nose of the tractor and its front end loader. We could hear some clanks and metallic noises over the rush of the wind, but had no idea what they were doing.

Kirk got bored with the show and went to check on any potential breakfast. When the tractor started up again, he came straight back. George pulled out slowly, while Dad walked behind the tractor, stabilizing the mystery load. We followed their progress to the front of the barn and stepped back when Dad swung the doors open. George backed up until the platform was five feet from our car. He pulled the hydraulic lever and lowered the load to the ground. I was looking at a couple of strange metal boxes with a sort of appliance look about them and a bunch of metal pipe.

It took both men to hoist the two woodstoves off the platform. George walked them across the dirt floor with his massive arms and left them somewhere near the middle of the barn. The pipe was stacked close to the door. As soon as the platform was clear, George pulled the tractor out of the barn with Dad walking behind. Mom shut the doors and went over to the cooking stove.

“Well, isn’t this lovely?” she said. It was more of a statement than a question.

I had to ask, “What is it, Mom?”

“This one is a wood stove for cooking, and this one is for heat. Now all we need is wood.”

As soon as she told me, it was obvious she was right. One of those things that made me feel stupid for missing it. Now that I knew, I spent the next few minutes playing with the stoves. I always liked to know how things work. Kirk was completely uninterested.  He was probably busy dreading the wood gathering that was sure to come.

There was a series of mechanical clanks, along with the sound of the tractor working back and forth. The noises continued for quite some time. Eventually the tractor headed away from the barn, and Dad came back inside.

He quickly related the story. “Remember how George told us his family has worked this farm for generations? Well, that’s the old homestead down the hill. The place is practically falling down, but the original wood stoves were still sitting there, probably for more than fifty years.” He was smiling like the Dad we knew. “We’ve got heat.”

At the word heat, Juannie stuck her head out of the tent, decided it was still freezing in the barn, and disappeared again. With the look my mom sent in her direction, I was amazed that the tent didn’t have two holes burned through. Jimmy, as if making up for his mother, celebrated with a joyful dance and a bouncy song that didn’t have any actual lyrics. As usual, he left us smiling.

“Ok. George is out gathering round bales, and Arturo and I are going out to look for supplies. You up for it, Art?”

“Sure thing, David, as long as there’s no running involved.”

“You can drive. George gave me a list of places to look. Kirk, grab a rifle. You’re coming too.”

Mom was startled by that information and began to protest.

Dad stopped her with, “Listen, Beth. It had to happen sooner or later. Right now, we are facing our first unavoidable danger since the crap hit the fan. People are going to get very desperate with the cold. If we don’t grab everything we can get to survive the winter, someone else will. Assuming there’s anything left to grab when we get there... We have to go now, and we need Kirk to help.”

Mom didn’t say anything. She just turned her head to the side and nodded.

Kirk wasn’t fooling around. He came back with his ever-present handgun, his personalized cane knife, an assault rifle, and a backpack full of ammo. Dad looked as if he had something to say, but waved Kirk into the back seat instead.

I closed the barn doors as the Carter family station wagon drove off into the blowing dust. Arturo was gone less than fifteen seconds when Mom stalked over to the tent to have a chat with Juannie. Of course, we heard the whole thing.

Chapter 6 – 3

Bill stopped speaking when a door slammed downstairs. He said, “I know that slam. I think you’re up, Slugger.”

Terry looked almost disappointed, but then he understood who was downstairs, and practically leapt out of the chair. He didn’t want to look too eager. He checked his motion and walked down the steps with a measured pace. He followed the sounds from the kitchen and strode through the door to find Sally’s upper half buried in the fridge. He was content to watch her jeans-clad lower half while she rustled around, looking for something quick to eat. With a final rattle of a glass on glass, she pulled her choice out of the fridge, and turned away without ever noticing he was there. She filled her water glass at the sink. When she turned around, Sally almost jumped in surprise at finding him there. Her eyes opened a touch wider, and she recovered instantly. Terry would have never seen the reaction if he weren’t watching so closely.

“Well, if it isn’t the legendary Terry Shelton, back from the wars in parts unknown,” she said with her typical swagger.

“And if it isn’t the infamous Sally B. Carter, scaring babies and taking names,” Terry responded with his best manly-man voice.

“I would have expected to encounter the hero before this very minute,” Sally said, trying the pouting with hands on hips method for effect.

“I’ve been standing here watching you grub for food for at least five minutes.” He looked pointedly downward at those same hips.

“A girl’s gotta eat.” She pulled her shoulders back with a false indignant expression.

“A legend needs his beauty sleep.” Terry breathed on his fingers with a huff and rubbed his nails on his shirt in comic exaggeration.

“Oh, puh-lease!” Sally cried, trying her best not to laugh, and failing.

Terry broke into a grin, taking a halting step in her direction. They played a game of love chicken for several stuttering steps before she gave up and hurled herself into his arms with the force of a linebacker. A slender redheaded linebacker, but the result was the same. Terry staggered back, bouncing off the door frame before he regained his balance.

Sally kissed him twice before he could focus on her face. Once he felt stable on his feet, he looked into her eyes and saw the same combination of kiss-me and get-back he was rapidly learning to recognize. He wanted to go with option A, but gave her a long hug and went with option B instead. If there was one thing he knew about women, it was that it never paid to give in too easily. If he could play the cocky hero for a moment, he might have assumed that “rule one” counted double with Miss Sally. She liked a fight.

He stepped back and gave her a smile before he began to scrounge for food himself. He figured Bill would be getting hungry too.

Sally uttered a particularly female growl of exasperation before she made a show of stomping to the table, scraping the chair out, and plopping into it with a heavy sigh. Terry gave the contents of the refrigerator an evil grin. He found the makings for sandwiches and set the ingredients on the counter so that he was facing her. He began to construct a man-sandwich, overstuffed and completely devoid of subtlety.

Sally deliberately spoke with her mouth full of food. “Are you actually going to eat that?”

“No. Your dad is. I’ll eat the next one.”

“It looks disgusting.”

“That’s because you are covered in freckles. Everyone knows they mess up your senses.”

“Yep. That’s why for almost ten seconds, I thought you were good looking,” Sally said, trying to catch him off guard.

“I
was
good looking for ten seconds, but that was when I was seven.” He said it absently, as if it took no effort to keep up. “You, on the other hand, looked good for almost a full minute and that was only four minutes ago.”

She unconsciously preened. “You think I look good?”

“I’m sure I would have noticed by now if you were ugly,” he replied, denying her catch from the compliment fishing expedition. “But you know what they say. Looks ain’t everything.”

“Ugh, Terry Shelton. I think you’re trying to drive me crazy!”

“Well, ugly boys gotta have some way to get your attention. Is it working?” he asked with a wry grin.

“No, it’s not! I have work to do. I’m leaving,” she said with a final masterpiece of a pout, and stormed out the back door, leaving her dishes and uneaten food on the table.

Terry put away the sandwich fixings, cleaned up Sally’s mess, and carried the two small plates upstairs to Bill’s room.

“Here you go, Bill. I thought you might like something to eat.” He handed Bill one of the sandwiches.

“Mmmm, huge pile of pork sandwich. Looks delicious,” Bill said, considering whether he could unhinge his jaw to take a bite.

“Opinions vary.”

“So I heard. Damn, kid. Riding a little close to the edge, aren’t you?”

Terry looked confused for a second. “You mean with Sally?”

“Hell yeah, I mean with Sally,” Bill said, looking oddly concerned.

“No. I think I’m right where she wants me. How many guys have tried to catch Sally’s interest?”

“All of them, I think... Except for a couple of chickenshits.”

“Well, she’s a pretty girl. What do you do to catch a pretty girl?”

“You tell them how pretty they are, and do nice things.”

“Yep, that’s what they tell us. But if the pretty girl happens to be a tough girl, too, you gotta put up a fight. All those other guys made the mistake of being too nice.”

“What makes you so smart?” Bill asked, since he would have never figured it out.

“I’m not. I just pay attention. In school, there’s always that one girl who everybody wants. The only guys who succeed are the ones who make them half-miserable.”

“I guess that’s true, now that you mention it. I never would have thought of it myself.”

“So, you’ve always been nice to Aggie?”

“Well, sure... Wait a second. I’m always giving her a hard time, and she’s always giving it right back.”

“There you go. It only takes a little fight to win the pretty girls, but it takes a fight. Otherwise, I figure they just get bored.”

“You may be onto something there, my smart young friend.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Bill didn’t respond to that, but it may have been the half pound of pork he was trying to gnaw into submission.

Chapter 6 – 4

The approaching tractor was our only warning before a huge thump shook the wall of the barn. I peered out through the gaps in the barn to see that Mr. Carroll had placed a big round hay bale against the barn. He backed the tractor away and used a long spike, located where the front end loader had been, to tip the bale onto its round end. He pushed the bale several feet until he had it in position and then drove off, presumably to find another one.

He was at it for hours, driving off into the wind and dust and returning with another bale. He carefully nudged each bale with the tractor until it was situated in a line of bales he was building all the way around the barn. From inside the barn, it felt like we were being enclosed in a case of Coke cans. The direct light was slowly being replaced by the filtered light from higher in the barn. There was still plenty to see, but the overall sensation was a little claustrophobic. I was distracted by the process. I had not even thought about Dad, Arturo, and Kirk roaming around in the open.

I’m sure Mom was thinking about them. She kept herself busy with the task of sorting and organizing our supplies, making lists in her little notebook, and just generally looking worried. Juannie was serving as Mom’s assistant. The lecture she had received had gotten Juannie up and moving, but she was still doing as little as possible, waiting sullenly until Mom gave her direct orders before she lifted a finger. I could tell from Mom’s expression - darker than the clouds scudding overhead - that she was only about an inch away from one of her patented shrieking hissy fits. If that happened, I planned to run.

Mom never did lose her temper, but eventually, the weight of worry built up until we were talking openly about the fact that our men hadn’t returned. Mr. Carroll had managed a double layer of round bales around the barn. The high wall of bales combined with the ominous weather made the barn a dim echo of what it had been that morning. The good news was that it was noticeably warmer, probably from the lack of wind rather than any insulation value from the hay. Dad had planned well on his rapid fire expedition into Wal-Mart on the day of the Breakdown, but he had not planned perfectly. We had decent rain gear, but we did not have any cold weather gear at all. We mostly hoped that they would make it back without trouble, but right behind their safe return was the hope that they would make it back with some warmer clothes. If I had ever taken a look at the list Mom was making, I’m sure that winter wear was right at the top.

We didn’t know the temperature, but we knew it was too cold to wander around outside in our blue jeans and windbreakers. Our confinement gave us plenty of time to think about our situation. Kirk and I entertained ourselves with Jimmy and Tommy, daring them to climb up into the drying beams of the barn with us. We could only climb up to the first set of beams before we were back into the wind blowing across the tops of the hay bales. It was cold enough that I didn’t want to stay for long. I imagined how much fun this barn would be in warmer weather, but was forced to seek out the warmest place I could find. I ended up huddled in one of the tents with the little boys. We were fully engaged in a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors when I heard the faint rumble of the station wagon approaching.