TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story (12 page)

"I took anything worth keepin' out of the barn and dragged them both inside. I said a little prayer and lit the barn on fire and then I took out after them."

"You found them?"

"They were easy to track; I caught up with them at dusk the next day. The stupid asses had built a fire anyone could see from across the valley. I waited 'til the middle of the night and just walked in and shot all three of them in their sleeping bags. The dumb asses hadn't even mounted a guard."

"Good!" Beacon thought his exclamation might sound patronizing and hastened to add, "You policed up their guns and ammo?" Then he felt even worse.

She didn't seem to notice his discomfort. Her voice hardened, "No, I didn't want nothing of theirs! They were eating him!"

"Huh?"

"They were smoking Poky's meat over the fire. I just took back my dad's gun from them then I put their faces in the fire so they'd get a good look at where they were going to spend the rest of eternity then I buried the pieces of Poky and left their meat to rot!"

"Remind me never to make you mad."

She choked out a bitter laugh as the remembered pain drained out of her.

Trying to change the subject Beacon asked, "Maybe there's something back at your place that we could use to buy you into The Sanctuary?"

"Nothing much there, it was just a summer vacation home 'til mom died. We hardly visited the place after that. Then, after The Blowup, we just moved all our gear and food up there with us. We ran out of gas and had to carry it all up the last five miles. We figured once things settled down we'd make our living with our farrier and blacksmithing gear. But it's been a year now and nothings getting better."

Beacon started to tell her it would be at least a decade before things settled down and then stopped dead in his tracks. "You've got blacksmithing supplies and horseshoes?"

"Sure, dad was a blacksmith but I'm a little small for that so I learned how to shoe horses. I was scheduled to take my AFA certificate test 'til all this happened."

"You're got blacksmithing tools and you're a farrier?"

"You think that'll get me in?"

"Lady you'll own the place! The Settlement has six horses and two mules that need shoeing, two of' the horses are ours."

Misunderstanding his intentions she wasn't sure if she liked the sound of that. "Ours?"

Too happy to notice the tone of her voice Beacon babbled on. "Yeah, ours, Old Bill and I brought two horses in when we joined the Settlement. You can stay with us, you'll like Old Bill."

"Stay with you?"

Too late Beacon realized what she was thinking. "Oh, I didn't mean that. You can stay anywhere you want, but we'll make a special room for you so you can have some privacy if you'd like to stay with us until spring that's when Old Bill and I are going to start building a cabin that'll serve as a gatehouse too."

"Or", he added quickly, "you could stay with Granny Reece she's lives in a little horse trailer by the gate, but she snores so … unm ..."

She gave him a small smile and said, "We'll see. Who's Old Bill?"

"He's a real mountain man!" Beacon's embarrassment disappeared as he proudly recounted his history with the old man.

"I first met him when I was nine and my parents took me to the Mountain Man Rendezvous at Fort Bridger Wyoming. Every summer after that I begged, cajoled, wheedled or sweet talked my parents into taking me back to the Mountain Man Rendezvous on our summer vacations.

One year it was my one and only Christmas present. When I turned fourteen I persuaded my parents to let me spend the summer with Old Bill while they went on a cruise of the Caribbean. From then on I went to summer school and spent every winter in the mountains learning hunting, snaring, stalking and trapping from Old Bill. From my fifteenth birthday on I made enough trapping to pay my own way back the next year. He taught me everything I know and ..." Beacon stopped, blushing.

"Sounds like an interesting old man."

"More like an old codger, but he'll like you. Any woman who runs her own trap lines has earned his respect. Those women at The Settlement fainted when he first showed them how to gut a deer. It's like they didn't know where the meat in the supermarkets came from."

TREASURE

They were letting the horses, cattle, sheep and goats out into the meadow as Beacon and Gail emerged from the tree line near where he'd first seen her. He spotted Old Bill sitting in his usual spot by the gate with a Winchester 30-30 over his arm and a Colt Peacemaker on his hip. No longer able to walk very far or work too hard Old Bill stood guard duty at the gate all day every day acting as much a babysitter to keep the younger kids inside as a defense against outsiders. He was the gate's gossip monitor as well as guard.

The mountain men had been unable to convince Maggie and the Circle of Crones of the need for daytime gate watchers. There was, the ladies said, too much work to be done. So Old Bill appointed himself to guard the gate. It wasn't long before the mothers of the fort saw the advantages of Old Bill as a babysitter for their toddlers.

It had been all they could do to persuade the fort's inhabitants to keep a daytime 360 degree tower lookout. Maggie and the Circle of Crones had initially been against it.

The argument had been settled by teenaged hormones. Once mothers realized kids in the tower could easily be seen by all those below; young Romeos and Juliets who weren’t working in the fields with their parents were assigned to daytime shifts in the tower. The kids cooperated to get some time to talk alone out of range of the Settlement's prying ears. As long as both kid's heads could be seen above the tower's parapet it was assumed all was well and it was hoped that the pair could occasionally look past each other long enough to see approaching danger and stop holding hands long enough to ring the bell. Gail giggled as Beacon explained the reasoning behind the Settlement's security measure.

Embarrassed Beacon pointed out that the watch tower's bell had alerted the fort's inhabitants to approaching scavengers many times.

"They told me you went ahuntin'" Old Bill said by way of greeting as the two approached the gate.

"I found a treasure instead." Beacon replied and filled Old Bill in on Gail's talents and resources.

"How many traps ya' got?" Old Bill demanded as Beacon finished.

"Bill! She's got horseshoes and knows how to put'em on!" Beacon said in exasperation.

"Twenty Victor #110 Conibears for mink, muskrat and weasel plus ten #280s for beaver and otter. I use copper wire snares for squirrel, steel wire for fox an coyote and box traps for rabbits" she replied with a smile.

"Well you got him without even baiting your trap." Beacon chuckled as they walked to the large trailer that served as the settlement's headquarters after leaving Bobo in Old Bill's care. Beacon didn't want to risk having two of Gail's pets killed for food.

By now Maggie had heard of their arrival. She was rushing out the door as they approached. "You can't keep her, Romeo, we got too many mouths to feed as it is and …"

Beacon cut her off. "That's for the council to decide." He could have told her about Gail's talents and resources, but he wanted to have some fun.

"Well you'd better have your fun before dinner, 'cause after the meeting she's out!" Maggie seethed.

Gail had been about to protest Beacon's seeming spitefulness but in response to Maggie's rudeness and implied use of her feminine wiles to gain admission she snapped her mouth closed then replied, "After the meeting you may ask me to stay." Then she turned to Beacon with a smile. "You said something about a magic slipper?"

"This way princess." They could feel Maggie's eyes burning into their backs as he led her toward Pat's place.

Pat "Granny" Reece was only a few years younger than Old Bill. She lived next to the gate and relived him for bathroom breaks holding an old bolt action British .303 Enfield rife he'd given her.

She made her living darning socks, sewing and repairing clothing by hand; an art forgotten in an age of cheap imported clothing. Apparently she was the only woman in the world who'd thought to bring needles, thread and sewing supplies with her when she bugged out. Mostly she took in seams as an overweight generation discovered the joys of a third world diet.

Beacon had brought her shower curtains from his visits to the little lake village. Using nylon fishing line she made slickers out of them for the watch standers in the watchtower. The wind breaker/raincoats proved so popular she'd spent months filling orders. Yes, real men will wear chartreuse with printed pink flowers if it's cold, windy and rainy.

Pat was another of the fort's unofficial teachers helping Old Bill keep the little ones inside the fort by teaching them what Old Bill called "readin' writin' an 'rithmetic.

Old Bill had taught her how to make moccasins from animal skins. From the fleshing out of deerskins Beacon brought to tanning the hides to finished moccasins and buckskin clothing. Beacon made sure she had enough venison, rabbit and squirrel meat. She reciprocated by keeping he and Old Bill supplied with sundries from the garden she tended by the road just outside the gate.

Beacon offered her a can of Campbell's soup for a custom made pair of buckskin calf-high moccasins for Gail. While Pat traced the outlines of Gail's feet onto a piece of elk hide Beacon went to the trailer he shared with Old Bill.

The horse trailer was of the fifth wheel type and had one door just forward of the middle. Old Bill slept in the big bed in the back while Beacon's bed was in a saddle compartment at the very front of the trailer on the raised section over the pintle. It had metal doors that opened in the middle to make it easy to get saddles and tack out but keep them from falling out when the trailer was in motion.

Beacon took a screwdriver and moved the door's latch from the outside of the compartment to the inside so whoever was inside could lock herself in.

He moved all his stuff out of there into the middle section of the trailer. Then he hung a blanket across the trailer just forward of the door. It would be snug, but she'd have room to sleep and change clothes behind the make-do curtain.

Beacon took Gail out hunting for the rest of the day so as to keep her skills and the resources she'd bring to the Settlement a secret.

A "Meeting Meal" had been scheduled in the big tent at the base of the watchtower. Dinner was a bedlam as everybody tried to talk about the "new girl" and get a look at her at the same time. Several young men tried to strike up a conversation with her, but were warned off by stern looks from Old Bill and sharp words from Maggie.

In the confusion Maggie had neglected to appoint someone to take Beacon's evening shift in the watchtower. As the newcomer's sponsor he had every right to be in the big dinner tent under the watchtower. It was Maggie's job to appoint a temporary replacement. The last pair of lovers, stuck up in the watchtower, didn't complain when their relief didn't show up. Loyally they stayed at their post, arms wrapped around each other "for warmth" watching first the sunset and then the stars.

Maggie hardly ate; instead investing her time in a series of hushed conversations with the matriarchs of the clans that sat on the council the settlement had dubbed 'The Council of Crones'. Then she gave the order for the makeshift tables in the big tent to be cleared.

In the middle of the ruckus that order caused Beacon stepped in front of her and, nose to nose, said; "If you insinuate Gail's using sex to gain entry, even one time, in this meeting I'll knock you on your ass. No questions asked, no second chances, no shit." He turned and walked away before she could think of a retort.

Maggie sat on the low platform at the head of the room in the middle of the four matriarchs she'd been lobbying and called the meeting to order. "It would seem that one of our uh… number," she avoided saying the word 'member' when referring to Beacon as often as possible, "has fallen in lov…"

Beacon stood up, "… has brought in an outsider." She finished lamely. Beacon sat down.

"Now you all know how crowded it is in here already not to mention how low our food supplies are…"

"Then don't mention it!" shouted Old Bill, "Especially after feeding your face with the venison Beacon brought in here yesterday. By the way, you've got a drop of gravy on your chin."

Reflexively Maggie started to wipe her chin then stopped herself realizing the trick as the crowd laughed. Angrily she called again for order and started into a long harangue about how "the elders" had to take the long view and look at food stores …"