TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story (23 page)

Beacon and Molly neared at the Settlement's gate just as Gail was coming out wearing a large backpack. She claimed she had just been going out on a longer than usual scouting mission, but Old Bill confided to Beacon that she'd really been going to look for him.

Randy, Jackie and Molly got along famously so it decided they and the two outriders would try to scout out a trade route back to the castle. Once an easier route than the one Beacon had traveled was found Doc and Maggie, or their representatives, could work out trade agreements and the like.

It was spontaneously decided to hold a dinner in the big tent under the watchtower to welcome their guests before they left on the return trip. Maggie agreed reluctantly because Beacon would be one of the guests of honor. When it came his turn to speak, Beacon gave a short modest description of his adventure spending most of his speech describing the castle's fields and livestock which was a mistake because it highlighted the Settlement's shortcomings in that regard which was emphasized by the sparse helpings on their plates. Now Maggie had a new reason to be mad at Beacon.

In a pique of pride Maggie refused to travel to the castle claiming she was too busy running the Settlement. The Board of Directors was unwilling to put Doc in danger by having him travel or be at the mercy of an unknown group of survivors. They trusted Beacon but that's about as far as it went.

By default diplomacy and negotiations between the Settlement and the castle would have fallen on Beacon' shoulders, but he sidestepped the job by nominating Randy, Jackie, Molly and one of her Marauders named Steve to be "roving ambassadors" carrying communiqués back and forth between Maggie and Doc claiming written communications between the entities would eliminate the problem of remembering who said what and pointing out that the act of writing clarified the writer's thoughts.

Molly had seen the Settlement's fifth attempt at cobbling together a plow that would cut a straight, deep furrow and not break apart after a few days behind a horse. The pathetic plough gave her an idea which she took to Doc.

Just before the Blowup the Rich Guys Survival Club had purchased some horse drawn wagons, ploughs, horse collars, saddles, stirrups, bridles, halters, reins, bits and harnesses for their own use along with lots of extras for trade with outsiders when times got better.

The plows and horse tack had been in a warehouse in Beacon's home town awaiting pickup for the last leg of their journey to the castle by the Castle Corporation shareholder who Rich Bitch had mistaken Beacon for when they first met. By presumably dying with his family he'd made possible the assumption of his house by Cindy and Keith when the Blowup occurred, but he also left a legacy of mystery.

Uncertainty concerning the whereabouts of the much needed equipment had prevented a rescue effort by the overworked and under supplied stockholders. Were the wagons, plows and horse tack still in the warehouse or had the missing shareholder died protecting them somewhere en route to the rendezvous point? Were they gathered in one place or scattered to Hell and gone?

Then there was the problem of training. The dead shareholder was the only one who knew how to rig up a horse to a plow or wagon a seemingly easy task that could be overcome in time by trial and error. But would slow food production until worked out and, more importantly, could doom any expedition attempting to bring the horse drawn equipment from the city to the castle.

Deprived of their planned primary implements for raising food the castle had implemented emergency planting plan rotating teams of horses and drivers on four hour shifts from dawn to dusk during the planting season with the one "demo" plow and tack they'd had at the castle when everything went to hell in a hand basket.

The Settlement's answer to the plowing problem had been hoes and shovels which were not nearly as efficient.

The Settlement's early experiments attaching a horse to a makeshift plow also left a lot to be desired. The Settlement used a breaststrap and harness which placed the weight of the load on the horse's sternum and the nearby windpipe which constricted its windpipe and reduced the horse's air supply. What they needed was a horse collar and associated tack which they had no idea they needed much less how to make.

This is why Maggie objected to the proposed expedition to retrieve them which would put some of the Settlement's horses at risk.

Molly explained, "The horse collar places the weight of the load on the horse's shoulders and doesn't restrict the air supply so the horse can exert its full strength in plowing thus increasing the efficiency of its labor output," she quoted from one of her school books.

Beacon had advised her to leave him out of the presentation since any association with him would prejudice Maggie's view against the undertaking.

Molly's idea made use of the expertise and skills of both groups. Using Molly's Marauders for security and labor Beacon would guide them to the warehouse where Gail and Old Bill would show the Marauders how to rig up the wagons to transport the plows and tack. Then they'd travel to the Settlement where they'd drop off Old Bill, a wagon and two of the plows with their associated tack.

Knowing they might have to fight their way out of the city Beacon had requested Randy and Jackie accompany the expedition. In exchange for risking their lives they'd get one of the two plows for their trouble.

Beacon would have preferred to travel off the roads on foot at night, but having the horses with them precluded that. Instead they traveled fast on side roads and cold camped well off the beaten path eating food they brought along and feeding the horses oats provided by the castle so they wouldn't have stop to hunt or let the horses graze.

In places the roads were packed with abandoned cars. Beacon slung his rifle over his shoulder and rode with pistol in hand when negotiating these labyrinths of steel, chrome and flat tires. A couple of times they saw evidence that a few of the larger vehicles had been lived in recently and once saw a figure fleeing in the distance. They saw no small game in those areas.

Beacon was in the lead as they rounded a bend. A man jumped from behind a tree and fired a pump action twelve gauge shotgun at Beacon. Like most inexperienced shooters he assumed the shotgun's spreading shot pattern would make up for any failing in marksmanship on his part. He was wrong.

As the pellets whizzed by his head Beacon tried to control his horse and bring his pistol to bear on the man who was franticly trying to jack another round into the chamber. But he short stroked the pump action pushing it back forward again before it had retracted fully. His gun jammed. Beacon's gun didn't.

At the sound of the first shot Randy and Jackie had jerked their horses around and galloped into the woods on the side of the road the shots had come from, guns in hand, looking to shoot anything that moved.

Gail had grabbed her rifle and jumped from the wagon as Old Bill grabbed the reins and dropped into the wagon box. Its wooden planks provided concealment but no cover from big bore rifles, however Old Bill was too slow to be jumping from wagons and charging up hills. He would have been an easy target if this had been an ambush by more than one attacker. Besides, somebody had to rein in the horses least they stampede.

In the other five wagons Molly's Marauders also did as Beacon had instructed. One of the two teenagers in each wagon jumped off their wagons and advanced in an infantry line abreast into the brush while their partners covered them from the wagons.

After that, the trip in was uneventful, they snuck into Beacon's old neighborhood just after dusk. His house was burned to the ground as were the houses behind and on the other side of Prepper Pete's place.

Telling the others to wait at the end of the block, warning them that Pete had a night vision scope on his rifle and would shoot anyone but him Beacon continued on alone.

Pete didn't have a wall around his place, "too easy for the bad guys to hide behind," he'd said. Instead the eight foot tall barbed wire topped chain link fence Beacon remembered surrounded the house on three sides. A forth fence had been put across the front yard sometime after Beacon bugged out.

There was one mummified body hanging from the fence in back and a dozen skeletons lying around the front and sides.

Beacon walked up to the ashes of his home calling out Pete's name and identifying himself. He stopped walking when he got to their mutual property line, but kept calling softly.

"What happened, Mountain Man, did'ya run out'a duct tape?" Pete's challenge came from a darkened loophole in a steel window shutter with rusted bullet pockmarks on it.

Beacon gave the password phrase, "If it's supposed to move and doesn't: WD40!"

"If it's not supposed to move and it does: duct tape!" Pete completed the countersign," and directed Beacon to go around to the front of the house and pull the rope.

The front gate was padlocked but a rope tied to the gatepost led back to the house. There was a small gap between the gate and the gatepost just under the hinge and just wide enough for him to get his hand through and grab the rope. As Beacon pulled the rope a small plastic milk crate hove into view. In it was a key to the padlock.

Cautiously walking only on the sidewalk, Beacon approached the deceptively flimsy looking front door, flanked by two loopholes, with trepidation not knowing if Pete's sons, Charley and Sam, knew it was a guest, not a looter, on their front walk. He'd slung his rifle over his shoulder to show harmless intent.

Beacon knocked on the front door and heard Charley's voice call him by name inviting him inside. Emboldened, Beacon entered. Beyond the front door he found himself in a long narrow hallway with a large loophole at the end. Staring into the loophole as he walked to the hallway's end he found it made a right-angled turn to the right. Beacon now faced a much stouter appearing steel door with a loophole at eye level and another loophole at waist level in the wall behind him as he knocked again and was admitted into the inner sanctum.

He'd expected to see empty MRE cases scattered around but realized they'd probably been burned in Pete's fireplace for cooking and warmth.

Over a cup of tea the two friends got caught up on old times. Pete's wife had been killed by a sniping parent the first spring when she went out in the backyard to shoo away some kids trying to cut a hole in their chain link fence. They'd buried her where she fell in the garden she'd loved.

"Sending their kids in to do the dangerous stuff seems to be the modern parenting model nowadays," Pete opined, "the kids don't realize the danger their parents are putting them in. From then on we shot the parents with rifles if we could see'em and used a pellet rifle or birdshot from a .410 to chase the kids away."

Beacon asked about the burned houses around Pete's place.

"We burned'em down to give ourselves fields of fire and time to shoot attackers before they could get up against the house. Didja notice how all those broken bikes an trikes an stuff on the ground offer no cover, but sort of channel attackers to spots in front of our window loopholes?"

Then he added, "Sorry about your place, but we saved all your books before we torched it. If you want'em back we've read'em all 'cause there's not much to do around here when we're not on guard duty."

Beacon was elated. He picked out his five favorite paperbacks: Robert A. Heinlein's "Tunnel in the Sky"; The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"; "Double Star" and "Podkayne of Mars" plus David R. Palmer's "Emergence" sealing them in clear plastic bags Pete provided.

As he stowed them in inner pockets of his wolves fur coat he asked, "Why isn't the house across the street burned down too?"

"Because looters and outlaws don't know the difference between cover and concealment, they conceal themselves behind those flimsy sheetrock walls and think they've got cover until we put a .308 bullet through the sheetrock and them. In the beginning we used to drag the bodies out into the street and pose them around the neighborhood as sort of "KEEP OUT" signs.

"Remember Mrs. Simpson's poodle 'Mademoiselle Fifi'? She led a pack of feral dogs that would eat'em. Kept the stench down, but scattered the skeletons and spoiled the "No Trespassing" effect. Seems like a lot of people left their pets behind to fend for themselves when they lit out like scalded dogs. There's a pack of Dobermans and Rottweilers in the neighborhood now, we haven't seen a Chihuahua or a wiener dog since they moved in."

Beacon recounted an encounter he'd had with wolves last winter as he pulled packets of pemmican and venison jerky from an inner pocket of his wolves' skin coat and shared it.

Displaying the honesty Beacon had always admired in him, Pete put aside his prepper persona and admitted he'd been wrong, "This is turning out to be more than a Shit Hits The Fan event and we're almost out of food." Beacon resisted the urge to say 'I told you so' and let Pete continue. "Any chance the boys and I could come with you when you go back up into the mountains?"