The Last Tribe (30 page)

“As much time as we spent together,
he never opened up to me, he never gave me the full story on his life.  I know
he lost his family.  I know he was a pilot, but both of you know that from spending
five minutes with him.”  She took a sip of her instant decaf coffee.  “I never
pushed him to talk.  We all have secrets to keep.  We all can choose how we go
forward in this new world.  Maybe Pete wants to start again, be different than
he was.  I don’t know how a 68 year old man changes who he is, but maybe he
wants to try.”

“What would you be?”  Todd asked
her.

“What?”  Melanie replied, snapping
out of the philosophical haze she entered while talking about Peter.

“What are you going to be now?  I
can tell you, you’re never going to operate on a person’s head again.  What do
you want to be?”  Todd was curious what her clean slate would become.

“I have always wanted to grow
things, to provide for people with my hands.  It’s not so different than being
a surgeon.  I was at a fork in the road in college, and I let my responsible
side win, or maybe my greedy side.  I have a talent for medicine.  I have a
passion for it too, helping people, but most of all I have a passion to be the
best.  You don’t get much higher on the ladder than a neurosurgeon at Johns
Hopkins.  If someone said they were better than me, it would be hair
splitting.  I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that is why I did what I did,
surgery.  I may have taken the first step into medicine for the good reasons,
but for the last 15 years I’ve been in it for competitive reasons.  I’d like to
get back to working with my hands for altruistic purposes.”

“I bet the people you saved didn’t
care about ego driving your career.”  Emily consoled Melanie’s harsh indictment
of her past.

“I care that I was like that.  Look
where it got me?  My family is dead.  All the capital I earned; human, career,
monetary, it’s all worthless.”

“Mel?”  Todd interrupted her.  “You
need to look at the positive.  You are going to help with your botany, your
farming, and you’re going to help with your medical skills.  I hope you can
pass along your knowledge to one of the kids.  Whatever drove you a year ago,
whatever got you to the pinnacle of your profession, the results are even more
valuable now.  Finding a doctor was a driving force in our decision to seek
others.  Think of your new practice.  If we find more survivors, you will be
the doctor to friends and family.  You’ll know your patients, will look them in
the eye.“  He paused.  “Of course none of us can pay you.”

“You joke, but I guarantee you
within a year I will have the most chickens or livestock, or whatever works as
currency.”  She had a smile on her face.  “One year, Todd.”

Melanie took a sip before asking
Todd the same question.  “What are you going to do?  What missed opportunity or
passion will you follow?”

“I am offended that you would imply
software sales and consulting was not, and does not continue to be my passion. 
I am going to keep on moving in my career.  Sure, it’s been a bad couple of
quarters, but that only means I can bounce back.”  He laughed.

“I love to cook and feed people I
care about.  You can tell from my last few meals, I think I have a talent in
the kitchen.  I did not explore a career because I never wanted cooking to be a
burden.  If I had to go to a restaurant day in and out, cooking the same meals
for hundreds of strangers, I might have tired of cooking.  If we stay together
as the tribe I envision, I hope to cook meals for the family we create.”

“Tribe?”  Melanie asked.  “You
think we’re a tribe?”

“Um, that’s my fault.”  Emily
confessed.  “It’s a term I used to describe what we want to be, or what we have
become.  I said we needed to leave Raleigh to find other surviving tribes, see
if we can merge and add skills.”

“I like the idea that I have joined
a new tribe.  It’s certainly accurate when you think of my last five months.”

“Anyway,” Todd said in an effort to
continue.  “I enjoy planning and making these big meals.  I know that
eventually, when we settle in one location, we’ll naturally find our own homes,
and cook our own meals, but I like the role of cook.  I envision our tribe, or
village, or colony, whatever semantic we use, coming together once a week for a
large meal or celebration.  I want to be able to pass along skills to younger
kids.  Teach them what tastes go together, how to best cook things, be it
boiled, fried, or sautéed.”

“I’ve never seen a brick tower
built over a fire pit used to boil water, and I’m excited to eat paella tomorrow
night.  You’re doing a nice job so far.  And the bread?  Oh my, I have never
had bread as good as yours, before the rapture included.” 

“If you don’t get some wheat grown
and flour made, the bread train will come to a stop quickly.”

“Is no one going to ask me what I
want to be when I grow up?”  Emily asked. 

“This is an organic conversation.  I
didn’t realize we had to prompt you.”  Todd joked.

“No way, you asked Melanie first,
then she asked you, and then you both started talking about bread, and wheat,
and now I’m just sitting here wondering if you are going to ask me about my new
life goals.”  She feigned anger.

“Emily, I’m curious what you would
like to do, now that your options are open.”  Melanie asked, rolling her eyes
at Todd.

“I saw that, but I’ll ignore it.” 
She sneered at both of them.  “And you know what?  I have no idea.  I’ve been
in the rat race for so long, grinding at my career, pressing to make the next
sale.  It’s been what?  Seven, eight months since I worked, and I still find
myself thinking about hedge funds, and i-banks.  Isn’t that sad?  Those things
don’t exist anymore, but they crowd my thoughts.”

Emily pulled her blanket tight
around her shoulders.  The evening air was chilly, even next to the fire.

“Todd will tell you, I am not one
who can sit around.  I keep busy, cleaning, teaching the kids, touring homes,
but I don’t know what my long term prospects are.  I know I will stay partners
with Todd.”

“Thanks!”  Todd said energetically.

“Well, at least in the short
term.”  Emily added after his comment.  “And we’ll raise our children, and help
raise yours, and John’s, but I don’t know where I fit into all of this
madness.  I’m not a doctor, or engineer, or hunter, or farmer.  I don’t know, I
guess I’ll try to fill in whenever I can.”  Emily looked up at the stars and
moon.

“It’s almost scary, knowing how I
fit in life for so long, matching my talents to the correct career for 20
years, and now, I don’t know what I am going to do.  I enjoy teaching.  I
always volunteered at my kids’ school, just an hour here or there in the
mornings.  I like helping kids move forward, but whether I can do that day in
and day out?  I think I need to take life as it comes.”

Melanie nodded.  “It’s funny, isn’t
it?  We have so much to do, grow our food, find a home, teach our kids, yet we
still sit around and try and define our careers.  Your approach is more
realistic.  I want to be a farmer, but that may only be a small part of my new
life.  Maybe we will all become dynamic in our skills.  The old world rewarded
specialized talents, making sure people contributed in a unique way. 
Companies, hospitals, they did not want redundancies, people had to make their
skills special.”

She leaned forward, as if she was
coming to a realization, “I can’t get fired from being Casey’s, Jake’s, and
Jackie’s mother.  I can’t get fired from the tribe unless I break a horrible
rule.  I don’t need to make sure I am indispensible, because we are all
indispensible.  There are only a handful of us.  Each of us will need to know
how to hunt and clean animals, sow and reap crops, build and repair homes.” 
She sat back.  “Wow, what a burden and yet what a relief.  Each day is about
surviving, not about maximizing my time.  My day is no longer about seeing
enough patients to make sure my practice is profitable, my life is about
helping my tribe survive.”

Todd agreed.  “It’s so basic, if
you think about it.  Tomorrow we need to get food to make meals.  We need to
take the kids on tours, go to bed.  Done.  There is nothing on the horizon. 
There is no deadline or sales’ goal.”

They sat in their chairs quietly
for a few moments reflecting on the conversation. 

“Were any of you against looking
for other survivors?”  Melanie asked.

Todd nodded.  “John is still
against it.  I was on the fence.  Emily and Matt pushed for engaging other
people.”

“I’m glad you found me, found us. 
I’ll go wherever you go, do whatever you do, if you’ll have me.  I see how well
you are raising your kids.  I want that culture for my three.  I understand
what you are trying to create with the tribe.”  She stopped.  “But I understand
where John is coming from.  We need firm ideas and rules when we get to New
York.  If there are people up there, and they are in a group, they will have
leaders, and ideas of their own. “

“We know, but it’s important to get
everyone together.”  Emily started.

“I understand.  We have to go,
don’t get me wrong.  What I am saying is, we need to have a solid idea on where
we are going after New Hampshire, and how we are going to get there.  If we run
into a tribe, a term I will adopt because I like it, when we run into the
tribe, we are probably going to have to convince people to leave their tribe
and join our tribe.  We might not get everyone.  They might try to convince me
to stay, knowing I am a doctor.  We should consider hiding the fact I am a
doctor, unless we believe it will incent people to join our tribe.  They might
want Peter because he is a man, Matt because he is a young man, or Solange
because she is a woman.  I don’t know if I want you to show your pizza oven to
a large group.  If things become violent, it might not continue with us.”

Emily shook her head.  “That is the
same paranoid mindset I had to fight John about.  This isn’t the Road Warrior,
we aren’t savages.”

“No, Emily, we aren’t savages, but
who knows what a larger group might be by now.  Imagine 10 mouths to feed
instead of 4.  Imagine New York City, which was looted and burned, bridges destroyed,
tunnels blocked.  Imagine the desperation some of those people feel or at least
felt during the rapture.  I’m not saying they will take the pizza oven because
they are evil.  I’m saying they take the pizza oven because they are trying to
survive.  If you had to steal an oven to feed your children, you’d do it,
right?”

“I wouldn’t think twice.”  Emily
conceded.

“Now imagine that you meet the only
doctor left on the east coast.  Imagine you meet a woman who can bear children,
and you are a group of men.  Imagine you have no other way to make food other
than a fireplace in an old building, and now you see a portable pizza oven. 
There are going to be choices made, decisions about joining our tribe or
staying with another tribe.  We need strong selling points, but not key
strengths.  Not ‘we have a doctor,’ but rather, we have good, honest men,
women, and children, and we are going to this place to start a society.”

“So you don’t think we can just
drive up there and say ‘hey, we’re the Dixon’s from Raleigh, North Carolina. 
Want to come with us to New Hampshire to pick up our nephew, and then figure
out where to live?’”  Todd joked.

“No, I don’t.  I think you got
lucky with Solange, Peter, and me.  We need to have a better plan for meeting a
larger group.”  Melanie looked up at the sky.  “I’ve lived in a city my entire
life.  I knew there were stars in the sky, but who knew there were so many?” 
She stretched her feet out and put her hands behind her head.  The sky was
clear save for a few light puffy clouds drifting across the brilliant stars and
a three quarter moon. 

“We have a few days to hone our
pitch.  I don’t know where Peter is on all of this.  I will speak with him
tomorrow.  I’m with you, and Solange is with John, so worst case, we have all
of us.”

“What do you mean Solange is with
John?”  Todd asked.

Melanie and Emily exchanged
glances.  “You haven’t noticed how she looks at him?  She’s usually not more
than a few feet away from him.  Trust me, she’s with him.”  Melanie wore a
smile on her face.

“Are you crazy?  She’s half his
age.  You two have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Todd shook his head. 
“Solange and John, he wishes.”  He mumbled.

“Let me guess, you had to ask him
out first?”  Melanie said to Emily.

“Yep.”  Emily replied.

March roared into Hanover like a
lion, and did not become a lamb until the final days of the month.  A warm sun
was slowly melting the snow.  The daily temperatures crept into the high 30’s
and low 40’s.   

The residents of Webster Cottage
were ready for spring, and even more ready for summer.  Winter was harsh in
Hanover, particularly without power or water. 

“We can’t spend another winter
here.”  Paul declared.  “We won’t survive another winter here.  We need crops,
animals, there is no way we’ll have enough of each to make it through.”

He and Hank had been with Greg and
Rebecca for five weeks.  Frozen cottage living was taking its toll.  They
melted snow for their water, but it took a large volume of snow to generate a
small amount of water.  The daily gathering was a grind.  Canned food was
plentiful, but fresh food was scarce.  Hank and Greg spent endless hours
trapping for small rewards.  They cut holes in the local ponds for minimal fishing
gain.  The group was surviving, but it was not thriving.

Today’s project was emptying the
full port-a-john.  Greg decided on a path to a sewer opening on a street near
their cottage.  The drain was far enough to keep the smell away from the
cottage.  The melting snow would wash the sewage away in a day or two.

Greg, Hank and Paul rocked the full
bathroom back and forth until it was on a large plastic dumpster hood they were
using as a sled for Greg and Hank to tow to the sewer.  The blue bathroom was pulled
away using the snowmobiles. 

Paul moved the second, empty,
bathroom onto the concrete slab before going into the house and sitting down on
the couch opposite Rebecca.

Using barometric pressure readings,
wind direction, and temperature charts Rebecca found she could accurately
forecast the weather over the next few days.  She predicted when storms were
going to hit, and when they needed to batten down the hatches.  She sat near
the fire in the midst of one of her weather calculations.

“Are you the Rebecca that won the
Westinghouse science competition last year?”  Paul ran admissions for a medical
school, back when there were medical schools.  He was responsible for an
undergraduate medical school fast start program.  He knew about talented high
school students, particularly talented science students that applied to his
school.

“Yes.  You know they don’t call it
that anymore, right?”  Rebecca said, keeping her face down as she wrote figures
in her book.

“I have been wondering for over a
month now.  I knew you were from Concord, and it was big news that a 12 year
old girl from New Hampshire won.  After seeing you work with the weather
calculations, well, it makes sense it was you.”

“My mother went to your school. 
That’s why I applied.  I’m sorry I was never seriously considering it, but
thank you for accepting me.”  She looked up and smiled.

“I don’t want to make you
uncomfortable, I was just curious.”  Paul paused.  “Wait, you know I ran
admission at Cincinnati Medical and admitted you?”

Rebecca continued to smile.  “I
remembered your name from the admission’s letters.  When Greg told me his uncle
Paul worked at the University of Cincinnati Medical School, I put the two
together.”

“Wow.”  Paul replied, amazed, “you
are smart.”  He stared at her.  “Have you told Greg about all of your honors
and awards?”

Rebecca put her pencil down.  “I
told him the truth, I was a senior, I was looking at top colleges.  He knows
I’m smart, or whatever smart meant before all of this.  I’m not ashamed of how
intelligent I am, and I think it’s an asset to us, but no, I did not go into
detail about Westinghouse or how well I did on kids’ Jeopardy or the debate
awards, or anything like that.  I haven’t had a serious friend my own age since
I was five.  Greg likes me for who I am, and I’m being who I am, so I don’t
want to bring up a lot of baggage from my previous life.  You can, I don’t
mind, I just don’t think it’s relevant.  I mean, Greg was good at baseball.  He
hasn’t told me about specific games he’s won, just that he played baseball.”

“Rebecca, I get it.  I won’t say
your secret is safe, because you’re right, it’s not a secret.  I was just
curious and wanted to know.  I thought you were the same Rebecca, and you are. 
No biggie.  Does it mean I am going to treat you differently?  Probably.  I
might rely on your opinion more, or ask for your advice more, if that’s okay.”

“That works.”  Rebecca picked up
her pencil and started working again.

“One more thing.”  Paul said. 

Rebecca looked back up.  “We can’t
stay here.  Here in Hanover I mean, for the long term.  It’s too harsh.  When
my brothers arrive, we are going to tell them as much.  Maybe you could work up
a formula, a system that would give us best locations?  I leave it up to you to
decide on the final variables, but let’s look at climate, water, food sources,
farmland, and proximity.  We can’t get to Australia, so even if it tops our
list, we need to discount or exclude locations based on availability.”

“You have letters after your name. 
Are you going to help me with the project?”  Rebecca knew Paul was a PhD.  Her
photographic memory displayed his printed signature as she spoke. 

“Yes, but based on our skills and
abilities, I’ll be the research assistant.  You tell me what you need from the
library, I will fetch and deliver.”

Rebecca looked up, not at Paul, but
towards the ceiling in the stereotypical way scientists look up when they are
thinking.  “I do like a project, and we certainly have time.  We have to start
with variables, like you said, but I bet we can come up with more.  Predators,
poisonous insects and reptiles, rainfall, natural disasters, there are hundreds
of things to consider.  I’ll get a laptop from the computer store, something I
haven’t turned on in a long time, and we can run some models.  Let’s hope
Hanover doesn’t come up number 1.”

She looked down from the ceiling
and focused on Paul.  “I’ve never had an RA before.  I am demanding, but it’s for
the work.  Don’t take it personally.”  She giggled.

“Rebecca, this is the most
important project you’ve ever worked on, be as demanding as necessary.”  Paul
did not giggle back, he stood and left her to work on her weather charts. 

As he was leaving the room he
turned around.  “And just for the record, Greg wasn’t that good at baseball.  I
hope he hasn’t been telling you otherwise.”  This time it was Paul’s turn to chuckle.