Ray Gorham - Daunting Days of Winter

“I think I can get some flour at the market tomorrow and try to make a pizza,” Gene said. “Is there anything else you like?”

The boy looked up at the two men, the wheels in his head turning. “Hamburgers,” he said hopefully. “And spaghetti.”

“Oh, those are delicious, aren’t they?” Gene crossed the room and sat in a chair facing Collin, eager to engage the child. “I like broccoli and carrots. Do you?”

Collin shook his head. “No, they’re gross, but I like corn, and Corn Flakes.”

Gene peppered the boy with questions about food, discovering his preferences on anything a person could eat-Chinese, Italian, Mexican, candy, snacks, fruit, and on and on. They talked about food for thirty minutes, with Kyle listening while he stewed the venison in a pot on the woodstove.

Kyle indicated to his father that the food was ready. Gene stood and smiled at the boy. “Lunch is ready,” he said, “but I wonder if I can ask a favor?”

Collin nodded cautiously.

Gene bit his lower lip. “My wife died a few weeks ago, and it’s been really hard for me. I miss her a lot, you know. Anyway, she would always give me these big, long hugs. I wondered if you would do me a favor and give me a hug, to help me not miss her as much.”

Kyle held his breath, watching, waiting to see how Collin would respond.

Collin looked nervously around the room, then up at Gene, and nodded. He stood and moved to Gene with his arms out wide.

Gene knelt in front of the boy and embraced him, tears streaming down his cheeks. “Oh, thank you, Collin. This makes me feel a lot better. It’s really hard when you lose someone you love, isn’t it?”

Kyle’s eyes blurred as the boy’s head bobbed vigorously up and down against Gene’s shoulder. They held their embrace, arms wrapped tightly around each other, both crying, until Kyle finally broke the silence. “The food’s going to get cold, guys,” he croaked out. “Let’s eat.”

Monday, February 20 th

Deer Creek, MT

Jennifer escorted her brood through the front door of the house and instructed them to go down stairs and change out of their good clothes, then read or play quietly so she could take a nap on the upstairs couch, hoping to get rid of a headache that had been tormenting her for two days. Their family had just returned home from the funeral service for the men killed on Thursday, while Carol and Grace had gone on together after the service to help tend to the injured men, each recuperating in their own homes and attended to by their families. Six had been wounded, three seriously, but Carol was only really worried about one of them, a woman who had taken a bullet in the stomach.

Four Deer Creek men had been buried. All were given hero’s farewells for their willingness to protect the community, no matter the cost, and Jennifer was emotionally and physically drained. She couldn’t remember a more difficult period in her life than the previous three and a half weeks. She had thought the first weeks after the EMP were tough, and they were, but now they seemed comparatively easy.

Kyle’s arrest, near execution, then banishment, the death of Madison’s mother, caring for the baby under tough conditions, the assault on the community, and the terror of losing her son as the gunfight raged within earshot – after all that, the funeral was almost a break. But even then, to see the grief of families who had lost husbands and fathers just added even more to her own emotional toll, and she felt like she was reaching her limit.

Thursday’s battle had been a complete nightmare. She’d waited inside during the confrontation, trying to focus on the baby, who still didn’t love goat milk but would eventually finish her bottles. Jennifer had tried the milk and didn’t love it either, but the Shipleys had assured her that it was fine, if not delicious, so she forced the milk, the baby’s best hope to stay alive, on Madison. When the shooting had started, it terrified her, knowing that not only was David in immediate danger, but the community as a whole was on the brink as well.

As the shooting had built to a crescendo, with hundreds if not thousands of shots fired, she was sure that there wouldn’t be any survivors, and thinking of David injured, bleeding, and alone, ripped her heart out. Sending your son off to war was one thing. Sending him to war and listening to him die was something altogether different. The fighting seemed to go on forever, and Carol, Grace, and Jennifer, along with the children, had knelt in a circle and prayed until the guns went silent.

As soon as the shooting was over, the women had rushed to the bridge, searching frantically for the injured and, more specifically for Jennifer, David. No one had known where he was when she got there, the regular militia units having been split up. She had headed across the bridge, having just passed Luther’s twisted body and fearing the worst, when Ty had called her over to where he sat with his wife, nervous tremors still wracking his body.

He’d just explained that David had been sent to Clinton for reinforcements when gunfire erupted out on the highway towards the East. Sean had quickly dispatched a squad to investigate, of which Jennifer insisted on being a part, and they hurried down the highway to find David and some men from Clinton carrying the bodies of two men in fatigues who had fled. Jennifer was so overcome with emotion when she saw David that she had to be helped back to town.

The rest of the day was spent recovering from the assault. Deer Creek had lost four men: Luther at the bridge, Anderson West at the East berm, and two men in the militia house, cut down by the machine gun when the walls of the house had proved to be inadequate protection against the heavy weapon.

None of the group that had attacked the town appeared to survive. A total of twenty-two bodies, all of them men ranging in ages from early twenties to late forties, had been buried in a mass grave on the north side of the river. Sean had reported at Friday’s militia meeting that more than two dozen weapons, forty-one thousand rounds of ammunition, a moderate amount of food, silver, gold, fuel, and an assortment of crowbars, sledge hammers and other tools had been recovered. There were no plates on the bus or dump truck, but a registration document in the bus indicated an Oregon origin.

None of the men had identification, at least beyond a variety of tattoos and scars, and Jennifer’s heart broke a little for the mothers and wives who would never know what happened to their loved ones, even though she was glad the men were dead.

She had just drifted off to sleep when a knock sounded at the front door. Jennifer sat up and looked out the window, rubbing her eyes. A man and a woman stood on the porch, with a pair of horses out by the street. She got up from the couch and opened the door as Emma came upstairs with Madison, who had just woken.

The man turned as she opened the door, and she recognized him from the community. “Hi, Tom. Can I help you?”

He smiled. “Hi Jennifer. This lady here, Rose, is looking for your husband. I told her he was gone, but she wanted to talk to you.”

Jennifer looked closely at the woman, but didn’t recognize her. “Hi,” she said. “You’re looking for Kyle?”

The woman smiled and nodded. Her face was weathered, but pretty, her teeth white and straight. She was tall and thin, with sandy blonde hair that spilled out from under a water-stained cowboy hat. “Yes. He’s a friend. I needed some help, so I came here.”

It was chilly out, and Jennifer could see that the woman was tired and cold, so she invited her in, then went to the kitchen and filled a cup with warm water. After sending Emma downstairs with the baby, she handed the cup to Rose, who had perched on the edge of the couch. “Here. We don’t have coffee or tea, but the water is safe and warm. Tom said your name was Rose?”