Wilson Harp - EMP

I didn’t like it when my mind turned to these dark thoughts. I had not believed myself capable of seriously considering raiding for things we needed.

“What’s got you frowning and picking beans like they are fingers of people you hate?” asked Kenny.

“Someone broke into our house today.”

Kenny looked up from where he was kneeling. “Broke in? Did they take anything?”

“Yeah. Dad’s heart pills, what was left of them anyway, and Mom’s pills for her condition.”

“That’s horrible. Anything else?”

“Some aspirin.”

“Did anyone see them?”

“Mom did. She was in bed when he broke in and ended up in her bedroom.”

“Oh my God. Is she alright?”

“Yeah. She pulled the gun from the night stand and chased him out of the house.”

Kenny twisted his lips. “She should have shot him then and there.”

“I don’t know if my Mom could have done that.”

“She better be glad he didn’t know that, then. If he suspected she didn’t have it in her to shoot, he may have tried to take the gun from her. Better to kill a thief in the act then to let him go on stealing. What most people don’t get about stealing is it is killing. I didn’t understand that when I was a young buck. Heck, I wasn’t even young when I turned from my old life. I was 38 before I realized what I was doing. By stealing, I was taking someone’s life.”

“Because they might have needed what you stole? Like my folks’ medicine?”

“Nah, not even that straight forward. If I boosted a ring, let’s say, I would justify it by saying their insurance would pay for it. But they paid the insurance company for their policy, so I was stealing from all the folks paying for insurance.”

“But that’s just money,” I said. I was a little confused at what he was trying to explain.

“No, it’s not just money, David. It’s what they did to earn that money. They spent time doing whatever they did to earn that money. It’s not even how hard they worked, I realized. It was the time. If I stole something they spent five hours earning, I stole five hours of their life. I stole their life, man. Time is the only thing we can’t replace, and a thief takes that from you.”

“I never thought about it that way.”

“Most people don’t. But more need to, now. We aren’t living in a world where insurance or police or courts can give you back even your money. But time is even more precious now. Time is all we have to give or to lose. And someone who steals your time steals a double portion of your life. He takes the time you have already spent, and takes some time you will spend just getting back to where you were. Thieves and murderers are one and the same in this new world.”

A cold shiver ran down my back as Kenny’s words sank in. We were no longer in a place where an outside force could protect us. It was every man for himself in a very real sense. Kenton had held together, but it was more out of instinct than thought. Although most people in town were the type to look out for their neighbors, there were always some that sought to take advantage when they could.

A few men had been roused from their afternoon naps over the last few weeks and given jobs to do. But, as the frantic pace had slowed down, more and more were finding less and less motivation to work.

Buck and his hunters would always be out in the woods hunting, but they would be even if the event hadn’t happened. That’s just who they were. Others would be tending their gardens and eating out of their back yards, true, but how many people would be hauling water for laundry or picking beans if they didn’t have to?

I looked down at the bucket at my feet. It was filled halfway with long green beans. Enough to feed me and my folks for a few days at least. But I didn’t gather these just for my family, I gathered them for the women who cooked and washed clothes. I gathered them for the men who stood guard over our roads. I gathered them for the men and women who dug graves. But I also gathered them for the men who slept late and found excuses not to work. It wasn’t right, but as long as I did what I felt was right, they would eat. What would happen if I stopped picking for them? I feared they would seek to take what they weren’t given. And in that aspect, Kenny was right. We lived in a town with murderers all around us.

The next morning I left the house and headed into town on foot. Ted had asked Anne and me to go out to his house and help him with a special project. I had arranged for Sarah to take my place in the bean field the evening before, so I had been able to sleep in a little before I left home to meet up with Anne at the library.

I was interested in seeing where Ted and Kenny lived. I knew Kenny’s sister and her kids were up there, but Ted indicated there were a few other people that had been gathered in as well. Dad had promised he would let Luke do any strenuous work if he needed it, but I still felt uncomfortable leaving the house for an entire day.

I closed my eyes as I walked and breathed deep. I soaked in the late morning air. It was that time of late-June when the mornings were cool but the afternoons became hot and humid. The edge of coolness was gone and I enjoyed the comfortable warmth. In my high school days, this would have been a day to go to the pool or to the pond at Anne’s house. You could tell the late afternoon would be a scorcher, but most of the day would be lazy and relaxing.

I waved at the people in the field. Some smiled and waved back, but others scowled and went back to their work. Those were the ones who always complained when someone arranged for a day of other work. They also tended to be those whose buckets were never quite full.

I looked at the patchwork of crops and sighed. Full, bountiful rows of carefully tended crops were producing more food each day. The right amounts of rain and sunshine combined with the hard work put forth by the people of the south section of Kenton were producing more food than we needed to survive at the moment. The canning of beets and beans would start in a few days and that would be the first steps we needed to take to survive the winter.

I noticed there was a steady stream of people moving toward the town center. As I got closer, I saw there was a knot of people in front of Sorenson’s Auto Body Shop. At the center was Kenny. Deputy McDaniels was behind him and pointed to several places while he yelled.

“What’s going on?” I asked a woman as she walked passed me. She was visibly upset as she walked away from the group.

“They are going to hang him unless the council gets here soon,” she said. “I’m surprised McDaniels hasn’t just shot him yet.”

“Who?” I asked. I looked back at Kenny who was in the middle of the crowd.

“That black guy. The one Riggins is friends with. He killed someone they say.”

I ran toward the crowd. I didn’t know what I could do when I got there, but I was not going to waste time walking.

As I closed in on the group, I could see a blanket laying over something in the street. I knew immediately it was a body and felt my chest constrict in panic and rage.

“David!” Kenny called as I came close.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“Your friend murdered Talley,” McDaniels said. “We don’t have a jail, and we can’t have a killer running free, so I’m thinking we just hang him from the same lamppost he hanged Brent on.”

“Kenny, you didn’t hang him, did you?”

“Sure did. Hanged him, put the sign around his neck, and sat here for people to see.”

I was stunned. It felt like the world spun as I tried to keep my feet.

“Why?”

“He was a thief. I caught him breaking into the Foster’s house. I chased him back to this here auto body shop and beat him unconscious. Then I searched his locker in the back and found all sorts of stuff that weren’t his. Like your folk’s medicine.”