Joshua Gayou - Commune - The Complete Series - A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Box Set (Books 1-4)

He shook his head gently.

“Sam… only damned thing I thought about while I was gone? Was you. All I could think of was how bad I screwed up. I knowed it. Saw it in your eyes when I run off for my gear. Ever’ step I took, my guts was roilin’ an’ tellin’ me to turn my ass around. I don’t know why I didn’t. Got no excuse; no bi’ness askin’ you to unnerstand. Don’t unnerstand it my own self.”

He looked her in the eyes, saw some of the anger was melting away. He restrained himself from feeling hope and said, “Like to think myself a strong man. Strong, if not brave. I come from a long line of backwood mountain folk; ain’t none of them ever done nothin’ one way or t’other. Only my mamma wanted me to go off an’ do something with myself. Wanted me to be a big-shot politician, see? It’s why she named me Columbus. Thought it sounded presidential.”

Despite herself, Samantha pulled her head back slightly, expression confused. “Columbus? Why not… oh, I don’t know, Washington or Kennedy?”

“That’s my point, Sam, my family was ignorant people; common folk. An’ that ain’t no slander on them; they weren’t stupid or none. There’s a big damned difference ’tween ignorant an’ stupid. They was just uneducated, s’all. My mamma knowed that and wanted me to go do more. And I did. Ended up in the damned 96 thAviation Support Battalion. I was in A Company; Roadrunners. Know what we did?”

Samantha shook her head, slightly dazed. A lot of the fight had gone out of her, and she was beginning to feel a bit tired.

“We supplied the whole damned army. Transported ever’thing—fuel, water, soldiers, cargo; ran Combat Logistical Patrol. I was a crew chief on a CH-47; I could just about take that whole plane down and build her back up again, if I had to. You believe that? Rest of my family ain’t even ever been on a plane.”

He stopped talking a moment. He hadn’t meant to carry on this long, partially began to wonder where the hell he was going with it. He sighed and pressed on ahead.

“CH-47’s aren’t flyin’ anymore, you know? We grounded ’em, just before I first come here, all that time ago. I’d shifted duty over to the last Blackhawk we kept running; my buddies an’ I called ’em Crash-hawks. Used the last of the fuel, too. Savin’ Gibs an’ them, that was. Ain’t no planes flying no more now…”

He shook his head sadly.

“Don’t really know what the hell I’m doing anymore, see? Ever’thing I ever trained to do, there just ain’t no use for it anymore. So I don’t know why the hell I come runnin’ when Otter called hop-to, ’cept to say I was programmed to do so. But I spent ever’ minute after that regrettin’ it. Sam… Sam. Don’t know how you feel ’bout this but I guess I love you. The time we spent together here… since Christmas, I guess it’s been. I ain’t saying you done give me reason to live, or nuthin’; I wouldn’t put that on you. But I sure feel like—”

He was rambling at that point, not knowing where the hell he was going with anything, only letting the words come tumbling from his mouth, hoping some combination of them would come out in a relevant order that would help her to see. It was just as well, then, that she covered his mouth with hers, stealing his breath and his love with one panicked gasp.

They had no small amount of squirrel meat that they’d packed in snow and preserved in coolers, dusting the layers of meat and ice in salt to drive down the temperature as much as possible. Warren’s people had brought up several sacks of vacuum-sealed flour along with all the other gear; Lum retrieved a bag and brought it back to the kitchen. He thawed the meat a bit, then cooked it in a kettle over a burner (the others in the kitchen giggled when he referred to it as the “kittle”). He seasoned this with dried herbs and then used the broth and meat to roll out dumplings, substituting a bit of bear fat for butter. A few of the others eyed the concoction wearily as he worked away at it, to which he declared, “Thou shalt not slang any mud o’er my boomer dumplin’s ’till you’ns educated yourselfs with a taste!”

They nodded, agreed that this was reasonable, and secretly wondered how many people were bound to give the “delicacy” a try. Monica was half convinced she saw a pink, red-veined pair of skinned testicles dangling from the carcass of one of Lum’s boomers before he tossed it in the pot. She could have been wrong, certainly, but that image would not vacate her mind, and she shuddered every time she thought on it.

Monica worked over a giant stock pot of instant potatoes, stirring until her arms threatened to fall off, while Samantha dumped box after box of the stuff into the mix. The temperature in the kitchen got so hot that they cracked a few windows before long, and Jake eventually ended up spending all of his time outside running both of the grills cooking up the elk and venison. He divided his attention between this, and the flurry of activity a hundred yards beyond the Connex homes; positioned between the cabin and the valley exit was a newly erected tent camp. Men and women in uniform rushed from point to point setting things up while fifteen civilians stood back trying not to get in the way. Jake grunted to himself, not quite smiling, and returned his attention to the grills.

When the food was ready, they set up folding tables on the front porch and laid everything out like a buffet. The people were so numerous now that they collectively abandoned all hope of ever finding a place to seat them all, so every cheap folding and camping chair in the valley was commandeered and arranged around the fire drum in a giant, meandering circle. When Oscar saw how spread out it all was, he grabbed Fred, and they ran back to the garage to retrieve the backup drum, which they’d stored against the day their current drum rusted up beyond all reasonable expectation of use. His intent was that they should run two fires that evening to ensure that enough light and warmth were provided.

As the two men drug it over to the center of the gathering, Jake intercepted them halfway and said, “Don’t put more than twenty feet between those fires, okay?”

They glanced at each other a moment before Fred said, “Uh, okay. Why not, though?”

“I don’t want two separate groups out there,” Jake said simply. He walked back to the porch to resume his position at the tables; he’d been serving up food all evening.

They shrugged at each other as he walked away, then continued on their path to the center of the circle. Having positioned the barrels as requested, Oscar produced a heavy framing hammer and began to punch holes through the bottom of the barrel with the claw, making a full circle around its perimeter. When he finished, he dumped a bit of garbage into each (which was minimal these days as they’d gotten away from using so many disposable goods), followed by an armload of fatwood, and some heavier, dried-out logs and limbs. The chill in the evening air had piled on considerably by this point, so Fred rushed over to the still smoldering grill and retrieved a couple of hot coals using some tongs. He brought them back and dropped one into each drum, taking care that they should fall into the bottom where they would come into contact with the fastest-catching materials.

Different varieties of drink were served that evening. Beer had made its final departure from the world well before that day (so far as any of them were aware) but the harder stuff like whiskey and vodka had an almost indefinite shelf life, and there were many bottles of wine on hand as well, opened for the first time that night and shared easily as an almost priceless indulgence. Powdered lemonade had been mixed up for the children, though the only children present were the ones who already called the valley their home—not a single one had come up along with Warren’s fifteen. In addition to all this, cold water, hot coffee, and tea were readily available throughout the meal and into the night.