Regan Wolfrom - Coyote

“Some of our supplies are missing.”

“Missing? Like you miscounted?”

“Like someone’s been breaking in and taking shit.”

“What? How long has this been happening?”

“She told me yesterday. Says it’s been happening for a while. A week or two… maybe longer. I went out and checked, and found footprints.”

“And you sat on it for a day and a half?”

“Did you follow the tracks?” Graham asked. “Any snowmobiles?”

“No snowmobiles from what I’ve seen. We tried following them, yeah… but there are trails all over the damned place. And the footprints are pretty much everywhere.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Are you telling me that there could be any number of unknown people wandering around in the woods and taking our supplies?”

“Who could it be?” Graham asked.

“Fuck, Justin,” I said. “Have you even mentioned any of this to Sara?”

“I was going to bring it up at the next meeting,” Justin said. “Rihanna’s still checking her counts to be sure. It looks like someone may have found a way into our basement through the old cellar door.”

“But there’s a heavy chain on that door, isn’t there?”

“Shit happens.”

“Shit happens? What the hell does that even mean?”

“I think Rihanna left it unlocked.”

“Rihanna… okay… so someone could be in your house right now and you wouldn’t even know it.”

“It’s a problem,” he said. “I should’ve kept a closer eye on everything. But you know… delegation…”

“We don’t do excuses around here. You say you want to keep us safe, but you don’t even notice strange footprints in your own backyard? You have some nerve challenging me… some real fucking nerve…”

“I messed up. I already said that.”

“Let’s just figure out the damage,” Graham said. “We can make Justin feel like crap afterwards.”

I knew he was right.

Once we reached the Porters’ cottage, I walked over to the wood door the led down into the cellar. The chain was completely off, curled up in the snow over a meter away.

“Goddamn it, Justin,” I said. “So what’s missing?”

“We don’t know for sure.”

“Then what do you think is missing?”

“Food. Apparently it’s a bag of sugar here or a box of salt there… if Rihanna’s right on her counts.”

“Come on,” Graham said, “do you really not know your own counts?”

“I don’t think we’re wrong. It’s just been hard to believe that someone would break in and steal one or two things every few days.”

“No one broke in,” I said, “since you don’t even know how to keep this place secure. Do you realize how much effort we’ve put into setting you guys up with this place? You had nothing when you got here… it doesn’t really look like you appreciate what we’ve given you.”

“What you’ve given us? Because we haven’t contributed at all, right? We didn’t bring back how many truckloads of supplies from Silver Queen Lake? I guess I should just drive that stuff over to the dump.”

“Don’t bother… just keep that cellar door wide open and someone else will empty your basement for you.”

“So we lock it up again,” Graham said. “And maybe we track down some wireless cameras or something to keep an eye on the approaches.”

“Someone’s trying to steal my job,” I said, giving my blessing to letting the tension drop. There was no point in yelling at Justin for being an idiot; that never makes people any smarter, or at least that’s what all of my time spent on Matt has taught me. “We do need to figure out who’s been doing this.”

“I know who’s doing it,” Justin said.

“And?”

“Well… who else? Obviously it’s people from New Post.”

“Why is that obvious, exactly?” Graham asked. “You said they came from the north… not the south.”

“Look,” Justin said, “I don’t want to be prejudiced…”

“Just say it,” I said.

“They have a hundred and fifty people down there and we have no idea how they’re feeding themselves.”

“That’s true.”

He seemed surprised that I didn’t attack him. “So who else could it be?”

“There could be dozens of people hiding out around here that we don’t know about,” Graham said. “You just don’t know for sure.”

“We’ve got boxes of electronics from Silver Queen,” Justin said. “I’m sure there’s a camera in there somewhere.”

“If only we had inventory lists,” Graham said.

“I guess we’ll have those lists soon enough,” I said. “Right Justin?”

“Right,” Justin said. “I’ll talk to Rihanna.”

“Stop blaming someone else for your fuck up. You want to lead, don’t you? Then learn to be a goddamn leader.”

Justin didn’t respond. For once I think he knew he had no leg to stand on. If only he’d realize that he was legless most days of the week.

But I didn’t need to take shots at Justin Porter. I needed to do my job.

“Let’s go take a look at this stove,” I said. “Lisa’s not the most patient woman on the planet.”

No one argued with me on that.

Today is Wednesday, January 2nd.

Sara’s moved back into Lisa’s room. I guess that’s to be expected.

So instead of Sara, I’ve taken Sara’s new inventory to bed with me two out of the past three nights (the middle night having been taken up babysitting new year’s drunks), and I haven’t figured out what to do.

Some of her scenarios seem less inevitable now; New Post won’t be starting fights now that we have the Marchands on our side, and I don’t think Justin’s about to pack up and leave with half the supplies at McCartney Lake. But that leaves two scenarios, one that’s all “rainbows and unicorns” as Sara had called it, and one that was more possible and pretty bleak. She’d titled that other scenario “no crops possible”.

No crops. If we didn’t find the right equipment. If we didn’t get more fuel. If we just couldn’t figure out how to do things properly. If we did everything else right and the weather sucked.

There were too many paths that ended in no crops.

And we’ve wasted so much time being shot at and almost blown up…

Usually, when there’s a problem, Sara and I have a way to come up with a solution. We go for a walk together, or we sit on the porch together, or we lay in bed together until the wee hours of the morning.

But Sara and I are broken.

I told her at breakfast that we needed to come up with a plan for getting the farming on track. She told me I need to handle it myself.

I’m in no position to get mad at her for that.

So I took a walk up the road, but with Graham and Lisa instead. They held hands like high school sweethearts, and I held back the urge to vomit.

I wish I knew how to fix things with Sara.

“There’s equipment all over the place,” Lisa said. “Aren’t there farms along 652?”

“Not really,” Graham said. “There’s very little on this side of the river, at least north of Twin Falls. And diesel or gas tractors won’t help us; we’re so low on fuel we’ll need electric. Even on the other side of the river, electric farm equipment isn’t that easy to find.”

“We could go about this another way,” I said.

“We could leave?” Lisa said with a smirk.

“We could accept that we need to use diesel for now. I’m sure there must be a place around here that hasn’t been tapped for fuel yet.”

“It’s not like we’re going to know where to look,” Graham said. “And even if we find the fuel, we still need a pull type combine, a cultivator…”