Desperate Times Three - Revolution (18 page)

“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.” ~ Emma Goldman

“I know, it ain’t much,” Pops said, pulling out an ancient-looking electric heater from a small closet. “But it’ll do for now. We’ve got to decide what to do. There’s is a washroom just through that door, if you want to get changed. We got the water shut off, so don’t go flushin’ the john.”

“Won’t your men at the gate call the police?” asked Julie, opening the bathroom door and turning on the light. “They had to hear the explosion and see the glow of the fire. Besides, we didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No such luck. Those guys at the gate only work until ten. There isn’t another person around these parts for almost ten miles. Seriously, young lady, do you think the cops are gonna believe that? With Jacobs out there with a hole in his head? I don’t think so.”

Julie nodded in agreement, holding the door open as Jimmy walked in. “What do you think we should do?”

Pops shook his head and spat. “I think we need to light outta here.”

“I was just gonna say the same thing,” agreed Bill.

As much as Jimmy wanted to, he held back from correcting Bill. He knew the others felt the same way. There was no doubt that he had just saved them all, once again, from certain death. He would have his moment; he deserved that. Jimmy had no doubt that Bill would take full advantage of that moment. For now, Jimmy tried to focus on the problem at hand. They needed a plan, and they needed it now.

“C’mon, you dirty piece of crap,” Pops cussed at the electric heater. He rapped once sharply on the control, and the lights in the room dimmed as the heater began to glow. “Ah, there we go,” the old man said, rising to his feet and arching his back.

Ken and Pops stood at the small window, and both men standing with their backs to the room, staring up at what remained of the burning bunkhouse. Bill joined them, first standing next to Pops and then moving over to stand next to Ken. Bill shook his head and put his hands on his hips. He moved behind Pops and stuck his head in between the two men. “I think we need to light outta here,” he said, repeating what Pops had said moments earlier.

Pops stepped away from the window and scowled. “Good God, man. We need to get you fixed up with a toothbrush. Say, how is it that you woke up and were able to save us all? Were you up using the bathroom or something? That sure was lucky.”

“I’ve been around danger plenty of times,” Bill said, puffing out his chest. “I can smell it.”

“But carbon monoxide ain’t got no smell.”

“I never said I smelled it, only the danger. I’ve got a nose for it, don’t I, Ken?”

Ken ignored Bill. “Where will we go if we do decide to leave here?”

“There ain’t no ifs about it,” Pops said, scratching his chin. “We’ve got to go. I hate to say it, but the first thing we got to do is get back on up there to the big house and open it up. There’s some stuff up there that we’re gonna need. For now, I say we head out into the woods and sit a spell. I’ve got a shack out there; it ain’t much, but it’s got a woodstove and it’s miles away from here.”

“Miles away?” Bill asked, sour-faced.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch,” spat Pops. “We’ll be taking the four-wheelers. First, we got to lay in some supplies. You,” Pops said, pointing to the chair that Jimmy was sitting in. “I’m going to need you to come up to the big house with me. Ken, you stay out here with Roger and keep your ears open. Jimmy, you come on up to the house with me.

“What about me?” Bill asked.

Jimmy stood up and stretched as Bill’s question fell on deaf ears. Pops pulled out his Colt and opened the door. He stood there, silhouetted in the firelight, scanning the shadows for any sign of trouble. “Let’s move it,” he said, motioning for Jimmy to follow.

“Wait,” said Julie, from behind the bathroom door. “I’m going with you.”

“No, you ain’t,” said Pops.

The bathroom door opened, and Julie strode across the room. “Oh, yes I am.”

Pops shook his head. “Ugh,” he said, scratching his chin with the barrel of the Colt. “Fine, let’s get the move on.”

“I think I’ll go with you guys,” Bill said.

Pops whirled on Bill and pointed at his chest with an arthritic finger. “No, you’ll stay here with Fatboy and Oliver, do you got that? Anything happens to those two mutts and you’ll have hell to pay. Now, sit your fat butt down in that chair!”

Bill’s eyes grew wide as he put on his nobody-likes-me face. Jimmy turned away and with Julie at his heels walked out the door into the orange blackness. They waited for Pops just outside the door.

“He’s a royal pain in the ass,” Pops hissed. “Where the hell did you find him?”

“Jimmy brought him,” Julie said, a sly grin spreading across her face in the firelight.

“Well, he did save our bacon,” Pops said, leading the way towards the A-frame. “I suppose we should give him his due. The man is like a burr in your saddle, one that keeps digging deeper. You must have the patience of a saint.”

“He can’t help himself,” Jimmy said, holding Julie’s hand as they followed the old man. “And what he said had some truth to it.”

“Oh, give me a break,” laughed Julie. “He wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him up alongside the head. He is completely full of shit.”

“Really?” Jimmy asked, squeezing her hand. “We’d be dead twice by now if it wasn’t for Bill. You can say what you want about him, but you can’t take that away from him.”

They walked in silence as the crackling fire slowly began to die down. The frame to the bunkhouse was now gone, and dark smoke climbed up into the moonless sky. They started downstairs, holding their noses and opening the windows. Pops dug a fan out of a closet and stuck it just outside the open door. He turned the switch to high, and cool air breathed life back into the house. “There,” Pops said. “That ought to do the trick.”

They followed Pops into the kitchen where he flipped on the lights. Jimmy could see that Pops was confused by something and followed the old man’s curious gaze to the kitchen counter. The truth hit Jimmy like a pie in the face, and he began to laugh. The kitchen counter was littered with sandwich fixings. Jimmy walked over to the counter for a closer look, still holding Julie’s hand. Julie shook her head and joined in Jimmy’s laughter.

“Thank God for Bill’s stomach,” she said, picking up an open loaf of bread and twisting the bag closed. “We’d all be dead without it.”

“This must be what he smelled,” Pops said, a hint of surprise in his voice. “I’ll be damned.”

A half-eaten Dagwood sandwich sat on a paper napkin, yellow mustard, white mayonnaise, and orange something dripping from between layers of meat, cheese, and lettuce. Jimmy estimated the sandwich to be over six inches thick, and he wondered how Bill had eaten what he had. They began to clean up Bill’s mess. With Pops standing at the refrigerator door, they formed a chain, and the work was soon done. “Don’t touch the sandwich,” Pops had said. “I’m gonna give that back to our hero.”

Pops produced a large duffel bag and began loading it up with canned foods. Julie found a box in the pantry and began pulling things from the fridge, some of the same things that they had just returned.

“Do you think that stuff is okay?” Jimmy asked, scratching his head. “What about the carbon monoxide?”

“Ah,” said Pops from across the room inside the pantry. “Don’t worry about it. Hell, you should have seen some of the dog-shit we was forced to eat over in the Nam. A little gas ain’t gonna hurt nothin’.”

After they’d finished in the kitchen, Jimmy hefted the duffel, and he and Julie placed the supplies outside the front door. They followed Pops back into the house, and after a dozen or more trips out the door, the old man seemed almost satisfied. “Just one more thing,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “C’mon, let’s crack open the gun cabinet.”

Pops stood back with obvious pride after dialing a combination and opening a full-sized steel door that opened into something that resembled a walk-in closet. Jimmy’s eyes grew wide as he stared at the rows upon rows of gleaming shotguns and deadly looking rifles.

“Look Jimmy,” Julie said, pointing to one of the rifles, “a Browning .308, just like the one that Jon had. And isn’t that a Winchester?”

Pops stared at Julie with a twinkle in his eye. “A woman who knows her firearms,” he said, a huge smile growing across his weathered face. “You’re my kind of gal, sweetie. If I was twenty… thirty... forty years younger…”

They all chuckled at that, and Pops began loading them up with guns and ammunition. They made three trips each down to the front door. When they had finished, Pops stood back and checked things off. They had an impressive pile stacked there, sleeping bags, three full duffel bags of extra clothes and boots, foods, candies, even a fair amount of what Pops called his “sippin’ whiskey.”

“How on earth are we going to carry all of that?” Julie asked.

“Not a problem,” Pops said. “Each of the wheelers has a trailer. We take ‘em out to the shack all the time. Looks like we’ve covered all the bases. Let’s get down there and get the others.”

Ken was waiting at the door when they returned; relief was evident in his eyes as they walked inside. Pops outlined his plan, and after checking on Dunn pronounced him fit to travel. “He’s going to have to ride with someone,” he said to Julie, not bothering to whisper. “Looks like he lost some of his marbles.”

Bill laughed at that, and Julie turned on him. “So,” she said, pointing a finger at him. “Why don’t you tell us again how you smelled the odorless gas?”

Bill looked confused. “What?” he asked. “I already told you. I have a nose for danger.”

Pops reached deep into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the tinfoil-wrapped sandwich. He opened it up and held it under Bill’s nose. “Look familiar?” Pops asked.

Bill shook his head. “No,” he said, half-heartedly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie to me, sonny.”

“I’m not,” Bill said. “Jacobs must’ve made that sandwich, and it looks like they sure as heck knew what they were doing. Are you gonna eat that?”

Pops rolled his eyes and handed Bill the sandwich.

“We were guests in that house,” scolded Ken. “How could you do that?”

“What?” he asked, picking up the sandwich and studying it, as if for the first time.

Jimmy narrowed his eyes into slits and stared at Bill. He didn’t blame Pops for being upset, even if Bill had saved their lives. No matter how you sliced it, Bill had no right prowling around inside the house while everyone was asleep, and he certainly had no business rummaging around in someone else’s refrigerator. To lie about it only made it a thousand times worse. Jimmy looked around the room and found that everyone was staring at Bill with the same look of contempt; it didn’t seem to bother Bill one single bit. He chomped down on his sandwich and began to chew and chomped again.

“Does anyone smell something funny?” Pops asked. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he held his head up and sniffed the air.

Julie practically jumped up from her chair and began to sniff the air like a bloodhound. After everything they had been through, Jimmy couldn’t blame her for being paranoid. Pops held his hands up and gave her a wink. Bill swallowed and took another bite. And there was suddenly a look in his eyes that Jimmy had never seen before. He pulled the sandwich away from his mouth, stared at it in horror, and then threw it to the floor as if it were boiling with maggots.

Pops sniffed again. “That smells like Dave’s Insanity Sauce,” he said. “I sure as hell hope Jacobs didn’t put any of that hot shit on your sandwich.”

“You… son-of-a-bitch,” Bill said thickly, spitting globs of food into his hands.

“Me?” asked Pops, looking absolutely delighted with himself. “I ain’t got no idea what you’re talking about. But, if that is Insanity Sauce, I feel bad for ya. I hear that shit is banned in some places. Too damn hot.”

“That’s most unfortunate,” said Julie with mock concern.

“It certainly is,” added Ken. “Most unfortunate, indeed.”

Bill’s eyes were flooding over, and he suddenly howled like an injured wolf. “Water!” he hissed, in a voice that now sounded scorched. “I need water! Oh, my God!”

Jimmy watched as Bill’s face turned as red as a tomato and felt his own smile begin to droop. Bill had panic in his eyes, and his mouth hung open as if he were in a dentist’s chair. Jimmy had seen Bill eat hot things before, things hot enough to melt another man’s guts, but whatever he had eaten seemed to be in a category by itself.

“Water,” plead Bill, with such agony that Jimmy looked away. This had run its course, and the time had come to put an end to it. Jimmy jumped up and headed for the door.

“Hold it,” snapped Pops, pointing at Jimmy. He pulled a plastic bottle of water out of his jacket pocket. “I got a bottle of water right here. But he ain’t getting a drop until he admits he lied to us and then apologizes for his lying. I’m too old to put up with bullshit and I won’t tolerate it. No sir!”

“I’m sorry,” hissed Bill, returning his jaw to full open.

“Sorry for what?” Pops asked, with such anger in his eyes that Jimmy hardly recognized him. He suddenly realized that Bill was playing with two kinds of fire, and that unless he confessed his sins, the fool could burst into flames and still wouldn’t get any water from the old man.