Without law 11, p.5
Without Law 11, page 5
“Why would you give us weapons?” the dark gray haired woman asked, her chin lifted in defiance.
“As the girls have explained,” Marla said, “we don’t wish to harm you. And we see that you only have small knives here. Someone took one of your friends not long ago, correct?”
“Sarah,” the woman said at length.
“Right,” Marla said. “The people who took Sarah, they destroyed my home, but this man and these women here stopped them. But we are offering you weapons so that if anyone tries to hurt one of you again, then you would be able to better protect yourselves.”
“Why do you care?” the woman asked, and she eyed each of us.
They still held their small pocket knives out, but with less vigor than before. It seemed Marla was getting through to them, and I suddenly became extremely happy that we had decided to bring her.
“You seem like good people,” Bailey said with a small smile.
“Yeah,” Tara agreed. “We see that you’re just trying to live peacefully and take care of your children. I’m guessing some men hurt you after the world went to hell.”
“Men cannot control their impulses when society is destroyed,” the woman said, and I knew that Tara was right. These women had been harmed, and that was why they disliked my presence. I felt a pang in my chest as I looked at the women who stared out at us from the house. It pained me to know that they had all been taken advantage of in one way or another.
“Not all men are like that,” Anna said softly. “Tav here has saved us on more occasions than we can count.”
“We do not trust men here,” the woman said with finality.
I wanted to pipe up and tell her that if I wanted to hurt her, then I wouldn’t be offering her guns, but I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut. This woman was really taking a while to win over, but if I spoke up I feared that I would undo all of Marla and the girls’ hard work.
“Alright,” Marla agreed. “That’s fine, we are not here to try to change your mind or your way of life, we are only here to offer you these things and propose something that could help us both.”
“There is the real reason,” the woman said, and her nostrils flared with anger. “You are not here to give anything to us, you only want to use us.”
“No,” Marla said sternly. “We want to make a deal with you. We have a lot of land that we hope to farm over the summer and harvest come fall, but we only have one tractor.”
“We’ll need help to do the planting and harvesting,” Paige said. “We’d like you to help us in exchange for a portion of the harvest.”
“We have a garden here,” the woman said. “Why would we need your garden?”
“It’s not a garden,” Paige said. “It’s acres that will grow food. Enough to last you all through the winter and into spring.”
“And you should keep your garden here as well,” Anna said. “We just need your help with planting and harvesting the land we have. There’s a lot of land, and we don’t have enough people.”
“You have more men there?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” Bailey said. “They’re all very nice, but you don’t have to interact with them if you don’t want to, we’ll explain to them that you’ve been hurt and don’t trust men. They’ll understand.”
“We also know that you have children here,” Marla said with a gesture at their small house. “The food you get from helping us would help with them a lot, I’m sure.”
“Marla’s also a registered nurse,” Paige pointed out.
“That’s right,” the older woman agreed. “And I would be happy to give all of you physicals to make sure everyone is healthy.”
“This is part of the deal?” the woman asked, her eyes narrowed in consideration.
“Yes,” Marla said with a smile. “As many physicals as you want.”
“And we’ll provide medicine if someone needs it,” Paige offered.
“Plus we have running water,” Tara said, and the woman’s eyes widened quickly before they narrowed once more. “Hot running water. So you guys can all come and take showers, too.”
“Right, right!” Paige exclaimed. “Or if you need to do some laundry or fill up some water bottles, you can do that, too.”
“You offer so much,” the woman said. “You will want more than our help with the field soon.”
“No, no,” Marla assured her. “We need your help with the field, but it will benefit both of us. And like we said, you are good people just trying to stay safe and care for your children. We don’t want to disrupt your way of life, but if we can make it easier for you, then we will. After we finish the harvest, you don’t even have to talk to us again until next year if you don’t want to.”
The woman leaned over and whispered to the other women, though she didn’t take her eyes off of us the whole time.
“Okay,” she said after a moment of conferring. “We will help you with your planting and harvest in exchange for food, physicals, and access to water.”
“That’s great,” Paige said with a grin. “Thank you.”
“We have some conditions, though,” the woman said.
Here we go.
“Oh, alright,” Paige said, but her smile faded a bit.
“We do not work with men,” the woman said. “And when we come to shower, we will not have men in the building.”
“I will keep them off that floor,” Marla said, “but they live there, so I won’t ask them to leave completely.”
The woman conferred with the other women once more.
“Deal,” she said, and she held her hand out to Marla.
“Deal,” Marla repeated cooly, and she shook the woman’s hand.
“Here,” Paige said. “Please take this stuff still.”
The women grabbed the boxes and carried them to the house, except for the one in charge. She still stood in front of the group and looked at us with the most serious eyes I had ever seen.
“You will not back out of this deal, yes?” the woman asked.
“No,” Paige said. “We won’t back out. We can even put it in writing if you’d like.”
“No,” the woman said. “There is no one to help uphold contracts now. I will take your word and hope that it is good.”
“It is,” Marla said. “And we can start those physicals and showers whenever you’d like.”
“And no men around for physicals,” the woman said, and she eyed me once more.
The look that she gave me made me feel dirty, but I reminded myself that she had been hurt, and I let it go. This wasn’t about me, and if I could do anything to help these women trust men again, it would be to be a trustworthy man, and that meant taking their shit for a while until they realized that I didn’t deserve it.
“There won’t be any men around for physicals,” Marla assured her. “I can even come here to do them if you’d like. Are any of the children boys?”
“Yes,” the woman said. “Three boy children.”
“Hey,” Bailey chuckled. “We have three boy children, too.”
“You have children at your home?” the woman asked.
“I have two boys,” Marla explained. “Five and seven, and we have another woman who has an infant.”
“We will see you soon for physicals and showers,” the woman said.
“Alright,” Marla agreed. “I can come get you tomorrow and show you the way to the campus.”
“Okay,” the woman said. “Tomorrow. Now you go.”
With that she turned and walked away and left us with an empty wagon. We walked back up the hill quickly, and a little further after that, until finally Tara broke the silence.
“Well,” she said. “We got them on board. It was kind of a bitch, but we did it.”
“Right!” Paige laughed. “I thought she was going to stab Tav if he breathed too hard.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But they’ve obviously been hurt. I don’t mind a little coldness if it helps her feel more safe.”
Bailey said nothing, but she smiled up at me, and I smiled back.
“The important thing is that we’re going to help each other,” Anna said. “They’ll get physicals, showers, and food, and we get labor. Win win.”
“I wonder what they’re going to do once those boys grow up?” Tara mused. “Will they kick them out?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Marla said. “But I don’t think any mother could kick out her child like that.”
“Yeah,” Bailey said. “They’re afraid of strangers that are men, but that doesn’t mean they’re afraid of men that they know.”
“We wouldn’t know,” Tara chuckled. “There were no men around.”
“They’ll come around,” I said. “Or maybe they won’t, but like Marla said, we aren’t here to change them, just to offer a mutually beneficial agreement.”
We had done it, we had gotten the first group on board, and I smiled to myself as we walked back through the woods toward the Millers’ old house. It hadn’t been easy, but I was proud of my girls, and Marla, too. They had all shown great diplomacy today. That woman was as serious as they came, and they had managed to get through to her, which was definitely something to be proud of.
As we made the trek back the girls chatted more about spring and summer before the EMP, and I listened with a soft smile on my face. They had just accomplished something huge, but still they just wanted to chat about silly things, and I had to chuckle to myself.
We reached the top of the hill behind Marla’s old house, and I looked down to the fields around it. It was gearing up to be a long summer, but all the work would be worth it in the end.
Chapter 5
I woke well before dawn, and the girls barely stirred as I gently pulled them off of me. I reached down and gave Winchester a quick pat before I stood up and got dressed. It was still dark out, but I was incredibly alert and I needed to do something.
I crept through the hallways and down to the living room as quietly as I could. It was easy to tell that the whole dorm was still asleep. I could hear the quietness of them sleeping. A few snores here, someone rolling over there.
I reached the living room half expecting Betty and Rolly to be up, but I found it completely empty. I threw on my jacket and grabbed a flashlight, but as I was holstering my pistol, Winchester came down the stairs.
“Hey, boy,” I whispered.
He walked over to me, stretched and yawned, then looked outside.
“You want to go?” I asked, and his tail wagged. “Alright, come on.”
I opened the door, and he led the way out. He didn’t seem interested in running around, he just wanted to keep me company.
We made our way into the woods toward the traps that were set. If I was up this early, the least I could do was check the traps. Besides, I hadn’t checked up on them in a while, and it was a routine that I missed. There were plenty of people around campus to do chores now, and while we helped as we could, the girls and I had definitely taken on a different role.
We were in charge, we made the decisions, and we were the protectors. That meant there wasn’t as much time for us to spend out checking traps and hunting.
I didn’t mind the role we had taken on, but part of me missed how it was when it was just the girls, Rolly, and I. Things had been simpler then. I loved our makeshift family, sure, but I had never wanted to be in charge of people. This wasn’t the role I had sought after in life, it was one I had tried to avoid, actually. It was somewhat ironic that I had wound up in it anyway.
Winchester walked beside me as we approached our first trap, and I reached down to pat his black head when I saw what we had trapped. We had a rabbit. It was a large brown one, and it started to squeal when it saw us.
The sound pierced through the early morning air, but I quickly grabbed the small creature and snapped its neck. Winchester waited patiently while I skinned and gutted the creature, then I tied it to my backpack.
The sky began to turn a deep blue with the impending dawn, and I thought about the months I had spent in the woods. It was lonely, but not in the way most people would think. I hadn’t missed human interaction, not really. I had missed my mother and my friends from time to time, but I found solace in being alone.
It was an incredible feeling to live truly off the land, with nothing to worry about but your food for the day. I found that worrying about survival had taken my mind off of all the other questions I had when I went into the woods, like, “what am I going to do with my life?”
I still hadn’t figured that one out by the time I left the wilderness, and part of me didn’t want to leave, but I knew it had been long enough. I needed to get out and make an appearance or everyone might think that I had died out there. I had told my mom and my buddies to give me a year. They thought I was crazy, but that was one of the best years of my life.
And it led me to the even better years with my girls.
I found the second trap empty, so I headed to the river to check the trotlines. There were three fish there, so I grabbed them, cleaned them, then baited the lines again.
I sat by the river for a moment while Winchester got a drink, then he came over to sit next to me and put his head in my lap.
“Hey, boy,” I cooed as I reached my hand down to pat his head.
It felt good to sit by the water and listen to its slight rumble.
The sky grew more blue as the sun readied to make an appearance, and after a while I sat up and splashed some cool water onto my face. I had become so accustomed to having a warm shower when I wanted one, that I had almost forgotten how refreshing the feel of cold water could be on your skin.
On the way back to the dorms, I checked the last trap and found another rabbit, so I cleaned it as well.
Just before the tree line Winchester let out a bark and ran ahead.
“Hey!” I heard Bailey say.
I smiled and stepped through the trees.
“There he is,” Paige said with a point.
“We were worried about you,” Anna said.
“I’m alright,” I chuckled. “Where’s Tara?”
“She wasn’t as worried as the rest of us,” Anna explained.
“Yeah,” Paige added, “she said, and I quote, ‘he’s probably out in the woods doing some brooding survival-man shit.’”
“Then she went back to sleep,” Bailey said.
“She wasn’t wrong,” I laughed.
“You were checking traps?” Anna asked, and she gestured to my bag.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to just do some chores around here.”
“Yeah,” Bailey sighed, “I kind of miss that, too.”
“You should have woken us up,” Paige said. “We would have come with you.”
“I know,” I said, “but I thought you all could use a little more sleep.”
“Well, we’re up now,” the redhead said with a grin. “What else needs to be done around here?”
“Let me throw these in the smoker,” I told her. “I’m sure we can find something to do.”
“Should we wake up Tara?” Bailey asked.
“Nah,” I said with a shake of my head. “Let her sleep. We’ll find something for her to do later.”
I went inside to put the rabbits into the smoker, but I found that Betty and Rolly were up then.
“Hey,” Rolly greeted us. “You all go out and check the traps?”
“Yup,” I said as I held up the rabbits.
“Well, Tav did,” Anna corrected.
“Is that coffee?” Paige asked with a gesture to the pot on the table.
“You know it is,” Rolly chuckled. “Pour yourself a cup.”
“Thanks,” Bailey said as she took a seat.
I put the rabbits into the smoker then went back out to the living room to get myself a cup of coffee as well.
“So,” I said with a smile. “I haven’t checked lately, but do we have a good tally of seeds?”
“Oh, yeah,” Betty assured me. “We have plenty to plant.”
“Good,” I said.
“Now we just need the others,” Rolly chuckled.
“We’re on that here soon,” I said. “The women should be here sometime today to get their physicals.”
“They must have gone through some horrid things to be so afraid of men,” Betty remarked. “Marla told us more about how they acted. It sounded quite sad.”
“They’ll come around,” Paige said with a smile. “Once they’re here for a while I’m sure they’ll see that all the men we have on campus are great.”
“I hope so,” Betty said, “but I won’t count on it.”
“Is there anything else that we need?” I asked. “We can be on the lookout when we head to Port Henry.”
“We’re all ready for planting,” Betty said. “The only thing we’ll need to figure out is pesticides once the plants start to sprout.”
I took a sip of my coffee. I hadn’t even thought about pesticides, but Betty was right, we would need some for the summer months to protect the plants.
“You should have told us sooner,” Anna said. “We could have looked out for them on our runs.”
“You all have barely been back,” Betty said softly. “I didn’t want to put more pressure on you, I figured it could wait.”
“It’s alright,” I assured her. “But we know now, and it’s something that we need to get.”
“Couldn’t we plant without using any pesticides?” Bailey asked. “We could be all organic.”
“We could,” Betty confirmed, “but it’s much more difficult, and there would be a higher risk that we would lose some of our crops.”
“Dang,” Bailey said, and she bit her lip. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“We’ll have to go pesticide free eventually, though, right?” Anna asked.
“Yeah,” Bailey said, “we’ll run out of pesticides sometime.”
“That’s true,” I agreed, “but until then why make it more difficult for ourselves?”
“That’s not necessarily true, though,” Paige said. “We should be able to make our own pesticides with a little bit of research. They won’t be quite as efficient as the chemical ones, but it’d be something.”
