Rockfall Page 2

  Wade Husband was a country boy through and through, in his early thirties I guessed, tall and lanky with sandy blonde hair that he kept cut short, and the obligatory feed store ball cap. He had a firm grip when we shook and a direct gaze that seemed to peer deep.

  “I was hoping somebody would finally buy this place, Mr. Hardin,” Wade said as we approached the dilapidated front steps. “House sits empty too long, and the weather and the critters get to it.”

  “I know what you mean, and please, call me Bryan. Mr. Hardin was my father.”

  Wade grinned, showing strong white teeth.

  “Then you can call me Wade.”

  As we drew closer, I stopped to examine the entryway. Judging from the tool marks around the broken door, the critters in question walked around on two legs. When I pointed this out, Wade just shook his head.

  “Jackals through and through,” Wade replied. “I’ve tried to keep an eye on the place but I can’t see the house through the trees. They roll in at night to do this kind of work, though.”

  “Copper thieves?” I asked, well aware of the practice as it was becoming more and more common in the cities. Houston was rife with the problem, with thieves hitting new apartment complexes as soon as the workers went home in the evening. New appliances, fixtures, heck, everything was fair game for these gangs. Construction companies were forced to hire armed guards to watch over the worksites, and sometimes even that wasn’t enough. The cops would come, write a report for the insurance company, and that was it. Budget cuts and an increase in the crime rate across the board meant law enforcement had a hard time working crimes against persons, much less property crimes.

  “Grave robbing punks is what they are, Mr. Hardin,” Wade answered. “Probably those Sherwood boys. They got no respect at all. When my Granny Jones died, her body wasn’t even cold at the hospital before those animals broke down the back door of her house and started looting the place.”

  “That’s terrible!” I exclaimed, examining the wallboard where someone had carved away the gypsum in a jagged line to get at the metal wiring running along the wall. “I hope the law caught up with them.”

  As we talked, I examined the narrow living room and into the kitchen. Most of the walls showed the same kind of scarring, and someone had even stolen the door handles and fixtures. Other than a rusted, old woodstove in the kitchen and a massive claw-footed tub in the single bathroom, everything else in the house appeared either missing or ruined.

  The younger man shook his head at my words.

  “Law hasn’t done much around here in a while. Got two cops in town that are alright, I reckon, but this here is county, and Sheriff Landshire doesn’t lift a finger if it don’t benefit him. He’s as big a crook as George Sherwood, or so folks say. No, the deputies didn’t even bother to show up, but we knew who did it. Even when we found some of Granny’s jewelry at the pawn shop in Jasper, it was like talking to a stone wall with that man.”

  I could hear the bitterness in Wade’s voice that day, and I filed away this unwelcome news in the back of my mind. Small town corruption in East Texas wasn’t unusual, and as an outsider, I might be considered fair game at some point. I would need to take this into account.

  After Wade and I toured the property, and the farmer/contractor pointed out where our property lines met up on the north side, we went back to his truck and he took out the little three-by-five notepad he’d been carrying around. I told him what I wanted, in what order I wanted it, and Wade then made some good suggestions while drawing up a list of things to get done. He could do most of the work I wanted, though he seemed surprised at first when he heard I wanted a basement, since such things were unusual in that part of the country.

  “You ever sit through a tornado come bearing down on your house, Wade?” I asked, fighting to keep emotion out of my voice as I spoke. “I don’t mean one that you hear later came close. I mean, where you can hear the wind howling and the shingles get to popping?”

  Wade shook his head.

  “No, can’t say I ever had that happen, but I can tell you did. You get through okay?”

  “Happened when I was a kid. Seven or eight years old. Never been so scared in my whole life. You know how they say a tornado sounds like a freight train bearing down on you? Ain’t true at all. Sounded like the gates of Hell opened up and spewed out all the damned souls.”

  That was a hard memory to relive, and Wade gave me a few moments to collect myself.

  “We survived,” I continued, picking up the thread of the story. “Later, when we went out to check the damage, I saw where it missed the house by less than a hundred feet. Just pulled that funnel cloud right back up into the sky and skipped over our house. Tore the tractor shed to pieces and we never did find all that tin. Went through the chicken house like a shredder, and pert’ near killed the whole flock.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Wade whispered, probably thinking about his own family.

  “So yeah, I want a basement in the new house,” I concluded, and forced a grin on my face.

  “You got it. Say, I see you’re a married man,” Wade continued, gesturing at the gold band on my finger. “Your family planning on coming up early or waiting for the house to get done? I know my wife Dorothy would be happy for the grown-up company.”

  I don’t know what my expression must have been, but I saw Wade’s face turn bright red in embarrassment over his innocent inquiry. After thinking about that damned tornado, this was bringing up the single worst thing in my life to date. I thought of the two tombstones and shook my head, looking away so he couldn’t see my eyes just then.

  “I’m a widower, Wade. Just me now.”

  After that last little revelation, the conversation lagged until Wade said he’d be by the next weekend and we could decide which buildings I wanted and the general layout. Wade also suggested I hire a couple of young guys he knew locally for the general clean-up and bush-clearing work I had in mind. Realizing we would need the help, I made sure to get their phone numbers from Wade before he said his goodbyes.

  After Wade left, I took a few minutes to think about what I was starting here, and what I wanted to do with the land, and with my life. I went around to the back of the house, noted the location of the propane tank as well as tracing where the overhead power lines split off from the county road and proceeded up to the main house. Then I located the septic tank, knowing it too would need replacing, and then headed back to the hotel to type up my notes.

  And that’s how we got started. I worked harder and longer that summer than I ever have, before or after. Mike and his wife Marta came down when they could, as did my sister Nikki and her husband Patrick. Usually just Nikki though, since Patrick was an EMT and worked a schedule I never could figure out.

  Ruminating on that grueling summer of construction projects got me back on track as I thought about the secret addition Mike and I had made after we’d finished off the rest of the house. Just one of several quiet changes made around the farm that hopefully enhanced our survival capacity without tipping off the locals. These recollections about that first day reminded me of our lack of local law enforcement, or more properly, the selective nature of our local law enforcement under Sheriff Landshire. Need to keep an eye on that corrupt bastard if things fall into the expected pattern.

  Stop procrastinating, I chided my brain, forcing my focus on the columns of numbers represented on the numerous spreadsheets opened on the screen. Nothing in the long-term supplies chart looked critical, but I noticed several items on the ranch ledger that fell into what I classed as the ‘like to have’ range. If this is as widespread as predicted, we could use the extra nutrient blocks, feed, and supplements for the stock, both for the long and short term.

  Thinking about the short term, I went through to the office and grabbed a clipboard with several checklists attached. As a person who tried to stay prepared for what might come, I had written down certain protocols for various categories of disaster. Nothing too complicated, but
the preparations for nuclear fallout out, say, differed from those for a hurricane or a tornado. I didn’t have one for meteorite impactor, but I decided the overpressure wave meant I should err on the side of caution. I went with the tornado protocols.

  Going down the checklist, I realized I needed something more than my pajamas and house shoes to handle this crisis. Throwing on the jeans and flannel shirt from the laundry bin, I sat down to put on new socks and stuff my big feet into the rubber boots I’d taken to wearing around the farm. Yes, other folks might love their cowboy boots, but these heavy-duty rubber boots offered more support and plus, how many pairs of cowboy boots have you seen with a reinforced steel toe? Think about that the next time a cow steps on your foot. Aware of the high likelihood of splinters, I grabbed my leather work gloves and stuffed them in one back pocket, and my high impact flashlight in the other.

  Outside, I quickly hit the flood lights ringing the barn lot and driveway, not quite turning night into day, but at least allowing me enough visibility to get the work done. I first secured the metal storm shutters over the windows in the house, then went into the animal barn and repeated the process there. I found all five of my horses huddled up in their open stalls, ears flicking and nostrils slightly flared. I walked down the row and tossed a handful of oats into each trough. Sort of like giving a child a treat to distract them from the boogieman that disrupted their sleep.

  Next, I headed out into the corral adjacent to the barn and disconnected the windmill there, then hopped in my golf cart and repeated the process on the other two windmills spaced out across the property. While I was out in the fields, when I turned on my flashlight, I saw the cattle bunched up in a corner under the sun shelter I’d built for them last year. Odd, I thought. Maybe they know something is going on too. One of the bulls rolled its eyes at me in a way that made my skin crawl. I could almost taste their fear as the small herd huddled together, the bigger Angus seeming to rally around the smaller Jerseys in the mix.

  I’d picked up these three windmills, and two spares carefully stored in the machine shed, at an estate auction up near Palestine, and never regretted the purchases. With Wade’s help, Mike and I got them erected and they provided plenty of power to run the three shallow wells we used for watering the stock. Actually, the windmill near the house also ran a small turbine that provided some of our power. Not much, but enough so that as long as the solar panels were operating and feeding the batteries, we had enough juice to run critical circuits without resorting to the backup diesel generator. Those same battery banks were also set up to power the shelter as well, but no one in this county knew about those changes.

  Back at the homestead, I parked near the ‘chicken palace’, thus dubbed by Nikki when she saw the cement block structure Mike and I built, or as she said, overbuilt, for our flock. The chickens should be asleep this time of night, but like the cattle, they seemed to be restless, stirred up by something. Not a skunk or a weasel, near as I could tell. I checked.

  No, the animals, I was convinced, could tell there was something was wrong. That’s not some New Age mumbo jumbo on my part, either. Birds, in particular, have an attunement to the magnetic patterns of the planet, and even these Rhode Island Reds, thousands of years domesticated and cut off from the wild kingdom, knew something was in the wind.

  Securing the shutters for the chickens, I also made sure their automatic feeders and water dispensers were set before checking that chore off my list. The squawks from the irritated fowl made me ready to get on with the work.

  Next, I did a quick walkaround of the machine shed and the storage barn, noting the doors were secured and nothing looked amiss. Check. Same with the goat pens, but I didn’t see any of the goats outside their stalls. They were probably already out of the pens, standing up on the porch and waiting to be let into the house. That’s what happened the last time we had a hurricane come through, anyway.

  Finally, on to the pig enclosures. I didn’t want hogs. We’d raised them when I was a kid and I never could stand their stink. Mike, ever the optimist, reminded me that if worst came to worst and if the shit ever hit the fan, I would still want my bacon. When I’d mentioned letting him handle that side of things, he brought up the zoning board in his subdivision as the ultimate impediment. They only allowed peacocks, of all useless things.

  Damn him, but I do like my bacon. We built the pig enclosures as far downwind of the house as possible, but I could still smell them when I sat out on the back porch with a glass of iced tea. That meant I took my iced tea to the front porch whenever I wanted to sit outside.

  The enclosures were arranged in a rectangle, with piping for the water troughs teed off from one underground water pipe. This placed the water on the inner wall of the pens and the feed troughs on the outer walls, to prevent the pigs from bathing in their food troughs. Yes, another lesson from my youth learned the hard way. I had four bred sows in one pen, a trio of barrows sharing space in another enclosure together, and two feisty boars I kept in separate accommodations. The barrows were being fattened up for slaughter, but I was constantly threatening the two boars with the same treatment when they got sassy.

  Once again, I could hear the hogs milling about, much more active than usual for this time of night. They were probably just anxious for me to get out of their space so they could get back to discussing the global ramifications and higher order physics of this unprecedented phenomena. Hey, hogs might smell bad, but they are also pretty smart. When I was a kid, we butchered our own swine and chickens. The chickens never bothered me, but not so with the hogs. Chickens just squawk, but pigs look highly-offended.

  In addition to the offensive smells, I hated butchering hogs because they seem to understand the meaning of the knife. On the other hand, the future source of porkchops and bacon would also give me a look that clearly communicated the idea that they would gladly wield the blade, if only they had the thumbs to carry it off. These days, I was happy to rely on the skills of the local processing plant to handle the grisly work, but we still had the knives should it prove necessary.

  Once I made sure the animals were fine, I detoured over to check the door on the single-wide trailer I laughingly referred to as the ‘bunk house’ when I had guests. The trailer was actually in decent shape, since I’d kept it up after moving into the main house once it was completed. This was another auction item I’d picked up that summer of construction, and now I used it primarily for dry storage. With three small bedrooms and one full bath, the mobile home gave us extra space if needed, even though the four bedrooms on the main floor in the big house gave all the families a place to lay their head when the clan gathered.

  Giving the door a quick shake to ensure the lock was engaged, I walked around behind the trailer to the fast-flowing stream running behind the metal building. This was a year-round waterflow and qualified as a creek in my mind, but that’s the way the county’s property description listed it and I didn’t argue. They’d probably raise my property taxes. Again.

  Anchored in the portion of the stream I’d secretly dug out to fit the metal frame was my first, and so far only, water turbine. I’d downloaded the design from the internet, but the assembly required extensive input and assistance from Mike. He was the one with the science degree, after all. The water turbine generated a small amount of juice, scarcely enough to keep the battery bank attached to the mobile home above seventy-five percent, and that only powered a refrigerator and a two burner stove. To run the hot water heater, I’d learned to switch off the breaker for the refrigerator. It wasn’t exactly free electricity for the masses, but this was another ongoing project that gave me more energy flexibility.

  Using my flashlight again, I checked the papers on my clipboard and decided that was enough for now. I had more to do, but those chores would wait for the coming of the dawn.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Heading back into the brick and block structure I called home, I paused in the utility room to step out of my rubber boots. I wore calf-h
igh rubber boots for every chore around the farm. This was necessary, as eventually, mud and cow manure and even worse substances would inevitably find their way into the house. Yes, there were more offensive scents than cow excrement, and anyone who’d spent time on a farm knew them all. Fortunately, this was yet another lesson learned as a child, so I didn’t need to take that class again as an adult.

  By two a.m. I was finished with updating my shopping list spreadsheets, and tired of listening to the talking heads on the TV. The wise men of the boob tube continued to talk about the massive earthquake, finally beginning to bat around magnitude numbers in the 8.5 to 9.0 range, and the screen showed a computer-generated image of a gaudy red wound inflicted in the otherwise crystal blue representation of the area between the East China and Philippine Seas. The epicenter of the quake, they called it. I suspected the truth was much worse.

  Casualty figures hadn’t been discussed yet, but I could read the carefully closed features of the newsreaders well enough to know the numbers would be high, even catastrophic. Assuming this was only an earthquake and not what Bart Myers reported, the dead would be counted in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. If, on the other hand, a significant meteorite had impacted in those seas, then millions were already dead.

  I was reviewing one of my PDF files regarding meteors and reported disruptions when I ran across the mention of another side effect of large strikes. The data made me pause and reread the sentence a second time. I knew it was likely, even possible, but the thought had escaped my tired brain cells.

  Of course, I thought numbly, I didn’t even consider the shockwave. With all that energy pumped into the atmosphere, I was thinking long term effects and overlooked one of the most immediate. That small one back in 2013 at, I checked the site and recalled the name, Chelyabinsk, caused broken windows as far as fifty miles away from the detonation, as well as flash blindness in those in the local vicinity.