Chapter 7
Our village was so isolated that there was no paved road too or from it. There was a gravel road, once. We don’t know why the road was there, and we don’t know what the land was used for before the war, but we didn’t want to be found, so we dug it up and scattered the gravel and planted weeds over it. That worked for a time, until scouts from Axel’s gang found us. They’d seen the smoke from our cooking fires and drove to us on ATV’s. Once they spotted us it was only a matter of time before Axel dug up a new road over which his technical could pass.
The tank didn’t need a road. It rolled right over the hills, crested a rocky outcrop, and descended straight into our valley of grain. Nobody came to greet us. They were afraid. Like me, they’d never seen an M1 Abrams in real life. But they knew what it was. They knew it was a machine designed to kill and destroy. They thought maybe it was one of Axel’s new weapons. But if it was it would have driven straight through the wheat. Instead, the tank rumbled to a halt on the edge of the field. Cordite stood up in the turret hatch and scanned the farm for any sign of human life. I tried to see the farm through his eyes, as his view passed over the barns and chicken coops all manufactured from stolen highway signs. Pigs rooted in the mud of a small pen, oxen ate slop from a trough, and dairy cows looked up from their meal of grass. Cordite didn’t say a word. I began to feel ashamed. The animals were filthy and the buildings made from junk. Cordite lowered the binoculars from his eyes, silent and seemingly disappointed. But it wasn’t disappointment that caused his silence, quite the opposite. The sight of the animals and the wheat had taken his breath away. “It’s so beautiful,” he finally said, and my heart filled with pride.
“No radiation poisoning?” Cagney asked the question and it took me a moment to realize it was directed to me.
“Not enough to kill us, anyway.”
Cordite looked back over his shoulder at the surrounding hills. “Looks like the valley’s far enough from the main strategic strikes. But where is everyone?”
“Hiding,” I told him. Then I climbed up out of the tank and jumped down to the ground. I scrambled to a patch of weeds and brushed dirt off the ground, revealing a metal hatch. I banged on it with my fist and waited. Moments later, the hatch swung open and my father popped his smiling face out.
“Nicole!” He grabbed me in a hug.
“Papa!” I hugged him right back.
Then my father lifted me in his arms and walked straight toward the tank. He realized now it wasn’t an enemy. Tears in his eyes, he kneeled down right in front of it. “Thank you. Thank you for bringing her back. I owe you...everything.”
Other men and women began to emerge from the hatch, now. Tex watched, impressed. “What is it?”
“Looks like some sort of underground shelter?” theorized Cagney.
“It must be huge.”
But Cordite kept his mind focused on the business at hand. “We need fuel,” he told Hector.
Hector nodded. “Of course, as much as we can provide.”
“And how much is that?”
“We’re about a month away from harvest. After that...you can turn whatever you need into ethanol.” My father glanced at the farm and Cordite followed his gaze to the beautiful golden wheat.
“That’s all of it? You don’t have any from last year?”
My father shook his head.
“No sir. Axel’s gang stole it all.”
“How about a still? Do you have a still?
Again my father shook his head.
Cordite frowned. “If we’re goonna to turn it into fuel we need a still.”
“We don’t need a still because we don’t use vehicles. We plow with the oxen.”
My aunt Carmine, the prettiest farmhand in the village, interrupted. “There’s a still at the prison.”
Cordite seemed to think that was encouraging news. “At the prison, huh?”
“That’s right,” my father replied cautiously.
Cordite turned to his team in the tank, who were all gazing out from various hatches in the tank. “All right, shut her down and lock her up tight. Looks like we’re gonna be here for a while.”
That night we had a party. I loved parties. My father played his guitar with Ramon and Eric. The sang Spanish corridos about our village, about how we found it and built and how it protected us from the war. They’d written the songs together, so that we wouldn’t forget our history. I once asked my father why he didn’t write the songs in English. He thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “It’s too difficult,” he admitted, “there is no music to English. Spanish sings.”
I loved those songs, and I loved the bonfires, and the huge scarecrows that Telly designed. Telly was a genius, he could figure out how to make everything, and when we lit them on fire his scarecrows would move and dance to my father’s corridos. I remembered seeing fireworks before the war but I liked Telly’s dancing scarecrows much more.
The scarecrows weren’t the only ones dancing, of course. The men and the women danced together, timidly at first, but as the dandelion wine was passed back and forth the dances grew more passionate. I didn’t like dandelion wine. When I first tried it I spit it out. My father laughed and assured me I’d grow into it.
Tex was dancing with Carmine. He stared at her in the flickering light of the burning scarecrows and bonfires.
This stuff ain’t half bad what is it? I guess I wasn’t the only one who thought she was the prettiest farmhand. “This stuff ain’t half bad,” I overheard him telling her. “What is it?”
“A mixture of dandelion wine and local wild fruit.”
Tex took a moment to admire Carmine’s earthy, natural beauty. “No local herb, is there?”
Carmine smiled mischievously. “Come with me and find out.” She took his hand and led him toward a row of trees lining a bubbling brook.
Turns out, I wasn’t the only one watching. Cordite also noticed them leave together, and Cagney noticed him notice. “You think that’s a good idea?” she asked. “Letting him wander off like that?”
“Why not?”
“Could be dangerous.”
“Can’t be on guard all the time.”
“That’s not the kind of danger I’m talking about.” Cagney motioned to the party raging all around them. “Look at this place. It’s practically Shangri-La.”
“Wouldn’t go that far.”
“Compared to some of the bombed-out shitholes we’ve been through? Clean water, good soil, it’s paradise.”
“So what if it is?”
“It’s a place a man could grow roots. And if he falls in love with a pretty girl..?”
Cordite finally understood what Cagney was getting at. He shrugged. “If Tex wants to stay he’s allowed to. It’s not like I can bring him up on charges for desertion. Army doesn’t even exist anymore.”
“What if we all wanna stay?”
“It’s your prerogative.”
Cagney took Cordite’s hand.
“You could stay, too.”
Cordite pulled his hand away.
“You know I can’t do that.”
Cagney took it again. And Cordite didn’t resist. “Yes you could. It wouldn’t be so bad, would it? Make this the end of the line.” She placed his palm against her stomach. “You could start a new family.”
Cordite was clearly tempted, but he resisted that temptation. “I’m sorry, Cagney. My end of the line’s somewhere else. I’m gonna turn in.” Cordite pulls his hand back and moved away from the bonfires, where he’d already pitched a small tent. He slid inside. I found out later what he did in there before he went to sleep, because he did the same thing every night before he went to sleep. He pulled out a photograph of his wife and child…a picture of them on the Dumbo ride at Disneyland, smiling and waving to the camera. Cordite kissed them both goodnight before placing the photo under the army blanket he uses as a pillow and turning over to go to sleep.
The party went on without him.
But there were party crashers, too, staring at us through a pair of nightvision binoculars. Their names were Hendrix and Gap, and they were two of Axel’s most trusted lieutenants. They put down the binoculars, slithered down the hill they’d been using as cover, and mounted a pair of ATV’s. We didn’t hear them fire up the engines, and we didn’t see them disappear into the darkness.