Remnant, Chapter 24

24

Saturday evening,

November Eighteenth

5:40 p.m.

By the time we got home, dinner was simmering away in two big slow-cookers. Our wives had taken my idea about the house next door to heart, and had spent some of the afternoon looking it over in detail.   They’d decided that we’d have a big dinner to discuss it with all of us. Carl and I were enlisted to get the extra dining room table leaves, round up more chairs, and a couple more tablecloths. Karen’s grandmother’s sideboard, converted from an old Kitchen Queen, was decked out with plates, silverware, and a bunch of glasses.

Karen had given me the notes they’d made for the work on the former home of Nate and Ginny Woolsley. She knew that I liked to think things out before diving in whole-hog, and with my imminent military commitment, this would be less about my direct contributions, and more about supporting the project.   It seemed that we were about to get into the extended care business.

The home to the south of us had belonged to a retired couple who’d never returned from Western Washington after the Domino. We’d never heard if they’d died in the quake, the ash fall, or had evacuated somewhere ‘else.’ Other than some minor salvage work at their home, mostly involving very little stored food in the place, securing a damaged water line, and checking the power before we shut it off completely, we hadn’t really been in the house. I’d boarded up broken windows right after the quake, patched some holes, and that had been about it.

The home had been retrofitted before our neighbors bought it, for an elderly couple in their last years in the home. The kitchen was designed to be accessible to a wheelchair bound chef, bath facilities, ramps and handrails installed, and doors widened. With some repair work, the house could be reused and could serve as a better alternative for Grace to get around, without having to deal with stairs, traditional tubs, and narrow doorways. This home could also be big enough for another resident or two, as well as live in nursing staff, just on the main floor. A couple of basement bedrooms were options too, but of course weren’t accessible.

The biggest negative was the ‘rancher’ layout, and the lack of a fireplace in the middle of the home that might help heat the place with a woodstove. The all-electric home didn’t have a great option for a wood-fired furnace either. It could be done, but not all that easily. For these reasons, we had decided months ago just to keep the place ‘off the grid’ for home rehabs.

A few minutes before six, our dinner guests arrived, Libby carrying in both hands clutched before her, a canary-yellow paper that I immediately recognized by the official seal. Sarah, Ron and Kelly followed and then Alan’s clan behind.   The house went from relatively quiet to quite noisy in a flash.

“Good evening all! Come in!” I said, playing the welcoming host, and ushering everyone inside.

“Lib, I see you’ve heard from John,” I said, referring to the Northwest Command paper.

“They made it to California. Just got this from Elaine!” 

“Good to hear. Personal message, or just the facts?”

“Mostly the latter, unless you count the cryptic message he sent Sarah,” Libby said, looking out of the corner of her eye at her future daughter in law, with a little smile.

“Sarah? Care to elaborate?”

“Nope, not even a little, thanks,” she said as she gave me a hug. “Thanks for the invitation to dinner. It seems like it’s been ages.”

“It does at that. Apple and pear cider are there on the buffet.  Make yourself at home,” I said, finally taking their wet jackets and coats.

The guys, including Carl and young Mark, gravitated to the living room, where Carl had moved his video game console.  Rachel, Kelly and Marie headed upstairs to Kelly’s room, for a few minutes of goofing off before dinner.  

“Hon, here’s the apple-jack,” Karen said, putting an old-fashioned brown jug on the buffet.

“Thanks—Nice container there,” I said.

“Seemed appropriate. That stuff must be eighty-proof!” she said. The antique moonshine jugs must’ve been pre Second War. I picked up a half dozen of them at a garage sale when I was in high school. They’d decorated various cardboard boxes ever since. Only one was ever displayed as an ‘antique’ and that one was lost in the quake.

“Now, now,” I said. “Not a smidge over seventy.”

“Paulianos?” Alan asked.

“Yep.  Don managed to resurrect the family’s ancient still,” I said. “I snagged a small amount of scrap copper for Don in trade.”  I poured each of us a tall shot glass.  The copper included sheet, tubing, and some piping, left over from one of our gas producer units.

“Holding out on us, huh?” Alan said, taking an experimental sniff, then sip, of the concoction.  “Holy smokes!” he said after his sample.

“Not bad, huh.” I said. Ron tried a sip, and declined more.

“A little much for me,” he said. “As in, not for consumption around open flame.”

“True enough,” I said, taking a larger sip.

“Is Don going into commercial production with this?” Alan asked.

“Maybe next year, he said. Not a huge priority for him. He just wanted to see if the old recipes were still good. Joe said Don did a better job on the finish than he did, which is pretty high praise.”

“Rick, would you call the girls down? We’re about ready to dish up.”

“Done,” I said, and then took another sip, before summoning the giggling girls. Rachel was four years younger than her cousin, but was fitting right in with whatever inside joke was running.

“OK, you boys, have a seat,” Mary said, directing us to the far side of the dining room table, away from the kitchen.

“Yes, SarMajor sir!” I said, taking my place near, but not at the head of the table. I figured correctly that Karen would take that spot.  

After we had devoured most of the stew, all of the wheat dinner rolls, and some applesauce, the ladies outlined what ‘we’ needed to get done next door before Grace would be released from Valley General, this coming Wednesday.

“Whew. Is that all?” Alan asked with a little humor.

“Can you do it?” Karen asked her big brother.

He and Ron gave me a look, I nodded very slightly, and then he responded. “It’ll be a push. Rick, you been in there lately?”

“Not since the summer, no.”

“We’re going to be working some serious hours to get this done,” Ron said, looking over the notes. “And this is a busy week at the stores, Thanksgiving and all.”

“So let’s hire some bodies,” I said. “I’m not sure what kind of hours I’ll have this week anyway, and next week’s too late,” I said, without saying, ‘And I’m wearing a uniform then.’ 

“Can you get it habitable, even though it’s not all finished?” Karen asked us.  I noted that Sarah was taking in the discussion attentively, but hadn’t contributed much.

“Yeah, if you hold a loose definition of that word,” I said. “You made a good list, but I also know that in addition to that, we’ll need to go through the circuits one-by-one, like we did here; we’ll need to check the plumbing again; and the electric furnace. Problem is of course when the power goes down, that place freezes. We need a backup source of heat, and that’s where a fair hunk of work is, over and above the sheetrock, broken glass, and getting the place weather-tight again,” I said. “Ron, you have that list of skilled tradesmen available from the main store’s want-work list, right?”

“Yeah, it’s at the store.”

“Maybe we ought a run down there and get it. We can probably get some labor lined up tomorrow at church, if they attend.”

“Most do,” he said.

“You trust them?” I asked, knowing that some of the men and women on the list of ‘I’m for hire—I can do these things’ were really there to case houses for strong-arm break-ins or invasions.

“They aren’t on our lists unless we do. We’ve vetted them all.”

“OK. Let’s go that direction. Maybe we use the same forces for the houses near the hospital, just finish up next door and move on to the next project,” I said. “Now, knowing what you know about those other houses, how much money do you need?”

“Probably two-hundred cash. We can trade for quite a bit of what we’ll need. Cash is faster though, although it shows our hand,” Ron said.

“Yeah, it does,” I said. Anyone using a fair amount of cash, and two hundred dollars was certainly above that threshold, would invite unwanted attention from those who were cash-poor. Regardless of connections to law enforcement or military, if you had those kinds of resources, you became a target. You couldn’t watch your back all the time. Having several thousand dollars in precious metals was all well and good, if spending it didn’t get you or a family member kidnapped or killed.  “I wonder if we can maybe work something out with the hospital that might deflect that a little,” I thought out loud.

“What do you mean?” Mary asked. “I got the impression that they’re all but broke.”

“Maybe we buy the houses. We coordinate the refit. In exchange, the laborers who put them back together get some sort of break on medical care. I don’t know, something like that.”

“Might be worth talking about,” Alan said, thinking this through to himself.

“Sarah, you’ve been pretty quiet. What do you think?” I asked.

“I’m a newbie to all this.”

“Well, if you were a caregiver, which you’ve done over at the clinic and the hospital, put yourself in that place and comment.”

“Security,” she said without pause. “People figure out that you have a care facility and therefore you have meds. You have meds, and they’re not protected, you get robbed. Even the home-grown meds and the manuals for holistic medicines—they take everything.”

That put a new spin on things. The Woolsley’s house had a very low fence around the front yard, an open driveway, lots of hiding places around the home, and just looked like a soft target.  Alan and Ron both took notice and leaned forward attentively. Karen, Mary and Libby listened on.

“You also need a safe room, separate from the medicine storage area. People aren’t the targets. Drugs are. Separate the staff and patient safe room from the drug storage, and things are far safer for everyone.”

“Or go the ‘Harder Homes and Gardens’ route and secure the whole facility,” Ron said.

“Sure, but your residents then feel like, and they are, living in a prison,” Sarah said.   “It’s like the rooms over at Valley that face on the courtyard. The patients that are in those rooms just don’t do as well as those that have a view to the real outside, without a big honkin’ security fence.”

“Hmm,” Alan said. “We’ll look at the place. Rick, aren’t the bedrooms all on one end?”

“Yeah. Living and dining room in the middle, kitchen and family room in that order, moving away from the bedrooms.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard to separate functions then, and meet Sarah’s goals.”

“They’re just ideas,” Sarah said.

“Sure, they’re good ideas,” Alan said.

“Anyway, let’s get the first project off the boards and see what goes next.  It’ll be your baby soon enough,” I said to the collected adults. The kids had made themselves scarce as soon as the last empty spoon hit the last empty bowl.

“Don’t remind us,” Karen said. “Let’s get going on these dishes. Boys, it’s all yours. We ladies are going to put our feet up.”

“Fair enough. I just hope you can find your dishes when we’re done putting them away,” Alan said.

“Rick will…”

“Oh, no. Don’t bring me into this. It’s our house. It’s your kitchen.”

“Men,” Libby said. “Ladies, come join me for a cider over ice, with a little cinnamon.”

After a dessert of apple pie, we took turns playing Sequence, working as couples. For a change the Drummonds took a commanding lead, and ended up winning.  The woodstove cracked quietly as the ‘losers’ fought over last place. Sarah had headed back home with Ron and Alan escorting her, before they’d returned to fight over last place.  Buck heard something, stood up a fraction of a second before Ada joined him, growling at the door.

“Gents, we may have company,” I said, reaching for a shotgun.  Ron and Alan took up arms as well, as our wives collected Mark and Rachel, and moved upstairs until we could see what was coming our way.  For an opposing force to get this far, they’d have had to have come through the neighborhood guard. Doable, but messy.

The doorbell rang. Not the modus operandi of an attacker, unless tactics had changed dramatically. Buck and Ada both took a step back, and barked, fur on the back of their necks raised.

“Do me a favor, boys, and cover me here,” I said, cradling my modified 870, now sporting a handgrip and folding stock. This shotgun was loaded with double-ought, except for the last round, which was a law-enforcement slug round.

Ron had his own sidearm out and trained on the door, listening for anything amiss. Alan had one of our AK47’s. I moved past the door, unlocked the deadbolts, and found Elaine Cross on the other side. The dogs went into ‘sniff mode’ immediately, with buck grabbing an old toy and wagging his tail furiously.

“Major, this is a surprise. To what do we owe the honor?” I said, ushering her in as Ron and Alan quietly stowed their weapons. I safed the Remington and stowed it behind the door.

“I have a couple of things for you. For all of you, actually, but there are some briefing papers in here for you as well, Rick,” Elaine said as Karen, Mary, Libby and the little kids came back into the room, and resumed watching their movie. Such interruptions were not seen as irregular by the kids, and both Rachel and Marky were turning out to be pretty good shots with single-shot .22’s.

 “Hi, Elaine. Come in for some pie. Sorry for the armed reception,” Karen said.

“That’s OK. I understand.  You do have two squads on patrol in the area though. Not much is going to get by them.”

“Good to know, still….” I said.

“I know, better safe than sorry.”

“How’re the kids doing?” Karen asked.

“Jenny’s getting better. Now Bobby’s coming down with it.”

“Sarah got you that elderberry concoction, right?” Libby asked, serving a nice sized piece of pie to Elaine.

“Sure did. That stuff’s magic,” she said. “Aren’t you curious about that packet?”

“Yes, but I’m willing to wait,” I said.

“You shouldn’t. Seriously,” Elaine said with a wink.

“That does it. Give it here,” Karen said, tearing open the large manila envelope. The contents spilled onto the scarred dining room table.

Four cellular phones, identical in manufacture but in different colors spilled out, along with their charging units. They slid out along with a smaller envelope, about a half-inch thick, stamped with the logo of the Pacific Northwest Command.

“Oh, my,” Libby said first. “Are you serious?”

“Yes!” Elaine said. “You’re among the first to get them. They’re already activated. Look on the back for your names and your numbers.”

Everyone started talking at once at the prospect of being able to make a phone call again. I was wondering, who would I call?

The packet addressed to me, I opened after our guests had left for the evening. I’d asked Elaine if she knew anything about the contents, and she suggested that they were probably an outline of my command responsibilities.

They were all of that.  On their face, the documents illustrated a complete reorganization of the United States Army and the Guard.  Many of the historically centralized training locations had been eliminated by the Second Civil War, and the ability to ship a soldier from Washington to wherever for basic training, and then back to a unit, and then to the “front”, wherever that was, had been recognized as wasted motion and time and resources.   For young John Martin, this would have meant training closer to home. Unfortunately, it came a couple weeks too late. He would likely though join a Washington State infantry unit.

The three-page Command Summary document outlined my intermediate future. In a few days I’d be a brigade commander, a minimum of a thousand troops under my command on day one, up to three thousand when full strength, the Third Washington Engineering Brigade, or Third Washington Engineers, part of the Forty-First Division, Transportation Command.  Our brigade had an interesting assignment, being to support the front line troops with materiel, repairing rails and roads on the way to the War, mostly rails, alternating between rear-area support and repair of transport potentially under fire. We’d help out communities along the rail corridors as we could, to support our primary mission, that being to get men and machines East to meet the S.A. forces. We’d be rail-mounted from Spokane, and head east, fixing things along the way along with BNSF train crews, eventually pulling in behind the line in the snow that separated United States Army forces from those of the S.A. The War was bogging down to a winter slog, along ragged lines crossing Colorado, Nebraska and Minnesota, as well as across Kansas, Missouri, and through northern Kentucky, parts of West Virginia, slicing neatly along the North Carolina state line to the East Coast.  The Air Force had a role of course, but this was mostly a ground war.  With the war in Mexico and then the turmoil at home, there was a serious shortage of airborne munitions.  The historic stockpiles had been used up or abandoned and blown up overseas, leaving very little in North America to fight a modern air-superiority war.

Everything in the Northeast was S.A. territory, including of course the irradiated Washington D.C.  They held the Great Lakes, parts of Ontario, the St. Laurence Seaway. The State of America forces had been beaten back north from the Gulf of Mexico on up the Mississippi. They were blockaded by the Navy in the Gulf, along the East Coast, and along the Canadian Maritimes. They held Memphis, and roughly a third of Tennessee. Alex and Amber were there, last spring, with their young children, Luke and Jaime. It had been more than six months since I’d heard from them. Almost as long since I’d heard from my oldest brother and his family. Jack at last word had been north of the Twin Cities. Both of my surviving brothers and their families were behind the lines, if they were still alive.

I studied the next document, fifty-pages or so long, to see the depth of the changes.  The reorganization would be literally from the ground up, harkening back to units created during the First Civil War and before, from local areas, organized by the States, trained together as units and sent in service of the national war effort.   Each state would have their own ‘basic training’ post.  Ours would be at Fort Walla Walla, and would be in operation by the Monday following Thanksgiving. Oregon would have their post in Walla Walla as well, since they had no active military bases pre-War. Idaho would train at Mountain Home Joint Military Center. 

I was thinking to myself, what I needed was a copy of “How to Command an Army Brigade For Dummies.”

Karen snuck in behind me, as I was buried in further Army bureaucratese, giving me a bit of a start as she snaked her hands around my ribs.

“Bedtime, my love,” she said, nuzzling my ear. “It’s late, and, we’re alone.”

“I like the sound of that,” I said, finally noticing her quite transparent gown. “I like the sound of that a lot!”

Remnant, Chapter 23

23

Saturday

November Eighteenth

The neighborhoods around the hospital had been originally platted and settled first as truck farms, then as subdivisions, from around nineteen hundred through the sixties. By the time the hospital opened in the mid-sixties, the homes were ‘mature’ in the sense that many of the original owners had passed on or the homes had become rentals, opening up the neighborhood for transition. Transition meant three decades of medical offices and the occasional nursing home replacing the single-family homes, or poorly built apartments popping up on arterial streets.

In a post-Domino Spokane, very few of those buildings could be serviceable without full pre-Domino utilities. Many, if not most of the post nineteen-eighty construction, had simply collapsed as a result of the earthquake or the snow loads or the combination. Some had been salvaged for useable parts; most were abandoned heaps, the most notable being a three-story apartment complex south of the hospital.

We found about ten houses that just by ‘drive by’ told us they ‘could’ work if they weren’t damaged too badly. It was odd to see entire streets within the utility service area without a single occupied home. Nineteen-sixties all-electric architecture was to blame. You just can’t heat a rancher, all spread out, as efficiently as a ‘box’ house. Unless of course, you have a wood-fired furnace or the capital to build one.

On Sullivan Road, once a seven-lane arterial filled with strip shops and box stores, Alan directed me to what was once an old sports bar. I remembered that it had been built during my high-school years, and that it was something of a scandal when it opened. My mother in particular, was not impressed. I’d never darkened the doorway of the place. It looked, well, nasty. It also had developed a reputation as being one of the places where the steelworkers let off steam after going off-shift from Kaiser.

“Alan, you can’t be serious,” I said.

“I am. Don’t judge the book by the cover.”

“I’m not. I’m judging it by its reputation. This is a pretty rough place.”

“Used to be. Not anymore.”

“Where’s the sign? What is this place?” Karen asked.

“It’s called ‘Dad’s Place,’” Alan said. “And you’ll like it. Trust me.”

“This oughta be good,” I said a little under my breath.

There were a half-dozen ‘normal’ vehicles in the parking lot, thus making it a highly popular place. Not too many people could afford gas, and not much gas was available. I parked in what would have been a ‘second row’ of parking, if there had been more traffic.

Inside, there were probably forty people, seated at the bar (completely full) and at some scattered tables.  A waitress (!) seated us at a reserved table near a fireplace. Above the fireplace, a big-screen TV played a tape of last years Purdue at Notre Dame football game. There were a number of guys (and a few gals) cheering for the Irish, despite the already-determined outcome.

“Thought you might enjoy a trip back in time,” Alan said as a rotund, ruddy-faced older man with an apron made his way over.  His thinning red hair was almost outdone by his sizeable pork-chop sideburns. 

“Good day, everyone. I’m Danny O’Malley. Or, ‘Dad,’ as you prefer. “Alan, good to see you. Where’s that scoundrel Ron today?”

“Minding the kids and the farm,” Alan said, before introducing us all.

“Pleased to meet you all. Now, I know what Alan’s favorite poison is, but I’ll do my best for you all. Mary? What can I get you love?”

“It’s a little early in the day…”

“Nonsense. Sun’s over the yardarm. High time,” O’Malley said. I liked the guy right off.

“OK, then, a Lemon Drop.”

“And you my dear?” he asked of Karen.

“No question. Sex On The Beach.”

“And a fine day it is for that, ma’am,” O’Malley said without missing a beat. “And you sir?”

“I’m sure you won’t be able to fill this order, unless you’ve got a direct line to the ancestral homeland,” dropping a large hint of my favorite porter.

“Not Guinness by brand, but I’d bet a twenty-dollar gold piece that you can’t tell the difference.”

I thought about taking the bet, and then thought about it twice more.  “If I had a fresh Guinness to sample it against, I’d take that bet.”

“Then an O’Malley’s it is. Here are your menus, and I’ll be right back with your libations.”

“Quite a guy,” I said to Alan. “How’d you find this place?”

“See that big walk-in refrigerator in the back?” he said, pointing to the kitchen, “Three way trade got Danny that, and got us three wood-fired boilers. They’re heating two of the barter stores. Third one we haven’t put to use yet. He’s a regular at the Veradale store—supplier and buyer. He’s got lines on stuff nobody else has. Stand up guy.”

“Where’s he from? What’d he do before Domino?”

“You wouldn’t believe me,” Alan said.

“These days, yeah, I probably would.”

“Bank president. Chicago First Federal.”

“OK, maybe I was premature,” I said. “How in the heck did he end up here doing this?”

“Dan was on a pre-retirement ski vacation, RV’ing his way across the country.  He’d just spent a few days at Silver Mountain, had already hit Schweitzer, was going to try out Mount Spokane for something a little less intense. Bingo.”

“So why’d he stay? I don’t get it. Bank president, should’ve evac’d.”

“Forced-retirement bank president,” O’Malley said, bringing our drinks. “I was being shown the door, at the ripe age of fifty-five, after telling the Federal Reserve—or Feral Reserve as I called it---and the board of directors to go stuff themselves. That didn’t really endear me to them a whole helluva lot, especially since I’d been there for thirty-five years and was one of the last people that knew how to run an honest bank.  I had six weeks of vacation, so I took it. They were about to name a replacement for me when it hit the fan.” O’Malley pulled up a chair, spun it around and sat down, arms folded across the back.

“So, again, why’d you stay here?” I asked. I noticed that Mary was halfway through her drink. Karen wasn’t far behind.

“Why not? All my money was electronic, I’d sold my place on the Gold Coast in about three days, had a pile in the accounts, heard there was good snow out this way. I figured that I’d start new, then after the quake, maybe seize an opportunity. Just never figured that all my electronic money would vaporize before I had a chance to convert it to gold or silver or land or guns or whatever.  So I sold what I could, bought this place, and worked the deal for putting this place together.”

“So what’d you tell the board to get yourself canned?” I asked, probably prying a little too much.

“Let’s just say we had a philosophical difference in return on investment,” he said. “Ladies, how’re your drinks?”

“Perfect,” they both said in unison, and then both giggled.

“Fractional reserve overshoot…” I said.

O’Malley smiled at me, knowing what I thought. “Also known as, ‘leveraging’, back in the day. We had a nice, stable bank, regulated poorly by the Feds, and we could have gotten away with murder. We didn’t. Against my grain.  I was getting pressured from the board on behalf of the investment arm of the bank to step it up, you know, take it from ten to one to one-fifty to one like the big boys. Make the big money. Short good companies and destroy them in the process, but make a killing on the stock. Dive deep into the black holes that were the derivatives lottery.  Take the money from the Fed as part of all those bail outs—we didn’t need it though.  I went to the mat, and was shown the door.”

“Greed does funny things,” Karen said. She and I had had numerous talks about our own finances, and keeping a safe haven for most of them. Only my brother ended up saving our bacon in the end. I used to think that precious metals were too speculative.  Hard to believe I was that naïve back then.

“You in the business back then?” Danny asked us.

“No, only in the sense of seeing the potential for an avalanche and getting the heck out of the way,” I said.   “I never had a good feeling about the whole bubble economy. The Fed just made it worse.”

“Then you and I have something in common, Rick. Now, about lunch. You decide yet? Ladies, your second round is on the way,” Danny said as he waived to a young man behind the bar, who nodded and immediately went to work.

“We’ll end up pouring them into the car.”

“As long as they’re not driving…I’ll give you a minute more to look over the menu.”

“Thanks, Danny,” Alan said.  Danny made his way to another table and took an order. 

“Incredible,” I said as I looked over the menu, instantly deciding, and putting it down.

“Told ya you’d like the guy.”

“He’s got quite the place here, starting from scratch.”

“He does at that. His microbrewery is in the old grocery store across the street.  That’s also where he lives.”   The young barkeep arrived with the girls’ second round, yet they weren’t quite finished with their first.

“This oughta be an interesting afternoon with the wives,” I said.

“Yeah, if it was dinner instead of lunch, we might’ve gotten lucky,” Alan said.

“You might get lucky in the middle of the day,” Mary said with a smoky little glance.

Karen and I both ordered potato soup, with small loaves of rye on the side. Alan was apparently a regular, and had a corned beef sandwich on wheat, with a local cheese. Mary had an open faced chicken sandwich with a thick gravy. After their second rounds of drinks, a pitcher of water and two large glasses appeared.   By the end of the hour, we were all stuffed. Notre Dame had beaten Purdue, again, and the fans, some wearing their team colors, celebrated perhaps a bit too much.

It was well after noon when said our goodbyes to Dan and his staff, and got on about our day. I made a mental note to mention O’Malley to Tonya Lincoln. While I appreciated his public house, it seemed a shame to me to have that potential mental talent go to waste.

We headed north to Sprague, and crossed the Red Line, and headed back towards town and home. The weather had warmed up considerably, and rain was starting to fall.  It was depressing in any regard, driving down what had been one of the cities busiest streets, and seeing no other cars, and only a dozen or so pedestrians.  We did see though, numerous storefronts converted to home businesses. Wood smoke was thick in the air as we made the drive, mostly keeping quiet as the well-worn wipers smeared the rain around.  

Most of the more successful businesses were located within a half mile of the rail lines, and you could tell where ‘trouble’ was going to be by the distance between precinct houses along ‘the line.’ If there was a trouble spot, chances are it would be as far away from one precinct house as another, usually on the edge of the utility service area, and when the police or Guard responded, drugs or ‘shine or some other form of illegal entertainment were almost always found. None of the pre-Domino vices were encouraged, neither could much be done to stop them. Once raw materials for the synthetic drugs vanished, more dangerous chemistry found its’ way to light, with often fatal, sometimes tragic results.

Most of those involved in the uprising against--well, the rest of us--were in those fringe areas. Most of the ‘fringe areas’ that had participated in the October riots had lost a fair percentage of their population, either to neighbors protecting themselves, others deciding to ‘get even’, or Guard and Army units, who shot anything that fired at them. 

Before our lives were turned upside down, I’d almost always had some major pre-occupation with an upcoming far-flung business trip or assignment, sometimes to the point of losing sleep, wondering what I’d missed, forgotten, or would be blindsided by, once out of touch with ‘home’ or ‘backup’.

Now, at home and few days before Thanksgiving, I was at it again, wondering what I would find myself doing in a little over a week, once I would be assigned to Pacific Northwest Command.  Virtually no new information had been provided me since the initial commission request from Governor Hall. I had no idea what the State wanted me for.

Saturday afternoon was spent with Carl, Ron and Alan, over in the Valley General neighborhood, checking abandoned homes for refit. We’d dressed in our outdoor gear and rain shells, boots, flashlights and a couple of clipboards, as well as the obligatory sidearm, shotgun, and rifles.

The shotgun was really the weapon of choice for this type of work, assuming that we might run into close-quarters work. Through my friendship with Mike, I was able to procure ‘law enforcement’ loads for our twelve-gauges. They were pretty destructive to human or animal flesh. Once upon a time, we might have had various shells in a shotgun, from a number seven, to a number four, and then double-ought buck. The lighter, first shots might scare off someone who wasn’t really serious about killing you.  The heavier loads were for the more determined. Anymore though, the loads were set to kill from the get-go, if they were in range.

I’d once seen a shell called ‘Dragon’s Breath,’ used by an Army unit to both light up an area with an ‘objective target’ downrange, which also succeeded in creating a most impressive flame reminiscent of an artillery shell being fired. An unfortunate result of that type of round (for the objective) was night blindness and perhaps, being set on fire by the many-yards long fireball. I would expect that that type of shell, used indoors, would be a great way to burn down a building.

I’d called in to Dispatch to let them know what our objective for the day was, and had a brief talk with the Sheriff’s dispatcher, just in case someone didn’t like the looks of us.  The Sheriff’s office then let the local precinct and the Guard command structure know that we weren’t a threat. It’d be mighty embarrassing to get shot up while trying to find somebody a place to live.

Standard operation procedure for entering an abandoned house started with recon. Animal tracks into any entry in the home, whether the animal was two- or four-legged, automatically told us, ‘weapons out’ and ‘cover’, until the point man and his cover cleared the building. Once the building was cleared to enter, three of us would enter, one remaining on guard and concealed as much as possible.

I had naturally, a father’s trepidation about putting my son in harms way of any kind, even though I’d done it several times over the past year. It never made it easier though.

Each house, we had eleven to look at, had been ransacked after whatever salvage operations had taken place in the early days after the Domino. In three cases, it was plainly evident that the occupants had either been badly injured or killed in the quake, due to the black stains that were dried blood. Some houses had been merely stripped of copper wire and anything of any black market value. Others had been all but destroyed from the inside out.

Four houses, we deemed were worth repairing, having the required provisions for wood heat in a centrally located fireplace or chimney; having repairable quake damage; and having literally weathered the past eleven months without catastrophic results.

We’d redone enough houses to know what it would take to get the houses back in shape, even without the help of materials takeoffs and computerized spreadsheets. Work could begin within a few days, if we were willing to bust loose the capital—meaning real money—to expedite the purchase of salvaged materials and hired labor. We might be able to have the prospective tenants or owners of the homes contribute, but typically med staff was working twelve hours on and twelve off, six days a week. That didn’t leave much time for a life outside of the medical community.

Our pre-Domino savings, wisely converted to silver and gold by one of my older brothers, had been sparingly used to buy properties for back taxes adjusted for new currency values; to finance rebuilds; and to provide operating capital and ‘cash’ for our barter stores. So far, we hadn’t used a quarter of it. With that money, we owned most of the property on our own block, half of the property on two blocks on either side of ours, and more business relationships than we could shake a stick at. The barter stores by and large operated in the black, with any excess set aside for the opening of other stores or expansion.

This expansion of ‘our’ housing concerns wasn’t located near anything we owned, had control of or really, had any interest in except as a benefactor of some kind. Property in our home neighborhood had been acquired because it was contiguous, had a strategic position, or because it presented a good opportunity in some fashion or other. This was different. As a result, I was reluctant to really get into the speculative nature of the thing.

Alan suggested that we coordinate the work and the payment of the rehab work, and that we buy the properties. Essentially, we’d have a closely held corporation where we ‘owned’ the property, organized and coordinated the work, but didn’t have to pay for all of the remodeling. For those that wanted to perhaps invest in something without having to take on all the risk, this might be a good opportunity. I thought this was a good idea too, as did Ron. I don’t think any of us, especially me, were all that hot on taking on the whole thing ourselves. Since there was only a slight chance that I’d have any time at all to invest in it, I left the decision and the organization to the guys.

By the time we wrapped up, we had pretty steady rain coming down, making those streets that had had any traffic at all a sloppy mess or a sloppy mess on top of ice. Before we headed for home, we checked in again at the hospital, and found Grace sleeping soundly. The nurses said she’d had a pretty good afternoon, but could tell that she was in pretty healthy pain. We skidded and slipped all the way home, listening to the local news.  We heard on the way home, as had been rumored, that cell phone service would be available ‘soon’, for the first time since January fourteenth.   Instructions then followed for procedures expected to re-activate cell phones, which I thought would probably put a serious run on salvaged cell phones and chargers. I remembered that we had a garbage can full of them at our first barter store.

Remnant, Chapter 22

22

Saturday

November Eighteenth

8:04 a.m.

Karen had tossed and turned most of the night. Unusual for her; not for me. We’d made it back home around eleven, Grace admitted for the time being. She hadn’t broken a hip or pelvis, but that was conditioned on the disclaimer, ‘no obvious break.’ She did however, have numerous compression fractures in her back. The orthopedic specialist said that a full recovery was unlikely, given her age.  Within the space of a few hours, she’d transitioned from an active and relatively healthy senior citizen to being in almost constant pain with the slightest movement.  Even pre-War, this would have been a difficult situation to deal with, both for her and the family.

Now, in the midst of the Second Civil War, in this place and time, the resources we once took for granted were no longer available in any fashion.  Skilled nursing for the elderly, once so common, now flat out didn’t exist.

In these days, here and now, people of Grace’s age were rare.  The lack of medicines that had extended the lives of so many were all but gone. As a result, so were those that had depended on those miracle compounds. 

None of us knew how we were going to take care of Grace, try to keep her out of pain, try to extend her life.   I wondered, as I lay there on an unheard-of, sleeping-in-on-Saturday morning, listening to my wife sleep, how Grace would handle the pain once the diazepam wore off.

I heard Kelly and Carl downstairs, making breakfast. Even though the blinds in the bedroom were drawn along with the heavy drapes, I could tell we had one of those brilliant sunny days, setting off the fresh snowfall. Once upon a time, less than a year ago, we’d have been awakened by the newspaper guy, delivering the morning yesterdays’ news at five-thirty in his beat-up Subaru, and then some poor soul having to be at work before seven.

As I lay in bed, I was thinking that I couldn’t remember the last time that a car on our street disturbed my sleep. Even the Army patrols didn’t drive down the street in early morning. Maybe once a night—the majority was on foot. In the outlying areas, or the suburbs that had been abandoned, the cavalry was back. The demand for horses and tack for Army use outstripped any reasonable expectation of delivery. One of the new Army Mounted Cav units was in training at the old Fairgrounds, under the watchful and direct training of members of the Backcountry Horsemen. To say it was odd to see a modern horse soldier, with the new Forest Green digital camo and headgear, was an understatement. Some enterprising quartermaster had also come up with a way to create modern saddlebags equipped to handle MOLLE gear attachments or in some cases, the older ALICE gear. Leather was still the preferred sleeve for the rifle, although the newest main battle rifle, the M16C, nicknamed ‘California’, was quite different than the -16’s of old. Super-light and strong alloys used in the receiver and barrel, relatively large in profile, but providing a finished product that was a full three pounds lighter than a -16A4 with a thirty round magazine.     I hadn’t seen one of the new rifles, and I’d heard they were still quite rare, still using a common M-16 round, manufactured at a new factory in Long Beach.  California must be a very different place these days, I thought.

After a shower, shave and dressed in clean work clothes, Karen and I found our way downstairs for breakfast.

“Good morning, Daddy,” Kel said as she gave me a squeeze. “Hugs for Mom,” she said to Karen as her turn came.

“What wonders have you created this fine day?” Karen asked as I looked at the fully decked out breakfast table, including one of my parents fine tablecloths and our best Sterling silver. “And look at that table!”

“Raspberry scones, Carl’s working on the hard-boiled egg, ham and cheese breakfast casserole, coffee, and….orange juice. And English muffins for Dad, because I know he likes them.”

“Where on earth did you get OJ?” I asked. We hadn’t had that in more than six months.  Oranges weren’t just a luxury, they were unobtainable.

“Uncle Ron got a case in that last shipment that came up through Boise,” Kelly said. “We were saving it for the holidays.”

“I’ll bet that was a complicated trade,” I said. “Good for him.”

“Hon, you want to check in at the hospital?” I asked Karen. She was a little choked up as she hugged both kids again.

“Can you do that?”

“I expect so, yeah,” I said. “Don’t know until I try.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“How long until breakfast?” I asked.

“Maybe fifteen,” Carl said. “The casserole’s not bubbling yet.”

“OK,” I said, “Any other news this morning?”

“Colorado—fighting’s pretty intense there. KLXY is back up, TV I mean, and they had some footage.  Sounded like they’re fighting over the Denver airport.”

“Hmmm.” I said, getting some coffee, and looking at the small TV in the kitchen, repeating the same loop of tape. It looked like mechanized units on both sides, the ‘enemy’ finally being taken out by what had to be an aerial bomb, and then ‘our’ ground troops advancing. In the distance, I could make out the distinctive shape, or more correctly, the remains of the distinctive shape of the Denver International Airport terminal. It looked a wreck. I’d been through there dozens of times.

I decided to check in with ‘the office’ for the frequency of Valley Hospital, and see how many rules I could break by using County radios for personal reasons.

“One eleven to Spokane,” I said.

“One-eleven,” a male voice replied.

“Request radio frequency for Valley Hospital, general communications,” I said, as if this were something that was done every day.

“Wait one, one eleven,” the dispatcher said, either checking to see if there was a frequency, or getting permission from someone higher up for this odd request.

“One eleven, you’ll need Med Sixty-three, which is found on page thirteen in your desk reference manual.”

“Thanks, Spokane. One eleven out.”

“One eleven,” dispatch replied.

I tuned one of the other radios to the assigned frequency, after flipping through the many pages of the Metro user manual. The manual had daily change frequencies for many of the departments, which rotated around the capability of the many Metro radios in service each day. Finally I found it, and punched it in to the digital tuner.

“Metro one eleven to Valley,” I said, trying my best to sound official, and probably not succeeding.  I repeated the call.

“Metro one eleven, go ahead,” a female voice, replied.

“Valley, I’d like to check the status of a patient. Is that possible?”

“Yes, Metro. Name please,” she said, and I replied with Grace’s full name.

“One moment, one-eleven. Are you a relative?”

“Affirmative.”

“One moment while I retrieve that information.”

“Karen, c’mere for a minute. Valley will be back on in a sec,” I said. Karen had poured a cup of coffee, and was cradling it in her hands, and warming before the fire.

“You got through?”

“Yep,” I said, putting an arm around my wife, and flipping on the desk speaker for Karen to listen in.

“One eleven, patient status is unchanged, stable but serious condition. Patient is lightly sedated at this time, but is awake and having breakfast.”

“Understood, Valley. Thank you. One eleven, out.”

“You’re welcome. Valley out.”

“There you go,” I said quietly to Karen, as I smelled the shampoo in her hair. “We’ll go over after breakfast.”

“Sounds good. What’d you have on your list today?” Karen said with some relief in her voice. She’d had more than her share of stress this year, much of it because of me.

“Thought I’d get filled in on the new neighbors.”

“Well, I can do that. What else?”

“Figured we’d run our turkey down to the butcher today.”

“Did that yesterday. The butcher and his family were looking for a place.  Kevin had them on his list. They’re moving in this afternoon.”

“Okay,” I said. “That sounds good….who’re the rest?”

“Breakfast, in five,” Carl called from the kitchen.

“A pharmacist who works at Valley; two families that work on the Red Line—I mean, engineers and mechanics, they’re taking the two houses on the west block that are side by side; and a couple of contractor types working for the school district, they’re sharing a house. Your Army folks also want a house, across the street to the west of the store.”

“It’s not ready. We didn’t even do any work on that one. Too far gone.”

“They didn’t care. They’re planning on moving the guard shack from the parking lot at the store, and moving it there.”

“Fine with me.  It won’t be Army anyway. It’ll be Guard, which means local, in theory at least.”

“Breakfast is served,” Kelly said as she pulled her Mom’s chair out for her.  For the first time, I noted that Carl was wearing a white long-sleeve shirt, dark slacks, dress shoes, and a tie.   Kelly was in one of her best dresses.

“I feel underdressed,” I said.

“You are, but we’ll cut you some slack this time,” Kelly said. “Orange juice?”

“Absolutely,” Karen said, moving one of the crystal glasses closer.

“What’s with the big bag of scones on the counter?” I asked.

“Some for Gram, the rest for the hospital,” Carl said.

“Good job, both of you,” I said, with justifiable pride.

The kids made sure we were served first, and then we forced them to join us. It was a wonderful meal. Months later, I’d still remember it, going over the details in my head, when such luxury became again, unheard of.

“This is KLXY Spokane, it is now ten a.m., Pacific Standard Time, and this is the news,” the announcer stated. Karen, Alan, Mary and I were in the little Escape, on our way to the hospital for a short visit with Grace.

“U.S. Army units in Colorado yesterday made the grisly discovery of several small towns where all civilians had apparently been murdered as S.A. forces withdrew from the battle area. Spokesmen for Company A of the Fifteenth Oregon stated that the civilians appeared to have been rounded up and shot before the building they were in was burned.  Several hundred victims were found in each of three towns, which as of yet have not been identified.”

None of us commented.

“Other news from the Colorado front was the public admission that European-built heavy armor is being used by State of America mechanized units. Civilian consultants identified tanks as modified versions of German built Leopard main battle tanks, produced beginning in the late Seventies, and used by seven countries before the Third World War began. Department of Defense spokesmen believe that the tanks were purchased in northern Europe and shipped to the Eastern Seaboard during the reign of the New Republic. No comments were made regarding the possible number of tanks, or other military hardware brought into the country. D oh D and Administration spokesmen have continued to decline to comment on statements made that the S.A. has been receiving direct support from European nations. Sources within the Air Force and Navy have stated that air superiority and a total naval blockade have remained in effect since the start of the War. Air Force sources also report that U.S. aircraft have destroyed several strategic industries in the Midwest, including the former factory where Abrams tanks were built and refurbished.”

“Navy and Coast Guard units, backed by a large, but unknown number of Army units, are now in control of the Mississippi River, from the Gulf to Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi, north of the U.S. Highway 20 corridor. Running battles along this corridor over the past weeks, have now successfully isolated the S.A. forces from the Gulf of Mexico, shutting off any chance of shipment to S.A. held territory.”

“In regional news, the City of Coeur d’Alene today announced that power restoration along the Highway Ninety Five corridor will resume in the spring, with restoration of power along the west side of Lake Coeur d’Alene expected by next summer. This will complete the restoration of basic power around the lake.”

“That’d be nice to have done,” I said. “Been a long time now.”

“I’m more interested in phone service,” Karen said.

“You didn’t hear this from me, but we’ll have cellular service back up by Christmas in the metro area.”

“You keeping that a secret?” Mary asked. “That’s huge!”

“I just saw the progress report from one of our guys. Testing is going on right now on the cells within the Valley. Most needed some serious work,” I said as we pulled into the unplowed parking lot, getting a wave from one of the perimeter guards, to a closer lot, due to my ‘car badge.’ “Don’t want to get my hopes up, or anybody else’s, either. Got it?”

“How’s that going to work?” Alan asked. “Different carriers, different towers, providers, services, whatever. They’re not bringing them all back, are they?”

“Nope. One carrier. Not sure who. They were the only one left after the crash.”

“So much for competition,” Alan said as we trudged across the parking lot.

“Doesn’t really matter,” I said. “They’re pretty well regulated by the government, as in, all but owned by. They’re actually planning on creating one entity, then splitting them up within the next three years.”

“How’ll that work for phones?” Karen asked. 

“Not sure. Something about replacing the SIM cards with new ones that would let any phone be activated and put in service, once it’s registered.”

“Coming up with money for that will be interesting,” Karen said. “Phones for everyone were common. Now, even having one is a huge luxury.”

“Imagine. Calling me at work!” Alan said to Mary as he took her hand.

“Idle chit-chat,” Mary said in reply.  We passed the Guard station, with three attentive soldiers, and moved inside to the sign-in desk.

To get admittance to the hospital, we needed to sign in, check our weapons in a weapons locker, and go through screening like we used to have in airports and other ‘secure’ buildings.

The upgraded security measures were put in place after a series of robberies and attacks, most of them before the War really got going. Many were for drugs, at least at first. After that died down, supplies were being stolen at gunpoint. Much of the stolen goods were then sold on the black market.

We only had one situation recently, where someone obviously ‘new’ to the area had tried to relieve a hospital pharmacy of its’ contents. The popular tale included him serving as an organ donor. I knew for a fact that he didn’t really have any salvageable organs left after a Guardsman using a BAR clone, was done with him.

Our visit was relatively short, with the nursing staff just helping Grace finish up breakfast—saving her scone for later--and then she would be due for a sponge bath. We traded barbs, as we usually did in one form or another, although by the squeeze of her hand I knew she didn’t mean any of it, and of course neither did I.  I gave Alan and Karen a few minutes alone with her and Mary and I tracked down the on-shift doctor, through the duty nurse.  

“Excuse me, are you Mr. Drummond?” the doctor asked as Mary and I waited outside of Grace’s room.

“Yes. This is Mary Bauer,” I said in introduction. “Grace is our mother in law.”

“Rudy Cole. Nice to meet you both. Well, she had a good night. That was a bad fall she took, injury wise. I believe that Doctor Richardson gave you his prognosis?”

“He did. I was wondering if you have any suggestions for long-term care,” I asked. “She was pretty independent, despite her age.”

“How’s her home set up for accessibility?”

“Not great,” I said. “She lives with Mary and her family,” I said. “Doc, I’m wondering if there is a possibility of hiring nursing staff to help out. It’s not like we have much in the way of either nursing homes or assisted living facilities anymore.”

“No, we sure don’t. There are days when we almost have first-world medical care. Almost, that is,” he said. “Let me check with the nursing staff. I know there are at least a couple of nurses who bunk here at the hospital. There could be a possibility of a live-in nurse, part time.”

I thought about that for a second. “Doc, how many staff do you have that are, well, homeless?”

“Fifteen, easy. Why do you ask? You think you can do something about that?”

“Maybe, yeah. In my neighborhood we rehabbed a bunch of the houses that could work without natural gas or reliable electric. Heat with wood, that kinda thing.”

“Well if you could do that in this neighborhood, that’d be somethin’.  Let me check with staff. There some way I can get hold of you?”

“Sure. Here’s my business card,” I said, handing him my Metro Administrator card, which was at best, rarely used. “That ought a be good for about another week. Then I’m going to be wearing green.”

“Well, I must say I’m a little surprised,” Doctor Cole said with a little grin. “You don’t strike me as the Administrator type.”

“I am dressed in my typical farm attire, true enough. That’s probably why I’m getting drafted.”

“I’m quite glad to meet you, Mr. Drummond. I didn’t make the connection. You managed to wrangle a priority status for us back in October. I think without that status, this place would be closed.”

“You can credit Dr. Sorenson for that. She asked I just put it in motion, with…some appropriate emphasis. Sacred Heart and Kootenai, and that small hospital up in Sandpoint got their priority, too. Besides that, having been a patient at two of the three hospitals, I have a distinct self-interest.”

“Those that act, usually do.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“As well you should. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“And we’ll see what we can do about some housing. Thanks, again,” I said as I shook hands.

“Mrs. Bauer, a pleasure, although Mr. Drummond and I monopolized the conversation.”

“Doctor, thank you for everything.”

“I just hope we can do more someday,” Doctor Cole said as he headed down the half-lit hallway with a wave.  Karen and Alan were heading to meet us.

“Everything OK?” I asked Karen.

“Ornery as ever,” she said as she gave me a hug. “We gave the bag of scones to the nurses—they said the patients would get them, not staff.”

“Ever to serve, these people,” I said quietly.

“You talking with one of the docs?” Alan asked as we headed back toward ‘reception.’

“Yeah. They’re housing-short. And I was checking on care for Mom. Maybe a live-in nurse.”

“Rick, we don’t really have room.”

“I know. What happens though if we rehab the house next to us, and set that up as Grace’s place with a live-in nurse or two? It’s a rancher, doors are wide enough for a walker or a wheel chair, and it’s already got half of the accessible stuff needed.”

Alan was thinking this over as we retrieved our sidearms, and as Karen and Mary signed us out.

“Not a bad idea,” Alan said. “That place is gonna need some work though.”

“I know. Now onto the other idea. Nursing or staff housing for the hospital. A bunch of them are bunking at the hospital. What would it take for you to get some home-improvement types together and put some houses together?” I asked as we headed back to the car.

“You know the answer to that as well as anybody. ‘Depends.’”

“I mean supplies. Can you get stuff to put a typical place back together?”

“Sure, from stripped and salvaged buildings. How much you wanna spend?”

“As little as possible as always. Horse trading is my preferred method, as poor as I am conducting those transactions.”

“You’re good enough at them, you just hate the idea of them,” Alan said, sizing me up correctly.

“Yeah, that’s true enough.”

“Let’s take a little drive through the neighborhood and see what we have to work with,” Alan said. “Besides that, there’s a little place over on Sullivan that we need to go visit.”