A Very Good Man (35 page)

  Then Carl and Lois went. That had to do with food mainly, and to his amusement, kitchen duties he'd performed. Really he hadn't thought anyone had noticed that. He certainly wouldn't have counted it. Lois counted the fact that he'd gotten the processing group together too, as if that was something hard. Carl pointed out the hunting, that the current drive there was his too, and included the new deer brought in, and the cows they had which after all, Jake had found and organized with Randy to manage. Burt went over the well, the help with the windmill and the nursery for the babies as well as the greenhouse. The work on the forge too as well as the wood stoves.

  Vickie covered the guns and ammo he'd gotten and the supplies collected. That she knew about some of the things almost baffled him. She'd been keeping a tally for a while then, he guessed. Why that was he didn't get at all. He didn't even remember getting the kitchen supplies or new drinking glasses overly for instance. That had been months ago. Who remembered things like that? The woman read it all out of a notebook, a yellow legal pad that flipped open at the top. It wasn't something hastily put together, but something she'd actually been doing for a long time?

  Weird.

  Tipper covered his cleaning work, house defense and guard duties. The fights with the police that probably would have killed a lot of them if he hadn't been there, the gangs and all that.

  That left Nate who sighed and stared around the room.

  “Not to mention the leadership duties and how many needed projects you've started Jake. Can we even put a price on that?” The tone was almost Pollyannaish, a kind of “see how good he's been” thing that made him feel good, which had probably been the point. Nate was good at things like that.

  Then casually, probably thinking that everyone would take the point, Nate opened the floor for discussion.

  That... didn't go well at all, which really Nate should have gotten already, being the people-person he normally was. Well, Jake had warned him, hadn't he? It started with a man he didn't even really know, except from around over the last four months, calling him a murderer. The guy didn't raise his voice, but he sounded angry, livid really.

  “He killed Gloria!” The man husked to the room.

  “Murdered her in cold blood in front of me, and a lot of others too. Anyone that had a bad day and raised their voice even a little! He'd use that as an excuse to shoot me right now if I yelled at him. We don't need bullies here. I say we should kick him out and not give him shit. He doesn't deserve what we've all worked so hard for.”

  A lot of the room nodded along.

  Then joined in.

   It went on for a while, going into how mean he was, how he was bossy and pushed people around, making them work when they were tired or sick and not caring about their feelings. Jake listened, each word getting harder to hear. They all really hated him, didn't they?

  He tried to keep it from showing on his face, but it built up with each grievance. If this was what Nate had in mind it wasn't a good plan at all. Before Jake had felt a little like women were less than kind to him, not picking him to have sex with even though they'd gladly spread their legs for other guys and in a few cases most of them. Now he realized that almost everyone here just hated him. Actual, honest to god personal dislike. As in wanted him dead. A lot of them spoke out against him anyway, supposedly afraid or not. Made brave by the support of all the others doing the same thing. Most of those holding the opinion that he shouldn't get much at all, if anything.

  Someone called out for a vote from the back of the room. A man, one of the guys that had to be the father to Holsom's kids. Tracy's new guy? He asked for a show of hands. One saying Jake should be asked to leave and not be given anything. Over half the hands went up. Forty-three of them. None of those came from the front table, so at least there was that.

  Well.

  That made him feel like part of the group.

  Nate tried to call for order, but in a sea of whispers and happy sounds the voice got lost. Jake stood. He was taking his things, he decided. If they wanted to kick him out, he'd go, but, and he whispered this gently, the things he collected were his. He'd fight for them if he had to. He said this with a weapon in each hand, but no one heard him, except Nate and Tipper, who'd both been staring. Tipper mouthed a single word.

  “Fuck.” She grabbed Nate's arm having to stand to do it and pointed, eyes wide and a little scared looking.

  Yeah, he could get that. But he'd done his share of the work. Life wasn't fair, but sending him without anything was a death sentence most likely. It was night too. Safe enough for him probably, but scary to try and move in. Oh well. The unwashed masses had spoken and their word was that Jake wasn't welcome. They didn't need or want him. Fine. He was only one person, they'd get by without him, no problem.

  He couldn't make the trip that night, but the farm house they'd used for hunting was free. He really doubted the cops would be back there anytime soon and it was close to water. He'd want a well, but there was wood and stuff around. He needed tools, but could leave his mattress, there were some serviceable ones already. He needed a wood stove, but the little one in the second bedroom would work for that, he was just one person and could huddle close to it, which would save on fuel anyway.

  About half the people, made bold by numbers, started to move on him, fists clenched where weapons weren't in hand. That got a laugh from Dave which brought everyone's attention around quickly, the room going silent.

  “Fucking morons. Are you all trying to die, or are you just really that stupid?” He emphasized the moron part by chambering a round in his shotgun and pointing it at the head of the man in front of the crowd. “You all think that by sending Jake away you're killing him, but you're not, you're killing yourselves. Didn't you pay attention during that accounting? I didn't even get to finish the eighth grade and I can count high enough to know that most of you would be dead already without those things.”

  It got them to all stop moving. Nate spoke quickly.

  “We need to think about things carefully here people, this wasn't about attacking Jake, it was about trying to get him to stay. Everything is holding by a few scant threads here and one of the main ones is him and you...” He buried his head in his hands, which got some of the people to at least shift around uneasily. “You really are morons.”

  Jake walked out. He headed to the forge area, deciding to sleep there. It beat the porch and was less exposed now, plus no one knew to look for him there if they decided to attack. For the second night he was uncomfortable, but that was alright. He'd leave and it would get better. Or, possibly, he'd die. Even Holsom was going to be sent off with a full share per person, and they wanted him to go with nothing? In the dark? Jake had to fight down the urge to kill a whole bunch of people, which made it hard to sleep, but he finally managed. In the morning he got up early and started loading the smaller cart.

  No one said anything, until he took two boxes of ammo, one for each of his weapons, it was less than his share, even discounting the fact that he'd brought in most of it himself and had helped with a large chunk of the rest. The same guy from the night before, Bill, pregnant Tracy's boyfriend or man slave, whatever they were calling it, came out with three others, to try and take the bullets back. He explained the need and fairness of it calmly, but they didn't listen. Of course. Jake ignored them and kept packing up.

  They might have tried to shoot him, but they were largely homebodies, those too afraid to fight as a rule. They could bluff and bluster, even act tough, but when it came down to it, they didn't have what it took to do much. Oh, one might panic and shoot him in a gun fight, but with him simply packing up a lot less than he should have had? No, even these morons wouldn't try it.

  Nate and Carl came out, walking fast. The muscular black man looked at the others and shook his head, a slow and ponderous thing, his facial expression amazed.

  “Go inside now. Move. I don't want to have to clean up your bodies today.”

  Nate just stared and then shook his head, a large and over exaggerated move.

  “God, Jake, I... we can't afford to lose you. They're just upset, let me talk to them and we can work this out.”

  “Work what out? They hate me for killing people they loved Nate. I did it. It saved a lot of their lives, but they won't like me for it, no matter how long you talk at them. It's better this way, besides,” Jake decided to go for a joke of sorts, feeling a little sad already. Lonely.

  “With the brain surgeon team in there calling the shots, I can probably come and scavenge from this place during the winter. What do you think? Four months? Five? Half of you could make it just fine, solid workers and people that are just this side of incredible, but you need to lose the dead weight, not let them lead. If you could go easy on the preserves please? I'm going to want that later. I really like the strawberry. Just saying.”

  The other men grimaced but didn't laugh.

  They got his meaning though, the winter, a full winter, would be hard. In the last one they had a common enemy to fight daily and food to scavenge from stores and the cupboards of dead people and people still died of the cold and hunger. That was early spring really, not winter even. Now they just had themselves and a lot of these people weren't going to make the right choices on their own.

  Jake needed to move, he knew that, before people freaked and came at him all at once. No one tried to stop him when he pulled the small round metal stove from the second room. No one helped either, so it made a lot of thumping noise going down the stairs and left a few scratches in the wood. As he walked away with a fully loaded cart, no one even said goodbye.

  Wonderful.

  He hadn't expected that anyone would, but it would have been nice if someone had cared at least a little. Jake didn't look back. There was too much to get done and no time for it.

  Really he had to figure out how to get food and wood in fast. That and water. He wouldn't need as much, not just for him, but it would have to mainly be meat as far as that went, no time left to grow anything now. That meant drying it somehow. Smoking? He could hunt for a while but having something to hand would help a lot. He felt like a tool now, after doing all that hard work on the harvest for these people. Well, that was life. Right now he needed to survive, not whine about things being a little difficult.

  Jake hit the house fast, set up the stove in the kitchen, deciding it would be the main room, and unloaded most of the tools. Then he got to the real work, which took days. He barely rested, and didn't take the cart back, needing it to scavenge supplies from town. On the good side he didn't see anyone the whole time, no land sharks, no people and the animals that looked at him funny got turned into jerky. Tough leathery bits that he used most of the house's window screens for, and collected more of those from in town during his trips. Wood was both easier and harder to come by here, the river had a lot of trees along it, but they were mainly too big to take down alone. No chainsaw either. He collected branches, practically running through his days. Jake thought he had about four cords put by after the second week, and a lot of meat. Not enough, but a refrigerator full of dried deer, raccoon and red squirrel. It didn't work without power, but made a handy storage box. He actually passed by a bunch of deer, because he couldn't dry the meat fast enough and didn't really know any other way to save it with what he had to hand.