A Very Good Man (8 page)

  Jake shrugged at Carley and gave her a nod.

  “Burt asked me to get the wood and set up some wood stoves and water heaters. If you want to be in charge of the wood gathering I'm all for it. I'm sure you'd do a great job. I'll get you a gun, one of the ones we confiscated last night, just for the symmetry of the thing. In case you have to shoot Holsom. Do you know how to shoot?” He made his voice sound sincere. Easy enough, because he was.

  No one liked Carley, she was pushy, headstrong and as often as not, stupidly wrong. But only about gender issues and then mainly because she thought men controlled everything when they clearly didn't. Not anymore at least. People listened to her anyway. She had a loud mouth, and used it, but could be compelling. As long as she didn't get into a position of real power, she'd probably do better than he would. Jake would just go along in case any zombies showed up. Well, and do his share of the work. That too, of course.

  “Um, no... I used a pistol of my aunt's once, but I didn't like it.” She sounded scared and hesitant, so Jake tried for a reassuring smile and nod.

  “No big thing, no one really likes them. Well, except men with penis size issues. I can show you how to shoot before we go. With any luck Holsom will be trouble and you can take care of him for us. Who's all going?”     

  They had a ten person team for the day, more than he figured on, to tell the truth. They'd need more, but the first ten could figure things out, then they'd bring larger groups once they knew what was what. After breakfast he ran and got one of the guns from the armory, which was a closet in the cellar, just inside the door. He signed for it and made a notation of who it was for. Vickie had insisted on that part, so Jake went along with it. Tipper had just nodded at the time too, even though it probably wouldn't make any kind of a difference at all.

  “Sign it back in if you don't need it anymore, but for now I suggest you keep it with you. We need more shooters and you clearly have the chops for it.” That... was probably true.

  Carley didn't exude rage or anger maybe, or insanity. She also didn't back down easily either, and would stand up to anyone, even if it was a moronic idea at the time. For instance the day before she'd been willing to take him to task, even knowing that he regularly killed people. That was pretty hardcore. She hadn't even been armed at the time.

  That probably meant she'd pull the trigger when needed.

  A lot of people just couldn't. They thought they could, but with a zombie running at them, they only saw an unarmed person and wouldn't. That's why most people stayed around the house like they did. It was safe and secure feeling. No pesky chance of having to shoot anyone.

   The shooting lesson didn't take long, since it wasn't about marksmanship yet, just about pointing and pulling the trigger and knowing how to reload. They lined up on an old tree going into the woods that would probably be cut down before winter, since it was dead already.

  Carley missed it twice, making Holsom laugh at her. Jake spun on the man.

  “Enough.” He growled, low and angrier than he'd intended. The man smiled back, managing to make it smarmy, which turned rapidly into sly.

  “Sorry, didn't know you two were a couple. Did she do that thing with her mouth yet? I swear the girl could suck a Ping-Pong ball through a garden hose.”

  Jake grimaced and so did Carley, who managed to blush too.

   Really, he'd figured Carley for gay, or at least smart enough to not fall for this brand of dickweed. She fired again, this time making a small puff appear on the tree.

  “Good! Go ahead and try it again.” The nine millimeter she'd fired again six more times, five of them hitting. Not perfect, but she could shoot and he had her reload the clip herself, leaving her with a backup already loaded.

  As soon as she walked over toward them Derrick smiled at her and winked.

  “So, Carley, which one of you wears the pants in your relationship?”

  Shaking his head Jake spoke calmly. It sounded calm at least. He was about half a second from just executing the man, but then, he probably would be until the guy died. Hopefully soon. It wasn't kind of him to think that kind of thing, but it was just the truth. The man needed to die for everyone's good.

  “He's trying to get us to fight by making up a relationship between us. As if we were too stupid to figure out his “clever” tricks? Let's not fall for it. There is no relationship, and if there was, we'd obviously both wear the pants. Everyone wears pants now. By the way Holsom, if you keep making trouble, I will shoot you. I'm looking for a reason after you sent your buddies to kill Nate last night. Honestly I may just decide that's reason enough.” Jake waved at him and kept his voice low and dark.

  “Yeah, don't bother denying it, everyone knows. Could you get more obvious than sending in your own lackeys? You should have at least tried to get some of your girlfriends to try it instead. That had to be the most moronic thing I've ever seen. You couldn't even wait a few days for people to let their guards down?”

  It was a dig and from the looks on their faces, everyone else really didn't know it yet. Well, you'd think someone would have guessed by now. Other than him. Carley gave him a really funny look then and nodded.

  “Exactly. The only thing is, we'll tie you to that tree so I can shoot you if it comes down to it. That's why I have the gun. To kill you.” She pointed at the ex-cop with it, the safety still off. Normally a very bad idea. Well, if you liked the person you were gesturing at.

  Looking at her Jake kept chanting to himself for the weapon to go off. Trying to will it to happen, smiling hopefully. It didn't. Well, anyone that thought life was fair was dead or a zombie by now. Holsom didn't look scared, which made no sense. There had to be at least a forty percent chance that the weapon would go off the way she'd been holding it and waving it around. After she put it away Jake smiled big, forced and a bit resigned.

  “Nate, Jose, there's rope in the cart, right? Um, soga en el carro?” The translation was rough, but then he'd taken French in high school. Worse, he wasn't even good at it and had gotten B's.

  Still, Jose got it and smiled hugely.

  “Si!” Then he rambled off a line of Spanish so fast that no one but Nate got it. Their leader was nearly fluent. It got a laugh and an answering line from the leader.

  “He said that he has a good rope for hanging in the cart if need be. He even knows how to tie the knots properly and recommends we put Derrick in the back of the cart and pull it out from under him, which will allow him to strangle to death slowly.”

  Jake smiled and looked at the small dark skinned man, “Bueno.”

  That got an even bigger smile from Jose, who obviously took a lot more from context than Jake had figured. Or he understood more than he let on. Either way worked. If he knew how to tie a real hangman's noose all the better, they could save a bullet.

  The wood gathering was hard work, but went fast enough. They couldn't work the cart into the woods very far, still, for the first day the amount wasn't bad. They managed a full cart load every three hours or so, using the chainsaws. The last load went faster, since Jake asked if they could just load up the cart with logs. They got a half load of them. Apparently logs were a lot heavier than they looked. The tires sagged a bit and tried to press into the soil as they worked it back, everyone pulled or pushed. Holsom so obviously slacking off that it really only counted as nine people doing the work and a few of them were small, like Dave and Tipper. Molly actually tried at least, which made Jake feel better.

  It had been a long time since she'd actually worked at anything really. Except dying, and she kept sucking at that. Maybe she could finally get herself around? That would be good. He was of two minds about her, but if he had to pick a path for the girl, she'd get to live and maybe even be happy someday.

  Burt saw the logs and nodded at them, gesturing to Jake who motioned that Carley would be wanted too. Since she was in charge of it all, it wouldn't do to leave her out. Besides, given it was Carley, she'd throw a fit if they tried, even if it just turned out to be a discussion about sports or something. Not that they had sports. Unless killing the already dead counted. If so Jake was a pro-athlete now. That being kind of how he made his living.

  Cool.

  “We've got about two hours before dinner, we can split firewood here, and cut the logs too, but we need to set up a saw pit. I'd like to try it now, so we can figure out what we need to change if it doesn't work.” Burt looked at Jake first, but then spoke mainly to Carley, which made the woman look a little sour.

  She sounded fine though, so maybe it was the glance to Jake first that did it.

  “Alright, but all of us are sore. We aren't used to this kind of work. Well, I'm not. Maybe we should get volunteers to help with the digging?”

  Nate had walked up behind her and stood waiting. He looked tired and hot, they all probably did. Jake just went and got a shovel and some old gloves from the work shed, then pulled four more, the pointed kind for digging. Then, as an afterthought, he grabbed a few extra pairs of hand protection for the others. Blisters were a bitch and he already had a few started himself, right where his thumbs met his hand for some reason. Hopefully digging would at least put the stress in a different place.