America The Dead Book Two: The Road To Somewhere (29 page)

~

Kate tried the radio a short time later. She
climbed up the back of one of the stake rack trucks hoping for
better reception.

Janet's voice came back almost immediately,
garbled, but intelligible.

"Oh, Katie, dear, let me get Pats. She's been
beside herself," Janet said.

Patty had come running, grabbed the radio and
bounded up to the flat area above the cave.

"Katie? Are you there, Katie?" Patty called.
Her voice was strong and clear.

"Pats, it's me. I'm here; I can't
believe it!"
Kate yelled into the radio.
She looked down, "Get your ass up here, Ronnie," she
said.

"I love you, Pats. It's so good to hear your
voice, but here's another one for you."

Ronnie took the radio, swallowed and pressed
the mic button "Hey, babe. I love you, and I've missed you," he
told her.

"Ronnie," she screamed. Ronnie held the radio
away from his ear. "I love you... I love you too, Babe. I missed
you so bad,” She sighed. “We should let some others talk, though"
she said.

Mike yelled out. "Tell them to fire up a couple
more radios and choose different channels." He handed one to Bob
and one to David as he began to climb up. Within a few minutes they
were all standing around on top of the truck, talking on the
radios.

The radios passed back and forth
and both Mike and Kate looked at each other at the same time. Kate
mouthed
Jeff.
And
it was only a few minutes later that David said Sharon was waiting
to talk to Jeff.

Kate got on the phone to Sandy and talked to
both her and Janet to let them know what they thought had happened
to Jeff.

"I'll talk to her," Kate said, "if it will
help."

"If she needs to, I'll take you up on that,"
Sandy said. "I'll give this back to Patty. She's taken charge here.
Maybe we can figure out how far away you are and how to get you
here."

The radio conversations went back and forth for
another hour, each side telling the other about what they had
found, what they were bringing with them, finding the red ribbons,
what the cave was like, the livestock. Tim was disappointed at
first about the solar panels, but after Mike told him about the
windmills, he couldn't wait to see them.

"So it's a matter of following the red ribbons,
and somewhere around thirty to forty miles to go and we're there,"
Bob said. He was relaying the conversation back to the
others.

"Kate," David said. She looked over at him. He
held the radio out to her, "Sharon," he said.

She broke down as they talked, and that had
gotten Kate crying as well. She told Kate stories about Jeff, what
he had been like in the time she had known him. And Kate brought
Cindy into it, letting her know what kind of people they had been
up against.

When she asked to talk to Cindy, Kate was
unsure, but they were both eager to talk to each other. Cindy broke
down also. And they talked for over an hour, long after everyone
else came down from the truck. Finally Cindy came down as
well.

"She's a nice lady," she told Kate. Her eyes
were bloodshot and shiny.

"You okay?" Kate asked.

"Yeah," Cindy said, "Better than I have been in
a long time. It was like talking to my mother... Someone that loves
you that much, you know?"

Kate did know. She had that in Patty and Mike.
She nodded

They sat quietly and watched the stars come out
in the sky. They were so sharp, so close, so beautiful. They both
took the last posts and waited for dawn to come over the mountains
and color the sky.

~April 5th~

The trucks were rolling just after sunrise. All
three Jeeps were needed to herd the errant cows and horses into a
loose herd as they continued across the valley, following the
occasional flutters of red.

They stopped for lunch in the early afternoon,
turned the calves and the foals loose and made a quick lunch of
smoked meat, peanuts and chocolate bars. The gap between the range
was in sight, so after a short rest, water and feed for the
chickens and piglets, an extra ration of Cow Chow and oats for the
other animals, they pushed on. The moose and several deer were
still following along.

~

The foothills slowed them down. The larger
trucks fell behind, moving slower and slower as they worked their
way up the steeper grades. The heavy loads were probably all, Mike
decided later, that got those trucks up to the top of the last
rise. In low gear the tires kept them moving up, but without the
load, they would have spun on the slick rock and loose
gravel.

Cindy was the first to see them. They had all
been looking, knowing they were near the top of the pass somewhere,
when Cindy spotted a small crowd on top of a rocky outcrop at the
top of what looked like a nearly sheer cliff face that rose up into
the mountain itself.

"There they are! There they are," she yelled
excitedly. “That's them, right?”

She waved, and the people silhouetted against
the sky waved back.

~

Everybody stood on the wide ledge outside the
cave, watching as the three big trucks battled their way upward in
low gear, made the top and drove across the flat ledge to where the
Suburbans were sitting.

The Jeeps and the pickup finished the short
distance, the cows and horses following easily. When the trucks
stopped, the animals kept going, smelling the water in the valley
down below.

Bob and Ronnie set the calves and foals loose,
and their mothers herded them over the rock and down into the
valley below, moose, deer and all following along.

Then everything was cheers and yelling, hugs
and kisses and tears. Cindy stood a little apart feeling
overwhelmed, unsure of her place. A heavyset older woman approached
her, her eyes puffy, but a smile on her face.

"I'm Sharon," she said.

"I'm Cindy," Cindy told her. She looked around
at all the people. Two dogs were running around barking, wagging
their tails crazily, sniffing the cow and horse dung.

Sharon laughed and swiped at her eyes. Cindy's
own eyes were running freely. She came closer to the young woman,
put her arms around her and hugged her to her bosom.

"Come on, Honey, let's go up and meet every
one. They're gonna like you, I can tell."

~Arlene's journal~

I missed last week, so I tested. I tested again
today. I can't believe it, but I'm pregnant!

~Patty's Diary~

It's night. It's finally quiet. The day was
crazy, but they are here. We are all back together again. I
realized today that there is nothing at all that I can do about
Kate and how I feel about her.

It was good to have Ronnie back, and I did miss
him, but the way my heart jumped when I saw her.

It seems funny to read it like
that, written right there in my own handwriting. And it's real, but
somehow that makes it even
more
real. I don't know how that can be, but it is.
And I don't know what I can do about it. I certainly can't tell
her. Seeing her with Mike, it's obvious she loves him.

It's a mess.