Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (37 page)

Buttercup was standing back several feet and peeking out around a little maple sapling. He called her over and she willingly came. He loaded Mick across her back and
headed for the S10. He saw the bullet hole in Buttercup's shoulder but there was nothing he could do and she didn't seem to be paying it a bit of attention.

He had to stop twice to bash HDI heads before he finally got Mick off Buttercup's back and into the S10. Buttercup watched him driv
e away. God, bless that horse!

He drove toward Pop's house until he saw Jason approaching. Jason turned around and they both headed to Pop and Nana's hou
se where we were waiting.

You know the rest of the story.

1) We still don't know where or how Buttercup got her burns.

2) We have no idea who shot Mick in the hip.

3) I'm extremely grateful that Dane's on our side.

4) Elaine better do her absolute best to make Dane happy.

5) Dane could’
ve used the hunting knife on Mick's belt to        cut the ropes. Men!

I'm ready to climb in with Mick and close my eyes at a decent time tonight. I'll get up and get pain medicine if he needs it.

I hope I don't roll over onto his hip or leg, but he says he'll take his chances.

He has a clean gallon jug beside him, so I can sleep through yellow potty time. I can hardly keep my hands off him.

I'll write more tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Thur
sday, February 27

7:30 AM...

Mick says his leg is throbbing around the area of the puncture wound. He took a pain pill about thirty minutes ago.

The wound actually looks a little better this morning. There's no pus and just a
small bit of drainage. The redness has faded a bit.

Dane will be here for breakfast this morning. I saw him at supper yesterday, and he said he's feeling much better. He's over his relapse from the hypothermia incident but his finger's still bothering him. It's still splinted and taped up, and Hisa warned him that it better stay that way until she says
otherwise. He didn't argue.

Mick wants to sit at the table and talk with him while they eat, so I sent Jason down to the basement to bring up the metal walker. Hopefully, Mick can use it to take himself out to the table, and it won't hurt his hip too much to sit in a chair. His nose is still taped and it's funny to see him looking around the bandage when he's loopy from pain meds.

Jason shot two more HDI's near the fence this morning. The gunshots woke me. Marisa knocked at the door and told us what was happening so we wouldn't freak out.

Elaine's in the kitchen with Nana, making breakfast. I don't know what we're having but I hope there's plenty of it.

I'm gonna help Mick get dressed and head out to the kitchen. See ya later.

1:00 PM...

Jesse shot another HDI after lunch today. It was crawling in the moat and howling like a banshee.

All this HDI activity is making me crazy, especially since the front fence is mostly down. It's making Mick crazy too. He wants to sit in the Jeep at the bottom of the driveway and keep watch. There's no way he can do it and he darn well knows it.

The pain meds cause him to be loopy but he can't stand it without them. He says he hurts all over
, but mostly at the site of the puncture wound. He says the pain in his hip doesn't even compare, and his nose is fine except for the annoying tape Hisa has all over it.

Soo, Marisa, Jason, and Jeremy are going to the chicken-killer-dog's house to bring home the sectional and chaise.

During the day, Mick can lay on the chaise lounge beside the fire. He said he can't stand it one minute longer in that bedroom. I know how he feels.

Dane told Jason to check for a propane tank behind that house, and if they find one, they should
find out if the oven is gas.

We still haven't been inside the other homes or house trailers over there. Jason says he might check out one or two of them if he feels safe enough.

Dane and Mick discussed the fencing. Dane wants to build a vertical log fence along the front of the property. He shared his design ideas with all of us. Mick thinks it'll work, but it'll take a lot of time.

He agrees that the chain-link is not sturdy enough, so we are abandoning the chain-link in favor of a vertical log fence. We won't take down any of the chain-link until the log fence is in place.

Dane will be taking a couple of the guys and heading back to Lowe's to get all the concrete he can find.

He wants to use huge bolts through a horizontal half-log across the top, middle, and bottom of the fence. They'll have to drill holes completely through the logs to hold the bolts. He says we may be able to get the bolts from utility poles or abandoned machine shops. We can also use utility poles in place of logs. The problem will be getting them here.

Jason spoke up and said there was probably a dozen “splitting wedges” in the old Peterson shed we can use to split the logs lengthwise.

Mick suggested that we tie the vertical logs together with barbed wire as well. There's lots of barbed wire at TSC. Dane thought that idea was "wicked good."

They'll also go to the Lowe's forty miles from here. Dane wants concrete by the truckload.

He wants to dig the moat a little deeper and place the logs end first into it. He'll set them with concrete and then fill the moat with dirt and rocks from the mountainside. He wants to find a small backhoe.

I think finding the backhoe will be the easy part but getting it here is another story. They'll have to drive it here, and that will be slow goin'.

They discussed blocking the road. There's a little paved road on our street about eighty feet from our driveway. It goes up the mountainside about a mile before it takes a hard left turn, then goes almost a mile through a quaint little neighborhood across the middle of the mountain
. Then, it turns hard to the left again and comes back down the mountainside. It ends about a mile from our driveway, on the same street it started from. Dane wants to destroy the paved road between the two mountain access roads.

We
know the way to go around the roadblock, but strangers won't have a clue. It may add time to our trips, but it’ll be worth it to block traffic from town.

The fence and roadblock ideas will only come to fruition if we find lots of concrete, a backhoe, and enough diesel fuel.
We're concentrating on the fence along the front of the property before we worry about the roadblock.

We must get the fence up before fall arrives because the northerners who haven't prepared will start heading south about that time.

I forgot to mention that I'm worried about the log fence catching fire. I'll ask Mick about it later.

10:00 PM...

Jason. Soo, Jeremy, and Marisa came home from the chicken-killer-dog's house with a big surprise.

None of us thoroughly searched the basement after disposing of the HDI bodies. The men were there only to eliminate and remove the bodies of the man and woman HDI, and make sure there were no more lurking in the dark corners.

Jason decided he would take a closer look while they were there. He took a solar lantern and headed down
stairs.

He said he gagged as he walked through the body fluids and chunks of flesh left to rot when they eliminated the HDI's.

There’s quite a bit stored down there. He saw something that looked like a cabinet covered with an old quilt up against one of the walls and decided to investigate. He pulled the quilt off the tall object and found that it was a large gun safe. There was a shorter safe bolted to the floor right beside it. He sent a thank you up to Jesus that both of them had key locks because he had no idea how to break into anything with combination locks.

He went back upstairs and told Marisa to look for keys all over the house. He wanted her to check drawers, jewelry boxes, trinket boxes, inside every cabinet, and under all knick-knacks. He told her to look inside the breaker panel
, and behind the toilet tank as well. He went out to the truck to get the axe.

An hour later
, they had a total of 36 keys, a large bag of marijuana, a small baggie of white powder, a baggie of something Jason called "rocks", and a gallon zip lock bag containing a lot of little plastic labeled baggies of assorted pills.

Jason threw the vehicle
keys on the kitchen table with the drugs and left them there. He headed back to the basement with the ax and the remaining keys.

Within 20 minutes
, the large safe was open.

Marisa said
that Soo, Jason, and Jeremy just stood there staring before Jason reached inside and pulled out the first rifle like it was a newborn baby.

There were five rifles in that safe
, and one of them is an AR-15 that’s been illegally converted to fully automatic. They also got a shotgun and three pistols. There was a large amount of ammo for each weapon.

Jason decided to move on to the shorter safe. Marisa said he was so excited that he could barely keep his hands from shaking while trying to fi
nd the key. It took only five minutes to get it open.

The inside of the shorter safe was packed full of ammo in the calibers related to each weapon from the large safe. Marisa says it was so packed that there wasn't room for another box. They loaded
every gun and box of ammo into the truck and made Jeremy stand guard while they loaded the furniture.

Marisa grabbed the drugs from the table to give to Hisa for the inventory in Clinic Diane. Heck, I guess we can use them for trade if we need to.

When they got home, they called every man on the compound to the basement to unload and drool over weapons and ammo. Soo and Jason carried Mick down the stairs so he could join in the testosterone festival.

Pop says the haul is
very good, and there's ammo to match almost all the weapons we currently have.

I think those who could dance were doing the
Highland fling.

It's a huge relief for me as well. I don't know if there's enough to fight off a horde as large as the one that went through here a few days ago, but I haven't seen this much optimism on Pop's face in a long time.

I wonder why the chicken-killer-dog's owners stored all that ammo. Maybe they had stolen it. Maybe they were drug dealers. I guess we'll never know for sure.

We have the chaise and sectional in the living room. It fits perfectly. Marisa
still wants the cabinets from that house. That means Jason will be working on cabinets if he gets a spare moment.

Dane plans on staying for a while. Elaine said he promised to build a cabin inside the compound when the fence is finished. He'll tear down the old Peterson house and recycle everything he can into a new cabin.

I hope she realizes that it'll probably be a year before we can finish the fence and a cabin. He hasn't said anything to her about plans after the cabin is built, but she feels certain his heart belongs to her now.

I stuck my nose where it didn't belong and told Elaine that I was concerned about her relationship with Dane's because it hasn't been long since she lost Neil. She told me that she and Neil were not close and were only living together for Jesse's sake. Neil had a girlfriend when the world fell apart. He left the girlfriend to be with his son.

I need to keep my nose out of it. I don't wanna know anything else about Neil and Elaine's relationship.

We have
one more year with "Dane the Destroyer." Yay!

It's time for me to get back in the rotation for kitchen and laundry duty. I'm actually looking forward to it. I hope we can have peace around here while Mick heals.

The temperature hit sixty degrees today. It was really nice.

We sat on the back porch after supper and chatted with one another about the fence and other defenses we might be able to employ. Everyone thinks
that tearing up the paved road is a good one.

Dane mentioned that he plans to build a cabin inside the compound when the fence is finished. Jeremy quickly spoke up and said he wants a bachelor cabin himself and, of course, Jesse wants one too. Elaine furrowed her brow and told Jesse he could have one when he turns eighteen and can build it himself. Mr. Hobbs also wants a bachelor cabin.

Pop and Mr. Hobbs want complete control of the garden. Everyone will help with harvests and preservation, but only Mr. Hobbs and Pop will have a say about what's planted where, when, and how. I'm all for that. I'll bet you those two men will spend every waking hour in the garden this summer.

I asked everyone to look for more blue barrels whenever they go out. We need to store at least twice the amount of water we have now
, in case of drought this summer.

Jesse and Jeremy will begin barn lootin' for hay tomorrow. We need all we can get. We can store it in our barn and the tractor shed at Jason and Marisa's.