Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (45 page)

Breakfast is over. I went out to feed and water the animals while Carisa, Valerie, and Merry cleaned the kitchen.

Dane, Mick, and Jeremy have two trailers in the ditch, and they're back out for more. I gave them each a plastic spoon,
a bottle of water, and a short thermos full of oatmeal to take with them.

Nana took a large serving bowl full of oatmeal back to Clinic Diane. Hisa and Elaine will be eating with her. Pop was still sleeping when I left this morning. He moaned a couple of times in his sleep but that was all I heard out of him. Hisa
plans to clean his wounds and change his bandages while Nana’s there to help.

Jesse cried and whimpered while I was there. He woke up once, and I could tell that he's in a lot of pain. Hisa gave him two pain pills and he was sleeping soundly about 45 minutes
later. He has a low-grade fever and Hisa is worried.

She asked if she could have a few of my blue Xanax pills for Elaine and, of course, I said yes. I told her I'd send Cari
sa over with them later.

Elaine has dark circles under her eyes and
she’s moving slow. She won't let go of Jesse's hand. She answered every question I asked with only "yes," or "no."

Mr.
Hobbs was asleep in a lawn chair, leaning up against the clinic, when Dane and I drove up. I sent him to my house to get some sleep on the couch.

Marisa, Jason, and the kids were all here for breakfast. Marisa broke down and cried, telling me she can't stand it anymore. I told her she had no choice and she better straighten herself up because Jason and the kids
depend on her.

I told her it'll get better after the fence is u
p and we have some sort of protection around us. She listened, and seemed to settle down after we finished eating. She's outside doing laundry. I think she needs to stay busy. Soo and Jason are helping her.

I'm depressed and grumpy. I need to find something to do.

I think I'll ask Rebecca to take Soo's place at laundry duty so he can take me, Deuce, and Valerie over to the Masterson place to load up the insta-food and supplies that are still there.

I'm
gonna wake Mr. Hobbs and tell him to keep watch over the hill while Jason keeps watch over the rear. I'll take Mr. Hobbs place standing watch when I get back from the Masterson house. I plan to have Deuce stand watch with me. We need him. Marisa can join Jason for watch duty when she finishes the laundry. Soo can take someone's place as well.

Rebecca, Valerie, Carisa, and Merry
plan to make lunch with some of the insta-food we get at from the Masterson house. Rebecca says there are clear directions for preparation on every package. She wants to make spaghetti and I told her that was fine. I told Carisa to make sure there are three thermoses full and ready for Mick, Dane, and Jeremy. She'll throw forks, salt, pepper, and water into a small cooler for them as well.

See ya later.

10:00 PM...

We had beef stew and cornbread for supper. The beef stew was from the restaurant haul and wasn't as good as homemade, but it filled our tummies.

There was a lot of insta-food at the Masterson place. Rebecca said her father had purchased a kit that was supposed to fee
d four people for one year. It was obvious that there wasn't enough to last that long. But hey, it’s more insta-food than we had before, right? Our group might get three weeks out of it if we stretch it with other things.

There's almost
75 cases of bottled water there. That's a huge blessing. We took several cases to Clinic Diane.

I asked everyone to save the empty bottles and lids so we can fill them with filtered water for future use.

Pop was awake this afternoon, and he is grumpy. He's in a lot of pain but won't take any pain medication until he absolutely has to. Nana fed him beef stew and cornbread for supper.

Every time Jesse wakes up
, Hisa and Elaine try to get water and food into him. He takes a few bites, but his pain is so bad that it's hard for him to eat unless he has pain medication on board, and then he's groggy and wants to sleep.

He's still running a low-grade fever and complains that there's something on the bed underneath his back. He says
it’s sharp and feels like it’s stabbing him. Every time Elaine tries to run her hand underneath him, he screams out in pain.

Hisa still has her nose in medical books.

Elaine took one of my blue Xanax pills and she seemed to be a little better. She actually ate a small bowl of stew and a slice of cornbread. She won't leave Jesse's bedside.

Dane, Mick, and Jeremy brought home four more trailers before dark.

Dane headed back out after supper. He took Soo and Jason along this time. I told them to watch him carefully because he hasn't slept since the night of the prisoner/HDI battle. Mick told him he has to get some sleep after he gets two more trailers home. Finally, he agreed to do so.

Nana is
sleeping on the floor beside Pop's bed again.

I guess tomorrow we'll have a repeat of today. We have
to get through this. The group is on edge and Dane is losing his mind.

It just occurred to me that Dane probably intends to marry Elaine and become Jesse's stepfather. No wonder he's working so hard to get this fence done. He needs his future family to be protected.

Bye for now.

Monday
, March 10

I've just returned from Clinic Diane.

Jesse kept everyone there awake most of the night. He was crying and complaining about a stabbing pain in his back. Hisa finally concluded that the bullet was causing the pain. She heavily sedated him and rolled him over on his good side.

While Elaine was sliding her hand over the bed and under the sheet, looking for a sharp object, Hisa was examining Jesse's back. She found the bullet.

You can actually see the outline of it underneath his skin. Hisa is preparing to remove it right now. She says the bullet is above his kidney, but his spleen may be damaged. I have no idea what the spleen does. I'm sure Hisa will explain it to me.

I don't want to be there when she removes the bullet. Pop said he doesn't want to be there either. Hisa told him he had no choice because he can't be moved. He told her that he was in pain, and asked for a couple of pain pills to knock him out while she was
digging around in Jesse's back. Hisa actually gave them to him. I was surprised.

Elaine’s a nervous wreck
.

I don't think it's a good idea for Elaine to be in the room while Hisa cuts into her son,
but nobody asked for my opinion and since I'm too much of a chicken to stay and help, I'll keep my mouth shut.

I told them to send someone to let me know how it went when they're don
e. Carisa's on pins and needles and she’s pacing in front of Clinic Diane with Mr. Hobbs.

Mick, Dane, and Jeremy are out
looking for more trailers. Mick filled the generator before he left, thank goodness.

Soo is checking the garden and greenhouses, and he'll water the plants if needed. Deuce will help him after he milks the goats and makes sure all the animals are fed.

I have several packages of English muffins in the freezer downstairs. Rebecca and I will toast them to serve with butter and pineapple jam for breakfast. We'll plug the toaster into the power strip for the generator. I'm glad we bought that four-slice toaster, otherwise, it'd take twice as long to get them done, ha ha.

I hate
English muffins, but the rest of the family likes them. I'm having cold cereal for breakfast.

Marisa’
s standing watch at the front of the property and Jason’s standing watch out back. The kids are playing board games at the dining room table. Valerie's the head babysitter this morning, and she's making sure they follow all the rules.

I'm headed out to toast
English muffins (yuck). See ya later.

11:30 PM...

First of all, I apologize for not writing at my
usual mid-afternoon time today. Please forgive me.

I should start at the top, but the "most exciting news" occurred after the "good news" and the "very good news." There's also "bad news" and "very bad news"... oh hell... I'll just start at the top.

Valerie and I finished cleaning up from breakfast, and she was ready to take the kids back to their house to play with toys. I was getting ready to head out and help Rebecca and Marisa with laundry.

Carisa came to
tell us that the bullet was out and that everything went fine. Hisa had finished stitching him up. He was sleeping soundly from the pain medication.

She headed back to Clinic Diane to wait for him to wake up. I remember thinking that Carisa cares a lot for Jesse.

Dane, Mick, and Jeremy hadn't shown up for their "bag 'o breakfast," and I was beginning to worry. I've never seen Dane skip a meal.

I heard a big rig down at the road and sighed with relief because I knew they were finally here.

When I opened the door, I saw three big rigs. Two of them were pulling trailers for the fence, and the third was pulling a flatbed trailer with two little "buildings" on top. It took me by surprise, so I started down the hill to find out what was going on.

About half a mile from Lowe's, they found a trucking company with a plethora of empty trailers. There was a heavy duty fence with a heavy duty chain and lock around the perimeter. Mick pulled out his handy dandy bolt cutters and snapped the lock.

Upon entering, they saw two large dog carcasses lying near the small office building. They were badly decayed and the smell was awful. He figured they were guard dogs who'd starved to death.

The side lot held eight enclosed trailers and three flatbed trailers. There were also several trucks, and most of them
are at least half full of diesel fuel. The key to each truck was in the ignition and a numbered plastic tag was hanging from the key chains.

Mick said that Dane "squealed" with delight, and that he almost squealed right along with him. I thought that was absolutely hilarious. Mick waited for me to stop laughing, and catch my breath, before he continued the story.

Since there were three men who could drive large vehicles, they decided to bring home three trailers at once. They were trying to guide Jeremy while he backed up to one of the trailers.

Jeremy started pointing and talking. The window was up and they couldn't hear a word he was saying, so they motioned for him to roll down the window.

Jeremy told them where to look and they had to climb up on the step of the truck to see what he was pointing at.

There were several trucks in a large wooded area behind a residential home. Jeremy said he thought they were logging trucks, but he wasn't 10
0% sure because of the distance. They decided to check them out.

They
went out the gate and around the fence. They didn't try climbing over the high fence because of the razor wire on top.

Mick said it took about five minutes to get from the rear of the trucking company to the wooded lot. They walked through several residential back yards to get there.

They found four trucks and a bulldozer. One of the trucks has a crane for loading logs. Jeremy loudly "woo hoo'd" and gave Mick and Dane a high five.

The three of them were chuckling, and talking about their luck, when Dane pulled his pistol and aimed it straight at Jeremy. Dane screamed "LOOK OUT!"

Jeremy was standing with his back to a dump truck when Dane saw feet moving on the ground behind the truck. He was just in time to remove half the face of a logger HDI that came around the back. Their attitude's shifted back to "dead serious." They decided to thoroughly check out the inside and outside of each truck.

They took out two more HDI loggers before they were sure
the area was clear.

Jeremy said there was a male HDI banging up against the glass patio door of the house they were standing behind. They decided to wait and see if he broke through the glass before shooting him. They had no idea if there were numerous HDI's inside, just waiting to come at them
, and they didn’t want to shatter the glass door and make it an easy exit.

Mick said the worst part was searching the dead HDI's for keys. The smell was horrible. Pieces of their skin and flesh fell off when they were moved around, and bones could be seen sticking up underneath their clothing.

Jeremy pulled a set of keys and a handful of black goo from one of the HDI's inner jacket pocket. He used the corner of the HDI's shirt to wipe the sticky goo from his hand. It stuck to him, almost like tar. He had to call Ralph at the side of the lot. Mick said he was pretty close to calling along with him.

They found keys to the crane truck, the bulldozer, and a log truck. There were 10 or 11 splitting wedges in the floorboard of
the log truck. With the wedges Jason got from the Peterson shed, we can have two or three people splitting logs at once.

They found no keys for the other log truck or two dump trucks. They drove the crane truck and bulldozer back to the trucking company.