The Journal: Cracked Earth (21 page)

“Do
you
know who my husband was trying
to rob? Who shot him?” Marilyn asked me directly.

“Marilyn, I think it’s best that none of us
know,” I said. “Besides, what would you do if you knew?”

“Probably thank them,” she snorted. “I said
Bill had a dark side, and he did, sometimes he… got physical.
Didn’t you ever wonder why I dropped out of the ladies groups in
the summer? Bruises show.” She smiled. “Now I don’t have to
worry.”

I was stunned.

“You will make sure that Ken and Karen get
the car, won’t you? It’s the least that I can do.” I thanked her
again and had Pete take her home.

I needed some fresh air and alone time today, so I
took a quiet walk, along the road. The undisturbed snow was
beautiful. It all looked smooth, like ice-cream with glitter, and
helped to lift my mood.

When I returned home, John had all the guns
laid out on the table and was systematically disassembling,
cleaning and oiling them. It was a joy to watch. He grinned when I
walked in. I think he really needed something to do, something
productive and worthwhile, something he was good at. No matter how
much we might like each other, being cooped up together in a small
house can be very taxing on the nerves. After I watched John work
on the guns, I took Jim Cobb’s
Preppers Home Defense
book
off of the shelf, and set it on the table.

“This author is a friend of mine,” I
explained, “He’s written a couple of books on home defense and also
on disaster preparedness. Although I found many of his ideas
useable for here, I want your opinion.” I wasn’t pandering to
John’s male ego, though guys
do
need to be needed, but
John’s thoughts and ideas were just as important and valid as
mine.

He watched me closely while I talked, then
asked what was bothering me.

“You seem upset, Allex. What’s the matter?”
John has gotten to know me well in a very short time.

Has he really been here for only ten
days??

I couldn’t help it. The tears welled up
behind my eyelids and were soon flowing down my cheeks. He held my
hands and let me cry. I told him I was worried about our food
lasting. Those blue eyes crinkled with a mirth
I
certainly
didn’t feel.

He stood, still holding my hand, and led me
to the back room where the main food pantry is.

“Look around, Allex, really look around!
There is enough pasta here alone to last us months. I was trying to
do a quick calculation, hope that’s okay, and I came up with almost
a hundred pounds of various types of pasta. If we had to eat
nothing except macaroni, and ate a pound a day, it would still last
us three months. We don’t need to do that because there are the
cases of tuna fish and salmon and mackerel that you were smart
enough to buy and store.” “Look at all the soups and tomatoes and
vegetables you canned, from the garden that
you
grew.”

The jars glistened in the dim light. “How can
you possibly let this worry you?” he asked drawing me close and
whispering into my hair. “
You
have provided us with enough
to eat for at least a year, maybe two, since I don’t know what else
you have.”

John gave me one of his sweet smiles, and
then got serious.

“I owe you my life, you know. So please don’t
cry or I’ll think you regret taking me in.”

“Oh, no, no! I don’t regret having you here,
not at all! Don’t even think that. If I saved you, then you saved
me
, John. And you’re right, we will be fine. I tried hard to
plan having enough to share with my family, and that now includes
you.”

I hugged him tight, and decided he needed to
know what else we had.

* * *

John was bringing in wood the next morning,
while I made a list of what I had and where I stored it. He really
needed to know what our supplies were. The first list was the easy
one for me since it was the long term storage.

“One hundred and fifty buckets?” he asked,
quite shocked.

“Well, I know there could have been more,
except the last two rows I put in I didn’t stack as high, so I had
room for the ten cans of coffee.”

He was right, I shouldn’t have been worried
about our food supplies, not with a half-ton of wheat berries, and
the same in rice, five hundred pounds of beans, two hundred pounds
of sugar and a hundred pounds of salt.

I handed him the second list, and then the
third. He looked up at me and smiled. “Any other surprises?”

When I handed him the ammo inventory, he
started laughing. “What were you planning for, the end of the
world?”

“Isn’t that pretty much what we’re facing,
John?” I asked in all sincerity.

He looked back at the ammo list. “Do you have
weapons for all of this?”

“Except for the 308’s, that’s Jason’s.” I
smirked. “What? You want to clean and oil the rifles now?”

* * *

JOURNAL ENTRY: December 31

For New Year’s Eve, John and I grilled a
steak and six shrimp each. I know that was excessive, but the fresh
meat won’t last forever, even frozen, and the shellfish even less
time. We split a potato, and then shared my only bottle of bubbly.
We were in bed and asleep by 11P.M.

I was awakened by the roar of a snowmobile. I
got up to use the bathroom and saw flames!

* * *

“John! Get up! There’s a fire!” I shook John
while I pulled on my clothes. He woke instantly and grabbed his
clothes.

It looked like my barn was on fire! I grabbed
the fire extinguisher and handed it to John. It took a few seconds
to put on jackets, boots, hats, gloves as it was near zero out, and
then we ran outside.

Flames were licking up the side of the
building. Someone had tried to set my
metal
pole barn on
fire! John made short work of the flames with the extinguisher
before I even got a shovel out to start tossing snow on the
building. I could smell the gasoline on the ground in the
fire-heated slush. If that gas had reached the 4x4 wooden studs, it
could have been disastrous. My car was in the barn, along with the
drums of gas and the chickens. I sank to my knees in the snow,
shaking.

“Who would do this to me? To us?”

“Let’s get back inside,” John said when he
pulled me off the ground and led me back to the house. “Stay here,”
John commanded, “I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later, he returned with a
bucket filled with snow and glass, the remnants of what had caused
the fire. It was a Molotov cocktail.

* * *

The New Year started with blue skies,
glorious sunshine and the memories of last night’s fire. I reached
over to find John’s side of the bed empty, the sheets already cool.
I quickly slipped into sweatpants, my warm robe and slippers, and
went in search of him.

He looked up from the table and smiled. “Let
me get you some coffee,” he said. We both drank it black because
milk and coffee creamer was a luxury that I hadn’t factored into my
preps. The few cans of evaporated milk that I had needed to be
rationed.

“You’re up early,” I said, sitting down
across from him and sipping the hot brew, thankful that the stove
was already going and the room warmed.

“I didn’t sleep well, either,” he said.

“Sorry I disturbed you.” I frowned.

“It wasn’t you; it was the fire that
disturbed me. We need to think about who would do this,” he said to
me with a touch of anger.

“Trying to burn down a metal building seems
stupid, unless it was only a warning. But a warning about what? And
from who?” he thought aloud.

“I’ve been thinking all night and all I can
come up with is that somebody is mad that I pushed for gas
rationing. Though it doesn’t make sense to use up gas making bombs
to get more gas. If anything, I should tighten the rationing!” I
exclaimed out of frustration. “I think I’m going to talk with Ken
and Karen this morning.”

“I’ll come with you. I don’t want you out
there alone,” he said resolutely. Reaching for my hand, he added
“
You
were the target, you know. Not me, not us,
you
.
No one knows that I’m here except for your family and they wouldn’t
hurt you.”

“We can’t both leave. Someone has to stay
here, John. What if they come back and toss a gas bomb at the
house? If no one is here, the place will burn down! Even if we were
both here, there could still be extensive damage because the siding
is all wood.”

Then it dawned on me. “John, we don’t have
another extinguisher. I had only the one!”

I slumped back in my chair. Damn! I should
have had a spare! It was a minor item, and was now a major hole in
my preps.

Reluctantly, he agreed to allow me to go
alone, provided I promised to come right home when done with the
meeting. I did tell him about the new patrol car and that if it was
ready I intended to deliver it today. That didn’t sit well with
him, but I still had a job to do and he reluctantly accepted that.
When I left the driveway, I followed the snowmobile tracks out our
road while I could, then they disappeared once I hit the main
road.

* * *

Both Karen and Ken were surprised by the
attempted arson. I handed the small ice-cream bucket of “evidence”
to Ken. They were no closer to a suspect than they had been before.
Lenny was under constant surveillance so they knew that it wasn’t
him. However, this was the first time that anyone had heard the
vehicle. There were plenty of snowmobiles in town, so it only
narrowed the list down slightly.

“This is the first attack on a personal
residence. The other fires have been on unoccupied businesses,” Ken
said, thinking aloud trying to process the information. “On the
other hand, he might be getting bolder. Anyone you’ve ticked off
lately, Allexa?”

“Only half the town,” I said. “Everyone
blames me for the gas rationing, not that there is anywhere for
anyone to go. I’ve offered gas to anyone who wants to leave and not
come back. Otherwise, I’ve really tried to help Moose Creek, not
hurt it. So, what should I be doing? Anything special?
Different?”

“Well, we know that you’re armed, so that’s a
good start. Too bad you live alone,” said Karen.

I told them about John, and that he was
staying with me. Karen was pleased, though Ken wondered if the
attack came from a past spurned boyfriend. I laughed.

“Ken, I haven’t even dated anyone in over two
years, and I’ve never dated anyone from town anyway. Besides, no
one knows that John is staying with me except my family, and now
you two. It wouldn’t explain the attacks on the businesses.”

“Well, just be extra cautious, be aware of
your surroundings. Watch if anyone is following you,” Karen
reminded me. I rolled my eyes at her and she laughed.

* * *

The paint job was not quite finished on the
new patrol car, so I went back home to find John happily cleaning
my shotgun.

I pulled a couple of cookbooks into my lap
and worked on menus for the week. What we were eating was getting
boring, and it was time to fix that.

I can’t dwell on the fire. Cooking is a good
diversion for me, so I picked something for dinner I haven’t fixed
in a while, stuffed manicotti. I cooked three manicotti tubes in
some boiling water until they were softened. I didn’t want them too
cooked or they wouldn’t absorb the tomato sauce. I drained a jar of
chicken, reserving the liquid for soup tomorrow, and then shredded
a half cup of the meat into a bowl. I added one slice of bread,
torn into pieces, a minced onion and a quarter cup of shredded
parmesan cheese. I tossed that all together, mixing in some herbs
for extra flavor. Handling the pre-cooked tubes gently, I stuffed
in the meat mixture and set them aside. The tomato sauce had
already been made and canned last summer. I poured enough of the
contents of the jar into a baking dish to cover the bottom, and
then placed the pasta tubes on top. The rest of the sauce went over
the top and then the pan went into the oven to bake.

* * *

We spent a leisurely morning on the 2nd just
enjoying the quiet and each other. It was close to eleven o’clock
that we finally lit the fire and had our first coffee of the
morning. A truck pulled up in the driveway after we enjoyed our
first sips of the black brew. Naturally we went on alert, but it
was only Karen. When I introduced her to John, she— and he—
relaxed.

“There was another fire overnight, up on the
dam road,” she began. “No, it wasn’t Jason’s house. It was Marjorie
Brewer’s and she at was home.” Karen took a deep breath and eyed my
coffee cup. I poured her a cup and she continued. “Now we’ve got
him for arson
and
murder. There were snowmobile tracks
circling the house. We’re closing in, Allexa, but you can’t let
your guard down.”

“I won’t, Karen. Promise. John won’t let me,”
I laughed to break this tension.

* * *

I went to the office long enough to pick up
and deliver the new patrol car. What made it easy was that Ken and
Karen were both at the township going over maps, marking where the
fires had occurred. I left my car in the parking lot and walked
over to the auto shop. I gave Harry a voucher for payment and drove
the car over to Fram’s, filled it with diesel, signed the receipt,
and went back to the office. Our two police officers were just
coming out and had huge, astonished grins on their faces when they
saw the sign on the side of the car that read “Moose Creek Township
Law Enforcement”.

“This is a gift from Marilyn Harris. It’s her
way of apologizing for Bill’s actions,” I said as I handed them the
keys. “It’s all gassed up and takes diesel fuel. You have an
unlimited account for it, but remember we don’t have unlimited
supplies.”