Darkness upon the Land
Chapter 24

As Reuben lay beneath Liana’s car and tried to drill into the fuel tank without either spilling or drinking its contents, he contemplated what else lying around here could be repurposed into weapons of mass destruction.

Alexia’s practice session yesterday had showed some promise but still not the result they were ultimately seeking. She could produce an outburst at will, but there were still some issues with controlling its magnitude or direction. He hadn’t expected her to become proficient in one afternoon, and either way they still needed to implement multiple ways to defend the home.

The Molotov cocktails they assembled last night were easy enough although a bit nerve wracking to make. They needed more fuel and oil to increase the numbers, so after the Sunday morning chores he had set to work obtaining those fluids from Liana’s car. It was newer than the pickup, and had been designed to more securely hold the expensive gasoline. After he jacked up the car and blocked it so that it couldn’t decide to slip and fall and flatten him, he first had to remove its ventral plate before he could access the tank. And since all he could use were hand tools, he had plenty of time to think.

Liana had a couple of partial rolls of electric wire for fencing that he could string between the trees under the surface of the water near the driveway. That way if anybody decided to just wade in, they would quickly get tripped up. He usually wasn’t a fan of barbed wire, nor was she with a horse and goats, but it sure would have been nice to have some of that to get an invader tangled up in as well. Limbs from the rot-resistant cypress wood could be whittled into sharp pegs that could be driven into parts of the yard to provide serious discomfort to anyone who tried to sneak in. And Alexia had “seeded” the bed of the pickup with a three-gallon can of paint thinner that was still more than half full and a few bottles with gas. They started covering those implements with a growing pile of tinder and fatwood.

With Liana conscious, the two of them now ate in her room with her, and their meals were always filled with discussion. This morning she suggested he might as well remove the tires from both vehicles and use them as supports for erecting earthworks around the yard. That way, if a firefight ensued and somebody was caught away from the house, that person would still be able to seek shelter. He hadn’t got to that job yet, but the tire iron was lying nearby for when he could get to it.

It seemed unfair that at the same time they had to work on defense, they also had to devote time and labor to food storage. There was no anticipation that life would return to normal within the first year or more, so what couldn’t be eaten immediately had to be preserved for the winter. Although Liana had put back much food on her own over Alexia’s lifetime, she’d lost the convenience of being able to supplement with store-bought goods or use electrical appliances that made the job easier.

They now used the older terms for meals without apology. Lunch was back to being dinner, because there were practical reasons why in the days before electricity the main meal of the day occurred at noon. There was so much work to do, preparing three meals separately was impractical; and without refrigeration, trying to hold leftovers overnight until the next day was unsafe. So most of the cooking was done after breakfast, which was usually eggs because the ducks provided fresh ones every day, and they were quick and easy to prepare, and the leftovers from dinner provided the food for supper.

He wished they had more salt to help with the preservation. Although it was easy to come by in Louisiana, none of the mines were within only a couple of hours’ worth of walking distance. Therefore salt had to be rationed carefully until the supply could be reestablished.

Sugar was a lesser preservative with a similar story. Cane farms surrounded them, but sugar had to be processed first. Oil, vinegar, and alcohol were also in limited supply.

The water table of the basin ruled out root cellaring, which was a method Reuben was well acquainted with back home in Missouri. Anything buried out here would only float back to the surface, which was why the crypts in the cemeteries were above ground. It was also why he had to resort to dumping the bodies of the Carvel cousins out in the back of the swamp.

There were some things he wished he could forget, and that was one of them. What didn’t help was the fact he’d also heard disposition stories from his mom’s two brothers who worked in the family funeral home back in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. They took quite perverse pleasure in regaling the “uninitiated” with stories about post-mortem gas causing uncooperative corpses.

Etsi claimed her brothers were jerks because they’d inhaled too much of the formaldehyde fumes, which was one of several reasons she took no interest in the family business. Her father, known as the “mongrel” because he was a mix of Shawnee, Creek, Choctaw and Osage, started the funeral home shortly after marrying her Cherokee mother.

Reuben wondered again how his family was doing. They were well-prepared for prolonged power outages – as dairy farmers in an area subject to winter and summer storms that could knock down the electric lines, they had to be. They had a garden, and Etsi had seen to it their farm was well populated by edible native plants. The Australorp chickens provided eggs and the Jersey cows gave butter-fat loaded milk, and the Pilgrim geese were lawnmowers that were also an alternative meat source. He knew his family could do quite well if left to themselves.

But what if others coveted their self-sufficiency as some had done here in Esperanza? As license-carrying hunters who lived in a rural area, they had the highest allowance for ammunition purchases according to the law Rodney Titus pushed through after he was elected president. But ammo was still ridiculously expensive, thanks to some other laws, so they had only a few boxes on hand. Was his dad, who had Grandma’s streak of engineering genius but thankfully not her schizophrenia, also building booby traps and mixing Molotov cocktails?

Etsi tried to talk Reuben out of heading for home that fateful morning. She knew he would be welcome to stay here, and she was naturally concerned for his safety if he tried to make such a long trip alone on foot. But he had been away from home since he was thirteen, and although his return visits could be pretty long, sometimes lasting several weeks during the summer and winter, they were too few. And even with as much negotiation as he had to go through at that tender age to get all parties involved to agree he could reside in Louisiana without his family, he yearned to return to them.

When he was six years old he was misdiagnosed as being dyslexic. Thanks to technology, the school was able to cope with his “learning disability” during his elementary years, but as he entered middle school and showed no response whatsoever to any of the therapies for dyslexia, the institution began to have issues with his unique learning style. His parents conducted the investigation that led them to discovering Dr. Vaughn, a neuroscientist at the Lapius Medical Research University, who specialized in studying adaptations of the brain. Since his memory was possibly an adaptation to his inability to read, his parents scheduled an appointment with the doctor and also made their trip to Louisiana into a week-long family vacation.

The scientist was as baffled as he was thrilled by Reuben’s test results. The boy was an enigma. Not only was his inability to read unlike any other, his superior memory was unlike any other. The doctor was quite happy to propose that he could become a long-term research subject, and part of that would involve trying to help overcome his reading disability. But repeated trips to Louisiana would be expensive, so his parents began discussing the option of selling the farm and moving closer to Baton Rouge.

Reuben was immediately against that idea, especially after he thought about it for a while. The family farm was exactly that. His grandfather bought it as a young man from one of his elderly great-uncles. His dad pretty much took over running the place at the still tender age of fifteen when Grandma committed suicide, which caused Grandpa to lose interest in some of the realities of life. It was one of the few small dairies still in operation across the country, which actually detracted from its value because nobody could make a living on small farms anymore.

Large corporate farms fed the nations, and most remaining rural property was held by those who were wealthy enough to purchase it from the aging residents. He didn’t want his family to become the next statistic in a farm going under. And he didn’t think it was fair to make the whole family relocate because of him. And what about Etsi’s job? She wound up in Missouri because she wanted to work in a conservation program that was civilian-run. He doubted she would be happy with the politically controlled wildlife department of Louisiana.

Alexia had a light tread, but he caught sight of her sandaled feet moving toward him from the corner of his eye. She squatted down beside the car.

“How’s it coming along?” She asked.

His first thought was that his arms were aching after reaching up from a prone position for so long. But he waited for a few seconds to see if she would catch her mistake. And when she didn’t, he responded, “Ici on parlais Acadian.”

He heard a grunt of affirmation from her before she repeated her question in Cajun.

Yesterday, while they had dinner with Liana, he brought up her idea of communicating in Cajun to confuse their opponents. Her mother thought it was such a wonderful idea they should converse that way every day just to ingrain using the language as habit.

So the conversation continued in Cajun as he replied. “It’s still in the gas tank and not going anywhere at the moment.”

“How close do you think you are to finishing the job?”

“I think I’ve drilled over half way through the wall of this tank. If I don’t hit something soon I’m going to conclude I drilled into something solid that was put there just to tease me.”

“Well, you have been out here so long that lunch – I mean dinner – is ready now.”

“Really? I didn’t realize I was having so much fun under here that time would fly.” He suddenly felt give under the tip of the drill he was cranking on, and a gurgling sound started above his head. Even though he immediately yanked the drill out, a little gas dribbled down it and onto his hands. He shoved the plastic tub that had sitting beside his head underneath the hole, and a small stream of the fluid began trickling into it. “Eureka!”

“What was that?” Her tone mimicked reproach. “It sounded Greek to me.”

He chuckled as he finally let his arms rest on the ground. Then he heard Henry bark.

Something or somebody was coming, and the event might demand his undivided attention. But the draining of the precious gasoline needed to be monitored, because he anticipated recovering at least six gallons, hopefully more, and the tubs that could fit under the car only held a couple of gallons each.

He hissed a word that rarely passed his lips.

“Que?” She wasn’t used to hearing him swear, so probably didn’t realize she would actually need to excuse his French.

“Watch the gas. I’m going to see what Henry is barking at.”

Alexia handed him the rifle as soon as he wriggled out from under the car. The dog was still barking and this time sounded like he meant it.

He strode into the yard and the Brittany glanced at him once but continued his challenging bark toward the driveway. Immediately Reuben spied rapid movements just on the other side of the pickup. It was hard to hear over the canine’s commotion, but he thought he detected a low growl.

Dogs. Stray dogs. Hungry dogs that had banded together into a ravaging pack that would slaughter whole herds or flocks because the thrill of killing went beyond their need for sustenance. At the moment, with Reuben as his backup, Henry’s territorial instincts had kicked in and he’d given the four-legged marauders reason for a moment’s pause.

“Git!” English was good enough for this occasion. “Go on! Git outta here!”

He could have fired a warning shot in their direction, but ammunition was too precious. He wished this region of Louisiana was more plentiful in rocks.

Ferocious snarling and barking erupted from the other side of the pickup, and three large, bullish canines thundered through the gap at the front of the truck.

Henry must have decided his reinforcement wasn’t good enough. With a yelp that was probably his version of Reuben’s French, the Brittany turned tail to dash back behind the house.

He didn’t blame the bird dog. These three curs could have never been anybody’s cuddly pets. Probably they had once been “guard dogs” kept penned or chained at some macho ruffian’s house, encouraged to threaten dismemberment to any person who approached. Now they were loose and had the bold audacity to charge toward him with murderous intent.

Why did it always have to be three? With no other choice left, Reuben snapped the rifle to his shoulder and shot the lead dog in the center of its chest.

It seemed to stumble, and other two charged past it in their unnatural obsession to tear him to shreds. The rate at which they covered ground amazed him even as he fired the next round. The second cur staggered back at only a few yards away, and the third leaped as though it hoped to reach his throat.

He fired the third round and had to step aside as the beast’s momentum brought it crashing to the spot he’d been standing. Only gut shot, the monster immediately scrambled back to its feet as it spun toward him.

It was when he raised the rifle to fire again that he realized Alexia had come tearing around the corner of the house. He froze for fear she could come into the line of fire.

Tire iron grasped above her head, she charged toward the cur as it prepared to spring again.

“NO!”

She swung the steel rod, but it sliced empty air because the brute bowled over from the unseen force she’d hit it with first. The dog tumbled away from them, and for a split second looked too startled to know which direction to head.

Reuben wasn’t going to give it the chance to figure that out.

“Trade!” He thrust the rifle at her and snatched the iron.

The creature did spin toward him, but he clubbed steel against skull with an adrenaline-loaded swing. A second blow guaranteed the animal wouldn’t molest them again, and he strode to the middle cur that was still struggling to get to its feet. After delivering a coup de grace to it, he also put the first beast out of whatever misery it might be in. Then he turned back to Alexia.

She was sitting where he’d left her, the rifle carefully leaned upright against her shoulder as she slouched with her head down just above her knees.

“You all right?” He completely forgot about resuming in Cajun.

She looked up and nodded slightly. “Yeah. How about you?”

He kneeled beside her and set the bloodied iron on the ground. “Still walking upright. What you did was awfully dangerous.”

She smiled a little. “I did it, didn’t I? It was a productive outburst.” Her smile faded. “Only it was an accident again. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“You knocked him off his feet, so that was a very lucky accident. I’d better run in and tell your mom everything’s okay.” He suddenly remembered and switched back to Cajun. “Otherwise she’ll be out here to skin them so we can cook up something like Poochie Piquante.”

Her nose wrinkled and her reply transcended any language barrier. “Eeyew.”

“I have ancestors who ate dog, you know.” He smirked as he got to his feet. “They liked to dip their bread in canine gravy.”

“EEYEW.” Alexia almost glared at him as she also switched to Cajun. “If you keep talking like that, I’ll pass out just so I can stop listening to you.”

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