Chapter 7

Sarah and Karen canceled the trip for more cows the next morning. They wanted to go back to our hole in the ground and gather up everything we'd already gathered up so we could move it to our new residence. It sounded like a good idea to me and we headed that way as soon as we were dressed and had eaten breakfast.

When we arrived I hooked the U-haul we had taken and backed it close to the door of the cellar. They said they'd do the packing and told me to go ahead and get James to fetch more cows.

"Aren't you worried about being here alone?"

"No. Remember, we've got most of the guns in here. We'll both load up a shotgun right off the bat. I doubt anyone will come straggling around and if they do we'll blow their asses to pieces unless they mind their manners," Sarah said.

"It made sense to me and I rustled my leaves toward James' house.

James and Gertie were inside the house and sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee when I made it. They invited me in for a few cups and I didn't mind if I did. James had an idea about where we should start, but getting it out of him required Gertie's help.

He thought we should move his cows over with the others first thing. He said his were more inclined to follow the pickup if he just stayed in the back and threw out a few range cubes along the way. He said it would be better to keep all the cows together since it would be easier to take care of them that way. He did intend to keep the milch cow at his place so he would be close enough to milk it and tend to it.

"Y'all can have all the milk, cream, and butter you want, but it'll just be easier to keep the cow close."

It made sense to me and we got started. James had a half used bag of range cubes and he put it into the back of my pickup. Opening the gate to his pen he crawled into the back of my pickup and then told me to head back to my place slowly. As soon as he had his stock's attention I did it, creeping along at first until he told me to speed up some.

Thirty minutes later we had the cows in among the others and James was back in the cab with me after putting a fresh sack of range cubes in the back. He gave me directions to another place down the road and when we pulled up we started yelling to see if we could hear anyone alive. We didn't. The house was completely blown down and we looked through it. We found a man, woman, and two younger boys in the remains, but they were all crushed from the falling debris.

James knew the place pretty well and he wanted to examine some of the equipment around it first. The barn was only about halfway blown down and I guessed it was because it was just north of a small hill. It was still intact enough for us to look around inside it and we found the equipment in good shape. There was a large tractor with a front-end loader attached. It had a bucket on it now, but it was apparent it could be changed easily. One nice feature was it ran on propane fuel.

"We may as well take this along with us, or come back and get it later," James said, and I agreed.

James found the gate to the large pasture and I drove the truck in with him in the back. It didn't take long to get the attention of the white-faced cows and soon they were running along behind us while James threw out little handfuls of range cubes along the way. We weren't quite the pied pipers, but we were doing an equally good job. Especially since it was obvious these cattle had been given nothing since the day our world mostly ended.

We had almost no trouble getting them up with the others and then James started the tractor and put out another roll of hay for the increased group. When he made it back into the cab he said I'd probably have to put out a roll nearly every day now. We headed back to the same place to get the tractor.

When we arrived James spied another piece of handy equipment leaning against a wall of the mostly demolished barn.

"If'n we take that post hole digger for the back of the tractor we can build pens easier and we could also build a hog pen. He's got quite a few hogs here and I knows where lots of other'ns is," he said.

"That damned thing looks heavy. Do you think you can put it in my pickup with the front end loader?" I asked him.

"I kin do better than that. He's got him a one-ton flatbed around here somewhere and it had four-wheel drive too. We could put the digger on the back of it and some of the other small stuff too. We might as well try to get his bush-hog on it too. It'll be handy if spring ever comes again," he said.

I started wondering if spring ever would come again when he said it. It had already snowed mostly full time since the shit fell down out of the sky and hit earth. It was more snow than I'd seen around her during my whole life put together.

Anyway, we looked around and found the truck James was talking about. We had to use the front-end loader to lift its fallen down shelter off it, but we got it out without much problem. I pulled it on down to the remains of the barn door after we got it started and James drove the tractor back inside the barn and used the front-end loader and a short length of chain to grab the digger and put it on the back of the truck.

It took a good bit more fucking around to lift the bush-hog with a rigged up chain sling, but we got that done too. I drove the flatbed and James drove the tractor and we headed out for the brick barn I was now calling home.

The flatbed had a lot better ride than my pickup and I was thinking about taking it over if James didn't want it. On second though it wouldn't be as handy to put things in the back as my pickup was. Maybe if I build a stake bed for it I could get more use out of it.