The Journey
There was stunned silence, until Sam asked, a little shakily, "What do you mean 'we can't come back'?"
"I mean you won't be able to return to the camps in Mexico," Jack answered. "You know the Mexican government closed its country's borders again. It can't make an exception, even for you, even though I work for the President. The camps simply can't support any more Americans.
"Now don't panic," he continued. "Once you cross over into America, you are free to go wherever you want. If you don't like farm living, you can quit any time. But I want to warn you, by that time you may not want to come to Houston."
"Why wouldn't we want to come to Houston later?" Judith asked.
"President Becker estimates at least 25 million Americans still survive in the Southern states, here in the camps in Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, and a few in the North. More and more of them are already pouring into Houston because the government will be there, and some of the city's infrastructure survives. It was far enough south that a lot of the housing still remains. It's now America's largest city. It was a big town before the Ice Age, but there probably won't be room for everyone, including you in a few months.
"So I'm asking all of you one last time--do you really want to do this?"
"Don't, Jack," Lucy said softly. "I agree with them. Houston won't be a pleasant place with so many people needing so much."
She walked over to her son put her arms around him. Lucy was blinking back tears. "I want to go with you," she said, her voice shaky.
"The hospital needs you," Sam croaked. "Please, Mom, don't make this any harder!"
"I lost you once! I thought I could cope with losing you again!"
That comment made Sam smile. "Good grief, you're not losing us! You know perfectly well where we will be. And believe it or not, we'll want to come visit you some time."
"I promise I'll take good care of him," Laura laughed to her mother-in-law.
"But what if...." Lucy started to ask.
"No more 'what if's," Sam said. "We'll figure out the answers. Remember, we were all supposed to be 'the brains' at one time!"
Back in March, Lucy had thought there was no good day in April to leave Nuevo Laredo. All of the dates had bad omens related to them: the Crucifixion, the Titanic sinking, President Lincoln being assassinated, the Columbine shootings, Apollo 13, and she didn't even want to think about the Murrah Building. It seemed like so many horrible things had happened in a two-week time span. Sam and J.D. decided for her: April 15. Income Tax Day didn't exist anymore, so why think that that date was ominous?
They spent April 13 and 14 packing. They were ready to leave at dawn on the 15th.
It was a large truck, and three sat in front--two Guardsmen, and Elsa, who would be slightly more comfortable up there. Most of the others sat uncomfortably in the back with all their supplies. A Jeep accompanied them, driven by a Guard and a Secret Service agent who were protecting Jack and Lucy. The Halls were squeezed in the back seat with some of Jack's equipment, including a short wave radio.
They planned to follow the old interstate system. At first, it was heavily traveled, with an assortment of traffic--military vehicles, cars that had managed to survive the long winter, a few horse- or -mule-drawn wagons, and people on foot. But as they got deeper into Texas, the number of people they saw lessened. They had to drive around hundreds of abandoned vehicles, a few with the remains of their passengers still inside.
Sam, Brian and Fred knew what kind of truck they wanted to "borrow"--a huge pickup. Laura secretly thought it was some kind of "guy thing" for the three of them to want such an enormous, noisy vehicle, but she did not argue with them. But such a truck was harder to locate than they had planned. Evidently others before them had had the same idea as Sam, figuring a heavy pickup truck would be better to maneuver in the abandoned countryside than a minivan or car.
They stopped for the night after riding for most of a very long day. They had come to what until a few years ago had been a hamlet; now it was a ghost town. Rather than sleep in the open, they went into two of the houses and slept on the couches or on the floor. It was Fred who went down into the basement of one of the houses and walked out through the lower level garage in the back, its driveway hidden from the street. In the driveway was their dream vehicle, a Ford 150 extended cab pickup truck, mired in two feet of frozen mud, only the tops of its tires showing. He opened the hood and smiled when he saw a Sears DieHard battery. Fred returned upstairs, went into the kitchen, and located a set of spare car keys hanging next to the long-useless telephone.
They awoke early the next morning. Not wanting to waste all their energy trying to get the vehicle on the street if it wouldn't start, one of the Guard drove the Jeep around back and hooked up the battery cables to jumpstart the truck. Meanwhile, Fred, Luther and Jack dug a hole in the mud to get the tailpipe exposed. Fortunately, the mud was still half-frozen, so it piled easily and didn't ooze back into the space they'd created.
Their audience clapped when, after a few minutes, the truck's engine started. Then Jack gave his classic "if looks could kill" glare to all of his watchers, announcing, "If you really want this thing you're gonna have to spend the day digging it out. All of you."
The task took much of the afternoon. The group absconded with as many shovels as they could find in the neighboring buildings. At first it was easy to move the mud, but it was frozen a few inches down and digging was much harder. They all had sore shoulders and backs by the end of the day. Fred was worried that the tires might be flat from sitting in one place for so long, but the mud slide had actually supported the truck a little and the tires were still semi-inflated.
It was just before dark that Fred got into what he now considered "his" truck and maneuvered it out of the driveway and onto the street. He had found a tire pump in the garage and inflated the tires the rest of the way. He slept in the cab that night, fearfully protective of his new toy.
Filled up with gasoline siphoned from other vehicles in the garages, and some small cupfuls of gas poured out of useless lawnmowers, the three vehicles continued on their journey the next day. Fred and Judith were in the front of the pickup, with a now-much-more-comfortable Elsa between them. Other items they had taken from the houses, including a baby cradle, numerous articles of clothing and a supply of lye soap, were piled in the rear.
The terrain changed the farther they drove north, gradually becoming more hilly. Sam had figured their troop would be alone, but off in the distance they often saw thin lines of smoke, indicating chimneys. One truck did pass them going south. Sam's three vehicles pulled over, as did the other driver's truck. The driver, a teenage boy, got out, his arms raised. He looked terrified. "You can have the truck if you want," he said, his voice shaking.
The others were shocked by this statement. "We don't want your truck!," Jack told him. "We're not gonna harm you."
The boy still looked wary, but he put his arms down.
"Are people stealing vehicles?" Jack's agent asked.
"Not really," was the answer. "You just scared me, that's all. I haven't seen a large group like you since, well, before...." the boy's voice trailed off.
"Are you alone?" Lucy asked gently.
"No, my family is alive. They..." He started to point, then seemed to think better of it, not wanting strangers to know where his parents lived.
Jack nodded. "All right, we'll be on our way. Have you been much further north? How are the roads?"
"They're clear!" The others could all hear the pride in his voice. "I spent last summer moving vehicles and debris off to the side of the roads. I want to do it again this year--I'm just seeing what needs to be done."
"You're doing this yourself?" Jack asked, surprised.
The boy nodded. "I got bored last year. My dad was trying to figure out last year how to run the ranch without a lot of supplies. My mom and older sisters and brother-in-law helped him, but I seemed to get in the way. So I decided to do this instead."
Jack came over and shook the adolescent's hand. "Well, we thank you, and the President thanks you." Jack asked the boy for his name and address, which he gave, a little reluctantly. The boy's family was surprised when, six months later, they received a thank-you note from the new White House, signed by President Becker.
It took five long bumpy uncomfortable days to reach Lawton. The town was occupied. They pulled up in front of a building downtown with a hand-painted sign in front of it that read "Lawton Communications Center." A woman, obviously a sheriff's deputy, came out to greet them. She invited them inside, and Jack was delighted with what he saw. The deputy told him that she and others in the town had been gathering up any type of radio equipment they could find. She pointed to what was obviously a deejay's booth, saying that the building had once been a local radio station, and one of the original station employees was in there now. Placed on tables throughout the room was an assortment of short wave radios, a ham radio, two police radios and even an ancient circa 1975 CB that had been removed from a car. All of them seemed to be working.
"We use these radios to communicate periodically with everyone in the vicinity," the deputy told Jack. "We've got them all because everyone seemed to have something different in their own homes. Someone even brought us a telegraph machine, but unfortunately none of us knows how to work it, much less use Morse code." The woman didn't realize that the Secret Service agent was taking notes on her information, which he thought he might need for future reference. The town of Lawtown was surprised when, a month afterward, a package came from Houston with complete instructions on sending telegrams.
J.D. decided it was time to speak up. This whole trip had been "his" idea, and they were going to what he thought of as "his" place, and yet Jack and Sam had been dominating every part of the journey. He identified himself as the great-nephew of Cornelius Jenkins. The officer didn't remember him, but the disc jockey did, and started giving directions to the farm.
The deejay had bad news, however. The roads in that direction were badly deteriorated, and one of the bridges over a stream had collapsed. The ice-cold water would be much too deep to cross drive through, and yet not frozen enough to walk over. They'd have to drive miles farther north to find a place to get over it.
But that was the least of their worries. The deejay also informed them that, during a bad thunderstorm the previous summer, lightning had caused fires in the area. They'd all seen smoke in the direction of Corny's, but no one could reach it. No one had gone to see since then if the house was even still standing.
Their shoulders sagging, their hopes beginning to lessen, they got back into their vehicles and drove off. J.D. didn't want to admit he might have sent them all on a useless journey.
Suppose nothing was left of the house or its outbuildings?
