Carol walks along the shore carrying a glass of pale yellow lemonade stirred together with water and powder from a cannister of Sunny Time they looted on one of their many supply runs. She admires the muscles of Daryl's arms as he works the handpump up and down to feed water from the lake through a filter into the trough that stands above a firepit for boiling. T-Dog devised the crude plumbing contraption, and Rick and Glenn helped him to dig the irrigation and build it. It makes "doing the water" more efficient. It's still a physically laborious job, with all of the pumping, but they can draw and treat as much water in half the time as before.
Even though it's now late November, whenever he does the water, Daryl sheds his outer shirt and wears only the white muscle shirt underneath, revealing his arms and much of his shoulders. He works up a sweat with the movements, and as Carol comes to a pause beside the water tough now, she observes the rippling of his muscles with the hint of a smile. He stops on the down swing of the pump, wipes an arm across his brow, and reaches for the glass in her hand. "Thanks," he murmurs just before he downs half of it with a thirsty glug.
"How did you know I was bringing it for you? Maybe I was bringing it to someone in the gardens."
"Cause you're here and the gardens are over there." He jerks his head to where Beth, Addison, and Carl are at work together. The first small fall harvest has already been plucked, and now they're planting garlic, carrots, onions, and peas. The rows will then be covered to overwinter, and they hope for more vegetables in early spring. "And 'cause ya always bring me lemonade when I do the water." He smiles into the glass and then drains the rest of it.
"I'll bring them a whole pitcher later." She takes back the empty glass he extends her, and he resumes pumping.
Carol's eyes are drawn to his arms again. He stops after a minute. "Admirin' the view?" He smirks.
She smiles. He's learning to tease her, too. Baby step by baby step, but he's learning. "I was just thinking what a great job T-Dog did with this contraption. We're lucky to have him."
Daryl steps back from the pump and looks out at the houseboat on the lake, where T-Dog and Rick are out fishing together, trying to store up before it gets too cold and the fish descend deeper in the lake. "Yeah. Guess he knows some shit."
Carol chuckles, because he sounds a little jealous of her compliment. "We all know some shit. It's why we're all still here."
"Well, not the kids."
"They're learning some shit, though," notes Carol. "And Beth already knew how to farm and care for animals." Not that they have any animals to care for, yet. Glenn, Jackson, and Maggie are out now, checking a working farm Maggie noticed advertised for school field trips just this week on a flyer in the rental office, to see if there's anything at all to salvage there. No one is optimistic they'll return with anything living, but perhaps they'll find some useful equipment there. "Addison and Jackson could already shoot. And Carl…" She laughs. "Well, Carl's learning."
"Wasn't counting Jackson with the kids," Daryl murmurs.
"You call him kid."
"Call Glenn kid, too, and he's a damn married man now."
Maggie and Glenn had a simple marriage ceremony onshore two weeks ago, with Hershel officiating. Lori keeps urging Maggie to slow down, since she's pregnant, too, but Maggie's not as inclined to be dependent. Lori spends her time these days "homeschooling" Carl (as if there were some other school to go to); pickling and jarring what's left of the fall vegetables; and hanging the camp's laundry to dry, folding it, and sorting it, but she doesn't do the grinding physical work of scrubbing it anymore.
"Well, I should go check my traps in the east forest," Carol tells him. "I laid a few yesterday afternoon." If there's something there, they'll eat fresh meat tonight, but if they're empty, they'll pull from storage. "Any ideas for dinner?" It's not one of their communal, on-shore dinner nights, so they'll be eating around the little table below deck.
"You're cooking. So whatever the hell you want."
"I'm cooking? Of course I'm cooking." She strolls away from him with the empty glass. "I'm always cooking!" she shouts over her shoulder.
"'Cause you're good at it!" he shouts back.
Carol smiles as she walks away. After she checks her traps, she'll practice her C-section skills some more, and tomorrow she'll do some laundry and jarring. The days are varied, though always full of work, but the nights are the same – watching the sunset side by side with Daryl, settling on the couch together, quiet talk and gentle teasing, a faint touch here and there. She's ready for him to make a move, but he hasn't, and she's begun to wonder if she's misread the lines between them, if this is all he really wants – a comfortable friendship.
[*]
Daryl and Jackson slip into the forest at sunrise and hike inward. The trees have grown largely barren as the once red and gold leaves wilt into a brown crunchy carpet on the ground. It's nosier to walk now, and easier to be spotted.
Daryl's been spending a lot more time with his son. He did it at first at Carol's urging, but now he's doing it for other reasons: he's started to enjoy the young man's company, and they need another hunter in this camp. Jackson has proven to be a quick learner. The kid is smart and takes well to instruction. He's learning the tracks faster than Daryl did, though Daryl learned them younger, well before he was twenty.
Jackson squats down now and brushes away some leaves. "Black bear." His voice grows excited. "Headed right for our pit!" He stands.
"Told you," Daryl murmurs.
"I know, it's just that guide book you gave me to study…it said black bear are confined to the southwest region of Alabama. I didn't think they could be this far northeast."
"Nature's changing. No more developers, and hardly any hunters to cull the numbers. But animals are migrating to get away from walker herds. Who knows what these woods'll look like in a year."
They follow the trail to the bear pit they dug last week and layered with branches and leaves to conceal it from sight. The leaves are disturbed and the branches snapped. "Oh yeah!" Jackson jogs forward and stops at the edge of the pit with a heavy sigh. "Fucking hell."
Jackson's picked up some colorful language around Daryl, though he says he claims he never swore in front of his own parents, and not even that often in front of his friends. He doesn't, Daryl has noticed, swear in front of Beth, Addison, Lori, Maggie, or Carol either. "It's a southern thing," Carol told Daryl when he mentioned it. "A gentlemen doesn't swear in front of a lady."
"That ain't a thing," Daryl insisted. "Who the fuck made that a thing?"
"Well clearly not you," she replied, and for a couple days after that, he tried not to swear around her. But he failed and gave up the futile attempt. It didn't help that she laughed whenever he'd pause halfway through a swear and switch to something less offensive.
Daryl comes to a standstill beside Jackson and peers down into the pit. There's a bear in there all right, but also four walkers that have tumbled down after it, snapped a leg or arm in the fall, and then crawled over to devour it. They're still feasting.
Jackson startles when the bear moans slightly and shifts its head despite its terribly shredded body. "Jesus!" He raises his rifle quickly, closes one eye, and shoots it straight in the head between the eyes, which go glassy with death. He sighs again. "How did it survive that long through that much…" He swallows and shakes his head. "If I ever get overrun, I hope it's quicker than that."
"Don't get overrun," Daryl murmurs, though he feels sickened, too. That poor bear. How long was it alive and in anguish? "Fuckers." He pulls the trigger of his bow, and a bolt thunks into the forehead of one of the walkers. The rest turn toward them. Two stand on one solid leg, dragging a broken leg behind, and hiss as they grasp the wall of the pit, crane their necks up, and thrash their jaws at the men above. Jackson fires two shots, and Daryl waits for the fourth walker to look up from his feast to send his bolt flying between its undead eyes.
"So…do we haul them all up now?" Jackson asks. "Reset the pit?"
"Nah. Too much trouble. Bears are gonna start hibernating in a week or two anyhow. Try again in the spring. Make us a new pit. We can leave this one open. If there's more walkers in these woods, they might go in after the carrion. Won't be able to get out." He looks around. "Ain't used to seeing four at once here. Hope they didn't break off from a bigger pack."
"Should we track them and see?"
Daryl nods. "Best we get some idea what's on our doorstep." They have fences on shore now, which protect against strays well enough, but those fences wouldn't withstand a heard.
They do track the walkers for about a mile, but fortunately see no sign of a larger group, and they take a break to eat and drink, sitting almost shoulder to shoulder leaned back against the broad trunk of a yellow poplar.
Daryl fishes in his backpack and hands Jackson a cloth bag of black walnuts. They collected them from around some trees back in early September, and then laid them all out and Daryl cracked the shells by driving over them with his motorcycle, back and forth, like he was vacuuming a carpet. They washed the shell of the nuts, and then lay them to dry for two weeks.
They also eat slices of dry apples Carol made using a dehydrator they found when they looted a Bed Bath and Beyond for kitchen supplies. "You read that book I gave you?" Jackson asks.
"Tried to. Think I like poetry better."
"Kierkegaard isn't the easiest to follow."
"Was just bored is all," Daryl says a little defensively. "Could follow."
"Well, he does say some poetic things, if you boil him down to a few pithy quotes. My favorite is – life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
"Hmm," Daryl murmurs. "Been trying not to look back. My life is better now."
"Not many people can say that." Jackson nibbles a nut and then asks. "Don't you miss the people you've lost?"
"Sure. Miss m'brother. But…There's people I've gained."
"Like Carol?"
Daryl nods. He glances briefly at Jackson. "And you."
"And Carol?" Jackson repeats.
"Yeah. And Rick and Glenn and all of 'em."
Jackson smiles. He has a dimple in his left cheek when he does. Daryl wonders where that came from. "T-Dog was asking me if anything is going on there. With you and Carol. He thought I'd know, since we've spent a lot of time in these woods together lately. I told him I couldn't really say." Jackson tries to catch his eyes as he hands Daryl the bag of walnuts.
Daryl snags the bag and tosses some pieces in his mouth.
"So, is there?" Jackson asks.
Daryl couldn't really say either. There was that kiss on the forehead a couple weeks ago, and a touch on the shoulder just this morning, and a few light brushes in between. And there was that night, last night, when she borrowed Rick's portable DVD player and put in a movie – some boring ass drama he fell asleep during – but he fell asleep with his arm outstretched on the back of the couch, and her head comfortably on his shoulder, her leaned against his side. He's not sure how they got in that position. It just kind of happened, inch by inch. But he doesn't know quite what to do to her, how to make a move on a woman he actually likes and respects. He's terrified that when he does, he'll be too clumsy, or too rough, or too disappointing, and what they have will all go to shit. "Ain't T-Dog's damn business."
"Well, I think he wants to know because he's thinking of asking her to dinner on his boat."
Daryl jerks his head toward Jackson. "What?"
"You know…cook a little dinner, light a couple candles…"
"Candles?"
"Put on some music. Maybe ask her to dance."
"Dance?"
"I think he doesn't want to risk stepping on your toes if there's something go on there, but if there's not…" Jackson shrugs. "I said if you wanted to make a move, you would have done it by now. I mean…you two have lived together since before I got here."
Daryl pulls the rope on the cloth bag of walnuts tight and tosses it at Jackson, who catches it. "You're okay with it, right?" Jackson asks. "T-Dog asking her out?"
Daryl swallows down the shards of nuts still in his mouth and feels one cut the inside of his throat. "Ain't my business," he mutters, but the nuts sit heavy in his stomach.