August 4, 2010
It takes two days for Hershel to declare Otis fit for travel, and Shane is amazed at the resilience of the human body. With the rough shape the farmhand was in when they arrived, he honestly thought the man would be bedridden longer. But since that's apparently a bad thing in keeping lungs clear of infection, it's time they moved on.
Hershel didn't initially want to leave the farm, but when Patricia jutted out that chin of hers and told him he was a damn fool going to be keeping his own company, he caved. Shane can admire the man being reluctant to leave the cattle to their own devices. Today is the first of several trips that will deposit the cattle on a peninsula far enough away from the one they're settled on to not attract undue attention.
The chickens and horses get to go home to his people though, and he thinks it'll cheer up the two Greene sisters as much as having their father safe from his delusions. Annette and Shawn Greene are laid to rest on the farm, along with the various neighbors in the barn.
As they pull off the farm, everyone towing that can run a livestock trailer, Shane watches Hershel take a moment before putting the Suburban in gear to follow. The older man still looks haggard, as if he's the one that survived the near-death experience and not Otis. That's what falling off the wagon that hard can do, he knows, but he hopes it doesn't upset the man's daughters.
When they reach the camp peninsula, only two vehicles make the turn to go south. The rest keep curving north and then back east. Daryl took a team up and put in one hell of a fence line for a day's work yesterday. They'll reinforce it even more later, but honestly, Shane can't see walkers getting to the cattle without help.
The nature of the river and lake should help hide the herd as well. It's the best they can do without firm walls, and their group is too small to build stockades for resource heavy livestock like cattle.
"They'll be okay without a real barn for a while, right?" Rick asks Hershel, watching as the cows from his livestock trailer venture out to explore their new home. Shane's best friend looks a little wide-eyed, since this was his first time hauling live animals. Damned cows don't stay put like a normal load, weight wise.
"With all the wooded areas, they'll be just fine. They're used to being outdoors during the summer anyway. We'll just need to make sure they have something by winter in case we get ice or snow. Since this isn't pasture land, we might need to find and haul hay from fields or farms."
"Can we convert some of the wooded areas to pasture?" Shane doesn't know much about what is needed to grow hay or whatever else pastures are seeded with to feed livestock.
"It would be advisable. Maybe some of the interior of the peninsula, just to leave the trees as sound breaks and to keep them from being seen." The veterinarian sighs. "Eventually, it might be worthwhile to have some folks living on this peninsula as well."
"Not until we know more about how things are going to cycle down," Shane cautions, remembering the bandit group too well for his own peace of mind. Their group is still too small to consider splitting them up, but maybe if they find more survivors. Surely they can't be the only ones left in the world.
Herschel doesn't argue with that, and they've got enough daylight for more trips. With each trailer hauling less than ten cows per trip, it's not a fast process. He hates burning through the gasoline, but reminds himself it's just going to spoil eventually anyway. Might as well use it for future planning, like relocating a herd of cattle.
By the time dusk is starting to fall, half of Hershel's cattle are safely enjoying their new home, with a vast area to roam and explore. There's not room to park all the livestock trailers inside their own secure fence, so those are left in the wooded area north of the gate. Eventually, they'll fence that in too, but they aren't dying for the space just yet.
Beth and Hershel have a teary reunion, but he and Maggie are a little brusque with each other. Shane gets the feeling that Hershel still doesn't quite understand how to cope with Maggie's recovery. With Quinn busy after supper and all the kids playing some board game in the dining hall, he's the only one that notices Maggie slipping away. Snagging a couple of beers, he follows. She can always tell him to piss off if she's not wanting company.
He finds her slumped in a rickety old lawnchair down by the kayak and canoe storage. It's on the opposite side of the peninsula from the swimming beach, a smart design to keep the two activities from entangling dangerously. Making enough noise she can't miss his approach, he taps her shoulder with the cold bottle.
"Wasn't sure what you aimed for, but these aren't half bad," he says. It's not a national brand, but some semi-local brew out of Atlanta. He's seen Maggie with beer in a glass before, so he knows she's not a teetotaler due to her father's alcoholism.
She takes the bottle and eyes it for a minute before twisting the top off and taking a drink. "Not too bad. How long until you think Merle and T-Dog team up to figure out a brewery here?"
Shane laughs as he snags a plastic bucket and turns it into a seat. "Probably not long. Might have to shift away from beer to something else, depending on supplies."
"I sense vodka in our future." She peels at the label as the bottle starts to form condensation in the August humidity. "The ones who came back said Daddy was drinking again."
"Yeah, he was." Shane isn't going to lie to Maggie. He's always thought hiding an addiction from the rest of the family does everyone a disservice. "But I suspect the shame of not helping Otis right away may keep him sober another few decades."
When she doesn't speak again, just sips at the beer, he does the same, looking out over water they can't really see much of being on the eastern side of the peninsula now. He can hear the waves lapping at the shoreline, though, and thinks that once the cattle drive is done, he's going to take one of those canoes out to explore.
"Ever gone canoeing?" Shane queries when he finishes his beer. With her broken collarbone only two weeks into healing, she probably shouldn't go yet.
Maggie shakes her head. "No. It just wasn't the type of family activity we did, going camping or boating. Had some friends at college that liked to hit up the lakes or rivers, but I was usually working to help pay my way for college itself. Vacations seemed frivolous."
Every time someone tells him something like that, Shane's glad that playing football gave him freedom from a lot of the tribulations the average scholarship student went through. He did work, because no college kid wants to not have spending money. But meals and housing were never part of his concern. "Never did hear what you majored in." He chuckles softly. "Hell, I don't even know exactly how old you are."
"I turned twenty-three in June. I just finished my first year of veterinary school when the virus started spreading. That was the plan for me, taking over Daddy's veterinary practice after a few years of working together. Shawn wasn't cut out for college and Bethie? She's been in love with music since she was old enough to know what it was."
"Doesn't much sound like being a vet was what you wanted to be." Maybe that's the advantage of no pressure from family for Shane. He could have taken his degree in philosophy, and no one really would have paid attention. Technically, he didn't even need his degree for being a deputy, but there was always the nebulous thought that one day Rick would get bored with being on patrol and they would both move up the ranks.
"It wasn't, not really. Not like you hear kids declaring in high school of what they're going to be. It was just an assumption that I would, since the others wouldn't."
"What else did you consider?"
"Nothing seriously, although it was always fun to screw with those aptitude tests to make it cough up a different answer every time. Think it worried my stepmother to no end when I left the one recommending I enter politics on the kitchen table." There's enough moonlight now that he can see it when she smiles over at him. "What about you? Something sports or criminal justice?"
Shane snorts, peeling the label off his bottle. "That's what everybody guesses. I have myself a nice four-year degree in communications."
"So I'm guessing being a cop wasn't your career goal in college, either, then."
"Nah. Had a vague idea of working in Atlanta in television or something. Even did an internship at the PBS station one summer for a few weeks. But then Rick decided he wanted to be a deputy, and I figured what the hell. Sounded like a good enough job."
"He strikes me as the type who had the toy badge and sheriff's hat as a kid."
"Cowboy hat actually. Had these damned red leather cowboy boots that I think he tried to destroy all picture evidence of." Shane grins, remembering just how many copies of those photos Rick's mother had. "Rick's love was history for a long time. He was thinking of being a teacher."
Whether or not Rick's career change was due to deputy pay being better than teacher pay, plus getting to miss out on paying for graduate school, Shane isn't entirely sure. He does know that Carl changed everybody's lives and tied them back to King County.
"I guess both of those degrees aren't really all that bad for deputies. Better than scraping through high school like some."
Considering deputies like Leon, Shane has to agree a little bit there. He's met plenty of cops that didn't have college under their belt, but the extra years to blow off steam and mature definitely helps. The ones that really excelled with just high school were usually the military vets. Years in the service tended to drag you to maturity even better than college did.
"Not much use for them here, not like yours or Quinn's."
Maggie doesn't argue, but she does ease herself to her feet. "I best go see if Daddy's lured Beth out of the bunkhouse yet. I think it's better that she stay with kids her own age, but he'll probably be fussy that there are boys in the bunkhouse."
Part of Shane can understand that concern, but the other part is thinking that Jimmy or Jesse would be a special sort of stupid to try to romance Beth in a communal room shared by so many people. That's ignoring that Shane and Quinn are all but sleeping in the same room. He tucks the bucket and lawn chair back out of the way and gathers up their bottles.
"You think your daddy will be okay if Jimmy sticks with Quinn's kids?" he asks her as they follow the small path up between the buildings back to the loop road.
"Honestly, I don't think he wants responsibility for Jimmy at all, but he couldn't not look after him after his foster parents disappeared. Plus he will turn eighteen in April. Why?"
Shane knows the teenager's foster parents never returned from a trip to retrieve an elder family member from her retirement community in Florida. The longer he's around the kid, the more Shane hates that he doesn't seem to belong to anyone. "I think it's good for him to have a family that isn't contingent on him dating a specific person."
"Oh." Maggie pauses at the path up to the dining hall, still well lit and populated. "Makes sense in how they've been behaving around each other."
He is glad Maggie noticed it too, that the teens seem completely disinterested in each other, but officially aren't broken up. Even with Hershel temporarily out of the picture, Jimmy seems to think his acceptance in the community here is linked to Beth and Maggie.
"That's sweet of you, you know, to make sure he settles in better."
That just gets her a shrug. It isn't anything special to make sure a kid who already had the odds stacked against him gets a little extra reassurance. "I'll talk to Quinn about it, but even if she feels like she's at her kid limit, he's old enough to mostly just know he's got a guaranteed someone in his corner."
Shane can manage that, easy enough. While he's old enough to be the teen's father due to the eighteen year age difference, Jimmy's probably going to be far more accepting of a big brother role. It was the one thing he appreciated about Rick's parents, that they never tried to replace Shane's mother. He seriously doubts Quinn won't step up, too. She's practically adopted Glenn, and the kid's in his twenties.
As they approach the doors into the dining hall, Maggie drops a hand on his forearm and smiles. "You still owe me that story about why you're hiding behind Quinn, you know."
Laughing, Shane promises they'll try it tomorrow. "Still plenty of beer stashed away."
The brunette lets him go and opens the door, her smile widening. "It best be a good one after all this wait."
There's no missing the undertone of flirting that just slipped into her tone, but she's gone before he can really analyze it. It's possible she sees him as safe to venture out of her shell after the attack, considering his closeness to Quinn despite his admission they aren't a couple. Shane is fairly certain the checkered history of him and Lori will probably kill any interest the young woman might be forming. Maybe he should nudge Glenn her way, to see if they have anything in common.
It would be far more likely than encouraging any interest in himself. It's not a huge age gap, but damn, the years between twenty-three and thirty-five seem like decades in how he feels nowadays. Maggie definitely deserves someone far less jaded and with a less misspent youth behind him.