Chapter 31
“Yep, you’re right.”
“I am?” I asked, surprised that Mitch had sorta agreed with my tantrum.
“Yep. People are stupid and crazy. Guess there was a reason we brought the long, livestock trailer.”
“Yeah, in case we rain into livestock,” I told him deadpan. “Galvanized trash cans full of stuff do not qualify as livestock.”
“Sure they do Sweetheart. Over there is powered milk. If I’m believing the label on the one I stubbed my toe on is full of freeze-dried steaks. And a couple of them are labeled freeze dried ground beef. That’s a herd of cows right there. Now this one is full of powdered eggs and that one is freeze-dried chicken meat. There’s us a flock of …”
“Ha … Ha,” I said right before sticking my tongue out and making Mitch laugh. “So tell me just what I’m supposed to make of those cases of canned ostrich and emu meat, canned snails, canned golden berries from South America, and canned pork brains. And I’m not sure I even want to know what canned spotted dick is. I mean seriously?!!”
Mitch is snickering and trying to answer me but can’t get nothing to come out.
“And on the other side of the grocery aisle there is semi-normal stuff like canned hams, canned spam, canned cheese, canned butter, canned bacon, and canned brown bread next to the weird-o vegetables like canned mushy peas, canned candied chestnuts, canned artichoke bottoms, and I don’t even want to know what black garlic and canned jackfruit is.”
Mitch is starting to hold his stomach at this point.
“Now I can understand all the canned seafood ‘cause most of it is normal food though someone did love them some sardines, pate’, and caviar … and even if I just barely know what a conch and an abalone is I still kinda understand it. But what rancid brained individual thought canned chocolate covered silkworms belonged this side of hell’s gate?! And to make it worse there are canned chocolate covered scorpions in that same crate! You know, rich people aren’t just crazy, some of them appear to be as crazy as a peach orchard boar drunk on sour mash!”
Mitch is near howling by this time and all I can do is stomp over to a folding ramp that had been installed where the old coal chute had been and start pulling it down.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa there Nann. Have a snit but don’t re-injure that arm. Let me get it.” He’s snorting and coughing around the laughter he is trying to get control of but also trying to move me so he can pull the ramp down instead of me.
I told him, “We are not bringing them canned bugs. I don’t care if they are dipped in chocolate and me with PMS from the devil’s smelly armpit. I don’t care if we are close to starving. I ain’t havin’ ‘em in the house.”
“What about all them Hershey bars I spotted?”
That stopped me. “Welllll, maybe they weren’t completely useless individuals but even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
He chuckles. “And the canned peanuts, canned hominy, canned bamboo shoots and water chestnuts?”
“I’ll take them over the canned roasted eel. Yuck.”
He snickered before asking, “Think I could talk you in to making salmon croquettes out of one of those cans of salmon?”
“You don’t need to talk me into it. If you want it I’ll fix it. Um … you mind me trying out a recipe for street tacos I have using one of those cans of pork roast? I just have to remember how to make corn tortillas. It’s been a while.”
He starts snickering again. “What my Nann wants my Nann gets,” he finally manages between snorts.
“Well,” I told him my disgust finally winding down a few pegs. “Your Nann is pretty sure this ramp is a neat idea and she wants one too.”
“Great minds think alike. Let’s get the dolly and when I come up with the first load you can help me by taking measurements of it. If this one fits, we can come back tomorrow and get it assuming I can figure a way to detach it.”
“I’ve already looked. It’s just long pins in the hinges … like the ones on the old well house.”
He took a quick peek and agreed with my assessment except he added, “There’s a couple of springs here. I can get them off but reinstalling them is not going to be fun or easy. Let’s just focus on this stuff first. You want any of the furniture in the house?”
“Uh uh. I’ve already got enough to take care of, and what we have looks to be holding up better than the fancy stuff upstairs. Not to mention it would look really weird next to your farmhouse style.”
“Our farmhouse,” he told me making my head feel on fire and my brain cave in at how big an idea that was. “And if there is something you want to change, just say so.”
I shook my head and had to clear my throat before I could say anything. “I was serious about the stuff at home being better suited than the stuff here. If we want to change anything, we can start by looking in the attic. Grammy used to laugh and say the family had a couple more houses hid up there for just in case. I’ve looked a few times and she wasn’t really kidding. I was supposed to help her go through the stuff in there this summer.”
I stopped because my feelings had started getting sad. I may not have lived with Grammy and Uncle Hy full time, but I spent a good part of my life with them, and it was still hard to believe I would never see them again … at least not on this plain of existence. Mitch sensed what I was feeling and shared it, but he could be nearly as practical as Mom and got us back on track.
An hour later and I was starting to get tired. “How you holding up Sweetheart?”
I looked and though tempted to lie so I wouldn’t hold us up I stuck to the truth. “I’m sorry Mitch, I’m … I’m running out of steam.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.”
“But there were those other two places you wanted to stop.”
Mitch thought about it. “You up for driving the long way back to the farm? It’ll probably be a little easier on the trailer.”
I thought about it. “How much longer around?” I asked letting him know I really was losing steam.
“Only adds about 30 minutes of driving time. Depends on what, if anything we find.”
“You mind eating soup for supper?”
“Nann, I don’t expect you to cook tonight.”
“You sure? ‘Cause I could use a night off. Gonna need one after we get this stuff unloaded tonight.”
Mitch shook his head and wiped his face with a bandana. “We aren’t unloading this tonight. I say we back the trailer into the tractor barn, I’ll drive this van into the tool shed, we padlock them tonight, and we stay around the house tomorrow.”
“But … you … you aren’t leaving me tomorrow are you?”
“Nope. I want us to … er … take stock. This is a lot to try and find a place for and we need to …” He got a suddenly serious look on his face. “Nann we need to talk about security and how we’ve been doing things. I’ve let things slide because we haven’t seen anyone beyond PeeDee and those first two salvage … I mean those first two groups of Land Pirates. That was a while back. Now this bunch comes along and … it could have turned out a lot worse than it did. This bunch didn’t have any military training, but they still got the jump on us and they shouldn’t have. I felt something was off and didn’t act on my instincts. That’s gonna stop. Now. It has to. I know your aim is good but we need to talk a few things through and set a different way of doing things than you … er … might be comfortable with.”
Having already thought about it I said, “First, I need to stop talking so much until we’re sure the coast is clear. And second, you need to know I can shoot someone if I have to.”
“Sweetheart …”
“You don’t need to baby me Mitch. Me yakking like a song stuck on repeat is a bad habit that I’ve never had before and shouldn’t have now. I’ll work on it. Just don’t think something is off if I practice around the farm instead of having diarrhea of the mouth like I have been doing.”
“Nann, you don’t need to be so mean to yourself. Yeah, it’ll help if … er … look, you aren’t the only one that has gotten into bad habits but I’m the one that has the experience and should have led us down a different path. Let’s just … look, today was a shock to you and you are already getting tired. We’ll get into the details tomorrow. I’d take you straight home and let you rest if I could but we need to finish this out so we don’t have to do too many repeats on the roads and eat up fuel we have.”
“You lead, I’ll follow,” I told him.
He got a real warm look on his face and though I hadn’t meant it any other way than what was said, apparently that kind of thing makes a guy feel good. It’s a thing I’ve observed my entire life … Dad, Dale, the guys in the crew, etc and etc. Mitch isn’t any different except he respects me right back and gives me credit I used to only get from Dale and even with him I was always the little sister.
# # # # #
“Nann you shoulda let me pull those onions,” Mitch said as he replaced the bandage on my arm.
“You were busy and we are in this together. I won’t sit around while you do all the work.”
He gave me a look and shook his head and muttered, “Stubborn as all get out.” After he finished tying the new bandage off he said, “At least let me load those bags. Next time let me know what you are getting up to.”
“You were busy.”
“I wasn’t too busy. I coulda helped and it might have saved you the hurt.”
I knew what he was saying and nodded my understanding but added, “I know what’s important and seeing if you could get into that farm tank was important. I didn’t realize how many of the Egyptian walking onions there were. It was just hard to stop once I started pulling them up.”
“And that asparagus?”
“A lucky find. Mitch, I’m fine.”
“You woulda been if you had stopped after the asparagus but you went a bit more than you needed to when you pulled them beets.”
“Well … I was just surprised to see them. I thought you said no one lives here.”
“No one does, long as I can remember it has only been a hunting lodge. And you can tell the garden hasn’t been cultivated. Only thing the trailer has in it is mildew and no one has been around to walk down the grass since it started coming up from the look of things. Someone was here, I grant you that, but it is abandoned now.”
I looked around. “Just seems strange to have a garden … or a sorta garden … and nothing else. I mean except for the farm tank.”
“Ain’t much fuel in it but I siphoned off what I could. Gonna need to treat it and let it set though. Don’t know how old it is. But second wind or not, it is time I get you home. The animals need takin’ care of too.”
“I know the one before this was a bust, but this knocks all the places off your list right? I mean the ones for today?”
He looked at me and smiled gentle. “Yeah Nann, it does. You held up real good. But now let’s get you home. You agree?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I’m good with that.”