“Oh. Well, I can’t think of any reason why she wouldn’t be welcome back.”
“We’re still getting the occasional new resident,” John reminded Adam.
“That’s true,” Adam said thoughtfully. But he shook his head and said, “But that doesn’t matter. She’s been an asset. We can hold her place for up to two years. No telling how long it will take to travel there and back, things being what they are.”
“I’ll tell her,” John said. “She may not even want to go, as you said, things being what they are.”
John asked Belinda the next day if she wanted to go, making it clear that there would be no strings attached if she did, in light of the fact that they spent a lot of time together and several of the matchmakers on the Farm were trying to get them to become a couple.
“Oh, yes! I would like to go. My parents weren’t as prepared as Adam here, but I have to believe they might have made it. I would at least like to know, either way. I can’t stop thinking about them.”
“Okay, then. We’ll leave in a week. We’ll be taking a trailer, so you can bring anything you want. You might want to talk to Adam about your leaving.”
“Of course. I owe him and June so much. I just hope they’ll take me back if things don’t work out.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it,” John said, a slight smile on his face.
It took more than a week to get the travel permits in order. Colonel Andrews seemed as annoyed as John at the delays. The various jurisdictions along the route John wanted to take each had their own requirements for travel into, through, and out of their territory. Almost two weeks after John’s announcement that he was going on the trip and first requested the documents, Colonel Andrew’s aide contacted the Farm and let John know he could pick up the documents whenever he wanted.
Belinda was as ready as John to get started. Her duties had ended the first week of the wait, and she’d been at loose ends since. The truck and trailer had been packed and repacked. John and Belinda were more than ready when John got the word. They left the Farm a few minutes after Adam came down to John’s motorhome and told him.
They had to go into Tulsa to get the papers. There was an entire packet of them, divided in sections with paperclips. The Colonel’s aide gave John the papers and he and Belinda turned to leave, but the Lieutenant said, “The Colonel would like to see you before you go.”
“Of course,” John replied, maintaining his patient demeanor.
After the aide called the Colonel on the intercom, he showed the two into Colonel Andrews’ office.
“Have a seat,” Colonel Andrews. “I know you must be in something in a hurry to get going, considering the delays. I won’t take much of your time.” Despite his words, Colonel Andrews paused and didn’t say anything for several long moments.
Then the colonel opened a drawer of his desk and took out a large manila envelope. “I didn’t want you to think the travel papers were dependent on what I am about to ask you to do. That wouldn’t be right, and it wouldn’t be the truth.” Again he paused, still holding the envelope.
“I have a personal favor to ask,” he finally said.
“Of course, Colonel Andrews,” John replied.
“I have family near the route your taking. I was hoping you would deliver this to them.” The Colonel handed the envelope to John.
John was a bit surprised how heavy the envelope was. The Colonel saw the surprise in John’s eyes. “It’s best you know what is in it, I suppose,” he said. “It’s mostly just a few letters I’ve written to my family since the war. And there is some gold I’ve saved in there for them. I just have to trust you to deliver it intact, if you do agree to. The letters are more important to me than the gold, but if it is like everywhere else, they may be having a hard time and could use it.”
“It will all get there, if any of it does. I can’t guarantee it, since I can’t guarantee we’ll make it. It’s still a rough world out there.”
“I understand that. And I would like to make it worth your while trying. I have a bit more gold and some silver, but I have no idea what to offer you.”
“Post is important. I’ll know it is a real sign things are coming back when there is regular service. But it has to be practical. What would you say to a silver dime for delivery?”
Colonel Andrews looked incredulous. “Just a single dime? Are you kidding?”
John shook his head. “That is a high price to many people around here. I’m not out to gouge you.”
“Well… I don’t know what to say,” the Colonel said.
“That is in advance,” John said, smiling slightly, “success or failure.”
Colonel Andrews laughed. “Of course.” He opened a different desk drawer and took out a pre-1964 silver dime and handed it to John. It was so worn John couldn’t read the date or the mint mark, but that was all right. It was obviously a silver dime.
John and Belinda took their leave, and the trip was on.
Low Profile – Chapter 10
John had allowed plenty of time for the trip, despite how easy it should be. They would be traveling along I-44 all the way, with a couple of short side trips. Most of the travel would be in the various military jurisdictions, but the jurisdictions didn’t all meet edge to edge. There were still some areas without the benefit of military presence.
The reports were, including those passed along by the military, and others by Amateur Radio Operators, that these open zones could still be dangerous for travelers. Between that and the fact that travel restrictions were in place, there would not be many travelers on the road. John and Belinda would more or less be own their own, for much of the trip.
There weren’t going to be motels, restaurants, and filling stations open along the route. But John was confident he had enough fuel and supplies to make a round trip, with enough extra of everything for unforeseen events, and for trading along the way.
The first few miles of the trip east on I-44 from Tulsa weren’t too bad. There had been a lot of scavenging done by those survivors east and north of Tulsa. The Military had also done some salvage and clean up work up to thirty miles out from Tulsa.
John showed the sentries at the blockade at the furthest point of the Tulsa Military Administrative Zone his and Belinda’s travel documents. There was no problem with them passing.
After clearing the road block, on general principles, John stopped whenever he saw anything that might be useful, or hold something useful. There wasn’t much to be found. Only a few miles beyond the blockade, there were signs of intensive scavenging. John thought it was probably an organized group, probably from as far away as Joplin, Missouri. The Farm was in contact with an Amateur there. He had not said the city was sending teams out, but there were hints here and there of the fact.
John and Belinda fell into their standard travel routine of having a hot breakfast, cold lunch, and an early hot supper, after which they would travel a bit more before setting up camp out of sight of the Interstate. Each had their own tent and shared the privacy tents for the chemical toilet and the solar heated shower bag. Whenever they ran across a water supply, John stopped and they filled their water containers, using John’s Katadyn Expedition filter.
At each stop John got out his Brunton ADC Pro pocket weather instrument and checked current conditions. The new weather pattern, along with being cooler in general, was also highly unpredictable. Watching the clouds and tracking the winds and barometric pressure gave John enough information to have a decent idea of probable local short term conditions.
The colder climate meant drier summers, but did not mean no rain. Rain, when it came was usually in the form of a severe thunderstorm. During those, to conserve supplies, John and Belinda usually spent the daytime hours in John’s Mountain Hardwear Trango 3.1 tent. It was larger than the small Eureka two person tent John was providing Belinda.
Belinda had brought along a small library and read most of the time during those lulls. John read as well, though his reading material was on rewritable CD’s and DVD’s. He kept his lap top batteries charged using the twelve volt system of the truck. The AA and AAA batteries for other things were charged with Brunton Solarpak 4.4 solar panels with BattJack battery chargers. the few items requiring C or D batteries were supplied with battery adapters that took AA batteries.
The first three days of the trip were uneventful. They stopped in Vinita and Miami for a few minutes each. Both had roadblocks at their exits from I-44. The people weren’t aggressive, and would have let John and Belinda into their towns to do some trading if John and Belinda had been so inclined. Still having plenty of everything they needed, they passed on the opportunity and kept traveling each time.
The people manning the barricades at Vinita had good things to say about the people at Miami. They had cooperated on salvage operations until the Joplin people got involved. Those at Miami were equally appreciative of the Vinita residents. Neither had much good to say about Joplin. It hadn’t been so bad until the Military made it presence known in Joplin.
Joplin was one of the locations whose Military command was requiring special travel papers for anyone going out of or coming into, the Joplin area. There was a roadblock at the state line between Oklahoma and Missouri.
From the looks of things, the Bradley IFV parked behind the barricade wasn’t just for show. There were several vehicles along the edges of the road that showed the effects of the Bradley’s 25mm chain gun.
John approached slowly, so as not to give those manning the Bradley any reason to open fire. A sergeant stepped out from behind the blockade and approached the driver’s side of the pickup. Two other men in uniform had rifles sighted on the truck from the edges of the blockade opening.
“Papers?” asked the Sergeant after John lowered his window.
“We’re traveling through,” John said, handing the man the appropriate set of transit papers.
“We’ll be deciding that,” replied the Sergeant negligently, as he carefully studied the papers. After several agonizing minutes for John and Belinda, the Sergeant looked at John again and said, “These look to be in order. Were you aware of the fuel toll?”
“Fuel toll?” John asked. “No.”
“You either have to buy fuel or pay a tax on the fuel you have.”
“We’ll top off our tanks,” John said carefully. “How much is it?”
“Is that fuel in the drums in the trailer?” the Sergeant asked.
“Some,” John replied. “Water in some, too.”
“How much fuel do you have?”
“Four drums of fuel. One empty drum of fuel, two full drums of fresh water,” John replied, keeping his voice calm.
With a greedy smile on his face, the Sergeant then said, “Are you sure? If we find different, it all gets confiscated for attempted violation of martial law.”
“I’m sure. You’re free to check it.”
“We’d check it whether we were free to, or not,” replied the Sergeant. He went back to the trailer and stepped up on the running gear. He tapped each of the metal drums, and opened the two plastic ones.
“Well,” he said, coming up to the cab of the truck again. “Seems to be as you said. The tax is a silver dime a gallon. Four fifty-five gallon drums. Two-hundred twenty gallons. Two hundred twenty silver dimes.”
“We’ll just fill up the other drum. How much is diesel?” John asked, getting the answer he expected.
“Four dimes a gallon. Two-hundred twenty dimes, plus a dime a gallon tax. Two-hundred seventy-five silver dimes total.”
Looking eager then, the Sergeant asked, “You have gold?”
“Not much,” John immediately responded.
“Only cost you two ounces of gold.”
“I’ve only got one one-ounce Eagle and five tenth-ounce Eagles.”
“Add a roll of dimes and you’re out of here.”
Though the Sergeant didn’t notice, Belinda did, when John removed a gold one-ounce Eagle from one pocket of his shirt, the five tenth-ounce Eagles from the other pocket of his shirt, and the roll of dimes from the console of the truck.
John handed the Sergeant the precious metals. “Pull up past the Bradley. We’ll fill that drum.” When the drum was as full as it was going to get, the Sergeant said, “Stay on the Interstate. Do not go into Joplin. Understood?”
John nodded.
“The other side will be looking for you. You wind up late leaving, you could wind up dead.”
“We won’t be late,” John replied, still calm as he could be.
Belinda couldn’t believe his demeanor. He’d let them bribe him for passage past Joplin.
She couldn’t stand it any longer after they had passed through the blockade on the south-east side of Joplin. “I can’t believe you paid them a bribe!”
John smiled over at her. “I allowed for it. I have an agreement with the Colonel to report such actions to him when I get back. I’m supposed to get reimbursed.”
“Oh. I didn’t know,” replied Belinda, looking chagrinned.
“I probably would have paid it, even if I wasn’t going to get it back from the Colonel.”
Belinda was startled at the look that crossed John’s face momentarily. “I would be getting it back on my own, if not. With interest.”
“I understand,” Belinda said, feeling a shiver go down her back. John was serious.
Another day brought them near Springfield, Missouri. Like Tulsa, it had taken one of the small nukes. Also like Tulsa, it had a military presence, enforcing martial law. It was an honest command, like Tulsa, and unlike Joplin.
I-44 ran along the northern edge of Springfield. A five mile stretch of it was in the hot zone surrounding the crater. The sentries at the blockade on the west side of town gave them the option of going well around the hot zone, on side roads, or barreling through on the Interstate.
“How is the road?” John asked. “Still badly blocked?”
“You could probably make it in your rig,” the Lieutenant said. With a grimace he continued. “Too many people were out looting. They managed to clear a lane to get trucks and stuff through. Probably all died. Radiation in the hot spot is still 8r.”
John looked over at Belinda. “Could take us ten minutes or more through that zone, plus the time leading up to it when the radiation is also rising.”
“We shouldn’t pick up more than a 5 or 6r dose. I say we go the fast way,” Belinda said after a moment’s thought.
“Okay,” John replied to Belinda, and then asked the Lieutenant, “You’ll notify the blockade on the other side?”
The Lieutenant nodded.
John drove carefully, but at speed, as they passed Springfield. Belinda had been just a bit high on her calculations. They only picked up a total of 4r additional radiation on the trip around Springfield.
They stopped outside of Northview to camp that night. Another storm was brewing and they set up for at least a two day stay.
They wound up staying four days, as the weather set in and didn’t break. But break it finally did, and they set off again. For the first time on the road, John had Belinda drive for a while, as he was nursing a summer cold and was feeling lousy. Belinda had made a large pot of hot lemonade and filled one of John’s two-quart Stanley thermos’ so he could drink it on the way to help the congestion. In addition, John was sucking on peppermint candies to clear his sinuses and keep his throat moist.
As soon as he’d felt it coming on, two days before, he’d insisted on Belinda wearing a P-100 mask, and he did the same to prevent her from catching his illness. They continued to wear the masks, except when they were eating.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t just set up camp again, until you’re better,” Belinda asked John as they approached Conway, Missouri.
John shook his head. “We can camp there overnight, but I want to keep traveling.”
Though he was in the process of setting up his tent, Belinda left hers in its storage bag and helped John finish setting up his. As he stood helpless to counter her actions, she got his sleeping pad and sleeping bag arranged and ordered him to bed. He was too weak to resist.
Though they’d already stopped and eaten a hot meal of Mountain House rice and chicken, Belinda entered the tent and set up John’s MSR multi-fuel stove in the alcove to heat up water to make him more hot lemonade. He didn’t protest when Belinda insisted he take a dose of his stash of Nyquil to help him sleep after he’d downed another cup of the hot lemonade.
He was fast asleep when Belinda got her things and set them up on the other side of the tent from John. She wasn’t going to leave him alone as sick as he was. She went back out and set up the rest of the camp, including the perimeter alarms.
Belinda took off her boots, but kept most of her clothes on when she laid down on top of her sleeping bag as the light was fading. She fell asleep sometime during the night. John’s coughing woke her up the next morning. She helped him out to the privacy shelter for the chemical toilet, and then back to the tent. John was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and his back was clammy where she touched it to help him standup outside the tent.
“We’re not traveling today,” she said firmly, guiding him back to his tent. Much to her surprise, John was back in his sleeping bag when she went back in a few minutes later. She took her time preparing breakfast. She kept it simple. Oatmeal.
John ate listlessly, but he ate, knowing he needed to do so. He sat up, with the open sleeping bag around him, while he ate, and then drank half a cup of hot lemonade. He took another peppermint candy and lay back down.
When he didn’t fall asleep shortly, Belinda persuaded him to take another shot of Nyquil, since they weren’t going anywhere. He did so, grudgingly. When he was asleep, Belinda left the tent with her weapons and took another look around. They were in a good spot, and she wasn’t too worried, but she wasn’t going to take a chance.
Even she was getting antsy to change locations three days later when John insisted on it. He was past the worst of the cold, but still suffering some of the symptoms. Again Belinda drove. They didn’t go far. Just to Lebanon. On a whim, Belinda asked the sentry at the city’s blockade if the city happened to boast an open motel.
Very much to her surprise, the man said there was. Rather proudly, he added, “Got a restaurant, too. If you have precious metals, preferred, or something worthwhile to trade.”
Considering herself on a roll, Belinda then asked about diesel fuel.
“Big Mike MacDougal makes biodiesel on his farm. He’s selling it out of a tank truck at the old Chevron station.”
“Thank you,” Belinda said, thankful not only for what Lebanon had to offer, but that they were willing to offer it at all. It renewed her faith in people. Not everyone was like the military detachment at Joplin.
Belinda filled in John when she got back in the truck. He set his rifle aside and rested his head back on the headrest, his eyes closing. “I trust you. Wake me if you need me.” He took a leather bag from inside of the console and handed it to her. Belinda looked inside. It was gold and silver.
They still had plenty of fuel, but John had said he planned to pick up fuel he was sure would be good on the way if he could. He was leery of petroleum diesel this long after the war that might be salvaged from trucks. Unless it was treated with Pri-D, he didn’t want anything to do with it.
With that in mind, Belinda followed the directions the sentry had given to her to the Chevron station that was supposed to have the fuel. The sentry hadn’t lied. Big Mike himself transferred the biodiesel from his tank truck to the drums in the trailer after they had decided on a price of one one-ounce Gold Eagle for the fuel. Big Mike was happy with it. Belinda didn’t think it was unreasonable.
Next she found the motel. The restaurant was adjacent to it and operated by the same people. John was still asleep in the truck when Belinda entered the motel office. “Hi,” she said to the elderly woman sitting behind the check in counter. Belinda noted the shotgun leaning against the wall nearby.
The woman got up and stood behind the counter. Looking rather incredulous, the woman asked, “You traveling alone?”
Belinda shook her head. “No. He’s in the truck.”
“Oh. Good. It’s not safe for a woman alone out there. Looking for a room, I take it.”
Belinda nodded. “Depending on how much for the room and a couple of meals.”
“Of course we are the only game in town.” She smiled. “But I think we’re reasonable. What do you have to trade?”
“We have some diesel, some feminine products, liquor, and tobacco. Also some silver, if you prefer.”
The woman’s eyes lit up at the mention of the silver. “Meal is fifty cents silver, room five dollars in silver. Meal is mulligan stew, but the bathroom works and includes hot water for bath or shower. But the lights go out at ten.”
Belinda hesitated a moment, but decided the rates really weren’t unreasonable of travel accommodations nowadays. “Breakfast included?” Belinda asked.
This time the elderly woman hesitated. “I suppose. Be rice with honey and powdered milk.”
“Good enough,” Belinda replied. She turned away slightly as she opened the leather pouch. John kept his precious metals in plastic coin tubes. She counted out ten silver half dollars and four quarters. After a moment she took out two silver dimes as well.
Belinda handed the silver coins to the woman and said, “The extra is for breakfast. I wasn’t trying to put you on the spot.”
“Why… Thank you,” the woman said, gratefully. “Most try to knock the price down. We’re just barely making it as it is. Not many travelers. Mostly military. We did okay when they were here, but they sure cleaned us out. But we have diesel to keep the gen running for several weeks now.”
Belinda nodded and followed the woman out of the office. The woman had picked up the shotgun and carried it in one hand as she led Belinda to the nearest room. When Belinda saw the single king sized bed she paused. “Actually,” she said then, “We need two beds.”
“Oh. Okay,” came the reply. “Next room has twin queens.”
They moved to the next room down the line and the woman opened it with her pass key. “I’ll bring the room keys back in a few minutes,” she said, hurrying back to the office.
Copyright 2007
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