Chapter Eighteen
None of them went home. While everyone was there, Trey brought out his jerry-rigged suction pump to be tried out. It didn’t
work.
“I’ve got some parts at home,” Ben said, looking at the contraption. “I’ll be right back.”
He returned in about forty-five minutes with the required bits and pieces, and the dog, which jumped out of the truck to a
chorus of “Good-looking dog” from the hunters in the group, and “Oh! A dog!” from Olivia, who sat down on the concrete curb
around the pumps and entertained the energetic animal with lots of petting and ear scratches.
“Where’d you get him?” Trey asked Ben. In some dim recess of memory, Sela recalled that Trey used hunting dogs.
“He wandered up several weeks ago, hungry and lost. I thought I’d give him to the Livingstons, so they won’t be scared about
staying by themselves after what happened yesterday.”
Yesterday? Had it just been yesterday that Jim had shot the home invader? She looked at the dog and fought against a surprising
welling of tears. Ben had stubbornly not named the dog, but she’d seen him with it and knew he’d become reluctantly attached
to it. For him to give it to the Livingstons said something about him, because instinct told her he was a man who had lost
too much to easily give up now what was his. Giving away the dog would cost him, emotionally, though she thought he’d rather
eat ground glass than let people know.
He gave her a quick glance, as if keeping track of her location, then he and Trey began working on the suction pump. She knew
nothing about mechanics and probably the best thing for her to do was stay out of the way. If she was less tired she’d have
gotten the broom and started sweeping all the broken glass out of the store, but when the flood of adrenaline had drained
away it left her feeling almost comatose. Olivia had to be feeling the same way. Sela sat down beside her and played with
the dog for a while, then worked up the energy to offer, “Do you want me to take you home?”
“Not yet,” Olivia replied, after giving it some thought. “I’d rather wait until you can go in with me.”
Sela softly laughed. “Coward. I understand completely.”
After what seemed like a couple of hours of tinkering, Ben asked her to move her Honda away from the tank access ports. The
request made her realize she hadn’t once checked to see if the Honda was damaged, but then she’d been sitting beside Olivia
in something of a stupor. Getting up, she trudged over to her vehicle.
Amazingly, it seemed to be okay. She started the engine and pulled forward without closing the door, stopping when Ben barked,
“Right there,” though she’d moved no more than ten feet.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, leaning out to look at him.
“It’s your gas. You get first go.”
She’d had pretty much the same thought but was so tired she’d forgotten about it. Then she looked at her gas gauge and shook
her head. “I filled up right before the CME, and I still have a full tank.” She had started the SUV a few times to keep the
battery charged and the fluids moving, but until she’d driven it up Cove Mountain the day before to see Ben, it hadn’t been
moved at all in about two months. Not only that, she still had the small tank of untapped hundred percent gasoline to fall
back on, but she’d save that news for later.
“All right.” He waved her on, and she pulled forward out of the way. As it happened, almost everyone there had also filled
up beforehand, but had brought five-gallon cans to get extra. Ben and Trey opened the access to the largest tank and in short
order had gasoline flowing. Mike wrote down who got how much, for Sela’s records.
Generators would be running tonight, she thought, glad for everyone in the valley. Those who had their own wells would have
running water, and be taking hot showers—and likely letting their neighbors who were on a water system and thus had no water,
because there was no power to pump it from the reservoir tanks, use their showers, in exchange for whatever they had to barter.
She thought about making sure portable generators were taken around to warm the houses of those who didn’t have fireplaces,
which reminded her of the possibility of making braziers. There was so much to remember, and she was so tired . . .
“Someone’s coming,” Olivia said, rousing to look down the road. Her voice sounded half-drugged. She had been half-asleep,
too, leaning against Sela’s shoulder.
“A whole bunch of someones are coming,” Sela observed. The headlights Olivia had seen were closest, but others had had the
same idea and a steady stream of headlights was snaking toward them. Others were arriving on foot, plastic gas cans in hand.
So much for waiting until about nine. On the other hand, with everything that had been going on, no one was getting any sleep
so they might as well start pumping gas.
Ted Parsons and a couple of other members of the community patrol were the first few drivers to arrive. Ted got out of his
car and stood looking around, his mouth open in astonishment. To save fuel everyone had turned off their vehicles, but there
were plenty of spotlights and flashlights at hand and the scene was lit well enough to see that something had happened. Ted
had his own flashlight, and he shined it at the large open spaces of the store, where the windows had been.
“What the hell? What’s going on?”
“Someone tried to steal the gas,” Mike told him. “Sela and Olivia were standing guard and kept it from happening, but the
store took some damage.”
Ted turned to look at Sela and Olivia, sitting huddled by the gas pumps. “When did this happen?”
“Just guessing, but four, maybe five hours ago. What time is it now?”
Ted didn’t reply. He shook his head, looked around, looked back at Sela and Olivia. He opened his mouth a couple of times,
shut it, then turned to Mike. “Why are all of you here? How did you find out it happened?”
“I heard the shots,” Mike said.
“So did I,” Trey added.
“What woke me was someone driving by my house,” Harley Johnson said. “That’s a sound you don’t hear very often now. I got
up and went outside to listen, and was about to go back to bed when I heard the shots. I threw on some clothes and hightailed
it in this direction.”
Watching from her safe distance, Sela could see Ted’s jaw clench. She imagined he was turning red, though that was impossible
to tell in the beams of flashlights.
“Do you people not want me in the patrol?” he bellowed. “This is the second time no one has come to notify me when something important is going on!”
“You live kind of out of the way,” Mike pointed out, though it was obvious he was struggling to be reasonable. “And I didn’t
know what was going on until I got here. We don’t have phones, remember, and everyone who is here is someone who heard the gunfire and came to check. No one notified anyone, we didn’t single you out. Besides, by the time we got here, it was
all over and whoever was trying to steal the gas had left.”
“But you’re still here, keeping watch. Someone could have come to my house.”
“That’s true, though we aren’t exactly keeping watch.” Mike sighed, and glanced toward Sela in an obvious plea for reinforcements.
She sighed, too, and got to her feet. She was the acting community leader, so she had to act. She went over to them. “While
everyone was here—”
“Everyone wasn’t here, is my point!” Ted barked.
“It’s a figure of speech.” She paused and reached for patience, which wasn’t as accessible as it usually was. “While we were
here, Trey decided to see if the suction pump would work. It didn’t. Ben went back to his house to get some parts, came back,
and they got it working.” Hoping he could be redirected, she said, “Why don’t you pull your car up to the tank and get some
gas now, there’s no point in waiting.”
He paused, and for a few seconds she hoped the redirection had worked. Then he looked around and said, “What about everyone
else? I’m not the first in line.”
“Almost everyone here already had a full tank, me included.”
“Almost?”
“A few have topped off their tanks, and filled some fuel cans.”
She might as well have said they’d handed out hundred-dollar bills, and all he was going to get was a couple of ones. “Thanks
for waiting for me,” he said sarcastically.
“Ted. We’ve pumped out a small fraction of what’s in the tanks. The community patrol gets it first. You’re in the community
patrol. Some members were ahead of you, some will get gasoline after you.” She could hear her voice getting tight, her words
clipped, but damn this had been a tough night, a tough two nights with a stressful day sandwiched between them, and normally she didn’t even think this way but stroking his ego was
way down on her list of things to give a shit about.
“Only because I set my alarm,” he said, still seething at the perceived disrespect. “Otherwise I’m sure you’d be glad to see
me sitting at the end of the line and hoping you run out of gas before my turn.”
“Don’t judge everyone by yourself.”
“Who are you to tell me how to think? I know how I’ve been treated by the people here, all of you have made it plain I’m not
welcome.”
“That isn’t true. Your help is welcome.”
“Of course it is.” The sarcasm was back, heavier than before. “That’s why you insist on trying to do this job even though
you’re clearly in over your head, even when it’s obvious anyone else here could do it better. A smart person would have set up a way to contact people, a smart person would have asked for advice and listened—”
Over Ted’s shoulder, Sela saw Ben’s head turn at the raised voices, saw his eyes narrow. In almost the same instant he had
assessed the situation and was coming toward them, his gaze focused on Ted, his chin lowered and every line of his body saying
that he was about to kick ass.
Her own chin lifted. She might have needed help when a bunch of people were shooting at her, but she didn’t need help handling
Ted Parsons. Once again, she’d had enough. A faint red mist was forming in her vision, and she found herself visualizing punching