Darkness upon the Land
Chapter 17

Good God, did this have to happen to him twice in one day?

As Reuben obeyed and raised his hands he calmly stated, “I’ve got nothing left.”

“What about the horse?” Martin growled.

His heart began to pound again. “The horse is the only thing the first thieves didn’t take. Whaduya want her for?”

“How’d you get her?”

“She’s Liana’s, of course. I’m borrowing her for the day.”

“Borrowing, huh? How’d you get to Liana’s?”

It struck him how Martin had suddenly become very curious. “I walked down here from Baton Rouge with her daughter. Alexia.”

The manager seemed to glance at the person behind Reuben before locking his gaze on the young man’s face. “How’d you get past the guards?”

“What guards?”

That question seemed to anger him. “The guards posted on the north side of town that you would’ve run into if you’d actually come from Baton Rouge!”

“We veered off the road before we actually made it to town. In fact, we skirted around the whole thing because I didn’t want Alex – Alexia – to pick up anything contagious. She has health issues, you know.” He suspected this was one time he needed to sing like a canary before his other option became screaming like a little girl.

Martin frowned again, but there was more thought behind the expression this time. “How do you know Alexia?”

Those kinds of questions always made him nervous. “We were both at the Lapius Medical Research University.” As the man seemed to consider his answer, he continued. “I’ve been here before with Liana. The last time was seven weeks ago, and she asked when you were going to get in some infrared bulbs. You two joked about why pigs were the only livestock people ever wanted to see fly.”

He could almost see the gears turning behind Martin’s eyes, and then the older man nodded to the person behind Reuben. “He’s all right.”

As he felt the barrel withdraw from his back, he politely asked, “So I can put my hands down, now?”

“I recall you now.” The manager nodded, and his demeanor became more like how Reuben remembered the fellow. “Sorry to grill you like that, but like I said, the world’s turned upside down in the past week.”

The person that stepped to his side turned out to be a middle-aged woman with short, curly, auburn hair. “You can’t turn around without somebody wanting to take something, and they don’t care who they hurt in the process.”

Not only did her voice sound entirely different, he noticed the piece of white plastic pipe she held in her hands.

He pointed at it. “That’s what you had stuck in my back?”

She shrugged. “They took our guns.”

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying, you’ve got balls.”

“This is my wife Jackie.” Martin nodded toward the woman. “And you said you were Reuben, right?”

“Just Reuben. I’m usually not right.”

Martin actually grinned. “You talk like a married man!”

He glanced back toward Jackie. “Pleased to meet you. And who took your guns?”

“The lousy local police, that’s who.” She glowered. “These days there’s no difference between them and the ruffians they’re claiming to keep under control.”

“You mean like the two goons who held me up earlier?”

“What all did they take?” Martin asked.

“I’d brought some canned goods and dried meat I was hoping to swap for some grain. I also had a pistol.”

The man gritted his teeth as he nodded. “Food. Medicine. Arms. Anything people might need to survive, the city is confiscating on the grounds it’s for our own good. They’re moving at the pace of where trouble erupts. Right now most of the businesses, like the grocery store and the pharmacy and the pawn shop, are either cleaned out or under guard. They came out here on Saturday and took most of my veterinary medications because they claimed people would start realizing I had that stuff and would come out here to loot it. Well, I had a couple of guns out here with me, of course, and they took those too!”

“It’s so insulting when they do it.” Jackie frowned. “They claim that without due process to act upon, they can’t assume who’s lawful and who isn’t. So they just treat all of us like criminals and take everybody’s weapons, claiming that way Esperanza will be safer!”

“Due Process, huh? That’s two amendments down,” Reuben muttered.

“And would you believe there’s idiots in this town who think that’s a good idea?” Martin shook his head. “Some people have freely given up those belongings to the city. They actually believe it’s better for everybody in the long run if we all give our food and defense to city hall and let the authorities dole it out equally when people need it.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded. “It was William Pitt who said, ‘Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom, it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.’”

Jackie frowned. “You can obviously see what’s coming next. After the volunteers run out, the city will make it mandatory for everybody to give up their supplies. And since they know they’ll have a fight on their hands, you can’t help but worry what tactics they’ll use.”

“We’d leave this God-forsaken place if there were anywhere better to go.” Martin shook his head. “The guards won’t stop anybody from leaving. But who wants to become yet another refugee?”

“What’s the scoop on these guards?”

“They’re posted at the highway on the north side of town,” he replied. “People started turning up a couple of days after the power went out and began causing problems. They were basically from off the interstate. Patterson and those places told them to keep moving, all the hotels were full and they had nowhere to keep them. Some of them were just hoodlums who figured they’d get a jump on ransacking the smaller towns because they knew the larger ones would get picked clean first.”

He remembered Louise’s story about the riot at the grocery store. Left to itself, Esperanza might have been able to pull together more, but when the lights went out he did worry a little about the town’s proximity to the interstate and larger cities. It seemed as though his concern was founded.

“The guards would be a blessing if they weren’t part of the curse.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Keeping them supplied is one of the excuses city hall uses to justify seizing property. The problem is, we never had a large police force. In order to guard and patrol everything, the city recruited anybody they could deputize. Anybody. Do you know how many wannabes are out there who are nothing more than bullies?”

Martin nodded. “City Hall was filled with a bunch of good ol’ boys to begin with, and now that they have a real crisis they’ve overextended their authority.”

“Well, this is illuminating.” He glanced between the spouses. “It was worth the trip just to get to talk to you.”

“Sorry again about the rough treatment earlier,” Martin responded. “It’s just when I saw you come riding up on Liana’s horse, I figured you must have stolen it.”

Reuben analyzed the man’s remark for a couple of seconds before he asked, “How is it you can recognize Liana’s horse?”

“She came into town on it Friday, before things really started to go bad.” He thrust his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Otherwise they might have taken away the shotgun she had slung over her shoulder. Bought a couple of bags of feed, which was all she could load on that beast, and said she’d be back this week to finish stocking up for everything she had. I was holding back some goat ration and rabbit pellets just for her.”

“Well, I’ll be durned.” Reuben smirked. “That’s just the two things I was hoping to get from you.”

Martin looked a little puzzled. “She didn’t tell you?”

He sighed. “I’m afraid I don’t have good news. When Alexia and I got there yesterday, we found out Liana had been ... invaded. She was pretty badly injured, and part of what I was hoping to replace today was somebody to go out there and give her some proper medical attention.”

Jackie raised a hand to her mouth as she gasped, “Oh dear!”

“Blast it all,” Martin growled as he looked down at his boots. “I wish I could help you. I wish I could help her. But medical facilities are in the larger towns, and after gas got to be over ten dollars a gallon people didn’t want to live out here and commute to Patterson anymore. Blast it all.”

“Well, thank you anyway.” Reuben still felt hesitant about divulging much information concerning Liana even though he trusted these people. “In the meantime I’ll keep trying to hold things together for her. Can I just leave you with an I.O.U. for that grain I came to pick up?”

“Absolutely not.” An almost mischievous gleam entered Martin’s eyes as he looked back up. “She paid for it Friday. Go ahead and take it.”

“And when I have the opportunity to do business here again, what is it you all could use?”

He looked at Jackie before smirking at Reuben. “Food. Medicine. Arms.”

“Well, we can handle the food. Oh, and one other thing, they also took my bungee cords I was going to strap the bags down with. Have you anything here I could use?”

“I’m sure we’ve got some rope or twine.” Jackie smiled apologetically. “And by the way, I am sorry about sticking a PVC pipe into your back.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Reuben shrugged. “Actually, it’s kinda heartwarming to see you so ready to jump to Liana’s aid. And I’ve got a change of pants back at the house.”