“I’m telling you, it’s not an issue. Look at these lakes.” Darla pointed at a spot on the Mississippi just north of my finger. “I’ll bet there’s a bunch of boat ramps there-we can ride right down onto the lakes and across the river, which
“Falling through the ice on a river is no joke.” Uncle Paul sounded concerned. “You can get swept downstream under the ice-”
“The Mississippi is frozen so solid you could drive a semi on it.” Darla said mildly. “I’d bet my farm on it.”
“We’re not talking about betting farms-we’re talking about betting your life-and Alex’s. This isn’t-”
“My farm was my life,” Darla said.
“Guys, take it easy,” I said. “We can go to the lock to cross.”
“That’s where you found the barge full of wheat last year?” Uncle Paul asked. “Stuck in the lock?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“We could sure use some wheat,” Uncle Paul said. “We’ve got to get some greenhouses going with something other than kale. A northern strain of wheat could work.”
“I thought you couldn’t plant just any old seeds,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me that’s why we can’t plant any of the corn we’ve been digging out of the ash and snow?”
“Corn hybridizes easily,” Darla said. “Everything I planted at my farm was a sterile hybrid, kind of like mules are. Wheat’s self-pollinating, so it’s really hard to hybridize. Well, you can but-”
“Um,” I had to interrupt Darla before she really got going. She’d babble on and on about hybro-pollinizing stuff until I got even more confused. “So what’s all that mean?”
“Corn won’t grow from seeds we dig up here. But if we get wheat kernels off that barge, they’ll probably sprout.”
“Yep,” Uncle Paul said. “I was hoping you could stop at the barge and pick up some wheat. It could make a big difference-we’re going to run out of stored corn, and we need some kind of grain.”
“That a-hole at the FEMA camp near Galena, Captain Jameson, said Black Lake had a contract to guard the barges,” Darla said. “Either the wheat’s all gone by now, or those barges will be crawling with idiots in camouflage. They’re not just going to let us ride up and help ourselves, you know.”
“The lock is pretty much on the way, though,” I said.
Uncle Paul fixed a stare on Darla. “Bringing back even a few pounds of wheat kernels would be a godsend if you can manage it. Might make the difference between surviving and starving if the winter weather doesn’t break. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t worth the risk.”
“We’ll take a look.” I glanced at Darla. “Okay?”
Her lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything, which I took as enthusiastic agreement. Right. So we spent some time mapping out a path to the lock that avoided Stockton and the FEMA camp near Galena.
“When do you plan to leave?” Uncle Paul asked.
“Tomorrow morning,” I said.
“You sure you’re up to it?” Darla took hold of my wrist. “Maybe we should wait and make sure your infection is under control.”
“An infected wound is no joke,” Uncle Paul said. “Kill you if you don’t take care of it.”
“No.” I pulled my wrist free. “I want to get moving.”
“How are you planning to break your parents out of the camp, anyway?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to wait.”
“Be nice to have a bolt cutter and hacksaw for the camp fence,” Darla said.
“Take them out of my shop,” Uncle Paul replied. “I’ll try to buy replacements in Warren.”
We spent the rest of the day helping to fortify the house. Uncle Paul, Aunt Caroline, and Anna worked on boarding up windows. Max slept most of the day-his head was healing okay, but the wound had left him weak. Darla, Rebecca, and I built and installed pairs of brackets on the inside of all three exterior doors. Then we cut heavy logs to fit into the brackets, barring the doors from the inside.
It felt a little futile to me. Ed had started out as a normal guy, a bookkeeper. Would we all wind up like him; slowly forgetting our humanity in the daily struggle to survive? And when the world filled with people like Ed- bandits, murderers, rapists, arsonists-what good would a few bars on the doors do?
Chapter 12
By bedtime I was exhausted and sore. Everyone else started to bed down on the living room floor, but Darla grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the stairs. “It’s freezing up there,” I complained.
“I’ll make sure you’re warm enough,” Darla whispered, grinning at me.
My resistance evaporated. I’m sure Uncle Paul and Aunt Caroline noticed us leaving, but they didn’t say anything. Before we’d started all sleeping in the same room for warmth in April, Darla and I had shared the guest room. At first my aunt and uncle had balked, but when they discovered we were sneaking out of our separate rooms every night anyway, they relented.
We got extra blankets and comforters out of the linen closet and heaped them on Max’s old bed. I took off my boots, coat, and coveralls. Even with three layers of shirts still on, I was freezing. I turned down the oil lamp to its lowest setting, and we dove under the covers, pulling them up over our heads.
Darla pushed her back up against me, spooning for warmth. I wrapped my right arm over her and cupped my hand over her left breast. She moved my hand down to her stomach and held it there-which sort of sucked-but holding hands was nice.
“I don’t know how to say this right.” Darla hesitated. “But you do realize that your parents might already be dead?”
I swallowed hard on the first reply that occurred to me: She was probably right.
She went on, “If they are dead, we’re taking a big risk going into Iowa looking for them. We could get killed or trapped in another FEMA camp for nothing.”
“Yeah.” I fell silent for a moment. “But I’ve gotta know for sure.”
“We might not be able to find out.”
“What, you don’t want to go? You volunteered-I didn’t ask you. It’s not like I’m dragging you.”
“That’s not it. You’re not going anywhere without me, doof.”
I squeezed my arm around her, hugging her tighter.
“All I was trying to say, trying to do, was to keep your expectations real. We might find them, sure. But they might be dead, or we might never even find out where they are or what happened to them.”
“Never finding out what happened to them-that might suck worse than finding out they’re dead.”
“Yeah, it might.” Darla let go of my hand and started stroking my arm, which seemed strange at first but was somehow comforting.
We lay together in silence. Talking about my parents hadn’t been particularly arousing, but now, with her hair brushing my face, her hands on my arms, and her body stretched out against mine, pressing into, well, everything, I started to get uncomfortably cramped. So I began softly nibbling on her neck.
Darla closed her eyes and sighed. I moved up to kiss her ear.
She laughed and pulled her head away. “You know that tickles.”
“Yeah, but you’re so cute when you giggle.”
“I do
“Whatever.” I bent back toward her neck, but Darla fended me off with a hand.
“You’ve got to quit giving away kale seeds like a pedophile with lollipops.”
“Huh?” I said. “Where’d that come from?”
“We need them to buy information-maybe to buy your parents’ freedom.”
“I know, but I’ve still got seventeen packets.”
“We didn’t need to give that bandit anything.”
“I didn’t exactly give him the seeds-I traded. For information. And look, if we repay brutality with more brutality, how does it end? We do something just a little bit worse every day, and soon enough we’re just like
