Confederation -- 17

Hazel

The Mother-effers were coming again. Hazel had been doing her best to avoid the soldiers for the last week. She'd been hiding in a dry, concrete culvert that went under the narrow, asphalt road a mile from the remains of her parent's farm. Hazel had been in shock for the first three days, but now her emotions were beginning to crystallize. Physical discomfort and hunger seemed to increase the effect, and now she was experiencing nothing but cold, hard anger.

Last Saturday had been bright and sunny. She'd been gathering eggs when her dad had come running around the barn shouting for her to hide. Soldiers were coming. There had been smoke from burning farms in the distance for the last twenty-four hours, and she and her parents had realized that something terrible was coming. Now it had arrived.

Last night, over supper, they'd argued. She had wanted to run, but her parents were adamant that they had to stay with the farm.

"Hattie, the animals need us. They won't be able to survive alone," her father reasoned, calling her by her nickname. "Besides, if it is His will that they come here and find us, then nothing we can do will change that."

She wished that her parents weren't so religious. Since society stopped years ago, their faith had only grown deeper and firmer. Now, they wouldn't leave, and she knew they'd take no steps to defend themselves. "Turn the other cheek," her father always said.

Her mother added, "The cows have to be milked twice a day; otherwise, they may get udder rot. We owe it to them to stay. They've supported us well in the past, and we need them, too."

They'd made it clear, though, that if armed men found them, she was to hide. Her father and mother looked at each other with worry in their eyes, and then her mother had said, "Hazel, you're too pretty to take any chances with invaders. They would probably kidnap you, and you might be seriously hurt."

Hazel knew what they were talking about. "You mean they'd rape me, don't you. You needn't think I'm totally ignorant. I'm nearly an adult," she fumed.

Her parents looked shocked. That had pretty much been the end of the discussion. Her mother went into the sitting room to read her Bible by candlelight, and her dad went out to the barn to repair something or other. Things were always breaking.

Two weeks ago, a refugee family had come by the farm. They were headed for the mountains, the distant mountains. They hadn't seen any soldiers, but they'd heard tales of atrocities, and that was enough to drive them toward safety.

Hazel had only dreamed about the mountains. She'd never seen more than a faint purple line against the western sky. Before the EMP blast, back when she was still a child, her parents had told her that they'd take a vacation to the front range, but it never happened. They never made enough money on their small farm since it was barely a subsistence-level enterprise. They always had enough to eat, but there was precious little left over for clothes, let alone luxuries like vacations or even birthday or Christmas presents.

She'd gone to school in the small town that was eighteen miles to the south, and that was just about the limit of her exposure to the outside world. That and reading. There hadn't been any school since the EMP burst, and she'd read and re-read every book in the house.

She had turned sixteen three months ago. In her heart, she had harbored dreams of a life that had more in it than gathering eggs.

At her dad's shout, she'd put the egg basket up against the side of the chicken coop and dashed off into the cornfield to the west of the house. There was a drainage ditch on the far side of the field, and she made her way to it. Once there, she scrambled down into the dry ditch and waited, hoping her parents would show up.

There was a rustling in the corn. Hazel peered over the edge of the ditch in trepidation, wondering if the soldiers had followed her or if it was her parents. Shortly, a black and tan muzzle came through the corn. It was Katie, their aged border collie.

She snapped her fingers, and the dog came over to the ditch, wagging her tail. It took some pulling and lifting on her part, but she got Katie down over the edge. The old dog was so stiff that she couldn't jump or scramble down easily.

It was hot, and there was only a slight breeze. They sat in the ditch, listening to the insects buzzing in the corn, waiting.

Suddenly, there were two shots, then three, and then, after a pause, a fourth echoed over the cornfield. Katie whimpered.

Hazel could hear men shouting off in the distance towards the farmhouse. She waited for a few minutes, wondering what to do. Her mind was abruptly made up for her when she saw a column of black smoke rising from across the field. Then she heard the squealing of their pig, Blackie. She'd named him in jest since he was a white-colored animal.

His squealing rose in terror and then abruptly faded into

a gurgling sound. She'd seen hogs butchered before, and this sounded like he'd just had his throat cut. She thought about creeping through the corn to see what was happening, but a sudden cold fear came over her, and she turned resolutely and followed the ditch down towards the culvert, taking care not to leave any footprints where the dust had blown up into thick, soft patches.

She took the dog into the culvert, and they huddled behind a bunch of dried weeds that blocked the narrow tube. She'd had to push her way past the weeds, forcing the dog ahead of her and checking carefully for snakes as they entered. Once inside, another blockage of debris and weeds provided shelter from the other end.

She carefully crawled back to the entrance and backed in, brushing out the signs of their entry with a piece of tumbleweed. Then she and Katie lay on the dry sand and kept quiet. After an hour or so, a group of men came down the road and walked over the culvert. She could hear them talking as they walked.

One said in a loud voice, "Pretty poor pickins at that last place, not even nothin' much worth stealing, stupid sumbitches."

He was answered by another who spoke more quietly, "Yeah, but we got some good bacon, and that woman wasn't too bad either. Too bad for her that she had to fight so much."

Loud-mouth came back with, "Did ya see that stupid farmer. Imagine him trying to fight us with a pitchfork."

Another added, "He looked pretty surprised with that hole through his head."

Hazel sniffled and tried to suppress a sob by biting her lip. Nevertheless, one of the men said, "Say, there was some smaller-sized dresses in the second bedroom. There might'a been a girl lived there. D'ya think we'd better look under the road here?"

She quivered in terror and held her hand on Katie's muzzle to suppress a possible snarl or bark. There was a scrambling sound as the men came off the roadway and bent down to peer into the culvert.

"Na, there's nothing in here but a bunch of weeds and crap," Loud-mouth shouted. "It's so plugged that ya can't see through. No tracks going in, either."

Hazel was glad that she'd taken the time to blur the signs of her passage, erasing their tracks. She quivered in an agony of fear that one of them would try to crawl in and discover her hide-out.

"Hey, Tim, get yer ass down here and look in this here hole," shouted Loud-mouth.

There was another scrambling sound, and someone said, "It's pretty plugged."

Loud-mouth said, "Why don't ya slide in there and see what's what?" He seemed to have only one volume setting for his voice. Hattie couldn't see him, but she imagined that he was fat and filthy.

Tim answered with a tone of disgust, "Whyn't you? It's too damned tight for a man to go in that hole. An 'sides, there might be a rattler or two in there. I ain't a goin' a do it."

Loud-mouth cursed, and Tim called him a 'Damned fool.' There was the sound of a little scuffle, and Loud-mouth grunted as if he'd been struck in the stomach, then said, "I'll get you for that someday, you sumbitch."

Tim replied, "Maybe, but I ain't waiting down here for it. I'm going to catch up with the rest of the guys."

There were some more scrambling noises as they crawled back up onto the road, and then all was quiet.

She remained still until dark when thirst drove her and the dog out and back to the farm.

It hadn't been a good day, and it became far worse when they reached the farmstead.