After The Virus (Book 2): Homesteading Read online

  While the young pig struggled to its trotters and squealed a detailed protest, I headed back for the yard. A few shots rang out from Angie’s 9mm, then dogs scattered to the four winds.

  Jackie and Angie stood between the stragglers of the coy-wolf's pack as our dogs ran them off. The alpha had already pulled its disappearing act, leaving a disappointed former Auburn student to help the injured from our pack.

  “I’ve got this,” Jackie called out and pointed. “He went that way.”

  Angie and I took off in the direction our friend indicated while Estelle hurried towards the barn to check on Tommy.

  Our boots crunched in the leaves as we rounded the house and raced side-by-side into the sparse woods. We dodged around trees and finally skidded to a halt. There was no sign of any coyotes or coy-wolves or even any dogs. We weren’t out of sight of the main house, either.

  “We’re going to have to go hunting that thing, aren’t we?” Angie asked quietly, her eyes scanning the deepening woods ahead.

  “I reckon so,” I replied. “They’ve gotten a lot bolder.”

  Off in the distance, out of sight, there came a yipping howl, almost taunting us. I scowled and shook my head. “Cheeky bastard.”

  Angie snorted a laugh. “Head back?”

  “Yeah.”

  We did keep a nervous eye out during our walk back to the house. Estelle had Tommy inside while Jackie sat on the porch surrounded by our dog pack while she checked out and cleaned their injuries.

  “Anything serious?” I asked, taking my place in the wicker chair while Angie took the rocker.

  “Not really,” Jackie replied with a shake of her head. “Even the pig just had some scrapes.”

  “We got off lucky,” I mused.

  “Why does he keep coming here?” Angie wondered, leaning her head back and closing her eyes as she braced her booted feet on the porch railing.

  “We’ve killed two of his pack,” Jackie suggested. “Maybe he just wants to give us a hard time for that.”

  “Isn’t that giving him a bit too much credit?” Angie asked.

  “Coyotes are smart,” the younger woman said. “So are wolves, as well as being pack-oriented. He might see us as a rival pack to be driven out.”

  Estelle came out and leaned against the door, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she gave me a pointed look.

  “How’s Tommy?” I asked.

  “Over being terrified,” she replied. “None of the dogs bit him, and he’s reading in the den, now.”

  “Did he say what happened?”

  “Not really,” she said, leaning her head back against the doorjamb. “But then I didn’t pry too much. I mostly just wanted to see if he’d gotten bit.”

  “Good thing he didn’t,” I looked over at Jackie. “Any chance these dogs and stuff could be rabid?”

  “Not really,” Jackie answered. “Rabid animals generally get expelled from the pack or go off on their own. There are other things, too. I’ll have to coach all of you on what to look for.”

  “All the dogs have been vaccinated,” I said. “But that was about six months ago. We need to see about figuring out and maintaining things like that for as long as we can. I don’t want to end up in an ‘Old Yeller’ situation.”

  “A what?” Jackie asked.

  “Probably better explained later,” Estelle broke in, fixing me with a look.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Okay.” Jackie shrugged and rose, then stretched with an arch of her back. “Maybe we can find a veterinarian if we look for other survivors, hm?”

  “You’re right,” I said and reached up to rub my temples. “I’m just nervous about trusting anyone after that Blake bastard tried to kill me.” We’d learned the identity of the man who’d attacked me on the road home from his I.D. and other documents at the house he’d occupied.

  We’d also learned that there was a group of survivors up near Birmingham that followed a man named Raymond Price. Price was a televangelist turned politician and broadcast regularly on the ham radio emergency channel, as well as an F.M. station.

  Bruce was wary about approaching them, which concerned me. The old survivalist had been all for contacting nearby survivors, but something worried him about Price, and from the broadcasts that I’d heard, I was worried about him too.

  “We know you’re worried about Price,” Angie spoke up as if reading my mind, “but he’s hundreds of miles away.”

  “I know,” I said. “Fine. We’ll start searching out folks come tomorrow and see if we can coyote proof the farm.”

  “I have some ideas,” Jackie offered. “May I?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I replied with a shrug. “You know the most about this sort of thing.”

  “I just wish I’d started sooner,” she said, sighing. “I thought the coy-wolf would have moved on by now. It’s been months, and we haven’t seen him.”

  “Biding his time and building his pack,” Estelle said. “Anyway, the kids are okay, and it’s getting late.”

  “We need to start dinner,” Angie added. “So, whose turn is it?”

  That evening, it turned out to be Jackie’s. She was pretty good in the kitchen and could work wonders with canned and pre-prepared food. It would be awhile before we were able to harvest the garden the women were working on, but that was fine. We’d laid in quite a supply of cans and jars and preserved food in the early days, and if we got low on meat, there were a lot of pigs, not to mention chickens and some cows.

  If we went looking, we wouldn’t even need to touch any of the animals we had out in the farm’s pastures.

  Dinner ended up being some kind of green bean casserole with fried spam and drop biscuits. Most of us adults ate in relative silence while Tommy rattled on about the book he was reading, the dogs, and the big coy-wolf.

  “So I was playing by the house,” the boy said. “When Maggie came up and started barking. I looked up, and there the big brown doggy was. He looked me in the eye, did the doggy grin,” at this point, Tommy grinned and lolled his tongue out of his mouth, “and all these other dogs charged past him and me, and our dogs started fighting them. I yelled and ran for where you guys were.”

  “Huh,” I noted. It was curious that the dogs hadn’t gone after the kid, but then, there were lots of strange things that had happened since that first day.

  “Our dogs are very good dogs,” Jackie said.

  The rest of us nodded.

  “They are,” Angie observed. “Very protective, too.”

  Tommy segued straight into talking about his book, the first Harry Potter novel, while the rest of us drifted off into a more or less comfortable silence. Jackie, in her usual exuberant way, kept the conversation going with the ten-year-old. My eyes crossed a bit when they started talking about sorting and houses and stuff. I’d seen the movies and thought they were fun, but I wasn’t a Potterhead, really. I was more a fan of stuff like Conan and The Avengers.

  “You’re serious about looking for more people?” Estelle leaned over and asked quietly.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “I guess I am, or we are.” I looked over in the direction of the other two.

  “We are lacking a few skills,” the doctor observed. “I do think we all could do decently well as teachers. You and Angie have military training, and all four of us know how to shoot, to some degree or another.”

  “Jackie might be the best hunter we’ve got,” I added. “Angie and I can fake it, but I never asked you.”

  Estelle shrugged. “I can shoot a little like I told you, but I’ve never hunted.”

  “So, we hope to find what?” I wondered.

  “Vet,” Jackie chimed in, proving she’d been listening.

  “Carpenter,” Angie added. “Clothier.”

  “Clothier?” I said with a grin.

  “That is the word,” she asked. “For someone who makes clothes, right?”

  “Good enough, I reckon,” I said. “Lots of other useful professions and skills, too
: knitting, sewing, carving, bricklaying, and concrete.”

  “Butcher,” Jackie threw in. “Baker. Candlestick maker.”

  Tommy giggled. “Wizard!” he shouted.

  “We could use one of those, too,” Estelle said dryly.

  “We’ve got Bruce,” I said with a grin.

  “He’s certainly old enough,” Angie said with a snort. The pair of them had gotten off to a bad start in Atlanta when the old survivalist had railed at the CDC from the gate. No shots or anything had been exchanged, but there’d been plenty of insults from both sides.

  “Be nice,” Jackie teased.

  “So we have two things that we need to address,” I said. “Hunting for survivors and hunting the coy-wolf. I think we need to prioritize one or the other and focus all our resources on it.”

  “Or we split up,” Angie suggested. “You and Jackie go hunting, since you’re best at it, while Estelle and I make up signs and post them on the interstate.”

  I really didn’t like the idea of splitting up like that, but we had taken care of Blake. There couldn’t be anyone else still around that was that nuts.

  “Fine-” I started to say.

  Baby Irene began wailing in the den, and Jackie bounced to her feet.

  “I’ve got it,” she exclaimed before bounding off.

  3

  “Wet and hungry,” Jackie called from the other room. “Could someone fix a bottle while I get her changed?”

  Everyone but Tommy looked at me, and I let out a sigh.

  “Fine,” I said, heaving myself out of my chair to head for the kitchen. Since we had power, I could use the microwave to heat up the formula indirectly once I got it mixed. Thinking ahead, though, we needed more large-scale solutions. Maybe we needed a bottle warmer for the house, too, and not just the cottage.

  We also needed to deal with those damn coyotes, I thought, as yipping howls reached my ears from outside. They weren’t all that close, but they weren’t too far, either. The dogs answered with barks and howls of their own while I measured out the powder, mixed it all together in a bottle. On Estelle’s firm recommendation, I’d learned the best method was to heat up a Pyrex measuring cup of water in the microwave which I did, then put the bottle in the hot water for a few minutes.

  Once I returned to the dining room with the bottle, Jackie had finished changing baby Irene and was waiting. I handed over the bottle and settled back into my chair with a yawn.

  “Do y’all want to go ahead and get started tomorrow?” I asked, looking from Jackie, to Estelle, then Angie. “I could use a break from working on the solar panels.”

  “I’m good with that,” Jackie said.

  “Mostly, we’d just be driving around with signs,” Angie said with a shrug. “I can do that if Estelle wants to stay home.”

  “That would be easier, I think,” the doctor said. “I can take care of the kids.”

  “I can watch Irene if you want to go,” Tommy offered. He didn’t even look up from his book.

  Estelle reached over and ruffled the boy’s hair.

  “I’m good,” she said. “I’m happy to sit here and maintain the home front, while you all go gallivanting around.”

  “Heh, gallivanting,” Jackie said with a grin.

  Ghost hopped up onto the table and looked us all over with her big, golden eyes, twitched her tail, and then hopped back down, surprising Charlie and Sasha, who’d been lurking beneath the table in the hope of scraps.

  All three of them erupted into chaos before running off in different directions. Pepper scampered in from the den and looked around, eyes wide and ears back, while we two-legged folk laughed.

  “Right, then,” I said, and looked at Jackie. “So, what can you tell me about coy-wolves?”

  “Well,” she said. “All canis species can actually interbreed, so coyote-wolf hybrids are not terribly uncommon. They tend to be larger than coyotes, but smaller than wolves, and have behavioral and physical traits from both. In the case of our friend out there, I think he probably got the best of both worlds. He’s smart, and not so much afraid of us as he is wary, despite seeing how guns work.”

  “Smart enough to set up a distraction so that some of his pack could steal a couple of piglets,” I observed. “That kind of makes me worry, you know.”

  “Yeah,” Angie agreed. “I didn’t think animals could plan like that.”

  “Well,” Jackie said. “Wolves do use tactics to harry and bring down large prey. This could be a kind of natural extension of that.”

  “Why not,” I nodded in Tommy’s direction. “You know?”

  “I don’t know,” Jackie admitted, then removed the mostly empty bottle from Irene’s grasp before hoisting the baby up to her shoulder. “Lucky break on our part, maybe?”

  I studied her as she burped Irene and nodded slowly. The young woman had been fascinated with our canine visitor. I didn’t think she was hiding anything, but I was pretty sure she had more insights than she let on.

  Estelle picked up her own book and looked around at the rest of us.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Unless there’s a problem,” I replied. “Jackie and I will set out in the morning, and Angie will make some rounds and put up signs in case of other survivors passing through. Estelle, do you mind listening to the radio?”

  “Not at all,” the doctor replied.

  “Can I listen, too?” Tommy chirped.

  “I wish I could multitask like you,” I said, grinning.

  “I don’t mind,” Estelle answered. “I can show you everything Mister Henry taught me about the radio, too.”

  “Yes!” the kid crowed. “Can I talk?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Estelle told him. “You’ll listen first, and then we’ll move on from there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He grinned around at all of us, then went back to his book.

  “I think I’m going to walk the property before bed,” I said. “I should check the battery, too. Maybe y’all keep using the kerosene for the next couple of days, then we can try the electric overnight to see how well it works.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Angie said and stretched. “Want company?”

  “Anyone who wants to,” I replied.

  “I’ll help with cleanup and put together…” Jackie started, then frowned and looked at me. “Are we going on a multi-day hunt, or what?”

  “I’m taking radios,” I said. “We probably want at least one, maybe two nights of food, a tent, camping gear.”

  “So you aren’t going to be back for a while,” Estelle said. It wasn’t a question.

  “A lot depends on the coywolf,” Jackie said. “I mean, if he makes it easy for us, then we’ll be back a lot sooner.”

  “I just want to stay out long enough to run it off or kill it,” I said matter-of-factly. “If it’s decided we’re too much trouble to handle, good. If not, then we’ll take care of it.”

  Jackie sighed and nodded.

  “I’ll get packs ready,” she said. “We’ll want to get moving early. Coyotes are active in the early morning and early evening, usually. Those might be our best chances to catch up with this guy.”

  I nodded and rose.

  “Well, let’s do this walkabout,” I said to Angie.

  She got to her feet, and we headed out after grabbing shotguns from the gun cabinet beside the entrance to the den. All of us except Estelle carried our sidearms pretty much all the time any more.

  Outside, Suzy, Maggie, and the rest of the pack gathered around us, tails wagging as they begged for attention. We scratched ears and ruffled fur for a little while as the light faded, then, with our furry escorts, set off to check the various pens and enclosures.

  “Do you know what’s up with Jackie?” I asked.

  “You noticed, too,” Angie said. “I kind of think she doesn’t want to kill the coywolf.”

  “That’s all?” I shook my head. “Why didn’t she just talk to us?”

  “I
f you hadn’t noticed,” she said with a laugh. “She’s a little insecure.”

  “I actually hadn’t noticed,” I grumbled.

  Jackie always seemed really secure and together to me. Sure, I caught her wearing her cheerleading uniform sometimes, but I figured that was just a quirk of hers. We were all pretty eccentric when you got down to it.

  Angie caught my arm and leaned into my side a bit, making me acutely aware of the warmth of her body, and the firm swell of her breast beneath the jacket as it pressed against my arm.

  “Listen, babe,” she told me. “Jackie’s good at throwing up a front, and she’ll never lie to us, but she really wants approval, especially from you.”

  I nodded and said nothing, hiding my momentary discomfort in a check of the pigs’ pen.

  “Is there anything we can do with this?” Angie asked. “We already know the coyotes can jump it.” She leaned on the top rail. It was really only about a three-foot slatted fence. The pigs couldn’t clear it or climb it, but the invading canines could leap it easily.

  “We can make a hardware run,” I replied. “I’d hoped to let most of the critters free-range, but I didn’t account for all the dogs running wild.”

  “It was bound to happen,” she said. “Nothing to beat ourselves up about.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded, then I leaned on the top slat of the pen. It was about three feet from the ground to my hands where they rested on the rough wood. The idea had been to keep the pigs from getting into everything around the farm which they’d done before we confined them. Free-range for some critters wasn’t the best idea, unfortunately.

  We had somewhere around ten pigs that we’d gotten from a farm up around Auburn, a place I’d visited many times as a kid. Angie joined me, and we watched the animals go about their usual, lazy business as if there hadn’t been an altercation with a pack of animals that had almost gotten one of them just a few hours past.

  “Kind of envy their ability to move on,” she observed. “They don’t seem to have a care in the world.”