Jennings' Folly Read online

  So, because he could, Jonah fined Papaw for killing the kitzloc with the wrong kind of gun.

  Pat returned to our room looking tired but refreshed.

  “Where’s Papaw?” I asked.

  “He’s soaking in the tub.”

  “Keep your voice down,” urged Liza. “The babies are asleep.”

  “Sorry. Did you watch the video?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised Riley didn’t wake up. What do you think?”

  Liza sighed and I tried to stay still so they wouldn’t remind themselves I was listening. She shrugged. “They’re devout people, Pat, I’m sure they’re at least as honest as anybody else.”

  “Which means we can’t afford to let down our guard.”

  “We have to make allies here.”

  “Allies, yes, but we don’t have to be converted and we sure can’t allow people to prevent us from using our weapons. Where’s the button?” Pat sounded irritated.

  Liza handed it over and I watched as he stashed it in a pocket.

  Pat took Liza in his arms and asked how she was feeling. Liza reminded him I was in the room and they both looked at me.

  “I could go outside and watch the ladies cut up the monster?” I was serious.

  Pat and Liza looked at each other. Pat said, “We have to get out of here.”

  *

  Grandpaw Jennings and Uncle Pat slept for a while and when the babies woke and started crying, Aunt Liza and I took them out and strolled around the courtyard – 34 degrees is considered balmy for that time of year. We stopped and spoke with women of the community – they were a chatty lot and naturally very inquisitive. If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times: “We don’t get many visitors around here.” In any case, everyone we talked to told us about the celebration being planned for that evening.

  “Celebration for what?”

  “Why, for the successful hunt. The spirits of those two boys can rest easy now. The shindig’ll be in the big room. Bring the kids.”

  “I’ll have to,” said Liza, joking. “Amanda’s my babysitter!”

  The woman looked blankly at Liza. Finally, “Well, all righty then. We’ll see you tonight.”

  She took off across the courtyard and passed Jonah, who was headed our way. Although it was cold, the sun peeked through clouds and warmed my cheeks. When Jonah got to us, he stood in the way of the sunshine. “Afternoon, ladies,” he said, then to Liza, “I trust you are feeling better?”

  “Quite,” said Liza. “Thank you.”

  “If there is anything we can do, please do not hesitate to ask. Your husband and Mr. Jennings are close-mouthed men. That’s good. I respect that. But I’ve gathered you’ll be settling near-abouts, so by the designs of the good Lord’s willing grace, we are to be neighbors. In that view, I want you to know, any way we can help, whether it be material help for this world or a higher form of help for another world, we can be here for you, and yours, as well.” Jonah smiled and his eyes crinkled. That’s the part about him I always liked the best; the way his eyes disappeared when he smiled. I always wondered what he was thinking whenever he was smiling.

  There were some kids playing in the snow, the first I’d seen, and I was suddenly distracted.

  Jonah bade farewell with a promise to see us again that evening and we drifted over to where two boys and a girl were building a snowman. The eldest, a boy of ten, saw me staring and asked if I wanted to help. That was exactly what I wanted to do.

  Liza sat on the edge of a porch and held both Riley and Toby while I helped those kids build their snowman and I made my first friends on Dreidel. Not counting adults.

  *

  Papaw livened up when we went down to the big room. He worked his way through the crowd, carrying me so I wouldn’t be lost in a land of trouser legs and woolen stockings. People stood in small groups politely talking as a family came in the big front door. They had two small babies but I was disappointed my new friends weren’t there.

  Papaw found a place for Liza and me to sit at one of the long tables while Pat, carrying Toby, remained standing behind us. On guard, I guess.

  “What kind of a party is this?” I whispered to Liza.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there’s no music, no punch, no cake.”

  “I heard there will be punch and cake later.”

  “Really?”

  Liza nodded her head. “And I guess there’s no music because they don’t believe music calms the spirit.”

  “You would be correct,” said Jonah as he stepped forward. He was smiling again. “We do not forbid music; we just don’t feel it puts one in the right frame of mind.”

  “Same go for alcoholic spirits?”

  “No, not at all. We believe the consumption of alcohol should be accomplished responsibly. Several members of our community brew their own ales. The summers are long on Dreidel, so grape-growing is extended. We have some nice wines, or so I’m told. I abstain.”

  “So you can drink, if you want?” asked Pat.

  Papaw had meandered to the opposite side of the room, so the only one around to control Pat if his mouth got loose, was Liza.

  “Of course,” responded Jonah.

  “But you just can’t use any old gun, even when one of them beasties is bearing down on you.”

  “Ah, Mr. Ramey, we’ve been over this. I thought you understood.”

  Pat waved his hand in the air. “I understand,” he said. “I was just joshing with you.” Pat smiled and Jonah returned the gesture.

  “There is one thing,” Pat said,

  “Yes?”

  “I think I get what you’re trying to do here. I mean, create a place where everybody has a common interest, a common faith, and build on that, yes? Like, we’re stronger working together than going off on our own.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Jonah, smiling and agreeing with Uncle Pat.

  “Gotta hang together to survive, eh?”

  “Rightly so.”

  “So,” continued Pat, “I was just wondering about your aversion to technology…”

  Jonah cleared his throat. “We feel it is important for…” Jonah started but was interrupted by Pat.

  “Yeh, you know, I kind of admire someone who tries to live old-fashioned-like.”

  Jonah started, “That’s not exactly…”

  “But then there is some technology you keep in reserve, right? Like a fusion generator that supplies whatever electricity you need.”

  “We only use it…”

  Pat finished the sentence for him. “Every day. But I understand. It’s a back-up system, right?”

  Jonah sighed. “Our doctrine proscribes a ban on technology that is of no value and may lead to corruption. Other technologies are acceptable.”

  “Like snowmobiles and firearms manufactured by NeoSpark.”

  Jonah was about to say something, but the lights suddenly went out and I grabbed Liza by the arm. “What’s going on?”

  “Watch,” she said.

  In the darkened room and over the heads of the crowd, I could see the tops of the double kitchen doors swing open. It looked as if someone was carrying a handful of light as they came our way, walking slowly through the crowd. It was a cake they carried, with lighted candles on top. The next moment, everyone began to sing the Happy Birthday Song and I looked around wondering whose birthday it was.

  As the cook placed the cake on the table in front of me, everybody sang happy birthday to Amanda! It was my birthday and I didn’t even know it. I leaned to Liza and asked how old I was.

  “You’re four, honey.”

  When they turned the lights back on, more people had arrived and I saw my new friends among them. Liza let me go ask them to sit with me at the table for cake and that’s what I did. More cake was brought out plus, they served it with punch. That was the first birthday I can remember. Even Uncle Pat loosened up for a little while.

  There was alcohol consumption going on. I didn’t see it
and nobody would have known had it not been for one of the Summit residents clinking his cake fork against his glass for attention. I heard Pat say to Liza it was the father of one of the boys who had been killed.

  “I’d like to have your attention please,” he started. “First, I’d like to propose a toast for the health and safety of everyone here tonight.”

  The crowd responded by raising their punch glasses. “Hear, hear,” they said in surprising harmony.

  “And also, if I might add,” he continued, “we should remember my son, Daryl, as well as his good friend Christopher, so that their tragic deaths might not go unheeded. We don’t like to talk about it, but there is a scourge upon the land…”

  Jonah motioned to his men and they began moving toward poor Mr. Doggett.

  Doggett saw them coming and raised his glass high. “…and if you ask me, we should kill them all! Don’t celebrate too hardy – there’s more out there!”

  Two men reached Doggett and ushered him out of the room. We could all hear him apologizing all the way from the kitchen.

  Chapter 4

  Papaw woke me early in the morning and told me to get up and stay quiet. Everybody was awake and getting dressed, creeping around so we wouldn’t wake the babies until we had to.

  We made it out of there just like that, on tiptoes and without breathing a word, out of that little room, down the stairs, straight out the front door. We found a dozing, solitary guard on duty at the gate.

  Papaw stood beside the guard and cleared his throat. The guard opened his eyes and sat upright, blinking. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “We want to take a look at our machines,” explained Grandpaw.

  The guard blinked again and looked at Liza and me before finally shrugging and rising and stretching. He pointed at the gate lock (a manual mechanism with a set of gears and levers). “Mind giving me a hand here?” he asked.

  Uncle Pat and Papaw helped the guard lower the gate and we went out to the striders where we first wiped the snow from all surfaces. The guard waited and watched in the early morning haze.

  Papaw opened Aunt Liza’s strider and ran a quick visual check before lifting me up and setting me into the little passenger seat. He turned to Liza and asked if she felt well enough to drive. She nodded. “I’ll be all right.”

  Liza faced me and asked if I was comfortable. “It’s cold,” I reminded her.

  “It’ll be fine once we get the strider buttoned up.” She handed me little Riley who was awake and wrapped in layers of clothes and a blanket. “You’re going to hold Riley until we get to the ranch,” she said.

  I didn’t mind that at all until I wondered what would happen if he pooped. I asked Liza what we would do if Riley made a poop as she climbed up into the pilot’s seat.

  Papaw was still waiting at the open door and laughed. “I guess we’ll all have to stop and wait until Riley gets his diaper changed.”

  Liza strapped herself in, gave Papaw a thumbs-up, and the exterior door swung into place. Riley let out a yell and I told him I was excited too. Through the window in front of my face, Papaw waved. I waved using Riley’s little hand. Bye-bye, Papaw.

  We started moving and as Liza spoke to Pat and Papaw over a radio link, I talked to Riley to pass the time. He was awake anyway and wanted attention – Liza would say he wanted stimulation and she’s probably right – so I told him the story of the lizard and the mouse. If you haven’t heard it, it goes like this:

  Once upon a time, there was a little mouse that lived in a barn. The barn had everything the little mouse needed. There was plenty of food in storage for the farm animals and little mousie didn’t eat much anyway, plus there was also lots of nice, warm straw to burrow into when it got cold. To that little mouse, the barn seemed like heaven until one day when the mouse went to his favorite sunning spot; he found it occupied by a great big old lizard. The next day, when the little mouse went to get something to eat, there was the lizard again, sitting atop the bag of grain. When the mouse tried to get to the food, the lizard shot out its tongue and snagged that little mouse and dragged him nearly into the lizard’s wide open, toothy gullet. At the last instant, the little mouse was able to squirm and twist itself free. The mouse jumped off the bag and ran across the floor of the barn with the lizard in hot pursuit. If that old lizard hadn’t eaten so much grain, he would have been able to move faster and he surely would have caught the mouse, but the mouse had lived in that barn longer than the lizard and knew of a place to hide. He ran into a hole that was too small for that fat old lizard to pass through. The lizard was hard-headed, though, and tried to squirm himself inside. He pushed so hard he succeeded in getting himself stuck in that hole with his lower half outside and his upper half inside, but unable to proceed ahead or back out. All he could do was snap his jaws at the little mouse. Well, the mouse watched for a while and then yawned and went to get something to eat. Afterwards, he stretched out in his favorite spot and sunned himself.

  The story was all but finished and baby Riley had fallen asleep, so I stopped it there.

  From above, Liza asked, “Where did you hear that story?”

  “From Papaw. He told me.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Papaw.”

  “I wasn’t finished,” I told her.

  “There’s more?”

  “A little. Not much.”

  “Go ahead then.”

  “But Riley’s asleep.”

  “Do it for me.”

  “Okay.” And so I told Aunt Liza the end of the story as Papaw had told it to me. Here it is:

  The next day, the little mouse decided to lie in the sun again but when he went to his spot he found three fat lizards sunning themselves.

  That was the end to Papaw’s story and, of course, the point was you can’t leave a trapped lizard. If you do, you’ll wind up with triple the trouble. I told Aunt Liza and she laughed, saying that sounded more like Grandpaw.

  *

  The rhythm of the strider’s legs put me to sleep but I woke up to a horrible, choking odor and baby Riley kicking me with alternating legs. The strider was already slowing down and I was trying to hold my breath to keep from breathing the foul air. We finally stopped and the door popped open. Another cold blast of air. Liza said, “Hang on. Let me climb down first.”

  I heard her unsnap the buckles on her harness and then she stepped down over me. I handed her the baby and tumbled out of my seat. “What’s that smell?”

  “Riley pooped,” said Aunt Liza.

  The other striders stopped as well and we all waited for Aunt Liza to change Riley’s diaper. When that was accomplished, there was considerable discussion about who would take the diaper.

  Pat shook his head, “Not me. Sorry. I’ll crash the strider if I have to drive and smell that foul odor at the same time.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Liza said. She turned to Papaw. “How about you?” She held out the dirty diaper, which had been folded and pressed together to form a fist-sized biological hazard.

  Papaw pursed his lips and slowly shook his head. “I can smell it from here, but I’ll do you one better.” Papaw fumbled around inside his parked strider and withdrew a folding shovel. Liza told me later it was called a hunter’s shovel.

  When Papaw started digging, Uncle Pat interrupted. “How long is this going to take?”

  “Just a few minutes, Pat. Be patient.”

  Pat looked in the direction we were headed. “We’re not far now.”

  Liza set the nasty package on the ground next to Papaw. Papaw finished digging a little hole and then, using the toe of his boot, pushed the wadded dirty diaper into it. With two swipes of the shovel, Papaw covered it up.

  “I can think of half a dozen reasons not to do that,” commented Pat.

  Papaw straightened up and looked at Pat as he folded the hunter’s shovel. “What?”

  “Yeah,” said Aunt Liza with a grin, “Summit’s probably got a law against it.”

  Papaw put the shovel away and poi
nted up the path. “See that gate?”

  “What gate?” said Liza as she looked. “Oh, I see it. It’s out in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it?”

  I looked and saw the gate with my daddy’s name engraved in an arc across the top. I didn’t remember anything about what had happened to my parents and my brother, but I did remember the gate with my daddy’s name. This is where I started, where I was born. “How far is it?”

  Papaw put his hand on the top of my head and squeezed. His fingers were so strong, I could imagine him bearing down and unscrewing the top of my head like the lid of a peanut butter jar. For some reason, I’ve always had it in mind that my brains have the consistency of peanut butter. Anyway, Papaw didn’t unscrew the top of my head, thank God.

  “It’s gonna be another three miles or so.”

  “What’s a mile?”

  Pat said, “It’s like a kilometer, only longer. People don’t use that word anymore.”

  “I just did,” stated Papaw.

  Pat sighed and looked at the sign. “Yes, you did. Never mind that everybody else in the universe uses the metric system. You have to be different.”