Nuclear Winter | Book 2 | First Spring Page 9
Lewis and several others joined them on the way, and Trev nodded when his cousin requested permission to ask some questions. Lewis did, leaning on the prisoner hard with some fairly creative threats.
The wounded man was quick to talk. With his friends all dead and him captured by people who had every reason to hate him, he seemed eager to be cooperative. Either that or he just didn't care anymore. Either way Trev got answers to the questions that had been plaguing him for the last month, as well as some he hadn't wanted to know.
As they'd suspected, the bandits were some of the displaced refugees Rogers had sent their way before the snows flew. The group had attacked people in the area and left witnesses, so they didn't dare accept Grimes's offer to return to the camp. Instead they'd become ghosts prowling the area, surviving on grubs and worms and any other food they could find, scouting out potential victims and attacking them while they slept so they could steal what little they had.
It had started out as nine of them, but two had died from hunger and cold and one during an attack on an isolated house. Their surviving companions had stripped them of their possessions and left them frozen in the snow when they moved on, with little grieving involved.
The attack on the Weavers wasn't the only atrocity they'd committed, by the man's own admission, although it was the most ambitious. Desperation had spurred them close to town, sneaking past the sentries and biding their time, until the storm struck and so did they. They'd broken into the Weavers' house and committed their murders, packed up as much food as they could carry as well as the family's warm clothing and firearms, then fled into the night as if the hounds of Hell were at their heels.
Which, Trev supposed, they had been.
The fleeing bandits had pushed on past the point of madness, putting one foot in front of the other and changing directions several times in the flurry of snow, until even they themselves didn't know where they were going. One of their number had collapsed from exhaustion and been left to the storm, likely still there frozen where he'd fallen.
By the time the rest could finally go no further they'd left pursuit behind, and with food and supplies were able to dig in and survive until they could plan their next raid.
The captured bandit's voice was hollow, almost lifeless, as he told his story. In spite of the clear hatred with which he spoke of the town, the military, and even his own companions, he seemed almost relieved to be captured. He had to know his fate after what he'd done, but even so it was as if he just wanted it to be over.
He got his wish. After spending the night in the clinic receiving minimal treatment from Terry and Dr. Langstrom, in the morning he was dragged in front of the town's appointed judges. They heard the testimony of everyone who'd listened to his confession, as well as a repeat of his confession from his own lips. In less than an hour they passed their judgment, and when Chauncey radioed in to the military in charge of their area he quickly got a senior officer's approval to carry out the sentence.
The bandit was hung from the nearest tree with no delay. Then his corpse was taken far from town and dumped without ceremony into a shallow grave chipped out of the icy soil, with nothing to identify its occupant and only a simple spike stuck in the ground to mark its location for reference.
A large portion of the town was there to watch the entire proceedings. Like the bandit, they had their own reasons to be relieved that it was over. Trev was sure they'd all sleep easier tonight, and while the chance remained that there were others out there who'd try this sort of thing, this threat at least was dealt with.
As they all returned to town Trev and his defenders were thanked by quite a few grateful townspeople, including some of those who'd jumped on him with accusations on the night of the attack. He even got a couple halfhearted apologies.
The resolution of last month's tragedy lifted the town's spirits going into Christmas Eve, and even though the cold settled in again the mood was far more celebratory.
* * * * *
Christmas Eve was highlighted by the shelter group setting up a large tree in the space between their houses. They cannibalized some of the Christmas lights from the Smith and Halsson homes to use for their actual intended purpose strung through its branches, then decorated it with homemade ornaments.
Those ranged from carved wood to cut paper to bits of scavenged metal twisted into shape with pliers, or hammered into shape with holes punched into them with nails so the lights twinkled through merrily.
The most notable decorations, however, had been made by Lewis. He'd carved wooden molds, which he then filled with water and allowed to freeze. Then he chipped a hole through the resulting ice ornaments and hung them with string. The ice ranged from clear as glass to intricately frosted, and with the way they glittered in the Christmas lights many of the young children exclaimed that they looked almost magical.
Trev also had to admit he was fairly proud of how the star topper he and Jim had fashioned with cardboard and aluminum foil had turned out.
The result was a tree that glittered in the evening light with surprising loveliness in spite of its simplicity. The decorations that had been so lovingly crafted didn't look the slightest bit cheap or chintzy, in spite of the materials and inexpert work.
The shelter group spent the next few hours singing carols, standing or sitting around a large fire sipping hot chocolate and herb tea drawn straight from boiling pans to combat the chill. The kids had spent the last few weeks working together to put on a pageant with some of their friends, and while the production values left something to be desired nobody could say it wasn't cute.
Sam vehemently, although with some amusement, refused when Paul and Aaron begged her to let them put baby Olivia in the manger as the star of the show. They used a doll instead.
Nobody wanted to cut the party short, but finally people gave in to the inevitable and retreated indoors from the growing cold of the winter night. The last people out were Trev and Lewis, carefully unwinding the precious Christmas lights from the branches and taking them back inside to hang where they belonged.
With the days so short the solar panels couldn't keep up with the demand, and Lewis reluctantly informed the family that they didn't have enough power saved up to watch a movie. Instead they lingered until past bedtime enjoying each other's company and making a few final preparations for the next day's events.
By general agreement, and more pragmatically because there weren't many other options, the family had agreed that any gift giving would feature homemade items. That presented quite a challenge when they had so few materials to work with, although everyone was doing their best. Because of the confined conditions it meant there weren't many secrets in what gifts everyone was making, so the fun came from trying to guess who they'd be given to.
Trev doubted there was much mystery there, either. Especially not with his own gift for Deb.
Since his wife had been rescued as a prisoner with nothing but the clothes on her back, she'd needed to borrow all the clothes she now had. They hadn't started out in the best of shape, and her rather active job as a defender hadn't done them any favors. So Trev had decided, months ago actually, to try to make her a new outfit out of buckskin.
Boy had that been a learning experience. Lewis had been happy to provide him all the references he wanted on the techniques for making buckskin, but the actual process of scraping, dressing, stretching, and smoking the hides had turned out to be surprisingly labor intensive. And that was just to make the material. Then had come the task of getting Deb's measurements and making a pattern for the pants, shirt, and moccasins he wanted to make her, and doing all the cutting, punching holes, and stitching.
Deb had been a good sport about pretending she didn't know what he was doing or who it was intended for, although she had dropped a few hints here and there about improving his design and getting a better fit. Since she didn't seem displeased at the idea of dressing in leathers he had to assume she'd appreciate the gift, although he felt a bit bad he didn't
have access to better clothes he could trade for to give her instead.
His wife's gift for him wasn't quite as ambitious. She'd decided to use some of the extra buckskin to make him a couple new pairs of gloves, since all the manual labor he had to do had really done a number on the few pairs he had. He was also crediting her for darning his socks and patching a few holes in the knees and elbows of some of his pants and shirts as a gift, although she insisted that was just a task that had needed to be done, and she'd been patching up her own clothes anyway.
Although as far as he was concerned the best gift of all was just being able to have her in his life. He didn't care if that was a bit sappy, she made this Christmas special.
* * * * *
His mom and Mary had pursued the holiday spirit extra hard that year to lift the pall of losing a husband and father, and while Lewis wasn't feeling it himself he also tried extra hard for their sakes.
Personally he would've been just as happy to hibernate in his room with Jane all winter, working on reloading bullets and other projects. He knew that with her solitary nature his wife probably also would've preferred that, since while she enjoyed the Holiday Season well enough she didn't feel the need or desire to go overboard with it.
But being part of a family meant sometimes you had to try extra hard to be happy for their sakes. And Lewis had to admit he enjoyed some parts of it, like making the ice ornaments for the tree and crafting gifts for his family.
He wasn't going overboard with them, but he did his best to be sure that what he made would be needed and appreciated.
For his mom he was making matching gloves and hat lined with rabbit fur. The hides from the desert hares he'd hunted, trapped, and also was raising in pens with the rest of the shelter group didn't exactly have the softest fur, and while he knew there were proper rabbits with softer fur around, since he'd seen them nosing around in parks up in Utah Valley on trips there, he hadn't managed to catch any. So he made do with what he had.
Mary wanted to work with Hailey Nelson making cloth once spring came around and they could shear the sheep, and possibly even harvest some goat fibers. So Lewis had looked in his archives for pictures and designs for the basic instruments for carding wool, spinning, weaving, and knitting and crocheting. With some work he'd made her the ones she needed to get started.
As for Jane, her gift was an easy choice as well as a labor of love. They hadn't needed to stop using their .308s due to lack of ammo thanks to their reloading work and the fact that they hadn't needed many bullets the last few months, but he was still low on .308 brass. But since it was no secret he was into reloading he'd been contacted by a man named Gregory Carson, one of the refugees who'd joined the town that first winter after the Gulf burned.
It turned out Gregory was a bit of a scavenger, and during the fight against the raiders he'd made it a point to collect brass from the scenes of the fighting. He hadn't had any real plan for them, aside from maybe using them to make necklaces or other trinkets, and so he'd just been sitting on them all this time. But once he heard Lewis was in business reloading he'd approached him about buying all the casings he'd collected, a modest thousand or so.
Lewis normally wouldn't have been too interested since he'd collected a huge number of casings already, but as it happened Gregory had shown a preference for the larger calibers, particularly .308 and .50, and so most of what he had were ones Lewis actually didn't have a lot of.
So he'd haggled a reasonable price for them from the man, and in secret the last few weeks while his wife was out patrolling he'd been reloading .308 rounds for her. He now had a bit over 300 to surprise her with. It wasn't an incredible number, but as long as she kept the brass for future reloading they could go a long way, enough to keep her using her beloved G3 variant for the foreseeable future even if they ended up in combat situations.
For the Smith family he'd gone in a bit different direction, and he wasn't sure whether the gift would really be appreciated. He'd scavenged an exercise bike from the ruins of Aspen Hill, something the blockheads must've thought was so worthless in the current circumstances that it wasn't even worth destroying.
First off he wanted to make sure his family stayed fit during the winter months. Trev was still braving the cold to come exercise with him, with Jim joining him frequently and even George coming by every now and again. Deb didn't do much exercising, but her shifts defending the town required enough movement that he wasn't concerned for her. Mostly he was worried that Aunt Clair and Linda didn't seem to be doing much, and if it came to it he wouldn't complain if his mom and Mary took the opportunity to use the bike as well.
But he hadn't stopped there. While scavenging windows from cars with Trent Lincoln he'd taken the time to yank some of the smaller and more useful engine parts out. With some tinkering he'd managed to build a dynamo to attach to the bike, which they could rig to a battery to charge it. The family would be able to exercise while generating power for themselves, which would give them a bit more to work with during these short days when electricity produced from solar power was at a premium.
He hadn't bothered with many other presents, although he planned to give one of his few spare rifles, an M16, to Alvin Harding. The young man needed a reliable weapon, and since he was an orphan the shelter group families had all sort of adopted him. He'd really stepped up caring for and looking after the women and children from Jane's group, and Lewis wanted to make sure he had a secure future.
It was the least the kid deserved after his dad, Tom, had died fighting the blockheads to protect them all.
And last of all he'd carved a wooden rattle for baby Olivia. It seemed like a silly present given the sorts of toys he remembered having growing up, but hopefully she'd like it as she got older.
All in all he was pretty pleased with what he'd managed to accomplish. Hopefully his presents would all be useful and help improve the lives of his loved ones.
After enjoying the quiet evening with family he and Jane turned in early, although it was quite a while before they went to sleep and their own festivities were much less subdued. Afterwards he slept like a log with his arms wrapped around his wife, waking up early enough to easily finish all the morning's chores before it was time to gather as a family again to exchange gifts.
As he was leaving the town's barn he caught sight of Ben Thompson and stopped for a quick chat. The man had managed to scrounge up a Santa suit from somewhere and was making the rounds among the refugee families with young children, spreading Christmas cheer. Given the limited food rations the older man's belly didn't exactly shake like a bowl full of jelly, but he'd padded it fairly realistically, and on the plus side that also provided more insulation from the cold.
He had an impressive beard going, at least.
Ben mentioned that he'd been by the Larson house already, and briefly described Aaron and Paul's excitement over his visit. Lewis thought that sounded nice, although his own experience as a kid was that at even younger than Aaron's age he'd figured out that all the Santas he met were just ordinary people dressing up. He'd decided it was like a play and had gone along with it, so the knowledge hadn't completely ruined the Holidays for him.
He made his way back to collect his mom, sister, and wife, and together they carried their gifts over to the Smith cabin. His mom and Aunt Clair, with help from Mary and Deb, had gathered together an impressive assortment of delicacies for breakfast. It wasn't quite the spread they'd had on Thanksgiving, but they'd put some serious effort into scouring everyone's food supplies for the most exotic items, as well as trading for or making their own.
It turned out food was a popular gift idea. Along with homemade treats, several family members had specifically picked out or traded for their favorite foods when the military's windfall was being split up among the townspeople. Where they knew other people liked those things they gave them out as gifts.
As expected Aunt Clair had her honey treats to give out, while Lewis's mom had dipped into their store of spi
ces to create a variety of seasoning packets, steak rubs, and even a few sauces using available ingredients that she presented in small jars. Lewis didn't do much cooking, but where needed these would make seasoning a lot easier and, thanks to his mom's refined palate, better tasting.
Surprisingly Linda also shone in that regard. She'd picked up several boxes of candy bars as part of her six month supply, and she had a gift bag for everyone featuring one of each of the assortment she had available. His cousin also, while blushing a bit pink and quietly advising the recipients to open them in private, handed out packages to her mom, aunt, Deb, Mary, and Jane.
Lewis found out later from his wife that Linda had cut up a couple of her nicest blouses to sew undergarments for her female relatives. That was an unexpectedly thoughtful gift; although the topic was a bit too embarrassing to come up in normal conversation, Lewis knew from personal experience that his own underwear was accumulating a lot of wear and tear. With all his clothes getting used up at the same rate and leather and animal hide not exactly ideal for making underwear, he'd actually been wondering how he'd replace his.
Trev had cashed in part of the IOU the town owed him for the cache of food he and Lewis had sold them last spring. The town storehouse had been thinned out considerably by everything that had happened, although it had also been added to by the efforts of the defenders and volunteers. From it his cousin had managed to pick up an assortment of useful items, things like folding knives, whistles, firestarters, compasses, and even a few pots and jars.
He gave them out where he thought they'd be most appreciated, and while the gifts broke the handmade rule nobody really complained aside from a bit of grumbling from his siblings about the work they'd put into their own gifts. Everyone else agreed that with how occupied he'd been between the wedding and honeymoon and his duties defending the town, with most of his spare time divided between reloading and his gift for Deb, he could be excused for bending the rules a bit.