“Yeah, I was about to suggest the state council getting together here this weekend to talk it over. It is only prudent to expect we might be next on their list.”
“I expected an immediate response after the way we trashed their ANR unit back in the spring, and then nothing. But I think something has got to be stirring by this point.”
“Why I said, ‘Best of times, worst of times,’” John replied, watching as the last wisps of smoke from Forrest’s cigarette coiled toward the ceiling and then disappeared.
“‘Best of times, worst of times,’” and this time it was Forrest. “I was hoping for a winter of peace after so much crap these last few years.”
“You think it will go bad?”
“If you expect shit to happen, John, you’ll never be surprised when it does.”
“Thanks for that cogent piece of advice.”
“The price of a good cup of coffee and the offer of a cigarette. Anyhow, beyond bearing potential bad news, I thought I’d hang around here for a few days. With the storm, it’d be a good time to teach some of your kids winter survival stuff.”
“Good idea. What made you think of it?”
“Because before it’s done, I think they’ll be fighting a winter campaign, my friend. Up in the mountains of Afghanistan, it was colder than Valley Forge, the Bulge, even the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. The Afghans understood it; more than a few out there with me did not. I don’t want to see that again.”
“You think it will come to that?”
“Don’t you?”
John did not reply. There were far too many other worries at the moment. The harvest was barely adequate to see his rapidly expanding community through the winter, especially with this early onset of autumn snow when there should have still been time to gather in additional forage. Two years ago, his worries extended only as far as Montreat, Black Mountain, and Swannanoa, but in the exuberant days after the defeat of the forces from the government at Bluemont, dozens of other communities had allied in, as far south as Flat Rock and Saluda, north to the Tennessee border, east to the outskirts of Hickory, nearly sixty thousand people in all. A tragic number when it was realized that more than a half million had once lived in the same region.
The city dwellers who had survived in the ruins of Asheville were of course welcomed, but few came in with any kind of resources, having lived hand to mouth on what could be scavenged from that once upscale new age–oriented community. It was the backwoods communities like Marion, even Morganton, with groups surviving like the one led by Forrest who joined with a quid pro quo of skills and even access to food that really counted in what all were now calling “the State of Carolina.”
Forrest was usually not the talkative type, and John remained silent. Something else was up with this man, and John waited him out.
“Someone came into my camp yesterday,” Forrest finally offered. “I think you should come back with me and meet him.”
“Who is he, and why?”
“Some of my people found him wandering on Interstate 26. Poor bastard is pretty far gone—several ribs broken, bad frostbite, and coming down with pneumonia. He got jumped by some marauders on the road and took a severe beating. Chances are he’ll be dead in a few days, so we decided he should stay put and you come to him.”
John did not reply. Forrest was not given to extreme reactions; months earlier, he had come into Black Mountain, leading nearly fifty of his community, after they were hit by an air attack from Fredericks’s Apaches. The man had been gut shot and kept refusing treatment until those with him were treated first. If he judged their refugee to be too sick to travel, John wouldn’t question the decision.
“Who is he?”
“Says he’s a major with the regular army. Claimed he served alongside you years ago. Name of Quentin Reynolds. That he was with the army that took Roanoke.”
“Quentin?” John whispered. The name struck somewhere, but if they had served together, that was close on to a couple of decades ago.
“Claims he was an adjutant to a General Bob Scales who’s in charge up there.”
“Bob Scales?” And with that, John sat bolt upright. It was Bob whom he had been speaking to at the Pentagon when the EMP hit. It was Bob who had been his mentor during his army career and who had arranged through the good ole boy network his teaching position at Montreat when John left the military to nurse Mary through her final months in the town where she had grown up. “Bob is alive?”
“He didn’t say that—just that he served with him.”
“Still, I got to talk with him,” John said excitedly. He looked back out the window; the storm was picking up. “Think we can make it now if we left today?”
“If it’s like this down here, I wouldn’t want to venture crossing over Craggy Gap and the Mount Mitchell range with night setting in. It was really blowing in as I came over this morning. Best let it settle down first.”
“Damn it.” John sighed. “This Quentin, think he’ll make it?”
“Can’t say, to be frank. Just had a gut sense I should come over and tell you. Anyhow, who is this Bob Scales?”
“I served with him years ago and thought he had died when things went down. If he is in charge of things up in Roanoke, my God, I got to find out.”
John’s worried thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Paul Hawkins running across the commons, head bowed low against the storm. Paul barged into the room, bringing with him a cold blast of air, Forrest cursing for him to close the damned door.
“John, you gotta come see something now!” Paul cried, features alight with a broad grin, made rather comical by the mantle of snow dripping from his broad-brimmed hat.
It was Paul and his wife, Becka, who had discovered the nineteenth-century journals of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, known as the IEEE, in the college library’s basement, the trade magazine for the new industry of electricity. Filled with discussions and debates about the new science of electrical engineering, complete with detailed patent applications by the likes of Edison, Tesla, and Westinghouse, it was a discovery that ignited the plan to restore electricity, a “blueprint,” to bring their community back online.
“What is it, Paul? I’m kind of preoccupied at the moment with some news Forrest brought in.” He nodded to his friend sitting in the corner.
“Can’t explain it; you just got to see it now. You too, Forrest.”
John looked over at Forrest.
“You sure we can’t go back over the mountain today?” John asked anxiously.
Forrest shook his head. “Maybe first light tomorrow.”
John knew better than to second-guess Forrest, and he sighed. It would have to wait. He looked over at Paul, forced a smile, and nodded.
“Well, let’s go see what has you all fired up.”