Part 5 – Old Tom’s Legacy

  The sun was already creeping toward the horizon in the west, casting a long shadow in front of the truck as they marched east. They had traveled side roads and country lanes for most of the day, with Rob frequently pulling scraps of paper from the glove compartment to try and figure out where they were. They had passed through farmland and forest, skirting the edges of shuttered towns, weaving their way east across the broken spine of the world.

  Toward sunset, Rob turned off onto a gravel pullout that looked more like erosion than a road, and he made his way cautiously through the broken gate and up the driveway with the lights off.

  The women glanced around, unsure where they were. Rob stared ahead, eyes fixed on a squat shack nestled in a patch of trees just off the country road and a small house attached to it. “Holy crap, I’ve only been here once. I didn’t realize we were out this far,” he said, checking the surroundings.

  In front of them there was a long driveway that led to a smoldering house and a small workshop attached to it; whiffs of smoke curled off the charred rafters.

  “What is this place, Rob,” asked Lisa; the workshop and house looked dead, and the pines in the background stood watch over the destruction like grim sentinels.

  Rob looked out the front windshield and parked the truck where they still had space to turn around. He stepped out with his M4 Benelli, and Sarah and Lisa and Maria all looked at him as they got out, too.

  Rob pointed to the workshop. “A guy by the name of Old Tom Hollard used to press his own ammunition in this place and sell it in specialty boxes,” he said in a hushed whisper, his voice tinged with something close to reverence. “All the hunters for 200 miles considered him a living legend. Every hunter I knew swore by his rounds. ‘If you wanted to bag your tag, you needed Old Tom’s rounds’ – that was what we all said.”

  Rob just stared up the driveway, a flashlight in his hand and the Benelli over his shoulder.

  Lisa looked around the darkening countryside as Shadow and Ranger leapt out. “Rob, I grew up on a farm. Do you have a handgun I can use,” she asked, looking at Sarah and Maria and shrugging her shoulders.

  Rob blinked his way out of his haze and smiled to her, then he fished a 9mm out of the glovebox. “Safety’s on,” he said, handing it to her.

  “You can shoot one of those things,” asked Maria gently.

  “Of course – I’ll teach you both,” Lisa said, as the three women edged in closer.

  “Rob, why are we here,” asked Sarah, as they made their way slowly up the driveway toward the house and the workshop.

  “I don’t know,” said Rob. “I was only here once and was just surprised to see it. I figure we can take a look.”

  They made their way up the gravel driveway toward the burned-out shell of a house; its door was kicked in and flames had leapt out of the windows with rage. The roof was caved in and in the front yard, an old man lay dead. From the looks of it, he’d been shot, but it was hard to tell.

  Shadow and Ranger loped through the trees and underbrush, while Sarah and Lisa and Maria held one another. This far corner of the world wasn’t immune to whatever cruelty had been unleashed; it was hard to imagine a place that wasn’t having its eyes gouged out.

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  Rob looked inside the still-smoldering house and then looked at the women. In the yard next to the house, Old Tom's body was sprawled out on the grass and one hand was laid over a stain on his flannel that wasn’t all ash. The birds had been at his eyes. Rob used a corner of the dead man’s jacket to cover his face. His hands were shaking. "Lance used to say Old Tom was indestructible," he said quietly. "That he'd survive anything. And now…" He trailed off, looking toward women. "What if I can't keep you safe? What if we're all just… next?"

  Maria put a hand on his shoulder and helped him stand up. “We are in this together now, Rob. It’s all of us,” she said, looking at Lisa and Sarah. She turned back to Rob; “Let’s check the workshop,” she said gently

  They made their way toward the workshop. The door was bashed in and the lock was hanging by a single screw; the inside of the shack had been ransacked.

  “Old Tom had about every kind of gun you could imagine,” Rob said, looking around.

  Everything in the place had been torn to pieces; locked cases, every rack, and a few spare rounds were scattered on the floor as if someone had run out with boxes of ammunition under their arm.

  Rob picked up one of Old Tom's rounds from the floor—brass casing, hand-stamped with a tiny "TH" near the primer. He turned it over in his palm, then slipped it into a pouch on his belt. The women watched him, curious. "Old Tom's mark," Rob said quietly. "Every round he pressed had it. If you saw that stamp, you knew it was his work. Trusted." He pocketed a handful more. "Just in case."

  In the corner of the workshop on a workbench, two pieces of hardware that were still intact caught Rob’s eye: the Buchanan Precision Machine Hand Press, the very one Old Tom used to press his custom rounds, and a Lee Load-All II for shotgun shells.

  Lisa looked at the Lee Load-All II and a sad smile crossed her face. “My dad had something like that,” she said in a soft voice. “He and my uncle used to shoot skeet out in the corn fields.”

  Maria took her hand and rubbed her back, then looked up at Rob. “What are these for,” she asked.

  Rob looked around the shop and spotted bags of empty brass, boxes of slugs and shot, and heavy bags of primers and powder. He looked at Maria. “With this equipment, we’ll be able to press our own ammunition. Not everything, but enough,” he said.

  Ten minutes later, they had hauled the two ammo presses – rifle and shotgun – back to the trailer along with the bags of supplies. Old Tom’s legacy, salvaged and repurposed, would now ride with them into whatever came next.

  Back in the truck, Rob looked at the women; their faces were still flushed from the hardware store haul, but they were each glowing with resolve. “I think we should find a place for the night,” he said. They nodded in unison.

  He pulled a night vision rangefinder from the glove compartment and turned the headlights off as they pulled back onto the winding country road. The truck lumbered through a labyrinth of oak-crowded back roads for nearly an hour. Eventually, he veered off the road and into a field, driving overland toward a dense stand of trees. He pulled in behind the thicket into a hollowed-out ravine and killed the engine.

  Everyone climbed out into the deep quiet of late dusk. Rob took a long breath, then turned to take inventory while Shadow and Ranger stalked off into the gathering night.

  “When my buddy Lance died, his wife gave me all of his weapons,” he began, voice low. “Three hunting rifles, four shotguns, three handguns, and two AR-15s. Now we’ve got the ammo presses from Old Tom’s shop. The Earthroamer has a refrigeration bay underneath, and I’ve got three dressed deer in there on ice, and everything else we picked up.”

  He paused, surveying the load, then glanced at the women – Sarah and Lisa and Maria – standing close, watching him, their faces etched with exhaustion and something he couldn’t put back in the bottle: hope.

  The four of them worked behind the trailer together and they got the goats and sheep on short leads and a bit of fencing set around them to keep them corralled. Then Lisa looked up. “So, where are we going with all of this,” she smiled in the darkness.

  Rob grinned and shook his head. He looked up at the stars, and then at the three women. "Lance and I used to hunt in the mountains. He showed me this valley one time – isolated, good water, timber. We joked about building a cabin up there." He paused. "It's another day east. Maybe more, with the trailer. But if we can make it… it might be the kind of place that gives us a chance."