“You’ve got a quarterback’s arm,” Griz said, walking over.
“Nah,” Jase said. “I could never throw long straight.”
“All right. Quit playing around and grab your gear,” Tyler announced. “We have Camp Fox arriving tomorrow and barges to prep, so let’s get to it,” Tyler said.
*
One day later
Jase and I stood on the wood deck of the Aurora, watching the convoy approach down the highway from the west. We had hung the U.S. flag from the bridge, and it waved proudly in the fall breeze. The flag was our all-clear sign to the convoy. If the flag had been upside down or missing, our mission had failed and the Aurora wasn’t safe. I could only imagine how nervous everyone in the convoy must’ve felt until they saw the flag.
I looked through the scope of my rifle. I counted fourteen vehicles in all. With the exception of a sports car for our scout vehicle, the other vehicles were all heavy duty: HEMTTs, Humvees, SUVs, trucks—one stacked with crates full of chickens—and a large semi pulling a trailer full of cattle, hogs, and goats. That the vehicles looked unscathed, coupled with the fact that they were slightly ahead of schedule, meant their journey was—hopefully—casualty-free. I continued to watch the vehicles, searching for signs of damage or injuries to their occupants.
Clutch sat in the passenger seat of the first Humvee. He was wearing sunglasses, and his arm rested on the doorframe, his window open. I slung my rifle onto my shoulder and gave Jase a wide grin. “Everything looks good. I see Clutch in front.”
He returned my smile and let out a deep breath. “Good. I was hoping we hadn’t stirred up any herds on our way over. I’ll go tell the others.” He jogged to the galley and toward the engine room where Wes and two of Sorenson’s people were finishing repairs. The Lady Amore had stopped by yesterday, and Sorenson had left three of his people, including his daughter, to help us get up and running. Their help and expertise were invaluable. His daughter, Nikki, had been born with sea legs, and she had a salty demeanor that came from spending most of her life on the river. She had been the one to get the engines running. Over the last twenty-four hours, we’d completed far more than we could’ve done with everyone from Camp Fox combined.
Not that Sorenson had done all that out of the goodness of his heart. The new world was built on bartering, and he was one of the best at it. For three of his people to stay two days, Tyler gave him two pallets of MREs, which cut our MRE supply in half. Sorenson had delivered two more pontoons in exchange for the .30 cal on the back of Tyler’s Humvee. I told Tyler he was being too generous, but he believed it was more important to get the towboat and barges set up to sustain Camp Fox.
If we had to stay the full winter on the Aurora or took on any more survivors, we didn’t have a single ration to spare. Tyler counted on any remaining zeds in the area to clear out and migrate with the herds, leaving the Midwest free for us to get what we needed from the bigger stores in towns. I didn’t have as much confidence. I knew for a fact that some buildings had quite a few zeds penned inside. I wasn’t looking forward to finding out which buildings those were.
“Shit. Is the entire group soldiers?” Nikki Sorenson asked at my side.