ABOUT THE SAME TIME. ONTARIO, OREGON. 6:15 AM PST. THURSDAY, JULY 10, 2025.
Larry Mensche got a
radiogram at the first real breakfast he’d had in three weeks,
which followed the first real hot bath and the first real night
sleeping in clean sheets. It canceled his first chance to do
laundry and his first full day of meals eaten at a
table.
He was grateful that
the radio staff in Ontario had not checked to see if he was in the
Reconstructed Radisson Ontario, as the place styled itself, last
night when the message from Bambi came in; he couldn’t have done
anything effective till this morning anyway.
He was not
displeased. He hadn’t been up US 95 yet, so he’d be covering new
territory in his private search for his daughter, Debbie, missing
since Daybreak day. He knew she was somewhere among the tribes—not
good, but at least she hadn’t starved in a locked cell at Coffee
Creek Women’s Penitentiary, where her habitual bad checks, petty
theft, and impaired driving had landed her. He’d been lucky to
reach Coffee Creek only nine weeks after Daybreak, and picked up
her trail from there; he knew now that Debbie and a dozen other
women had reached this general area, bent on joining a tribe,
though he didn’t know which one they’d found.
The hotel owner
accepted an RRC purchase order for Larry’s bill, conserving his
cash and trade goods. “I guess the RRC is more stable than any bank
we have. I still don’t get it, is the RRC Provi or
Temper?”
“Yes.” Larry was
trying not to fuel gossip. The owner looked annoyed—accepting that
p.o. had been a big favor. Larry softened it a little: “The Provis
and the Tempers in Athens are both trying to bring the country back
together under the Constitution. Mostly they disagree about
mechanics and details. We’re trying to help them in the areas where
they agree. What we’re not is against
either of them.”
“I guess that’s the
answer you have to give.”
“Well, that, and it’s
true.”
“For an outfit that
calls itself the Reconstruction Research Center, you don’t seem to
have much information.”
“Hey, we’re a
research center. If we knew anything it
wouldn’t be research, would it?”
The owner shrugged.
“I guess government hasn’t changed that
much since Daybreak. It’s still hard to see what we get for our
taxes.”
If you’re paying taxes, Larry thought, you’re the only one. I guess habits of speech die
hard. “I do need to research one subject. I’ve got to outfit
an expedition up into the wild country north of here in a hurry. Do
you know anyone that can rent me some mules, help me handle them,
and doesn’t mind carrying a gun on the job?”
The owner grinned.
“Is it okay if it’s my brother-in-law?”
“You’re right, things
haven’t changed that
much.”
Ryan and his son
Micah lived on the far side of town, but this wasn’t much of a
problem; Larry had only what would fit into his backpack, and
anyway he needed to check at the biofuel plant to see if they had
any avgas they were reasonably sure was sterile.
As he walked he saw
that Ontario, Oregon, was in better shape than most towns:
Fortifications mostly finished. Militia drilled and ready. Salvage
crews working through ruins in an orderly way. Community mess hall
reliably open. The blacktop on the streets was falling apart, of
course, as the volatiles in the asphalt spoiled, and there were
still flooded spots, packs of feral dogs, and abundant cars and
electric wires yet to be hauled away, but you could feel the town
coming back together.
The biofuel plant had
clean avgas, and Ryan and his son Micah were indeed open to the
idea of an expedition north into the mountains. “To make good
time,” Ryan said, “you want to under-load the mules and use more of
them. Mile Marker 178 is 108 miles away, a week’s trip nowadays. To
fill up your friend’s tank, I make that three mules hauling four
jerry cans each, with not much else, plus two more mules for
supplies for the three of us, so’s we’ve got hands free to fight
when the tribals turn up.”
“You’re sure they
will?”
“I don’t go up there
unless the money’s awful good. Tribals are why.”
“Then I won’t haggle
about money,” Larry said. “So five mules will do it?”
“Unless you want to
ride, or pay for me and Micah to ride.”
“Nah. People ought to
be self-propelled.”
Detailing Ryan and
Micah to acquire supplies, fill jerry cans, and load mules, Mensche
went to the post office to radio Heather and then to the town
square to trade for ammunition.
At the biofuel plant,
Larry found Ryan and Micah almost ready to go, and paid for the
fuel with another RRC p.o. Larry sprang for a quick brunch at a
stew-and-bread stand in the square, and they set off at about 10:30
in the morning, not bad for a job he’d been unaware of at
7:00.
Like Larry himself,
Ryan and Micah wore a mix of camo, denim, and deerskin, and carried
black-powder guns, crossbows, axes, and big belt knives. Together,
they looked like three old-time mountain men who had walked through
a time machine for a ten-minute shopping spree at
Wal-Mart.
The mules’ hooves
clopped over the high truss bridge, loud in a town with no
automobiles or electricity, but soft and lonesome against the roar
of the river below. One down, and one hundred
seven to go.