Shatto's Way Page 6

  "Damn, that gun's old, Toby. This Rob Shatto your kin?"

  "Well, Pa said so. He claimed there were a number of Rob Shatto's way back. Which one owned this he never mentioned. Pa took it to a Kentucky Rifle Association meeting and got offered some pretty serious money for it.

  They claimed it was originally a flintlock and that the barrels were handmade."

  Toby pointed it at arm's length, sighting across the road. "I wonder if it ever killed anybody? No way to tell, but you have to wonder about a gun this old. Those were mean times, Chop."

  "Huh! To hear you tell it, they're going to get meaner!"

  Jesse looked interested, but Toby ignored the bait and just shrugged.

  +++

  At the Shatto lane Chop tooted and went on home. Toby drove to the cave and put everything inside. He looked around again and walked up the short tunnel where the water came in. It was a puny trickle but it had been enough to discourage further mining of that drift.

  His father had fitted an old sink under the flow and he took a long drink, preferring his cupped hands to a dusty glass hung over a peg driven into a handy crevice.

  The water ran out the sink bottom and into a crack below, just as it had before the miners knocked the middle out.

  He knew he was just milling around, putting off what had to be done. That had never been his way, and he resolved not to continue it. He went to the old desk, laid out paper and pencil, and began writing out his options.

  How to act? He drummed with his pencil, thinking, then wrote possibilities. He could sell out or pack up and go to a safer place. Switzerland? If civilization collapsed, living in Switzerland wouldn't be worth a tinker's dam either. South Africa? Maybe New Zealand?

  He could stay here or another place in the United States. Perhaps Florida. No winter worries there. He decided he couldn't choose wisely unless he could decide what was going to happen.

  If the dollar collapsed, he should have gold, silver and land. If nuclear war exploded he would need shelter and supplies. The possibilities were too complex and he decided to think through the scenario he believed most likely.

  Ok, the American economy would collapse and surely take most countries with it. Without trade, millions would begin starving and chaos would erupt as the hungry went where they hoped food might exist.

  Red China would survive; they mostly lived primitive. Japan might last, as their people could exist on nearly nothing, but it would be awful. Russia would starve and might in desperation unleash its armies on the west. Missiles? Maybe.

  He went on, wondering if it could really happen.

  Weighing it all, it seemed wisest to stay where he was. He liked that solution but he needed to be sure he wasn't just choosing the easiest course.

  The writing down wasn't helping any. All he was doing was jotting down ideas and putting question marks after them. He left the desk and walked the shelf lined corridor to the cave entrance.

  Late afternoon chill was seeping down the ridge but the cave temperature stayed constant. He peered through the plastic viewplate, unable to see more than a fringe of trees, and considered how much farther he could observe when all the leaves were gone.

  Close by the door, his father had stacked filled sandbags. Repositioned, they would form a radiation shield protecting everyone in the cave. He sat on them, leaning against the cool stone and organizing his thoughts.

  Here in Perry County he had friends and land. Certainly the cave and the machine-filled house and barn provided security he would be hard put to match elsewhere. Only the hard winters seemed a negative factor, but he could prepare for them.

  If the collapse proved only a monumental depression, things would normalize, perhaps within a few years, but would a fossil-fueled economy again provide the rich life? Things would be different.

  If the crash was as horrendous as he feared, then there would be no return to current ways of living. Eventually a civilized lifestyle would evolve but the nations would be shattered and the empires forever changed.

  It seemed to him that energy—convenient electrical energy—would be the factor that determined future courses.

  If the utilities could operate their steam plants and hydro-generators, manufacturing could continue. Without dependable electricity no one could make bearings or batteries. Hell, no one could make much of anything: no radios, TV, or telephones. Again he was bogged down in complexities of change too massive to evaluate.

  If energy is the key he could begin there. As he planned, practical ideas would appear and he could adjust to them.

  He had accomplished something. He had decided to stay at home. Good God, all that convoluted reasoning to do what Chop or a thousand others would never have questioned.

  Surrounded by survival books he figured and planned well into the evening, Then, for the first night since his return, he slept long and soundly.

  +++

  In the morning he took his lists to the house and arranged them near the telephone. The day was bleak with gray overcast. A good day to spend inside. He poured coffee and began work.

  His first call was to Hamburg, Pennsylvania where a small firm recommended by his books made wind generators. The company was still functioning and had two machines on hand. Each windmill delivered enough alternating current to power a typical all-electric home. The cost was frightful but he had decided. With the gas situation, delivery date was questionable. Toby bought the machines and agreed to pick them up.

  Near the farm road lay a natural depression. Only bushy weeds grew there. Half an acre in size and sloping to about a six foot depth, it had never been useful.

  A Thompsontown coal company purporting to be big time agreed to begin delivering coal to Shatto's place.

  Each load would be paid on receipt until confidence was mutual. Toby called for hundreds of truck loads. He planned to fill the depression level. How many tons would that be? More than he could pay for perhaps.

  When their White Plains offices opened he pleaded severe compassionate and financial reasons and coerced IBM into granting him an extended leave of absence (without pay of course). He thought that in the end it wouldn't matter anyway, but it couldn't hurt to leave a back door available in case this all came to naught.

  Photovoltaic cells that converted sunlight to electricity were next on his list. He ordered dozens from three different companies. Chuckling to himself, he charged them on his Platinum VISA card.

  It was nearly noon before he finished his calls and hunger was beginning to distract him. He had business in Millerstown anyway, and that would take him on to Bloomfield. Before that, he should check the contents of his father's lock box, though he knew pretty well what he'd find.

  Handling the familiar ring of pocket-worn keys was a little like looking into his father's soul. He knew just how his Pa's hands had looked choosing the right key and fitting it into the side of the old Newport and Sherman's Valley Railroad padlock. He grunted in amusement. It seemed as though anything with a little age on it was valuable these days and to a collector the lock itself would probably bring fifty dollars.

  The box contained the valuable things that George Shatto had used day to day. The coins he traded at shows were there and partial bags of silver dimes, quarters, and halves. There were some silver dollars but the serious money, saved for the bad times, was stored elsewhere.

  Among the many papers was an I.O.U. from Marion Cauffman. Toby expected to find one. Marion paid regularly only to come up short and immediately borrow again. Never more than a few hundred dollars, George had considered the money a sort of permanent loan. Toby supposed the paper made them both feel businesslike.

  He locked the cave and called Marion's home. They exchanged greetings and regrets over George's death and Toby got down to business.

  "Marion, I've got your I.O.U. to Pa, here."

  "Ain't due for a while yet, Toby."

  "You're right, Marion, but I've got a way to settle up that might work out good for both, if you're a'mind."
The country talk came back easily and Toby liked the sound of it.

  "What I've got in mind, Marion, is that you do a little haulin' for me with your big truck.

  "Fact is, I've bought a couple of machines down in Hamburg. You could haul 'em up here in two easy loads, or even one, if you towed a lowboy.

  "You bring 'em up and we'll call it even. How would that suit?"

  Marion like it. "Why that'd be real fine, Tob. More'n fair, in fact.

  "When d'you want 'em?"

  "Soon as you can, Marion. Tomorrow if you could make it. I'll put a check and an address in your mailbox to pay for the machines in case I'm not here when you come by."

  They spoke a few moments longer and Toby got away still hungry and anxious to move on.

  +++

  He leaned over the marble counter in the Juniata Valley Bank at Millerstown sorting through the deeds, insurance, and old records he had removed from George's safety deposit box. Some the lawyer needed in New Bloomfield. The rest would go to the cave because the time for bank deposits was past.

  He had closed their joint savings accounts and cashed his certificates of deposit. The amount was many thousands and the manager appeared to determine that he really desired it all in cash. Toby did not attempt to explain that he intended to spend it all as quickly as he could.

  There were also three coin bags. Each contained a face value of one thousand dollars in silver. George had collected them before the cost of silver had risen. Not a rich man, the diverting of three thousand dollars had not been easy, but George believed that silver coins would be worth a great deal in a world beyond holocaust and had treasured the coins highly. What was the current value of silver, Toby wondered? It changed every day, but probably in excess of twenty thousand dollars per bag. George was already vindicated. The silver would go to the cave for further use as his father had intended.

  He left the bank still undecided whether or not to mortgage the farm. Every dollar wisely spent today would be worth thousands later on, but if government continued mightn't someone somehow lay claim to his mortgaged land? He would wait and see how things developed. The only difficulty was that once it began, trouble would expand so rapidly that no one would have time to act.

  At the gas station he waited in line for a fill up. Strangers were getting only five gallons and figured they were lucky. Fuel was already becoming an undependable commodity and it would be wise to get a little ahead there as well.

  +++

  Spending money was usually pleasant but handing dollars away thousand after thousand could make any man sweat a little. Toby Shatto spent with a freedom that left his head swimming.

  When he wasn't peeling off hundred dollar bills for coal deliveries he was shuffling out fifties for barrels of kerosene, more mountains of toilet paper and case after case of female necessities. He bought a number of solar stills that could make alcohol. He stored a full semitrailer of charcoal briquets and bought a load of uncharged "Die Hard" batteries.

  Other purchases were more fun with a lot less heavy hauling and packing. By telephone he purchased military surplus Geiger counters, cases of hermetically sealed crackers, and things like long-storage jams, peanut butter, and canned cheese.

  He gave some thought to medical needs beyond the first-aid materials George had put by. Nonprescription items were easy. He bought aspirin wholesale, half a million tablets. Antacids, salves, and creams piled up in case lots.

  More serious medicines took planning. He made a list of drugs he would need and went to a local doctor claiming he needed the opiates, broad spectrum antibiotics, and a few specifics to equip his yacht for a world voyage. Glad to help, the physician wrote prescriptions in large amounts.

  In four days Toby succeeded with eight doctors and filled the prescriptions at eight different drug stores.

  Guns were not overlooked and he took his thoughts to the Shermansdale gun shop. To supplement George's limited collection he purchased a pair of Colt Gold Cup .45 semiautomatic pistols and a pair of Ruger semi-auto .22 rifles.

  Equipped with extra twenty-five-shot magazines, scopes and slings, the rifles would give him fast, accurate, and affordable firepower.

  Ammunition was unholy expensive, but he didn't stint.

  As trading material, ammunition might prove best of all, and by buying in wholesale lots he could resell profitably if he had to. The ammunition load was two weeks coming in and the weight of it made the old truck light in the front end.

  Actually he was lucky to get the shipment. Fuel was seriously short, and the truckers were screaming for favorable rationing and reduced costs.

  The bad times were coming fast. Mail service was cut to three days a week and U.P.S. made only a weekly delivery. The coal company gave up, but Toby had enough, and he managed to get one of the Thebes boys to bulldoze dirt over the bed of coal.

  The county joked about everything in the state being moved to Shatto's place and snickered about young Shatto making his Pa look like a beginner when it came to storing. If the chucklers had possessed even a glimmering of how much he had actually put away they might have called for his committal to the state hospital.

  The once roomy cave had been reduced to narrow passageways with goods stacked floor to ceiling in barely organized groupings. All of the machinery had been moved inside the old house and both home and barn were boarded tightly closed.

  Toby lived in a small clear space in the cave. He had moved in bed, chair, and all the comforts. Except for using the house bathroom, he was in the cave to stay.

  +++

  Chapter 9

  Winter cold came early and with it mounting nationwide concern. A compromise fuel rationing program was initiated. Everyone immediately grabbed all that they could and gasoline almost disappeared. Fuel oil was little better. Most Perry County homes had installed supplemental wood heating a decade before, but in the valleys, faces were grim for few saw relief even in the spring when farm tractors would need gasoline and diesel fuel. The cities raged and frothed without half enough natural gas or oil to last the winter.

  On Thanksgiving Day, Toby Shatto plowed through driving snow and biting wind to Chop Clouser's for the big meal.

  To him, the gathering seemed an unrecognized last hurrah, but for the others the annual assembling was festive and a reunion worth expending precious fuel to attend.

  This year Bertha Clouser had outdone herself. Off the main dining room a second many-leafed table had been set to feed an additional dozen or so guests. Children were relegated to a third table well away where older girls could control their frenzied enthusiasm.

  As host, Chop sat at table head looming thoroughly baronial and obviously proud of his ability to properly feed his array of friends and family.

  Toby had been introduced to the Reverend Kermit Mantis almost upon his return to the county and as the minister rose to begin his lengthy blessing of the meal Toby chose to think about the speaker rather than his words.

  Reverend Mantis raised Toby Shatto's hackles, yet he almost instigated a laugh. Of only average height, the Reverend was the skinniest man Toby had ever seen. Narrow, with a sharp and long jawed face, the man seemed all points, joints, and bones. Pigeon-chested with high peaked shoulders, as angular as a stick figure. Reverend Mantis could only have one nickname and it jumped so forcefully into Toby's mind that he knew it would never leave. The man resembled a praying mantis to the point of characterization. "Praying Mantis!" Ye Gods, how it fit!

  But Praying Mantis had strange eyes and they were the feature that sent warning darts to Toby Shatto. The eyes changed expression constantly as though their owner drifted from mindless rages through passive acceptance to quizzical incomprehension and on to smothered amusement, sudden understanding, and others that Toby could not identify. It was unnerving to speak with the man; his changing expression had no association with the conversations.

  Reverend Mantis shook hands with an unexpected steely grip that closed like a wire noose. The man shook with his elbow
out, deliberately exerting additional power. Unprepared, Toby felt his bones grind under the pressure and he resented it. He wondered what others saw in the man.

  He would never choose such a strange creature for his minister.

  Yet the ladies appeared to dote on the man. They clustered around offering tea or cookies, making conversation about church matters and competing for his attention. Obviously Praying Mantis had something going for him, Toby thought of spell-weavers of other times, Savonarola, Charles Manson, Father Divine, James Jones—maybe the man was another Rasputin working his hypnotic powers.

  He smiled at the comparisons but Mantis' Mission For Jesus church had appeared from nowhere and had made significant inroads among the more orthodox denominations.

  Mantis spoke with great fervor, his body bowed forward, eyes closed, and hands clasped dramatically. The words were about the usual, with God, Holy, our Savior, and beloved Jesus inserted a lot more than necessary. Toby caught Chop's eyes and exchanged skeptical facial contortions. When the final "Amen" arrived, the anticipated feasting began.

  For tradition's sake Chop carved a monstrous turkey roasted to crackling but another, already sliced and portioned, was quickly served by waiting ladies. Mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy with oysters, corn, peas, hot rolls, the fixings overflowed plates and palates. They ate until they ached, small talk crowded between forkfuls. Perry Countians could eat with the best and while reloading his own plate with seconds or thirds Toby suspected the Clousers and cousins rated high even among those masterful gourmands.

  Still there was dessert to go and the deep dish apple, cherry, pumpkin, blueberry, and mince pies made refusal impossible. Only a fool would have dared compute the calories but only a greater one would have refused and offended the women who had labored so lovingly over their sugary specialties.

  Eventually even Chop had met his match and the men herded into the living room to collapse onto sofas and into sagging overstuffed chairs. The smokers lit up amid their friends' curses, and the room filled with a dozen conversations.