The Final Chapter Read online

“When that happens take a break and then come back here.

  “By that time we’ll have ten or fifteen posts leveled and anchored. You can see how we’ve been doing it and we’ll switch off for awhile.”

  Scott looked at John and asked, “Any questions?”

  “Nope. I can dig it.”

  Tom and Scott groaned.

  Jordan stared blankly. He didn’t get the pun.

  “How deep?” Scott asked.

  “Two feet deep, one foot across.

  “The deep part has to be exact. There’s a piece of wood at the last hole marked at the two foot mark. You can use it to measure each hole when it’s done.

  “It’s important the holes be consistent depth. Exactly two feet. If it’s a bit deep toss some dirt into it and tamp it down with the stick. If it’s a bit shallow take another bite with the post hole diggers.

  “Make sure each one is exactly two feet, though, or the fence won’t be level. It’ll go up and down like a wave on a choppy sea and will spend the next forty years looking ridiculous.”

  “Got it.”

  “Then why are you girls still standing here?”

  As they walked away, Scott said to John, “He can be a bossy son of a bitch, can’t he?”

  “No doubt. Good thing he’s in a good mood today.”

  -50-

  Tom and Jordan worked the first fence post, using a bubble level to make it stand tall and proud… and perfectly level.

  As Tom held it into place Jordan took one of the two by four studs from Tom’s pickup parked nearby.

  He placed it on the ground, centered on and perpendicular to the fence post and hammered the two together.

  The stud would keep the post from moving until concrete was poured into the hole and it could be removed.

  Then they moved to the next post and did the same thing.

  They broke for lunch halfway through their day and broke for good right before sundown.

  Each of them washed up, had a hearty dinner and a cold beer to celebrate their accomplishments.

  When the sun finally dropped from the sky they’d leveled and anchored twenty four of the posts and dug twenty one holes for the next stretch of fence.

  They were in a rhythm now, knowing exactly what had to be done and how important it be done correctly.

  That night each man slept like a baby because they were flat-out exhausted.

  Even in the new world, where hard physical labor was the norm, this was a tough project.

  They were using different sets of muscles than they were accustomed to using.

  Especially when manning the post hole diggers, which are contraptions a man has to pound into the ground at his feet, then use in a scissors-type motion to pinch the soil from the ground one scoop at a time.

  It’s very efficient, but requires the use of muscles not often used in other forms of labor.

  Four sets of shoulders were on fire when the men went to bed, pumped full of ibuprofen and covered with icy-hot balm.

  But they were content.

  And to a man they were proud, for they knew they’d accomplished more in a day than any other four men in Kerr County could have done.

  The next morning they were stiff and sore and had a hard time rolling out of bed.

  Sara had to tie Jordan’s boots because he couldn’t bend over far enough to reach them.

  But after a hearty breakfast they were back on the job, back in the groove.

  By mid-morning Tom and Jordan finished leveling and anchoring the last of the posts and stood back to admire their work.

  What stood before them was a perfect line of one hundred yards of fence posts, as straight and level as they could possibly be.

  John and Scott had just a few more holes to dig for the next hundred yards.

  “We’re going back to the home improvement center,” Tom told them.

  “We’ll be back in an hour or so with forty sacks of secrete.”

  Jordan asked him, “What’s secrete?”

  “It’s premixed concrete that comes in fifty pound sacks. All you do is add water.”

  “Won’t we need more than forty sacks?”

  “Oh, we’ll need a lot more than forty sacks. But forty sacks is all we can carry at a time because of their weight. Twenty sacks per pickup. It’ll take a lot of trips.”

  “Then we’d better get started.”

  “Atta boy, Jordan. I knew I liked you for some reason. I finally figured out what it was. You’re trying to outwork me so you make me look bad.”

  He smiled.

  “I love a good challenge.”

  Tom turned back to Scott.

  “We’ll get the first load of secrete and drive the fence line. We’ll drop two sacks at each hole. You guys should be done digging by then and can go back for the next load.”

  “After a two hour break, you mean.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant. A ten minute break.”

  “You’re a real slave driver, Tom, you know that?”

  “I know. It’s one of my more redeeming qualities.”

  When they arrived at the home improvement store Tom took a pair of bolt cutters from behind the seat of his pickup truck and cut the padlock on one of the store’s roll-up doors.

  It was once powered by electricity, but he pulled a chain to disconnect the door from its opener.

  Then he raised it up by hand.

  He explained his logic to Jordan after seeing a puzzled look on the young man’s face.

  “It’s twice as much work to put the sacks on a cart and then push the cart out to the parking lot.

  “That would be dumb, when we can just drive the pickups into the store and right up to the secrete.”

  “Is there room to maneuver in there?”

  “Not in most of the store. But in the lumber and construction section, where they keep their secrete, there’s plenty.”

  As Jordan hefted the fifty pound sacks of concrete mix he caught a glimpse of his biceps and something Sara told him the night before suddenly made sense.

  His arm muscles, like his shoulders, were rock-hard and expanding. He was wearing a white t-shirt because it was cooler in the hot sun.

  The white shirt pressed against the skin of his upper arms brought out his sun tan.

  The tan and the growing muscles were what prompted his wife to tell him the night before he was turning into a “sexy beast.”

  She never elaborated.

  But now he understood.

  He smiled and went back to work.

  Jordan wasn’t related to Tom by blood, but they shared many of the same traits.

  One was that they both loved hard work.

  Another was that they turned everything they did together into a competition.

  When Jordan loaded his twentieth sack he caught his breath and walked over to where Tom was loading his own pickup.

  Tom was leaning against the side of his truck smoking a stale cigarette.

  Jordan said, “Ha! You go ahead and finish your break, Tom. I’ll finish up your load for you.”

  “Ha yourself, you young punk. I was finished five minutes ago.”

  -51-

  Back at the compound the pair drove both pickups along the fence line, dropping two sacks at each hole.

  Once they were done Scott and John hopped into the trucks and went back for the next load.

  “We’ll start at the first hole and work our way to the last,” Tom said.

  “You cut open both bags and pour the mix into the holes. Use your boot to kick it around and distribute it evenly. It’ll come up to about two inches from ground level.”

  “Wait a minute, Tom. I might be a young punk and all, and I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  “But even I know that powdered concrete has to have water added to it to work.”

  “Are you doubting my wisdom again, boy?”

  “No. I… well…”

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  “No sir
.”

  “Then watch and learn.

  “We have no good way of mixing concrete mix and water way out here in the pasture. This method is one I learned years ago. It’s quicker, easier and more efficient.”

  “Well, how does it work?”

  “You dump two sacks of dry mix into each hole and level it out.

  “I’ll come behind you with a water hose and will fill the hole to level ground.

  “It’ll take the dry mix only a few seconds to absorb the first batch of water, so I’ll fill it up again until it puddles on top of the mix.

  “Then all we have to do is wait until it dries. In two days it’ll be dry enough to take the braces off and hammer the other rails and pickets onto.”

  “And the concrete will be as strong as it would if we premixed it with water before we put it into the holes?”

  “I guarantee it.”

  “Then why doesn’t everybody do it this way?”

  “Because everybody isn’t as smart as I am.”

  By the end of the day the first hundred yards of fencing were cemented and drying.

  The group had just finished placing a fence post alongside each new hole when they ran out of daylight.

  Tom lied to John about how long it would take to finish the project.

  At least that’s what he told John.

  It was better than admitting to John he underestimated the job, for that would essentially be admitting he was wrong.

  And Tom seldom professed to being wrong about anything.

  It took exactly seven days to get everything done and cleaned up.

  But in those seven days they completed a job they could be proud of.

  The fence looked good, but more importantly it was very well constructed.

  It surrounded the original compound, the wheat and corn fields, Tom’s house, and crossed over the passing creek in two places.

  It also encompassed the small lake they made by diverting part of the creek’s water to constantly feed the lake.

  Theoretically one could spend the rest of his or her life without ever stepping foot outside the new fence.

  That wasn’t likely to happen, though.

  The world was slowly getting back to normal, and while it would be many years before it was once again the way it used to be, it was getting there one baby step at a time.

  Two things happened the day after the crew finished the fence project.

  First thing after breakfast young Christopher, now six years old and going on seven, sat down in front of the television to watch his favorite movie on DVD.

  Something drove him, though, to play with the remote control.

  It wasn’t the first time. He’d done so periodically throughout his life when he got bored because little boys are curious little buggers.

  This time he stumbled across something he didn’t understand.

  He turned up the volume to get the attention of someone else who could explain to him what he found.

  Linda was the first one who heard what she believed to be an old episode of Hogan’s Heroes.

  Linda followed the sound and sat next to Christopher, saying, “I’ll be darned. Hey! Everybody come in here.”

  A breaking news crawl rolled across the bottom of the screen in vibrant color.

  It said:

  WELCOME TO K-SAN ANTONIO, THE FIRST STATION BACK ON THE AIR IN THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY. RIGHT NOW WE HAVE NO ADVERTISERS OR PAID EMPLOYEES. WE’RE OPERATING WITH VOLUNTEERS FROM TEN A.M. TO TEN P.M. DAILY. IF ANYONE WANTS TO HELP OUT, OR ANYONE WANTS TO PURCHASE AIR TIME, PLEASE COME BY OUR OFFICES AT 8220 SAN PEDRO.

  Christopher had been taking reading lessons from Sara in the evenings and read the crawl to Linda as it rolled by.

  The only word he got stuck on was “advertisers.”

  The other item of note which happened on that particular day was that Sara left the house, saying she was headed to 4110 Winston Road.

  Hannah offered to go with her.

  Sara said sorry, she’d rather go alone.

  Hannah was concerned enough to tell Tom about it after she left.

  Five years before Sara had been kidnapped and brutalized by a very evil man named Jeff Barnett.

  Barnett was a psychopath who tied Sara to a bed and raped her several times a day.

  He met his maker when she escaped and started a fire which burned the house down around him.

  He’d haunted her ever since.

  She’d thought a lot about the experience, trying to make sense of it all.

  She’d lost a lot of sleep over it.

  Now she decided she knew how to finally find closure.

  -52-

  Tom found her at the ruins of the house where she was held captive for well over a week.

  It hadn’t changed much in the five years since it burned.

  The structure had collapsed into the basement.

  The basement was still five feet deep in ash and debris.

  And somewhere in the mess were the remains of Jeff Barnett.

  “Can I intrude?” Tom asked as he slowly walked up behind her.

  In the months immediately following her escape she was very skittish and jumpy.

  In those days she might have jumped at the realization someone was behind her.

  Even someone she loved as much as Tom.

  But she’d come a long way.

  “Hi Tom. Sure. I guess Hannah ratted me out?”

  “Don’t be hard on Hannah. She was just concerned about you.”

  “Why?”

  “She just doesn’t think it’s very healthy for you to be out here. None of us do.”

  “I’ve been out here several times, actually.”

  “That doesn’t make it any healthier.”

  “I’ve made a decision, Tom.”

  “What’s that, sweetheart?”

  “I’ve decided the only way I’m ever going to find closure is to do something you never allowed me to do.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I asked you several times since my kidnapping to let me remove his remains from the debris and to bury them. You never let me.

  “I’ve decided after you’re seated in your new job, and after I take your old one, that it’s no longer your decision to make.

  “I’m going to exhume him and I’m going to give him a burial in the pauper’s cemetery in the center of town.”

  “But why, in God’s name?”

  “Partly because I want him to stop haunting me in my dreams.

  “I ran that day, as far and as fast as I could.

  “If I’d stayed there, and watched the house burn, I could have verified in my own mind he never got out.

  “But that didn’t happen.

  “And a tiny piece of me has always wondered, did he slip out of the house right behind me? Did I not see him because my back was turned as I ran away? Is he out there somewhere, awaiting a chance to come back and finish the job of killing me?”

  “Honey, Charlie and I found his body. We told you that.”

  “I know you did, Tom. And I believe you. But he was a serial killer, remember?

  “Who’s to say he didn’t have another victim stashed somewhere in the house? He disappeared several times a day. I don’t know if he left the house or was going to another part of the house to torture someone else.

  “I don’t know if the skeleton you found was him, or another of his victims.”

  “Honey, if you exhume his body you still won’t know.”

  “I think I will, Tom. If I can hold his skull in my hands, I think in my heart I’ll finally know one way or the other.”

  “And this will help you find the closure you’ve been looking for?”

  “I believe so. But there’s another reason as well.”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t always been a good person, Tom. I know your vision of me is clouded because we’re so close. But I’ve done some pretty bad things in my life.”

  “We all have, honey. So
what?”

  “I want to prove to myself that I’m a better person than he was.

  “I want to give him something he took from me.

  “He took my dignity.

  “I want to give him the dignity of a proper burial.

  “I believe everyone deserves one. No matter who they are or what they’ve done.

  “After all, it’s not my place to judge anyone. Only God can do that.”

  “And this means a lot to you?”

  “It does.”

  “I could still overrule you, you know.”

  “But I’ll be the sheriff.”

  “And I’ll be the mayor. Last I checked the mayor outranked the sheriff.”

  “Please don’t. I need this, Tom. I need this to bring an end to my bad dreams.”

  “It might not.”

  “I have to try.”

  “I’ll let you do this under one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That we do it together.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got my own demons, honey. I always felt responsible for you being abducted.

  “I always felt if I denied your request to be one of my deputies you wouldn’t have been out there that night. He wouldn’t have taken you.

  “You wouldn’t have almost died.

  “I had trouble sleeping for months after your ordeal. I felt responsible for the whole thing. I felt guilty for almost losing you.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “Linda wouldn’t let me. She felt you were dealing with enough.”

  She held her friend. The two of them rocked gently back and forth.

  “Let’s come back in the morning, before it gets too hot.

  “We’ll bring a couple of shovels and a box to place the bones in.

  “We’ll make a day of it. We’ll pack a picnic lunch.”

  She pushed him back at arms length and managed a smile.

  “Seriously, Tom?”

  “Well, maybe not. But we’ll get the job done. And maybe we’ll bury some of our demons and troubles along with him.”

  *************************

  The people of Junction and San Antonio, like survivors the world over, were very slowly plodding ahead.

  Their world would never be the way it once was.