Scavenger by Jerry D. Young

Author:Jerry D. Young [Young, Jerry D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creative Texts Publishers
Published: 2015-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

The long winter finally ended, and the, large, very well trained team of farmers quickly got the crops for that year in, without much help from Jimmy. The Farm elders had him planning a summer long scavenging expedition. The first thing they had said to him about it, other than proposing it, was a question.

“Who do you want to be second in command?”

Immediately he said, “Lucy MacAtee. She’s experienced and we’ve worked together before. She knows my security routines and how I like to operate. She works with all the women here and knows their needs and wants.”

The small group exchanged looks. “We’ll take that into consideration.”

Jimmy smiled slightly. It was a done deal or he was out on his own. The council may very well have picked up on that, for two days later they confirmed her as second in command for the trip, and asked for volunteers to go.

They got many more than they needed, including several additional women. It was left to Jimmy and Lucy to sort down the list to useable size. They interviewed most of them and finally narrowed things down to six others, besides themselves, plus six semi truck driver teams that would be bringing things back as they were found, and a tank truck driver that would drive one of the ten-wheel tanker trucks with biodiesel to keep the vehicles fueled.

One of the criteria for selection was age balanced by physical stamina. They would be going into some higher radiation areas for short times and wanted the oldest people they could get, that could adequately do the work. In theory, they were less likely to have problems from the radiation until very late in life than the younger people. Jimmy and Lucy had already made up their minds about their exposures and would be going in, even in the hotter zones.

Everyone would be wearing dosimeters and anyone receiving more than 25R per week would be barred from continuing for a while. That did include Jimmy and Lucy. The convoy set out when they were relatively certain they’d seen the last of the snow for the season. They missed it by a couple of days, for they ran through some snow as they neared the city on the third day.

Jimmy was using the Suburban to move some obstacles that hadn’t been a problem in the past for the Suburban and trailer. But it was easier for Lucy to maneuver the Suburban, since they had cargo capacity and fuel provided by the other vehicles, and therefore weren’t pulling the trailer.

Their plan was to essentially avoid what had been open to the public retail places. Not only were they the most likely to have been scavenged by locals, none would have a large stock of any particular item on hand. With Lucy navigating from a marked up telephone book, Jimmy took the convoy to the first of several warehouses he wanted to check.

It took them six weeks of looking to find the things those on the Farm wanted.

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