Buried Gold Pt. 2

"Alas, Babylon and Sumer and Rome all cry out from the ages. Another voice has joined the anguished chorus of the Damned..."



"We have all lost someone," A sonorous voice wafted over loudspeakers.

"God, it's his turn today huh?" Cad spoke over his shoulder to Allister, in line for morning soup at the Cannery Commune.

"Sounds like it," Lister grumbled. A wavering and warbling, sing-song rhythm grated like mockingbird heckles over the sets of speakers and bullhorns rigged to the peaks of bunkhouses and worksheds alike.

"But here together, we can overcome any loss. We are the inheritors of a sustainable and pioneering spirit, and here, together, we blaze new trails into the future. The Ohio Syndicate provides for us all the means to rebuild and thrive. Thank you for volunteering with us..."

Lister and Cad followed the line into a long steel Quonset hut. Inside sparse arc lighting cast an orange glow on several tables attempting to line up in rows: old wooden kitchen tables, cafeteria pieces, and wire spools with every manner of seat adjacent. Some men sat on the floor, and spooned from their individual dish a thin soup consisting of a broth and an odd chunk, with field garlic and hickory salt for a semblance of flavor.

Lister held out his camping pot and a gaunt man ladled two large spoonfuls of soup into it, splashing out onto Lister's hand. He licked it off, "Cad you're gonna love it, I promise."

"You say that all the time." Cad sipped his pot, "Yep, you're right. I couldn't ask for better."

The pair sat across from each other on a pair of benches, with a large wooden box in between them. After Lister had defeated a particularly large and chewy chunk of what may have been turtle meat, he cleared his throat and said, "Cad, I heard something you might be interested in."

"And what's that?" His spoon clinked against his little aluminum pot.

"You remember Mormons right?"

"Remember, hell. I heard they were in charge out west. Governor stays in the tabernacle now."

"So, those guys, they were really big on all this happening." Lister gestured vaguely around him.

Cad's eyebrows twitched, "All what?"

"You know..." Lister gestured again.

"Oh! Right. Were they?"

"Yeah, bunker builders."

The last two words caught their neighbors' attention. Lister heard them drop their conversations and could feel their ears pricking. Cad shot him a look. They ate the rest of their soup in silence.

A buzzer rang in the Cannery and Lister exited the dark, mud-floored building with a sack full of his daily Portion. Cad was exiting behind him, and Lister hung back in order to let Cad sidle up beside him in the small crowd. "You ought to know better. No discretion!"

Lister nodded, "I know, I'm sorry. I know where one is."

Cad walked beside him but kept silent. Lister spoke again, "Okay, so I don't 'know' where it is. I know where it's supposed to be though."

"I'm listening," Cad said hiding a grin.

The pair entered their camp in the dead wood outside the Commune walls. It was more of a hassle every morning, going through the gates, and there was no guarantee of safety in the wood, but they paid Portions like all the other communes. Their arrival was heralded by yelping and barks from Sasha, who faithfully guarded camp and earned his Portion, too.

Wanderers passed through communes and worked, sometimes alone, usually in small groups. An old truck would sputter up to the gate and the unwashed would pour out of the vehicles, or leap down from their perches and handles along the sides. Barefoot or booted, threadbare or clothed, they had found life outside the walls unsustainable, at least momentarily. The goods manufactured there would be traded across the old United States, as the thin and ragged tradeways and lifelines held fast under the weight of the hungry masses that sought an unruined place within the corpse of empire.

                                                                .........................

The next morning, Cad, Lister and Sasha were absent from can-call, and new arrivals replaced them at the presses.The dead wood was finally springing back to life and stunted blackberry shoots and privet twigs colored the grey landscape with a bit of green. Autumn was not part of many of their lives anymore, rather the staggered green would continue on through hot, dry and long summers. Then, here around the Ohio, one day in November summer would end suddenly with a blast of arctic air and flecks of snow. Bits of wild onion and field garlic grew like senile hairs on a ragged scalp. Cad and Lister waited for the first polar front and to the east, dark clouds tumbled at the horizon.


"I'll give you two corns for a jug of that shine," Lister pointed behind a grizzled man in overalls who sat beside a small fire. The smell of smoking creek chub overwhelmed his senses for a bit before he repeated, "Two corns, one jug, Whaddya say?" Lister put on a big and friendly smile for the man.

He was nonplussed, "Mm. A pint. Pint be 'nough fer you."

"Sir, what's the proof?"

"Mm." The old man handed Lister a clear plastic pint bottle.

Lister shook the shine and watched the bubbles form and coalesce and quickly dissipate. "Could you use it for fuel?"

"No reason you couldn't." The old man seemed impatient.

Lister fretted, "All right. What's it gonna take for the jug?"

"Four corns and a beef."

"You're crazy as you look!"

"Three corns and a pork or I'll throw it on the fire!"

                                                                 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lister and Cad took a few sips of the shine mixed with rainwater that evening, only because it was so expensive. The next morning they woke shivering and dehydrated, as the first winds began to blow from the north. An all-too-familiar bite lingered on the tips of their noses.

After a hike, Lister caught his bearings and remembered where he had hidden his truck. The put-together machine had carried him this far; he trusted it against better judgement. They carefully poured the jug of shine and a can of gasoline into the tank. Sasha yelped at the tailgate until Cad let it down, and the dirty yellow dog scrabbled and clawed its way into the bed.

Lister slammed a T-bar into the ignition module and gave it a turn. The flywheel whined for a moment and then with a gout of black smoke the engine roared, the revolutions soared and what passed for a tachometer flickered to the right. Cad shook his head and laughed, "Gets me every time."

Lister laughed, too, "By far the most trustworthy thing on this continent."

Metal ground against metal, bushings and bearings creaked and squealed. The rusted truck hauled two men and a dog out of the dead wood hollow and out onto a peagravel wash that passed for a road. Sasha's nose pointed in the same direction the truck was headed: East.