on top of the flakes. He then grabs a washing board nearby and starts
scrubbing shirts, wringing them out, and throwing them to the side to
be rinsed later.
Finegan stands straight, sweating a bit, to catch his breath. Looking
to the side, up along the shore, he sees a fisherman.
Company . .
The fisherman is quiet and dressed in earth tones, had been there all
along, not noticed. He nods in Finegan’s direction and recasts his
bamboo pole and line into the river. He does not have expensive fishing
gear, but rather a pole with a line tied to the end, primitive.
Finegan returns to scrubbing his laundry, seeing that his activity is
downriver from the fisherman’s spot, and that they are not interfering
with each other. Joey is picking up the washed items and rinsing them
in the river.
______________________________
44
The houseboat is now covered with drying laundry. All lines from the
corner posts are full, the laundry attached to the lines by anything
but laundry pins. Some shirts are attached by the arms of the shirt
knotted loosely around the line, as though the shirt itself were
holding onto the line. Heavy pants such as jeans are attached with
tools – clamps or pliers. The roof of the house is covered with small
items such as underwear and t-shirts.
The Fisherman is making his way down along the steep bank toward where
the houseboat is moored, a string of fish in one hand, his pole in the
other. He raises the hand that holds the string of fish.
Howdy. Be happy to share the fish and some
news.
Finegan has been sipping a mug of coffee, the pot still on the grill,
staying warm. He puts his mug down and rises to move toward the canoe,
tied to the side of the houseboat.
Let me bring you over . .
______________________________
The houseboat crew and their guest are seated on the clutter at the
front of the houseboat, framed by flapping laundry hung on the corner-
post lines. The laundry tub has been emptied into the river and is
turned upside down. Finegan is seated on this as a chair. They are all
finishing fried fish and potatoes, putting their plates aside and
sipping coffee. Time now to finish catching up on whatever news they
have to share. The fisherman says, with a deep sigh,
So the fire took it all . . gutted the place .
. people keep showing up, looking for the
stash, so we let the char heap say it all. . .
No need to explain.
Finegan asks,
Those armed guards, they gone too?
And the fisherman responds,
Them that didn’t kill each other off during the
shootout, yeah. They took their guns and went
off to Atlanta.
Finegan asks,
Just you and your family here?
And the fisherman relays,
Those that come looking to loot, they don’t
stay. They move on. . . We try to stay out of
sight.
45
Finegan sets his mug down and rises to pick up a pumpkin and holds it
high.
For the fish. Would you mind taking me back to
the castle? What looters want is not always
what’s valuable. I’d like to sort through.
Joey is watching Finegan’s face but they both are arriving at the same
conclusion, having learned to almost read each other’s minds. Joey will
bring the canoe back and stay with the boat, in case looters arrive.
______________________________
Finegan and the Fisherman are walking up a barren hill, no trees or
shrubbery on the hill. Near the top of the hill, not at the crest but
to the side of the crest nestled against a rock outcropping, is the
charred remains of a large house. The spiked metal fence that
surrounded the house is still intact, though the gates are hanging
open. Some sheep are seen on the hillside in the distance, grazing. The
two are seen walking through the gate.
The fisherman is pointing toward a corner pinnacle.
There they had the lookout. Had one atop the
hill too in a concrete bunker. Then the goods
they had in a basement bunker, huge. The guards
blasted that open to get at ‘em. Heard the
blast from miles away. This was after they kilt
Mr. Anderson. He’d hid the key and was holding
out, ya’know. He was real tight fisted . .
always was. Acted like he owned everybody. Got
him kilt, I recon. We ain’t seed him since.
The twosome continue walking toward what was the front door of the
enclave. The monstrous double front doors are hanging open, still
standing though one is hanging a bit off its hinges. The doors are
charred but still entact, as they were solid wood on top of metal
centers, designed to be impermeable. The twosome slide between the open
doors, stepping gingerly through the trash. The main room of the house
has been burned to the extent that there is no roof and the floorboards
have been consumed. Only an occasional floor beam is in place. Finegan
points to the side, where the fire was less intense in the wings of the
house.
Lets try that route.
Finegan and the fisherman punch out the remains of a window glass, and
climb through the open window frams. The room they are entering has a
46
solid floor, though the drapes and furniture have been consumed by the
fire. The fire raged upward in the drafts, not downward.
There is a bar on the far end of the room, farthest from the main room
inferno. Finegan heads over there, poking around behind the bar, but
nothing seems to have been left by the looters. He pulls at some
plumbing used to pipe carbonated water, and detaches a carbonating
device under the counter to take along.
He is still looking around, determined to find some booze. He is
pulling out half melted soda bottles, littering the floor with them.
Toward the back of this stash he finds what he is looking for, a half-
filled soda bottle that has a tape tag on it. The soda bottles toward
the back had not melted as much as those exposed to the air of the
room, and this bottle is intact.
Aha!
Finegan opens the cap and sniffs with satisfaction, taking a swing.
As tight as he was, the help had to hide any
booze they were stealing. . . Probably measured
the bottles daily.
Finegan holds the bottle high, sloshing it, smiling.
This is how they got around him. The whole