“Wow, and I thought my room was cramped with the new bed,” Trev said, squeezing around the carefully laid out equipment. “Jane doesn’t mind having this in here?”
“I asked her and she barely seemed aware that the limited space was an inconvenience.” Lewis began running his cousin through a tour of the space, even though he’d already shown Trev all the equipment on a previous occasion, then began a rundown on the process of reloading cartridges.
As Trev listened he poked through the bins where Lewis and Jane had neatly sorted all the empty casings by caliber. Lewis trailed off when he noticed his cousin’s attention settling on the smallest bin, with less than a hundred casings that were quite a bit bigger than the 5.56. Lewis joined him in front of it and picked up a handful.
“You only have this many .308 shells?” Trev asked.
“Yeah.” Lewis frowned as he rolled the light casings across his palm. “I should’ve been saving the brass all along, but I only started about when I decided to get into reloading. Horrible lack of foresight on my part. I’ve only got those to work with.” He lowered his voice. “And I’m down to my last 100 bullets, too. Jane has less than 50 herself. The town storehouse is also getting low on that caliber. We’re seriously talking about switching to the AK-47s we got from the blockheads.”
That made his cousin start with surprise. “150? You had so much starting out! And didn’t you get some more from the raiders?”
Lewis smiled humorlessly. “You use up a lot more ammo in combat than with hunting, and we’ve done a lot of fighting this year.” He jiggled the shells in his hand. “Jane’s already agreed to switch to the AK and let me have the rest of what we’ve got. She insists that since my G3 is the better gun, I’m more familiar with it, and I’m a better shot with .308 anyway, it makes sense. That’ll give me a little bit longer before I have to swap too.”
He looked up and shrugged, putting the shells back in their box. “But you never know. Maybe I’ll get a chance to trade. Or maybe I can keep up the reloading fast enough that we’ll both be able to have enough when we need it. Assuming the shells don’t inevitably get damaged, or wear down to the point they can’t be reused.”
Trev nodded. “It’s a shame, though. Your .308s are like his and hers weapons for you and Jane. People might not realize you’re a couple without the familiar fixtures.”
Lewis snorted in amusement. “Well at least we’ve got plenty of 7.62 shells. You’ll have plenty of reloaded bullets for your rifles.”
“Silver linings, eh?” his cousin said wryly, clapping him on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s get to work.”
“Right. I’ve read up on all this and watched videos, but like with so many things I haven’t actually done it. We’ll need to figure some of it out no matter how good the instructions are. And with something like this it’s really important we do it right.”
Trev nodded emphatically. “You got that right.”
Lewis returned the nod, thinking of the times his gun had misfired, sometimes near disastrously in combat situations. He guided Trev over to the bench, where they broke open the boxes of propellant and primers and got to work.
Before the Gulf burned a truck would deliver some or all of its shipment, the delivery almost always paid in advance electronically, and then it would continue on to its next stop or return to pick up another shipment for the next delivery.
But when Ned packed up to drive off, after hours of festival-like browsing, haggling, and exchanging goods, his truck was just as full as it had been starting out. If not more.
“Money definitely makes merchanting easier,” the trader said as he finalized the few major trades the town had made and watched his payment in goods being loaded up. “It’s a lot easier to sell high, pocket the profit, buy low and fill your truck with another load of cheap goods to sell high elsewhere, then rinse, repeat and watch your wallet get thicker and thicker.”
Matt could see that. It was a wonder the man was making any sort of profit at all with exchanged goods. Although he had picked up precious metals and jewelry from some townspeople in trade, as well as other valuable commodities that were smaller, lighter, and easier to store. “Does the business work like this?” he asked.
Ned grinned. “As a merchant it’s my duty after every deal to whine that I’ve literally been robbed and my family will starve in the streets. But to be honest I do okay. Enough to justify the time and fuel, and then some.”
“Seems a bit precarious. One highway robbery and all your hard work goes to pieces.”
The trader shrugged. “Welcome to life. That’s why I stick to the roads the military has confirmed are safe and under their protection, and only visit properly vetted locations with a good reputation. And in the event I do run into trouble Paul has his shotgun, and I’ve got a surprise stowed with all the other junk in the cab.” He paused, as if waiting for Matt to ask what, then continued anyway. “By which I mean my trusty SMAW.”
Matt blinked. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Rocket launcher,” the man clarified. “Most threats tend to vanish when you point something like that at them.” He grinned. “They’d definitely vanish if I fired a rocket off, vanish in an explosion that is, although I haven’t had to waste one actually blowing anything up yet.”
Hard to argue with that. Matt extended his hand. “Well hopefully you never have to. But if your route brings you back this way you’re always welcome, and we’ll try to make it worth your while.”
“Can’t ask for more than that.” Ned returned the handshake, then the two of them got back to overseeing loading the trade goods and packing everything up for him to drive on.
Matt’s offer was sincere. The trader’s prices had been steep and he’d haggled ferociously, so the town’s new acquisitions were costly. But they were also things Aspen Hill really needed, which they couldn’t have gotten any other way. Matt was satisfied with how things had gone. He just hoped Lewis and the others who’d wanted their own chance at the offered goods weren’t too miffed that he’d claimed them for the town.
Either way winter was looking a bit less bleak now.
Chapter Sixteen
Birthday
The temperature continued to plummet over the next week.
They started seeing frost in the windows some mornings, which meant snows could come any day. Snows weren’t unheard of for mid-October, especially at their slightly higher elevation, although they were very rare. But not this year, everyone expected, and with this cold most agreed that once they came they’d probably stick around for the rest of the winter.
Which could last for seven months, or even longer. Nuclear winter was hard to predict, especially on the scale they were looking at after the Retaliation, but the one thing they could all be sure of was that it was going to be brutal. The cold people scrambled to prepare for now would only get worse, and sub-zero temperatures were pretty much a given.
Among the other preparations Trev made was winterizing his beehives. He wasn’t sure how the little guys would manage a winter like this, or even if they could. It seemed like they’d been doing their own scrambling to gather honey to prepare, and his mom and Lewis both agreed they’d produced more than usual.
There was a brief argument about harvesting the honey now and letting the hive die, since they weren’t sure they could keep it alive through the winter anyway. But since their food situation wasn’t desperate and keeping the hive long-term was still a goal, they agreed to do their best to help it through til spring. Besides, they all liked bees, and none of them enjoyed the thought of killing off the little critters even if it was pragmatic. Especially Jim and Linda.