Harland waded into the ash moonscape, coughing as he went. In one of the large farm sheds, the farmer housed a vintage McCormick Farmall, a much loved but far smaller rig than his now moribund John Deere, abandoned at the far pitch of the homestead compound. Working feverishly since the letup in the ash fall, Harland got the older machine running and fitted it out with tire chains. He was desperate to drive it to town with a utility trailer in tow. Food was running out in the house. The family needed provisions desperately.
The town roads and state highways were sealed shut. Town highway department equipment failed the first day of the ash fall, as the graders, trucks and backhoes ingested ash and seized or shorted out. Much equipment lay buried under collapsed state sheds, brought down by the cement-like poundage of the volcanic ash. To save his own home and outbuildings, Harland had run a shovel over the roof on the homestead, pitching down the heaviest accumulations.
The Swede clambered up onto the open-air seat of the Farmall and cranked the key. Ignition spark caught gasoline and the engine roared to life. Harland raised his eyes to the heavens and uttered a “Thank you.” He pulled the tractor out of its shed, attached a utility trailer to it, and made off toward the house. The vehicle skewed sideways, spinning its knobby tires until the rig clawed down to the earth and the tire chains gained purchase. It would be slow going.
Leaving the tractor idling beside the porch, Harland stamped up the house steps and into the kitchen. The rotary dial phone rang as he closed the kitchen door. Harland picked up the old black Bakelite phone receiver and uttered a salutation. On the end of the line was Jim Bottomly, manager of the Sweetly cooperative grain silos. There was a tone of urgency in his voice, rolling over savage static in the line.
“Harland, Lord Jesus, I finally got through to somebody. Thank god for wires on poles. I’m glad you’re there.”
Harland recognized his old friend and business acquaintance immediately. “Now where else am I going to be, Jim?”
“Look, Harland, I’ve been trying to call coop members. There’s a National Guard unit working its way out from Sioux Falls, wanting to open up the rails. They’re coming this way, I think. They’ve got heavy equipment; even got some armored vehicles rigged up to move ash.”
Harland wrinkled up his face. “Well, it’s about time somebody came in here to try to open things up.”
“I know, Harland, but I got to tell you, they’re going to open the rail line for one reason and one reason only.”
“What’s that?” the farmer quizzed.
“They’re coming after the grain in the silos.”
There was a silence on the end of Bottomly’s receiver. A cold finger drew a line down Harland’s spine. “Jim, are the feds coming with a checkbook, or is the government coming in to seize the grain because there’s this emergency order thing going on?”
“They’re coming to take the grain, Harland. The feds got some new rationing plan in effect, you know. I think they’re going to take the grain out by hook or by crook and hand us an IOU.”
“An IOU? Hell, Jim, I can’t live on a promissory note. Neither can you. None of us can out here.”
“I know, Harland, I know. They’ve already been through Watertown and Brookings. They got a train into Brookings and that’s what they did. They offloaded the grain from Jorgensen’s there and then left town. I thought I’d let the coop members know, in case you folks want to have a say in this. The Guard is coming. They’re coming, like it or not. If they get the rails open, I think we can kiss the grain goodbye.”
“We can kiss our asses goodbye, Jim.”
“Look, Harland, I’ve got to go. I’ve got a dozen of other calls to make, not that I can get through. I’ll be seeing ya.”
Harland lowered the phone down slowly into its cradle. Eda peered over the rim of her glasses at her husband.
“What is it, Harland?”
“That was Jim down at the coop, Sugar. He said the National Guard is going to be here sometime soon. They are going to try to open up the rail line, he says.”
“That’s wonderful news.”
“That’s not what Jim was saying.”
“Why?” Eda questioned, a quizzical expression on her face.
“He says they’re coming to open things up so they can take the grain from the coop.”
“Take the grain? What do you mean ‘take the grain,’?”
“Jim thinks the feds will get a train in here, unload the inventory and leave town with us holding an IOU.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Feed people back east. People are going to starve if they don’t have something to eat.”
Eda looked at her husband as if he had uttered a profanity. “Why is Jim worried about easterners, for heaven’s sake? To heck with them,” she stammered. “We may need that grain for all we know.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
After a two-hour struggle, one that usually took ten minutes by car, Harland drove his Farmall tractor across buried railroad tracks on the outskirts of Sweetly and rolled in heavy ash onto Main. On the left, huddled below the coop grain elevator towers, the old, defunct Sweet Spring Brewery didn’t look quite right. Harland pointed it out to his wife seated in the utility trailer. “Will you look at that, Eda? The brewery’s lost some of its roof. Ash must have brought it down.”
Upon traversing Main, the Farmall waded into a buried parking lot in front of Sweetly’s one small supermarket, an independent IGA owned by an old local family. The farm couple entered a store that they had been in every week of their lives, ever since it had been erected in the early fifties. Then LaPerle’s had been a little miracle of marketing and design, a cornucopia brimming with 5,000 items.
Harland and Eda, like every one of their neighbors, could navigate the store blindfolded. Shopping was not a visual experience, really. Local customers didn’t so much see the layout of the store or the goods to be picked up as they sensed it. Farm wives, in town after an isolated week on the land, could become fully engrossed in gossip for an hour with another farm wife, yet without dropping a word or pausing to remember something, they could arrive at the checkout counter with a cart full to brimming with every single thing they wanted.
LaPerle’s interior glared at the Svens. The white shelves, customarily crammed with products, reflected naked light. Aisle after aisle was vacant. At the far end of the interior, where the meat counter was, Eda caught sight of a figure. The couple paced over to talk with old Elwin LaPerle.
“Help yourself,” LaPerle said, using the same two words he had repeated half a million times to his customers over the many years.
“Elwin, it’s so good to see you,” said Eda in all honesty.
“Well,” nodded the octogenarian, “I’m mighty glad you folks made it in. Some people I haven’t seen in weeks.”
Harland prodded LaPerle. “Elwin, what in god’s name has happened to your store? There’s nothing here.”
The elderly gentleman pulled his glasses off his long and age-freckled nose and cleaned them with his apron. “I could tell you what’s happened, but I ‘spect you can figure it out for yourselves. We can’t get deliveries. There isn’t a tractor-trailer moving anywhere in this country, so we can’t stock up. Once we run out of gasoline for the generator, we won’t have power either.”
Always jovial, long-winded but much loved by his customers, LaPerle seemed taciturn today. The grocer waved the couple through a service door into the narrow warehouse area behind the selling floor. He led them to a delivery bay where a number of large crates stood. Several were about half full with shriveling bulk storage potatoes. Two others held bags of lifeless carrots.