He had only a little left to do and that would finish off the last of the crops. Then it was time to move on, to leave for a while. A simple task that in the old days would take a day at most could now take over a week.
Then they would return home, hopefully.
But the journey would begin, without a doubt, the next day.
It had to.
His hands were rough and dry, his knuckles disfigured at the joints from early bouts of arthritis. Falcon’s hands looked like that of a man much older, in fact, he recalled seeing similar hands. They belonged to a grandfather figure he had when he was a boy.
In fact, many times when Josh held his hand, he saw his own hand in the old man’s.
That was many years ago.
Falcon grabbed a beer from storage. It was old and warm and wasn’t the best thing to drink, but he was thirsty and he gave had given his share of water to Josh.
He supposed he could take from the barter box, but that wasn’t fair to Josh or Lilly. The beer would work. He just hoped it didn’t make him sick.
After a few moments of working his hands, Falcon began the task of rolling cigarettes. Drying out the tobacco was easy. Nature did that for him with the heat and the fact that it hadn’t rained in over a year. It was the last of the crop and cigarettes were almost as good as the tiny bottles of hand sanitizer and water Falcon had. They were three of the priceless items.
The liquid sanitizer was funny to Falcon. He started collecting the bottles years before when he joined the service and they were handed to him regularly, like candy.
He saved them. He actually had an entire duffle bag filled with the two inch bottles when he met Stacy.
He was almost nineteen when they met. She was a field nurse and he had never heard the name Stacy before.
Stacy was beautiful, rough but with an air of delicate to her. She told him that Stacy was her mother’s name and she took it when her mother died in the war earlier on.
She had died New York.
An immediate connection ensued because that was where Falcon’s father died as well.
At the point when they had met, Falcon had been serving for three years. Still young, but far beyond ‘wet behind the ears,’ he had already seen battle after battle.
He was shot in the arm and was sent for medical attention.
Stacy removed the bullet.
That was the beginning of their story.
He entrusted her with the bag of sanitizer along with other items issued by the army. Items the older soldiers laughed about because years earlier they weren’t standard field issue.
The bag contained soap, sanitizer and even little bottles of booze.
It became a joke to Falcon and Stacy that they’d save what they could of these items until the war was over.
Save them because neither of them ever imaged the war would span their entire marriage.
Bag one, year one, bag two, year two and so forth. Each bag went into the barn.
No one expected the war to rage that long.
The barn was filled with bags.
There was even a point, following the nuclear exchange, when Falcon was between tours, that there was a temporary cease fire.
Everyone believed the limited nuclear exchange was the end. That had to be it. But despite the small cold front that caused temperatures around the globe to plummet, the war continued.
The cold front.
How many years before was that?
Stacy wasn’t even pregnant, and she was canning things left and right in case the farm didn’t survive.
It did, thankfully. And those jars of food saved a lot of people.
She canned so much; Falcon still had a few things in storage.
They weren’t for bartering.
They were for survival. Only under extreme circumstances would he barter those.
His fingers ached.
How many cigarettes did he roll while thinking of the wife he lost? The only woman he had loved.
It was late. Between the cigarettes, the preparations and the beer, Falcon was tired.
It was time to go to bed.
The next day was not only a new day but also the start of a new way of life for him and the children, at least for a little while.
For that he needed rest.
2. Nightmares
A distant boom in the dead of the night caused Falcon to stir from his sleep. He sat up in bed. The room was quiet and still. Josh slept on his side and Lilly on her back. Their bed was across the room and Falcon, drenched in sweat, got out of his cot immediately and checked the children.
Though Lilly snored, he still placed his hand on her chest to feel her breathing. Then he moved to Josh. He felt Josh’s little chest rise and fall and only then Falcon breathed out in relief. Not that he actually thought anything was wrong with them; it was just out of habit, and old habit from his Army days.
Falcon flashed back to what had started it. It was a thunderous explosion just outside of camp in Virginia. He was fresh out of basic training and on his first tour
“Incoming. We’re being hit!” A Sergeant cried out. “Falcon, get Stevenson.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Falcon was already dressed and tying his boots. He looked across the tent. “Stevenson. Get up.”
Stevenson didn’t. His back faced Falcon as he lay on his side.
“Stevenson.” Falcon stomped his foot into his boot and took the three steps across the tent. “Stevenson.” When he reached down, he knew.
Stevenson was dead.
He was just an unlucky target for a wayward piece of shrapnel that seared through the tent into his forehead while he slept. He never saw it coming.
From that day forward, any time an attack happened at night, Falcon checked his bunk mates. And it carried over to checking on Josh and Lilly.
Another ‘boom’ jolted Falcon and the room lit up with a flash of green.
Heat lightening.
A dust storm wasn’t far behind, but it was perfect timing. It was a brief opportunity that Falcon had to seize, a few seconds of wind before the dust kicked in.
Falcon opened the window and a constant flow of blasting cool air rushed in. He allowed it to hit against his damp chest and it gave him some relief from the heat.
Watching for the dust, Falcon stood by the open window, hoping it would cool the whole room down. It did. Then when he could see the clear sky get hazy, he knew he had to shut the window.
The room would get dark; the storm would block out all light. Falcon, after scooting Lilly over a bit, lay in bed with his children just in case they woke.
The pellets of dirt and dust beat against the window like rain, but it wasn’t rain. Rain would be a miracle. And the world was fresh out of those.
Back propped up against the headboard, hand resting on Lilly’s head, Falcon closed his eyes.
He dozed off quickly and woke just as fast at the sound of thunder. But during that brief dance with sleep he dreamt of war, just a snippet. Most of the time war was all Falcon dreamt about.
The war.
How could he not? It was most of his life.
Sometimes he’d dream of other things, but never anything good. When was the last time Falcon had a good dream?
Each night he closed his eyes and hoped for one, but one never came.
One probably never would.
3. Early War
When the war had first begun, no one expected it to go on. Falcon didn’t quite understand any of it. Not even why it started. He was young and only knew some bad country or bad guys came and attacked America. They brought the war to the shores of the United States.
He was a war orphan who stayed in various institutes until he was sixteen and allowed to join the service. While he wasn’t all that sure on facts, he could recall hearing ‘grownups’ discuss things at the onset. How the bad guys were messing with the wrong country. How it wouldn’t take long before the mightiest military in the world would take charge.