The people at the funeral started to sing the song “I’ll Fly Away.”
“Oh, I like that song,” Wallace said to Andrew. “One thing I miss about church being open is hearing all those classic hymns.”
“Yeah, same here.”
“Hey Andrew,” Wallace looked back at the pallets that made up the shower. “I noticed there is a shaver and shaving cream in the shower. Would it be Ok if I use them?”
“Sure, but we aren’t supposed to shave more than once a week. We are trying to conserve those shavers.”
“Oh, I won’t be here more than a week anyway.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I didn’t see a mirror in there, but it is dark anyway.” Wallace looked back towards the shower. “I’ll just try to shave myself in the dark.”
“There is a mirror in there. I just used it the other day. It might have fallen behind the pallets back there.”
“Thanks. I think the water in the container is warm enough now, so I’ll go start my shower.”
Wallace got up and walked back into the shower, turned on the water, disrobed and entered the shower. Andrew walked downhill to the funeral. He sat next to Jesse, towards the back of the group.
*****
“Is Wallace OK up there?” Jesse asked Andrew, loud enough to be heard above the crowd singing.
“Yeah, he’s OK. But I think he has a screw loose.”
“We’re talking about Wallace, right? The guy who goes to church wearing full camo, and you’re surprised to learn that he has a screw loose?” Jesse asked, sarcastically.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you all of a sudden?”
“Oh, sorry. David just told us all the details of how Kirk got killed. Pretty chilling. I know, ‘what did you expect?’ but still.”
The song came to an end.
“Yes,” Andrew said, and lowered his voice now that the song was over. “That was horrible.”
“And to think it just happened right out in front of our property. It feels different here all of a sudden.”
Lawson stood in front of the crowd and invited Kathy and Peter to come forward. “We don’t have pall-bearers here,” he said. “So I thought we would have Kathy and Peter, Kirk’s closest friends here, cast the first dirt to bury Kirk’s body.” Kathy and Peter bent over to the pile of dirt next to the grave and grabbed some dirt. Everyone else lined up to grab more handfuls of dirt, and throw the dirt onto the grave.
When everyone had cast some dirt into the grave, Chuck took a shovel and started moving the rest of the dirt pile into the grave. Jesse walked to the front of the grave and addressed everyone while they were still there, standing.
“Hey guys, everyone,” he began. “I heard that dinner is ready, and like always, keep your dinner covered up so that it is pretty clean. I know the roadblock is almost a mile away, but the flies can go a long way. We don’t want diseases spread here if we can help it.”
“Yes, the dinner’s ready, and we got Wallace’s fish mixed in with it,” someone from the back of the crowd said. Everyone started walking to the campfire area.
“But before everyone goes,” Jesse continued, “I just wanted to say that we’re going to have a full camp meeting tomorrow afternoon sometime. We need to discuss some things. The guys who killed Kirk might be back, and that might have been them in the helicopter that showed up at the road block earlier. So be thinking about preparedness. I mean, camouflage and weapons. Stuff like that.”
“What are you talking about?” one of the teenagers present asked. Mary walked to the front and stood next to Jesse.
“I don’t know,” Jesse looked around at the crowd. “Those guys who did this to Kirk might come back for the rest of us. I just think we need to at least have some plans of what to do.”
Mary spoke up. “I think we were talking earlier about clothing dye. We have a lot of whites and pastels up here. That would be easy to see from the valley.”
“What do you mean, dye our clothing?” another woman asked.
“Yes,” Mary said. “That is why we stored so much Rit dye. We have a lot of it in the shipping container over there. Not right now, but over the next few days.”
“Yes,” Jesse said. “We need to talk about stuff like this, blending in, and weapons. Everything.”
“What about the stuff that won’t dye?” someone asked. “Some of our coats are polyester fleece, and I don’t think that stuff will dye. Are we just supposed to throw it away?”
“No,” Jesse said. “I don’t know. Maybe mark it up with charcoal if it can’t be dyed. But however it is done, we just need to blend in a little better. And for anyone who goes out near the roadblock, we need to make sure they wear dark green or black.” Jesse looked uphill, towards the shower. “We have a visitor, Wallace, who might give us some pointers. He was in the city only a couple weeks ago.”
“He might be able to tell us more about the thugs in town and maybe the guys who killed Kirk,” Andrew said.
“Well, we will talk about it all at the meeting tomorrow,” Jesse said. “We also have a bright red Cadillac up the hill. I know it’s way back there, and that’s another thing that really stands out.” He looked towards DJ, who wore a silver cross necklace on the outside of his shirt. “And maybe people can hide their jewelry or color it so that it doesn’t reflect sunlight and give someone away.”
“Camouflage our jewelry?” DJ asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“Like a ‘camouflaged cross?’” DJ asked, looking down at his cross necklace.
“Yes,” Jesse answered. “I like that. Yes. A ‘camouflaged cross.’ I think you’re onto something there, DJ.” Jesse looked at DJ and nodded.
“I guess I could do that,” DJ answered.
“Anyway, everyone, let’s all meet and share ideas about all this tomorrow afternoon. And who knows how long Wallace will be here.” Jesse nodded uphill to the shower. “Let’s get some pointers from him while he’s here.”
Someone in the group said, “No offense Jesse, but I heard Wallace is some kind of weird paramilitary guy or something. A survivalist.”
“Well, yeah,” Jesse answered. “Isn’t that what we are all doing up here, trying to survive?” Jesse tried to hold back a chuckle.
“OK. Good point.”
The crowd walked towards the campfire area for dinner.
****