Ashen Winter

“So you buy me a spot. Or convince your mayor to give me one.”

“They don’t want a bandit hanging around.”

“That’s your problem—if you still want to know about that shotgun.”

Gah! It was frustrating to admit it to myself, but he was right—he was half-dead, but he still had the upper hand. And I didn’t want to argue with him all night. I reached into my coat pocket and extracted an envelope. “There are 200 kale seeds in here. More than enough to buy you admission to Warren—if you can buy it at all. I’m not going to hang around here and try to convince the mayor and sheriff that you’re an okay guy. I’m not even sure you are. So here’s the deal—you tell me everything you know, and I give you the seeds. Trading them for admission to Warren is your problem, not mine.”

“How do I know the seeds are any good?”

“Goddammit—!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll take it.”

I handed him the envelope. “Talk.”

“Da

“Who’s Da

“Da

“Peckerwood? Isn’t that some kind of insult?”

“Yeah, I guess. It’s also the name of a racist gang in Anamosa, in the state prison. I mean, I was never there, but that’s where the leaders were when the volcano blew. Anyway, it started to get hard to find weapons and ammo. So Da

“So maybe my dad is at that FEMA camp? Where is it?”

“Might be, yeah. It’s outside Maquoketa.”

“Where’s that?”

“About halfway between Dubuque and the Quad Cities.”

That made it somewhere southwest of Warren. I wasn’t sure exactly. “So Da

“I don’t know for sure. Drugs, maybe. We had all the good stuff. Antibiotics, painkillers, aspirin. Da

“What else do you know?”

“Nothing. That’s it. I swear.”

I shook my head. Two hundred more kale seeds gone. And for what?

Chapter 11

When Darla woke, we packed Bikezilla, said goodbye to Dr. McCarthy, and headed for my uncle’s farm. We’d only been gone two days, but even so, the farm looked different. Rebecca and Uncle Paul were out front nailing boards over a window. Most of the ground-floor windows were already boarded over.

As we made the turn into the driveway, Max came out the front door, leading a string of four goats by a rope. I gri

“Didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” Uncle Paul called as we pulled up.

“Didn’t expect to be back,” Darla said.

“Had to do a U-turn at Stockton,” I said as I hugged him.

“Come into the kitchen,” Uncle Paul said. “We’ve got fresh cornbread.”

We sat around the kitchen table for a while catching up. Darla went out to Bikezilla and got our maps. She put the Iowa and Illinois maps on the table next to each other, and I traced a line from Warren to Maquoketa with my finger.

“So the biggest trick will be crossing the Mississippi River?” I said. “Looks like there are bridges in Dubuque or Sava

“It won’t be a big deal,” Darla said. “That river that flows through the park behind the farm is frozen solid. We can ride Bikezilla across the Mississippi anywhere.”

Uncle Paul was shaking his head. “No way. That’s Apple River. It freezes almost every year, but the Mississippi never freezes over in Iowa.”

“It’s never been below freezing for nine straight months either,” Darla retorted.

“We could cross at the lock near Bellevue, like last year. It wasn’t too hard to climb down onto the barge stuck in the lock and back up the other side.” It hadn’t been fun—I don’t like heights—but I figured I could do it again.

“I’m telling you, it’s not an issue. Look at these lakes.” Darla pointed at a spot on the Mississippi just north of my finger. “I’ll bet there’s a bunch of boat ramps there—we can ride right down onto the lakes and across the river, which will be frozen over—and into Iowa.”

“Falling through the ice on a river is no joke.” Uncle Paul sounded concerned. “You can get swept downstream under the ice—”

“The Mississippi is frozen so solid you could drive a semi on it.” Darla said mildly. “I’d bet my farm on it.”

“We’re not talking about betting farms—we’re talking about betting your life—and Alex’s. This isn’t—”

“My farm was my life,” Darla said.

“Guys, take it easy,” I said. “We can go to the lock to cross.”

“That’s where you found the barge full of wheat last year?” Uncle Paul asked. “Stuck in the lock?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“We could sure use some wheat,” Uncle Paul said. “We’ve got to get some greenhouses going with something other than kale. A northern strain of wheat could work.”

“I thought you couldn’t plant just any old seeds,” I said. “Didn’t you tell me that’s why we can’t plant any of the corn we’ve been digging out of the ash and snow?”

“Corn hybridizes easily,” Darla said. “Everything I planted at my farm was a sterile hybrid, kind of like mules are. Wheat’s self-pollinating, so it’s really hard to hybridize. Well, you can but—”

“Um,” I had to interrupt Darla before she really got going. She’d babble on and on about hybro-pollinizing stuff until I got even more confused. “So what’s all that mean?”

“Corn won’t grow from seeds we dig up here. But if we get wheat kernels off that barge, they’ll probably sprout.”

“Yep,” Uncle Paul said. “I was hoping you could stop at the barge and pick up some wheat. It could make a big difference—we’re going to run out of stored corn, and we need some kind of grain.”

“That a-hole at the FEMA camp near Galena, Captain Jameson, said Black Lake had a contract to guard the barges,” Darla said. “Either the wheat’s all gone by now, or those barges will be crawling with idiots in camouflage. They’re not just going to let us ride up and help ourselves, you know.”

“The lock is pretty much on the way, though,” I said.

Uncle Paul fixed a stare on Darla. “Bringing back even a few pounds of wheat kernels would be a godsend if you can manage it. Might make the difference between surviving and starving if the winter weather doesn’t break. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t worth the risk.”

“We’ll take a look.” I glanced at Darla. “Okay?”

Her lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything, which I took as enthusiastic agreement. Right. So we spent some time mapping out a path to the lock that avoided Stockton and the FEMA camp near Galena.

“When do you plan to leave?” Uncle Paul asked.

“Tomorrow morning,” I said.

“You sure you’re up to it?” Darla took hold of my wrist. “Maybe we should wait and make sure your infection is under control.”

“An infected wound is no joke,” Uncle Paul said. “Kill you if you don’t take care of it.”

“No.” I pulled my wrist free. “I want to get moving.”

“How are you pla

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But I don’t want to wait.”

“Be nice to have a bolt cutter and hacksaw for the camp fence,” Darla said.

“Take them out of my shop,” Uncle Paul replied. “I’ll try to buy replacements in Warren.”

We spent the rest of the day helping to fortify the house. Uncle Paul, Aunt Caroline, and A