Ashen Winter (Ashfall)
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.”
“Danny, he—”
“Who’s Danny? You said the gun was Bill’s.”
“Danny’s the leader of the gang I run with. Ran with, I mean. The Peckerwoods. Bill’s just the guy Danny gave the shotgun to.”
“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 Danny made a deal with some guards at one of the FEMA camps in Iowa. He got all kinds of weapons from them. Ammo, too. Most of the guns weren’t military stuff, so I figure they were confiscated from refugees.”
“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 Danny was trading for the guns? What was he trading?”
“I don’t know for sure. Drugs, maybe. We had all the good stuff. Antibiotics, painkillers, aspirin. Danny had a source in Iowa City, but he never took me along when he cut deals.” A pained look passed over Ed’s face, and he moved his right hand to his side.
“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 grinned and waved, thrilled to see him up and about. He waved back before continuing to the barn.
“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 Savanna.”
“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
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