Method
Mike. William. Tony. Fred. Astrid. Greg. Bonnie. Tammy. Steve. Chad. Khanh. Katherine. Max. Wendy. Cedric. Scott. Zoey. Ellie. Dina. Jesse.
Teton County. Wilson Valley. Hoback Pass. Elk Creek. Alpine Valley. Colter Bay. Fox Creek. Swan Valley. Bondurant.
They’re on for this week’s patrol. Tommy is always sure to pair the more experienced and competent soldiers with the newer blood—for the guidance of the experienced, yes, but to keep that young brashness from tumbling into bloody disaster. Simple stuff; send them out in twos for routine stuff around Jackson, threes a little father out, fours farther still. They’ve generally found a thirty mile radius to be a good compromise; far enough to secure, but not so far as to wear out the patrol parties. There are only four roads into Jackson, and as such watching over them for survivors and keeping them clear for traders is prioritized.
---
Pike rolls the coins across her palms.
Jackson credits are a newer introduction. In the beginning, when everyone knew everyone, money was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Now—with traders and travelers passing through—altruism alone isn’t quite enough.
Then again, the coins didn’t exactly catch on with the residents of Jackson. They were too used to the reality of life—of scraping and scrounging and sharing what little they had. Of strangers becoming family, bound together by loss and misery. So now the coins were mostly for the old blood to gamble with on game nights and the kids to collect and argue over. Voere mentioned something about “primitive communal societies,” and Tommy had said, waving his hands, “Jackson ain’t no nudist hippie colony! Don’t advertise that!”
Making them wasn’t too hard. Aluminum melts easily enough—just into a mold, stamp them with a ‘J’ in the middle, and there you have it. Won’t rust, lightweight. Simple.
---
Milton’s nice enough. Not exactly a killer, despite being six and a half feet tall. The guys in Jackson call him “Mil-Spec” to belabor this point. Even during those lean winters he still has a jovial roundness to him, a fable-like redness in his cheeks. But he’s an accomplished patroller, commands respect despite his humility.
“Pike… Do you think I’m a good person?”
Pike swivels her gaze over to Milton, eyes narrowing. She doesn’t say anything. He’s not looking at her. He’s staring into the fire.
“I never told you about—” He lifts a hand, gesturing at nothing. “About the start. Right?”
Pike is silent.
“No one knows, not even Maria. I was going to tell Tommy, but--I never found the--there was never a good--" He stops. He takes a breath, and starts again. "I… there were these guys. My cousin knew a guy, that guy’s brother was—I mean, we all got together. There were nine of us. It was the first month. We got out of the city, and—” He stops. “We held on.” He clasps his hands together. “We… did okay. Not great. Better than others. But it was okay for what everything was. The end of everything. The end of… life. That’s what it was, right? Everything was over.”
Pike is silent.
“There were woods on either side of this road, and we saw some people trying to get by without us noticing. There was a family. A mom and dad and their daughter.” He says the last word quickly. He stops. He looks surprised, like he didn’t expect to say it. "They were traveling to… somewhere in the country. Relatives, a timeshare, I don’t know. But they were well-fed, so we asked where they came from. The dad did all the talking. Fast talk. So then we ask them where he’s going. He makes it sound like he’s in a big group, you know. Like he was part of something. We knew he wasn’t. You could tell, looking at him, just a dad who promised to protect his wife when everything was safe and now he finally had to find a way to do it. He wasn’t a bad guy. He was trying. Everyone was trying.”
Milton swallows.
“So the—my cousin’s friend—he looks back at us, and everyone knows what to do. We beat him up, tie him up, and take him a little ways away from his family. And my cousin gives me his gun and says to keep an eye on the women. So I do. So it’s just me, walking back to where they are. They’re just frozen there. They don’t know what to do. And I’m standing over them. And I—I had never done anything like that. I had never had anyone be afraid of me. But they’re just staring at me and holding on to each other. I was eleven. Pike, I was eleven, I had never—”
He takes a deep, shaky breath. He’s gripping on to his knees, rocking back and forth slightly.
“And it felt good. Pike, it felt fucking good. No one had ever—I was nobody. But to them, I was somebody. I was the most important fucking person in the world to them, in that moment. I was god. I was god for a little while. And I liked it. And I knew I shouldn’t have but I didn’t care. The girl was my age. Maybe a little older. I was eleven, girls didn't look at me in school, I—I—”
He buries his face in his hands.
“I didn’t… I didn’t, Pike. I just waited. They dragged the dad back. We had to make it to the next safe area by nightfall, and we just left them. One of the guys wanted to—the rest didn’t let him, said there was no time. They didn’t have much to take but we took it anyway. I don’t know if they survived, Pike. I don’t know. But I always think about—what if it was ten more minutes? What if they took too long and I ended up—”
Pike is silent. Looking at him. Milton is looking into the night, into the past.
“I always wondered. And since then, I’ve always promised to be better. I have to be better.” He brings his eyes back to earth. Back to Pike. The fear is plain to see. “Do you… ?”
“You’re here now,” Pike says. “You chose to be.”
He just nods. Looks smaller than Pike had ever seen him.