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“Here,” Wisp pointed to a plant. “This is Lamb’s Quarters. It’s edible raw, but better if you cook it.” His students, three Rovers and a Sentinel, crowded around to look at the plant. Wisp supervised them while they harvested some for their dinner. Then they continued on their inspection of the woods. Green shoots were pushing up through the forest litter in clumps and clusters. A lot of them looked very similar, so Wisp quizzed them carefully.
He had been living off the land long enough to be able to identify almost everything in the woods. He showed them a few more plants, a couple roots and some leathery fungus that was edible. His students asked the right kinds of questions. They knew that this knowledge could save them from a hungry night if they ever got stranded. Or more likely, it was a way to stretch their supplies when things got tough.
“How am I going to finish my rounds if I’m going to have to forage for all my meals?” asked Slim Tim, one of the soldiers from the Seed Depository who had transferred into the Rovers. He sound more concerned than angry.
“That’s why Martin is doubling up all the assignments,” Wisp explained. “One person will be responsible for foraging while the other can go ahead on the rounds.”
“So one of us gets to be the wife,” Lucky Larry joked. He had been part of the Watch under Martin and had moved into the Rovers as soon as it had been formed.
Wisp didn’t understand the joke, so he ignored it. People forgot that he didn’t share the same upbringing that they had. He might look like an adult, but he’d only been alive for sixteen years. The first part had been spent in a lab and the rest of the time he’d been avoiding contact with people. A wife wasn’t a familiar concept. He supposed Bridget was like a wife to him, but he did the foraging and most of the cooking.
A strange feeling curled around his belly and up into his chest when he thought of Bridget. They had started as friends, and their relationship had blossomed into so much more. She was pregnant with their child. That was another very unfamiliar concept that almost hurt to think about. All winter he had felt the baby growing. Now flu season was approaching and for the first time in his life, he was afraid of what it might bring.
“Is this the same thing?” Slim Tim asked
Wisp shook off his musing to identify the plant, which was edible. They added it to their collection. The men found a patch of wild strawberries and some young asparagus on the way back to the station. He let them argue over how it should be cooked. That wasn’t something he needed to teach them.
To avoid the noisy kitchen, he inspected the chicken run. The birds strutted around their enclosure pecking at the dirt. Something had spooked all the chickens about a week ago, and they had stopped laying. Everyone’s chickens across the entire territory, as far as Wisp could ascertain, were no longer producing eggs. That seemed highly unlikely. He worried that they might be reacting to the latest variation of the flu. It almost always had manifested in animals before attacking humans. He hadn’t heard any complaints about birds dying which might be a good sign. But people were getting anxious and at this time of year, and anything out of the ordinary could start a panic.
Wisp wandered over to the well-kept station garden. This was one of a series of Rover Stations scattered across the territory that Angus held. The Watch still took care of security in High Meadow Town, as it was now being called. The Sentinels had reinforced six Posts along the borders. The Rovers kept an eye on the interior. Most stations had been used intermittently by Rovers needing to come in from a storm, or stage a rescue. Martin wanted them manned now so that there would always be food and backup waiting.
A tall fence surrounded the garden to keep the local wildlife out. The men knew that it was their meals they were growing, not just a hobby. The rows were straight as an arrow, not a weed in sight. Peas, carrots, kale, cabbage and onions, all cool season vegetables, were doing well, but a long way from harvest. A few empty rows were waiting for the warm weather crops, like tomatoes and cucumbers, to be planted.
The station door slammed. Wisp didn’t need to hear the footsteps approaching to know that Lucky Larry was looking for him. The Rover came to stand next to him, surveying the garden.
“Has Angus said anything?” Larry asked softly.
From the feel of his emotions, Wisp knew what he was referring to. “No one has been reported sick yet.”
Lucky Larry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We overcame a lot last year. It feels like we’re winning. That makes me nervous.”
“The flu will come whether we worry about it or not,” Wisp said. He buried his own fears out of habit.
“That’s true.” Larry fell silent, but Wisp felt his emotions quieting. The Rover pulled a pipe from his pocket and a pouch of dried leaves.
“Who’s been bartering tobacco?” Wisp asked.
“Harlan, who else?” Lucky Larry scoffed. “Whoever he talked into growing what he needs for his moonshine apparently was growing some tobacco, too.”
“Vices,” Wisp said uneasily. “They don’t have a place in Angus’s world.”
“He likes a sip at the end of a hard day just like the rest of us.”
Wisp shook his head. “A sip isn’t the problem.”