Renewal 7 - When the Student Is Ready Read Free Page B

too often, so it is nice that they came over here to tell us.”
    “Well, I could have saved Dad the trouble. I brought some of that food with me.” Terry said, walking around to pull the heavy sack out of the back. “It’s good though. That way you’ll have double.”
    Mrs. Shelton smiled at the thought of having double anything, especially food. “Where have you been?”
    “I’ve been working on things. It’s a long story, and I have to do one more job today. I promise I’ll tell you all about it later.”
    “Ok.”
    “One thing I have to say, though. Ya’ll have plenty of food for a while, so I want you to stay here. There’s trouble brewing and this back corner is the safest place. Don’t go to town until I come out and tell you it’s safe.”
    “Where’re you going to be?” Mrs. Shelton asked.
    “I’m kind of in the thick of it, Mom. But it’s alright. I’ve got good friends keeping me safe.”
    “I don’t know if that’s...”
    Terry waved Seth out of the truck. The big man walked over with a friendly smile on his face, but Terry’s mother didn’t really notice. Instead, she lost her attention in watching a man grow into a mountain as he approached. By the time he reached the pair, he had passed the point of her ability to believe what she was seeing.
    “Hello, Mrs. Shelton. Seth’s my name.”
    She stared.
    “Mom, pick your jaw up. This is my friend, Seth. He’s big, but he doesn’t bite.”
    “Oh, sorry. Hello, Seth. Pleased to meet you.”
    “My pleasure, Mrs. Shelton.” Seth looked from Terry to his mother, twice, and came to the conclusion that here was a once-lovely woman who had sacrificed the food off her plate for her child. “Terry here is a good man. I think you raised him up right.”
    Terry’s mother clicked into gear. “Why, thank you, Seth. How nice of you to say so.”
    Seth almost blushed at her sudden emergence. “Just one of those things that needs saying, ma’am.”
    “Well, I surely do try to keep him out of trouble,” she said.
    “Well, I hate to drag him out of here, but we have some more work to do today. I’ll try to keep your boy out of trouble too, ok?”
    “Thank you, Seth. Will I see you next time?”
    “You never can tell, ma’am. Never can tell.” Seth gave her one last smile and effortlessly hoisted the food sack over one shoulder, walked it over to the open cabin door, and set it inside with one hand.
    “Ok, Seth,” Terry said with a grin. “Quit showing off. That’s my mom, you know.”
    “Yeah, I’m just wondering how you turned out so ugly,” Seth replied.
    “You haven’t met my dad yet.”
    ***
    Highway 55 was the fastest route from Manchester to Tullahoma. It was completely abandoned, allowing Terry to drive Big Bertha as fast as he dared, which really wasn’t that fast. Seth had some serious misgivings about going to Tullahoma. It was one of the towns that had recovered and collapsed again. Some wealthy family in town had grabbed control early after the Breakdown, and organized the 2000 remaining citizens into a fairly effective society. They had shared food and resources, and stayed smart enough to know that it was better to rule through loyalty than fear and hunger. The problem was that their greed took a different form. After ten successful years, they went conquering across the countryside.
    According to the local wisdom, they took Lynchburg easily, since there were only three hundred people in the whole of Moore County after the long winters, and that victory artificially pumped up their confidence. The Tullahomans marched on Manchester in ’27 and managed to hold their own. Unfortunately, it takes more to conquer than it does to defend, and Manchester finally wore them into a retreat back to Tullahoma. They stayed home and licked their wounds for a decade, and then some bright bulb decided that they could take Shelbyville instead.
    The top secret plan was to blow a hole in Normandy Dam, dumping the entire lake down