Honor Road by Jason Ross (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

for a moment and he almost sat down. The hunger made him dizzy. It made him maudlin too. Maybe he was giving the polygamist too much credit.

The spinning in his head passed and he continued toward the river. He reached the wide spot in the waterway where they’d stacked rocks to channel a side stream into the corrugated pipe. The water level had risen and rolled away the upper stones atop the little dam. The side stream poured over where it hadn’t before. One stone at-a-time, Cameron carried rocks from the bank and filled the gaps. The flow nudged them around until they settled, or rolled over the top and tumbled downriver. He added dozens of rocks until the impoundment again rose into the side stream. The flow into the pipe strengthened. Isaiah had warned him; if they allowed water to overflow the top of the dam long enough, it’d tear it down. They needed to maintain the impoundment above the waterline so that the flow would go around and into the pipe instead of over the top.

Cameron had taken Isaiah’s word as gospel truth. In many ways, the polygamist was the brains of the operation. Cameron tried to muster the passion to hate him for his practical, unselfconscious competency, but he failed. Cam was so hungry, he could barely feel anything at all. He kicked over a log with his foot—a log he’d kicked over several times before. A new, white grub appeared in the damp. He bent over, slowly, and plucked it up.

Had it even been worth the energy to bend over?

He didn’t know and didn’t care. He almost popped it in his mouth, but remembered the white, writhing worms in Denny’s poop. He stuck the grub in the pocket of his dungarees instead. He’d cook it over the fire, and maybe share it with Denny. Maybe he’d give the boy the whole thing.

He wondered how Denny would feel about that—his father giving him food even when the boy had been holding out on them all. He probably wouldn’t spare a thought for it. Kids took what they wanted, especially when suffering. Their parents weren’t real people to them, truth be told. Parents were caregivers, without their own agonies. He could remember feeling the same about his dad, and to some degree, about his mom.

Cameron staggered toward the homestead, exhausted. He scratched his head feverishly to unseat the dry skin that plagued his scalp. A chunk of hair came free and drifted away on the breeze.

So starvation does that too, he noted.

But there was hope, today. The water system worked. Denny was back on his feet. Soon, maybe, there would be fresh, green, edible shoots in their grow beds. They might be eating sprouts in a few days. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be something.

The wheat in the bucket was almost gone, but they ate a few tablespoons every day. Before the bottom of the bucket showed through, maybe the turnips would fatten and the corn stalks would thicken. Spring would come, albeit not for months, and the nightly frost would give up its siege against all things living.

Isaiah and Julie’s ten-year old daughter, Leah, met Cameron at the edge of the pasture.

“My mom asked me to find you. We’re ready to turn on the water. To test it in the beds.”

“Okay. I’m coming,” Cameron drawled, then shuffled forward. But the little girl didn’t move.

“Have you found any frogs?” she asked.

“Huh?” He had no idea what she was talking about,

“Frogs. You and my mom look for frogs. Did you find them?”

“Um. No.”

“Then you should stop looking,” she said with stony eyebrows. She was a strange child, like she’d grown up too quickly in a world where toys didn’t exist. Maybe that was because of their weirdo polygamist cult. Maybe it was because of Cameron. He couldn’t get it straight in his mind. Hunger blurred the timelines.

“Maybe we should stop looking,” he agreed. The man and the girl turned and meandered side-by-side across the straw-colored pasture toward the homestead.

11

Sage Ross

Wallowa Town

Wallowa County, Oregon

Sage didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. Hound dogs yowled behind him, followed by gunmen. A police Blazer waited for him at the bridge with its lights flickering orange and blue. If he waded the creek, and somehow avoided being seen, he’d be forced to build a fire and dry out his stuff. In other words, it was only a matter of time before he was caught.

Sage had royally screwed up the first real mission Captain Chambers had given him. Some Wallowa shit-kicker had seen him, which wasn’t a tremendous surprise. Wallowa Valley was considerably higher than La Grande, and the mountains surrounding the string of tiny hamlets was winter-bound in snow even though it was early December. Someone must’ve been staring out their kitchen window when Sage slunk by on the hillside.

He’d been skirting the towns and pastures of Wallowa for three days, trying to get a count of the neighboring county’s cattle for Captain Chambers. Sage hadn’t asked why the captain wanted to know. Counting another county’s cattle could be seen as a prelude to theft, but Sage hadn’t drilled down. It wasn’t his place to ask.

This was his first “solo mission” with the captain’s militia, and after only three days in the field, it looked like he was going to get scooped up by the Wallowa locals. Based on what he’d seen so far, they weren’t going to stop searching for him, and unlike his cold, wet ass, they could go home and dry out. Sage had no change of boots in his backpack.

A snowstorm brewed over the big mountains to the north. It was going to dump overnight and he didn’t love the idea of being buried in a tent while they searched for him. The moment he started snowshoeing again, working deeper into the valley, someone would cut his tracks, as sure as there’s shit in a goat.

The good news about a snowstorm: it erased