The Garden Club by James Gerard (bill gates best books .TXT) 📕

“The pact was based in a different time Ron.  Whether you like it or not, that world we knew is long gone.”

“You’ve changed you know.”

“In ways I guess you won’t even try to understand, the change wasn’t against you.  I was trying to adapt to the new corporate order.”

Ron stood and removed the harness from off the shoulders and walked to the top of the hill.

Hal watched as Ron put his hands to his head then fall to his knees.  “Ron!”  He raced up the hill.  “You need more medication?”

Ron smiled.  “Where are we Hal?  Look.”

“Look at….”  Hal fixed the eyes on the plain below, stood up and beheld the sight in awe.  “I don’t know where we are.  I just don’t know.”

The sun was sitting just above the horizon.  The sky had ceased pouring down rain.  The wind had dispersed most of the clouds way off into the distance.  Only red, wispy remnants of the storm remained.  Hal stood motionless while staring at the herd of animals stretching as far as the eye could see on a lush, grassy plain.  “This is neither the Arabian nor Saharan Desert,” he whispered.

“Hal, you sure we didn’t wander off of course?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Well, I can’t say for sure.   I don't know if we did.  Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this sort of looks like the Serengeti  if you ask me.”

“Ron, considering I don’t know where the hell all these animals came from, I think I might have to agree with you.  Can you spot any villages anywhere?”

“No, but I can see lions.”

“They can’t be lions.”

“Lions.”

“Those look like…remember up on the hoof and horn mesa they had an animal that from the side looked like a unicorn?”

“I’m telling Hal, I see lions.”

“No…that’s it, Oryx.  Yeah, they had light colored bodies with long slender horns.”

“No Hal, lions.”

“Where?”

Ron poked him with an elbow.  “I told you, lions.”

“Oh, oh,” whispered Hal as a female strayed from the pride and appeared to have her sight on them as an evening meal.  “Don’t move.”

“They’ve probably just started the night’s hunt,” whispered Ron.

“And we’re dinner.  How ‘bout on the count of three we just start running?”

“Hello,” Ron greeted the lioness now just feet away from their position.

The big cat stood their staring at them.   She was niffing at the air to make up her mind if the animals standing in front of her would make a gratifying meal.

“Why isn’t she attacking,” whispered Hal.

Before Ron could respond, the big cat turned and walked back down the hillside without showing even the slightest hint of predator behavior.

“Maybe they had an early dinner,” said Ron.

“And that takes us back to the question of where we are?”

“Maybe we’re closer to the Gulf than we think we are.  I always found it strange that the corporate heads took complete control over the restoration project, but damn Hal, look at this—they actually did what they said.  I told you.”

“You could be right, but why?  I mean look at this,” said Hal as the sun now hid behind the craggy hills jutting up into the horizon, “not only does it look like fertile land for food crops, but look at all those animals that could be used for fresh meat.”

“Lions?  Oryx?  No, this whole plain should be dotted with all sorts of cattle used for food.”

“Then do you see any ranches, any villages, any rendering plants, roads, and vehicles, or anything that would hint at large scale ranching?”

“Well,” responded Ron, “maybe all the talk of controlling the oil supply was meant to throw people off the truth.”

“And what truth are you talking about?”

“We’re looking at it.”

“There’s gotta be something more behind this.”

“Do you have a better explanation?”

Hal shrugged his shoulders.  He stared at the plain.  It had to be ranch land, but why the absence of domesticated cattle?  He just could not understand.

The light from the dusk too began to fade.  The sky was absent of any remnants of clouds.  It gave way to a nightscape illuminated by thousands and thousands of stars.  Without a word uttered, Hal hiked down the hillside toward the floor of the fertile plain in awe of what was seen.  "This should not exist."

Hal was tromping through the thick mat of grass when a long forgotten odor filled the air.  It was far different from the sweet and musty odor of the park.  He sniffed at the warm breeze and inhaled the sweet scent of springtime grass that was lush and green and fresh.  The sounds too were much different.  There were distinctive sounds of hyenas laughing and of wild pigs squealing.  Also detected were grunting and snorting and growling from what was probably a pride of lions devouring the flesh of its fallen prey.

As best as he could remember, Hal called up the image of the map and thought of the humid and rainy springtime of Tanzania.  Staring at the hills, he wondered if they could have been just foothills of the western mountains. Then, he figured, if they were there should definitely be a lot more rain.  But the dry air with the slight breeze flowing over the dry skin spoke differently. 

“This can’t be the Serengeti,” he whispered.  “It just can’t be. 

Unrelenting doubts over Kenneth’s slips of the tongue concerning the corporations dismissing the idea to expediently clean up what little contamination there was in the Gulf region and convert it to farm land would not rest.  Yet, an explanation to the abundance of lush vegetation and animal life escaped the thoughts.   “Am I looking at a miracle or is this some hoax or  dirty little secret kept from the citizens?  We have to be hundreds of miles from it.  There’s no way we could’ve covered the distance.”

If we’re anywhere, thought Hal, it’s the Sahara Desert.  It has mountains.  Yeah, it has snakes and lizards and rodents—but herds of animals and grasslands?  Maybe all the debris in the air caused climate changes that were never reported?  “No,” he whispered while looking at the stars awakening in the dusk.

“Ron.”

“What?”

“You sure you didn’t pilot the jet while I was unconscious?”

“Why?”

“I’m just trying to figure out where we are.”

“Forget about it already.”

“I can’t.  Look around.  I mean explain all this.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“How can you say that?  This is simply amazing.”

“All I’m thinking about is finding a water source.  As soon as we do, I say we’ve found our new home.”

“You’re not serious?” asked Hal.

“You have a better idea?  A better plan?”

“I say we stick to our original plan.  Eventually we’ll run into the Gulf.”

“Well,” said Ron, “if we do keep going and run into it, where do we get food and water?”

“Look, based on all this there just has to be some sort of cleanup work around.  But if not, we’ll make our way back here.”

“That’s if we find the Gulf.”

“If this is the Sahara,” said Hal, “walking east we’ll eventually run into the Nile.”

“We can’t stay there.”

“Why not?”

“We can’t survive there, that is unless we become predators.”

Hal laughed.  “Us?  Predators?”

“If that’s what it takes to survive, then yes.”

“I doubt either one of us would be good enough to do that.”

“Look, I’d like to stay, but if you want to go we’ll shake hands and depart as friends.”

“Just listen….”

“Decide.”

Ron turned and walked away.

Hal followed but stopped after a few steps.  “I can’t live like a hunter,” he shouted, “and I can’t rely in the good fortunes or weather and luck to survive as well.  Come on Ron, there has to be a place to go.”

*                               *                                *

The sun was high in the crystal clear sky.  Hal woke, crawled out of the tent, yawned and stretched, then noticed the soreness was not as severe as it had been.  A smile appeared at the thought of a sound and healthy body returning after the days of physical activity.  He looked over the herd of animals but the sight of Ron crouching, chewing away at some small piece of food stuffed in his mouth, brought about curiosity.

“Hey….”

“Hush,” whispered Ron.  “Come here and get down.”

Hal crawled over to him.  “What?”

“Look.”

Hal noticed a lone animal grazing on a clump of shrubs some two hundred feet away.  “It’s an Oryx.  So?”

“Now over there,” Ron whispered while pointing to the right.

“Is that a person?”

“It looks like one.”

“Maybe a rancher?”

Ron handed him the binoculars.  “Take a closer look.”

Hal inspected the figure.  It was a man.  A loin cloth was his only cover.  He appeared on the young side.  “I thought all the indigenous tribes were relocated?”  Hal watched the young man creep through the tall grass.  His sights were apparently on a nearby target.  “What’s he doing?”

“You mean what are they doing?” whispered Ron while pointing to the left.

“Another young man?”

“Yeah.”

“You think they’re tracking it?”

“Nope.  They’re stalking it.”

“Are you sure that’s what they’re doing?” asked Hal.

“I’ve been watching them for a while now.  They’re definitely stalking it.  Now look over there.”

Hal zeroed in on a blurry image then adjusted the focus.  He observed the long legged, light brown animals with their horns winding forward.  “They could be goats.”

“Do you think it matters to them?”

“Yeah, but like I said before, they were supposed to have been herded up every last one of them.”

“What about the large herd of Oryx?”

“What?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they extinct?”

Hal mulled over the question.  From what he remembered they were on the verge of extinction thirty years ago, and if he remembered right, were declared extinct shortly after the war to end all wars.  Even if a few had survived, there was no way they could recover like this.

"Do you think we could be around the Persian Gulf after all?” asked Ron.  "I mean in the area around Kuwait and Iraq?”

“Couldn’t be.  That area was hit with just about every imaginable weapon there was.  We’d be in the center of a completely toxic wasteland.”

“Then why aren’t we sick yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look over there.”

“Is that a donkey?” asked Hal as the reddish-brown animal came into focus.

“It seems to be doing well.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“This is just too strange,” Ron replied.  “We have to be in the Sahara.”

“Who knows,” Hal quipped.  “I just can’t believe if there was any restoration project they could’ve neutralized the area this fast.  But you know, the more I think about it we can’t be in the Sahara.  Remember all the news reports about how they were going to work their way up from the sealed mouth of the Gulf, clearing the channel of all the tankers and navy ships, sopping up the oil, and saturating the waters with chemical enzymes as they went along.”

“I remember that.”

“Then they were going to wait until the whole Gulf was finished before starting to neutralize the land all around it.”

“Maybe instead of any extensive cleansing to bring back agriculture, they just did enough to neutralize the surface contamination.”

Hal shrugged his shoulders.  “Possibly, if they ever started it in the first place.  But I don’t know.”

“Hey, hold out your hand.”

“Why?”

“I have something for you.”

Ron placed whatever he had been eating onto the palm.  Hal looked at the shiny shell of what he thought was a seed, and a big one at that.  “What is it?”

“A beetle.”

“What’s gotten into you,” responded Hal and flung the beheaded and legless creature off his hand.  “You know those things eat dung.”

Ron smiled.

Hal laughed.  “I’m not going to be eating any bugs you nut.”

“Noticed how it’s not so hot