Free America's Sunset: A Post Apocalyptic Fight for Survival by Norman Christof

Believe it or not.” Jake started driving away, then stopped. Leaning back out of the window, he said, “I’ll pick you up a new battery at Frank’s Auto on the way to pick you up after work. We can work on the alternator over a few beers.”
    Dawson started to object, but Jake just shook his hand at him and drove away in a cloud of dust. He was going to get his own ride from work, and pick up a battery on the way. If Jake saved him the trip, he might actually get to see the kids before bed tonight. Maggie and Jake kind of reminded him of younger versions of his own parents. Always looking out for others, and helping even without being asked.
    No doubt it’s good to have a family like Jake and Maggie nearby. Dawson wondered some days, how he’d manage without them. Maggie still volunteered at the elementary school even though her kids were well past that age. It made things so much easier, that she could just take them to school with her. She was a natural mother. Dawson had gotten their breakfasts ready for them on their favorite cartoon plates, just before Maggie came over like she did every morning. He hated missing them in the mornings, but good jobs weren’t easy to come by these days in Big Springs, Texas. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to be in before the boss every day. He’d still be home in plenty of time for dinner and to put them to bed thanks to Jake.
    With the sun just making its way over the horizon, the dew on the cotton fields shone like a white sand beach that stretched for miles. Dawson tried to remember the last time he had a chance to sit on a beach, and couldn’t. Life had been pretty hectic the last few years, and there hadn’t been much time for leisure activity. The kids didn’t seem to mind so much though. As long as they had their dad around they were pretty content. They barely knew what they were missing out on. Dawson knew, and it bothered him. The move from Colorado two years ago was pretty drastic, but the kids took it all in stride. He just needed a change of scenery. A chance to start over. At the rate he was hitting the bottle, it was only a matter of time before everything would have crashed, and he could have lost it all. Ironically, Second Lieutenant Connor had saved his life by nearly beating him to death outside Molly’s Pub one night. While it didn’t seem so at the time, looking back, Dawson knew now he had it coming. Every morning, he said a prayer for Connor beating him straight.
    Connor had grown tired of the insubordination but saw something in Dawson that prompted him to make sure he got an honorable discharge instead of a permanent cell in the brig. The marines were the right choice for Dawson, but not for his ex-wife. She loved being the wife of a rodeo star, not a soldier’s wife. A bull named Apocalypso stole that dream from both of them by inflicting a chronic traumatic encephalopathy on Dawson. CTE for short, or concussion in layman’s terms. Dawson never told the military about his CTE when he applied. He figured, it was his head, so his decision. Lisa lasted thirteen months as a soldier’s wife, then called it quits. Dawson never saw it coming. He came home one day, and found the kids at the neighbors’. No note, just a half-empty closet and a drained bank account. Trips to the liquor store got a lot more frequent after that.
     
    Dawson enjoyed the half-mile walk onto the main property. As much as he loved the kids, quiet time for a single parent was a rare commodity, and he took it all in. Today would likely be spent getting that old John Deere to run again. Not exactly the type of machine he worked on in the military, but they’d taught him enough to eventually get things working on most of the old machines around the farm. He seemed to have a knack for it. It was also the reason old man Williams kept him around this long past the harvest. It took a fair number of machines to keep a farm like this going, and a good mechanic was hard to come by. Williams was