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this.  He was a businessman.  A deal could have been worked out if they’d just been able to talk things through.  But he recognized that this was no longer the way the world worked; not anymore, not in post-flu America – or whatever the country was now. 
    People still paid for things, but now they often paid with their lives.
    Gordon sat holding Edwin’s hand, unsure of what to do or if there was anything else that could be done to help the boy.  Several minutes later, he heard voices approaching and soon the familiar call of, “Dad!” coming from Jeff.
    “Over here!” Gordon called back.  “We’re over here!”
    “Just hang in there,” he said to Edwin, squeezing his hand.  “Help is on the way.”  As he looked down at the boy, he realized that his words of encouragement were pointless.  Edwin’s open eyes stared up at the sky, unblinking.
    Gordon exhaled heavily thinking not just of his own lost boys, but now of having to take this news back to his brother and the rest of the family.  It was all suddenly hitting home. 
    Gordon broke down and wept freely. 
    He had cried a few times in the last ten years – once when his mother had passed, and once, he was embarrassed to admit, when his best dog died a few years back.  But this time he wept .  There was a big difference.  Even when Jeff arrived, he continued to weep like a child.  He just couldn’t hold it in any longer.  It was all too much, even for Gordon who thought himself immune to such overwhelming outpourings of emotions.  And Jeff let him, understanding – at least for a minute.
    “Dad,” he said, walking over and touching his shirtless father softly on the shoulder.  “We need your help.  Barry and Ian are hurt.  I need you to help us with them.”
    Gordon was in a state of shock, but he moved mechanically, knowing he had to try his best to be strong for his boys.  Sons or nephews, it didn’t matter, they were all his boys.  He let go of Edwin’s hand and Jeff helped his old man to his feet.
    Jeff guided his father back to the road where the remains of their convoy sat smoldering.  The pickup truck that had been hauling the diesel fuel was now burning; their last hope of getting home anytime soon destroyed in one last violent and unnecessary act by their aggressors. 
    With three dead, two wounded, no vehicles, no medical supplies, no radio communication, no food, no water, and hardly any ammo left, Gordon found himself wondering whether it might have been better just to have stayed put and let the armored vehicles finish them off.  But he quickly shook himself of these negative thoughts.  That sort of thinking wasn’t him.  And it was the avoidance of exactly that type of thinking that had helped him and his family survive the flu while so many around them had perished.  
    Just as he and Jeff made it to the drainage ditch beside the road’s edge, they again caught the sound of approaching vehicles.
    “Oh no,” said Jeff, pulling his father along faster.  “Come on dad, we’ve got to move our asses.”  But his father resisted.
    “ Dad! ” Jeff urged.  “ Come on! ”
    But his dad shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “Just wait.”
    “But it could be them coming back.  They might have been waiting for us to come out so that they could finish us off.”
    But his father remained unswayed.  “It’s not them.” He said the words so confidently and matter-of-factly that it worried his son. 
    “ Dad! ” Jeff yelled.  “You’re going to get us killed! ”
    But his dad just shook his head, unflappable in his determination.  Instead, he pulled away from his son and walked slowly, steadily up the drainage ditch and onto the road, moving passed the smoking vehicles so that he stood, shirtless, in center of the road before them. 
    “It’s going to be okay, boy,” he called back to his son.  “Just wait and see.”
    Jeff had no idea whether his dad knew what he was talking about or not, and he