EMP: Return of the Wild West Box Set | Books 1-3

by Hamilton, Grace

  “We were just debating—” Greg started to say.

  “I know. I heard it all,” Justine replied. “Sorry, Darryl, but your dad and grandma are right. Take everything. I can handle being crunched up in the back. You never know what we might need. Okay?” She gave each person a lingering look, one by one. “There. No need for rock-paper-scissors. Bring it all, and I’ll be just fine. I’m not so delicate, you know. Thanks.”

  And with that, she turned, sighed, and walked back through the curtains. Darryl felt chastened. He’d been trying to advocate for her comfort, but in the process, he’d made her feel awkward about being in the center of an argument.

  “Are you okay with that, son?” Greg asked.

  Darryl appreciated the question. It was clearly an attempt to prevent hurt feelings. “Yeah, if she’s fine with it, I’m fine with it. Let’s load up.” To prove he meant it, he wrapped his arms around the crate of junk and struggled to hoist it up. Greg had to bend down and help him, and they managed to get it onto the lowered tailboard of the wagon.

  “Look, I’ll make sure the trip goes as smoothly as possible,” Greg said. “That’s my promise to you and Justine.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Darryl replied.

  But as he said it, he heard the back axle let out a loud groan. The sideboards were already lined with boxes and barrels from front to back, and they had a lot more to go. Greg didn’t seem bothered by the noise from the wagon’s underbelly, as he proceeded to shove the big crate of junk beside the back bench.

  “It’ll ride heavy, but I did some work on the wagon over the winter,” Greg said. “It’ll hold up.”

  And then, even as the words were still leaving his lips, the axle gave another loud groan. Then it snapped with sudden violence. The back right wheel broke free of its hub and fell over, and the whole back corner of the wagon crashed down. Greg fell off the tailboard, landing among their supplies, and the crate of junk slid backward. It hit the back leg of the bench, spun, and tipped over, gushing broken tools, scrap metal, and tattered clothes all over the cave floor, as Darryl danced backward out of the way. Other bags and barrels soon followed, sliding down the slope, many of them tipping over, tumbling, scattering their contents all over the ground.

  3

  For long minutes, nobody said anything as the echo of tumbling junk slowly faded in the cave. Darryl stared in slack-jawed amazement at the back of the wagon. The corner had fallen to the ground, and in the process, the back legs of the bench had snapped loose. The back right wheel with about a third of the axle was sitting on its side right in front of Tabitha and Marion, who gazed down at it like it was a fallen comrade in battle. A loose bolt continued to roll, making its soft sound all the way out of the cave.

  Finally, Greg unleashed a deep groan and squatted behind the wagon, putting his face in his hands. Darryl saw Emma, Justine, and Horace peeking through the curtains that led into the living quarters. Still, no one spoke. Darryl was afraid to say anything, in case it might be interpreted as an “I told you so,” but he was also struggling against a sudden rush of anger.

  It was Tabitha who spoke first, reaching out to rest her gloved right hand on the broken axle of the wheel. “I did not see that coming, I must admit.”

  “I barely held this piece of garbage together on the journey here,” Greg said, kicking a rusty wrench out of his way, “but we worked on this damned thing all winter, and it doesn’t even make it out of the cave. I’d like to take it back to James Teagan and demand a refund.”

  In an effort to avoid getting worked up over it, Darryl knelt and righted the crate, then began picking up the spilled supplies and dumping them back inside. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe this meant they would forgo the hunting cabin a few more days, giving the snow and ice more time to melt. Then again, the longer they waited, the harder the journey was going to get on Justine.

  “Let’s hope this isn’t a bad omen,” he said aloud.

  “Don’t talk that way,” his mother said, kneeling beside him to help pick up the supplies. “We’re lucky it broke here in the cave instead of up on the pass somewhere.”

  “We can’t travel without the wagon,” Greg said. He rose and began removing the rest of the supplies from the back of the wagon, shoving them rather roughly onto the cave floor. “The damage will have to be repaired. Come on. Darryl, Emma, help me tip it on its side, so we can see the extent of the damage.” He made a little wave at them as he moved around to the side of the wagon.

  Darryl left his mother to continue picking up their things, as he went to help his father. Emma pushed past Horace and Justine, scowling darkly.

  “You should’ve been more careful loading it up, Dad,” she said. “You put too much weight toward the back.”

  “I did not,” he replied. “The weight was evenly distributed. The problem was the wagon itself. Now come on. Help me.”

  He grabbed the frame of the wagon just beneath the sideboard. Darryl and Emma did the same. Together, they lifted it and tipped it onto its side. It wasn’t easy. Indeed, Darryl strained until he thought he was on the verge of pulling a back muscle, but gradually the heavy wooden frame rose, tipped over, and then crashed down on its side, revealing the underbelly.

  “If you’re not careful, you’re going to break the whole thing,” Tabitha said.

  “We have to survey the damage,” Greg said.

  Darryl stepped back. Not only had the axle broken but the axle clip had pulled loose, and the brake seemed to be damaged as well. Greg reached out and touched the brake beam, muttering something under his breath that Darryl couldn’t quite make out—but that he thought might have been a string of profanities.

  “We should have moved it deeper into the cave,” Tabitha said. “It was exposed to the freezing cold and ice all winter, and it must have weakened the wood.”

  “Mom, we were using it to pen in the animals at night,” Marion said.

  “Well, we should’ve thought of something else,” she said.

  Darryl felt Justine move up beside him. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. It was amazing how much their future depended on one beat-up old wagon. Darryl didn’t like it. Their survival was still too precarious if a single broken axle could mean so much.

  “Under different circumstances, I would say let’s just hike to the lodge,” Justine said, quietly, one hand still pressed to her belly. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I can make it, not like this.”

  “You’re definitely not hiking all the way over the mountain pass,” Darryl replied. “No one expects that. I’ll carry you on my back, if I have to.”

  “Is that all I am to you? A backpack to be lugged around?” Justine said, elbowing him gently in the side.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  His father was examining the front axle, and he finally made a disgusted sound and held up both hands. “Front axle’s in bad shape, too. This whole thing is shot. We might as well scrap it all and build a whole new wagon from scratch.” He kicked the underside of the wagon, and when that didn’t seem to satisfy him, he kicked it three more times, until Marion walked up and put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  “You can’t beat it into submission,” she said, “and you might injure yourself.”

  “What does it matter now?” he said, dragging his hands through his sweat-soaked hair. “The wagon is completely useless. I made all of those repairs for nothing. I should have examined the axles closer. They didn’t seem to be on the verge of snapping. How are we going to get over the mountains now?”

  No one had an immediate answer to this, but as Darryl looked around the room, he could tell each person was handling the situation differently. Greg and Tabitha were both angry. Emma’s lips were pursed, as if she were deep in thought, no doubt trying to come up with a smart way to fix the wagon. Horace looked weary, leaning heavily on his crutch, like a man who just wanted to go back to bed. Marion and Justine both just seemed worried.

  As for Darryl, his own commen
t made him think. No, he couldn’t carry Justine on his back all the way over the mountain pass, even if she would have allowed it. Still, the idea of lugging her around made him think of another option, and he was surprised that no one else had thought of it first.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to replace the axles,” Greg said. “We don’t have the wood for it, and this clip here ripped out of the frame. I don’t know.” He pressed his hands against the underside of the wagon, as if he intended to push it all the way over. Instead, he just leaned there, shaking his head.

  “We have another option,” Darryl said, “besides going on foot, I mean. The answer is right outside of the cave and down in the meadow.”

  “The horses,” Emma said, finishing his thought. “They came saddled. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

  “Yep,” Darryl said. “We have two big horses, and each of them can handle two riders. Justine, do you think you could sit in the saddle for an extended period of time?”

  “I can handle it,” Justine said.

  “I’m concerned it might be bad for you and the baby,” Darryl said, “but I don’t know what else we can do.”

  “Afraid it’ll shake the baby loose?” she said. “We’re tougher than that. It can’t be much worse than being crammed on that bench in the back of the wagon,” Justine said.

  Greg and Marion traded a look, clearly concerned about the suggestion.

  “What about the supplies?” Greg said. “We can’t ride to the hunting lodge with just our backpacks. We’ll need more than that.”

  Horace cleared his throat then. “Those big draft horses can handle a lot of weight. It wouldn’t take long to build a couple of travois, like the First Nations people used to do, to haul some of our gear. Two long sticks, crossbeams, some sturdy blankets or tarps, and a bit of rope—that’s really all we need. It looks like we’ve got it all right here.”

  “How much weight can a travois carry?” Greg asked.

  “More than nothing,” Horace said, “and more than the packs on our shoulders. We’ll have to be selective, but we can cobble together some saddlebags as well. It won’t be so bad. The kids came up with a great idea. We can make it work.”

  Greg nodded, but he seemed to be deep in thought. After a moment, he walked to the cave entrance, stepping over their supplies. Tabitha and Marion went with him, and the three of them stood there together staring down into the meadow.

  “I think it’s our best option,” Marion said, after a moment. “We can make it work if we double up on the horses. Even if we have to leave a bunch of stuff behind, it’s better than staying here. This winter camp is not a long-term solution, and it’s no place to deliver a baby.”

  Darryl overheard Justine mutter something about Denisovans, but he didn’t quite catch it. He still had his arm around her. It made him proud to hear his mother prioritizing the baby’s well-being. At least he wasn’t carrying the burden alone.

  “Okay, then,” Greg said finally. He turned around, crossing his arms over his chest. “Then I guess we’re all on the same page. The draft horses are strong enough. They should be able to carry two riders and also pull the travois, but we’ll have to go easy on them. Justine and Marion, you two can ride together. Tabitha and Horace, how cozy are you willing to get with each other? Will you share a saddle?”

  Tabitha and Horace traded a brief, embarrassed look. “I think we can handle it like adults,” Tabitha said.

  “I’ll be a perfect gentleman,” Horace replied, but as he said it, he reached up and swept his hair back, trying to put it into some semblance of order. “We’re all friends here.”

  “Fine,” Greg said. “So Darryl, Emma, and I will be on foot, keeping an eye on the supplies and cattle. Is everyone okay with that?”

  “Let Emma ride the horse,” Marion said. “I can walk.”

  “No, Mom,” Emma said, with swift intensity. “If Dad and Darryl are going to walk, so am I. I don’t need to ride a horse.” She had that sharp, almost whiny quality to her voice that suggested she had chosen this hill to die upon, if need be.

  Marion stared at her for a moment, frowning, then finally shrugged and said, “Okay, whatever. No sense arguing about it.”

  “Good,” Greg said. “We know what we’re doing then. Let’s get to work.”

  4

  Determining which of the supplies were absolutely essential turned out to be very difficult. Greg and Tabitha were still pushing to pack up as much as possible. Darryl was sure his father would see reason about the junk now, but then he caught Greg adding some of the scrap metal and junk tools into Grandpa’s old toolbox.

  “Come on, Dad,” he said. “Get that hatchet with the broken handle out of there. Essential tools, clothes, food, water, and medicine. Isn’t that what we decided?”

  His dad seemed like he was going to say something, maybe to argue the point, but instead he grabbed the broken hatchet and tossed it aside. “Fair enough. But we might need some junk to repair the travois, if they get broken.”

  “Extra rope, tarps, and wood,” Darryl said. “That’s all we need for repairs. What’s a broken hatchet going to do?”

  “Maybe it reminds me of the old hatchet Tuck used to chop firewood,” Greg muttered. “Call me sentimental. Or maybe I just like the damn thing. Anyway, it’s gone. Get off my back, kid.”

  Tabitha, Marion, and Emma began to disassemble the wagon board by board, as Greg repacked their supplies. Horace was the lead engineer for the travois, since he had the clearest idea of how to build them. He sifted through the pile of scrap from the wagon and set aside useful pieces, though Darryl did most of the work putting them together under his guidance. Justine had offered to help, but Darryl convinced her to rest easy. He’d even prepared a pallet of blankets for her in a corner near the back of the main chamber. Emma had given her a book to read, but she was mostly staring off into space. She looked worried, and Darryl didn’t blame her. They had avoided the worst-case scenario, but he still wasn’t looking forward to the upcoming trip. Indeed, everyone seemed a bit downcast at their prospects.

  “It’s a shame that we have to take this thing apart,” Emma said at one point. “This wagon is kind of like an old friend, you know? It brought us all the way here, it carried our stuff, and it’s just been sitting here inside the cave with us this whole time.”

  “Well, it’ll still be with us,” Darryl replied, “just in a different form.”

  “In a whole bunch of pieces, you mean,” Emma said. “It’ll be sad not to look outside and see it sitting there. I don’t know. I’m just being sentimental, I guess, and maybe that’s weird. It wasn’t even our wagon to begin with. Those weirdos in town gave it to us so we would leave.”

  “When you don’t own much, it’s easy to get attached to what little you do have,” Horace Bouchard noted.

  To construct the travois, they used the longest, sturdiest pieces of wood they could find. They took the thick boards from the bottom of the wagon’s frame for one of them. For the other, they used the front axle, reinforced with extra wood, and a couple of boards from the underside of the wagon that they lashed together with plenty of rope. These were placed into V shapes, bound together at the narrow end. Then they fastened crossbeams from smaller pieces of wood and stretched layers of tarps across them. A simple design, it nevertheless took a good couple of hours to get it done. Horace helped as much as he could, though he was forced to sit on a stool.

  “The tricky part will be creating harnesses to attach the travois to the horses,” Horace said. “To be honest, that’s the part of the design I’m less certain about.”

  Emma was in the process of removing nails from the underside of the wagon to free up more scrap wood. “It’s too bad we don’t have access to the bookshelves in the den,” she said. “I brought a few books, but there were so many more. I bet one of them had directions for building a travois and harness.”

  “Well, I hope James Teagan and his cretins get a lot of use out of those books,” T
abitha said, bitterly, as she pried a board off the wagon’s frame with a crowbar. “Most of them belonged to Tuck, and some of them belonged to his mom and dad.”

  “Something tells me those guys aren’t exactly well-read,” Marion said.

  As Darryl finished lashing a final tarp to one of the travois, he noticed that Horace had bent over and was drawing something in the mud of the cave floor with his finger. His lips were moving, as if he were talking to himself. When he realized Darryl was looking at him, he said, “I might have an idea for how to harness the travois to the horses. Give me a couple of minutes. I’m just sketching it out here as best I can.”

  Darryl nodded and rose. As Horace continued to draw in the mud, Darryl stepped back and examined his handiwork. The two travois looked pretty sturdy. Multiple layers of tarps spread across the flat wooden crossbeams provided a lot more room for supplies than he’d anticipated, and the support poles on either side looked sturdy enough to survive the few kilometers of bumpy trail.

  “Darryl, since you’re taking a break,” his father said, “would you go to the bathroom on the other side of the cave and get the box of medicine? We forgot it.”

  The box of medicine! Darryl couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it. He would have assumed someone else would grab it, but apparently it had been overlooked. If the wagon hadn’t broken, would they have left it behind? That was an alarming thought, especially since Tabitha’s diabetes medication was in there. Darryl rose, dug a flashlight out of their supplies, and stepped past the travois, headed into the living chambers.

  It was strange to see the empty rooms now. This weird, unpleasant place had been home for so long, he’d almost gotten used to it. Now that their personal possessions were removed, it just looked like a dim, dirty cave again.

  A narrow passageway across from the living room led toward the back of the cave, where a second, smaller exit was hidden behind a crude wooden door. A small curtained-off corner served as a bathroom. It had a small mirror mounted on the wall above a shelf and ceramic basin. The toilet was essentially a large plastic bucket with a hinged toilet seat on top. The faint smell of flowery scented candles lingered in the air. Darryl made his way toward the corner beside the sink, where he found the small wooden box that served as a medicine cabinet on the floor. When he picked it up, the pill bottles rattled around inside. He opened the lid and felt inside until he found the smaller box that held Grandma’s diabetes medicine.