by Akart, Bobby
They exited the building and were thrust into the daylight for the first time in months. They both squinted and shielded their eyes until aides rushed to their sides with umbrellas.
Ducci wasn’t being argumentative, but simply wanted to make a point when he added, “Well, the waters could recede, sir. Somewhere underneath the expanding ocean is our nation’s capital.”
“I don’t know, Marc. You know, there are some who believe the capital should be moved to a more centralized location.”
Ducci laughed. “Like Nebraska, right?”
The president smiled. “Well, yeah, that’s not gonna happen. But why not West Virginia? I’ve seen pictures of the Greenbrier. We could put all branches of the government under one roof. Think about it. The minority leaders couldn’t hide from me anymore. I could march right down the hall and bust in on their whispering and gossiping.”
Ducci laughed. “I’d pay to see that.”
The president exhaled as he was escorted onto the USS Harpers Ferry, a six-hundred-ten-foot dock landing ship with only a twenty-one-foot draft. It was designed to deliver military assets into locales with shallow waters.
“You know, the leadership of this nation is going to be tested in a way like no other. In the past, even world wars were politicized with partisan bickering. I truly hope we can pull together to recover from this catastrophe.”
“Time will tell, sir.”
Chapter 41
Pinnacle Overlook
Cumberland Gap
Southeast Kentucky
Life after the pole shift and the massive geomagnetic storms that engulfed the planet was similar to the weeks and months before—full of emotional highs and lows. Certain events were always remembered as standing out in one’s life. Marriage and divorce. The birth of a child and the loss of a loved one. The excitement shared on momentous occasions and the suffering when things went poorly.
The Boones had mostly suffered pain and loss since the planet became subjected to the cataclysmic climatic and geologic events caused by the rapid reversal of the magnetic field. They’d lost Squire, a devoted husband, father, and grandfather, as a result of the power grid being shut down.
They’d lost their farm, not to the banker who’d stop at nothing to take their property but, rather, to the dramatic changes the Earth was experiencing.
Through it all, there was very little opportunity to cheer a win except for that first afternoon at the Pinnacle Overlook when they’d cheated death and experienced the warmth of sunshine on their faces for the first time in over a month.
And what a month it was. Tommy and Kristi were almost thrown into the Ohio River as a bridge collapsed. Chapman survived being buried alive. The most powerful hurricane to hit American soil ever recorded, if it could’ve been, destroyed half their supplies and killed some of their precious horses. An earthquake, massive in size and fury, swallowed an entire valley and its nearly one hundred thousand residents without warning. It left behind a river where there wasn’t one before.
Then there was Levi being kidnapped. While the family courageously fought to free him and bring him home, Levi’s young son stood bravely in the face of death and killed a bear to protect his grandmother. Jesse cheered his success, but his reaction paled in comparison to the one when his parents came running out of the woods that morning.
He’d been on patrol. A job Jesse had gladly undertaken since the grid went down nearly two months ago. He’d dutifully walked the driveway at Riverfront Farms and around the perimeter of the yard, trying to do his part to help the family survive. Now he was fulfilling a similar role.
Despite his late-night encounter with the bear, Jesse was up and at ’em at dawn, rifle in hand and eyes focused on their surroundings. He heard feet shuffling through the woods at first, immediately raising his awareness that a threat might be approaching. He gathered up his grandmother and sister and told them to hide inside their makeshift home adjacent to the restrooms.
Sarah, of course, grabbed a rifle and stood shoulder to shoulder with Jesse as the footsteps grew louder. Rachel, playing the role of little sister, refused his instructions and stood behind them for safety.
Carly raced into the clearing first, followed closely behind by Levi. Seconds later, the young family crashed into each other in the tall grasses next to the parking lot. Tears and cheers filled the air as the family reunited after a stressful night.
Levi and Carly agreed not to tell the kids the truth about what had happened, opting instead for a simple story that Levi had become lost. Jesse enjoyed teasing his father about his silly mistake, and Levi graciously played the part of second-rate explorer. The white lie was necessary, and it allowed Jesse to take the limelight as he gave an elaborate, somewhat exaggerated account of his heroics with the bear.
He desperately wanted to show Levi his kill, so the two of them broke away from the group. Sarah scrambled to feed the weary warriors, and after a change of clothes, they settled in for ham and grits, including a small rectangle of cheese covered in wax that Sarah had packed for a special occasion.
The group ate together, laughed, and talked about skinning the bear for a nice big rug. Levi recalled advice from his grandfather about the proper technique. None of them had ever eaten bear meat, and in fact, they had insufficient salt to protect the bear hide. A black bear hide needed to be heavily salted to preserve it, with twenty pounds being about the norm. They’d need even more salt to preserve the meat.
Despite being exhausted, everyone recognized the importance of using the kill for their survival. Tommy and Kristi volunteered to apply their veterinarian and surgical skills to preserving the hide.
Isabella remembered seeing geologic formations in the ridge along the trail toward the Hensley Settlement that contained salt. The nearby town of Flat Lick that they’d passed through on the way to the Cumberland Gap was known for its salty rock, which attracted wild animals. She’d pointed out one such example during the journey and had seen indications of similar outcroppings as they explored the woods the day before.
This gave Carly and Sarah an opportunity to see their new potential home for themselves. They offered to go with Chapman and Isabella to their new potential camp and bring back salt after the ride.
Without any sleep, the new pioneers set about their day. The bear was properly field dressed and ready for curing just as the riders returned with blocks of salt chipped away from the lick in the woods.
Carly had heard all about the Hensley Settlement during the hike back to the overlook earlier that morning. She and Levi were on board with making the move as quickly as possible. After seeing it in person, she wanted to pack up and lead the family down there immediately.
However, everyone agreed that the move would not be as simple as loading the horses and hitting the dusty trail. It would take many trips, during which time they, and their supplies, would be separated.
After a lengthy discussion on how to best organize the move, the family slept hard, leaving only Sarah and Jesse to patrol the perimeter. By the next morning, the group was well rested and full of excitement as they took the first load by horseback to their new home.
The trail was cleared by Levi, Chapman, and Tommy at the crack of dawn. They took a moment to retrieve the tools and gardening supplies from the burned-out property and deposited them into the restored barn.
Then everyone began making trips back and forth, making good time of it since they had the use of the horses and Wonky Donkey. Even Brooke played a role as an additional patrol guard at the overlook while the transition took place.
The move took the entire day, and eventually, the Boones said goodbye to the Pinnacle Overlook and Tommy’s beloved Mustang. They agreed the overlook would still serve a purpose as a place to observe their surroundings from a different perspective. Chapman and Isabella would come here often to check the water levels in the Cumberland Gap. Tommy and Levi would systematically dismantle the solar array and bring the parts to their new home for reassembly. A
t times, Sarah would ride up to the overlook alone to talk with God and her husband.
The Boones were ready to begin their new life because now they’d found a spot to start over. It was a pioneer life with a far different meaning than the days when the new civilization in America spread across the vast continental wilderness.
The first pioneers were adventurous and independent. They were trappers, fur traders, miners, surveyors, and families looking for a larger piece of the American pie. Others were simply interested in seeing what was out there. An anonymous wandering squatter was believed to have said, To move, all I have to do is put out the fire and call the dog. One such pioneer of this mindset, Silas Garber, settled in a sod-roofed lean-to on a prairie bank in 1871. Four years later, he became the governor of Nebraska.
The modern pioneers like the Boones were different. They’d become survivalists. Their interests weren’t concerned with exploration or expanding their real estate holdings. They didn’t care about getting rich from mining and the fur trade. They simply wanted to survive the greatest catastrophic event in the history of modern mankind.
To do so would require learning the old ways. They’d have to apply common sense and learned skills, some through experience and others via their historic Boone DNA. To a person, old and young, Boone or extended family, they were up for the task.
Chapter 42
The Hensley Settlement at Shillalah Creek
Cumberland Mountains
Southeast Kentucky
Everywhere they settled, the pioneers of old made homes for themselves using what the land provided them. In the mountains of East Tennessee, Southeastern Kentucky, and Western Virginia, the essential tool was the ax. They began chopping saplings, and then they either used an ax or a crosscut saw to clear fields.
There were no subdivisions with model homes and smiling Realtors extolling the virtues of the newest appliance packages with smart technology. Homes didn’t come equipped with Nest, Alexa, or other devices that allowed you to control every aspect of your life without leaving the comfort of your La-Z-Boy recliner.
It took a lot of work and time to create a settlement. A clearing large enough to build homes and outbuildings, sow seeds for their first crop, or to maintain livestock took many months to construct.
Winter would descend upon the Cumberland Mountains soon, and it would be completely unpredictable. The pole shift had changed the planet’s climate and weather patterns. In addition, extreme weather anomalies had already reared their ugly heads.
The Boones were incredibly lucky that Chapman and Isabella found the Hensley Settlement. The historic property, abandoned by the National Park Service as the government shut down, stood vacant and ready for new pioneers to bring it alive once again.
Initially, the family wisely occupied structures that were in close proximity to one another. The original homes built by the Hensley family were clustered together on the east of the clearing, along with the schoolhouse. Each couple took a home, with the largest going to Levi, Carly, and the kids.
Sarah chose the original schoolhouse as her home. It was a large open structure built of logs and clay-mud. There was a partitioned space inside with a cast-iron stove and hand-hewn tables and chairs. Sarah would store their food supplies in the schoolhouse and coordinate the preparation of meals there. It would be a place for the family to gather to discuss the day’s events or to use for safety in the event of severe weather because it had the best-built roof.
Just as important as the day-to-day matters associated with their new settlement, Sarah was insistent their new home had a place of worship. She respected the fact that several members of her family were not religious, although after what they’d been through, they’d appeared to open their minds. Sarah Boone believed God’s Hand had guided them through this ordeal and delivered the Hensley Settlement to her family. Therefore, she would thank Him on Sundays and hoped the rest of the family would as well.
The west side of the settlement would be used for farming. They planned on expanding the apple orchard and would use the area around the barn and blacksmith shop as a place to work. Both of the homes originally built and occupied by the Gibbons families would remain vacant in the event they took on new residents.
Farming and protecting a property of this size would be a challenge without additional members being added to the group. They had the same conversation several times about how to deal with newcomers if any happened upon their property. Based upon the geological changes surrounding the southernmost end of the Cumberland Mountains, they determined the most likely direction others might come upon the Hensley Settlement was from their east, so they focused most of their patrols in that direction.
It had been a week since the family had descended from the mountaintop and occupied the settlement above Brush Mountain. For half a century after it was built, the families lived there without electricity, indoor plumbing or any other kinds of modern conveniences. The NPS had taken over the property and restored twenty-five of the original buildings. The Boones turned the historic property into their home.
Using the plow and farm implements acquired on their journey from Indiana, they began to clear the field, one acre at a time. Tommy, the tallest of the party, had become adept at using a scythe, while Chapman wielded the short-handled sickle like a pro. They cleared the tall grasses until the ground was visible. The kids would gather up the cut hay, pile it on top of Wonky Donkey, and walk the bundles to the barn to feed the horses.
Once the guys were satisfied there were no rocks hidden, which might damage the timeworn plow, they turned the field and planted their heirloom vegetable seeds that grew well in the winter.
Some of the cut grasses were used for bedding. Many of the early beds were made by pioneers out of leaves, pine needles, and hay. The Boones had a combination of sleeping bags and cushions retrieved from the Arctic Fox camper. There were also primitive beds located in the larger houses. They were made out of notched poles with sturdy rope woven between them to create a place to sleep besides the floor.
Frankly, the Boones worked so hard in those early weeks as they rushed to ready themselves for winter that they could’ve passed out on the floor and been okay with it. But as they discussed the possibility of venturing farther away from their new home to explore and forage, real mattresses were high on everybody’s wish list.
Fresh water was abundant from nearby Shillalah Creek, which bordered the south side of the property. Making use of the water was a much greater challenge. There were wooden buckets used as props in nearly every home located at the settlement and several hanging from rings in the barns. It was part of their morning routine to walk up the paths leading to the creek to refill their buckets to be used as drinking water, for cooking, and to flush, so to speak, after using their outhouses.
One day, Tommy and Levi made their way back up to the Pinnacle Overlook. They were pleased to find their old, temporary home exactly the way they left it. The most knowledgeable mechanics of the group took apart the vehicles, dismantling any vessel available to carry fresh water. They used the motors’ expansion tanks from the coolant systems as well as the windshield washer fluid containers. The camper had a water system that included a thirty-quart tank that was easily removed thanks to the destruction wrought by the high winds that one evening.
Another day, they returned with Chapman and Kristi. They carefully demolished the plumbing fixtures and piping from the restroom facility. It was step one in an overall plan to create a gravity-fed plumbing system connecting Shillalah Creek with the schoolhouse.
As time passed, the new pioneers realized that everything was an asset. One might see the bucket seats of a vehicle and shrug. Tommy saw them as comfortable recliners he could bolt to a wood floor for their comfort. They removed the two bench seats out of the Scooby van another day and created a living room within the schoolhouse.
Then the last thing they retrieved from their vehicles made two children and one chimpanzee the happiest of all
—the car tires. Using the tire tool in the Mustang, they jacked up the car and removed the tires. They let out all the air and then broke the bead of the tire, the seal around the rim holding the air in place. Using some of Sarah’s liquid detergent to make the process somewhat easier, they worked the tires off the rims with the flat edge of the tire tool.
After chopping down some sturdy grapevines, which ran up the oak trees on the edge of the clearing, they were able to create several tire swings for the kids to play on. Brooke was the best, of course, and spent much of her day swinging on the tires and tree limbs, just as Knight had done once upon a time.
All in all, the family was getting settled in. They worked hard and they’d overcome the challenges of a transition from modern civilization to life in the 1800s. Now comfortable in their surroundings, it was decided they should venture out to see what surrounded them. This brought about an unexpected change in their lives.
Chapter 43
The Hensley Settlement at Shillalah Creek
Cumberland Mountains
Southeast Kentucky
“Okay, I won’t lie. I’ve been waitin’ for this day for a couple of weeks,” said an impatient Levi Boone sitting atop his horse. He’d threatened to wander off in his free time, which, of course, didn’t exist when they were establishing their new settlement. Levi had his ancestor’s penchant for exploration. There wasn’t a trail he didn’t want to check out or a creek he didn’t want to follow. Finally, after a lot of suggesting and whining, an exploration party was formed to begin surveying their surroundings.
He actually made a very good argument when he said they should determine if there were any other people living nearby. They should make a threat assessment or determine if they might be of some assistance.
There were two access points into the historic property. From the east, visitors could travel along the Hensley Settlement Road, which followed the steep and difficult terrain until it made its way into the valley. Before the earthquake and the flooding, Brownies Creek had wound its way alongside a two-lane country road. Now a slow-moving river occupied the space.