Ben went to Lucas and held his hand out, “Let me take that for you.”
Lucas looked from Ben to his uncle, “That’s okay. We’re almost there.” He hefted the pack higher on his back, adjusting the weight.
“It’s okay Luke, you’ve pulled more than your share of the weight. Go ahead and give it to him.”
The look of relief that crossed Lucas’s face at being relieved of his burden made them all laugh. Lucas lost no time, unbuckling the pack and letting it slip to the ground. It hit the ground with a solid ‘thunk.’
“Damn, what’s in this thing?” Ben asked. “You fill it up with rocks?” Ben struggled to put the pack on, “Damn, how did you carry this?”
“Well, crap! I forgot. I put all of the ammunition we collected from those guys in there. I meant to transfer it to mine. In our rush to get away, I forgot. Lucas, you should have said something.”
“It wasn’t so bad. Besides that, you had to carry Miss Lucy.”
Lucy tried to hide her embarrassment with a smile, “I could have walked, it would have just taken us longer to get here.”
“We know you could have. I think you could be very stubborn if you wanted to, but I’m glad you let me give you a hand. Sometimes it’s just plain good to accept help,” he laughed, “I’m just happy you don’t weigh two hundred pounds.”
Gina shook her head and laughed with the rest of them, but Gina knew how having to be carried must have made Lucy feel helpless. She also knew if Lucy damaged her leg too badly, there would be no wearing of her prosthetic. They no longer had the option of having her fitted for a new one. As her stump changed over time, they would have to figure out how to make the adjustments themselves to accommodate the shrinking limb.
“That’s a problem for another time,” Gina muttered. She knew she had a bad habit of thinking and dwelling on the things that could go wrong long before they ever did. It was a trait she had picked up after she had lost everything that mattered to her. Now her motto was, better to be over prepared because life as you know it, can change in a heartbeat.
Gina chuckled softly, there was no way she could have prepared for or foreseen what they were going through now.
Chapter eighteen…………Joining forces
Before they reached the cabin itself, Abby and Sherry ran out to meet them. Abby threw herself into Lucy’s arms. “I was so worried about you.” She hugged Lucy for a long moment and then, hands on hips, she faced Sam. “Did you get them? Did you kill that bad man?”
Sam raised his eyebrows in surprise, “We got them and no, we didn’t kill them. There was no need.”
Abby turned to Ben a triumphant look on her face, “I knew it. You would have, wouldn’t you Dad?”
Ben looked like he didn’t know what to say to her. Frowning, he said, “Honey, killing someone is not that easy. I would have done whatever was necessary to bring Lucy back, and if the situation had warranted deadly force to do so, then I might have. But, we have her back, and no one else got hurt, so I think Sam handled it the best way possible.”
“What is that I smell?” Gina asked as she sniffed the air.
“My Mom made venison stew,” Sherry answered. “She said you guys would be hungry enough to eat a bear, but we didn’t have one, so she used deer meat.”
Gina had seen how uncomfortable Abby’s question had made the adults. She thought Abby had a good point, but they just couldn’t go around killing other people if there was a better solution. Gina felt confident that Sam had done something to convince the guys not to come back. The question was, would other people find them and would there be another solution other than defending themselves.
Gina hadn’t understood the narcissistic behavior of the young people back in the old world, what the hell would they do in the new world? Some would take until it was all gone not lifting a finger to help, and then what?
Both she and Journey had gone to school with women and men who had cared only about themselves. I, me and mine seemed to be the most prevalent words in their vocabulary. Some had even chosen the medical profession for the money alone. While the money had been an influence on her to a certain degree, after completing school, she realized how rewarding it was to help others. Going to work at the V.A. hadn’t filled her coffers to overflowing, but it provided her with enough money to enjoy her off time and put a little away for an emergency fund.
At one time, before meeting Lucy, she and Journey had talked of joining doctors without borders, until they realized the U.S. had issues of their own, so they both volunteered at several homeless shelters. The work, while not financially rewarding, let them sleep at night knowing they had made someone else's life a little better, if even for just that day.
Journey had a saying, “One person at a time.” At first, it had confused Gina until Journey explained the paying it forward policy. She said she couldn’t know if the person she had helped that day would go out and save someone else and so on and so on. The possibilities were endless.
John was sitting on the edge of a cot, holding a bowl in his hands. Journey had apparently done enough for him that he was feeling good enough to eat.
Journey was hovering over him, cautioning, “You should probably just eat the broth and maybe the potatoes. I’m not sure how your stomach will react to the meat. The chloroform would turn anyone's stomach.”
“Chloroform?” Gina asked, “You used chloroform on him. Where’d you get it?”
Journey pulled her to the corner of the room, “You would be surprised what they have in their medical kit. They kept it for the stock, but it has everything. I had to put in quite a few stitches to get the bleeding to stop. I sure could have used your help.”
“Quite a few? I’m surprised you don’t know the exact number, Doctor O’Day.”
Journey gave her another hug and Gina felt her shaking. Journey had dark circles around her eyes, and Gina wondered if she had slept at all.
“So, he’s going to be fine?”
“As long as he doesn’t tear any of those…”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here or can’t hear you. Hell yes, I’m fine, thanks to the doc there.”
“I told you a dozen times, I’m not a doctor, I’m a nurse.”
“As good as, in my book. Now come find a place to sit. All of you,” John added when he saw the three young people heading for the doorway.
They sat on the floor, leaning against boxes and rolled up bedding. There wasn’t much room left for walking once they were all seated.
When the women had found the cabins, they had only given them a cursory look inside, preferring to spend the night in their own tent where they knew there were no spiders and other bugs. The cabin hadn’t looked habitable to them, and they had been afraid to go inside in fear of the floor collapsing.
The room had once held built in bunks on three walls, the uprights were still attached to the log walls, but the beds themselves were gone. The crevices between the logs had been sealed with some kind of filler, but chunks were missing and cold air filtered in. Someone had hung patchwork quilts on two of the walls to either keep out some of the cold or to cheer the single room up. Either way, it hadn’t worked. The room was still dark and dreary. The quilts billowed from the outside wind trying to find an entry.
There were no other conveniences, it was only a square room with a roof, built to house either campers or hunters. The open doorway didn’t have a door and didn’t look as if it ever had. The wood doorway was worn and shiny in spots from the thousands of hands that must have touched and held on to it from years past. Someone had tacked a piece of gray tarp over the door, but it was pulled to the side with a length of rope holding it open. An infrared heater sat on a five-pound propane bottle, offering heat. The glow from it being the only light source at the moment.
Gina was surprised when Sam picked a spot on the floor next to her.
“Hope you don’t mind,” he said and drew his heels close to his body and draped his arms over his knees.
<
br /> He turned his attention to his brother and Gina wondered what he would have done if she had minded. Her lips turned up at the thought.
“I wouldn’t have moved,” he said quietly.
“How…”
“Hush and listen,” Sam said gruffly and chuckled.
Mary sat on the bed beside her husband, giving him all of her attention. Journey sat on the other side of John, doing the same, but seemed more interested in keeping an eye on him. Gina could read Journey like a book, and she knew the woman would worry about everything she’d done as far as his medical treatment went until he was fully back on his feet.
Sam leaned close and whispered, “Are you paying attention so when it comes down to voting, you know what he’s talking about?”
“Voting? Voting on what?”
Sam shook his head, “I knew you weren’t here,” he said for only her ears.
Gina was tempted to give him a well-placed elbow in his side, but decided she’d be better off to ignore him and pay attention.
“So, with what Journey has already told us, we feel it would be in everyone's best interests to combine forces. With your medical experience and our country lifestyle, we would be able to survive much easier than having two camps. If everyone is in agreement, Sam and Ben can go down to the ranch and see what’s left, if anything, and begin moving it up here.”
“Whoops,” Gina said under her breath, and looked at Sam. She had obviously missed most of the conversation. “Fill me in?”
Sam nodded and turned his attention back to his brother. “What about the hay? Are we planning to move any of it up here?”
“Geez, Samuel, where were you?” John asked with a shake of his head. “I just went over that. Yes. Hopefully, you and Ben are going to take the jeep and trailer down and see what’s left. We know the house is probably gone, but I don’t think they would have found the root cellar, especially with the house on fire.”
John reached out to his wife, who had buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook as she quietly cried. She must have felt every eye on her, because with a sniffle, she dried her face on the small towel she had wadded in her hands.
“I’m sorry to be so emotional. Every time I think of the generations of history and memories wrapped up in that house, it makes me sick.”
Lucas got to his feet and went to his Mom, and hugged her. “We’re all still here. Dad said as long as we have our memories and each other, we have all we need. Remember?”
Mary patted his hand, “I know, honey, it just makes me so angry the way those people treated us. We did the best by them that we could. I feel like even if we gave them everything we had, they would still have asked for more.”
“That’s the nature of most people I think. I guess you’re lucky to get out of there with what you did get.”
When Journey finished speaking, they all nodded in agreement. Silence hung over the room until the baby who was sleeping in a laundry basket beside the bed began to fuss. Before Mary could rise, Sherry and Abby were standing by the bed each trying to pick the baby up.
“I’ll take her,” Mary said and nudged both girls aside.
“I’d like to go with you guys,” Gina said, surprising herself. “That’s if you can wait until after I check the horses. I’d also like to check how the cave handled the earthquake. Most everything we own is in that cave, and I’d sure hate to lose it.”
“The horses are fine. I went down earlier to check on them. They all look good and seem to be recovering nicely. I’d like to make the trip at least down to the cave if no one has any objections.” Journey looked around waiting for someone to either tell her she could or couldn’t go.
“Tell you what, us three will go to the ranch and stop and check the cave on the way. We still have time to pull a load of whatever is left there up here and then tomorrow morning I’ll take you down to the cave.”
Journey seemed satisfied with his answer and went to help Mary with the baby. Gina listened and heard her asking Mary the babies age, and then turned her attention to the men. Gina had no interest in knowing the babies age, sex, or anything about it. Even though it had been years, the pain was too brutal to handle on top of everything else.
As Sam, Ben and Gina prepared to leave, Lucas stuck his head out of the door flap, Miss Gina? My Dad wants you for a minute.”
She frowned, she couldn’t imagine what he wanted with her. They had barely exchanged any words at all. While Ben and Sam hooked the old trailer to the jeep, she ran back inside. Lucas was unwrapping an AR15 from an oily looking bed sheet.
“I want to you to take this,” John said, taking it from Lucas and holding it out to her.
Gina shook her head and stepped back, “I can’t. I have no idea how to shoot that thing.”
“Gina, it’s just a rifle. It’s not any different than your 30/30, and you know how to shoot that. This just looks a little different,” Lucy, told her. “You may need it to defend those guys.”
“Maybe I should go, Dad?”
“Lucas, you’re our last defense here. I’m counting on you to stand a watch while they’re gone, son.”
John’s eyes met Gina’s, “Let me show you how this bad boy works.”
With practiced hands, he gave her a quick synopsis on how to replace the magazine and fire it. Finally, he sagged back to the bed, obviously worn out.
As unqualified as Gina felt to operate it, she took it. In her hands, it felt like a toy gun. It was light in weight and looked very much like the toy gun a friend’s child had. Resigned to carrying it, she slung it over her shoulder as she’d seen Lucas and Sam do with theirs, and ducked back out the tarp.
The jeep, a relic from the past, sat backed up to the horse trailer. The trailer was an open sided stock trailer that had seen better days, and she wondered how many horses they had brought up and if there were any cattle in the pasture with the horses. Gina thought about their hay and feed and how they were going to keep the animals from starving once the snow fell.
Both the trailer and jeep had been painted by hand, in shades of green and brown. Gina frowned because two days before, the Jeep had been red and the trailer had been a tan color and covered in road dirt. Someone had obviously been busy while they were gone.
As soon they saw her, Ben climbed into the small cargo area behind the seat, leaving the passenger seat open for Gina.
“Try to not touch the outside, or you’ll be covered in paint,” Ben told her as she climbed in. “It doesn’t dry well with the cold temperature.”
“But at least we won’t stand out like a sore thumb. I bet it really pained John to cover up his new paint job,” Sam said as he put the clutch in and turned the key.
“Not as much as it did for me and the girls to paint it. We about froze our butts off getting it finished.”
“Why do you guys even have the paint? It seems kind of strange to be carrying paint around…especially now.”
“We were going to go up and paint our deer blind on the weekend, and it was still behind the seat. John bought it by the gallon because it was cheaper than quarts. He was going to use it for a couple of other things too, but it didn’t happen.”
It only took minutes to reach the cave. There were no downed trees or any indication that there had been an earthquake. Not at first glance. Then Gina saw the rocks and boulders sitting where the opening used to be.
“Well, damn! Look at this shit,” Gina slumped in her seat and sighed. Everything they owned was in the cave, and now it was probably lost. The horse feed, their few groceries, their clothing, not to mention the tent or sleeping gear. She felt Ben touch her shoulder in sympathy.
“Not to worry, the girls and I moved everything but the hay up to the other cabin before the cave in. We didn’t want to be presumptuous, but Journey and I talked after Mary and John brought up us joining them. At the time, it made sense for us to move everything up there. We didn’t know how long you guys were going to be gone, so we moved it.”
Gina st
opped with one foot on the ground and twisted to face behind her, “So, we never really had a vote at all? You guys decided for us?” She finished climbing out and faced Ben.
She saw Sam grimace and wondered if he really thought he knew what was coming. He turned away as if he wanted no part of what she had to say. Ben’s face had flushed as if he knew he had done wrong.
In reality, Gina felt relieved. The hay could be dug out at a later time when they needed it, and all of their possessions were safe. She thought to make Ben stew a little longer, but gave in when she saw how uncomfortable he seemed to be.
“Well, thank you. Not only did you save our stuff, but now I don’t have to pack it up and move it again.”
Ben sank back into his seat and pulled the seat back. Sam never said a word, but the thin-lipped smile he wore as he got back in, made Gina wonder if her reaction had surprised him. She thought it would be good to keep him off balance when it came to his pre-conceived notions that he could read her like a book. Gina chuckled softly to herself. She hoped he liked mysteries.
The first leg of the trip to the ranch was uneventful other than the bumps, and they brushed some of the paint off both vehicles when they had to squeeze between a couple of fallen trees. They weren’t blocking the road completely, they just narrowed the road bed some.
Gina recognized when they got close to the valley the log home had sat in. She and Journey had marveled at the beauty of the setting. The rustic log home sitting beside the creek with the cattle grazing in the pasture had been postcard material. Lucy had taken some pictures they had thought to print out and send to the owners of the ranch, if they could find out who they were. Now, they knew the owners, but printing out the pictures was never going to happen unless something changed at some time in the future.
“Oh my God…” Gina breathed out when Sam stopped almost the same place Lucy had taken the photos from. In the distance, she could see the interstate with its wrecked vehicles. On the north side of the freeway, something had burned and caught the forest on fire. The hillside was blackened as far as she could see all the way to the horizon.
Beyond the New Horizon Page 19