Beyond the New Horizon

by Christine Conaway

  “You’ve already proven that. Now, I think Andy and I should head on back…” Gina started to protest, and Sam put a hand up to stop her, “Wait until I’m done then you can have a say. “I think Andy and me,” he looked pointedly at Gina, “should go back to our camp and with the use of the tractor and jeep we can bring everything back here at one time.”

  Gina sat thinking about his words just long enough for Sam to become suspicious, “What? What do you think I’m leaving out or forgetting?”

  “Well, a couple important facts, to start.” Gina grinned and knew she had him. He had his mind occupied with things and not the living members of their group.

  Sam sighed, “Okay. How about if you fill me in?”

  Gina didn’t hesitate, “First, one trailer is almost full of stuff, not counting what you guys hauled up there in your first load. My trailer is empty right now, but what isn’t in the first trailer can go into it, but there is no way you are going to pull either trailer if it’s loaded, over that trail we rode in on. For that matter, that jeep will be lucky to pull anything. Then there are all of the horses.” She sat back with a smug look on her face and frowned, “And we should get the stuff from the cave too. And then, what about our people? You want them to ride or walk to get here?”

  Sam thought for a minute before speaking. It was apparent by the look of resignation on his face, he was beaten. “Okay. Carlos, I’ll go talk to John and put together a plan. As much as I hate to admit it, Gina is right. Mary and the baby can’t ride, and I’m not sure John will be up to it, and Ben is still under the weather.”

  From the expressions running across his face, it became apparent that he hadn’t given proper consideration to the living members of their group, and it would take more than simply loading their belongings up and going for a drive. “Can you do without us for a day or two? ”

  Carlos cackled, “I’ve been doing this all on my own for more years than you’ve been alive, why would one more day matter?”

  Sam had the grace to look embarrassed, “Yeah okay, old man…”

  “But, I think you should sleep and leave at first light. You don’t want to cripple one of those horses going over that hill in the dark.”

  Sam looked outside and realized the daylight had faded fast. Considering they were about to burst into winter, they would be working with far less daylight with every passing day. “Well, damn, for once you’ve said something that makes sense.”

  “I want to go with you.” It was the first words Matt had spoken without being asked a direct question.

  Sam nodded, “I can see where I am outnumbered, But first,” Sam looked at Matt, “How about catching that cantankerous mule and taking his packsaddle off?”

  “Come on Matt. I’ll help you. Gus isn’t much for strangers until he gets to know you.”

  As soon as Gina and Matt went to catch Gus, Sam looked at the radio that Carlos had set on the table. “Does that thing pick up anything?”

  Carlos grinned and pulled it to him. He cranked the handle and turned it on. “This is the only station still broadcasting anything.”

  “It’s kind of late,” Andy said. “I think we probably missed it.”

  “Missed what?”

  “Every four hours there’s a broadcast, but so far, at least for the past week, it has been the same thing over and over again. Some bullshit canned message from our government about how they only have our best interests at heart and we should be sharing our provisions with our neighbors and stranded travelers. If a person is caught hoarding, they can be arrested or fined. A weeks food is all any one family is allowed.”

  “Yeah, I can tell you how well that worked out for John and Mary. It was stranded travelers who burned them out.”

  “You’re not telling me anything. When Matts stepmother and Dad, didn’t get home when they were supposed to, Matt had his share of friendly travelers too. His stepmother wasn’t the same as Miss Mary and they didn’t keep a full larder. He didn’t have anything to share. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Matt being left alone out there, I would have packed it in a long time ago. When Dave sold off the last of the cows, they didn’t need a foreman any longer, but that ranch was the only inheritance Margie left him. I couldn’t see it falling down around his ears without no one helping him.”

  “Let’s save that story for another time. I met the woman one time, and it was one too many. That woman was all over me and old Dave was sitting right there passed out in his recliner.”

  “Well, you know what I’m talking about then,” Andy said with a shake of his head. “That woman had one thing on her mind when she married Dave, and it didn’t involve being a mother to that kid.” He laughed, “She thought the ranch belonged to Dave. It was a real shit storm when she found out it went solely to Matt.”

  Chapter Twenty-four…………Luxury for Gina

  Carlos insisted that Gina sleep in the trailer while he and the guys shared the cots in the tent. Gina had tried to resist because she could picture what his trailer would look like with only an old man taking care of it. She wasn't prepared at all when she opened the door.

  There were no electric appliances, a miniature version of the wood-burning stove sat on one wall. Bookshelves lined two of the walls in the sitting area from floor to ceiling. A small, table sat on the third wall with nothing on it, but a family bible. She opened it and realized it wasn’t simply to look at but was well read. Words and passages were underlined and in some case had whole verses circled. Inside the front cover, she found birthdates and dates of passing, written down. Some of them were written with a quill or fountain pen, the ink faded to opaque, and the names were all Spanish. At the bottom of the page, she found where Carlos had put his own name and birth date, Carlos Enrique Mendez, born December 24, 1922, and blank space for the date of his death, but he had filled in the year already. He’s written 2016 in a shaky hand.

  “Holy shit, that makes him,” she mentally counted off the years, “ninety-four? That can’t be right,” she murmured. She caressed the page thoughtfully.

  She looked at the bookshelf. There wasn’t an empty space to put the one lying open, face down on the arm of the recliner.

  She thought he had to take another out to read before he could put the finished one on a shelf. His taste in books seemed to be all over the map, from Jack London to Tolstoy. He had the full collection of Harry Potter, some Steven King, and Shakespeare.

  Gina shook her head as her eyes ran from shelf to shelf. As much as she loved to bury herself in a good book, she hadn’t read more than half of the authors on his shelves. She could see from the covers, that these books had been read and not used solely for decoration as some people did.

  A kettle sat on the back of the stove, and Gina found it to be full and warm. Canisters and coffee can’s lined the counter all carefully labeled with their contents. A washbasin sat overturned in the sink. A clean, folded bath towel sat on the counter. Now, she knew what Carlos had been up to when he had disappeared from the conversation before they had called it a night.

  The cleanliness of the small trailer wasn’t something that could have been done in the short time he had been gone, so she knew it was kept clean all of the time.

  With the bookshelf blocking the windows, Gina stripped down to bare skin, poured the kettle into the basin and began to wash. It was the first complete cleaning she had had since before they left for vacation. She washed her shirt, sports bra, socks and panties out in her bath water and looked for a place to hang them to dry.

  Wrapped in the towel, Gina looked into the room with the only closed door. At one time it had been the bathroom, but someone had removed the commode and put in a composting toilet. The sink and faucets were gone and shelving built where they had stood. The bathtub was still there, and she was surprised to see that someone had repurposed it to hold a pump handle. She lifted the lever and moved it up and down. Cold water came out of the spout on the second push. She almost squealed until she realized the guys could com
e running if they heard her. Them catching her dressed in nothing but a bath towel didn’t sit well, and she managed to curtail her noise.

  Across the top of the tub area, were short clotheslines running from wall to wall. Gina grinned, thinking how much thought Carlos had put into making this trailer his home.

  She didn’t know how he had done it, but just having a hand pump in his bathroom, put him several levels above most of the survivors today. At the cabin or the cave, they had to rely on the creek for water and someone to carry the buckets back and forth. She hadn’t thought about the creek freezing over or how they would melt snow. They hadn’t received any of the ash, from an eruption, like Sam had worried about, but as he had also pointed out, the ash could come at any time.

  She squeezed out the excess water and hung her garments over the line, hoping they would dry before she needed them the next morning. It was then that she noticed he had cut out the back wall of the shower stall and installed a decorative grate. Peering through it, she saw the stovepipe behind the kitchen stove. She could feel the warm air as it came through the grating. All she had to do was put wood in it to keep the fire going. She debated whether to wash her jeans or not and thought it would be asking too much for the heavier fabric to dry overnight. She had ridden in wet jeans before and had ended up chafed, and her skin in delicate places, rubbed raw. It wasn’t something she cared to repeat.

  After tidying up her mess, Gina ran out of energy. She yawned, and made her way to the small bedroom in the back of the trailer.

  Lying in a real bed for the first time in weeks, Gina marveled at how good it felt and spread her limbs out, basking in the feel of sleeping without being fully clothed. The sheets were clean, and it looked as if he had changed them. They smelled fresh as if they had just come off the line. The patchwork quilt on top of her gave her enough warmth and weight to make her appreciate the work that had gone into making it. Someone had patched together squares and strips of worn denim, some squares even complete with the pockets on them, and by the small, precise stitches, the whole thing had been sewn by hand. She would remember to ask Carlos the next day who had made it…if she remembered.

  Gina had barely closed her eyes when a pounding on the door woke her. She struggled to comprehend what was going on. She then realized it wasn’t her bed, nor her room, and it wasn’t her friends knocking on the door.

  “I’m awake,” she called feebly, “I’m awake. I’ll be right out,” she yelled loud enough to be heard over the persistent knocking.

  Gina heard Sam chuckle as he walked away. He had obviously taken great pleasure in waking her up.

  The ride back to the cabin went swiftly without having to stop and cut brush or fallen trees off the trail. The trail they had followed on the trip to the valley was almost indiscernible with the leaves and forest rubbish. If not for the fresh ax marks on a few of the trees, they had cut and removed to the side of the path, Gina would never have known they were on the same trail.

  Sam and Matt had been quiet for the trip back, and Gina had been content to leave them alone with their thoughts. She had some thoughts of her own to work through. She was concerned by the repeated message. Just knowing it hadn’t changed in the weeks that Carlos, Andy, and Matt had listened to it, left her wondering if they still had a sitting government or if they were on their own. She thought if there were significant changes in their status, they would have at least changed the message to reflect the circumstances.

  At the creek, they stopped to water their horses. Gina looked at Sam when she heard him mumble something and she rode up beside him. Matt had ridden into the middle of the water flow letting his mare drink.

  “What the heck? Where’d all the water go?”

  Sam let Clyde walk out into the middle of the creek, or at least into what used to be the middle. Rocks that had been submerged when she had filled their water buckets now sat high and dry. They could see where someone had walked out into the main flow to get water.

  “Does this happen every year?”

  Sam sat chewing on his lip, looking up the stream. The creek bed had shrunk to less than half of its width, and the water flow had dwindled.

  “Never. This creek goes all the way through our ranch, and I’ve never seen it dry up like this.”

  Sam sighed, I’ve been gone so much, I can’t swear to it, but I think Matt is right. In the few years, I’ve been back it was always a water source for the ranch.”

  “What about the one where Carlos is? It was running pretty fast when we left. Is it a branch of this creek?”

  “No, that one is False Creek this is Silver. This one comes from over by Couer D’Alene. False Creek comes from an underwater reservoir high up in the hills.”

  Sam nodded, “Matt would know more about that than I would. He and Lucas have been all over this country, hunting and fishing.”

  For a brief instant, Matt must have remembered something fun about their trips because he smiled, but it quickly left his face. “It seems so long ago.”

  “This doesn’t look good to me. Let's get on up to the camp and see what John thinks. It may be the deciding factor in what he wants to do.”

  Before they got halfway up the trail, they were stopped by a voice. “Stop and identify yourself.”

  Sam reined in shaking his head while trying to hide his grin, “Sam, Gina and Matt and you’re not supposed to giggle after you tell us to identify ourselves.”

  Lucas and Abby stood up from behind a deadfall, “I told her she would blow it.” As if it had only dawned on him, “Matt? What are you doing here?”

  “Are you two supposed to be on watch?”

  “No. We just finished getting water, and we heard you guys coming. We told Dad, and he said we could come and meet you.”

  “So, no one is standing watch? What kind of security is that?”

  “When Dad and Lucy got back from getting Gina’s trailer, he said there wasn’t so much as a footprint anywhere…”

  “Lucas!” Someone, it sounded like Mary called from the direction of the cabin.

  Sam cringed, “Great. I can see no one is taking our security seriously.”

  At the cabin, the three tied their horses to trees.

  “You want me to pull your tack off and turn them out, Uncle Sam?”

  Sam inspected the animals and saw the steam that rose from them now that they were standing still. “Nope, pull their bridles off and give them a drink. If you have any of the blankets handy, throw one on each of them, please, and can you give them some hay?”

  Luca seemed disappointed he wouldn’t be going into the cabin with the adults, but went to find the horse blankets.

  “I’ll help you,” Abby said and followed him to the horse trailer.

  Sam ushered Gina and Matt inside. Once in, it quickly became obvious they would have to have their meeting outside. Even standing there was not enough room for all of them. Gina went to the corner to speak with Journey.

  “How is he?” Gina asked, nodding at Nathan who she had resting against her chest.

  Journey looked up; her eyes glanced to where Mary had her back to them and back at Gina. She shook her head slowly for only Gina to see.

  Gina thought she mouthed, later, to her. It was obvious; something had to be wrong with Nathan. Gina sat down beside Journey and rubbed her finger on the back of Nathan’s hand. With any other baby, whether they were asleep or not, they would at least curl their fingers. Nathan’s never even twitched. His skin had grown translucent; blue veins showed on the side of his head. Gina could almost guess what Journey was going to tell her. It was obvious to Gina the little guy still wasn’t getting enough nourishment from his food.

  Leaning close and keeping her voice low, “Is he eating anything?”

  Journey shook her head, tears in her eyes, “No and what we do get down him, he regurgitates. Mary is in denial, but I don’t know what else we can do for him. This baby needs to be in a hospital and soon.”

  “That’s impossible. Ther
e aren’t any around here. Couer D’Alene or Missoula are the closest big towns, and we have no way of knowing if they are open.”

  “Oh, I know. John and I have already discussed the possibilities. He’s more of a realist than Mary. He sees what we see, she sees her son and not what may be wrong with him.”

  “What do you think is his problem?”

  “I think he needs real milk and food made for babies. For some reason, Mary is not producing any, and his system is too fragile for anything we have. Our powder milk is not helping him at all.”

  “What about finding a cow? John has cows.”

  “We thought of that already, but his cows are beef cattle, and they won’t produce milk until after or right before they calve and he said we’d have a hell of a time milking one of them.”

  “So…that’s a no?” Gina sat and thought about the cows. “What about goats milk? Would he drink it?”

  Journey sat up straighter, one hand holding Nathan to her breast. “Goat milk would be better than the powder milk or the food we’ve been trying to keep down in him. First, we need to find a goat, and I don’t think this is goat country.”

  Gina looked around for someone. While she and Gina were talking, the others had gone outside. She went to the tarp and put her head out. She spied exactly who she wanted, “Hey Ben…can you come here for a second?”

  Ben looked at her frowning, he looked from her to Sam, shrugged and came to the doorway.

  “We need a goat.”

  “Aw, just a minute, I’ve got one here someplace.” He began shuffling through his pockets. Pulling his pants pockets inside out, he grinned at her, “Nope. I guess I don’t have…” Looking over her shoulder, he must have seen Journey holding Nathan. The light came on, and his grin faded, “A nanny goat. For Nathan. Now that I can maybe help with. There were some in that field behind the shop. The guys were talking about roasting a couple of the young ones, but Abby turned them all lose before we left. If they didn't catch them, they could still be there.”