Beyond the New Horizon

by Christine Conaway

“Yup. I’m sure we’re going to need them. If they’re not wet or starting to swell from moisture, we’ll keep them. In fact, separate the ones that look damp, and maybe we can use them right away. Maybe we can spread them out when we get them back to camp, and they’ll dry. I don’t know, but let’s not leave anything that we may be able to use.”

  “Hey, how are you guys doing down there?”

  Gina looked up to see Sam holding on to a tree on the edge of the gully, looking down at them.

  She looked around and realized she and Lucy had several full totes sitting off to the side. The flour barrel was split down one side, but they had still put the lid on it. Gina had scooped handfuls of flour up and returned it to the barrel. They had lost more than they had saved, but she thought that no one would mind a little dirt in their bread or pancakes. The bigger pieces of dirt, they could sift out.

  “I think we’re done down here. We’ve saved more than I thought we would, but look there.” Gina pointed to the salvaged containers and the two barrels.

  “If we had another container or bags we could get some of the rice,” Lucy said from where she kneeled in the trailer opening. “The barrel is in two pieces, but the rice looks fine. We just don’t have anything to put it in.”

  “How about these?” Ben asked and dropped what looked like pillow cases over the edge.

  When Lucy started to get up, Gina stopped her with a hand, and got them for her, and crawled into the trailer to help.

  Gina grabbed two plastic tumblers from where she had put them in the save pile, and went to work. They used them to scoop the grains of rice up, careful to avoid the glass particles that clung to everything inside the trailer.

  “What about the glass. It’s everywhere. We’re going to have pieces of it no matter what we do.”

  Gina picked a large piece out of the top of her tumbler and threw it behind her. “Pick out the big pieces as best you can, the smaller ones will give us something to do when it’s too cold to be outside.”

  “Seriously?”

  Gina sighed in exasperation. “Seriously. I think we are going to need every grain and bean that we can save. I was worried before we lost this about how we were going to survive with the food we have, and this,” she waved her arm around, taking in the destruction, “makes it that much worse.”

  Gina tied a knot in the top of the pillowcase of rice. There was nothing else to take. They had put the clothing, even if it was covered in juice or liquid from the broken jars, off to the side. She was determined to save everything.

  “I guess that’s it, then.” She sat back on her heels and looked around. Lucy was tying a knot in her pillowcase the same way that Gina had, and then Gina saw the tears running down Lucy’s face. She had been fighting her own tears off and on thinking about their survival.

  As far as she knew, they were cut off from civilization, they didn’t have enough food to feed ten people for more than a few months, and according to Sam, winter hadn’t begun yet.

  Sniffing loudly, Lucy asked, “Do you think we can make it?”

  “Make it? You mean to survive?”

  Lucy nodded and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Survive…the whole winter. I have to admit that I am so afraid we won’t. I don’t see how we can.”

  “We can. We have to. I think it will be the hardest thing we’ve ever done. Well, maybe not for you, Ben and Sam, but still hard for us, but I really believe we can make it.”

  “Why exclude Sam, Ben and myself?”

  “The rest of us have never been to war. That, in itself sets you guys apart from the rest of us, but we all have the desire and the willpower it’s going to take to get through this.”

  Lucy smiled at her while rubbing her runny nose, “You always give me hope. That’s one of the qualities I’ve always admired in you.”

  “Oh stop…you and Journey have always been my family and you know I would do anything for you guys. Now, we have to include the others, but they bring more to the table than I ever could.”

  “Hey! You guys going to stay down there all day or what?”

  “Maybe…depends on what you have in mind.” Gina hollered back.

  “We thought that one of you would make some dinner.”

  “Assholes,” Gina muttered, and Lucy laughed.

  “Let’s take this stuff to the end of the draw and see if we can find somewhere dry to put it.”

  “Do you smell that?”

  “There you go again with the smelling thing. I’m really starting to believe your ability to detect odors has improved with the loss of your leg.” Gina drew in a deep breath through her nose and held it, trying to decipher what it was Lucy had thought she smelled.

  Puzzled, Gina tipped her head and took another deep breath, “It smells like hot springs? Or sulfur…I don’t think there is anything like that around here though.” Gina picked up her bag and stepped back. Her foot slipped off the rock she’d stepped on and landed in the stream of water. She jerked her foot out before her boots could soak through and stared up the crevasse, her mouth hanging open.

  Further up the draw, she could see steam rising from out of the ground. “Oh shit. Lucy, just grab whatever you can and let’s get this out of here.”

  Lucy reached down and putting her fingers in the water. The look on Gina’s face had scared her, and she thought she knew what the column of steam meant. “This water is warm,” Lucy said, and raised her fingers to her nose. She sniffed and jerked her hand away, “It is Sulphur.”

  “Guys, we need your help down here, and immediately would be good.” Sailor and Joe had begun to move around, clearly bothered by something. Lucy and Gina grabbed their bags of rice, and as fast as they could, they moved both bags and horses out of the draw, and a small way up the hill to solid ground. Ben and Sam came barreling down the hill to meet them.

  “What’s up? Ben almost has dinner ready and I’m repacking our stuff.”

  “What is that smell,” Ben asked, his top lip curled in disgust.

  “That’s what we wanted you for. Look up there,” Gina said and pointed up the draw. “We need to move this stuff before it gets wet.”

  Sam reached down and picked up the plastic barrel of beans, “Why would you leave this stuff so close to the water?”

  “How about there was no water when we set it there? Come on Sam, give us some credit. That water has risen just in the last few minutes.”

  “And it’s warm too,” Lucy told them as she hobbled away with her armload of bedding.

  It didn’t take long for them to transfer the pile of belongings to the top of the hill.

  Gina looked at the pitifully small pile it had taken her and Lucy hours to collect. They had about thirty pounds of flour, less than twenty pounds of rice and maybe forty pounds of the beans that were dry and another ten pounds that had gotten wet. All the beans would have to be cleaned, and small glass chips sorted out. Gina had sorted the jars of home canned food, and of the two hundred jars from the cellar at the farm, there was now less than three dozen that hadn’t broken. From the destruction of the trailer, Gina thought they were lucky to recover any undamaged jars.

  The biggest savings were the clothing and bedding, and a couple of duffle bags but they hadn’t looked inside these yet.

  By the time they had eaten and together sorted through the things that Andy had set on the hillside, they still had more than they could fit on the horses. The weight wouldn’t be a problem, but the means to carry it would.

  “It looks like we might have to make another trip.”

  Andy nodded in agreement, his eyes looking off into the dusk. He frowned and squinted, “What do you make of that?”

  Sam followed his finger and stared. “We better go have a look.”

  Gina and Lucy started to get up when Sam stopped them, “I’d like it if you two would wait here. We’re just going up the draw a little way to see what it looks like.”

  Gina nodded and sat back down. She knew under normal circumstances, she would n
ever have stayed behind. But these weren’t normal. She didn’t want to leave Lucy behind and if the terrain was anything like she and Sam had witnessed earlier, Lucy wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  Gina sat and fiddled with the small fire, poking it with a short stick and stirring the ashes up. They had wiped out the pot and bowls as best they could and packed them back into Ben’s backpack, along with anything else that didn’t have a container to go in.

  “Oh, shit!” Lucy exclaimed, as she got to her feet.

  “What?” Gina looked up at her and laughed. “Do you know how foreign that sounded coming out of you?”

  Lucy pointed. Gina didn’t have to ask what, or have a hard time seeing, what Lucy was pointing at. To the north of them, the ground glowed a rosy red color that seemed to pulse as if were breathing.

  They heard sounds crashing through the brush and Gina jumped to her feet, prepared to run. She reached for Lucy’s hand, prepared to drag her along when Sam and Ben broke through the cover of brush. Running toward them.

  Panting, unable to catch his breath, Sam bent at the waist and rested his hands on his knees, taking gulps of air in. Ben was doing the same, and sweat rolled off their faces. Their whole bodies steamed as if their clothes were warm and wet.

  Finally, Sam was able to talk, “We have to get the horses loaded and get out of here.”

  “We have to get to the bottom of the hill and be on the east side of the draw,” Ben exclaimed. He wasn’t as breathless as Sam appeared to be and continued, “It looks like imagining what hell would look like. There’s a river of molten lava headed right this way.”