By the Dawn's Early Light
Page 36
Foreign & Domestic, Part IV:
Colder Weather
Summer/Fall 2016
I hope you have enjoyed Foreign & Domestic, Part III: By the Dawn’s Early Light. Please consider leaving feedback on Amazon and picking up the fourth part of the series in Part IV: Colder Weather (once released).
I have included Chapter 1 from the next installment for you to enjoy.
Useful Resources
(alphabetical by Topic)
Artillery
http://www.hardscrabblefarm.com/vn/artillery.html
Breakdown Voltage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakdown_voltage
Brick Oven Bread
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/keyword/baking-bread-brick-oven
Compton Effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton_effect
Critical National Infrastructures Report – Executive Report
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/empc_exec_rpt.pdf
Critical National Infrastructures Report
http://www.empcommission.org/docs/A2473-EMP_Commission-7MB.pdf
Great Northern Prepper
http://www.greatnorthernprepper.com/how-to-make-bread-yeast-from-scratch/
Government Liquidation
http://www.govliquidation.com/
High Altitude Nuclear Explosion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_nuclear_explosion
H.R. 2417 (113th) - Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage Act
https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/house-bill/2417
H.R. 668 (112th) – Damage Act
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr668/text
Hydroelectric Power
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/hydroelectric-power-systems.aspx#axzz3EwcgGRu8
https://www.engineeringforchange.org/static/content/Energy/S00070/5%20Gallon%20Bucket%20Build%20Manual.pdf
Maloof, Michael F. A Nation Forsaken, EMP: The Escalating Threat of an American Catastrophe. Washington D.C.: WND Books, 2013
Minot AFB, 91st Missile Wing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/91st_Missile_Wing_LGM-30_Minuteman_Missile_Launch_Sites
Motts Military Museum
http://www.mottsmilitarymuseum.org/index.html
Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_electromagnetic_pulse
Nuclear Triad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_triad
Nuclear Weapon Yield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
Tactical Intelligence
http://tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-homemade-yeast.htm
W78 Warhead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W78
W87 Warhead
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W87
Wood Gas Generator (Gasifier)
http://www.driveonwood.com/library/free-gasifier-plans/
(Note: the headings are the links, they just don’t look like links)
http://www.build-a-gasifier.com/gasifier-plans/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/shopping/detail.aspx?itemnumber=762#axzz3EwcgGRu8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6e3CprVTi8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__uLkP-c3s8
Wood Stoves
http://www.motherearthnews.com/renewable-energy/how-to-choose-a-woodstove-zm0z11zphe.aspx?PageId=1#ArticleContent
Chapter 1
Twenty years later…
Deeks Calhoun awoke sticky from the days long fevered perspiration. His body ached all over. Without moving, he began looking around the room, listening. He didn’t hear his mother’s usual humming. The tiny shack like cabin structure was eerily quiet. With a groan, he rolled out of bed and groggily made his way toward the smell of food. A low flicker remained in the open fire kitchen. On the roughhewn table, he saw the beginnings of a soup and threw a log on the embers to keep it going.
The cloudless spring sun shone brightly. To Deeks, it only served to accentuate the dingy, dirt covered window… something he knew his mother would have him out there cleaning as soon as he was able. A soft early spring breeze was swaying the tree tops. The cold lifeless limbs of the hardwoods were beginning to release their viselike grip on dormancy as tiny buds were beginning to appear.
Finally, he thought, grateful for the coming spring and the bounty it would provide.
He turned and headed into his mother’s room. She wasn’t there either. Her bed was neatly made and the first flower of the season had been placed in a glass of water on her nightstand.
Deeks suddenly became gripped with fear.
Had she gone out without me?
He quickly left the doorway that had been holding him up and checked for her pack and bow. They were gone. The young man hastily stumbled his way back to his room and dressed; forcing his body to cooperate with each painful movement. As Deeks bolted through the front door, he grabbed his slingshot.
Declan “Deeks” Calhoun had learned the hard way that the tiny weapon and its arsenal of rocks was no match for an angry, starving wolf. He could pick off squirrels and chipmunks easy. If he was close enough and his aim was true, he could stun a rabbit for a short while until he was able to pounce on it. He should have known better than to check his traps with only the rock chucker in his pocket though. His mother, Sonja, had saved him from the mauling and certain death by skewering the emaciated beast. His wounds from the attack had become infected though. Deeks had no idea how long he had been unconscious.
He approached the chain link fence and quickly began climbing over the obstacle. The metal structure, he was sure, was the only thing that had kept the wolf packs at bay during the extremely harsh and unforgiving winter. Once on the other side, he immediately began scanning the ground to track his mother. His body continued to protest with every step and haggard breathe he took.
A few minutes of searching the perimeter produced her trail. Sonja was older now. She wasn’t able to climb the fence as easily as she once had. The pair resisted the urge to cut a hole in the fence to allow her easier access to the woods she loved so much. Her trail usually started with a patch of matted earth where she would collapse on the ground after coming off of the fence. As a result, Deeks was able to quickly pick out her tracks. He started following them through the mud and snow into the forest with ease.
It didn’t take him long to piece it together. The half made soup and the bearing he was currently on told him all he needed to know. He knew exactly where Sonja was headed and quickened his pace. For as long as he could remember, his mother always favored a small meadow and the spartan underbrush bordering the clearing. It was in this area that the most plentiful roots could be found. If the unrelenting winter snows were finally heeding the call of spring, the bounty might be too much for her to resist.
Deeks approached the crossroads of a game trail and slowed his pace to listen for any predators. Silently, he removed the knife from its sheath on his belt. In truth, he should have had it in his hand all along. If there were any wolves in the area, they already knew he was there. Depending on how long it had been since their last meal, they either departed the area or were actively stalking Deeks. Their highly developed senses of smell and hearing could never be matched by the young man and his mother.
When hunting big game, the best he and his mother could ever hope to accomplish was to mask their scent. If they could do so, they had a better than average chance for killing one and harvesting the meat and pelt. All of the predators in the area were inherently dangerous animals. Setting traps was almost counterproductive because Deeks still had to be close enough to put it down with an arrow or spear. Snares worked best for small game, but he never feared for his life if one of them happened to still be kicking when he checked it.
Confident that he wasn’t being tracked by some hungry carnivore, Deeks continued working his way toward the meadow. He carefully worked his way around a bend in the trai
l where he noticed a darkened mass near a small clearing. His heart crept up into his throat. Deeks broke into a sprint, not caring what could hear him as he crashed through limbs and cracked fallen debris.
“No! No! No!” Declan howled into the wilderness as he knelt down to hold her. Tears immediately began streaming down his face. He embraced her tightly and continued to cry uncontrollably. Her body was still warm.
Deeks had seen his share of death. Men and women he had called brothers and sisters were cut down in front of him during the Clan Wars. None of those deaths struck at his core like this though.
He lifted his head from its resting place, down feathers stuck to his tear stained face. Declan brushed off the puffy white insulation with his forearm as he started assessing the clearing trying to make sense of the area surrounding her body. She lay a scant ten feet from the game trail they had hunted for years. What he saw in front of him was a trackers nightmare. He didn’t know how long he had been laid up and didn’t know how old the tracks were. Some wolf, bear, and mountain lion tracks were frozen and some weren’t. Other prints littered the snow and mud as well.
How long has she been out here? he thought. How long have I been unconscious? She should have known better then to go out foraging without me.
Winter in the Northwest Territories had been unduly harsh. Every living thing in the area was having difficulty finding sustenance, man or beast. He surveyed the tattered remains of her gear and could see that her quiver was empty. Her pack was shredded and her bow was thirty feet from her corpse. Then it occurred to him.
Whatever meat she had packed must have put the animal’s senses into overdrive.
He gently laid his mother down in the snow cover, slowly closed her cold lifeless eyes, and picked himself up. Declan stared at her for a moment. Her body hadn’t become stiff in the coolness of the air yet. He watched as Sonja’s arm slowly slid off of her chest onto the ground. His mother had written a final message to him on her forearm, ‘journal’.
Deeks smiled when he saw the little heart shape she had drawn at the end of the word.
He lifted his head and started surveying the landscape. He looked for clues and tried to piece together what might have happened. He began following her tracks back into the woods, trying to make sense of the scene that his brain was actively processing. If she had gotten one or two of them, he would have a fresh kill to live off of for the next month. The fur could be used to reinsulate his worn boots. As Declan entered the clearing he saw what he was looking for, three wolves laying on their side with arrows protruding from their hide. He walked over and began inspecting the hides.
Something’s off. The angle of the arrows doesn’t look right.
He picked up one of the wolves and attempted to emulate a standing position for the ravenous beast. Once the carnivore was in its more natural horizontal position, it became clear. She had shot them from above.
Had they treed her?
Wolf packs were notorious in these woods and were not to be trifled with.
She knows better than to mess with these things. They must have come up on her while she was collecting roots.
He looked up into the canopy and tried to determine where she might have been. It didn’t take long. Freshly broken limb stubs were present in a stand of trees just off the clearing. He yanked the arrows from the fresh kills and blood spurted out of the wounds.
Oh crap.
He started looking around, first in the foreground then further away in the background. Declan removed his ratty, fur lined bomber hat so his ears could detect any movement or breathing more efficiently. Without taking his eyes and ears off of the forest before him, he silently replaced the arrows in her quiver and slung it over his head. Careful to not step on any fallen limbs, he slowing began backing his way toward his mother.
If her body was still warm too, and the viscosity of the wolf blood was still able to ooze from the puncture wound, the pack wasn’t far away. They hadn’t finished slaking their blood lust.
Deeks desperately wanted to throw one of the wolves across his shoulders and double time it back to the camp, but he knew he was still too weak. Reluctantly, he bypassed the fresh meat. The added weight would only slow him down further if he needed to run.
As he stood over his mother’s body, he contemplated carrying at least her back. He swiveled his head looking, listening, and smelling anything and everything in the vicinity. His decision was made for him when the distant howl of the pack leader resonated off of the mountain side.
“Shit!” he exclaimed and wrenched the remnants of his mother’s pack off of her corpse, grabbed the bow, and started running as fast as he could back to the camp.
He heard the pack members answer the call of their leader. Even though Deeks hadn’t seen them, they had at least caught a whiff of him. They were coming for fresh meat.
Declan’s breathing accelerated rapidly as his chest began to burn from the cold. He reached up and tried to remove an arrow from the quiver so he could at least shoot while on the run. Every time he thought he had a grip on one though, the running motion would bounce it out of his grasp.
“Damn it!” he muttered in between his quick breathes of frigid early spring air.
He eventually stopped trying as the task was futile and pointless. He’d never be able to hit anything while in an all-out sprint. Instead, he reached down to his waist and removed the knife from its scabbard. The shiny blade glistened in the sunlight.
The cracking of low hanging limbs could be heard behind him as the pack narrowed their focus and triangulated his position. As Deeks ran, he slid one of his arms back through the strap until he was carrying the tattered remains of Sonja’s pack on only one shoulder. When he was at the apex of a curve in the trail, he quickly slung it off of his shoulder, heaving it over a dormant briar patch and into the woods. He hoped that the diverging scent trails might confuse them long enough to make it to the fence.
The throbbing in his leg was almost unbearable. The wound from his last encounter with the wolf pack had not fully healed. The infection had not been completely excreted from his body and continued to sap his strength. In front of him he could his salvation, the fence line.
One hundred yards!
He glanced back in time to see the tail end of one of the wolves dive headlong into the briars. Deeks could hear the yelp and a whimper over his labored breathing.
Without warning, a wolf flew out of the brush in front of him. He couldn’t stop now. With a full head of steam, Deeks made his choice and charged the beast standing his ground. The two were on a collision course.
As he neared, Declan let out a thunderous holler and startled the animal. Unsure whether to attack or run, the wolf hesitated. Deeks continued to scream at the bewildered carnivore as he approached. He quickly side stepped the on-rushing animal and struck a crippling blow with his brandished knife as he ran by. The wolf cried out as the physically taxed young man thrust the blade between its shoulder blades, severing its spine.
When he was within a few feet of the fence, he launched himself at the chain link. Using the flexibility inherent to its design, he quickly vaulted himself over the top of the structure. He landed on his face with a thud.
Content to lay in the safety of the enclosure, Deeks took inventory of his various aches and pains. His heavy, labored breathing resulted in the inhalation of dirt from the face planting.
The young man laid motionless, save for the rapid inflation and deflation of his chest cavity. The chain link gave a rattle and Deeks quickly lifted his head to see his pursuer snarling on the other side. He quietly sat up and looked at the carnivorous beast. With his knife still in hand, he watched as the filthy animal paced back and forth along the fence. To Deeks, it looked like the animal was using it to scratch an itch.
Come here you little bastard, he thought. I’ll scratch your itch.
He observed the malnourished pack hunter for a few moments. When he noticed that the animal’s snout was caked in fr
esh and drying blood, he found his resolve. In a surprise offensive thrust, Declan rammed the blade through just behind the front leg. He gave the knife a quick twist to ensure that the heart muscle had a gaping wound that wouldn’t heal. The wolf dropped after a few feet.
Deeks stood and observed the area beyond the perimeter fence. He needed the meat, but didn’t want to wind up on someone else’s plate either. Confident that the rest of the pack wasn’t lying in wait or dead, he quietly climbed back over the fence to retrieve his kill. He started to bend down to pick up the animal and then remembered a clan member’s words, ‘Before you do anything, you better make damn sure that sum bitch ain’t breathing’.’
Unflinchingly, Deeks removed his knife and thrust it into the animal’s skull. “Sum bitch is dead now,” he said aloud.
End of Chapter 1 from Foreign& Domestic, Part IV: Colder Weather