“Barely. I’m still not an official RN yet. I’m still learning and I’m not doctor material by any means. I didn’t exactly come as prepared as you are. I’ll be a drag on what resources you have.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’ve already helped plenty.”
“You’re too nice to someone that was going to try to take everything you had and you can thank me later if you actually don’t get any worse. That goes for your nasty injuries and with your supplies.” She looked over his wound again. “I’ve done all I can do for right now.”
“So are you one of those people that likes to try and fix those with wounded souls too?” he asked.
Her cheeks flushed and she looked away.
“It took you a long time to figure out you couldn’t fix him, didn’t it?” he prodded further.
She nodded.
“He made a lot of promises he never kept too, didn’t he?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do you know this? Did you talk to him? Or are you like him?”
“No. Some members of my family have a similar history. It has taken years for those women to realize they had enough and finally leave their abusive partners for good. They all say it was the best decision they ever made once they got through the worst of it, actually stayed away, and had some time to heal. You’ve done the right thing for your daughter and yourself to leave him.” He wasn’t going to remind her how poor her timing was again. Maybe there was something to what she’d said, that she had some really bad luck.
“Unfortunately, we aren’t free of him yet. Not until we know for sure that he’s not waiting for us somewhere. There’s not a lot of roads where we are going. There’s only one and they know which way we’re headed.”
Her baby started to fuss.
“We have what we need. We could stay in the trees as long as necessary to hopefully wait them out.” He wasn’t keen on that prospect, though. His desperation to get home was growing. It had been eight days since the event. Morning would begin the ninth and he wasn’t close enough.
“This next section of our trip, we’re going to have to stay on the road sometimes. As we keep heading into British Columbia, there are some crazy tight mountain passes and not a lot of places to hide.” She tried to smile but her face was full of concern.
“One thing at a time.”
Natalie took her baby out of her car seat. “Oh, her hands are so cold. It’s not warm enough for her to be in that thing. Those covers are supposed to keep the heat in.” Natalie felt Lilly’s bottom. “She’s wet too. I hate changing her out here where there’s no real warmth.”
“My sleeping bag is warm. I’ll warm up the wipes.” Ben started to move out of his sleeping bag.
“You’ve been through plenty. I’ll warm her up in my shirt first and make sure my blankets are warm too before I change her.”
Ben held out his hand for her to hand him the wipes. “I can at least take care of this for you.”
“Thanks.” She seemed shy as she allowed him to help.
When she did change the baby’s diaper, the little one cried even though Natalie had created the warmest place she could to change her.
Once she was done, she wiped the tears from her cheeks before sliding into her makeshift bed of blankets. With her baby against her chest, she turned away from Ben so she could nurse her baby privately.
Ben stared up at the ceiling of the tent. They needed to get Natalie and her baby safely to her aunt’s house as soon as possible. Canada was proving to be a far bigger and dangerous place than he had imagined. It seemed like the journey was stretching out to be longer and longer even though they actually had made really good progress during their first two days on the road. But he had expected to have made it through the Yukon earlier and he wasn’t in good shape. Time was slipping away and that section of their trip should have been the easiest part of their journey. They still had a long way to go.
40
Tammy
Tammy woke up feeling much better. At least she had slept even though Tyson woke her up a few times in distress. It had been a long time since she had slept with a little one. The little boy was tugging at her heartstrings more and more.
She didn’t want to get up when Tyson was finally sleeping soundly. No one was awake in the bunker. They all needed lots of rest to recover from their journey. Tammy checked her watch. Jess would be there soon. The dogs probably needed to do their thing as well.
She made her way out of bed and struggled to get her muscles to cooperate. Her sore leg was the worst. But it wasn’t throbbing the way it had before she started running a fever so hopefully that meant she was on the mend.
The dogs bounded up the stairs when she was finally ready to go outside. She was nervous to let Mitsi go off-leash when the little dog didn’t know the area and she also didn’t want Buddy following her for a romp in the woods so she leashed them up and took them to the fenced-in yard area.
She paused when she realized someone had tried to cut the chains and the lock at some point. If only she hadn’t been so exhausted the night before. Charlie had unlocked it so she would have to ask her later if the damage was new. Tammy turned to look for intruders before she opened it so she could turn the dogs loose. She couldn’t hear much but a breeze whistling through the trees and the far-off sound of a motorcycle or ATV. Maybe that was Jess coming to check on her.
The dogs romped around the yard and they stirred up the chickens when they got close to the run. At least the dogs got along. Who knew Buddy needed a little companion to bring the puppy out in him. She smiled and really hoped that things would calm down and that they could find a new normal. The sunken greenhouse needed the roof set up so she could start growing food through the winter. The stands were ready and waiting for the solar panels she had in the big Faraday cage in the bunker. She wasn’t sure how to connect all the wiring though. That was going to be a challenge but if the panels and batteries were still usable, they would have power to run the well and the fridge and they wouldn’t have to live so primitively. It looked like she would need to electrify the fence too if someone had been trying to break in.
The ATV was getting closer so Tammy closed the gate and waited to see if it was her friend. To her relief it was. She was suddenly feeling tired again and she wanted to head back to bed as soon as she was done visiting.
“You are alive this morning. I had my doubts that you’d be up yet at this late hour.” Jess and the woman she brought with her got off the ATV.
“It’s only ten. I think the girls will probably sleep most of the day. We’ve been through a lot to get here. The dogs were the only ones that have stirred so far this morning.” At the sound of the unfamiliar voices, both dogs started barking. “Let’s go to the porch so I can sit and we can talk. It’s actually nice out this morning.”
“Tammy, this is Becca. You looked so bad last night I thought she should come to check on you just in case.” They followed her to the porch.
Tammy was a little frustrated that she was already feeling tired from the short walk. “I thought I was doing better but I’m sure feeling tired abnormally fast.”
Becca set down her bag beside Tammy. “Let me see what all you have going on.”
“Do you charge for house calls? I don’t even know what I can offer you right now.” Tammy held up a hand so she would know from the start what she might owe for her help.
“Well, maybe we can barter something to trade. But I don’t expect anything right now. Mainly we are trying to keep the residents as healthy as we can. I have time right now to come see you because the worst has passed. The first few days were kind of nuts with all the stranded people, crashed cars, and such.” She held up an old-style thermometer and waited for Tammy to open her mouth. “Before we take your temp, what is possibly making you sick? Jess said you had an injury?”
Tammy pulled the leg of her athletic pants up to her knee. There wasn’t much else she could say once the thermometer was in her mouth.
; “Ah, looks like cellulitis. You’re taking antibiotics, right?”
Tammy nodded.
“Good, keep taking them until you’ve had them for ten days then I want to look it over again.” She squinted as she looked at Tammy’s face closer. “You’ve had to put up a fight recently, haven’t you?”
She nodded again and tried to swallow the lump in her throat which was hard with the stick in her mouth.
“So, you do have a low-grade fever. You need to keep taking any vitamins you might have, keep your immunity up, rest as much as you can. Any of the work you think you needed to do can wait. Or if you have help, let them do it until you have your strength back. You don’t want this coming back with a vengeance. Then it might not respond as favorably to whatever meds you have on hand. Sometimes cellulitis requires IV antibiotics so the main thing is, you don’t want it coming back worse than it is right now. I don’t have any IVs in my stash. There’s a few back at the clinic but the doc is holding onto them as long as he can. No one has heard if there’s any help coming here. They’d take care of the bigger towns first. McCall and Cascade, our population is small. They will get to us eventually, at least I hope they do. They dropped food boxes here yesterday but no meds. I might not have much of anything left before long. Main thing for you is prevention and good self-care and being as clean as you can.” She patted Tammy on the leg. “I think you’ll heal up just fine.”
She let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear.”
“I see you’re married. Did your husband make it home?”
Tammy looked at her wedding ring and hesitated before she shook her head. “No.” She couldn’t say anything more. All her anger and sadness stirred up and was on the verge of coming to the surface.
“You aren’t the only one. Us single ladies have to look out for one another. My husband died a few months ago. It takes some getting used to. Then this happened, I don’t know.” Becca shook her head and her eyes welled up with tears and then they were gone. “We’ll make it. At least I don’t have kids.”
“Not only do I have my five daughters but we gained a little boy on the way here.” Tammy rolled down her pant leg.
“Yeah? That’s actually good that you have kids to keep you company. I discovered this is even harder when you’re all alone. The silence is unbearable.” Becca suddenly looked out of sorts.
“I gotta figure out how to feed my horses this winter. That is if I can keep those refugees from trying to kill them for food. There have been a few of them prowling around my property at night. They’re the ones that refuse to stay at the camps. At least chickens are easier to protect. You might want to consider keeping them inside. Keep a close eye on those dogs too. Once the snow flies, if those people can survive the cold, they will get more desperate when the wild game is harder to find. They’ll go for the easy targets.” Jess nodded at Tammy and then at Becca. Becca wasn’t sure what to make of Jess’s warning. But Tammy knew she was being brutally honest. There was still plenty of danger lurking in the woods.
They said their good-byes and they were off. Tammy stood in the driveway lost in thought. At least she wasn’t the only single woman trying to survive out there. But darn it all, she’d had some relief thinking she might be safer than she had been in the city and Jess shot that moment of relief down cold.
Tammy let the dogs play a little longer while she tended to the chickens. She couldn’t get in the shed where the generator was. The girls had locked it up on the inside. The freezer must have been put in there. She had a lot to do. The generator needed to be checked and was probably close to running out of gas.
As she scanned the yard she was overwhelmed. They had several sets of solar panels in the Faraday cage room in the bunker that she needed to bring outside and set up. The most crucial ones were the ones that would run the refrigerator and small freezer and the well pump. If the nurse Becca thought she was going to take it easy, well, that was easier said than done. She would recruit the girls to help. That was if they could move once they got out of bed.
She was trying to keep the dogs from tangling her up in their leashes while she locked the gate when Buddy nearly took her down when he started barking.
“What is it?” Tammy turned and her heart caught in her throat.
“I thought I heard a familiar ruckus over here. Nice of you to leash up the big dog for once.” The old man, George, who lived at the property farther up the road was lurking in the trees. His wild white hair, his grisly long beard, and rumpled dirty jeans and flannel shirt made him look like a stereotypical mountain man. He was as grouchy as one too. She never liked it when he came over because he was typically confrontational about everything. Ben had the skills to let every insult blow over while he redirected their conversations until he found the things that would soften the Hermit of the Hill’s demeanor.
“We typically keep a close eye on him and he never goes far.” She tried to hurry so she could end their conversation and head inside.
“You have an ankle biter now too, I see.” He shook his head. “That’s worse than that push-over noise-maker oaf of a dog of yours.”
“He’s proving to be quite the protective watchdog. I wouldn’t get too close.” She started heading for the house. It was hard to talk over the dogs while they went nuts and she didn’t deter them while they made conversation impossible. “I have to take these guys in. I have lots to do. Hope you’re managing over there.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve been living off-grid for years. Only was rough the first day when I had to replace my good radios with the backups I had stashed away. So, you made it from the city on your own, did ya? Is Ben off, lost in the Alaskan Bush somewhere?” He shook his head and picked at the few teeth he had with a toothpick.
“Who says he isn’t with us?” Tammy tried to subdue the shock at what he knew. She had only mentioned it to Becca and Jess at the cabin that Ben didn’t make it home and she didn’t even tell them where he was. She’d never told anyone else while they were at their mountain retreat where Ben had been working that summer. She just mentioned he was working a lot of hours if anyone asked. The girls knew how to answer that question as well.
She’d forgotten how much staying at the cabin that summer without Ben had bothered her. Mostly because they hadn’t spent enough time up there getting to know everyone that well. They did have some friends but when Ben and Tammy were there, it was to work on their property and that’s what they did. She had mostly kept to herself when Ben wasn’t with her.
The old man who was known as the town loon wasn’t considered a friend by any means. Not to Tammy anyway. They saw him more than she liked because they had the misfortune of owning property right next to him. People said he was harmless, just full of spit and vinegar but he always made the hairs on the back of her neck prick up the way he looked at her and the girls sometimes. She had successfully avoided him during the majority of their summer weekends up there. Tammy wanted to maintain that distance.
He shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. “It’s a shame he isn’t here to protect all you pretty little ladies. Don’t be a stranger. If you need anything, let me know. I’d be happy to help. Maybe at some point, you can return the favor, you know, the way your husband has gone out of his way to help out this old man.” He smiled and stayed put in the middle of the driveway.
The look he gave her made her shiver. That’s when Tammy knew she didn’t want that man around her or her daughters at all. “Okay, thanks for the offer but we got it under control. I happen to have plenty of helpers and we are quite capable. Sorry, but I have to go. I do have lots to do today.” She had to work hard to hide her limp.
“Tell those pretty little ladies hi from old uncle George.”
Tammy just gave him a dismissive wave as she pulled the dogs inside the house. He was really making her skin crawl the way he kept looking at her. No, she wasn’t going to tell her daughters hi from creepy George.
Once they were inside, the dogs stopped b
arking and romped around playing with each other. Tammy peeked out the window as she lowered the bar down to barricade the door. They’d seldom used it while they stayed at the cabin. Now it was time to start. She’d close and lock the exterior shutters over the windows the next time she went outside.
The old man finally walked back into the trees. He might appear old and frail but he didn’t walk like it. She sat down on the sofa and kept watch, making sure he didn’t circle back. How did he know where Ben was? Her husband was extra careful with the information he shared with George. Even he wasn’t sure what the old man’s motives were and admitted George was awfully nosy. Ben reassured her that he let it be known how capable they all were, that all the girls could shoot a gun, and how secure their property was. That seemed to interest the old man the most on how they planned to protect the place while they were away. The persistent inquiries led to the building of the fence the year before and Ben wanted to make sure it was done before he left for Alaska.
The old man’s biggest concern had always been his own privacy so seeing him there right after she arrived was completely unnerving. Especially after all they’d been through. But she could actually hunker down with the girls this time. That would be after they took care of a few things first. Soon they’d be far more comfortable than they had been at their house in town. In the meantime, there wouldn’t be any rest for the weary.
41
Back in Boise
Six days since the EMP took out the grid.
After Dale had seen Tammy off, his ride back into town wasn’t without its share of mishaps. Already he discovered that Brian, his friend who loaned him the bike and helped escort Tammy out of town, was missing and his house had been ransacked. Before Dale could get away from Brian’s place, some man he didn’t know killed himself in the street right in front of him.
Endure Series (Book 2): Enduring The Journey: Page 28