Beyond the New Horizon: The Last Sun,

by Christine Conaway

  With her pot full of organ’s Evelyn started back up the slope, “We all love the horses, but not at the expense of even one of us starving to death. You need to give them women more credit than you do.”

  Sam stared at her for a moment and went back to what he was doing. Sometimes, the words out of the women’s mouths never ceased to surprise him.

  “I put Andy and the boys to building some kind of a smoke shack so we can smoke whatever we can’t carry. With the way the temperature is rising, that will be most of it. Can’t take a chance of eating rancid meat.”

  “Thanks, Charlie. I guess we should have stayed another day or two and used the smokehouse we already had built.”

  “Nope, it was time to leave there. Too many ghosts.”

  Willy nodded his head in agreement as he pulled the hide taunt for Sam to cut the meat away from it. He watched the way that Sam deftly skinned the animal.

  With the bulk of the meat hanging over the fire inside the shack of the hastily erected smokehouse, they feasted on meat and roasted cattail bulbs. Evelyn kept reminding everyone not to eat so fast and not to fill their bellies until they vomited. She told them they hadn’t been eating enough to fill their stomachs and overeating and throwing up, was the best way to deplete their already low hydration levels.

  “But we have all of the water we can drink, right down there,” Sherry said.

  “But we only have the one big pot to sterilize our water and cook in. So for right now, we’re still on short water rations.”

  Both Sherry and Abby wore expressions of dread, “We still need to boil it first?” Sherry squeaked out.

  “We do. We have no idea if that water comes from an underground aquifer or from one of the high country lakes. Either way, it’s all runoff from somewhere. We can’t take the chance of getting sick from drinking it.”

  Both girls laid their meat aside and sat looking at each other. “Is it going to kill us?” Abby asked.

  The meat that was still hanging over the fire popped and sizzled as the grease dripped off of it. These were the only sounds to be heard while everyone looked at the two girls.

  “No. Probably not kill you, but it damn sure could make you sick, and we have nothing to alleviate the symptoms.” Journey said and laid the bone she had been sharing with Andy on the piece of tee shirt on her lap. “I suppose you drank your fill?”

  Both girls nodded, “It was so clear and cold we thought it would be okay,” Abby said in their defense.

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see then.”

  The food was put aside, and Joe stoked the fire in the smokehouse. They’d had to wrap the horsehide around it to contain the smoke and still keep the hide away from the flames. They had already underestimated how long it would take before the poles burned through and lost the first batch to the fire. Now, every time they smelled the hair burning, someone would run to the river for water and douse the hide down. There was a fine line between keeping it wet enough so it wouldn’t burn and the runoff from putting out the fire. The frame that held the hide had to be changed one limb at a time before they burned through. Soaking the branches in the river helped, but they still had to be on top of changing them out.

  With nothing to do but sit, watch, and wait, Willy began to hum, and the others joined in when they knew the words. They sang and hummed until Evelyn declared herself tired enough to sleep. The fire they were sitting in front of had dwindled to pulsating red coals, and before Evelyn could follow through with her idea of going to bed, a shadow fell over the group. Someone stood between them and the smokehouse, but all of their eyes were blind from staring into the fire.

  “You thought you could get rid of me that easy?” the voice said. The person was using a tree limb as a crutch and appeared to have only the one arm. The pack on his back suddenly seemed too heavy and pulled him down.

  “Daddy!” Abby shrieked and scrambled to where the man lay in the dirt. She grabbed his shoulder to roll him over, but he was wearing Abby’s backpack, and it prevented him from moving. Ben groaned.

  Journey grabbed Abby to pull her away to keep her from further damaging Ben. “Wait Abby wait. Let me see how bad he’s hurt.” Journey undid the buckles and pulled the shoulder straps through them until she could remove the pack without having to draw Ben’s arms through the loops. She pulled him onto his good side and nodded for a hovering Gina to pull the backpack free.

  Journey rolled Ben back onto his back and began to probe, “Alright now Ben, when it hurts let me know. I just need to check you out.”

  Ben groaned in answer and passed out. “Good, that makes our job just a little easier.”

  Tears running down her face Abby turned accusing eyes on Lucas, who was still sitting with his mouth hanging open. “I told you! You wouldn’t believe me, but I told you.”

  Eyes open wide and mouth hanging Lucas just shook his head. He couldn’t believe that Ben had just hobbled into their camp. From the looks of disbelief around him, no one else could either. As if it had only just registered, Lucas jumped to his feet. “My Mom? She could be alive too…… and Lucy.”

  He turned to run back the direction they’d come from, but Joe grabbed his arm as he passed, “No. Lucas, your Mom is not alive. I saw her. She did not make it.”

  Ben moaned when Charlie and Sam prepared to move him closer to the fire. “No one else,” he groaned out.

  “Oh…I just thought,” he said and sank back down on the ground. He felt like crying because now he had to admit that she was gone, but couldn’t understand why Joe hadn’t told him before then. Lucas had secretly hoped that Abby was right, that they had somehow made it and would come walking into camp, exactly like Ben had.

  He saw Abby looking at him and felt the sympathy in her stare, he was happy for Abby, he really was, but he felt the green-eyed monster trying to raise its head. He was so jealous of her, he wanted to hit something. He turned unable to stand the pain and marched into the dark.

  Before he could disappear over the berm of the hill, Lucas felt a hand on his shoulder. He went to shove it off until he realized it was too big to be Abby’s. He didn’t think he could stand to be around her right then.

  “This is far enough,” Charlie said and pulled him to a stop. “This is not the time to go off sulking by yourself.”

  “I’m not sulking…I’m just mad, and I know I shouldn’t be. Can’t you feel it up there? Everyone is so happy, and it makes me angry.”

  “Sit,” Charlie said and put pressure on Lucas’s shoulder, forcing Lucas to the ground. He groaned as he lowered himself, but sat beside Lucas. “You have to trust me when I say this, but I feel exactly the same as you. I would give anything, even my own life for Jesse to come walking up here. Evelyn said something to me that makes sense in an off-the-wall kind of way. She said that sometimes angels are called home because they’re needed, and others are returned to us because we need them. I don’t profess to understand what she meant by that, but after I thought about it while we walked, I realized how one person can make a difference in another person's life just by doing something as little as holding a door.”

  “This isn’t the same thing, and you know it.”

  Charlie chuckled, “Well, sure it is. What if Ben is destined to hold a door or maybe clear a room of the bad guys and saves someone else's life…let’s say yours for example. He takes out a bad guy who was intent on killing you. You go on to live and have a son who builds…oh…a pump to bring water up to a house. Just having that pump saves someone from going outside and maybe falling and hurting themselves. That woman or person was destined to have a child who would go on to discover the cure for a deadly disease like the plague. It’s like the butterfly effect. One small thing changes every action from then forward. Now think of this, what if that man killed you, and you never had a son to build the pump? The woman or person could go outside, walk to their water source, trip and fall and break her neck or drown and there would be no cure for the plague because the person who was to
discover the cure, never came to exist in the first place, all because Ben never saved you.”

  When Lucas remained silent, Charlie wondered if his explanation was too much for Lucas. It had made perfect sense when he was saying it, but he had put the words together as he spoke and had no idea if he could have repeated it a second time. Charlie felt Lucas lean against his side and Charlie pulled him close. He felt Lucas’s body shaking and knew the boy was finally letting his grief go.

  Charlie felt his throat begin to burn and wished it was as easy to set his grief aside just by shedding a few tears. A father was not supposed to bury his son, but right then, he didn’t have the time or the energy to grieve, because he had two more sons that needed him.

  His voice watery, Lucas said, “Thanks, Charlie. I guess I better learn what I can about building pumps so I can teach my son how to do it.” He gave a weak laugh, and Charlie knew that somehow, the boy had understood what he had been trying to say.

  “I’m sorry about Jesse.”

  “I’m sorry about all of them. We’ve gone through some rough days, and I hope they get better for all of us from here on.”

  Lucas sighed, “Me too. Do you think Abby knows that I was jealous of her?”

  “I expect she knows something is wrong, but trust me, explain your feelings to her. She’ll understand. She’d feel the same way if your Mom had walked up and not her dad.”

  “But, she told me she didn’t feel like he was dead. She said she would have known if he was. I don’t understand it because I haven’t felt anything but sad since the cave in.”

  “Maybe that’s it then. You felt inside that your mom was gone, that’s why you were sad, and Abby felt angry because no one believed her when she said Ben was still alive. Women are pretty good at seeing things that we men don’t.” He shrugged, “That’s the best explanation I’ve got.”

  “Thanks, I guess I better go apologize to her and hope she forgives me.”

  “She will son, she will.”

  Charlie sat for a few moments alone on the top of the hill and marveled at the array of stars overhead. He felt much the same way that Lucas did. He was mad as hell that God had felt it necessary to take Jesse before his time, but maybe Evelyn was right. It was his time, and if the ceiling hadn’t gotten Jesse and it was his pre-ordained time to go, he could have tripped and broken his neck getting out of bed or something equally innocent.

  Charlie didn’t know which would have been easier to handle. He hadn’t gotten to tell Jesse how proud he was of him or touch him one last time. Charlie bowed his head and silently let his tears go. He was still sitting there when Evelyn came to see where he’d gotten to.

  “Lucas said he’d left you here and I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. Ben is finally resting as comfortably as we can make him and the others have turned in as well.”

  “I was just sitting here contemplating the stars. Never saw so many shine so brightly.”

  Evelyn grunted as she sat down beside him, “Mind if I join you?”

  “I don’t, but now I wonder who we’re going to have to call when it comes time for us to get back on our feet.”

  Evelyn chuckled, “I do feel old today. I never thought I would live long enough to see all this bedlam in my own country. Men killing men for dominance or a scrap of bread. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. When we found the valley, I thought we were done with all that, but now it doesn’t seem like it anymore. Willy said things could get much worse before it’s over.”

  Charlie nervously rubbed his face and ran his fingers through his beard. He sighed loudly, “I sure wish he could be wrong, but I fear he is right. So many will have perished even with the short winter we had, but there will be some like us, who found a way to survive. I’m just dreading to see what kind of people the survivors are.” Charlie punctuated his words with a yawn, “ Now, which of us is going to stand first?”

  Evelyn rolled onto her knees and using Charlie for balance slowly got her feet under her and stood. She held her hand down to him, “Come on old man. Take my hand.”

  Charlie did and felt the strength in her grip. He had underestimated her strength entirely, not only physically, but mentally as well. He felt a pang of guilt because while he had been wallowing in his own grief, she had lost someone close to her too. The loss of Mark hadn’t hampered or gotten in the way of making everyone else comfortable as well as cooking for all of them. He’d never once, after the first day, seen her cry. He wondered if because she knew that Mark was only there for a short time more if she had prepared herself for his passing.

  After hearing the individual stories of their women from Sam and Willy, he realized that all of their women were true warriors from the oldest right on down to the youngest. He had witnessed first-hand Abby’s ability with John’s 308 and the grim determination she had used to defeat the thugs who had no other intentions but to eliminate their group.

  As Charlie passed the fire, he found Ben partially wrapped in one of the women's sleeping bags. His face was a mass of bruises, and he’d apparently sustained an injury to his head. Blood matted his hair. Ben’s one arm was tied to his body with strips off someone's tee shirt.

  Ben hadn’t been coherent enough to tell them how he’d escaped, and Journey had shooed them away when Ben seemed to be in distress. As soon as he’d seen Abby was safe, his face had grown slack, and he’d slept.

  Abby lay on the ground beside him, one of her hands resting on her father. Yes, Charlie felt the bite of jealousy looking at the two of them, but he also saw two of his own sons and Sierra sleeping as a family group with Sierra in between the two men. Kenny’s arm planted around her as if claiming her as his own, even in sleep.

  “We’re very lucky,” Evelyn whispered.

  Charlie nodded and watched her lie down beside Gina. She had no portion of the sleeping bag to call her own, but she didn’t seem to mind. Evelyn, curled up on her side, using her arm as a pillow.

  It hadn’t mattered who owned their eclectic assortment of clothing, everyone wore anything that fit them. They had not escaped with everyone wearing coats or even sweaters, so they were layered with whatever they could find. The men seemed to be the least warmly dressed, and Charlie shivered, reminding himself that he needed to retrieve the long sleeved shirt the girls had carried the tubers in. The mud could be rinsed away, but Charlie wouldn’t have cared whether it was or not. He was cold.

  Charlie laid down beside the fire ring, but his mind wouldn’t let him sleep. He heard soft snores all around himself and knew he should be sleeping too, but he couldn’t. With his back to the fire it got too hot, and his front was too cold. He turned over and then his back got cold. He just couldn’t find a comfortable position to lie in. Charlie finally sat up and stared at the flames.

  They lacked in everything to give themselves even a little comfort. They were short on clothing and bedding and were lucky they all had shoes on their feet, even if some of them were held together with duct-tape. Next, adequate food and water, a way to clothe and shoe themselves would be necessary. With that thought in his head, Charlie nodded off, leaning against a stump.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Sam woke, stiff and sore from sleeping on the cold ground, he lay in silence while his brain processed the noises around himself. He heard the sizzle as grease from their smoking meat dripped into the fire. He was sure the meat would be more dried than smoked with the trouble they’d had building a proper smokehouse. Keeping the fire low enough while drying it, took more than the simple arrangement the guys had knocked together, but as long as they could wrap and transport the meat with them, they would have food. He rolled and looked at Ben and saw he was sleeping peacefully. Abby had somehow moved to lay in the curve of Ben’s body, his good arm draped over his daughter.

  Sam sat up and stretched. The sky was just beginning to lighten, and he wondered what had woke him. Sam listened but heard nothing alarming. The fire had burned down to a few glowing coals, and he thought he should put
some wood on it but saw only a few pieces were remaining. Someone at different times must have stoked the fire as well as the smokehouse. He almost laughed when the word smokehouse had crossed his mind. It was barely more than a teepee of branches with a horsehide wrapped around it.

  As quietly as he could be, Sam put the last of the branches on the fire and set off to find more. As soon as Journey had told them that Ben wouldn’t be in shape for immediate travel, Sam had seen the probability that they wouldn’t be moving for a few days at least. He had been disappointed in the previous day's progress, but they had done the best that they could do. With the boys returning with nothing to show for their hunting trip and not seeing anything alive out there, Sam wondered if they would be eating the rest of their horses one by one. He pushed the thought aside, not wanting to think about which one would be next.

  The only reason the bay gelding had been chosen was that of his infirmity. The cow would be next because they no longer had a bull and she wouldn’t give milk again without being bred. The two goats they would keep because as nasty as the billy was, he could still breed the nanny and Sam wouldn’t hesitate to breed the billy to his own daughters if they had any.

  With nothing to do but wait for the others to wake up, Sam studied the terrain. There was no question in his mind they would travel the easiest direction possible. He also knew that if they maintained a southerly course, they would cross highway 12, or at least they would if the highway was still there. There wasn’t much on the pass itself, but not far from the visitor center there had been a bar, and he thought maybe a bed and breakfast place. With the changes, Sam couldn’t be sure anything was left. If the highway had sunk as was the case with the mountains around them, the building might also be gone, but he thought it was worth a look. Sam turned to the horses to see which of them would be capable of hauling riders around. They only had the two saddles, and he thought that he and Gina should be the ones to go.