by Darrel Bird
Part 4
Where God Dwells
Dawn broke on a cloudy day as Sean looked over to see the man had already started a fire; he shivered in the early-morning cold, and he crawled out from his covers.
The man sat and stared into the fire saying nothing, “So arguer, where will you be heading today?”
“Where ever the road shall take me.”
“This road can take you many places providing you will live to see them.”
“That is the truth.”
“Can you tell us of our future?”
“You will find what you are looking for.”
“And what is it, I am looking for?”
“Others like you.”
“And where will these others be?”
“At the end of your road. What you are to do is important, there is nothing more important than family.”
“But these aren’t my blood except the boy there.”
“They are your family, without family the world would not survive at all, those who ignore family will not survive; you will see my friend.” The man got up, slung his bag over his shoulder and prepared to leave. He laid his hand on Sean’s arm and mumbled some strange words then walked toward the road in the early-morning light.
Sean walked over and shook Marta, “Up; we must be going.” Mary sat on her one cover; Sean doubted the girl ever slept more than a few minutes at a time; the girl stared at him out of eyes gone wild.
They quickly broke camp and were on the road in a few minutes; they would not eat until noon, unless they took game, but game was scarce.
Two days later they came to a sign at the foot of Cabbage Mountain; Sean could make out the faded sign that said ‘Wildhorse Casino 200 hundred feet'; He looked in the direction of the arrow and saw the low buildings.
Mary began to grunt and growl, pointing at the buildings, “She senses something out there Sean.” Marta said as she looked off at the buildings, in the distance.
“I know.” Sean studied the buildings carefully, but could see no movement, “Could be an animal.”
“I don’t think so from the way she is acting.”
“Dad, my feet are getting bad.” Bobby said as the examined his feet.
“We have to stop a day or two soon, but it is too dangerous here, Mary senses something or someone in those buildings; we'll have to keep moving along.”
They walked for two more miles and came to what used to be a roadside park; the concrete tables were crumbling, but there was evidence of previous fires, the low trees led off, in the distance, toward the Columbia River. On the other side of the road was bare grass covered land devoid of trees except a low bush here and there.
“We’ll have to stop here; if we try to go further we will become too disabled to walk.”
Bobby sat down with a sigh and pulled the hard leathered and ragged boot off his foot, his feet were bleeding. His and Marta’s feet were not in much better shape; Mary wouldn’t wear shoes, and hers were in the best shape of the all.
Up to now they had managed to scavenge footwear, mostly off dead bodies, but footwear was getting harder to come by and the rotten leather didn’t last long, it also irritated their feet. They wore rags wrapped around their feet stuffed in oversized shoes when they could get them.
“I’m going to hunt Bobby; you stay here and build a fire.”
“Ok Dad, how far will you go?”
“I have to hunt until I find something; we have to have fresh meat.”
Sean took up his bow with the few precious arrows and walked into the trees to hunt; he had gone no more than a mile toward the river when he heard dogs fighting about fifty yards away. He came to a small clearing and saw a pack of wild dogs fighting over a deer carcass. He knew the dogs were dangerous, but he was determined to have the deer.
“Go on, get away!” Sean shouted at the animals; the dogs stopped fighting immediately and a couple of them took off into the trees, but there were three large dogs that stood snarling at him, not backing down. Sean picked up a rock and hurled it at one of the dogs, hitting him on the hind quarters. The dog yelped and went limping off into the bush.
The other two dog’s backed down and walked to the tree line and stood there growling as Sean advanced toward the Carcass.
He kept his eyes on the dogs as he cut off what he could carry, and then backed slowly away as the dogs moved back in. Soon the whole pack was back fighting, nipping and snarling at one another over what he had left.
He made his way back to the road and breaking out of the bush; he saw Mary laying in a fetal position sucking her thumb. He knew immediately that something was wrong when he saw her that way. The cart was gone along with their supplies, and he knew Marta would never take the cart.
“Mary, where are the others?”
She just laid there whimpering and mewling, “Mary, you have to tell me, where are Marta and Bobby?”
She stood up slowly, her thumb still in her mouth and with the other hand pointed back up the road.
“Has someone taken them?”
She mewled again with a series of grunts and growls and pointed back up the road again.
He guessed she had sensed an attack and faded off into the bushes. Her senses were tuned as good as any animal. He remembered her reaction to the Casino. He threw the Deer carcass on the ground, and with his bow and arrows walked onto the road that led back toward Cabbage Mountain. He hoped she would follow, and she did, walking along about 20 feet behind him.
At length, the sign again came into view and he cut off the road into the sparse trees. He came to the edge of the tree’s that bordered the old parking lot which comprised about a half acre. He carefully scanned the building with his binoculars but saw no sign of life.
The paved area had cracked with the years, and grass had sprung up, but he knew he could not easily cross that open stretch of broken pavement without being seen by a sentry, so he squatted down to wait for dark.
He waited, staying stock still until the pain in his legs forced him to change position, and he lay down under the tree as the hours passed slowly. He prayed that his efforts would not be in vane.
Darkness came to the land as he lay still, he saw and smelled smoke rising from the large single story building. He knew that many of the Indians would have survived, but they would be further back on what used to be the Indian reservation.
Many of the Indians lives never changed much when the economy fell, they went on living as they had thousands of years before the governments had taken their land, and so he suspected it was no Indians, who had taken them, but a band of outlaws that had established themselves on this part of the road.
He breathed a sigh of relief as clouds moved in and as the night became black as pitch, he looked around but couldn’t see or hear any sign of the girl as he left the trees and walked slowly toward the building.
He felt the ground with his feet as he made his way over the broken asphalt and at length came to a wall. He slowly made his way toward what used to be a double glass door and when he got close to the doorway, he saw a man about three feet from the entrance standing leaning against the wall.
He carefully knocked an arrow in his bowstring by feel, then aiming at the man, he felt the bowstring begin to quiver. He let go the arrow and heard a thunk as the arrow buried itself in the mans throat. The man dropped to the ground making a gurgling sound; he clutched at the arrow a minute then lay still.
He stooped by the body and worked the arrow out of the mans throat shoving his skinning knife along the path the arrow had taken to loosen the head of the arrow.
He then crept toward the doorway where shards of glass still littered the ground around. He stepped carefully so as to not make a sound of glass grinding under his feet; He came to the edge of the doorway and saw a firelight which lit up the building inside. The reflected fire light revealed a large foyer that was about 15 feet wide and two more of what had been glass doors leading into the Casino proper. He crept across the floo
r to the edge of the next doorway and peered around at a surreal scene.
Slot machines lay along the walls in piles, and the outlaws had built a fire in the middle of the floor. The smoke rose through the broken glass of the ceiling.
He saw Marta and Bobby tied to a slot machine, bound at the wrists and ankles, but the next thing he saw made his stomach turn because there was part of a body they had been eating off of hanging near the fire, with two men gnawing on the bones of a human being.
The bile rose into his throat as he fought to breathe, and he prayed he could kill them. He would have to shoot an arrow and rush the other man with his knife.
Marta saw him, and he motioned for her to stay still; Bobby appeared asleep and didn’t steer.
He knocked the same arrow he had removed from the mans throat and stepped into the doorway and let go the arrow which embedded itself in one of the men's chest.
He shrieked with the wildness and fear of it as he rushed headlong toward the man who had jumped up. Adrenaline rushed through his whole body as he neared the filthy and loathsome creature that had once been someone, but was now wild and completely given over to Satan for his demise.
The man slashed wildly at him with a knife, and he felt the blade as it struck his shoulder. He grabbed the mans arm and used the momentum to plunge the blade of his knife to the hilt in the mans chest, he struck again and again until he realized the man was dead. He looked wildly around, but there was no one else.
He sunk to the floor as weakness took over after the rush of adrenaline, and fear had done its work, and then realized he was sitting in amongst body parts, and he shivered and forced himself to his feet.
Bobby was awake, “Dad! I knew you’d come!” Marta, it's Dad!”
Marta looked at Sean with dull eyes that had seen too much as he cut the ropes that bound them hand and foot.
When the ropes were loose, she stood up and held him tightly as Bobby stood watching him with awe.
“We have to get clear of this place Marta, he said as he gently pried her arms loose, “Let’s go son. Let’s get her out of here.”
“Ok dad, I was really scared.”
“I know you were son; I was too.”
He led Marta passed the two men he had killed and out the door into the fresh air, there was still no sign of Mary as they walked across the parking lot, the moon had come out, and the previous clouds were gone.
Marta still said nothing as the broken concrete picnic tables came into view. There was no sign of Mary; her blanket still lay where she left it.
Sean gathered some dry grass and tucked it under some sticks then struck one of his precious matches to light it. The dry grass caught immediately and blazed up with light and warmth. Marta huddled by the fire as Shawn threw on more wood.
“Where’s Mary?” Marta asked. It was the first words Marta had spoken.
“I don’t know. She's out there somewhere.”
“This time I was glad she’s a feral Sean; she sensed them coming and went off into the bushes before they could catch her.”
15 minutes later Mary slowly entered the firelight and looked around then rushed into Marta’s arms. Marta held her tightly, and Sean tucked a blanket around the two of them, then he lay down to rest beside the fire by Bobby.
He awoke an hour later as the sky was turning pink in the east. He surveyed the camp; Bobby was still asleep and Marta and Mary slept huddled together under the blanket.
He got up quietly and began to build up the fire, adding more dry grass and sticks and the coals that were under the ash caught quickly.
He found the Deer meat where he had dropped it and cut off thin slices, he had no pan to put it in as the pans had been on the cart, so he cut a spit from green tree limbs and soon had the meat cooking over the fire.
Marta awoke and eased Mary’s arms away and stood up and for once Mary did not awaken.
She came over and sat down beside him, leaning against him, the tears flowing freely.
He put his arm around her and let her cry; he knew she needed that. At length, he spoke, “I have to go back after the cart honey. I’ll leave Bobby here with you.”
“Don’t go back there Sean, that is an evil place.”
“I know, but we have to have the supplies; we can’t make it to the head of the gorge without them. I have to go get them.”
“Be careful Sean. You’re hurt!” She saw the blood on his shirt.
“Its ok, it’s not deep.”
“let me take care of you Sean.”
“Ok Marta.” He looked at her with endearment and wonder in his eyes as she began to tenderly clean the wound the best she could with a piece of the old clothing she carried in her pockets.
When the sun was up about an hour, he walked back out onto the road that led back to the Casino and in an hour, he came back to that miserable place. He found the cart with the supplies inside the foyer of the building; one of the wheels was bent a little, but without a backward glance, he pulled the cart back toward the camp.
When he arrived back at the camp, the girls and Bobby were sitting waiting to go. He knew they wouldn’t get far that day because they were already tired from the night before, but he wanted to put as many miles from that area as he could before they stopped again. There was only the sound of the cart as they journeyed on with the sun beating down in the clear skies of eastern Oregon.
They rested at noon, finding shade under some trees by the side of the road. The road was getting rougher where the asphalt had buckled and given over to the grass seeds and tufts of grass and bushes in the asphalt made the going rougher than it had been previously.
They walked until about 3 o’clock in the afternoon in the heat until they came to a bridge that ran over a gully, the gully had running water that made it’s way toward the Columbia River a half-mile away.
They cut off to the right and made their way down what had once been a dirt road that led to the Creek below and made camp.
Marta opened two of the cans, and they had what Bobby called a ‘surprise supper’, they boiled some of the Deer meat that was already going rank in the heat of the day and had a stew with corn and green beans. Sean knew that those old cans of food would soon start to be poison; he was surprised that they had lasted this long.
As they sat by the fire Marta spoke suddenly, “Sean, I don’t know whether I want to live or not.”
“Many have committed suicide, but I don’t think it is the right thing; I don’t think God would be pleased with it.” He looked at her intently.
“But is there a God to be displeased?”
“The arguer said there is, and he read from the book that he claims is the word of God to us.”
“How do we know that is the word of a God to us? Why doesn’t he show himself to us if there is a God?”
“I think he does; you are a good woman; Bobby is a good boy; Mary is a good girl and we have met others on the road who are good; I think that is where God is, in the good hearts, there are bad hearts also and I do not think God is in them, but he would if they let him be in them.”
“The arguer says we will find what we are looking for if we do not lose heart.”
“And what is it we are looking for?”
“Others like us where we can protect each other and live in peace.”
“Those men would have killed us and eaten us, where was God then?”
“But you can see their end; they didn’t live to eat you.”
“If you had not come and killed them, they would have.”
“Yes, but they didn’t, my arrows and the point of my knife were their fate.”
“Sean, if there are good men left in the world I hope they are like you.”
“We’ll speak of your ordeal no further; you will live and not die, and you will be happy. Promise me you will not take your own life.”
“I promise you I will not take my own life. My life is in your hands my love.”
“And in Gods hands?”
“And in Gods hands.”
Night fell gently on the land as the tired little band found rest by the side of a creek in eastern Oregon after the fall of man and God dwelt in the hearts of men, women and children in that desolate place.
The next day they came to a highway sign that read. ‘Umatilla Army Depot 5 Miles’ and under the sign was another scrawled in poor hand, ‘Radiation Hazard pass through quickly’.
They passed through quickly until they found another of the same signs, then they made camp and lay down to sleep by the fire.
The Wolves, the coyotes and the wild dogs prowled the land for their food, but they stayed at the edge of the fire's light that dotted the land where men dwelt and God dwelt in them.
Part 5
The Gorge
It took them three more days before there was any indication that they were getting close to The Dalles, Oregon. They came to the dam where they planned to pass over to the Washington side of the river, but the dam had broken and there was no road across the Columbia River.
“We’ll have to go on down the Gorge to the Bridge Of The God’s and hope it’s still intact.” Sean looked worriedly at the small group.
“Do you think it’ll still be there Dad?”
“I don’t know son; we'll just have to wait and see…the bridge could have been washed away when the dam broke.
“If it’s washed away, we’ll have to go through Portland Sean.” Marta looked at Sean with alarm.
“I know, but let’s just deal with the problems as we come to them.”
Mary leaned over and vomited. “Sean, she’s burning up.” Marta said as she felt the girl’s forehead.
“She may have eaten something that was poison.”
“I don’t think so, I haven’t seen her eating anything that we haven’t Sean, it could be the flu.”
“Mary, get in the cart, and we’ll pull you.”
Mary looked at the cart and shook her head, “It’s ok honey, here…I’ll fix the blankets so you can lay on them.”
Marta prepared the blankets and laid Mary’s blanket on top and when the girl saw her blanket, she got into the cart and lay down.
The cart was harder to pull with Mary in it, plus the warped wheel, “We need to get this wheel replaced soon.” Sean said as he pulled on the cart.
As they neared The Dalles, they came to the old Indian long house that sat a couple hundred yards off the road. Sean saw a child playing in front of a house. The Indians had added razor wire to the top of the eight foot chain-link fence that surrounded the compound. The houses still surrounded the old long house, and they looked in pretty good shape.
“There’s people living here, maybe we can trade for medicine for her. Wait here, while I go and see.” Sean stopped the cart and started walking up the old road to that led to the front gate of the compound.
“Be careful Sean. They might try to hurt you.”
Sean reached the gate of the pad locked compound and rattled the heavy chain, “Hello the compound!”
The child who had been playing in the dirt saw him, jumped up and ran into the open doorway of the house. In just a minute a woman looked through the doorway, then ran to the long house and went inside.
A man walked out of the long house and down to within a few feet of the gate, “What do you want?” The man looked suspiciously at Sean.
“We have a sick child and would like to try to trade for medicine for her.”
“How many of you are their?” He asked looking toward the road.
“Just my wife, my son, the girl and me.”
“Do you have weapons?”
“Just the bow for hunting and the .22, but we no longer have shells for that.”
“I’ll have to go back and see what the other’s have to say.” The man turned and walked back toward the long house.
Sean waited by the gate for fifteen minutes or so before the man came back through the door. He walked back to the gate with a ring of keys in his hand.
“I’ll have to search you and the cart before you enter here.” He unlocked the two large pad locks.
“As expected.” Sean waved the others on.
The man sifted through the cart, checked the chamber in the .22 Rifle, and then waved them on in.
“We’ll take her to the long house, which is where the medicine is. We can offer you a little food; the Salmon are running now.”
“Thank you for your kindness.”
The little group followed the man into the long house where four other men sat at a table playing dominoes. They looked up when they entered, but said nothing.
The man led them to a long table, “You can sit here. I’ll have the nurse come and examine the girl.”
They waited at the table and watched as the men talked softly at the domino table. Soon a woman came out with the man from the other end of the large hall.
“My name is Wolf Running, and this is Fawn, our nurse.”
“So you have taken back your Indian names?”
“Yes, it suits us.”
“How have you faired so well here?”
“We knew how to live a thousand years before your governments were here; we had to make a few adjustments, but not much. This was our land before, and it has been returned to us by the God of the man, the fish and the bear.”
“Have you had much trouble from outlaws?”
“Some, but we have good weapons such as your bow, a few guns and some bullets.”
The nurse reached out to feel Mary’s forehead and she jumped back.
“She won’t let you touch her; her forehead is hot.”
“I think the child has the flu is all; I will send some medicine; it is our own medicine of herbs, but it will make her feel better, and give her strength until she is well.”
Another woman brought smoked Salmon and placed the platter on the table. Mary grabbed a piece and began to devour it.
“I see she is a feral; it's unusual for a feral to stay with a group.” The nurse remarked.
“She eats most anything; we thought she may have poisoned herself.”
“We have a feral boy here with us; we found him in a cabin on the reservation. Sometimes they get better, and sometimes they remain feral.”
“Where are you traveling to?" Wolf Running asked.
“We were hoping to cross over the dam to the Washington side and follow that road to Camas then on to Seattle to the inner Islands near Canada.”
“The dam has been gone for years; we blew it up to allow the fish up the river, it never should have been there in the first place.” Wolf looked at them.
“You can cross over The Bridge of The Gods, but we own it; it's on our sacred fishing grounds.”
“Will we have to pay to cross?”
“If you don’t get smart with the chief, or say something that he doesn’t like, he might let you cross. If you try to force him, you will die.”
“Who is the chief?”
“You’ll see when you get there.”
“Thank you for the undeserved hospitality, we must be going.” Sean arose from his seat and extended his hand.
Wolf took it and shook his head gravely, “I like you and your family; you will be welcome in this house. I don’t think you will have trouble with the chief.”
The nurse hugged Marta; Sean noticed that the domino players had gone, “May the God of the fish and the bears watch over you and yours sir.”
After leaving the compound; Marta noticed the Indians had placed a few jars of canned Salmon in their cart; they had also replaced the bent wheel on the cart. She knew she would miss them and prayed they would find others like them.
It took them another two days to reach the bridge. As they walked up to the iron bridge, they saw the wall across the other end of it. The wall was made of huge logs, and it had a door through it about five feet wide.
An old man was sitting outside the door in an aluminum lawn chair dozing, with his chin on his chest. When he heard the clatter of the cart on the
bridge, he looked up.
As they approached the strange affair the old man raised his palm and said, “Halt! Who goes there?” Then he giggled, his toothless gums showing.
“I am a veteran of the wars; I like to use that phrase.” He giggled again. “Where do you come from?”
“Denver…in Colorado.”
“I know Denver is in Colorado man; I ain’t stupid, just senile.”
“I doubt if you are either one.” Sean smiled at the old man.
“You got any tobacco?”
“No.”
“Well… doesn’t matter, no one else has any either.”
“We would like to cross over to Washington if we could.”
“Anything to trade?”
“We have a couple of hunting knives, or a .22 rifle with no shells.”
“Well…you’re going to need that, I may be an Indian, but I ain’t uncivilized; you may cross our bridge for free then.”
“I have a rabbit skin you can have.” Bobby spoke up.
“You keep that rabbit skin son, from the look of your clothing; you're going to need it, how do you like the buckskins my young wife made?”
“They are very nice sir.” Bobby returned.
“She chews the hides until they are soft; you will need to learn those things I think. Come on through.” He gave them two jars of canned Salmon, and some smoked meat.
“If you pass this way again you can bring back the jars, God speed your little band.” He gave them a few shells for the .22 rifle. “You’re going to need these too.”
They thanked him, said their good-byes, and proceeded on down the Camas road, thankful that they have found a safe crossing.
In two more days, they reached Camas Washington where two men approached them.
“You can’t stay here.” One of the men said.
“Do you know a way around Vancouver? We would not like to pass through a large city.”
The man gave them directions. “You’ll come out at Battle Ground, then proceed west to the interstate to Seattle, just don’t get lost and end up in Vancouver. It's very dangerous there.”
They thanked the men and turned off where he indicated. Some of the narrow road was almost completely over grown, but a day later they found the road that would lead them to the interstate.
They rested at the old roadside park where the Battle Ground road met the interstate. There was some evidence of camp fires scattered around, and the concrete rest rooms were still intact.
It took them three weeks to reach the outskirts of Seattle where they found a house to rest in before entering the city. There was no way around Seattle that Sean could think of; they would have to go right through the city.
“Let’s eat a good meal; we need to be alert now. Don’t string out, stay in a tight group tomorrow, Bobby and I will take turns keeping watch tonight.”
Marta and Mary lay down on the floor, but Sean noticed that Mary was restless throughout the night.
The next morning they proceeded to enter Seattle proper. The buildings were foreboding; trash and burned-out cars littered the streets.
After they had gone deeper into the city; Sean saw some men coming in from behind them, “Get behind that car and stay down.” He said, indicating a car a few feet away.
“What do you want?” He called to the men.
“We want the women and we aim to have them!” One of them called back.
“Are you willing to die for them?”
He rested the .22 on the hood of the car, took careful aim and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit one of the men in the forehead, and he dropped to the ground.
A feral man heard the shot and went screaming behind a building. The group of men stopped and turned down an ally way.
“Lets go, we have to go as fast as we can, they won’t take kindly to me killing one of them, and they’ll come at us from another direction. Keep an arrow in the bow Bobby, Marta, you’ll have to pull the cart.”
They hurried through the greater part of Seattle until they came to an over pass and saw the men again appear ahead of them.
He aimed the rifle and shot another one of them dead. The men ran away from the overpass, and they were through Seattle.
“Thank God for those shells the chief gave us.”
“Yeah Dad, that scared the hell outa me.” Bobby exclaimed excitedly.
Mary soon began to calm down, but she still hung on to Marta’s clothing for the next two days, and when they slept, Marta had to hold her in her arms at night.
A week later they camped beside the ocean across from an Island that lay about a mile out.
“Hello the camp!” A voice called from the trees.
“How many are you?” Sean called out as he reached for the bow and Bobby the .22 rifle.
“Just my wife and my two son’s, may we come in?”
“Yes, proceed slowly until we can get a look at you!”
The man walked out of the trees followed by a woman and two boys of about thirteen and fourteen.
“Do you have any weapons?”
“We left them back in the trees, so we wouldn’t get shot.” said the man while offering his hand. “This is my wife Kate and my two sons Jacob and Joseph. We were returning from Seattle and trailed along behind you. I was curious as to where you were heading.”
“We had word from a man in Denver that there were a group of people trying to make it on one of the Islands up here.”
“That’s the Island straight in front of you; we belong to that group.”
“Is there any chance, they would accept us?”
“Not sure, but they might; we have been living over there for about a year now, and I know there is still some ground.”
“You could ride with us over; we have a sail boat a few hundreds yards further up.”
“Thank you, would you share some of our food tonight?”
“We can pitch in with food…boys, go back and bring the packs.”
“What were you doing in Seattle? We were attacked down there; they wanted Marta and the girl.”
“Yes, it’s dangerous in there; my wife is a nurse, and we needed to forage for any medicines we might find, but most of the danger is down town.”
The two women talked together quietly as they prepared the food. “This salmon sure is good, where did you get it?”
“The Dalles Indians gave it to us as we passed through, what did you mean there is still some ground left?”
“Well sir; each of the families that lives over there has so much ground allotted to them by the board. Each family must work the land and raise food, but mostly we fish; fish is the chief staple, but the Island is closely governed by a board of six men. We all select the men who serve on the board for a year.”
“We have a small town with trading shops, but the shops all belong to the people and are run by the people. We have laws against theft or murder, and they are harsh. Either one can get you the death penalty; it's not ideal, but it's worked so far and everyone has plenty to eat and clothing to wear.”
The next day they sailed to the island aboard the thirty-foot Sail boat with its patched and re-patched sails.
The man took them to a house where the board did its daily work, the shops had food and trade goods and the people looked at peace.
“So you want to live here do you think?" after they were introduced to the men on the board.
“We would like to try it, yes, if we were acceptable to you and you, us.”
“Good, we have one more plot of ground; it's on the upper end of the Island; Mort, here will acquaint you with what laws we have. You are free to stay as long as you like, but if you leave, the ground will go to someone else, is that clear to you?”
The ground was clearly staked; it had a one small one-room cabin with a fire place, and that night they slept in their own place on this Island of men where God dwelt.
The end