When they made it, everyone, even Dr. Holly, dropped to pant amidst the fresh grass.
“Wow,” Shyla whispered. “What a view.”
The whole of the Bighorn Basin spread before them as if they were lords of the world. The mountains stretched out on the right and left, most of the Wind River Basin visible to the southeast.
The distant Big Horn Mountains gleamed with patches of last winter’s snow. The basin in between was a greenish sere, slightly hazy, and rippled here and there by ridges and hills.
“What’s this stuff?” Shanteel asked, picking up a little dark-brown pebble. “There’s a lot of it scattered around here.”
“That’s elk scat,” Dr. Holly told her.
“Scat?” she asked, holding it close to peer at it.
“Elk shit,” Amber told her bluntly.
Didn’t take Shanteel more than a nanosecond to be rid of her little prize. And then to scoot off the scatter she’d been sitting on. “I got to go back to camp and wash my hands.” She was looking ruefully back down the trail they had just climbed, her hand held out as far from her body as she could.
Dr. Holly told her, “Wipe it on your pants. It won’t kill you.”
To the rest he added, “This is all elk range up here. But more to the point, it used to be prime habitat for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. That grove of pines just below us and on the ridge to the west? Those are whitebark pine. Pinus albicaulis. Whitebark pine nuts are a master food. Five hundred-and-fifty calories per hundred grams, and they’re a third carbohydrate, a third fat, and twenty percent protein.”
Holly gestured around. “This meadow, well, we’re a bit early yet, but you can see the wildflowers coming up. Most of them are edible. The reason the site is located here? We’re in the middle of a wild supermarket. Elk, sheep, whitebark pine nuts, mule deer, bison, and tens of harvestable plants.
“Look to the north and south and you’ll see that this saddle is a low spot, a pass in the mountains. From here people could access either the Bighorn or Wind River Basins. That, or follow the trails west into the Yellowstone caldera.”
Amber added, “And that’s the secret of why they built a village up here. Within a five-day walk in any direction they would have had access to every kind of environment from rivers full of fish, sage uplands and antelope, valleys with harvestable grasses, juniper and limber pine slopes on the ridges and foothills, then the Montane environment, and finally these subalpine heights.”
Sam nodded as it all began to fall into place.
The rest of the day was spent establishing the datum—or reference point—for the Penthouse site. Every measurement they took would be referenced back to datum giving Amber a precise placement for every artifact and feature.
Once the datum stake with its inscribed site number was driven in, survey transects were plotted and the students began the slow job of walking along and sticking an orange pin flag into the ground at every artifact. Features which consisted of fire pits or scatters of fire-cracked-rock were marked with a blue flag; the depressions that Dr. Holly told them were house floors they flagged in pink. Stone alignments like circles and cairns got a yellow flag.
By the time Pam came riding up on her mare at noon with a pack full of sandwiches, sodas, and water, the crew had used up most of their flags and had covered a fraction of the site.
Shanteel had gotten so into flagging artifacts, she’d forgotten that she’d handled elk shit that morning. Sam considered reminding her while she was eating her sandwich. Instead, he bit his tongue and demonstrated remarkable self-control.
That afternoon they had barely begun to map when clouds rolled in from the west, blackening and filling the sky. At the first rumbling of thunder, Dr. Holly ordered, “That’s it, people. Pack your gear. Off the high ridge now!”
With lightning flashing in the clouds, the occasional bolt was no more than ten seconds ahead of its cracking boom by the time they had made the camp. As they did, the first drops fell. Then came the deluge as they all packed into the community tent.
In the middle of the downpour came riders. With the thunder peeling and the rain slashing down, Frank led the way across the bowl, head down, rain running in a stream from the brim of his hat; it cascaded down his slicker in gleaming sheets.
Next in line came old Bill, and then Brandon. People might joke about cowboy hats, but when it came to a heavy rain, Sam was suddenly possessed of an understanding of why he’d want one.
The riders splashed up, each stepping down from the saddle, little waterfalls sluicing from their hats, breath fogging in the suddenly cold air.
Dr. Holly had shrugged on his coat and jammed his hat on before striding out to help with the tack.
Sam made a face—grimaced against the perversity of the gods—and forced himself out into the icy rain. Icy might be a bit of exaggeration since it wasn’t freezing. He wondered if it was an understatement to just call it damn cold?
The horses flinched at a particularly loud crack of lightning and instant thunder. One of those earth-shattering bangs. Sounded to Sam like the sky had been blasted just over his head.
Brandon was blowing on his fingers after fumbling at his cinch.
“I got it,” Sam told him, working the latigo loose where it was snug against the cinch ring. Latigo? Cinch ring? Who’s a city kid?
“Thanks,” Brandon said, and jerked his head towards Bill who was struggling to unbuckle his horse’s breast collar. “Could you see to Grandad?”
“What’s he doing up here?”
“Shit’s hit the fan. He’ll tell it his way.”
Sam slogged back to where Bill was half leaned against his horse. Under his hat he looked pale and cold. Sam asked, “You all right?”
Bill gave him a thin smile. “Just need a minute to catch my puff. Whew. Ain’t as spry as I used to be. Damned old leg is stove up.”
Another world-ending lightning bolt flashed, and half-deafened Sam a second later with the bang. Startled him as badly as it did the horses.
“I’ll get the saddle,” Sam told him. “Go. Get out of this stuff and get dry.”
Bill gave him a look up and down, watching Sam squint as raindrops battered on his bare head and water ran down through his hair. “Delgado, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Buy you a drink later. Watch out for old Tobe, here. Stay close to that back leg so he can’t cock his guns before he kicks you. And watch yer back when you pull the bridle off. Not knowing you for a stranger, he might take a bite out of you just to see if he can get away with it.”
Horses bite? Damn!
Sam swallowed hard, shivering as cold water ran down his neck and into his shirt.
He did keep an eye on old Tobe and followed Bill’s directions to the letter. He must have done well. Tobe neither bit nor kicked him, and he got Bill’s tack over the tack pole and covered with a tarp called a “manty” to keep what little of it was still dry from the rain.
Brandon had led the horses over to the picket rope by the time Sam shivered his way back to the crowded communal tent. Bill stood just inside the door, hands extended to the heat stove, where a crackling fire was burning.
Sam stood by the door, arms crossed for warmth, when Bill looked his way, and said, “Hell, man. Step over here and get warm. You’ll catch your death.”
Dr. Holly was the next one in. Sam shoved Dylan out of the way to give Holly room. Odd that the males were the ones closest to the stove. All the girls were in the back, seated on logs, hunched over against the cold, tapping at their phones in silence.
“They getting anything?” Sam asked Court who’d gotten crowded back against the tent wall.
“No. There’s no signal.”
“And there ain’t gonna be,” Bill said before exhaling a chilled breath.
“What’s happened, Bill?” Dr. Holly rubbed his hands as Amber stepped up beside them to hear.
Tappan shot them all a hard glance, his eyes oddly pained. “Television signal went
preempted this morning about nine. Just text repeating that it was a national emergency and a list of rules.” He paused. “Big thing is that they’re admitting now that it’s a full-blown cyberattack on the banks. People started to panic. Mobs of them crowding around the banks. Martial law’s been declared. There’s a national curfew. All travel is restricted.”
“Restricted how?” Amber asked.
“Got to have a permit to go more than fifty miles. Supposedly the army’s setting up checkpoints. Anyone violating the rules will be arrested. Looters, profiteers, and anyone jacking prices sky-high will be shot.”
“Come on,” Dr. Holly said uneasily. “Shot?”
Bill gave him an icy look, water dripping from his hat as if in emphasis. “Maybe.”
Amber asked, “All this over credit cards? Martial law? Military check points? It doesn’t make sense.”
Bill took a deep breath. In the shadow of his soaked hat, Sam could see the lines deepening in his face. “Banks are gone.”
Everyone in the tent had gone silent. They were all watching Bill as he turned, water dripping from his hat to spatter and hiss on the hot stove. “The credit cards? Apparently, that was just the beginning. That computer bug? I’m anything but a tech guy, but whatever it was, they couldn’t stop it.”
“NFW,” Dylan protested loudly, staring uncertainly from one to another.
“Maybe,” Bill said, raising his shoulders in a shrug. “I can only tell you what was reported on the news. But if what they say is true, a person can’t do business unless they have cash. And there’s a hint that something’s wrong with the account records. Something about them being corrupted.”
“They should be backed up in the cloud,” Court said, his full lips purple from the cold.
“All I can tell you is what they were saying on the news before the regular programming went away. Maybe it’s not as bad as they’re making it sound. Hell, wouldn’t be the first time the talking heads got it all wrong just to make a story and prop up their ratings.”
“Which, if you think about it,” Dr. Holly said, “makes the most sense of all. Hey, we made it through COVID, we can make it through this.”
“Yeah, but for the president. I watched her address last night.” Bill’s expression thinned. “She was scared. Right down to her bones. Barely made it through that five minutes of ‘stay calm’ shit, and ‘everything is under control’. You ask me, as soon as that camera clicked off, that woman broke down and cried.”
“That’s just an opinion, Bill.”
The old man turned, fixing his odd hazel-and-brown eyes on Dr. Holly. “Maybe. We’re cut off. No TV, no cell service. Hell, even the damn landline is silent. No dial tone. Figgered I’d better ride up here and let you folks know.”
“We coulda done that, Dad,” Frank added where he’d come to drip water in the tent’s doorway. “No sense in you risking your neck like this.”
“Slickside was a bit interesting, wasn’t it?” Bill asked with a glint in his eye.
“Think we ought to go back?” Sam asked Amber.
She had a grim set to her lips. “And do what? Travel restrictions? Permits? Government checkpoints? The credit cards don’t work? Fuck that. The smart thing is to stay right where we are.”
She looked around, meeting everyone’s eyes. “Think it through, people. We don’t have the money to get home, even if we could get the permit. Go back to town? The motels would want to be paid. So would the restaurants and grocery stores.”
Waving toward the cook and supply tents, she added, “Our food here is paid for. We sent the Tappans an advance, so we have a little credit with them.”
Old Bill made a disgusted sound. “We ain’t throwing nobody out at time like this. What do you think we are?”
Amber’s hard gaze barely cracked. “The department is responsible for all of you. I am responsible. It’s going to take time for the government to fix things, to reestablish order, shore up the banks, and reestablish credit. Let’s be smart, people.”
She smiled, actually looking amused. “What cooler place is there to ride out a crisis than up here? Mapping a site. Without having to worry about soldiers and roadblocks and whether we could afford food or find shelter.”
People were sharing uneasy glances.
Amber continued, “You all know I’ve been there, seen what happens when things fall apart. When people are scared, they do crazy things. Looting for sure. Random violence. Setting fires. Maybe riots that will make what took place in Denver look like child’s play. We stay here.”
“Now there,” old Bill said respectfully, “is the smartest lady on the planet.”
Remembering his earlier promise, Sam said, “I’m with Amber. We stay here.”
She turned a hollow and desperate look his way, as if to ask, Do you really get how screwed we are?
Another bolt of lightning blasted the ridge above. It just added to the fear in people’s eyes.
Fiat Money
I’ve written about the easy definitions of money. Back in the early economies—up to the twentieth century—money was backed by physical wealth. A dollar could be traded to the Federal Reserve for a specific weight of gold.
But the economists weren’t finished. They began to abstract money. Called it a unit of debt. Then it became a “contract” for goods or services. Another theory claimed that money was “chartal”, that it functions as an expression of governmental power to ensure taxes can be collected. Even more abstract, some consider money to be nothing more than a tool for the creation of credit.
All of these became what is known as “fiat” money. Money that has no value except that declared by the government.
Guess what happened when the people in the streets no longer believed in the government?
— Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.
Chapter Ten
The next morning dawned bright and clear, dew droplets sparkling on the grass like a billion diamonds. Birdsong filled the timber behind the field camp, and a meadowlark’s musical trill carried across the bowl.
As Sam climbed out of his tent—shivering in the damp air—he could smell bacon as the breeze drifted his way from the cook tent. Waking up in the wilderness, he decided, was different than anywhere else: A person still smelled like last night’s campfire. There’s no sink where you splash water into your face, or hot shower to step into. He was wearing yesterday’s clothes. Didn’t have a mirror waiting to shock him by showing just how he really looked.
But then, neither did anyone else.
And, for the most part, no one cared.
After he had wandered down into the trees to attend to nature, he made his way to the equipment tent. There he found Amber at the portable table, a cup of steaming coffee at hand as she scanned through yesterday’s field notes.
“I think I’m seeing individual domestic units reflected in the distribution of features, depressions, and lithics,” she began. “If it carries through the rest of the site, and if the statistics indicate that it’s non-random, and if we can get enough C14 dates to indicate long-term reoccupation of the site, wouldn’t that be fantastic?”
“You mean that over generations they were using the same exact spots for houses, cooking, processing, and trash disposal. Not just randomly setting up structures every time they came back.”
“If we can prove that,” she mused, “it would suggest one of two hypotheses: either each family had a long-established place within the site, a sort of ‘This is the traditional spot for our wickiup. The same one grandpa and grandpa’s grandpa used; as will you, little squirt, when you finally grow up and become a grandpa.’”
She took a sip of coffee. “Or hypothesis two: Like us, they recognized the depressions as old dwelling locations, and for whatever cultural reason, built their shelters there, sort of like designated camping spots in a National Park campground.”
Sam stared down at the point-plot map the crew had put together the day before. “Either way, it’s a reflection
of behavioral process. Kind of cool, actually.”
She shifted, giving him a thoughtful sidelong inspection. “You don’t sound enthusiastic.”
“I talked to people last night. They’re pretty worried about what’s happening back home.”
“Okay, lay it on me.”
“It’s like, well, they know that staying here is the smart thing, that they probably can’t get home anyway, but there’s this sort of guilt. Like, they’re up here, without a care in the world, while their families and friends are dealing with all this shit back home.”
“It’s being helpless.” Amber’s voice took on that eerie tone. “That somehow it’s your fault. You start thinking through all the moves that brought you to this place. And you start working backwards, telling yourself, ‘If only I hadn’t chosen medicine in the first place.’ Or ‘Why did I think I could make a difference?’ ‘What fucking possessed me to volunteer to help?’ ‘I didn’t have to go to Syria.’ ‘Why didn’t I leave when Renee asked if I wanted...’”
She looked up, blinked, as if coming back to her senses. And in an instant—like the crashing down of steel shutters—she turned angry eyes on his, snapping, “Tell them to deal, all right?”
“Hey, don’t bite my ass off. You asked.”
For a scary second, he could see how close to the edge she was. Brittle as thin glass. Panic, fear, some violent need to lash out, and then she swallowed hard, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Just tired. Didn’t sleep last night. What Bill told us...sort of set me off.”
“It’s okay. We’re cool. I just wanted—”
“Get out. I need time to think.” The anger was back, instantaneous and seething. A weird insanity gleamed behind the blue in her eyes.
Sam backed out, hands raised in surrender, and once out of sight of the door, shook his head. God, sometimes Amber was like a lit stick of dynamite. You could see the sparks, but not how short the fuse was.
Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One Page 8