The next morning, I gathered up some dry materials, and then slammed the chert against the horseshoe above each type of dry stuff in turn. No fire, even though I made good tinder bundles. Shit, this was tougher than it sounded. My respect for the Indians and pioneers was growing. I checked my match supply. I only had fifteen left. If I couldn’t learn how to make fire with chert and steel, I was fucked.
Chapter 7
And so it began, my study of fire and fire-making materials. I decided I needed a scientific approach to making fire because I didn’t have tens or hundreds of generations to figure it out. I only had about two weeks, if I was careful with my matches.
I still needed to find a winter camp, but I needed fire more than shelter right now. Besides, I convinced myself that winters in Arkansas aren’t as bad as winters in Alaska. They can be cold, but it doesn’t snow nearly as much.
I found a nice camp just above the floodplain close to a swift-running stream. This time I didn’t want to get washed away.
I built a fish trap in the stream. Between the fish trap, and hunting rabbits every morning, me and Sackett ate pretty well.
After the morning hunt and breakfast, I devoted most of the rest of the day to studying fire-making. The first thing I did was spend a day collecting more stuff I thought might make good tinder. I paid careful attention to what was dry and what wasn’t, what was stringy or flaky, and what wasn’t.
I would have liked to have a notebook to record my observations, but instead I had to depend on my memory. It wasn’t as hard as memorizing shit in school. Maybe because what I was doing now was important to me and that made it easier for me to focus.
Dry old history dates and who was king or queen of what country was just boring and useless information to me. No wonder it was hard to remember shit in school. Now, all I had to do to remember was pay attention and go over my results in my head that evening.
Without TV, that was no problem. I did it while I was making arrows by the campfire, until I learned I was screwing up the arrows by not paying enough attention. I made a decision. No more multi-tasking for me. Everything I had to do to survive required my full attention and, from now on, that’s just what it would get.
It took me five days to identify materials that were dry enough to potentially start a fire from sparks. I tried the inner and outer bark of every plant I could find, except for poison sumac, poison oak, and poison ivy. I ain’t that stupid. Leaves of three, let it be, and all that shit.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, was dry enough to light a fire from a spark. A couple of pieces of bark worked after I dried them near the fire, but that was useless unless I had a way to keep the stuff dry. I kicked my ass for not bringing some Ziplock bags from the dead man’s trailer, but they wouldn’t last forever, and the Indians never had them.
I made a small pouch from cougar skin and impregnated the whole thing with candle wax, even though I had to go back to my stash for more candles. I sewed the pouch with thin strips of cougar hide using the point of my knife to make the openings for the leather strips. The result took a lot of candle wax to seal, but the wax kept the rain out of the pouch pretty well. After I finished the pouch, I made a mental note to find some needles.
On the tenth day, I found a black gob growing on a dead tree. I cut some of the blob off and stuck it in my pocket. That evening, I cut into the black blob and was surprised to find the punky orange interior powdered easily between my fingers. I piled some orange scrapings up on a flat rock and struck a spark. The punky stuff caught fire on the first try.
I stood and danced around camp going woo woo, like the Indians in the old movies. Sackett probably thought I’d gone nuts.
I didn’t know for sure what the black blob was so I just called it black match. I think it was some kind of tree fungus. I filled the cougar skin pouch with it and felt better. I had five matches left.
It was time to find a winter camp.
I looked for two more weeks, practicing with my bow and starting fires every evening with black match.
I kept an eye out for more black match growing on the trunks of trees as we traveled. I found it and learned where to look for it. It wasn’t uncommon, although sometimes I had to shinny up a trunk to get to it.
I also practiced basket-making. I studied the different materials around me and, through trial and error, or scientific experimentation as I liked to call it, determined what materials were best for the three types of baskets I figured out how to make.
The rain came about midnight in the midst of big hollow booms and crashes of thunder. Sackett and I huddled together under the lean-to as water dripped through the leaves I used to cover the lean-to. Shit, something else to get better at.
By the time the storm was over, we were both nearly soaking wet and so was everything else, except what was inside the cougar skin pouch. That pouch might not have made the fashion accessory page in a men’s magazine, but I was proud of it.
I’d almost fallen back asleep when I smelled the smoke. I figured it was from what was left of our rained out campfire. It was still dark and I was wet, cold, and sleepy. I huddled back up to Sackett and fell asleep.
Later, I don’t know how long, Sackett grabbed my sleeve in his mouth and tugged me awake.
“What is it, Boy?”
Then I noticed the smoke smell. This time it was more intense. It reminded me of when we burned a huge pile of limbs and trimmings in the back yard at home, only different. Somehow, this smoke made me think the world was on fire.
I stood and looked around. Danged if the world wasn’t on fire. I could see flames scorching the forest floor only a few hundred yards from us. The light from the fire was almost as good as daylight.
Sackett kept whining and pointing his nose away from the fire. I got the hint and grabbed my gear just as the tops of the trees above the fire burst into flame in a series of explosions that sounded like someone started a war. Almost before we could move, the fire swept through the treetops above us. Sackett and I ran.
The smoke was growing thicker and I was having trouble breathing. Man, just when I thought I had the knack of surviving, something came along and showed me how wrong I was.
I thought about getting under water in the creek, but the water wasn’t deep enough. Sackett looked like he knew where he was going so I just followed him. Every so often he’d look back to see if I was still there. We only stopped running when we ran into the river, over five miles from our camp.
We splashed into the water and, breathing like a steam engine in horrid disrepair, I crouched down next to Sackett as the trees along the shoreline, only fifty feet from us, burst into flame with deafening crackle-booms. Apparently we hadn’t outrun the fire. I took off my shirt, ripped it into two pieces, and got them wringing wet. I held one piece over my nose and the other over Sackett’s. At first he wiggled a bit. Then he figured out that it was better with the cloth than without and he settled down.
The river was only eighty feet across and the fire jumped it in ten minutes. Soon the forest on both sides of the river was sizzling, popping, booming, and burning. A wind from nowhere was whooshing so loud I couldn’t hear myself talk. I never knew how loud a forest fire could be.
Mostly I kept my eyes shut. Once I opened them and saw five deer in the stream near us and a black bear only a hundred feet away. There were even a few snakes swimming to and fro, like they had no idea where to go.
The snakes worried me but the fire worried me more.
Two hours later, the fire had passed us by. We waded out of the river into a world of glowing embers, hot charcoal, and smoke. The forest floor was too hot to walk on. Many of the larger trees were still burning and dropping limbs that struck the ground in huge showers of smoky sparks and flying embers. The smoke made breathing laborious.
I checked the cougar skin pouch. It was full of water. Shit. Everything I had was sooty and soaked.
We spent the night on the riverbank, sometimes waking and going into the water or brea
thing through our wet rags to attempt to defeat the remaining smoke that dried our lungs and made both of us cough.
By early afternoon of the next day, we could walk on the forest floor again, most of it anyway. I wasn’t sure where to go but my belly was telling me to find food or else. Since the lights went out I think my belly thought it was a dictator or something. Maybe it was. I usually did exactly what it said.
We made a miserable camp that evening among burned out trees and crispy critter bushes. Speaking of crispy critters, I kept looking, hoping I could find a toasted rabbit or something, but there were none. Unless we wanted to eat charcoal, we were shit out of luck.
As Sackett and I huddled under a wet, once red and green, now black blanket, I thought about what we should do and where we should go. The Ozark National Forest was huge. I didn’t think the forest fire could have burned the entire forest. We just had to find somewhere that wasn’t burned. That’s where the food would be. In the meantime, we’d go back to the camp we were in when the fire started. I had a fish trap set up in the creek. I doubted it was damaged by the fire. We’d eat fish for lunch tomorrow. I told Sackett about my plan but he snored through my explanation.
We were both bone-tired. I’d always heard adults use the expression bone-tired, but I never knew what it meant. Now I did. It meant that your muscles were either too tired to work, or almost so, and your bones felt like aching rubber that would give way and dump you on the ground any time you moved. I fell down twice scraping the charcoal from our bed, and even Sackett wobbled as he walked.
Chapter 8
It took us nearly all day to make the five or so miles back to our old camp. We just had time before dark to scrape out another sleeping spot and pass out. Even my commandant belly couldn’t keep me awake.
In the early morning light, I inspected the fish trap. All of the sticks were burned to the level of the water and there were no fish in the trap, not even minnows.
I repaired the trap as best I could and fell asleep waiting to catch something.
My belly growled me awake in the late afternoon. There was nothing in the fish trap. I collapsed onto the sooty sand bank and my eyes watered, at least that’s what I told Sackett. Yeah, he didn’t believe me either.
I thought about it a bit and decided that the fire must have chased the fish away. They must have swum along the stream to get away from the fire. I had no idea how long it’d take them to return, or even if they would, this was my first forest fire. I sure as hell hoped it was my last. If we didn’t find some food, it might be my last everything.
The only thing I could think of to do was to go to the Templeman’s retreat. But Sackett and I were almost thirty miles from there. It was gonna be a long walk. In the shape we were in, I figured it might take us three days.
I was wrong. It took us ten.
For ten days we had nothing to eat, not even bugs. For eight of those ten days we were in charcoal city. It had been a really big fire. By the time we walked into the first greenery, Sackett was too tired to catch a rabbit. I was so tired and weak I could hardly pull my bow. I missed three shots at a rabbit and then the damn bow broke right at the tip. Shit.
I’d read about starvation when our history teacher had us study the Holocaust. But the books didn’t tell it like it was. I had a new appreciation of the unfortunate folks in those prison camps. I was afraid if I had a mirror to look into right now, I’d appear as emaciated as the people in the photographs. All of Sackett’s ribs were showing and his belly was so tight against his backbone you couldn’t even tell it was there.
But it was the pain, the ever-present, all-encompassing pain in my muscles and joints that made it so bad. That and the brain fog. To just get up off of the ground had become a major effort. No longer could I just bounce up without thinking about it. Now I had to steel my foggy brain for the pain that came with the effort. Sometimes the pain would knock me off my feet while I was trying to stand up, shooting through my legs and back like someone stabbed me with a dozen knives all at once.
Poor Sackett tottered and wobbled along. I could tell he felt the pain too.
But worst of all was the brain fog. Once I sat by a tree and two hours later I wondered what I was doing there. I dropped my pack somewhere but I couldn’t remember where. I clung to the cougar-skin pouch and my knife like they were some sort of survival talismans, which I guess you could say they were.
It was all I could do to keep us going toward the Templeman’s place. I wasn’t sure how long I could keep that up. I was so weak that I was afraid I’d sit down by a tree and wake up dead. If we didn’t make it to the Templeman’s we were gonna die.
But we made it. At least I thought we did. I held on to a tree at the edge of the clearing, trying to stay on my feet. There was a burnt out shell where the house used to be. This time I admit it. I cried.
It took me thirty minutes to stagger over to the burned out house. There was no sign of Mark or Linda. I wondered what had happened, but there was no way to tell. There were no footprints, or any other signs except the blackened shell of the house. Apparently it happened some time ago and rain had washed any footprints away. I knew they kept food in the basement, so I hunted for the trap door. I found it in what was left of the kitchen, the only part of the house that wasn’t under the collapsed roof. I eased over to it, checking the burned floor for strength as I went. It was bouncy. I doubt it would have supported a full-grown man, but I made it across.
I looked into the basement. Stuff was strewn everywhere. It had been looted.
The ladder seemed sound, but it was badly charred. I broke off a few two-by-fours from the remaining wall and propped them against the ladder so I’d have something to hang on to if the ladder broke.
I went down the ladder as quickly as I could, which was much slower than normal. I almost cried out from the pain in my thighs and knees as I descended, but I didn’t. I was afraid someone might hear me.
I searched the debris in the basement. All of the wonderful freeze-dried food Mark had showed me was gone. I kept digging. Then I found a box of survival bars. That’s what the label said, Survival Bars. I’d never heard of anything like that, but it seemed just like what me and Sackett needed.
I tossed a bar, sans wrapper, up to Sackett. I could hear him crunching on it. Then I ate one almost before I got the wrapper off. There were twelve bars in the box, and they were big bars. I found a haversack in the corner that wasn’t badly burned and stuffed the box of survival bars into it. I spent the next hour scrounging for more food and other useful items.
I found a small Estwing axe, the kind with the steel handle and the rubber grip. It was intact. I also found a charred blanket, a pretty good canteen, and, believe it or not, a shitload of unburned waterproof lifeboat matches. I also grabbed a small shovel, the army fold-up kind, and a few other small items.
I tossed the stuff out of the basement and then climbed out after it. I found several stainless steel pots with stainless steel handles that survived the fire in what remained of the kitchen. All of the aluminum pots and pans had melted.
I crammed everything into the haversack and, feeling stronger as the survival bar kicked in, I slung the haversack over my shoulder. With axe in hand, I went looking for Sackett.
I found him lying down fifty feet from the burned out house. He didn’t even look at me when I called out to him. He was looking at something on the ground.
It was a skull, a skull with some flesh still hanging on, and a bullet hole in the back of the head.
Something bad had gone down here. Mark wasn’t the type to murder anyone. I got a cold feeling in my belly and it wasn’t hunger. I set my stuff down and dug around in the grass near the skull. I found a watch, one with a brown leather strap, and a gold-colored bezel. It was Mark’s.
Without thinking I got up and just wandered around. Someone had murdered Mark, probably the same people who ransacked and burnt the place. I hoped it wasn’t the woman with the two kids. She had my pistol. I th
ought she might be capable of murder after the way she treated me.
Twenty feet away, I found the second skull, strands of long blonde hair still clinging to it. I threw up the survival bar. Sackett came over and lapped up what I tossed. It was gross, but it didn’t affect me the way that discovering Mark and Linda had been murdered did.
I didn’t know what to do, so I said, “Mark and Linda, I wish you were still alive. I miss you. You were both good people. Thank you for the survival bars and the other stuff.” I know, you thought I was gonna say ‘other shit’, but it just didn’t sound right this time, not at a funeral, because that’s what this was.
When I said my piece, I gathered up my stuff and Sackett and I headed back into the forest. Sackett kept bumping his nose against the haversack. He wanted another survival bar, the greedy gooseAfter a while Sackett and I split another survival bar. It helped, but our progress was still slow. There would be no winter sanctuary with the Templeman’s. I think I’d been unconsciously counting on staying there if I needed to. Now I had no choice. I had to find a good winter camp, or die.
Nature’s rules trump men’s laws every time, especially after the lights went out. They didn’t teach this stuff in school. Maybe this was the school of hard knocks my dad talked about all the time.
It came to me in a rush and left me feeling cold and lost. Life now was do it right the first time or die.
There were no points for not knowing how. There were no points for almost. It wasn’t a game. It wasn’t the grand adventure I thought it was going to be. I think in that moment I began to grow up.
“Come on Sackett, we got a long way to go.” And so we did. Fueled by the survival bars, we made better time. That afternoon, I chose a campsite with greater care than ever before. I didn’t choose it for the view, I chose it because it seemed as safe a place as I could find.
The campsite was under a six-foot-deep overhang at the base of a short rock cliff. The overhang would keep off any rain. There was a place to build a small fire that wouldn’t smoke up the rock shelter, and there was water in the quick-running stream only a hundred feet away.
EMP (Book 3): 12 Years Old and Alone Page 7