Surviving the Fog

by Stan Morris

  One day she was standing on a plank laid across a pair of rough sawhorses. She asked him to help her while she bolted a section of the wall. Obligingly, he stood behind her, and he gripped the plank firmly to steady it. He felt a sudden gust of wind, and suddenly the rear of her little short skirt flew up to her waist. During the day, her panties had worked themselves up between her cheeks. There, before him, was presented the most wonderful twin moons that it had ever been his privilege to behold. Apparently she did not know what had happened. She continued to concentrate on the bolt. Startled, he almost pulled the plank out from under her.

  As soon as she finished, he excused himself and went to Chief’s Headquarters to see Mike. John and Desi happened to be there. Hector told Mike that Kathy might be better off working in some other capacity.

  “She’s not doing her work?” Mike asked.

  “No, no, her work is just fine. Better than fine. She’s good at everything she tries.”

  “Is she causing a problem on the crew?”

  “Uh, no, not exactly.”

  “So, it’s because she has the hots for you,” Mike guessed.

  Hectors jaw dropped. “What did you say?”

  “Gee, Hector,” said Mike in an exasperated tone of voice. “I’m about the most clueless guy here when it comes to the girls, and even I knew that Kathy wants to be your girlfriend.” John and Desi broke into laughter.

  “Oh,” Hector said, feeling very foolish and somewhat disgruntled.

  “Talk to her, Hector,” Desi suggested.

  “Yeah, dude,” said John. “Women are hard enough to figure out when they do talk to you. When they don’t, well, guys can’t figure out shit.”

  “No kidding,” agreed Mike. Desi just laughed.

  Hector started to leave.

  “Hector, it’s okay to be her boyfriend, but don’t forget the rules,” Mike warned him.

  “She’s a kid, Chief,” Hector growled. “I wouldn’t touch her.”

  Hector went back to the job site. He didn’t know what to say to Kathy. The other kids left. He and Kathy were alone.

  Abruptly he said, “I’m too old for you, Kat.”

  Kathy stopped what she was doing. She turned to look at Hector. She had a serious look on her face, and she didn’t pretend to misunderstand what he was speaking about.

  “I know that would be true in the old world, Hector,” said Kathy. “But I don’t think that’s true in this world.”

  “But…” He tried to think of something to say, but it seemed like his brain had ceased to function.

  “I’m sorry if I make you feel bad, Hector,” she said mournfully.

  “Jeez.” He put one arm around her neck, and he drew her close to him. “Kat, I just worry that it would be better for you to have someone closer to your own age.”

  She put her arms around him, and she leaned her head against his chest. For a minute they stood there, and then Kathy said, “Hector?”

  “Yes, Kat?”

  “Can I wear your cap?” she asked softly.

  She held her breath. After a moment, Hector sighed, took his cap off, and placed it on Kathy’s head. Grinning, she stepped back and reversed the brim.

  “Can I tell the other girls that you’re my boyfriend? Please! Please!” she begged. “They’ll be so jealous.”

  He smiled an exasperated smile. “Okay, go ahead.”

  “Yes!” she squealed, and she threw herself back into his arms. They stood like that for a few minutes enjoying the feel of each other, and then, linking their arms, they started walking down to the dining hall.

  “So, do you prefer me in jeans or in skirts?” Kathy asked mischievously.

  “If I see you working in that skirt again, I’m gonna smack your butt,” Hector warned her.

  “Yes, sir,” Kathy responded demurely.

  “And don’t think we’re going to do anything more than hold hands,” Hector grumbled.

  “I know the rules,” responded Kathy. I can’t wait to get a taste of your tongue, she thought mischievously. I hope you like mine.

  For the most part, the kids took the news of Hector and Kathy good naturedly. Of course, being teenagers they had to razz them. Late the next day, Erin and her friends were sitting in their favorite spot under the wall.

  “That Kathy,” a girl grumbled. “I said I wanted him first.”

  “No, you didn’t,” another girl reminded her. “You just said that he was cute. I’m the one who said that I wanted him for my boyfriend.”

  “No, you said ‘maybe’ you wanted him for your boyfriend.”

  “Erin, why do you think that Kathy wants Hector for her boyfriend?” a girl asked. “He doesn’t seem like he would be her type. She always seemed to be afraid of all guys, and Hector is a lot older.”

  Erin thought about it. “Maybe fear is the reason,” she answered. “It’s hard not to be scared when we stop and think about our situation.” The other girls nodded. “Maybe she feels safer when he’s around.”

  “That Kathy,” grumbled the first girl again.

  Erin smiled. “Don’t blame Kathy because she took a chance. We know what a chicken she used to be. She decided to be brave for once.” Way to go, Kathy, she said to herself.

  When the first row of rooms was finished, Hector used the forklift to move the next group of floors up to the second level. This meant that both boys and girls were sleeping in the dining hall. It was very crowded, and they had very little privacy. Most of the girls had pajamas that covered them, but some had to borrow heavy shirts from the boys to be decent. Mike kicked the girls out of Chief’s Headquarters, and he reclaimed his space for the first time in weeks.

  Once the second group of floors was installed, Mike allowed the girls to occupy the first floor. There was still very little privacy, but at least there were no boys around, except for John who was living with Desi in the alcove cave. The one safety rule that Mike required was that anyone not working on the lodge had to stay out of the construction area during the day.

  By the end of the first week of September, the rooms were completed. Hector had built a parapet with rails along the edge of the upper rooms, and he built a ladder that the kids would use to access the second floor. Hector used the cabin canvas tops to screen the individual rooms. Now they had to build a roof.

  Hector had already vetoed the idea of laying the logs from the front of the rooms to the ground above the cave. Instead he used a scissors machine to raise four combinations of three logs tied together to be columns that ran from the floor of the cave to the ceiling of the cave. The middle log was a little shorter than the others, so that a space was created between the outer logs. Then a log was run between the spaces, so that it became a beam. Once Hector was satisfied that the columns and beams were stable, he used a block and tackle to position logs from the top of the rooms to the top of the beam. He covered these logs with black plastic, and then he laid a layer of smaller logs over it. It was certainly not airtight, and there was a large gap between the beams and the ceiling of the cave so that smoke could escape, but it was close enough to retain most of the heat from a central fire. Hector was worried that there would be too much smoke in the lodge, but by using only old wood they kept it manageable. Hector used the rest of the black plastic roll to insulate the outer walls of the cabins as best he could.

  “Will it leak?” Mike asked, as he dubiously studied the roof.

  “Hell, yes, it will leak,” answered Hector. “But it will get us by for the winter. Next year I’ll make wood shingles. That should stop most of the leaks.”

  Jacob had gone hunting, and he killed a deer at the beginning of September. Mike found a jig saw in his tool chest, and they used it to cut the deer into pieces that they could store in the freezer. Some of the kids were reluctant to eat the venison, but most of them were glad to have the meat once they had a taste of it.

  Mike wanted to save the canned food for as long as possible, so he sent out parties to hunt for rabbits, to catch birds, an
d to look for eggs in their nests. He allowed them to use the bows and arrows and their spears but not the firearms. He usually sent them in teams of four. In late September, Mike sent Howard on a hunting trip. With Howard were Ahmad, and the twins, Kevin and Nathan.

  “Go east along the river for a day and a half,” ordered Mike. “Then spend the rest of the day, and until noon of the next day, hunting. Then start back. Look around. See what the area is like.”

  Mike was not hoping for a lot of success. His real purpose was for the members of the hunting party to get acclimated to the wild. He believed that they needed kids other than Jacob to be comfortable in the mountains and in the forest. Once the hunting party had left, Mike went to talk to Hector.

  “I told Jacob that I would check on Mrs. Brown. Take Eric and Jacob and go see how she’s doing.”

  Hector and the boys rode the pickup to the farm, stopping a safe distance away. Mary met them with her shotgun.

  “Hello, Mrs. Brown,” Jacob called.

  “Hello, again, Jacob,” she replied. “Who’s that with you?”

  “This is Eric from my camp, and this is Hector,” Jacob explained. “He’s from the logging camp. Our Chief sent us to see if you needed any help or maybe some food. We can share some.”

  She hesitated. The boys were okay, but the man worried her. “Well, come on in, then.”

  The trio from the camp spent the morning looking over her place. They discussed swapping rice and dry cereal for potatoes and milk. The farm lady milked her cow every day, and her cow produced more than she and her children needed.

  “I’ve got two big freezers so I could freeze the milk. It’s not as good frozen as it is fresh, and it’s good for only a few weeks, but it will do in a pinch. I can send some butter, too. I’ve got a lot of that.”

  “Wow,” said Eric. “You can make butter? Real butter, not margarine?” Mary nodded. “Do you have, like, a churn that you use to make the butter? Do you have to pump it up and down?” Eric asked eagerly.

  Mary laughed. “’Fraid not, Eric. I use a blender and ice to make butter. I wish I could offer you more, but my husband was supposed to pick up our supplies for the summer. Except for milk and butter, the freezers are pretty empty.”

  Eric was especially interested in the solar room which could only be accessed from the barn. Mary had filled buckets with dirt, and she was growing cucumbers and tomatoes on trellises.

  “Why do you have all these barrels of water in here?” Eric asked.

  “I wondered about that too, when my husband, Davis, put these fifty five gallon drums in here. He said that water loses heat slowly. He was right. It can be zero degrees outside, and if we have a sunny day; it will be too warm to stay in here without opening the door to the barn. And if we shut the door before the sun goes down, these barrels will warm this room for a long time.”

  Eric had a sudden idea. “Hector, could we move the solar panels from the dining hall to the roof of the Lodge?”

  “Yes, I could do that. But why? The roof of the Lodge is too high to use gravity to supply the water. We would need a strong pump to get the water to the top of the roof.”

  Eric was thinking. “What about making a closed system? What if we used the solar water pump from Chief’s Headquarters to circulate hot water to barrels inside the Lodge? Wouldn’t that keep the Lodge warmer?”

  Hector was struck by the thought. “You’re right, Eric. It would help a lot. And at night the solar pump will automatically shut down. The hot water in the barrels will stay there. We wouldn’t have to burn so much wood. We could save wood, and it would not be as smoky. But, I don’t think there are any usable barrels at the logging camp. I know there’s a few in the storage room that we have for our recycles, but they don’t have tops like these barrels.”

  Mary was listening. “I could lend you four barrels,” she said. “That would help a little. My problem is going to be wading out here in the snow to milk our cow. We have a solar milking machine, but it still requires someone to attach it to the cow. My husband always did that in the winter. And when the sun doesn’t shine, I have to milk the cow by hand.”

  “I wish I could come up and help you, Mary,” said Hector. “But we have to save the gasoline. I don’t think that we are going to get anymore.”

  “There’ll be lots of times when the snow will be so deep that you couldn’t even make it through, Hector,” Mary reminded him. The trio returned to the camp after eating lunch at the farm.

  “Sounds like you had a successful visit,” Mike said, after they reported. “I hope Howard’s group does as well.”

  Meanwhile, Howard led his party up the small river. It was much smaller now. In some places it could be waded through, even along the section by the camp. They had to be careful though. When it rained hard, it was not uncommon for the small river to become a raging torrent.

  It started raining that afternoon. Everyone who attended the camp had been required to bring a poncho, and Mike had insisted that they take them on this trip. Now, they were glad he had done so.

  “I guess that’s why he’s the Chief,” Kevin said grumpily, as he stumbled along the path.

  “I wish I was back at the Lodge,” Nathan complained.

  “You begged Mike to let you come with us,” Ahmad reminded him.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know it was going to rain.”

  It rained lightly off and on that afternoon, and then it stopped just as they were making camp. Once they were in their makeshift tent it began raining again, only now it rained much harder. They were thankful that there was no lightning. They passed the night cramped but dry.

  Early the next morning, the knocking sounds of a white headed wood pecker woke them. They continued their journey into the dark green forest. At noon they stopped to eat, and then they spread out to look for game. Jacob had taught them how to make snares. By the end of the day, they had caught four rabbits and five grouse. They placed their catch in doubled plastic bags and built a fire. They roasted two of the rabbits for dinner to save the food they had brought with them.

  Although the wet conditions made them uncomfortable, it was fun to sit around the camp fire and talk. It was the usual boy talk, about animes and games they liked, and about the various attributes, mostly physical, of girls that they liked. Sometimes they talked about their lost homes and families, but this tended to depress them. They stayed up later than they should have, and then they crawled into their sleeping bags when it began to rain again.

  The next morning it was still raining, and no one was much inclined to hunt. Still, the cramped conditions in the tent forced the restless boys to get out and look around. It was almost noon, and Howard was striking the tent, when Nathan came running into the area calling, “Howard! Howard!”

  “What is it?” Howard asked.

  “There’s a lady back there,” Nathan said, pointing to where he had been. “I think she’s dead.”

  Chapter Six

  HOWARD AND JEAN

  Quickly, Howard called the rest of the boys, and they followed Nathan through a thick patch of brush. Ten minutes later, they came to a clump of small redwood trees. In the midst of the trees, they saw a human form lying face down on the ground. The long reddish hair indicated that it was, indeed, a female.

  Howard kneeled next to the body and turned it over. As he did so, it let out a painful groan. She was a young woman, and Howard saw that she was wearing the uniform of a United States Forest Ranger. Her uniform was filthy and torn, and there was a smell about the Ranger that suggested she had not bathed in a long time, or else she was sick.

  One of the redwoods had a partially hollow area at its base. The boys carefully moved the young woman into the hollow so that she was out of the rain. There was room for one other person in the hollow, so Howard crept into the space. He stared at her helplessly, not knowing what to do.

  He said to Ahmad, “Give me your canteen.”

  Ahmad handed the metal container to Howard. Carefully, Howard pr
essed the canteen to the woman’s lips, and he let a few drops spill into her mouth to see what would happen. Seconds later she coughed, swallowed, and then tried to raise her head toward the canteen. Howard tipped the canteen a little more, and she began to drink thirstily. She took several swallows, and then she lay back. Her eyes opened for an unfocused moment, and then they closed. She fell asleep. Howard shook her, forcing her to wake up. He made her drink some more water, and then he allowed her to lie back and sleep.

  “What are we going to do with her?” Ahmad asked anxiously.

  Howard thought for a moment, and then said, “You three go back to camp. Tell Mike what happened. I’m sure he’ll send someone to help. I’m going to stay with her. Leave me all the food. Eat the other rabbits tonight. Try to hurry tomorrow, but be careful. Nathan, Kevin, I’m putting Ahmad in charge.”

  “He is in charge?” Nathan questioned Howard, giving Ahmad a dubious glance. Kevin grimaced.

  Howard’s eyes flashed. “Ahmad is a Spear,” he said fiercely. “If you guys give him any trouble, Mike’s gonna kick your asses, and you’ll never get to go anywhere again.”

  “Hey, just kidding, Howard,” Nathan answered hastily. “We know the rules.” Kevin nodded.

  “Better get moving, Ahmad,” Howard said. “Good luck.”

  “You too,” replied Ahmad. “And don’t worry about Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb. If they give me any trouble, I’ll blow them up with a flashlight. Just kidding,” he said to the startled twins. He and the twins quickly vanished back the way they had come.

  When they got back to their gear, Ahmad changed the plan slightly. “I’m going to take some food, water, and two sleeping bags back to Howard,” he explained. “You guys are going to have to share a bag tonight.”

  “All right,” the twins said. Ahmad hurried back to Howard.

  “I brought you two sleeping bags,” Ahmad explained, “Yours and Kevin’s. He and Nathan can share for one night.”