Never four sips, for that would be wasting too much water.
Never two sips, for that wouldn’t sustain her hydration.
Always three sips. Every five hundred steps.
Of course she’d never tell any of that to Darrell.
It wasn’t that she was afraid he’d make fun of her.
He wouldn’t, and in fact had his own peculiar habits. Much more weird than hers.
And he wouldn’t make fun of her anyway, for he loved her so very much.
Darrell’s mind was heavily occupied with his own thoughts.
And his own worries.
He knew there were other survivors out there. It stood to reason, for the two of them had made it.
If two creatures as frail and fragile as human beings could survive the blast, then certainly tougher creatures, like bears and wolves, did as well.
Of course, Rocki and Darrell were protected to a limited degree by the steel cage they were driving in at the time of the blast.
But the bears and wolves, deep in the woods, would have gotten a limited degree of protection from the thick trunks of the thousands of trees between them and the blast.
Or from the gulleys and washes and stone cliff faces which helped hide them from the direct blast.
They had no firearms in the wrecked RV to take with them.
No weapons of any kind, save a Bowie knife and a can of wasp spray.
It was a sad thing that their best long-range weapon was a can which sprayed a stream of incapacitating poison only twenty five feet or so and only for twenty seconds or so.
Sure, it would blind a bear, but only temporarily.
Sure, it would take the bear’s breath away, but only temporarily.
The nerve agent the can contained would drop the bear to the ground and incapacitate him.
For how long was anyone’s guess.
Darrell’s hope was that for a weakened bear, perhaps wounded severely, the stream of powerful nerve agent would prove fatal.
Thinking logically and realistically, though, it was just as likely to enrage him; to give him the burst of adrenaline he needed to tear Darrell and Rocki to shreds.
But they had precious few options. If faced with such a threat they had to do something. Lying down and playing dead was just not an option.
Chapter 24
They’d seen a television show a few weeks before, while staying for a couple of days in Little Rock.
It was one of those real-life crime dramas that play non-stop ad nausum on all the cable shows these days. The ones which describe a grizzly murder, then hint that so and so did it. Then they follow the case from beginning to end, through the trial, interviewing the suspect frequently throughout.
They don’t say, until the end of the show, whether the accused was found guilty or innocent.
Only then do they reveal whether he was interviewed in his living room on Main Street in Anytown, U.S.A.
Or in an interview room at State Prison which was decorated to make it look like someone’s home.
The story told of a housewife who was the victim of a daring daylight home invasion.
There were two men.
She sprayed one in the face with wasp spray from across the room. He immediately fell to the floor, in full respiratory distress, unable to see or to breathe.
He was totally incapacitated and flopping around like a fish out of water.
Had it been just one man, she’d have easily won the battle. She could have calmly walked out of the house, called 911 from her front yard, and waited in her neighbor’s kitchen for the police to arrive.
The problem was the second man, who happened to be the brother of the first.
He was just a tiny bit upset that the housewife blasted his brother with a faceful of nerve agent.
He had his own weapon… a .45 caliber revolver, and dropped the woman on the spot as she emptied out the last of the spray can.
She fell to the floor dead and he dragged his little brother to the bathroom, where he made a mess of the place trying to shower the poison from his brother’s face and body.
They looted the place and left in the woman’s car and were later captured and sentenced to life in prison.
It was an interesting story and the perps paid a heavy price in the end.
What Rocki took away from it, though, was that intruder number one was no match against the spray. It incapacitated him immediately, on contact.
She also remembered that it took him more than an hour to rid himself of the effects. Before he could see clearly again, before he could inhale without pain, before he regained the coordination to walk a straight line.
That wasn’t the reason they kept wasp spray in the RV. They kept wasp spray in the RV to kill wasps, for campgrounds are full of them.
But in the absence of other, more lethal weapons, it seemed a good idea to take it with them.
Just in case.
The other weapon… Darrell’s Bowie knife, had a seven inch blade and a carved oak handle.
He’d gotten it as a Christmas gift from his father, many years before, and it had great sentimental value.
So much so that he’d have brought it with him even if he’d been certain there were no bears or other dangerous animals about.
Having it in a leather sheathe on his side gave him a bit of added comfort, but not much.
To use it he’d have to be within arm’s length of the bear, for it wasn’t weighted for throwing and he’d never practiced the art of throwing knives anyway.
To be an effective weapon he’d have to thrust it directly into the bear’s heart. It wouldn’t penetrate the creature’s thick skull, and used on any other part of him would probably just make him angry.
If Darrell were close enough to the bear to thrust said knife into said heart he’d likely be doomed anyway. A bear has many more deadly weapons at close range, for it can open its jaws wide enough to clamp its mouth over a man’s head. Then it can bite down with enough force to crack the man’s skull like an egg shell.
Each of a bear’s claws can easily slice a man’s throat open.
And a bear instinctively knows where a man is most vulnerable. On his throat. Just as a puppy picks up a chew toy and flails it ferociously from side to side, a bear often does the same thing to his unfortunate prey.
Until, that is, the head separates from the body and goes flying in a different direction.
At that point, Darrell’s severed and tattered head would look up at the bear from the ground and say, “Okay, you stupid bear, you win.”
The bear would answer (in bear language, for they don’t speak English), “Of course I did. I always win. And who are you calling stupid? You’re the one with your head on the ground and the rest of your body twenty feet away.”
It was a point Darrell wouldn’t be able to argue.
He hoped they didn’t encounter any angry bears along the way.
That would probably be better for everyone.
Now, two and a half days after setting out from the wrecked RV, they’d encountered only two animals.
One was indeed a black bear, but it was no threat to them.
It was dead, lying in a heap in the middle of the highway, covered with several inches of ash.
The second was a male bison, huffing and puffing and strolling noisily down the highway. It was going in the wrong direction, back toward ground zero.
He looked at them as he walked by.
His eyes were glazed over. Rocki thought he was confused, though it was hard to tell.
Neither had ever seen a bison up close before, and didn’t know what they normally looked like.
The beast staggered a bit as he walked.
He didn’t have long to live, they reckoned, for surely his lungs were filled with the sticky goo that results when ash collects in one’s body.
“Should we try to turn him around?” she asked.
“No. He’s doomed anyway. Might as well let him find his way back to wherev
er he’s comfortable.”
“Honey, what are you thinking about?”
“I was just wondering about the chitlins.”
Chapter 25
The chitlins… the little people who happened to be their grandchildren… were worried sick about them.
They were safe and sound in Little Rock, but had been stuck in the house for days.
Their mother Jenn was adamant.
“If you go out in that mess you’ll track it in here and it’ll get sucked into the air conditioning system. Then we’ll have to shut off the air conditioner and it’ll be like an oven in here.”
Autumn was the second oldest child and considered herself third in line to take over.
Sort of like how the Speaker of the House of Representatives is second in line to be the president.
Only this is way better, because anybody can be president. It takes someone special to be a mom. They’re way tougher, way smarter and way better in every way. All kids know that.
Autumn never had a problem voicing her opinion.
“Ah c’mon, Mom. Everybody else is out there playing in it.”
Mom was unswayed.
“Everyone else will have a house full of ash by next week. By the week after their air conditioner coils will be covered with ash and will stop working. Then they’ll live in a filthy house and sweat like pigs. I won’t do that to you. One day you’ll thank me, I promise.”
No one doubted her.
She wasn’t always right, but she came as close to being always right as anyone else on earth.
That didn’t make it any better.
Samson, the youngest, was the only boy in the family and therefore always the low man on the totem pole.
He spent hours at the front window, watching his friends frolic in the fallen ash and getting absolutely filthy.
He longed to be out there with them.
Boys like being filthy. They’re more piglet than human. For an eleven year old boy dirt is a badge of honor. It’s a memento paying tribute to the fun they’d had. A souvenir of better times.
Samson had nothing against defying his mother’s wishes from time and doing something he knew he wasn’t supposed to do. All boys do.
He’d have already been out there, running and playing and raking the ash into piles, right alongside his buddies.
If, that is, he thought he could get away with it.
But this wasn’t snow.
It was easy to sneak out in the snow while his mom was taking her afternoon nap.
All he had to do was quietly slip out the back door, play an hour, then sneak back in.
He’d quietly change out of his damp clothes, use them to wipe the water from the hallway just inside the back door, then deposit the damp clothes beneath his bed to dry.
In a couple of days he’d take the clothes and add them to his hamper. His mom would never know.
He’d done that several times and had always gotten away with it.
Except that he didn’t.
Jenn knew he snuck out every time, but never called him on it.
If she told him she knew he’d devise ways to be a better sneak.
And she liked that he was sloppy and easy to catch.
And that he was still naïve enough to think he’d outsmarted her.
Any time there was snow on the ground and she felt the need to take a nap, she merely made note of what clothes he had on.
If the clothing was different when she got up she knew he’d been up to no good. That was his little secret.
The fact she never confronted him about it was hers.
Of course, Autumn thought she too was smarter than her mom.
When Autumn went out in the snow she changed first. Then she changed back into her original clothing when she came back in.
She too was never confronted and smiled slyly to herself at how gullible and easy to play her mother was.
That was her secret.
And once again, Jenn had her own.
She merely checked Autumn’s shoelaces. Shoelaces, you see, remain damp for hours, even after the shoe itself has dried.
Things around Jenn’s house were frequently just a game of cat and mouse. And Jenn was a great mom who didn’t sweat the little things.
She knew the value of letting her kids get away with a few minor things now and then.
It hurt no one and furthered the kids’ thinking skills. It built their self-esteem. It made them think they might not be quite as smart as their mother, but they weren’t that far behind her.
Mom joined her son at the picture window.
“Mom, when can I go out and play?”
“The radio says the ash will stop falling tomorrow or the next day,” she said.
“Once it stops I’m going to let you help me do the cleanup.”
“Am I gonna get dirty?”
“Oh, you’ll get real dirty.”
That made him happy.
He smiled.
Then he put some thought into it and asked, “Well, if I can get dirty then, how come I can’t get dirty now?”
She didn’t miss a beat.
“Because then I can keep an eye on you. I can make sure you’re following the rules.”
“What rules? I don’t get it.”
Jenn nodded toward his friend Robbie, across the street at the city park, chasing his brother John.
“See how those guys have taken off their masks?”
“Yeah. But it’s hard to run with a mask on. It’s hard to breathe.”
“I know that, honey. But it’s dangerous not to wear a mask. Those guys are taking a risk on catching a bad infection in their lungs. There’s no way they’d have taken off those masks if their mother could see them. And if I let you out there to play with them, you’d just lead them away to another place in the park where I couldn’t see you and you’d take your mask off too.
“Wouldn’t you?”
He shrugged but said nothing.
“Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes. I guess.”
“That, Samson, is why I won’t let you go outside unless it’s with me.
“But thank you for being honest. It means a lot.”
Chapter 26
“Mom, do you think Nana and Grandpa are all right?”
Jenn took a deep breath before answering.
“I don’t know, son. I sure hope so.”
“They said they’d be okay. They said they’d get out of there before the eruption.”
“I know.”
“Does that count as a lie?”
“No, honey. They thought they had more time. They thought they had plenty of time to get in there and to interview their Ranger friend and then get back out of there.
“It makes them wrong. But it doesn’t mean they lied. They had every intention of beating the eruption.”
His face puckered a bit as he asked the next question.
“Do you think they’re dead?”
“I don’t know,” Jenn said as a tear formed in her eye. “I sure hope not.”
“Do you think we’ll ever find out? I mean, the radio station says the whole park has been blown to smithereens. That there’s not much left of it. If it was powerful enough to blow the whole park away and blow a big hole in the ground, how could they survive?”
“I think it all depends on how close they were to the park when it blew.
“When we talked to them two days before the eruption they were still more than a thousand miles away from it.
“They didn’t say whether they had another stop which would delay them. I hope they did, so they were still far away when the eruption happened.
“I’m hoping they’re headed back, and just haven’t contacted us and told us because of the communications problems they’re having.”
“I tried calling their cell phones. Several times. All I ever got was a beeping sound.”
“I know, honey. I’ve been trying too and getting the same thing.
“The Emergency B
roadcast Station says that’s because the cell tower system is down. They say that only a few areas around the country still have cell service. The ones that don’t, they say, probably won’t have it for months or even years for some isolated areas.”
“Damn.”
“Excuse me, young man?”
“I meant darn it!”
“We can consider ourselves lucky in some ways.”
“I don’t feel very lucky, Mom. Not at all. What do you mean?”
“Well, we still have clean drinking water. And we still have electricity. Many communities don’t have either. Many have one but not the other. We have both.
“And we all survived without a scratch.”
“All except Nana and Grandpa.”
“Maybe and maybe not. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“You think they’re dead, don’t you Mom? I think they’re dead.”
He grew sullen and fought to hold back his tears.
“No, honey. I don’t. I mean, I just don’t know. But in any event, we’re not going to give up hope.
“We’re going to assume that they survived and just can’t reach us to tell us. And that some day they’re going to pull up in front of the house.”
“And how long do we wait before we stop watching for them and start grieving for them?”
“That I cannot tell you, young man. That’s an individual thing, I guess. When you feel in your heart they didn’t make it, then you can start grieving. Me, I’ll probably hold out hope for the rest of my life.”
Samson’s mom was by far the smartest person he’d ever known.
He’d follow her lead.
“If that’s what you’re gonna do, then I’ll do the same.”
She hugged him, and held onto him just a little bit longer than she normally would.
Part of it was an epiphany she had the night before.
She’d assumed until then it was all or nothing. That either her parents survived the blast and were making their way back to her; or they’d perished and would never return.
The night before it struck her there was a third option.
Perhaps they weren’t killed in the blast but were injured.
So injured, maybe, that they were in a trauma hospital somewhere south of Yellowstone.
The Yellowstone Event: Book 6: The Aftermath Page 8