That would be possible for these homesteaders only for one hundred years.
Still, there were no complaints.
For the Inuit tribe it was a long-term investment. After the hundred years were up their descendents wouldn’t be given back the unimproved lake property they’d leased for the project.
No, their ancestors would be given back a good sized town which would build up during the lease.
A town with a power plant, a water plant, a good-sized clinic and a fire station.
With two fire trucks and an ambulance.
Not only that, but those eight hundred original homesteaders who settled the lake way back when Yellowstone erupted?
Their land, and every structure on it, would belong to the Inuit tribe.
They’d be allowed the option of staying, but would have to start paying rent on the land.
If they chose to leave, they’d have to leave all structures behind for an Inuit family to move into.
It was deemed a good deal for the forward-thinking natives.
After all, there were hundreds of other majestic lakes and rivers on their tribal lands.
They could certainly afford to loan this one to the state for a hundred years, in exchange for a nice payoff at the end.
The homesteaders weren’t complaining either.
It was explained to them up front when they signed up for the program.
The government wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, nor making promises they couldn’t keep.
A few of the applicants asked a few questions about the plan, but they weren’t really concerned about it.
After all, they were in a tight.
They felt a desperate need to get as far away from the blast zone as they possibly could.
Yet they didn’t have the resources to move to Alaska and have a house built on their own.
They needed government help, and therefore had to play by the government’s rules.
Most of them rationalized that it would be the fourth or fifth generation hence which would have to give up the land they’d been raised on.
In that regard there was plenty of time to mentally prepare them for the event.
If the fifth generation owner was scheduled to sign over his property in the thirtieth year of his life, it couldn’t be said he was surprised by the deal.
One of the things the government offered to do was to set up a legacy fund for each original homesteader.
“It’ll essentially be a savings account, but at a higher interest rate,” they explained. “The rate will fluctuate, but will always be two percentage points higher than the prime rate. Hopefully that will encourage donations over the years, not just by you, but by successive generations.
“The only stipulation is that any monies withdrawn before one hundred years will incur an early withdrawal fee of two percentage points above the interest rate.
“In other words, the money is yours to add to or withdraw at any time. But its intent is to allow the last occupant of your homestead enough money to purchase land of his own when it comes time to vacate.”
Some took the bait and signed up for the program.
Most didn’t.
Most said they didn’t need the government’s help to take care of their descendents.
Most said they’d set up their own legacy accounts to take care of the homestead’s last occupants.
Most wouldn’t.
But their descendents would ever fault them.
They’d be long dead by then anyway.
Chapter 44
Gwen said, “Josh…”
Then she hesitated.
“Yes Gwen?”
“I hate to ask, you’ve been so kind already…”
“Just name it,” the young soldier said.
“I know you’ve driven such a long way already,” she said. “But I wonder if you’d mind driving us around the lake?
“I know it’s seventeen miles extra. But at the processing center they’ll let us pick our lots from the ones remaining.
“Since we’re here anyway, it would be helpful if we could see which side of the lake had the flatter land, the prettiest scenery, the most trees…”
“Sure. I don’t mind at all. As I said, I’ve never been here before either. I’d like to see what the whole thing looks like myself.”
As he turned onto a narrow road aptly named “Scenic Drive,” Hannah rolled down her window behind the driver’s seat.
“Oh, my goodness. Smell how fresh the air is out here!”
The others followed suit.
The air was rich with pine and fir and a thousand other smells. All smells of nature.
Some were pungent, some were subtle. But collectively they made up the smell of Alaska.
It had smelled more or less the same for millions of years.
As they crept along at ten miles an hour or so they examined each homestead, one at a time, assessing it for potential.
They tried to keep track of due east, so they’d know where the sun came up each morning and could tell whether a clearing would allow it to share its full glory on their cabin’s steps.
Or whether it would hide for another half hour behind the heavy growth of woodlands.
Each plot was eighty yards wide and marked with two orange surveyor’s flags, one on each side, and a numbered wooden stake dead center between the flags.
They wrote down the numbers of seven different sites, not knowing whether anyone else had laid claim to them and just hadn’t started construction yet.
“Should we insist they be side by side?” Gwen asked.
“Of course!” Hannah answered. “We want to make it as easy as possible to sneak over in the dead of night and steal the vegetables from your garden.”
Truth was Hannah and Gwen were the very best of friends and thought it would be lovely to be next door neighbors as they grew old together.
“Of course,” Tony said, seconding his wife. “What a silly question.”
They noticed several places along the side of the lake where RVs were lined up, bumper to bumper, ten or fifteen or twenty at a time.
It took them a moment to figure out why.
Gwen was the one who solved the puzzle.
“Why, they’ve created mini-cities,” she exclaimed.
Melvyn said, “Well, I’ll be darned. It’s like the old west, when the pioneers circled the wagons at night to give themselves a place to socialize and to provide protection against the Indians.”
They drove slowly by one such set of motor homes.
They were lined up just off the roadway, which separated the lake from the homesteads.
Between the RVs and the water line the new residents set up picnic tables and barbeque grills.
A very large television was set up on one end of the encampment, halfway through a movie playing on a DVD player beside it.
On the other end of the picnic tables someone had set up a small stage. A set of drums sat idle, two guitars sat ready on their stands.
The stage was set up for multi-uses, as evidenced by the microphone on a stand and the Karaoke machine.
Smoke rose from not one, not two, but three barbeque grills.
Several people lounged around, drinking beers and having a good time.
Chapter 45
“Should we stop and mingle?” Tony asked.
“No,” Hannah said. It wouldn’t be right to crash their party. It does look like they’re having fun, though, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. It looks like they’ve finally reached the end of a long and trying journey.”
“Good for them. We’ll be here someday soon. We can either join them or follow their lead and set up our own encampment.”
Just as she was starting to roll up her window for the ride back, Gwen squealed in delight.
She spotted a familiar face in the crowd.
A face which was watching them as they drove by, and locked eyes with Gwen.
Gwen called out, “
Charlotte!”
Charlotte fairly jumped from the lounge chair she was sitting in and ran through the hard mud of the beach toward her.
It was the new friend she’d made a few days before at the Anchorage Processing Station.
Gwen was wondering whether they’d ever see one another again.
Charlotte asked, “Did you already get your land? How in the world did you get it so quickly?’
“Oh, no. We’re just up here checking the place out, trying to select some prospective lots before the good ones are gone.”
“I wish we’d thought to do that. We just selected one off the big map they had on the wall.
“I can’t complain, though. As luck would have it, it has a wonderful view, both of the lake in front of us and the mountain range in the back. And there’s a spring at the back of the property. I’m going to love living here.
“That’s it right there. Number 5462.”
Gwen looked at the list in her hand.
“We’ve got numbers 5478 and 5479 on our list. If they’re available we’ll be practically next door neighbors.”
“Would you all like to join us? We gather here every night to barbeque, and to watch the sunset and northern lights.”
“That’s nice of you, but we must be headed back. It’s a long way back to the base.”
“Well, I’d argue and try to force you to stay, but I guess we’ll see you soon enough.”
“Yes, we will. Goodbye, new friend.”
On the way back they passed more than a hundred homesteads, all in various stages of construction.
On some lots the log cabins were nearly finished.
Some hadn’t even been cleared of trees at the cabin site yet.
Others were nothing but piles of building materials and tools which had been dropped by heavy-lift helicopters owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of engineers.
A handful of cabins were finished and occupied. They could tell by the smoke rolling out of the chimneys.
“In a couple of years time this place will be up and running and will be a pretty nice place,” Melvyn said.
No one else said anything.
He was absolutely right, and had summed up perfectly what everyone else was thinking.
There was simply no need to add anything to it.
The ride back to the base was uneventful. For the last half hour of the trip they watched the northern lights dancing across the sky.
Hannah asked, “Tony, why didn’t we decide to move up here a long time ago?’
“I don’t know,” he said. I guess we just never thought about it before. I mean, every place has nice things about it.”
“Yeah. But nowhere else can you stay out all evening fishing, watch a beautiful sunset at midnight, and then be witness to such a glorious light show”
“You think you’re gonna like it here, honey?”
“Indubitably.”
Chapter 46
Rocki and Darrell were near a state of collapse and well into entertaining thoughts of giving up.
Five days before they’d spotted something shiny in the distance while trudging along the highway.
It was too far away at the time to tell what it was.
All they knew was that it was moving, for the reflection wasn’t constant.
And that every time it moved to a certain spot it caught the glint of the sunlight and winked back in their direction.
Oh, and one more thing they knew about it: nature didn’t put it there.
It took them a full hour to reach the site, given their general exhaustion and the several inches of ash they were walking through.
Halfway there the item stopped winking at them and they thought it somehow escaped their grasp. Blew away in the wind, perhaps.
But when they got to the crash site they found the item – a simple gum wrapper stuck on an antenna – and realized it hadn’t escaped. It was just that they were looking for the wink from the wrong angle.
They quickly lost interest in the wrapper, for it was no longer important.
It had served them well as a beacon to bring them here, but no longer mattered.
Before them, in a shallow ravine just off the highway, was a late model green pickup truck with the badge of the National Parks Service emblazoned on its door.
Or at least what was left of it.
It had been blown off the highway, just like their RV, and had rolled several times.
The pickup, also like their RV, was just a jumbled mass of twisted metal.
The driver, still buckled into his seat, was just barely recognizable as a human being after several days of decomposition.
Rocki stayed well back, repelled by the stench of the decaying body. She flailed her arms wildly in a failed attempt to hold back a swarm of flies.
Darrell crept closer to the scene.
He felt it his duty to make sure the driver was indeed dead, for it was the humane thing to do. He would not leave the man to the ravages of nature without seeing for himself he was beyond feeling.
Besides, there might be a second person in the cab. Perhaps a man who was injured but still alive, hoping desperately that someone would find him before he died as well.
By the time he was ten feet from the truck Darrell could see the driver was indeed dead. From the angle his neck and head lay flat against his left shoulder it was obvious he’d died of a broken neck when the pickup rolled.
The passenger seat was empty.
He looked around, in case the passenger was ejected.
He found no one.
The Ranger was alone and headed toward Yellowstone when the volcano erupted and sent his vehicle flying through the air, then tumbling like a sock in a clothes dryer.
By the time he came to a stop his life’s journey was over.
So was his pain.
Darrell resolved then and there to stop complaining about his and Rocki’s ordeal.
As bad as they had it, as much agony as they were going through, they were still dealt a better hand than this man.
They at least got a second chance.
He looked up at the roadway, as Rocki looked down at him with some apprehension.
He shook his head.
She lowered hers and said a quick prayer for the man and those he left behind.
He walked around the wreckage, kicking the ash off every lump he saw in the ash cover which indicated something might be beneath it.
Most of the lumps were rocks, but he did find a treasure: a full case of military grade rations, or MREs. The case was crushed on one corner but the ten plastic pouches on the inside were seemingly undamaged.
The rations would feed the two of them for ten to fourteen days if used sparingly.
Of course, they wouldn’t do any good if they didn’t find water.
Painstakingly, Darrell walked back and forth up the hill, following a grid map only he could see in his mind, kicking every ash-covered lump he came across.
It was almost like digging for buried treasure, but with the heel and sole of his boot instead of a shovel.
It took him two hours to find eight bottles of water.
He’d hoped for much more.
Added to the water they had left they had enough for a couple or three days.
That, again, was five days before.
Now they stumbled along, their throats parched to the point they could not speak.
They held hands now, partly for moral support, and partly so one of them didn’t wander off track or collapse without the other noticing.
They were both seeing stars occasionally, feeling lightheaded and dizzy quite often, and wondering to themselves how many hours they had left on this earth.
Each was deep in thought, worrying not about themselves but rather the ones who’d survive them. Whether they were safe, whether they were healthy, how they’d get along in the years ahead.
Each was hallucinating occasionally, and giving in to thoughts they’d long been trying to avoid.
Each was hoping the other would pass first. Not out of selfishness, but rather quite the opposite.
Rocki was hoping Darrell died first and soon. She wanted to end his misery, and spare him the added agony of his having to watch her die. For she knew that would hurt him more than his own death.
She had no way of knowing he was having the same thoughts about her.
Chapter 47
Rocki heard a voice – a man’s voice. Strange, and oddly panicked.
“Get them in the truck. Give them some water. Elevate their feet and cover them up with blankets.”
The words may as well have been Greek, for they made no sense to her. They were just so many pieces of babble strung together.
She wrote it off as another hallucination… just another piece of nonsense that appeared out of nowhere and then lingered for a moment or two before disappearing the same way.
She’d been seeing and hearing things for miles now and they broke her concentration. She certainly didn’t need that as she trudged slowly along, watching the ground in front of her and focusing on her feet.
Moving one foot at a time and placing it in front of the other.
At this point she couldn’t even remember why that was important, but she kept doing it. She was in a zombie-like trance now, focusing on that one single task.
She certainly didn’t need any distractions; it was hard enough to focus as it was.
As for Darrell, someone grasped his shoulder as he trudged along and he saw a face. A man’s face, wearing a yellow hardhat.
“Are you okay, sir?”
Darrell was a man of sixty years, who’d had a lifelong habit of answering such questions with a nod, or a terse, “I’m okay.”
He answered the man in such a manner without even realizing he did it.
Then he turned his attention back to the roadway and continued to trudge on without missing a beat.
It wasn’t until the man became more insistent and stepped in front of him, stopping his progress, that Darrell realized this wasn’t just another vision, like the ones he’d been seeing for two straight days.
The Yellowstone Event: Book 6: The Aftermath Page 14