Sinagua Rising: A story of survival after a worldwide catastrophe

by R. G. Andersen-Wyckoff

  On the way, at Bishop’s request, they made a quick stop at Bishop’s and Jack’s houses where Bishop pulled up the solar powered walkway lights both had installed along their front walks.

  “I think these might come in handy,” Bishop said as he put them in the pickup. “Now let’s skedaddle.”

  They had been concerned they might meet a large group of survivalists like themselves, and a confrontation might ensue, so they breathed a sigh of relief when they entered the maintenance yard and made sure the gates were locked behind them.

  ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘

  After Jason told Mel about Kathleen, Mel went in search of her granddaughter and found her where Jason had indicated—she was standing over the ditch crying and pushing dirt into the ditch with her foot. She approached Kathleen and as soon as Kathleen realized she was there, she threw her arms around her grandmother and broke down in deep sobs. The children moving rocks into the drainage ditch didn’t seem to pay any attention.

  “Oh, Grandma,” Kathleen sobbed. “I’m so ashamed and frightened.”

  “About what?” queried Mel in a soothing tone. “Just because you’re a little sick to your stomach?”

  “No,” replied Kathleen, “because I think I’m pregnant,” she moaned.

  Mel took Kathleen’s hands in her own and guided her to a couple of large basalt boulders where they could sit and talk.

  “Okay, Katie,” what Mel had called her granddaughter since she was tiny, “why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me why you think you’re pregnant.”

  Kathleen had calmed down, something she had always done when in the company of her grandmother, wiped away the tears and with a trembling voice told Mel her story.

  About six weeks earlier, therefore about five weeks before the CME, Kathleen had told her mother she was going to spend the night with Becky, her best friend in Tucson. Becky was going to cover for her because she was really going to a fraternity party at the University of Arizona with a guy named Nick she had met a week earlier at the mall. Nick worked part-time at the GameStop store, where she liked to browse and check out the new electronic games for her iPhone. At the party she had been drinking beer, too much, and one thing led to another and she ended up in one of the bedrooms at the frat house with Nick.

  She didn’t really like Nick, at least not in that way, but thought it would be cool to go to a fraternity party. No one had asked how old she was and the beer had been free for the taking from several pony kegs. She woke up, naked, in bed with Nick, with a splitting headache, and realized immediately what had happened. She had been a virgin and was no more!

  “I got dressed and left the frat house without waking Nick, caught a cab, and went to Becky’s house. I called her on my cell phone and woke her up—it was three in the morning. She met me at her back door and we tiptoed up to her bedroom so we wouldn’t wake her family. I told her what had happened and she let me clean up in her bathroom. I spent the rest of the night there and then went home after breakfast, as if nothing had happened.

  “I couldn’t tell Mom because I had lied about where I was going. I didn’t see Nick again and Becky swore to keep my secret. She said maybe I wouldn’t get pregnant and then no one would have to know. But I missed my period and then this thing with the CME happened and here I am.”

  “Well,” said Mel, “you’ve learned a hard lesson I’m sure, but that’s water under the bridge. My only concern now is about you. When did you start getting sick?”

  “Yesterday was the first time,” she replied.

  “Okay,” Mel said soothingly, “there’s a good chance you are pregnant, but we won’t know for sure until you miss your next period. In the meantime I have some ginger pills I can give you to help settle your stomach and I suggest you eat small meals and don’t do anything too strenuous, like lifting heavy things. Also, keep up your fluid intake. And, you’d better keep a bucket nearby when you’re in your tent, because you never know when this stuff will hit—and it could come from both ends, if you know what I mean. The minute you feel an urge coming on, head for the new restroom building, if you can. Otherwise, you’ll just have to improvise.”

  Kathleen nodded that she understood.

  “The most important thing you need to do is tell your mom and dad. If you wish, I’ll be there with you, but you have to do it. Just tell them the whole story, like you told me. I’m sure they’ll be upset at first, but they’ll get over it. After all, you are their only daughter, their only child, and up here in Duwa we’re starting a whole new life. What’s happened before doesn’t count anymore, only what we do from now on. You’ll be okay.”

  At that moment they heard Carly calling Mel to join her and the other ladies in the lunch tent. “Don’t forget, Katie, you need to tell your folks sooner rather than later.”

  “I’ll do it later today when I can get them aside, and I’d like you to be there, Grandma.”

  “Okay,” Mel responded, “now I need to see what Carly wants.”

  ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘

  When Mel entered the tent, the others were already there: Carly, Celeste, Ellen, Jennifer, Kristen, Maria, and Jessie. Michael was busy moving food and shelving to the new food storage tent; and he didn’t need to be there anyway. Carly had several pieces of paper laying on one of the tables.

  “Okay, we’re all here now,” Carly said. “The first order of business is to rename this tent. I hate calling it the lunch tent, because it’s so much more. Anyone have any suggestions?

  “Why don’t we just call it our Meeting Hall?”

  There were no other suggestions so Carly said, “Okay, Meeting Hall it is. Now on to making this tent city into a home.”

  Carly went on to explain the obvious, as all had seen that there were six rows of tents running east to west, starting about 10 feet from the basalt wall, except the ‘Meeting Hall’ tent which was set back 20 feet from the wall. She said that Bishop had explained to her that in that way there was room for the field kitchen by the east entrance and the rows of tents would then be about the same length on the western end. She said the men had worked it out that way after finally figuring out how to put the tents up. That got a chuckle from the ladies; especially when Carly related the part about Jason finding the instruction package. It seems Bishop shared everything with Carly.

  The tents were arranged in six rows: two large tents to be used for equipment storage, in which all the food, medicine, and other home and personal supplies were currently stored; then the Meeting Hall; then the two smaller tents to be used for their medical center and food storage; and then three rows of the larger tents to be used for housing. The large tents on the north side of the Meeting Hall tent would provide a buffer against the strong, cold north winds they could expect this winter.

  She explained that each of the large tents was 32 feet long, so end to end they covered 64 feet. The Meeting Hall tent was 54 feet long and with the extra 10 foot setback for the kitchen was also 64 feet long. The two smaller tents, which were 16 by 16 feet were set up behind each other, south of the Meeting Hall, and only covered 32 feet, so that left a sheltered open area behind them. She had diagrammed the layout so all could see.

  “Let’s just talk about the tents being used for housing right now,” she said, pointing at the six southern-most tents.

  “Each of the large tents is held up by two center posts, four corner poles, three equally spaced poles on the long sides, and two on the front and back sides.” Again she pointed at her diagram. “The center section at each end has the zippered door panel in it so, end to end,” she said pointing at the diagram, “it forms a hallway, bordered on each side by four spaces that are eight feet long and about six feet wide: eight spaces per tent.

  “My suggestion is that we allocate each two-tent group by family, with the Lloyds and Brenner’s doubling up, along with Philip, Jessie, Tina, and Jaime.” Carly had another drawing showing how the tents could be allocated.

  “You must have stayed awake all night thinking
about this,” Jenny said.

  “I was,” admitted Carly. “You all know I’m a light sleeper and tend to get up and work sometimes at night. This was one of those nights. And, I’m only making suggestions here to get the discussion started, not to dictate how things should be.”

  “Let’s hear the rest of your plan,” Celeste chimed in, “I’m interested in how the spacing actually works out.”

  “Okay, here’s my idea,” she said. “We’ll have the men put four-foot cross pieces on the center posts, like a clothes line, that will be where the hallways will go. Then, if we look at the rest of the tents as being divided into those rectangles I mentioned earlier, we’ll have eight rectangles in each tent to allocate. We could take four of those spaces just inside the east doorway, plus the doorway space, and make that our family room, but only in the tent closest to the alleyway the men have set aside. One rectangle can be set aside for storage in each set of two tents. That leaves 11 spaces to be allocated.

  “We can hang tarps, blankets, or other dividers between the spaces and along the hallway for privacy. Each husband and wife can combine their two spaces into one, making a space size of 6 feet by 16 feet, and each individual will have half that space.

  “As an example,” she said, pointing to her diagram, “in the first two tents, Bud and Jenny and Matt & Kristen would each take double spaces which, along with the four spaces for the family room, would fill that tent. In the second tent, Colby & Maria would take a double space and then Tate, Mattie, Jason, Olivia, and Todd would each have their own space. That leaves one space for storage.”

  “Okay,” said Mel, “I think I see how you’re working this out. In the two tents assigned to us and the Lloyds, Jack and Celeste would get a double space, and so would Ellen & Michael and Travis and me. Then Philip, Kathleen, Jessie, Tina, and Jaime would get their own spaces. With the family room and one storage space that would fill these two tents,” she said, pointing at the middle set of tents on Carly’s diagram.

  “Right,” said Carly. “In our tents, Bish and I and Tanner & Tara would have doubles, and Trey and Kiera would have singles. With the storage and family room space we would have five spaces left over to use as more storage for everyone. Or we could move some of the older children from the other tents into ours, or just save the space in case we need it later. “

  “I like your plan, Carly,” said Mel, “but I’d like to suggest that Jessie, Tina, and Jaime move into your tents. I’ve seen the way Philip and Jessie look at each other and I think it might be best if we didn’t put them so close together.” All the ladies laughed, including Jessie, who also blushed deeply. “That will use 14 spaces in your tents, Carly, and 13 in ours. Jenny’s family will stay as they are and we’ll have a little extra storage space in two places, at least for now,” Mel said. “We can always move things around later if we find it makes more sense.”

  “Well,” said Carly, “are there any more suggestions or concerns or can we begin moving our stuff to the appropriate tents?” There was a lot of head nodding and no objections so Carly continued. “I suggest we move the cots in first and then start finding the boxes and suitcases of our personal belongings and move them to the spaces. We can store stuff under the cots and stack it in each of our rooms until we can sort it all out. Once we get the men to rig the hallways we can start putting up dividers.

  “I have a suggestion,” said Celeste. “Why don’t we send a team back to our homes and collect curtains that we can fashion into room dividers. And maybe we can get some of the couches and chairs to put in our new family rooms to make them more comfortable. Even though all the tents except the Meeting Hall have built in floor covers, we could even get throw rugs to help make them warmer.”

  “Great idea,” Carly said, “we’ll get some of the men to help do that. Right now let’s start moving things to the appropriate tents. Oh, and let’s all chip in to help moving the shelfing and supplies to the food and medical tents, too. We can use the garden carts to help. We don’t have to get it all done in one day; we’ve got time. And, I want to have time for that bath and hair washing I’m so looking forward to this afternoon.”

  The ladies all departed and it was amazing how quickly things started leaving the supply tents and making their way to the housing tents. Each matriarch selected the spaces she wanted the members of her family to occupy and Jessie, Carly, and Tara did the same for their tents. Kathleen and Mattie kept the kids out of the way and busy moving stones and debris so the relocation work occurred rapidly.

  Carly put Chloe’s cage on top of her cot so she could see what was going on.

  ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘ ◘

  What Carly was to the organization of the tents Tanner was to the trail crew: both were highly organized natural leaders. Where Carly tended to put things down on paper, Tanner, the professor, tended to visualize. He had often told his students that “solving archaeological problems is like eating an artichoke: you start by taking the pulp off the outer leaves and work yourself inward until you finally get to the tantalizing heart. In fact,” he had continued, “all problem-solving is that way. It’s important to identify the problem, set a goal, and then work your way through the extraneous issues until you get to the heart of the matter. In archaeology, sometimes it takes a lot of work with brushes and trowels to get through the extraneous layers before you reach the core of the search.” Bishop used to tell them both they were anal and both of them would just laugh and tell him, “It takes one to know one.”

  Tanner used an aluminum extension ladder to climb down the side of the cliff because the old Sinagua entrance through the tower and the crack in the basalt to the cave below was filled with debris, mostly from the collapsed tower roof.

  Travis volunteered to start clearing out the cave and Tate Hudson volunteered to help him. Jack and Philip took the job of raking and shoveling excess dirt, gravel, and rocks off the trail as it switch-backed down the hillside.

  The old trail, though it was some 800 years old, was still visible most of the way down to the creek. Some places, where it had washed out or become overgrown with cactus had to be rebuilt or moved. The Sinagua went down and up that trail many times each day going down to bathe, fish, or get water and then carrying water back up to the village above. None of them, except Tanner, of course, thought about the tens of thousands of footsteps that had beaten down the trail they were now cleaning up.

  Wherever the trail was too steep, Tanner used a pick and shovel to cut broad stair-steps into the trail. He did the same each time the trail made a switchback. It was backbreaking work and within minutes they were all feeling the effects of their exertion and their hands were tender, despite the fact they all wore gloves they had brought from home or had found in the firefighter supplies.

  Suddenly, from the cave at the top of the trail, there was a loud, “Whoa!” It was Tate. Tanner, who was closest to the cave at that point ran back up the trail to see what was happening. By that time Tate and Travis were standing outside the cave and shining a flashlight he had thoughtfully kept in his day pack, along with his gloves and water, into the cave. Tanner immediately spotted the problem: slithering over the top of some of the debris near the mouth of the cave was a large rattlesnake. His girth and number of rattles told Tanner this old guy’s been around for a while. “You probably disturbed his nest,” Tanner said. “Good thing you didn’t get bitten. As big as he is he could have done some damage.”

  “As soon as we heard him rattle in the dark and then slither up on the dirt pile where we could see him, we backed away,” offered Travis. “When we first saw him was when Tate yelled, ‘Whoa,’ that you probably heard.”

  “I sure did,” replied Tanner. “I’ll remove him but you’ll need to keep a sharp lookout in case there are more. Don’t reach in to remove debris, pull it out with your rake. If there are more back there, there’ll probably be a good rattle to warn you.”

  With that, Tanner took the rake from Tate and slowly moved toward the snake. It coiled and ob
served Tanner with deliberate intent. Tanner slowly moved the rake behind the snake and then used it to move the snake out of the entrance where he could more easily get to it. The snake again coiled and rattled, obviously agitated and struck at the rake. This time Tanner used the rake to pin the snake down and then, using Travis’ shovel, pinned the snake’s head to the ground. He released his hold on the rake but held the pressure on the snake’s head. He then reached down and caught the snake right behind his head, dropped the shovel, and lifted the snake up.

  “This is one big fella,” said Tanner.

  “Whatever you say,” said Travis, while both he and Tate stepped farther away from Tanner and the snake.

  It took two hands for Tanner to hold the snake’s head up at waist height and the snake’s tail was dragging on the ground; his girth as big around as a baseball bat. He was big and heavy. Tanner dragged the snake to the side of the sheer drop, away from the trail and the other two workers, who had stopped to see what was going on above them, and released the snake over the side, flicking it a bit as he did so. He didn’t want to come in contact with his new found friend’s head. The snake hit the ground some ten feet down the slope and quickly slithered away downhill and into the rocks below. “Hopefully, he’ll find a new home down there,” said Tanner with a chuckle. “I don’t think he’ll come back up here any time soon after the rude treatment we gave him.”

  Tanner borrowed Travis’ flashlight and shined it into the cave. “Well,” said Tanner, “it looks like our old friend had taken a lady into his cave to show her his etchings. She’s not near the size of the other one but could still mean serious business.”

  He handed the flashlight to Tate and directed him where to shine it. The snake was coiled and Tanner used the same technique as before to remove this one and send her down the slope to join her boyfriend.