Sinagua Rising: A story of survival after a worldwide catastrophe

by R. G. Andersen-Wyckoff

  “I agree,” said Jack. “I’ve seen these things before. In fact, back a few years before the CME, a forest fire raced down Oak Creek Canyon, destroying houses and Inns and wreaking havoc on the forest. The apparent width of this fire could fall into that same category.”

  “One thing, among several, that we have going for us,” interjected Tanner, “is that we have enough firefighting equipment to outfit our entire village, excluding the children, including water backpacks. If we have to meet this fire head-on, at least we’ll have the proper equipment.”

  “I, for one, don’t want to have to meet a wildfire head-on if I don’t have to,” Matt said unequivocally. “Our best bet is to use the backhoe to cut a major firebreak across the northern end of the mesa, from east to west, so there’s no fuel to feed the fire. I don’t think we have to worry about the fire coming down Woods Canyon, along the creek, but we do have to worry about the Jack’s Canyon side. We can take the debris we remove in cutting the firebreak across the mesa and pile it on the west side of the mesa, kind of like a dirt wall against any fire that might climb the mesa from that side.”

  “I’m with Matt,” echoed Colby, “and we need to go far enough up the mesa to protect the water tank and the Horse Mesa Tank where the game get their water—and we get our deer. We need to start that right away and then see what develops. The men can follow the backhoe with chainsaws, McCleods, and shovels to remove any stubborn shrubs or juniper the backhoe misses. I think we have enough time to make the firebreak fairly wide.”

  “I think these are good ideas,” said Jen, “but what can we do?”

  “Good question,” replied Bishop. “I think the women can help most by getting all the remaining fire equipment out of the storage tents and moving it up here to the Meeting Hall where we can see what we have and not have to dig for it later. In fact, we could empty the storage tents. That will at least help us not to lose the remaining equipment, tools, furnishings, and lumber we still have stored there should the fire come that far. We have plenty of room in the empty pueblo units to store that stuff, so, Jen, that should keep you plenty busy. We’ll worry about the next steps once we see how the wild fire progresses. Oh,” he added, “you might want to keep an eye on the chickens and animals, too, because they may sense the coming fire.”

  “What were the other things you felt we had going for us, Tanner?” asked Bishop.

  “Well, the other things I had in mind are the fact we’re having an early warning so we have some time to prepare; we have a water supply and a good supply of hoses we can use in the event embers cause any fires in Duwa Valley or in the village, and last, but not least, we have an escape route down to the creek if that should become necessary.”

  “Well, I think that about covers it,” said Bishop. “Let’s get started and we’ll meet here again at lunch to evaluate where we and the fire are.”

  The children were left in the Meeting Hall under the watchful eyes of Kathleen and Tess and were admonished not to leave the Hall. The others began the tasks to which they had been assigned—it was all hands on deck!

  They found that the far north end of the mesa was primarily scrub with only a few scattered juniper trees. Matt drove the backhoe to the farthest eastern edge of the mesa and began cutting the firebreak westward. Bishop, Tanner, Jason, Jorge, Eduardo, Jack, Philip, and Tate used the shovels, rakes, and McCleods to clear anything the backhoe missed, while Bud and Colby handled the chainsaws and cut down the juniper trees. Once the firebreak was as wide as they wanted it, Matt would bring the backhoe back to remove the cut trees and debris to the dirt wall at the west side of the mesa.

  They couldn’t help but notice that, should the fire get down into the north end of Jack’s Canyon, it would probably race down the canyon and wipe out Pine Valley. Fortunately, there was a large expanse of desert and desert shrub between Pine Valley and the other homes that dotted the valley floor farther west. They hoped the fire wouldn’t get that far because it could then wrap around Horse Mesa and have them encircled, except for the creek bottom.

  By lunch time they had cut two firebreak lines across the mesa, which was only a third of what Matt thought they should have, but he felt they could get the other four lines cut by dinner time, as long as those handling the back-breaking work behind the backhoe could keep up. Bishop looked around at the sweating, dirty group of men and said, “There’s not a tired one among us.” To which everyone groaned and laughed.

  The women had already removed all the firefighting equipment from the storage tent and the pueblos, and had the helmets, jackets, pants, and boots lined up along one wall of the Meeting Hall. All the equipment was lined up along the outside wall of the building and they had even filled each of the backpack water tanks. Jen indicated they would begin moving the other stuff after lunch but knew that some of the equipment and furniture would be too heavy for the women to carry from the storage tent, up the stairs, and to the pueblo storerooms. Bishop told them not to hurt themselves with the heavier stuff and the men would help with that later.

  After lunch, they all returned to their work. Not a single groan or sign of reluctance was heard. Everyone knew this potential crisis would test their metal as a community—and they were damned sure going to pass the test.

  At dinner, the men were jubilant, or as jubilant as their tired, aching bodies would allow, because they had finished six passes with the backhoe blade, leaving only barren desert across that part of the mesa. The smoke hung even heavier in the air than that morning and, after dinner, Colby tacked and taped plastic over the windows and doors and over the top of the chimney.

  “How do we get out? Kiera asked. “Well,” said her father, “we’ll hold back part of the plastic so you can crawl through and then close it back over. I think we should plan on spending the night here in the Meeting Hall,” he added, “so we don’t have to try to smoke-proof all the units. Why doesn’t everybody go get their bedding and get the cots out of storage as quickly as possible, so we can finish taping the door?”

  Once everyone was back in the Meeting Hall, but before they taped the doorway, Colby and Matt volunteered to spend the night in the old storage tent where they could keep an eye on the fire.

  The northerly wind had died down somewhat, allowing the smoke to rise vertically rather than running southward into their faces and they could see the broad range of the fire, flames leaping high into the sky, and creating its own weather. Fire cyclones could be seen, and Colby and Matt could only hope that a miracle would keep the fire from testing the fire-break they had cleared.

  In the morning, though the smoke was still heavy and the smell affected their breathing, everyone wanted to join Colby and Matt at the storage tent. Mel made sure that everyone was wearing a medical mask, even the infants. During the night the fire had moved significantly closer to Duwa, and Matt warned them that it could arrive at the mesa by noon. All the men and those women who felt strong enough to handle McCleods and shovels, donned the bright yellow fire suits following breakfast and with the water packs headed out to the firebreak. The backhoe was still there, so Bud drove his truck out to the break to refill the backhoe with diesel. The smoke was so thick it was hard to see and they each wore balaclavas and medical masks, and goggles. They spread out along the south side of the line with the intention of attacking any embers that might come across the break. Any fire that started on their side of the break that was too large for them to extinguish with their equipment would be met by Matt’s backhoe blade and pushed into the break. They knew that deer and other wildlife would race across the mesa ahead of the fire, but in the blinding smoke they could not see them.

  The fire did indeed reach the break and the heat was intense, but it stuttered there, as if building energy for the leap across the break—and then they felt it. The wind had changed. The heat and energy of the fire had created a vacuum and was pulling the south wind into it. The south wind got stronger and stronger and, because the fire had destroyed the fuel behind it, the south
wind blew the fire back on itself and stopped the advance. The heat of the fire noticeably decreased on the firefighters and, for the first time since the conflagration had reached the firebreak on the mesa, they were able to stop to drink water from the canteens they carried. Then, the smoke began to dissipate as it blew north. The fire danger wasn’t over by a long shot but now they were on the offensive.

  They moved across the firebreak in a long line, covering embers with dirt and spraying water on the hot spots. Once they had crossed the entire break, they began working on the southern edge of the fire as well, digging and hoeing, and spraying. Matt drove the backhoe across the break and began pushing the burned debris down the back side of the mesa. Matt blew the horn on the backhoe to get their attention, and then called them back to the south side of the break. They had won this round and, unless the north wind kicked up so strongly as to re-ignite hot spots and blow them over the break, the fire would burn itself out.

  When they moved to the west side of the mesa they saw that Pine Valley had not fared as well as they had, and lay in piles of burning debris. But, the change in the wind had stopped it there—nothing had spread down the valley.

  The heavy smoke dissipated on the south wind and a large black swath stretched north as far as the eye could see. The forest would regenerate itself and the game would resettle, over time. The most important thing was that Duwa had met the challenge—and survived.

  Dinner that night was a jubilant affair as everyone relived in colorful detail their role in the crisis—except the children. As Kiera put so well on behalf of the children: “All we got to do was stay in this old building and play games and keep the dogs and cats company. What fun was that?” Everyone else was glad that that was all the children had to do.

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  That night, as if in answer to some unheard prayer, the monsoons began. The rain came from the south, swept over Duwa and the mesa and on north, dropping copious amounts of rain on the blackened forest, putting out hotspots and starting the process of regeneration. It rained on and off for a week and no one complained. The rain soaked the planted fields, insuring that the harvest would be good next spring.

  During dry intervals, the men moved the last of the materials out of the storage tent and into the pueblo storerooms. One of the last things to be moved was a gun safe that had originally been in Colby’s home, which they had completely forgotten about. It was heavy and they dragged it more than carried it, struggling up the stairs, and relocated it in one corner of the Meeting Hall. When the sun finally came out and dried the tents, they were dismantled and stored.

  Travis wanted to stop relying on the use of the water wagon to irrigate the orchard so he, Matt, Jason and Tate rolled out the flexible PVC that had been in the storage tent since they’d liberated it from Casey’s Crossing; running it from a valve on the upper water tank, along the east side of the promontory and then behind the outside walls of the southernmost units. It then dropped down into Duwa Valley and off the end of the mesa where it dropped down near the motorhome. They didn’t worry about the line freezing because they wouldn’t use it in the winter and it would naturally drain once the valve was closed. By the motorhome, Jack put in another valve and then ran the PVC to the orchard where he had fashioned spray lines of rigid PVC to water the trees. Colby, who among other things was a rock climber and had brought his climbing gear with him to Duwa, tied his ropes off to the winch on the front of his truck, parked back from the edge of the cliff, and rappelled down the cliff face, and secured the flexible PVC to rebar he pounded into the cliff. With the project completed, Jack now indicated that the second water trailer could be used as a storage tank for gasoline, as well, rotating it with the other trailer to scavenge gas wherever it could be found, and the orchard could be watered easily either from the valve at the water tank or from the valve at the motorhome. The water trailers were stored beside the restroom trailer near Hotel Duwa.◘

  Chapter 45

  We’re From The Government And We’re Here To Help

  Winter was at hand and most outside work had come to a halt. However, in preparation for spring and the reconstruction of the two towers, when the weather allowed, they made numerous trips to the red rock source to gather as much rock as they could. That way, when spring arrived, they would need only to finish mortaring the stones required to finish the towers. They would then install the spiral staircase in the front tower and finish the roofs. The roofs would be flat, with a parapet from which they could survey the area for miles around. When the weather got too cold to venture very far outside, they enjoyed the warmth and fellowship of the Meeting Hall, and went out only to gather eggs, harvest vegetables in the greenhouse, tend to Burrito, and get deer for venison. Life in Duwa was good.

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  With the coming of spring, when the day and nighttime temperatures warmed, the Bermuda seed they had spread in the plaza the previous fall began to grow, spreading a light green tint across the plaza. They harvested the wheat from the portion of the valley that would be planted with corn, squash, and beans, albeit a little early, and then turned the soil in preparation for planting. They left the wheat in the portion of the valley that had previously held the tents, to grow to maturity before harvesting and being ground into flour.

  Travis turned on the valve that allowed water to flow through the line to the orchard for the first time since they had tested it last fall; and Jason, Tate, Jaime, and Eduardo hoed weeds and repaired the irrigation trenches that ran between the trees.

  Bud, Colby, Matt, and Jorge finished the towers and made sure the doorways at both the ground level and plaza level were capable of withstanding any bodily assault that might be made on them—though they believed it would never occur—but best to be prepared.

  Philip surprised everyone by building a sundial that he placed on the promontory outside the pueblo, where the sun’s rays wouldn’t be blocked by the buildings. They weren’t surprised that he could build one, because his knowledge and expertise was already well-known, but surprised that he decided to do it. The use of watches and clocks had ceased a couple of years ago as the non-rechargeable batteries had run out. They had been telling time, roughly, by how many hands the sun was above or below the horizon. They had no need for precise time. But, the sundial was, at the very least, an interesting addition to their life and it gave Carly and Tara the opportunity to teach the children how to tell time and how the earth, moon, and sun orbited and affected life in general.

  Then Bud, Colby, Matt, and Jorge began construction of the elevator that Bud had envisioned to provide access to the top of the promontory once the dirt stairway was removed; the last security measure they would need to perform. Using the remaining telephone poles, held together with laminated 2x6” beams, as they had in the greenhouse construction, with the poles set into deep holes packed with stones and clay, Bud installed a series of pulleys that would lift and guide a three foot by four foot platform up and down the poles, just like an elevator. Bud used multiple lengths of nylon climbing rope, bolted to the platform and anchored on the valley-side and promontory-side poles, allowing them to lift the platform from above or below. A couple of 2x4” guides kept the platform from hitting against the promontory wall until it meshed with another small platform at the top. They needed only to be careful to keep the platform level when lifting or lowering and, depending on the weight they were trying to lift it could take two to four men to do it. As cumbersome as it appeared at first, it was actually much easier than carrying heavy weights up the dirt stairs, and made lifting harvested crops in baskets up to the promontory considerably quicker. Normal entrance to the village would be via the tower, using backpacks for smaller, lighter loads.

  While the men worked on the elevator, which took several days, others helped install fencing along the west side of the valley and on the north side between the bamboo and the valley. They used metal fence posts and snow-fencing long ago repatriated from Ace Hardware, putting it ju
st up the valley slope enough, and close enough to the bamboo, to keep wildlife from entering the valley. The deer had long ago discovered the wheat and corn, and shared in the bounty with the village, but seemed to have passed the word around so too many were now availing themselves to the smorgasbord.

  Some of the women were busily working with the sewing machines while the men were at their tasks and, one afternoon, as the men returned to the pueblo to join the others in their ritual afternoon swim, they were greeted by bright pennants fluttering from poles on the towers. It looked more like a medieval castle than a pueblo. The women were proud of their banners and the color it added to the otherwise drab towers. They had even designed an insignia for Duwa: a golden sun on a light blue background, with a big “D” in the middle of the sun. Although such embellishments didn’t impress the men as much as they did the women and children, the men nevertheless complimented the women and kept their thought to themselves.

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  It was almost five years now, since Duwa had been founded. It was a happy community with each individual using their talents for the best interest of the community, and training the younger people in the things they had shown interest in. Carly and Tara continued the young people’s education, teaching them not only the important skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but also about the history of the U.S. and World, and the history of the event which brought them to Duwa.

  One afternoon, just after lunch, the telltale sound of engines wafted across Duwa. Their first reaction was that, somehow, the Scorpions, or some other group like them, had returned. But the sound was coming from the west, not the east as it had so many times before the Scorpion War. Jason, Tanner, Colby, and Matt grabbed rifles and binoculars and ran toward the Jack’s Canyon overlook. What greeted them were not motorcycles, but a long convoy of camouflaged tan and green U.S. military trucks nearing the Village on 179 and stretching west up the highway until they disappeared around a curve well beyond Bell Rock. There were at least 25 personnel carriers, ambulances, field kitchens, fuel trucks, jeeps, water trucks, cargo carriers, and assorted other vehicles whose purpose they couldn’t discern. As the men watched through the binoculars or their naked eyes, they saw some of the trucks pull into the Bell Rock parking lot as others moved on and turned into the portion of the Oakcreek Country Club golf course that abutted 179 and the destroyed Chapman Service Station. It appeared they were going to set up camp, and equipment was unloaded and tents started to appear. Tanner radioed Bishop and told him what they were seeing and he suggested that a couple of the men keep an eye on the new encampment, and the others return to the village. They could rotate observation teams every couple of hours until they had some idea what was really happening. Jason and Tanner took the first shift.