Madison was occupied building a full curriculum of classes. The twins would need formal schooling soon because they turned four toward the end of that winter. Madison refused to compromise on this point. As the children grew up, they needed to get a base education, most importantly in how we learn. Then they would learn critical thinking. With her plan, they would complete their college-level educations by the time they were in their mid-teens. I didn’t try to dissuade her. This was her forte. If anyone could pull that off, it would be her.
I remained constantly alert for aircraft. I couldn’t believe that we had only been targeted one time and that the Russians were so easily lured away. There was something going on that I could not figure out. Maybe there was some clause regarding the joint U.S./Russian security of the demilitarized zone. Maybe they had handed it over to the lawyers to work out, so it would probably be a quagmire forever.
Maybe they would forget about us as people lost interest in the wilds of Alaska. They were probably rebuilding. If Washington had been hit, then that would take priority. Had to take care of the politicians first. I suspected that I would speculate for years and never come to the right conclusion. As long as they didn’t bother us, we were free to make up any stories that fit the few facts we had.
Martha left us that winter. She passed away in her sleep, Sam beside her. It was tough seeing an old man cry, so we cried with him. We put her body in the ice museum until we could dig a proper grave. Sam visited her often, while spending a great deal of time whittling a grave marker for her. It turned out to be a magnificent sculpture and was a proper tribute to her and to his love for her.
Besides Martha, we had no other surprises that winter. We had plenty of food, and everything worked like it was supposed to work. Sam’s loss probably encouraged him to increase what he felt he needed to pass on regarding engineering in general and the systems at Chena Hot Springs in particular. He knew about small engines. We temporarily lost one of our snow machines that I was attempting to overhaul under Sam’s watchful eye. I learned a great deal, but we had to completely tear it apart after I had it all together because of something I had done wrong. Who could have known that if you didn’t get the keyhole retainer right, the engine wouldn’t run....
Diane was five months old when Becca and Darren’s baby was born. He was a strapping lad with lungs on him that could have given bagpipes a run for their money. Everyone got to share in the experience whenever little Bill woke up hungry. I called him Master William as he had the voice that could call moose from two hills away. When he grew up, we wouldn’t let him forget what he did to the Community’s calm. Abigail said that she could hear him from the kennel, so she took to sleeping with the windows closed.
The twins turned four right around Bill’s birthday. We had a big celebration, that included presenting the twins with their own mini dog sleds that Sam and I had constructed from birch boughs.
We made a few runs back to our home to pick up other things and supplement the already abundant food supply at the Hot Springs. More than a year later, I still had a number of specialty mustards at home. I eventually brought all of these, too, as they made our moose burgers unique.
In the background, we almost always started or ended an evening with REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” And I felt fine.
I made sure that I touched my wife whenever I was near her. We would hold hands while eating, so I learned to eat left-handed. I committed to this physical link of what it meant to live for today, while planning for tomorrow. Why eat if there wasn’t going to be a tomorrow? We worked with the twins on one thing or another. They were learning to hold their own when they went outside.
The sled dogs created a certain amount of chaos at all times. The twins learned karate moves to deflect a dog’s energy past them and then kept walking as if nothing had happened.
Despite our best efforts at controlling breeding, we had three litters of puppies that spring, not the least of which was from Husky. She hadn’t been spayed by the time we rescued her, so she was an open target. Not sure which of the males was the father, I gave them all a good tongue lashing when we realized Husky was pregnant with a litter.
Eventually, Abigail corralled the dogs and tied them back to their posts. The number of adult dogs had dropped to about forty, and we had twenty-four puppies. Those little fellows were cute as can be. Phyllis adopted all the litters, although she deferred to the mothers. She still took it upon herself to provide some training to the little ones. Once they were mobile, they would mob the Alpha. I don’t know if that was a motherly instinct or what, but Phyllis took it all in stride and played her role well. We did have to bandage her tail more than once. A pit bull’s tail isn’t furry like an Alaskan husky’s. It seemed like the puppies made it a game of trying to bite Phyllis’ tail. More than one puppy got nipped when it got caught.
Returning the dogs to the kennel created a new calm at the resort. You didn’t have to watch your step or be on the lookout for getting bowled over whenever you went outside.
BECOMING MORE ISOLATED
We lost one of the snow machines on a run back to our home. I think we blew the engine. It made for a short trip as we piled on one sled and its towed sleigh for a return trip back to the Hot Springs. We figured this was the start of many vehicle failures. None of them had been serviced for at least a year and a half. They would fail, and we couldn’t replace them. As the gas started to get bad, they would fail more quickly. Our time with gas-powered machines was drawing to a close.
With an eye toward a final trip, we took all the wheeled vehicles we had and, once the snow cleared sufficiently, we made one last run to Fred Meyer to clean out the store. We tried other places as well, taking everything that wasn’t nailed down. It took two trips, and when we called it a day, there wasn’t much left of value in the small slice of the city that remained. We cleaned out the pharmacy at Walgreens. Maybe Colleen could set up something like a formal clinic for us. With our growing population, who knew what would crop up.
As we transitioned toward summer, we needed to look at the myriad of things that we needed to do to get ready for winter. It wasn’t as daunting here since we had power. There were fireplaces, but they were more for show. We didn’t need to put up much split firewood. All the wood we needed could be done in a single day.
The big event was fixing the roof of our main lodge. We only had three ladders and no shingles. None of the places in Fairbanks that would have had shingles survived. We had to go “shopping,” in my use of the term, elsewhere. There was a small subdivision that had been under construction in Two Rivers, only about thirty-five miles away. We took the convoy to see what was available. Sam looked like a kid in a candy store. He had clearly gotten over his aversion to taking other people’s stuff. I wondered how the insurance companies were handling the complete write off of a state? “Sorry, war clause, no money for you....”
When we talked about the new homes being built, we envisioned something a little different. We were thinking that we’d whip in, take building supplies that were neatly piled, and then return home. But Fairbanks had been attacked at the end of November, which meant new construction had already been underway for a while. The roofs were finished, and the houses were already enclosed. We’d have to take the shingles down, one by one. If we wanted anything else, we’d have to dismantle the house. Emma volunteered to take word back to the Hot Springs, while the rest of us determined to stay as long as it took to get what we needed.
Three days, four stitched-up cuts, and two mashed fingers later, we had our vehicles loaded. I gave the finger to the construction site and was glad that I’d never have to look at it again. We were hungry, thirsty, and tired. Most importantly, we hadn’t repaired our own roof yet.
When we did get things set up, it went quickly. Everyone helped. Jo even set up a barbecue outside. Not having dogs running everywhere had its benefits. Although we all loved the dogs and most visited the kennels daily, there was a sereni
ty in not having their hungry eyes watching every bite you took.
We built a scaffolding first, and then a couple of us worked the old tiles off. Sam led the process of putting the new tiles on. No one was overworked, and, at the end, I took the time to enjoy an ice cold beer. I usually didn’t drink. One beer made me feel bad, so I didn’t have a second.
These things kept us close. How much did companies pay to create artificial team-building events? Here, we were getting the ultimate experience. We still found some petty things to create conflict, but they went away quickly.
Becca heard someone call Bill “that little hell spawn,” and she was miffed for a few days. But Bill made everything right by finally sleeping through the night. After everyone got more sleep, things calmed down quickly.
People settled in to doing the things that needed done, helping one another with chores, and just being friendly. It reminded me of episodes of Gunsmoke or Little House on the Prairie. Everyone knew everyone else, and most people liked and looked out for one another.
We had plenty of food. We committed to learning what it would take to make flour since fresh bread was always a highlight. Sam and I spent a lot of time wandering the hillsides, talking about it and other things. We also figured that we would need animal transport at some point. Sled dogs were fine in the winter, but in the summers, we’d need horses.
Unfortunately, Colleen’s horses were all mares. We had to take a lesson from the natives, which meant capturing caribou and domesticating them. That would be tough. We’d have to do it if we wanted milk, unless wild cows were running around somewhere. Doubtful as they couldn’t survive the harsh cold. Maybe we could try domesticating moose. Alaskan natives had done it at one point. I’d seen pictures at the University.
ANOTHER YEAR
The second summer turned into the third winter, which transitioned to the third summer. We ran out of flour, salad dressing, mustard, barbecue sauce, and those things that add flare to the meal. We learned that everything tasted great without the extras, although that didn’t keep us from trying to make our own condiments.
It took a few tries to make our own vinegar. After that, we set up a mini-vinegar factory to make the one thing we could use for everything, from cleaning to making our own salad dressing. We had to be careful with the dressing. Our vinegar had a hearty kick.
The Community adopted the babies, so no one had to raise their children alone. Diane was a cute little girl, shy and really smart. Bill was Bill. He was precocious and always in motion. We had to take turns watching him because he wore everyone out. He loved the hills, taking after his parents even at an age where he hadn’t been walking for long. I swear he went from crawling to running in the course of a week.
Emma and Jo wanted to have a baby of their own, so they contracted with Chris. It was the twenty-first century, and although there was no anonymity, they were all very adult about it. It didn’t take long, and Emma became pregnant. At the same time, Colleen became pregnant. Although Chris had been spending more and more time at the stables, it was interesting that no one realized that they had become a couple. Colleen was about fifteen years older than Chris, but in the Community, character trumped all. Chris was probably the best of us. He didn’t complain. Unless you looked closely, you didn’t see that he worked harder than anyone. He was quiet, and often we let him sit outside a conversation. That reflected on us, not him. He was better than that. He was better than us.
In the third year, Amber and Sam asked him to be Mayor. He didn’t want to accept, but we supported the motion so strongly that we left him with little choice. He was a natural leader, and his motives were always what was best for the Community. That was also what made Amber so effective. We had foisted the role of Mayor on her, too. I liked our version of elections. One should always be suspect of a person who wants to be elected into a public-service position. I don’t believe anyone is that selfless. If they were, they would already be contributing to the greater good without having to stand up before God and the world to extoll their own virtues.
Amber was happy to step back and, with Madison’s help, become one of our teachers. We didn’t call any of it daycare. We were raising the children to be productive members of our small society. I could not have been more proud of my family and the role that they played.
The twins were growing up in a world that we had never envisioned for them. There were sixteen of us and that was every human being that they knew. They knew all the dogs by name. Husky’s puppies weren’t good as sled dogs since they were a little too beefy, so the twins each adopted one as their own. Having four dogs in our rooms was a bit much, so we acquired two small rooms in the lodge and gave the twins their own rooms. That was an interesting development, which led to room inspections, which led to some wailing and gnashing of teeth, which led to fewer room inspections. It was surprising that we had raised slobs. I take no credit for that.
We left the resort only a couple times that third summer. It was becoming too risky. The Jeeps were dead. The trucks were mostly dead. No one wanted to break down fifty miles from the resort. We always took bicycles with us when we left, just in case our last two vehicles went belly up. We weren’t opposed to walking, but why, if you didn’t have to?
We were more successful at fishing that third summer. We drove a dog team down the road, using the wheeled sleds. That was a wild ride, but it got us where we wanted to go. The stream was cold and clear. Since it hadn’t been fished for a few years, the grayling had grown numerous. We even found deeper holes where rainbows were hanging out. It was nice taking a big haul of fish back to the Community. We even had enough to share with the dogs. They deserved a treat after dragging us down there and back.
After Martha passed away, Sam seemed to age quickly. Although he had fewer and fewer chores, he tried to work even harder. At the end of the third summer, his heart finally gave out. We dug his grave next to Martha’s. We set some wood aside for a monument that we’d work on over the winter. He deserved it. He deserved a nice monument next to the one he had carved for Martha.
The twins were more torn up than I would have thought. Sam and Martha had only been in their lives for the last couple years, but in their view they had just lost the last of the only grandparents they had known. They were too young when they met our parents to remember them.
To get them out of their funk, we constantly bombarded them with questions about what Sam taught them about this or that. Sure. We put him on a pedestal for them, but he was on one for us, too. He’d had a gentle way of sharing his in-depth knowledge of any topic. He was the encyclopedia to which we no longer had access.
With Sam’s passing, I became the grand old man of the Community. I had been before Sam and Martha joined us, but after that, Sam showed the power of a true patriarch. I would always pale in his shadow, and I was good with that. Everyone has their unique gifts. I wouldn’t let us down, but I wasn’t Sam.
So we moved forward with more canning, more creative condiment development, broader growing, and still no flour. We’d have to figure that out.
We captured two caribou. Females keep their antlers throughout the winter so they can protect their food supply from the lazy males. Ours were female. We were so happy when we finally got them in the enclosed pasture with the horses. One problem though. Whenever we tried to interact with them, well, they had antlers and weren’t afraid to use them. I got my head racked pretty hard once. I woke up back at the lodge with Madison looking at me, wearing a worried expression. I had twelve stitches to remind me that domesticating a wild animal could be dangerous. I pitied the person who tried to milk one.
We had plenty of meat and plenty of vegetables. The geothermal power plant continued to work well. Sam had trained all of us on the system, so we knew what to look out for. As long as we had power, we had it all.
JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN THEY AREN’T WATCHING YOU
I was always wary. Charles and Aeryn probably thought I was a bit of a nut,
looking at the horizon. Stopping and listening. “Dad!”
They were learning to hunt. They were skilled in the woods. They were five going on six years old, but they were seasoned in what hunting was all about. They said prayers over the downed animal. They respected the sacrifice. Their little hands were more adept at intricate skinning than I was. They could field dress a moose, with help, as a moose was simply too big for them to lift even a single leg.
Our fourth winter arrived as winter always did in Alaska. A little here, a little there, a brief respite, and then snow and lots of cold.
Unfortunately, unwanted company arrived as we approached the winter solstice.
We saw the jets before we heard them. A flight of two, they looked Russian to me, maybe MiG-27s. They made one pass relatively slowly. We hadn’t practiced our emergency evacuation in a long time. I hoped that everyone remembered what we used to do. I was outside and immediately raised the alarm. Others heard me and picked it up. People poured outside and raced for the nearest woods. I saw the twins running ahead of Madison with the dogs close on their heels. Emma was very pregnant and making the best time she could. I ran back to help Jo with her and we all waddled and frog marched as fast as we could. Colleen and Chris were at the stable on the other end of the runway. I hoped they were able to take cover.
The second pass was coming in much faster. We pushed Emma to the ground and shielded her with our bodies. We never saw the bombs drop, only felt the concussion and the debris as our world was blown apart. We shook ourselves off and continued to the woods. Emma was in a bad way. I thought she might be going into labor.
Run (End Times Alaska Book 2) Page 10