A DAY OF REST
The snow tapered off quickly, leaving little more than a dusting behind. As the front moved south, Darren and I saw it as an opportunity for a quick trip to Delta Junction. I wanted someone to go with him as my last foray alone could have ended tragically. In the end, since Darren was going, Madison suggested that I go, too.
At this point, everyone was standing outside, and we feared that the cabin would burn down. Smoke poured out of the now open windows and door. Jo was trying to figure out how to rescue the caribou currently in our failed smoker.
The last thing we wanted was to kill everyone we were trying to save.
Darren and I hopped aboard my sled and were gone before anyone could change his or her mind.
The road from here to the airport was almost straight. The trip took no time at all. As we pulled in, I powered up the Geiger counter. Nothing more than the usual background radiation.
We went into the hangar that we had visited before. Everything was as we had left it. Darren said that he would stay and scout the immediate area. I wanted to go back and maybe start shuttling people here. It was early enough and, with the dogs fed, we could probably get most of the people moved. Chris and Colleen would stay behind and rest their horses.
It made the most sense. At the smoke house, we had to sleep outside. Here, everyone could be inside where it was a little more comfortable. We’d send “shopping” parties into town to find supplies, like any canned goods, and any other things that might come in handy.
I went back, rallied the troops, and, although they’d already mushed twenty some miles today, without complaint, they started to hook up their teams. I held little Tony inside my coat as Jo and Emma rescued the smoking meat. It started by throwing handfuls of snow on the fire. I didn’t think it possible for the smoke to get worse, but it did. That lasted only briefly, and then they were able to get back inside and throw everything into garbage bags.
We mushed on.
Phyllis and Husky rode with the twins. The dogs that weren’t hooked up ran alongside the teams. The people held their positions. It was dark, but the snow was fresh, and the moon was coming up. Dog mushers learn the trick of looking about fifteen degrees offset from the normal line of vision. This maximizes the amount of light that can be interpreted by one’s mind. It makes it possible to see details when light is very low.
As usual, I ran out in front. I had already made two trips on this highway, one down and one back. This was my third, so the snow was getting well packed. The dogs found good footing, and the teams made good time.
Abigail was behind me, further smoothing the trail for those following. And we continued, without a break, until five very tired dog teams showed up at the hangar. It had been almost four hours since I’d left Darren there. He was nowhere to be found, but surprisingly, there was a propane-fueled heater blasting refreshing warmth into the hangar. There were three extra propane bottles sitting to the side as well.
It felt like heaven. This was the perfect place to rest for a day.
We unloaded everything into the heated building. The dogs tried to pile in front of the heater, so we had to put up makeshift screens, which they quickly knocked down. We wanted to keep the dogs from getting too close to the heater so they wouldn’t catch on fire.
We ended up moving the heater outside, with its nozzle poking through the door. We blocked the opening with sheet metal and insulation. We put fire extinguishers close by, even though we weren’t sure they would work. As usual, we went with the best we had.
Everyone picked various spots around the hangar to lay their blankets and their stuff. We consolidated all the food into one of the planes parked outside. We didn’t want to lose anything to predators. The smell of the meat could draw them from miles away. At least locked outside, the meat could freeze while it was still protected. It was above freezing in the hangar, and until the caribou was fully smoked, it would spoil in the heat.
We’d figure out everything we needed to do for the rest of our trip tomorrow. Or maybe even the next day. We had already traveled about a hundred miles, and we now had more food than when we’d left. I’d never doubted that we would make it to Canada, but I hadn’t been confident at the outset that all of us would be there together when we stood on Canadian snow.
I looked around at the group – a baby, a toddler, children acting like adults, and people from a variety of backgrounds. Our family. Everyone needed to make it out. That’s what the Community stood for.
A LONG REST
Chris and Colleen showed up the next day, looking none the worse for wear. Winnifred was barely limping. They seemed happy to arrive.
Little Tony had gained some color and was looking healthier after a day in the warmth where his mother had plenty to eat.
So our one day of rest became two weeks. We scavenged this section of town, finding sufficient canned goods for a great number of meals. We found a barn with old hay. The horses ate at it like it had been served up on a golden platter. Winnifred’s wound closed up without any sign of infection or swelling. It left an ugly scar, but that didn’t matter.
Tony gained weight quickly. We moved Emma, Jo, and the baby into a house with a wood burner where they could stay warm all the time. They had plenty of water and food. They even slept in a bed.
Each day, we spent the daylight searching. At dusk, we gathered together for a meal. We all held hands in silence. Some might call it prayer. We called it our renewal of faith in one another and in God and in thanks for another day. We took nothing for granted.
I wasn’t religious, but there were so many things out of our control that could have conspired to kill us all. They didn’t. Whether blind luck or simply beating the odds, it didn’t hurt to be thankful. It didn’t hurt to keep karma on your side.
We even managed to surprise a moose casually walking through the city. This led to a chase with the snow machine, some patience, and a lucky shot. He was a big bull, the kind that many looked to mount on their walls. We didn’t need his rack, although it was almost as wide as I was tall. We were in the sixty-inch club, which was completely meaningless now. We were more than pleased to remain members of the “survive to live another day” club.
We had been fairly thorough in our “shopping.” One place we hadn’t gone was the post office. I thought I’d give it a try. Who knew what kind of packages were in there, waiting on people who would never claim them. Maybe someone had ordered a satellite telephone.
The outer lobby was open, but we expected the counter and access to the packages to be secured with heavy barriers. I didn’t know if we could get past them, but thought we might find something useful. We had time, and we were committed.
As we went through the lobby, I noticed a sign on their bulletin board. It had “Alert” in faded red letters. It also had the Russian and U.S. flags. I took it down and held it in the dim daylight.
“All personnel must leave the disputed territory within two weeks and report to the resettlement officer. Anyone remaining after that date will be considered a terrorist and will be eliminated.
The disputed territory is anywhere in Alaska north of Ketchikan.
There will be no further warnings.”
The message was repeated in Russian. It was signed by the Russian-U.S. Armistice Committee.
It was dated three years earlier, right around the time Lucas and I had made our flight. I expect that the U.S. pilots who saw us weren’t quite sold on the “kill all the Americans” approach that the letter seemingly mandated. That’s why they had given us the time we needed to escape.
I wondered how the natives in villages throughout Alaska responded to this mandate. Probably not well.
I abandoned my plan of breaking into the post office. I wanted to think about this some more.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
We didn’t even realize that we had been living on borrowed time. Three years after the fact, and the Russians were cleaning out the remaining pockets of people. I had al
ways wondered why everyone disappeared so quickly. The bombings didn’t kill everyone, but no one seemed to be around. People tried to drive out and were immediately detained and resettled, whatever that word meant. Were they sent to Siberia or allowed to stay in America?
Had we lost territory in the war? After so many years of jumping at the boogeyman, our government wasn’t ready when real bad guys came. I knew that they caved. They sold us out. They no longer needed our oil. They prevented the mines from expanding their search for precious metals and coal. They restricted fishing and then approved farm-bred, genetically modified salmon for sale. The politicians didn’t need Alaska. They didn’t even want Alaska. Too much wild west for their taste. Washington D.C. was four time zones away, and it seemed that for Alaska, that was one time zone too many.
I didn’t know if the checkpoints were still there. I didn’t know what we would find if we made it to the Canadian border. Had they signed a non-aggression pact? Would they turn us over to the Russians or simply turn us away?
We couldn’t stay here as the Russians seemed more than ready to enforce the edict of the alert. Three years later, they had to eliminate any survivors just to save face. The U.S. government probably didn’t want to know about any of it. Bury your heads, and you won’t see evil.
Was Tony strong enough for the last couple hundred miles?
Was Winnifred healed enough to at least carry herself?
As we progressed into February, we had at least eight hours of daylight, along with hours of visible twilight. This would give us more time to navigate the back country. If there were any observers still at Tok, we would need to head off the road fairly soon to stay far away from them. I figured it was only a hundred and fifty miles if we headed straight east, crossing Highway 5 south of Chicken, and continued due east into Canada. There were a couple valleys we could use to follow to the Yukon River and then stay on that north to Dawson. We could have a total of two hundred and fifty miles remaining. Ten days at a slow pace. Five days if we hurried.
That meant ten days of food for us and all the animals. We’d found some bags of dog food, but those were used up in the two weeks that we’d sheltered in the hangar. We ramped up our production of smoked moose, keeping the smoker running twenty-four hours a day until we had hundreds of pounds of it. The rest was frozen in small strips that the dogs could readily eat. Who would’ve thought that after the apocalypse, Ziploc bags would be at a premium?
With the sun came limited warmth. It wasn’t as cold as it had been in January, but it was far from warm. Temperatures would remain well below freezing for the rest of our trip. Everyone now had sleeping bags, along with some of our original blankets. We didn’t have time to tan the hides, but we did what we could with the stinky moose hide, leaving the hair on it for extra protection. Same with two of the three caribou hides and the bear hide. Riding in the dog sled could be as trying as it was boring and cold. Having a hide to sit on made things a little more comfortable. Phyllis and Husky were the only riders who would not get the luxury of riding on a hide, although we padded their sleds with extra blankets.
We also found another dog sled with an old harness. We could hook up a sixth team, which would improve what we could carry and all the dogs would contribute to pulling. Everyone would have a place without having to double up. Our planned pace was twenty-five miles a day, but with the lighter loads, I thought we could easily manage fifty miles. The horses would have to set the pace. If the way was clear and the footing sound, they could manage the longer distance, but there wasn’t anything to feed them besides the frozen grasses we would find along the way. Could they walk two hundred and fifty miles with limited food?
We would find out.
THE FIRST CASUALTY
We received our answer on the horses rather quickly.
On the first day’s travel from Delta Junction, we set a strong pace. The way was wide open across grasslands with little change in elevation. I thought we might make it all the way to Highway 5. Getting a hundred miles behind us on the first day would cut our trip to just a few days. That was wishful thinking.
We made the first twenty-five miles without a problem. The dog teams stopped twice to let Chris, Colleen, and the three horses catch up. Colleen said that they were maintaining a pace where the horses wouldn’t need to rest, so when they arrived, we set out again. We drove another ten miles in record time, maybe less than hour. The snow was firm and the route level. The dogs were at their best.
The twins’ dogs were probably the most tired. Their sleds weighed maybe a hundred and fifty pounds, but they only had six dogs pulling. The twins always had to run with the sled to help get things started, but once they were going, it was better.
We waited and waited for Chris and Colleen to catch up. It was light out, and there were no obstacles. We should have been able to see them. I took the sled and raced back.
Colleen, at eight-and-a-half months pregnant, was lying in the snow with her arms around Winnifred’s neck. I pulled up on the side away from the other two horses. Chris shook his head. Winnifred’s leg wasn’t healed at all. It readily broke when she stepped into a hole. I could see where she’d tried to run a few steps, leaving a bloody stump print. And she had fallen. The animal’s eyes were wide open because she was terrified. Both the other horses were stamping anxiously. Chris grabbed my arm and pointed to my pistol. He motioned for me to give it to him.
Pointing the barrel toward the sky, I handed it butt first to Chris. I pointed to the safety – it was on. He nodded and went to Colleen’s side. He whispered into her ear and she started sobbing. He held her close and then helped her up. He helped put her on the pack horse and smacked the animal’s rump. It jumped a few steps before settling into a slow cant.
I didn’t realize he was waiting for me to leave, too. I looked at him. Tears filled his eyes. I couldn’t let him be someone he wasn’t. I took the pistol back from him and told him to catch up with Colleen. I would be along shortly
He thanked me with a look and then kicked his horse into a gallop.
I pulled the blanket off Winnifred’s back and folded it. I wanted to muffle the sound of the pistol. I waited until they had covered some distance, just in case the pistol shot was too loud. Winnifred was suffering. I couldn’t wait any longer.
“You’ve been a great friend,” I stumbled through the words “and a beloved member of our family. Please forgive me.” I pulled the trigger. She thrashed once and was still.
What had I become?
Nothing new. It’s what I’d always been.
CONTINUING ON
I caught up to Chris and Colleen within a minute. I couldn’t look at them as I drove past. A couple more miles and I caught up with the rest of the group.
We had passed Healy Lake and were now well into the back country. Hills that wanted to be mountains loomed in front of us. We had a valley picked out that we could use to get through. I could see the entrance not too far away. I pointed to it.
“Let’s bed down there for the night.” But everyone wanted to know about Chris and Colleen. I put my helmet back on before answering. “They’re coming,” is all I said. Madison knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone. She put her hand on my arm, but I shook it off. That hurt her. I reached back and took her hand.
“I’m sorry. Winnifred didn’t make it.” And again, “I’m sorry.” I put my visor down and slowly pulled out of our temporary camp.
I took it easy on the drive to the valley. I didn’t want to put any stress on the snow machine. It had turned out to be the workhorse, our link to keeping the Community whole. It was the reason we had food.
I picked a spot where trees blocked the wind, creating a snow break. It gave us sheltered ground to camp. We’d take that anytime we could get it. I looked back at our caravan. The horses were dots on the horizon. The dog teams were about half that distance away. I had time.
I scouted the valley ahead, but I didn’t want to go too far. I couldn’t
sit still while everyone else was still out there.
I forged ahead. The valley made a direct line to the northeast. It seemed fairly open. I cruised along the valley floor, not seeing any obstacles. There was a greater base of snow than I liked, but it was cold enough that the dogs would most likely not sink in. These were optimal conditions. I figured we had covered forty miles that day. That cut almost a full day off of our trip.
We couldn’t put Colleen and her baby at risk by pushing too hard. The unborn baby was every bit a member of the Community. He or she would be born as a result of it. I thought of their baby as a miracle baby.
When I drove back after covering an uneventful ten miles or so, I paralleled my first track. This gave the dog mushers some options. I tried to keep my tracks as straight as possible since not all the wheel dogs had embraced their roles. If a turn was too sharp, they would take it straight and get tangled up in the rigging. No matter the age or training of the dogs, they could all pull straight without any problems.
I refueled the snow machine, checked the oil, and tightened things that had gotten loose. It was ready to go for the next day. I set out the things I had and even managed to pull together a few fallen branches to make a fire. We had found matches in Delta Junction, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have had any success.
The fire was burning well in a small opening between sturdy spruce trees when Abigail drove her team in. She put them off to the side and fed them. I provided some water from snow that I’d melted over the fire. The dogs drank this up and wanted more. I started round two of melting, and Abigail joined me with her own pan. Nothing like a metal dog dish to use as a multi-purpose tool.
Run (End Times Alaska Book 2) Page 14