Amitola: The Making of a Tribe

by A. Grant Richard

  “No, no…” Caleb butted in. “My wife is on her way here to me. I, we, just think if we stick together we’ll be better off. And you shouldn’t be out here alone for all the reasons you’ve mentioned already.”

  Tye’s face was bewildered. He took his arm from around her, "That’s all I meant too. We’re friends. Our kids are friends. We stand a better chance this way, that’s all.”

  She looked at each of them, Tye, Caleb, and the kids. It took her a moment to get the word out, but finally, she did. ”Okay.”

  She sat there pondering the decision she made, and she felt the ground beneath her getting colder and colder. Her fingers and toes had gone numb. Shivering, she pulled her bloody pant leg up and pulled her sock as much as she could to expose the blisters as she explained about her feet.

  Caleb gently inspected them. She’d been able to pull the socks away just a little where some blisters had formed, but they were starting to ooze out again.

  Caleb felt a burst of wind hit his side, piercing his jacket. “We have to find shelter before this storm hits. Somewhere we can heat up some water and soak her feet. That’s the only way we’ll get these socks off without skinning her alive,” he gently put her sock back in place and pulled her pants legs down. “Her feet are bad. She can’t walk like this.”

  Tye found a solid, metal, restaurant chair that was still in good shape. He put pressure on it to make sure it could handle the weight. She sat in the chair, and they picked it up to test it, Tye at the head and Caleb at the feet. She was small enough to make the chair perfect for transporting her.

  Once everyone was ready, they reached down and picked up the chair. Sadie pulled her blanket from her backpack, and Elex helped her cover Maia to keep her warm. It was a sweet gesture. She thanked them, and they resumed their quest to find shelter.

  Chapter Five

  They walked in the direction Maia had been going, and before they could ask her if she was familiar with the area, she passed out. They didn’t dare wake her. It was obvious she needed some rest to recover.

  According to the map they had, which Junior had tons of trouble reading upside down, the main highway should be just ahead. His little sister snatched the map from him, playfully swatted him in the back of the head with it, then gave it back to him, right side up. Tye couldn’t help but smile.

  They stopped for a moment to find their location on the map. Junior held it for his dad to look at. Once Tye found where they were, he realized they should be staring at a hunting lodge. Instead, they stood at the edge of what appeared to be an enormous lake with half of a building sticking up out of it. He mentioned it to Junior who then noted the new landform on the map. The remapping of landscapes became a common practice after the water began receding from the massive floods that had taken place.

  On the first day, several towering waves had come from the Gulf of Mexico, and some flowed as far inland as Baton Rouge leaving nothing but carnage in their path. Suddenly everyone became an expert with differing opinions. Some news outlets reported an earthquake in the Gulf while others showed video of a meteor hitting South America and causing the waves. Several hours later when more footage and information from all over the world trickled in, they began comparing it to the K-T Event believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. Eventually, everyone agreed that it was a domino effect caused by a meteor and what they experienced early in the day was only the beginning. It was impossible to get facts with so many opinions and rumors spreading, but a hashtag, #JudgementDay, was easy to agree on.

  In any case, by the time the waves reached Midcity, they were only a few feet high, but still moving fast enough to toss automobiles around like rag dolls. What left most people perplexed was that most of the water never receded, hence, the new lake in front of them. Other bodies of water had doubled and tripled in size, and the coastline was now comfortably settled miles inland. Islands and historical cities like New Orleans were gone within minutes.

  The crew walked northeast to circumvent the water. Along the way, they noticed a few landmarks which let them know where they were according to the map. But it was getting colder, and it was drizzling. Junior rotated out with his dad and Caleb so everyone could have a break, but even that got to be difficult. Caleb and Junior weren’t in shape like Tye. They didn’t eat, drink, sleep, and work at the gym. Their arms ached, and their lower back was in pain. Even though Maia was a petite woman, it was getting more and more difficult for them to carry her dead weight. Tye could see that they wouldn’t be able to go much farther like this.

  He looked around for a place that might be able to provide them shelter and noticed a large debris field several yards away. He yelled up to Caleb who was walking in front of him. “You wanna see if there is anywhere in there that we could make camp?”

  Caleb glanced back at him. “Yeah, let’s get closer and see what we can find.”

  In the woods, they’d encountered several debris fields. None of them were easy to maneuver. With Maia in tow, the crew dodged, ducked, climbed and tripped their way through land littered with remnants of a past life; parts of cars, signs, furniture, building materials, and people’s personal belongings. They were all mangled and drifted about like tumbleweeds.

  Along the edge of what looked like a massive trash dump, Tye and Junior put Maia down to survey the area. Tye brushed her hair back up inside her beanie cap and covered her completely with the blanket.

  Tye walked over to where Caleb had taken a seat on the ground. “I’ll go take a look,” he said.

  He forced his way through the twisted metal and broken glass, slipping several times as he tried to maneuver around dead bodies. The higher he got, the more he could see. He noticed a few train cars to his right and made his way towards them. He thought maybe they could sleep there for the night and if not, he knew he could get a better view from that height.

  He looked back to be sure his crew was okay then he made a leap from the fallen tree he was standing on to the side of a Buick. From there he balanced himself and carefully made his way across the remaining objects between him and the train cars.

  He reached out and got a grip on the rusted ladder of the Union Pacific storage container. He crawled to the door and pulled it open a couple of inches. He shined his flashlight inside and gasped. It was a tomb; full of the dead.

  He pulled himself up and tried to walk across but it was too slick with mud, ash, and human remains. He saw a train car that was used for hauling vehicles. The sides of that car looked like they’d have better grip for him to stand, but three other storage cars were in his way. He dropped down and crawled across the train cars as fast as he could. Each time he got to a door he peeked inside, but they were all the same. From what he could see something had been feasting on them. He hoped it was postmortem and not the cause of their demise.

  He finally reached the train car with the automobiles. He stood, carefully. He looked around as far as he could in these conditions. He strained his eyes to focus on things that the haze blurred. Finally, he saw the remnants of an old mobile home. It was further toward the left of where he’d started out and it was closer to the edge. It was also somewhat concealed by the hills of wreckage surrounding it.

  He planned to go check it out, but first, he decided to go back to talk it over with Caleb.

  As he walked back to the group, he noticed Maia had begun to stir. He started going over his findings with Caleb. At first, he spoke in a normal tone, but when Maia continued to move around, he spoke softer. It was too late though. She heard them, and she woke up. Tye was just about to tease her by saying good morning when she nearly jumped out of her skin. His eyes were fixed on her.

  She glanced around the area then, still in a daze, she yelled, “Wait! I know where we are!”

  After so much walking she was excited to see familiar surroundings. Tye helped her stand up, taking care not to put too much weight on her feet. She took a seat back in the chair they’d carried her in, and Junior handed her the map.

>   “Is this where you think we are?” he asked circling an area of the map with his finger.

  “I think so. Have we been following the edge of a lake? It's new. It’s where the old Buck Lodge used to be.”

  “Yeah,” Caleb said.

  “And was there an insurance billboard that said something about mayhem being everywhere?”

  “Yes,” echoed in unison. They remembered because they commented on the irony when they passed it.

  Tye couldn’t help but smile, but his joy was interrupted by the rain he felt falling. Once the rain started, you never knew what kind of storm was approaching. If it carried a lot of ash with it, then it rained down black making it impossible to see. She had a decision to make, quickly. She looked up at the men who saved her life, twice. She decided to go with her instinct. She had to trust them.

  “Okay we only have to go this way about fifteen minutes or so, and there is a shelter there with supplies,” she said, pointing in a slight northwesterly direction. “We’ll be safe there for the night.”

  “Well, what are y'all waiting for? Let’s go,” Tye said as Maia sat back down in the chair. They picked her up and took off in that direction, past the barge and train cars they’d almost made their shelter for the night.

  The rest of the crew followed in tandem. They traipsed through the heart of the woodlands until they were confident of where they were going.

  “It’s that slight clearing up ahead,” she said, pointing in the general direction, teeth nearly chattering once again from the wet and cold. “But we have to do something before we can go in there.”

  She motioned for the guys to put her down. She dug through her backpack and pulled out a spray bottle.

  “Okay, what I’m going to ask you will sound strange, but there is a method to my madness.” She removed the sprayer from the bottle and stretched her arm out to hand it to Caleb, “I need you, Tye, and Junior to pee in this bottle, please.”

  Sitting there looking up at them she wished more than anything that she had a camera because the fools just stood there gawking, eyebrows raised a notch with no blinking whatsoever. She was fairly certain Junior stopped breathing.

  “Helloooo,” she said, with her arm still stretched out holding the bottle.

  “You want us to what?” Caleb said laughing as he grabbed the bottle.

  Tye was beside himself. “Why do we have to pee in the bottle?” he asked, scratching his head. “I understand strange things are going down, but I’ve never had to give up urine unless a drug test was involved so an explanation would be great.”

  She had to admit it was entertaining “Well, aren’t you all the cutest things when you’re blushing.”

  Tye replied, “Oh, looks like you're feeling better." He turned to Caleb, "I guess I forgot to mention the mouth on her.”

  “I’m glad you’re having fun with this,” Caleb snapped back at her. “So, what’s it for?”

  “To get rid of the tracking dogs if they come this way,” she said pointing at herself and Sadie. “You don’t want the dogs showing up tonight, do you? A grown man’s urine sprayed over a female’s scent won’t really cover it up, but it will at least confuse the dogs. The three of you pee in the bottle, and then someone will spray it over our tracks into the shelter.”

  The lightbulbs were going off at that point as they attempted to regain their composure. Junior even came to. “I figured it was something like that,” Caleb said, unconvincingly, as he strutted off behind a tree do his part.

  Oh, how she loved the male brain. They were the most entertaining of people. Judging by the sounds of Sadie’s laugh she thought so too. Perhaps her favoritism was bias, though. After all, she grew up with three brothers, and she was a boy mom. Testosterone was something that was all too familiar to her.

  Back when they had a home life and pets, even their dog was male. Maybe that’s why she was so comfortable around these guys. They weren’t arrogant man-pigs or sissy boys. They were regular guys just like her people.

  With that taken care of, she pulled the petroleum jelly and a bag of activated charcoal out of her backpack and showed Sadie how to use it to cover her scent. She had researched dozens of methods of covering human scent from tracking dogs, and a friend of hers had given her many different tactics to use for evasion. After trying several, she believed the male urine, petroleum jelly, and activated charcoal worked best.

  Maia learned dogs are able to track because humans leave clues behind as they move. They emit scents through the loss of skin cells, hair, protein from breath, sweat and other bodily fluids, pheromones, and depending on who you ask, fear. The piece of information that helped her the most was offered to her by her friend, Danny. He told her the dog was the least of her worries. He really couldn’t be fooled. The tactics she used were chosen because they would cause the dog to give signals the trainer would find confusing. If the dog handler got confused, he would redirect the dog. Thus, buying her time to get further away.

  The petroleum jelly was smeared on all exposed skin to diminish the skin cells that fell. The activated charcoal was applied to the places that emptied the most odors to absorb most of it. The mixture of male urine gave the dogs more scents to decipher. So far, they’d been unable to locate her when she used these tactics in particular. The only time she was unable to cause the dog to give false signals was when her scent was the strongest; during menstruation. She made it a point to not be out during that time of the month.

  Once the guys contributed their dues, she put Junior in charge of spraying. Elex was given some sticks and shown how to cover their footprints. Tye decided to ditch the chair and carry her himself the rest of the way. They walked towards the clearing, in one single file line.

  When they reached the break in the trees, everyone paused. There was debris everywhere, and what appeared to be a large gazebo, two silos, a stable, a barn, and a rather large house directly in the center, most of it burned up.

  “Where is it?” Tye asked still looking around to see if he missed something.

  “It’s in the house,” she replied.

  The confused stares she received told her they didn't quite understand her.

  “That one?” Junior asked pointing in the general direction of the crispy Colonial.

  “Just go. I’ll show you."

  A few feet away from the house she told Tye to put her down since they couldn’t go through while he was carrying her. He did, but he held on to her waist and tried to keep as much weight off of her feet as he could.

  Caleb wasn’t sure about any of this. “Wait. This can’t be safe. This thing could collapse at any minute. The whole thing’s burnt to a crisp.”

  She looked right at him. “You asked me to trust you. I am...blindly,” she emphasized. “You need to trust me too. We reinforced the path to the storm shelter inside the house. It’s safe,” she said hopping toward the entrance.

  “Reinforced? With what? Burned wood?” He just wasn’t seeing any reinforcements amongst the rubble.

  “No, come on now, do I look dumb to you? We reinforced it with new wood then painted it black to blend in. That way if someone finds this place they’ll be less likely to attempt to explore because they’ll have the same thoughts you’re having." She reached down to get a grip on the corner of a piece of wood, “Grab this piece of wall and hold it up."

  They couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Pieces of the burned house had been glued or stapled to the thick piece of plywood to camouflage the entrance. It looked just like a portion of the wall had collapsed during the fire. Knowing what they were looking for now, they noticed that plus the hinges that held it together and made it easy to open and close. The hinges had leaves and other debris glued to it but when the entrance was opened the disguise shifted and made them noticeable.

  Inside 2x4s and 4x4s along with sheets of plywood were used to secure the path and entrance to a concrete structure in the center of what was once a magnificent Colonial home. It was all painted black to
make it look burned. They inspected the work with amazement. They didn’t say it out loud, but she could tell by their facial expressions they were impressed.

  Once everyone was inside, and the entrance was closed, it got dark. Maia fumbled in the pockets of her jacket to find her mini flashlight. She clicked it on and reached her hand out to Tye for balance then she hopped to the door of the shelter.

  “What is this place?” Sadie wondered out loud.

  “It’s called a storm shelter or a safe room. It was in the center of the house to protect them from things like hurricanes. We’ll be safe here. The storm can’t get to us. The bad guys can’t either,” she answered while smiling back at her.

  The precious girl, she’d hardly said two words since she met up with them. Maia's heart ached for what she was going through. Once they got settled in she was determined to hug her like a mama would. These babies needed love now more than ever.

  When they reached the door, she knocked in a pattern; like a password. Her traveling companions looked at each other in confusion, but she just looked at them with that stare a woman gives her kids when they’re misbehaving.

  “I’m gon set yo behind on fah-yuh jus like the rest of dis house if you don’t remove yoself in da next tree seconds,” boasted a gravelly voice from an obviously Cajun man on the other side of the door.

  “Charlie, if you do that you are literally going to give me the chew rouge!” she said egging him on. “Open the door.”

  Laughter ensued, and an older man with gray, unkempt hair opened the door to greet them.