by Pamela Davis
"Who's Max?"
"Just a guy who's living here with us. He has a puppy named Ruby that he talks to. 'Course, Ruby doesn't know much 'cause she's still a baby kind of."
"Yeah, I've noticed that with the colts--they think like kids and don't know so much."
"You know your skin is almost the same color of skin as Max has."
Janine looked startled. "He's African-American?"
Sam shrugged. "I don't know. Uncle Nathan just came from Africa and his skin isn't that color, not like yours and Max's. Uncle Nathan just has a good tan like I get in the summertime. But Max says his skin is that pretty brown color all the time. I told him I wanted to have skin like his, but he says I can't."
Janine laughed. "No, you can't, but you're still very pretty."
Sam smiled and called out, "Daddy, are you going to stand there forever?"
She heard her father say, "What the--" Then, he walked around to stand in front of them.
"Dad, Janine says I'm pretty."
"Well, she's right, you are. You both are very pretty. But maybe you'd like to come in now and find a place for Janine to sleep?"
Janine stood up quickly. "Oh, no, that's all right. I can sleep out here with the horses, Mister, Mister--"
"Samuels. Mr. Samuels. But I think you can call me John."
"Oh, I don't know, Mr. Samuels. This is your place and I--"
Sam shushed her. "Just call him whatever you want. And this is your place now too. Isn't that why you brought all the horses? To live here?"
Janine's hands fluttered as she struggled to reply. "I don't know. It's all just been about getting here--we never thought much about what comes next, the horses and me, I mean."
"She'll probably just be in charge of the horses, won't she, Dad?" Sam asked.
"We can sort out all of that tomorrow, but yes, I'd say she's certainly in charge of these horses."
"Oh, no! I'm just a stable hand and--"
John asked, "Didn't you get them all the way here from Kentucky? That's what Lisanne and Andy say."
"Well, yes, but, they have leaders, the horses do, I mean. They don't need me to be in charge of them or anything."
"But you can hear them, communicate with them?" John persisted.
"Well, sure, but that doesn't mean--"
"What it means for now is that you can talk to them and we can't," John replied, not even glancing at his daughter, who he was sure could talk very well to horses. "So that means we'll need to rely on you when it comes to what they need, what we can do with them, all of that."
"Oh, well, sure, I mean, whatever you need me to do."
John smiled at her, thinking this slight young teenager had accomplished more than most adults could in the same situation. Her very curly, almost frizzy, hair floated down to her shoulders and framed a lovely heart-shaped face. Delicate features and big brown eyes created a picture of innocence, yet John thought he could see in her eyes something older and more adult. But when she spoke of the horses, her eyes shone with an unmistakable love.
"Janine, how would you like to sleep in Sam's room tonight?"
"Really, Dad?" Sam squealed with delight.
Janine nodded shyly, and then whistled. A large golden stallion trotted up to her, nudging her shoulder with his big head. Janine put an arm around his neck and leaned against him with her eyes closed for a moment. Then opening her eyes, she asked, "Is Sam right? These fields around here are okay for them to use for tonight? We don't want to trample any crops or anything."
"Yes," John replied, grateful they'd asked. "Anything across the road is fine. We just bought that land and haven't done anything with it yet."
"Okay," Janine replied, closing her eyes briefly again. Then the horse nudged her again, turned and ran off back to the herd.
"That is just so cool that they come right up to you like that," Sam said enviously. "They don't know me yet, so they stay away even when I talk to them--oops!" She looked up at her father.
"I know, Sam. I know you can talk to the horses to the cats and the dogs to all of them. And it's okay with me, so don't worry about it."
He noticed the look of relief on her face and wondered just how much she kept from him. Kneeling down in front of her, he took her hands and said, "Listen, you can tell me stuff, okay? I'm not going to get scared of you. You're my little girl and you always will be. I'll always love you, so don't even think of forgetting that! You're probably right that you shouldn't tell everyone everything you can do right now, but you can tell Mom and me, okay?"
Sam reached out to him and hugged him fiercely. Watching, Janine wondered what it would have been like to have a father like that. She was glad for Sam. And now she had horses for herself, so life wasn't so bad.
"Hey," she said, taking Sam's hand as John stood up, "how about you show me your room? And maybe a shower? It's been ages since I've slept in a bed and had a shower!"
"You do kind of smell like horses!" Sam said, laughing.
"Samantha!" John objected.
"It's okay, Mr. Samuels. I can live with smelling like horses." Janine laughed too. "But I'd love to not smell like them for one night after all this traveling!"
"One shower and one bed coming right up," John said as he marched them across the lawn to the suddenly very full house.
Salmon Creek, Idaho
"Oh, sure there were people who were starting to wonder. Wonderin' if humans would survive. If the animals would end up runnin' the place. Some of us wondered if our safe zones were really all that safe. And some few of us noticed nobody dreamed of any future 'cept ones with disasters in 'em. Was it the end of everything? Were we doomed? Some folks couldn't think much on any of it. They just went from one thing to the next and were so darned busy they didn't have time to worry. Sure they were scared. Weren't we all scared? 'Course we were. But we weren't goin' to just lie down and die. We figured we were gettin' dreams and hearing from the animals to keep us alive...that there was some danged reason. Maybe we were starting to know that there was not gonna be some 'rescue,' something we would do and everything would go back to the way it was before. The world, the whole big world, was not going to be the same anymore. It was changin'--changin' fast.
Within Gaia Mind
Evolution. Change. So simple. So profound. Of course there is sense to it all. It is not random. It is not chaos. There are patterns within patterns. Connections. From the tiniest particle to the vastness of space, we are all connected. Humans...will they see it? Will they believe it? The end of the world...the beginning of the world...timeless patterns.
Chapter 10
The Samuels' House
Jessica woke to the smell of bacon frying and the scent of dark roast coffee wafting up the stairs, tantalizing her taste buds and making her stomach growl. Turning over, she saw John was still asleep, and as she shook him awake, she woke up enough to wonder just who was in her kitchen cooking breakfast. John opened one eye and said groggily, "You made breakfast, hon?"
"Nope, but it smells good. Guess we'd better get down there and see what's up."
John rolled onto his side and used one arm across her abdomen to pin Jessica to the bed. "Now, let's just think about this for a minute," he said, feeling more awake as he explored Jessica's body through the silky men's pajama top she was wearing.
"John, we have a house full of people," Jessica began, only to catch her breath in a short gasp as his fingers found more interesting places to wander. "Okay, maybe, but--" she said, panting a little, "you did lock the door last night, right?"
"I'm positive," he said softly against the skin below her navel. "Just try not to make too much noise, hon," he said teasingly.
"Oooh, you brute, you cad," Jessica said breathlessly as his kisses went lower and lower, "doing this to me, while we have, ahhh, people all around, hmmm, waiting for us probably, ohhh!" She bit her lip and tried to keep her mouth shut as John expertly helped her to wake up fully in a haze of luscious sensations.
"John? Jessica?" A
voice called through the door. "Breakfast is on!"
John's arm snaked up from under the covers to clamp a hand over Jessica's mouth as moans came from deep in her throat.
"Be right there, Abby," John called out. "You all go ahead and start without us."
"Okay, dear." He heard and waited for the footsteps to fade away.
As he removed his hand from Jessica's mouth, head poking up from beneath the sheets, he proposed gravely, "So maybe we should get down there--"
"Don't you dare stop now, John Samuels!"
He laughed against her, and she shuddered deliciously. We may be facing the end of the world we know, she thought fleetingly, but this man could make me forget it all. And then all coherent thought fled.
Mrs. Philpott's House
Perceval watched Mrs. Philpott puttering around the kitchen, pouring her favorite cereal, Product 19, into a white glass bowl, slicing a banana to top it off, and covering all with two percent milk. She poured some milk in Perceval's bowl, too, and he sighed, thinking of the carton of cream he knew was in the back on the top shelf of the fridge. Mrs. Philpott had ideas about how much cream was healthy for him to drink. Perceval felt all rules like that should really be abandoned at this point in time, seeing as how none of them knew if they would survive one day to the next.
But then, he thought, Mrs. Philpott was currently in planning mode, thinking constantly about the future. She was trying to think of everything she could to give this community an edge, to insure their survival. So healthy eating made more sense to her than to him. Yes, Perceval thought, I am quite fatalistic, perhaps even pessimistic. I just don't believe humans can pull it off. Or even if they should.
If he were positive that every human would end up like Sam, then yes, he could whole-heartedly support the idea of human survival. But that wasn't going to be the case. There were going to be all sorts of problem humans out there in the world still and perhaps even in this community. He lapped at his milk and pondered the incredible stupidity, viciousness and short-sightedness of many humans.
"So, Perceval, how are you today?" Mrs. Philpott said brightly.
Perceval growled at her.
"Oh, don't be such a grouch! You should be happy today--didn't you tell me last night that all the travelers we were expecting made it to John and Jessica's?" She chuckled. That big house was filled to bursting today, and she knew she'd have to bring some of them home with her. But she'd escaped last night to have one final evening to herself, alone in her own home. That would change today.
She pulled out her lists and jotted things down. Find a place for the lab. That was a must-have item, a lab to create medicines. If they could find the right doctor's office, she mused, then some problems would be solved. The problem was that there was only a small hospital in Cape Fair. The question was whether or not any of the town's doctors would be staying in Cape Fair.
Farming. Planting. This was the most urgent priority. If they didn't get crops in on time, and according to weather and agricultural zoning maps she'd checked, the planting season started in the next week or so--if they didn't get things planted, they'd most likely not have enough food. Although, from what she'd heard from the cat, Nathan and Alex had brought a truckload of canned goods with them. Still, it was important to plan for the future. And this area had always been known to be good for tomato farming. She remembered reading a history of Cape Fair and being surprised that tomatoes were a popular crop back when the town was first settled. Of course, they probably wouldn't be able to keep the tomato packing plant running, but they could damn well plant plenty of tomatoes.
Shelter. Harmony had started keeping track of empty houses. There weren't too many yet, but enough that they could probably settle some of the newcomers in them to give John and Jessica some breathing room. Which meant they still had to deal with real estate agents and banks because the infrastructure of the town was still functioning...hmm. Maybe they should wait a couple weeks until things fell apart more before taking over abandoned homes. Oh God, she thought suddenly. Here I am suggesting we wait until things get worse for people, just to make it easier for us! She shook her head, irritated with herself.
Taking off her wire-rimmed glasses, she rubbed her eyes and wondered if it was possible to do this sort of planning without becoming calloused to the events shaking the world right now. She slowly realized she was twirling her glasses around and around...glasses! Did we put an optometrist, an eye doctor of any sort on the list of desired professional skills? What if her glasses broke? She couldn't read without them. Grimly, she reached for the phone and made an appointment in Branson to get her eyes checked. She'd ask for three pairs to be made. Just to be safe. And she'd check with everyone in their group--who knew if any of them wore contacts?
The Samuels' House
"So who do we thank for making this huge breakfast?" Alex asked, scooping up more scrambled eggs, yummy cheddar cheese melted within, onto her plate and grabbing another piece of bacon.
"I think I heard my mom--that's Abby, the one over there," Nathan said, pointing to a short, slightly rounded bustling woman in the kitchen. "She said she helped, but Gracie--that's her over there, John's mother--she's the one who took over the kitchen this morning. Pretty good cook." He stuffed another large forkful of fried potatoes and onions into his mouth.
Alex watched the pretty older woman wearing an apron as she pulled another tray of biscuits from the oven. She didn't look like she'd been slaving away in a kitchen since early morning. Her short, stylish, frosted hair was perfectly in place and her makeup, Alex observed, was really excellently done. She even had on jewelry to match the pantsuit she was wearing! Looks more like a sophisticated ladies-who-lunch type, not one who'd get her hands messy in flour and butter, Alex thought. At that moment, Gracie turned and saw Alex watching her. She flashed her an intense, brief smile, one that showed up in her eyes and not just on her face. Alex said to Nathan, "Well, she sure doesn't look like the type to be a good cook, but this food is great!"
Rachel, sitting next to Alex, had a bemused expression on her face. She offered, "Yes, that's Mother, all right. You just never know with her." Then as Alex looked at her quizzically, she continued, "She's my mother, and to tell you the truth, I'm as surprised as you are that she's in there cooking for all these people. Considering she's had a cook in her home for the past twenty years, I never even knew she could boil water!"
"Well, she looks happy doing it," Alex replied.
"Yes, but what is she up to, I wonder," Rachel asked, a slight frown on her face. "She's been really quiet, too quiet, about all that we've learned since we got here. I just don't get it. I thought she'd be flipping out by now!"
As John and Jessica entered the room crowded with people, some at the large table and some eating at the counter, John did a double-take when he saw his mother at the stove. He looked a question at Rachel, and she just shrugged. "Don't ask me," she mouthed the words to him.
He spooned food onto his plate and heard Clay asking, "So what's the plan for today?"
Jessica began, "I wonder where Mrs. Philpott is, I told her to come over for--" Then she stopped as Mrs. Philpott appeared through the back door.
"Yes, I'm here," she said, holding the door open for Perceval and carrying a laptop. "Oh my, you have quite a crowd, don't you?"
Jessica half-frowned, half-smiled, and accused, "You knew they'd all show up last night, didn't you?"
"Well, yes, dear, of course I knew, with Perceval and the little talk I'd had with--well, yes, I knew," she replied, a bit flustered.
Jessica laughed and said, "Everybody who doesn't already know her, meet Mrs. Philpott and Perceval the cat. Our resident scientist--Mrs. Philpott, and one of our leaders--Perceval."
Various calls of "hello" and "nice to meet you" could be heard with Abby's voice floating over them, "Did she say our leader was a cat?"
While Mrs. Philpott set up the laptop for Perceval on a table in the entrance to the den, Janine walked into the kitche
n area. Everyone stopped talking for a minute, staring at the beautiful, slight young girl standing before them, and Andy said, "Wow, Janine, you really cleaned up good!"
Lisanne scowled at him, saying, "Andy! Don't embarrass her--but, Janine, you look great!"
Janine tucked her head at the compliment and almost ran from the room, but Jessica grabbed her elbow and brought her forward. "This is Janine, the last of you to arrive late last night with lots of horses. We were letting her and Samantha sleep in. I guess Sam is coming down soon?"
Janine looked uncertain. "I don't know. She was still asleep when I came down. She was tossing and turning last night, and woke up with a dream...."
Everyone looked surprised at that. Even Perceval's ears pricked forward and he stood at attention.
John looked around the room, and then asked, "Did anyone else have a dream last night? You know the ones, I mean, about a disaster?"
Negative headshakes all around. John inquired, "Janine, did she say anything about it?"
"No. I woke up because Harry barked once and was kind of whining. Then he jumped up on the bed with Sam and they both settled back down. So maybe it wasn't that kind of dream."
"Maybe it was just a repeat of the flood dream," Mrs. Philpott offered.
John took a deep breath and let it out. "Well, whatever it was, let's not all bug Sam about it. If there was anything we need to know in the dream, Sam will tell us, but I don't want anyone questioning her."
They all nodded. "Sure." "Okay." "No problem."
"Well," began Mrs. Philpott, "I'm glad you all made it here without injury."
Lisanne interrupted. "I got injured. A tree attacked me."
"What?" Rachel demanded. "Attacked you?"
"Lisanne," Andy said in a long-suffering voice. "You know that branch just came down off the tree due to lightning and it fell on you--it didn't attack you!"
"Whatever," she replied. "I still got injured."
He sighed.
Mrs. Philpott looked concerned. "This is worrisome because of what I was thinking last night. Lisanne--when was your last tetanus shot?"