by John Hunt
“Mason, can you hear me?” asked Theo.
He burbled and nodded.
Theo took me aside and whispered, “We can’t save him, Jim. Possibly if we had a field ambulance and an operating theatre and surgeons back in Whittier, but not like this. There’s no chance.”
He called out to the others who had followed us. “Let’s have some privacy here please.”
Then, as abruptly sober, they turned to go. “Anna, could you arrange for the bodies to be stripped of weapons and then set up two work parties. We need a big grave, and we need to hide the Humvees and trucks. Thanks.”
He regarded me solemnly. “Looks like he was just unlucky, Jim. It was a ricochet off the rock there. He paused, still giving me that grim look. “So, what do you want to do?”
I gaped, stuttered, “I…I don’t know.”
We knelt down by his head. “Mason, it’s going to be all right,” Theo said. “I’m just going to make you more comfortable.” With one hand, he pinched his nose and with the other covered his mouth. Mason struggled, kicked, and then it was over.
“But…”
“I’m sorry, Jim, this was the best way. He would only have suffered, and died anyway.” We got up, sadly.
By now the others were driving the trucks around the lake, up a track through a valley on the other side, as far they could go to cover them in rocks.
Andrew and Gill turned up. Andrew looked thoughtfully at the heap of bodies for a long time, and at the pile of weapons.
“Theo was right about you, Jim.” He held out his massive hand to shake. “You done well here. Wouldn’t have thought it…all those guys…a nasty bunch. Wouldn’t have liked to have tangled with them myself. Scum of the earth…and you being a kid and all…can’t quite believe it still. But any support you want, you have it from me.”
SIXTY
I wish I’d known then what I know now. We could have started off so much better, faster. We hadn’t thought things through well enough – the key things – how was power going to be distributed? How should it be exercised? How were we going to develop a strong enough social contract? What was the glue, other than survival and self-interest, that was going to bind us? How were we going to encourage rational thinking rather than leave everyone prey to fanaticism, bigotry and superstition?
It took years, decades, for all the implications of all this to sink through. And by the time we started to take the issues seriously, it was too late.
But it started off well enough. That evening, Theo stood up at the front addressing us all.
“We’ve lost Mason, and we all mourn with his family. Phil, the pastor in Hope community, will be conducting a service for him tomorrow. We will remember him. He gave his life for us. I don’t expect he’ll be the last.
For what it’s worth, I’ve spoken with my contact in the prison. I don’t think the criminals will be troubling us again this year. They don’t know why their group didn’t return, and it’s been a blow to them. We’ve managed to kill a bunch of the worst. They’re uncoordinated, divided. Some are afraid. But I suggest we build a permanent hide near the Seward Highway, where we can see the approaches, with a generator and landline between us, so we always have a few hours’ notice of threats.
Now, let’s wrap this up. We’ve got a lot to do here to get ready for next winter. We need to build up our livestock. Start sea fishing. Hunt moose. Get generators working. We can siphon off the petrol from the abandoned cars on the highway and there are a couple of petrol stations along there which I think are untouched. We can jury rig pumps and get that out before someone else does. Find enough oil for the boilers or convert them to wood burning. We need a larger communal kitchen and eating area. It’d be good to have the equivalent of a doctor’s surgery or hospital, and a school. We need to figure out what skills we have collectively, and how best to use them. We’ll have to agree some rules, and how to enforce them. How do we share food, let alone medicine, when we haven’t enough? There’ll be disputes, that’s inevitable, we need means of resolving them. We should prepare to defend ourselves next year, whether that’s from the criminals in Anchorage, from armed bands down in Kenai, from fundamentalists in Fairbanks, whoever. We should explore alliances with other communities around Prince William Sound – Valdez, Cordova.”
He paused for a moment, looking around the room, where everyone was hanging on his words.
“We’re all going to be on a steep learning curve here and should be open to getting some things wrong, to correction, to new ideas. We’ll have to agree a policy on who’s going to be in this community, what to do if people want to leave or if new people want to join. After last winter, I expect there’ll be many who don’t want to survive another one by themselves. What’s our criteria for joining going to be? Or do we just welcome everyone? Across the board? The whole question of private property’s going to be difficult – we’ve come from our own homes, with our own possessions, and now we have to share most of the things that are going to keep us alive…food, water, heating, the very roof over our heads. Even that isn’t ours, we’re here courtesy of others. There will have to be some allocation of jobs and recognition of them being well or poorly done – I think we’d all agree that there’s no point in trying to pay people salaries. Money has no value any longer, even if we could get hold of it. In some ways, we’ll be going back thousands of years, starting again.”
Theo glanced around the assembly and shrugged. “Any questions, so far?”
“Are we going to be free and equal? How’s it going to work?” Asked Makayla.
“I think that’s the minimum,” Theo replied. “But I don’t have the answers.”
“Jesus said something about giving each according to their need, from each according to their ability,” someone piped up.
“Actually, that was Karl Marx,” Louise replied. “And it’s not a bad idea.”
I raised a tentative hand. “How about we just agree to all work to the best of our abilities, and the committee decide who isn’t pulling their weight, and if they’re not, ask them to leave?”
Theo paused. “Thank you, Jim. We’ll have to talk this through in more depth, draw up some rules, a constitution. Donald here has started on it. Now, folks, as I said, I don’t pretend to have the answers, I’m as new to this as you are. And, like all of you, I have my sadness, my regrets, over what’s happened in the last year. I miss my home, I miss family. I’m sure that’s the case for all of us. It’s going to be a strange new world here.
“But I propose that for the meantime we elect the existing committee to continue running this place, with myself as leader. Or do you want something different? Do we want to do this by secret ballot or can we do it on a show of hands? Whatever you think.”
There was no immediate response, just some low level conversations going on, but then Louise stood up.
“Theo, I think I can speak for most here. We applaud your leadership, and that of the committee. The victory today was an inspiration to all of us. It showed we can survive, and even flourish, if we keep together, work together, and are committed to each other. We’re happy to go with the flow here. I think a vote of hands would be enough.”
“Thank you, Louise,” replied Theo. “Any objections, no? OK, a show of hands then. Who agrees that we keep the current arrangements?”
Every hand went up.
“Thank you, everyone, for your support. My first decision, then, is to appoint Jim here as my deputy.”
There were mutterings of disapproval.
“But he’s an outsider, Theo, we should have someone more representative. How about Andrew? He’s a fighter.”
“I’ve run it by him, and he’s fine with it.”
“But, Theo, he doesn’t look like he’s out of high school yet,” someone piped up.
A young, handsome looking man chipped in, “With all due respect, sir, all credit to Jim, but there are plenty of us who can shoot, and with more experience.”
“I understand that, b
ut I think he has the eye for it. And he has actually done it. Maybe there’s been luck, circumstance, sure, but who else here has done the same? And, yes, he is young, seventeen, actually, eighteen now, I think. But then I’m seventy-three, so you can take our average age as forty-five, which is more respectable.” He smiled. “And Alexander the Great was only twenty when he led the Greeks against the Persians and created the world’s greatest empire. Now, I’m not making any comparisons between Jim and him of course. More seriously, though, we’re in an unusual situation here. I think we need some youth at the top rather than all grey hairs. And the plan to ambush the criminals was Jim’s idea, he chose the spot, and led it. Twenty-nine of them killed, with one death on our side. This thing with the criminals isn’t over, and even when it is, we’re going to face similar challenges. It looks like the government’s abandoned us. Most of us here voted for them, but they’ve spurned us. We have to assume they’re buried away somewhere, looking after themselves, and it’s down to us to organize ourselves, provide for our families. Self-defense is going to have to be our priority. We can only create a genuine community here for the long term, where we can flourish, and bring our kids up in safety, if we have security. And it’s not physical strength that matters here, it’s tactics.”
A couple drifted out of the door, shaking their heads, but a chorus of approving noises began building around the room, startling some crows from the window ledge.
“Thank you all. The committee will start work tomorrow. For the moment, that’s enough of the serious side. Matthew has excelled himself this evening on the food front, Jeremy’s brought along a stock of birch wine, which he made this spring, Anna’s got a group together – with instruments – let’s have a party.”
SIXTY-ONE
I woke early the next morning with something of a hangover, that birch wine had a kick to it. As Jeremy had said, “plenty of trees around here, people, unlimited supply.” Though I’m not sure he’d started to worry yet about sugar supplies. Anyway, I didn’t remember much of the evening, other than Jessie dragging me away towards the end of it. I looked over at her, breathing quietly, long hair splayed over the pillow, and smiled at the memory of the night. Despite the mouse crawling around inside my skull, there was a surging contentment in my heart. The people yesterday had been so friendly, the bed was so comfortable, the world seemed a good place, never better.
Crawling out from the sheets without disturbing her, I went over to the window, overlooking the harbor. This high up, we had a great view. A small, lonely figure was clambering over some boats. It looked like Dad. I slipped on some clothes and ran down, taking the stairs in leaps.
No one else seemed to be around yet. The sun sparkled over the ruffled waters, the boats were bobbing gently in the stiff breeze, straining at their lines, like dogs on a leash, eager to be out after a year of inactivity. Halyards slapped against the masts, in the harbor entrance terns were diving for fish. The tide had been going out, leaving the smell of mud, seaweed and all the generally shoreline fishy things I couldn’t identify yet. Dad saw me coming, and waved me over.
“Hi, Jim. I was wondering which of these we could use best to get out to sea, do some more serious fishing. This motorsailer looks a good bet, wouldn’t have to use the engine, but it’s there in case it’s needed, and it starts fine with a crank handle. I’ll have a word with Nat.”
“Dad, thanks for standing up for me the other day like that, but I don’t think I can do this. All these people are so much older than me.”
“None of us think we can do anything much till we start doing it, Jim,” he replied. “When I was your age, I hadn’t thought about being married, and kids had never crossed my mind.”
“But then you went on and got a job? And met Mom? You had skills, you could look after yourself?”
He swung over the railing, and we walked along the pontoon, feeling it rocking gently under our feet. It wasn’t wide enough for two people to walk along separately, side by side, but he put his arm around me, so we could fit on it together. Out in the bay a sea lion poked his massive head out of the water and looked at us curiously.
“Nice boats still left here,” he said. “Reckon there were a hundred last year, before they went to Valdez. How many do you think got used more than a dozen times a year?”
“I don’t know, most of them?”
“About one in ten. The rest are just toys, sitting there, depreciating. And how many of those skippers really knew what they were doing?”
“Half of them?”
“About one in ten.”
“What’s your point, Dad?”
“I’m not saying this just because I’m your father, Jim. I can see your weaknesses, better than I can see my own, that’s usually the way of things. You don’t relate well to other people, though Jessie will help in that. But you have a strength in you, a focus, to do what needs to be done. That kind of detachment you have, it might not have helped you in the old life, but it’s going to in the new one. You’re one in a hundred, one in a thousand. And that’s what this community needs. And that’s what Bob saw in you. I’m ashamed to say that he saw it before I did. And Theo sees it in you as well, that’s why he wants you as his deputy.”
“But…” I stammered. “If you see all this, why don’t you be his deputy?”
“I can see it, but I can’t do it, Jim. I don’t have the skills to be a fighter, a leader. That’s what’s going to be needed around here. And other people can see that…it’s why you got the support. I just want you to promise me one thing – that you’ll never start to enjoy the killing.”
“I promise, Dad, it just feels necessary.”
“I’m not saying all this is going to be easy for you. You’ll have a lot on your plate. You’ll have to keep growing fast.”
We moved on a while, his arm still around me.
“I feel like we’ve just started to get to know each other over the last year. I’m glad we had it, you know…that life in Anchorage, seems like a parallel universe now. I don’t see those days coming back. Just look at these boats here – how would we build one of these now? You know how tough it is to make fiberglass, or any composite material? Let alone engines. How are we going to do it without factories and supply chains? These boats are going to be incredibly valuable, but how do we even patch them when they spring a leak?”
“Perhaps we’ll have to learn to build in wood,” I replied.
“Sure, but who’s going to teach us? There will’ve been a few traditional boat-builders around, but where are they now? And how would we make new sails? I don’t think you can grow flax or hemp this far north.”
“So what do we do, Dad?”
“We’re going to have to learn again from scratch. How to make things. And fast. Each year, each month, the stores of what we’ve living on, everything from tins of food to bullets – these are going to get scarcer. Especially knowledge. That’s what we’re really going to be short of.”
“We can do it, Dad. We’ll work on it together. You can teach us how to make things. We’ve got time.”
“Not as much as you think, Jim. There will be others like the convicts. It’ll be the tough bastards who’ve survived. And there’ll be people who won’t want to help. I don’t know what’s coming down the pike, but I reckon you’re going to have to face things that I can’t imagine.” He shook his head, waves lapped the sides of the pontoon as the wind strengthened, splashes wetting my feet.
“These are desperate times,” he continued. “We’re like a flock of sheep here, needing shepherds to protect us from the wolves. And you have it in you to be a shepherd.”
“But…what if the sheep don’t want a shepherd?”
“They will when they hear the wolves. Afterwards, who knows? But I don’t see that coming any time soon.”
“But Dad…”
“Religion got drummed out of me by your grandparents, son. You never really knew them, they were harsh people. But I had to learn stuff, and still remember
some of it. Psalm 23 –
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me;
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
That’s the kind of help we’re going to need here. People need to look up to something, someone, to help them get through.
It’s been a privilege watching you grow up this year. I’m getting too old anyway, to do what you can do, Jim.”
“Dad, c’mon, that’s rubbish.”
“I was diagnosed with cancer last year, before all this happened. Too much smoking when I was younger, I guess. I’ve no idea where I am with it now, but I’m not feeling great.”
SIXTY-TWO
My heart gave a flip. I looked at him, troubled. “I’ve been blind, I hadn’t realized. That’s why you’ve been coughing so much. Does…does Mom know?”
“It’s one reason why she didn’t want to leave Anchorage. You can’t get scans out here…but I don’t mind, really. I just want to see you and Bess as safe as can be.”
“How long have you known?”
“I started getting pains a couple of years ago, but the doctors took a while to find the cause.”
“Dad, how serious is it?”
“That’s what I don’t know, son. We’ll just have to see how it goes. It’s one reason why we had to go to the hospital, in Anchorage – we took all the morphine we could. Actually, I feel bad about that, I’ve already used more than my fair share.”
I felt as if the bottom of the world had dropped out. I couldn’t lose both Bob and Dad…so soon?
“I’m scared of all this, Dad.”
Dad took me by the shoulders. “Jim, I guess we’re all scared, underneath. That’s OK. But it doesn’t really matter, you know.”
There was little warmth in the sun yet, and now a cloud was crossing it. The wind was picking up, the flapping of the ropes against the masts sounding like a Greek chorus, echoing around the bay.