“Well now,” the man said in a gruff whisper, “I think you just decided to stay.” He looked them all up and down, his intent clear.
“No, we’re not.”
The man picked up a wine bottle and smashed it down, the bottom broke off, the wine spilling out, the jagged top half remained clutched in his filthy hand. He moved, stalking his prey. Tansy became angry; they’d been through too much to let some disgusting deranged dirty old man challenge them with a broken bottle of booze.
“Stay back,” she threatened, meaning business, and clutched her small knife in front of her, waving it back and forth in an attempt to slow his advance.
The man laughed at the pocketknife and continued toward them. His laugh deepened as his steps grew closer. A wild, crazed look was in his eyes, he raised the jagged bottle over his head, his hand covered in the red substance dripping down his sodden sleeve like blood. He advanced, his smile deepened and he licked his lips.
The man stopped suddenly, his eyes widening in surprise. Dropping the bottle he reached for his back, both hands clawing. He fell forward onto the floor leaving Tansy and the girls to flee backwards lest he land on them.
“I’m gettin’ kinda tired a savin’ you,” said an exasperated voice from just beyond the doorway.
Chapter 10
“Clint,” all four of them shrieked as they raced around the dead body to bombard the bedraggled man.
“Are you alright?” Tansy questioned.
“Where did you come from?” Emmy asked.
“How did you find us?” Shanie cried.
“Pick me up,” Michaela demanded, bouncing up and down in front of him, tugging at his pant legs.
Clint reached down and picked up Michaela then allowed the other three to embrace him, feeling a bit overwhelmed by their exuberance. Tansy, happy to see him, glanced behind searching for the others. When Cord and Randy didn’t appear, Clint told them his story. After Clint had saved Tansy and Michaela, he had helped Cord with Emmy until he had heard Randy’s cries for help. His night vision, always having been somewhat acute, vaguely made out Shanie’s silhouette struggling up the hillside on her way to relative safety and felt she would make it without his assistance. He watched, dismayed, as Randy then Cord, disappeared into the turbulent water.
Uncertain what to do next, Clint had been felled by a fast moving piece of hard debris and was knocked unconscious. When he regained his senses he was wet and freezing. Shivering, he searched the hillside, his movements warming his body, until he came across Tansy and the girls’ tracks. They were gone by the time he found the remains of their little, half-buried hole in the ground. He sought shelter from the tornado then lost track of them briefly as the storm demolished their trail by moving back over their hiding place.
He feared for their safety, realizing they were being followed by someone else finding a set of tracks only feet from the liquor store. It was possible the man was close by and saw them enter the store. Clint had hurried the last few feet, hearing the exchange of words. By Tansy’s tone, he knew she was ready for battle. Judging by the shoe size he knew it was neither Cord nor Randy, who he hadn’t seen since the flood. The only shoe prints he’d been able to locate had been Tansy’s and the girls. He at first traipsed his way downstream farther for a day until he wondered if his friends climbed to the other side. Clint had been swept so far he held no hopes of survival for his two dearest friends. Though they were powerful swimmers, the water had been too fast, the sides of the valley too slick to be able to grab a decent handhold.
Tansy placed a hand on his shoulder as Clint struggled with his emotions then continued his story.
There was absolutely no sign of them anywhere. Becoming entangled in floating debris was the only thing that saved Clint’s life, keeping him trapped above the water and not pulled under. He struck out sadly after the women once finding their imprints, not wanting to remain alone, certain of acceptance and a welcome. To his relief he was right, their enthusiasm at seeing him alive was genuine.
Clint handed Michaela back to Tansy then leaned down after disengaging himself from Emmy and Shanie to retrieve the hunting knife he had thrown into the man’s back. Wiping the blood off on the dead man’s trousers, Clint stuck it back into the sheath at his boot. Then stepping over the man, Clint browsed the racks and pulled down a bottle of cherry brandy. He uncapped it, tossed his head back and took a long drink. His eyes closed as he savored the taste continuing to swallow lazily with an exaggerated gulping motion.
“So jist how close are we?” Clint asked, after taking a breath, referring to the mines. He put the lid back on the bottle of brandy and began stuffing bottles into his numerous empty pockets. At the quiet look of concern on Tansy’s face he stopped.
“Don’t fret,” he said, he resumed stockpiling the alcohol. “I’m a happy drunk.”
“Well, bully for you,” she answered, still concerned. She didn’t want to replace a repugnant smaller man, with a decidedly bigger and stronger belligerent one.
“Really, I’m harmless,” Clint said.
Tansy raised her eyes and gave a noticeable glance toward the dead man on the floor. Looking sheepish, Clint stopped filling his pockets and coat with alcohol and splayed his hands wide.
“How ’bout I jist come back for this later?”
“Fine, but for now we need to find a place to spend the night. We won’t get there until tomorrow and night’s coming. Who knows how many more of these are around,” Tansy said, casting another anxious glance at their dead attacker.
Clint agreed. But as they roamed throughout town, trudging through stretches of deep snow, he was curious about what he could find, though most everything was buried. Now that the stress of catching up with the women was behind him, he fell into his more laid-back gamboling ways.
Without Cord directing him, Tansy found Clint more difficult to manage than Michaela. She gathered the girls and plowed ahead taking charge, leaving Clint to happily follow behind, protecting their rears, as he so gallantly put it.
Outside of town, as twilight gradually gave way to impending gloomy darkness, Tansy scanned the area. She found the remains of the foundation of an old farmhouse and looked around, kicking at the snow until her foot hit wood. She dropped to her knees and, using a pointed stick to aid her, dug around the wooden icy hatch which led into the cold ground.
Clint smashed the padlock and pulled back the door to reveal a root cellar. Stripping a piece of cloth off his worn undershirt, he wound it around a long piece of partially dried deadwood.
“Maybe you’d best keep back apace. I’ve been wearin’ this a long time and it might be a bit...potent,” Clint said, half in jest, half seriously. He lit a match pulled out of the hollow of his knife and set the fabric on fire. The flames licked hungrily for a moment then caught and Clint began to descend into the hole. When he gave the all clear, he handed Emmy the torch and plucked Michaela from Tansy’s arms and handed her to Shanie.
“Go on down now, while your mother and me get some wood.”
Sensing Clint had issues he needed to talk about, Tansy nodded in agreement and the girls beat a hasty retreat out of the cold wind and into the relative safety of the cellar. The two adults collected wood. They found a large old pot that held plants in the summer. The tiny greenish-white bulbs were still inside. Raising one to her nostrils and giving a tentative sniff, Tansy wondered if they were edible.
“No,” Clint answered her look, as if she had asked a question outright. “It’s lily-a-the-valley. It’s dangerous. But don’t worry; the root cellar looked as if it will keep the girls busy for a while. There was somethin’ on the shelves.”
Tansy stood awkwardly for a moment looking up at him; he was filthy, his hair and beard had mud in patches making him look like a decrepit hobo. His clothing had fared no better than her and her girls’, ripped and tattered, shredded in various places. His gloves were gone; his hands were red, chapped and calloused with a few tiny cuts laced with dried streaks of bl
ackened, caked blood. The laces on his worn boots were threading as were Tansy’s, and had been knotted back together clumsily several times, while small holes, and some not so small, showed the grey-black of his dirty socks.
“I wanted to thank you for saving Michaela and me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I looked for you...after. I couldn’t find anyone but my children.”
“I know. I saw your footprints, I followed ’em twice before I realized you was pacin’, or lookin’ for someone.”
“I want you to know I didn’t want for you, Cord or Randy to get hurt. Cord saved Emmy’s life. I’ll always be grateful for that as well.”
They gathered armloads of wood they tossed down into the cellar, making sure the girls knew to stay back. Working companionably for a while, Tansy told Clint the mine wasn’t too far. They’d reach it by late next afternoon, if all went well.
“What then?” Clint asked.
“We begin again, I guess. We make a new home. I can’t go back to my old one, or my old lifestyle. As you can see, I haven’t been to a salon for quite some time.” She held up a dirty strand of hair and looked at it with loathing.
“Yeah, you sure do look kinda bad, real rough.”
“Well, thanks very much,” Tansy snapped and marched toward their shelter, her face reddening in embarrassment.
“Well, what’d I say? I was only agreein’ with you. I thought women liked men who was agreeable.”
“Not that agreeable.”
Tansy was pleasantly engulfed in warmth as she sat down, Shanie handed her a jar full of preserved pickles. She fished out a large one and munched noisily. Clint followed, pulling the door into place then propping a rock under it to allow smoke to escape. He sat, pulling Michaela into his lap. Her tiny hand clutched a half-eaten pickle that dripped onto his worn jeans. After glancing from Clint’s saddened expression to her mother’s annoyed look, Shanie offered Clint a teasing smile.
“Stuck your foot in your mouth again?”
Looking sullen, Clint nodded in the affirmative and refused the preserved peaches Emmy opened. With both girls casting her reprimanding looks and Clint looking so remorseful, Tansy relented and took pity on him.
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and can find a way to make a place to wash again. I mean, we were lucky you found us,” Tansy said, handing him the pickle jar. Clint took it from her, suddenly beaming from ear to ear.
“Well sure, I’m all for that. You ladies look and smell a real whole lot better when cleaned up good and nice.” Clint, with his double-edged comments, didn’t notice how both Emmy and Shanie regarded him with daggers. Looking at Tansy, who was silently shaking her head, they decided to let it go.
Clint sat happily slurping peach juice, while alternately munching on pickles. A slow smile spread across Tansy’s face as she gazed at him and decided she was right. They were lucky he found them. Hopefully their luck would continue.
* * * *
The trek to the mine consisted of following a snowy narrow dirt road. They were deeply into the darkened forest, the barest shimmers of light peeking lazily through the giant tree tops. They began to travel a snowy pathway, their feet dragging; Tansy hefted Michaela to her hip. Although the numerous trees looked largely untouched there were a considerable amount of tree branches littering the forest floor like refuse creating an eerie tree graveyard of barren limbs.
The rocks were becoming more prominent as they walked, as well as steep sudden ditches and deep ravines, and they took care not to slip and fall. Finally, Tansy stopped; she set Michaela onto her wobbly feet. Clint came up beside her. Eyes wide, they ventured within, gazing into the encompassing silence. The mines looked like deep caves. There were two openings that joined to make a large room once you entered. The ceiling was about fifteen feet high; the large area went back about fifty feet into the solid rock that dripped in places. It was beautiful to look at; the solid rock contained lively colors as the different types of rock joined and formed patterns.
Tansy explained there were a few smaller tunnels tucked inside the mine that went deeper into the hillside. It was dark and damp in some places, well lit and dry in others. A few of the tunnels held icy puddles of water of various sizes. The floor was a mixture of hard dirt, clay and rock. The ground dropped down substantially once you left the main area, sloping gradually into another larger open area at the bottom. That space was approximately sixty by seventy feet with the ceiling almost sixty feet high buried well beneath the many tons of rock overhead. A variety of different-sized rocks and boulders were scattered throughout the large darkened area.
There were two more places to enter or exit. One nearer to the bottom and one directly at the bottom of the larger room below. They both led outside, except the slightly smaller one was almost completely covered with mounds of icy snow. The openings were both roughly five to seven feet high and four to six feet wide.
“Mommy, I don’t like it here,” Michaela announced in a large whisper, hiding her face against the side of Clint’s leg.
The space was large; it would be hard to defend against an animal attack. There would be drafts and it would be hard to heat. Yet there was Tansy, looking for all the world like it was paradise. Clint reached down for Michaela and, securing her into the crook of his arm he cast Tansy a skeptical look.
Refusing to have her hopes shattered after such a long grueling trek and all their terrible losses, Tansy straightened her shoulders and put on her best defiant look. Clint knew that look and waited for her to explode. He didn’t have to wait long—he never did.
“Now listen here. We’re going to build a fire, a few in fact. We’re going to make beds, raid root cellars and live, damn it, or so help me I’ll make you wish you weren’t living.” The last was threatened through clenched teeth and quietly but with force. She stood with her hands balled into fists at her sides daring them to question her.
“Beds?” Clint asked casually, hoping to defuse her anger. “I can make beds now that we’re stayin’ and all.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Tansy said.
“I’m cold,” Michaela said with an audible pout in her tone.
“No pouting,” her mother admonished, taking a second to brandish a warning scowl.
Michaela stopped pursing her tiny bluish cold lips and looked up, eyes full of sorrow, at Clint. He kissed her forehead and tweaked her red nose playfully then tickled under her chin until she giggled. Her small arms wrapping around his neck, she settled her face against his warmth, grateful their separation was over. She’d missed him. The child had been fearful he vanished like the man whose memory occasionally tugged at her.
“Well, button,” Clint said with determination. “We’d best get busy.”
They did.
Emmy and Shanie brought in armloads of wood for fires. They decided on three large ones, spaced about in a triangular pattern with an area for comfort. They’d keep them all burning throughout the night, not only for warmth, but for security from animals. Once lit, the fires offered a great deal of light and peace of mind.
Clint had taken off after fashioning a small bed for Michaela to keep her up off the cold floor. Cuddling the child on his chest would’ve been fine but not practical. Clint, being the only man, felt responsible for the safety of the others. This was met with anger from Tansy and the girls. They insisted they survived without him in the beginning and after the flood. They were more than capable of taking turns on a watch. It was decided Clint would take first watch that night, Tansy second and Emmy and Shanie last. They were all given stern orders to wake Clint in case of any noise.
Tansy sat beside Michaela’s bed having coaxed the child into taking a nap. Clint had taken four even sturdy branches and made them into posts about two and a half feet high. He sharpened all four at one end. After burying two of them a half foot into the ground, he tied the tops together with the ripped pieces of curtain Tansy saved from the last house. Spacing out a small distance, he lined up two more
equal-length sturdy branches. Once the other two poles were dug into the ground, he tied the tops together. Once finished, he secured the two longer poles midway up the embedded poles, up off the ground. He took about eight smaller sturdy sticks and tied them across width wise. Clint then put boughs of white pine and spruce across the width-wise sticks and covered it all with one of his jackets. Clint borrowed the bola from Tansy and headed out to find some small game.
Emmy and Shanie continued to bring in armloads of sticks and small logs, making a large pile near the fires but not close enough for them to catch. They’d need a great deal of fuel to burn through the night without having to leave the safety of the mine. Tansy made her own makeshift racks for drying clothes; she intended on washing every article of clothing they owned now that they were here, which she felt wouldn’t be difficult. All they had left was the tattered clothes on their backs.
Because washing had been so infrequent on their long walk, she had a few small bars of soap she’d stuck in her pockets and the girls’ before the flood. Tansy reasoned at the time at least the unused bar of soap carried on their persons aided in the battle against the terrible odor.
Tansy found four good-sized rocks and, after scouring the pot they found at the last cellar with sand found in the mine, she soon had a pot of water boiling and her other pot set aside filled with snow for later use. Tansy found if she made a fire small enough, she could arrange the rocks in a position to hold the pot just above the flames, to keep from scorching the pan. She also knew, from reading books, she could clean smaller rocks and once heated drop them into the water to sizzle, making the water boil. Then she could remove them and drop in more, though this proved a bit tricky without the aid of tongs. Fishing them out with small shaved sticks required some skill. Tansy never had any use for chopsticks, and her efforts proved to be clumsy while fishing for the small stones, often leaving her fingers burnt.
Once the water had been set to boil, Tansy engrossed herself in the book on plants. She was surprised to see you could boil many needles for teas and tried after finding a spruce. The book also mentioned cooking and eating inner bark but it didn’t mention how long to cook it. She shrugged, it wouldn’t be the first time her cooking had been a disaster and, she thought ruefully, it definitely wouldn’t be her last. Not if she was going to be cooking with foreign food. She laughed at that thought, the food may be all around but it was definitely foreign to her taste.
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