When they went downstairs for breakfast, Andy was fussing in the kitchen, banging things with the cumbersome splint on his left leg. “Dadgum it,” he half cursed. “I hate this thing.”
“He won’t sit down and let us do it,” Amy said. Her sister nodded.
Susie came into the kitchen and put her hand on Andy’s arm. “Come and sit down. Let them do their job. I keep telling you not to try to do things with that leg. Jock said you need to keep off it. That splint isn’t quite as effective as a regular cast, but the one that will fit you is on Howard.”
Andy frowned at his wife, but took a seat, out of the way. The sisters went on with the breakfast preparations. Mattie was sick in bed with a bad cold. “I wish I could go with you,” he groused. It’s my job to be doing things like this. Not you and Mrs. Jackson.”
“Not when you’re hurt, Andrew,” Percy said, pouring them both cups of tea. The coffee that was left was kept for special occasions. There were four coffee plants in one of the greenhouses, but Percy wasn’t sure they’d produce. Even if they did, they wouldn’t provide much coffee. But some. Eventually.
“You’ve worked hard enough, and will again. You can monitor the radios, just as you’ve been doing. Each person has to do what he or she is capable of doing. You can do the radios and keep things on an even keel around here. And keep an eye on the other Dr. Bluhm. Dr. Bluhm has been saying she’s doing too much, too.”
“When are you going to start calling us Jock and Melissa?” Melissa asked. She elbowed Jock just a little. “What have you been telling them? I just realized that everyone has been trying all of a sudden to get me to take it easy.”
“Well, it’s your first child, and you’ve had some problems already.”
“I’ve got the second best doctor in the state attending me. I’m fine and I will be fine, if Junior here ever decides to take a break from trying to kick my insides to the outside.” Melissa’s hands cupped her belly. It was February and she was almost eight months along. She was short and slender. Jock was tall and rangy. Apparently the baby was going to take after its father.
After a quick breakfast Sara, Susie, Jock, and Percy headed for the equipment barn through the tunnels. The additional berms had all been removed before the worst of the freezing weather had hit. Suzie fired up the Bobcat 5600T Utility Vehicle. She ran it over and connected the snow blower for it. Percy and Jock were raising the barn door to get out the vehicles.
Susie used the Bobcat to clear the accumulation of snow near the doors and headed toward the animal barn doors. Percy and Sara climbed into their respective Unimogs. The snow blowers for them were already attached. The box beds were installed the night before. The plows had been on for days. The two headed out of the barn, one blowing snow one way, the other, the other way.
It took only a few minutes to get the three feet of accumulation cleared from the area between the various barns. The rest of the crew would work on moving the fifteen foot high windrows of blown snow that resulted from the multiple snow blower passes away from the barns later. Right now they wanted to get the day’s delivery to town. They were only making two runs a week now and people were waiting on the food.
Henry pulled the shuttle bus out of the equipment barn and followed the two Unimogs, now clearing the driveway toward the open gates. Percy took the lead and Sara dropped behind him, offset to clear an almost doublewide road. They turned toward Doc’s first, and cleared the road to his place and his drive while Henry waited in the shuttle bus for them to return.
It didn’t take long. Doc would be able to get out now if he needed to in Andy’s Jimmy he’d started using when his old Dodge Power Wagon blew an engine. The engine was being replaced, but it would be spring before it was done.
The piles on either side of the road stood close to twenty feet high. The actual snow depth was over ten, but each of the last few trips to town the road had needed clearing. Not much of the snow blown to the sides of the road had melted.
Percy slowed appreciably when they came to the stream. The bridge, damaged some during the quakes, had become detached at one end and half fallen into the stream. Percy had moved a large culvert from the county maintenance shed and installed it in the stream. They filled over it and packed the fill down using the Unimogs and the Bobcats. A layer of compacted gravel completed the roadbed. The culvert was big enough around, but it was only twelve feet long. Not much margin of error when crossing the stream.
Percy eased onto the new stretch of road and cleared the single lane. He pulled back onto the highway on the other side, stepped out of the truck, and watched Sara cross the culvert. She did it easily and waved to him. She passed him and took up the lead position. Henry followed sedately behind, his passengers napping. Another crew would be coming back with him to work the labor hours with which they bought food, fuel, and firewood. Not a one begrudged Percy the work.
Reports coming in on the radio indicated that, as they had been at Christmas, their little community was thriving in comparison to others in the state. Down south it was better, but there was no guarantee it would continue to be so. Even the areas that weren’t under the waters of the new, much larger Gulf of Mexico.
Much of the crowd at the school didn’t really think it was so great. With the heavy snow accumulation, Steven’s store had been abandoned, as had the hardware store. Everything centered on the school.
The main entrance of the school had been cleared with shovels, and there were the signs of a couple of paths leading somewhere. Percy and Sara cleared the same large area cleared on the last trip.
People were waiting for the food delivery. Those scheduled to work the next few days eagerly helped unload the food and take it to the kitchen. Steven would distribute it from there. He, like several others that had remained fairly independent, had moved his family to the school when it became difficult to maintain heat in their own homes.
“Hi, Tom,” Percy said. He noted that the Mayor was beginning to look haggard. The harsh weather was telling on his health. “What’s the word today?”
“Fair, at best,” Tom replied. “It’s a struggle. Thank God for your help. Most of us never would have made it through without you. The reports from the feds and the state are indicating that the weather should be breaking in another two to three weeks.
“Still not much chance of aid. We’re going to have to plan better for next winter. Or move south. That discussion starts every few days. I’m beginning to believe it may be a viable option. People are dying here, and I can’t do anything to stop it.”
“Tom, you’re doing everything you can. Some of the people that have died just made bad choices. Estelle and Dwayne never should have tried to go back to their place after Christmas. It was too cold and snowy. And young Dale… Janice would have preferred to see him a few days after her birthday, rather than see him make the attempt to deliver her birthday present in the middle of a blizzard. It’s tragic, but he made the choice to walk to the farm. It wasn’t your fault.
“This is still a nation of individual freedom. We can’t deny people the right to make stupid decisions. At least, not unless the decision will affect other people. Then there is some justification. Like when you prevented Jeb from storing fuel in his family’s area here in the school. There would have been a fire, eventually. I know he blames you for the fact that the container was overturned and the fuel lost, but you still made the right decision.”
“That man is upset about something, every day. I wonder sometimes if I object to moving the town south next spring, just because Jeb and Abigail are for it. And Wilkins. The three of them are still coming up with plans to try to get you ousted from the estate. Now, if just them, and a couple more I could name, would head south on their own, I’d be all for it. They’re a constant thorn in the operation here.
“I mean, everyone is entitled to an opinion. The things we’ve done here have been group decisions, but they are always so negative. It just really gets me down.”
“Tom, you’re a good guy. The o
ffer to have you come out to the estate and stay still goes,” Percy said.
“I can’t leave these people,” Tom said slowly, looking around the auditorium where they were standing. Fortunately, unlike most such structures, the school’s auditorium was an arched construction building. Basically a large Quonset hut. It took the snow load with no problem. The rest of the school was much the same. A large asterisk of Quonsets with dormer windows in the single floor sections.
“Not,” Tom continued, looking back at Percy, “any more than you cannot help where you can. You don’t have to be supporting this town with your resources.”
“You know I’m doing just fine. I’ve pretty much got all the original value of gold and silver back in trade that I put up to help get things started. People had a little here and a little there. And when Alfonse set up his little assay, refinery, and mint operation to turn jewelry and other things with precious metal into coins, a lot more came out of the woodwork. There is a lot of gold and silver in things that I had no clue. Alfonse has been able to extract it for people and put it into useable form.
“For a fee,” they both said together. It was a catch phrase now, heard often during discussion of bartering, trading, and requests for services.
“I know. But you really don’t have to be doing all of what you do. You could sit back and live comfortably, supporting yourself for the rest of your lives at the estate, without all the hassles and work.”
“It’s just not in me,” Percy replied. “I’ve worked all my life to get where I am. It didn’t turn out the way I imagined, even with all the planning I did for such things. It is essentially what I set out to do, in the event of an emergency. Have what was needed to get by and help others if I could. I guess I never really believed it myself, that things would happen the way they did. I’m just glad I’d made the preparations I did. And I’ve made a good living in the process.”
“A lot of people are grateful you did. Even some that used to make fun of you for your strange ways. And that equipment you bought. Who ever heard of farming with trucks and industrial equipment but you? And keeping working teams to actually farm with, not just have to march in parades, in the day and age of mechanized farming. Just you. I haven’t really said it in a while, but thanks, Percy, for all you’ve done.”
“Come on, Tom. You don’t need to say that. I do what I do because I want to do it. It’s an ego thing I guess. I like being prepared. I like having my toys. I never really needed all those six wheel versions of my vehicles. I just like them. They work great in these conditions, sure, but four wheel drives would be almost as good.”
“Maybe,” Tom said, “But if things ever get back to normal enough to allow me to obtain some of the same things you have, I’m going to. Those trucks of yours are amazing. And I can tell you, my four wheel drive SUV never would have made it across that stream the way your six-wheel-drive Suburban did when the bridge first went out.”
“Hopefully things will get back to a semblance of what they were. The reports we’re getting indicate there are many areas firing up again. Smaller scale, but to a degree.”
“Yeah. Where the weather is still reasonable. You were right about the Gulf Stream. Apparently it did sink. The experts are saying that we’re in for these kinds of winters for a long time to come.”
“Just like Canada used to have. They dealt with it. So will we. And I agree with you. Those that want to go south should go. This area will easily support the same number of people that are here now, if they are people that want to be here and are willing to do what it takes to make a comfortable life. It’s just a matter of adjusting to things. And a matter of scale.”
“I know,” Tom said. “There are a few taking to this like ducks to water. Others never will. Maybe we should plan on helping some go south this spring.”
“I’ll see what I can come up with,” Percy said, grinning.
“No doubt,” Tom said, his grin matching Percy’s. “But before we get too maudlin, or too eager to get rid of people, let’s get through the rest of winter.”
“Good idea,” Percy agreed. They went their separate ways then. Tom to see about an administration problem and Percy to get things ready to go back to the estate.
It was still snowing lightly, but there was no need to use the snow blowers on the way back. Henry got the current batch of six people settled in the bunkhouse as Sara and Percy parked the Unimogs and went to check on things in the house and the barns.
The snow had been moved, piled in a nearby open area. The dirty white pile was growing. “I know we need to keep this cleared, but why are you being so careful to keep it so organized,” Jim asked Percy as they stood behind the barn and watched Bob put the last bucket load of snow on the pile using a Unimog.
“That ash mixed in with the snow will be very good for the fields. I want to work it in like compost next spring. Piling up the snow like this will leave the ash behind when it melts. Speaking of which, show me how the Ice House is coming.”
“Another good layer,” Jim said, leading Percy around the pile of snow, to a spot behind the utility barn. In the space between the barn and a section of the orchards was a growing mound of ice. Each morning when it was the coldest, water was sprayed on the mound, freezing as it flew through the air or when it hit the existing ice.
A light structure of wood had been built to form a cavity in the ice when the pile was first started. Now they just had an inverted U shape that was moved slightly each day to maintain a tunnel into the head high cavity. Flexible plastic tubing was laid in a spiral pattern inside the ice as the mound was being built.
Later in the spring, when they could no longer create more ice easily, the ice mound would be covered with straw bales to insulate it. The cavity would be used to store things requiring refrigeration. Water could be pumped through the tubing and used to cool things, too. The entire mound was sitting on plastic lying on the ground. As the mound did melt, the runoff would be directed to one of the many underground water storage areas Percy had incorporated when he began the renovation of the place. That cold water could also be used for cooling purposes.
The storage areas were stacked interlocking panels consisting of four-inch high cylinders inside of pits with plastic liners. The stacked panels allowed a top liner to be laid down, and then the pit backfilled with eight inches of covering that would support vehicles. The panels took up only roughly four percent of the space in the cavity, leaving room for thousands of gallons of water in each one. All water diverted into the tanks ran through gravel and sand filters to remove debris.
Percy collected pretty much all the rain and moisture from snow that fell on the area comprising the estate building area. Since a generator had to run part of the time anyway for other needs, it was no problem to have a pump moving water from a well to make the ice mound.
A large tarp was drawn over the mound when the spraying was finished. Snow was blown over it to keep the sun from hitting the mound. Not that they got a lot of sun, but there was no reason to let any of the ice melt until it was needed. Plus, the snow that accumulated naturally was removed and added to the ash and snow pile Percy was building.
“Looking good,” Percy said. “Thing might just last all summer, if we get it big enough. Though, from what the reports are saying, this summer may be as hot as this winter was cold.”
“This’ll be the place to hang out, if it is. Set up a lounge chair inside and just let the heat glow outside.”
“Yeah. Right. Go find something to do.” Percy laughed and Jim responded in kind. Percy headed to the house.
Melissa, Andy, and Mattie were commiserating with each other in the dining room as the sisters went about their work. Sara had started preparations for the household noon meal. She mostly supervised and the young women did the work.
“Burgers for lunch okay, Percy?” she asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “Dr. Bluhm over in the infirmary with today’s load?”
“Dr. Jock Bluhm is,” Melis
sa called to him from the dining room. “This Dr. Bluhm is right here. I should have kept my maiden name for my work,” she groused.
“I’m going to see how he’s doing,” Percy said, ignoring the pregnant woman’s comments. “Barbie didn’t look too good this morning. We might have another inpatient for a while. Until that baby comes, too.”
“I’d better go check on her,” Melissa said. Andy stood and helped her get up from the chair.
“You be careful,” Mattie admonished, wrapped up in her favorite blanket. Her voice was muffled from the congestion of the cold. “You’re not in the best of shape yourself. Be sure to use the tunnel and don’t go outside.”
“Yes, Mother.” Melissa quickly apologized for her sharp remark. “I’m sorry Mattie. It’s not your fault. I just feel rotten. The tyke is kicking me something fierce.”
“It’s all right, sweetie,” Mattie got out before she started coughing.
“Maybe you should go lie down, Mrs. Simpson,” Andy said. “Susie will kill me if I let anything bad happen to you.”
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