“Stacked up behind the goat shed. Matt, the post driver should be under the trailer. Can you give Lucas a hand?”
The boys got up to leave when Sam stopped them, “This can wait until morning. Then, make a run from the end of the goat shed to the tree line and no more than forty feet wide. We’ll have to haul a water tub down from up top.”
“Do you have something in mind for the rest of us?”
“Good that you asked,” Sam said with a laugh. “I’m not assigning any one task to anyone, but I’ll list what needs to be done, and you guys can pick from it. Whatever you choose to do, please see the task to completion.”
Everyone nodded in agreement and seemed to relax.
“We need to cut wood, and I’m thinking about going and reclaiming some of the wood off Matts barn before it falls down. It’s already got a list to it.”
“And don’t forget about the dynamite in the pump house, and maybe we could repurpose some of the wires?”
“Nope the wiring is all 110 and we already have some up by the hay barn should we ever need it. Like Gina said, the dynamite is locked in the pump house. I didn’t know enough about it to feel good putting it on one of the horses or in the trailer. I thought Andy should be the one to go and get it because at least he’s handled it before.”
Andy had perked up at hearing his name, “We took a few stumps out with it. I’d wondered where that had gotten to. I thought we were going to need it to take out the rock down on the south end of the pasture, but mother nature took care of the blockage.”
“So, is it stable to handle or what?”
“Where was it?”
“Under the counter in the feed room. I found it when I was gathering up anything I thought we could use.”
“Was it sweating or anything?”
Sam shook his head, “I have no idea, like I said I barely felt comfortable moving it from the cupboard.”
Matt caught the tail end of the conversation, “Dad told me to put it in there where it would stay dry. I’d forgotten all about it, to be honest.”
“I’ll go with you to pick it up, and if it’s sweaty at all, we’ll take it out and blow it. Once it freezes and then thaws, that’s when you could potentially have a problem. Did you notice if it had any crystals on the stick?”
Gina lowered her eyebrows, lips pursed, she thought about the sticks in the box. She hadn’t handled them or even picked one up, so she didn’t know if they had any crystals or not. To her, they had looked exactly like she had always thought dynamite would look like, reddish colored sticks with a fuse on one end. “I don’t know. I looked at it when I found it, but I honestly don’t know.”
“Then, I guess I’ll go with you to get it. Like Sam says, I have handled it before. I sure do wish Dave was here. He would know what to do with it.”
Gina saw the sadness that passed over Matt’s face when Andy had mentioned his father. She vowed right then and would bring it up with Sam later, that Matt never hears from either of them, what happened to Dave and Miranda. While she thought they were all just a little fragile emotionally, but to hear the truth about his family could be the catalyst to break his spirit completely.
They decided that Ben, Gina, Janice and the two boys would take the wood detail. Ben had taken the chainsaw apart the day before and cleaned and sharpened it. To their surprise, it had started on the third pull. He fell the few trees close to the edge on top of the hill, and they had complied by falling and sliding to the bottom.
Sam, Mike, and Andy would go salvage some of the barn wood and use the tractor and flat trailer to bring it back. They thought once John had the chance to absolve himself of some of the guilt he was packing on his shoulders, he would want to go with Sam.
“Well, if we’re done here, I believe I will turn in. Janice, would you like a hand with the boys before I go to bed?”
Since Janice had been feeding both of the babies, Natan and little Ben slept together in the trailer with Mike and Janice to make it easier on the babies when they woke during the night.
“I fed them before I came over, but if you’d like to come over for some cuddles. They were both asleep, but I’m sure Nathan wouldn’t mind.”
The two women along with Mike headed off to the trailer.
“Ben, you may as well leave Abby here for tonight. The girls are already asleep. No sense waking her to carry her home.”
Ben nodded and looked at Lucy with a grin and a slightly embarrassed expression, “I guess that’s okay.”
Gina realized that it was probably the first time Ben and Lucy had ever been alone. Privacy was a rare thing with everyone coming and going at different hours.
“I know what you’ll be doing,” Journey sang under her breath just loud enough for Lucy to hear. Lucy’s face turned beet red, and she shoved at Journey as she passed.
“Mind your own business,” Lucy hissed back.
“Why? It’s so much more fun to mind yours.”
Both Ben and Lucy quickly put their outside clothing on and left as if they were in a hurry.
“They probably thought we’d change our mind,” Journey laughed.
“I wonder what their expressions would have been if you had said, never mind, you can wake her.”
“You are incorrigible. They deserve some alone time.” Journey laughed, “But it might have been worth it to see the looks on their faces.”
“Yeah, well you would have had to have spoken in light-speed as fast as they got out of here.”
They all laughed because Lucy and Ben had put their outside clothes on and left quickly once Journey had told them to leave Abby sleeping in the man cave.
“Well,” Sam said, standing and stretching, “I think I’ll walk to the tree and see if there’s any activity out on the flats. Gina, care to join me, and we can check on the horses at the same time.”
“Would you mind if I joined you?” Andy asked. “I want to run a couple things by you.”
“Well heck, I guess I’ll tag along too.”
“Well, I guess we’ll make it a foursome then,” Gina said, sourly. “I know what we won’t be doing,” she mumbled under her breath. As soon as Gina had said the words, she knew she was being petty. Neither she nor Sam had given much of an indication to each other that their relationship was ready to move forward. A cuddle or a hug wasn’t much to call a relationship. “Oh, what the hell,” she ended her thoughts.
“What’s that?” Journey asked.
Gina shook her head, “It was nothing. Let’s go before it gets any colder.”
Outside, the temperature had dropped but was still above freezing. During the day they could see snow capping the hills all around them, but none on the valley floor.
“This is the damnedest weather I’ve seen the whole time I’ve lived here, and that’s been most of my life. We always are buried up to our ass in snow this time of year.” Sam reached back and took Gina by the hand pulling her up to walk beside him. It surprised her because Sam had never made a public display of his affection before. She looked at Journey, and she and Andy had their fingers intertwined as well.
“So, what’s on your mind, Andy? I’m sure you didn’t just come to look at the stars with us.”
Gina stopped and looked up. Above her, she could plainly see the big dipper, which had been almost unidentifiable with the air pollution and ambient light. She didn’t know a lot about the constellations, but Lucy did and was always filling them in on the scientific names for them. The Big Dipper is part of The Great Bear or Ursa Major. The Big Dipper is called an asterism, which is a name that scientists gave to recognizable star patterns but are not an official constellation.
She looked at Journey and pointed up, “Remember what Lucy…”
Journey laughed and interrupted her, “I never did understand her infatuation with them, but yes. It’s an asterism and not a constellation.”
“But Orion is…she’d be happy to hear we did retain some of the knowledge she passed on to us.”
Sam cleared his
throat noisily to get the girls attention. “Guess we should have made this a men’s only walk,” he said directing his words to Andy.
“Actually, it was something I didn’t know. But, back to my reason for joining you. We’d like to ask your neighbor to marry us, and we’d like the two of you to stand up with us.”
“What?” Gina shrieked and slapped her hand over her mouth to stifle herself.
Wide eyed, she strained through the dark to see Journey’s face and saw the moonlight reflecting off of her teeth, so she took it to mean Andy was serious. She reached out and grabbed Journey in a bear-hug. “I never thought I’d see the day, but I’m so happy for you.”
“When is all of this going to take place?” Sam asked, giving Andy a congratulatory slap on the back.
“Not until spring. We thought it would give us something to look forward to.”
“Unless I miss my guess, you won’t be the only ones with something to look forward to,” Sam said and walked off toward the tree that had now become their lookout perch.
Journey dragged Gina by the elbow and swung her to face her. “What? You and…” she used her eyes to identify the other half of the equation.
Gina pulled her arm loose and chuckled, “ Not hardly. I think he was referring to Lucy and Ben.”
“Oh. I guess that does make sense. Maybe you and…” She rolled her eyes toward Sam who was climbing the ladder someone had fixed to the tree trunk.
Gina shook her head in denial and watched Sam to the top. Someone, she supposed it was Lukas or Matt had built a small platform on the crotch of the tree. Sam stood on it, one hand holding the trunk, looking all around. She didn’t understand why he had waited until after dark to climb when he probably couldn’t see anything. He spent some time looking off to the east before climbing back down.
“See anything?” Andy asked him.
Sam shook his head and stood facing east. “Not anything that I can see. I just have a feeling like we’re being watched. I have nothing to substantiate it, it’s more of a premonition or hunch. You know, like when the hair on the back of your neck stands up.”
“Lucy used to tell us to pay attention to our neck and arm hairs.”
By the time they had checked and scratched every horse and Gus, it was long past the time for sleeping. Andy and Journey said goodnight and left Sam and Gina with the horses.
“You ready to call it a night?” Gina asked as they walked back toward camp.
“I was actually waiting for John to get back before I turn in. He was kind of upset when he left.”
“I think him going to see Mark was a good idea. Mark doesn’t seem like the type of guy to sugarcoat his words. You and I both know what he did was the right thing, he just needs to hear it from someone else. Well, someone who has God’s ear.”
Sam chuckled, “Aren’t we all supposed to have God’s ear? I thought that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”
Sam put his hand on Gina’s arm to stop her, “Listen. Do you hear that?”
Gina quit walking and listened. She could hear someone whistling and the clop-clop of horses’ feet. “See, he sounds better already.”
“Yep, now let’s get inside before he finds out we were waiting up for him.” They hustled up to the man cave and silently let themselves inside. The room had been divided into sections by sheets to give them privacy. Gina peeked into John and May’s section and saw the lump under the blankets. They had a double bed sized room with a bed made out of hay bales, but it was better than sleeping on the floor.
Gina made her way into her section and saw that Journey was already fast asleep.
Chapter Sixteen
Over the next couple days, they were treated to a late Indian Summer climate. The snow had disappeared even from the mountain tops, with the arrival of a warm wind out of the south. The temperature climbed into the mid-forties by afternoon and dropped just below freezing with the setting of the sun.
It was the perfect opportunity for Gina, Ben, and Lucy to drive the tractor and trailer to the field where Gina had found the ball of chicken wire.
With the brief sample of what was ahead of them with the earlier taste of winter, they were in a race to fulfill their need of wood for their stoves. Matt and Lucas erected the faux-electric fencing material, and it seemed to work as John had thought.
The cattle stayed a respectful distance, apparently remembering how it felt to be dealt a shock of electricity. With every trip up to the hay shed, hay was brought back and stacked around the goat shed, to not only make it available for use but to help insulate the shed.
John had said the temperature could drop below zero and stay there for days on end and everyone understood the need to protect both the goats and chickens.
Everyone had a job to do, and they did them without complaint.
Abby, Sherry, and Maggie were given the task of hulling and flattening the oats. Lucas had searched for and found a river-rock, flat enough to use for the pounding surface, and another to use as the hammer. They would spread a layer of oats on the larger rock and use the smaller to pound it gently releasing the grain from the husk. They then swept the crushed oats into a bowl. When it was determined they had enough, they poured the oats from the bowl into the bucket from a three-foot height allowing any breeze to blow the chaff away. By using this process and by the time they had removed the chaff what was left over, it looked much like the rolled oats from the store.
Journey had taken two five-gallon buckets with tight fitting lids, filled them and set them under the trailer where they would remain until it was time to plant. They had agreed that no matter how lean their diets became, they would save that seed for planting. While it wouldn’t provide enough of a crop to feed the animals and themselves, it would allow them to store more with each planting. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that they could not expect help or any changes in their foreseeable future.
The few realities they had gathered via Mark’s radio were not facts for the most part. As far as anyone could tell, the Yellowstone Caldera was intact, Mount Ranier was smoking continuously, but had not erupted as John had feared. There was some talk of a giant crevasse opening and filling with sea water. It extended from the Sea of Cortez up as far north as Redding California. The lower ground in the San Joaquin Valley had flooded, turning the mountainous land on the west side of the valley into small islands dotting the new California coastline. San Fransisco, according to the radio reports had been cut off from the mainland with the subsequent collapse of bridges that had connected the town via Interstate-80.
Mark had told John that this was the first information he had received that he felt had some truth to it.
John was frustrated that Mark hadn’t been able to get their radio working properly because unlike Mark, their solar setup was not powerful enough to deliver the wattage needed to get the maximum performance out of their radio. Even with putting the antenna high up, they could only pick anything out of the static when the night was clear, and they were unable to transmit farther than to Mark.
As a joke, Ben had begun using the handle ‘White Noise’ when signing on and off the radio. Sam thought they should move the antenna and radio up top thinking it may have better reception. John thought that come spring they should find bigger solar panels and batteries somewhere, even if it meant a trip to Missoula to find them.
When Mike heard they were planning an excursion, he expressed an interest in moving his family to Butte where he had parents and other family members living.
That evening, gathered at the table, John intended to have a family meeting. Ben had walked up from down below, leaving Abby and Lucy behind. Lucy hadn’t been feeling well, and Ben had promised Lucy he would ask Journey or Gina to visit with her the next day.
“First off, let me say that we have accomplished most of our goals. Well, other than Mary and the ladies still working on the pemmican. I can’t say how much it saddens me they haven’t come up with a workable recipe as of yet.”
Mary laughed and tapped his shoulder, “But John, we’ve only made one batch, and that was from my memory. Now we have a recipe we found in Carlos’s journal. We should have some for you to try by morning.”
Everyone laughed because they all knew from listening to him, how well John liked the idea of eating it. More than once he had complained about the smell of what he called the rancid beef, his mother had produced.
The process of making pemmican, and following the directions Carlos had written down, left too much room for trial and error and the first batch hadn’t set up and had a funny smell to it.
Carlos had stressed drying the meat out completely. He had said to slice it as thin as possible and let it sit in the sun all day. The meat had to crack when you tried to bend it. The first batch, Mary thought the meat was not dry enough, and she had worried about it rotting rather than drying. It seemed like the sun didn’t produce enough warmth to dry it quickly enough.
This time, she trimmed every speck of fat off and cutting it a thin as she could, laid it to dry in their warm oven. When some of the thicker pieces were still rubbery, she closed the oven door until they all cracked when bent.
Carlos had written to grind it to powder in a food processor, but she had none. She had John sharpen two of his skinning knives, and she and Lucy shaved slivers of the dried meat away until it looked like stringy sawdust. Mary sprinkled it on a baking sheet and set it back in the oven to dry some more while they prepared the beef fat they had trimmed off.
Sitting her Dutch oven on the stove top, she mentally thanked Gina for rescuing it from the house. It had been invaluable in its versatility. She had baked bread in it as well as cooked their continuous stews in it. Having the cast-iron pot had saved them time and trouble simply for its versatility of uses.
Mary inspected the pieces of fat for even the smallest meat particles, blood veins or sinew.
Satisfied it was as clean as she could make it, she handed it off, and Lucy cut it into small cubes. It was then put into the pot, the lid was put on, and they left it to cook. Carlos said it would take hours, depending on the amount of fat they were rendering and to stir it occasionally. He indicated it was done when the fat had stopped bubbling.
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 20