They hadn’t felt any more quakes or aftershocks, but several times Gina had seen the trees moving for no apparent reason. Sam had pointed out a cloud of black smoke rolling off of one of the peaks to the north of them. The mountain was little more than a hill of rock, the trees had either not been there prior, or it was one of those magically appearing mountains. Sam shook his head as he stared at it, and then urged Clyde on.
“Gina, can I get down too please?”
“I think we all are.” She felt Olivia slide off Sailor behind her. Gina climbed down, dropped her reins and followed Olivia into the brush. With no leaves on the bushes, they had to go a ways to find a tree big enough to conceal them. Finally, Gina blocked the view with her body and Olivia returned the favor.
When they went back to the clearing, Sam was standing, facing north, his face raised up. Gina turned to see what he was looking at and gasped. “Oh, Holy Mother of God…”
They felt the rumblings begin under their feet and watched as black clouds of gas and debris spewed from the top of the mountain.
“Boys! Stop fooling around. We have to go now!”
Matt had his arm across Lucas’s shoulder hopping back toward them. With every hop, his face grew whiter and more pinched.
Sam and Gina rushed to help him. Sam lifted him up, and his body seemed to go limp for just a second, and he pulled himself straight behind the saddle.
“Sorry buddy, I was considering stopping for the day, but it looks like we’re running out of time.”
Through clenched teeth, Matt told Sam, “I’m okay. Let’s just get out of here.”
Sam looked to see that Gina and Olivia were mounted and set off at a jog.
Gina waited for Lucas and Gus to pass and fell in behind. She felt Oliva’s arm go around her middle when she loped to catch up.
They rode for several hours until it was too dark to see the ground well. They stopped and waited for the moon to provide some added light. After sharing the last of the pemmican and one bottle of the unfiltered water they set off walking, leading Olivia and Matt on the horses.
Gus must have sensed the urgency and led the way, never leaving John and Andy’s trail.
At a rise in the terrain, Sam stopped. The trees and brush had ended at a precipice. Gina handed her reins to Olivia and went to stand beside Sam.
“Oh my God, is that Marks?”
Sam nodded, he glanced over his shoulder and Gina looked too. While they couldn’t see the mountain, they could see the red glow and the cloud that blackened the sky and obstructed the stars behind it.
“Can we get down?”
Sam pointed to the south and Gina could see a gentle slope going to the valley below. While there were no lights in the windows or in the yard, Gina felt a sense of peace, just knowing there were other people down below and they were so close to being home.
“Lucas, go ahead and ride down. When you get close enough, you holler out to Mark, so he knows he’s not being attacked. You make good and sure he knows it’s you before you approach the house.”
“Yes, sir. Are we going to stop there?”
“Tell Mark we’d like to leave Matt with him for a day or so until we figure out what we’re doing. We’ll be there shortly.”
The ride down wasn’t as bad as Gina had thought it would be and within an hour they were riding into Marks yard. A dim glow of light shone through the closed curtains of the kitchen.
Mark was there to greet them shotgun in hand. “Hey Sam. The boy about scared me to death with all that hollering.” He set the shotgun against a porch support and helped Sam get Matt off the horse. They made a chair with their arms and carried him into the house. Gina, pulling Oliva by her hand followed them.
She felt Olivia hesitate as if she didn’t want to go inside, “It’s okay. These are good people. In fact, you might even know them. Mark and Evelyn Savage?”
“The preacher?”
Gina laughed softly, “One and the same.”
“My Dad said he was some kind of war hero. He always gave him a discount on the feed he bought.”
“You girls going to stand out here all night?”
Gina turned and saw Evelyn standing in the open doorway and burst into laughter. Olivia giggled from behind her.
“Well, I didn’t know I was going to have company.” She patted her nightcap as if she were fluffing her hair. A pink foam hair roller held her bangs up, and she was wearing a man’s red plaid bathrobe, with a huge pair of yellow Minion bedroom slippers. Her face shone with happiness and Gina fell into her open arms, dragging Olivia with her. Gina couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry, she was so happy to finally be somewhere familiar.
“Oh, you poor dear. I just put on a fresh pot of coffee when Lucas said you were coming.”
Both Mark and Evelyn knew Olivia, but Gina could tell by the shocked look on their faces that they wouldn't have recognized her. Matt was immediately put into a bed in the spare room and made comfortable. Evelyn poured them coffee while Sam and Mark went in to check out Matts' leg. As a combat medic, there wasn’t much that Mark hadn’t seen.
Just when Gina was about to doze off in a rocking chair beside the stove, Mark and Sam came into the kitchen.
“You did a fine job young lady. Course that ride today didn’t help much, but when the swelling goes down in a day or two, I’ll put some batting and plaster on him, and he’ll be almost as good as new.”
“Mark gave him a Percocet for the pain, and he is already asleep.” Sam chuckled, “He didn’t even want anything to eat.”
While she sat with her eyes closed, listening to the soothing kitchen sounds, Evelyn had put bread, jam, and a dish of peaches on the table. They sat, Mark said a brief prayer of thanks for their safe return and they ate their meal in silence.
Afterward, they were each assigned a place to sleep for the remainder of the night. Sam had wanted to continue on home, but Mark insisted they stay. He said he was too tired right then with all the commotion, having his sleep interrupted, to tell him everything he’d been hearing on the radio.
Sam agreed, and the two men and Lucas went out, unsaddled the horses, put them in a corral, threw them some hay and water and came back in the house. Gina and Olivia were already stretched out on a pallet bed on the floor. The sofa had been made up for Sam and Lucas had the other twin bed in the guest room.
*****
Over a breakfast of dried beef gravy served over biscuits, with eggs and toast and fresh milk, Mark explained what had been going on around the world.
“Course, everything I hear has some element of exaggeration, of that I have no doubt, but it’s pretty scary stuff none the less. It seems the ham network has been working overtime lately. But, this is the gist of it. The Russian’s believe it was our own government who set off an EMP. The only thing is, we have no way of confirming who did what. Iran, North Korea or our own Government, it doesn’t matter now.”
“How would that cause the earthquakes or could they be coincidental?”
“Who knows, maybe one of those bombs hit a critical pressure point because to top it off, Mt. Asu on the island of Kyushu, in Japan, let loose. It may have started as a chain reaction, but every volcano and even some they thought were inactive have blown their tops over the last two months.
The Big Island, California, all gone, or unrecognizable. Pavlof out on the Alaska Peninsula, Rainier and St. Helens were the last big volcanoes up here to go.”
Gina shook her head in disbelief, “When does it end? Listening to you, it makes me wonder how the earth can survive. What’s to stop it from just blowing apart?”
Mark sipped his coffee and set the cup down. “I honestly don’t know, and I don’t think anyone else does either. With the relative calm, we’ve had the past two days, I thought that maybe we were done with the volcanoes and quakes. Course that was until I saw that new hill outside start spitting ash and smoke this afternoon.”
Sam sat in silence, listening to Mark. When Mark stopped to take a
sip of coffee, “What does this mean for us? I look at the mountains, and I don’t recognize them anymore.”
“Can’t say that I do either. Every time I look something had changed. With every sunset, it seems I’m looking out at a new horizon, only to have it change again within days.”
“Same thing I said. It’s a hard thing to get your brain around. I would still like to know who set off the bombs and if it was our own Government, why?”
“That my boy is the number one question. I’ll try to contact some of the others ham’s and see what we can find out. I have a feeling that we may not be happy with the results, but I’ll do it. ”
“Mark, do you believe it was our government who was behind it? That they were capable of perpetrating such a heinous crime? I mean, would they really want to set off an EMP in the atmosphere? What would be the point? They already have so many people dependent on them. What would they hope to gain? They had trouble supporting the people they did have. Ask Gina what she saw in the veteran’s hospital. Men, veterans were dying before they got care.”
“If it wasn’t Iran or some other country with a grudge and it was the Feds I think they got a little more than they bargained for. I just hope they were sitting in their offices in D.C. when we were hit and not hiding out in some bunker the American people paid for.”
“Oh, you can bet they were all nice and cozy at the cost of the American people. If you think about it, what better way to get rid of all of the people who depended on the government for a handout than to incapacitate them. Let them starve or kill each other off, then come out when it’s all over and take control back.” Gina hadn’t thought her words out, just spoken them as she thought them. She hoped to God, one of the men would tell her that she was wrong.
To Gina, her thoughts sounded like some of the ones that Lucy had come up with around the campfire. Since her discharge and her subsequent treatment by the government, Lucy had lost all faith in their Government to look after it’s veterans or the people paying their salaries.
“Guess that could be it all right.” Mark nodded as he spoke, “Course, they didn’t count on the strength of the American people. It’s kind of like back in the Great Depression, only the strong survived. They didn’t kill each other off, but families pulled together to make ends meet. We may not be blood-related, but by God, I consider each one of you as part of my family. We may have desperate times ahead of us, but I put my faith in God that we will survive.
San sighed and stood up. He held his hand out to Mark. “Thank you for the hospitality, and we’ll come back in a couple of days to pick Matt up. If I remember correctly, we’ll be having you over for a couple of weddings sometime soon.”
“Andy mentioned that just the other day when he and John were on their way home.”
Lucas had already been out to saddle the horses, and they were tied to the porch railing when they went outside.
“Thought that little girl would like to ride on her own. Evelyn doesn’t ride her old mare anymore, so no point in me feeding her.”
Evelyn beamed at Olivia. She had helped her wash and cut her hair that morning before breakfast and Olivia looked like an elf with her new hairdo. She hugged Evelyn and went and climbed on the chestnut mare as if she’d ridden her whole life.
As a group, they rode out of the ranch yard headed on the last leg of their journey. Gus, not to be left behind gave a loud, obnoxious bray and jogged after them.
Gina turned and waved at the couple. Over the top of their house, she couldn’t miss the black smoke rising from the mountain. It cast a shadow of doom, over the lower hills, and she wondered if it was an omen of things to come.
THE END
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 30