Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Read online

  Sam grinned at her, and Gina wondered what she had missed. As cold as the air temperature was, she wouldn’t have expected the water to be anything but near freezing also.

  “Remember the water from the last creek? It stank, and the water was warm?”

  “But, this is nowhere near there, and you said that creek sprang up out of nowhere when the ground opened up.”

  Sam pointed, “You may not know this but, this creek was never here before. Look, you can tell there are no banks beside it except the natural shape of the land. This has to be a new tributary of the creek that runs through the property.”

  A frozen flake drifted down and settled on Gina’s eyelash. She blinked to clear it away, and another took its place as soon as she blinked. One glimpse at the surrounding hills showed her they were invisible behind dense clouds of snow. A curtain of white had settled more than halfway down the mountains. Her first thought was how pretty and serene it looked until a shiver reminded her how deadly it would be to get caught out in a blizzard.

  “Mount up, we need to either get to Matts place or find somewhere to hole up. It looks like John was right again.”

  Sam urged his horse into a jog. He looked back to be sure Gina was with him, and increased his pace, dragging his reluctant packhorse along with him.

  Gina nudged her horse with pressure from her legs, and she felt the power when he broke into an easy lope. Quickly, she caught up to Sam. Gina had the lead line for Bess tied on her saddle horn, and the rope across her leg grew tight, and then the pressure eased off as Bess took her place beside Gina and the gelding.

  As soon as Sam turned back toward the north, and they cleared a line of trees, she saw the hillside had flattened somewhat and looked more like the rolling hills she and her friends had ridden across.

  The snowfall had increased, and Gina saw where it would have been easy to lose sight of Sam had she not been right behind him. He was leaning forward in his saddle, with his collar pulled up tight to his neck. The brim of his hat seemed to keep the majority of the snow from blinding him, and Gina wished she had a hat like his instead of the knit stocking hat that Mary had pulled down over her ears.

  Sam slowed enough for Gina to come abreast of Sham, “There’s the barn. Let’s make for it. At least we’ll be out of the weather.”

  Gina was intent on reaching the huge wooden structure when Sam slid to a stop in front of her and threw himself to the ground. She pulled up, “What?”

  “Fence!” Sam hollered back. He dug through his saddle bag until he found what he needed and ran to the four strand barbwire that had cut off their access to the property. With a few quick clips, the wire parted and sprung away. He climbed back on Sham and set off at a slow lope, with Gina right behind him.

  The soft flakes, lazily drifting down had turned into sharp, biting, pellets of ice. They no longer floated, but came at them like they were being shot from a gun. Each one made itself known as it hit. Gina felt like the biting cold pellets were going to leave marks.

  She hunched her shoulders down as much as she could while not slowing the horse down. The shape of the barn was all that was visible, and at times it disappeared completely. She thought she understood why people strung ropes between their buildings during snowstorms. While she had seen blinding snow storms in Spokane, she had never been out in one.

  Sam seemed to know where he was going and Gina stayed as close as she could. When they came to another fence, he repeated his previous act of cutting it.

  “Come on,” he shouted to be heard over the howling wind. “Just a little farther.”

  He climbed back up on Sham’s back, leaning into the wind, he urged the horse into a trot. His packhorse had her ears laid flat against her head, obviously not liking the snow beating her in the face.

  “Don’t worry about me, just get out of the way.” Gina knew she was speaking to herself. She hadn’t said the words loud enough for anyone else to hear but felt better for saying them. She wondered if they shouldn’t have waited. John had predicted the snow, but hadn’t said it could be this severe. But maybe she didn’t understand the bad weather or how the serious the storm could be. She had always had the luxury of being inside, watching it from behind two panes of insulated glass. The fleeting thought about the windows, made her wonder if their house was still standing. Or if it had been broken into and if anyone was making use of their food and possessions.

  Sam was off Sham, sliding the door open. He waved Gina past him into the dark interior. She pulled Bess in behind her. She moved far enough away to give Sam and his two horses room sufficient to enter and climbed down.

  The interior of the barn smelled like old hay, manure, and something Gina would have liked to not know. She knew what the smell of death and decomposed bodies smelled like. While it wasn’t strong, there was still a hint in the air.

  “Wait a minute, when you close that door, we won’t be able to see anything.”

  “Check the tack room. Most everyone keeps a light source of some kind for when the power is out.”

  Gina looked around and saw a door behind her. She opened it and stepped one foot through. She saw someone silhouetted in the four-paned window. Whoever it was, turned just enough for Gina to see the gun pointed right at her. “Sam, I think we have a problem here.”

  Chapter Three

  On foot, John, Matt, and Lucas herded the cows closer to the trailer. The lake had continued to slowly grow in size, and John worried they would get stranded on some hummock of land, with no way but wading through the water to return to the pasture. John knew his cows well enough to know they would only wade in if they were forced to.

  Shortly after Sam and Gina had left, the ground had trembled scaring everyone. He doubted if Gina and Sam, being on horseback would have even felt it, it was so slight, but John had, and so had the rest of them.

  He had thought to saddle one of the remaining horses and go see why the lake continued to grow in size when Andy volunteered.

  John watched him ride away and stared at the new range of hills on their south side. They weren’t as high as some of the ones to the north, but in their bareness, they stood out like sore thumbs. With no trees or brush to soften the bare rock, the only word John could think of to describe them was forbidding.

  John had grown up in the valley and the changes of the past few weeks were alarming him. He no longer thought it was safe to remain there, but with winter so close, there was nowhere for them to go. He also realized, he no longer knew his mountains, the peaks were gone, and he suspected the valley’s had changed too. What had once felt like familiar territory, was as alien to him as Mars.

  John, watched the snow come down sideways, and shivered. He did notice that it wasn’t coming down as much as it was the existing snow blowing around.

  The cows milled around, restless and not eating. John wondered what had them stirred up. He searched the area for the wolf pack that had plagued the cattle the winter before. Carlos had eliminated some, but John thought what was left of the pack might have returned.

  He needed to speak to Journey. Earlier, he had given her the task of compiling a list of their provisions. He turned and walked back to camp. The wind blew directly out of the north, and John wondered about the danger of ash and toxins being blown down on them. He didn’t know if it would be better to have the volcanic ash under the snow or if they could get lucky and avoid it falling on them at all. He thought that if Yellowstone had blown as Sam seemed to think, the repercussions would have been far worse than just the mountains changing shapes.

  John pulled his collar up and ducked his head against the chill of the wind. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and went to find Journey.

  John, knew the three or so dozen jars of canned food, combined with the freeze dried and dehydrated that the girls and Ben had brought with them, wouldn’t be enough for them to survive for two months let alone until they could harvest anything of their own. With the addition of the nanny goat, Nathan would be the only o
ne to have food. They had to figure out something before they depleted their food supply completely.

  Not for the first time, John cursed the people who had forced them from their home. They still had no idea what had caused the electronics to fail. While they had thought of the possible scenarios, they had nothing concrete to go on. He hoped they lived long enough to find out.

  He couldn’t imagine watching them all slowly starve to death. Even with the meat, they needed vegetables and grains to thrive.

  John found Journey sitting at the table in the tent. She had a pad of paper in front of her and seemed to be lost in thought. He cleared his throat as he removed his jacket, grateful for the heat the old cook stove provided. He had seen the dwindling woodpile on his way in and thought they should be out cutting down some trees before they were snowed in. At least they could mix the green and dry wood and hopefully keep the fire burning and stay warm.

  Journey looked up, “Well, this is not looking very good, but then I guess you already know that.”

  John nodded and poured himself a cup of hot water from the pot on the stove and sat across from her. “We have beef. While we can’t survive solely on it, maybe we can stretch the vegetables out for the kids.”

  “Actually, I was reading the journal Carlos left. He has some great ideas written down.”

  “What kind of ideas?”

  “Ideas that will not only sustain us but keep us healthy to a certain extent. Have you ever heard of pemmican?”

  John doubled over and laughed. When he could talk, he asked her, “Have you ever tasted that stuff?”

  Journey shook her head no, “He wrote that he had made some and you and Sam had refused to do more than sample it. He also commented on your comments. He also said that if anyone was reading the journal, they should disregard anything you had to say about it.”

  “Jesus, that was thirty years ago. He wrote all that in his journal? Oh my God, if you could have tasted…”

  Journey nodded and put her hand up to stop any further remarks, “John, he wrote this recently. Maybe just before he died. There are a lot of things written in there, but this comes after most of it. I think he was trying to tell us something.”

  “Carlos was a very special man to my family and me. You have no idea how many times he saved my butt when I was growing up. He taught both Sam and me to track, hunt and clean game.”

  “We have some first-hand experience with your ability to walk softly in the woods. Gina was practicing it some whenever she had the chance.”

  “It’s not difficult when you take the time to listen.”

  “So she said. What about fishing? That’s a good source of not only protein but fat as well.”

  “With the changes in the creeks, I’m not sure fishing is a good idea right now, and I’d be surprised if there are fish left in it. I’m sure the lake wouldn’t have fish in it.”

  “And why not?”

  “If Sam is right, it could be a number of things. The sulfur would have killed them, the heated water, or toxins, but until we know, I wouldn’t want to take the chance.”

  “Right about what? Where does he think the creek water came from?”

  “He thinks that Lake CouerDAlene is draining. That maybe the water is coming down a lava tube or something, cooling the molten rock as it goes and picking up any toxins as well.”

  “Wouldn’t that mean that the Yellowstone caldera has to be bigger than the scientists thought? Surely it can’t stretch that far?”

  “There is something that happened, I don’t know what, but we’ve seen the changes and the river of rock running where the freeway used to be. I have to think there was a reason behind the earthquakes. I don’t agree that Yellowstone erupted. Maybe one of the smaller volcanoes, but not Yellowstone. I don’t think we would be here right now if it did.”

  “Maybe it’s just letting off a little of the pressure.”

  John nodded, “We can always hope. I remember something about if it erupted, it would be 10,000 times bigger than the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens. It would basically wipe out Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and who knows what else. The volcanic ash would cripple the rest of the country as well as bring on a nuclear winter.”

  Journey studied the writing on the pad in front of her and chewed on the end of her pen. She laughed softly, “I didn’t realize there were active volcanoes up here. That’s why Gina and I decided on the Spokane V.A. because we would be away from California. I don’t ever want to live anywhere near California again.”

  “I don’t think it’s anything you have to worry about anytime soon. But, the truth of it is, I don’t know what we’re going to find come spring. If we’ve seen the last of the quakes and old mother earth settles down, and we can survive the winter, we may be alright.”

  “Surviving the winter may be the hardest task we face. We may all be reduced to drinking goats milk.” Journey unconsciously tapped the pen on the writing tablet and sighed. “I don’t know John, but as of right now we’re all on short rations. Somewhere in our stuff, Gina placed a book on wilderness survival. Things you can eat that grow in the wild. We need to find it.”

  “By the time it finishes snowing, and we have four or five feet of snow, we won’t be able to find anything growing, anywhere.”

  They were interrupted when someone outside the tent flap stomped their feet.

  Andy slipped through the tent flap, closing it quickly behind himself. “Dang, it’s really getting cold out, and the snow is almost blinding. I have Matt and Lucas tying a rope between here, the trailer, and the shed. The snow is really coming down and beginning to drift. We may want to start shoveling to keep a trail open.”

  John nodded. He hadn’t realized how long he had been sitting until his back cried out from hunching over the table. “What about the lake? You find any reason for it to be backing up as it is?”

  Andy nodded and rubbed his hands together to warm them. He put his back toward the stove and stepped back as close as he dared. “Remember how it used to drop off down at the end of the pasture? Well, it doesn’t anymore. That whole canyon is filled in. There is a trickle of water funneling out following the natural contour, and a few sticks of dynamite would open it up more. There’s still a shallow canyon there, but not enough of a break for the water to flow into it.”

  John nodded as if could picture what Andy was saying. “So, the canyon is gone, but still there? The water is going into it, but not fast enough to drain the lake, so we need to blow the whole thing up?”

  “Well, shit John, leave it to you to make it sound complicated.” He looked at Journey’s pad of paper, “Mind if I borrow a page of that and your pen? I can see I need to draw it out for him.”

  Journey folded her page, and a couple more behind and handed the writing tablet to him.

  Andy took it, his hand deliberately touching hers. Journey smiled as if she were acknowledging him and laid the pen on the table in front of him.

  For an instant, Journey remembered Gina’s little dig, about Andy being younger than her, but in the grand scheme of their lives now, maybe age had no meaning. With his blond hair and blue eyes, he was easy to look at, and he possessed something few men in the old world did. He seemed to care very much for everyone and wasn’t afraid to show it. There was no macho bullshit that men her age seemed to carry like a crutch.

  A few minutes and pen strokes later, Andy had a rough drawing of what the pasture, lake, and surrounding terrain looked like. He tapped the pen, accenting each point as he made it. “The drop off that used to be here is gone. Something shifted, either the hillside moved closer, or it filled in some way. There’s a new ridgeline here where the drop used to be. He made a line with a divot showing where the water was slowly draining. “If we can widen this gap here,” he looked to see if John was following, “the water will have free access to the gully that now runs southeast.”

  John laughed, and shook his head, “I don’t know why, but seeing it on paper, even with your lack of artistic
ability, I do see what you’re talking about. The thing is, where do we get the dynamite?”

  “Matt’s shop. There a half case of it from when we removed those stumps last spring.”

  John rubbed his face in thought, “Damn, I guess we should have gone and had a look before Sam left.”

  “When do expect them back?”

  “When they show up. Sam didn’t know how far east he and Gina would have to go to get up the hill, but I told him to come back if they didn’t find a way in two days.”

  “If it helps any, the snow is almost stopped, but the temperature is dropping. With the wind chill, it’s got to be below zero.”

  The tent walls vibrated as if to accent the wind. The tarp on the floor ruffled showing where the wind was reaching under it. With an icy gust of wind, Lucas and Matt came inside.

  Both of them had bright red cheeks and tears in their eyes. Lucas’s ears, unprotected from the cold air by long hair or a hat, were as red as his face.

  “The ropes are up, but the snow stopped, so it looks like that was for nothing. It looks to me like the wind has circled back to the east.” Matt told them.

  Both boys crowded in front of the stove holding their hands out over it. “Dad, Matt and I looked, and we can climb the hill. When the ground shook earlier, some of it came down, and the west end is not so steep anymore.”

  John thumped his hand on the tabletop, “Do not even try it. That’s the last thing we need right now is for one of you to fall and break something.”

  “But Dad…”

  John half stood as if his towering over Lucas would give his words more weight, “I said no!” the finality in his voice left no room to question him again. Lucas turned back to the stove.

  As if to punctuate John’s words the table began to jump up and down. He grabbed his cup before it slid off and looked wildly around checking where everyone was. Lucas was sitting down beside the pile of firewood a look of surprise on his face. Matt cradled his hand against his side as if he’d hurt it. Journey had fallen off the bench when it tipped onto its side and was trying to untangle her legs from it. Andy sat paralyzed still at the table. The tremor stopped as quickly as it had started.