Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times Page 8

  He stood and picked up the lantern, “I’ll be right back.”

  “I want to see.” She made to follow him.

  He turned to her and put his hand up to stop her. “Dammit Gina, just stay here. You don’t need to see this.” His voice was cold as if he expected her to obey him.

  Gina stood blinking her eyes in surprise. No one had ever spoken to her like that and in that tone of voice. It was not something she ever expected to hear from Sam.

  Gina was fuming by the time Sam came back. However, his posture and silence made her hold her temper.

  “It’s Amanda,” he finally said. “When I didn’t find her tied inside, I thought it might be. Somehow she got herself free. I expect she startled the horses, and one of them kicked her. She went down and was probably scrambling around scaring them. The horses just did what comes naturally. They defended themselves from an intruder.”

  “Is she…” Gina couldn’t bring herself to finish.

  Sam nodded, “Yes.” He sighed as if the whole world was on his shoulders. “Maybe she thought she could grab one of them and escape. I don’t know, but I guess I should thank them. They did what I was going to have to do.”

  Gina nodded her head in agreement. “As awful as it sounds, they saved us some grief. I knew she couldn’t go back with us. Myself, I could never have trusted her, and there was no way we could have kept this to ourselves. Every time she looked at one of the kids, I would wonder what she was thinking.”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t be thinking any less. I had no intention of letting her leave here. This just makes it easier. As far as I’m concerned, she got off way too easy.”

  “She did. But I read somewhere that when a person turns cannibal, there’s something that goes wonky in their brain. Like drinking salt water in the ocean. It does something and makes them crazy. It makes them break with reality…hell, I don’t know. But that woman was not in her right mind.”

  “Let’s forget about this until tomorrow, we can still get a few hours sleep here.”

  “What about moving…”

  “The horses are fine tied right where they are.”

  “What about…” Gina pointed with her chin. She hadn’t seen Amanda and didn’t want to see her or she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Gina had seen what Gus and Sailor had done with their hooves to a cougar two years before. Gus still carried the battle scars, but the cougar had been reduced to nothing more than road kill. Hair, blood, and broken bones. She hadn’t seen Amanda, but an image of the cougar remained burned into her memory. She only needed to put a headful of greasy blonde hair in the mess she remembered.

  “She’ll be okay where she is for tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough to worry anymore about her.”

  “Maybe we could use that old tractor and dig a grave for all of them,” Gina said as she climbed back into her sleeping bag.”

  “Maybe…Sam said as he pulled her close.

  Chapter Seven

  Over a breakfast of oatmeal and goats milk, John explained what he wanted to do. He held all of their attention while he talked, “We’d have the insulated room, as well as enough feed for all of the animals. I’m not sure if anyone else has been there since Sam and Gina were, but no one had broken into the shop or the hay shed.”

  “You want us to move back up there? Oh John, why would you want to do that. Here, we are protected from the highway and anyone else that comes along. I can’t put my children in danger again.”

  John sighed, and rested his hand, covering up Mary’s smaller one. “This is my fault. I haven’t wanted to upset you and…I guess I am guilty of lying by omission. The highway, according to Sam, is no longer there. Mathew and Lucas just confirmed it this morning. The house is gone, and Interstate 90 is now a river. We don’t know what other changes there are, that’s why Ben, Andy, Journey and myself are going to go up and look.”

  “Mr. Akins, sir…I’d like to go too.”

  “Mathew, please just call me John. It’s been a long time since anyone called me Mister anything. I guess, seeing as how you and Lucas know the way up, we can all go.”

  “Except the girls,” Mary said. “Today, we are going to string some lines up and do laundry.”

  “But Mom…why do we have to do it? All of it is Nathan’s.”

  “Are we really going to go into that again? Doing laundry is a necessary evil, and it has to be done.”

  “Won’t it freeze on the lines?” Abby offered. She looked at her father with hope on her face.

  “Yes it will, and then we’ll hang it inside to finish drying. When we get it all washed, we can make some biscuits or sort the beans. Unless you girls are finished with them already?” Mary looked at Ben as if daring him to contradict her. It was clear that she didn’t want the girls going anywhere they could possibly get hurt, or be exposed to something they shouldn’t see.

  “No, ma’am.” They said in unison, both voices expressing their sorrow, knowing they weren’t getting out of doing them.

  “But we’re almost done,” Abby told her. She looked at her dad again, hoping he would intervene. With a look from him, her rejection showed with the drop in her shoulders, and she slouched on the bench, her bottom lip stuck out.

  “You stay and help Mary. Tomorrow, if you get the beans sorted, I’ll take you girls for a short walk-about.”

  Ben looked around to see if anyone had any objections, “Today you do what you can for Mary. Okay, kiddo?”

  Abby nodded, but it was clear she wasn’t happy. Ben knew that doing chores designed specifically for females wasn’t anything Abby had done before. With just the two of them, they had shared them, regardless what it was. She could clean a gun; pistol or his rifle, as well as do the dishes or cook. He had noticed she seemed quiet lately and he wondered if she had a problem with him including Lucy in their family. When he got back, he would take her out and have a talk with her.

  Lucy snapped her fingers in front of his face, “Hello! You’re going to get left behind if you don’t get in gear.”

  Ben looked around, and she was right. Only he and the girls were still in the tent. He looked quizzically at Lucy, “You’re going aren’t you?”

  “Nope. Today I am sorting beans and doing laundry with Abby and Sherry. When we get that done, we’re going to clean rice.” She pulled Abby to stand beside her and gave her a hug which made Abby beam.

  Ben noticed how happy a simple hug had made her. Abby hugged Lucy back and skipped off to join Sherry, who had just left.

  “Thank you. That means a lot to her. I guess I need to give her more of my time.”

  “She’s fine. Like everyone else, she just wants to know what’s out there and spend some time with her dad. I would go too, but I don’t think I could manage the climb yet.”

  “How’s the leg?”

  “Sore. I’ve lost so much weight my prosthetic doesn’t fit well anymore. Journey is going to see what she can do. But, like the rest of us, she has a lot on her plate. Now, if you don’t get going you’ll be stuck here sorting glass bits from the rice or hanging diapers on the line.”

  Ben jumped up, threw a kiss at her forehead, grabbed his coat and was out the door before Lucy could caution him to be careful.

  Having to stay behind was not something Lucy felt good about, but she also understood her limitations. She also realized it could put someone else in peril. They had no idea who or what was up above and if she couldn’t move, and move quickly if it were needed, she would be jeopardizing all of their safety.

  Lucy glared down at her limb and pounded her fist on her knee, “Damn you, damn you, damn you!” She had never felt so frustrated and useless. Diapers, cooking and picking glass from salvaged rice had never been in her plans. Had she wanted to pursue homemaker as a career, she never would have joined the Army.

  Gary, had always told her she had the heart of a lion and the tenacity of a badger and the perseverance of an eagle. Lucy stopped hitting herself and dropped her head onto her arms. Never before had she sh
ed tears for what never was and never could be. Gary was gone, leaving her to carry on alone. She had been feeling guilty lately, and she hadn’t understood why. Now she did. If not for Gary, she wouldn’t be sitting there. He had pushed her clear of himself when he realized his foot was going to land on the IED and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

  Lucy had caught the look of horror, just before he shoved her. She had woken up in a hospital in Germany, minus one leg and one fiance. They hadn’t told anyone else about the engagement. It had happened so fast and was too new to share with anyone.

  Lucy sniffed and wiped her tears away. She felt better finally being able to cry over her losses, both her leg and Gary. She now felt as if her life was taking a new turn. While she had come to depend on Journey and Gina, and she would always consider them her best friends, it wasn’t the same as having a real family.

  Right then, even without the benefit of marriage, Lucy knew her life, and the lives of Ben and Abby were intertwined. Ben had agreed to let her tell Journey and Gina before they said anything to John or the others. Lucy had planned on doing it today, but Gina was gone with Sam, and now Journey was off on an adventure of her own.

  Lucy sighed and stood up, it was time to get started on the rice. They had managed to save quite a bit of it, but in their haste to save it, they had scraped up bits and pieces of the broken glass along with the grains of rice. Every piece of glass no matter how small would have to be picked out.

  Resigned to staying in camp, and feeling better after her good cry, Lucy thought about their food. Under normal circumstances, they would never have taken the chance with eating the rice, but there was nothing normal about their lives anymore. Every grain of rice and every bean had value. She almost wished they could go back up and see if they could find anything else that had been missed. She hadn’t seen the black bags that she and the girls had packed from their trailer. Nor had she seen the bags of complete feed for the horses.

  Lucy stopped halfway to the trailer and stood lost in thought. She looked around to see if she hadn’t missed it. Lucy was sure that John had gone and picked up Gina’s horse trailer and taken it to the cabin, but she knew John was hooked up to his trailer when they’d both gone off the edge of the crevasse that had opened up. She wondered what had happened to Gina’s. If nothing else, it would give them another place to sleep if they could find a way to insulate it from the cold.

  “Maybe you’re losing it after all,” Lucy mumbled and went to find Mary. She looked up when she heard hollering from up on the hill.

  Lucas was waving down and pointing to indicate he wanted her to walk around the trailer. From where she was, Lucy couldn’t see what he was pointing at. She walked passed the trailer and let her mouth drop open in shock. Apparently, during the last round of tremors, the cliff face had collapsed. It was no longer a vertical wall of dirt and rock. While it would still be a tough slog, it wouldn’t be impossible to climb up. She could see where someone had already done the climb by the freshly turned over dirt and footprints. She couldn’t imagine John giving anyone permission to climb it as it looked unstable to her.

  Lucas turned his back to her, and she was going to turn and go into the trailer when Lucas turned around again, and Gus jogged up to him. Lucas put one arm around the mule and pointed down at him with his other arm. Lucy gave them a thumbs up and waved.

  Leave it to Gus, she thought, always the adventurer. With all of his new horse friends, she wondered if he missed the interaction he used to have on a daily basis with people. He had pretty much spent all his time with the jenny that had belonged to Carlos, but maybe the novelty had begun to wear off. It seemed to her that she had seen him hanging around camp quite a bit the past two days.

  *****

  John had seen where the land had slid down making a gentle slope out of the cliff, but was hesitant to climb it. Especially when they had Journey going with them. He made his way to the top, following Lucas and Matt. Journey, Ben, and Andy followed behind.

  Before he reached the top, John tried to bolster himself with a reminder the house was no longer there. He wondered if maybe it wasn’t for the best. The house held so many family memories, but he knew they could never rebuild it. Had it still been there, it would have only served as a sad reminder of what used to be. While he and Mary had lived there the last fourteen years, he and Sam had lived there most of their lives. Other than a brief stint in the Army for him and Sam, the ranch was everything they knew.

  Sam had gone through something after his last deployment that he had never spoken of but retired without returning to duty. John had seen the purple heart on Sam’s dresser and the scars crisscrossing Sam’s body, but he had respected Sam right to privacy. He had always thought that Sam would talk to him, but he never had.

  Sam had spent months trying to find something and John thought that now he had. Gina seemed to calm Sam’s need to put himself in harm's way. At least he had gravitated to someone and in spite of their circumstances, seemed relatively happy.

  John turned to where the house should have sat. He felt his throat grow tight as he looked. The driveway and house were gone. There wasn’t a log of any part of the cement and rock foundation visible. The only reminder of the old ranch house was the apple tree in the back yard. A tire swing he had put up years before for the kids, swung lazily back and forth as if a kid had just jumped off. He could almost hear the kids screaming with pleasure as they had the day he hung it.

  The river of fire that Sam had told them off running along the highway was gone, but even from where they were, the sound of rushing water could be heard. He wanted to go and see the new river, but was afraid the land on either side of it could be unstable and collapse under them.

  The homestead had sat almost in the center of an east/west valley with the freeway running up the north side with only Silver Creek between the road and the foothills.

  According to Sam, a trench had opened up as if the roadway had been built over the top of a fault line. The two shoulders of the road split apart, and the freeway had dropped in front of them into a running river of molten rock. Had it not been for quick thinking on Sam’s part, they may never have made it home at all.

  “Hey! Get back here!” From the corner of his eye, John saw Matt and Lucas headed toward the bank of the river. His voice had stopped them in their tracks.

  “We were just going to see it. We weren’t going to get close.”

  “Oh…so I assume you know how undercut the ground along the edge is?” John stood with his hands on his hips, feeling the boys displeasure even from a distance.

  Dragging their feet, they came back to the group, clearly not happy. “We only wanted to see. Uncle Sam said it was a river of lava before, but now it sounds like water running.”

  “Yes, it does, but remember how when we were standing on the banks of that dry arroyo in Arizona last year, and the edge caved in? Remember how I explained the rushing water could gouge out under the edges leaving unsupported ground sitting high and dry? Do you remember how far you had to climb up and couldn’t have done it without help?”

  Lucas nodded, and John almost felt sorry for embarrassing him in front of Matt, but he thought Lucas’s experience in the dry wash, could be turned into a lesson for all of them. They had no way of telling how far the moving lava had eroded the ground under the top soil. It had only been a few days. Obviously, running water had replaced the molten rock and had probably cooled and hardened the lava, but they had no way of knowing the depth of the chasm nor how firm the terrain on either side of the new river bed was.

  John was afraid of the unknown. He was afraid of losing anyone of their group to something he knew nothing about. Until spring, after seeing the changes the snowpack and natural erosion made to the banks of the river, he felt they should avoid it all together. At least by then, he felt the lava would be thoroughly cooled and set up. The difference of a couple months could make significant modifications in the valley floor.

  “Let
’s go have a look at the hay barn and see what’s left over there.” John turned and began walking away.

  Ben watched Matt and Lucas just to be sure they were following John. When they did, but with reluctance in every step, Ben turned and caught up with Andy.

  “I’m going to talk to John later and see if you and I can get a better picture of what’s going on over there. With the hill collapsing as it did, it’s not unfeasible for the cows or horses to climb up here.”

  Andy nodded to where Gus had caught up to the boys, “And then there’s that.”

  “Nothing seems to stop him from going where he pleases. Not that I’d miss his obnoxious braying every morning. He’s worse than having a damn rooster.”

  Andy stopped as if considering what Ben had just said. “Chickens! I wonder if any of the chickens survived? Matt and I turned them all loose so they wouldn’t get eaten, but the damn things are so stupid they probably got caught right off the bat.”

  Ben rubbed his stomach and sighed with a memory, “I sure would enjoy some fried chicken or a big plate of scrambled eggs.”

  Andy laughed, “Well, you can’t have both. I’ll bring it up to John. It might be worth exploring the idea. Or, maybe Sam and Gina will find some of them. Old Jake Minnaker had a whole hen-house full too. There’s no way he would let anyone touch a feather on his prized Ameraucana’s. He also had some Rhodies, he kept for egg laying. Set himself a little stand, at the end of his drive so people could buy fresh farm eggs.”

  “Maybe we have something we could trade for a couple of laying hens. It’d sure make Mary happy, but no roosters. Gus is bad enough.”

  “There you go again. You have to have a rooster, to produce chicks to raise up to eat. You don’t get baby chicks without one. The more chickens you have, the more eggs you get and the more chicken you have to eat.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a winning proposition to me. We get to have a rooster, as well as Gus, waking us every morning at the crack of dawn.” He shook his head in disgust.