Beyond the New Horizon (Book 4): Dark Times

by Conaway, Christine

  John let go and went to greet Charlie. Lucas came to stand by her, watching everyone. “Well, that was weird. I don’t think Dad has ever shaken my hand before and if I remember right, he was pretty pissed at me when they left us behind.”

  Abby shook her head in sympathy, “Parents…you never know what to expect from them.”

  “Lucas? Weren’t you and Abby going to unload the horses?” Charlie asked.

  Abby looked at Lucas and laughed when he said, “Random people too!”

  “Yes sir. We’re just going to do that. Where do you want our stuff?”

  He pointed to the grassy area just out of the cave exit, “There for now until we decide differently.”

  Sherry and Maggie came to help them unload the horses. As soon as they were done, Lucas went to ask if he and the girls could go and find water.

  Lucas had already studied the valley and had a destination in mind. The growth of new trees told him the most likely place to look. The trees and how tall they already were was another reason he thought the valley had been formed with the first changes in their horizon. There was no way, even as fast as cottonwoods grew they could be as tall as they were just since the last big quake.

  Standing in front of Charlie, “Would it be okay to see if we can find some water?”

  Charlie nodded and deferred his opinion to John, “Ask your Dad.”

  “He doesn’t need my consent. I think he’s proven he is capable of taking on the task. All I ask is that you tell someone where you’re going if you leave the camp.” He looked around at all of the young people, “That goes for everyone including the adults. You’ve all proven you are capable of just about anything, but I think that unless we know in advance, we’ll implement the dawn to dusk rule.”

  Abby looked at Lucas and mouthed, “Dawn to dusk?”

  John saw her, “You can do most anything productive from dawn until the sun sets. Then I want you all accounted for before it’s dark. Of course, that is subject to change at any time. We have plenty of work to do, and either Mark or I need to go back and get the things we had to leave behind.”

  The four young people took off before one of the adults found something for them to do. Lucas made the water their first priority and found a shallow stream exactly where he had thought it would be. The horses ambled up behind them and walked right on in, dropped their heads and drank.

  “I knew the cows were here!” Sherry crowed. She pointed to the split hoof marks along the banks, and there was evidense of cow pies along the sides of the stream. “I told Dad I saw you guys or at least the back end of one of the horses and the cows. I’m pretty sure he thought I was seeing things because, by the time he came to look, you were all gone.”

  Lucas gave her a sympathetic look, “He’ll learn. Just give him some time.” Lucas studied the creek bed for a few minutes, “We need to make upstream off limits to the cows and the horses. It’s bad enough thinking what might be in the water from upstream without knowing for sure there is cow and horse poop in it.”

  Lucas parted the bushes and walked the direction the water was coming from and was surprised, when before too long, he reached the rock wall. There was a miniature waterfall that came directly from a crack in the stone. Puzzled by how that could be possible he walked around behind the waterfall and discovered another cave. It was dark inside, and he couldn’t tell how big it was and other than smelling musty there was no odor of a previous occupant. He knew bears hibernated in caves and had been in one with Sam that a wolverine had called home. This cave didn’t smell like anything had lived in it. In fact, there was just enough light to see the walls and the dome. To him, it looked like a bubble of air in the surrounding rock. The walls were smooth, and so was the domed ceiling as near as he could tell. He couldn’t wait to tell the others.

  That night around the fire, each group told their story and how they had come to find the valley. They discussed how the valley had formed and decided it must have always been there, but none of them had known of it. Maybe it was all part of the Barts Ranch which was posted ‘no trespassing’. Mark shrugged because he admitted that he didn’t know and John had never ventured this far south. Charlie had fished the Saint Joe several times but had never been in this area that he remembered.

  “I guess it could be, but I have traveled the scenic byway between St. Regis and Lake Coeur d'Alene fly fishing many times, and nothing here looks familiar to me. I know I would have remembered these chunks of rock being here. But to complicate matters even more, where is the Saint Joes River? We sure didn’t cross it coming here.”

  John sighed, “I’m beginning to think we’ve joined Alice down the rabbit hole. Charlie’s right. We should have crossed the Joe by now.”

  “I sure can’t explain it, but now we need to decide our watch schedule. Who wants to go first?”

  “Where are we standing it from?” Lucas asked because he didn’t remember anyone saying anything about standing guard. He hoped he and Abby could be assigned the same shift and that his Father wouldn’t find it necessary to pair an adult with a younger person.

  “While you were gone, Charlie, Mark and I strung a length of rope and twine from this entrance across the cave to the other side so we wouldn’t have to use light to find our way. We’re going to stand four-hour watches from the other side.”

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Lucas volunteered.

  “So will I,” chimed in Abby. She saw the indecision on John’s face and was prepared to be turned down, but to her surprise, he answered, “Okay who wants to be second?”

  Charlie and Matt volunteered, and John acknowledged with a nod. “Okay, that leaves Mary and I and Mark and Evelyn for tomorrow night. If we can handle it, we’ll just keep the two watches for now. I don’t want to break them down any shorter because I think that just wears a person out quicker.”

  “What about Maggie and I? We should get to stand watches too.”

  “And so you will Sherry. Maybe Evelyn can fix up some kind of a schedule, mixing it up a little. Sherry’s right. Everyone needs to have a role in this.”

  They sat in silence while Lucas and Abby got their rifles and Mary fixed them up a bottle of water and a half square of pemmican.

  Lucas and Abby left following the rope to the other side. “I’m surprised he let us stand watch together.”

  “DO DO DOOT DO, you have entered the realm of the Twilight Zone,” Lucas said using the theme from the Twilight Zone.

  Abby laughed softly, “You really are an ass sometimes you know.”

  “But only sometimes,” Lucas agreed.

  After they had left and Sherry and Maggie went to lie down, the adults sat talking. They shared the parts of the stories they hadn’t gone into with the first exchange. John and Mark hadn’t considered what could have happened to the draw they had been in as far as the volcano went and thanked Charlie for using his head. Had he been right and the lava had come down it, they agreed it would have followed the pathway of the least resistance. The draw would have been the perfect channel. Once that subject had been exhausted, they turned to their current situation.

  “This has to be a part of Barts Ranch. They have like ten thousand acres somewhere up here, and it’s the only explanation of why none of us knew this was here.”

  “Except for two things Mark, how do you explain the blacktop out there and the missing Saint Joes River?”

  Mark shook his head, “I can’t. I just find it too hard to believe this all sprang up out of nothing. It’s impossible. We had to have gotten turned around somewhere in the hills.”

  John laughed, “Listen to you. What is it you used to say, “Nothing is impossible for a believer. Remember you telling me that? Maybe this is an example of what is possible. Now go and get some sleep. It looks and sounds to me like you could use it.”

  “This defies all logic, and you darn well know it. This falls more under the realm of the Twilight Zone. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Tomorrow, after
we’re all rested we’ll explore this valley and see if we can’t come up with an answer. Until then, sleep well.”

  They had made their beds with one sleeping bag shared between two people. The persons on watch would swap out with the sleeping persons until they made it back to either the tractors or Charlie’s wagon to gather the rest of their belongings.

  They had already talked about the ingenious idea of building a travois that Gina and her friends had used to transport their belongings and had plans to implement to the idea to bring all of their possessions to the valley.

  “What if we get back up there and the wagons are gone?”

  “Mary, if they are, there’s nothing we can do about it. If the tractors are gone, then they found some way to get diesel up to them, and if they have those kind of resources, then we can plan on them heading this way at some time in the future especially if they want revenge for those guys we took out.”

  “We need to figure out a way to disguise the entrance. Mary and I were talking, and we think we know how.”

  “Evelyn, let's save this for tomorrow shall we? I can’t hardly keep my eyes open any longer,” John yawned punctuating his sentence. He laughed as if his yawn had said it all.

  “If you hadn’t played the part of Macho man and woke me up to stand a watch you would have been able to. But, I agree. Anything else can be saved until morning.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning as people woke up they moved outside to the small fire that Charlie had built. He and Matt, as planned had come back through the cavern just past daylight. Neither they nor Abby and Lucas had seen or heard anything to alarm them.

  Mary and Evelyn had fixed some of the cereal packets from their supply of MRE’s and served them with the warning that the milk was diluted canned milk and it would be their last meal of cereal of any kind until they got back to the wagons.

  To open the morning discussion, as they sat and ate, John thought their first order of business should be the retrieval of their supplies.

  “Matt, you’re going to be entrusted with watching the camp today. Mary and Lucas are going to take Jinx and the small saddle bags up and get the things we hid on the trail. That shouldn’t take more than half a day. Charlie, Mark and I are going to see if we can find the wagons. Our first priority will be moving whatever we can from the tractors and then go back and find Charlie’s wagon. There is no way we can expect those horses to go up the same way we came down, so we’re going to try and find another way in. There’s no telling how long we’ll be gone, but I expect you guys to stand guard, every night, no fires bigger than this right here and no noise. Above all, do not attract any unwanted attention.

  Lucas, will you and Sherry go and bring the horses up. We’ll be taking Charlie’s two and…what is the name of that chestnut gelding? Did anyone give him one?” John looked around waiting for someone to answer.

  “Abby, you picked him out to ride, what’d you name him?” Lucas asked her with a grin. He knew but wanted her to say it.

  “Punkin,” she said softly with a look that should have killed Lucas had he been looking. He was too busy rolling on the ground laughing at her expense.

  “Punkin, okay. I assume because of his color. We’ll go with that,” John said without laughing. He knew what Lucas was hoping for but just this once, he wasn’t going to succeed.”

  Lucas sat up and stared at his father in disbelief and looked around at the rest of the group. No one but him found the name funny, “Really? Why do you always make fun of the names I pick for my horses? You’re letting her get away with calling a gelding Punkin?”

  “Because Lucas, the difference is, that she’s a girl, and girls think of things differently from boys.”

  “Oh Mom, please. You guys would have laughed at Sherry if she had named her horse Punkin.”

  “Why would we, she has a mare. Now go do what your father asked so we can get started.”

  Reluctantly, Lucas grabbed a couple of lead lines and went to find the horses. He didn’t understand why they had seemed to gang up on him about the name, but he chuckled anyhow. “Punkin…come here little Punkin,” he called mimicking Abby. He hadn’t expected to get a swat on the back of his head.

  “Dang, what was that for?” he asked Sherry feigning hurt.

  “If you like Abby you aren’t scoring any points by making fun of her you know.”

  “To heck with you. She doesn’t care.”

  “I think you should re-think that because she does care. Now, why don’t you just whistle, because I bet if Jinx comes the others will too. Did you tell Dad about the cows? I forgot all about seeing the tracks.”

  Lucas shook his head and using his fingers gave one loud whistle. As soon as he’d done it, he realized his mistake. “Dang it. Why did you tell me to whistle?”

  “Oh crumb…I forgot. Maybe there’s no one close enough to hear it.”

  “So do I or I’m going to be in big trouble.” He reached out and snapped the lead on Jinx as he trotted up, with Jack, Walker, and Punkin right behind him. Sherry got the leads on Jack and Walker while Lucas tied a rope to Punkin’s halter. Sham came limping up behind them, and both kids gave him a pat and told him to stay.

  As they led the horses back to the cave, Sherry said, “I sure hope he doesn’t follow us. Mark says he needs to rest his leg.”

  With the four horses back at camp, Charlie and Lucas put the harnesses on Jack and Walker, while John put Lucas’s saddle on Punkin. Abby was standing by John talking to him, and with a grin, she walked away. “

  “I changed his name to Red, in case you were wondering,” she said as she passed by Lucas.

  “Red’s a good name,” he hollered at her retreating back. She either didn’t hear or was ignoring him, because she, Maggie and Sherry seemed to have a plan and after a brief discussion with Evelyn the three girls set out walking away from camp.

  Before he could do more than wonder where they were going, his Mom called him, “Come on Lucas. We need to get in gear, or we’ll be gone all day. He looked around and saw Charlie and his father on the two draft horses and Mark on Red. They were following the natural floor of the valley to the west. All three had a rifle hanging off their backs. It reminded him he needed to get his. He was surprised when he found that his mother was armed as well.

  “Don’t look so surprised. We go everywhere armed as of right now. Dad seems to have reconciled with the fact that we are going to have to defend ourselves.”

  Matt and Evelyn walked with them out of the cave. They stood there until Lucas and Mary were out of sight.

  “I sure wish I were going. It doesn’t seem fair that I should have to stay here. My leg doesn’t even hurt today.”

  “Do you want to have to make that climb up the hill we came down? Mark thinks we were lucky to get down it without re-injuring it. He did say in a couple more weeks you could start participating more. Until then, just leave it alone, please. It helps keep the peace.”

  “Yes ma’am. I was just saying…”

  She held her hand up to show him she was finished with the conversation. Matt followed her back to the fire ring and sat. “Next thing you know I’ll be doing dishes,” he sulked to himself.

  “Matt, look through that box of Charlie’s. He said he had a short folding shovel somewhere in it.”

  Matt got up and began removing things from the box and held up a military green shovel and unfolded it. He felt the handle lock into to place and took it out to Evelyn.

  She held out a thick branch and told him, “Use this to take your extra weight and take the shovel out to the girls. They’re somewhere down by the water.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” He took the walking stick from her and letting it hold some of his weight, as she’d said, he went to find the creek. Like Lucas, he didn’t have to be told where to go. Finding a water source was something that every rancher knows how to do from a young age. He headed for the line of short trees along the rock wall.

  Matt heard the girls befor
e he saw them. He had thought they were digging out their water hole with thoughts of putting in a small dam, but when he got there, he saw they had one small tree laying on the ground and all three girls were down on their knees digging out the roots of another. The thing was, they weren’t taking the trees from beside the water’s edge but the ones growing at the base of the rocks. He wondered what they were going to do with them. They couldn’t use vine maple for shade. It grew quickly, but was more of a bush than a tree. He didn’t think the other bush they had on the ground was good for shade either.

  “What are you guys doing? You know if you’re moving them for shade neither one of them is good for that right? That’s vine maple, and the other one is a salmon berry bush.”

  “Good, we don’t need them for shade. We’re going to plant them in front of the opening to disguise it. We didn’t want the trees that grow by the water in case someone thought there would be water by them. These were kind of the same type of trees all around us, and we wanted them to blend in.”

  “What we really need are some nasty old blackberry vines, at least until they got berries on them.” Abby stood up rubbing her back. She looked at her hands and saw she had broken off most all of her fingernails and what little she had left were packed with dirt.

  “Why not use rocks? At least we wouldn’t have to carry water to them.”

  Abby looked at Matt and frowned, “A pile of rocks would look out of place too. There aren’t any other piles of rock along the side. Maybe one big rock would work? But we have no way to move it.”

  “Then why not just transplant some of the same bushes that are out in front already? They wouldn’t look out of place or draw unwanted attention. Some of them seem pretty new and shouldn’t have a deep root system, and they’d blend in better with what’s already there.”

  “And why didn’t you tell us sooner?”

  “Hey, you were the ones whispering and acting all secretive. You should have said something to me.”