Beyond the New Horizon (Book 4): Dark Times

by Conaway, Christine

  Then the boys had left to go to Missoula and never returned. John and Mark coming by had been the only reason Charlie had found for going on. The kids in John’s group had especially made him feel part of the family, but he still thought about his boys every day. He had left the note and hoped they would find it if they ever made it home, but he didn’t expect to ever see them again. Now that there didn’t seem to be a Saint Joes River anymore, he wondered where they would all end up. The box valley would be a good place to winter, but he wondered about the logistics of staying on a permanent basis.

  He thought about the men. They had given him another reason to go on. He would extract some kind of justice for their crimes. With some practice and fine tuning, he thought the skills he had developed in the Army might be renewed. He had been a loner in Nam, which suited his sniper lifestyle and nothing was stopping him from resurrecting his skills.

  Just past where he and John had turned the grazing horses around, Charlie came to what looked like a hiking trail to him and sent Jack up the short incline. As soon as he reached the pinnacle, he found the sign with an arrow pointing back down the hill. It read….. ‘Saint Joes River Wilderness Area, 2mi’. He had to climb down from Jack to read the other arrow which lay tangled in some weeds. The only way he had of knowing which direction the arrow should have pointed was by clearing around the base of the broken post and matching the broken ends of the four by four. He grinned when he saw the direction they needed to go. He used a stump and Jack’s patience to climb back on the big horse. Charlie set off at a jog back to where John and Mark were probably both awake and waiting for him to return.

  As soon as he got close, his nostrils detected something he hadn’t smelled in a while and saw they had built a small fire and steam rose from a pot sitting on the coals.

  “Am I dreaming or is that coffee I smell?”

  “It’s coffee if you like chewing it, we didn’t have an egg to throw in to settle the grounds.”

  “Mark, I’d save those grounds for a snack to chew on later just to have the caffeine. Where’d you find coffee?”

  “In the bottom of Lucas’s saddle bag. I didn’t know the kid even drank it, or maybe it was left over from when Sam, he and Gina went on their rescue mission. Who knows, but glad he forgot it was in there. Maybe you better tell us what you found because your face is just too happy for it to be just the coffee.”

  “John, right past where you and I walked last night, I found a hiking trail. A marked hiking trail to be exact. I didn’t go far up it and no promises, but it’s the direction we need to go. One arrow pointed south and said it was 2 miles to the Saint Joes and 11 miles to the Mullan cut off trail. If I remember rightly, that comes out just east of Mullan. There should be another trail that goes out to the freeway, not far from where those old cabins used to be.”

  “Holy cow! Could we really be this close to the ranch?”

  “Maybe, maybe not, it would depend on the changes, but we should be able to find the start of the road we were on and then it’s a simple thing to find the wagons. Or at least my wagon. That landslide kind of cut us off from each other but if we can find one of them we should be able to find the other. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes I would and who knows, maybe we’ll run across Sam and the others coming this way.”

  “That would be something, wouldn’t it? Myself, I’d just be happy to find the trailers and find that our stuff is still there. Sam and the others would be a nice bonus.”

  With the coffee gone and some jerky in their stomach, they readied the horses and left. They were all feeling optimistic about finding their wagons. Charlie led the way with the other two following. When he showed them the sign and explained again how he had determined which way to go, they shared a laugh and continued up the trail. It wasn’t as easy going as Charlie had thought it would be, and they had to lead the horses when they couldn’t get through or over the disrupted terrain.

  By late afternoon, they were standing at the top of a huge slide area, the ground looked as if it had been scooped away with a shovel. Exposed tree roots and precariously hanging boulders lay exposed with the threat of falling at any second. At the bottom of the slide, it looked as if the earth had opened up a crevasse and the loose dirt, trees, and rocks had slid down, partially filling it in. On the north side of the slide area, they could see some of the contents of Charlie’s wagon stacked along the side of the road with the wagon itself sitting a few feet further away. He couldn’t tell, but it looked as if someone had gone through the stuff after they had left. Abby had left the pile neat and covered to protect Mark’s Bibles, but now they were scattered.

  “We sure didn’t leave everything exposed like that. When Abby stacked the stuff, she and Lucas covered it to keep it dry.”

  “Does anyone else smell that?” John stood sucking in deep draughts of air through his nose, “Charlie, it doesn’t appear as if the lava made it this far, but it sure smells like it got close.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me one bit. I thought it might be the path of least resistance. It’s the only reason the kids and I left.”

  From their position at the top, “So, how do we go about getting down there? I can’t see any ground I would trust to hold the horses.”Looking at the boulders hanging exposed by the loss of foundation soil, Mark wondered if it was safe for any of them to be down below.

  “I am thinking the same thing, and I don’t believe anything down there is worth losing a horse over.”

  John interrupted Charlie, “We didn’t come this far to not get our things.”

  Charlie, not used to the rough tone of voice, stepped back, “Settle down John. I never said that I wasn’t going down. I said I’m not putting my horses in a position to have one of those boulders shake loose and hurt one of them.”

  “I agree with Charlie on this one. We can climb down and see what’s salvageable, set it out of the way and carry whatever we find back to the top. There’s no use putting the horses in danger.”

  John saw how he had offended his friends, “Sorry. I guess I was overreacting a bit. It’s going to be one hell of a climb down and back up, and you guys are right.” He stepped to the edge and looked over. His foot nudged a rock and sent a small avalanche of smaller rocks and debris cascading down the hill. He jumped back when he saw how his one little action had eroded the edge closer to where they stood. “Maybe we need to tie them off further to the south just in case we get another shaker.”

  A half hour later they had tied the horses to trees and began the climb down. It wasn’t as far to the bottom as it had looked from up top, but all three men were dirty and sweating by the time they reached the scattered goods.

  Mark saw the pile of Bibles, and he stared at them and frowned. Charlie tried to explain, “Those were wrapped and stacked when we left here. Abby refused to leave them lying on the bare ground.”

  Mark looked at him and shook his head, “They aren’t mine. Are they?”

  “They were in that big black tough box we used for a pack saddle. If they aren’t yours, they must be Johns?”

  John shook his head in denial, “They don’t belong to me. I can think of things I would have packed rather than those.” He held his hands out to Mark, “I’m not saying we wouldn’t benefit from them, I just wouldn’t classify them as disaster supplies.”

  Mark walked to the pile, picked one up and opened it. Printed on the inside cover was, “Moutain Bible Church.” He shook his head, “well they do seem to belong to me, but I sure didn’t pack them. I guess Evelyn found them necessary for our salvation.”

  “By the count, she was planning on saving everyone we met. The kids did take two of them when we loaded up, but that’s all.”

  “Oh. I don’t need any and if the kids took two, that gives us plenty. I think I could quote the whole thing in my sleep if I had to and haven’t used one of them for scripture in years. I always just hold a Bible as a prop when giving a sermon.” He chuckled, “We might need the paper though.�
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  “No way!” John declared, “I’ll stick to leaves.”

  Mark looked at him and began to laugh, “Oh geez John, I meant for starting fires.”

  John shook his head and began sifting through the boxes and bags without having a come back. He heard Charlie guffaw from beside him and chuckled. The idea of using Bible pages for toilet paper had been the first thought that had crossed his mind. He and Mary had discussed what they would use come winter, and she had suggested using personal towels that could be washed and reused by the owner.

  John shook his head and resumed gathering. It was slow, tedious work because they had agreed that they didn’t want to pass on anything, even if it was covered with dirt.

  Everything of value they stacked on the ground in front of the wagon. Nylon bags with handles were packed to capacity and boxes emptied and sorted through and repacked. The radio equipment and any food items were to be given priority over clothing or anything they deemed unnecessary. They had a large pile gathered and still hadn’t touched the front third of the wagon bed. All three men were beginning to show signs of tiring when John declared a break was necessary. So far they had gone through all of Marks possessions the two kids had gathered after being strung out across the slide area.

  Charlie was sitting on the end of his wagon, elbows resting on his knees, He looked at Mark who was sitting on the now stacked Bibles. “John, if you want to come over here, I have a suggestion.”

  John came and sat down beside Charlie mimicking his posture, “When the kids and I left, we did so because I feared any lava flow would come down the path of least resistance,” He waved up the draw, “As you can see it didn’t happen. I think we need to see about using the low ground and going around the bottom of that hill. Not only would it be shorter, but it could be easier. The sooner we get away from here, the better off we’ll be and probably safer too.”

  “How do you plan on getting the horses down if we go from here?” Mark was asking under the assumption they would have to carry their things back up to the horses. “I didn’t think you wanted to bring them down that hill.”

  Charlie rubbed at his chin and sighed, “I don’t have that figured out yet, but we ought to see about moving them before it gets dark. I think leaving them up there and carting all of this to them is out of the question. Who would have thought there was this much stuff in one little wagon, and we’ve still got my things to go through? As for the horses, I sure wouldn’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and find them gone.”

  “I was wondering how we were going to do this. Wouldn’t they be okay up there for the night and bring them down in the morning?”

  “He’s right, John, we need to move them while there’s still enough light. We’re going to need those horses as much as we need this radio, probably more. Someone has been through this stuff. It’s obvious the marks on the box were made by someone's knife, and for the life of me, I’m not sure why they didn’t just take the box apart at the hinges. I guess that I’m glad they didn’t try it, or we’d be out the radio and the solar setup that’s in there.”

  John looked at the stack sitting at the front of the wagon, “Well hell, maybe we should move this whole pile further into the trees and brush and go find the other two wagons. I sure hate the thought of losing any of our things, and with someone knowing all this is here, you know that eventually, they’ll be coming back for it.”

  “Why don’t you and Mark take care of this and I’ll see about moving the horses down? You guys might want to have a look at some of those boxes in the front of my wagon. I’m pretty sure there’s canned food there too. We only grabbed what we could carry when we fled.”

  John and Mark agreed, because looking up the hill, the climb appeared to be daunting and neither man wanted to have to climb up it.

  “We’ll make a water hole in that stream bed and move this while you take care of them,” John told Charlie while pointing at the stack of supplies already there.

  Charlie nodded and stood up with a groan. He studied the terrain. They hadn’t spent any time finding an easy route down because they had been too excited about finding the wagon and the path John and Mark had chosen was too steep and perilous to bring the horses down. Where Charlie had come down seemed to be the best route, but he had then crossed the face of the slide to get over to the wagon. Charlie could see that the wagon had unfortunately been caught in the middle of the concave depression that had slid away from the face of the hillside, partially filling in the ravine at the bottom forcing the creek to find an alternate route.

  Fifty feet either way and they would have been spared the loss of his wagon. He made his way across the rock and tree limbs until he was on the north side. Using the same back and forth technique, he’d use to traverse the steep slope coming down; he reversed it back up to the top. On his way up, he cleared the brush, rolled rocks and made the trail safe to bring his horses down in single file.

  By the time that John and Mark had finished moving their things and dug out a pool in the shallow creek, Charlie had the horses tied head to tail and was coming back down. He found that he had to stop and work Red to the front of the three because the horse kept trying to pass the two bigger horses. He knew if he set Walker and Jack free, they would follow him down the hill; he just didn’t want them to go running down helter-skelter and take a chance of either of them hurting themselves. By the time he made it down to the floor of the valley, John and Mark were waiting for him.

  “You never told us you had all of that food in there. We went to pull one of those boxes out and pretty near strained something. Tell us why you would buy so many cans of tomatoes?”

  “Sure I did, but I didn’t buy them, I canned them, didn’t you see the writing on the cans? I bought Bernice one of those home canning setups for Christmas a couple years back. Her garden was so big the last year, and I had to do something with them besides feeding them to the horses. Those cans aren’t all tomatoes, there's squash too, and maybe a few cans of corn and couple of cans of spuds. I just grabbed cans and didn’t read the labels until the boxes were full.”

  “No wonder those horses had a hard time moving that wagon,” John said with a shake of his head. It looks like a rolling grocery store.”

  “Well, you’ll thank me when the snow flies and you can’t run to Wal~Mart for supplies, besides that, with all of us and if the others get here too, it won’t go far.”

  “That we will buddy, that we will. I hope they have supplies besides the guns they went after. The way the air is cooling down, I wonder if we’re going to get anything into the ground this year. Evelyn and Mary were going to try and get something going, but I’d be surprised if there's enough time left.”

  Charlie started to lead the horses to the water and stopped, “You guys find that sack of seed potatoes? Probably too late to get them in the ground, but it couldn’t hurt to try some.”

  “Well hell,” John looked at Mark and frowned, “guess them weren’t rotten potatoes after all. They’re sitting beside the front of the wagon. I looked in and thought they looked kind of wrinkled and puny and set them aside.”

  “By the time winter gets here we’ll be happy to have them, puny looking or not. Don’t know about you guys, but it was downright brisk this morning.”

  Mark shook his head, a smug expression on his face, “It hasn’t been that long since I talked to Australia and they had just had their summer flip into one of the coldest winters on record. I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about winter for a long while yet. You know, winter there summer here and vice-versa.”

  Charlie looked at Mark, “And didn’t you say that he said, it happened practically overnight? Do you think they weren’t caught off guard? Look around you Mark, this did happen overnight. We should still be fighting with the snow plows and spring storms. Other than briefly just before Christmas, we’ve had short sleeve weather. What makes you think it can’t turn again just as fast?”

  Mark smoothed his whiskers while che
wing on his lip, “Well, I can’t say that won’t happen and there isn’t anything we can do to stop it, but if that’s going to be the case we are in a world of trouble. Look around you…these trees think it’s late spring or early summer. There aren't even any berries yet. If our climate was to take a nose dive tomorrow, we’d be losing a whole bunch of trees and bushes to frost. Heck, they have to be confused as it is, but I guess it’s out of our hands.”

  “When you two kids get done arguing, we need to find a way around this hill. Charlie’s right, we need we need to start gathering anything we can find that’s edible and preservable just in case. Our goal should be to get as prepared as we can with whatever grows wild around here. If Mary and Evelyn can get something growing and the weather does hold out, we should be in pretty good shape, but I’m not going to count on harvesting anything.”

  “John I think you missed the point. I’m not sure we’ll find anything for the same reason we can’t plant. Nothing has had time to grow yet. Look at the few huckleberry bushes we’ve seen. No flowers and the leaves have barely begun to grow. I think we need to think of cattails and skunk cabbage if we can find any standing water, but that’s probably out too. Dandelions maybe, but I haven’t noticed any of them either or any thistles for that matter. These plants all think it’s spring. I don’t know what we can find in the pasture, but wild onions maybe. We need to find that book that Abby said Journey had. It’s probably full of wild things we can eat. Myself, I don’t really know.”

  John jumped to his feet. “No Mark, I didn’t miss the point as you so eloquently put it. I’ve lived here my whole life, and if there’s one thing that I do know about, it’s the land. I can see there are no berries or wild growth, but if we can find old standing water, even if the tops had frozen in the little winter we did have, the tubers will still be in the mud at the bottom. Like potatoes and carrots, the bulbs will still be edible because the mud would have protected them. We have wild walnut trees and pine nuts, we just have to find them and sitting around here discussing whether or not they’re still there isn’t getting anything done.”