Beyond the New Horizon (Book 3): Living on the Edge

by Conaway, Christine

“Do you know what happened in the first two weeks after the lights went out? People in town went crazy. Some of them got together to share their food because Dad said we had to look after the ones who had less, but some of them…” Olivia shook her head as if she had no better description.

  “I wouldn’t have expected him to do anything different.”

  Olivia wiped her eyes, “He tried to tell them we had to ration because people were eating whatever and whenever they wanted. After the earthquake, the guys who tried hunting said all the game was gone. Then the men and their families came in from the Alliance Ranch, and we began to run short on food. Some people kept saying the government would show up at any time, but they didn’t, and people got even crazier. Dad decided we needed to go home and stay there. It was about a week after that that we heard lots of shooting at night. A week after that you couldn’t go outside because the smell of something rotten was so strong.”

  Olivia kept wetting her lips as she talked. Gina got up and poured her a cup of water. She drank it dry and set the cup on the table in front of her. No one had said anything while they waited. They all seemed eager for her to continue, but Gina wondered if they would thank Olivia when she finished talking. She had heard parts of the story as they rode along and it had scared her how uncivilized people who knew each other had become.

  “One night, someone pounding on our front door which woke us up and Daddy had me and Mom hide in the cellar. She thought it was going to be okay because we both recognized some of the voices upstairs. Then the men started yelling at my Dad and then we heard gunshots. My Mom told me to hide in the feed-store until the people were gone. She was going to come and get me when it was safe. She gave me her keys to the store and told me to go up in the rafters. I did. I stayed there the rest of the night and all the next day. She never came, and I was hungry,” Olivia said as the tears welled in her eyes.

  They sat in silence waiting for her to continue. Gina saw that this was the most heartbreaking story she had ever listened to and as far as she was concerned, it was over.

  “I think we all know the ending or Olivia wouldn’t have ended up alone and starving in the woods.”

  “Wait a minute, are you saying that men who knew your father killed him and your mother?”

  Olivia sniffed and dried her eyes with her arm, “I only know that I recognized Mr. Harding and Mr. Darn’s voices. Both were my teachers. When I came home, my parents were both…gone. I was trying to dig a grave when I got caught.”

  Gina could see how telling them what had happened had upset Olivia. When it didn’t seem like John was ready to accept the girl's story and wanted every detail, “That’s enough. We all know what people are capable of and we’ve heard enough and seen enough to draw our own conclusions. Sam, why don’t you tell them what Mark said?”

  Sam nodded, “He was finally able to confirm from some of his radio pals, what happened. The eastern seaboard was wiped out by nuclear bombs. California is gone or at least unrecognizable, and the Bering Straits no longer connected the Arctic and Pacific Oceans. The fifty-five-mile gap now rises from sea level to as high as eight thousand feet. The highest peak is spitting ash and noxious gas as far south, and as far east as Vancouver and volcanoes all around the world are erupting.”

  “Well, I sure liked it better when it was a CME or a solar flare that took down the electrical grid. So much for theories.”

  Ben looked at Lucy, “You said it. It was only a theory, and it was me who said it. But remember our talk? At the time, I did say it could be one or the other. I prayed it was a CME. Now it looks like we have something concrete to base our conclusions on.”

  “I thought Sam just said the east coast got nuked. What happened to California?”

  “They said that apparently, the Diablo Canyon Power Plant sat near the Hosgri Fault line and when the earthquakes struck, it opened up the containment structure for the number one reactor like an egg. They didn’t have time to shut it or the second reactor down properly. Marks friend lived just out of Avila Beach up in the hills, but he hasn’t heard from him in a couple of weeks.”

  John smacked his palm on the surface of the table in anger, “If the east coast got nuked, this is our fault. We did this! This is the fault of our damn Government. When Bannon began cutting back on our military and defense spending, someone should have known this was going to happen, and I refuse to believe they didn’t.”

  “It’s a little late for outrage now, but, I think they knew this would happen. Why do you think I left the Army? As soon as they pulled our fleet out of the Persian Gulf, we all knew we were heading for trouble.”

  “Someone dropped nuclear bombs on us?” Mike asked, his face showing confusion. “Who?”

  “No one seems to know right now, but whoever did this, knew how to destroy us without firing a gunshot.” Sam shook his head in disgust.

  “What do you mean, whoever? You know damn well who did this. When Bannon gave them the power to create a nuclear bomb he gave them the key to the city. Who better to guard the hen-house but the damn rooster? Self-inspections, my ass. What I want to know is how did they get close enough to bomb us? Why didn’t we just shoot them down or something?”

  Sam didn’t raise his voice often, but when he did, even John listened. “John, I’m going to say this real slow, so you understand. We don’t know who nuked us. You can’t blame anyone when you have no proof. One of the guys Mark talked to, said there were only a couple that maybe hit the east coast and that somehow one or both possibly hit a critical fault line which could be the cause of all of our eruptions and the quakes.”

  “Wait a minute, just so that I understand this correctly. Sam, do you think these nuclear blasts were the cause of our quakes or are they just coincidental?” Mike asked, “I’m puzzled how the nuclear bombs on the east coast could have brought on earthquakes on the west coast.”

  “I remember a program I stayed up and watched one night,” Journey began, “It was one of those National Geographic shows, and I remember something about a fault line that ran deep under the earth's crust. They didn’t know it was there for years until aerial magnetic mapping revealed it in 78. They did some seismic surveys back then and decided it was of little consequence seeing as how the fault had never cut through the layers of earth nor been visible on the surface. But if you think about it, the Appalachians came from somewhere. Why would it be hard to believe that somehow deep inside the earth these volcanoes aren’t all connected, like the Oregon cave system and they began to fail, kind of like the domino effect?”

  Sam nodded, ever since they had heard the news from Mark of the bombs dropping and the subsequent earthquakes, he’d wondered if the two events weren’t tied together somehow. “I agree with Journey. If you think about…” he thought for a moment trying to pull a good example out of his brain, “Think about a water bed. What happens when someone flops down on one side of it?” He saw they were getting his meaning by the grins on their faces. “Exactly. The opposing side bulges out.”

  “In school, we learned about fault zones that cut across the grain of the Rocky Mountains all the way from Helena to Coeur d’Alene. Ours was the Lewis and Clark zone. That could explain what happened here.” Lucas grinned with the knowledge that he had contributed something to the adult conversation.

  “Oh my God…and they built the interstate right on top of one of those faults. No wonder it was the first to go. That could have been the weakest point in the mantle,” Journey said, her voice hushed and full of disbelief.

  “You think about this, residents of Wallace, Kellogg, Coeur d’Alene, Rathdrum, Sandpoint and surrounding communities have felt small quakes for years, but nothing like we experienced in November. As much as I hate to say it, we probably saw history in the making.”

  “That may be okay for you Sam, but I would just as soon not be part of history making thank you very much.” John was laughing when he said it, but he had expressed everyone's thoughts.

  “Probably won’t hap
pen again for another six hundred thousand years. Myself, I hope to be long gone to meet my maker.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes. It seemed to Gina that no one wanted to ask the big question. She decided to be the one, “So, what are our plans now? Are we going to put in a garden and stay here or what?”

  No one seemed to want to answer. They sat in silence until Mary spoke up. “Well, I want to know who thinks this is what our weather is going to be. Was that the only winter we get or what? I sure don’t want to miss the planting season, but I don’t want to get plants started and have them freeze.”

  “I don’t have any idea, but I think I’ll take a ride over and see Mark. Maybe he’s heard something about the weather too. Does anyone else want to go with me?” John asked, looking around the table.

  “I’ll go if someone can lend me a horse,” Ben said as he rose from the bench. He stretched and groaned, “I need to get some exercise besides chopping wood.”

  “Shoot, I completely forgot, Minnakers horses are out in the back pasture. We may want to go and round them up before someone else decides to use them for food,” Sam told them.

  “Ben, you know you can ride Joe anytime you want. You don’t have to ask, but you ought to borrow a saddle because mine won’t fit you,” Lucy told him.

  Before they had the chance to do anything, they heard a loud boom, and the ground began to shake. Sam ran from the tent followed by the rest of the men.

  Olivia latched onto the closest adult who turned out to be Lucy. Lucy dragged the girl outside behind her.

  Open mouthed; Lucy stared up at the mountain, “Oh my God! What do we do?” She breathed out, “Oh my God.”

  As they watched, the top of the mountain raised up; hot gas spewed molten rock high into the air. Clouds of dust, gas, and debris rose in billowing clouds that blackened the sky.

  “Everybody, the horses! We need to get them into the shelter of the trees. Now!” Sam screamed, running down the hill to the horses.

  Gina could see the horses starting to scatter, and put her fingers to her mouth and whistled. Sailor’s head turned away from the mountain, and he broke into a gallop toward her. Someone had draped the lead ropes over a line between two posts, and Gina scooped them up and passed them out. When Sailor came up the hill with the rest trailing behind him, she clipped the line on his halter, and Sam gave her a leg up.

  “Lucas, run down and open the gate for the cows.” Lucas seemed to understand and took off at a ground covering run.

  Sailor was excited and danced around, almost unseating Gina. She held his mane and reins in the same hand and held her other out, “Abby, give me a load of the blankets.” To Gina, they all seemed to be moving in slow-motion. She threw the horse blankets over Sailors neck and her lap. Sam came running up with Sham, Joe, and Bess on the end of lead ropes. He handed the lines to Gina. The horses were scared and soon tangled themselves around her.

  Abby, seeing the problem took Joe’s lead away from her and led him to the wood stack beside the fire pit. In an instant, she went from the pile of wood onto his back. She forced him up against the remaining blankets hanging on a chair, reached down to them and pulled them up and across Joe’s neck the same as Gina had. Sam handed her the lead lines for two more horses. Using her knees and the lead line, Abby wheeled Joe and followed Gina into the trees.

  As soon as they were under cover of a towering fir tree, Gina sidled Sailor close to a tree and threw the blankets in a pile at the base. “Abby, tie them and cover them. I’m going back for the rest and then help your Dad and Sam drive the cows into the trees. If it looks like the air is getting dusty, take your shirt off and tie it over your face.”

  “What about the horses? Won’t they be breathing it too?”

  Gina frowned, Abby was right. “Don’t do the blankets up, just cover them, then if it looks like the ash is coming down, pull the blankets up over their heads. That’s the best we can do for right now.”

  Once the horses were all under the shelter of trees, Gina rode down and helped John and Sam drive the cattle into the brush. With the leaves gone from the bushes, they wouldn’t offer much protection, but they would be better than standing out in the open field.

  From the relative safety of the pine trees they sat and watched the cloud of ash as it mushroomed out over the top of the mountain.

  “Now what? We just sit here and wait?”

  “You could pray the wind carry’s it east and doesn’t let it fall on top of us.”

  Chapter Three; Are we at risk?

  Usually, the cloud would have begun to disperse in the upper atmosphere, coming apart in the wind currents, but the cloud of ash continued to boil from the top of the mountain, darkening the sky with debris. It hovered around the top like a halo of ugly gray ash threatening to cover the ranch in a layer of gray dust, making their land unplantable maybe for years to come. Then they saw it; faint wisps began to drag off toward the east.

  Just as they thought they were out of danger, from the cloud settling over them, small pebble sized pieces of hot rock, and larger fragments began to pelt the ground all around them. These had been too heavy to drift away, and when each piece had reached its maximum height, it began falling to the ground, and the force of the initial explosion had spread the cooling rock over a wide area.

  “Cover your mouths with something,” Sam told them. He handed Gina his red bandana and pulled his tee shirt up over his nose and mouth. Sam saw Lucas helping Abby pull the horse blankets up over their heads.

  The few cows which had not made it into the cover of trees, bolted across the pasture when the rocks bombarded them from above. Each kernel of the cooling rock sent them further away from the ranch.

  “The rocks will drive them over the cliff. We have to stop them,” John said.

  “No, they won’t. They’ll circle back around and probably bunch up somewhere.”

  They watched the cows run along the side where the stream dropped off and as Sam had said, they circled back and headed into the trees on the lower end of the pasture.

  The debris continued to fall from the sky for several hours, covering the ground with a layer of small rock and larger particles of sand. The odor of rotten eggs filled the air making it hard to breathe. They had all pulled their jackets up to shield their faces. None of them remembered if the gasses were toxic, but Sam seemed to think they had been far enough away only to get the rock and odor. He said that he thought the gasses directly from the ash would have been deadly to them as well as their animals.

  Right then all of the horses were still standing with their heads covered by their blankets and tied up short so they couldn’t eat any of the grasses, just in case the grass had gotten contaminated.

  When the fallout ceased, Sam and John rode out from under the trees and Ben, and Gina went to where Lucas and Abby were.

  Waiting for the air to clear, Sam decided they wouldn’t let the horses eat the grass until they knew more. He wanted the animals taken up top and tied up until he and John got there. They were going to ride to the box canyon and see if the rock had fallen that far away. If it hadn’t, they would herd the cattle there and fence them in.

  “Can you get that far? I mean, how do you know if the canyon is still there?”

  Sam and John exchanged a look as if it wasn’t something they’d thought of yet. They turned to face south. Gina wasn’t sure where or how far the canyon was, but she suspected it was still there when she saw both Sam and John nodding.

  “As late as it’s getting to be, I think we should ride out first thing in the morning John. We don’t want to get caught trying to navigate in the dark.”

  “You’re probably right. Let’s spread some of the fresh hay under the trees for the cows. Maybe it will keep them under cover for the night.”

  “I’m not sure how much it matters, but at least it might keep them all together.”

  By the time the chores were finished, and they sat down to eat dinner, no one had the energy to pursue
any other activities but sleep.

  John sat in his regular place at the head of the table and looked around. “After everything that has happened to us the past two days, I see some mistakes we’ve made in our living arrangements, and I’d like to correct them.”

  Sam stopped eating and wondered if John was going to bring up the same issue that Gina had said to him. Gina nudged his foot under the table, and he assumed that she wanted him to bring it up if John didn’t.

  “I admit it was my idea, but it was a bad one. I thought we would all be safer if we were all together in one spot. I was wrong. Bringing the tent up here was my first mistake and putting it under the roof was the second. I never thought about the chance of fire and losing everything we have.”

  “That’s an easy enough fix. Moving the stove won’t be easy, but there’s still enough diesel for the tractor to be able to move it. Where would you like it?”

  John wiped his hand around his face and sighed heavily, “That’s just it. I don’t know where we should put it. I keep thinking about people trying to get to Spokane or at least west of here. Are we at risk? What’s to keep those guys in Haugan especially if their housing is gone? Would it be better for all of us if we just moved somewhere else that’s more protected? I just don’t know, and it’s making me crazy.”

  John had addressed Gina’s concern as far as the tent went. She had been bugging him about it since they’d put it under the roof of the hay shed. Using the bales for insulation had been a good idea, but he hadn’t agreed with using the cook stove at the risk of fire. Sam had kept his mouth shut and encouraged Gina to do the same, but he knew she was right. If they were to have a fire, it would do catastrophic damage to not only their provisions but to their mental health as well.

  “I got the propane working in the trailer, we could cook in there if you wanted to,” Mike offered.

  “Thanks, Mike, but I don’t think your stove is big enough to cook for all of us. Using the cook stove down below is probably our best option. We can use the tent only for sleeping. The women can take the man cave, and you single guys can be out here.”