She couldn’t go any further. She slowly pulled the candle back and stood there in the flickering light watching the shadows shimmer like ghosts of the bears, deer, birds, and dogs now trapped in the jars.
This guy also had the makings of bombs.
She heard Whoops cry. She’d hoped she’d sleep longer. She got to the ladder and felt scared again. But she paused and went back to look at the dynamite, once more. There was something scary and exciting about it at the same time. This guy was dangerous—she knew that—and…he was cute. No he wasn’t, she told herself.
At the foot of the ladder she blew out the candle then climbed back into the light. She closed the trapdoor and readjusted the carpeting just the way it had been. She looked out the window again. There was still no sign of him or the dog. Then she picked Whoops up and sunk back into her chair. She realized her heart was pounding.
“What kind of a man has bombs in his cellar?” she asked herself.
He was nice to her, she reminded herself. And he liked Whoops. But what was he doing with dynamite?
Whoops wouldn’t stop crying. So, she walked the floor with her. Then she sat down again and began to rock her while, through her mind thoughts about food, guns, and explosives whirled around in a maelstrom.
The jars labels “dog” really bothered her. Then again, maybe eating dogs wasn’t so bad. After all, they were just another kind of meat. She realized it was just that she didn’t want to eat any of it. And when she thought of dog meat, she pictured the malamute and knew his days were numbered. That wasn’t good. She liked Stupid. Maybe she’d take him with her when she left. He deserved a better fate than to wind up canned.
Chapter 20
August 31
Zach reached the 101 and looked down onto the highway from the trees. The Army had come through during the night. They were the only ones who cleared the roads. There were new tracks where military and perhaps some of the emigrant convoys had passed.
He watched the road for several minutes until the dog growled.
“Come on,” he whispered and faded back into the trees and the dog followed.
Moments later he saw a military convoy heading north. There were trucks and Humvees, with military personnel. One of the Humvees had an M240B machine gun mounted on it.
He slipped deeper into the trees until he couldn’t hear them anymore.
He had to go back and tell her the road was open and traffic was passing on it. With the weather turning colder, she might not get another chance this good to catch a ride.
Then, he reminded himself, he wanted her to learn to shoot the gun before she left.
He started back to the cabin but, where the trail forked, he changed his mind and decided to take the long way. The path he followed paralleled the road before it went through the woods and, at several points the road and path met again. It was almost too beautiful a day not to be out. What was his hurry?
Each time the road came into view, he stopped and lingered. Everywhere it was plowed. It was probably open all the way from southern California to Hanford, Washington.
At one point he stopped to inspect the road’s condition and the dog’s ears perked up. Seconds later there were sounds in the distance. He looked north and, the second he saw it come into sight, he said, “Back!” and he faded back into the trees and the dog, as if on command, followed.
A lone pickup whizzed by. Civilians. There were those who still tried to make it alone or in twos and threes, and many, apparently, made it through.
He looked down at the dog. It was actually awaiting his next command.
“Come on,” he said and the dog was up and ready to run.
They continued their trip home. But the path he took still wasn’t the shortest. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Danielle. Just a day or so before, when she was acting crazy, he wanted her to leave. But after she’d stood there while he canned the night before…company, for the first time in months, was nice. So was having a baby in the house. He’d like her to stay longer. But he couldn’t make her stay. That’s what he’d done with his wife, and that ended in the worst disaster of his life.
He skied but took his time.
Then, about three miles from the cabin, he pulled up short. About a hundred and fifty yards ahead was a deer. He didn’t know where it had come from, and there were damned few left.
The dog saw it and let out a guttural growl.
“Quiet,” Zach whispered and, as if it understood, the dog went quiet. But it never took its eyes off the deer and Zach unslung his rifle.
It was difficult to determine if the deer had heard them or seen their movements, but it froze. Then it began a slow but wary saunter across the patch of snow.
Zach had the rifle up. It was a problematic shot from here. His M1 was accurate, at best, to two minutes of angle and from this range, shooting offhand while winded, he’d be lucky if he could shoot a six-inch group. But he had to take the chance. He clicked off the safety and took a small lead, just forward of the deer’s shoulder, and as it reached the trees he squeezed the trigger, and the rifle went off like a crack of summer thunder.
At more than two and a half times the speed of sound, the bullet left the muzzle and sped across the snow. Just as the deer reached the trees, it abruptly dropped while all around Zach the crack of the rifle made powdered snow trickle out of the branches and it glistened like stardust in the bright sun. Then all was quiet. But the deer was down.
“Let’s go,” Zach said and set off on his skis. The dog sped ahead and reached the carcass well before Zach. He was sniffing it when Zach arrived.
With a length of rope he took from his pocket and practiced motions, Zach quickly had the carcass suspended from the branch of a nearby tree and commenced to field dress it.
“No!” he commanded when the dog approached the entrails and the dog shrunk back.
He fished through his pockets until he found a large plastic bag. He put the entrails in the bag. He’d take them back to the cabin and cook them for…what was his name?…Stupid?
He packed the deer’s body cavity with snow to cool it quickly. Then he threw the carcass up over his left shoulder and started skiing back on a direct path to the cabin. The whole operation had taken less than ten minutes.
Δ Δ Δ
When he came through the door she was in her chair. Somehow it made him feel better that she’d staked out a small piece of territory in his house and was comfortable there. Sandra had never been comfortable in the cabin.
He didn’t say anything to her as he passed her but she saw the bag he was carrying and how Stupid was matching his steps and looking up at him in anticipation.
He put the bag up on the counter and turned to the dog and said, “Sit.”
Stupid sat.
Danielle watched the scene play out. She was amused that Zach seemed amazed every time the dog listened to him.
She got out of her chair with Whoops in her arms and came to the stove to see what he was doing.
“Why are you cooking all that?” she asked.
“It’s for the dog.”
“You getting to like him?”
“I want to fatten him up with the scraps I won’t use.”
Her mood changed instantly. She didn’t ask why he wanted to fatten the dog. She thought about the jars downstairs and knew why, and her stomach began to churn. But she couldn’t tell him she’d been snooping.
“How’s your day?” he asked.
“Whoops has been fussy,” she said.
“Is she teething?”
That hadn’t occurred to her. “I don’t know.”
He stopped and looked thoughtfully at Whoops. Then he thoroughly washed his hands and, putting his left hand behind Whoops’s head and neck, he used the index finger on his right hand to feel inside her mouth and rub her gums.
“Has she been drooling?” he asked.
“More than usual,” Danielle said.
“How old is she?”
“Six
months.”
“I think I may feel something erupting here…like teeth coming in,” he said. “She pooping okay?”
Danielle nodded. “Why?”
“Just want to make sure she’s not constipated.”
He reflexively leaned forward and kissed the baby on her forehead. “She’s probably just teething,” he said and turned back to the stove and resumed cooking the entrails.
He didn’t see Danielle studying him.
“Can you keep an eye on her while I go out to the outhouse?” she finally asked.
He looked at her kind of surprised. “Of course,” he said.
She proffered her sister to him before she realized what she was doing—handing her sister off—and she hesitated like a stutter, as if she couldn’t decide if she was really going to do it, then she completed the motion and he took the baby from her arms.
She hurriedly put on her shoes and her coat and went to the door.
“Do you have the gun?” he called after her, and she paused to look at him. She patted the pocket of her coat as if that were answer enough and he went back to cooking the entrails for Stupid with one hand while he cradled Whoops with the other.
She tromped through the snow the thirty or so feet to the shed that housed the outhouse. She opened the door and stepped inside. A pair of eyes were fixed on her. She let out a scream.
She was leaning, with her back against the wall, when Zach burst through the door of the shed with the M1.
The gutted deer was dangling by its neck, its lifeless eyes staring. He thought she was going to cry.
Instead she started to laugh. She turned to him and whispered, “You are such an asshole!” But she couldn’t stop laughing. “You could have told me about this.”
But her smile began to dissolve. “Where’s my sister?”
“Oh, my god!” he said and he ran back to the cabin.
Once more alone, she looked at the deer. It was thin, otherwise, it was beautiful. But it was dead. She had to look away and she went through the door and into the outhouse. She pulled down her pants and sat on the hole.
“You are so going to pay for scaring me,” she said to herself. But she started smiling. She felt foolish for screaming.
When she stepped back into the cabin he seemed contrite.
“I’ll teach you to shoot the gun, tomorrow,” he said.
She nodded.
He mumbled something else.
“What?” she asked.
“I want to process the deer before we go,” he said.
“Okay,” she said, even though she realized this meant more time, and took her sister from his arms. “Can I help you do it? I want to see how it’s done.”
“I’m only doing part of it today. I’ll do the rest tomorrow,” he said and waited for her reply.
“Okay. But what’s this?”
“It’s the entrails from when I dressed out the deer. I’m cooking them for the dog.”
“Can I help with that?”
“Okay. In a minute.”
He put the spatula down and said, “I want you to keep turning this so it doesn’t burn.”
He’d cut the entrails up into smaller-sized pieces to cook faster and she moved to where he had been standing so she could man the stove.
He went to the center of the room, kicked the rug back, opened the trapdoor, and disappeared below.
When he came back up he had a jar that read “applesauce.” He closed the door and kicked the rug back into place.
From a cupboard he retrieved another jar and took a small white pill from it. He popped the lid on the applesauce and spooned some out into a small bowl. Then he took a mortar and pestle from the shelf above his head and crushed the pill.
“This is a vitamin C tablet. I’ll dissolve some of it into the applesauce for her. I want you to take the rest.”
She watched him stir a little of the white powder into the bowl and the rest into the jar of applesauce.
“This is for Whoops,” he said putting the bowl in her left hand, which also held her sister, “and this is for you,” he said of the jar as he placed it in her right.
He stuck a spoon into each and took over the cooking.
Once he’d given Stupid some of the cooked entrails, he hung the rest outside the door where they’d remain cold.
Then he began processing the deer. He skinned and quartered it outside, and spent the rest of the day canning meat.
When Whoops stopped fussing, Danielle helped him.
He explained each step to her as he went along and explained why. And, from the questions she asked, he knew she was paying attention and catching on.
But, as the cabin got dark, he started acting moody.
All the while, her mood was brightening. She was enjoying herself. She liked learning.
When the last whispers of sunlight were coming through the window, he suddenly said, “The road’s open.”
“What?” she asked.
“The road; it’s open.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it today.”
“Oh,” she said.
He became more somber. He wasn’t sure what all the feelings were that were coursing through him. He wanted to apologize for not telling her about the road earlier. He wanted to apologize, again, for hitting her and promise once more that he’d never do it again. But of course he wouldn’t do it again; she was leaving.
“What’s the dynamite for?” she suddenly asked.
“You’ve been downstairs.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve been sneaking around,” he said petulantly.
She moved closer to him. “Yeah, I’ve been sneaking around because I want to know what kind of place I have my sister in. But you’re not answering my question: What’s the dynamite for?”
“I just have it,” he said.
“Where’d you get it?”
He looked at her. “You’re getting kind of pushy, aren’t you?”
She smiled. “I just want to know.”
He thought a second. “Back in the day, there was a lot of gold mining in this area. They worked the rivers and the beaches around Gold Beach—that’s where the city got its current name, and there was some hard rock mining—you know, the kind where they dig mines into the ground.”
“I came across an old mine in the backcountry, and there it was. The stuff is decades old. It’s also dangerous to handle because it’s so old. I didn’t know that when I found it.”
“How’s it dangerous?”
“Old dynamite can be shock sensitive. Now that I know it, I’ve got to get it out of here.”
“And move it where?”
“I found a place a couple of miles from here. But it will be safer to move when it gets colder. It’s less sensitive, then. But it can still go off.”
“So you’re still going to keep it.”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It’s just nice to have.”
She laughed.
“Okay,” he said, “that’s the wrong way to say it. I think it might someday be useful. I just haven’t thought of all the uses. However, like I say, in the meantime I have to get it out of and away from my house.”
“What do you mean when you say it’s shock sensitive?”
“Dynamite’s usually fairly safe to handle. But old dynamite can become unstable. Dropping it, banging it around, or any kind of shock can make it go kaboom. This stuff is old, and there’s enough of it down there to leave nothing but a crater where this house stands.”
“This place could get blown to kingdom come?”
“It could. So, let’s not play with it while it’s down there.”
“I certainly won’t,” she said.
After another minute, she asked, “Why do you have jars that say ‘dog’ on them?”
He stepped nearer to her and they couldn’t get any closer without touching. “Because I can’t spell cat,” he said.
She lo
oked down at the floor and when she looked up she somehow got even closer, with her face just inches from his, yet they didn’t touch. “If we’re going to fight,” she said calmly, “you can’t be saying things that are funny.”
He stared at her a long time. “Fair enough,” he finally said.
“What’s it taste like?” she asked.
“Like cats,” he said.
A flicker of a smile crossed her face, but she controlled it.
“You’re not fighting fair.”
Now he smiled. “Okay. I don’t really know. It’s for ‘just in case’.”
“What’s going to happen to Stupid?”
“No one can support a dog anymore.”
“I understand that,” she said. “But that’s not an answer to my question. Is he going to wind up in jars?”
“Yes.”
She stared blankly at the wall. That wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. She couldn’t smile, now. He’d already said she could have him, but he’d starve on the road with her. Not only that, a dog made it less likely she’d get a ride and her first priority was the care of Whoops. She went back to her chair, picked up her sister, and held her in the fading light. When Whoops fussed, she fed her more applesauce.
But when she saw him feeding the dog more of the deer’s cooked entrails, she couldn’t help but see he seemed to enjoy Stupid as much as Stupid enjoyed him. But he was a realist, and she had to be a realist, too, and it made sense that the dog could be viewed as no more than food. But if that’s the way things had to be, she wasn’t sure she wanted to live in a world like that. She had to get back to the 101 before he did Stupid in.
Δ Δ Δ
She didn’t remember falling asleep. One minute she started to feel the compulsion to make him like her, even though she wasn’t staying, the next she was waking up as Whoops started to fuss. The cabin was dark. She had no idea what time it was and she got off the chair and picked her sister up off the blanket on the floor.
“Shh. Go back to sleep,” she whispered holding her sister to her.
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 22
