“I can’t,” she said.
He grabbed her wrist again. “You have to,” he said with his voice getting louder and Whoops started crying. “Neither you nor your sister are safe here, now.”
She shook her head. “The weather’s moving in. We’ll never survive on the road,” she said.
“Get me a pencil and paper. There are other people hiding in these hills. They’re my friends. I’ll draw you a map. You can go to them.”
She shook her head again and started crying. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay here.”
He tightened his grip on her arm until it hurt her. “Leave!” he shouted.
“I’ll stop them!” she screamed back and Whoops cried harder.
“How?” he asked in an angry voice. “You’re just a girl.”
She didn’t answer. She wouldn’t look at him.
Now he begged. “Please leave before they come. Please.”
She shook her head.
“Why not?” He was angry again.
“I told you, I’ll stop them,” she whispered and wiping her eyes and her nose with her other hand she got more of his blood on her face.
“You and whose army?” he mocked her.
She hung her head and he thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t.
“What else can go wrong?” she whispered.
“Nothing, if you’ll leave.”
She looked at him quizzically, then said, “I don’t mean for us; I mean for them. What else can go wrong for them? What can I make go wrong for them?”
“What are you talking about?”
She didn’t answer. She leaned over and kissed him and his grip on her arm slackened, but he didn’t let go. She hugged him, but when he groaned she realized she was hurting him, so she stopped.
“What are you talking about?” he repeated in a whisper.
She couldn’t answer. He’d think she was crazy. Even she was starting to think she might be crazy. But she had a plan.
Chapter 34
September 4 - 5
“There’s nothing you can do,” he whispered. “Take your sister, get as far away from here as you can.”
Suddenly, she pulled away from him and stood up.
“Where are you going?”
Without answering, she left Whoops beside him, took the flashlight, went to the middle of the room, and descended back into the cellar. She could hear Whoops still fussing up above. She let the beam of light lead her through the darkness until it shone on the boxes of dynamite. She stepped closer and looked at them pensively for several seconds. This was her Rubicon. She had to make a decision.
Finally, she lifted one of the boxes and, clutching it carefully, climbed back up the ladder. She put it in the middle of the floor and went back down for another. Box after box, she brought them up afraid that if she dropped any of it…
She couldn’t believe how much he had down there but, once she had it all upstairs, she took it outside, one box at a time, and loaded them each onto the toboggan.
When that was finished, she returned to the cabin. Zach’s eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply.
She picked Whoops up and checked her diaper. She was still dry. She grabbed extra diapers and some food for both of them and stuffed it all into her pockets. She put the baby sling on her back, got her sister in it, and adjusted it. She took the AR-15 from the closet and stuffed some loaded magazines into other pockets. Last, she took one magazine, put it in the rifle, jacked a round into the breech, put the safety on, and slung the gun over her shoulder.
“I want you to leave,” he whispered.
She ignored him. She was afraid if she went back to him he wouldn’t let her go.
Outside, she got into the toboggan’s harness and leaned into it. At first the sled wouldn’t budge, but she used all of her might and the snow suddenly released its grip and the toboggan began to slide across the field. When she reached the trees, the last thing she did was look back. The pyre burned brightly; the cabin looked serene in its glow. She hoped Zach would be okay, and off into the woods she went with nothing but the flashlight to show her the way. Because of the weight of the baby, the rifle, and the toboggan, she had to stop frequently to rest. She was cold and tired but tried not to think about either. However, it had now been twenty hours since she’d slept and she felt it.
Here and there she snagged her ankles on a buried branch and fell to her knees. But each time she rose to her feet, leaned into the harness, and moved on only to get the toboggan caught on brush, branches, or rocks, patiently free it, and go on, only to fall or get stuck, again.
She came to a hill and thought at least here it would be easy to go down. It eluded her what was going to happen until the toboggan sped up and suddenly was hitting her from behind. She got out of its way as it slid past, only to fall again and this time it dragged her through the snow to the bottom where it stopped only after it crashed into a tree. She lay there grateful it hadn’t exploded. Now she worried about how much “shock” it was going to take to set it off.
Whoops was screaming. Halfway back up the hill the flashlight glowed in the snow where she’d dropped it. She got up, removed the harness, and climbed back to get the light. All the while poor Whoopsie howled.
She took her sister off her back and sat in the snow to inspect her.
“Oh, you got snow in your tiny little snowsnoot again.”
Whoops was inconsolable.
Danielle cleaned the snowsuit out as she laughed, then she held her sister to her until she stopped crying. Finally, she returned to the toboggan and stared at it. Boxes that were already open had spilled their contents onto the snow and she had to pick them up. “You bastards had better blow up when I need you to,” she said to the dynamite.
She shined the flashlight all around and discovered she was in a gully.
“Shit,” she whispered.
She tried to pull the toboggan up the other side, but it was too heavy; she was too small. She tried to think her way through her new problem.
Finally, leaning the rifle against the tree, she carried the dynamite, one box at a time, up the hill. She kept her sister on her back.
When the toboggan was manageable, she grabbed the rifle and pulled the toboggan up the hill where she reloaded it and continued on.
Δ Δ Δ
She was more cautious, now. She didn’t want to chance another crash. But the price for caution was time. So, with snow still falling, it wasn’t until the first grey light of dawn that she reached the field that lies just east of the 101 where it crosses a bridge over the Pistol River. She stopped to rest and stared at the bridge. She was tired to the point of exhaustion. She leaned back into the harness and dragged the toboggan until she was beneath the south end of the bridge.
From up close and below, the bridge looked invulnerable. The concrete girders were massive. Just moments ago the dynamite on the toboggan looked like a lot; now, she wondered if there was enough. Maybe her plan wasn’t going to work.
She looked back out to the field. If the explosion took place there, it would have less effect, she reasoned. Far enough away and it wouldn’t affect it at all. So closer is better. It should sit as close to the bridge as possible. There was a small space where the bridge and the embankment met. That’s where the dynamite would have to go.
She leaned the rifle against one of the pilings, took Whoops off her back, and set her down near the toboggan. She then took the first box, carried it up the embankment, and put it in place.
Box after box, she carried them up and packed them in the space.
“This had better work,” she said to herself again and again. But each time she stopped and looked at the bridge, she was racked with terrible doubts.
With half the boxes of dynamite in position, she started a trip back down and, in horror, saw Whoops holding a stick of the stuff and waving it. She couldn’t even imagine how she’d gotten it.
“Whoopsie!” she screamed.
Now the ba
by was banging it on the ground.
Danielle tumbled down the embankment in her hurry to get to her. She was covered with dirt when she reached her sister and grabbed the stick as Whoops was about to bang it on the ground again.
She smiled when she saw Danielle.
Danielle took a deep breath and smiled back. “You’re going to kill Sissy and Whoopsie,” she said.
Whoops now had a full-on happy face.
“You’re a terrorist,” Danielle told her.
That made Whoops smile even more.
She grabbed her sister and squeezed her.
Now she stared at the stick in her hand. What was it going to take to detonate one? She put it into one of the boxes and moved Whoops away from the toboggan. She then resumed bringing the rest of the dynamite up and placing it under the bridge. The process was tedious and tiring.
Once she was finished, she retrieved her sister and picked up the rifle.
Towing the toboggan behind her, she walked back into the field. She looked back and decided to go further. She also had to get closer to the river to get an angle from which to see the boxes. Finally, she stopped and looked back again. This seemed like a safe distance. She would do it from here.
She was shivering, now, and sleepy. She had more doubts than ever.
She laid the rifle down and, remembering what Zach had done, she took Whoops yet another fifty feet away and lay her on the toboggan so the report from the rifle wouldn’t damage her ears. She returned to the rifle, picked it up, and tried to steady herself as she looked through the sights.
She hesitated and listened intently when she heard something. Vehicles! She quickly prostrated herself in the snow and saw the first vehicles of a caravan approach the bridge from the north. She kept herself low and watched it pass. She could hear Whoops begin to cry. She didn’t move. She waited a few minutes until she heard the second half of the caravan and watched as it, too, crossed the river.
By now, Whoops was howling. But Danielle knew there was no way they’d hear her in their closed vehicles as they passed by.
Once the caravan was out of sight she lay still another few minutes until she was sure no one else was coming.
By now, she was shivering violently. She stood, looked back at her sister, then turned back to the bridge and brought the rifle up. She looked down through the peep sight once more, through the swirling snowflakes, and tried to place the front sight on the dynamite. She was shivering too much. But she pulled the trigger. The round hit concrete. She looked down through the sights, again, and after several seconds she pulled the trigger again. The bullet struck closer, but she realized she was shaking too much to shoot accurately and, under the circumstances, that wasn’t going to change this morning.
She recalled Zach’s words: “Every round fired is a round gone forever.”
She lay back down on the snow and rested the rifle on its protruding magazine. It was steadier, now. She stared down the sights once more and watched the front sight trace a very small circle that kept passing rhythmically over the target. She tried to time the movements of the sight and, just as it was passing over her target, she gently squeezed the trigger.
The sudden overpressure and displacement of air that accompanied the explosion was nothing she expected.
“Mommy!” she screamed and closed her eyes as the expanding cloud of smoke and debris engulfed her. When she opened her eyes again, the air was filled with flying pieces of the bridge. In the periphery of her vision she realized huge chunks of it were still climbing into the sky. They looked beautiful. But there was something wrong. Mouth agape she realized they had to come down and the biggest chunk had reached its apogee and…it was coming down, down, down, with increasing velocity. From deep within her throat she once more yelled, “Mommy!” Leaping to her feet, she ran to her sister, and threw herself on her hands and knees to shield her. Eyes closed, the debris rained down on her. Pieces struck her. Some hurt. But the biggest piece was still up there.
A dull thud shook the earth. She didn’t dare open her eyes. From the sound, she could tell less and less was returning to earth. Finally, it was quiet again. She lifted her head and opened her eyes. There it was: A piece as big as a small car less than three feet from her and Whoops. She looked back down. Whoops was smiling at her with her happy face, glad to see her sister, again.
“Are you happy to see Sissy?” Danielle whispered and Whoops flailed her arms and smiled some more.
She kissed her then slowly got to her feet with her sister in her arms. Most of the debris had disappeared into the snow. Only chunks too big to have completely buried themselves offered any evidence of what she’d done.
She looked back at the bridge. It was hard to tell what had happened to it from where she stood. She was afraid it was still intact.
If this wasn’t enough…
The snow was falling harder.
She carried her sister to the 101 and climbed over the guardrail. It was there she saw the gaping hole in the bridge’s roadbed, big enough to stop traffic. When she reached it she could see the rushing waters of the Pistol River below. She let out a sigh. Nothing wider than a bicycle was going to get over it, now.
She kissed her sister again. “You’re stinky,” she said.
She pulled a diaper from one of her pockets and, spreading her coat so she could lay her down on the bridge, she changed her. Whoops ignored the cold and seemed more fascinated by the snowflakes coming at her and, with her arms waving, seemed to be trying to catch them. Relieved, Danielle could now laugh at her as she changed her.
She looked around. Even at the end of the world, she wanted to dispose of the dirty diaper properly. She laughed at herself. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to throw it in the river, so she just left it on the bridge.
Shivering and sleepy, she started trudging back through the field. She headed up the Pistol River, back toward the cabin, with her sister on her back, the rifle slung over her shoulder, and dragging the empty toboggan behind her.
The snowfall got heavier. Each flake that fell in one of her tracks filled it minutely. With the billions that were falling that day, her tracks completely disappeared in two hours.
Δ Δ Δ
When she reached the cabin, she was in agony with chilblains from the cold running through her feet and legs and almost crazy with fatigue and hypothermia. The funeral pyre still smoldered, but the powdery snow all around it was already a foot deeper. There were still some partial skeletal remains. The fire needed to be fed again. But Whoops was wailing, hungry, and soiled again and they entered the cabin.
She knelt before the fireplace insert. There were embers. She placed a layer of tinder and wood on the glowing coals. As soon as the flames started, she changed and fed Whoops then took her to the bed and placed her between herself and Zach. She was freezing. Zach was burning up with fever. Somehow, they’d help each other.
But if the the Bradys and LaCroixs came back now, there was nothing she could do to stop them. She was, after all, just a girl.
Chapter 35
September 5
In an office at the Pentagon, an Air Force captain stood before the desk of his superior. “Reports from one of the convoys, Sir,” he said to the colonel seated behind the desk. “Someone’s blown up a bridge on the Pistol River. Nothing’s going to move, either north or south, until it’s repaired.”
There was a long pause. “Where the hell is the Pistol River?” the colonel finally asked.
“Southwestern Oregon.”
“On the 101?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it called again?”
“Pistol River. It’s the name of both the river and an unincorporated area. I don’t know if it’s a town or what.”
The colonel squinted at the captain. He stood and looked at a large wall map behind his desk. It showed all the points of interest on both coasts. “Pistol River?”
“It’s on the southwest coast of the state, Sir.”
The co
lonel had to get close to the map to find the dot associated with the name Pistol River.
“Who the fuck ever heard of the place?”
The captain didn’t answer.
“Had you ever heard of Pistol River?”
“No, Sir.”
“Was it rebels?” the colonel asked.
“We don’t think so, Sir.”
“Who’s there?”
The captain looked at the paper. “There are two compounds, two of the biggest on the West Coast, located in that area…”
“Road pirates?”
“That’s what we think. One of the groups is…” The captain looked at some papers in his hand. “…the Brady compound; the others are the La Crocks. Each one has maybe two hundred residents. And, like I say, they’re two of the biggest gangs on the 101 corridor.”
The colonel turned to the captain and held out his hand for the paper.
The captain passed it to him. The colonel looked at it and handed it back. “The name is French. It’s pronounced ‘la-croy’” he said.
“Sorry, Sir.”
“Is it a big bridge?”
“No, Sir. But the water in the river is running high and the officer in charge of the convoy said nothing’s getting across it until the Corps repairs it.”
Looking back at the report the colonel asked, “Were these assholes told what would happen if they fucked with our roads and bridges?”
“Yes, Sir; months ago.
“There’s a detachment in Crescent City…” the captain said.
“Huh?”
“It’s the last city in northern California before you cross into Oregon…they can move in just a few hours and deal with them.”
The colonel sighed. “I’ll take it upstairs. It’s their decision. But I think we both know what’s going to happen.” With the wave of his hand he dismissed the captain.
“What if they didn’t blow up the bridge?” the Captain asked.
“It won’t matter. Examples have to be set. Besides, if they’re ballsy enough to blow up a bridge, they’re probably siding with the rebels, anyways.”
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 36
