With the bodies of the intruders disposed of, the clan began the task of preparing the dead animals for the smokehouse. When the guys returned from disposing of the motorcycles they discovered that the four goats were hanging from two maple trees by their ankles. They heard the girls talking in the barn and stepped inside. The girls had the chickens cleaned and hanging from the rafters and the rabbits were dressed and lying on a table. Robert spoke to the girls and asked if they wanted help skinning the goats. Jenna said, “If you guys will start skinning the goats, we will help as soon as we cut up the other meat and hang it in the smokehouse.”
As they worked, Robert said, “I hope we do not have any more unwelcome guests.” No one spoke of the lack of tears from the women over the men’s deaths or over the dead animals. Even twenty three year old Britney held up under the pressure. Rodney said, “We had little choice but to kill the men. If we had left even one of them alive, they would have returned with more of their friends to finish us off. Besides, they shot our winter meat supply. Without the offspring from the rabbits and chickens, we will suffer this winter.” Robert said, “We will have to harvest a couple deer and some wild rabbits for the smokehouse before the winter snows set in. The loss of milk from the goats and the eggs from the chickens will certainly cause us some problems but it is not life threatening.”
While the girls finished cutting up the last of the goat meat and hanging it in the smokehouse, the men returned to the fire pit with shovels to see if any bones or flesh remained. As they worked, they soon had a small pile of bones raked up. Then they placed some old fence posts that were stacked beside the barn in the fire pit and set them afire. There were plenty of logs on the fire to insure that all remaining sign of the bodies would vaporize in the intense heat. As the fire burned on, the men helped the girls cut more hickory from the forest behind the barn. When they placed some of the green wood on top of the hot coals in the firebox, the smoke quickly filled the smokehouse and began preserving the meat. They would have to tend the small fire under the smokehouse for about three days. They would check the smaller cuts of meat each morning to see if they were properly cooked and cured before stoking the firebox.
It was dark by the time the clan stepped into the Mountain House for the night. They did not talk very much during supper; everyone seemed content to keep their thoughts to themselves. As they cleaned up the kitchen, they turned on the television to see what was going on around the planet. They soon discovered that most large cities no longer had electrical power, nor was natural gas flowing in the underground lines buried under most cities. GCN was reporting large scale looting around the planet; it seemed that most who lived in large cities would be the first to suffer from the loss of power and natural gas to heat their homes and cook their food. Those who lived in suburbia were faring much better since they had the resources to feed themselves and heat their homes with wood.
As they all listened and began spreading out their blankets to sleep on, they saw Bonnie hugging her daughter. Britney was quietly crying on her mother’s shoulder, visibly shaken by the events of the day. As Britney slowly calmed herself, Robert built a small fire in the fireplace. It seemed that no one was going to get much sleep this night. As they sat around the living room and talked, it became obvious that the events of the day had shaken everyone’s ability to cope. As they talked and discussed their feelings of vulnerability, they all realized that they would now have to rely on each other if they intended to survive in this world that they now lived in. Britney managed to come to grips with her own humanity and said, “Today, I shot and killed a man. I looked him in the eyes as I shot him in the head. I felt fear at that moment. I felt more fear than I have ever had to bear in my short life. I was certain that if I did not kill him, he would kill me. I am a survivor and I will not let someone take my life or take the life of someone around me without fighting to the end. If the events of today happened again tomorrow, I would look the person in the eyes while I squeezed the trigger and watched them die. I think that with this planets resizing, if a human needs help, they will have to ask, not force others to give it unwillingly.”
As they all sat and talked around the fireplace, they slowly relaxed and Jenna watched as her friends began to yawn. She stood up and said, “I am going to crawl under my blankets and get some sleep. I personally think we should spend two days tending our smokehouse and building the second level sleeping quarters and another bathroom. This Mountain House is our sanctuary and we need to get the construction done so we can begin storing the things that we will need to survive the upcoming winter. When we build bunks on the second level, we need to build drawers or storage areas under each bunk for blankets, pillows, clothing, and each person’s belongings. It is time we begin to figure out what we need to add to this house before the snows set in.”
As Jenna sat down on the blankets she had lain out on the floor, Britney walked past her, rested her hand on Jenna’s shoulder and said, “You are right, you know. If we are to survive, we must each create the creature comforts that keep our minds walking that fine line between sanity and lunacy. Working as a clan to prepare for our survival will help us toe that fine line. If one of us has a bad day, we must pull that person back up and support them until they once again are a working member of this clan.”
Chapter 5 – Creature Comforts and Practicality
When they woke in the morning, Robert again built a fire in the fireplace. As they began preparing breakfast, they shared the single bathroom and then joined up at the kitchen table. They decided to begin building the second level sleeping area first. Once they had that built and the bunk beds complete, it would free up a lot of space on the first floor. They had decided to turn one of the two bedrooms into a pantry where they would store food items and cooking utensils. The second bedroom would become a cold storage room for their smoked meat, vegetables and dried fruit. The apples, plumbs and pears would be ripening in another few days and they would need a place to store them once they were dried and preserved.
Once they were ready to work, Bonnie and Britney volunteered to get the cold storage room completed since they would need to store the cured meat in it very shortly. Rodney took a few minutes and explained to Bonnie and Britney what they needed to do to get the room ready to insulate. Once they had begun, everyone else began building the loft area. They moved the cedar posts into the living area and began setting them vertical along the outside walls. Once they fastened the posts to the existing walls, they began setting the two-inch by six-inch floor joists into place. Each joist was twelve foot long and they were heavy. It took all five of them most of the day to set all of the joists into place. They had fastened the joists in place with hand built metal brackets. They had to cut each bracket to the proper length and then drill holes for the screws. Once they had fastened the joists in place, they began lifting up the sheets of plywood to create the floor. It was suppertime by the time they finished nailing down the last sheet of plywood.
Britney had stopped working in the cold storage room a little early and had prepared a pot of chilly. She had washed and soaked some beans earlier in the day. Then she had cooked up some of the smaller scraps of goat meat and simmered the meat in the pot with the red beans. Everyone had smelled the wonderful aroma during the day. By suppertime, they were quite ready to sample Britney’s cooking. When everyone was hungry and ready to quit work for the day, Britney made biscuits from the box of Bisquick she found in one of Randy’s cupboards. Jenna had a tub of goat butter in her refrigerator that came up with one of the trailer loads earlier in the week and Britney intended to spread that on the biscuits. As everyone sat down to the table, Britney served the chilly and biscuits. As they started to eat, Randy put his spoon down on the table and looked up into Britney’s eyes. He said, “I would like to thank Britney for this wonderful meal. I think she will make an incredible wife.” Britney continued to look into Randy’s eyes and giggled as she asked, “Is that your idea of a marriage proposal?” Everyone a
t the table heard her father choke on his sip of coffee over his daughter’s words. As they all laughed over the joke, Randy wished he were a few years younger. He would certainly ask Britney to marry him.
Once the meal was done, Britney said, “I will clean up the kitchen tonight while all of you work on the new loft.” Bonnie said, “Britney, if you can help me for one hour to get the new ceiling joists in place that will serve as the place to hang our meat, I will help you clean up the kitchen.” Britney quickly agreed to help her mother with the project.
By nine o’clock that night, the loft was complete except for a proper set of stairs. That would have to wait until tomorrow. As the clan grew weary and began putting down their blankets to sleep on, they heard the wind howling outside. The men quickly ran out to the garage to shut the doors so their wood and saws would not get wet. Soon after they returned to the cabin, the rain and sleet began to beat against the south facing windows. As they all crawled under their blankets, they were soon lulled to sleep by the sound of the rain and the rolling thunder that slowly moved across the mountain.
When the women woke in the morning, the three men were gone. It was still storming outside and the cabin was cold. Jenna quickly got up and realized that the power was out. She built a fire in the fireplace and then walked out to the kitchen to see what time it was. The grandfather clock was still ticking away and Jenna realized it was almost nine o’clock. She wondered about the men and slipped on her jacket. When she walked out into the garage, the guys were busy laying out the three risers that would form the foundation for the steps up to the loft. She spoke to them and asked when they lost power. Randy said, “I believe it went out around two in the morning. I suspect we have seen all of the electricity from the main grid that we will see for quite some time. The repair crews will struggle trying to make repairs wearing protective gear that is five sizes too big for them and trying to work out of boom trucks that they can no longer operate.
Once the men finished drawing out the stair risers and were ready to cut them with the saw, they started up the generator and plugged in the band saw. They had lowered the saw down to within a couple feet of the ground so they could support and move the heavy risers around while standing on the floor. It took almost an hour before they finished with the saw. When they shut off the generator, they discussed not using it again unless they had no other means of completing a task. They had charged the batteries for the power tools and hoped they would last until the stairs were complete.
Now that the risers were ready for installation, they decided to stop and fix some breakfast. Today they would eat cold cereal with the last of the goats’ milk. The girls had found some of the old cast iron cookware that Randy had stored in a back closet. Along with fry pans and some stainless steel pots, they discovered an old percolating coffee pot. They filled the pot and then sat it in the fireplace where they could rake some hot coals up around it. Within a few minutes, the aroma of fresh coffee permeated the Mountain House. When they poured out seven cups of coffee, Kathy said, “This is one thing I will miss when it is gone. Fresh coffee in the morning makes my day a lot brighter.” Jenna said, “I am certain there is some plant around this forest that will substitute for coffee beans. I will check it out later. The encyclopedias in the den should offer up some answers.”
When the stairs to the new loft were complete, the girls figured out where they wanted to build the bunk beds and how to create storage underneath them. Then they began carrying in lumber from the barn and laid out the design for the first bunk. Two hours later the first of seven beds were complete.
The men worked on the cold storage room. Yesterday, Bonnie and Britney finished the insulation and drywall work, but left one four-foot wide section of wall facing north open. Now, the men began cutting out the existing concrete block wall and began digging back into the side of the mountain. Randy knew that the wall was mostly fill dirt and stone and digging out a section should pose no real problem. They knew that the earthen wall would remain at a constant temperature year round and should provide a suitable cold storage room. They would use this area for vegetables and things that were not preserved. They would also put most of the glass jars of canned food in the dark area to keep it out of the light. As they dug into the outside wall, they shored up the walls and ceiling of the cave with the remaining cedar posts they had stored in the barn. Within two days, they had dug out a workable cold storage room. The room that Bonnie and Britney had worked on was also complete and they could now begin moving the meat indoors from the smokehouse. They had already moved some of the small cuts of meat into the kitchen, but there was little room to store it properly. The completion of the cold storage room would certainly help insure they had adequate food resources during the upcoming winter. They could also begin moving the canned goods that they had stored around the water jugs in the living area into the new storage room.
Everyone was glad that the construction work was mostly complete. Trying to work from a ladder made for five-foot tall people and using tools made for hands five times larger than the hands of resized humans was difficult at best.
***
The men rose early in the morning. They needed to set the traps they had prepared in the river. There were beaver working along the edge of some swampland along the river’s edge and the men wanted to trap a few for their pelts and meat. They also wanted to catch some of the larger fish in the river. The resized pan fish were just too small, but they had caught some large catfish and suckers in some of the deep pools along the beaver dens. They hoped that by trapping out some of the beaver, the larger fish would continue to populate the river.
The climb down the rocky trail to the bottom of the river valley was difficult. The traps the men carried, even though they had reworked them so they were much smaller, were still quite heavy. They had also brought some homemade lure to bait the traps. When they reached the bank of the river, they slowly walked towards the marshy area. As they walked, they spotted three large beaver sitting on the bank on the sun-warmed rocks. Robert raised his small caliber rifle and shot one of the beaver in the head. It flopped around a couple of times and then stilled. The other beaver ran down towards the marsh and disappeared. When Robert picked up the dead beaver, he realized it was a large male. The men set the traps along a runway and quietly left the area.
As they walked back towards where the trail led up to the Mountain House, they walked on a little farther to a deep pool. When the dropped their fishing lines into the pool, they soon had six large catfish and a brook trout. After a couple of hours of fishing, they had caught all the fish they could carry. They decided that they should take the beaver and the fish up to the house before lunchtime. As they climbed up the side of the ravine up to the house, they discovered three Javelina pigs running along the trail. Randy said, “I think we should do a little research about these pigs and see if they are edible. I had no idea that we had these pigs in this area. In all my years living here I have never seen them or any sign of them. I will begin culling them if they are good to eat. If they begin destroying the land, I will shoot them and feed them to the bears.”
When they stepped into the barn to clean their beaver and fish, the girls came out to see how they had done. As they talked and began skinning the beaver, Randy mentioned that they had seen the wild pigs. Jenna said, “They are good to eat. I have shot two of them in the last two years. I dug a pit in the ground and built a fire in it. Then I put a wire grate over the coals, wrapped the pig in wet burlap feed sacks, tied the sacks in place with chicken cloth and bailing wire and dropped the pig down into the pit. Then I covered the pit with a piece of corrugated roofing tin. I let the pig cook for ten hours before digging it up. When I pulled the meat out of the ground, it was so tender it fell off the bone. You can also put vegetables and fruit inside the gut cavity before cooking if you wish.”
Randy finished skinning the beaver, gutted it and then cut the meat up into small pieces. Britney said, “Beaver meat is very good
to eat if you dip it in flour and brown it off in a fry pan and then add it to chilly or goulash. It is also good if you add barbecue sauce to it after you brown it in the skillet and then put it on bread like a sloppy joe.” Randy looked into Britney’s eyes and said, “Girl you should have went to school to become a chef. You are a very good cook. Maybe cooking is something that your mother taught you.” Bonnie laughed and said, “I am no cook. I learned how to cook just enough to survive in this world. Britney and Rodney had to learn to cook or go hungry.” Britney giggled over her mother’s words and said, “Actually, you taught me a lot, even if we did have to read the recipes twice so we did not mess up supper.” Rodney looked at Britney and said, “I think Britney’s birth father taught her to cook at very young age. She has a box of very good recipes that her father wrote during his days as an Army Chef.” Britney looked down at the ground for a moment and then said, “The father I have now helps me fight off the depression the death of my birth father caused within my mind. I love him as much as I loved my birth father.” Rodney walked over to Britney and kissed her cheek. She quickly wiped away the kiss with her hand and giggled like a two-year-old girl. Her giggles over the kiss turned a cumbersome moment into happy smiles from the friends that now stood with her.
Just before dark, Randy had walked out towards the garage with his rifle to clean it. The air was cold and the sky looked foreboding as if a storm was brewing off in the west. As he opened the door to the garage, four large pigs ran out from behind the garage. He quickly racked a bullet into the chamber and slowly walked around the corner of the garage. When he could see that two of the pigs were boars, he took careful aim on the largest and pulled the trigger. Once he racked another shell into the rifle, he shot the second pig behind the shoulder as it turned to run. The two other pigs danced around and made awful sounds for a moment or two before running off into the forest. Randy checked his rifle to insure it was fully loaded and then stepped up to the pigs lying on the ground. They were both dead. As he stood over the animals, his friends came running to see why he was shooting. When they saw to two dead pigs, they walked up beside him. Robert looked over the dead pigs and said, “Nice shooting. One shot in the left eye and the other one through the heart of the second pig.”
Universal Mass Page 3
