The Slow Road

by Jerry D. Young

  That was one half of one of the projects. The other half was an identical cistern buried beside the well. Jasper had obtained a couple of small electrical centrifugal pumps that didn’t cost too much to run at the low volumes they pumped. The system allowed Jasper to run the gas engine pump to fill the garden cistern and do the actual irrigation with one of the low flow pumps out of the cistern.

  The other pump was in the roof catchment cistern so the water could be pumped to the garden cistern or directly to the garden for irrigation if more rain came than the cistern would hold without pumping it. And it gave a couple of options that Jasper liked to have for their water usage.

  The city water system was very old and in the past year the water had been off several times for repairs to the system. It didn’t bother Millie and Jasper much, as they had stored water in addition to the hand pump on the well if they needed it.

  But the quality of the water worried Jasper, and especially Millie, both that of the city lines and the well. After researching it on the internet, they decided to get a Crown Berkey drip water filter with the black filter elements. They got a big discount when they bought four sets of eight cartridges for the filter. They should last for years, as neither the city water nor the well water was actually bad. They just wanted that extra bit of protection for the water they drank and cooked with.

  The other project was a sanitation project. Jasper had equipped the shelter with a good high capacity chemical toilet. They’d used it from time to time in the shelter and Jasper always emptied it into the city sewer cleanout at the back of the house. He wanted an alternative, since if the city water system was old; the sanitary sewer system was ancient.

  He didn’t want to install an outhouse. They were no longer legal for one thing. What he did do was fill another area of the yard near the north hedge and dig a pair of outhouse pits side by side, and line the sides of them with hollow concrete blocks. He made metal covered, tight fitting lids for them.

  If the city sewer ever failed for any length of time, Jasper would dump the chemical toilet into one of them until it was full and then switch to the other, allowing the first to compost the human waste to useable form. Then he’d empty the first, ready for use when the second one was full. That was assuming they ever generated that much human waste.

  To aid in keeping odors and insects down, Jasper built a large bin with concrete block to hold the sawdust he began collecting when he and Alvin cut wood. Each time he emptied the chemical toilet he would add a thick layer of the sawdust to cover the waste.

  At the end of the assembly along the hedge, Jasper used the last of his salvaged blocks and bricks to make a trash burner. He didn’t dare use it, as it was as illegal as the outhouse holes, but it would be there if the time ever came when he needed it.

  The only thing Jasper now really worried about was the loss of the city sewer system for a long period of time. The outhouse pits to dispose of the chemical toilet waste would work well for that specific purpose, but the gray water was another story.

  Jasper and Millie researched several solutions for the gray water but none that were cost effective for them would work in their situation. Jasper talked to the city inspector and determined that private septic systems were, in fact, illegal. The wording was such that Jasper was sure he found a loophole.

  He should be able to install a system, but not connect it to the sewer line from the house. He might have to fill the tank with dirt, but that wouldn’t be that much of a problem to clean it out and connect it to the house if it was ever needed.

  Despite having been friendly and helpful during the construction of the additions to the trailer, the inspector put his foot down on installing the system, especially in the front yard, which was the only place Jasper had left to put it. Jasper began to accumulate what it took to put the system in anyway, he and Millie deciding it was better to have the option than not.

  Millie couldn’t believe it. Jasper began to slow down a bit more. There were no more major projects. The house was the one they probably would retire in. Jasper continued to get some overtime, but he was spending plenty of quality time with the children and still taking care of their tiny homestead as they had started to refer to it. He’d never not helped with the children or canning, and so forth, but it had always been at the whim of his work and the necessary completion of whatever project he happened to be working on.

  With things going so well at the moment Millie found herself praying hard each Sunday that the life she and her family were living would continue. Such was not to be.

  Natural disasters first and foremost in their minds as they had built up their preps, the state of the world was always in the backs of their minds. Tensions had grown and then receded, on no real schedule, but no major shooting wars besides those in Afghanistan and Iraq had erupted. The family had dealt with the natural disasters that had occurred in the area, including the one moderate earthquake.

  The next one wasn’t moderate. It wasn’t “The Big One,” but it was a big one. And Jasper was caught right in the middle of it, working on a county bridge over one of the many drainage ditches that kept the one time swamp fertile cropland.

  Jasper felt the ground begin to move and dropped the hand tools he was using to work on the bridge into the bottom of the cherry picker basket. He almost got the basket clear of the bridge before the end he’d been working on slipped from the bulkhead and fell. Almost. The edge of the bridge caught the basket, knocking it down into the water and tipping the truck over despite the properly deployed outriggers.

  The movement flipped Jasper out of the basket and he landed awkwardly and hard, right at the edge of the water. The ground shook for nearly a minute and there was nothing the crew could do to help Jasper. The shaking collapsed the edge of the ground where the truck had tipped, allowing the truck to fall on top of Jasper.

  As soon as the shaking stopped the rest of the crew grabbed shovels and jumped down into the ditch to dig Jasper out from under the cherry picker truck. Though their radios were still working, and they called in the accident to the country hospital it was four hours before an ambulance could reach the accident site. And it was on the wrong side of the downed bridge.

  It took another hour to rig lines to get a basket stretcher over to Jasper’s side of the ditch and bring him back to the ambulance in it. He was in pain most of the time, but conscious and managed to get a cell call through to Millie to tell her to stay home with the children while he was being taken to the hospital. Only when things were safe should she try to get to the hospital to see him.

  Their definitions of safe were a bit different in the situation. Millie bundled the children up in the Suburban and made her way to the hospital. It took her five hours of searching for passable bridges between their home and the county hospital. She and Jasper had learned about BOB’s from the internet and kept enough supplies and equipment in both the Suburban and pickup to take care of the entire family for two weeks.

  Millie and the children arrived shortly after Jasper did. His left leg was broken in three places, two of them compound fractures. His right leg also had two compound fractures. Jasper’s right shoulder was dislocated and he had a concussion.

  The doctors wouldn’t let the children in to see their father, but allowed Millie a few minutes with him before he was put in the ICU so they could deal with his concussion. The children were well behaved and stayed quiet at the nurses’ station while their mother was gone. Millie took them down to the cafeteria after she’d seen Jasper.

  Greg showed up not long after the family sat down to get a bite to eat. “How is he?” Greg asked, coming over to Millie’s table.

  “Too early to tell, but the doctor that talked to me said that as long as there weren’t complications with the concussion, he should be all right. The legs may give him some trouble, but there is no doubt about him being able to walk again.”

  “Is there anything I can do, Millie? I’d like to help. He’s the only real friend I have.�
� Greg was on the verge of crying.

  Her heart went out to him. He was a good hearted soul. Greg just couldn’t control his drinking. At least not all the time. Jasper had commented a couple of times that Greg was drinking considerably less since he’d put down the well for Jasper. He was trying to clean up his act.

  “Could you watch the children for me for a few minutes so I can go to the bathroom in peace?”

  Greg’s eyes widened. “You’ll let me watch the kids?”

  “It’s just for a few minutes and if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. Sure. Go ahead.”

  Millie didn’t realize had badly she needed to be alone until she was. She started crying and couldn’t stop until she knew she needed to go back out to the children.

  The children, despite their young ages, had been well brought up, and were familiar enough with Greg from his occasional visits to Jasper that they were behaving themselves beautifully for Greg.

  Still, he looked up thankfully when Millie came back, her eyes a bit red, but not crying.

  “You’ve got angels here,” Greg said, getting up from the table.

  “You should be around them when they’re teething. They may be little darlings, but they sure aren’t angels.” Millie said, picking up the youngest. She patted her bottom and asked, “A few more minutes? Darla needs changing.”

  “Okay,” Greg said, sitting back down. “Like I said, they’re angels.”

  When Millie got back, Angel One was in a determined, though surprisingly quiet, battle with Greg to get as much Jello on him as could be done.

  “Junior,” Millie said softly, and Jasper Junior immediately quit struggling and his lower lip started quivering. When Millie didn’t pursue the action he was back to his smiling self in a few moments. Millicent was just sitting there quietly. But Millie knew her little twin girl. She was getting close to exploding.

  “Greg, I want to get the children down in the hospital shelter in case there is an aftershock. Normally I’d just go home, but I want to stay close to Jasper, too. Would you help me retrieve a few things from the Suburban and get us set up in the shelter?”

  “Sure, Millie. Anything.”

  It took a little while, but Millie got the kids settled where she could keep an eye on them and their favorite traveling toy in the shelter, and still lend a hand to those still straggling into the hospital shelter.

  Greg didn’t want to take up space in the shelter, so he camped out in his truck during the night. He came in to use the bathroom the next morning and watched the still sleeping children again while Millie went upstairs to find out how Jasper was doing.

  He was awake, in a moderate amount of pain, but the doctor on duty assured her that the concussion turned out to be nothing to worry about. He’d come out of it not long after Millie had left the day before.

  Millie was allowed to stay for a few minutes. When they were alone together Jasper urged Millie to get him checked out. “Millie, I don’t want to be taking up bed space. There must be hundreds of injuries. I don’t want to be a burden on you, either, but I’d rather be at home recovering.”

  Millie was adamant. “Not today, Honey. Maybe tomorrow.”

  It was actually three days that they, Millie and the Doctors, could force Jasper to stay. Mostly due to his stubbornness, but also because Jasper was right, the hospital needed the bed space, Millie checked him out on the fourth day. Greg had been staying close during those three days and helped Jasper get into the back of the Suburban so Millie could get him home.

  Millie had made arrangements to get a wheelchair for Jasper to use at home. Greg loaded it into the back of his truck and followed Millie home. Fortunately cell phone service was back up in area and Millie was able to get Alvin to come over to help Greg get Jasper into the house.

  The next day the two men came back and cobbled together a ramp so Jasper could get in and out of the house in the wheelchair. Jasper fretted during the entire process, watching from the front porch. He said not a word in complaint, but he knew he would have done the ramp all different than Alvin and Greg.

  Jasper was not a very good patient. Oh, he didn’t make it unduly hard on Millie, but he did make it hard on himself. He was always trying to get up and do something, despite the two broken legs. The shoulder had been put back in place the first day at the hospital and it was healing nicely, so he was able to use the wheelchair to at least get around inside the house and out the back, as long as he stayed on the mounded areas.

  He got off once, to try to water the garden and had to drag himself back up the retaining wall while Millie got the wheelchair up it for him, scolding like a wet hen the entire time. At least that was the way Jasper remembered it.

  But finally he resolved himself to the situation and let Millie do what she needed to do and he did what he could, mostly entertaining the kids when Millie needed to be unencumbered. Greg lent a hand with the garden and the animals, as did Alvin, each one coming over for a couple hours every other day, on alternate days.

  Knowing how much going to Church meant to Jasper and Millie, Greg showed up that first Sunday the Church had services after the earthquake and helped Millie get Jasper into the Suburban and then the Church. He sat quietly in back during the service and again helped get Jasper back to the house.

  Millie saw the Minister take Greg aside on the second Sunday and thank him on behalf of the Church for helping one of its members, and then welcome him to the Church on his own if he chose to come after Jasper recovered.

  Which Jasper finally did. And went back to work with the county. The lack of work, despite the benefits the county had, strapped the family for cash, but they managed, due to the production of their little homestead and their stored preps.

  It took some time before they were again able to add to the preps, though they were able to maintain the existing level. They sold everything they could produce that they didn’t eat themselves for the cash to keep up on the payments for the house and utilities.

  But slowly things improved again for them, if not the world situation. About the time the Midwest recovered significantly from the earthquake, so did the Willingham family, financially. The children were old enough to do a little in the garden, and help with the animals, and occupy themselves when Jasper and Millie needed to be busy with the constant chores the homestead required.

  Back on their feet with some disposable income, and needing new tires for both vehicles and trailers, which all used the same rim and tire, Jasper worked another of his horse trades, working at a local tire place on Saturdays, taking tires and several extra rims in lieu of pay.

  He replaced all the tires on both vehicles and trailers, with two spares each for the Suburban and the pickup, and one spare each for the trailers. Then he did the same thing again, twice, getting one complete duplicate set of mounted tires for the vehicles and a set of tires, alone, without the extra rims.

  And he kept the tires he took off. They would be good for a few thousand miles if things went on for a long time, the way Jasper thought it might, or would be a good item for trade since they were a standard size, though larger than standard equipment on most trucks.

  The threats of possible war with China that Jasper and Millie had been seeing on the forums for all those years were becoming apparent to many more people now. Not only did the government begin to prepare for a real shooting war with China, many individuals and families began to do so, too. Not like the old time preppers, or even like Jasper and Millie.

  Millie and Jasper became expert dry canners, putting up #10 can after #10 can of staples they bought at the buyers club, always using oxygen absorbers to preserve the life of the product. Seeing the writing on the wall, they used every other penny of disposable income to buy the critical items in Super Pails from commercial processing plants.

  It soon became almost impossible to find canned tuna and canned chicken in the regular grocery stores. When a new shipment came in, it was usually gone in two days. So were
bottled water, coffee and toilet paper. Shortages became the standard and rationing by the stores began to become common. The practice was struck down almost immediately by the courts. “People had a right to buy what they wanted,” the decision said. “One individual could not limit another individual.”

  The federal government immediately instituted rationing for most of the same items the stores had done on their own. It stopped the family’s purchases of Super Pails. Any one purchase of a pail was more than their allotment of that good for a month. The sale of #10 cans of LTS food skyrocketed, and so did the prices. Millie and Jasper quit buying in bulk and concentrated on getting all of their allotment and canning what they didn’t use immediately.

  One of the things that came under rationing was tires. Jasper sweated out the situation for several weeks after the announcement, but no one came calling to insist Jasper turn in everything but the old set of tires. He was set for the duration for tires.

  Jasper and Millie’s attempt to increase their gasoline supply didn’t go as well. They were able to get a second tank, but supplies were scarce enough and prices high enough, that all they were able to get in the second tank was an additional two hundred gallons. Their ration of gas held them at the five-hundred-gallon level in the one tank, a little over a hundred and forty gallons in each vehicle plus trailer combination, and the two hundred gallons in the second storage tank. Since they began to limit their use of the vehicles significantly, they were able to replace the amount of fuel they were using, but couldn’t increase the stocks.

  They were able to fill both the underground five hundred gallon propane tank and the above ground thousand gallon propane tank. With no more propane than they used on a regular basis, the two tanks would provide them with several years of supply.

  When it became obvious that guns and ammunition might become hard to get, Millie and Jasper talked it over, but decided to stick with what they had. They doubled their monthly purchases of ammunition until it came under the ration rules. They then got the maximum they could get each time period. It was less than half of what they had been buying monthly. But the years of steady buying had put several thousand rounds of three main cartridges and shells they used.