Solar Storm: Homeward Bound

by Vincent Keith

  “Put these on before you start touching him.” She held out a pair of blue gloves.

  Jack took them, “You always carry gloves?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t add anything else.

  Jack shrugged and put on the gloves. Reaching across the body, he unbuckled the belt and tugged. The body moved, but the gun belt didn’t. He stood up and pulled on the gun belt. The body rolled off the thin man, and the belt came free. Jack stumbled back gagging on the smell but retaining his grip on the belt. The body had covered the larger pouch that the big man had carried mid-back.

  “This larger pouch probably has a powder measure, balls, maybe wads or grease.”

  He checked the larger pouch, and sure enough, all the necessary supplies: powder, balls, a couple tins of percussion caps, cleaning patches, cleaning rod, bore butter and other goodies. In a separate bag, he found a small lead ladle, a ball mold, and three good size chunks of lead.

  Checking the coat pockets, he found a set of keys and a wallet. Jack left the wallet without opening it. He didn’t want a name to go with the nightmares.

  He shifted his focus to the smaller of the two. A quick search revealed a wallet which Jack left in his pocket, a Swiss Army knife and a huge Bowie style knife in a shoulder holster. Jack wondered if what these guys had in mind had been more than rape. Or, maybe he was just unnerved by finding a concealed knife with a fourteen-inch blade.

  CAMPFIRE STORIES

  Jack was about to tuck the gun belt inside his pack when he realized he didn’t know what happened to the gun.

  “Rachael? Where’s the gun?”

  “I put it on the roof.”

  Jack turned and spotted it. The hammer was back. “Ahh, Rachael, why did you cock the gun?”

  “You said it wouldn’t work without pulling the hammer back.”

  Jack’s eyes squeezed shut and his pressed lips together. Yeah, I did say that. Idiot, of course she’s going to cock it.

  “I think just to be safe we’ll put it in the holster okay?”

  Jack pointed the gun toward the hill and dropped the hammer. He holstered the weapon and handed her the gun belt.

  He muscled the backpack up onto the front fender and slipped into the shoulder straps. He made a few adjustments to the pack, then he was ready to go.

  Jack glanced at the two large wheeled bags next to Rachael. “You’ll need to drag those. I can’t put that much in the cart.”

  “How far?”

  “There’s a campground I’ve used a few times. It should be just up the road. As soon as camp is set up, we can eat.”

  “Food! You have food?” Lexi was vibrating with excitement.

  “Oh jeez, when was the last time you ate?”

  “Early yesterday,” said Rachael. “We have some canned goods, but no way to open most of them. We ate what we could get open.”

  “Did you pack the food?”

  “No, I…” She glanced at the dead bodies. “I wasn’t thinking about food until now.” She went back and grabbed a bag with a half dozen assorted cans. Jack undid the tarp enough to slip the bag in on top of everything else.

  Jack opened his chest pack front pocket and pulled out two protein bars and handed them to Rachael. “Let’s get moving. We’ll reorganize tomorrow, make plans and figure out which way is up. Oh, grab those empty bottles, we’ll want every water container we can get our hands on.”

  “So I just leave the car?”

  “Yes, the electrical system is fried. The computer that keeps the engine running for sure, and we’re not going to find parts to fix it. Come on, it’ll get easier once we start moving. Adin is two or three days north. Nothing else is even close.”

  Jack headed down the hill, Hoover at his side, Dusty walking with the girls.

  “Are we going to do anything about those men?” asked Rachael.

  “No, we can’t afford the time or the effort. Since their first instinct when things got bad was to go feral, I figure they can feed the animals.”

  “Oh…”

  They walked on for a few minutes before Rachael spoke again. “Jack, why are you hiking up the road? How far away do you live?”

  “My truck is forty miles back that way,” he said pointing south. “I live up in eastern Washington.”

  “Forty miles? Why don’t we go that way? Can’t we take your truck?”

  “My truck is every bit as dead as your car. At this point, Adin is closer.”

  Lexi yanked on the handle of the suitcase, then switched arms. Pulling the suitcase was becoming painful. The little wheels kept jamming on rocks and pebbles. Every time it happened she had to yank the handle to get them free, or it would drag. She was hungry in a way she’d never imagined and exhausted to the point of confusion. Sleeping in the car had been fun the first night, but had lost its charm when she spent hours shivering in the early morning cold.

  She yanked on the handle again then kicked the bag in frustration. When the bag was rolling again, Lexi asked, “Isn’t that a little weird? I mean, both our cars dying at almost the same time?”

  “Exactly the same time,” said Jack. “It’s only weird because you don’t understand the reason. We can discuss it right after we get camp set up and eat.”

  “Oh, why did you mention food again? I can’t remember ever being this hungry.”

  Jack pulled out a package of beef jerky and handed it to Lexi. “Here try this.”

  Lexi tore into the package and tore off a large piece with her teeth.

  “I don’t suppose you have any coffee in that pack?” asked Rachael.

  “I do, but I’d like to save that for breakfast.”

  They’d been walking for over an hour when Jack found the campground. Lexi was struggling to drag her bag through the rocks and twigs. Rachael wasn’t doing much better. Both were tired and sore.

  “Leave the bags, once we get the camp up, I’ll get them. I wonder if the bathrooms are working?”

  A brief check of the doors confirmed his suspicion. Jack didn’t want to force a door open. Without power, the pumps wouldn’t work, so there’d be no water anyway.

  The campground was off the road and somewhat sheltered from view. Willow Creek ran right next to several of the campsites in the back, and Jack picked the one closest to the creek. He planned to boil enough water to top up all the water bottles, and it would take several trips. Hoover pulled the dogcart over the rough ground and stopped next to the picnic table. Jack unhooked the cart and got him out of his harness. Both dogs sat, looking at him. “Okay, go on,” Jack said with a shooing motion. The dogs trotted to the creek to drink.

  “Can we help?” asked Rachael.

  “Sure, gather as much dry wood as you can find. Everything from twigs to as big as you can drag. I’ll get a fire going before setting up the tents. We’ll need a lot of wood between the fire, the wood stove and all the water we have to boil.”

  “You have two tents?”

  “Yep, I was hoping to use the small one as trade goods, but if you’re going to travel with me, or go your own way, you’ll need it.”

  Rachael’s mouth opened as if to speak, then shut. She shrugged and walked off to gather wood. Jack gave Lexi a small folding saw and asked her to cut anything thinner than the thickness of a can to the length he’d marked on the saw’s blade. It took Jack forty minutes to get the tents up and start a campfire. The campground didn’t allow open fires but Jack just didn’t care. He created a ring of rocks a convenient distance from two logs they could sit on and started a fire.

  Each campsite had a permanent barbecue grill that took the place of a campfire. The grill would make the job of boiling several gallons of water much easier. He laid out the kindling and lit it with a burning twig from the campfire.

  With the fires going and the first pot of water on the grill, Jack put up the Sawtooth shelter. The ground was dry, but there were a lot of pine twigs and dry needles. He swept the area clear then laid the shelter out. It went up quickly, stakes along the edges, guy-r
opes, then the two poles. A few adjustments to the guy-ropes completed the task.

  The girls lacked any gear necessary for survival in the wild. If it got as cold as he expected, they’d be freezing rather than sleeping. They’d need the stove to keep warm, and probably the sleeping bag and the woobie. Jack had enough clothing he could do without a sleeping bag. Jack inflated the insulated air mattress and laid out the sleeping bag. He’d often wished someone would make a shorter pad with more width. As a side sleeper, he didn’t need the length as much as the extra padding for his hips, shoulders, and knees. Jack’s philosophy was simple: a good night’s sleep was always worth the extra weight.

  When Hoover got big enough to pull a dogcart, Jack took advantage of his newfound ability to share the load. He purchased the most comfortable sleep-pad he could find. As comfortable as it was, the pad was too narrow for two people. After a moment’s thought, he sifted through the pine needles he’d swept aside and tossed the twigs toward the fire-pit. The needles themselves went back into the tent where he spread them out and laid the ground cloth on top of them. Not as good as an insulated pad, but better than cold hard ground.

  Jack assembled the stove and ran the chimney up through the hole. The Sawtooth was his favorite tent for winter camping. With no floor, he didn’t have to worry about sparks and coals from the stove melting his tent. He also didn’t have to worry about cleaning it out every time he broke camp. The front part of the tent was tall enough to stand in. It sloped down toward the back where there was plenty of room for his pack and other storage.

  The summer tent was a simple free-standing bug net with a rainfly. The bug netting provided excellent ventilation but retained no warmth. Even with the rain fly, the tent retained little warmth. Ventilation was great in the summer, but less desirable when the temperature reached below freezing, which it would in about six hours. Between his down clothing and his homemade bivvy sack, he’d be okay. Not comfortable, but okay. He spent a few minutes digging out pockets in the dirt for his shoulders and hips, then piled on a thick layer of pine needles. With that in place, he set the tent down on top of the pine needles. Jack staked down the four corners just to keep the slick nylon from shifting around on the loose needles.

  Tyvek, the white house-wrap seen at thousands of construction sites, had a wide variety of uses from sleeves for CDs and DVDs to full coverage suits for painters. It was light, waterproof, and cheap. Jack had experimented with it over the years as a way to make camping gear. First a ground cloth, then tarps, and finally bivvy-sacks. The trick was wadding it up into a stuff sack and beating on it for a while to make it pliable and less noisy. He’d built a half dozen variants of the bivvy bag over the years. The latest version was in a small bag in his pack. He was counting on it to keep him warm tonight.

  Jack set one pot of boiling water aside to cool, the other he moved just enough to keep it from boiling. He found the food bag in the dogcart and brought it over to the campfire.

  “Here, dig through that and pull out one for each of us. Anything except breakfast food, there’s a limited supply, and I want to keep it for breakfast. I’ll go get your bags.”

  As Jack returned with both bags, Rachael watched him approach. He carried both bags with no apparent effort, and he moved quickly across the broken ground. He’s stronger than he seems, she thought.

  “This is all backpacker food,” said Lexi.

  “Sure,” said Jack as he set the bags down near the big tent. “That’s why I bought it. I keep a month’s worth in the truck and a lot more at home. Fortunately, I’ve got a fair amount. The problem is, it’s a fair amount of only four different meals. The four I liked the best. Tomorrow we’ll switch to the MRE’s. They’re heavier, and that’ll lighten the load faster.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” said Rachael, giving her daughter a crooked smile that suggested beggars shouldn’t be too choosy.

  “I’ve just never had it before,” said Lexi. “How come it’s so light?”

  “Freeze dried, they freeze it and run it through a near vacuum. The lowered pressure causes the frozen water to sublimate… um, turns from frozen water into water vapor which gets sucked out. We’ll add boiling water and let it sit for a bit. It’s pretty good. Not home cooked or like a good restaurant, but when you’re out here, and you’re hungry—you’ll be surprised how good that tastes.”

  “It could taste like dog food, and I wouldn’t care,” said Lexi.

  Jack chuckled. “I have dog food if that’s what you want. Which reminds me…” Jack got up, went to the cart, got the bowls, scooped a few cups of food into each, and set them down. The dogs wouldn’t eat until morning, but with the food available they wouldn’t wake him up either.

  “We should be far enough away from any houses here to avoid attracting attention.”

  “Houses? I didn’t see any houses.”

  “Down along the creek after it crosses to the other side of the road. Maybe a mile or two. Might be summer places, might not. I’d rather not disturb anyone if I can help it.”

  “Why?” asked Rachael. “Maybe they can help us.”

  “They’re as likely to need help as we are.”

  Rachael frowned. She didn’t like the idea of passing up help. Passing by someone who needed help bothered her even more.

  Once the water reached a boil, Jack added a measured amount to each pouch, sealed them up and gave them a shake.

  “Ouch! Oh, damn that’s hot.”

  Rachael smiled, “I thought you’d done this before?”

  “And I say the same thing every time. Well, not every time. I do most of my camping in the winter, and I have gloves on when I’m doing this.”

  “You camp in the winter? But, why?” asked Lexi.

  “Better light, I love the snow and ice, fewer people, lots of reasons.”

  “But, it’s fall, and it’s already freezing.”

  “It’s getting there, we’ll hit the high twenties before morning. Okay, these should be ready in about ten minutes, huh… I don’t suppose you have spoons in all the luggage.”

  She thought for a moment then nodded. She returned moments later with two tall insulated cups and two long plastic spoons.

  Jack looked at the cups and spoons, trying to figure out why she’d have two large plastic cups and two long-handled spoons.

  She saw his look and shrugged. “We’re sort of addicted to coffee smoothies. So, you said you’d explain what’s going on.”

  “We’ve got hours of nothing to do but wait for the water to boil so we can fill bottles. Let’s get more wood, we’ll need it. We can discuss it after we eat.”

  He knew they had a lot of questions, but he was still struggling with the realization he’d shot two men. Part of his mind kept telling him he would end up in jail, that he’d left the scene of a crime, that this was California, and he was in serious trouble. The part about being in trouble he didn’t doubt, the rest—he wasn’t sure about. Jack needed time to get his head wrapped around how quickly his life had changed. He wasn’t sure he would get that time.

  They spent the next ten minutes collecting more wood, waiting for the food to be ready.

  “Okay, dig in, then I’ll explain what happened, and what it’s going to mean to us. Or you if you go your own way, what you should watch out for. Oh, be careful, they’re hot.”

  Rachael looked like she wanted to argue, but the hunger hit her again when Jack opened his pouch of spaghetti.

  For the next few minutes, the conversation revolved around the food and how good it was, and how hungry they were. Jack pulled out another pouch of spaghetti and added the water. He could tell at least Lexi was still hungry by the way she was shoveling down the spaghetti.

  “Here you can split this, give that a couple more minutes to rehydrate. I’ll make some hot chocolate while you’re doing that.” He was stalling, and he knew it. Sooner or later he’d have to break the news to them.

  With dinner wrapped up, Jack put the pouches on the fire. Usua
lly, he’d pack them out, but given the situation, he wasn’t going to mess with hauling trash. He’d burn it, and that would have to suffice. Jack figured he had enough hot chocolate for several weeks and a months’ worth of coffee. Once those were gone, it would be pine needle tea or plain hot water. I’ll save some for later, say about the time I cross the Columbia.

  “Oh damn, almost forgot.” Jack got up and pulled one of the boxes he’d gotten from the trucker. He opened it and pulled out a box of donuts, powdered sugar, apple cinnamon, and chocolate. He also grabbed his woobie and the wool liner for his coat. “Here, dessert.”

  They both swallowed at the sight of the donuts, temptation writ large across their faces.

  “It’s cold, you’ve had a thousand calories in two days, and we’ll be walking for days yet. I know they’re not good for you, but you need the calories.”

  He set them down on a rock and took one of the apple cinnamon. It only took a second before they relented.

  Jack handed the woobie to Rachael and let them wrap up in it. There was a definite chill in the air, and the sun had just dipped below the mountains. He watched them while he played with the fire. Lexi was the taller of the two, at five seven to Rachael’s five-six. She was also thinner. The term lithe came to mind. Rachael was a little overweight but otherwise looked fit. But then, so am I. It won’t last long. Between short rations and all the walking in our future, a little extra weight might be a good thing.

  She appeared to be someone who’d been active most of her life. Her sandy brown hair was cropped short in a cute, but practical way. Little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Smile lines, she’d smiled a lot in her thirty-six years. Brown eyes, large and expressive like her daughters. She had that wonderfully rounded hourglass figure.

  Jack frowned, remembering his time with Rebecca. He still missed her, but the memories didn’t hurt as much anymore. He hadn’t had time for relationships, nor much desire since Rebecca. And that was nearly ten years ago.

  Not liking the direction his thoughts were going, he focused on the here and now. He wondered how the next few weeks would play out. They’re not dressed for this. I wonder if they have something usable in that luggage. I sure hope they have boots. Those shoes might hold up, but over rough ground, they’ll be an issue. Maybe they’ll find a spot in town, although finding someone with enough to share will be a problem. By the time we get to Lakeview, people will be getting hungry and scared. They’ll be wondering why nothing works, and why no one has come to help. Jack sighed. No point in putting this off.