by Geo Dell
The evening passed and people began to say their goodbyes and drift off down the valley, or off to their posts for the night. Soon it was only Susan and Sandy, Sharon and Cindy who lived in the cave, and the six new comers.
Roberta, Bonnie and Cammy left with Janet to take a look at the barns before night fall, and get an idea of how the valley and the small community was laid out. There were several other newcomers that had set up living quarters in other small caves scattered through the valley, and small encampments where people that had come in together had settled and begun building. Cammy wanted to look for a more permanent solution to sleeping in the main cave area.
Sandy and Sharon had piled Sleeping bags and blankets in the main area, along with collapsible cots for the newcomers to use. Candles for light, and pots for inside use. Shortly after that Sandy and Susan said goodnight. Sharon left to take care of Beth, and suddenly Cindy and Craig were alone on the wide ledge, watching the daylight bleed out of the valley.
Now that they were alone, Cindy did not know what to say.
Craig seemed tongue tied too.
“You could hold me if you wanted to,” Cindy said.
“I do want to,” Craig said.
The light was bleeding from the valley. Shadows gathering the evening together.
“Am I really what you want?” Craig asked.
“Yeah. You are,” Cindy said. “All I had to do was see you and I knew it... My friend said something to me... She said, let him know it. The world's not the way it used to be... I think she's right,” she looked into his eyes.
“I haven't been good at relationships,” Craig told her.
“That's the old world, isn't it,” Cindy asked.
“We don't know each other, not really,” Craig said.
“Yet we want each other... And why does that matter? It isn't the old world. There's no piece of paper here, but I'll bet these relationships do better... Last longer.”
“I'm a little older...”
Cindy laughed. “And that really makes a difference to you? … Or me?”
“I just want to make sure you...”
“Are you going to kiss me,” Cindy interrupted.
He kissed her.
~
Candace's Journal
My man is on my mind. I miss him so much and I want to be able to share the news about the babies with him, and I'm scared. I am. Annie told us what it is really like out there. I can't let my thoughts get away from me. I can't start imagining things, making more out of it than there is. But the things that are right out there are bad enough. It's one thing to hear on the radio that the streets of New York City, or Los Angeles are over run with the dead. And an entirely different thing to hear that someone you love has been attacked. To see the results in a young woman that has lost an arm. To go past hearing to knowing.
It's only been a week, how am I going to last a month or a month and a half? I just hope they find what they need and come home early. I also hope they don't meet any crazies. I don't know what I would do if something happened to Mike.
The ones that Craig and the others met with has put that into my head. Another worry on top of the dead and a plain old accident of some sort. Those things are out there, I just don't want them to touch my world.
I had crayfish and Mollusks tonight. Arlene calls them Craw Dads. I had never had them before, man are they ever good. And I think the babies liked them too, so I ate some extra. After all I'm eating for the three of us. Or maybe the three of us are just pigs!
Good luck to you, Cindy. Baby come home. God, are you listening?
CHAPTER SEVEN
September 24th
“That's a dog,” Ronnie said.
“You're sure,” Mike asked.
“Yeah... It's a mix with a Malamute and maybe some big sheep dog. I can see the Spitz in it and something else as well... Both of them... The one watching and the one guarding... They're both dogs.”
“Spitz?” Mike asked.
“Like in Chows... Malamutes, other sled dogs, Akita. They have a common ancestor in the Spitz.”
The dogs knew they were there. They had looked over at them several times. They seemed to be guarding the mixed flock of sheep and goats.
“Here goes,” Ronnie said. He stood and walked towards the larger one that was guarding the herd and whistled. The dog's head came up and he barked a greeting, his tail wagging. “Yeah... It's a dog,” Ronnie said with a laugh.
“You mean you weren’t sure!” Mike said. “That dog weighs more than you do!”
“Yeah... But it's a dog.” He bent and patted his hands on his knees and the huge dog loped to him and jumped up on him. The one that had been laying down got up and trotted over as well. Between the two of them they knocked Ronnie down and stood over him licking his face.
Ronnie sat up grinning, one arm around the neck of each dog. To Mike they looked exactly like huge shaggy wolves. They were marked the same; gray-black mixed with white. Josh walked up beside Mike, James with him. Debbie, Bear and Chloe on the other side of Ronnie.
Chloe raised her hands into the air with a what now gesture. Mike shrugged his shoulders. Chloe turned to Debbie, said something, and they both laughed. She walked over to the two dogs and Ronnie, offered her hand, and pulled him to his feet.
The bigger dog was the dog that had been laying down. A female. That was obvious because she was pregnant, her belly sagging low. Debbie walked over and the two women began fussing over the dogs who seemed overjoyed with all the attention.
“I don't recall seeing the dogs,” Josh said. “Nor the goats, but this looks like the same herds I saw... Both of them... They were only twenty or so each and this herd is close to forty, and ten goats too. But if those dogs are sheep dogs, as in bred to be herding dogs, they would have taken anything that came their way and herded it. That's what they do.”
They had yet another huge truck. A flat bed with stake rack sides. A livestock truck that Josh had picked out. A detachable ramp that could be slotted into the back to run animals up into the rear area, and stored under the rear deck when not in use. Josh himself was driving it.
“That's their herd. I would bet all that I have to do is back this truck up, drop the ramp, and those two will put that herd right in there for us,” he said.
Everybody else was standing around. They had all been in the trucks, unsure if the dogs were dogs, and if they did turn out to be dogs, whether they were friendly or turned wild. Now that the suspense was over and it seemed as though the whole plan they had in mind might turn out to be easier than they had thought it would be, they were all waiting to see what would happen next.
“I say go for it,” Mike said. “You know more about this than I do. I'm just glad the dogs didn't eat Ronnie... Or me,” he added with a laugh.
Chloe came over with Debbie. “You're just being strung along,” she joked. “They'll probably eat you later on, take over the rest of us and call in their dog pack to ride shotgun over us... Make us work in the mines or something,” she laughed too, but she pulled the female to her and ruffled her fur. “Big babies,” she said. “And she's about to pop... Puppies!”
Mike smiled at her. This was not the same Chloe of yesterday. This was a whole new woman. She talked differently, walked differently. She seemed confidant. “You look great this morning, Chloe,” he told her.
“I feel pretty great,” she smiled. She looked over at Debbie and they both smiled.
Josh ran the big truck down off the road and into the field. As soon as the truck dropped off the roadway and into the field the dogs became excited: Running back to the herd, nipping at their heels, chasing the ones that had wandered off. Before Josh and James had the ramp completely set up, the two dogs had all the goats and sheep on their feet and milling around in the field not far from the truck.
When the ramp dropped Josh turned to the big female that seemed to be watching and waiting on him. He motioned his hand in an up the ramp gesture. The dog cocked its head and l
ooked at him. “Hi!,” he yelled.
She spun on her heels and the two dogs working together drove the herd to him. James and Josh on one side of the ramp, Mike and Ronnie on the other, and the others spread out to make sure none veered off or dropped off the edge of the ramp, and it was over in just a few moments. The sheep especially were no trouble, the goats only a little trouble as they tried to back up and get away, but the dogs took care of that, herding them right back at the truck and onto the ramp. The ramp came down and slid under the deck, and they set the stake rack into the holes in the deck to close off the back.
“High?” Mike asked.
“Hi... H, i,” Josh told him. “Like, Hi, how are you. I used to use it with the cows. But I think anything I yelled would have done it. Those dogs know their job. There probably are some specific commands I just don't know what they would be. I have seen this done in competition. The dogs, a good sheep herder, can run the herd through a course. Put them in a field. Take them out. Almost anything at all, on their own.”
Mike nodded. “That was nice,” he agreed. “I think they've done this before.”
The dogs sat quietly at the back of the truck looking from Josh to Mike to Ronnie.
“Where are we going to put the dogs?” Mike asked.
“Gonna bring them with us?” Josh asked.
“Yeah... But will they come,” Mike wondered.
Josh walked to the front of the truck, opened the door, whistled, and both dogs jumped up into the big cab. The female curled up onto the seat, the male with his huge paws on the dashboard looking out the window.
“I...” Mike just laughed. “That's that, I guess.” He turned and looked to everyone standing around. “That's it,” he said loudly. “Follow us... We're going home.”
The Nation
Candace, Patty and Lilly sat on a thick quilt under a huge plastic awning and watched the corn picking proceed. Two large plastic coolers sat just off the quilt, filled with cold water from the stream. A second tarp covered an area where most of the children were playing. A few of the smaller ones had fallen asleep. Brian and Ben were both in the field, helping to pick ears of corn.
It was not a huge area, but still a little over two acres that they had planted with corn. Another field, farther down the valley, held almost four acres of mixed Wheat and Rye. That harvest would be the harder one.
They snapped the ears of corn from the stalk, leaving the blighted ears behind, and leaving the stalk itself standing. They would be back in a few weeks to harvest the field corn that was planted a few fields down from this field. That field would come down stalks and all for feed; when it did the stalks in this field would come down and be mixed right in. A second and third field would be processed into feed corn.
Two of the barns had silos. They were not the huge multistory types that were seen on most farms, but short and squat, two story ones. They would serve the purpose well enough though.
There were two mixed grain hay fields that were already drying out. They would also be feed. Yesterday most of the people in the nation had gone through those fields, gathered the standing hay into large bundles, tied it, and then using a sickle, cut it at the base and left it to dry.
Their own Wheat and Rye fields would be much harder to process as the seed heads had to be pulled from the stalks. The best way to do it was to let the stalk run through your closed fist, pulling off the heads and dropping them into a basket you carried with you. It was time consuming and best done with a large group.
They had harvested a smaller crop earlier in the year, and had planted the second crop in hopes that there would be time for it to mature. It had, and that had told them there would be two growing seasons here. A third was not likely as the mornings and late evenings were already turning cooler. Fall could not be far away.
Craig came in with Ben on his shoulders looking sleepy. He laid him down onto the second quilt where some other children were sleeping.
“Wore him out, I think.” He smiled and then walked back out into the field.
At noon the three women were joined by Janet. Tom, Bob, Craig and David set up two heavy rough-cut-lumber tables, and the four women served a lunch of cold sliced buffalo roast on thick slices of sourdough bread.
It was not the first bread they had made, but it was one of the first batches of bread since they had gotten the sourdough batch working right. There were so many people now that they needed to bake bread every day. They kept the working batches of sourdough stored in the cooler reaches of the cave. It gave the dough more than enough time to work, usually two days before it was needed for baking.
Shar had made a batch of mustard using wild mustard seed, turmeric, dill and some horseradish root. It sat on the table next to a bowl of thick, fresh butter. There was cold water, powdered drink mix and hot coffee, as well as fresh milk to drink.
The mustard, dill and horseradish root had come from the first experimental herb garden they had planted. The week before they had transplanted most of the herb plants into larger containers for the winter. In the spring they would plant cuttings in a much larger herb garden Bob had plotted out close to the cave.
The rear recesses of the cave were already colder. They were still not freezing, but Bob had opinioned that they probably would be in the next few months and they would probably stay frozen long into late spring, early summer. They had shifted most of the vegetables that they did not want to freeze into rooms closer to the main cave area. It had been a lot of work, but they would only have to do it once, Janet pointed out. After this coming winter they would know which rooms froze and which did not.
They were not at an extreme elevation, but they were well up into the foothills. The lower ranges of the mountains were framed against the sky just a few miles away. They had not done much exploring but they knew there were small fields in the mountains above them.
There were two fields above their own small ridge that they had explored. A path ran from the rocky ledge that fronted their cave, up and around the stubby peak above them, ending in a long field of mixed grasses and a few stunted pine trees. A narrow stream wandered the length of that field, falling down off the back side of their little mountain as it left the field.
The first field opened into an even smaller field, enclosed on all sides with high rock walls. That field was where Bob hoped to summer the Deer, and the Sheep he hoped that Mike and the others bought back with them. They could easily winter in the huge steel barns that they had erected from the kits they had bought in with them like the horses and cows were going to do.
With lunch finished, the four woman picked up the remains, and then sat back down to watch the sun travel slowly across the sky. Patty laughed quietly.
“What,” Candace smiled.
“Well... All this evolution. Out of the caves, into houses, woman’s rights, and here we are sitting in a field, having just served lunch to the other women and men who are doing the field work, and we live in a cave,” She laughed as she finished.
Janet laughed as she got to her feet. “And this woman is going back out to work in those fields,” she said with a smile. She looked down at Patty. “And you are bare foot and pregnant too.”
Patty, Candace and Lilly burst into laughter. Patty and Candace clutching their bellies as they did.
“I have my sneakers around here somewhere,” Lilly protested. That set Patty and Candace off into gales of laughter that followed Janet as she chuckled to herself, walking back out to the fields.
A few minutes later Lilly dragged out a huge hardcover book on knitting, and they sat talking quietly back and forth as they practiced stitches, getting themselves familiar with the needles, and the method Janet had shown them.
Janet had started them on the huge supply of synthetic yarn they had bought in with them. In the coming year they hoped to have wool yarn to work with.
Lilly held up a small, perfectly made pair of booties.
“Nice,” Candace told her. “But those booties wouldn't fit
your kids big toe,” she told her.
Lilly laughed.
Candace laughed as well. “Mine either, or yours,” she said turning to Patty.
“Okay, you,” Patty said.
“So... How do we make them bigger?” Candace asked.
“Add more stitches. I think that's what Jan said,” Lilly answered. “But doesn't it look good? Like the real thing?”
“Absolutely. You got that part right,” Candace agreed. She held up her own. Slightly larger, with a few bumpy areas here and there. “Maybe I added one or two too many,” she sighed.
Patty held hers up. A perfect pair of booties, but about twice the size of Lilly's.
“Hey, that's as nice as Lilly's, only bigger, Pats. Good job. How did you do it though?” Candace asked.
“Yeah. What gives,” Lilly echoed.
“Thanks,” Patty said. “I added about twice the stitches, same as Lil said, but I watched as I did it and it didn't come out to exactly double everywhere. Like the top part,” she held one of the booties up. “It folds over. That didn't take only a couple of extra stitches. Let's see...” She told them exactly what she had changed. They each pulled theirs apart and began again with the modified pattern.
On The Road
The truck was parked blocking both lanes of the highway. Mike and Ronnie, driving the lead truck, had topped the small rise and come to a fast stop.
They had stopped so quickly that the other trucks behind them had not even topped the rise. Tim and Bear were in the truck directly behind them, Tim driving. He had seen the brake lights come on and had reacted just as quickly as Mike had. Ronnie’s voice came over the radio every bit as quickly.
“Stop! Stop!” He called into the radio.
Grabbing the hand held microphone instead of the grab bar as Mike stopped the truck, cost him a broken nose as Mike locked up the brakes. His face slamming into the padded dashboard.
“Shit... Goddamn,” Ronnie yelled as he rebounded off the dashboard. The big truck was probably a little slow to stop because of the four by four it was towing behind it. Even so when the truck came to a stop the tow vehicle was still at the crest of the hill.
