The Provider

by John Hunt

  TEN

  It never got completely dark in the summer here, and the fires had spread, turning the sky a deep red. The gunfire was almost continuous now. A couple of times I heard cars speeding, wheels squealing as they turned the corner. There was shouting further down the road. I don’t think anyone had managed much sleep. At five a.m. on Wednesday the alarm went, and Dad got us up.

  “I think we’re making the right decision,” he said as we loaded our last few bags onto the truck. We’ll be safer out of here for a while. Looks like it’s only parts of downtown burning at the moment, but if this weather keeps up, if the wind changes, the whole place could go up in flames.” A few minutes later and Bob cranked up the engine and we were setting off down the drive. He had his Browning in the cab, and he’d given me a Ruger with the proviso – “Don’t use it unless I say so, kiddo.”

  Mom had looked as if she was about to say something in protest, but kept quiet. She squashed up inside the truck with Mrs. Maclaren between her and Bob. Dad was up at the front, behind the cab, Bess and I were in a nest at the back. The windows were open, so we could hear each other.

  “OK,” said Bob. “Let’s roll. No seat belts on this thing, but we won’t be going fast.”

  The next few moments utterly changed my life. Around the corner there was a dusty pickup blocking the road. Bob pulled to a halt. Four guys got out. I recognized Mrs. Maclaren’s neighbor from Tuesday, carrying a pistol. There was another guy I didn’t know, and Joss, the guy who bullied me at school, both with baseball bats. And there was Joss’s Dad, Mr. Trinker, a big man, must have been six and a half feet, huge beer gut, carrying a rifle.

  “Out you get, people. We’re taking this,” he shouted. I don’t think he noticed Bess and me low down in the back of the truck. I quietly loaded a cartridge into the rifle.

  Dad stood up. “You can’t do this. It’s ours.”

  “Not any more it ain’t. We’re confiscating it.” He laughed; the other guys were smirking. “It’s our patriotic duty, as concerned citizens. You’ve forfeited your rights, you wimps, this belongs to us. Think you can just take all this stuff away? Traitors, that’s what you are.” He spat.

  “But…”

  “Not another word from you, mister, or you get it first. Joss, you make a start now,” he waved the rifle at the truck.

  Joss moved to the passenger door, jerking it open, and grabbed my mother by the arm. Mom fell out of the cab, hitting the ground hard. I saw Bob move down, I guessed to get his rifle. Mr. Trinker saw him do it and fired – the bullet went through the windscreen above Bob’s head.

  Time seemed to slow. I remember thinking, do I do this? Can I do it? Should I? But I had already picked up the Ruger and half-raised it. It was like I was outside myself, watching as I got to my feet, thumbing the safety catch off. I saw Joss’s Dad swinging his rifle around towards me. My finger seemed to curl at snail’s pace around the trigger as the barrel came up. I shot from the hip, the gun going off fractionally before his barrel centered on me. The crack sounded abnormally loud. A surprised look spread across his mug. All the everyday sounds seemed to fade from the world, giving way to an empty silence. Slowly, Mr. Trinker slumped, falling forwards, his face in the gravel. And sound came crashing back.

  Mom gasped, hands to her face. “Oh God!”

  Bess was wailing. Louise held her hands. “Stop this now, Bess!”

  Dad jumped down from the flatbed. He turned the guy over. Blood was pooling under him. Joss screamed, “I’m gonna kill you, dork!” and hurled his baseball bat at me.

  I ducked in time, quickly loaded another cartridge, and raised the rifle. Bob by now had the Browning up at his shoulder. The other two men looked at both of us, the two rifles pointing at them, shook their heads at each other, grabbed Joss by the arms, and ran.

  My mind was blank, I stood there, unable to move. It was a hot, sunny morning, but I was cold, shaking; my mouth so dry my tongue was stuck to the roof of it. I stared at Mr. Trinker, the blood was spreading its dark stain on the ground. What had I done? I wanted, more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life, to wind those seconds back, replay them differently. My brain was working again, desperately insisting it must be possible, surely. This couldn’t have happened. The cold trickled down my back, finding its way down to my gut and lodging there. I tasted bile, retched, and then threw up over the side of the truck.

  Mom had joined Dad with Mr. Trinker. She was calm now, her professional side taking over. She ripped open his shirt, buttons popping. Mr. Trinker convulsed a couple of times, then blood started pouring out of his mouth, his head flopped to one side. She checked his pulse, and went pale. “He’s gone,” she said. “What have we done?”

  It was the first time I’d seen Bob look worried. He scrubbed at his chin. “Shit. I didn’t think you could kill someone with a .22. Must’ve been the close range.” He cast his glance first on me and then at the others. “It was self-defense, we all saw it.” He shook his head. “They attacked us.”

  Mom stood up. “We have to get him to the hospital! We’ll have to report this, go to the police station.”

  Dad paused for a minute. “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t think we should. We don’t even know that it’s operating. If we go down there, we’ll probably never get back. You hear all that shooting downtown? We’ll move on. We can report it when we return. Let’s take their weapons, they’ll have fingerprints on them. They can be used as evidence.”

  He picked them up with his handkerchief and laid them in the back of the cab.

  “But we can’t leave him like this!” Mom shouted. “I have a responsibility here.”

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Bob said flatly. “Time to make sure we stay alive.”

  I could see the wheels turning in Dad’s head. “Mary, I know it’s not what you want to do, and it might look bad for you later. For both of us. But we have to take a decision on whether to get out of here or not, and I think we should go.”

  “Donald and Bob are right,” said Mrs. Maclaren, cuddling Bess.

  “Jimmy boy.” Dad took me in his arms. “It wasn’t your fault. Bess, you go and sit between Mom and Louise in the cab for a while. I’m going to sit in the back here with Jim. Bob, drive on.”

  Bob engaged gears and rammed the front of the pickup, shoving it out of the way. He spun onto the road, wheels screeching, the truck rocking, and we sped away, dust kicking up. I could see Jerry and Marcia on their lawn, their faces white, mouths hanging open.

  Dad gripped my shoulder. “It’s OK, Jim.”

  I said nothing. I wasn’t outside myself any more, but I wasn’t inside myself either. It was like hovering in nowhere land. Unable to respond, unable to get close to it, to what I’d done. I guess I was in shock.

  An uneasy silence settled over us all and after a while it was just the noise of the engine and the gears and the rhythm of the old truck bumping along, lulling us all.

  ELEVEN

  Half an hour later, still sitting in uneasy, stunned silence, we had left the suburbs behind us. The malls, the drive-ins, the signs, had thinned out, and we were going fast down the Seward Highway. We’d seen a few loaded pickups, Dodges and Chevrolets, a Ford Pinto. But the road was empty now. The scenery was spectacular, majestic – the Chugach National Park and Forest all round us; huge mountains rising directly from the sea, sparkling glaciers and forests of pine, the heart of the playground of Alaska, which people travelled to see from all over the world. But no one was in the mood for it. A few dogs were roaming around, the occasional lodge looked deserted. Power lines were sagging, sometimes broken, with the poles at an angle.

  Bess whimpered in Mom’s lap. “What are we going to do? Will the police come after us?”

  I was kind of numb, surprised by how little I was feeling. Would I have fired again if Joss had come at me with the bat rather than throwing it? I just didn’t know.

  “I can’t do this.” Mom was crying softly. “I can’t bear it. We can’t just keep driving
all day, as if nothing’s happened. We have to stop and talk, please.”

  “OK.” Dad’s voice was strained. “Bob, how about pulling off at Alyeska?”

  A mile down the road, Bob slowed as the Alyeska Resort sign appeared. A Caterpillar tractor was parked across the road to the resort, blocking it. A middle-aged man with a rifle stood to one side.

  “Move on folks, there’s nothing for you here.”

  “We only wanted to visit, find out what’s happening.”

  “Look, I’m being nice. Try coming through, and I’ll shoot. I’ve got plenty of back-up. You don’t want to start a turf war.”

  “Can you tell us anything about the road ahead, then?” Dad asked him quietly. “We’re aiming to get to Seward.”

  “I doubt you’ll make it. The road’s closed at Summit Lake. There’s a bunch of hunters in the Lodge there, and they’re taking a toll from everyone who comes through. Half of everything you’ve got. After that, I don’t know.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “If I was you, I’d just find an empty lodge somewhere. Go to ground, and hang out till this is over. There are plenty around.”

  “Thanks. Do you have any idea how long this is going to go on?”

  “No more than you, my friend. But we’re prepared to sit this out for a week or two.”

  “Could we join you?”

  “Looks like you’ve got a lot of stuff back there in the truck, but our committee’s taken the decision. No more mouths to feed. We’ve made our rules, and we don’t want strangers with different ideas. Now move on.”

  “Thanks for the advice, anyway.”

  A few miles further on, we saw the sign for Portage.

  “Let’s try again here, Bob.” Dad pointed. It was a ghostly kind of place, with some ruined buildings leaning at odd angles and a forest of leafless white trees in the water, making fantastical shapes. Wetlands stretched away, scattered with ducks and swans.

  “Now, let’s review. What happened back there – it was terrible, but I’ve been thinking about it, it was probably going to happen anyway. I’m just sorry it was you who had to defend us, Jim. I should’ve been driving, and then Bob could’ve had a gun ready. We should’ve been organized better. We should’ve left earlier. It was my fault. I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault at all,” said Louise. “They were the aggressors. I’m glad I was there, so I can be a witness for you. I never liked that Mr. Trinker anyway. He was a horrible man. He threatened me after school once, when I failed Joss, grabbed my jumper. I thought he was going to hit me. I guess it’s the bit of Indian in me, but I don’t feel much regret. He got what he deserved.”

  “I was too slow,” said Bob. He fixed his gaze on me. “And I won’t be calling you kiddo any more, Jim. You did real good. Moved faster than shit through a goose.”

  “Bob, that’s a terrible thing to say! “Mom said sharply. “It’s not good, it’s appalling. I don’t know how we’re going to deal with this.”

  Bob shook his head. “People deal with it, Mary,” he said. “They just do. When I was in the army, I killed people, and I didn’t have as good a reason as Jim here.”

  “But Jim’s seventeen,” exclaimed Mom, “and he’s not a soldier.”

  “A year younger than me back then. But looks to me like we’re all going to have to be soldiers now.”

  Mom began to cry. “Oh God…what are we going to do? Jim could go to prison, and we’ve left that man in the road.”

  Dad embraced her, took out his handkerchief and wiped her tears away.

  “Be strong, Mary. I know Jim’ll need to talk this through.”

  “No! I don’t,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to talk about it. And I’m not sorry. I’m not.”

  Bess was looking at me as if she had never seen me before, I had no idea what she was thinking.

  Dad scrubbed his hand through his greying hair. “I think we do need to talk it through – maybe you’ll feel more like dealing with that when a bit of time’s passed. Right now, though, we’re almost out of food and water. Doesn’t look like we’re going to get help from anyone. And we need to find somewhere to stay, before tonight. Let’s look at the map. I think we should find somewhere we can hold out for a week or two if we have to, like that man said. What do you think, Bob?”

  “Agreed. We won’t get to the coast, and we’re on our own. But the basic plan stands.”

  Mom sighed heavily. “OK, we’re on this course, let’s make it work. This sun is so hot, let’s get some cream on.”

  Dad handed around the sandwiches as Bob unfolded the map on the bonnet, and, except for Bob and Louise, who ate with gusto, we chewed slowly. My mouth seemed to be numb, too, I couldn’t taste anything, it was like forcing cardboard past a closed up throat.

  “So,” Bob said, “with the Seward Highway blocked to us, I suggest we turn off here, towards Whittier. Then take this road on the right, and here again, up into the hills. Wish we had a larger scale map. We’re looking for an isolated, empty cabin or lodge, big enough for the six of us, with water close by, where we can hole up. Let’s hit the road.”

  TWELVE

  We drove on, through thinly forested larch and ash, bright green, the lower buckbrush and willow now in full leaf, then we turned right again. We passed a campsite that looked empty, except for a few cars scattered around. We drove in, circled, and no one came out, but the cabins were too small for us; every one looked as if it had been broken into.

  “Someone’s been here before us,” Bob said, “looking for food, I guess.”

  It didn’t feel like a good place. We drove on, the tarmac turned into gravel, the bends sharpening as we gained height. We passed the occasional holiday cottage and stopped to knock. They were empty, but Bob didn’t like the position.

  “We want somewhere more remote. A place no one’s going to stumble across.”

  The track circled upwards, becoming more rutted, and we jolted through potholes, clinging on at the back.

  “This isn’t going anywhere, is it?” Mom asked. “Shouldn’t we turn back to those cabins?”

  “These tracks in front of us are from a car, Mary.” Bob pointed. “It’s been along here recently. It’s too good a track not to lead somewhere.”

  Pine mostly gave way to birch. A lone eagle floated overhead. A dozen miles along, the trees opened out and we came to a lodge with a great view, right back across to a distant blue corner of the Turnagain Arm, the water and mountains. A guy was outside, chopping wood. He looked to be in his forties, a city type, plump and soft, with a mustache. No suntan yet, handling the ax as if he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Dad got out and walked over to him.

  “Hi, I’m Donald.” He held out his hand. The man took it. “We’re looking for a place to stay for a bit and we’re figuring there might be a lodge at the end of this track. Do you know?”

  “I’m Matthew,” the guy replied, casting an eye over the truck. “Matthew Harding. Yes, there’s one there. It’s another half dozen miles on. There’s no one around, and, frankly, neighbors would be welcome. We rented this place for the summer holiday, and thought we’d stay till this is over – there wasn’t time to get back to Seattle after the President’s announcement. I’m here with my two daughters.”

  As he said that, one of his daughters came out of the lodge. We all introduced ourselves. Her name was Jessie, sixteen, a year younger than me, slim, long legs, light-blonde hair, high cheekbones. A knockout. My stomach gave a little flip. I looked away as we shook hands.

  Matthew ushered us into the cabin. His younger daughter, Sue, was lying on the couch. She was nine, with a ready smile, but not looking at all well.

  “She has a temperature,” Matthew Harding explained. “Frankly, we would’ve been out of here by now, but I can’t get the car started. I’ve tried fishing in the lake, where the lodge you’re aiming for is, but I kept snagging the line and lost the tackle. We’re almost out of food and we were going to walk down to the highway, to see i
f we can get a lift back to Anchorage. But we can’t do it with Sue feeling like this.”

  Mom was soothing Sue’s brow. “It’s a fever,” she said. “Any other symptoms? Sore throat? Diarrhea?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “I’m a nurse, Mathew. I’ll get my bag from the truck.” She went out, rummaged around.

  “Here’s some Tylenol. Keep her hydrated. What are you drinking? You’re boiling the water?”

  “That’s what I was chopping the wood for, but it’s hard to get enough. I’ve never done it before.”

  The grown-ups chatted for half an hour. Bess and Jessie were getting along famously. I overheard snatches of conversation as I finished chopping up the woodpile.

  “It’s been so awful,” Bess was saying, “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone for days.”

  “Me neither. I hope you stay at that lodge. Then we can see each other.”

  Dad left them with some food and we agreed to all meet up the next day.

  “He’s a complete cheechako,” muttered Bob, as he engaged gears and we drove away.

  “What’s that?” Bess asked.

  “A greenhorn,” he replied. “We should have given them a lift down to the highway and told them to start walking. They know zip.”

  Mom turned to him sharply. “Don’t say that.”

  “They’ll get in our way, they’ll complain, they’ll get ill.”

  “Don’t knock them, Bob.” Mom looked cross. “You don’t know them. Sometimes, you’re not a very nice person.”

  “Three useless, wussy stomachs to feed, as much use as a handbrake on a canoe,” he continued. “See how you feel about it when we’re all hungry. They’ll be the death of us, you see if I’m right. We should ditch them.”

  “Jessie and me are going to be friends,” Bess interrupted. “Why don’t you go and live by yourself, Bob? Nobody cares what happens to you.”

  “Bess, that’s not nice either,” said Dad. “C’mon now, we’re going to stay together, and we’ll get along.”