The Provider

by John Hunt

  He hesitated. “It’s just not going to work, long term. We can’t just rely on Mary to be the only one with medical knowledge.”

  She can teach me,” Jessie interrupted.

  “That will help,” Dad replied. “But we need to be a tribe rather than a family. Society has to come back into the picture some time. I can’t see us living with the criminals in Anchorage though, or the fundamentalists in Fairbanks.”

  “Donald, you’re scaring me when you use words like forever,” Mom said.

  “I don’t know, Mary. But we do need to think ahead. Whatever the future’s going to be, I reckon we’re going to have to make it for ourselves.”

  “We talked a lot with Nat,” he continued. “If things do get rough here over the next year or two, we need an escape route. Because everyone’s left Whittier, there’s a lot of equipment there we could use. There’s plenty of space, the Begich Towers are empty, and the Buckner Building’s been deserted for years. Whittier is pretty much cut off, since the opening of the tunnel the old portage trail over the mountains behind it has fallen into disuse. Some of it’s still there, but we could block it, if we wanted to. It’s a natural bolt hole. Once we collapse the tunnel, anybody coming in with bad intentions would have a difficult hike. And if things get too rough, then there are boats in the harbor we could use to go to sea. I’m just thinking of this as a possibility. I’m worried that if we don’t make alliances, get into a larger group, we, and people like us, could be picked off one by one.”

  “Donald, I know I’ve spent months saying I hope we’re only here for a short time, but are you saying we might leave here now, after all we’ve done?” asked Mom.

  “Possibly.” Dad sighed. “I hope not. But we can’t control events. This place is serving us well, let’s see how we get through this winter, and what the world looks like when the spring comes around. But we do need to make a couple more trips first.”

  “Would we be coming with you?” asked Sue.

  “Of course, darling,” Mom replied. “We’re family now. We’ll always be together.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Over the coming years I got to know the Kenai Peninsula as well as I’d known our local area of Anchorage. The top end was flat and marshy, the bottom half was glaciers and icefields. Half of it was National Forest and Park. Most people lived around the mouth of the Kenai River and up to ten miles upstream, where there was a little agriculture.

  The Peninsula had a population of around fifteen thousand people before the Event, mostly working in tourism and outfitting hunters and fishermen. For Alaska, that was real high-density population. Come to think of it, there was probably no place in the world so well stocked with tools for survival. But the hunters and fishermen were no longer there. The dozens of container trucks a day no longer roared up and down the Sterling Highway, bringing food and materials, returning with crates of fish. And the number of people had become a liability.

  We set out in the two jeeps one bright, crisp morning, with sacks of dried fish and jerky in case there was any bartering to be done. Big fluffy clouds scurried across a deep azure-blue sky. The fall colors were dazzling, reds, oranges, yellows and greens, mixed up as far as you could see, the glaciers too bright in the sun to look at. Dozens of birds were flying high overhead, in wingtip formation.

  “Canada geese,” I identified them, “heading south for the winter.”

  Dad hadn’t been able to find out on the radio if the road was open, but when we got to Summit Lake Lodge, where the guy in Alyeska had warned us about the hunters as we fled Anchorage the first time, it looked deserted. After a couple of hours we split, with Bob and Matthew setting off on a minor road through Moose Pass, down to Seward, a population of a couple of thousand. Dad and I carried on the highway to see what was happening in the larger population area.

  According to the map, we were coming up to Coopers Landing, at the head of Kenai Lake, a small community of a couple of hundred or so. There was a barrier across the road, made of parked tractors with rolls of barbed wire in front of them. Under the blue and gold flag of Alaska, a bearded man dressed in an army combat uniform put down the stick he’d been whittling and got up with his rifle from his deckchair. We drove up slowly and stopped a few yards away.

  I had my rifle at the ready. Dad got down and walked towards him, unarmed. “Hi, are you letting people through?”

  “For a price,” the man replied. “But frankly, I’d advise against it.”

  “Can you tell me what’s going on down there in the peninsula?” asked Dad.

  “It’s a mess.” He considered, stroking his beard. “The first few weeks weren’t too bad. There was some disease. It was controlled. But then more came in from people fleeing Anchorage. That’s when we set up this roadblock here. And then things started to get rough around Kenai. Too many people there. The salmon wasn’t enough to feed them. And now the salmon run’s stopped. They’re starving, basically. We’ve got another barrier ten miles down the road, to stop them coming through to us. There are several guys on that one, just me here because virtually nothing comes through any more from your direction. If you’d come the other way, we’d have opened fire as soon as we saw you.”

  “So why didn’t you shoot at us?”

  “Simple. You came up politely, you look well fed, dressed, not desperate, you’re not foaming at the mouth. Not like many we’ve had trying to get through here.”

  “Are you OK yourselves here? Want to do any trade?”

  “If you’ve got tobacco, or morphine,” he replied, “I’ll do a deal. Otherwise, we’re OK here. We’ve got the lake and the woods to forage in.”

  “I can’t help you with those items,” replied Dad. “But we’re concerned what might be coming down from Anchorage and Fairbanks. We’d like to talk about possible alliances. Can we do that?”

  The guy hesitated. “Wait here,” he said. Then he went behind the tractor, picked up a mountain bike and cycled off.

  Half an hour later, he came back with three others, a tall, distinguished looking, white-haired man leading the way. I guessed he was an ex-soldier from the erect way he carried himself, with authority, out of the manual, ramrod back, with a long, blue scar on his face.

  “I’m Theo,” he said, getting straight to the point. “I’m the mayor here, and these are my colleagues. What do you want?”

  Dad introduced us and explained about the news from Anchorage and Fairbanks.

  “Doesn’t look to me like you’re in a good position here,” he ended. “All those people down towards Kenai, when they get desperate enough to get out, they’ll overwhelm you with numbers. And for the bad guys coming south, this is the only way through. You’re caught in the middle, in a no-win situation. There’s going to be a nasty face-off.”

  “You’re telling me. So what are you suggesting?”

  Dad explained about Whittier. “If things get tough, we could hole up there, set up a community. There’s room for a few hundred. With its natural defenses, that’s enough to discourage anyone from taking us on. And enough to create some kind of society again, so that we have doctors and schools. And there are boats there for sea fishing. This lake doesn’t look big enough to last you long. It’s OK to keep ten people going, maybe, but not a hundred.”

  Theo thought for a while. “We’ve had all kinds of people coming through here, and mostly we’ve had to fight them off. But I’m glad you came, Donald. Same kind of stuff’s been eating away at me. Let’s shake on this. I’ll have to buy time for a while, lots of people to convince, it’s a big step to take. We won’t be able to do it before the winter. But come through, let’s start talking it over with others. And we should get our communications sorted, check we’ve got the call signs right, so we can keep in touch on the radio.”

  We drove over to the Princess Wilderness Lodge, which served as the community center. Most of the locals gathered around in the evening and Dad talked again. In the morning, we left, after swapping some supplies for tins, soap,
needles and thread, feeling we’d made some friends.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Following advice from Theo, we didn’t try going further into the peninsula but went north to a few similar sized communities on the coast. Those of a few dozen, rather than a few thousand, let alone hundreds of thousands, seemed to be the ones who had proved more resilient. Self-sufficiency was more possible. Disease was less of a problem. The more isolated they were, the better they had survived.

  We got back home to find Bob and Matthew had made it back a few hours earlier.

  “No good,” Bob said. “Didn’t look like Anchorage, but we couldn’t get close enough to tell. There’s the big prison across the water, don’t know who’s running the place. They started shooting as soon as they saw us. We had to reverse out of there fast.”

  “I want to go and live where there are more people,” Bess said that evening. “Its fine for Jessie here, with Jim, they’re together all the time. But it’s dead boring for me. I’ve got no one to talk to. How am I going to meet boys? I’ll die an old maid here, like Louise.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, young lady, and don’t be rude,” Mom replied sharply.

  “Me, too,” said Sue. “I don’t want to be an old maid.”

  “They’re right though,” Louise said. “We need to get into a community again.” She started singing I wanna be where the people are.

  “I agree with you,” said Dad. “But it depends what kind of community it is.”

  He was doodling on paper. “Can anyone remember what the constitution says?” he asked.

  “Never read it,” replied Matthew.

  Apparently, only Louise had. “It’s a long time since I read it,” she told us, “but I know it’s nearly five thousand words long, which isn’t long, for a constitution. Short of going back to Anchorage though and raiding the library, I doubt we’ll find a copy.”

  “Do you remember anything about it?”

  Louise hesitated. “The individual’s right to life is inviolable. As is the right to liberty. Liberty includes personal freedom, political freedom – the right to participate in political decisions, religious freedom, and economic freedom, which means private property and employment. The pursuit of happiness, the common good, and justice – that people should be treated fairly. Equality, diversity, and telling the truth. Then there’s something about federalism, separation of powers in the legislative area, and civilian control of the military. That’s about as much as I can remember.

  “That’s helpful,” replied Dad. “Certainly puts a perspective on the Anchorage criminals and the Fairbanks fundamentalists. Though I can’t see that it’s all still relevant.”

  “Why not?” Mom asked.

  “Well, private property, for instance. Who owns what now?”

  “Why do you ask about it?” Louise said.

  “If we ever do set up something in Whittier, or even if we don’t, if we do something else, we need to jot down some principles as to how we’re going to organize ourselves. Actually, even if it’s just us, I think we should have a clearer structure for making decisions. I don’t think it should be basically down to me to persuade you lot. If I went under a bus tomorrow, not that that’s likely out here, but you know what I mean, who decides?”

  “I think it’s a good idea, in principle,” replied Matthew. “Are we going to be a democracy?”

  “The USA isn’t actually a democracy,” said Louise. “A democracy is where every citizen participates in every decision. That’s what happened in Greece. In America we elect representatives to make the decisions for us. That’s a republic.”

  “I don’t think we’re going to get into representatives,” said Mom. “Let’s go for a democracy. So long as my vote counts for three.” She laughed.

  “I’m not sure of the point of a constitution any more,” replied Louise. “You don’t see them in nature, and I think we’re more likely to end up following custom, and grouping in extended families. But if you want one, the first thing is to decide who’s qualified to vote. I think the constitution’s a bit vague about this, and in reality, it was down to the individual states to frame their own laws. So slaves couldn’t vote in any of them, blacks could in some, women could in some but not others, and I think the voting age was generally put at twenty-five. That’s how I remember it.”

  “No slaves, blacks or women voting. Sounds good to me,” said Bob. “What went wrong? Not that I’ve ever voted anyway. And I’m not going to start now.”

  “Bob, you and me could get into some serious disagreement some time.” Mom smiled to soften her words. “If you break your arm tomorrow, I reckon you’ll have to fix it yourself. Obviously, as a woman, I’m not entitled to.”

  “I’d be happy to go for a democratic approach here,” said Dad. “Current voting age is eighteen. That would exclude Jim though.”

  “He needs to be included,” said Bob.

  “What about me?” asked Jessie. “If Jim and I don’t have a vote, we’ll leave.”

  “Jessie!” Matthew exclaimed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  She had her color up, but was sticking to her guns. “Why? Don’t you think we have an equal role to play here? Donald said earlier, we’re going back centuries. You think just because you’re older, you still get to make all the decisions?”

  There was a pause. Bob started humming a tune. Louise raised her eyes at Dad.

  “Make it fifteen?” suggested Dad. “After all, everyone’s gonna have to grow up faster. I’ll draw something up.”

  Sue raised her hand. “But that’s discriminating against me, that’s not fair.”

  “We have to draw lines somewhere, Sue,” Dad replied.

  “When you can figure out the details, make it short,” suggested Matthew. “If we want to spread it around, get others to agree to it, we can’t print it off, we’ll have to keep making hand copies.”

  Later, I bumped into Bess on the way to the outhouse.

  “Do you mind what’s going on with Jessie and me, Bess?” I asked. “I couldn’t help it, I didn’t mean to take her away from you.”

  She looked at me. “I’m pleased for you, Jim, and for Jessie. I think you suit each other. You’ve got something in you that wasn’t there a year ago. I love it. Even though it makes me more on my own. And I still want a different life.”

  We hugged each other. I’d never felt so close before with my little sister.

  FORTY

  A couple of weeks later, and I knew as I struggled out of sleep that something was different. It was still dark, but I could feel the cold on my face and my exhaled air turning moist. There was just a little warmth from the embers of the stove, still glowing red. Jessie snuggled into me. “I need warming up,” she said.

  I kissed her cold nose. We burrowed down and made love with the sleeping bag pulled up over our heads. Afterwards, I got up to put some more logs in and was immediately shivering. “I need warming up now,” I said as I got back in, and we did it again, and then went back to sleep.

  A couple of hours later, when it was usually getting light, it was still dark outside. “Better go find out what’s happening,” I said. In the light of the fire, we could see the frost feathering the window with blossoming flowers and patchworks of vine. We warmed water in the pot on the stove and washed, drying each other afterwards. Her nipples hardened as I dried her breasts. So did I. Her breathing quickened. So did mine. We got back into bed.

  Half an hour later, it was still dark. “Seriously, Jessie,” I said. “We’d better go.” After washing again, we put on long underwear for the first time. Trousers, woolen shirts, jumpers, parkas, and went outside. Dad, Bob and Matthew were standing out there, looking at the sky. The wind was gusting strongly, whipping up the fallen leaves in circles. Over to the east there was a huge range of black clouds stretching right across the horizon. The ice was groaning in the lake.

  “Looks like a blizzard, a nor’easter,” said Bob. “Winter’s going down.”

  “We’ve
had them before, haven’t we?” asked Dad. “It can’t be too bad?”

  “Hard to say,” said Bob. “Anchorage is sheltered, and warm. Hell, it’s warmer than Chicago. We’re higher up, more exposed, inland, and it could be ten, twenty degrees colder. We’ll just need to hunker down, till it blows over. Let’s make sure we’ve everything inside that we need, and we could add more stones to the walkway roofs.”

  “Come on, lovebirds,” Dad said to us. “Let’s get to work.”

  We worked all morning as the storm blew closer. Around midday, when we went in, it must have been gusting up to a hundred miles an hour. Buffeting us, snow driving into our faces, making it hard to see.

  We thought we had the lodge windproof and snow proof, but there were still draughts, with little flurries of snow gusting inside. We covered the cracks up with duct tape. The wind buffeted the walls and roof as if it was trying to lift the building off the ground and whip it up into the sky. The stoves were roaring, occasionally backfiring as wind came down the pipes, trying to put them out. We covered the hearth with ash and then moss, to dampen it down and avoid the ashes blowing everywhere. The candles danced in their lanterns, throwing wrestling shadows on the walls.

  That was our first taste of what it would be like to all be confined to the lodge. It was tougher than we expected. In the late afternoon Sue called out, “Dad, I can’t open the door, I need to go to the outhouse.” Matthew went over. “You’re right,” he said, as he pushed against it. “Must’ve got jammed.”

  Bob jumped up. “Shit, should’ve thought of this, it’s the snow piling up outside.”

  We managed to lever it open a few inches and started scraping snow away, the wind driving the stuff inside, putting out most of the lamps. It was pitch black outside now. “Bring that kerosene lamp over,” Bob shouted. “We’ll have to rig up a line to the outhouse. One of us could get lost, die out here in the dark, just going for a crap.”