“You sound just fine to me,” I said while the others braced the quad to keep it from moving. We would all have to help Cullen out through the window. “Welcome to Alaska. In the old days, you’d have to set your break yourself, along with fix everything else and then fight off a bear. We were tougher back then.” Despite his injuries, Cullen smiled, then winced.
I started to call Colleen over, but stopped when I saw her push Shane away from her. Chris was there in a heartbeat, putting himself bodily between the two. The young man sat on a rock, covered his face, and wept.
Colleen came to Cullen’s side so she could best examine him. The bleeding from his head had mostly stopped, so she cleaned the wound and bandaged it. He blinked his eyes clear. She wanted to put a splint on his arm before we pulled him out of the quad. We each took a position where we could best brace the engineer’s arm. Colleen held a rag over his face while I prepared to pull his arm straight out while Ben and Chris held his elbow.
The trick with setting a bone is pulling it hard enough to get the bone spurs past each other. The muscles would pull it back tightly. Without setting it, the bone would never heal. Colleen wouldn’t let that happen. It was up to us to get it right. One and done.
At the count of three, I pulled for all I was worth with my legs braced against the rock beneath the quad. Cullen screamed while Chris and Ben pulled the arm away from me.
When I let go, his arm looked straight, although there was great deal of bruising where the bone had broken. At least it wasn’t an open fracture where the bone broke the skin. Cullen’s arm shook as Colleen put a splint on it and wrapped it tightly. The young man passed out.
We needed his help to get him out, so we had to wait. Within a minute, he was back with us. We’d already cut the webbing away from the window. The only thing left was Cullen’s seatbelt. He whimpered and started hyperventilating as Ben’s knife hovered, ready to cut.
“Hurry up!” Colleen urged.
Ben sliced it cleanly and dropped his knife to the ground to use both hands to help the young engineer. We kept the man’s forearm from touching anything but he had to brace himself with his elbow. That caused him to cry out in pain, but gave us the leverage we needed to pull him free. Colleen was already removing his shirt as we laid him down.
The steering wheel had jammed into his chest, causing an ugly bruise, but Colleen didn’t think any of his ribs were broken. His leg also seemed to be only bruised. He was in pain, so much so that he was unable to move.
We used a sleeping bag as a stretcher so we could manhandle him up the hill. We moved him to the side of the road and gave him plenty of water.
We faced my quad toward the ditch and blocked the front tires. It took all of us to coordinate lifting the damaged vehicle using the ropes while the winch dragged it up the hill. Once back in the road and upright, we didn’t think we’d have to abandon it. The trailer was a total loss, but we recovered all their gear since it had been packed in metal cases, which were sturdier than the trailer on which they rode.
We distributed the boxes among the dog sleds and repaired the quad to a point where people could ride in it. It started up when we tried it and a quick test drive confirmed that although it pulled to the left, it was drivable. We recovered all our ropes and gear, including Ben’s knife, which had fallen between the rocks, and we prepared to leave. This wasn’t a good place to camp.
Shane was still in the gulley. Chris climbed back down the hill. Ben drove up the rode with all the dog teams following him, while we waited for Chris. Colleen held their daughter while their twelve-dog team barked and bounced, wondering why they weren’t allowed to run after the others. Madison was ready to drive our quad with Cullen as her passenger, and I was behind the wheel of the engineers’ quad waiting for Shane. As I thought about it, I’d paid for this quad, so it was mine, too. Odd to think about something like that, but as it turned out, I had nothing else to do for quite a while.
An agonizing amount of time later, Chris led Shane by the hand up the hill and to the quad. Shane hesitated, but Chris guided him in. He covered his face and started to cry again. At least we could go, but I was none too pleased with my weeping passenger. One broken arm between the two of them? We got off easy, and we should have been thankful for that.
Shane had nothing to do with the accident. I could think of no reason for the man to be so traumatized. I’d seen Marines come unhinged in combat, but this wasn’t any of that.
I ended up holding his hand as we drove, and that seemed to calm him. I had no more empathy in me. My six-year-olds were up ahead and deserved my attention, not this guy. The seed of mistrust I’d planted earlier was watered and now growing to the size of a redwood. I wanted to get out and tell him to take the quad and get the hell out of my state, but knew Madison would be angry.
I’d tolerate him, but after this, the others better keep him away from me.
THE RECOVERY
We wanted to push on because we had to. Ben took the group another twenty-five miles up the road before finding an area where the Community could bed down. We showed up an hour after the others. Clarisse and Jo were already working their magic to create a meal worthy of the title of “feast.”
Hours after the accident, Shane still hadn’t said a word. When we pulled in, Colleen checked on Cullen and found him to be in good spirits, even though he was in a fair amount of pain. He had his Alaskan battle wound, so we cheered for him and wished him well.
Colleen pulled Shane aside to check on him, finally announcing that he had a concussion, a bad one. I looked at Chris. He couldn’t meet my gaze. It probably wasn’t from the punch, but the less Colleen knew, the less she could hold against us. She put him in the shade and gave him cool water to drink. She had no idea how long it would take for him to recover.
As we sat around the fire enjoying the meal and each other’s company, the conversation inevitably turned toward the accident. We grew quiet when Cullen prepared to speak. He looked at his incapacitated friend and shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he started, but that wasn’t what he really wanted to say. “It’s my fault. I fell asleep and drove off the road. There’s no excuse for the trouble I’ve caused, for my own injuries, which don’t seem as bad as what Shane is going through. I can’t go back and fix it, but I’ll take care of him until he’s better, even though I only have one arm. We promised that we wouldn’t be a burden, but that’s all we’ve been. We’ll work double shifts, do what we need to support the Community. We’ll turn the power on. I promise all of you that we’ll succeed, and we will make you proud,” he finished without a flourish and sat down.
Madison looked at me with a broad smile and started clapping. The others joined in, as did I.
I wanted to hate them both, but if this was more than a speech, they might turn out okay.
I got up and walked past Chris, slapping him on the back as I went. He still wouldn’t look at me. I knew he had to feel horrible. I also knew that he’d come clean with Colleen, and then there’d be hell to pay. I didn’t want to be around for that.
DELTA JUNCTION
We made the run to Delta Junction in less than four hours, arriving before noon. But we stopped short of Fort Greely, south of the city as we didn’t want to run headlong through any lingering radiation.
When we left Alaska, we’d skipped past the city and headed inland from the airport located to the north. That wasn’t that long ago, only four months.
So we took a reading now. Madison and I moved slowly forward. She drove while I held an improved Geiger counter the government had given me out the window. It clicked and showed levels slightly above normal background radiation. We continued at a crawl as there was debris in the road. The dog sleds would never make it through all of this. As we got closer to where we assumed the blast had been, the debris cleared, probably blown away by the detonation. Much of the city was leveled, but th
e airport was miles from the gate and that’s why it had survived intact.
We drove past Fort Greeley’s entrance. The radiation picked up, but it wasn’t anything alarming. I was surprised by how little damage was done to the ground itself. I would have thought that a nuclear bomb would leave a massive crater. This one must have been smaller than the one in Fairbanks and most of the detonation must have gone laterally. Maybe this one wasn’t even a nuke, but a simpler dirty bomb – a huge amount of high explosives with radioactive isotopes that would scatter with the explosion and subsequent dust and debris.
Four years was enough time to cleanse the earth, especially there in Delta Junction where it was always windy, sometimes with winds of fifty to sixty miles an hour. We traveled through the blast area and along the main road to the north. Debris returned after we cleared the primary blast site, but there was less in the north. We scouted a path through to the turn-off for the airport. We’d made this turn when snow packed the road. Everyone who’d been there before knew the way.
We headed back to meet the teams and did what we could to clear the road south of the Fort Greely main gate. We waited until everyone was there, and at barely faster than a walk, the dog mushers dragged their brakes and kept their dogs from running ahead. It was harder on the dogs to go this slowly, but it was necessary until they got past anything that could tangle their leads or upset the sleds.
Ben took a sharp turn away from us and headed toward the town. I wondered where he was going, figuring something had piqued his interest. I wasn’t worried. He’d find his way to the airport. Ben was a person who could take care of himself.
When everyone finished picking their way through the rubble and debris, we sped up and raced past the gate and toward the north side of the city. When we hit the turn to the airport, I looked back and saw plenty of people smiling. We had good memories from this place.
I floored it and we bolted away from the others. We pulled into the parking lot of the hangar, stopping as far to the side as we could go. The second I shut off the engine, we heard a single rifle shot come from the south. I wondered if Ben had bagged dinner.
I was surprised to see that we hadn’t shut the door when we left. Animals had gotten in and the place was foul. Or did we leave it that way? Madison and I got out the brooms and started throwing refuse out the door. We were halfway done when Abigail arrived with the twins close behind. We would have put the children to work, but they needed to get their dogs settled. We watched them as they easily controlled their dogs, tying them to nearby trees, watering them, feeding them. Phyllis and Husky jumped off the sleds when they saw us and ran to us, then went into the hangar, probably to make sure it was safe for their humans.
The other teams arrived and did the same thing. When Cullen pulled in with his quad, we waved him over to park closer to the door. When they shut off the engine, I said, “Handicapped parking,” and pointed to a sign on the building.
I gave them the thumbs up and returned to the hangar to finish cleaning it.
We had more people to squeeze in around the stripped-down airplane still sitting in the middle of the hangar, but we didn’t have the sled dogs inside this time. Our dogs, of course, were with us. Wherever the twins were, Phyllis and Husky were not far behind.
As we were getting everyone settled, Jo decided to start dinner. Since it was warm, we made the fire outside. We heard the quad approaching and it was making a hellacious noise. Everyone gathered around and waited. The dogs started howling. Abigail and Phillip ran into the trees to calm them.
Ben wore a broad grin while Clarisse just shook her head. Tied behind the trailer was a moose on a large piece of sheet metal. Ben had already gutted it and removed the head to cut down on how much weight he had to drag. I was surprised the quad could pull it, even with the reduced weight. That was one big moose.
We joined him at the edge of the parking lot, and the celebration began.
WHAT WILL WE DO WHEN WE GET THERE?
Nothing like a belly full of lean, rare moose to put a dog into a food coma. Once they were out cold, we sat and enjoyed our freshly cooked, over-sized moose steaks.
Shane showed an interest in something finally. After his first tentative bite, he dug in, finished his quickly, and then went for seconds. Even though he was in pain from his injuries, Cullen helped Shane. It had only been two days since the accident which was just long enough for the young engineer’s broken arm and bruises to turn ugly shades of blue and green.
Bill serenaded us with howls of joy at eating moose again after a four-month hiatus. To answer the question often asked, “No,” they said, “he doesn’t have any other volume.” I was reminded of the incident at the resort where someone called him “that little hell spawn.” His parents, Becca and Darren were good people, and they were incredible for not getting twisted out of sorts whenever Bill bugled the call of his people. Maybe they were deaf. The jury was still out on that one.
Little Tony was all smiles. For the life he was born into, he should have been miserable. Out of the entire Community, Tony exemplified what we were trying to build. People could be who they wanted to be, work with others to help themselves grow. He was happy as he was unconditionally loved by us all. He received the most attention, although Hermione was quickly gaining in popularity, but Colleen rarely let anyone else hold her.
I was curious how they were going to tell Tony and Hermione that they were siblings, although that was none of my business. Since we were all family, maybe they’d raise the two children who were only a month apart as twins with different parents. They’d be together all the time anyway.
Madison and Amber said they’d set the school back up. That meant extra space to heat, unless one of the homes we were going to establish doubled as a school house. That made the most sense. Logistically, it was going to be all we could do to set ourselves up before winter arrived, let alone have the added burden of heating an extra building.
I hoped, more than anyone else, that we’d find sufficient provisions, canned goods, to fill the void created by our late arrival. One can’t plant crops in Alaska in June. The growing season was only another seventy-five days at the most. Without the ability to prepare the ground properly, we wouldn’t attempt it. We’d forage, and we’d hunt.
We talked about the next steps once everyone finished eating. Ben said that we may have missed the best time to fish, but he refused to be denied. He wasn’t sure we’d get enough for the dogs for the winter, although he would try building a fish wheel as soon as we arrived. That would have been illegal in the State of Alaska, but in the Territory of Alaska where I was the military governor, it was approved as a necessity for our survival.
I already felt the blisters I’d be getting from cutting wood. Everyone worked, even if they had a long title like mine.
All eyes turned toward Cullen as he stood. “I think the best thing for us, Shane and I, is to survey what we have, make notes, and then spend the rest of the time helping the Community get ready for winter. Once winter falls, we’ll start with our detail work, make the drawings we’ll use to build whatever power generation system will work the best. So, what I’m trying to say is that we will be extra manpower for you this summer, not the other way around as we initially thought. And we want to thank you for taking care of us. I think that steak was the best I’ve ever had.” Cullen looked down at Shane, who nodded. The young man held his head in his hands as the movement had been too much and the pain returned.
“One other thing,” Cullen said. “If you would know of any clubs where we might meet some fellow engineers of the female persuasion, we would be awfully grateful.” The Community booed him, and someone threw a small rock that hit him in the leg.
We had a good laugh at his expense. It would be a while for the poor youngsters.
NEXT STOP, FAIRBANKS
The rest of our journey was uneventful until we arrived on the outskirt
s of Fairbanks. When we’d gone through previously, we didn’t have good light, but in the daytime, we saw that North Pole was completely intact. The stores, the houses, even Santa’s Village. It was far enough away that they would have seen the mushroom cloud, but unfortunately for them, they were downwind from the blast and received the worst of the radiation.
Our new Geiger counter showed the town wasn’t hot. The threat from radiation had passed. The weather had carried the worst of it away. Even when we tested the dust inside a building, it came up clean.
We stopped and tied off the dog sleds to the light poles in the parking lot of the Safeway supermarket. It was late in the day, but of course we had light. Looking at the lack of destruction, I thought North Pole might be the best place to stay the first winter. It might not take long to scavenge supplies. Maybe it wouldn’t be as hard as I thought.
Chris and Colleen looked sullen as they bedded their dogs for the night. Even Hermione looked sad.
“What’s up?” I asked, casually petting the dogs as I walked toward the couple. Neither answered as they looked at each other and then at me. I waited.
“The horses,” Colleen whispered. We’d gone through Delta Junction and hadn’t asked if they wanted to run down the valley, see if the remaining two horses had survived the winter. I felt like an idiot.
“We’ll drop the trailer and you can take our quad. It’ll be faster that way. You can make Delta Junction in two hours or less. I don’t know what the terrain in the valley looks like without snow. It might be impassable or it could be fine.” I could see them thinking about it. They were torn between their loyalty to the Community and their desire to save the horses.
Return (End Times Alaska Book 3) Page 6
