“Until we are up and running with electricity, we have to limit our use of the satellite phone. It has a solar recharger, but that takes a while. I suggest we all call one person and let them tell the rest of the family whatever you have to tell them. I’d like to conserve the battery in case of an emergency. Who needs to make a call?” Only three people raised their hands. We hadn’t been gone long at this point, just a few weeks. I was happy to see that people weren’t clamoring to get on the phone.
Maybe we had left the other world behind.
“I want to share some wisdom that Ben articulated perfectly. We, the new Alaskan settlers, are rebuilding the city that was established over a hundred years ago. It’s the crossroads for people traveling the Alaskan interior. The best place to build is where it all started, on the navigable part of the Chena River, where the road, rail, river, and airport meet. It’s there that we need to establish our real settlement. And then we help the goods flow. We’ll stay here this winter, but since we are already well ahead in preparing, I say that we start laying things out for next year. Let’s get ahead there, too.”
Heads nodded as people agreed.
“One last thing. As soon as we have the wood-burning stoves installed and Chris and Colleen return, I have to run to Healy, Denali and scout the area. Call it the drawback of a secondary mission.” I proceeded to tell them the whole story, our benefactor who’d sent the jet and his continued search for answers related to his daughter. I wasn’t looking for volunteers, but Lucas stood up.
“Maybe we can take the plane?” he asked. He quickly twisted away as his wife, Amber, tried to punch him in the groin. The joys of being newlyweds. They’d gotten married in the short time we spent away from Alaska. As the Community, we didn’t care, and I expected that they didn’t either. They probably did it more for their families than themselves. The commitment to another, especially one that you’ve gone through a life-or-death trial with, is stronger than any piece of paper.
“You know, that’s not a bad idea,” I said slowly as I looked at Madison. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze turned into a glare. “Maybe we’ll just drive, but we need to find an older vehicle. I researched using old gas and it seems carbureted engines don’t care. We need to find us an old beater truck, Lucas.” Amber calmed down as did Diane. She started swinging her little fist at her dad’s leg, which was not well-received by either of her parents. Children mirror actions. We all decided to stop punching each other in jest, without any of us having to say a word about it.
The twins moved in and took Diane’s hands to help settle her down. They were the bridge between the adults and the babies.
Everyone wondered how Chris and Colleen were doing. They’d been gone for a week, living on the road with their four-month-old baby. It had to be hard. We hoped that the risk was worth it.
Jo asked for the phone and then Amber. Madison would call her mother after the other two made their calls. Lucas and I stepped to the side. He was excited about our upcoming trip.
“We can’t do anything until we get our quad back. Then we can venture as far as we want to find what we need,” I said conspiratorially in a low whisper. It didn’t register, so I looked around, made sure no one was close. “Even if we have to go all the way to the resort, if you get my drift.” The lights went on and he broke into a toothy grin. “And if you let on that we’re considering that, we’ll both get kicked in the groin. During my scavenging days, I saw a few trucks in Two Rivers that will probably work. You can fix one, right?”
“Chuck, I was raised to work on old trucks. There’s nothing better and we’ll put a barrel of gas and a couple spare tires in the bed. It’ll be just like camping. It won’t be hard since we know people won’t be shooting at us!” Lucas was excited. He loved the adventure side of what we were doing.
“I can’t guarantee that people won’t be shooting at us,” I said smoothly, softening it with a smile.
“Yeah. I won’t share that with Amber, either.” Lucas shrugged and returned to his wife and child. I watched them, thinking about what kind of risk we were taking. I liked the jet rides, but were they worth my life? Of course not, but I could take a look. If things got hot, we’d run. I wasn’t too proud. My family liked having me around, plus I liked living.
“What do you think, Ben? Time to go fishing? Maybe bag a big bull on the way back?” Everyone drifted away to their own tasks while Ben and I went fishing. It was almost like being on vacation, except we either had to catch fish or shoot a moose, otherwise we’d be eating baked beans again. With the dogs, we needed to catch and dry some eighteen thousand fish or shoot a moose every two weeks. We hoped for a balance between the two.
We were quiet as we took Ben’s quad to his new favorite fishing hole. He grinned when he asked me not to tell anyone where it was.
As I cast into the river and gently reeled the lure through the water, I redid the calculations again. “Eighteen thousand fish, Ben. That’s how many we need to catch and dry,” I said just above a whisper.
“I know,” Ben answered, not taking his eyes from his bobber. He turned the crank a couple times very slowly as he watched, then yanked to set the hook. He had a fighter who weaved back and forth across the water. We didn’t have time to play so once he was certain the hook was set, he horsed the fish in and threw it in a big plastic bucket. It flopped around until it resigned itself to its new confines.
A grayling, not the meatiest fish but at least something was biting. He moved further away and cast into a new place. He soon had a second fish on. Then a third, and a fourth. The last two were rainbow trout, which were more substantial and tastier than the grayling.
I finally caught one, pleased with myself when I reeled in a rainbow and added it to the bucket. Ben started describing his fish wheel. He wanted to build it up the river, so we threw our gear into the quad’s trailer. Ben and I cleaned the fish quickly, rinsed the bucket in the river, then put the fish fillets back in with the clean water. It was amazing how clear the river ran when there were no people to spoil it. It hadn’t rained in a while either so no silt flowed.
It was a beautiful day to scour the riverbank looking for the perfect place to put a fish wheel. It would be built between floats and could be put anywhere on the river, but to maximize its usefulness, Ben had to guide the fish toward and through it. He described how the fans would rotate with the water flow, catching the fish as they swam upriver. There was an angled exit chute that dumped the fish into a holding area that Ben intended to make from a double layer of fish net. He had a good plan and when he described everything, he wasn’t talking to me. Ben didn’t need anyone to put his plan into action.
He looked forward to doing it, especially since fish wheels had been illegal in the rivers he’d worked for his entire adult life. That made me wonder how he knew so much about them. I didn’t ask, but I had to ask a different question.
“Do you think eighteen thousand fish is possible, Ben?”
“No. A quarter of that, maybe. For every thousand fish we get, it saves a moose. The fish are good for the dogs’ coats and their digestion. They are the only thing we can count on. We can’t put our faith in that generator or any of these vehicles. The dogs? We can trust them. All we have to do is take care of them,” Ben said firmly.
“I couldn’t agree more. Have you been spending too much time with Abigail and Phillip?” It sounded like them, but it also sounded like me. I appreciated the quad as a means of transportation, but the dogs could be the difference between life and death.
If it were winter, Lucas and I would mush to Healy. The summer gave us the opportunity to drive. Hopefully the destruction along the road was limited. There’d been forest fires in the previous four years. We had no idea how far they’d ranged or what they’d damaged. Lucas and I would find out, for what it was worth. If it didn’t hold us up, then it didn’t matter.
CHUCK AND LUCAS UNLEASHED!
That freed Lucas and I to go truck “shopping.” We used Ben’s quad as he was engrossed in building the fish wheel and wouldn’t need it for a few days.
We headed out of North Pole on Nordale Road. It looked far different than the last time we took it. It had been dark then. We now drove in the middle of a summer day, where the foliage was trying to reestablish dominance. We had to slow and climb over vines and through weeds, but it was clear enough that we made it to Chena Hot Springs Road in forty-five minutes. I stopped at the intersection and looked at Lucas. To the left, our home was close by. We needed to turn right to go to Two Rivers, another fourteen miles up the road. The resort was only fifty miles away. We had plenty of gas and the quad was running without a problem. Our tool kit was in the back; the trailer remained in North Pole. This was a scouting run, not a scavenger hunt, but we also hoped to drive a truck back with us.
Lucas nodded his head to the right. I jammed the gas and we peeled through the corner and raced up the road. Next stop, Chena Hot Springs Resort.
Once we arrived, the giddiness we felt disappeared as we saw the destruction of our former home in the broad daylight. We’d spent four years of our lives here and it was disconcerting to see it like this. A tear crawled down Lucas’ face.
“You go check on the airplane. I’ll look and see if there’s anything here,” I said without looking at him. He wasn’t the only one with tears in his eyes. He took the quad, speeding away to put distance between him and the destruction.
I walked around the main area of the resort. My last impression from before, under the fleeting lights of the snow machine, was of everything destroyed. It was different in the daytime. The main lodge was leveled, and the building with the restaurant and kitchen was gone, too. The Ice Museum was cut in half, all the ice gone. There was a small puddle above the inlet at the bottom of the outside rock pool. The hot spring was alive, but needed power to return to its former glory.
I dug through the rubble of the destroyed lodge, looking for something personal that we could take back, give to its former owner. But things didn’t matter as much. The people. That was important. No one cared if they didn’t save the hard drive with all the movies. It would be nice once we had electricity, but we didn’t need it.
Which was convenient because I couldn’t find it, although I searched. I personally liked watching a movie before going to sleep. No one else needs this, you big baby, I thought to myself.
“That’s it then,” I said with finality. “I think this will be the last time we see you. Thank you. You took good care of us. You will be fondly remembered and sorely missed. Maybe one day…” I looked around to make sure Lucas didn’t hear me talking to the rubble. With jaw set, I strode briskly for where we’d stored the airplane.
Lucas was elbow-deep in the engine, but he was making happy sounds. He talked to each part as he checked it, then moved on. Talking to inanimate objects is a habit one picks up when living alone for too long.
“Lucas!” I shouted as I approached. He jumped, but then settled back into what he’d been doing.
“I don’t see why we can’t take this baby for a ride today!” he said from within the engine cowling. “I know what you’re thinking, but for the last three years, I did the PMs, the preventive maintenance on this plane every month. It hasn’t received any love the past five, but otherwise, it’s in the same shape as the last time we flew.”
It had been years since our trip. Despite Lucas’ assurances, I had no confidence that the plane was airworthy. The avgas was old, but it had been sealed. I checked it while he continued his work. No sheen on the top and no standing water. I took the hand pump out of the airplane and topped off its tanks.
Lucas extracted himself from the engine after hooking up the battery. He asked me to exercise the controls slowly, working the flap, ailerons, and the vertical stabilizer. When he gave me the thumbs up, I tried to start the engine. It cranked slowly, but coughed to life, sending out more black smoke than I was comfortable with, but Lucas beamed with joy. I contorted my body to climb into the copilot’s seat as Lucas pushed me out of the pilot’s seat. He took his place, put on the headset, and started to taxi.
I was aghast. “What are you doing?”
“We’re going for a ride! We’re pretty sure no one is going to shoot at us, right?” He grinned as he worked the controls.
“You mean somebody besides our wives, the people closest to us who we promised that we wouldn’t do exactly what you’re doing? Does there need to be anyone else?” I tried to make my case, but we continued taxiing to the end of the runway. Lucas turned the Cessna into the wind.
“Yeah. I meant beside them. I’ll stay to the north and low so they can’t see or hear us. Want to run to Denali?”
“No. We’re not going all the way down there, but I do want to look at the road, Parks Highway. What kind of problems will we find when we drive it?” He nodded and gunned the engine. We built speed and slowly lifted into the air. He leveled off at five hundred feet, flying above the road to Fairbanks.
NOT SURE WE COULD’VE SCREWED UP MORE…
We flew over Madison’s and my old house. It was comforting to see it standing there, as if we could walk right in, be as comfortable as we were before.
Continuing past, we flew over the northern edge of the city. The destruction was bad, but not complete. Much of the city had survived. I was surprised at how much. It became clear what had happened to all the people as we followed the Parks Highway south out of town. Broken-down vehicles lay dead in the road, but a lane of travel remained open. Maybe someone drove a bulldozer to clear their own way. More and more vehicles were abandoned the further we got from Fairbanks. Dead cars choked the road as we approached Nenana. We looped around the city. There were too many vehicles parked within.
I had no doubt bodies filled the town. We continued past Nenana, following the road that gently curved toward Denali, the Great One, the tallest mountain in North America.
With a great cough, the engine hesitated. We dropped fifty feet before the engine caught again, but it was running roughly, as if only half the cylinders were firing. My heart leapt into my threat. Lucas looked worried. With a final sputter, the engine seized and the propeller ground to a halt. Vehicles filled the tree-lined road. I panicked. There was nowhere to land.
Lucas eased into a shallow turn and headed for the river. We were losing altitude too fast. He banked briefly, letting the wind hit the underside of the wings, bouncing us a little higher. The plane leveled, then started descending again. C’mon little fella, you can make it, I pleaded in my head with the plane. I cringed as a tree stood tall in front of us; its top branches were just below the propeller as we shot over it. We didn’t hit. That relief was short-lived as the river zoomed up to meet us.
The wheels dug into the water, throwing the plane forward. The propeller hit and we crashed to a halt. Lucas and I both slammed against our restraints.
The plane was sinking. I was dazed from the violence of the impact, but I’d protected my head. Nothing was broken, but I was sure the belts had left bruises across my chest. Lucas looked dazed.
“Get out!” I yelled as I undid the central buckle of the cross harness. Lucas clumsily popped his, then shook his head to clear it. We opened our doors just in time to let the water rush in. I pulled myself against the flow of cold water, getting my head
out before the cabin went under water. The airplane twisted as it was pulled downstream by the current.
I went hand-over-hand, using the wire antenna along the spine of the fuselage to move myself to the tail of the airplane. Halfway there, I looked back. I saw one hand flopping lazily out of the water. I dove forward, slamming hard against the roof over the cabin. I held the wire with one hand while grabbing a handful of Lucas’ shirt to pull him out.
He came into the water readily as he pushed himself out with the last of his energy. He gulped a deep breath as I held him in my arms, trying to stand on the airplane as it sank beneath us.
Soon, I was treading water for both of us. The airplane was gone. I kept Lucas on his back as I side-stroked toward the western shore. The current pulled us downstream, farther away from Nenana with every stroke. Lucas started kicking his feet to help me. Slowly, we made progress. Finally, my foot touched the bottom. I pushed hard to gain a foothold and then crawled onto the shore. Lucas rolled over and puked. I felt like joining him, but I didn’t have the energy. I lay there panting.
“I think we made a big mistake,” was all I managed to get out between my shallow gulps of air.
Lucas closed his eyes and held his head in his hands.
WHERE IS EVERYONE?
When we didn’t return by dinner, people weren’t too surprised. When we didn’t return by bedtime, Madison and Amber started to get anxious. When we hadn’t returned by dinner the next day, they wanted to form a hunting party and go after us.
The engineer’s quad wasn’t safe. Ben’s quad was at the resort. Chris and Colleen had our quad and they hadn’t returned. Then the crying began. The two women were inconsolable. They were angry and sad and scared, but they weren’t alone. The Community decided that finding us was the new priority. The engineers dropped everything they were doing to fix their quad so that it could be used for the search. It took scavenging an oxy-acetylene welder to touch up some of the support bracing and a full day of tinkering to get it where it would drive straight.
Return (End Times Alaska Book 3) Page 9
