GETTING READY FOR WINTER
Darren and Becca were successful in killing a moose but soon discovered that a twelve-dog team can’t pull seven hundred and fifty pounds of meat, unless the humans pushed, too. Which they did, making for a very long and tiring trip home. They figured they were ten miles away when they shot the big bull. Then they ran about nine and a half miles, pushing the wheeled sled and trailer while the dogs labored to keep it moving. Abigail and Phillip found the hunters when they were almost back home.
Abigail and Phillip were pleased with the kill, although they suggested next time take a sixteen-dog team or one of the quads. Becca and Darren looked surprised and then ecstatic that the quads were back, until they learned what Amber and Madison had found at the resort. But Chris and Colleen had returned with the two mares. The Community had machine power, horsepower, and dog power. If the engineers had any success at the refinery, then they’d have electrical power, too.
Despite the victories, our absence cast a dark shadow over everyone.
When you get depressed, there’s nothing like work to bring you back to the land of the living, at least that’s what Ben told everyone. He needed help getting his fish wheel into the water and then he’d show everyone how to clean the fish and hang them on racks to dry.
“The racks will be downwind, won’t they,” Emma asked Jo out the side of her mouth.
“I sure hope so. The outhouse is bad enough,” she answered as they handed Tony back and forth while they walked. It was part of a game that he enjoyed. As soon as he hugged one of his mothers, he’d hold out his hands to go to the other.
The sheer size of the fish wheel was impressive. Huge scoops were built around a central hub, held in place by two long poles. Once the wheel was in the water, Ben could use the poles to push it further into the current or pull it closer to shore. The poles also kept the contraption from being pulled downstream. It took four people to lift the fish wheel and carefully move it to the water’s edge. They lifted on the poles while the others on shore pushed toward the water.
Emma let go with a yelp and started biting her hand. A splinter. The others let the fish wheel down into the water. It settled into the current and started slowly turning. A chute ran from the top of the poles to a collection net. While it was in the water, someone would have to monitor it to remove the fish before the net filled and they escaped.
It had only been in the water for twenty seconds when the first fish rode the wheel upward and slid out the opening in the scoop and into the chute. Everyone watched the fish drop into the net and splash around.
“I’ll be damned,” Ben said with a toothy grin. He looked at Clarisse, and she smiled back in her matronly way.
Another fish and another. They stood on the shore and cheered, even Madison and Amber. They would have cheered louder if we’d been there as we would have high-fived the others and run around like idiots. We would have called it dancing, of course, because that’s how we rolled.
As the fish gathered in the net, Ben made everyone get knives for cleaning. They threw the guts and heads into a barrel that Ben would dump downstream. He didn’t want to scare the fish or pollute the water at this point.
When the fish wheel dropped its five hundredth fish, Ben was beside himself. He’d never expected these numbers. Maybe they would get half of what they needed to feed the dogs. It cut down on how many moose they needed, which would help keep the moose population growing.
Ben felt good about doing his part for the Community. He saw how hard everyone worked. He couldn’t believe his luck in joining such a group of people. He said a prayer as he’d found a good home for Clarisse and himself.
Clarisse watched her husband revel in the success of the fish wheel, seeing his face change as he looked at the people cleaning the fish and having fun doing it. She saw pride, his pride in the group. Clarisse was happy to be here, too. It was what they’d practiced their entire lives for.
THE ENGINEERS
Shane talked constantly when he was with Cullen, but when he was with the group, he kept his mouth shut. Cullen told him that we were all good people, but something held him back.
Colleen checked him out after her return and declared him to be past the worst of his concussion. She watched his body language change when Chris was around. It was more than fear. It bordered on terror. When Colleen confronted Chris, he decided to come clean.
“Remember when he wouldn’t stop screaming?” She nodded. “I punched him in the head so we could get him out of there. Chuck was going to do it, but I wouldn’t let him. Chuck does all the crap jobs. It was my turn to shoulder the load,” he said with no hint of remorse.
“I see,” she said coldly.
“I’ve tried talking with him, but he shuts down completely. I can only say I’m sorry so many times.” Chris shrugged, waiting for his verbal beat-down. Instead, Colleen pulled him into a hug.
“Sometimes, you just have to do what needs to be done. Maybe he’ll come to realize that. Neither of you were wrong, but we’re too close here. You two will have to make peace at some point. When that time comes, make it happen,” she told him.
He held her head in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.
“I know,” she answered, playfully pushing him away. He’d never been happier.
Unlike the engineers, who had extreme highs, followed by crushing depression. No one could tell if they were happy or not. They surveyed the refinery and determined that they could use the fractional distillation process to produce diesel fuel for their generator. The problem came when they had to reroute some piping systems. They had no way to clear the pipes of residual hydrocarbons, that is, flammable material. That meant that they couldn’t cut the old pipe without risking a fire or explosion.
They only had the one facility. After two days of tinkering, they decided the best solution was to build a new system. Refining oil was as simple as boiling the oil and capturing the steam at different heights based on its weight. They had to build a still. Although simple, it was dangerous as everything within the system was sensitive to fire.
They had a tank they could use to heat the fuel oil. They could build a tree on top that captured the different vapors from the process, and then they needed additional tanks for the distillates, the separated liquids condensed from the oil-steam.
Shane calculated that they needed fifty gallons an hour to feed the big generator. They weren’t using it to capacity, but if they wanted to use electrical heat, it would pull a heavier load, although still far short of its capacity. That meant twelve hundred gallons a day or the staggering amount of two hundred and sixteen thousand gallons for the entire winter. They didn’t have enough crude oil. If they couldn’t distill a sufficient amount, then there’d be hours where they couldn’t run the generator.
The engineers found this disconcerting. Their job was to provide power and they had the equipment, but were stymied by a lack of natural resources. How much wood had to be burned to boil the oil? That would probably cause a shortage, too.
They looked for alternatives. The river froze in the winter so hydro-power generation wouldn’t work. The wind was inconsistent. Solar power worked well in the summer, but without massive storage capacity, the sun couldn’t generate enough electricity during a winter day to power a cell phone.
“We need to change some of the variables,” Cullen said as they sat in an office at the refinery. “How can we trim the usage rate?”
“The absolute minimum usage on that beast is forty gallons an hour. If we ran it only six hours a day, that’s two hundred forty gallons and six months comes to forty-three thousand two hundred gallons. We can do that.” Shane said, setting his jaw firmly, and nodded.
“But that’s not good enough,” Shane started to say as Cullen looked at him through narrowed eyes. “We need a smaller generator or we need one
that burns fuel oil. Almost everyone around here has a fuel oil tank outside their house. One of these tanks here has fuel oil, too. I think the variable we need to change is what fuel we burn.”
Cullen thought about it. They hadn’t invested too much time in the refinery, although what they proposed was another shortcut. They knew what I’d say. It’s living for today, planning for tomorrow. In the other world someone would call it outside-the-box thinking. That metaphor only worked if you believed in boxes.
“We need to talk to the others. I think we can sell them on the idea,” Cullen said. Shane crossed his arms and dropped his head, assuming a self-protective posture. “Dude! They may have treated us like crap when we started this adventure, but hell, look at everything they’ve done for us? What have we given back? Not a damn thing. Not yet, anyway. We’re living down to Chuck’s and Chris’ expectations, but they’ve given us space, even apologized to us. I don’t think we’ve earned that. I know we haven’t. Let’s go in there, with our heads held high, naked in front of them all, and show them what we can do. I, for one, would like electricity for more than six hours a day. We’re going to provide that power, and we’re going to enjoy it.” Cullen slapped Shane on the shoulder as they walked out.
After another fabulous dinner provided by Jo and Clarisse, Cullen and Shane moved to the middle of their small dining room. Cullen opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as he watched Shane take off his shirt, then his pants. As he prepared to pull down his underwear, Cullen grabbed his arm.
“Dude! What the hell?”
“You said that we’d be naked in front of everyone. You said…” Shane looked around at the group as people snickered. The twins laughed out loud.
“Euphemistically, but I like your motivation. You might want to get dressed,” Cullen told his friend. Shane turned a bright shade of red as he made to leave. “Where are you going?” Shane stammered an unintelligible response to Cullen’s question. “Stay here, dude. They’ve already seen the worst of it, and we have something to say.” Shane nodded once and pulled his clothes back on. As he buttoned his shirt, Cullen spoke to the group.
“The big generator isn’t going to work. Sure, it runs fine, but it burns too much diesel. We can convert it so it’ll burn fuel oil, but it still burns way too much for what we need. Two things. We have to find a smaller generator, probably in the range of ten to twenty kilowatts, and we will convert it to burn fuel oil. That means we’ll have to scavenge what’s left in the home storage tanks for this whole area, filter it, and build a large storage tank to hold it all. And we have about two months to get all that done so we have electricity 24/7 for the entire winter.” Cullen took a deep breath, expecting questions or a counter proposal. He thought they might even attack them for coming up with a plan that required the others to do more work.
Chris stood and started clapping. The others joined in. All they’d ever wanted from the engineers was a sound plan to get them through the winter. Cullen and Shane had failed to articulate what they were going to do until now.
“Just tell us what you need us to do,” Chris said as he shook Cullen’s hand and then Shane’s. Shane started to shy away and then turned back, stood tall, and awkwardly slapped Chris on the shoulder. Chris pulled the frail-looking young man to him and gave him a one-armed man hug. “We’re here for you and we’ll get it done. Two months? No problem, as long as we find ourselves a generator that will work. First thing tomorrow, we drive.”
Colleen watched Chris with amusement. She hadn’t expected the issue to resolve itself so quickly. She was pleased that it did and ready for the Community to move on. There was always something else that needed doing and not enough time to do it. She shook her head as she thought about how many more fish they’d need to clean and dry.
HEALY
After forty miles, we passed the convoy from Two Rivers. They’d departed less than a week after the initial explosion, which put them toward the front of this traffic jam. We stopped at the top of an incline, in case the battery hadn’t charged.
I walked along the vehicles, wiping the windows as I went and looking in. They were all empty.
“Where did they go?” I asked, not expecting an answer. We topped off our truck’s tank using a gas can from one of the Two Rivers’ trucks. I was hesitant to check the dog boxes, but they were empty. I was glad that the dogs got out, but the sleds were still on the top of the vehicles. They hadn’t mushed the dogs away. It looked like they’d been released to fend for themselves.
“Do you think there was a formal evacuation of some sort? Maybe there were buses, and that’s why they kept this lane open. I’m pretty sure they didn’t bring a military convoy to Fairbanks. I have to believe that we would have heard or seen something like that,” I said quietly, not really sure what to believe. “Lucas, when’s the last time someone used this road?”
“I don’t know. Fairly recently? We just drove on Nordale a week ago, and we know that hadn’t been traveled in years because of the weeds and trees. Compared to that? This has seen some traffic. Who would be here? And with a vehicle?”
The hair stood up on the back of my neck. “What do you say we keep the rifles close?” I put my hand over the comfortable shape of my .45 in my shoulder holster. Most of the time, I forgot it was there. I was glad to have it. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but maybe the unknown vehicle driving this road held a couple people just like us, trying to survive until tomorrow.
We continued toward Healy, driving slowly as we approached. There were hotels and other places for tourists in the ten miles north of town. When we passed these, the presence of others become more obvious. Vehicles had been recently broken into. Weeds were crushed on the pavement.
“I think I understand what happened. When the Russians bombed us? They did that as they were pulling out, at least that’s what I heard at the Pentagon. People around here must have remained hidden until the Russians left and now they are into scavenging, where before, they probably lived like cavemen in the hills, not risking getting caught. That had to be tough. Denali is known for its grizzly bears and wolves.”
“So what do we do?” Lucas asked, absentmindedly stroking the sling of his rifle.
“Let’s see if we can find where they’re staying. Maybe we can meet them without getting shot. I’m a big fan of not getting shot. I still have the scars on my head from the shotgun blast when I made contact with the wrong people. Yeah, not a fan at all.”
We hopped back in the truck and drove to the resort town of Healy, Alaska, where the only coal mine was, along with the entrance to Denali National Park. I wondered if it was still considered a national park since the government sold us out under threat of a nuclear attack on the Lower 48? I didn’t spend much time thinking about that as it didn’t matter.
Smoke from a chimney told us that someone was staying at the Denali Touch of Wilderness, a bed and breakfast hotel. I couldn’t blame them. We had stayed in the nicest rooms at Chena Hot Springs Resort. When you survived the end of the world, you took certain liberties, without remorse, like hunting when you needed food, regardless of the season.
“Moment of truth, Lucas,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot. “First, turn the truck around and leave it running, so if we have to, we can make a quick escape. That was a hard lesson learned, by the way. Be ready to get us out of here if I come running like an idiot. Give the horn a couple honks and let’s see what’s next.” I opened my door and slowly exited. My body seemed to fight me. The muscle memory of getting shot was strong. I took a few steps away from the truck and put my hands up.
A shaggy-looking man jumped onto the porch, looking at us with jerky movements. He waved a rifle, but it looked rusted and old. “Get out! Don’t make me shoot you!” he yelled, almost hysterically.
“We’re not here to hurt anyone or get into your business. We’re looking for someone, a young lady named Tanya Bezos. Woul
d you have seen her?” I projected using my Marine Corps voice.
The door opened and another man walked out. “Put that gun away, Bob, before you hurt yourself again.” They wrestled briefly before the second man took the gun away, and Bob went back inside. The second man opened the breach to show that it was unloaded and leaned it against the wall of the lodge.
“We let Bob keep that so he’s less afraid. He’s had a rough time, and we kind of take care of him. I’m Randy, Randy Silvers, by the way.” The young man strode forward without hesitation, hand out. I met him halfway, and we shook.
“Chuck Nagy, and this is Lucas. We’re from outside Fairbanks.” Lucas joined us and they shook. “I think we have a lot to talk about. First, do you know of any other survivors around here? We’re looking for a Tanya Bezos.”
He shrugged.
As we were heading inside, I waved Lucas back, telling him to stay outside, just in case it was a trap. My Military Intelligence paranoia was working overtime.
Once inside, I saw Bob curled up in a corner on a dog bed. An older woman was cooking something on the wood-burning stove. She waved and introduced herself as Agnes.
“Yeah, there are other people scattered around the hills,” Randy said as he handed me a glass of water and set the stage for his story. “When the Russians showed up, we didn’t know what to do, but then they started herding people onto buses. They set up a camp just down the road, but the conditions. Man! It was November, and all we had were tents. People died, froze to death in their sleep. I’d never seen a dead body before that. Then I woke up next to one.” He hesitated and took a long drink of water. I waved out the door at Lucas to join us.
“I was one of the stupid ones who went with them. Some people fought back. That didn’t last long. Others ran for it. Others gave up and once they in the camp, they tried to fight back. It wasn’t pretty, but it gave some of us the chance to escape. We ran for it; ten of us made it out. Two of us survived that first winter, me and Bob, there.” He pointed.
Return (End Times Alaska Book 3) Page 11
