Both children were terribly conscious of just how loudly the gravel crunched below their feet.
A short distance from the end of the driveway, they went off the road and started down a narrow, stony draw that would bring them down to Dodge Creek.
There had been enough rain that the leaf litter below them was moist, and reasonably quiet, but they were at constant risk of slipping down the steep slope.
“You sure this is a good idea?” Jenny asked.
“We’ll be fine.”
When they heard the light chatter of Dodge Creek they knew they were halfway to their destination on the map, but only a third of the way on the ground.
There was a half mile climb up the steep side of Clingback Mountain in front of them. At least their eyes had adapted reasonably well to the darkness by then, and they were able to see a few yards in front of them.
As Jenny was the more sure-footed of the two, she took the lead. It didn’t take long for her to find a game trail up the slope, which made the going a little easier. There were places where they had to be careful with their guns, with the slightly slick slope beneath them making their footing treacherous.
Once they got to the top of a spur, they took a moment to get their bearings. They knew the clearcut they were looking for was just a little way downslope from where they were.
“My kingdom for a GPS,” Jenny said.
“Let’s just keep veering slightly left as we head downhill,” Cole replied. “We’ll hit the logging trail that way, if we miss the cut itself.”
Jenny nodded, took a drink of water from her canteen, and started down the hill. A couple minutes later, they found themselves inside a several acre swath of land that had been stripped of all its trees.
Looking up, they sky above was crystal clear and spattered with thousands of stars. They were just a few days after the height of the Perseid meteor shower, and caught a couple of shooting stars.
After taking some time to admire the open sky, they set to their actual purpose for being out there. They both grabbed binoculars, and aimed them straight east, to Lake Koocanusa.
Normally, there was a thin border of light that outlined the far shore of the lake. The little village of Rexford had streetlights, and there were flood lights at the marinas and the offices of the campgrounds.
Farther on, they could usually catch a little glow of Eureka at the horizon.
None of those lights were visible from the side of Clingback Mountain. By carefully scanning along the edge of the lake, they eventually found a few small lights, maybe campfire or two, or a house with a backup generator running.
After several minutes, they caught sight of a three pairs of headlights driving up Highway 37, but they had no chance of identifying what the vehicles were.
“Must be some really old trucks or something,” Cole said.
Jenny sat down on the ground and took another drink from her canteen. “So, we assume the worst case has come to pass?”
“I think so.”
“We should get back. I don’t feel all that safe out here.”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “You’re doing great on the lead, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
When they hit Dodge Creek again, they took a break before the final leg of their excursion back up the steep, narrow draw to the cabin.
They refilled their canteens and listened to the water.
Jenny thought that after things got back to normal – after, not if, was she insisted on phrasing it to herself – she looked forward to maybe more nighttime walks through the dark woods.
The land around the cabin was always quiet and peaceful, but being down in the cool bottom of the draw listening to the creek and looking up at the Milky Way between the leaves of the tall trees, there was a different quality to the quiet.
Perhaps it was the unfamiliar chatter of the night creatures compared to the daytime fauna, she thought.
“Alright, let’s get home,” Cole said, shaking her out of her thoughts.
The two siblings got up and followed the creek a couple hundred feet down until they found the draw that would lead back up to the cabin.
Perhaps they got a little too relaxed, being so close to home, but just as the slope really got sharp, Jenny slipped and dropped her rifle.
Not ten yards ahead of her, something let out a low growl.
Chapter 5
The last hour to Rexford, Bill and Sally kept their eyes over their shoulders, making sure that the two locals they’d run into were holding their end of the bargain and not following them.
For their part, Bill and Sally kept their word, and dropped the bolt assemblies to the two men’s rifles at the top of the next big hill.
At a minimum, it gave Bill and Sally a healthy head start if the guys had decided to pursue them, but it appeared they’d decided the Chandlers were too hard of a target.
As Rexford came into sight, Bill let himself get cautiously optimistic when he saw a uniformed sheriff’s deputy and a couple men on horseback with rifles slung over their back.
Not like there were any businesses in Rexford to loot, other than a small mom and pop gas station, but it looked like things were a lot more settled than in Eureka.
“Let’s put ‘em up,” Bill said, moving his holstered pistol back into its usual concealed location, tucked inside the waistband of his jeans and under his jacket, while Sally hid hers back in her purse.
They did their best as they came down the trail into town to not draw attention, but it was such a small place that they were quickly picked up by one of the mounted men.
“Where you all headed?”
“We need to get across to the other side of the lake,” Bill said, quickly giving the run down on this situation. “So we just need to pass through.”
He’d noticed that the second armed horseman had come around behind him and Sally.
“No can do. We’ve got orders to consolidate everybody into the towns and cities.”
“Who’s got orders? Can I see some credentials?” Sally asked.
“We’ve been temporarily deputized into the sheriff’s department, as part of the county emergency plan. We don’t have badges, but we do have authority.”
By this time, the uniformed deputy was on his way over
“Sir, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sure my associates here have filled you in. We’re going to need you to stay here in town for the time being. Do you have any family or friends here in Rexford you can stay with?”
“We don’t. We’re just passing through. We got separated from our kids, and they know to stay put if anything goes wrong, but we need to get to them.”
“I’m sorry,” the deputy said. “But we’re shutting down all movement in the area to keep things from going out of control. We’re going to need you to stay put here until we get a convoy up to Eureka. There’s a school there where we’re going to house any displaced persons.”
“Look, our kids are alone right now,” Sally said. “As you can imagine, we’re worried about them.”
“Well, shouldn’t have left them, now should you?” the deputy mocked.
“We let them stay while we ran into town because they’re good, responsible kids,” Bill said. “But this is way more than they’ll be able to handle on their own. Just let us keep on our way and we can all shelter in place at the cabin. This way you won’t need to feed or house us or anything.”
“There’s going to be a sweep on the far side of the lake as soon as resources come available,” one of the mounted men said. “Your kids will get picked up, and once we get reliable communications set up, you’ll be able to get in touch and we can work out how to get you all into the same place.”
“I’ll bet you’ve got the cages set up already, don’t you?” Bill said, pointedly, to the man on the horse. “The best thing for them is to get us back to them right now, so we can all deal with this together as a family. Not keep us on this side of the lake and tell us that some day you might get someone
out on that side of the lake to check up on them.”
After his time in the service, Bill was very disillusioned about the government’s ability to do a lot of things competently.
He’d seen first hand in Afghanistan that after the military won the battles, the politicians failed to win the war. He had seen first hand how poorly the refugee camps were managed, or the detention centers, how difficult the interface was with the local police.
Too many people disappeared, too many were murdered when they should have been safe. There was no way Bill was going to take any chances with getting swept up inside the wire in some camp in his own country, not when he had a home where he and his family could be safe together.
“We’ve already run into two people on the PNT coming in from Eureka that are out there robbing people,” Sally said. “It’s not safe for our kids to be alone in a cabin out here.”
“That’s why we’re locking everybody down and clearing all the roads and trails until we get everything sorted out. We don’t want anybody out and about looting and who knows what else, and we don’t want people getting robbed and killed.”
“You’re still offering us no help at all in making sure our kids don’t get robbed or killed,” Bill said. “C’mon, Sally. We don’t have time for this.”
With a surprising quickness, the man that had been silent the entire time swung his horse right into their path. The other horse moved in behind, effectively penning in Bill and Sally.
“We’re sorry about your kids, but we’ve got our orders to get everybody off the roads and trails.”
“Well than why don’t you get someone on that trail there and pick up the two bandits that are actually trying to rob people, instead of holding us up?” Bill said.
“We’ll get to them, as soon as we’ve got everybody safe into a town,” the deputy said.
“Do you have kids?” Sally asked.
“That’s not relevant here,” the deputy said.
“I can’t believe this crap!” Bill exclaimed. “We’ve got a place to hunker down, if you’d just let us get to it. Where are we supposed to stay here? Somebody going to let us sleep in their car? Not like we’d be able to steal it or anything, right?”
“Hey, deputy,” somebody said, an older man who looked like he’d lived hard but well. “I can put these folks up. I got some kids of my own. Grown and gone already, but I’m worried sick over them too right now.”
To Bill and Sally, he then said, “I can’t help you get to your kids right now, but I’ll treat you better than these guys will while you’re waiting.”
“Alright,” the deputy said. “I’m going to need to check you for weapons first. State of emergency, private ownership is restricted.”
That got some noise going among the few locals hanging out.
“We’ve been over this already, deputy,” one of the townsfolk said. The deputy and his two helpers looked around a bit nervously.
“The agreement we’d reached was that we weren’t going to remove any arms from private property,” the deputy said.
“And these two are now my guests and about to come onto my private property.”
“They’re on public property right now,” the deputy said.
Bill looked around. Most of the folks around were locals, year-round property owners that had probably been born and raised all within a few miles.
Up in the northwest corner of Montana, people took their rights very seriously, including and especially their rights concerning their homes and their guns.
If Bill had to guess, he’d say that the conversation about confiscating guns didn’t go over very well, and that one sworn officer with two guys he’d deputized knew they’d be no match for a few dozen armed homeowners protecting what was theirs.
He and Sally watched the silent standoff.
“Alright,” the deputy finally said. “I’m holding you responsible if these folks skip town.”
“I’ll take that responsibility,” the old man said.
He then walked up to the two of them.
“Steve Patten,” he said, offering Bill and Sally handshakes as he walked up. “Looks like you’re with me for a few.”
Once they got into Patten’s house, Bill and Sally thanked him profusely.
“This whole thing is a load,” Patten said. “We know the deputy a bit. Mostly decent, does his job, stays out of the way, but this mess has got him trying to go on a power trip. I think it’s having a couple guys assigned to him, thinks he’s suddenly all that.”
“Well, we appreciate you stepping up for us, at least to give us somewhere to stay.”
“I don’t expect you’ll be staying long though, will you?” he said, giving a knowing wink.
“We’d be bad guests if we got you in trouble,” Sally said.
“I wouldn’t have invited you in if I wasn’t really to deal with it. You got family to take care of, that’s following a higher law. How old are your kids, by the way?”
Sally pulled pictures out of her purse and told Patten all about Cole and Jenny.
“Don’t be too hard on yourselves,” Patten said, when Bill started getting a bit choked up, as the stress of being away from his children and the guilt that he wasn’t there with them started to catch up to him. “You were doing the right thing, letting them live and learn and be on their own. This is the kind of thing nobody could really predict. Just real bad timing that it hit during the couple hours you were out.”
Bill shook his head. He understood Patten’s words, but now that he had actually taken some time to stop and rest for the first time since the event, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had failed his children in some unforgivable way.
“Maybe once we get moving again, I’ll feel better,” he said.
“You will,” Sally said. “You always feel best when you’re doing something.”
“You’ll need to wait until after dark. Try to get a bit of rest now while you can,” Patten said, showing them to his spare bedroom.
Chapter 6
“Got your bear spray handy?” Cole asked.
“It’s not a bear,” Jenny said.
“It’ll work on a mountain lion, too.”
A little up the draw, they heard something move slowly through the brush. It was steadily getting closer.
“No time.”
“Close your right eye, JJ.”
Jenny knew what he had in mind.
She shut one eye and said, “K.”
Cole also shut his left eye and switched on the Mossberg’s tactical light. He caught the glow of the mountain lion’s eyes. It was already moving, making a leap towards Jenny.
There was a sharp report as Jenny knocked off a quick shot at the mountain lion, punctuated by the bark of the Mossberg spitting out a load of shot. The big cat let out a sudden high-pitched, angry and scared sounding roar as it knocked Jenny flat, then leapt off of her, sprinting away into the brush.
Cole heard Jenny, writhing on the ground, choking. He swung his tactical light towards her to see what was up, then remembered it was attached to the barrel of a firearm and aimed it away from her.
It did illuminate her just long enough for him to see her flat on her back, holding her side, and blood.
He swallowed and braced himself for just a second before pulling his flashlight out, and shrugging out of his daypack. He and Jenny had both loaded one up, with first aid supplies, an emergency blanket each, lightweight fleece pullover and poncho, and a little bit of food.
When he was ready, he switched on his flashlight and took a better look at her. His sister had a very pained expression on her face and looked to be struggling for breath. Her t-shirt was torn wet with a spreading dark stain.
She was making noise, which meant that she was still getting air in and out of her lungs. That was the first thing he’d been taught to check when he learned first aid – can they breathe.
Next, her arms and legs were moving, but he didn’t know exactly how hard she’d gone down, so it
was safest to assume a possible head or neck injury until he could confirm otherwise. That would affect how he dealt with the bleeding.
“Hey, JJ,” he said. “Did it just get your front?”
Jenny nodded.
“Wind knocked out,” she choked out, through tightly shut eyes and clenched teeth.
“OK.” He was relieved to hear that was at least part of her writhing around, and not something worse. “Let’s take a look at what we’ve got on the side here.”
“Pushed off,” Jenny said, touching her side.
Cole got a penlight out of his first aid kit, and stuck it between his teeth so he could free up both hands to work. He put his bigger flashlight into Jenny’s hand. “When you’re able to, give me some more light.”
He slipped on some gloves, and took her other hand away from the wounds on her side so he could look at them. The cat’s claws had torn her shirt and a bit of the waistband of her jeans, and left three deep gashes in her abdomen.
It looked like the paw had at least caught a bit of her hip bone which gave it something solid to launch off of. Otherwise, he was sure the cuts would have been longer and much deeper.
“Sorry,” he said, preemptively, as he moved her left hand away from the wounds again.
Jenny gasped and groaned while he spread them open to see how bad they were. The cuts looked deep, but still superficial, which was a great relief.
He had no idea where he would even start if he had to deal with wounds that went through the skin into the organs without 911 being an option.
“OK. The best thing will be to clean these, get you bandaged up, and get back to the cabin.”
“A couple of shots for the pain?” she asked, as she started to get her breath back.
“Morphine or vodka?” Cole asked.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
Since there didn’t seem to be any arterial bleeding or any large veins opened up, Cole decided the best option was to thoroughly rinse the gashes out from his canteen, apply antibiotic ointment, then cover it over with gauze and apply pressure until the bleeding stopped.
Our Survival: A Collection of Post Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thrillers Page 50
