There was an endless list of projects to work on at home … a list that grew as fast as he completed it. He figured the fun of having a projects list wasn’t in checking things off it, it was in adding new interesting ideas. Even in his retirement years, he never grew tired of thinking up new projects.
There was one item on his list that took the majority of his time these days, and seemed to spawn numerous other items for the list. That was of course his passion for the prepper lifestyle. Prepping gave him a purpose, and a sense of control over all the crazy stuff that went on in the world. Jake realized that once he got to a certain age, he hated relying on others. Others, of course, included the government and its myriad number of federal, state, and civic services. He liked to think he was the king of his own little country … even if that country was surrounded by the state of Texas and all the other surrounding states that made up the good ole USA.
His island was one incredible achievement of self-sufficiency and sustainability. He had stockpiles of food and water; enough to keep his family going for at least a year. He had energy plans that included solar, wind, multiple gas generators and wood burning rocket stoves. He supplemented his food and water stores with gardens, a fully stocked pond, and a rather elaborate rainwater collection system that he had proudly designed himself. The solar and wind system fed an extensive battery bank that he had customized based on an amalgamation of different systems he’d researched on the Internet. He had collected a fine library of books covering topics like homesteading, first aid, tactical defense, natural remedies, and wilderness survival. He had all the essential ones in digital as well as paper form. Those he couldn’t find in digital form, he converted himself.
Jake was always quite amazed at what you could build if you did a little at a time. It had been quite a few years since he’d first heard about that near miss CME in 2012. He found it disturbing how fragile our civilization was. How one event on a given day had the potential to devastate an entire civilization. Being the voracious reader that he was, it didn’t take him too long to realize the true extent of the problem, and how few people were aware of it.
Western civilization in the 21st century wouldn’t be the first to collapse. Rome may have been the most notable, but certainly wouldn’t be the last. It seemed the more complex and interdependent our world became, the more precarious it became. Like a house of cards, all inescapably dependent on every other card in the house to do its job. All it takes is for one of those cards to fail, and the whole place goes whoosh! Being king of his own island seemed like the way to go. At least that way, he could stack the deck in his favor.
The story Jake read that scared him the most was about forest fires, and how preventing forest fires was actually a bad thing. It seemed like one of those sensational headlines that just wanted to grab your attention while they sold you something else, but there was science to this one. Forest fires are a natural occurrence in nature. They happen all the time. It’s part of Mother Nature’s way of getting rid of the old and bringing in the new. Burning the old and dead trees, returns their nutrients to the soil, which become food for new growth. Without the fire, the nutrients stay trapped in dead trees. Surprisingly a lot of young and healthy trees will survive a small forest fire. It’s a natural part of the cycle of life.
Human intervention interrupts the cycle. We build multi-million-dollar neighborhoods near forests, mountains and babbling brooks. Totally understandable, as it’s a beautiful setting. We also have businesses that depend on a forest either for lumber mills, nature parks, or tourist attractions. No one wants to see those suffer. But, nothing in nature remains static. At some point Mother Nature decides that it’s time to get rid of the old dead wood, and lightning strikes or some small tinder spontaneously combusts. Presto, a little spring cleaning clears out the old. Now there’s room for new growth.
Human intervention saves our homes and businesses, but just prolongs the inevitable. Eventually, Mother Nature gets her way, and the fire starts. The tragedy now is that there is too much dead wood and tinder lying around. Instead of getting a small forest fire like nature intended, we end up with a massive inferno that’s so intense, it wipes out everything including the young and healthy trees. The inferno burns so hot and long, that nothing is left for nature to start anew with. We end up with a wasteland.
Critics of modern culture use this example as a metaphor for our society. We keep putting short-term Band-Aids on our problems. Financially fragile governments, over-population, energy shortages and environmental abuse all get stop-gap fixes, but no one addresses the big problems. The tough questions. At some point, they all become like too much dead wood in the forest. Sometime in the not so distant future, there’s going to be a major problem that we can’t put a Band-Aid on. Then what? Does the whole thing fall apart? Does all that dead wood fuel a massive roaring inferno? Imagine giant dominoes that fall and fall and fall. They only differ from the amusing child’s game in that these are real life dominoes, and every time one falls, people get crushed under its weight. Over and over and over again.
Jake didn’t want to be under those dominoes when they fell. He didn’t want anyone he loved to be under those dominoes when they fell. Hell, he didn’t want the dominoes to fall at all, but he didn’t know how to stop them. What he did know was how to survive the fall. Or, at least he hoped he did. He figured if he could build a place where the collapse couldn’t hurt those he cared about he could sleep at night. They could all sleep, and survive, and be around when it was time for rebuilding. Not everyone would perish in the collapse. Some would survive, either through good luck or good planning. He wanted to be one of them. One of the lucky few to have a chance to do things better the next time. He wanted the opportunity to be alive and with the people he cared about to build a better world. Until those plans were in place, Jake laid awake at night thinking.
Chapter 13 ~ Dawson
Dawson got to work early that morning, in spite of the fact that his pickup was on the fritz. Likely the alternator gone again, but he could deal with that after work. There’d be time for it, once he got the kids settled down. They were a bit of a handful at the ages of five and eight, but he managed. It was easier now that they were both in school. Maggie was a great help. He really lucked out having a neighbor like her. Not just for the bit of sanity time for himself, but because it gave him the chance to get into work a little earlier. Life as a handyman on a Texas
farm may not have been his first choice for a career, but he figured there were a lot worse places you could end up. This was Texas after all, in all its glory. Big sky, big land, and people with hearts big enough to take it all in.
Jake stopped his truck at the main road leading into the ranch.
“I can drop you off at the gates, it’ll save you a hike down the road, Dawson.”
Dawson got out of the truck, resting a hand on the door. “Ahh, don’t worry about me. The walk will do me some good, and give me a chance to shake the sleep from my eyes. The kids were a bit restless last night. Bad dreams again, so they ended up in my bed. They seem to sleep great, but not so much for me.”
“Yeah, I hear ya, buddy. I remember those days. Can’t say I miss them much, now that mine are older.” Jake paused for a moment. “Well, maybe I miss some of it, but certainly not the sleeping part.”
Dawson managed a smile. “That’s what everyone keeps telling me. Enjoy them while you can.”
“They do grow fast. Believe it or not.” Jake started driving away, then stopped. Leaning back out of the window, he said, “I’ll pick you up a new battery at Frank’s Auto on the way to pick you up after work. We can work on the alternator over a few beers.”
Dawson started to object, but Jake just shook his hand at him and drove away in a cloud of dust. He was going to get his own ride from work, and pick up a battery on the way. If Jake saved him the trip, he might actually get to see the kids before bed tonight. Maggie and Jake kind of reminded him of younger versions of his own parents.
Always looking out for others, and helping even without being asked.
No doubt it’s good to have a family like Jake and Maggie nearby. Dawson wondered some days, how he’d manage without them. Maggie still volunteered at the elementary school even though her kids were well past that age. It made things so much easier, that she could just take them to school with her. She was a natural mother. Dawson had gotten their breakfasts ready for them on their favorite cartoon plates, just before Maggie came over like she did every morning. He hated missing them in the mornings, but good jobs weren’t easy to come by these days in Big Springs, Texas. Plus, it couldn’t hurt to be in before the boss every day. He’d still be home in plenty of time for dinner and to put them to bed thanks to Jake.
With the sun just making its way over the horizon, the dew on the cotton fields shone like a white sand beach that stretched for miles. Dawson tried to remember the last time he had a chance to sit on a beach, and couldn’t. Life had been pretty hectic the last few years, and there hadn’t been much time for leisure activity. The kids didn’t seem to mind so much though. As long as they had their dad around they were pretty content. They barely knew what they were missing out on. Dawson knew, and it bothered him. The move from Colorado two years ago was pretty drastic, but the kids took it all in stride. He just needed a change of scenery. A chance to start over. At the rate he was hitting the bottle, it was only a matter of time before everything would have crashed, and he could have lost it all. Ironically, Second Lieutenant Connor had saved his life by nearly beating him to death outside Molly’s Pub one night. While it didn’t seem so at the time, looking back, Dawson knew now he had it coming. Every morning, he said a prayer for Connor beating him straight.
Connor had grown tired of the insubordination but saw something in Dawson that prompted him to make sure he got an honorable discharge instead of a permanent cell in the brig. The marines were the right choice for Dawson, but not for his ex-wife. She loved being the wife of a rodeo star, not a soldier’s wife. A bull named Apocalypso stole that dream from both of them by inflicting a chronic traumatic encephalopathy on Dawson. CTE for short, or concussion in layman’s terms. Dawson never told the military about his CTE when he applied. He figured, it was his head, so his decision. Lisa lasted thirteen months as a soldier’s wife, then called it quits. Dawson never saw it coming. He came home one day, and found the kids at the neighbors’. No note, just a half-empty closet and a drained bank account. Trips to the liquor store got a lot more frequent after that.
Dawson enjoyed the half-mile walk onto the main property. As much as he loved the kids, quiet time for a single parent was a rare commodity, and he took it all in. Today would likely be spent getting that old John Deere to run again. Not exactly the type of machine he worked on in the military, but they’d taught him enough to eventually get things working on most of the old machines around the farm. He seemed to have a knack for it. It was also the reason old man Williams kept him around this long past the harvest. It took a fair number of machines to keep a farm like this going, and a good mechanic was hard to come by. Williams was too frugal to buy new tractors in this economy, which was fine with Dawson, as it kept him busy with something he rather enjoyed. Not as exciting as eight seconds with Apocalypso, but a lot less painful.
Dawson walked under the main farm gate, which simply read Williams Farm. It was supported by two rough-hewn posts twice his height at least. They looked old enough to fall over at any moment. Dawson had suggested he could reinforce them one day, but Bert Williams swore they’d still be standing long after both of them were gone. His great-great-grandfather erected the sign by hand when he started the farm, and they had survived three tornadoes in Bert’s lifetime. At least, three he could remember. Walking through the gate, he gently pounded the post three times for good luck. A throwback to his rodeo days.
There was one more reason he liked to come in early in the morning. Another habit from his rodeo days. Williams kept a small stable of horses in the big barn. The barn was built to hold more horses, but much of the space was taken up with broken machinery still on Dawson’s to-do list. When the late great-great Williams built the barn, they needed more horses to get the work done. Now with the machines, not so much. Dawson always felt the old broken machines in the barn made the horses nervous. It was like they knew they could be replaced with some ugly old metal tractor. He figured it was his duty to visit the horses every morning, to reassure them that there’d always be a place for them. It was hard for Bert to keep even these few horses. They were expensive, and more indulgence than necessity. Bert always said though that having a connection to the past reminds us of who we are, where we come from, and why we do what we do. The economics didn’t always work out that way, but for now the horses were there and happy.
Dawson walked past every stable, and spent a few minutes with each horse, talking and petting them as they nuzzled against his hands. When he got to the last one, he picked up the groomer’s brush and walked into the stall.
“Hello, Hero. Hope you had a good night. Sorry I couldn’t be here yesterday, but we had a bit of an emergency with one of the machines.”
Hero whinnied quietly and nuzzled the back pocket of his pants, while Dawson brushed him down.
“Whatcha looking for, fella? There’s nothing back there.”
Dawson smiled and moved around the front of Hero to brush the other side. Hero sniffed vigorously as Dawson moved past, and pushed the flap of his chest pocket open to reveal the sweet carrot he was looking for. Hero gracefully removed the carrot from his pocket and chewed it up quickly.
“Ah, is that what you were looking for? You were worried when you couldn’t find it in the usual spot, weren’t you?”
Hero shook his head back and forth, throwing his mane in every direction.
“You just did that so I’d have to spend more time brushing you now, didn’t you? There’s no fooling this old cowboy. You pretty horses are all the same.”
Hero leaned towards Dawson with enough gentle force to knock him off balance. Dawson chuckled.
“You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that to knock this old rodeo rat off his feet. I’ve tussled with much tougher customers than you, old boy.” Dawson grabbed the wider bristle brush, and start running it through Hero’s mane. There were plenty of tangles to work out. “Where have you been boy? Your mane is quite the mess. Certainly not acceptable for horse with a name like Hero. You’ll have to share with me sometime how you got that name. I’m sure it’s a great story.”
Hero nodded his head up and down with Dawson’s brushing, but declined to tell any stories.
The sound of the barn door creaking open caught Dawson’s attention.
“You back there, Dawson?” Bert said.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Williams,” Dawson answered as he closed Hero’s stall door behind him.
“You can take the boy out of the rodeo, but I guess you can’t take the rodeo out of the boy, can you?”
“No, sir, you can’t. I figure that’s a good thing though.”
“Well, I reckon the horses would agree. You’re not feeding them again, are you? I don’t need me a bunch of fat, slow horses on this farm. My daddy wouldn’t abide it, and neither would I.”
“No, sir, of course not. Just spending a bit of time saying hi to the boys and girls before I get on with my chores.”
Hero whinnied loudly behind him, as if in disagreement, and the two men shared a smile.
“All right then,” Williams continued. “I just wanted to let you know the baler was jamming sporadically the last time we used it, and I wanted to make sure you knew. We won’t be needing it for a while, and the tractor is still your number one priority, but it still needs tending to.”
“Yes, sir, no problem.”
“I’m heading into the city later today, so you won’t have anyone to keep tabs on you. I’m hoping though you’ll have that tractor running before the end of the day. It’d be one less thing for me to worry about aroun
d here.”
“Shouldn’t be a problem. It almost started for me yesterday a couple of times. Anything I can help you with in town?”
“Nope. I’m good. I’m not so old that I can’t handle a few uppity big city lawyers on my own.”
“Anything I should be worried about?”
“You fix the tractors, I’ll worry about the lawyers. It’s still my farm for now.”
Dawson nodded silently, and Williams’ face softened slightly.
“Don’t worry, boy, it’s just another bullshit corporation that wants to get its hands on this fine piece of Texas farmland. It won’t happen while I still draw breath. Not with my family farm. You’ll still have a job tomorrow.”
Dawson smiled back.
“Sorry, sir, wasn't trying to be nosy.”
“I know you’ve got a family, Dawson. That’s not nosy, it’s just looking out for those you’re responsible for. I can respect that.”
Dawson nodded, but said nothing.
“Tomorrow’s another day, boy. So, get your ass back to work. That tractor isn’t going to fix itself. It’ll be up and running tomorrow when you show up, and my horses will be even fatter than they already are. Right?” Bert nodded, agreeing with himself.
“Yes, of course it will be,” Dawson said emphatically as Williams headed out the barn door.
Chapter 14 ~ Miss Charlie
“Hey, Chase, are you still up there?” Dawson yelled up the quiet stairs to Chase’s bedroom. Silence. He tried yelling again with the same results. Just as he started up the stairs, Veronica appeared from down the hallway and started down the stairs. She was holding a doll and whispering something into its ear.
“Have you seen your brother?” Dawson asked. Veronica pulled the doll in a little tighter, and pretended that she didn’t hear anything. Just as she was about to pass, Dawson put his hand out to stop her.
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