Beyond the New Horizon (Book 2): Desperate Times

by Conaway, Christine

  “Seriously?”

  Gina sighed in exasperation. “Seriously. I think we are going to need every grain and bean that we can save. I was worried before we lost this about how we were going to survive with the food we have and this,” she waved her arm around, taking in the destruction, “makes it that much worse.”

  They had put the clothing, even if it was covered in juice or liquid from the broken jars off to the side. Gina was determined to save everything useable.

  She and Lucy worked side by side in silence, scooping and sorting as they filled their bags. Short of picking up single grains of rice, there was nothing left to pick up.

  “I guess that’s it then.” She sat back on her heels and tied a knot in the top of her pillowcase. Gina looked to see Lucy tying a knot in her pillowcase the same way that Gina had. Then Gina saw the tears running down Lucy’s face.

  She had been fighting her own tears off and on thinking about their survival. When she took the time to think about it, it almost seemed like they were destined to fight for every forward step they made.

  As far as she knew, they were cut off from civilization, they didn’t have enough food to feed ten people for more than a few months, and according to Sam, winter hadn’t begun yet.

  Sniffing loudly, Lucy asked, “Do you think we can make it?”

  “Make it? You mean to survive?”

  Lucy nodded and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. “Survive…the whole winter? I’m embarrassed to admit that I am so afraid we won’t. I don’t see how we can.”

  “We can Lucy. We have to, but I also think it will be the hardest thing we’ve ever done. Well, maybe not for you, Ben and Sam, but still hard for us, but I really believe we can make it.”

  “Why exclude Sam, Ben and me?”

  “The rest of us have never been to war. That, in itself, sets you guys apart from the rest of us, but we all have the desire and the willpower it’s going to take to get through this.”

  Lucy smiled at her while rubbing her runny nose, “You always give me hope. That’s one of the qualities I’ve always admired in you.”

  “Oh stop…you and Journey have always been my family and you know I would do anything for you guys. Now, we have to include the others, but they bring more to the table than I ever could.”

  “Hey! You guys going to stay down there all day or what?”

  “Maybe…depends on what you have in mind.” Gina hollered back.

  “We thought that one of you would make some dinner.”

  “Assholes,” Gina muttered, and Lucy laughed.

  “Let’s take this stuff to the end of the draw and see if we can find somewhere dry to put it.”

  “Do you smell that?”

  “There you go again with the smelling thing. I’m actually starting to believe your ability to detect odors has improved with the loss of your leg.” Gina drew in a deep breath through her nose and held it trying to decipher what it was Lucy had thought she smelled.

  Puzzled, Gina tipped her head and took another deep breath, “It smells like hot springs? Or sulfur…I don’t believe there is anything like that around here, though.” Gina picked up her bag and stepped back. Her foot slipped off the rock she’d stepped on and landed in the stream of water. She jerked her foot out before her boot could soak through and gawked the length of the crevasse visible to her, her mouth hanging open in astonishment.

  Further up the draw, she could see steam rising from out of the ground. “Oh shit. Lucy, just grab whatever you can and let’s get out of here.”

  Lucy reached down and putting her fingers in the water. The look on Gina’s face had scared her, and she thought she knew what the column of steam meant. “This water is warm,”” Lucy said and raised her fingers to her nose. She sniffed and jerked her hand away, “It is sulfur.”

  “Guys, we need your help down here….. and immediately would be good.” Sailor and Joe had begun to move around, clearly bothered by something. Lucy and Gina grabbed their bags of rice, and as fast as they could, they moved both bags and horses out of the draw and up the hill to solid ground. Ben and Sam came barreling down the hill to meet them.

  “What’s up? Ben almost has dinner ready and I repacked our stuff.”

  “What is that smell,” Ben asked, his top lip curled in disgust.

  “That’s what we wanted you for. Look up there,” Gina said and pointed up the draw. “We need to move this stuff before it gets wet.”

  Sam reached down and picked up the plastic barrel of beans, “Why would you leave this stuff so close to the water?”

  “How about there was no water when we set it there? Come on Sam, give us some credit. That water has risen just in the last few minutes.”

  “And it’s warm too,” Lucy told them as she hobbled away with her armload of bedding.

  It didn’t take long for them to transfer the pile of belongings to the top of the hill.

  Gina looked at the pitiful small pile it had taken her and Lucy hours to collect. They had about forty pounds of flour, less than thirty pounds of rice and maybe forty pounds of the beans. All the beans and rice would have to be cleaned, and small glass chips sorted out. Gina had sorted the jars of home canned food and of the two hundred jars from the cellar at the farm there was now less than three dozen that hadn’t broken. From the destruction of the trailer, Gina thought they were lucky to recover any undamaged jars.

  The biggest savings were the clothing and bedding, and a couple of duffle bags they hadn’t looked inside of.

  By the time, they had eaten and together sorted through the things that Andy had set on the hillside, they still had more than they could fit on the horses. The weight wouldn’t be a problem, but the means to carry it would.

  “It looks like we might have to make another trip.”

  Andy nodded in agreement, his eyes looking off into the dusk. He frowned and squinted, “What do you make of that?”

  Sam followed his finger and stared in amazement at a red glow rising out of the trench. Slowly nodding his head, he said, “We better go have a look, maybe a small fire.”

  Gina and Lucy started to get up when Sam stopped them, “I’d like it if you two wait here. We’re just going up the draw a little way to see what it looks like.”

  Gina nodded and sat back down. She knew under normal circumstances, she would never have stayed behind. But these weren’t normal. She didn’t want to leave Lucy behind and if the terrain was anything like she and Sam had witnessed earlier, Lucy wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  Gina sat and fiddled with the small fire, poking it with a short stick and stirring the ashes up. They had wiped out the pot and bowls as best they could and packed them back into Ben’s backpack along with anything else that didn’t have a container to go in.

  “Oh shit!” Lucy exclaimed as she got to her feet.

  “What?” Gina looked up at her and laughed. “Do you know how foreign that sounded coming out of you?”

  Lucy pointed. Gina didn’t have to ask what or have a hard time seeing what Lucy was pointing at. To the north of them, and the same direction the men had gone, the ground glowed a rosy red color that seemed to pulse as if it were breathing.

  They heard sounds crashing through the brush and Gina leaped to her feet, prepared to run. She reached for Lucy’s hand, ready to drag her along when Sam and Ben broke through the cover of brush, running toward them.

  Panting, unable to catch his breath, Sam bent at the waist and rested his hands on his knees, taking in gulps of air. Ben was doing the same and sweat rolled off their faces. Their whole bodies steamed as if their clothes were warm and wet.

  Finally, Sam was able to talk, “We have to get the horses loaded and get out of here.”

  “We have to get to the bottom of the hill and be on the east side of the draw,” Ben exclaimed. He wasn’t as breathless as Sam appeared to be and continued, “It looks like I imagine hell would look like. There’s a river of molten lava headed right this way.”

  Chap
ter Two

  Finally, with no time and no other choices, they put the saddles on the two who weren’t carrying the pack saddles and stacked the other saddles one on top of the other and cinched them all down. Next, they began tying bags where ever they would fit, and there was a set of rawhide ties to tie with. The two marked cardboard boxes, Ben dumped into one side of the panniers on Gus’s packsaddle. Wherever there was a pocket of empty space they filled it with whatever they could cram in. Sam divided the cast iron cookware between both sides of the other horse’s packsaddle. Whoever had originally built them had used fiberglass, and they were large and light enough to be loaded fully.

  The two barrels of flour and beans rested in the valley between the panniers, and everything else was tied on where ever it would fit. Bags with handles were tied together and draped over a saddle.

  The extra bridles and halters, they hung off the saddle horns and anywhere else they could be tied to.

  Everything they could tie, stuff or cram in somewhere, was finally loaded. The fire had died to nothing more than coals, but Sam ran back and using his foot as a shovel scooped and kicked dirt over it, stirred it up with his foot and kicked more dirt on it. Satisfied it was out, he climbed on Clyde.

  The noxious odor of sulfur stung their noses as they rode down the hill. Looking back, it was easy to see the pulsing, and glowing mass, moving slowly through the fractured earth. There was nothing to stop it from following them down to their valley, but the one small dip between the last two hills. Once there, it could turn and follow them, or it could flow away from them. Either way, they would have to keep an eye on it and be prepared to move if they had to. Sam had no ideas where they could move to, unless it were to go back to the ranch house or the hay shed.

  Against his better judgment, Sam urged Clyde into an easy jog away from the living mass of liquid rock. Clyde, as well as the other horses, were eager to put distance between themselves and the toxic smell and eagerly set off.

  When they reached the top of the last hill overlooking their valley, they had left the smells and lava behind. But the memory of molten rock inching its way down the mountain would stay with them.

  They stopped to let the horses rest. Steam rose from their overheated bodies, and Sam wished they had blankets to cover them.

  Gina rode up beside Sam dragging Bess behind her. The mare had been tugging and pulling back for most of the trip. Gina could see that half of the problem was the extra saddle. It had slipped and hung off the side of her.

  She climbed down, loosened the second cinch and hoisted the saddle back where it sat more evenly on Bess.

  “We need to keep them moving Sam even if we just go slow. We don’t want them to cool off too much, so it’s best to continue. We can blanket them once we get to camp.”

  Sam realized they would have to keep to a walk the rest of the way. The hillside was too steep, and they didn’t have adequate light to see by. One wrong step and horse and rider would have a long way to fall. They couldn’t afford to lose an animal or a person to stupidity.

  “Okay, how’s everyone doing?”

  “Good,” I’m just glad to have made it this far. That was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen. Where did that stuff come from?”

  Ben agreed with Lucy, “I’ve never seen anything like it, but I remember a book from when I used to read about Pompeii…that’s all I keep thinking about…getting buried by lava.” Ben chuckled nervously and rode up closer.

  “If I’m right, I think either a volcano blew big time, and what we see now, are the repercussions from it, or the earth just opened up, and that shit is just boiling out. With the earthquakes, nothing would surprise me right now. And the aftershocks are doing as much damage as the first quake did.”

  “So, do you think the lava will make it all the way down to the valley floor?” Gina asked.

  “I just don’t know,” Sam said softly. “I never thought we’d ever have an eruption or earthquakes here, so what do I know?”

  Gina, first in line, got off Sailor to open the gate and held Bess from going through until the others had passed by. Closing it, she climbed up on Sailor, glad for the heat rising from his body. Just a few minutes of standing on the frozen ground reminded her how cold it was.

  As they drew closer to the tent, Sam called out, “Hello the camp!”

  Within a few minutes, they could see the light glowing through the canvas walls, followed by John and Andy coming out.

  “Sam? We weren’t expecting you back until tomorrow.”

  All four riders were still sitting on their horses when Matt came out and joined the two men on the ground. He had his arms full of the horse blankets.

  He came over to Gina and took hold of Sailors lines. “Let me help you with him.”

  Gina nodded because right then her teeth began chattering and she didn’t think she was capable of speech. She handed him the lead line attached to Bess along with her reins. She went to swing her leg over Sailors back when she stopped half way.

  “What the hell is that? Is something on fire?”

  Sam turned and looked the same direction as Gina, “Holy cow, John, what is that?” His mouth opened again, and no sound came out.

  The trees stood out in silhouette against an orange pulsating glow. The red and yellow radiated as far east and west as they could see without climbing up the newly formed ridgeline.

  Gina had frozen in place, staring up at the sky and wondered if this was the earlier premonition that had walked on her grave. She had never understood the saying until now. Another chill scurried up her spine, and she shivered. Without knowing for sure, Gina assumed it was the same as at the cabin. The earth had opened, spewing molten rock from the depths of hell.

  Her brain went into overdrive, the thoughts passing as quickly as she thought of them. Were they safe, did they need to pack up and move or should they run? Would they wake in the morning or would they be buried in molten lava? Her heart raced, her breath came in short bursts with the thoughts. Gina knew when her vision became hazy and her knees weakened that she was hyperventilating. She needed to get herself under control.

  Gina tapped her chest solidly, trying to get her body to settle down. She drew in a deep breath and held it and slowly blew it out through her mouth, she repeated the act several times and felt herself finally responding. She stood breathing deeply until she felt she could ask without falling apart. With one last deep breath, she exhaled the words out, “Are we leaving?”

  Andy was somehow standing right beside her, and she jumped when he touched her arm, “You okay?”

  Gina nodded at him without taking her eyes away from the pulsating glow. “It just looks so frightening, not being able to see it directly, but knowing it’s there.”

  Andy nodded, “It looks a lot worse in the dark, and it was pretty damn scary when we went over there, but John says as slowly as it’s moving, it would take weeks for it to reach the top of the ravine.”

  Gina drew in a deep cleansing breath and sighed. “You have no idea what was running through my brain. I was all set to jump on Sailor and ride.”

  “John says he knows nothing concrete about volcanoes, eruptions or earthquakes. He says all his knowledge comes from watching television, but I trust him to keep us safe.” He followed his words with a nervous chuckle, and Gina wondered if he believed himself.

  “I guess that will have to do for now, but I still feel the urge to fight or flight, and we sure can’t fight it so…”

  “Yeah, John and I felt the same way. Once you actually see how slowly it moves, do you realize we still have time.” He nodded at the reins and lead rope she had clutched in her hand, “Why don’t you give them to me? I have some hay that has their names written all over it.”

  Gina opened her fingers and allowed Andy to take the reins and rope. “Thanks, Andy.”

  He nodded and led Sailor and Bess toward the trailer. Gina wondered how they’d managed to get the hay. She knew it was what they had planned on doing that da
y, but hadn’t listened when they were talking about how they would execute their plan.

  Ben had already helped Lucy down from Joe, and Gina followed them inside the tent.

  “We should have helped those guys. We brought a lot of stuff back. It’s not fair they should have to unload it all.” Gina was standing in the doorway, ready to go back out and help.

  “Gina, take this and sit down. Those guys are capable of doing it,” John said and pushed a warm cup into her hand.

  Gina watched John in the lamplight and wondered about the worried look on his face.

  They sat at the table while John paced. Finally, he stopped and sat at the head of the table. He made eye contact with each of them in turn, “That probably looks a whole lot more frightening now than it did close up. The darkness makes it even more shocking. I was alarmed myself when I first saw it.”

  They sat in silence, staring at John waiting for him to continue. John frowned and looked down at his hands.

  “That’s it? Do you want to elaborate at all?”

  “Are we in danger here?” Lucy asked. She had leaned forward on the bench resting her elbows on the tabletop. Her fingers had turned white around her cup.

  “Not right now. At least I don’t think we are. We’ll keep an eye on it, but it looked to me as if it was beginning to harden along the edges. We really have no idea when it started or how far it goes. For all that we know, it could have opened up right after the last quake.”

  “I remember when Kilauea on the big island blew last year, and lava was still leaking the last time I remember seeing anything about it.” Lucy had removed her outer clothes and sat beside Ben.

  “Oh, my gosh, I do remember that. The pictures when the molten rock fell into the ocean were unbelievable.” Gina looked at John, “Are you saying this could be the same thing. We have a lava tube somewhere west of here that’s emptying into the riverbed?”

  John nodded, “It could be, and if I understand it correctly, the lava rises and lowers in the crater and is released into the tubes that extend out from the body of the volcano. There the tube empties into the ocean allowing the level of the magma in the volcano itself to go down. Here, we have no concrete information of what took place, but in my mind, this has nothing to do with Yellowstone. It’s too far southeast of here. The best bet would be Glacier.”