Back To Our Beginning (21 page)

There were two more places to enter or exit. One nearer to the bottom and one directly at the bottom of the larger room below. They both led outside, except the slightly smaller one was almost completely covered with mounds of icy snow. The openings were both roughly five to seven feet high and four to six feet wide.

“Mommy, I don’t like it here,” Michaela announced in a large whisper, hiding her face against the side of Clint’s leg.

The space was large; it would be hard to defend against an animal attack. There would be drafts and it would be hard to heat. Yet there was Tansy, looking for all the world like it was paradise. Clint reached down for Michaela and, securing her into the crook of his arm he cast Tansy a skeptical look.

Refusing to have her hopes shattered after such a long grueling trek and all their terrible losses, Tansy straightened her shoulders and put on her best defiant look. Clint knew that look and waited for her to explode. He didn’t have to wait long—he never did.

“Now listen here. We’re going to build a fire, a few in fact. We’re going to make beds, raid root cellars and live, damn it, or so help me I’ll make you wish you weren’t living.” The last was threatened through clenched teeth and quietly but with force. She stood with her hands balled into fists at her sides daring them to question her.

“Beds?” Clint asked casually, hoping to defuse her anger. “I can make beds now that we’re stayin’ and all.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Tansy said.

“I’m cold,” Michaela said with an audible pout in her tone.

“No pouting,” her mother admonished, taking a second to brandish a warning scowl.

Michaela stopped pursing her tiny bluish cold lips and looked up, eyes full of sorrow, at Clint. He kissed her forehead and tweaked her red nose playfully then tickled under her chin until she giggled. Her small arms wrapping around his neck, she settled her face against his warmth, grateful their separation was over. She’d missed him. The child had been fearful he vanished like the man whose memory occasionally tugged at her.

“Well, button,” Clint said with determination. “We’d best get busy.”

They did.

Emmy and Shanie brought in armloads of wood for fires. They decided on three large ones, spaced about in a triangular pattern with an area for comfort. They’d keep them all burning throughout the night, not only for warmth, but for security from animals. Once lit, the fires offered a great deal of light and peace of mind.

Clint had taken off after fashioning a small bed for Michaela to keep her up off the cold floor. Cuddling the child on his chest would’ve been fine but not practical. Clint, being the only man, felt responsible for the safety of the others. This was met with anger from Tansy and the girls. They insisted they survived without him in the beginning and after the flood. They were more than capable of taking turns on a watch. It was decided Clint would take first watch that night, Tansy second and Emmy and Shanie last. They were all given stern orders to wake Clint in case of any noise.

Tansy sat beside Michaela’s bed having coaxed the child into taking a nap. Clint had taken four even sturdy branches and made them into posts about two and a half feet high. He sharpened all four at one end. After burying two of them a half foot into the ground, he tied the tops together with the ripped pieces of curtain Tansy saved from the last house. Spacing out a small distance, he lined up two more equal-length sturdy branches. Once the other two poles were dug into the ground, he tied the tops together. Once finished, he secured the two longer poles midway up the embedded poles, up off the ground. He took about eight smaller sturdy sticks and tied them across width wise. Clint then put boughs of white pine and spruce across the width-wise sticks and covered it all with one of his jackets. Clint borrowed the bola from Tansy and headed out to find some small game.

Emmy and Shanie continued to bring in armloads of sticks and small logs, making a large pile near the fires but not close enough for them to catch. They’d need a great deal of fuel to burn through the night without having to leave the safety of the mine. Tansy made her own makeshift racks for drying clothes; she intended on washing every article of clothing they owned now that they were here, which she felt wouldn’t be difficult. All they had left was the tattered clothes on their backs.

Because washing had been so infrequent on their long walk, she had a few small bars of soap she’d stuck in her pockets and the girls’ before the flood. Tansy reasoned at the time at least the unused bar of soap carried on their persons aided in the battle against the terrible odor.

Tansy found four good-sized rocks and, after scouring the pot they found at the last cellar with sand found in the mine, she soon had a pot of water boiling and her other pot set aside filled with snow for later use. Tansy found if she made a fire small enough, she could arrange the rocks in a position to hold the pot just above the flames, to keep from scorching the pan. She also knew, from reading books, she could clean smaller rocks and once heated drop them into the water to sizzle, making the water boil. Then she could remove them and drop in more, though this proved a bit tricky without the aid of tongs. Fishing them out with small shaved sticks required some skill. Tansy never had any use for chopsticks, and her efforts proved to be clumsy while fishing for the small stones, often leaving her fingers burnt.

Once the water had been set to boil, Tansy engrossed herself in the book on plants. She was surprised to see you could boil many needles for teas and tried after finding a spruce. The book also mentioned cooking and eating inner bark but it didn’t mention how long to cook it. She shrugged, it wouldn’t be the first time her cooking had been a disaster and, she thought ruefully, it definitely wouldn’t be her last. Not if she was going to be cooking with foreign food. She laughed at that thought, the food may be all around but it was definitely foreign to her taste.

Tansy couldn’t figure out about something called tubers or lichens, but was aware of fiddleheads. They usually appeared in her grocery store in spring, and were delicious steamed. She was positive she’d be able to identify them when the time came. She was surprised to learn tree fungus wasn’t just something fun and interesting to write on with the children during a nature outing, you could eat some types.

So engrossed in her book, she didn’t hear Clint come in and jumped to her feet in surprise when he dropped the large dead duck before her.

“The triumphant hunter returns. Nice toy.” He handed her the bola.

“It’s not a toy,” she reprimanded putting the weapon aside. She stooped down and scooped up the heavy duck, holding it high on the neck, her mind was working on the uses of the feathers. “Bet if we caught enough of these we could make pillows.”

Clint took the duck outside to clean with Tansy bellowing after him to save the feathers. He chuckled, thinking only a woman would worry about a feather pillow, especially since she didn’t have a bed. Clint started thinking. He could make her a bed. If he went hunting and got a big animal he could make her a big bed. As the idea grew in his mind, it unfortunately expanded to his groin.

“Damn,” he muttered, becoming uncomfortable. But if he could just figure out how to get an animal skin for a bed he might figure out how to get Tansy into bed. He couldn’t buy her flowers or candy; he couldn’t take her to a movie or for a long drive. Giving himself a headache, Clint’s last thoughts were of how a Neanderthal had gotten laid.

“Damn,” he swore again. Shaking his head he was damned surprised they hadn’t become extinct sooner.

* * * *

“Are you sure?” Ethan asked Aidan.

“Positive.”

“How many?”

“Five,” Aidan answered. He was crouched low to the ground examining the footprints. Aidan stood up and watched Ethan’s excited expression turn pensive.

“That many?”

When they first found the footprints Ethan had been excited to learn other people were alive. They’d been walking, searching, for some time. It had been a relief when the bodies began to thin out in the less-populated area. But five was a bit much. There were only three of them and one was only a small boy. Ricky was completely defenseless; thin and tired from their long travels. The death of his mother had regressed his emotions.

They couldn’t hope to defend themselves against five people if they turned out to be dangerous, which was a definite possibility, some of the bodies they found had been people who weren’t killed by storms or starvation. What if they hurt his son? Or killed Ethan and Aidan and left Ricky alone to fend for himself? The child would never survive alone; Ethan doubted he himself would be able to in this new barbaric world.

Aidan knew that look of apprehension on Ethan’s face and placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder for reassurance. They’d grown close, sharing their fears and hopes, or if they thought the world might end tomorrow. They watched over Ricky like over-protective bears. Aidan had been teaching them how to live off the land, how to survive in case he was injured or killed.

“Don’t worry, my friend. Only one is a man. A big man, but I can’t see him giving both of us trouble.”

“Four women?”

“Maybe. Some could be boys. One isn’t more than a baby really, which is surprising. But by their shoe sizes and weight imprint they are either females or boys.”

Ethan’s heart lightened. Other boys would give Ricky someone to play with, or girls might give him someone to connect with once he grew older. It would be nice regardless to hear a female voice. Sarah hadn’t been gone long, but the loneliness of female companionship had lain heavily with him. Ethan wondered if Ricky would ever have the chance to have a family of his own. But if he did, what kind of a world was this? It was as though they’d been thrown back into the past. Back to living like cavemen, worse than cavemen. Having not to relearn but learn in general how to survive from scratch with what was available around them, with weather he doubted cavemen needed to endure even at its most volatile state.

They didn’t know if other countries still operated, if some sense of sanity had been spared somewhere, anywhere. Everywhere they wandered, telephone poles were uprooted, hydro nonexistent, cell phones, regular phones, computers were inoperable. There was no hope contacting other countries or provinces. Those who survived on solar energy couldn’t save their windmills from the devastation. The few vehicles spared from the wrath of the storms ran out of gas and no more was to be had. Because of the debris, they were unable to travel any great distances in vehicles of any kind but the warmth they offered proved invaluable, especially when in an underground parking lot.

As Aidan expected they had come across the remains of survivors; he assumed at least some would have found shelter even if the storms had struck quickly. Those few able to find shelter starved, froze, or died of contaminated water. Aidan was skilled in reading the signs around him and at each discovery informed Ethan of the circumstances then elaborated on ways they could have saved themselves so Ethan would never be caught unawares if finding himself and Ricky in the same situation.

With gruesome understanding they could see where families had taken their own lives in desperation or despair. Others were murdered over what little supplies they had salvaged.

“Listen, we better be careful just the same,” Aidan cautioned. “We better do some surveillance, search them out and get our bearings. After all we know they exist, but they haven’t got a clue about us.”

Nodding his agreement, Ethan and Aidan began devising a plan.

* * * *

Morning came and with it sunshine, not overcast or wannabe sunshine, as Clint called it, but honest to goodness sunshine. The kind people whistled to, sang about, or hunted in. Clint was off early that morning, one thought...perhaps two, on his mind. He wanted a large game animal. Feeling a predator, he grabbed up a bow and arrow he had worked on during his watch. He used twine from a bale of straw and a bowed birch, he sharpened the end of a number of straight sticks. Using thin strands from his worn shoelace, he tied feathers from the duck for balance at the opposite ends and used more twine to tie them together for easier traveling.

Seeing the determination in his eyes, Tansy stood back and watched him leave. She wasn’t his babysitter and she knew he was a different man when in his element. But that didn’t stop Tansy from putting Emmy in charge of Michaela while she and Shanie went out do some hunting of their own.

After making their way to the ice-covered lake, one of many small ones in the vicinity, Tansy and Shanie continued to trudge through the snow. They came upon a cabin that was still standing and explored it cautiously. It was immaculate inside. In one of the bedrooms lay an elderly couple; it was apparent they froze to death. They held one another closely in their eternal demise, their frozen faces serene, cheek to cheek, captured love in endless time. Tansy and Shanie offered a few small words remembered from the Bible and thoughts from the heart, heads bowed in deference to the solemnness of the occasion. They left the homemade quilt protecting the couple’s bodies alone, unwilling to disturb their slumber. Then their search began in earnest; it was now time for the living.

They concluded though there was no root cellar, their search wasn’t in vain. Tansy grabbed two large garbage bags found under a cupboard and they proceeded to sack the cabin. Although the cupboards were bare of food, they pulled a large decorative bearskin from the living room wall, found linens and a few various-sized towels on the bathroom shelves folded neatly. They gathered up soaps, pots, pans and a few filled kerosene lanterns.

Within a small knitting basket Tansy found a crochet hook and pocketed it. She grabbed as many of the small empty plastic grocery bags she was able to fit or stuff on her person from the kitchen, tucking her pant leg into her sock and filling her pant legs as full as she dared. She remembered seeing Emmy crocheting strips of the bags together for the homeless. A number of the students had done this as a regular project. When crocheted, the plastic was an added barrier between the frozen ground and a warm body. She made a mental note to remember to search for more plastic when the opportunity presented itself.