The Emerald Virus (30 page)

    
“Okay, of those let’s take a look at destinations and see how many are planning
on staying in the northwest for the winter, versus those who are driving south.
Let’s eliminate Utah for now.”

    
Jane and Heather started working the spreadsheet and Jack used the time to call
Charlotte White, the lady Sam had recommended to him. He knew it was a little
late but he didn’t want to waste time this evening. When he looked up the
number on his spreadsheet he found the notation that said he had spoken with
her briefly. He remembered the call, and that Charlotte hadn’t been willing to
talk. From what Sam said, she must be better now.

    
He dialed her number and when she answered he said, “Hi Charlotte, this is Jack
Sweeney calling you back. When we spoke the last time I was driving to
Baltimore. I’m now with two survivors in the middle of Virginia. Do you have a
minute to talk or would you prefer I call you tomorrow?”

    
“Hi Jack. I have plenty of time now, and I’m doing better than I was two days
ago so let’s talk now.”

    
“Good. I want to start by letting you know that I am not a survivor. I left the
bunker because the seals were going to fail and I wanted to help a friend who
is a survivor. I would appreciate it if you would treat me like everyone else
since neither of us can control what’ll happen to me. I’m not worried about it
and I don’t want you to be. Why don’t you start by catching me up on your
whereabouts?”

    
“I’d be glad to. I’m in a Tennessee State Park, named Standing Stone State
Park, its west of Timothy and south of the Dale Hollow Dam and Reservoir.

    
“I’m here because my family and I vacationed in this area so I know it a little
bit, and because I’m taking your advice to find a remote area in the Tennessee
River Valley because of the electrical power potential. I’m with a small group
of others. There were four of us when we left Chattanooga, but as of this
evening we now have ten survivors.  

    
“My husband James and my two boys spent hour after hour going over maps with me
and we decided this was the best possible place. It seems I’ve talked quite a
few others into thinking the same way.”

    
“I talked with Sam Klein earlier this evening and she said that I would enjoy
talking with you, and she’s right of course. I asked her a favor and I’d like
to ask you the same thing if you don’t mind.”

    
“I had a very nice conversation with Sam earlier today. I was surprised she was
a Samantha but I enjoyed meeting her. We were able to share some stories, and
we compared thoughts on where to go. She was going to try to make it to
Yellowstone but she didn’t sound too optimistic. I hope she finds a good place
for the winter.”

    
“When I last spoke with her she was at the entrance to the park and things
looked good for her. I’m sure she’ll make it to the hot springs area. She seems
quite capable.”

    
“She struck me that way as well. What favor did you call to ask of me?”

    
“Charlotte, I’m wondering if you would mind helping me with the survivors. My
greatest fear is that someone ends up alone and scared for the winter. I’m
trying to contact each survivor but there are too many for me. Would you be
willing to share that task with me? It will entail making phone calls to the
list I’ll email you, and making suggestions on where each survivor should go. I
would hope that you offer to guide them to your group or somewhere reasonably
close by.”

    
“I would be happy to help you. Believe me it is no burden, I need something to
help me stay busy. You said you would email me a list of people?”

    
“Yes, I and my two team mates will sort through the database for those in your
region, or who have shown your region as a destination, and I’ll send that via
email. Are you up on email and comfortable with using it?”

     
“Of course, you can’t help run a business without automation skills. Sort the
spreadsheet and send it if you want, I did the books for our business for years
and I’m familiar with most spreadsheets.”

    
“I’ll do that. And I want you to know I appreciate your help. While some might
chose to be alone at a time like this, most won’t. These calls should help
those who haven’t yet made contact with anyone else. It will take a while to
get the spreadsheet sorted so please don’t look for it until morning. My cell
number is on it so you can call with any question you have, any time you feel
the need. By the way the two people I’m with are Jane Silverton and Heather
Sharp. They’re helping me so you can call either of them if my line is tied
up.”

    
“Okay, thanks Jack. You know, Silverton is a very unusual name why does that
sound familiar to me?”

    
“I probably mentioned Harry Silverton in one of my earlier messages or press
conferences. Harry was the scientist in Edinburgh, Scotland who first raised
the Emerald Virus issue. He was on my staff working temporarily in Edinburgh.
When he died I promised Harry I’d do my best to look after Jane, his wife. When
I realized the seals were going to fail in my bunker it was an easy call to
drive to Baltimore to help Jane.

    
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

    
“Jack, I wish there was but I can’t think of anything but my family right now.
We were a farming family and my husband James brought a back hoe to the house
and dug a family grave in the backyard. My son Jamal was the last to die and he
helped me move the family into the grave. I was able to take care of Jamal
myself. And of course I’ve always known how to work a back hoe so I could give
my family a proper burial.

    
“That was the only thing important to me and I haven’t moved beyond that yet.”
Charlotte was crying by now and Jack asked her questions about her husband and
her children. He found he didn’t mind helping people with their grief. They
needed to talk, and he found it easy to listen.

    
When he felt Charlotte was talked out for now he said, “I’ll let you go now,
Charlotte. I’m glad we had an opportunity to talk, and I appreciate your offer
to help me. You know you can call me anytime.”

    
Charlotte said goodbye to Jack and sat back in her chair. Jack may have thought
leaving the bunker early was a simple decision, but most people would not have
traded additional time to live because of a promise to a dying friend. She was
more impressed with Jack now than before. He had the same kind of values that
her James’ had passed on to her boys, and she was sad that he wasn’t going to
make it.

    
Jack told Jane and Heather about the call and they smiled at the thought of
putting together another list of people. They asked and Jack told them to start
by looking at survivors from north Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, plus
anyone who had shown Tennessee as their destination.

    
After his next call Jane said, “As close as we can tell that would give
Charlotte about two hundred people to deal with.”

    
“Okay, that’s too many for one person but I think we should send her the list
and ask if in her opinion any others in the group would be capable of
contacting others. If so I’ll leave it to her, but I’ll tell her if she can’t
recommend anyone I’ll find someone else to help her.”

    
“Let’s continue the calls in the morning. Jane if you would email those two
lists to Sam and Charlotte I think we’ll call it a night. I really don’t want
to call anyone else this late.”

    
“Jane, if you’ll cook dinner Heather and I will volunteer to clean up, and do
almost anything else you want us to.”

    
Jane laughed and said, “Jack, my guess is your cooking skills might be
dangerous for us so I’ll be happy to cook. I’ll spend the time thinking about
what else I can get out of you in return.”

    
The three of them had what amounted to an almost pleasant dinner, and went to
bed early.

    
In the morning they continued calling people and sorting lists and by noon they
thought they had a pretty good handle on who would cover the various regions.
Jack had talked to Andy again. He remembered that Andy was a recent engineering
graduate and sounded very organized. Andy agreed to take care of the southwest
since he was heading west from New Orleans. He was planning on wintering somewhere
west of Phoenix.

    
He also found a number of people from Texas who were not planning on going far
from home, and who would contact the two hundred and fifty or so people either
in Texas or heading to Texas.

    
All in all he had a created a team of eighteen people who were willing to
contact others. So he only had to follow up with these eighteen to make sure
all survivors were contacted. He told each of them he would try to call once a
day for the next couple of days. He also asked them to keep updating the
spreadsheets he had sent them, and to return them with the new annotations
every evening. He felt confident this was going to work well.

    
Jack called Dave Schultz next. He let him know about the contacts he had made
and suggested Dave, Jean and Scott join Charlotte and her group at Standing
Stone Lake. Dave immediately agreed, saying they were going to end up in the
Tennessee River Valley anyway and Standing Lake sounded good to him. He also
said he had now been joined by seven other RVs, and he was sure as they continued
to call others they would have more. Jack left Dave with Charlotte’s number,
and then called Charlotte.

    
Her phone was busy but she called back shortly. Jack told her about Dave and
Charlotte said she had been on the phone with him. She was excited he was
coming and there was ample room for other RVs. This was a true recreation
center and there were RV parks everywhere. They wouldn’t have any trouble
finding enough places for whoever wanted to come.

    
Lastly she mentioned that Dave was a building contractor who specialized in
residential building. While she didn’t think they would be building any houses
in the near future, she thought his skills would be invaluable. He was also
going to help her with the contacts.

Monday:
From Pine Ridge to Yellowstone

    
Noah had been on the road all day and was starting to worry about the weather.
The farther west he drove the more threatening the sky became.  He had decided
early in the day to take Sam’s advice and use the west entrance to the park,
even though it meant adding a couple of hours to the drive. With any snow on
the ground the mountain passes he would face by using the east or north
entrances would be impossible. He had no interest at all in navigating those
narrow roads without being able to see surface pavement.

    
By the time he reached Bozeman he left the Interstate and followed highway 191
to 84 to 287 and went south through Ennis, Montana, a town he really liked. He
had stayed and fished here with a friend years ago and still had good memories
of the town. At Ennis it started snowing and within ten minutes it was snowing
heavily.

    
He called Sam to tell her about the snow and to check on conditions in the
park. She said it had been snowing in the park for about an hour. She promised
to keep the road in the park clear by using the snow plow she and Ben had
already used once.

    
She asked him what route he was taking and he told her he had just left Ennis
and would follow 287 north of Hebgen Lake and then south to West Yellowstone.
It was a road he had traveled before and he thought it would be the least risky
route. Sam agreed with him and told him she would meet him at the park. She
also told him she had overestimated the distance form West Yellowstone to the
main lodge. She originally thought it would be about twenty five miles but it
turned out to be only about fifteen miles or so.

    
He told Sam if things went okay he should be in West Yellowstone in maybe an
hour or a little more.

    
Fifteen minutes later he realized how wrong he was. He stopped and spent thirty
minutes fighting with the rear chains. He finally got them on and called Sam to
let her know. But, there was no cell service available on this stretch of road
so he reminded himself to try every ten minutes or so. It was getting close to
dusk now and he was down to about fifteen miles an hour.

    
The wipers were working on high and could hardly stay up with the task of
keeping the front windshield clear. Noah finally had to stop and get a broom
out of one of the closets to sweep the entire windshield, as well as the
headlights. He knew he would have to do this over and over but he wanted good
vision. He knew if he went off the road he would be in serious trouble.

    
He had no idea how long it would snow. It was really weird not having access to
weather forecasts. By the looks of it though, it was going to go on for some
time. Noah knew that his life depended on staying on the road. He could stop
whenever he wanted, and ride out the storm right where he was. He might not be
able to move after the storm, depending on how deep the snow was, but he
wouldn’t risk driving off the road into a ditch or gully and risk having the RV
land on its side. That would probably be the end for both him and his horses.

    
Noah tried Sam again and still could not get through. He decided he would
continue to drive at ten to fifteen miles an hour as long as he was sure he
could see the road. He was directly in the middle of the indentation in the
snow that showed where the roadbed was hidden. His biggest concern right now
was missing the ‘T’ intersection where he would have to turn right towards West
Yellowstone.

    
He knew if the sky was clear he would see mountains on either side of the road,
and would enjoy the rugged view of Hebgen Lake as he got closer to the park.
More importantly he knew he would have no passes to deal with, which was the reason
he had decided to come this way. He also knew that running off the road near
the lake could be a true disaster. In that water he would freeze to death in a
matter of minutes.

    
Two hours later he was at the ‘T’ intersection he had been afraid to miss. He
felt lucky he had seen the intersection in time, or rather had seen the snow
covered stop sign sticking up. He made the right turn being thankful the lake
was now behind him, and realized that if he remembered right he only had about
five miles to go to West Yellowstone.

    
The snow was deep enough now that he was worried it would soon reach above the
front bumper, which meant he would have to stop.

    
He tried to call Sam again, but again, nothing.

    
Within a mile the RV slowed down and nothing he did could get it moving again.
He got out, confirming his worst fears. The snow was now too deep for him to
continue and the front grill was acting as a plow. Well, he had given it his
best shot but there was now nothing to do but conserve heat and prepare to sit
out the storm. He knew if he thought too much about it he would start to worry
about having to sit out the entire winter right here.

    
He pulled all of the curtains in the RV, including the cover over the front
windshield. Once it stopped snowing it was likely to get cold, really cold, so
he wanted to button up the RV as much as possible.

    
He then went back to the horses and made sure the on board heater was working
and that the horses had enough feed and water available to them. They both
seemed relieved to see him and he spent about thirty minutes soothing them and
ensuring them that he was not going to leave them alone. He thought he might be
able to ride Palouse into West Yellowstone after the storm, although he didn’t
know what good that would do. By now Sam and Ben must have given up on him, and
if they had any sense at all they would be safely ensconced in the big lodge.

    
Noah entered the RV, cooked dinner and ate while he listened to one of his
favorite CDs, New Moon Shine, by James Taylor. Noah then settled into the
armchair to read for an hour or two before he went to bed.

    
About a half hour later something started pounding on, and then jerked the door
open. He was coming out of his seat and reaching for the gun on the table when
he heard Ben say, “Noah, what in the heck are you doing, as he closed the door
behind him.

    
Noah said, “Are you Ben?”

    
“Yeah, I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. What in the blazes are you
doing? Why isn’t your CB radio on?”

    
Noah felt chagrined and said, “Well, as for what I’m doing, I’m settled in for
the night because I can’t get the RV to move in the snow. As for my radio, it
isn’t on because I forgot I had one. To tell you the truth it just never
occurred to me. More importantly, where in the world did you come from, how’d
you get here, and why?”

    
Ben got out of his winter coat and boots, and Noah could see he was shaking
from the cold. Ben said, “Do you have any hot coffee brewed? I’m freezing and
that would really help. I’m going to call Sam and let her know I found you and that
you’re not dead.”

    
Noah smiled and grimaced at the same time. He smiled watching Ben try to react
as an adult and grimaced because he knew this mistake was his. In retrospect he
couldn’t believe he had forgotten he had the radio in the RV.

    
He listened to Ben succinctly tell Sam that they were together, that Noah had
forgotten he had a CB radio, and that they were going to start out again as
soon as Ben warmed up.

    
As he replaced the radio mike Noah said, “What are you talking about, how did
you get here, and how are we going to get out of here?” Noah could only surmise
that Ben was either on a heavy duty snowmobile or a snow cat, neither of which
would help since he wasn’t about to leave the horses here alone.

    
Ben looked up and said, “I drove a road grader out here. The road is now clear
enough for you to drive on. If you stay behind me I’ll keep it clear in front
of you. I’m here because Sam decided you were probably going to need help
getting through the blizzard. She has a snow plow and is trying to keep the
road in the park open by driving back and forth from the lodge to the entrance.”

    
Just then Sam came over the radio asking for Noah. He picked up the mike and
said, “Hi Sam, this is Noah.”

    
“Noah, I’m in West Yellowstone and I need to know if you have enough mountain
winter clothes?”

    
“I just have what I brought with me. It isn’t made for this kind of snow
though.”

    
“Yeah, I know the feeling. Let me have your clothes and shoe sizes. Ben and I
outfitted ourselves in West Yellowstone and while I wait for you I’ll pick up some
winter stuff for you.”

    
Noah gave her the information and said, “If you haven’t picked up large white
windbreakers and powder pants you should probably do that. Three of those
specialty sleeping bags that are good for glacier sleeping ain’t a bad idea
either.”

    
“I cleared the shelves of the sleeping bags on our last trip but the white gear
is a good idea, just in case. I’ll see you in West Yellowstone. I’m going to
wait at the entrance to the park so I can clear the way for you and Ben. That
grader could save someone’s life if we leave it there.”

    
Noah said “We shouldn’t be too long since Ben will be backtracking over a road
he has already cleared once. We could be there in a half hour.”

    
When he had signed off he said to Ben, “I’m impressed with her. She seems to
know what she’s doing and doesn’t hesitate at all.”

    
“You’ll like her. She really knows a lot and she thinks of everything. And she’s
as nice a person as I’ve met in a long time. One of the things I like about her
is that she knew exactly what you meant about getting white lightweight gear,
and she didn’t have to ask any questions, so she didn’t.” He looked kind of
abashed when he continued, “But I didn’t understand it, could you let me know
what the two of you were talking about?”

    
Noah smiled and said, “I’m sure if you weren’t so cold the thought would have
come to you. I’d like to have the gear for camouflage in the snow, just in case
we ever need it. We probably won’t, but better to be safe than sorry.”

    
“Okay, let’s get started. I’ll have to turn the grader around and I have chains
in case I need to pull you over that snow against your front bumper.”

    
“You go ahead and turn the grader around. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll
get a shovel out of the horse trailer and dig the front end out. I think that
might be safer than wrapping a chain around an axle.”

    
“Okay, and don’t worry about visibility. I’ve got six lights on the front of
the grader and two spotlights on the rear cross bar. I’ll keep them on but
shining on the sides of the road so they don’t blind you.”

    
They had no trouble getting started and thirty minutes later they pulled up
behind the snow plow parked at the entrance to the park. Ben got out and walked
up to the cab. Sam also got out and they introduced each other.

    
The only thing Noah could see of Sam were her eyes, and he noticed that they
were a startling bright green. He said, “Hi Sam, I wanted to meet you before we
started out again. Thank you for deciding that you and Ben should help me out.
I couldn’t have been here without the two of you. I was locked into the snow,
probably until spring.”

    
Sam smiled through the snow and said, “I only did it because I knew you were
the kind of man that would do the same for Ben or me. Please don’t prove me
wrong.”

    
Noah returned the smile and said, “You have a lot of things to worry about Sam,
but that ain’t one of them.

   
 Sam said, “I’ve tried to stay up with the snow but I haven’t been able to.
About halfway to the lodge the snow is much heavier, and much deeper on the
road. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get through this tonight. I think we might
be better off staying here in West Yellowstone and waiting out the storm.
Tomorrow we’ll have three of us plowing, which should make it easier. That’s
assuming the snow stops. If it doesn’t we’ll have to give up on wintering at
the lodge.”

    
Noah responded, “I’m really sorry that I’ve created this problem for you.
Without me you and Ben would be at the lodge weathering the storm.”

    
“Don’t feel too bad, there always seems to be a reason for everything. Those
RVs over there belong to Ben and I. Let’s take the time to put the horse
trailers next to each other and park the RVs on the two sides and across the
rear doors to the trailers. I think that’s as much protection as we’ll be able
to give the horses. Is your trailer heated?”

    
“Yes it is. I’ve fed and watered mine for the evening, and the heater is on.
But I’ll check on them one more time.”

    
“Good, Ben and I will do the same thing and then you can pull your RV across
the rear doors. I think that’s the best we can do.

    
“Our only option would be to find a hotel or house to stay in and I’m not keen
on that idea.”    

    
“I agree with that. I just buried my friends yesterday and I’m not ready to go
through that again so soon. That’s why I was heading to the park. It’s been
closed since late September and no one stays at the big lodge during the
winter. I think the ranger station at the north entrance is the only place that’s
manned all year long, and I doubt any of the rangers stayed on duty until the
end.”