Calamity in America (22 page)

It was only yesterday that we even talked much at all.  Before that it was only short sentences of instructions or necessary small talk.  It was yesterday that we exchanged names.  He hesitated when giving me his name and I actually believe that he had to think to remember what it was.  He has apparently lived all alone for many years here.

Today is a typical day.  I got up and he is nowhere around this small community that I have walked around today like I have done previously.  He is off somewhere and very likely he will return in the late afternoon with a rabbit or something for us to eat for supper. 

I have now looked through all the cupboards in this motorhome and found a wealth of items from before.  Before the fall of our country that is.  There is real soap of many different kinds, a small amount of factory-made food stuffs left from before.  Mostly spices and such that last a long time and you don’t use much of in normal cooking.  There is a good supply of new food items like jerky and dried fruits and a few things that I really don’t recognize. 

I am wearing some of the “new” clothes that he brought here for me.  What I didn’t want or didn’t fit he has now taken away back to wherever he keeps things like that.  I had been using the running water here in the motor home for everything and marveling at just how great we all had it before.  But after going through all the cupboards I found only a few rolls of toilet paper and when I asked him about it he said he always used the outhouse just steps away from the motor home.  He had been hoarding the little remaining toilet paper for if he got sick or incapacitated.  I have now started using the outhouse instead of the inside toilet also.  At least most of the time. 

The outhouse is a small metal building that many people used to buy to store their garden tools and such in during the before-times.  He had made a simple place to sit and used a regular toilet seat.  It is apparently sitting over a manhole for an old septic tank.  There is a stack of newspapers and such inside to use which is still way better than what most people now have to use.

Plus, the running water in the motor home is still so nice for washing up.  He had the gas water heater going so I had both hot and cold running water.  I have looked at the several big propane gas tanks that he must have moved here while he still had access to gas powered machines.  There are several of the big tanks and, while three read “empty” on the gauges, there is still a good supply in the remaining tanks.  He has obviously been using it very sparingly all these years.  For now I will continue to enjoy the luxury of the readily available hot water, until I get a guilty conscience from using his carefully saved fuel.

Sure enough when late afternoon rolled around the bear of a man showed up, and this time he had a few quail for us to have fresh meat for our shared supper meal.  He actually apologized that he had returned so late and could not cook them longer so they would be more tender.

I am trying to draw him out so he talks more.  His speech is getting better each time we talk.  I do believe that he has lived alone for all those years and is not used to talking to other people and almost learning how all over again.

Another morning and he is gone again.  Today I walked out and made a large circle around this old community.  I took water and some of the jerky and dried fruit with me and walked several miles.  I did have to rest a few times during the trek.  Something I was not used to doing, but the fall and whack on the head must have taken a toll on me.  But I will continue to push myself every day until I am back in the peak condition I was in before the accident.

Tony and I talked about how long I should keep the splints in place on my arm.  Both of us tried to remember just how long people used to have to wear casts on their arms before, when there were doctors and such.  We guessed a month but he looked in a couple medical books he had and said that six weeks might be safer for a complete heal of the bones.

I found an old calendar and I am marking off the days on that so I will know when the six weeks are up.  It’s been a very long time since I had any use for a calendar.  I’m not even sure what month this is right now.

Rabbit was on the menu tonight.  I ate a lot of it.  I saw Tony look at me when I took some for the second time. 

“I’m trying to get all my strength back,” I said, my mouth full of rabbit meat.

“Certainly have as much as you want.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let myself get fat off your generosity.”

“No worries here.  I want you to get healthy as quickly as you can.”

I just looked at him at that sentence.  I mean, I am not an ugly woman.  Or at least so I have been told. 

The following week I pushed my walks during the days farther and farther.  I had thought briefly of carrying my bow and arrows but they were useless to me with my bad arm.  I did start carrying my big backpack though.  At first I had it mostly empty, then I added more and more to it everyday until I had all my stuff in it again.  At the end of the week Tony had supper cooked and was obviously waiting for me before he started eating when I finally got back to camp for that day.

“Have you been going out everyday?”

“Yes.  I need to get stronger.  I push myself harder and farther everyday.  As far as walking goes, I am about back to where I was before the accident.”

“You do look much better now.  I mean healthier now.”

“Sorry you had to wait for me tonight.”

“It was certainly not a problem at all.  I was wondering where you were though.”

“Maybe I should walk with you tomorrow.  If you don’t have secrets you don’t want me to see that is.”

“That’s fine.  You can come with me if you wish.  In one of the closets in the motorhome you can find a day pack that you can use in place of that big pack of yours.”

“Yes, I had seen that in there.  Thanks.  I will use it and leave with you in the morning then.”

So the next day was the first time we hiked together.  We made a loop and returned to camp early.  It was blatantly obvious that he had cut his trek way short because of me.

“I walked much farther than that carrying my heavy pack by myself.  Take your normal route tomorrow.  I will keep up.”

So the next day we walked much farther.  And the next day even farther.  And again farther the following day.  I think at this point he realized that I could walk much farther.

“I would like to check on a couple of my more distant camps.  I have not been to them since you came here.  I will be gone overnight the next couple days.  You can just lay up here.”

“Is there some reason I can not accompany you?”

“I will be staying out overnight.”

“So?”

“The camps are RV’s and do have separate beds but we would be staying in the same place overnight.”

“Does that mean you would be unable to help yourself and you would end up attacking me during the night while I was sleeping?”

“I would never do anything like that.”

Even with all that hair coving almost his whole face I could see that he actually blushed.  I could not help the smile on my face.

“Then I see no problem with me coming along with you.  Do you see a problem?”

He was obviously flustered.

“No. You can come with if you want to.  There would be no problem.”

So the next day was the first of our overnight stays together.  And there of course were no problems.

So over the next couple of weeks I got to see his setup of different camps that he had spread out all around the community where his home had been before the end times.

It was a pretty good setup for him I have to admit.  When I asked, he explained to me how while he still had access to vehicles and before all the fuel had gone bad he had moved the abandoned RV’s that just about everyone in Arizona had seemed to have in past times to these remote locations to use for camps.  He had done additional work at each one to make it better for its extended stay at each location.  Each was placed next to some form of water supply.  Several were placed next to old-fashioned windmills.  These produced fresh, clean drinkable water with no further treatment. 

The ones near cricks or springs he did still boil all the water he gathered for drinking.  It was a sweet setup.  One day he even showed me the one that he lost to a wildfire.

Chapter 14

The woman, well Beth, is now very healthy and she has all her strength back.  Her arm is still healing and there are still many things she can not do because of her arm being in a sling.  Many times she now takes it out of the sling but she cannot use it for fear of causing complications with the break.  She can easily keep up with me when we go hiking together. 

I was very careful at first when she started going with me but she told me and I found out for myself that I did not have to alter my daily routes because of her.  She even went with when I told her that I would be staying out overnight at some of my more distant camps. 

I was hesitant about that but she was quite adamant about going with me on these overnight treks as well as the regular ones we had been on.  Whatever fears I had were ungrounded because the overnight stays turned out to be no big deal for either of us, and since then we have stayed out many times.  Even times when we could have pushed on all the way back to the main camp.

I admit, after all these years alone, having her around—while way different—is not a bad thing.  I might even miss it when she leaves after her arm is whole again.  She has informed me that she has been checking off the days, and in less than two weeks she will be removing the splints for good.  At first she said she will take it a little easy on that left arm, but she will be doing exercises daily to get its strength up again.

She is a determined woman, that’s for sure.  She is not afraid of work either.  She does an amazing amount of work now with only her one arm.  Though I have caught her using her left arm on occasion even with the splint on it.

She of course cannot shoot a bow with only one arm, but I found out she does not really even need that bow.  One day, when we were getting close to the nightly camp spot and we were both on the lookout for something for supper, she spotted a rabbit.  I did not know what she stopped for because I could not see the rabbit from the spot a short distance away where I was standing.  We have become attuned to each other after this long of a time together and we always stop when the other does.  Almost too quick to follow with my eyes, she drew one of her knives (I had discovered she carried four of the same, oddly shaped knives on her belt) and gave it a throw.  Then she calmly walked forward, bent down, and straightened up with a rabbit that had a very bloody head.

She is obviously very handy with those throwing knives that she carries.  Since then, I have watched her practice a few times.  She is very good indeed.  I think “deadly” is maybe a suitable term to use describing her knife-throwing abilities.

One day we stayed not too far from the main camp and I brought my wheelbarrow with us in the morning.  Out a couple miles from camp I left the wheelbarrow and we started hunting in earnest for a deer.  I wanted to get one and jerk all the meat before spring came and the temps went way up. 

It was a couple hours later when I was able to hit a small buck deer with my bow.  As soon as the deer was down Beth volunteered to go get the wheelbarrow and left almost before I could say anything.  I wondered just how she would handle the two handles on the wheelbarrow with one of her arms unusable.  She returned after a short time, pushing the thing with her one good hand and on the other side she had fashioned a strap from the left handle to her shoulder.  When I remarked on it she just said as long as it was empty it was no problem for her.  She did say that when I had the thing loaded it was all mine to get it back to camp.

When we got back to camp I started skinning the deer but after just a minute Beth stopped me and said she would do it.  I did not argue and instead just watched as she took a regular hunting knife from her belt and started skinning.  It took little time for me to see that she is much better at it than I.  I watched the whole time as she finished skinning the deer.  She was better and faster than me and I also noticed she never had cuts that punctured the hide.

       Later, she also proved that she was adept at cutting up meat into strips for making into jerky and that job went very quickly with her help.  I had shown her the small metal shed I had adapted into a smokehouse for making the jerky.  All I had really done was string barbed wire back and forth inside the thing to hang the meat from.  I had also dug a trench under one side to use to insert wood to the fire without having to open the doors and let out all the heat and smoke.  I had also cut a large hole in the wall next to the roof with a piece of metal that could be used to regulate the smoke coming out.  I had another piece of metal that could be used over the trench to regulate the incoming fresh air.  I have used it for years and have the operation down pat now.

Beth was suitably impressed with the operation.  For some reason this fact pleased me more than it should have I thought.  When the meat was all cut up and in the smoker, she turned her attention to the deer hide.  She fleshed it out and then went and got a bucket with water and proceeded to wash the hide pretty thoroughly.  She refilled the bucket a couple times.  When she was satisfied with the cleaning she asked me for a hammer and by the time I returned with one she had cut pegs with one sharp end which she used to stretch the hide out and stake it out on an abandoned loose rock front “lawn.”  She then said she would brain tan the hide (whatever that is) tomorrow if it was dry.  I found out more the next day as I watched her continue working on the hide, getting it tanned or at least starting the tanning process.  There was no doubt from watching her that she had done this many times in the past.

Things seemed to be going well.  Remarkably, Beth and I seemed to mesh pretty well together.  This, I admit, surprised me because I was so used to living alone and I did like living alone.  I could have left here at anytime and likely found a group to join somewhere but I stayed here because I liked it that way.  Of course, doesn’t it always seem that when things are going good something always throws a wrench in the gears to screw things up again?