Calamity in America (27 page)

The garden finally wound down and I have saved a large quantity of seeds for future use.  I ended the season with at least twice as many seeds as when I had started.  With the end of the garden, both Tony and I moved back to the main camp for the bulk of our time.  We did go out and visit the other camps but now the fruit trees in the community were starting to produce, and that required attention with the picking, peeling/cutting, and drying of the fruit.

We also ate plenty of the fresh fruit off the trees.  I had never realized just how many fruit trees there were scattered around in the community.  Then, on a few days, Tony took me on treks out to visit scattered, abandoned homes well away from the community where he knew there were additional fruit trees growing.  We always returned from those outings both carrying heavy packs that were full of additional fruit to be dried.

At about this same time the mesquite pods were getting ripe also.  Tony had always picked some of them to make syrup, but this year we picked much, much more.  Tony said we had way too much for syrup but he had never realized what he had in one of his storage houses. 

He had stored several hand meat grinders that he never used for grinding meat.  The scrap meat pieces from making strips of jerky he had just placed in the smokehouse on a metal window screen and jerked the scraps along with all the cut strips.  So he never used the meat grinders and still never wasted any of the meat.  Mixed in with the many different meat grinders he found was one that had big, mostly-flat plates that were made to grind grain into flour.

I showed him how we could make flour from the mesquite pods.  First we ran the ripe, mostly-dry pods through a regular hand meat grinder.  For this I picked out from the choices he had the meat grinder with the coarsest grind.  The pods looked and felt dry, but running through the meat grinder you could see that they still contained a lot of moisture.  The beans inside these pods were still relatively soft (once dry these beans get very, very hard).  Because of the moisture and still soft beans, the pods could be ground up just like meat in the grinder.  Once ran through the meat grinder we put the grindings into the dehydrators to fully dry.

Once completely dry (and they dried very fast after the grinding) the grindings could then be run through the hand grain mill, which produced mesquite flour.  The key here was that the grindings had to be very dry or else it would gum up the grain mill in no time.  We now had flour!

Mesquite flour is flour and can be used like regular flour but the mesquite has pluses and minuses to using it.  It contains a lot of sugars and normally needs no additional sugar added when used.  But mesquite flour does not like to cook all the way through and was very seldom used by itself for that reason in the before times.  But you can make thin cakes, cookies, pancakes or most anything that is flat and thin.  I have never been able to make satisfactory bread with it because it always remains doughy inside while outside burns.

While not perfect the mesquite flour was a great addition to our food stores, and anyone who has ever seen mesquite trees knows that each tree produces an amazing amount of pods, even in very dry years.  The flour has a very unique taste that most find pleasing.

As fall approached Tony and I had considerable fruits and vegetables stored for our use over winter.  Our supply of jerky was just about gone but for now we made up for that with fresh kills of rabbits and quail along with many doves.  Often times we harvested these birds and animals with just a thrown rock.  I knew as soon as cooler weather arrived we would again kill one or two of the free ranging cattle in the area and maybe a deer or two as well, to turn into jerky that could be stored for a long time. 

The jerky we made was not the very spicy kind that a person could once buy at every gas station or grocery store in the before times.  The jerky we made was just meat dipped in very salty brine with a small amount of a couple other spices added for enhanced flavoring.  This somewhat bland jerky (by past standards) served several purposes.  It stretched our supply of spices (which we could not replenish), it still tasted fine alone, and it was not too spicy when added to the pot when making soup or stew. 

Our food stocks for the foreseeable future seemed secure with everything we now had stored.  At Tony’s insistence we packed up about half of our food stores and scattered them out at all the other camps.  Most of this food was hidden and all of it was stored in rodent and insect proof containers.  The canned food in glass jars we were extra careful with.  Even though the winters were quite mild here those glass jars had to be protected from freezing.  So some of the jars were buried at other camps in sealed pails or in plastic totes.  Some were put in a couple of the mine camps towards the back of the mines where it would never freeze.  I could see Tony’s point of having food in different spots so we would never lose it all too any single event, whether a man-made or natural event.  It was the classic case of not having all your eggs in one basket.

Tony is a great guy in so many ways, and knowledgeable on many things, but he knows nothing about some things.  So sometimes a girl just has to act to the best interest of all parties involved.

Tony and I were sitting out on the little patio he had made next to my motorhome one evening.  We were just watching as the stars were coming out and the moon was just starting to rise in the east.  We often did this whether at the main camp or away at one of the out camps.  We usually sat in a companionable silence just relaxing in each other’s company.  This night I turned to him and started to speak.

“We are really setup quite well for the winter ahead.”

“Yes we are.  Your garden was a big part of that.”

“We seem to make a pretty good team.”

“Yes we do.”

“So when are you fixing to ask me to marry you?”

When I said this I turned to look at him.  It took a moment for what I said to sink in to his male brain.  When it finally did the expression on his face was indeed priceless.  Then he started to say something a couple times but nothing escaped his lips.  Even with my help he still did not seem to know what he was supposed to do.  So I decided some more assistance from me was still needed.

“One thing you could start with would be to get up and come over here and give me a kiss.  Then maybe you could figure out what you should say after that.”

He actually looked scared for a moment.  But like I said, he was a smart guy in many ways, and this time he was smart enough to get up and come over to me and give me that kiss.  As I fully expected this led to many more.  Eventually he did finally ask me to marry him.  I knew he would, but he just needed a little help to get going.

The End

A Girl’s

Gotta Survive

Pete Thorsen

Originally Released

on Kindle April 2016

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher/author, except that brief selections may be quoted or copied for non-profit use without permission, provided that full credit is given.  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely accidental.

Prologue

One second I was walking along the sidewalk with my date and passing an alley after watching a movie, and the next second there was an arm around my neck and I was being pulled into that alley.  I looked at my escort, Josh. He was not my boyfriend, just a friend, and his eyes were as big as saucers staring at me while I was being dragged away.

The arm around my neck was very tight but I could still breathe at least.  I could see that Josh would be no help at all and I guess my abductor could see the same thing when I heard him talk.

“Run along little man if you don’t want to get hurt.”

I attempted to scream but I barely got any sound out before the arm tightened up and choked off the scream.  Why wasn’t Josh screaming?  He could at least do that much you would certainly think. 

I was now partway in the alley and I decided if there was to be any rescue it would have to be implemented by me.  I went limp, like I had passed out from lack of air or had fainted, and that forced the attacker to stop choking me and instead grab me with both of his arms so I didn’t fall. 

He stopped for a second to get a better hold on me and as my head was down I snapped it back. The back of my head hit the man in the nose very hard.  I felt something give in his nose I think.  I also tried to time my head action with my right foot which I had lifted slowly to have ready, and I brought the two inch hard heel of the shoes I was wearing down on his instep with all the power I could muster in my strong legs. 

The two strikes, one at each end of his body, made him let go of me completely and I stumbled slightly before spinning around to strike again.  Blood was pouring down the attacker’s face from his smashed nose and he had the sore foot that I had stomped on raised.  As soon as I had finished my turn, I kicked him between the legs with the pointy toe of that same right shoe of mine. 

I am an avid runner with very strong long legs and I can kick hard, which the attacker found out the hard way.  Normally I always wear athletic shoes, but I happened to have dress shoes on tonight; too bad for him. 

With my strong kick to his groin area he bent over almost before I had my foot back and, as soon as I was set, I kicked again with that pointy-toed shoe and it struck him hard in the face somewhere.  The attacker then fell to the ground and when he was down I started kicking him again and again in the torso, just as hard and fast as I could until my hero Josh finally stepped forward and pulled me away.

“April stop.  You’ll kill him.”

“That’s the plan, now let me go so I can finish this.”

He didn’t let go and I did not resist too much when he led me back to the sidewalk and we continued down the street to where he had parked his car.

“Will you drive?  I’m too shook up.”

“You’re shook up!  I’m the one who just got dragged into that alley and had to fight for my very life.”

“Seeing you attack that man and try to kill him was too much for me.”

“If I remember right I was just walking down the sidewalk when that man attacked me.  Oh, and thanks for all the help back there, Hero.”

“I got really scared when he grabbed you and I was just frozen in place.  Then, all at once, you attacked him, and there was so much blood all over his face and that made me even more scared, and kinda sick.”

“I thought you could have at least screamed for help instead of just doing nothing.”

“Like I said, I was just frozen and I could not do anything.  Then, when you started attacking him and that blood was everywhere, I almost fainted.  I never realized just how vicious you can be.  You scared me a lot more than the guy did.”

“Of course I attacked him.  What do you think he was fixing to do to me?  He wasn’t inviting me out for a cup of coffee.  He would have used me and killed me.  Is that what you wanted to see happen to me?”

“I didn’t have time to think about it.  I was just so scared.  Then there was all that blood.”

“I’m sure there would have been a lot more blood when he was done killing me.  I wonder if he would have used a knife or a gun on me.  I should have patted him down and taken any weapons he had away from him so he could not use them on anyone else in the future.”

“I don’t think that man will be doing anything at all for quite some time.  It looked like you were going to kill him.”

“Better him than me.  All right, gimme your keys and I’ll drive back to my car and you will have to drive yourself home from there.”

“I hope I have calmed down by the time we get back to your car.”

“Well, either way, when I get back to my car you are on your own.”

“As long as you don’t attack me like you did that other guy I should be fine.”

“You make some of the stupidest statements I have ever heard.”

“You are just scary.”

“Whatever.”

Chapter 1

My name is April Harper.  I’m twenty-one years old.  I have my own place in the country.  It’s an old, singlewide trailer house that is older than I am.  But it’s paid for so it is a cheap place to live anyway.  That is what my father left me when he died.  That old trailer house and some bad memories.  At least he was kind enough to have his fatal heart attack uptown while he was getting groceries instead of here in this house.

No, my father and I did not get along.  I shed not a single tear when he died.  My only thought when I heard of his death was that I wondered just how much it would cost to bury him.  Luckily for him there was enough in the checking account to put him in the ground.

My father was a drunk and a wife beater.  At least until my mother left him, then he couldn’t beat her any more.  Oh yeah, thanks for leaving me alone with him, Mom.