Ozark Retreat (16 page)

Wishing he had some alcohol, to wash out the wound as well as to use as a painkiller, he put a Band-Aid on the little hole and then extricated the MacGregor from the foliage and headed north again, at speed, until he decided he was far enough ahead of the Jon boat that it wouldn’t be able to catch him, even if they got their outboard going again.

Joshua kept his vigilance up as he traveled, keeping to the center of the river. There were places where people were on shore, and long stretches with no evidence of anyone. He had two more incidents of being shot at, but he was able to motor away with no damage.

He kept stopping at abandoned places along the river and continued to find small amounts of gasoline, and even some food to supplement his jerky. He used the sail whenever he could, to lessen fuel consumption, but he was fighting the downstream current all the time.

Joshua couldn’t figure out the apparent huge amounts of fallout that seemed to cover the ground in many places after he passed the southern border of Arkansas. It just didn’t look right to be radioactive fallout. Finally, somewhat against his better judgment, he pulled ashore at a place that was covered in the material. He picked up a handful. It wasn’t radioactive fallout; it was volcanic ash. Their shipboard amateurs had mentioned that Yellowstone had blown, but he hadn’t given it much credence at the time. He was a believer now.

Finally, he got close to St. Louis. His initial plan had been to stop below St. Louis, a probable target in the war, find a useable vehicle and go over land the rest of the way. But the more he thought about it, going past St. Louis and taking the Missouri upstream seemed to be a better idea. The MacGregor was doing well. If he could get past St. Louis on the Mississippi, and then take the Missouri River, he could go all the way to Kansas City by water. Another potential nuclear target was Jefferson City, Missouri, the state capital. It was right on the Missouri River.

Joshua decided to at least try to get to the Missouri. He searched for more gas, and managed to fill his containers again, this time from abandoned cars on the highways adjacent to the river. His siphon hose worked like a charm. All he had to do was punch through the anti-siphon block in the filler necks of the newer cars, and siphon the fuel into cans.

He began to see an oily sheen on the surface of the river the closer he got to St. Louis. He began to see damage to the structures near the river. He brought the MacGregor to a halt, using the engine to just hold him in place against the current. It took a couple of minutes to make up his mind. Joshua switched to a full 12-gallon fuel tank and ran the throttle up to full speed. He stayed on the east side of the river, though well away from the shore.

He had to slow down to navigate across the fallen river bridges. Everyone in the St. Louis area was down. Joshua saw no one as he motored past the destroyed city. He saw the tanks right on the bank that were leaking diesel into the river. There was probably plenty of gas in one of those tank farms, but he was afraid the radiation levels would be too high for safety.

Joshua had a tense moment when he came to the Alton, Illinois Dam and locks. If they were closed, he didn’t know if he would be able to get past them. But his worries faded when he saw clear passage. He motored through and past, and then into the mouth of the Missouri. He felt ill after traveling two days up the Missouri and laid low for a couple. He couldn’t keep anything on his stomach for the entire two days. Most of his nausea resulted in dry heaves after that.

But he felt better after another day, though rather weak. Joshua admitted to himself that he’d received a pretty good radiation dose passing St. Louis. A week later he began losing some of his thick shock of hair, but it didn’t last long. He was seeing more people now, despite the evidence of the heavy ash fall.

He began to approach people, his acquired weapons at hand. He was able to trade for some fresh food at one place, for some of his jerky, and another place some gasoline for jerky. He sheared away quickly from anyone that showed any signs of aggression. He was a tempting target and knew it. Most of the other boats he was seeing on the river were much smaller.

If Jefferson City had been a target, it had been missed. He sailed past without a problem. He was on the last leg of the journey. Joshua was dismayed when he reached the northeast corner of the city. It was as close to the city as he could get on the boat. It wasn’t looking good and he began to worry about radiation.

He found a good spot and unloaded the boat onto shore. He buried the fuel and most of the food in several caches, including one that contained the Winchester 97. Then he hooked up the pump he’d used to raise the MacGregor and used it to sink her again.

He buried the pump, using a piece of tarp he’d scavenged one day, with no particular use in mind. It just seemed a boat needed tarps. With the camping equipment in and on the combat pack and butt pack, and food and water inside, Joshua holstered the Colt and picked up the Garand. He didn’t get very far. From the looks of the destruction, one of the detonations had not been very far away. And in that direction were the remains of his home. It might even be at ground zero.

There was nothing there for him. He turned back, tears in his eyes. If Precious was alive, there were no clues on how to find her. In the four days he’d been on foot, nothing had changed where he’d stashed the MacGregor. He raised the boat, dug up his gear and loaded it back aboard, and then set sail.

Several times Joshua thought about stopping and trying to make a life for himself in one of the communities he was passing for the second time. But the weather was extremely cool for the time of the year and Joshua knew the cruise ship encampment on the gulf was going to be the best chance he had of long term survival.

He wasted no time going back. The current was with him all the way He picked up a bullet in the shoulder from the Louisiana side of the Mississippi when he was about halfway down the state. Joshua was in bad shape when he grounded the MacGregor at the cruise ship encampment and waded ashore three days later.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in the ship’s infirmary, with Patricia holding his hand. He became an expert fisherman, with the MacGregor his fishing vessel. It looked a bit puny next to some of the other, diesel powered boats that had been salvaged. But they were on rationed amounts of diesel from the tanker. Joshua could go out anytime he wanted, under sail, which was often.

He was able to keep his fuel tanks full, trading fish. Someone somewhere close was rumored to have found a gasoline tanker and pup. Joshua didn’t care where the gasoline came from. He filled every container he could find, treating the fuel with PRI-G, to have the fuel for a rainy day. Despite the warnings from those that knew about the amount of gasoline he had onboard the MacGregor, he continued to store it on the boat.

Another thing that Joshua did was get married to Patricia. The Captain performed the ceremony, for them and three other couples that had formed. Two of the other brides, and one of the grooms were locals.

Joshua settled in with Patricia in the same stateroom he’d had on the ship, and while she tended garden and helped in the kitchen and with the children, Joshua fished. He lost track of time, except for what season it was. And wondered about his Precious. He just knew she was alive somewhere.

But the tranquility came to an end one afternoon. Joshua was well out into the gulf. Patricia had come along for the ride that day, with the garden in good shape. But the fish weren’t biting, no matter what bait or lure Joshua used. Even the mascot porpoise that often traveled with the boat for the occasional piece of fish that Joshua would toss to it was nowhere to be found.

“I think we might as well go in,” Joshua said, reeling in first one line and then the other three. Patricia got behind the wheel and Joshua began raising the sail.

Suddenly Joshua felt a sinking sensation in his stomach. Apparently Patricia had the same feeling. “Did you feel that, Josh?”

“Yeah. But what was it?” Joshua had the sail up and they began to head for the distant shore. They hadn’t gone very far when their radio came alive. “Tsunami! Tsunami! Can you hear me, Joshua? Tsunami!” It was Tom Jones, one of the radio operators on the Elite. A communications watch was always kept when anyone was away from the group.

Joshua keyed the mike of the radio when he got to it. “This is Joshua. I hear you man! Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah! The sea just started flowing away. We’re trying to get the ships to deep water. Let us know if you experience a surge. How far out are you?”

“Twenty miles,” Joshua replied. “We felt something, but it wasn’t like a surge. More like a drop.”

“Holy cow!” exclaimed Tom. “If you’re getting it out there already it must be huge!” There was silence for a moment. “But that doesn’t seem reasonable, if it doing it there and here at the same time. But never mind. Just keep an eye out.”

It was generations before scientists pieced together what had happened that day and several subsequent days. A tectonic movement of epic proportions had snapped the North American Tectonic Plate in two from deep in the Gulf of Mexico up the Mississippi River Valley and over to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

For eons the bedrock deep under the center of the United States had been stretched thinner and thinner, resulting in the Reelfoot Rift. The surface would have sunk with the bedrock, except billions of tons of eroded rock coming from the Rockies and the Appalachians, and even the Ozarks, had filled the sunken land in, just slightly slower than the ground was sinking.

When the plate separated magma began to stream upward in hundreds of places. But it was still deep in the earth and much of it cooled and hardened quickly, sealing the crack except for here and there. A new line of volcanoes arose along the length of the split.

The waters of the Gulf of Mexico flowed northward over the sunken ground, stopping only when it reached Cape Girardeau, Missouri in the north, the Ozarks in the west, and the foothills of the Appalachians to the east. The Gulf of Mexico was now the American Sea.

Water flowed from the Atlantic into the new sea, and the Pacific flowed into the Atlantic. It took years for the oceans to equalize. In that time old currents disappeared and new ones were created.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Joshua brought the sails down and secured them and then got behind the wheel after Patricia moved. She went down into the cabin and brought out life preservers for both of them. Joshua put his on and then started the Mercury. He put it in gear, but just let the engine idle. He wanted to be able to head into the swell, no matter from which direction it came. But they never felt a swell.

The crews of both the Elite and the Giuseppe weren’t sure they would get the ships under power and moving before they touched bottom. But the Gulf quit withdrawing and began to edge back, but not with a swell they were expecting.

Not one to take a chance, Captain Bainseborough-Smith ordered both ships out to sea at full speed as soon as they had way. People on shore ran for the gangplank of the Elite when the public address system was activated and warnings rang out. If it was a tsunami they had no high ground to run up on this stretch of coast.

When the crew saw the last person close aboard the ship they pulled up the gangway. Other people began to show up, but the Captain ordered the gangway kept up. Those still coming from the gardens headed for the small fleet of boats tied up to the shore.

Several noticed the water was slowly rising up the shore, but there didn’t seem to be anything but normal wave action. It was just that every wave went a little further up the beach. The small boats all began pulling away from the shore, the last one waiting for the last person to get to it.

Both ships and all the boats were well clear of the little harbor when everyone felt a strange sensation. It was like they were going backwards, with the ship tilted slightly. But they weren’t getting any closer to the shoreline. In fact, the shore was receding from them rapidly. It was only when people saw that the water had crossed the nearest small rise and the ground kept going underwater that they realized that the water wasn’t just moving on to the land. The land itself seemed to be sinking.

A bridge crewman looked at the radar display and let out a yelp. The coastline was disappearing at a rapid pace. Very soon they wouldn’t be able to see it and the ships were not moving that fast yet for the shore to be disappearing. The boats were well out ahead of them, being able to accelerate much faster than the ships.

The ships had a radar bearing on Joshua’s boat and both ships and the boats headed in that direction. They rendezvoused with him and then stopped dead in the water to wait out whatever was happening. Though, like Joshua, everyone kept engines at idle, ready to engage and meet the tsunami wave if it ever developed. It didn’t all that day or the next one.

The Captain kept everyone apprised of the radar reports. When the land fell off the display, the ships and boats began to head back north. Cautiously. Keeping just within radar range of the land for a little while. Then they couldn’t keep up with the submersion. There was some fear that they would run aground, but they kept going, the small boats in advance, watching the depth of the water with their depth sounders.

They began to see all sorts of items in the water as they continued following the receding shoreline. That included bodies. Dozens at a time, at times. Others singularly. Always bodies, never survivors. They steered wide around two new volcanoes that were building in their path. It took several days to reach the new shoreline.

There were people at the shore when the cruise ship approached. When asked where they were, those on shore told the ship’s residents that the nearest city was Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Just to their east.

After the shock wore off, the locals objected to having 500 plus additional residents. The Captain decided to go west, on a whim. It was a good decision. They traveled until they found another, very new, safe harbor, at the edge of the Missouri Ozarks, near the submerged city of Doniphan. They put down new roots, figuratively and literally. New late season gardens were planted, and the surrounding forested hills were explored and the bounty that was available utilized. They began to make contact with the locals.

The Elite survivors settled in for the long haul. Again.