SURVIVING ABE: A Climate-Fiction Novel (22 page)

Gus took the lead of the single-
file procession, followed by Ela.  Con felt more comfortable when she could keep an eye on her daughter, so she asked to go last.  Walking on the track was easier and they made better time.  The below-zero temperatures caused the hard, crusted snow to squeak with each step, and the sound could be heard a long way in the silence of the freezing morning.

The track that they followed was soon joined by other tracks of snow machines, though none looked as well used as the one they were on.  Some tracks even had footprints on them, evidence that people had recently been here, which made them proceed with caution, tempered by hopes of getting closer to shelter and warmth.

Once they reached the trees a house was visible just inside the tree line.  It had a thin stream of smoke coming from the chimney and going straight up, now that the wind had stopped blowing.  There was no other movement.  They looked at one another and then proceeded without saying a word.

A figure
, wearing a black snowsuit and a helmet, stepped out of the house with a rifle shouldered and pointed at them.  They stopped in their tracks, still in single file.

"Who in hell are you?" a
man’s voice demanded.

"Our car got stuck in the snow not far from here, we n
eed help," Ela answered.

"You won’t find it here, turn around and keep walking back the way you came, now!" the man said.

"Can we use your phone first, maybe warm up?" Ela pleaded.

Con knew this man did not live here and wondered what had happened to the couple that did.  She began looking at the front porch instead of paying attention to the talking.  There was a brownish-red splatter on the lower part of the front
door and a glass window next to it had been shattered.  She realized it was blood on the door and that the front of the home was riddled with bullet holes.  She didn’t waste time thinking twice about what to do next.

Since Gus and Ela
were between her and the man with the rifle, Con fell to her left side into the snow for a clear field of fire.  She had kept her arms inside the sleeping bag in an effort to stay warm and to conceal the hold she had on her Beretta.  Aiming the pistol as she fell, she started shooting with the pistol still inside the bag.  Three of the five rounds she fired hit center mass.  The man fired repeatedly as he fell, kicking snow up with his stray bullets.  Bits of down insulation from Con's sleeping bag mingled with the dust of snow settling to the ground around them.

Silence descended, broken by a sudden shout from Con, "Fire!  I’m on fire!"

Seeing smoke and flames coming from the sleeping bag Con was wearing, Gus scrambled up from where he had thrown himself in the snow and ran to her.  In one swift motion Gus grabbed the bag and jerked it up and off of Con, throwing it aside.

Ela
crawled in the snow to her mother, trying to see how badly she was hurt.  The three of them were all talking at once when a scream from inside the house stopped them short.  Con was the first to break the silence, "What was that?"

"There was a scream from insid
e the house.  Are you okay?" Ela spoke close to her mother’s ear.

"I’m fine.  I saw blood and bullet holes around the front door of the house, and that scream probably came from the people that live here.  Gus, check that guy and make sure h
e’s dead.  Ela, please look around and see if you can find my hearing aid, I think one’s missing."  Con was still holding her pistol on the man she’d just shot.

"I don't see it Mom."

"Okay, we'll worry about that later."

Gus went toward the fallen man by the front of the house, carefully watching for any movement.  The man lay flat on his back with steam rising from the wounds in his torso, but there was no steam coming from his mouth or nose; he wasn’t breathing.  The snow had turned red beneath him
, so he was probably dead.  Gus edged closer and picked up the AR-15 the man had dropped.  With still no movement from the man, Gus leaned forward and touched the rifle's barrel to the man’s eyeball; there was no blink response.  Of the three bullet holes in the front of the man’s jacket two were to the chest, the third to the lower abdomen; all fatal wounds without immediate medical attention in Gus’s estimation.

Gus turned to see Ela
and Con coming toward him cautiously, waiting on his call, "He’s dead, Con."

Sh
e looked at Ela for a relay of what he'd said.  "He’s dead," Ela repeated and Con nodded her thanks.

"Let's go see what’s inside," Con said.

Gus pulled the magazine out of the AR and saw that some rounds remained.  Then he reinserted the magazine and started for the house, carrying the AR at the ready with the safety off.

Co
n started to follow with her Beretta in her right hand, and her left hand reaching back for Ela.

S
he hesitated for a moment.  "Ela Nor, you’ve got to be my ears and stay right behind me, now grab my hand and give it a squeeze when you hear something.  Don’t let anybody sneak up on us," she looked at her daughter for confirmation that she understood.  When Ela nodded Con turned and, with Ela in tow, rushed to catch up with Gus who was already at the front door.

When she had the spare anchor up and temporarily secured on deck the black, stinky muck that came up with it covered her and the deck, seemingly impervious to the rain.  Tess ran back to the cockpit and got Robin headed toward the buoy on the end of her anchor rode, she put the transmission in neutral and slowly coasted the rest of the way toward the buoy.  Arriving alongside, she quickly ran forward and used her boat pole to snag and pull in the buoy and anchor rode.  With nimble movements she removed the buoy, threaded the rode through the fairlead and back to the windlass where she tied it off, and then she went quickly back to the helm.

Robin slowly drifted ever closer to shallow water.  A few tense moments later Tess had Robin moving and drifting toward a safer depth and away from the powerboat.  After making sure
the transmission was in neutral, she ran forward to the bow.

By hand, and as quickly as possible, she took up slack in the rope part of the anchor rode before taking a wrap around the gypsy on the windlass; then she stepped on the "up" button.  The windlass started winching in her primary anchor rode without moving the powerboat; a happy smile appeared on her tired and mud-streaked face.

Bewilderment, quickly followed by a strong sense of danger, came over her as a big Danforth anchor, with her anchor-chain wedged in its fluke, flashed into view.  With a crash it jammed in Robin’s fairlead before she could get her foot off the windlass "up" button.  Her primary anchor dangled uselessly a few feet below the jam, with no way to raise or lower it—she had to clear that jam.

Kicking and prying on the anchor did no good.  Both boats were adrift at the whim of any winds until the jammed Danforth anchor could be pried loose.  The slight breeze blowing at the moment denied
Tess time to think through solutions.

She made a dash to the cockpit and retrieved a crowbar from the aft locker.  Back at the bow, the crowbar's longer purchase broke the Danforth free with a bang, and it fell into the water.  She ran for the cockpit at the sound of its splash.  The first item she checked on after returning to the cockpit stopped her rush dead.  The d
epth meter indicated a reading of 4' 2", well below Robin’s draft.  Robin was aground, no need to hurry now.

She walked back to the bow and recovered the primary anchor.  It had taken all day, but at least she had both of her anchors aboard.  She rested for a few minutes to catch her breath and focus.  First she would try to free Robin by powering off the mudbank, if it worked she would be on her way.  If not, she would
again have to put the secondary anchor out in deeper water and try to kedge off of the bank; a much longer process.

At the helm Tess put Robin's transmission in forward, but made no progress, other than stirring up mud in the water.  She then tried the transmission in reverse with the same results; Robin remained immobile.  Beav
er-tail keels, like Robin's, were wonderful for cruising shoal waters, until they're in the mud; then they’re held from suction like a boot.  Robin remained upright, indicating her keel had punched into the soft muck; but it held fast as if it were concrete.

The day’s physical activity and mental stress wore on her.  When she was younger she would still
have been moving, but at age fifty she sat in the cockpit depleted of energy.  All day she had struggled with anchors and had ended the battle with both anchors aboard and her boat in the muck—exactly the opposite of the planned results; a ludicrous finale.

With a sinking feeling Tess knew she had one more job to do before she c
ould rest.  Once again she needed to take the spare anchor out in the dinghy and set it in deeper water, to keep Robin from being blown further into the mud.  If she didn't, she probably wouldn't be able to free Robin by herself.  Summoning the last of her energy she headed for the dinghy.

"You lost another truck?" Tye asked, as Jennifer and Andy walked up to the front porch of the family's farmhouse.

"Ran out of gas this side of the intersection, you said ten miles to the gallon.  Creeping along the shoulder in second gear it's more like ten gallons to the mile.  Got any heat?  We're frozen."

"Hi Andy, come on in and close the door.  Don't remember the temperature ever falling this fast," Tye said.  He looked around to see his wife coming from the kitchen.  "Andy this is my wife, Reb.  Reb, this here's Andy."

A high-energy, older version of Jen came toward him, grabbed his hand and pulled him into a hug.  Then she held him at arm's-length inspecting him, "Andy, I had some trouble believing all the stories I've heard about you."  She looked closely at the knot on his forehead, "But now that I have seen the evidence it looks like Tye wasn't embellishing anymore than usual.  What do you think of Texas so far?"

"Well . . . May I call you Reb?"

"Of course."

"Reb, the most striking aspect of Texas is the people that live here.  The land has shaped all of you more than you've shaped it, and it's a tough place in my short experience.  It's a state of mind people have here like no place else I've been.  That mindset led your daughter to charge into a dark and rainy night with a shotgun, draw down on Jeff, and stop him from pulverizing me.  My thanks to you and Tye for instilling her with the courage to do that."

Reb looked over at Jennifer
, who had a little more color in her cheeks than normal, and said, "Gosh, he made me blush too."

"Andy, I hope Jen warned you that we would put you to work.  I need to get the generator up to the house, and then we'll go get the flatbed.  Are you up for all that?"

"No problem, I like to stay busy."

"We'll chain up the Jeep first, then we can use it to drag the generator up to the house.  Want to get started?" Tye asked.

~~~

In the shop Tye found a pair of chains, which they put on the Jeep's front tires.  They loaded the back of the Jeep with gas cans then hooked a tow strap to the generator's frame.  The chains on the Jeep's front tires gave them enough traction and steerage to co
ntrol the Jeep as it towed the generator over the icy ground to the back porch.  Once there, Andy took the job of wiring power into the house while Tye maneuvered the Jeep around to the front yard.

On Andy's way through the house Reb gave him a handful of homemade cookies while thanking him for saving the food in the refrigerator.  Tye came in and picked up a shotgun identical to the one he'd loaned Jennifer and said, "We better take this along, just in case."

~~~

When they drove up to the flatbed it was obvious someone had been there.

Most noticeable, the truck's windshield had been shattered on the driver's side.  All the food and Andy's bicycle were gone.  Jennifer and Andy's clothing were picked through and strewn on the ground around the vehicle, along with the packaging material the food had been in.

"Looks like somebody tried to steal the truck, good thing it was out of gas.  They were hungry enough to eat some of the food as soon as they found it by the look of all the wrappers around the truck," Andy said.

"It's a sure bet the stores, including ours, have been looted by now.  People are getting hungry enough to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do.  Let's see if we can get the truck started and home before they come back.  There're chains for it under the bed in the toolbox, but let's wait on that.  I don't like being out here and leaving the women alone with stuff like this happening so close to the house."

Tye dumped in five gallons of gas, brushed the broken glass off the seat, then climbed in from the passenger si
de and started the truck.  "Whoever robbed us actually did us a favor by breaking the windshield, now I have one spot I can see out of."  As the engine warmed for a minute he said, "Andy, you drive the Jeep and we're outa here."

"Lead on,
" Andy said and then carefully walked across the ice to the Jeep.  Tye kept to the side of the road where the truck had enough traction to move.  With the front-end of the Jeep chained up Andy drove on the highway alongside the flatbed, to give Tye an additional reference point to steer by.  He also wanted to be in visual contact with Tye in case trouble came calling.

~~~

"Well, that certainly shines a new light on the conditions we find ourselves in.  In less than two hours someone found and robbed the truck," Reb said.

"The minimalist inside me should be jumping for joy, I'm down to my daypack and the clothes I'm wearing.  Jeff destroyed my tent and these guys got my bike with the rest of my gear.  I'm about to put myself up for adoption," Andy said with a smile.

"That's two of us.  I need to go through your closet, Mom."

"Looks like our chances of catching up on all the stuff that needs to be done on the farm just got better; we appreciate both of you volunteering.  Where's that list, Reb?" Tye asked
, trying to hide a smile.