“The evening after I buried what was left of my mom and dad’s bodies, I dug up my cache in my folks’ backyard. In the cache I had a spare pair of combat boots, four pairs of boot socks, half of my silver coins, some .22 and .308 ammo, some Duracell batteries, a few camouflage face paint sticks, two bars of soap, multivitamins, some canned food, salt, cocoa powder, trioxane fuel bars, and eleven MREs. I had it all cached in three of those tall steel ammo cans—the kind they make for the 60-mike mortar rounds. The outside of the cans had gotten pretty rusty, and that scared me when I first dug them up. I thought that they might have leaked. I suppose that I should have painted them with asphalt emulsion to make them last longer. But luckily they kept their seals and everything inside was just the way I left it.”
Looking down at the pair of sturdy Army combat boots that he was wearing, Doug declared, “Like I said before, the boots that I had been wearing the last year were falling apart at the seams. I wore my moccasins part of the time, but they were a poor substitute, particularly on rocky ground. It was kind of odd, you know. I had put these boots in the cache as sort of an afterthought, because I still had room in one of the cans. I was going to put in more canned food—my mom always bought tuna by the case—but then the idea of the extra boots popped into my head. Ironic, but a year later, of everything in the cache, it was these boots I needed the most. It must have been Divine providence. I’m sure that it was the good Lord that put that thought into my head.
“I spent another full day there, mainly just praying and thinking. I talked and prayed with Mack quite a bit. Since by that time my hair was so long that I was looking like an angora goat, he gave me a short haircut and beard trim. Then I did the same for him. I’m afraid that I wasn’t very good at it. We used some scissors and a pair of hand clippers that had belonged to his wife. I gave him some venison and canned food. He gave me a big bottle of mild laxative, which was something I needed, given the fact that my diet was mostly venison.
“I didn’t find anything of value in my parents’ garage except for a bottle of Rem-Oil. Practically everything else including all the tools, the camping gear, and even the scrap lumber had been stolen. There wasn’t much in the garage at all except my folks’ car—which was minus its battery and had no fuel in its tank—and a couple of old tire rims. It was like locusts had come through. All that I got out of their car was an Idaho/Montana map. It was identical to the one that I had been carrying all along, but it was in better shape. I had folded the first one so many times that it was coming apart into a bunch of long strips.
“Neither of my folks had any family west of the Mississippi, so I didn’t have a clear destination. I knew that there was a much less severe climate in the Clearwater River valley, just over the pass, so that seemed like a reasonable first area to look for a place to settle. I’d been across there, fishing steelhead with my dad lots of times, so I knew the Clearwater country fairly well.
“I spent the first three weeks in the canyons west of Missoula, waiting for the snow to clear in the high country. I shot a young buck, and that fed me for the whole time I was there. It took nearly a week to turn it into jerky. I found some Camas plants and a big patch of miner’s lettuce, and I pigged out. Between the venison, the bulbs, and the miner’s lettuce, I started to put some weight on.
“I transited the Lolo Pass three weeks ago. By then, the snow was shallow on the northern facing slopes and in the heavy timber, and patchy most everywhere else. Since I wasn’t in any great hurry, I traveled even more slowly than before. I only averaged about four miles a day. I like to move with some stealth, and take lots of listening halts. I gradually worked my way down the Lochsa River, and then the Clearwater. There’s no sign of any organized commerce or travel at all down there. Everybody is just hunkered down, big time. I tried approaching the town of Kamiah, but I got shot at by a guy with what looked like an SKS. I was two-hundred-and-fifty yards away, so I didn’t even have a chance to explain myself. I just got myself out of there, double-time.
“That same day, I started getting a horrible toothache. It was one of my lower molars. By two days after that, the pain was so bad that I knew the tooth was rotten and had to come out. I couldn’t bring myself to pry it out with my Gerber multi-pliers. So I managed to tie a piece of monofilament around the tooth. I tried pulling it by hand, but I chickened out. It just hurt so badly. I didn’t have anybody to help me. Finally, I ended up tying the fishing line to a big sapling that I had bent over. I sat down, pulled my lips out of the way, opened wide, and let it fly. The tooth came out all right. I screamed for a second. The void bled a couple of days. I did my best not to spit, because I’d heard that that creates suction and causes additional bleeding. It was painful, but luckily I had some Tylenol left in my first aid kit. The gum has healed fine, now.
“I did some fishing along the Clearwater before I headed up onto the Palouse. There are a lot of fish in that river. Even with just a hand line, I was able to catch a Dolly Varden and a good-sized salmon. That was enough food for three days eating, in less than an hour of fishing. It would have been nice to have one of those collapsing fishing poles, though. A few days later, I did some gill netting on some of the little tributaries going into the Clearwater. I caught a mess of trout. I cooked some, and smoked some.
“My trip up here toward the Palouse was relatively uneventful. I saw a lot of wild turkeys, several elk, and deer beyond counting. This is good country for foraging.”
Todd interrupted: “Is there anything else you wish that you’d had in your pack or cache, or things you would have done differently, in retrospect?”
“Let me think.” Doug paused to ponder. “Several things come to mind immediately. First and foremost, I should have found somebody to travel with. Going solo cross-country is a dicey proposition. You never know when you might get ambushed. If somebody gets the jump on you, you’re history. Also, there is no simple way to provide security while you’re sleeping. Just twisting an ankle badly or one bad swing with an ax could be fatal. You need a partner. Preferably two or more partners.
“And needless to say, traveling at all in anything less than an APC these days is foolhardy. There are too many chances of running into brigands; too many uncertainties. Staying put at a well-stocked and defensible ranch or farmhouse is the best approach. Traveling is only for the foolish or the desperate.
“Secondly, if I had cached some MREs and a few essentials in a few places along my route from Colorado, things would have been a lot more comfortable. I had some hungry days. For that matter, I could have cached some gas too, and just zoomed home.
“Third, I would have really benefited from a pocket-sized Bible. A few memorized verses aren’t enough. You need the Word to keep you going and to maintain your balance.
“Fourth, this may sound pretty minor, but it isn’t. I should have bought a pair of gaiters. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve had to start a fire at midday to dry out my pants from the knees down.
“Fifth, I should have taken better care of my teeth. Brushing with just salt works fine in a pinch, although a mix of three-quarters baking soda to one-quarter salt is preferred. I should have carried a toothbrush, floss, and a tin of powder. They would have added hardly any weight at all to my pack, and in the long run, they could have saved me some grief.