Trev must’ve been more excited about his return to civilization than he’d thought, because it took him longer than usual to get to sleep. And in spite of his weariness he was up and out of bed the moment his cousin showed signs of stirring.
They planned to leave behind everything that had already been there when they arrived, since it was all stuff they already had down in the shelter, which meant they’d only be taking what they’d brought or found since. In fact, the wagons wouldn’t be quite as weighted down for this trip since they’d eaten through a bit of their food.
They still had enough to last them both for nearly four months, which Trev felt fairly proud about: through hunting, fishing, and foraging they’d managed to gather over half the food they’d eaten during the time they’d spent up here, only needing to dip into the food storage for two months’ worth. Or at least the equivalent, since while packing up they’d emptied the icehouse of the roughly 70lbs of meat they still had in there to take with them, to replace what they’d eaten from their stores.
They hadn’t quite reached self-sufficiency, yet, but then again they’d eaten well all winter without having to go below optimal caloric intake.
Lewis also loaded the deer and rabbit skins he’d laboriously cured over the winter, and then they piled their camping gear and other equipment on and stacked the weapons they’d taken from the bandits along with their own weapons and ammo up top, wrapped in their sleeping bags to protect against any accidental banging.
His cousin had been about to load Jane’s .30-30 with the other weapons, but before he could Trev intervened. “I’ll take it,” he said, casually picking up the rifle and slinging it over his shoulder.
His eagerness earned him a knowing look. “Don’t mind lugging the extra weight down if it means you get to be the one handing it to the cute redhead?” Lewis asked. Trev felt his face flush and his cousin grinned. “I thought you didn’t like her.”
“I’ve been snowed in on a mountain for four and a half months with just you for company. I’m willing to give her a chance.”
“You think she’ll give you a chance? She didn’t seem to like you either. Besides, you heard what Matt said about her disengaging personality.”
Trev shrugged. “I get along with you, don’t I?”
Lewis held up his hands. “Hey, if you want to give it a shot go for it. I just figured after Mandy it would be once bitten twice shy.”
He could’ve done without the reminder. “Do you honestly think Jane’s anything like her?”
His cousin paused in rearranging the large but fairly light tarp-wrapped bundle of solar panels and batteries he’d scavenged over the winter atop the stuff on his sled, frowning thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it, from what I’ve seen she’s pretty close to the exact opposite.”
“I can’t think of any higher praise.” Trev stooped down and grabbed lengths of cord to tie down the stuff on his wagon, and once that was finished covered it all with a tarp and tied that down as well. By the time he finished Lewis had already tarped and tied down his own wagon, so Trev picked up the towing rope. “Ready?”
Lewis nodded and went over to secure their lock on the hideout’s door. There was no need to lock up the empty icehouse, and if anyone had the desire to steal something from the outhouse they were more than welcome to it. Just like that they’d done as much as they could to secure this place in their absence, against intruders and elements both. With a last look around his cousin picked up the rope to his wagon and motioned for Trev to lead the way.
Always planning ahead, Lewis had suggested that they carve runners to tie to the wagons’ wheels to turn them into sleds, in case they needed to get their stuff out fast while the snows were still piled high. Trev had been happy to take on the project, as much because he thought his shoddily built moving dolly wagon with its small multidirectional wheels would be easier to handle as a sled as because he agreed that it was a good precaution. It was also something to do on long winter nights.
Now he was glad they had, since it meant they were ready to go with no need for major preparations.
Instead of taking the wagon sleds up to the logging road and following it all the way around the way they’d brought them in last fall, which would’ve been a pain and taken forever, instead they pulled them down the slight slope to the cliffs and found a sturdy tree. Lewis got out the pulley and hooked it to the trunk, and together they lowered the wagons one by one to the slope below, where Matt was waiting to catch and untie them. It went off without any disasters, and in around fifteen minutes they’d retrieved the pulley and were heading down the gap.
The snow made getting the sleds down the hill a bit more doable, but they still had to contend with deadfall and densely packed evergreens. Matt, helping Lewis with his wagon since it was still the slightly more weighted down one, joked that they should just let them go and pick them up down at the river, which neither Trev nor Lewis found amusing. Anyway they probably wouldn’t go more than five feet before getting caught on something, since that was about how often they had to manhandle the things around branches or logs poking up or around tree trunks.
They were all relieved when they reached the bottom of the slope with no mishaps.
The river was another major hurdle they had to deal with. For it they untied the tarps and wrapped them around the wagons as well as their contents, making a neat little bundle with the edges bunched up and tied at the top to be as waterproof as possible. Then they threw the pulley rope across the river and had Jane, Tom, and Trev half drag, half float the wagon across to the other side while Matt and Lewis got the other one ready.
Lewis’s tipped over, unfortunately, but with some care they managed to get it across the river without banging the precious solar panels, and when they opened up the tarp they were relieved to see that aside from a little patch of dampness on the tarp around the panels no water seemed to have made its way in. They hurriedly tied the tarps around the cargo again and made final preparations to set out.
As they worked Tom ambled over. “That’s a lot of food,” he observed idly. “You must have brought a ton up.”
Trev did his best not to feel suspicious of the small talk. “A bit more than this. We were able to live off the land pretty well, believe it or not.”
“Oh, I believe it.” The older man pointed at Jane. “Eight people survived the winter off the meat she brought in, with only a bit of help from me and my boy.” His expression suddenly grew sad. “Was fourteen to start out with, and eleven when we got to your town. Which isn’t any criticism of her, mind you: she worked miracles with what she had. But it was a hard winter for all of us.”
It was hard to think of a response to that, so Trev rested a hand on the older man’s shoulder, then made his way over to where Jane stood inspecting the road south with Lewis’s binoculars. Speaking of hunting… “Here,” he said, unslinging her father’s rifle and offering it to her as she let the field glasses drop on their string.
If he was hoping to improve her mood by returning the .30-30 he could keep hoping. Jane gave the weapon an impassive once-over before looking up at him with narrowed blue eyes. “Just the rifle?”
Trev wasn’t sure what she meant. “I also wanted to apologize for how I acted yesterday.” She gave him an impatient look as if that wasn’t what she’d meant, and he turned his attention back to the gun in her hands. “We left it with all the rounds we found with it. We do our practicing with our own weapons that we have more ammo for, since if we did end up needing an extra rifle we wanted as many bullets as possible for it.”