Listening to Francine’s story brought a quiet sense of despair bubbling up in my gut. I had always believed that the human race would survive the massive volcanic eruption at Yellowstone, would surmount this disaster, just as we had surmounted so many lesser disasters before. But amid the carnage in the road outside Warren, I wondered: did we deserve to survive?
Chapter 44
Darla wasn’t back by nightfall with the transportation supplies. Sheriff Moyers lit two oil lamps. He and his men huddled uneasily in the light, watching us. After a few minutes, Dr. McCarthy rose from the side of the patient he was trying to treat in the dark, marched up to Sheriff Moyers, and took both the lanterns. To his credit, the sheriff didn’t fight—he just sent one of his men to get two more lanterns from the town behind them.
I assigned two people to hold the lanterns for Dr. McCarthy and Belinda. I worked mostly in the dark, dragging corpses across the berm and interring them in the snow by feel.
Darla returned several hours after dark with the blankets and poles we needed to make improvised stretchers. She had more lanterns and able-bodied help too. As Max’s lantern illuminated a woman who was missing most of one leg, he turned deathly pale and staggered to the edge of the road, vomiting on the blood-soaked ice.
On snowshoes we could make the trek from our homestead to Warren in about two hours. Without snowshoes, carrying a stretcher, it took more than twice that long. I felt a stab of relief when one of our patients died—one fewer person to carry—and then hated myself for feeling that way.
Darla had scrounged enough supplies for fifteen stretchers. We had more than enough able-bodied people to carry the stretchers, so I paired off some of the less seriously wounded with helpers—anyone who could walk would have to. Even so, it took three trips to move everyone back to the homestead. We weren’t finished until after noon the next day.
I was dead tired. My eyes felt sandy and my head spun when I moved too fast. Still, I couldn’t rest yet. I sought out Anna and Charlotte. They and Wyn hadn’t made the trek to the massacre site—they were too young to see it, I thought, although I realized now that I was wasting my time trying to protect them. The longhouse was packed with wounded: we’d brought the massacre back home.
“Anna, I need to know exactly how much food we have. I haven’t updated my inventory since last week. Check the greenhouse records, figure out how much food we can expect to produce, and when we’ll run out, given all the new people here. Assume… I don’t know, ask Dr. McCarthy for a guess as to how many of the wounded will survive.”
“But the food records are your job.”
I was only planning to ask her to gather some information while I slept, but then it hit me: with this many people around, I would need a lot of help running the show.
“Not anymore. It’s your job from now on. It’s really important.”
“I know it is. But I can’t do—”
“Alyssa says you’re really good at math.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And your handwriting is beautiful. But the most important thing is that I can trust you. You’ll do great. The records are on the clipboard by my bedroll.” I turned to Charlotte before Anna could protest further. “Charlotte, you’re in charge of the census. Count everyone and get a total number to Anna as fast as you can. Then go back and interview them all. I want to know how old they are, if they have family here, what they’re good at, what they did before the eruption, if they’re wounded, where and how badly—everything, okay?”
Charlotte shifted nervously from foot to foot, but her voice sounded solid enough when she agreed to take on the project.
“Wake me up at dinnertime with a report,” I told them. I picked my way through the wounded to my bunk, collapsed into it, and fell asleep almost instantly.
Dinner was three small pancakes and a kale leaf. As we ate, Anna gave her report. “If we drop to survival rations— eight hundred calories a day for the women and a thousand for the men, then we’ll run out of food in about fifty-seven days.”
“I expected it to be worse.”
“It depends on the survival rate,” Anna said. “Charlotte looked into that for me.”
“We’ve got the twelve original settlers,” Charlotte said, “forty-three uninjured newcomers, twenty-nine walking wounded, and thirty-three more seriously injured. One hundred seventeen total. Dr. McCarthy expects ten percent of the walking wounded to die, along with a third of the others, mostly from infections. So we’ll probably settle out at something like 103. I don’t have the detailed census done yet.”
“That’s okay—you’re doing great.” I privately congratulated myself on delegating these jobs to Anna and Charlotte—I had barely been able to stumble to my bunk, let alone count and do math.
“Ed and Alyssa are on cooking duty this week,”Anna said. “I already told them to cut back on the rations.”
“I noticed,” I stared mournfully at my empty plate. My stomach still rumbled with hunger. Get used to it, I told my body silently
“I can get you some more,” Anna offered.
“No,” I said firmly.
“How many greenhouses would it take to feed 103 people?”
“Oh, good question,” Anna said. “I didn’t figure that out.”
“You can tell me later.”
“No, no—I can get it now.” She was scribbling figures furiously in the margins of the clipboard. After a long pause, she said, “Well, assuming we can find enough bulbs to light them all, between seven and eight. Without artificial lighting, maybe eleven or twelve—assuming they’re equivalent to the ones we’ve already got in size and productivity.”
The problem, of course, was where would we get the glass, wire, and electric heating elements we needed for all those extra greenhouses? The glimmerings of an idea occurred to me, and I spent the rest of the evening talking to Uncle Paul, Darla, and Ben about it. As Ben was lecturing me on the finer points of military logistics, Dr. McCarthy walked up. “Can I talk to you?” he asked.
Ben actually quit talking—he seemed to be getting better at figuring out when to stop his nearly constant barrage of words. “Would you mind if we continued the discussion tomorrow?” I asked him.
“I would like that,” Ben said.
“Is there anywhere private we can talk?” Dr. McCarthy asked.
I led him into the base of the turbine tower. With the door closed, it was the most private indoor space we had. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Belinda and I have talked it over—we’re ready to move.”
I held out my hand. “Welcome to… whatever here is called. We really should think of a name for it.”
We shook hands. “Thanks. We’ll go back to Warren tomorrow, load up the Studebaker, and drive it out here.”
“You sure Petty will let you go?” I asked. I was thrilled that Doc was moving; Mayor Petty would probably be exactly as furious as I was ecstatic.
“What Petty wants doesn’t figure high in my priorities right now. And he owes me—I did save his life.”
I nodded. “Be careful. Oh, and would you stop in and see Mom? Try to convince her to move? I’d really like her and Rebecca to join us.”
“Your mom seemed pretty set on staying.”
“I don’t get it. Why?”
“You know she’s seeing someone, right? I mean, I think she is. We’re not exactly close.”
“Really? Who?”
“Mayor Petty. They’re spending a lot of time together anyway.”
That was just freaking perfect. Why? It was unanswerable. And I certainly didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “I’ve gotta go.” As I reached for the door handle, I remembered the original point of the whole conversation. “Tell Belinda I’m really glad you’re moving here.”