They traveled all day, stopping only to rest the horses. It was almost dusk when they arrived at the place where the mist covered the road. Mary stared at it for some time, and then she insisted on climbing the same hill that Jacob had climbed. In the darkening gloom it did, indeed, seem as if they were on an island. Finally Mary was satisfied, and she turned the wagon around. By moonlight, they made their way back. At midnight, they stopped to sleep. Mary slept in the bed of the wagon with her kids, and Jacob curled up on the ground, beneath.
The following morning, Mary let everyone sleep late. She made a fire, and she cooked eggs and hash browns using a portable iron grill and a frying pan. After months of existing on the camp’s meager fare, Jacob eagerly devoured this delicious breakfast. Afterwards, they took their time going back.
It was after dark when they came to the turnoff to the logging road. Jacob asked to be let off. Mary protested that she could take him to his camp, but Jacob reminded her of the grisly sight that the children might see. Reluctantly she accepted his reasoning and so, with a last wave, she turned up the logging road, and the lumbering wagon was soon lost in the shadows.
Jacob turned toward his camp. It was a chilly moonlit night, but he was young and hardy and his fleece lined jacket was warm. He hiked in the moonlight wondering what would happen to Mary and to her kids. He hoped that she had enough supplies to last them for a while. He remembered that her husband had gone down to Bakersfield to restock. Eventually he stopped to sleep. He rose early, and he made it to the camp in time for brunch.
Mike was glad to see Jacob, and he listened with interest to Jacob’s report of the farm and its inhabitants. He was especially interested in the solar room attached to the barn. He promised Jacob that he would send someone to see if Mary needed help in any way.
Meanwhile, he told Jacob, Hector had shown up with a load of supplies the day before, and he had taken two boys back with him to help load and deliver the rest. That had taken all day, and they had made several trips. They had also scavenged the bikers’ shack and the RV for more supplies, and they had brought the other motorcycles to the camp. Then Hector and Rasul had gone back to the logging camp for the night. Hector was going to drive the forklift down today, and Rasul was bringing his motorcycle.
“Yeah, that lucky dog,” exclaimed John. He had wanted to ride the motorcycle, but Rasul had some experience.
By the end of July, Hector had managed to bring most of the machinery down from the logging camp. He removed the seats from the bus, filled it with logs, and delivered them to the job site. With the help of the Spears, he built a log bridge that was stable enough to allow some of the lighter machinery to cross the river. In the first week of August, they began building the log wall in front of the cave.
To his surprise, timid Kathy spoke to Mike and insisted that they use ropes to secure the forklift whenever Hector used it to raise a log up to a high position.
“The slope makes it dangerous,” she explained. “What if it fell backwards? The forklift might break and worse, Hector might be killed.”
After mulling it over, Mike decided that Kathy was right, so they used safety ropes when they started building the wall. Mike allowed Hector to stay in one of the three cabins still on the girls’ side of the river. They had moved another cabin to the boys’ side. It was still tight quarters with extra bunk beds jammed into each of the available cabins. Mike was still in his old bunk, but at least everyone had been moved out of the dining hall.
The mood of the camp had greatly improved. Privately and in groups, the kids had come to accept the reality of this new world. Privately and in groups, they had mourned the loss of the people they had loved and lost. Now their spirits had lifted, and they were looking forward.
These children were resilient, and though they sometimes felt depressed, they also had a need to play. At first Mike was so focused on surviving, that he resented the time spent on fun, but John and Desi reminded him that they were still kids, and that they needed to run, jump, skip, play, and let off steam.
One day John became so annoyed with Mike’s solemn attitude that he grabbed the smaller boy in a headlock, and then he marched Mike down to the meadow to throw a Frisbee for an hour. Soon Mike was laughing, running, and screaming, and at the end of the hour he realized that not once had he worried about food, shelter, or the dangers of winter.
After that, Mike asked Yuie to organized archery contests, baseball games, and dodge ball challenges. He made sure that everyone had some private time to just kick back and take it easy. He asked Erin to explore developing natural substances for creating makeup, and to hold classes to teach the younger girls how to apply that makeup. All of the books in the camp were confiscated, and a library was created. Eric was the camp librarian. The kids were glad to have a more relaxed atmosphere, and they griped less about the tasks to which they were assigned.
There were plenty of tasks. Beside the effort, led by Hector to construct the Lodge, and the effort, led by Jacob, to supplement their food supplies by hunting, there was the hated kitchen duty, dreaded clothes washing, and never ending fire wood gathering. Mike charged the Spears with patrolling the perimeter of the camp. He established guard posts on the slopes overlooking the camp. He spent a lot of time thinking of ways to improve their situation and their chances of survival.
Sometimes, his ideas were eagerly adopted. Sometimes, they were not. One night at Meeting, he proposed a new idea.
“I think we should strip down to our underwear for three hours a day,” he said confidently. There was a stunned silence, and then the uproar began.
Chapter Five
MAKING PLANS
“Are you crazy?”
“Did the boys tell you to say that?”
“I’m not letting those girls see me in my underwear.”
“I think that only the girls should strip, especially Big Tits Erin.”
“You shut up, Pencil Dick!”
“All right, all right!” Desi shouted. Everyone subsided into low mumbling and grumbling. Then Desi turned to Mike. She crossed her arms under her chest and in a demanding tone asked, “Why?”
Mike looked around helplessly. “Uh… um…. well, it’s going to be cold this winter, even in the Lodge. We’ll probably be wearing our clothes most of the time. I just think it would be a good idea if we save them for when we really need them. If we wore just our underwear part of the time, our clothes will last a lot longer.” There was a low murmur from the group.
“See,” said Desi, talking to the crowd of kids. “He always has a good reason for his ideas, even his dumb ideas.” She looked back at Mike and glared.
Erin stood up. “Chief, even if I didn’t like the idea of taking my clothes off in front of everyone, it wouldn’t work. We can’t go without wearing our clothes because of the elevation.”
“It’s warm enough some days,” Mike insisted.
“It’s not that, Chief. It’s because there’s not enough atmosphere at this elevation. We would all get severe sun burn.” Mike was thunderstruck. He had not thought of that at all. He felt like an idiot for not remembering about sun burn.
“Oh,” he said. “I guess that was a dumb idea.” His statement was followed by hoots from the audience.
“Quiet!” yelled Desi, and when they calmed down she continued. “Look, the Chief had an idea. It won’t work. But if we give everyone a hard time who thinks up a dumb idea, everyone is going to stop telling us their ideas. They’ll be too afraid that we’ll laugh at them. And then someone is going to have a really crazy good idea that they won’t bother to tell. Maybe it will be an idea that will save someone’s life. So when someone suggests something, even if it sounds crazy, we have to listen. Okay?” There was more mumbling after that, but generally they agreed with Desi.