Daunting Days of Winter (5 page)

Kyle noticed Brenda coming back up the hill. “My brother was in the service. They put him through college, then he put in the years he needed to pay that off and left. He didn’t love his military experience either, but not sure it was for the same reasons.”

“It’s so frustrating,” Frank said as he threw another rock at the turkeys. “We have so much might. We dominate the world, but it’s run by politicians, not soldiers. I really don’t care that much about gays, but the politicians want to look good for the voters, not do the hard things needed to win militarily. Affirmative action isn’t the best policy for defense of the country. That has to be merit based, and even then there’s no guarantee. I left when I knew our leaders didn’t have the spine to do what needed to be done, that they’d leave us vulnerable while the Jihadists plotted behind their backs. What a waste of a good country.” The contempt in Frank’s voice was thick.

“Hi Boys,” Brenda said, rejoining them. “What are you two talking about? You didn’t get him going on politics, did you?” she asked Kyle as she handed him a small package.

“I suppose I did,” he answered. “I asked him what made him get so prepared.”

“It’s like taking a sip from a fire hose, isn’t it?”

Kyle nodded.

“We don’t get a lot of visitors up here, so Frank tries to get as much talking in as possible when the opportunity arises.”

“I can understand. I spent a few weeks alone on the road. It feels good to talk.” Kyle turned back to Frank. “So what did you do when you got out of the service?”

“Border patrol. My background made it easy for me to get hired. I’d found this property a few years before leaving the military, then got myself assigned to the Canadian border. Four and a half years ago I was in an accident and lost the sight in my left eye and hurt my back, so they retired me on disability. I do, or I guess did, custom ammo to make some extra money, so between that, my disability and retirement, and Brenda’s income as a nurse, we did fine. We didn’t have any debt and put everything extra into the property.”

“The one problem,” Brenda said. “Is that it’s lonely, and too quiet. We chose this place because the remoteness made it safer, but I do miss people.”

“You’ll have to come visit down in Deer Creek. It’s a small community, but it’s safe, and there are good people there. I didn’t take a direct path here, but I don’t think it’s too far.”

“Seven miles on foot,” Frank answered. “Almost ten if you drive. There’s an old dirt road that winds around that you can take, but the only decent road around here goes south and takes you the back way into Missoula.”

“Do you have any neighbors?”

Brenda shook her head. “There are a few cabins, but they’re all seasonal. Summertime is busy between them and the campers at the lake that’s a few miles down the road, but by the time hunting season is over, it’s quiet. This year especially so.”

“I can imagine. Listen,” Kyle said, glancing at the sun. “I should probably be on my way. I hear it’s seven miles back home, and I’m not familiar with the route. It’s probably best that I get home before it gets too dark.”

Frank rose from the rock he sat on and groaned as he straightened his back. “It was good meeting you, Kyle. If you’re back up this way and can find us, feel free to stop in.”

Brenda smiled and nodded. “It was good to see a different face. I love Frank, but a little variety now and then is nice. I hope you like Oreos.” Brenda spoke in a rapid, staccato pace, and Kyle had a hard time breaking in. “I put a sleeve of them in the bag, along with a couple of MREs. You look so skinny.”

Kyle grinned. “My kids will be ecstatic.” He thanked them for their generosity, got directions for the most direct route, then began the journey home, bagging two pheasants and a rabbit along the way.

CHAPTER 5

December

Deer Creek, MT

After the euphoria of Kyle’s first weeks home lessened, life in Deer Creek soon settled into a boring routine. Having been absent from the community for the first months of the crisis, and with all of the essential jobs taken, Kyle struggled to keep himself busy. He participated in militia training three time each week and took regular hunting trips, but the training only took twelve hours a week, and with the deer population thin and Shipley beef available, it didn’t make sense to haul a deer five miles on foot strictly for the sake of having something to do.

With forest fires being a concern for the next year’s fire season, the community organized a cutting crew to clear a hundred foot ring around Deer Creek, and Kyle worked on the crew for the two weeks it took to complete the project. What would have taken a pair of bulldozers a day or two to complete instead took a team of sixteen men two weeks to finish. It was hard, difficult work, but was greatly aided by two teams of four horses that were used to both pull the felled trees to town after they were de-limbed and to pull the stumps from the ground once the roots were cut.

Days were short from a daylight sense, but long from a work perspective. With Deer Creek being a rural area, Kyle was surprised at how few axes were available. The first day the roar of chainsaws echoed through the mountains, but by the end of the day the fuel was exhausted and the balance of the work became an act of manual labor. After a thorough petition of the residents, the community had only been able to round up a total of twelve axes, four hatchets, a pair of two man saws that had hung decoratively over barn doors, and a handful of wood saws, hacksaws, and heavy pruning shears.

One of the retired veterans had spent a day combining an electric grinder with an exercise bike so blades could be sharpened each night, a two-person job requiring one to peddle while the other honed the blades. By the time the firebreak was finished, the axes were coming out razor sharp each morning and making quick work of the trees.

The tree project had been beneficial on a number of fronts, the most obvious being the town’s safety. Additionally, it had helped the men get to know each other outside the militia and had provided a huge source of fuel for the homes that had woodstoves or fireplaces, to which all the residents had combined and relocated to for the winter months.

Felled trees were hauled to a central location, cut in sixteen-inch lengths, then split and stacked to season. Deadfall was cut and stacked separately so that the already dry wood could be burned first. Half of the gathered wood was divided among the sixteen men on the cutting crew. The balance went to a community pile to be sold, traded, or given away, depending on the needs of the residents or outsiders who came to do business. The residents of the home where the wood was stored were put in charge of wood security and disbursement, in exchange for an allotment of wood after giving a weekly accounting to the community board.

One thing that had amazed Kyle since arriving home, and even on his journey, was the improvised economy that was sprouting up and how people were coping. In Deer Creek, the important barter items were food, wood, gasoline, and labor. Thanks to the cattle at the Shipley Ranch, no one there would starve, though diets would be protein heavy. With the forest around them, wood was readily available as well. Gasoline was worth its weight in gold, leaving labor as the most often exchanged commodity.

Beyond the commodity items, there were a host of other tradable goods and services. Ammunition wasn’t as big a commodity as Kyle had expected it to be, though much of that had to do with the fact that hunting wasn’t essential, and Sean Reider, militia head, encouraged conserving ammo as much as possible for defensive uses. 22LR shells were abundant, but there weren’t so many of any other caliber that they could be shot indiscriminately. Once the weapons were sighted in, target practice was rare and limited mostly to 22s.

What little propane was left in the community was now being strictly allocated to hot water heater use. Dan Livingston, an enterprising resident with a cistern and generator, had found enough material over the past few weeks to get both his water pump and water heater going, which meant there was one home in the community that could be used as a bath house. It wasn’t luxurious by any means, but it did allow for people to trade for up to three short, but hot, showers a week. Payment was made in propane, food, wood, gas, or labor, the labor used for relocating propane tanks, hauling in water, cleaning showers, or whatever else Dan needed done. It was apparent, to whoever cared to observe, that Dan was quickly becoming wealthy by Deer Creek standards.

What made a person wealthy had been redefined. There were a few silver coins and one-ounce pieces floating around the community, but since you couldn’t eat them or burn them, they were of little value to the average resident. Dan Livingston, the shower man, Bryan Shipley, the rancher, Anderson West, whose well stocked construction business hosted Sunday meetings, Carol Jeffries, the doctor, and Kyle’s neighbor, Grace, along with Gabe Vance, who were both Mormons and had followed their church’s counsel to store quantities of non-perishable food, were the individuals who could best be described as the wealthy, though that was all relative at this point.

Kyle felt good about how his family was fairing. Jennifer taught on a regular basis at school, he and David were both part of the militia and able to do a lot of the physical jobs that were available, plus David had his job back working for the Shipleys. Grace and her food supply had relocated to Carol Jeffries’ home with the Taits, so they had food, shelter, medical care, and good companionship. Once spring rolled around, Grace’s expertise in gardening would be a huge boon to the community, but none would benefit more than the Taits, as Emma and Spencer could be put to work to help provide much needed food resources.

Life wasn’t anywhere near perfect, but all things considered, Kyle and Jennifer were feeling lucky.

CHAPTER 6

Thursday, December 22
^nd

Deer Creek, MT

A week had passed since the completion of the wood-clearing project, and Kyle had moved on to his next work assignment. Within the militia, the organization had changed somewhat, and Sean asked for volunteers to work overnight patrols on a permanent basis rather than rotating teams through the less desirable overnight shifts. Unable to find regular work at the ranch, the area’s biggest employer, Kyle leapt at the opportunity to have something permanent to do. The opportunity came with increased meat allowances and extra showers for his family, and that, along with adequate wood for the winter, put them in a comfortable position.

The nights on shift were long and cold. According to the calendar it was December 22
^nd
, and the time from sundown to sunrise was at its longest duration. Factor in the impact of the mountains around the community and daylight in Deer Creek was in unusually short supply. And while the community didn’t have a curfew, the lack of lighting and the colder winter temperatures meant most people were inside to stay once the sun dropped behind the mountains. Most people, that is, except the nighttime militia.

Kyle knocked on the door of the house that had become the militia’s de-facto garrison. “Who’s there?” came the voice from inside.

“Seahawks,” Kyle replied. It had been decided that they should use code words to add a layer of security and give warning if a non-militia person approached the house or one of the patrols in the dark. With NFL team names being familiar to all of the men, Seahawks, Broncos, Cowboys, Patriots, and Colts had been adopted by the various militia teams.

Kyle heard the deadbolt, then the door opened, and he was let inside. He removed his gloves and briskly rubbed his hands together as he moved over to the fireplace. “Cold one out there tonight,” Kyle said, to no one in particular. “Thermometer says 25 degrees, but the wind makes it feel worse.”

Kyle had just finished his first patrol, and Ty Lewis was bundling up to take his place. “How cold do you think it’ll get?” Ty asked. Ty was thirty-two years old and had been a science teacher at a high school in Missoula. He had moved to Montana from Atlanta a year before the Taits, fulfilling his childhood dream of living in the Rocky Mountains. “My body isn’t built for these cold temperatures. Should have listened to my mom and stayed in Georgia.” Ty said it with a grin, but Kyle couldn’t help but think there was some truth to it. Not only was the Montana weather tough if you weren’t used to it, but Kyle wondered how bad the culture shock had been for Ty, as a black man in Montana. Additionally, it hadn’t been very long since Ty and his wife had gone through the pain of losing their seven year-old daughter, who had drowned while on a family vacation over the summer. Their family had just barely returned from her funeral in Georgia when the EMP hit. Ty had been through a lot, but was still amazingly positive and easy to be around.

“Just wait until winter really gets here,” Kyle said, unzipping his coat.

“We were here last year, so unfortunately I know what to expect. I’ll see you in an hour.” He pulled his hat on, and let himself out the front door.

Kyle dead-bolted the door, picked up a book, and dropped into the chair by the fire to read. The house the garrison used was located on the extreme western edge of town, between the two roads leading into Deer Creek. It was an old, two-story farmhouse, and had been the residence of the family who had first farmed the area. It had sat empty for more than a dozen years, but its location and the presence of a wood-burning fireplace made it the perfect set-up for the militia. The windows of the upstairs bedrooms had clear views of both roads coming into Deer Creek, providing a good vantage point for the watchmen positioned at the windows each night. A third man watched the roads while walking the loop from the house, to the bridge, to the barricade on the East road leading to Missoula, and back to the house.

The night shift consisted of the three men monitoring the roads, four doing loops like Kyle and Ty were, another stationed at the Shipley Ranch, and the ninth hunkered down in the lookout spot up the mountain. The men on duty took turns rotating through the assignments. Of the tasks, Kyle preferred walking the perimeter, his body and mind accustomed to the walking and the solitude.