Ray Gorham - Daunting Days of Winter

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.

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.