Gordon Dickson - Wolf and Iron

It was still early in the day. He saddled Sally. Now that he knew the area better, he knew a way down to the ranch that avoided the shale slope entirely. It took half again as long as going across the shale. But he still got to the ranch in a couple of hours; and he estimated he could spend at least three hours there before he had to head back to the campsite while there was still afternoon left.

He had brought his crutch along. Not because he could not do without it, but to ease the wear and tear on his weak ankle when he was on foot.

He was astonished at what he found when he got there. It was the first time he had looked at any place like this with the eye of a scavenger, rather than simply as a possible temporary shelter. In the outbuildings he located not only a keg of unused nails, but a large variety of hand tools, including some wire clippers with which he was able to cut loose and roll up a twelve-foot section of the four-foot-high wire fence around the former garden patch.

The sheets and blankets had been stripped off the beds and taken by the raiders. But he found more of both among other household items boxed in a storeroom. He also found old and damaged blankets in an outbuilding. With one of these, he made a pad to fasten behind his saddle and carry the roll of wire. He was tempted to take a great many more things. But on this trip he was not prepared to carry or drag them. All around him, in addition to tools, he began to recognize a number of other items that would be useful in building or furnishing the cave.

He looked enviously at a waterwheel-driven electric generator beside the small stream that flowed near the ranch. It had obviously supplied power to the buildings during power outages or other emergencies. There were poles carrying wires to the house and outbuildings that must run out to a power line along a road too far away for him to see from here. The wire would have connected with rural electricity, back when current had been still coming into this area.

Aside from things he need merely pick up, there was a remarkable amount of wood siding on the house that had escaped the flames. Much more than he would need. In addition, there was a store of unused two-by-fours and planks in one of the outbuildings. Even if the nails in the keg turned out to be less than he would need, there was a wealth of them, as he had anticipated, in the still-standing walls of the buildings.

With some kind of hauling sledge, which he could build of materials here, there were larger or heavier things to take apart and transport up into the hills. With both horses pulling the sledge once snow fell, he could move a good load at a time.

He even looked at a bedstead, which could be taken apart for transporting.

Something like that was a ridiculous luxury—at least at this point. He could, however, make use of kitchen chairs and a table. Also, there were cooking utensils, as well as tableware and some dishes, which he would take. Most of what the ranch house had owned of these items had been taken, but much remained, particularly the cooking utensils, large spoons, spatulas, and other things.

On a sudden inspiration, he checked the number of vehicles still standing about the ranch-house area. There were four cars, three of which looked as if they had been in running condition when the supply of gas had dried up. Also, there were one large and one small tractor and a couple of pickup trucks. One of the trucks still had a blade, for snowplowing or some other use, attached to the front of it.

In addition to these, there was a snowmobile vehicle, and tucked inside its basket was a pair of heavy snowmobile boots large enough for him to wear, which would be invaluable when winter set in. There was also a two-wheel fence-sided trailer and a massive, rubber-tired four-wheel flatbed trailer that would need either a tractor or a heavy pickup to pull it, loaded.

There were both skis and snowshoes, as well as a toboggan. But it was none of these that interested him as much as the batteries in the cars and trucks and tractors. They were all dead, of course. There had been no gas available for any motorized vehicles for over a year. But it had occurred to Jeebee that since they were all late model sealed batteries with their acid locked inside them, he mignt be able to use the solar-cell blanket to bring them up to charge again. Then he could use the batteries themselves to run the interior, ceiling lights of the cars for ordinary illumination in his cave. He could even use them to run one or two of the headlights from the cars, briefly, if for some reason a very bright source of light was needed. It was the way the wagon had run light bulbs off a generator attached to its turning wheels that had turned his mind in this direction.

All of the batteries that he found seemed in good shape. They were all sealed, which meant that the acid would still be safely inside them. He tried turning on the lights of the various vehicles, to see if there was any life in any of them. But, of course, there was not.

It was tempting to take a single battery and headlamp from one of the tractors, where it was easy to get off, and carry it back up to the campsite with him. Up there he might be able to monkey with it and the solar-cell blanket to see if he could not charge up the battery and get the headlamp to light, even if dimly, for a short while.

But it would be wrong to put that much unnecessary weight on Sally in addition to his own; on this first trip at any rate. The horses were his most valuable possession. He must not risk hurting or overworking either of them.

It would be much better to take a few useful but light things in addition to the wire. He ended by bundling a number of small tools into one of the blankets, including paper and some pencils that had been ignored by the raiders. These, in particular, he grabbed up happily.

From his young days, when he had first tried to make drawings of the inner workings of the clocks and radios he worked with, he had developed a habit of thinking with a pencil in his hands. He was used to thinking on paper—or on a computer screen. Now he could sit down and draw plans, not only of the cave, but of the means of bringing up to it some of the heavier, or more awkward, items.

To these items, wadded in the second blanket, he added only one old, tattered blanket-coat that he had found in an outbuilding. All other clothing had apparently been taken by the raiders, who would probably wear it without taking it off until it fell apart on them, then throw it away in the expectation of replacing it from some other looted place down the line.

This bundle he put inside the roll of wire, to secure it for the ride, tying it tightly into place. Happily, the raiders had evidently had no use for most of the light and heavy rope to be found in the outbuildings.

Once more in the saddle, he took the same route back to camp. When he got there, he enclosed everything, including the blanket he had used as a pad for Sally, in the middle of the roll of wire.

Once more, he pulled his trick of kneeling on Sally’s back. It was a great deal more comfortable this time, now that his kneeling was being done on the saddle. He tied the stuffed wire roll up in a different tree from that which held the packload, using some of the extra rope he had brought back from the ranch. He fastened it at a height where he was pretty sure it would be out of reach of Wolf. In any case, there was nothing in the bundle that resembled food, so Wolf’s only attraction to it would be curiosity. That might be enough to keep him from trying to climb the tree just to get his teeth into the bundle.

Wolf had not been there when he got back, and still had not returned by the time he had put the bundle up and unsaddled Sally. In the last few days, Wolf’s unusual, frequent visits had lessened in number, until he was coming in only two or three times a day. It occurred to Jeebee that he might have visited the campsite while Jeebee was gone. If so, any feeling his partner might have that Jeebee was no longer able to find his own food would have been eradicated. Now Jeebee thought that most likely Wolf would probably not return again until his usual time of twilight.