Gordon Dickson - Wolf and Iron

“You’re probably right,” he said. “There’s got to be one. I can look for it. But what do we need a thermometer for, particularly?”

“You shouldn’t have to ask me that,” said Merry. “You know I’ve been digging that pit in the cold room up front for the meat storage. We’re almost to the point where it’s going to be cold enough to keep meat frozen down there. But we want to be sure. If you can get a thermometer from the ranch, we can check the temperature at the bottom and know.”

Jeebee felt stupid.

“Of course,” he said. “I’ll swing by there tomorrow, long enough to see if I can find one without a lot of searching. I’d still like to get more in before the weather breaks.”

“I’d like to get down there, too,” said Merry. “Why don’t you let me go down with you, and leave me at the ranch while you go out hunting, then come back and pick me up along with whatever I’ve found to take back.”

Jeebee was tempted to point out that taking her there and then going back to pick her up would limit the amount of ground he could cover out on the open range looking for cattle. While he hesitated, she spoke again.

“As you say, this good weather isn’t going to last, perhaps not more than another day or so—if that. In fact, it could snow tonight and we’d be into winter,” she said. “I want to get down and comb through that place before everything gets covered.”

“All right,” said Jeebee.

But, almost miraculously, the weather continued to hold. Not only was it warmer than it had been—and warmer than it should be for this time of year—but the sky remained clear of clouds and they had relatively long hours of daylight in which to get things done.

Jeebee was making progress in using the solar-cell blanket to charge all the batteries. Evidently the converter that was built into the blanket would work for car batteries, although it was, as he had expected, no better than a trickle charger. It was very slow to get a battery up to working level.

Nonetheless, he kept the blanket spread out where the sun could reach it all day long, and continuously connected to a battery, so that one of them was being charged all the daylight hours. Eventually they had four fully charged batteries in reserve, which could be turned on for extra or emergency lighting during the night or early morning, if the fire was out or for other reason they needed extra illumination. Using the cars’ interior lights had allowed the batteries to charge faster than Jeebee depleted them by use. Also, the light from the fireplace had helped.

Accordingly, both Merry and Jeebee went with the horses and the trailer down to the ranch the next morning. Merry finally let herself be persuaded to ride in the trailer, though this was anything but a comfortable way to travel.

The springs on the trailer were very stiff, designed for heavy loads, like machinery or equipment that needed to be hauled about the ranch. So they were very little use in cushioning the bumps and jolts along the way. Also the trailer was continually tilted either upslope or downslope or sometimes toward one side or another. The result was that Merry had to ride holding on to the top pipe of the fencing that enclosed the body of the trailer, to keep from being thrown off her feet.

In fact, part of the way down there, she got so thoroughly sick of the jolting that she insisted on stopping, getting out, and walking. However, she recognized shortly that she was still not up to an extended tramp of any kind on foot. They compromised by stopping for short rests and Jeebee promised that he would build a sort of padded chair-harness that could be put in the trailer for anyone who wanted to ride in it. It had not occurred to him before, but either one of them could be hurt away from the cave, and need to be transported back to it in the trailer. He began to think about some way of anchoring down and cushioning a bed that could be fastened to the floor of the trailer as well as the harness.

He dropped Merry off at the ranch. He had taken the place so much for granted, he was a little startled to see Merry reacting to it as if it was some sort of potential Christmas tree full of presents. He left her there, worrying a little that she would be disappointed with what a small amount of things there were to find, and went about his hunting.

It turned out to be one of his unsuccessful days. Most of the time he could find cattle fairly easily. But occasionally, from some instinct of self-preservation, they either all seemed to have gone into hiding, or else he was somehow perversely threading a path through all the places where they weren’t.

He had given up and headed back toward the ranch when he found himself startling jackrabbits with the horses and the trailer as he advanced. Apparently, as inexplicably as there were no cattle, there was this area that was suddenly full of the large rodents. The .30/06 was really too heavy a weapon to use on such small animals. A direct hit on the body of one of them simply blew the animal apart. But there were enough of them so that he could try for head shots; and he did end up killing three this way, gutting and cleaning the carcasses and bringing them tied to the railing of the trailer, back to the ranch.

He had hoped that Merry had found a satisfying number of some small things, like the thermometer, so that she would not be disappointed with her visit to the ranch, but he had completely underestimated her.

She apparently caught sight of him while he was still a distance away and came out in the open to wave at him to attract his attention. He waved back and continued on in. She met him happily.

“Bring the trailer around and we’ll load up,” she said.

Jeebee followed her around to the back of the ranch house and found a pile of filled plastic sacks. The sacks he already knew about. There was a stack of them in one of the outbuildings, and no one among the looters had apparently been interested in them. But she now had six of them stuffed full of various things, the actual identity of which he could not see through the milky semi-transparency of the plastic.

“What’s all this?” he said, for there were six of them, the equivalent of large leaf bags, filled full and fastened with wire ties. “I don’t have anything in the trailer. We can carry them all right. But where will we put them when we get back up there?”

“You’ll see,” said Merry. There was very nearly a gleeful look on her face. “Most of it’s light, anyway, and some of the other stuff won’t have to go into the cave at all.”

“What is it?” Jeebee asked.

“Odds and ends—useful things, though,” said Merry, “and a lot of root vegetables from the garden. Some we’ll eat, but a lot we’ll keep as seed to start next spring.”

Jeebee opened his mouth to tell her they would be moving on as soon as the weather was good enough to travel in the spring. But he was stilled by the thought that after what she had been through, it would be wrong to rob her of this moment of pleasure. There would be plenty of time for her to find out that wherever they would be, it would not be around here, when any vegetables they had planted in the spring were ready for harvest.

He had been surprised by the amount of things she had gathered. But he was more surprised—and impressed—when they got back to the cave and she showed him exactly what she had found. The variety was large, from the outdoor thermometer she had talked about earlier, to a number of small cans of various spices, including supplies of salt, sugar, baking powder and baking soda, sacks of dried beans, peas, and other dried vegetables that Jeebee had not even thought to look for.

In addition to these were a number of other small but useful items, including hooks that could be screwed into their plank walls so they could hang up things, and old throw rugs full of holes or half worn away, which had been ignored by the looters—but which Merry now pointed out would be useful not to only make the floor of their cave’s inner room warmer but possibly the walls as well.