Nathan Jones - Shortage

The snow made getting the sleds down the hill a bit more doable, but they still had to contend with deadfall and densely packed evergreens. Matt, helping Lewis with his wagon since it was still the slightly more weighted down one, joked that they should just let them go and pick them up down at the river, which neither Trev nor Lewis found amusing. Anyway they probably wouldn’t go more than five feet before getting caught on something, since that was about how often they had to manhandle the things around branches or logs poking up or around tree trunks.

They were all relieved when they reached the bottom of the slope with no mishaps.

The river was another major hurdle they had to deal with. For it they untied the tarps and wrapped them around the wagons as well as their contents, making a neat little bundle with the edges bunched up and tied at the top to be as waterproof as possible. Then they threw the pulley rope across the river and had Jane, Tom, and Trev half drag, half float the wagon across to the other side while Matt and Lewis got the other one ready.

Lewis’s tipped over, unfortunately, but with some care they managed to get it across the river without banging the precious solar panels, and when they opened up the tarp they were relieved to see that aside from a little patch of dampness on the tarp around the panels no water seemed to have made its way in. They hurriedly tied the tarps around the cargo again and made final preparations to set out.

As they worked Tom ambled over. “That’s a lot of food,” he observed idly. “You must have brought a ton up.”

Trev did his best not to feel suspicious of the small talk. “A bit more than this. We were able to live off the land pretty well, believe it or not.”

“Oh, I believe it.” The older man pointed at Jane. “Eight people survived the winter off the meat she brought in, with only a bit of help from me and my boy.” His expression suddenly grew sad. “Was fourteen to start out with, and eleven when we got to your town. Which isn’t any criticism of her, mind you: she worked miracles with what she had. But it was a hard winter for all of us.”

It was hard to think of a response to that, so Trev rested a hand on the older man’s shoulder, then made his way over to where Jane stood inspecting the road south with Lewis’s binoculars. Speaking of hunting… “Here,” he said, unslinging her father’s rifle and offering it to her as she let the field glasses drop on their string.

If he was hoping to improve her mood by returning the .30-30 he could keep hoping. Jane gave the weapon an impassive once-over before looking up at him with narrowed blue eyes. “Just the rifle?”

Trev wasn’t sure what she meant. “I also wanted to apologize for how I acted yesterday.” She gave him an impatient look as if that wasn’t what she’d meant, and he turned his attention back to the gun in her hands. “We left it with all the rounds we found with it. We do our practicing with our own weapons that we have more ammo for, since if we did end up needing an extra rifle we wanted as many bullets as possible for it.”

She continued to look at him and he tried to think of what else she wanted from him. “We haven’t touched it aside from inspecting and cleaning it every month or so, along with a few minor repairs Lewis did like tightening the stock so it doesn’t wobble and smoothing the bolt mechanism. It’s in better condition than when we found it.”

Jane checked the safety and drew the bolt, checking the chamber and the in-built magazine below the bolt assembly that held 7 rounds counting one in the chamber, even going so far as to empty the magazine and inspect the bullets. There had been 5 in there when they got it, all of which seemed to pass her inspection since she quickly loaded them once more and slammed the bolt home, chambering a shell before reengaging the safety.

She seemed familiar with the weapon, which supported her claim that it had been her father’s. Not that he’d doubted her. “It actually looks pretty good,” she said, looking up and meeting his eyes. Trev couldn’t help but notice that they were much more enjoyable to look into when they weren’t narrowed his way. “Thanks.”

“We take care of our equipment,” Trev said, doing his best to make his shrug look nonchalant. “If you want we can carry it in one of the wagons on the trip down.”

In answer she slung it across her back on top of the scoped G3 variant she’d brought with her, borrowed from the town’s storehouse. It was a nicer rifle than her father’s and should’ve been on top for easy access, but Trev supposed familiarity and sentimental value could trump more practical considerations. Or maybe she just hadn’t thought that far ahead.

That seemed to settle the issue for her, because she turned her attention to the aforementioned wagons and raised an eyebrow. She didn’t ask any questions, but Trev felt like he had to explain. “We carved and polished runners to attach to the wagon’s wheels, just in case we had to make a getaway with all our stuff. We can take them off pretty easily once we reach spots with no snow.”

Jane made no comment, and didn’t even excuse herself as she walked over to Matt to ask if they were ready to go. Trev considered trailing along to try to keep the conversation going, but if his friend was right about her social preferences he’d probably just annoy her. That just meant he’d have to take his opportunities to talk to her as they came, without trying to force the issue too much.

In a way the trip down was much easier than the trip up last fall, in spite of the snow. They had more people to help with the wagons on rough stretches, and pulling sleds across snow was a lot smoother than jouncing the wheels over rocks in the road, at least where the powder wasn’t so soft they sunk right in and had to be laboriously dug out or a path tromped down for them. Wherever there was a crust, though, and especially since most of their path was downhill, the sleds were more eager to get where they were going than the people pulling them. The challenge there was keeping them under control.

In any case for the most part they managed a much better pace than they had last fall, possibly even twice as fast, following Matt, Tom, and Jane’s footprints in the snow. Taking turns with the sleds they managed to keep up the pace with fewer rests, going slower than Matt’s group had managed but not markedly so.

That night they cooked up some of the meat from the icehouse on skewers over the fire, tearing into it with great enjoyment as the cold winds blasted around them through the branches of the small copse of evergreens they’d found for their campsite. From the sounds of it venison wasn’t anything unusual for Jane and Tom, but as Matt ate his fill he looked as if he’d died and gone to heaven.

The next morning Trev grumbled loudly as he shivered his way into his winter clothes and ducked out of his tent into the clear, cold predawn glow. Back in the hideout the banked stove didn’t give too much warmth by morning, but at least the reasonably well insulated space always stayed well above freezing, and he only had to suffer the cold for a few minutes as he rekindled the fire and waited for it to heat the small room up.

The others complained too, Lewis for the same reasons he was. Matt’s situation was similar since before this trip he’d also been able to enjoy relatively comfortable mornings, and even Tom and Jane in the Larsons’ house didn’t have to worry about a plunge into the heart of winter the moment they got out of their sleeping bags.

It was a fairly miserable group until they got the fire going again and cooked a bit more of the meat for breakfast. Matt assured them that things would warm up before too long on today’s hike, although the snow would remain all the way to the shelter so they’d have a path for the sleds. With the thought of warmer weather to spur them on they started out and made good time.