Stan Morris - Surviving the Fog

“This won’t work,” he stated.

“Why not?” Mike asked.

“A wall of rocks without using concrete will be unstable. There’s too much danger that it would collapse and bring the whole thing down,” explained Hector.

“Well, that sucks,” said Howard, and the others agreed.

“So we can’t use the cave at all?” Mike asked.

“Maybe there is a way,” Hector slowly answered, as he considered the problem. “If I could get some logs down here, I think I could build a wall with them. I could use heavy duty metal straps to tie the logs together and then brace them. That should work.”

“How are you going to get big logs down here?” asked Mike, his tone dubious. “I don’t think we can carry them. And how are we going to put one big log on top of another?”

“We have a machine that does that,” replied Hector absently, while studying the area. “It’s got a grapple that grabs the logs and lifts them. We use it to put the logs on the truck. That’s the problem. No one brought the truck yet. We need a truck to move the logs down here. Unless…” He looked back at the parking lot.

“Does that bus run?” he asked.

“The school bus?” said Mike. “Yeah, I guess it does. But how would you put logs in it? The seats are in the way.”

“I think I can take out the seats,” Hector replied. “The real problem will be using the machine to get the logs in the rear emergency door and doing it safely. But if I can load that bus, I should be able to bring a load of logs down here.”

“How will you get the bus over the river?” Howard asked. “Will we have to carry the logs across?”

“I think I can bring the machines down here,” Hector answered. “Usually we move them by flatbed truck, but some have tracks like a tank and the others have tires, so I can drive them down here. It will take a long time, because they are very slow. Then I can lie some of the logs across the river, and roll the bus across on them.”

“The river’s not running as fast as when we first got here,” said Eric. “Why is that?”

“There is not as much water because a lot of the snowpack has melted,” Hector explained. “How do you plan to use the bathroom during winter?” The teenagers exchanged grimaces.

“We have Porta Pottys,” said Mike. “But they are full of crap. We made a place in the forest where we piss.” Someone sounded the speaker calling the kids to brunch.

“We only eat two meals at day, brunch and supper,” Mike informed the logger, as they walked back to the dining hall. “We’ve been trying to conserve our food. Jacob, here, has managed to catch a few birds. Some are okay to eat, but most don’t have any meat. We’re thinking of using the rifle to try to get a deer. Jacob says that he knows how to skin it and cut it.”

Hector was thinking that this camp would be a better place to live during the winter than the logging camp, so he decided to sound the boys out about it.

“Do you think you have room for one more person?” he asked. The boys looked at one another.

“You don’t have to let me know right now,” added Hector hastily.

“Mike’s the Chief,” said Eric. “He decides.”

Hector looked at Mike who blushed. Now that there was an adult around, he felt somewhat self conscious.

“If you’re going to share your food with us, I guess it’s only fair that we share our space,” Mike acknowledged. “But there ‘s a couple of things you should know.”

Mike told him the rules they had made. He emphasized the one about not forcing the girls to have sex.

Hector stiffened. “I don’t mess with kids,” he said angrily.

His voice and body language caused the kids to become nervous. They didn’t want trouble with another adult.

Mike didn’t back down. “Good,” he said bravely. “I just wanted you to know. I mean, after what happened.”

Hector calmed down and nodded. “That’s a good rule any time, amigo,” he admitted. “Looks like you guys got yourselves a good leader,” he said to the others, and the teenagers relaxed.

Hector agreed to eat brunch with them, and then they showed him how they were trying to bring a cabin across the river. Once again, they tackled the wood floor. They managed to get it to the bridge, but the bridge was too small for more than two or three to stand abreast.

Hector solved the problem by angling the dolly under the side of the floor closest to the bridge, and then carefully balancing and pulling the dolly until the floor was covering the bridge with each side of the floor frame barely touching a different side of the river bank. Then the kids on his side of the river lifted the floor until he could get the dolly out from under the floor. Carrying the dolly, he stepped on to the floor and walked across to the other side. Once there, he forced the dolly under the floor again. The kids on the boys’ side lifted and pulled, and Hector balanced the floor until it was over the river.

“Whoa,” Mike said. “That was harder than I thought. I don’t know if we could have done it without you, Hector. Thanks a lot.”

“Yeah, that was a lot of work,” Hector agreed. “But we did it. That proves we can get the cabins across the bridge. If we can build a wall, I’m sure that we can get the bottom cabins on the wall and ledge. The problem will be to get the floors from the other cabins on top of the first layer. They will have to be lifted a lot higher.”

Hector decided that it was time to ride back to his camp. He wanted to take an inventory of all the items that he could bring back to the lower camp. To Hector’s surprise, Jacob asked if he could catch a ride.

“I’m going to explore a little,” he told Mike.

That worried Mike but he just asked Jacob to be careful. Mike had learned by now that Jacob was the kind of guy that would always want to explore his surroundings.

Jacob climbed behind Hector, and the motorcycle roared to life. They rode back over the hill, down past the Hanging Tree, and then onward to the junction of the road that led up to Hector’s camp. Hector paused when they came to the path on their right leading to the clearing where the dead bodies still lay.

“We need to bury those men,” Hector said.

Jacob gave out a non-committal grunt. Hector gunned his cycle again. Before they came to Hector’s camp, they passed the entrance to another dirt road on the left.

“Where does that road lead to?” Jacob asked loudly over the roar of the engine.

“The firebreak road? I don’t really know,” answered Hector. “I saw a man in a four by four pull out from it once. And once, I saw a woman on the road who was riding a horse. I think it must lead to another cabin or maybe a house.”

“How far is your camp, if I walked to it from here?” Jacob asked.

“Walking? Maybe an hour. The road goes up and down. It’s muddy in places.” They continued on until they came to the logging camp. There were several buildings and several pieces of heavy machinery. The equipment impressed Jacob.

“What do these machines do?” he asked.

“That one can take a downed tree and strip off the branches. The other one is a John Deere harvester. It can pick up a stripped tree, cut the end off, shoot a certain amount of it out one end, and then slice it off, turning it into a log. That one over there can pick up the logs and load them on a truck. We were supposed to get a machine this year that could cut the trees down safely, but the company said it would cost too much. So we still have big chainsaws to cut down the trees. It takes a lot more people to cut the trees with chainsaws. Luckily for us, because that’s why they delivered so much supplies this spring.”

“Do you have gas for all this stuff?” Jacob asked.