Stan Morris - Surviving the Fog

The sky was clear the following morning. At dawn, Hector started his truck, and he and a group of boys smothered in their heaviest clothes and blankets went to bury the bones lying under the noose. A few hours later, Mary saddled her horse, and she led the two animals over the bridge. She rode up the hill, and then she turned to acknowledge the waving kids. She disappeared over the crest of the hill as the burial detail was returning.

“She’s a nice lady,” Yuie said, as Mary disappeared over the rise.

“Yes, she is,” Mike agreed.

“And now we know that our people at the farm are all right,” Rasul added.

The snow had slowly melted. It lingered in the deep woods and on the mountains above them, but the road to the Brown farm became passable. Hector warned Mike that they needed to save their fuel for major projects and emergencies, so one day Mike, Jacob, and Hector hiked to the farm. They stopped and camped for the night at the turnoff to the logging camp, and then they continued on the next day. That afternoon as they neared the farm, the household came out to greet them. The older kids were excited to see their friends. Comet and Star trailed along behind Mary and Ralph.

“Who’s them, Daddy?” Comet demanded, giving Mike a look of suspicion.

Mike raised his eyebrows as he looked at Ralph. “They’re friends, Comet,” Ralph answered as he lifted the young lad with one arm.

The girls had to have hugs. The boys were more reserved, but they were very happy to see everyone. Mary greeted Jacob cheerfully and invited everyone inside, and despite their protests, fed them dinner. Afterwards, she showed them the farm.

“We need to decide what kinds of food I can provide that will stretch the farthest. Personally, I think that the best thing I could do would be to plow a large portion of your meadow, and sow it with wheat, alfalfa, and oats. You have more land in your meadow than I have in my fields. In the fall, I can cut everything with the combine, and then leave the combine there. We’ve got to avoid moving the machinery as much as possible to save on fuel. When we run out, we can use the horse and manpower to plow. We can use the wagon to move the food from your camp to our farm, or to move it from our farm to your camp.

“Here at the farm, I plan on planting potatoes, winter squash, peas, beans, and lettuce. Those crops, we can harvest by hand, although I will need you to send some of your people to help us. I don’t think that we will get great results from beans, but they are important to supplement whatever meat your hunters can provide. I’ll keep on growing cucumbers, summer squash, and tomatoes in containers in the solar room, so that I can get some vegetables to you as soon as possible. I believe that I can provide enough grains and vegetables for everyone. And we will have milk, although we may have to do without for a year. Our new calf is a bull, but it will be at least November before he can cover our cows, so I don’t expect to be able to provide you with milk next winter, unless we have a low snowfall.” She stopped.

The campers were overwhelmed.

“Wow,” exclaimed Mike. “Mrs. Brown, you’re like a super mom or something. I can’t believe how you’ve planned this. I just don’t know…” he trailed away, unable to express himself.

Mary smiled at him. “I’m a mother and a decent farmer, and I have the skills that you need. That’s why I’m doing this. But I will need your help to succeed.” The campers gratefully voiced their thanks and their eagerness to help. Together with Mary and Ralph, they talked well into the night as they made plans for the coming year.

The campers spent the night in the loft of the barn. The next day, they helped Mary load the wagon with food. By noon they were ready to leave. Ralph drove the wagon, while the campers walked beside it. The twins were going with them, but the girls were staying at the farm. They talked to Mike about their decision.

“Mrs. Brown said we could stay if we wanted to,” Kylie began. “I mean, we miss our friends back at camp, but…”

“But, we like it here, Chief,” Paige added. “And Mrs. Brown needs us. And Comet and Star need us.”

“It’s okay,” Mike assured them. “You’re free to come and go as you like. And we’ll be up here pretty often, so we’ll see you. And you can come visit us whenever you want.”

“Why can’t I go, Daddy?” Comet complained.

“You will be the only boy left, so you have to stay, Comet,” Ralph replied.

Comet did not think much of Ralph’s reasoning, but his grumbling subsided for the moment. Standing beside his mother, his sister, and the girls, he waved goodbye. Slowly, the wagon rolled away from the farm.

The heavy load required them to travel much slower than they normally would have. At one point, the wagon got stuck in the soft mud of the dirt road, and the campers had to unload the wagon and push it out of the mud. They stopped for the night at the junction of the logging road and the gravel road. Early the next morning, they continued their journey, and by twilight they arrived at the camp. Ralph carefully drove the wagon over the bridge Hector had built and then brought it to a halt, close to the dining hall. It was a cold night, so they left the food in the wagon and unloaded it early the next day.

The next morning, Ralph was anxious to get back to the farm. When the supplies were unloaded and stowed, he said goodbye to his friends, and then he spoke to Kevin and Nathan.

“Guys,” he said. “I truly appreciate everything. I’m sorry I was such an asshole at first.”

“We should have helped you more, Ralph. We’re sorry, too,” Nathan responded. Ralph shook hands with Kevin and Nathan, and then he turned to Mike.

“I have an idea,” Ralph said. “I’m going to miss the help that those two gave me. I was thinking that you might be willing to send another pair. Actually, I was thinking that it would be a good idea for a lot of the guys to get some experience on a farm. Maybe, you could send a new pair each month. It might come in handy in the future.”

“Yeah, that is a good idea,” said Mike. “Alright, I’ll send Tyler and another guy to you in a couple of days. I should warn you, the girls will probably want to have a chance to work on the farm, too, Ralph.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be seeing you, Mike.”

“You’re staying with Mrs. Brown? For good?” Mike asked. Ralph nodded.

“Then I’ll see you around,” Mike said with a smile.

They shook hands, and Ralph climbed on the wagon. He left the parking lot, and drove up the hill. Mike watched until he disappeared. Mike had mixed feelings about Ralph’s intentions, but he realized that developing the farm could be an important step in assuring the survival of this tribe of campers. And he remembered that the farm was not the only potential source of food.

Mike asked Jacob to come in for a talk.

Jacob had stalked and killed a deer that week, but he was not happy about it.

“This is the worst time of the year to be killing deer. This is when they’re mating,” he explained. “The bucks I kill will not mate and sire fawns.”

“Bad karma,” Rasul agreed. He was helping Mike moved furniture back into Chief’s Headquarters.

“I’ve been thinking about those people at the Retreat that Jean came across,” Mike said. “I’ve been thinking about the sheep.”

“Be nice if we had some,” Jacob said. “We could breed them. We would have a steady source of meat.”

“But it didn’t sound like a very pleasant situation,” said Mike. “It might be a good idea to scout the area. Do you think you could find the place, if Jean gave you directions?”

“Maybe. She was in bad shape when they found her. I wonder if she remembers the way,” Jacob replied.