Scott Williams - The Pulse

They passed the intersection where Highway 21 splits from Highway 190 and runs northeast, and crossed the bridge over the Bogue Falaya River. Two more miles took them through the north end of Covington to where Highway 190 makes an abrupt turn to the west to connect to Hammond and Baton Rouge beyond, but Grant led them north onto Louisiana State Highway 25.This arrow-straight two-lane route would take them away from the large human population centers surrounding Lake Pontchartrain, with only a few small towns and semi-rural neighborhoods separating them from the real boonies Grant assured them they would find when they crossed the Mississippi state line. Shortly after they left the city limits, they came to another bridge over a small, fast-running creek that looked much more inviting than the murky waters of the Bogue Falaya had. Though the water was far from pristine and unpolluted, Grant said it would be safe enough after chemical treatment and that it would also be nice to wash their dishes from last night’s camp.

“How does that work?” Jessica asked as she watched Grant fill each of their water bottles and then add a capful of some liquid he carried in a small glass bottle that looked like a medicine bottle.

“The bottle contains iodine crystals,” he said. “They are kept inside it by a particle trap, so they can be re-used over and over. I filled the bottle with water before we left my apartment, and it mixes with the iodine to form a concentrated solution. A capful in each quart bottle of water will make it safe to drink after about 20 minutes.”

“Are you sure it works?” Casey asked.

“I’ll bet my life on it,” Grant said. “I’ve used this stuff everywhere. Even in the muddy Essequibo River in Guyana, where villagers dump their crap directly into the river and every kind of exotic tropical parasite known to man is likely to thrive. This stuff works for any kind of biological pathogens. And the best thing about it is that when this bottle of solution is empty, like right now after treating our bottles, you just simply refill it with more water and shake it up, and in an hour or so, you’ve got another bottle of solution ready to go. You can’t beat it. This one bottle could last us for months, if need be. But I’ve got two more in my bags too.”

“I’m impressed!” Casey said. She was indeed impressed and growing more so all the time—not with Grant’s water treatment solution in particular, but with Grant the person. She knew it was probably obvious, and it was becoming obvious that Jessica was impressed with him too. She just wondered what he really thought of them and then it occurred to her that he might very well decide he liked Jessica more than her. After all, she turned guys’ heads everywhere she went more than most any girl Casey had ever known. She wanted to think that Grant wasn’t that superficial, but he was, first and foremost, a guy, and guys noticed girls like Jessica. Even though Jessica came across as mostly clueless when it came to dealing with a situation like the one they found themselves in, Casey knew that Grant might overlook that and that Jessica might come around to reality sooner than she had first assumed. The more time Jessica spent around Grant, the more time she would have to learn from him—and the more time he would have to notice how beautiful she was—despite not being able to properly do her makeup and hair or even take a bath every day.

The creek did give them an opportunity to wash their faces and freshen up a bit, though, and with full water bottles and the clean cooking pot and utensils packed away, they set out north again on Highway 25. The pedaling was easy here on a mostly flat highway with smooth pavement. Housing developments began to give way more to empty fields and wooded areas the farther they rode from the city. Interspersed here and there were larger single homes surrounded by expansive lawns, many with horse barns and ponds. They were now in the outlying areas. This was where the commuters with good jobs in the city would drive home each day, to their semi-rural retreats. And each day they would get up and do it again the next—that is, until three days ago, when that entire automobile-dependent lifestyle ceased to be viable for the indeterminate future. Along the roadway, shiny BMWs, Hummers, and other status-symbol rides were left abandoned alongside the well-used utilitarian brands of the less affluent. These now-useless relics proved that the failure of technology made no distinction between marks of manufacture when it came to anything dependent upon modern electronic circuitry. The playing field had been leveled once again as it had been briefly in the aftermath of Katrina, putting wealthy and poor alike at an equal disadvantage. Many of them probably habitually complained about spending hours in traffic to get to and from work, but were now faced with the even more discouraging prospect of walking for hours just to travel a few miles. There was no choice for anyone, no matter how wealthy, but to adapt as best they could from a life of comfort, ease, and security to one of ever-increasing hardship and danger.

For Casey, Grant, and Jessica, this discomfort was multiplied exponentially a half hour later when the clouds that had been building all morning finally opened up in a steady downpour. Grant said it didn’t look like it was the kind of rain that was going to go away in a few minutes or even a few hours, like a typical summer thunderstorm in southern Louisiana. Instead, rain like this in mid-March usually indicated a large storm front moving into the area. Without any access to a weather report of any kind, they had left New Orleans not knowing such a weather system was coming their way. Grant had hoped they could make the entire trip to the cabin in the fair weather they had started out in yesterday. He didn’t have enough rain gear at his apartment for all three of them, though there were ponchos stored with the canoe gear in the cabin. Stuffed in his backpack was a decent waterproof cycling jacket that he frequently wore when commuting around the city, but with the three of them caught out on the open road and the rain already falling, there was little good one jacket could do. He didn’t feel right about riding in dry comfort while his companions got soaked, and there was no practical way for them to share the jacket, as everyone would get wet anyway when it wasn’t their turn, so he didn’t mention it or bother to get it out. Likewise, the tarp he brought for bivouacking along the way would keep them dry if they stopped, but would do little good on the road. Besides, the weather was warm enough that they were in no danger of exposure from getting wet; it was just unpleasant.

“It won’t do any good to try to wait it out,” he said. “This rain may last two or three days. We’d be soaked by the time we found a place to set up camp anyway, and then we’d just be stuck there with nothing to do. We might as well keep riding. I wouldn’t normally want to ride far in the rain, but at least we don’t have to worry about being hit by cars that can’t see us.”

“Oh wow, this really sucks!” Jessica said.

“You can say that again,” Casey agreed. “Everything we have on is going to get drenched!”

“Yeah, but it’ll all dry out again when this is over. The main thing is that our food and the really important stuff is packed away safely in plastic bags. It may be kind of miserable spending the night out in this tonight, but if we keep on pushing today until dark, we should easily reach the cabin by tomorrow,” Grant said. “It may turn a lot cooler after this front moves through, but if we keep going, we’ll be there before that happens. Just tough this out and soon, I promise, you’ll be warm and dry, sitting by the heat of the woodstove and eating a good hot meal that will make you forget all about today.”