Chapter Three

 

We called it Stronghold, although our town had only grown to a few shacks and a stack of lumber, accompanying of course, the scattered remnants of the mining town that stood in its place nearly a hundred fifty years before. My beautiful wife, Rae Lynn, had mostly recovered from the intensely challenging labor and birth of our son, Jax.

We had a small flock of chickens, which included a pair of goofy roosters named Dumb Ass and Little Shit, a pair of pigs, Snort and Sally, and our loyal pooch, Buzz, who was always at our side with a playful demeanor and always eager to offer his endless amounts of slobber. We also had our neighbors, Eric and Angie Boone, and their son Kev. They had become dear friends and had served a crucial part in our survival, having helped us out of many tough situations.

It had been a brutal year and a half since terrorist attacks decimated our country, and we lived ‘Off Grid’, in the vast wilderness of the Colorado Rockies. We had endured brutal winters that brought unbelievable amounts of snow, severe injuries, one of which had left me with a shoulder that continues to dislocate with ease, and various attacks from humans, wolves, and one extremely unpleasant bear, which happened to be during the birth of our son, thus earning him the nickname of Bear.

The world we now knew was harsh and brutal and the benefits and simplistic commodities of our former life had long since left us behind. Our days were filled with hard work and each brought a multitude of new challenges. It was a wild new world that few had survived. A small group of those that had, had travelled from Ohio seeking refuge with us, and together, we had begun building and fortifying our town, our ‘Stronghold’.

We enjoyed the company of the newly arrived group, most of which, proved to be hard working and eager to learn the variety of necessary tasks. Our resident fishermen however, Tom Harrison and his son Tommy Jr., had left for an outing a week earlier and had not returned. I also struggled some with Howard Harvey, who, a writer by trade, and fairly well known, had somewhat distanced himself from the group and often disappeared for hours at a time.

There were twelve new additions in all. Levi Bertram, whom we had met during a brief return to our home in Ohio, was a good hand with a green thumb. He worked diligently on the greenhouse and aquaponics, having brought with him enough materials to establish a large system, short a few fish. He also began working a few small nearby fields of corn, wheat and other grains that Eric and Kev had worked the summer before. The Higgs family, who had taken up residence with Levi after the attacks, John and Jenn and their daughters, Julie and Jackie, had grown fond of caring for his chickens back in Ohio and ecstatically agreed to tend to the animals as well as the greenhouse that was under construction and nearly complete. William Wyatt, or Billy, along with his girlfriend Mary Jane Monahan were a friendly young couple who took quickly to the sawmill operations. After little instruction, they mastered the small portable mill and worked painstakingly, cutting and stacking lumber from duck until dawn nearly every day. Then there was Mike Matheson, who proved a welcomed and superior hand with construction, as he had worked in the industry for twenty some years. He also had adequate experience felling trees and accompanied Kev and I, securing logs for the mill with the assistance of a beat up old Holmes wrecker that Rae and I acquired when building our own cabin. David Johnston, or Pastor Dave, was a quick study and spent most of his time, with Mike’s guidance, building the multiple shacks for housing, the greenhouse and a barn for the critters. Topping off the list were the fore-mentioned Howard, and disappeared anglers, Tom and Tommy Jr.

Kev, with his abundance of energy, spent each day assisting whomever needed the most help. He was a very capable hand, quickly picking up skills of a multitude of trades. Angie and Mary Jane also had some limited medical training, which would soon prove essential as well. Rae stayed busy with Jax, helping when she could and keeping everything in order. Buzz too, was eager to help, offering his services, and wagging tail, as a babysitter for the young Higgs girls.

Things were coming together well and our town was slowly taking shape. The start of the third week however, came also with the disappearance of Pastor Dave. Each of our group was free to come and go as they pleased, but it left an uneasy feeling having lost three people in as many weeks, especially without even a mention by any of them. We carried on nonetheless, having an increasing awareness of the work to be done before the heat of summer vanquished and the brutality of winter replaced it.

The fourth week welcomed the return of Eric, along with Ethan Wolfe. Their return seemed reminiscent of an old western flick as they, having broken down on their return, rode into town on horseback with a small herd of a dozen more. The days of vehicles were drawing to an end as the abundance of fuel dwindled. Levi had located some copper sheeting and fashioned a large still, but without ripe corn and sugar, fuel was not readily available and the horses proved invaluable.

Eric and Ethan brought with them the knowledge of a large lake several miles to the north. Having had little luck in the Big Muddy, we decided to load up my old Wagoneer and take a day or two to determine what variety of fish it had to offer. Tilapia was best suited for aquaponics, but being native to Japan, we chose to focus on bluegill and channel cat, which we also heard were suitable if used together. Ethan, to my surprise, was born and raised only fifty miles from where Rae and I lived back in Ohio, and we quickly filled the air with stories as if we had known each other our entire lives.

We found a boat docked on the south edge of the lake nearby an old vacated home and decided it best to fish the deeper waters from the boat than the shallows that the shore would allow. We fished throughout the evening, catching an array of bluegill and channel cat as well as several trout, perch and some odd looking species that none of us were familiar with. We also caught what we referred to as the good ole red-eyed buzz fish, courtesy of the moonshine and reefer that we brought along for the expedition. We decided our ‘Marijuana in the Moonshine’ outing was something that would soon need repeated.

We laughed and carried on until the light filled the eastern sky. We decided to call it quits and return the boat to its resting place. We needed to get our catch back alive and decided to rummage around the old vacant house for any useful supplies before heading out, so we turned the boat to shore and headed back to the dock.