STEADFAST Book One: America's Last Days (The Steadfast Series 1) Read online

  The woman sifted through ash for anything metal that hadn't burned up. She found cutlery, the wooden handles burnt, and a screwdriver with a melted handle. At the corner of the house, she kicked at a metal box to free it from debris, then dragged it aside.

  "Could this be the last thing I own in the world?" She stood over the metal box, her hands on her hips. "I guess it's only right that I inherit the tools Brad died for."

  She lifted the lid and Eric moved closer to gaze inside. He'd learned to be content with much or with little, as the Bible said, but that day, he coveted those tools. They were probably car garage tools originally, but a saw and hammer had been added to the weathered collection. Inside the metal box, they'd been preserved from the flames and much heat.

  "Uh, no offense," he said, "but I'm not real comfortable about being this close to the highway. And I'm even less comfortable about leaving you here alone. Can I walk you to Rosenkern? It's not far to the south, I think."

  She stared at the ashes as if she hadn't heard him.

  "What were you before Pan-Day?" she asked.

  From the radio, Eric knew Pan-Day was when the nation had reached a tipping point with so many cities quarantined from the pandemic, causing the banks to close, and civil panic to reach its peak.

  "I was a blogger. Wasn't much good at anything else." The thought made him smile. "People paid me to review things, then I'd blog about it. I reviewed merchandise and tourist sights. Had a decent following, so the money was good. I was on my way to Jackson to visit and review a new resort. But I pulled off here."

  "Brad was in real estate. I didn't know him before Pan-Day, but afterward, he was always talking about turning this place into a new community, based on trade and human kindness. I guess his dream was five years too late, huh?"

  "I don't know." Eric sighed. "Five years ago, the country wasn't any better on human kindness. Your husband was just hoping for something better, I guess. So, anyway, Rosenkern is probably less than ten miles away. Or maybe you know other homesteaders nearby?"

  "No. There's no one between here and Gaultridge to the south. Rosenkern burned four years ago. No one lives there now."

  "Okay, then Adderthorn is—"

  "No, I'd rather die than return to Adderthorn."

  "Gaultridge is farther away than Adderthorn," Eric said.

  "Those bikers went south." She shook her curls. "I'm not going south."

  Eric rolled his eyes to the heavens. What was God doing?

  "I'm sorry, but neither one of us is prepared to spend the night out here. Wherever you're going, you need to get started."

  "Do you believe in God?" She looked far out at the plain. "I used to think I was chosen. Chosen to survive the virus. Chosen to marry a man like Brad. Chosen to have Andy."

  "Andy?" Eric cringed at the ashes. Was there another body, maybe a child he hadn't noticed?

  "I was hiding in the woods all night, thinking I was cursed instead. If there is a God, He must hate me. I don't even have another set of clothes. I actually begged God for help. I've never done that, but all I got was silence all night."

  "I don't think you're cursed. My experiences aren't that—"

  "And now you're here." She turned toward Eric. "I prayed for help, and you showed up. If I let you have the tools, will you take us with you—up there?"

  "The tools?" He shook his head. "No, I don't need tools that badly. I'm not set up for more people."

  "You have others? Who lives with you?"

  "Look, I'm not alone, all right? I have enough mouths to—"

  "You have a woman?"

  "Actually, yes. Her name is Talia. There's just no room for—"

  "We won't be a bother. Andy's good about chores. I can chop wood or whatever." She closed the lid on the tool box. "You want me to carry your pack so you can carry the tools?"

  "No, listen!" He held up his hand. This was moving way too fast. "My place is in no condition to host a— Who's Andy?"

  "My son." She put her fingers to her mouth and blew a shrill whistle, then waved at the tree line. "He can carry your rifle."

  Numbly, Eric gazed at the edge of the clearing. A blond head emerged from the trees, then a golden retriever next to him. Together, they ran toward the woman.

  "I just might have a heart attack right now," Eric said.

  "You'll hardly notice us." She shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed up at the mountain. "That's just the kind of safe place we need right now. There's still too much violence around."

  The boy named Andy, no older than five, skidded to a halt in front of his mother. He brushed shaggy hair from his eyes as the retriever ignored Eric to sniff the edges of the ashes.

  "I have a one-room cabin. Seriously, this isn't going to work. I'm taking you both to Adderthorn."

  "They won't take us in." She raised her chin. "They threw us out already, on account of Brad. He fought with one of the leaders. We were out here alone. Your cabin will be fine. We'll build another one for me and Andy. You and your wife can live in your own cabin."

  "Talia isn't my—" Eric took a deep breath. Arguing with this woman wasn't working, especially not with the shotgun still in her hands. "Hello, Andy. My name's Eric."

  "He'll call you Mr. Radner." His mother nudged him. "Shake his hand, Andy."

  The youngster stepped up and thrust out a small, rigid hand. He was thin but appeared healthy.

  "You ever carry a rifle, Andy?" Eric asked as he swung it off his shoulder.

  "Keep the barrel out of the dirt," Andy recited, "and don't knock the scope on any branches."

  "Told you." The woman smirked at Eric. "Now, give me your pack."

  "I hope I don't regret this."

  She took his pack and Eric stooped to pick up the tool case.

  "Just think of it as a business deal," she said, "and the tools are payment for our rent."

  "At least Talia will have someone else to fuss over." Eric groaned under the weight of the tools on his shoulder, easily forty pounds. "Step where I step, and try not to leave footprints anywhere. And I should probably know your name."

  "Joyce. Joyce Adkins. I guess I'll be keeping my husband's name."

  "And that's Runner." Andy carried the rifle over one shoulder like a little soldier, and pointed at the retriever charging the clearing in front of them.

  Joyce fit the pack on her back, the straps a bit loose, and gripped her shotgun in her hands. By her stern look, she was a survivor, but the mountain had a way of testing a person's mettle.

  "How many shells do you have for that thing?" Eric gestured at her shotgun. "There's a meadow I know that has some quail."

  "I guess I just ran out of the house when Brad told us to run. It's not even loaded."

  *~*

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, Eric was a bystander as Talia gave Joyce Adkins a tour of the inside and outside of the cabin. Although Talia had arrived only a day before Joyce and Andy, in Eric's absence down the mountain, the older woman had explored what had been his habitat for five years.

  "The best I can figure," Talia said, pointing at rows of sprouting plants on the east side of the cabin, where the sun could hit most of the day, "this is his garden. But nothing's labeled, so we either have to ask him what's what, or use a book in the cabin that has pictures of each plant. Some are vegetables. Some are for tea or vitamins or medicine. Wild onion there, and we know that's garlic. The growing season just started, so we have time to learn."

  Talia led Joyce to the west side of the cabin where the water tank overflowed into a stream Eric had channeled to the south. Fifty yards away, he'd carved a wide bowl out of the mountain slope for a pond where he bathed. The deer and elk also watered there.

  "I'm guessing," Talia said, "there's a spring farther up the mountain somewhere. These logs have been split down the middle, hollowed out, then put back together to make pipes. They carry the water here. This outside tank drains into the hot water tank. I have no idea how he keeps all this from freezing duri
ng the winter, though. Now, the cabin addition we'll need to build will go here, on the north side next to the shed . . ."

  Andy ran past them and stopped at the stream with Runner to drink from the clear water. Talia may have described the mechanics of Eric's home in a few minutes, but it had taken years to engineer—and he was still improving it. Adding onto the cabin would require more adjustments, all to provide additional sleeping space for his house guests, who were quickly becoming the chief proprietors of his estate.

  By God's hand, Eric's concern at having company was being replaced with a warmth for the new residents. He'd read in the Bible that only a fool isolates himself, so, he'd been a fool for some time, living in fear of discovery, exposure, and of contracting the virus. As long as their mark in the woods didn't extend beyond the ridge, he guessed they'd remain hidden and safe.

  "So, Mr. Radner," Talia called to him, "are you going to show us the source of all this water or is that a secret?"

  He did have his secrets, but the water source wasn't one of them.

  "It's a short hike." He picked up his rifle and handed it to Joyce, then nodded at Talia. "Shall I assume my role as mule?"

  "My hips aren't what they used to be." She frowned, then climbed onto his back. "It's this uneven ground. By the way, how often do you relocate the outhouse?"

  "We'll have to make it every three months now." He eyed the hastily-built single board wall he'd erected with women now on the property. "I'll build four walls on that thing tomorrow."

  "By tonight," she said.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Andy had acquired a stout club that he used to whack on tree trunks as he and Runner scouted ahead. They set off to the west, following the wooden aqueduct into the trees. It didn't take them long to realize they were moving downhill, not uphill.

  "You push water uphill, against gravity?" Joyce looked back at the cabin to study the angle. "How does that work?"

  "Water pressure." Eric paused to tighten a leather bind around a leaky wooden pipe. "From the spring, the water runs down into a large hollow log. Then it's connected to successively smaller pipes, which pushes a steady stream into the tank outside the cabin. It doesn't take much since it runs all the time."

  "How do you keep it from freezing in the winter?" Talia asked in his ear, her arms clasped under his chin.

  "I don't. I detach the log from the spring and let the whole thing drain out after the first freeze. For water during the winter, we'll rely on melted snow, which isn't a problem. We get about ten feet at this elevation."

  "Ten feet!" Andy reached skyward with his stick, trying to gauge such a height. "How will we live?"

  "Lots of cabin time with only short trips outside."

  "What'll we do all winter?" Andy asked.

  "School work." Joyce nodded at Eric. "Mr. Radner has a pile of notebooks just waiting to be filled with grammar and math lessons."

  "We'll design our own curriculum," Talia said. "You'll be the smartest boy in Wyoming after a couple winters with us!"

  "Poor kid," Eric mumbled, drawing a critical glance from Joyce, but he privately wondered how he would endure such a winter with two women fussing over him and Andy. Perhaps more hunting excursions were in order to make himself scarce.

  They reached the spring, a bubbling emergence straight out of the hillside, tapped into by a thirty-inch log, anchored by stakes and leather thongs. Some water still spilled out of the end of the log to cascade down a natural streambed to the south.

  "I'll put a roof and walls over all this," Eric said, "since pine needles fall into the water and collect in the pipes. I have a rough screen of wires to catch debris, but it's been getting clogged too often."

  "Hey, what's this?" Andy called from above them. Eric hadn't realized he'd strayed toward the mountain summit.

  "What's up there, Mr. Radner?" Talia asked as she urged him by a kick of her heels on his thighs. Joyce was already climbing to the summit of the mountain. "You have more mysteries besides water that runs uphill?"

  Reluctantly, he followed Joyce, not willing to admit to anyone that he'd intended to keep the matter a secret.

  A panoramic view opened before them of the whole world, it seemed. The highest point of the mountain afforded them a look down at most of Adderthorn, and to the east, there was farm and range land as far as the eye could see.

  No one spoke for a few moments as they took in the sight. Not far up the Sharrock Range, a taller mountain, over ten thousand feet, slightly obscured their view of the west. If he would've used his telescope, Eric could've viewed the ranger station on the taller mountain, where his life had been saved.

  "It's beautiful." Joyce panted in the thinner air and fell to her knees. "We're above the world. Brad would've loved this. He talked about climbing this mountain someday, but he just hunted the lower forest. He would've found you, Mr. Radner."

  "The question is," Talia said, "what is this?"

  There was a manmade box the size of a washing machine, which sat on the immediate sheltered side of the peak, protected from the worst winds.

  "It's the reason I don't get more hunting done and projects finished." Eric set Talia on her own legs, and knelt with Andy to remove the box by lifting the cover completely off to expose a radio beneath. "Sit on this box, Talia. This wasn't part of the tour, but now that we're here . . ."

  From the console, Eric picked up a handheld windmill and unfolded its three wings to lock them into place. It started to spin in the wind, and the twelve-inch wings became a blur.

  "Andy, this job is for you." He gave him the windmill. "Keep it aimed into the wind."

  The windmill wires ran back to the generator on which the radio sat. Eric handed Joyce a telescoping antenna that he usually shoved into a crack in the rock, but her height would give them better reception.

  Eric saw wonder on their faces. Contact with the outside world was rare those days, except for occasional traders who came through town, but their word was only barely reliable.

  "Don't get too excited." He sat cross-legged and touched the frequency dial. "Most days, I don't hear anything but old recordings."

  "But you hear talking on some days?" Joyce shook her head. "Where did you get this?"

  "There was a Forest Service lookout tower to the west. It had been abandoned for a while. Listen . . ."

  When he unplugged a headset, static crackled from its hand-sized speaker, and he turned up the volume since they were pulling decent power from Andy. Eric figured the days he'd spent crouched and shivering on the mountaintop with the radio was comparable to a geek on his laptop before Pan-Day.

  Turning the frequency dial, Eric first checked frequencies he knew by memory where he'd previously heard chatter.

  "Where's your mic?" Joyce asked.

  "No, we should never transmit!" He frowned. "They could track our transmission and find us."

  "Who?" Talia jabbed a crooked finger into his shoulder. "There's people out there with technology? What aren't you telling us?"

  The static broke with a man's voice, indiscernible at first.

  "Hold real still, Joyce," Eric said, touching other dials to filter out the white noise. "There's someone right . . . there . . ."

  The voices were chaotic, sometimes overlapping, sometimes in succession. They could only catch pieces.

  "They're falling back!" one voice announced.

  "Someone take care of that fifty on the east flank!" another ordered.

  "This is Vasquez. I've got too many casualties. I'm pulling out! Commander Morris, I've got to pull out!"

  "Unit Two, push through the center. Break them! Break them!"

  Eric turned the volume down as vulgarity, screams, and explosions intensified. His amazing secret had brought an awful truth to the ears of his small clan. Joyce slowly lowered the antenna.

  "Andy, honey, you can give the windmill back to Mr. Radner." Without another look at Eric, she turned and walked down the mountain. "Come on, Andy."

  Perhaps Andy didn't
understand what he'd heard, but he understood enough to know not to question his mother right then. He gave Eric the windmill and ran after Joyce.

  Holding the antenna and windmill in his lap, Eric looked at Talia, who clutched her winter coat against the brisk wind.

  "Her husband believed the nation was being restored, and the improvements would soon reach here, where they could raise Andy in peace and quiet." The old woman frowned, her lower lip touching her small nose since she had no teeth. "That was a military unit attacking someone, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah." Eric gazed to the east. "I've heard them off and on for months. They're pushing west mostly, taking towns and strongholds as they advance."

  "Who are they?"

  "From what I can tell from their communications, they're remnants of the US military. I haven't heard of any real authority behind them. They're after fuel depots and ammo, I think. There's talk about freedom, but they just keep killing. The whole Mississippi Valley is vulnerable. They're cleaning out everyone who resists, more or less enslaving others to join them for the spoils. The east and west coasts may be banding together, but everything in between, like us—it's every town for itself."

  "How far away are they?"

  "Last month, they were in Kansas City, probably draining the last fuel the people had there. Without fuel, their advance stalls, until they find more gas for their vehicles. I don't know how many vehicles they have, though."

  Talia stood and Eric placed the protective box back over the radio. As he carried her down the slope, she cleared her throat.

  "They could be taking Lincoln or Omaha," she said. "Or even Denver or Colorado Springs. Could they come through Wyoming?"

  "If they hear Mastover still has resources, it's probable they'll come this far. I'm not the only one with a radio, though. When some are foolish enough to transmit, then they can be found. Great Falls has an Air Force base, so this army might come through Wyoming just to access Montana. But we'll be safe up on this mountain."

  They didn't speak for the rest of the walk back to the cabin. Perhaps they were both trying to believe what he'd said about being safe.