Enduring the Crisis (10 page)

The three loaded up in Chuck’s truck and he took them to the other side of the island, passing the inactive airport on the way.

“So we had this fella show up at church a few days ago. Basically he stopped in to see what we knew about what all is going on. He was aware we have an emergency plan in place for when this stuff happens and he just wanted to know what we could find out about how safe it was for him to travel back to the lower forty-eight. Because of the crisis down there, he’s stayed put here for a few days hoping for more news before he decides where he’s headed.”

They pulled up to a different harbor than where they had been in the morning. Lots of smaller fishing vessels and none of the Coast Guard presence like at the other docks.

“Hello, Jackson.” Chuck stuck out his hand to the man that met them at the edge of the parking lot.

“You brought me some help?” He winked at Ben and Nate.

Nate shifted his weight uncomfortably.

Ben shook Jackson’s hand and introduced himself. Nate did the same even though he was still not so sure.

“Assuming we all get along nicely and it’s a go, if you’re going to pass potential inspections, we’re all longtime seafaring friends on our way around the Pacific Coast.” Jackson nodded for them to follow. “I’ll take you on a tour of the boat.”

Once they boarded the massive boat that looked like an upgraded fancy fishing trawler, Jackson gave them the details. “This is my baby. She’s taken me all around the Pacific and then some this summer. She looks like a halibut schooner and can handle the rough seas out here like a champ.” He led them into the living quarters. He offered them a soda before sitting on the gently broke-in sofa at the far end of the room. Which wasn’t all that far but seemed that way with how stylishly the room was set up. Ben sat in the compact recliner. Nate sat in the one next to him while Chuck joined Jackson on the sofa.

“My brother is out trying to scrounge up some supplies. My plans have changed and they are in your favor, my new friends. However, just in the short time from when I talked to Chuck about your crisis and how you’re trying to get to Anchorage in a hurry, I heard they shut down all outgoing boat traffic heading up the Western Alaska coast. We aren’t headed that way but we have to hustle out of here. If we don’t hear that it hasn’t happened by the end of the day today, I’m sure by tomorrow morning all boat traffic in all directions will be shut down. My plan is to go park this baby in the harbor in Anchorage until the excitement is over or until I can find a safe place to go if it gets crazy there too. I’m sure the inlet will be heavily patrolled. I’m not worried about our safety. But if they ask us why we’re out there, we’ll claim civilian ignorance as we hug the coastline.”

“The fishing trawler we were on was shot at.” Ben leaned forward, tense from the memory.

“It’s serious stuff out there,” Nate agreed.

“I’m sure. But the area we’re headed isn’t as wide open as the way you came. Like I said, it is heavily patrolled which is good and bad for us. As long as we can get to Homer or anywhere on the Kenai Peninsula, we will all be better off. This place is too shut off from civilization for me to want to stay here any longer. No offense, Chuck.”

“None taken. The biggest strain on the island right now is all the stranded travelers. It sounds like food shipments will be limited if we get any at all. I’m staying put, though. I know some of the locals and plenty of the fisherman are wanting to head out of here as well even with the restrictions in place.”

“You two think you can handle another risky trip? We’re going whether or not you guys come along. So you better hurry and make up your mind.” Jackson rested his elbows on his knees, looking as if he was ready for an adventure.

“When are you leaving?” Ben couldn’t believe their luck. He looked over at Nate to see if he was comfortable. He was just as engrossed and prepared to go.

“I know you are waiting to send messages to your families tonight. What, around nine or so, Chuck?” Jackson looked at him for an answer and got a nod. “When you guys are finished, make sure you have all your gear and Chuck can bring you back here. Remember where this boat is. I won’t be meeting you. And act as if you just came back from doing laundry or something and that you belong here, not like you’re headed out for a long trip.”

“Okay.” Nate scooted to the edge of his seat taking it all in.

“There’s plenty of people here at night milling around, some don’t know what to do with themselves when they don’t have the freedom to leave when they want so I suspect it might be a little more… active tonight. Just agree with the grumbling as if you totally get it. Don’t answer questions. But don’t be a jerk.”

Both men agreed.

“I’ll take you on a tour. Having extra help on this trip might be just the thing we needed.”

Once they finished visiting with Jackson, they were taken back to the hotel. Chuck had a meeting so they were on their own for the rest of the day. They packed up their things and headed out. It was a far longer walk to Chuck’s with all their suitcases.

By the time they got there, they were exhausted and starving.

Chuck invited them in and they had dinner with his wife where she asked all sorts of questions about their families and it made Ben terribly homesick.

He sat by the fire lost in his thoughts as they waited.

“Have you ever tried DX’ing a message before?” Chuck asked.

Both Ben and Nate shook their heads.

“I’ve heard of it though and it sounds cool. I just haven’t been around anyone that knew how,” Ben said.

“Here, let us look up your friends call signs before we start.” He pulled out his laptop and was able to find their information.

“Wait, I couldn’t get the internet to look up church information earlier.” Ben frowned at Chuck’s laptop.

“Think about where that is located. Now think about the main purpose for all of us HAM operators. We’re always training for an emergency.” He finished writing down a very random looking letter and number combo on paper before he set the laptop aside. “Now that I have their call signs, here’s how this works. Our success is all going to depend on a lot of things out of our control. Like the position of the sun and where it is in its eleven year solar cycle and my antenna. Fortunately, the Coast Guard has a real winner of an antenna that puts mine to shame. We’ll see how well we can use it to do what we’re gonna do. This is also called skipping and we can’t do much until the sun has fully charged the magnetosphere in the atmosphere. After the sun sets — that’ll happen here pretty soon — we have a great big radio mirror that we can bounce our HF signals off of. It it’s a really good night, we could skip around the world and bounce about five or six times before we can’t hear it anymore. So we’re going to try the 80m band at around 3.850Mhz on the lower sideband and see how it works. We’re going to cross our fingers that they have at least 100 watts of power on their radio if it’s going to work. That might be asking a lot.” He shook his head. “No matter what, it’s worth a shot because you never know.”

Chuck brought them into his radio room. Black boxes with knobs, radios, and a mess of wires covered his desk. He pushed a few things out of the way and had the piece of paper in front of him with the call signs and what messages Ben and Nate wanted to send home. They were simple, basically letting their families know they were safe and trying to get home.

“Now, I’ll try skipping because the timing is perfect and hopefully we’ll hear back from someone. I have another option if this doesn’t work. The other method, called Packet Radio, will require me to use a computer and I’m going to assume they won’t have much technology on their end. So we may not have any luck with that at all. But, what the heck. We’ll give it a try.”

Ben and Nate sat on the edges of their chairs while Chuck sent a message using the phonetic alphabet. Lots of Bravo Alpha Charlie’s that didn’t make a lot of sense to either one of them. The noises on the radio sounded as if it came from a really old science-fiction movie. Voices faded in and out when Chuck wasn’t talking. There were static and crackles and popping sounds. It would get loud and then quiet where they could barely hear anything.

Chuck was communicating with someone after a short time. Ben couldn’t make sense or process the words for letters they were using fast enough. Chuck was engrossed, taking notes. He let it be known before he started that there wasn’t a lot of time to communicate so they sat in silence, hoping that he had some luck. It didn’t seem like much time had passed when the voices they had been listening to completely faded out. Chuck didn’t show any emotion at all on his face so it was impossible to tell how successful he had been.

He spun his chair around to face Ben and Nate. He sighed before speaking. “Not much luck. Idaho was nothing. I did speak to someone in Montana. I was able to give them Nate’s message. I started to give him Ben’s because they’re much closer than we are and they could send it along but that’s when it faded out. I hardly gave him any info before we lost contact.”

Ben felt his heart drop in disappointment. His emotions were getting tough to deal with.

“I won’t give up. I have enough information now that I can keep trying. If you find another HAM radio operator in Anchorage, have them message me. I might have a message for you by then.” He rested his hand on Ben briefly to reassure him before he placed his notes in a stack in front of his radio. “Also, I’ll want to hear if you make it back home.” He looked at Ben and then to Nate.

“We will for sure. Thank you so much,” Nate said.

Ben couldn’t bring himself to talk. It was all too much. But they were about to board a boat and would be leaving just like he believed they would do when he woke up that morning. He allowed himself to be muddled in his own thoughts as Chuck and Nate visited on their ride to the harbor to board Jackson’s boat.

When night fell, that was when Tammy was fighting off a panic attack. Zoe and Holly’s extra concern over her pain and misery from the night before wasn’t helping. Unfortunately, Amanda and Charlie were just as edgy, snapping at each other and the other girls.

“Hey, this isn’t going to work. I know you girls are nervous after last night. Tonight we need to double check the locks, and go to the safe room early. Then we’ll find something quiet to do so we can settle our nerves.”

“But why so early?” Mae complained. She was enjoying Holly’s lessons on the telescope.

Every noise Tammy heard while standing at the door made her jump. It didn’t matter if it was a dog barking or someone’s wind chimes, she felt as if it was a signal that someone was going to invade their backyard.

Perhaps it was because the vibe in the neighborhood felt different as night fell. All the neighborly helping was fine and wonderful earlier in the day. The extended power outage was wearing on all the civilized people as dusk was setting in. Far more noise came from all their neighbors’ houses than there had been on previous evenings. Another night in the dark wasn’t sitting well with many of them. Even though she had the generator and all the resources she needed, it was getting to her too. Mostly the lack of being able to contact her husband or the rest of her extended family was nagging on her nerves. She had only maybe missed talking to Ben one day in all the time he had been gone. They were heading into their third night without talking.

She settled into her favorite chair in the safe room and closed her eyes. It wasn’t long before she felt she needed to check on the chickens. She almost had the special place for them in the safe room ready but she was too exhausted and in too much pain to worry about moving them when they had gone inside for the night. With the weirdness and odd tension in the neighborhood, their safety was nagging on her and she knew she should have done something about bringing them down earlier.

She looked around the room for something to take with her outside. The bo staff was not on her list of favorite things to use. She stuck the stun stick in the back of the waistband of her pants and decided to bring the bo staff anyway.

“What are you doing?” Amanda followed her to the door.

Tammy was about to tell her to stay and changed her mind. “Take this.” She handed Amanda a bat.

“I’m coming too.” Charlie reached for the BB handgun.

“No guns. Find something else.” She handed Charlie the bo staff. “I know you  can handle this better than I can. I’ll find something upstairs.”

“What are we doing?” Charlie asked once they were in the kitchen on the main floor.

“Bringing the chickens in.”

“You think they’ll put up a fight?” Charlie busted up laughing as she spun the staff around.

Tammy smirked at her daughter. “Those killer chickens will get you every time.”

As she was working on unlocking the back door, she knew her instincts were right on. The chickens were squawking and they only did that when something was wrong.

When she opened the door, she was immediately blinded by a flashlight. Charlie and Amanda didn’t hesitate to run into the backyard, going after the person that was still holding a chicken by its legs.

“Stop,” she yelled at her daughters and the intruder. But no one stopped.

The chicken coop thief ran for the gate. Amanda swung and missed. Charlie’s reach with the bo staff was longer and she swung at his legs, tripping him up and he fell hard, letting go of the chicken. It ran for the gate and escaped, running for the front yard before the thief got there.

She had failed to tell her youngest daughters to stay behind. They were out the door and chasing after the chickens in the backyard that wandered out when the door to the coop was left open.

Tammy couldn’t breathe. All her daughters and her chickens were in danger. She clutched her chest and spun around, searching for words. “You catch what birds you can… And take them downstairs.” She struggled to get her feet moving to go after her older two that had gone through the gate after the stray chicken and the thief.

She froze when she heard familiar voices coming from the street, the same gang that had walked past her house earlier that day. They were scouting for trouble. What timing.

Tammy rushed for the gate and clenched her jaw when she saw Charlie and Amanda were surrounded. They had their backs pressed together and were using the bo staff and the bat to keep the men away. Tammy took a few steps for the front door to get her gun. There was no point. It was locked. The younger girls were chasing chickens in the back so she closed the gate and gripped the stun gun, holding it tight.

The panic she felt was oddly gone. Fury was gripping her tight and she had no fear, but probably should have, as she approached the trash that harassed her daughters.

The young men taunted the girls, saying the most vulgar things, and acted as if they were trying to find opportunities to grab at them and their clothes.

Two men stepped in her way and sneered as they looked her over.

“I know. I’m not as young and slim as I used to be. I put up a much better fight though.” She didn’t hesitate as she used the stun stick on the two men in her way and they screamed, collapsing to the ground.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She yelled at the mob and swung the electrified handle at the next man in her path that tried to lunge for her. He hopped out of the way. The group surrounding her girls closed in tighter but Charlie and Amanda held their ground, pushing them back until one grabbed hold of Charlie’s staff and tried to force her to let go.

Someone wrapped an arm around Tammy’s neck. Before he had an opportunity to choke her, she easily zapped his leg and he released her, collapsing in pain.

Charlie proved she was good with her weapon. She was already free from the man trying to twist it out of her grasp and she smacked two men that were coming after Tammy with her bo staff. In the meantime, Amanda, while holding the chicken that wouldn’t stop squawking, tagged another in the knee with her bat.

They had injured all but two of the men in the gang. The two that remained were idiot boy, who kept his distance, and the older one that looked like his brother.

“Get them,” idiot boy shouted.

“No,” the other one countered. “They have made it clear they have the upper hand this evening.” He shoved idiot boy down the street. “As if it wasn’t clear by what happened to you last night.” He watched as Tammy took each of her daughters by an arm and escorted them through the gate to the backyard. “It won’t always be that way. You girls might want to be extra careful after all the injuries you caused tonight,” he shouted.

When the gate was latched, and the three of them piled wood and anything else they could find against it, Tammy waited for Charlie and Amanda to go inside before she did one last walk around the yard to make sure everything was secure. Even though they were still trembling, the girls were rather excited over their success at gaining the upper hand so quickly.

Tammy’s hands were trembling too as she checked the hen house for more birds. The younger girls did a good job getting them all inside. They even brought in the water and food trays. She rested her head on the wall. The younger ones probably heard the nonsense on the street.

If Ben was home, they would probably already be at the cabin. Her biggest problem was getting everything together they needed to take in the utility trailer. Driving the suburban with their trailer was more than she could handle. It was downright overwhelming. However, all the danger they had been in since was a clear indicator that it was past time. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it yet.