Surviving the Fog (16 page)

"Where am I?" she asked.

"This is the Chief’s Headquarters," the girl
said.  Jean thought about that, and then her eyes
narrowed.

"And is this the Big Chief's bed?" she asked,
her voice sharp.

"Um.... yes," was the girl’s reply, as she
glanced at the boy.

"Listen," Jean said, her tone becoming very
serious.  “I want you to tell Big Chief that I already have a
boyfriend; Howard."

She fell back and closed her eyes.  The
two kids looked at one another.  Jean suddenly sat up
again.

"And tell Big Chief that Howard and I have
already done it.  Three times."  She lay back down and
closed her eyes.

"Uh, gee," said the girl to the boy who was
scowling.

Jean sat up again.  "And tell Big Chief
that I'm probably pregnant."  She lay back down, and presently
she began to snore.

The boy motioned for the girl to follow him
out of the building.  "Get Howard," he said.

"Now don't be hasty, Chief," the girl
said.

"Get. Howard. Now!”

"Yes, sir," the girl muttered, and she
fled.

Howard appeared with Yuie a few minutes
later.  The young man’s face had a greenish look.

"Did you do it with that woman while she was
sick?" Mike snapped.

"Oh, Howard!" Yuie exclaimed sadly.

"What?  No! No, I didn't do anything
except take off all her clothes!"

"Oh, Howard!" Yuie repeated.

Howard put his hand on his stomach.  "I
think I'm going to be sick," he moaned.  Mike and Yuie sprang
away as Howard leaned forward and vomited.

Jean woke three more times that day.
 She was feeling much better.  The young boy was usually
around.  She wondered if Big Chief had assigned him the role
of helping her.  Or maybe he was guarding her.  Was she a
prisoner?  Big Chief had not appeared yet, and she was getting
anxious.  She slept well that night, and the following morning
she woke refreshed.  Mike, she had learned the boy’s name, was
sitting at the desk.

"So, I hear that Big Chief is a real tough
guy, Mike," she said casually to the boy, trying to probe for some
information.

The boy looked at her.  "He's not so
bad.  If you don't count the times we have to stand under
freezing cold water for punishment.  And, of course, the
beatings hurt some, but we're tough.  We can take it."

Jean was shocked at his words, and then
things got worse.  She heard a terrible moan from the
loft.

"What's that!" she demanded, as the hair
stood up on the back of her neck.

There was a look of sympathy on Mike's face.
 "Poor guy.  He made Big Chief mad."  Jean heard
another pitiful moan.

"Jeez," exclaimed Jean.

I am SOL
, she thought.  The next moment, she heard a knock and
then a man opened the door and came into the cabin.  He looked
directly at Mike.

"Chief, I got the four barrels from Mrs.
Brown,” he said.  “She says ‘thanks’ for the venison we sent,
and she sent back a truckload of potatoes and some beets.  I
guess she had a good crop this year."

Then the man looked at Jean and said, "Hola.
 I hear you're Howard's new girlfriend.  I'm Hector."

"Thanks, Hector," said Mike.  "If that
idea Eric has for a solar heating system works, it will be a lot
nicer in the Lodge during the winter.  I'm sending Jacob back
up there to kill another deer for her.  That should fill her
freezers."

"Si, that will be nice, amigo," the man
replied.  "Chief, Kat has finished the platform for the Porta
Pottys.  She already drilled the starting holes, and she’s
ready to cut out the spaces for the toilet waste, so I need the
jigsaw."

Jean watched as the boy retrieved a jigsaw
from a large red tool chest.  The man and the boy talked for a
few more minutes, and then the man left.

The boy turned to Jean who was glaring at
him.  "Freezing cold water, huh?  Beatings, huh?" she
said sarcastically.  "You are Big Chief?"

Mike giggled.  "Just, Chief," he
replied.  Another moan came wafting down from above.

"Who's that?" Jean asked.

"That's Howard," Mike replied.
 "Whatever you had, he caught."

"Damn!" Jean sprang out of bed.

She was wearing a man’s long shirt, so she
didn't bother putting on her dry pants before she climbed the
ladder.  She found Howard lying on a futon.

"Howard," she asked anxiously, as she knelt
by his side.  "Are you okay?"

Howard opened his dull eyes.  "Oh, hi,
Baby," he answered.  "I'm fine."  He looked like a sick
dog.  "I'm glad you're better."

Jean leaned back on her calves and sighed.
 "Yeah, I'm better, thanks to you."  Howard closed his
eyes and slept.

Howard was sick for two more days.
 Whenever he woke, Jean was usually at his side.
 Sometimes Mike shooed her out of the cabin, and whenever he
did, Jean explored the camp, marveling at the things these kids and
one man had accomplished.  The rough Lodge amazed her.

Everywhere she went, kids would whisper
behind her back, "That's Howard's girlfriend."

Some of the girls were not happy about that.
 Jean wondered whether she should deny or confirm the rumor.
 Once, when she was up in the loft, she referred to their long
trek back to the camp.

"I still can't believe you were only wearing
a pair of briefs and your boots, Howard," she marveled.  "You
must have been freezing."

"It's not like I could fit into your clothes,
Jean," he replied.

They fell into a comfortable silence for a
few minutes, and then Jean murmured, "You're something else,
kid."

Howard looked up at her.  "I'm not a
kid, Jean.  Not anymore."

"Yes, that's true," she acknowledged sadly.
 "You're not a kid.  I think that's what pisses me off
most about this situation.  You kids should be hanging at the
mall, playing computer games, and trying to decide how to ask a
girl to the prom."

"Instead of trying to decide how to get you
naked again?"  Howard asked with a grin.

"You!" Jean smacked him on the head.

"Owww!" Howard yelped.

"Oh shit, I'm sorry, Howard.
 Dammit!"

Gingerly Howard rubbed his head, and then he
asked, "So, do you think I will ever get to see you naked
again?"

Jean sighed.  "Maybe.  But don't
rush me."

"All right."  Howard took her hand.
 "I can wait.”

When Howard felt better, he left Chief’s
Headquarters.  He was eager to see what had been accomplished
in the recent week.  Hector had been busy.  He had walled
the narrow spaces between the old cabins and the edges of the cave.
 On the west side, he had framed an opening for a door, and
then he filled it with the door that had been used to carry
Jackie’s body.  Presently, Hector was working on what Eric
called a closed solar heating system, whatever that meant.

Howard was slightly unnerved by the sight of
nine of their ten Porta Pottys sitting on the two cabin floors that
had not been used to build the Lodge.  The mobile outhouses
had been moved just west of the Lodge, but they were close enough
that they could be reached in seconds from the door of the
Lodge.

"How are we going to empty the Porta Pottys
in winter?" he asked.  He had helped Hector and some of the
other kids empty the Porta Potty tanks into a gulch just above the
fog, not long after Hector's arrival at their camp.

"We're not," Kathy replied.  "I removed
the tanks and the bottoms from the Porta Pottys and cut holes in
the floors under each Porta Potty."

Stunned, Howard stared at Kathy.  "No!"
he said.

"Yep, the stuff will go right on the ground
under the floor.  That way we should be good for all winter.
 It'll be frozen until spring, and then covering it will be a
really smelly chore.  I wouldn't break many rules this winter,
if I were you."

"Where's the last Porta Potty?" he asked.

"It’s in the bottom room closest to the door.
 It's next to the outside wall, and Hector draped some of the
cabin canvas to screen it.  It's for night emergencies only.
 There's a hole in that floor too, and below it is one of the
recycle bins.  Hopefully it will stay frozen for most of the
winter.  Don't forget.  Night emergencies only," she
advised.  "The rest of that cabin is for washing, since we
won't have the showers.  We'll collect snow in buckets, and
hope that it melts.  I bet we all stink by March."

The camp got a heavy snowfall a few days
later.  It was October now, and it was time to make the last
preparations for winter.  The water lines were drained in the
dining hall and in Chief’s Headquarters.  Hector attended to
the fluids in the machinery.  Jacob killed three more deer.
 They kept two and delivered one to Mary Brown's freezer.

The solar heating system was working.
 Hector had scraped together every piece of pipe he could
find, even scavenging some from the buildings at the logging camp
and from the dining hall.

Eric placed the barrels at the entrance to
the smaller alcove cave to reduce the size of the entrance to the
small grotto.  If it became dangerously cold in the Lodge, the
plan was to gather everyone in the small cave.  There would be
too many of them in there for the amount of air that could
circulate, but it would let them survive for a day, before the
carbon dioxide level rose too high.

Mike had one last idea.  He asked Hector
to talk to Mrs. Brown, and she agreed to his proposal.  He
thought about the various members of their tribe, and then he went
to speak to Ralph.  He and Ralph would never be good friends,
but after Jackie's death they had reached a modus operendi, so
Ralph listened respectfully to Mike's idea.

"You want me to live at Mary Brown’s house
this winter?" he asked.

"Yes, and I want you to take four kids with
you.  I want them to be the youngest kids.  It'll be less
crowded in that house, if you take the smallest kids.  For
starters, take the twins," Mike said.

"And which girls?" Ralph asked.

"That's up to you," Mike replied.  "Try
to pick two that will get along well with the twins."

"Kylie and Paige then, I guess.  I'll
talk to them.  You tell the twins," Ralph responded.

Ralph spoke to the girls.  "Mike wants
some of us to spend the winter at Mary Brown's house.  I'm
going, and the twins are going.  I would like you to come,
too."

"Why us?" Paige asked.  She was a small
twelve year old girl, as was Kylie.  They were good friends.
 Both were from Tonopah, Nevada.

"Because you get along with the twins so
well," Ralph explained.

Kylie wrinkled her nose.  "Not that
well," she said.  "They’re both dorks."

"You get along with them better than the
other girls," Ralph said.  "And Mrs. Brown will probably let
you bake cookies."  Paige looked at Kylie.  That was a
good reason.  Both girls liked to bake pastries, and they
liked to eat them.

"Okay," they chorused.

Mike talked to the twins, and they were
agreeable to the move.  The day they left, he gathered the
five and spoke to them.

"You are going to be guests of Mrs. Brown, so
do what she says.  And do what Ralph says.  I'll see you
guys in the spring."

Suddenly Mike realized that he didn't want
them to go.  They were his people!  They belonged with
him!  He swallowed the lump in his throat, and he hugged the
girls.  He fist bumped with the twins.  Then he turned to
Ralph.

"Take care of them," he said.  "Take
care of yourself.  Good luck, Ralph."

Ralph shook his hand.  "I will.
 Good luck to you too, Chief."

The two former foes laughed, both recognizing
the irony of the moment.  The twins climbed into the bed of
the pickup, and the girls squeezed into the cab with Hector.
 With a last wave to Mike, they were off.

The food, except for the items in the
freezer, was moved to the Lodge.  All of their supplies and
personal items were moved.  The Chief’s Headquarters was
stripped of everything that they could use.  The bed and the
desk were brought into the Lodge and put in one of the downstairs
rooms.  Mike felt awkward using an entire room, but the
consensus of the tribe was that he needed a private room to hold
meetings.

Mike was willing to give John and Desi their
own room, but he was privately relieved when they told him that
they had agreed to share the room with Howard and Jean.  That
left five available rooms.  Mike gave the girls all four rooms
on the upper level, and he gave the two couples the bottom room
farthest from the door.  He took the next room, and left the
one next to the cleaning room to six of the remaining nineteen
boys.  The other thirteen boys were housed in the small
cave.

Mike felt bad about not giving Hector a
private room, but Hector assured him that it was not necessary.
 He would be the cave room boss, Hector added.  The only
one who was really unhappy about the living arrangements was Kathy,
who definitely thought that Hector needed his own room.

"Can't you screen off part of the cave, at
least?" she asked.

"Why would Hector want to do that?" Mike
asked, puzzled at her request.

Kathy glanced sideways at Hector who was
frowning at her.

"Well...," she began.

"Chica, I agreed that we could make out,"
Hector interrupted.  "Don't push it."

"Okay," she replied, pouting.

Everyone had moved into the Lodge, and they
hoped they were ready for winter.

Chapter Seven Winter in the Lodge

The kids were allowed to come and go as they
pleased.  Mike sent out a few more hunting parties, although
they were receiving more snow than rain now.  Mike cautioned
the leaders, Jacob and Luis, not to go too far.  Now that
everything was in place, he was anxious that there should be no
injuries.  So far, they had been lucky.  Except for
Howard's adventure, the only medical problems had been scrapes and
bruises.  Everyone who had been invited to the camp had been
instructed to bring a tube of Neosporin, so they had plenty of that
medicine.