The Emerald Virus (10 page)

    
“I do. Not for everyone, but for enough to make this worthwhile.”

    
“I hope you’re right. After hearing your plans, I have more hope now than
before.                     

    
“It’s too bad the survivors won’t know who it is that has done all of this for
them.” A.J. smiled and continued, “Oh well, you’ll have to be satisfied with a
small group of us being impressed with you.”

    
Jack laughed again and said “I’ve always been satisfied with that.”

    
He continued, “Remember what Margaret Mead said, ‘Never doubt that a small
group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing
that ever has.’ I think that is about to be tested to a greater extent than
Margaret ever imagined.”

    
“Ain’t that the truth;” A.J. added and continued, “tell me, what’s next on your
agenda.”

    
“My meetings are over for the day. The next thing I’m going to do is to call Harry’s
wife Jane, as I do every afternoon. Then I’m going to continue working on the
things we’ve talked about. I want to get all of the related lists and
recommendations published by late Monday, so we don’t have a lot of time. What
are you planning on?”

    
“Well, I wasn’t sure I was going to mention this to you, but since you asked
I’ll tell you. Secretary Kemper has asked me to join the group of scientists in
the sealed lab in Atlanta to try to find a vaccine for the virus. I’m going to
go home and talk to Roger and the kids about it. I’ve committed to both them
and to me that we would spend the end together, and frankly I don’t see how I
could possibly do anything different. However, the Secretary pleaded with me.
And although he didn’t come right out and say it, he insinuated that I was
being selfish by staying with my family.

    
Jack said, “Good Lord Doc. I can’t believe he’s trying to make you feel guilty
after all you’ve done for him and for the country over the years. While I think
you’re a great scientist, I know we have the best people in the world
converging on that lab in Atlanta, and I have to believe that if they can’t
find a vaccine, it won’t be found. I think your conscience should be clear no
matter what you decide.”

    
“Thanks Jack. I’ll let you know when I make a decision.”

Monday:
Near the Pine Ridge Lakota Indian Reservation, South Dakota

    
Noah Yellowbird was tall for his race at six feet two inches. He was medium
brown in complexion with a timeless, weathered face. He spent more time outside
than in, and he looked like it. His hair was coal black and he wore it long in
the traditional style. Not so much for sake of tradition as for the lack of
being bothered with haircuts.

    
He sat in his seven-year old Ford 150 pickup truck and watched the sunset.
Often during the summer months he would pick up a sandwich and a soda and make
the short drive to White Clay Lake to watch the sun go down. He knew what
attracted him to this place, and as much as he wanted to break the habit, he
couldn’t do it.

    
Each evening as he gazed over the lake toward the western sky he thought of how
at one time this was the place where he was the happiest. He and Sally and the
two kids would come here together. The kids would play along the shore, and
often he would join them.

    
They loved to explore and learn, and he loved to teach them. About the flowers,
the different grasses and trees that grew in the area, and about the tracks of many
of the animals that lived in this area of South Dakota.

    
Sally was a direct descendant of the Oglala Sioux warrior
Thašųka Witko,
who’s better known as Chief Crazy Horse. And the spirit of that great Indian leader
was alive and well in Sally. She had been born Flower of the Sun, and the name
fit. She seemed to glow when all around her was dark and desperate, and she
loved the Indian way of life. She was drawn to it would live no other way.

    
She was pretty with long flowing black hair. She knew she was pretty and that
knowledge did not seem to affect her at all. She was the most positive person
Noah had ever met and she was the first and only woman he had ever loved. 
     All of that had ended five years ago when he was thirty. Sally and the
kids had been helping a sick friend on that November evening. They had left for
home about eight o’clock and had been hit head-on by a drunk driver. The three
of them had been killed instantly.

    
Until that time, Noah had thought he was going to be one of the lucky ones.
Maybe be one of the few Native Americans on Pine Ridge Reservation who would
have a house, a family and a good job. He and Sally had great hopes for the
kids. Sally had graduated from high school and was driven to give their kids
the opportunity to go to college.

    
While Noah had dropped out of high school to go to work, he had become a top
hand and readily found steady work on local ranches. Of course he was an
Indian, and the work was always seasonal, but he was okay with that. He was
dependable, he did not drink, and he could out-cowboy anyone. He knew he would
always have work.

    
While his world had disappeared on that November night, Noah had remained true
to his convictions. He did not start drinking, and he continued to work hard.
He was no longer light hearted, and he rarely smiled, but he lived his life on
his own terms and quietly waited for the day he would once again join his
family. He had nothing else to live for and had retained no other expectations.

    
As he looked out over the lake he wondered, as he often did, why he and Sally
ever thought they would be the exceptions to the rule of reservation life. He
knew it was all Sally, and that he had willingly followed her lead and her
belief that life could be okay if you approached it the right way.

    
He had met her when he was sixteen in his third year of high school. She was
fourteen and a freshman in high school. She had a smile on her face from the
first time he saw her, and he couldn’t remember the smile ever going away.

    
By the time he went to work at the end of his third year in high school he knew
he was going to marry her. They were dating by then, and he had told her that
his father had asked him to go to work and help support the family. She said
she understood but that if he wanted to keep seeing her he had to promise to at
least get his G.E.D., and sooner rather than later. That was a promise that was
easy to make, and one he had followed up on. They married when he was twenty
and she was eighteen, and he received his G.E.D. two years later, with her help
of course. 

    
Now that he was alone, Noah thought now and then of leaving the reservation and
he was sure that at some point he would do so. He could work on any ranch in
the West. And he could leave here with great recommendations. He was known as
hard working, as straight forward and as a man of his word. When people talked
about Noah they thought of the old west.

    
Noah now sat and thought of the news reports of the Emerald Virus. After all he
had been through the thought of dying early did not bother him. He had come to
an agreement with himself after he lost his family. He would not take the easy
way out. He would stay and put in whatever time nature required of him. But the
thought of nature taking him early was more of a relief than a burden.

    
He was thirty-five years old now and he was already tired of seeing the disease
and depravation of life on the reservation. Half of the population of the
reservation lived below the Federal poverty level, and almost no one lived very
much above that level. Federal estimates of unemployment range as high as 20%
while Indian estimates for male residents are as high as 85%. The adolescent
suicide rate is at least four times the national average and the infant
mortality rate is at least five times the national average. Noah knew that the
Indian estimates were much higher than that. The life expectancy of an Oglala
Sioux Indian living on Pine Ridge Reservation was the lowest of any group in
the western hemisphere, and some argue it is the lowest of any group, anywhere.
Many residents exist without electricity, telephone, running water or sewer,
and heat only by wood stove.

    
Noah looked at the reservation as comparable with a third world nation and he
could not understand how this could happen in the middle of the richest country
the world has ever known. He often thought of what his ancestors would think
today. This was the tribe of Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse. These
were men who had proudly led their tribes prior to reservation life. He knew
they had agreed to the treaty of 1851, but he also knew that treaty had
included much more land and much more wealth, including the Black Hills, which
remain a source of minerals, agriculture, ranching and tourism. No Chief had
ever agreed to give up those sacred mountains.

    
He also wondered what his ancestors would have thought of this new crisis
brought on by the Emerald Virus. He had to believe they would have thought it
was well deserved, at least for the white population and maybe for the Indians
as well. After all, while the Indians were victims, there were also failed
responsibilities in the mix.

    
Noah put those thoughts behind him. They were not fruitful and he had some real
life issues to deal with starting at six o’clock tomorrow morning. He pointed
his truck toward home and turned on the radio. Of course all of the radio
programs were discussing the impact of the Emerald Virus. Europe was being
ravaged and the virus was now spreading throughout Asia, moving steadily from
east to west. After only a week the death toll was in the millions. All the
news reports agreed that there was no way to stop the devastation. The only
question was who were the few who would survive and how would they live? When
Noah arrived at his small house he was happy to turn off the news and go to
bed. 

    
The Pine Ridge Reservation sat on the South Dakota and Nebraska border and Noah
worked on a cattle ranch south of the reservation. He arrived at the Square
Circle Ranch at six o’clock the next morning. He didn’t expect much activity
since the herds had been brought down for the winter and most of the hands had
been let go until spring. The foreman, Elliot Walker, was just walking out of
the ranch house as Noah walked up. Elliot was an irreverent old-timer who was
known for both his dry and ready humor and his knowledge of ranching.

    
Elliot asked “Are you ready for coffee?”

    
“I am, and I’m hoping someone other than you made it.”

    
Elliot laughed and said, “You’re in luck this morning, Ms. Randall just made a
fresh pot.”

    
Noah went in the kitchen and filled his cup. When he walked back outside Elliot
was leading a young horse into the circle corral. Noah said “I thought we were
going to wait another two months or so before we started breaking Dutch.”

    
Elliot said, “We are, but I want to work him just a little with a rope halter
to start with and I thought this morning would be a good time for me and you to
work together, especially since we’re alone today.”

    
“Where is everyone?”

    
“Well, the two boys decided they would spend today in town seeing what they
could learn about this Emerald Virus that’s in the news. I told them they could
probably learn as much by staying here and watching the news but they left
right after breakfast. I think they’re just flat worried, and I don’t really
blame them. My guess is they really wanted to talk things over with their family,
and I’m sure the family wanted to see the brothers as well. Alec and Kelly are
in the house watching the news. How about you, aren’t you worried?”

    
Noah responded by saying “It’s not that I’m not worried, it’s just that like
you, I don’t have any close family left in the area.  This Virus is going to
come or not come whether I work or not, and I didn’t see any sense in sitting
by myself and trying to worry.”

    
“Well, I’m glad you came to work. I wouldn’t want to sit here and worry by
myself either. The boys wanted me to come with them, but I’m just too old to
tag along with those young cowboys. We could join Alec and Kelly in the house
if we want, but I’m like you in that I can’t worry about things I can’t
control. So, having said all of that, what do you think about this Virus and
how fast it seems to be moving?”

    
“Elliot, I don’t know what to think. I don’t have a clue about the reasons for
these kinds of things. I guess I believe that nature does its own thing
regardless of what we want, and sometimes that’s good, and sometimes it ain’t.
If what the scientists are saying about survivors, it looks like humanity is
going to get a chance to do things over again, at least on a small scale. From
my perspective that’s a good thing. I don’t believe we’ve done too well with
this first chance.”

    
Elliot laughed and said “A reasonable man would have a hard time arguing with
that assessment, but I don’t believe that will be enough for people to feel
good about what’s about to happen.”

    
Noah said, “No, I don’t believe it will. It might be okay to be one of the
survivors if you have the skill to live off the land and if you’re lucky enough
to be in some wide open areas. But I can’t see a city person doing too well in
the new world. You have to be able to hunt, fish, grow crops, or at least
vegetables, milk cows, and do all kinds of things. There aren’t too many folks
who can do that in today’s world.”

    
“Yeah, I agree with you there. Even those who hunt and fish use modern
equipment and tools, and while they might can skin a buck or fillet a fish, I’m
not sure how many of them are really tough enough to make it on their own.
Hell, I’m not sure I’m tough enough to make it on my own.”

    
Now Noah laughed and said, “Elliot, if you ain’t tough enough then nobody is.
Just the other day Tim, the new kid, was asking Alec if you had really earned
your reputation as one of the best cowboys around. Alec looked at him and
smiled and said kid, in your lifetime you’ll do well to be half the cowboy
Elliot is today, and he’s past his prime.”

    
Elliot smiled and said, “You know, I appreciate Alec speaking up for me, but I
don’t think he needed to talk about me being past my prime. I’m only
fifty-two.”

    
Noah had a hard time not smiling. He knew that Elliot had to be at least sixty,
and might be a little older than that. But however old he was, Alec was right
about how good a cowboy he was, and Noah wasn’t going to argue with him over a
few years.

    
After two hours of working with Dutch, Noah fed and watered the horse and gave
him a good brushing. He then joined Elliot in the living room with Alec and
Kelly.

    
 Noah liked Alec and Kelly Randall. They had owned and operated the family
ranch since Alec’s father had passed away. He had cowboyed for them for four
years now and they had always treated him well. The first year he had worked
only the summer season, but since then he had worked most of the year for them.
When he wasn’t working for the Randall’s he was tending to his own small place.

    
As he walked into the living room he greeted the Randall’s by saying, “Good
morning Alec, Ms. Randall.”

    
Alec looked up and nodded while Kelly said, “Good morning Mr. Yellowbird. I’m
glad you joined us. We were just talking about you. We’ve invited Elliot to
stay with us during this Emerald Virus scare, and if he chooses to, we want him
to stay with us through the end days.