Jerry D Young
02-27-2011, 09:45 PM
Let Bygones Be Bygones
William Robert Bowman looked at the check in his hand. “Well, nuts!” he said softly. Despite it being double his normal monthly check, he wasn’t pleased. Why? Because it was his last check. At least from this company. He’d worked for them for fifteen years. Took a position right out of college and worked there ever since.
Then Bill sighed. He couldn’t really blame the company. It had been a good ride for a long time, and now the economy was tanking. And the product that the company made, despite being a good value, simply wasn’t necessary for daily existence. It was nice to have, but not required.
So Bill was out of a job. But he had his preps. He’d been prepping for over ten years and had accumulated more than enough to get him through until he found another job. “Actually,” he suddenly thought to himself, “This would be a good time to test some of the equipment out, make a few improvements to the remote bug-out-location, and just take it easy for a while.”
Smiling now, Bill headed for his bank, to cash the check. “We’ll see if this will get me by until my next job,” Bill said aloud as he put the money in his wallet.
“I hope it goes well for you, Mr. Bowman,” said the bank teller.
“I’m sure it will,” Bill replied. “I’m very good at what I do.” That was the simple truth. And the skills he had would transfer nicely to a variety of job scenarios. But that would wait. Oh, he’d get the resume done, and sent out, but for the next two months or so, he was going to be a free spirit.
But a couple of changes first. His apartment. It was a bit of extravagance in the best of times. Now it was going to be a money hog. He couldn’t expect to start making as much at a new place as he had his old one. So the apartment had to be given up.
Deciding to just start over, as the furniture wouldn’t be very suitable to what he would be getting, he put it up for sale and gave notice to the apartment building management that he would be moving out. He still had two months on the lease, but he decided to move immediately and let the apartment manager show the apartment and hopefully sell the furniture to whoever rented it.
So, with a nice furnished one bedroom apartment rented, Bill moved his personal items, and was set for the duration. He thought about changing vehicles, but the one he had was suited to his prepper lifestyle, with a bit of flamboyance, and most importantly for the moment, was paid for.
There was nothing really keeping him from loading up the prep gear and supplies he kept at home into the bed of his custom Dodge 4500 series four door four wheel drive pickup truck. Like the oversize pickup bed, the bed cap was custom made and painted to match the custom subtle camouflage paint scheme of the cab.
Due to the super single tires on all four wheels, the truck looked like your ordinary pickup until one got close enough to see the size difference. The truck would easily carry his preps at home as well as pull the matching custom tandem wheel trailer parked in a storage facility not far from his former apartment building. The trailer was preloaded with most of the rest of his prepping supplies.
So early one late summer day Bill did just that. Loaded the preps from the apartment, hooked up the trailer, and headed for his remote BOL. A few hours later he was working his way up the fire roads in the National Forest to his ten acres of wilderness.
Bill got out of the truck and stretched mightily. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out. It was a glorious afternoon in the forest. Sunlight dappled the ground, and a gentle breeze stirred the leaves and needles of the trees.
There was little undergrowth and Bill soon had a spot ready to put up his tent. He was in no rush and took his time, getting the tent arranged just the way he liked it. With sleeping pad and bag laid out in the tent, and the privacy shelter set up for the chemical toilet, Bill decided to go ahead and put up a tarp canopy for protection for outdoor work for when the forecast rains arrived within a day or so.
That done, he went looking for downed wood for a fire. There were several stacks here and there of cut up and split wood he’d harvested the last time he was here, but he decided to keep them and get any new deadfalls to use as needed.
It took only a little axe and saw work to have several large limbs and half a dozen good sized logs ready to take back to the camp. The custom cart he’d had built, based on a common game cart, with modifications to make it more suitable for handling totes, firewood, and such, let him move the wood to the camp with ease.
It was getting dark so Bill hurriedly built a fire pit and got the fire started. It was a small fire since he didn’t need it for heat. The limbs he’d gathered were plenty of wood for that evening and the next morning so he decided to deal with the logs the next day.
It wouldn’t take long for a small bed of coals to form. Bill set up a grate over the fire and took out his camp kitchen. He assembled it by the light of two windup LED flashlights he hung up under the tarp canopy. When the coals were right, Bill put a cast iron skillet on the fire grate and added a bit of coconut oil to it. Soon the cutup potatoes and onions were frying, and a steak was ready to go on the grate when the potatoes were close to being done.
Bill sighed with pleasure after the simple meal was done, the fire banked, and the cleanup finished. The cooler was locked back up in the truck and Bill visited the privacy enclosure before he turned in for the night.
He had a wind up radio, but decided the music of the night sounds of the forest were more conductive to sleep than the oldies rock and roll he usually listened to. So he left the radio turned off, turned off the windup LED flashlight hanging from a carabiner in the center of the tent, and went to bed.
Bill slept like a log until he woke on his own just before sunrise. A visit to the chemical toilet and he slipped back into the sleeping bag. But he was awake and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Up and dressed, Bill stirred the fire and got it going again. Again he used food from the cooler for breakfast. Eggs and bacon, with fire toasted bread.
Once things were cleaned up again, Bill began to cut the logs he’d gathered into useable pieces. He didn’t feel like filling the forest with the sound of a chainsaw, so he simply cut each of the logs into three pieces with a folding camp saw. They would be burned three at a time, with just one end of each in the fire.
As they burned, making the coals Bill liked for cooking, they would be shoved in to almost touch again, time after time, until they were done. There was no need to do extra cutting or splitting, except for enough small pieces that might be needed to restart the fire if it did go out.
For three days Bill just relaxed and enjoyed the camping. Only on the fourth day, after a light rain, did he go looking for the caches he’d put in shortly after acquiring the property years ago.
Things hadn’t changed much in the intervening years, so finding the caches again wasn’t too difficult. Still, Bill was glad he had placed powerful Neodymium rare earth magnets near each of the caches.
With compass in hand, Bill walked a grid where he thought each cache was. When he got close the compass needle shifted, drawn by that cache’s magnet. Checking the area carefully, Bill determined that the caches had not been disturbed and decided to leave them be.
For something to do, Bill took long walks in the forest, just re-familiarizing himself with his property and the areas around it. He found the small spring right on the edge of his property. It was still flowing and Bill refilled all his water containers, using a purifier, just in case. Again the custom cart proved its worth hauling the loaded containers back to camp up the slight rise from the spring.
It was on one of the walks that he ran into another person. It was totally unexpected. Bill was on National Forest land when he smelled smoke and went to check it out. The last thing he wanted while he was up here was for a forest fire to get started. That was one reason he was so careful with his fire.
But he forgot the danger, as there was none, when he saw someone sitting cross legged on the ground in front of a fire even smaller than the one that Bill used. “Hello the camp,” he said loudly, standing near a large tree he could jump behind if the man proved aggressive and Bill needed to high tail it.
He had his .45 on him, but had no wish to exchange gunfire with someone that might be part of a drug gang using the National Forest as a hideout. But that concern faded just as fast as the concern about the smoke when the man looked up, then leaped up and said, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! They said they couldn’t send anyone!”
“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I’m not sure what you are talking about. Send someone?”
“Didn’t my Dad hire you to come get me?”
Bill shook his head. It was the man’s turn to show some concern. “Look. I’ll make myself scarce. I don’t care what you might be doing out here. No one will hear anything about it from me.”
“Take it easy,” Bill said. “I’m no more a drug runner than you are, apparently. I’m up here camping on my property. What are you doing up here and why do you need to be picked up? I’m William Robert Bowman. Bill.”
“Oh.” The man calmed down. “Bill. I’m Jackson Jones.” He held out his hand and Bill, having walked forward, took it for a quick handshake. “I was afraid I’d be out here for a long time.”
“It’s not that far to a road. A few days’ hike, yes, but you’re up here. You must have hiked in. Where’s your camp?”
“Don’t really have one. Just been… Well, you see, I make wilderness survival videos that I post on Youtube. You know what Youtube is?”
“I know of it. Never watched much on it.”
“Lot of people do. Anyway,” Jackson continued, “I’m up here making a video.” He pointed over at a tree a few feet away.
Bill hadn’t seen the video camera on a short tripod.
“I’ve done what I planned on and called my Dad to send the helicopter in to pick me up. There’s a clearing about a mile back where I was dropped off a week ago. But my Dad said things have gone bad back in the world and there are tight travel restrictions on. Martial Law has been declared. There are food riots and all sorts of trouble. That’s all I got before I lost the satellite phone signal.”
“Is that all you have with you?” Bill asked, suddenly realizing that only a medium sized pack was sitting on the ground beside where Jackson had been sitting. There was a hiking staff lying across it.
“Yeah. Just a day pack and the camera bag.”
“How long were you planning to stay out here?” Bill asked.
“Three days. Four at the most. I can live off the land, to an extent, but I’m equipped a little light for an extended stay.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “Well, you might as well grab your stuff and come to my camp. I’ve got enough for two until we can get you back to civilization.”
“Thanks, Man! I owe you!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bill said. He waited for Jackson to take the camera off the tripod and strap everything into the camera case, and then shrug into the pack and pick up the walking staff. With the camera bag in one hand, and the stick in the other, he moved over to follow Bill as he led the way back to the camp.
“Holy cow!” Jackson said when they stepped into the small clearing where Bill had his camp. “You bring all this stuff when you camp out?”
Bill managed not to frown. “No. Not always. But I’m out here to enjoy myself, not test myself trying to live off the land.”
“Well… Okay. Didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded. There’s nothing wrong with conventional camping. I’m just kind of into primitive camping. Flint and steel, tarp, wool blanket…”
“I see. Let me get the radio on and see what’s going on.” Bill got out the wind up radio from the tent and cranked it a few rounds to charge the battery. Then he turned it on. Jackson was looking over Bill’s truck, but came over when Bill found a station.
It was an all news AM station that Bill occasionally listened to. He looked over at Jackson when the news reader began to give a list of the worst areas of trouble. The two listened for a while, but Bill finally turned off the radio.
“I don’t think I want to go back to that. Not until things settle down.”
“That could be a long time,” Jackson said. “Look, I can extend your provisions by harvesting the local area of edibles if you’ll let me hang around and share some of your facilities. I really wasn’t counting on being out here very long.”
Bill wasn’t about to tell Jackson the full extent of his supplies and equipment. But he did nod and say, “Okay. I wouldn’t turn anyone away hungry.” Bill started to turn away, ready to begin a mid-day meal for them when he paused and looked at Jackson again. “Do you hunt and fish, or just plant edibles?”
“I fish, of course. I’m not much of a red meat eater. Don’t really like to hunt or trap, but I can do it. But I don’t have anything with me to do that. This trip was just to be basic information video.”
“I think I can provide you with what you need. If it becomes necessary to do either. As for fishing, I don’t think there is a body of water close enough to do any realistically.”
“That’s true. It’s some distance to the river. Would have to go back and around in the truck to get to it.” Jackson looked hopeful, Bill noticed.
“Rather not move. I’m on my own land here. And I have a feeling, if what the news was saying, that everyone needing food is going to be fishing. And probably hunting. Hopefully not up this way. It isn’t really easy to get to, and takes quite a bit of fuel. With travel restricted, it might not be much of a problem, but I think I’ll stay here for the duration.”
“Oh. Okay. Is there something I can do to help with the meal?”
It sounded like a hurry up request to Bill, but he ignored it. “No. Got it covered. Just set up your camp where you want and I’ll tend to lunch.”
Jackson nodded. “Okay. Over here all right?” he asked, nodding to a point on the far side of the clearing.
“Fine with me,” Bill said. He turned to the fire pit and got ready to start the fire again. He’d been careful to make sure it was out before he’d left camp.
Bill saw Jackson looking over at him regularly as he set up his simple camp. It was only a tarp fly, with another tarp as ground cloth. His sleeping arrangement was a large, thick wool blanket on the ground cloth. That was pretty much it. There was no need for a second fire.
“Can I get some water? My botas are empty.”
“Sure,” Bill said, pointing over toward the water containers. Bill turned back to the food preparations while Jackson refilled his two botas with the water that Bill had purified.
Jackson eagerly took the plate Bill handed him when the simple meal of macaroni and cheese with tuna was ready. Bill noted that Jackson had nothing to add to the meal, nor had he made an offer to find some.
Bill offered the last of the pot to Jackson, who took it without question. Jackson did offer to help with the cleanup, but Bill preferred to take care of it himself. With the dishes done, Bill asked Jackson, “You think you could show me a few tips on finding wild edibles?”
“Okay. Now?” Jackson was relaxed in one of the Bill’s camp chairs.
“I thought a lesson now. Might find something to go with supper.”
“What are we having?” Jackson asked.
“Depends on what we find,” Bill said firmly.
Rather reluctantly, Jackson climbed to his feet. “Let me get my day pack.” With the pack slung over one shoulder, Jackson pointed at a point at the edge of the clearing. “Haven’t been over this way.” That said Jackson headed for the spot he’d pointed to.
Three hours later the two returned. “Pretty good haul,” Jackson said, “If I do say so myself.”
Bill lifted one eyebrow. It just didn’t look like all that much to him. But he had to admit, the one wild strawberry he’d tried had been delicious. And Jackson seemed to know his stuff. He double checked everything he found with the pictures and illustrations in the several books he had on the subject.
Bill paid attention, but decided it best if he obtained copies of the same reference books that Jackson was using. Preferably in smaller format. The one book with the best information and pictures wasn’t quite a coffee table sized book, but it did take up much of the room in Jackson’s small pack.
Being careful not to expose too much of his supply of camping foods, Bill pulled out two freeze-dried entries for supper. Jackson carefully washed the two Zip-lock bags containing the strawberries and blackberries he’d found. There were three nice mushrooms, that Bill had doubled checked with Jackson to make sure they weren’t poisonous. That was the total of what Jackson had found to add to their supper.
“I’d probably starve if I had to live on wild edibles alone,” Bill told Jackson when he shared the mushrooms and fruits with him after the meal of stroganoff.
“People have been living off the land pretty much forever. It’s not really easy,” Jackson replied. “Really have to know your stuff.”
“Yeah. I can see that.” Bill decided not to press the matter. His understanding of the way earlier peoples had lived off the land was that they moved from one area of abundance to another as the seasons changed. They might keep an eye out for edibles on the way from place to place, but it was the areas with a large amount of edibles that kept them going. Not a handful or two here and there.
Much of that land was now taken up with modern civilization, leaving pretty poor pickings, even for those that knew what they were doing, with the occasional exception of those few areas that were still pristine and continued to produce year after year.
And much of their nutrition came from fish and game, Bill was sure. There weren’t very many vegetarian early societies. None that Bill knew of. But each to his own, Bill decided. He couldn’t just kick Jackson out of camp to forage for what he could find. The summer was coming to an end, and Jackson himself had said that it was much harder finding things in the winter when things had died out, and early spring when they were just coming into bloom.
Jackson kept to himself after the meal, studying his books. Bill just eased back and relaxed by the fire after he’d done the dishes, watching the sky slow change from blue to black. “I’m going to have a cup of tea,” Bill said after cranking up and turning on one of the windup flashlights. “Would you like something?”
“You wouldn’t have coffee, I suppose?” Jackson asked.
“Actually I do. I don’t drink it, but I try to keep some for those that do.”
“Then, yes, if you please.” Jackson put away his books, but continued to sit while Bill got a pot of water on to heat up over the open fire. After the water was hot and Bill had handed Jackson a cup and a Folger’s coffee bag, Bill set his tea down to steep and got the radio out of the tent.
A few cranks to recharge the battery and he turned it on, tuning in the same station they’d listened to before. Things seemed to be much the same. Martial law was being enforced, to a degree. There were still riots beginning and then ending when police showed themselves.
Bill felt a chill go down his spine when the announcer said, “And with the truck strike still going on, the grocery shelves are emptying of food. There are no expected deliveries to this area scheduled for several days. People are flocking to food banks and the few soup kitchens that have been set up. There are reports of fighting and rioting anywhere there is food.”
Jackson’s face was pale in the firelight as the announcer continued. “The military are taking a hard line on the dusk to dawn curfew. Those caught violating it are being detained. Looters are being shot on sight, something I never thought I would see in this country. The off-limits zones are also being locked down tight. No one in and no one out. And many gated communities and even some that aren’t gated have hired private guards, heavily armed, to protect their properties with deadly force if necessary. Sometimes when it isn’t necessary, I’m told.”
There was silence for a moment and then the signal went dead. “Hm…” Bill muttered. He began to run the dial. He only found three stations on, and each one of those went silent shortly after he tuned it in.
“I guess the government has clamped down news sources,” Bill finally said, setting the radio aside.”
“The government wouldn’t do that. It must be something else,” Jackson said. “I sure wish my father could come get me. We live in a gated community. I’d be safe there.”
“Perhaps. I can charge your satellite phone if you’d like. Didn’t think of it before.”
“I still have a charge. I just can’t get a signal.”
“Oh. I see. So much for that, then. If you want, I can take you as far as it is safe to travel, if you want to try to make it home on your own.”
“Could you take me all the way home? I know it is in one of the off limits areas, but they really wouldn’t do anything. Would they?”
“I think they would, Jackson. Like I said, I’ll take you as far in as I feel safe, but you’d be on your own then. I’m not willing to risk my life and… and camping gear, when it is still safe here.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess so. I’ll just stay here, I guess, until things change.”
Copyright 2011
William Robert Bowman looked at the check in his hand. “Well, nuts!” he said softly. Despite it being double his normal monthly check, he wasn’t pleased. Why? Because it was his last check. At least from this company. He’d worked for them for fifteen years. Took a position right out of college and worked there ever since.
Then Bill sighed. He couldn’t really blame the company. It had been a good ride for a long time, and now the economy was tanking. And the product that the company made, despite being a good value, simply wasn’t necessary for daily existence. It was nice to have, but not required.
So Bill was out of a job. But he had his preps. He’d been prepping for over ten years and had accumulated more than enough to get him through until he found another job. “Actually,” he suddenly thought to himself, “This would be a good time to test some of the equipment out, make a few improvements to the remote bug-out-location, and just take it easy for a while.”
Smiling now, Bill headed for his bank, to cash the check. “We’ll see if this will get me by until my next job,” Bill said aloud as he put the money in his wallet.
“I hope it goes well for you, Mr. Bowman,” said the bank teller.
“I’m sure it will,” Bill replied. “I’m very good at what I do.” That was the simple truth. And the skills he had would transfer nicely to a variety of job scenarios. But that would wait. Oh, he’d get the resume done, and sent out, but for the next two months or so, he was going to be a free spirit.
But a couple of changes first. His apartment. It was a bit of extravagance in the best of times. Now it was going to be a money hog. He couldn’t expect to start making as much at a new place as he had his old one. So the apartment had to be given up.
Deciding to just start over, as the furniture wouldn’t be very suitable to what he would be getting, he put it up for sale and gave notice to the apartment building management that he would be moving out. He still had two months on the lease, but he decided to move immediately and let the apartment manager show the apartment and hopefully sell the furniture to whoever rented it.
So, with a nice furnished one bedroom apartment rented, Bill moved his personal items, and was set for the duration. He thought about changing vehicles, but the one he had was suited to his prepper lifestyle, with a bit of flamboyance, and most importantly for the moment, was paid for.
There was nothing really keeping him from loading up the prep gear and supplies he kept at home into the bed of his custom Dodge 4500 series four door four wheel drive pickup truck. Like the oversize pickup bed, the bed cap was custom made and painted to match the custom subtle camouflage paint scheme of the cab.
Due to the super single tires on all four wheels, the truck looked like your ordinary pickup until one got close enough to see the size difference. The truck would easily carry his preps at home as well as pull the matching custom tandem wheel trailer parked in a storage facility not far from his former apartment building. The trailer was preloaded with most of the rest of his prepping supplies.
So early one late summer day Bill did just that. Loaded the preps from the apartment, hooked up the trailer, and headed for his remote BOL. A few hours later he was working his way up the fire roads in the National Forest to his ten acres of wilderness.
Bill got out of the truck and stretched mightily. He took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out. It was a glorious afternoon in the forest. Sunlight dappled the ground, and a gentle breeze stirred the leaves and needles of the trees.
There was little undergrowth and Bill soon had a spot ready to put up his tent. He was in no rush and took his time, getting the tent arranged just the way he liked it. With sleeping pad and bag laid out in the tent, and the privacy shelter set up for the chemical toilet, Bill decided to go ahead and put up a tarp canopy for protection for outdoor work for when the forecast rains arrived within a day or so.
That done, he went looking for downed wood for a fire. There were several stacks here and there of cut up and split wood he’d harvested the last time he was here, but he decided to keep them and get any new deadfalls to use as needed.
It took only a little axe and saw work to have several large limbs and half a dozen good sized logs ready to take back to the camp. The custom cart he’d had built, based on a common game cart, with modifications to make it more suitable for handling totes, firewood, and such, let him move the wood to the camp with ease.
It was getting dark so Bill hurriedly built a fire pit and got the fire started. It was a small fire since he didn’t need it for heat. The limbs he’d gathered were plenty of wood for that evening and the next morning so he decided to deal with the logs the next day.
It wouldn’t take long for a small bed of coals to form. Bill set up a grate over the fire and took out his camp kitchen. He assembled it by the light of two windup LED flashlights he hung up under the tarp canopy. When the coals were right, Bill put a cast iron skillet on the fire grate and added a bit of coconut oil to it. Soon the cutup potatoes and onions were frying, and a steak was ready to go on the grate when the potatoes were close to being done.
Bill sighed with pleasure after the simple meal was done, the fire banked, and the cleanup finished. The cooler was locked back up in the truck and Bill visited the privacy enclosure before he turned in for the night.
He had a wind up radio, but decided the music of the night sounds of the forest were more conductive to sleep than the oldies rock and roll he usually listened to. So he left the radio turned off, turned off the windup LED flashlight hanging from a carabiner in the center of the tent, and went to bed.
Bill slept like a log until he woke on his own just before sunrise. A visit to the chemical toilet and he slipped back into the sleeping bag. But he was awake and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Up and dressed, Bill stirred the fire and got it going again. Again he used food from the cooler for breakfast. Eggs and bacon, with fire toasted bread.
Once things were cleaned up again, Bill began to cut the logs he’d gathered into useable pieces. He didn’t feel like filling the forest with the sound of a chainsaw, so he simply cut each of the logs into three pieces with a folding camp saw. They would be burned three at a time, with just one end of each in the fire.
As they burned, making the coals Bill liked for cooking, they would be shoved in to almost touch again, time after time, until they were done. There was no need to do extra cutting or splitting, except for enough small pieces that might be needed to restart the fire if it did go out.
For three days Bill just relaxed and enjoyed the camping. Only on the fourth day, after a light rain, did he go looking for the caches he’d put in shortly after acquiring the property years ago.
Things hadn’t changed much in the intervening years, so finding the caches again wasn’t too difficult. Still, Bill was glad he had placed powerful Neodymium rare earth magnets near each of the caches.
With compass in hand, Bill walked a grid where he thought each cache was. When he got close the compass needle shifted, drawn by that cache’s magnet. Checking the area carefully, Bill determined that the caches had not been disturbed and decided to leave them be.
For something to do, Bill took long walks in the forest, just re-familiarizing himself with his property and the areas around it. He found the small spring right on the edge of his property. It was still flowing and Bill refilled all his water containers, using a purifier, just in case. Again the custom cart proved its worth hauling the loaded containers back to camp up the slight rise from the spring.
It was on one of the walks that he ran into another person. It was totally unexpected. Bill was on National Forest land when he smelled smoke and went to check it out. The last thing he wanted while he was up here was for a forest fire to get started. That was one reason he was so careful with his fire.
But he forgot the danger, as there was none, when he saw someone sitting cross legged on the ground in front of a fire even smaller than the one that Bill used. “Hello the camp,” he said loudly, standing near a large tree he could jump behind if the man proved aggressive and Bill needed to high tail it.
He had his .45 on him, but had no wish to exchange gunfire with someone that might be part of a drug gang using the National Forest as a hideout. But that concern faded just as fast as the concern about the smoke when the man looked up, then leaped up and said, “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! They said they couldn’t send anyone!”
“I’m sorry,” Bill said. “I’m not sure what you are talking about. Send someone?”
“Didn’t my Dad hire you to come get me?”
Bill shook his head. It was the man’s turn to show some concern. “Look. I’ll make myself scarce. I don’t care what you might be doing out here. No one will hear anything about it from me.”
“Take it easy,” Bill said. “I’m no more a drug runner than you are, apparently. I’m up here camping on my property. What are you doing up here and why do you need to be picked up? I’m William Robert Bowman. Bill.”
“Oh.” The man calmed down. “Bill. I’m Jackson Jones.” He held out his hand and Bill, having walked forward, took it for a quick handshake. “I was afraid I’d be out here for a long time.”
“It’s not that far to a road. A few days’ hike, yes, but you’re up here. You must have hiked in. Where’s your camp?”
“Don’t really have one. Just been… Well, you see, I make wilderness survival videos that I post on Youtube. You know what Youtube is?”
“I know of it. Never watched much on it.”
“Lot of people do. Anyway,” Jackson continued, “I’m up here making a video.” He pointed over at a tree a few feet away.
Bill hadn’t seen the video camera on a short tripod.
“I’ve done what I planned on and called my Dad to send the helicopter in to pick me up. There’s a clearing about a mile back where I was dropped off a week ago. But my Dad said things have gone bad back in the world and there are tight travel restrictions on. Martial Law has been declared. There are food riots and all sorts of trouble. That’s all I got before I lost the satellite phone signal.”
“Is that all you have with you?” Bill asked, suddenly realizing that only a medium sized pack was sitting on the ground beside where Jackson had been sitting. There was a hiking staff lying across it.
“Yeah. Just a day pack and the camera bag.”
“How long were you planning to stay out here?” Bill asked.
“Three days. Four at the most. I can live off the land, to an extent, but I’m equipped a little light for an extended stay.”
“Yeah,” Bill said. “Well, you might as well grab your stuff and come to my camp. I’ve got enough for two until we can get you back to civilization.”
“Thanks, Man! I owe you!”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bill said. He waited for Jackson to take the camera off the tripod and strap everything into the camera case, and then shrug into the pack and pick up the walking staff. With the camera bag in one hand, and the stick in the other, he moved over to follow Bill as he led the way back to the camp.
“Holy cow!” Jackson said when they stepped into the small clearing where Bill had his camp. “You bring all this stuff when you camp out?”
Bill managed not to frown. “No. Not always. But I’m out here to enjoy myself, not test myself trying to live off the land.”
“Well… Okay. Didn’t mean that quite the way it sounded. There’s nothing wrong with conventional camping. I’m just kind of into primitive camping. Flint and steel, tarp, wool blanket…”
“I see. Let me get the radio on and see what’s going on.” Bill got out the wind up radio from the tent and cranked it a few rounds to charge the battery. Then he turned it on. Jackson was looking over Bill’s truck, but came over when Bill found a station.
It was an all news AM station that Bill occasionally listened to. He looked over at Jackson when the news reader began to give a list of the worst areas of trouble. The two listened for a while, but Bill finally turned off the radio.
“I don’t think I want to go back to that. Not until things settle down.”
“That could be a long time,” Jackson said. “Look, I can extend your provisions by harvesting the local area of edibles if you’ll let me hang around and share some of your facilities. I really wasn’t counting on being out here very long.”
Bill wasn’t about to tell Jackson the full extent of his supplies and equipment. But he did nod and say, “Okay. I wouldn’t turn anyone away hungry.” Bill started to turn away, ready to begin a mid-day meal for them when he paused and looked at Jackson again. “Do you hunt and fish, or just plant edibles?”
“I fish, of course. I’m not much of a red meat eater. Don’t really like to hunt or trap, but I can do it. But I don’t have anything with me to do that. This trip was just to be basic information video.”
“I think I can provide you with what you need. If it becomes necessary to do either. As for fishing, I don’t think there is a body of water close enough to do any realistically.”
“That’s true. It’s some distance to the river. Would have to go back and around in the truck to get to it.” Jackson looked hopeful, Bill noticed.
“Rather not move. I’m on my own land here. And I have a feeling, if what the news was saying, that everyone needing food is going to be fishing. And probably hunting. Hopefully not up this way. It isn’t really easy to get to, and takes quite a bit of fuel. With travel restricted, it might not be much of a problem, but I think I’ll stay here for the duration.”
“Oh. Okay. Is there something I can do to help with the meal?”
It sounded like a hurry up request to Bill, but he ignored it. “No. Got it covered. Just set up your camp where you want and I’ll tend to lunch.”
Jackson nodded. “Okay. Over here all right?” he asked, nodding to a point on the far side of the clearing.
“Fine with me,” Bill said. He turned to the fire pit and got ready to start the fire again. He’d been careful to make sure it was out before he’d left camp.
Bill saw Jackson looking over at him regularly as he set up his simple camp. It was only a tarp fly, with another tarp as ground cloth. His sleeping arrangement was a large, thick wool blanket on the ground cloth. That was pretty much it. There was no need for a second fire.
“Can I get some water? My botas are empty.”
“Sure,” Bill said, pointing over toward the water containers. Bill turned back to the food preparations while Jackson refilled his two botas with the water that Bill had purified.
Jackson eagerly took the plate Bill handed him when the simple meal of macaroni and cheese with tuna was ready. Bill noted that Jackson had nothing to add to the meal, nor had he made an offer to find some.
Bill offered the last of the pot to Jackson, who took it without question. Jackson did offer to help with the cleanup, but Bill preferred to take care of it himself. With the dishes done, Bill asked Jackson, “You think you could show me a few tips on finding wild edibles?”
“Okay. Now?” Jackson was relaxed in one of the Bill’s camp chairs.
“I thought a lesson now. Might find something to go with supper.”
“What are we having?” Jackson asked.
“Depends on what we find,” Bill said firmly.
Rather reluctantly, Jackson climbed to his feet. “Let me get my day pack.” With the pack slung over one shoulder, Jackson pointed at a point at the edge of the clearing. “Haven’t been over this way.” That said Jackson headed for the spot he’d pointed to.
Three hours later the two returned. “Pretty good haul,” Jackson said, “If I do say so myself.”
Bill lifted one eyebrow. It just didn’t look like all that much to him. But he had to admit, the one wild strawberry he’d tried had been delicious. And Jackson seemed to know his stuff. He double checked everything he found with the pictures and illustrations in the several books he had on the subject.
Bill paid attention, but decided it best if he obtained copies of the same reference books that Jackson was using. Preferably in smaller format. The one book with the best information and pictures wasn’t quite a coffee table sized book, but it did take up much of the room in Jackson’s small pack.
Being careful not to expose too much of his supply of camping foods, Bill pulled out two freeze-dried entries for supper. Jackson carefully washed the two Zip-lock bags containing the strawberries and blackberries he’d found. There were three nice mushrooms, that Bill had doubled checked with Jackson to make sure they weren’t poisonous. That was the total of what Jackson had found to add to their supper.
“I’d probably starve if I had to live on wild edibles alone,” Bill told Jackson when he shared the mushrooms and fruits with him after the meal of stroganoff.
“People have been living off the land pretty much forever. It’s not really easy,” Jackson replied. “Really have to know your stuff.”
“Yeah. I can see that.” Bill decided not to press the matter. His understanding of the way earlier peoples had lived off the land was that they moved from one area of abundance to another as the seasons changed. They might keep an eye out for edibles on the way from place to place, but it was the areas with a large amount of edibles that kept them going. Not a handful or two here and there.
Much of that land was now taken up with modern civilization, leaving pretty poor pickings, even for those that knew what they were doing, with the occasional exception of those few areas that were still pristine and continued to produce year after year.
And much of their nutrition came from fish and game, Bill was sure. There weren’t very many vegetarian early societies. None that Bill knew of. But each to his own, Bill decided. He couldn’t just kick Jackson out of camp to forage for what he could find. The summer was coming to an end, and Jackson himself had said that it was much harder finding things in the winter when things had died out, and early spring when they were just coming into bloom.
Jackson kept to himself after the meal, studying his books. Bill just eased back and relaxed by the fire after he’d done the dishes, watching the sky slow change from blue to black. “I’m going to have a cup of tea,” Bill said after cranking up and turning on one of the windup flashlights. “Would you like something?”
“You wouldn’t have coffee, I suppose?” Jackson asked.
“Actually I do. I don’t drink it, but I try to keep some for those that do.”
“Then, yes, if you please.” Jackson put away his books, but continued to sit while Bill got a pot of water on to heat up over the open fire. After the water was hot and Bill had handed Jackson a cup and a Folger’s coffee bag, Bill set his tea down to steep and got the radio out of the tent.
A few cranks to recharge the battery and he turned it on, tuning in the same station they’d listened to before. Things seemed to be much the same. Martial law was being enforced, to a degree. There were still riots beginning and then ending when police showed themselves.
Bill felt a chill go down his spine when the announcer said, “And with the truck strike still going on, the grocery shelves are emptying of food. There are no expected deliveries to this area scheduled for several days. People are flocking to food banks and the few soup kitchens that have been set up. There are reports of fighting and rioting anywhere there is food.”
Jackson’s face was pale in the firelight as the announcer continued. “The military are taking a hard line on the dusk to dawn curfew. Those caught violating it are being detained. Looters are being shot on sight, something I never thought I would see in this country. The off-limits zones are also being locked down tight. No one in and no one out. And many gated communities and even some that aren’t gated have hired private guards, heavily armed, to protect their properties with deadly force if necessary. Sometimes when it isn’t necessary, I’m told.”
There was silence for a moment and then the signal went dead. “Hm…” Bill muttered. He began to run the dial. He only found three stations on, and each one of those went silent shortly after he tuned it in.
“I guess the government has clamped down news sources,” Bill finally said, setting the radio aside.”
“The government wouldn’t do that. It must be something else,” Jackson said. “I sure wish my father could come get me. We live in a gated community. I’d be safe there.”
“Perhaps. I can charge your satellite phone if you’d like. Didn’t think of it before.”
“I still have a charge. I just can’t get a signal.”
“Oh. I see. So much for that, then. If you want, I can take you as far as it is safe to travel, if you want to try to make it home on your own.”
“Could you take me all the way home? I know it is in one of the off limits areas, but they really wouldn’t do anything. Would they?”
“I think they would, Jackson. Like I said, I’ll take you as far in as I feel safe, but you’d be on your own then. I’m not willing to risk my life and… and camping gear, when it is still safe here.”
“Oh. Yeah. I guess so. I’ll just stay here, I guess, until things change.”
Copyright 2011