One Year After

Marilyn grinned and held out her arms.

"I'm not in any hurry if you're not."

September was a time for cutting firewood and harvesting the garden. Both Randy and Marilyn were tired at the end of each day, but not too tired to enjoy each other on the days she could. On the other days, sometimes they would please each other manually, and sometimes they only shared a good night kiss before snuggling under the blankets.

By the time of the first frost, Randy had cut and stacked enough firewood to last through the winter and Marilyn had filled the storage area under the cabin and put six more buckets each of potatoes, carrots, onions, squash, and beets in the new "refrigerator" Randy had built. Fifty of the mason jars she'd found at the hardware store were filled with shredded cabbage and cucumbers in brine were stored there as well. Like with the storage area under the cabin, the heat that stayed in the ground and the insulating logs would let the cold of winter keep it all cool but not cold enough to freeze.

With the first snow came the time to hunt, and both Randy and Marilyn went out each day. Randy carried the twelve gauge shotgun. The bears in the area wouldn't go into hibernation for a while and the shotgun was big enough to stop one. It would also do for deer and elk if they got close enough. Marilyn wanted a bear to replenish her stock of bear grease and Randy wanted one for the meat so they watched carefully for one on each hunting trip.

Marilyn carried the 30-30 and was a surprisingly good shot. By the end of October, she'd killed a mule deer, one whitetail, and two elk. Randy had added two mule deer, an elk and a huge black bear. Randy skinned and gutted the first deer they killed, but she helped with the second and third, and did the whitetail by herself. The elk were so big it took both of them to gut and cut up the carcasses.

It also took both of them to carry the meat back to the cabin, so after the snow cover was deep enough, Randy made a sled from saplings lashed together with small diameter rope. Without the sled, it would have taken them several trips to bring back the bear and the two elk.

By what Randy thought was probably the first of November, their meat cache was full as was their refrigerator, and the bears had disappeared for the winter. There was not much to do since it was so cold outside and everything was covered by snow. Randy did take a couple of days to teach Marilyn how to load and shoot the AR-15 rifles they'd brought from the sporting goods store. She was as good a shot with the AR-15 as with the 30-30 and.22. She said Joe had taught her in case they had to defend their cabin against intruders.

Other than a daily trip to get food from the refrigerator or cache, and making love on the nights Marilyn said she was safe, they stayed inside by the fire and listened for anyone on the short wave radio. They found only two more people transmitting on the ham bands -- one from the UK and another in Texas - and they didn't have much new information. The woman in the UK said all of the UK and Europe had been overrun by the disease and as far as she knew, she was the only person in her area who hadn't been infected and died. She lived by herself on a remote sheep farm in the North and was mostly self-sufficient so she didn't go into a town and no one had come to see her.

The man from Texas said it was the same there as everywhere else. There were lots of dead people in buildings that had been commandeered by the police or doctors to serve as emergency hospitals, and there was nobody left to bury them. There had been no power, no radio or television, no phone service, and no internet since a week after the first people died.

If it hadn't been expected, that news would have been disheartening. As it was, it only confirmed to Randy and Marilyn that they'd made the right decision. They thought they were far enough into the mountains it wasn't likely anybody would find them, and as long as they stayed there, they'd be safe.

That all changed about the first of December.

Randy was outside picking up a load of firewood when he saw the horse and rider approaching the cabin. He dropped the firewood, ran back into the cabin, and grabbed one of the AR-15's from the rack he'd built beside the door. Marilyn didn't know what was going on, but there was only one reason Randy would have taken the AR-15 with him. She put on her coat, picked up one of the other AR-15's, and ran out the door after him.

When the rider was about fifty feet away, Randy yelled, "Stop or I'll shoot". The rider reined in the horse and started to dismount. Randy yelled again.

"Stay on your horse. What are you doing here?"

The woman's voice surprised him.

"I'm trying to get to Challis."

"You're coming from the mountains. Where have you been?"

"I'm the cook for an outfitter with a lodge up on Piney Ridge. That's where I live."

"What are you doing here?"

"I ran out of food, so I decided to ride down to Challis so I wouldn't starve to death. What are you doing here? This is a wilderness and there aren't supposed to be cabins here."

Randy looked at Marilyn.

"Should I let her get closer?"

Marilyn frowned.

"She seems OK, but is there a way we can tell if she's had the disease?"

"Maybe. It causes skin absesses, so if she did it would leave some scars."

Randy turned back to the woman on the horse.

"Get off the horse and take off your clothes."

The woman sounded mad when she replied.

"Mister, are you crazy? It can't be more than two degrees out here. If I take off my clothes, I'll freeze to death in five minutes. If you're gonna rape me, at least do it in your cabin."

"I'm not going to rape you. I need to see if you've had it or not."

"Had what? That disease that's killing everybody?"

"Yes, that disease. If you had it and recovered, you'll have scars. If you didn't, you still have to convince me you haven't been exposed."

"Mister, if I wasn't so hungry and you didn't have a gun on me, I'd tell you to go to hell. You better make this quick."

The woman got down off her horse and took off her coat and draped it over the saddle, then started taking off the heavy wool shirt she wore.

Randy turned to Marilyn.

"I'm going to go look at her. You keep your rifle ready in case she tries to get close to me. If she does, don't wait to see what else happens, OK?"

Marilyn smiled grimly.

"I won't. It'll be hard, but I won't."

The woman had her shirt off and was taking off her pants and shaking violently from the cold when Randy closed the distance between them to about twenty feet. He couldn't see any scars on her chest, belly, or legs.

"You don't need to take the pants off all the way. Turn around slowly so I can see your back."

The woman was shivering uncontrollably, but did as he asked. Randy looked carefully, but didn't see any scarring anywhere.

"Now turn back around and put your clothes back on."

The woman was shaking so much she had trouble buttoning the shirt and finally gave up. She put the coat on and was able to zip it up. She turned to Randy.

"Satisfied now?"

"I'm satisfied you haven't had the disease. What I need to know now is if you're infected and if not, how you managed to avoid that."

"I haven't got anything except probably pneumonia now since you made me take off my clothes. I've been up at the lodge helping get the lodge ready for hunting season. Every week, all the guys went down to Challis on Friday night for a few beers. They'd stay in town until Sunday night and then drive back to the lodge. I don't drink much, and I don't like being mauled by some drunk so I never went along.

"The last time they went down, they didn't come back. I figured they'd just gotten more drunk than usual and stayed an extra night to sober up. That had happened before. I always listen to my church station on the short wave, and that Monday afternoon, I heard about people getting sick and dying.

"Well, I figured they weren't coming back because they were sick too. I didn't want to get sick and die, so I stayed in the lodge. I haven't seen anybody since. I'd still be up there if I hadn't run out of something to eat."

"OK, stay here while I go talk to Marilyn."

Marilyn had the rifle to her shoulder when he walked up beside her.

"I think you can put the rifle down. She hasn't had any skin abscesses, and she says she's been alone at an outfitter's lodge since before the outbreak."

"Do you believe her?"

"I think so, but I'm not absolutely sure. She says she's hungry, so I don't feel like just leaving her alone, so tell me what you think about this.

"I'll set up our tent a ways from the cabin, give her a sleeping bag and some firewood and some food. We'll make her stay in the tent for a week. If she hasn't died or gotten sick, we'll know for sure."

Marilyn nodded.

"I really didn't want to shoot her. If she's OK, we can't just send her on her way. Let's do it if she'll agree."

Randy walked back to the woman and explained his plan to quarantine her for a week. The woman was still shivering, but she nodded.

"Just as long as I can stay warm and get some food in me."

The week went by as slowly as had all the weeks since the snow made walking around difficult. Every morning, Randy took one of the AR-15's with him and walked to within fifty feet of where he'd pitched the tent beside the stream. It wasn't the best place for a tent because if the wind blew, it would make the already cold temperature feel colder, but it was the only place far enough from the cabin and their food caches to not pose a danger of infection while still letting him see the tent from the cabin.

Every morning, he'd see the woman stirring the coals in the fire pit he'd constructed, and every morning, she'd wave at him. A little later, he'd see her heating water from the stream over the fire. He'd given her a box of oatmeal and a haunch of venison along with a cooking pot, and she seemed to be doing well. When seven days had passed, he picked up one of the AR-15's and walked out to the tent. The woman smiled when he stopped twenty feet away.

"You don't need that rifle and you can get closer than that. I told you I wasn't sick."

"I know you did, but we had to be sure. You don't feel feverish or have a runny nose or anything out of the ordinary?"

"Nope. I feel fine except for freezing my butt off every morning until I get the fire going again."

Randy was satisfied the woman wasn't sick. She didn't have any of the symptoms he'd read about in college. There was still a risk, but it seemed minimal.

"Stay here. I'll be back."

When he told Marilyn what he thought, she agreed.

"We should let her in the cabin. She must be half frozen after living out there for a week. I'll start some coffee."

The woman's name was Emily White Eagle, and once she was inside the cabin and out of her heavy coat. Randy could understand her last name. Emily had the long, straight, black hair and rounded face that told him at least part of her was Native American. She smiled when he asked her if she was.

"My grandfather was Shoshone, but my grandmother was white. She was an American nurse in a military hospital in England during World War II. My grandfather ended up in that hospital and my grandmother took care of him. They fell in love and after the Army sent him back to Idaho they wrote letters to each other until the war ended.

"When my grandmother came back to the States, she came to the Fort Hall Reservation where my father lived. It wasn't something either the Shoshone or white people thought was right back then, but they got married and had my dad and my uncle. My mother is also Shoshone, so I'm three fourths."

To Randy, Emily was a pretty woman. Her face wasn't quite so rounded as most Native American women he'd met. Her high cheekbones only accented her deep, dark eyes. When he'd seen her naked, he'd been looking for scarring and hadn't paid much attention to anything else. In the cabin and dressed in just a shirt and jeans, he couldn't see much, but what he saw looked pretty nice.

Marilyn found herself feeling jealous. Emily's breasts seemed bigger than hers, and her hips were smaller. She knew Randy saw that too, and worried about what might happen if Emily stayed with them. She couldn't say she loved Randy, but she'd grown to love being with him and feeling him making love to her. She didn't want to lose those feelings.

Emily was wary if anything. She didn't know either of these people, and though they'd given her food and then invited her into their cabin, they might not be what they seemed. They were both white, and a lot of white people still looked down on Native Americans.

Emily was also more than a bit nervous about Marilyn. She'd seen the look on Marilyn's face, and that look told her Randy and Marilyn were more than just two people living together. Emily was twenty-three and figured Marilyn was a little older. That could work either way, depending upon Randy. Emily didn't feel anything for him, but that might not make a difference to Marilyn. She decided to just wait until she could talk with Marilyn alone to see how she felt.

That night, after a dinner of elk roast, potatoes, onions, and carrots, they gathered around the short-wave radio. That had become a normal activity for Randy and Marilyn. They hadn't tuned in anything on the short wave or ham bands for weeks, but they still listened in hopes of hearing more. That night they found another ham transmitting from Tennessee.

"Folks, if you're out there listening, be careful. I got myself and my wife to a bug out cabin I have on some land by Land Between The Lakes as soon as all this mess started, so we didn't catch it. Thought I was lucky until yesterday. This bunch of people came walking up to my camp. They saw me and asked if I had any food. Well, I been fishing the lake and hunting since I got here so I was pretty well fixed. I wasn't gonna give them any though. I mean, I got my family to look after, don't I?

"Well, this one guy, a big burly guy, he says there's enough of 'em they'll just take what they want if I won't give them anything. It's a good thing I had my rifle and shotgun handy. I shot the big guy and then four others. My wife got two more before they ran off. Tomorrow, I'm moving my camp deeper into the woods.

"Be aware that they're probably out there everywhere. I don't know how they survived, but they did and they're hungry. I'm pretty sure I heard one of them say they were from Nashville. If they walked almost a hundred miles trying to find something to eat, they're capable of about anything. Keep your head down and your shit wired tight.

Randy shut off the radio and turned to Emily.

"Emily, I've been meaning to ask you. If you can drive to that lodge, why didn't you come down the road instead of this valley?"

"The road snows shut after November, so you can't drive it until the spring thaw. A horse might make it down the road, but it would be pretty hard because the snow's so deep in places. This valley starts out on the same road, and it's a good shortcut to Challis."

Randy nodded to himself. They were close to Challis, only a three day walk if you weren't loaded down. They hadn't seen anybody alive in Challis, but that was probably because Challis was so small. A bigger city, like Idaho Falls or Pocatello would probably have survivors. Anybody in Idaho would know there was game in the parks and wilderness areas, and once the food in the cities ran out, they'd likely head out into the mountains and they would be armed. He turned to Marilyn and Emily.

"We're too close to Challis and we're within a hundred miles of Idaho Falls and Pocatello. There are probably people who survived there, just like the guy said did in Nashville. They'll be out foraging for food and looking for shelter, and we're too close to the road. We need to move deeper into the mountains.

"I think we need to move now. As soon as spring comes, it will be easier for anybody to walk up here. The problem is it'll be really hard to build a cabin during the winter. Emily, how far away is that lodge?"

Emily shrugged.

"I rode for a day and a half before I got here."

"Are there more horses there?"

"Yeah, a bunch. The owner used them for hunters to ride and to pack their stuff to camp and back. They should still be there. I put a whole bunch of hay in their barn before I left to feed them until I came back, and they know how to break the ice on the creek so they can get a drink. I figured they might come in handy this spring."

Randy frowned.

"I don't like it, but here's what I think we should do. If either of you have any other ideas, now's the time to tell me."

The trip to the lodge took them three days on foot. Randy rigged their packs and other gear to the saddle on Emily's horse so they didn't have to carry anything but the rifles and shotguns, but it was still slow going. The tent was cramped with three of them inside, but they managed to sleep fairly well. On the third day, Emily said they should go north up the ridge line, and an hour later they saw the lodge. Randy took the AR-15 from his shoulder, checked the chamber and flipped the safety to "FIRE".

"You two stay here. I'm going to make sure nobody moved in while Emily was gone."

He came back fifteen minutes later.

"It's all clear. Let's spend the day getting the horses ready. We'll start back tomorrow."

Then next morning they retraced their steps back down the mountain, but this time they rode and lead a string of fifteen packhorses with pack saddles and panniers. They spent only one night in the open on the return trip, and were relieved to see the cabin was just as they'd left it. Just as he'd done with Emily's horse the week before, he hobbled all the horses and let them roam the valley. They were mountain horses and accustomed to digging in the snow to get to the dried grass underneath.

The next two days were used to pack everything into the panniers for the pack horses to carry, and on the morning of the third day, they moved away from the cabin that had been home to Marilyn for almost seven years.

It was slower going because of the loads the pack horses carried, and they had to spend two nights in the open. Marilyn laughed and said the bed she'd slept in at the lodge would more than make up for an extra night in a tent. Emily wondered if Randy would be sleeping with Marilyn when they got back to the lodge. He hadn't slept with Marilyn on the first trip, but the look in Marilyn's eyes when they went to bed told her she would have been happier if he had.

There was already a meat cache at the lodge, so Randy spent a day hauling the deer, elk, and bear quarters up the ladder while the women carried everything else into the lodge.

As she and Marilyn worked, Emily noticed that Marilyn wasn't saying anything to her. She had been the same during the trip to the lodge. Emily was sure she knew the reason, and also knew that she had to come to an understanding with Marilyn if they were going to live together. Randy wasn't there, so they could talk freely, or at least Emily hoped Marilyn would do so. She sat down the box of candles she'd carried into the house.

"Marilyn, I think I know how you feel, and you shouldn't feel that way."

Marilyn put down the pannier full of clothes she'd carried and smiled.

"What do you mean? I don't feel anything except happy to be in an actual house again."

"Marilyn, we're both women, so you can't hide how you feel from me. You're worried about me and Randy, aren't you?"

Marilyn pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down.

"What makes you think I am?"

"I saw how you looked at me that first night in the cabin. You looked a little afraid and like you might be worried. Coming up to the lodge, you didn't say a word to me. You don't need to be jealous. I don't have any interest in Randy."