Return to Hot Springs
Four years passed. Charlie was reaching maturity at eight years. He was showing it; becoming quite aggressive and even bothering me at times, sometimes, the younger goats. While I had killed a goat for food and one of them had been taken by a mountain lion in Texas, I currently had five of them: Danny, Lannie and three of their offspring. Three was the maximum that I could take with me in the corral on the trailer. Any more, and I'd let them run free and feral in Palm Springs where they were easy to catch I ever wanted to. Fortunately, there were other goats in the area, so there was less of a chance of inbreeding. Radiation was worse than inbreeding, but both led to unfavorable mutations.
But it wasn't the goats that concerned me. It was Charlie and his need to be with his own kind. While I had seen bands of chimpanzees, rhesuses, macaques and other monkeys in Texas and a couple of other states, I hadn't seen any other capuchins in my travels. It looked like I would have to go back into the radiation zone again and see if I could find Charlie's tribe and a mate for him… Radiation, inbreeding or no. Thoughts of Lisa haunted me again, but I had to go back for Charlie's sake.
It had been 12 years since the world changed. My Peterbilt 579 now had a snowplow front end that I could lower to run down roads that had saplings growing up through the cracks, cutting them off cleanly as I went and throwing them to either side. I could drive through fairly deep snow, and use the plow to even get through mudslides and landslides. Chains and the winches got me through deep stuff, but I didn't take unnecessary risks and stopped driving or detoured when weather or road conditions made it impossible to continue.
The diesel was blowing black smoke from bad fuel and clogged injectors making my trips more onerous, constantly having to change fuel filters and adjust fuel. But that truck was still my mainstay--getting me down the road into many towns too numerous to count, now crumbling and overgrown with saplings, grass and vines. Everything, everywhere was beginning to look like ancient ruins. Forgotten ghost towns.
Willows and aspen were the fastest growing trees and had already reached 20 feet tall in some areas, especially along the rivers and around lakes. There was a lot of food and cover for deer and other weed, brush and grass eaters--herbivores. But the harsh winters took their toll on those animals, particularly with deep snow.
Cedar, pine and fir trees had reached nearly 15 feet and were so dense in some places that they were nearly impenetrable. Hardwoods were also growing well with oaks growing the slowest, reaching 10 feet tall on the south slopes of well watered inland hills. Nut bearing trees and bushes were plentiful and so were those bearing fruit and berries. I could count on old orchards still having young trees growing from seeds and fruit in season. I got to know where they were and when to harvest.
I had set up a workshop in a garage in Palm Springs, powered by Charlie's military truck. I rigged up a generator run by a belt from the truck's power takeoff wheel and provided 220 V power to the entire building. During the winters there, I was able to finish a number of projects. Since it was getting near impossible to find two-stroke gasoline-oil mixtures that would work anymore, I had to replace all of my power tools with electric ones that were either rechargeable battery operated or ran off power cords from a panel that I created on the 579 to run off the engine and generators, supplemented by the solar panels on the top of the trailer.
With the solar panels alone, it was easy for me to revive batteries that I salvaged along the way whenever I would find a garage or auto supply that wasn't burned or looted. I even salvaged some out of abandoned vehicles. So far, batteries weren't a problem. Even the rechargeable lithium batteries I found with my various smart pads and phones I picked up. Most of them were still charging and working. I shared files between the smart pads so that I wouldn't lose my essential information like maps, equipment manuals and maintenance schedules, edible plant identification, poisonous snake identification, location of nuclear facilities and other info if the internal battery failed and I couldn't replace it.
When I found a phone and got it recharged, I would run down the saved phone numbers to see if I could pick up anyone. It was a futile effort for the most part, because most of the phones relied on cell phone networks and were not satellite-based. Those that were satellite based relayed the call, but in every case to a dead circuit or phone. I felt it was worth the effort, though disappointing.
It was all about backing up information and I was religious about that. But, if necessary, I was willing to open these devices up and remove hard drives or solid-state hard drives if necessary to recover my information--my lifeblood. Eventually, I expected to lose all of those electronic devices and return to paper and pen or pencil. So I started printing on a printer I set up in the shop to print all the essential documents on durable paper and placed them in a briefcase that I always kept with me. I always left a copy of that at Palm Springs in case I lost the one I was carrying. Eventually, that briefcase probably would become too heavy to carry as well. Oh, well…
I rigged up solar power chargers for a couple of drones and taught myself how to fly them. From here on out I used them to do surveillance of the road up ahead, the local surroundings in towns that I came through, and for whatever general purpose I wanted to put them to. They became an invaluable part of my tools.
My prize project was an electric four wheel solar ATV with about a 50 mile range that replaced the one I had with a two-stroke engine. It had just as much power but not the earsplitting noise that scared wildlife and the smoke from the bad fuel, making the old one run very badly near the end. I added a solar panel/roof over a rollbar that not only kept the hot sun and rain off me, but allowed the batteries to charge if they ever ran down on a run. Recharging all my equipment became a daily task that was necessary to keep me and my batteries moving. Thinking ahead, I knew the luxury and safety of the Peterbilt was going to come to an end very soon. After that the ATV would do until it failed and then I would have to go to either horse, goat or human power. I still didn't know which.
I found a Ford 350 diesel pickup and started to modify it to run from fumes from a wood burning furnace in the back. I thought about making the furnace make steam and then steam power a generator, but the older technology used in Germany and Japan during World War II was more appealing. Gasoline was no longer available to start the diesel running, but I found many aerosol engine priming compounds that still worked well getting the engine to turn over.
That project was unfinished when spring came and Charlie was eager to travel again in my caravan of vehicles. Inside, the sleeper looked quite worn, but as clean as I could keep it. So Charlie and I set off, once more, following familiar I-40 eastward from Palm Springs. By now, my expectation of seeing anyone was gone. I no longer went into town looking for signs of human activity. But sometimes, I would stop and let a drone take a look for me. Wild animals were always of interest. Charlie and the goats were both a blessing and a curse.
Unencumbered by human activity, nature flourished. The skies were filled with birds. All the streams and rivers flush with fish. Sometimes, I had to wait for great herds of bison, feral cattle, or sheep to cross the road in front of me. More concerned about predators that dogged them then the danger from my plow. Sometimes, I gently pushed animals out of the way not unlike the old cow catchers on the front of locomotives did not so gently. Except for winter stores, I stopped smoking or drying meat and fish. Fresh was always easy to catch, snare or shoot with my crossbow. I could keep a week's worth of food in the refrigerator and freezer in the sleeper easily. The crossbow saved bullets and the time it took to reload them. I painted the bolts high visibility orange so they were easy to find except in autumn when I painted them sky-blue to spot them in the leaves.
There was evidence of newer great fires from the dry summers the years before as I moved out of New Mexico into Texas. But these fires seemed to have had a rejuvenating effect on grasses and there was no danger of more fires in the lushness of spring. Exotic animals were growing in numbers and seemed to have taken over some habitat that was once only that of North American animals. I didn't know if that was a good or a bad sign. But I found it interesting to be eating Ibex or fallow deer rather than bison or white tail deer.
I dropped down off I-40 to I-20 from the Panhandle to Dallas and beyond. The closer I got to Arkansas, the more my anxiety rose. Thoughts of Lisa and the short time I was with her creeped into my mind as the hours and miles of driving piled up until I was turning off on Arkansas 7, northward, into Hot Springs once more.
Although more tattered and overgrown, the old red brick buildings of the downtown area came familiarly into view as I drove closer to the hotel, laundry and grotto, not knowing exactly what I would find. Charlie knew and became excited, bounding around the cabin and chattering loudly as he either smelled or saw familiar territory.
When I parked the truck and opened the door, Charlie bounded off in the direction of the grotto at a speed that I couldn't keep up with. Birds flew up from the pavement where grass grew tall between the cracks and animals scurried here and there at our approach. I had never seen so many animals around the spas and the grotto before. They had truly taken over the city and the warm springs.
But, as I ran, I had my hand on my pistol because I saw the scat of black bear, coyote and possibly, mountain lion on the street and sidewalk, letting me know that all those birds and animals had lured predators into town; perhaps, even during the daylight. There was a great commotion as I arrived at the grotto. Animals and birds scattering off in all directions, some running right past me. Charlie was charging all around the place, apparently trying to find any sign of his troop still there.
I know that Charlie could smell his family when I couldn't, but I took a more careful approach looking for hair, tools (they liked combs and other tools that they picked up on the street) and scat as I remembered it. I found no evidence. Charlie's troop was gone. I didn't know their demise or if they had just left. Winter may have been too cold for them and they migrated south. I just didn't know. I wanted to tell Charlie, but his expression after he ran around for several minutes and then calmed down and came back to me with a sad look on his face told me that he knew.
Returning to the truck, I took the goats to the garden enclosure where I had built the ramshackle shed. There were a couple of holes in the fence that I patched up and I had to replace a couple of loose boards on the shed, but otherwise it was safe for the goats to stay there. The place was full of knee-high weeds and young sprouts from various vegetable plants trying to compete with the wild seeds that drifted in. I know the goats would enjoy the feast that all of this fresh new growth would provide. I gave them water and then returned to what had been our home. The signs on the counter still invited people in. I opened the laundry and went upstairs. A layer of dust had settled upon every part of the place. Sadness came over me I hadn't expected. The smell of Lisa still lingered after all these years. I cried silently as Charlie and I went up to the roof where the pigeons still hung out. The third floor was a mess and there was evidence of invasion by raccoons, possums and bats through the openings that the pigeons used to get inside during winter and storms.
On the roof, the pigeons came to land on me even though I had not been there for four years and had no food for them. Their memories were that good. They even tolerated Charlie as he tried to play with them. I collected a few fresh eggs. Something that was a lot harder gathering from the wild than it was from the coop. I found some rotting and mouse infested grain in the third floor storage room and placed the gunny bags on the roof for the pigeons and other birds to easily get to them. The worms in the grain were an added treat for the birds.
I decided that I wasn't going to stay long enough to clean up the entire place. Would let it stay like it was. If I ever came back, I might think differently, but not this time. I cleaned the solar panels and the two wind turbines to get them working again. I turned on the power and it worked. The rats and mice had not chewed the wires yet. I cooked myself and Charlie a meal in the kitchen and then we went up on the roof again to watch the sunset and hear the nighthawks come out in the warm evening. It made me think of the many times Lisa and I had done that with a glass of wine. It cooled off enough to sleep in the bed with clean sheets that I found in the drawer of the dresser, but I kept waking up and reaching for Lisa only to find that the place seemed so empty and quiet now without warmth and breathing behind me anymore. Sigh.
After an omelette of pigeon eggs in the morning, Charlie and I went to look at the other two gardens and found them also grown over with holes here and there in their fences allowing animals to get in. Still, I saw familiar vegetables sprouting up through the weeds that had a head start on them. I was able to get some fresh lettuce and pull a few onions for a fresh salad later.
Charlie and I checked on Oscar's basement headquarters and I checked through all of the things he collected. I picked up a few bottles of fine aged booze, some sauces and pickles, but had no use for the money, art and antiques that filled the place. They had no value left for me. But they would stay here a long time and perhaps somebody in the future might discover them and make them important again.
Everywhere I looked were memories and regrets. There was nothing in Hot Springs for Charlie and me anymore, except too much radiation. I would continue to look for capuchins so that Charlie could perhaps, have a mate before he was too old. But for now, until that day, we would keep looking. It was time to leave, so we did. I couldn't bear another night in our bed in that town.
