Avalon: The Retreat (16 page)

The watches were posted full time now that everyone was on location. All watches were six hour shifts and advanced every day by one hour at noon to prevent monotony and complacency; it also kept onlookers from easily identifying the schedule. The locations were rotated, as well, to keep a watch stander from being stuck in the same place all the time and there was an advantage of becoming intimately familiar with each location over time.

The railroad bunker was located at the entry to the road leading to Avalon and resembled a pile of logs stacked to weather. If ‘unfriendlies’ didn’t know to look for it, they would easily pass it by. There were slits between the logs to peer out and would be difficult to see a person in the bunker standing watch.

It took a lot of work to build and disguise, but was worth it in the end, as it provided plenty of warning, via radio, to those at the retreat from the approach attackers would most likely take. There was also a battery inside the bunker that could be used to set the charges to fell some of the big firs across the road, making it nearly impassable. Two people manned the bunker at nights and during inclement weather.

In addition to the bunker out by the railroad bed, there was also a tower in the back meadow; an additional sentry roved the main building front to back from dusk to dawn. It was a good system, and it would be difficult for anyone to surprise even the tower watchers because the rover of the main building could see it clear as day, and there were booby traps all over the place, as well. Some were designed to simply make noise, while others would seriously hurt anyone sneaking up on the area unaware. There were even several solar-charged, wireless motion detectors that would either light up the area or notify the watch standers.

Two months passed swiftly, and it felt odd to many of them that they didn’t have to leave the retreat anymore. Before the chain of events brought about by the bombings, they each relished the moments when they were able to escape to here, if only for a short time. Now it was their home, and it looked as if it would be for a very long time to come.

Everyone kept busy with either their primary duties or by finding something productive to accomplish. Sam and Greg undertook the project of restoring the old wagon the old timers used to haul the ashes out to the road. It sat in a corner rusting and in need of major repairs, but with all the able bodies pitching in, it was as good as new in a week or two. Sam commented that the dump door in the bed was working smoother than the trap door on a gallows.

A large pile of ashes with unburned coal nuggets mixed in had already accumulated and would have to be redistributed elsewhere. Aside from the fact that it was unsightly, every small breeze caused the dust to swirl around and eventually get into the main building or cabins.

The ash wagon was finished in record time, and just when it was needed, as it turned out, even if not for its intended purpose. Sam wanted to hitch a couple of horses to it and start dumping the ashes on the outer road right away since his cabin was closest to the pile, and he was getting tired of dusting all the time.

While in the midst of hitching up the team, a call came in over the radio from the lookouts at the end of the road near the rail beds; they were in a strange panic. Mike decided to go out on his bike and see what was going on and took Sam as backup. It was a long distance, but at almost full throttle they got there fast enough.

Well before they reached the clearing at the end of the firs, they stashed their bikes and hiked to within view of the area where the bunker lay hidden. Sam went right and Mike went left into the thick fir trees, and they worked their way toward the sand traps at the end of the road. Both men carefully avoided the booby traps that were positioned throughout both sides of the road, set to go off. Mike hadn’t heard the radio message, so he wasn’t sure what to expect, only that the watch was in some sort of trouble.

As Mike approached the clearing, he heard her; she was angry and sounded fierce. There in front of them was a female grizzly and her cub, and she was raking the top of the bunker with her huge paws trying to dig down to the occupants. It looked like she was tiring when the cub saw Mike and ran at him at a playful trot. Mama saw him too and came at Mike with the grace of a thousand pound wild dog. The saliva flowed out of her mouth like a silver stream covering her front legs and chest, and she was instantly in a full run and moving toward him quickly.

There wasn’t much he could do at the moment, so he raised his 9mm, selected a three shot burst, and as he started to squeeze the trigger, an explosion from behind him rang out and caused him to jump. It was Dayna. With a single shot, she dropped the mama bear from nearly three hundred yards with her .308 Remington pump action Game Master. The bear dropped to the ground and was dead before her head hit the road; it was a great shot and earned Dayna another notch of respect. She quickly jumped back on her bike and was on her way to assist.

The cub started moaning and raking at his mother with his paws, not seeming to understand what was happening. He was so young he would most likely die without her milk and watchful eye. Mike, Sam, and Dayna went back to the retreat, leaving both bears there, and came back with the ash wagon a few hours later. It had nearly been hitched before the call came over the radio, and they completed the job to retrieve the dead bear in short order.

Dayna pitched in to help, having decided that she was going to keep the cub alive since she felt a twinge responsible for having been the one who shot the mother. She asked several of the men to help get the bear loaded on the wagon, and they all jumped on as it lurched and headed down the ash road. Repairs to the bunker would be needed due to the damage the mama bear had done to the top of it, but that would have to wait until tomorrow since it was getting so late.

The little cub was nursing on his dead mother when Dayna picked him up, and he began licking her face and was a handful for all the wriggling he was doing. He was heavy too and as she walked over, Sam helped her get into the wagon. She scratched the cub’s stomach and in a moment, he was fast asleep in her lap. The others began the difficult task of lifting the dead bear into the wagon, and although it took some time, they got her in there. It was getting late, and the trip back was going to take awhile.

Back at the retreat, the others had eaten hours before, so Sam suggested Dayna put the cub in the tool shed for safe keeping, commenting that they would deal with the mother later. They all went inside to eat, but Dayna decided to tend to the cub instead. She knew the cub needed to eat and Dan, with the help of Caroline, made a rather large bottle for him by putting part of a rubber glove over the end to serve as a nipple. She warmed the milk in the kitchen and went out to feed her seventy pound baby while the rest of them went in to the dining area to eat.

The cub came out of the tool shed and was bawling and running around to the point that Dayna had to set the bottle down and chase him. When she caught up with him, she couldn’t let loose to go get the bottle and Sam, who was done eating, was standing there watching the comedic chase. She appealed to him with a look, and he walked over and retrieved the bottle for her. With bottle in hand, the cub settled down to a drinking fest and soon fell asleep in her arms.

Sam disappeared to get Dayna some food and a drink, and he ended up hand feeding her while she held the cub. The two of them took the cub to her cabin, laying him on the floor, and then decided it was safe to have a cup of coffee before Dayna settled in for the night. She kept the bottle in case she needed to feed the bear cub later.

The next day began the job of gutting out and skinning the mama bear and several people hauled it up by its front paws out by the main barn. The entrails were fed to the small family of pigs that they kept way out behind the big barn, situated well away from the predominant wind.

One of the things that had carefully been brought to the retreat was a set of eight-inch paper wheels that were mounted on a trundle type apparatus by way of an axle. Perry had built it from plans he found in an old Mechanic’s Illustrated magazine. Operators could sit at the apparatus and work the trundle with their feet, facing the wheels. One wheel was for sharpening and the other was for polishing; together, they would put an edge on anything used for cutting. It took a bit of a knack to get the hang of it, but once mastered it would yield sharpness that could shave anyone. An added bonus was that the paper wheels didn’t heat the blade, which prolonged the edge.

Perry used the machine several times to get the big bear skinned and gutted and took the carcass into the barn area and left it to hang for the next two and a half weeks to age. Aging the meat would make it tender, and it was easy given that there were seldom any flies this time of year. There was little waste at the retreat, and the mama bear was going to yield some tasty steaks, a real treat for everyone when the time came. Dressed out and skinned, she tipped the scales at eight hundred pounds of mostly meat.

The next step was to stretch the large hide fur side down and begin the job of staking the raw hide, stretching it as they went. In stretching hides, the rule of thumb was always the tauter, the better. A pair of house paint scrapers was used to scrape the hide to remove any traces of meat, and when they were satisfied with the job, the brain of the animal was extracted and the process of rubbing the brain matter into the hide was begun.

Many cultures, including Native Americans, observed that all animals have enough tannic acid in their brain to tan their own hide to perfection. After the initial rubbing in of the brain matter, the remainder was saved for a second application until it was gone and totally used up.

Beverly and Stan Doyle wanted to give the technique a try, but Beverly threw up when the smell reached her and she was done. Stan, on the other hand, proved to have a hardier stomach, so he helped quite a bit. It was finally completed and simply a matter of waiting for the hide to dry out. Then they would wash it and allow it to dry once again before they began the hard job of softening it.

“Dayna,” Sam asked innocently, “Do you know how the Indian squaws made leather soft?”

She admitted she didn’t know, especially given the brain matter had been used. Sam, in an effort to get a rise from her simply stated, “They chewed it until it was soft.”

“Disgusting!”

Her disgust was Sam’s delight, and he laughed at the thought of it all.

The hide was later washed in a tub that was set up to tumble, operating off the big power takeoff of the main boiler. It was washed for several days in a watered-down solution of diluted sulfuric acid and lime. After being re-scraped and allowed to dry, it was fairly soft and its fur was preserved.

Dayna made no bones about the hide; it was hers and she was going to use it for wall to wall carpeting in her cabin in spite of the fact that the hide was too large to fit properly. It would just have to go up the walls a bit. She wasn’t going to chew it, either, but rather decided to soften it further by taking different parts and kneading and rubbing them together after the washing and drying was done. It was a big job, but the more she worked the skin, the softer it got.

Her one bedroom cabin was like all of the others, except for the five special ones that were multiple room affairs. All of the cabins were equipped with a few lamp tables that had the old fashioned Aladdin oil lamps sitting on them. Most of them had glass shades sitting on a three rest cradle that was attached to the lamp, itself. There were three lamps on the walls and three on the tables, as well as one lamp attached to the bathroom wall, which helped light up that particular area after dark.

One problem with the oil lamps was the heat they gave off, which was a tradeoff for the fact that each was comparable to a 100 watt light bulb when fully lit. The group was growing soybeans in the back field that yielded oil for the lamps, and there was a fair amount of kerosene that had been stocked as well.