Chapter 65
"The Doc has a radiation meter. It hasn't been calibrated for a couple years, but he says it wil still be good enough to know we aren't getting hammered with radiation," Zach said. "We talked for a long time about this tonight and he thinks it is because of the wind patterns. Or, maybe someobdy has kept some of the nuclear plants west of us from melting down. No way to know without going exploring."
"So," Misti said, "we're safe, at least for now."
"Yeah, we're safe for now. The bad part is, a lot of other places aren't safe. You can just about write off everything on the east coast. Look at this map he gave me."
http://www.energyjustice.net/map/nuclearoperating
"Wow! The whole east coast has them all over," Misti said.
"Yep. Those people are toast. There are 3 or 4 that could threaten us. We have no way of knowing if they melted down, or not, and we can't tell for sure how much radiation we'd get if they did."
Misti said, "But it has to be 400 or 500 miles to the closest one to us. We should be okay this far away."
"I wish I could say that for sure, but there is the airborne stuff. What happened at Fukishima, Japan sent stuff into the atmosphere and it travelled all around the world. We'll get some; it's just a matter of how much and how long until it gets here."
Misti sighed and said, "Okay. What does this mean to us?"
Zach shrugged and said, "We don't know for sure. Doc said it would mean we'll get enough radiation over time to have health effects. Undoubtedly more cancers, more goofy things happening we can't explain where people get sick and we don't know what it is. Basically, none of us are going to live as long as we might have expected without this."
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Zach Felson and James Cooper spoke at the next Sunday meeting about the radiation danger. They had spent more time with Doctor Van Derver who also gave his opinions about what to expect and said he would report any changes in radiation level he found. He had some rechargeable batteries for his radiation meter, but they would only be good for a few more years.
He reccomended making a crude substitute called an electroscope. It was a simple device with a pair of thin aluminum foil leaves on pivots inside a jar. It could be charged with static electricity and would naturally discharge over time. The discharge, shown by the leaves falling together, would be faster is more radiation were present.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroscope
If they built one now and measured both the background radiation level with his meter, and the time it took the electroscope to discharge, they would have a standard time measurement they could compare to future readings. If the leaves discharged notably faster, the radiation level was higher. It was crude, but it did not depend on batteries.
He had also worked out how to operate his radiation meter by powering it with his solar batteries, although if they were damaged somehow, the electroscope was a last-ditch way to check for radiation.
The science graduates were quick to explain how all this worked to the others at the meeting, but one last question came from Jacob Knepp.
"If we have more radiation, what do we do then?"
The doctor said, "There is little you can do , other than move somewhere that has less of it. Right now, we don't know where that would be."
Jacob asked, "If that is so, then all we can do is wait for God's Will on the matter. What does this radiation do to us?"
"It will damage your cells in ways that can cause cancer, or damage to your internal organs over time. It means you won't live as long as you would have without the raditaion exposure. I will venture a guess that all of us will be affected to some degree. There is no way to know how much. In young people, it can cause birth defects in their children, or damage to their growing cells that can result in many diseases. We will, none of us, live as long."
Jacob said, "We have unleashed a devil in our midst."
Nobody disagreed with him.
After the meeting, many people had questions for the doctor. The pregnant women were insistent in asking about the effect of radiation on an unborn child. He answered their concerns as best he could. He finally summarized before a group of them, saying, "If the human race is to have a future, we need to begin reproducing at a younger age and raise as many healthy children as we can. It is the only chance we have."
"We can help stay healthy by washing our food well to remove any contamination, and eating lower on the food chain, that is, less meat and more grains and vegetables. As animals eat plants that are contaminated, they concentrate that in their bodies, particlularly in organ meats and bones. Bear that in mind when planning your diet and we can avoid most of the problems as long as it doesn't get too bad. I would particularly avoid fish for a few years."
On the way home from the meeting, Clay told Amy, "This means we better not venture too far away trying to salvage things, and if we need to, we better not stay there long."
The Flynns and the some other parents went home with mixed emotions about the teenage girls in their families. If they had children too young, the mothers would be at risk from their own immaturity. If they waited too long to have children, the risk of birth defects would increase. There were no good answers, and no clear guidance to give the young people.
The teenagers in the crowd had a different take on the matter. Several couples had exchanged looks at the meeting. Later they talked seriously among themselves and all came to the same conclusions. Most of them decided that if they weren't going to live to old age, they should get on with living now. It made no sense to them to wait before choosing a mate.
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Chapter 66
Jim Crawford had once thought about studying to be a minister, but had gotten married instead and was soon busy making a living. He had begun to think more about this now and had led prayers and the Sunday meetings many times. He could see as well as anyone that the news about radiation would cause a rash of young people wanting to be married, or acting like it whether they were officially so, or not. He made his decision and told his wife that he wanted to take on the task of ministering to their community.
Word got around that Mr. Crawford would be the minister and he had met with Marta who agreed to keep records of marriages he performed. They talked at some length. Roscoe pointed out the need for records of who had taken over which properties and thought there was a need to record those officially, also. He had a heavy old safe he had bought at auction years before where he kept a few valuables. He would provide that to keep records for the community, mostly for fire protection.
Within two weeks, Mr. Crawford had several weddings scheduled. Kevin Collier was marrying Andrea. In the Flynn household, Patrick Hughes would marry Amy Richards. Other couples were Jordan Alexander and Destiny Jennings, John Anderson and Diana Hawkins, Jack Alexander and Angel Hawkins, Zachary Felson, environmentalist and Misti Fordyce, gardener/historian, James Cooper, the biologist/environmental science man and Ruth Bennett the potter, Pietro Mundii and Alena Lekas, and Isaac Kelley the blacksmith/physicist would marry Esther Morris the weaver.
Anne Capper would have immediately married Paul Dickenson before the gun issue came up, but they were still trying to come to terms with that. Mackenzie Jennings had not yet convinced Austin Mills that it would be a good idea.
*********
Patrick and Amy were working hard on the old farmhouse down the hill from the Flynn place to get it cleaned and repaired for them to move into. Patrick had gotten himself a new truck at the Ford dealership and was hauling a load in every day to make repairs and set up their household. Their work had to slow down when the big canning season rush hit, but they spent every spare minute workingon their own place.
The other young couples had to look further for a place to live. All the cabins at the lake community were filled, either with occupants or, in one case, the pottery business which was off to a fine start with Ruth's first firing of pots made from the local clay. It was a resounding success in her mind, even though she had many pieces crack and some glaze failures in this first run in the newly built kiln. Part of that was due to a crack in the kiln that she quickly repaired.
When Eddie Grimes and Martha Knepp announced they were to be wed, Chris Hamilton had arranged to move across the road into a small house. It wanted some repairs, but it already had most of what was needed for him. Eddie helped him get it in shape, motivated by wanting to hurry up his wedding date. They had agreed to get him a personal garden fixed up for nest year, but the one they had worked together this year yielded enough for all concerned. Jacob Knepp gave the couple a fine team of horses for a wedding present. Eddie was a bit scared of them but his ew wife would mock him into learning how to deal with them. That was not the first nor the least of the personal adjustments each would be making.
The housing crisis at the park was solved temporarily by Jordan moving back into the gatehouse with Destiny, then two other couples took over a pair of camping trailers that had been left at the park. They were fairly large Airstream trailers that were in perfect condition, and water was available to them from the new springhouse system. They did, however, have to build a pair of new outhouses since the sewage system no longer worked for the trailer spots. There simply wasn't enough water available to operate flush toilets.
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"We are going to need a sawmill someday," Pietro said.
Alena said, "There must be sawmills around here with so much forest. We will find one. Roscoe or Mr. Crawford will know where to find you one."
"No, Mr. Crawford already has thea bandsaw mill. What i meant was, we will need a sawmill we can run without fuel like we have now. That is much more difficult to do. It is an energy problem. We have to find ways to do such heavy work that does not depend on diesel fuel and gasoline. Already, some of the gasoline engines are hard to start."
"Ah, I see," Alena said. "Can't a sawmill be run by water power?"
"Yes, if we had water power. There is none here. I asked Isaac about that. He said Rich Dalton told him the lake doesn't have enough water for that, and it is not high enough to get much power from it. Some of us have been talking about a steam engine, but we dont have anybody who could make one. There are a few very old steam engines that exist, but they could be dangerous. Steam boilers can explode and kill people."
"Is there no other way? What about biodiesel fuel? That was a big topic at college."
"We could do that, but it wouldn't last very many years before we have problems with the machinery involved. The oil presses were mostly made in China, and are not durable enough. In a few years we would have put a lot of work into raising the oilseed crops and getting that all working, then we would have problems running out of chemicals, or the electronics on th processor would go bad, or some other thing put a stop to it. We need something we can make ourselves, and fix ourselves. Like a water wheel. Something simple."
"I will talk to the women and ask what they know about. They may not know how to work a machine but someone will know where to find a machine."
At the meeting two days hence, Alena asked Marta Beam who was the woman who knew about the antiques?
"Oh, that's Sylvia Collier that led us to you folks! She's over there talking to Anita Harris, her neighbor."
Alena went to talk to Sylvia and explained what she wanted to know.
Sylvia said, "Yes, I know where there are steam engines, several of them. We talked about getting them on the trip when we met you, but we put it off until another time. We knew we'd need them sometime. I suppose now is the time. We'll have to plan another expedition to get them moved here."
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Chapter 67
"I never thought it would be this much work to get married," Patrick said.
Amy said, "We're not just getting married. We're starting a whole life."
"Yeah, I guess so. Still, it's a lot of work. I never thought about most of this. We gotta have water, so we need a new well pump. Thank goodness the well is okay. And on and on it goes. I don't know how many trips we've made to get stuff."
"I wonder how many trips it took to get the family's house set up. They started with a BARN! Why didn't they just buy a house out here?"
"Didn't want it noticeable, Wayne said. And they could make it the way they wanted, since it was just empty space inside."
"That carpet needs to go," Amy said. "It's so dirty it's awful."
A big sigh from Patrick indicated his feelings about it, but he said, "Yeah, it's pretty bad. Let's rip it out. I can put it in the burn pile I suppose."
He got a pry bar and ripped up the molding, then used it to start tearing out the carpet. In the process he broke a short piece off the wide baseboard by the front door.
"Well crap! Now I'll have to fix that!"
The foot long piece of the tall molding fell away easily leaving a dark hole behind it. He automatically used the pry bar to drag out some trash inside the wall, a wad of very old newspaper. There was a dirty old jar behind the paper and it was heavy. He pulled out the blue glass pint jar and looked at it for a minute before he figured out the rusty wire bail thing on top and pried it open. It was filled with very old coins. Gold coins.
Amy came over to see what he was doing and said, "That's GOLD! That's worth a fortune!"
Patrick looked at it for a minute, then looked at her and asked, "Where ya gonna spend it?"
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A five day trip to Elnora, Indiana netted the community 3 semi's with lowboy trailers, 2 of them the drop center type loaded with steam engines and machinery. The smaller machinery from the wood and metal shops rode on 2 other flatbed trailers. Isaac Kelley had a wonderful time checking out all the equipment and fired up the big steam engine from the sawmill to drive the monster onto a trailer.
Isaac told Clay, "There's no other way to load that thing. It has to weigh 5 tons or more. Besides, if it didn't work, there's no point in taking it home."
Except for clearing some tree branches from the highways, the trip home went smoothly until they got just past the small town of Loogootee. In a river bottom there, someone shot a hole in the windshield of Jim Collier's truck. The convoy instantly opened fire on the surrounding thick forest and kept driving. They didn't stop until they got to the town of Mitchell, over 20 miles down the road, having learned by radios that everyone was okay.
"I'd sure like to get a piece of that SOB that shot at me!!" were the first words out of Jim's mouth when they stopped for a break.
"I think I did," Kevin said. "He shot three or four rounds and I saw a muzzle flash in the thicket. I emptied a mag in there and cut a lot of weeds. If he was anywhere close he was livin' hard."
"Why the hell would anybody shoot at us? We ain't hurtin' anybody!" Jim was white with anger.
"I can't figure it out," Clay said. "Martin County is about a pore a place as I know about. They ain't nothin' there worth stealin', and we ain't takin' anything that belongs to anybody."
"Nothin' worth stealin', 'cept for the trucks we drove," Chris Hamilton said. "Mebbe somebody didn't have nothin' that would run."
Clay said, "That guy in town was goin' to shoot me 'n Pietro for our pickup. Could be you hit on it."
"Why'nt they just step out and ask for a ride?" Isaac said.
"Some folks don't think like that," Kevin told him.
"Well, we'll just leave that sort to their own misery," Roscoe said. "We don't need to go back that direction for anything I know of."
Kevin said, "Yeah. And let's hope they don't decide to come our direction, either."
Jim Collier had calmed down some, but he was still as mad as anyone had ever seen him. He said, "I think a good forest fire this Fall would flush out some of 'em where I could get a shot at 'em."
"Nah," Kevin said. "Let 'em try to come to us if they want to. They ain't got any idea where we're goin' anyway."
Isaac said, "I hope you're right."
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Chapter 68
"That little steam engine is just what we need to run things around the park," Isaac said. "We got a burr mill, too, so we can grind meal and flour with it."
"I think we'd better not use it until we have to. No need to wear it out while we can use regular engines," Zachary said. "Better not load the cabbage too deep in the truck, or it'll get bruised."
"Yeah. I think we had better take this load to the women and maybe they'll let us sit in the shade and cut it up for sauerkraut. That would be a lot better than being out in this heat."
They got in the truck and started for the school kitchen.
Isaac was driving and said, "I'll park under the shelter house for now. We have to trim this stuff, so we might as well do it in the shade. Leave the trash in the truck bed and I'll drive it down to the compost pile later."
"This is going to be a lot of work to get it all shredded," Zach said.
"There's got to be some kids around to help with that. I wish we had more of those mandolin things for shredding it. Two of them are just too slow."
"Better than using a knife. I've done it that way and it's a real bore," Zach said.
"Back to that steam engine," Isaac said. "What did you have in mind for it to do?"
"Nothing special, except that burr mill. We need to figure out how all this stuff works while we can still do something about it if we have problems," Zach told him.
"I guess that's right. I was just worried about what we will do when these things break or wear out. We don't have any experts at making parts for them, or even running them, for that matter."
"You're as close as we've got to a machinist, Isaac."
"I know. That's what worries me."
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"Does anybody know if there is a bigger source of water power around here?" Richard Dalton asked at the Sunday meeting.
"There's Spring Mill Park, where all those folks were camped," Roscoe said nodding in the direction JimCrawford and Bill Simmon's families.
"How far away is that?"
"Mmm, 'bout 30 miles, give or take," Roscoe said.
"Anything closer?"
"There's Beck's MIll, about 4 or 5 miles south of town. Say about 12 miles from here."
"That's more doable. Any others?"
"There's a big cave spring over at Cave River Valley, but no mill there. That's over close to the Flynn's place, about 6 or 8 miles to the west."
Richard said, "The reason I'm asking is, we need a sustainable way to grind flour and corn meal, and to power some other things."
"That's nice and all, but what about using the steam engines we got?" Clay asked.
"They'll break down eventually and we don't have anyone who can make parts for them. The boilers will go bad someday and leak, or blow up. We need to do things we can keep going."
It got quiet for a time before various people began to talk to nearby friends and family. Bill Simmons stood up and said, "We need somebody in charge of this power thing. Somebody to make sure the right things get done. Time is going by and we all know what that means. Some day we'll wake up with no gas or diesel engines that will run. We have to have a leader to make sure we get things done."
"Are you campaigning Bill?" Raymond Alexander asked.
"Most certainly not! I want somebody in charge that knows what they are doing here."
Richard Dalton said, "I don't think we need an expert in charge for this. We have some people with expertise, but what we really need is an organizer. Like Mrs. Collier did with the steam engine trip. She doesn't know much about how steam engines WORK, but she knew where they were and she knew who to talk to about getting it done. That's what we need on the energy problem."
"How about one of you young people? You are all educated and you're smart," Roscoe said.
Isaac Kelley said, "I don't think so. We're not managers, were scientists and engineers and historians. We need someone with management skills."
"JIm Crawford was our territory sales manager," Jeff Hobart said. "Jim, do you want to do this?"
"I think I may have a full time job marrying young folks," Jim said.
Roscoe smiled and said, "They'll all be married pretty soon, and besides, it doesn't take that long. Looks like you're it Jim."
"But I don't know anything about energy and water power!"
"Don't have to know about it Mr. Crawford," Misti Fordyce said. "You just have to know who DOES know about it. And we can help you with that."
Bill Simmons laughed and said, "Looks like you've got the job, Jim!"
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