Chapter Four

I had originally only intended to stay for the warmer part of the year. I figured I could fill the hole in my heart with this curiosity for survival. I think there is an instinct to push away when everything fails you. Survival during spring, summer, and fall didn’t worry me. The risks were minimal. I planned to return in the fall and figured I would be able to look at the world with a new and better perspective.

The first thing I had to do was establish a shelter. I had a cheap bivvy style tent, but I intended to build something more sturdy and permanent. I had a few tools – a bow saw, a drawknife, some chisels, a brace, an axe, a hatchet, and some other sundry things. Following ideas from some of my books, I intended to build a relatively weather and animal resistant cabin that would serve as a place to keep me warm and dry as well as store my provisions.

I spent several days looking for the right location. I knew I needed good building material and water. I also considered secrecy to be important if my experiment was to be effective. I found a nice secluded cove about a half mile above the canyon bottom. A small spring ran nearby, and the lodgepole pines were plentiful. The only reminders I had of the world I had left behind were the con trails of the jet airplanes high above me.

It took me a full month to build the main structure of the cabin. I built a foundation and floor with rock. I had an improvised roof and door for most of the summer. Shingles were a bit of a challenge – ideally I would have had juniper or cedar, but I had to make do with what I had on hand. It was a very slow process to carve them with a drawknife, and I spent some time every night on it. The door was not so important as long as it was fairly warm. But when I had finished shingling the roof, I finally built a stout door. The mechanism of hinging and fastening was rather crude, but down the road I could refine that.

In the meantime I also had to eat – I had been lucky and killed a deer early on. I also fished a little, but it required a lot of time for a small amount of food. I knew that I would not be healthy with just protein, so I combed the forest for plants that were edible. The berries did not ripen until later in the summer, but there were numerous roots and leaves that were edible – again I relied pretty heavily on the reference books that I had with me. It was a very different diet than I was accustomed to, but it was satisfying to be able to fend for myself in this fashion.

By the end of the summer I had quite a nice little camp. I had managed to eat fairly well. In the back of my mind, I knew that if this were a real survival scenario, I would have to provision for winter, so I engaged in those activities frequently. My activities were not overly strenuous, so my food consumption was not excessive. I brought in more food than I was consuming, so I was able to store a good amount. I had to build some sturdy wooden boxes to keep the rodents out of my food. By first frost I figured I had six to eight weeks of supplies stored.

Then something changed. Something felt wrong. I think two days passed before I figured out what it was – there were no more airplanes flying in the sky. I couldn’t think of any good reason why this would happen – it made me very nervous. I thought very hard about my options and decided that I would carefully venture down the canyon and see if I could find out what was going on. I packed a couple of days’ food and supplies in a daypack and trecked out. I didn’t see a soul on the trail. There were cabins with road access a few miles from the trailhead, so I headed in that direction.

The first three cabins I came to were empty. A jeep was parked nearby but had been burned badly. Two of the cabins had the windows knocked out and showed signs of a struggle, so I became more cautious. Another cabin sat quite a bit further off the road and off into the trees. As I came closer, I could see that it was occupied. The circumstances of the first three cabins made me very nervous, so I found a tall old evergreen and hid myself near the base of the tree within earshot and sight of the front door.

Several hours later a man came out the side door with a rifle slung over his shoulder. He moved deliberately and swiftly to a shed behind the cabin, opened the door, and roughly pulled another man out of the shed. The second man was gagged and tied up, and didn’t offer any resistance as the first man prodded him into the cabin. It was evening, so I stayed in my hiding place until it was dark.

The moon was not up yet, so it was very dark. A dim light came through one of the windows, and I crept slowly to the wall. I could hear muffled voices, but I couldn’t hear what was being said. A small tree near the window offered some cover, so I moved behind the tree and looked through the branches into the window. I could see the bound man – he had his gag removed – sitting dejectedly on the floor against the far wall. Two other men, including the one I had seen earlier, were having an animated discussion about whether or not they should stay here or move to another location. It sounded like this position was “compromised” and “too close to the road.” One of the men walked over by the bound man and said, “You’d better make yourself useful with information pretty quick or you’re not going to last much longer.” The more I listened, the more I could tell that these were two unfriendly and dangerous people.

I moved back to my original spot under the old tree. I satisfied myself that it was well hidden and curled up to sleep.

I awoke in the early dawn to a roaring noise and a lot of heat. The cabin was on fire by the side door. I looked quickly around and saw the two men moving away down a two-track road around the other side of the cabin. I ran to the front door and opened it – across the way the bound man, again gagged, was squirming and moving around the floor in an attempt to get out. I got him to his feet and supported him out the door – I guided him to my little hiding place and took off his gag.

After confirming that there no other prisoners inside the cabin, I began to carefully question the man. He said he was the owner of one of the other cabins I had seen, but only occupied it part-time. Three days ago he had been at his house on the outside of town about twenty miles away when the power grid and telephone had cut out without warning. He had loaded into his jeep and headed to the cabin. Within a few hours, his neighbors had also arrived and they exchanged stories. They didn’t know why the grid was gone, but everybody in town was gearing up, so they loaded some foodstuffs into the car and came here.

Yesterday morning at dawn two men forced their way into his cabin and tied him up at gunpoint. They were clumsy and noisy, so the neighbors had a chance to jump into their vehicle and leave. The two men fired several shots, and somehow managed to blow up his jeep in the process. Then they rummaged through the supplies in all of the cabins and smashed several windows. They had asked him to identify where other neighbors lived and what supplies they might have.

He didn’t share any information with them, so they dragged him to the shed that I had seen, gagged him, and locked him inside. When they pulled him back into the house, they had questioned him again. After a while, he had fallen asleep from fatigue and awoke with the house on fire.

His name was Eric. He seemed sincere and honest, so I cut his bonds and we began to plan how to safely get to town together and find out what was going on.