CHAPTER 2 IN SHOCK!
Obeying Dad was hard but we struggled against our emotions until we had finished.
"Now can we go, Dad? Please?"
"Rinse and stack your dishes, then you can cut out," he agreed.
Leaving all our stuff behind, even the goat, we plunged down the mountainside. Mom hung onto limbs and saplings, carefully avoiding the old, muddy logging path. Everything was so wet! She tried to find footing in the leaves and grass of the underbrush, but we boys didn‘t care about safety. We slithered down, thinking only of speed.
The sky was showing cheerful spots of blue. We skirted along the old barbed wire fence, keeping to the left of the raging creek. As we came out of the bushes into the clearing, everyone gasped. No one could speak, for what was there to say?
The river was at our feet. It was so impossible, so ludicrous, so ridiculous, to have the river tum into a lake, forty feet up our mountain, covering all of our known world and lying right there in front of us. We looked out over the smelly, murky water; but where were our home, post office, grocery store, school, both bridges, and highway?
The water went down quickly, even as we watched. When a dam breaks it gives a big flush, swooshing down the riverbed until it spends its power, leaving behind the usual remains and a lot of mud and crud.
It was Saturday morning. Were our school friends watching cartoons and eating toaster tarts when a wall of water appeared out of nowhere and washed them away? Did the man-made dam do a sudden split, or was there a tiny crack that got out of control? Did the owner of the mine know? Surely he would have sounded an alarm, or was he off on a vacation trip with his own sons?
"Don't let that water touch you, boys," warned Dad. "It will be dangerous for a while. You know those outdoor toilets upstream? The contents will all be coming this way."
"Oh, yuck," I groaned, wondering if we would have to take those typhoid shots as we did the last time the river came up in our yard.
After a long silence, Mom whispered, "No house."
"No business," joined Dad with a sigh.
"No piano," JohnB said, sadly.
"No school," cheered Scopi. "Hooray!"
"No computer," said I, the hopeful writer.
"No ball field," groaned Rooster, the best pitcher on his Little League team.
"No big black trunk." Sol had always wanted to be wise like Solomon, and sometimes he was. In those few moments he had already realized that our trunk full of baby shoes, report cards, and awards was the one thing that could never be replaced.
"Are we homeless?" asked Mom, the home-maker.
"Almost, sweetheart," said Dad in a comforting voice as he put his arm around her waist, "but not as homeless as our Master. He had nowhere to lay His head. He’s given us a vacation cottage in the mountains as if we were still rich people.
He turned us around and headed us up the hill, not whistling. "We're going up there to have a prayer meeting, committing ourselves to God, thanking Him for our safety, and asking His mercy on others. You realize where we would be if we had not gone camping this week-end."
The climb was awesomely quiet. We all wanted to go to Heaven, of course -- but not anytime soon. When we got back to our fire, it was only a pod of red coals. Dad split more wood, hoping to find something dry. The sun was shining in earnest. The golden sparkle of the wet leaves never gave a hint of the muddy disaster down below or of the loss of everything we owned.
We rolled some logs around the tire to make a circle as we always did at Scout camp. Dad got us singing "Amazing Grace," which fit the occasion and sounded good, coming from the heart.
One by one, we each said a prayer aloud. Dad's was first, thanking God again, and asking Him to help those who must have lost their homes, too, and maybe their lives.
"Father, please show us if there is anything we can do for our neighbors and community."
Scopi's prayer was last. "Since You saved our lives, maybe You have something special planned for us, Father. Please help us to know what it is. We'll try to be ready for anything. Amen."
The silence was broken with an announcement by Dad; "Family, we've got a big decision to make about our future. What should we do? Should we make this our new home site, rebuild back by the river, or move to the city?"
I liked the way Dad included us in things. JohnB was almost sixteen. We three teenagers would be making decisions of our own before long. Even the little guys liked to have their opinions and to be heard.
Dad wanted Mom's ideas first. "What do you think, honey? Do you want to be a hill climber? You wouldn't have to worry about getting enough exercise! You'd have a better shape than all of the other women," he grinned.
"Of course, I’d be the only woman," she pointed out. "But what about the children? How would they get to school?"
I saw Scopi drop his head.
Dad wrinkled his forehead. "This land is steep. No one else would want it, but it's all ours. Great-great grandpa was smart enough to keep the mineral rights. Nobody is going to be stripping coal out from under us. The logs are free. We have lots of growing muscles here, but you are right, honey, I don't know how we could get around the school law."
In the last few years, the government was getting harder and harder to obey. We couldn't go anywhere, buy anything, or do anything without our ID cards. Little kids all had to go to day care, and there was a new worldwide law about only two kids allowed for each family.
"Let's just hide up here, Daddy, and live off the land," begged Rooster. "Me and Sol knows how to hunt squirrels. We can eat roots and berries like the real pioneers, besides, the school is washed away." Then I said, "Isn't it going to be years before we have a new bridge? The county isn't going to want to build one just for us with all the houses gone. Maybe we should move into town."
"Let's just stay up in here and never be seen again," Scopi muttered. He really liked the school books. When he started algebra, he found he could take the two T’s of his real name, Scott, and make them look like pi. He’s called himself that ever since. But he’s always hated going to school.
It was JohnB’s turn. "Do you mean live up here, like forever, with no cars, or girls, or Scouts? Mom, how could you live without a phone or neighbors? What about mail and stores? And Dad, how could we live if you didn't have a job?"
"I would have a job, son. I would be building this family a new home. Isn't that a man's responsibility? Most of the stuff is free if we have the gumption to get hold of it. Money and electricity are newfangled inventions, JohnB -- and telephones," he said as he glanced cautiously at Mom.
"We've lost a fortune in vehicles and lumber and in the house," he continued. "For years no one has been able to get flood insurance. Even if I could get to town and show my ID, there's not much in our account. With this new machine money, people don't feel that they have to pay their bills."
"Do you mean we really are poor?" wailed Sol. "I always felt sorry for poor people."
"Sol, buddy, start feeling sorry for us." I advised.
"We don’t have one computer or a single game to play on it."
"But, Daddy, I don’t know how to be poor," he cried, grabbing Dad around the legs. "How does it feel?"
"About like this," said Dad. "You know, sitting on wet logs in front of a smoking fire, wishing for cartoons and sausage and hot biscuits."
"Oh, well, then it won‘t be too bad. I thought you had to be miserable to be poor," Sol chuckled.
We all felt comforted and actually prosperous, but what could we do about our future, and how would we be able to help anyone else?
"Oh, Dad, speaking of cards, have we lost them?" asked Mom anxiously.
"Don't you worry about that, sweetheart. Maybe you didn't think to bring yours, but I can't breathe these days without mine."
He reached into his back pocket and held up the plastic card that controlled all his buying and selling.
"See, just like they told us. It is safer than money -- - if we don’t lose it."
"We can't reall
y take a vote about our fixture, can we?" Mom noted realistically. "We don’t have much of a choice if we don't have any money or business."
Dad stood up, put on a voice like a preacher, and began to make a speech: "A man wants to make his family happy and stay within the laws of the land, but since God Himself has made me the head of this family, I believe that all of you would grow up to be better men if we could live up here and rough it. We have the land from the top of the ridge all the way to the river. It ought to be a big enough yard for you growing boys. Mother and I could share with you the education that we already have. We could get books, make a nice home, get to know each other, and trust God for everything. Now, that‘s my vote. I don't know why we can't do it if we want to. We won’t be hurting anyone. We don’t seem to have any vote in the new government, but we can live for God no matter what the other people do."
We boys kept quiet. I could understand Dad's desire to bring us up according to his own ideas, but could we really give up our old way of life? Was this going to be permanent? Would we never go to Scouts again? Or to any church? How would we buy groceries and get them all the way up to our campsite? It sounded more scary than fun to me, but Sol and Rooster were thrilled. Mom bit her lip and stared in wonder at her man.
JohnB strummed on his guitar, while looking out through the trees across the valley.
"Let's call our place ‘Reptile Ridge'," volunteered Scopi.
And that was the beginning of our new life.