When The Fault Breaks: Life Will Never Be The Same Page 22
The Salt Lake City region, including Provo, is predominantly Mormons so most of the people had supplies. The problem for them was that the militia knew about those supplies, and people that had not taken any precautions before the quake also wanted that food and water for themselves.
What the militia groups had not counted on were the Mormons fighting for their homes. They were surprised at how many did not turn the other cheek and roll over. Many had guns and did not hesitate for a second to use them to defend themselves. Many live in organized neighborhoods, others were just part of the fabric of the city. The militia groups never knew when to expect someone to fight back.
The groups could not just go in and wipe everyone out because that would also mean they would destroy what they were trying to get in the first place. So to counter that threat the groups would go into a neighborhood, search every house and set fire to it as they left killing anyone that resisted Mormons.
This slaughter went on for days, gunfire rang out every night and fires raged with no firefighters to put them out. In the end everyone lost, the Mormons lost all their supplies to either fire or thieves. The militia groups lost because many of the supplies they went after were lost as fires spread to homes that had supplies. It turned out that Salt Lake City was a hot bed of Preppers ready to fight to the death for what they had, and those that didn't fight bugged out.
Luckily for us we loved to backpack, that meant we already had everything we needed to make it in the mountains. We had a friend that was Mormon and he had a shit load of dried foods and was willing to turn us on to some, so we got what we could and headed for the hills. We hung out in the mountain over the area for some time watching the city burn.
Many of the residents from the cities packed their supplies in their cars and went to live with families far from the populated areas. When the scavengers went looking for what they could, they found house after house already empty. Out of spite they burned those houses down as well. When it was all over, little was left of the entire region so no one stayed. Eventually we decided to leave our sanctuary because it was getting crowded in the mountains and people were starting to go after each other even up there.
We traded some gold for a tank of gas and made our way east across the mountains, then we headed south staying on forest service and smaller county roads as much as possible. With that, and by traveling mostly at night with no headlights, we were able to make it deep into the Canyon Lands without detection before running out of gas. From there we had to backpack, it was easier to remain invisible on foot and we ended up by the bridge were we ran into these guys.
I cannot tell you how worried we were when we came upon the bridge and there were already people there. We announced ourselves and came in with our hands in plain sight."
Floyd said, "Unlike Bill and Ed we did not hear them coming so we did not have our guns at the ready. We were actually surprised by them."
Bill replied, "It was better than us coming in firing Floyd."
Hank added, "And we were happy that you guys didn't open fire on us."
Ed replied, "For sure, and thanks for that too."
Hank said, "We headed out the next morning."
Chapter 28: The Trip Upstream
Hank continued the story.
"Thankfully these guys welcomed us in their group, so Ted and I made eight. We started out traveling on the road at night as much as possible because traveling along a riverbed is hard work. We were always on the lookout for others and did our best to avoid them. One day after we had been on the road for a few hours we heard the sound of a big truck coming down the hill.
We could hear it getting closer so we took off for the stream and took cover wherever we could. There was a bend in the road where the stream and road parted so we headed up stream a bit. We all figured we were safe and hoped they would just drive by but that was not the case. With the squeal of metal on metal the truck stopped just past the bend and everyone jumped out. There were four scraggly looking guys and all of them were carrying assault weapons.
They were all drunk as a skunk; yelling at each other, and laughing at stupid stuff like drunks do, and they all were heading for the stream. We feared we would be seen for sure.
One guy yelled out at another, 'Hey Andy, were the hell is my lighter?'
His friend yelled back, 'It's in ya shirt pocket ya dumb shit.'
They all thought that was funny and started laughing at him. He even thought it was funny and started laughing too. The four men stood by the streams edge and took a piss, and then one bent down right where he stood, cupped a bunch of water in his hands took a drink. Then he splashed it on his face. Proof that in-breeding produces really stupid people.
We all figured we were had but we stayed very quiet until they got back in their truck and drove off. Every one of us looked at each other in disbelief, we couldn't believe he did that. We all just sat there and laughed about them."
Everyone broke out laughing.
"Seeing that the stream parted from the road for as far as we could see we stayed in the stream bed for several days before we came on anything. We found an old empty farmhouse that we stayed in for a night. We chose not to stay longer because we figured the idiots in the truck could easily come along, so we left in the morning. There was nothing of use in that old house, but it was a good place to sleep.
The next few days we didn't run into anything or anybody, but we did find a nice fishing hole that we could see huge trout swimming around in. We spent a couple nights there fishing and smoking the fish so we had some food for the next few nights.
Even more time passed and we switched back and forth between the road and the stream depending on which we felt best about. At times we decided to travel at night on the road because the stream was impossible to travel and we would not have any real places to hide if someone came along.
After a while we were fairly deep into the wilderness. Wildlife was abundant and there were not many people. We spent weeks walking up the streams following one tributary after another. We occasionally found a few old farmhouses where we would spend the night and then move on. At some point we realized that we had not seen people for some time, nor were we seeing any sign of recent human activity.
We had left the last road behind some time before and traveled at least fifty miles up ever smaller streams when we came upon a small cabin in the woods. I was the first to approach it while the rest stayed back. I had my handgun at the ready and started calling out, is there anybody there? Nothing, again I called but this time a bit louder, IS THERE ANYBODY THERE? Then we heard the unmistakable sound of a 12-gauge shotgun being cocked from the cabin and we saw a gun barrel poke out of one of the shutters and a shot rang out followed by that sound again.
'GET THE HELL OFF MY LAND' a guy yelled then he fired a second warning shot, over our heads. I yelled out we mean you no harm, I laid my gun down and asked again can we come up? The guy in the cabin answered that very clearly, he fired off a third round this time at my feet. The guy yelled out that was our last warning, now get out of here.
With that I told him okay we were going to just continue on our way and leave him alone. We all kept our eyes on the gun as we backed away. We did so until we were out of sight of the cabin. To be sure we wanted to be nowhere near that guy's cabin, so we went way up stream that night.
We had no idea how long or how far we traveled, only that it felt like months. Every time we started to run out of fresh food we would stop for however long it took to catch more fish and game then smoke it so we would have it on the trail. Bill is really good at identifying edible plants as well, so we had plenty to eat.
Who would have thought that roasted trout with skunk cabbage and cattails would taste so good? I suppose the seasoning salt had something to do with it. Bill and Ed were great cooks and always found ways to make something different and tasty for meals."
Ed added, "The only thing that meal was missing was a nice white wine."
"Fall w
as closing in on us and we could tell it was getting colder at night. It had been so long since we passed that cabin that we barely remembered it. We hoped it would not be the last one we found and continued our trek up stream. One day we came upon a confluence that looked good both directions.
There was no way to tell which was the main stream or which was the tributary, so we stopped for the night to rest and scout out our options. Mark and Ed went up one leg and Bill and Floyd took the other leg. Everyone agreed that they would go up as far as they could and still be able to make it back to camp by nightfall. Besides them not having shelter, there were animals out there that would be happy to eat them.
It had not been more than a few hours when Floyd and Bill came rushing back to camp. They were both very excited, they had found an old intact cabin that appeared to be empty. The best part was that it was only a few miles upstream so we were only a few hours away from it. Alice took off up the other stream with Floyd to find Mark and Ed while Bill led me and the girls up to the cabin."
Chapter 29: The Mine
"The walk up the stream was easy and it only took an hour or so to reach our destination. We could not believe our eyes when we saw the cabin. It was large by cabin standards, better still it was built up against the face of a steep cliff and looked like it was in great shape.
As soon as the cabin came into view we all started calling out to see if anyone was there, but we did not hear a thing. As we approached we could see a big chimney in the roof so we hoped we would be warm that night. We even saw a wood shed with at least a cord of wood stacked in it and a nice fiberglass axe embedded in a large round with a splitting wedge next to it.
The whole work area was covered and partially enclosed for working in inclement weather. Talk about hitting the jackpot, we couldn't believe it, we crossed our fingers it was actually abandoned.
I approached the door and knocked, no answer. I knocked again this time a bit harder, still no answer. I reached down and tried the doorknob and it was not locked, so I opened the door and called out to see if anyone was home, still nothing. Everyone else stayed outside as I slowly walked in calling out as I did, still no answer. It did not take long to check out the whole place. When I returned to the group and told them it was empty, everyone was elated.
We all went in to check out our new digs. We all thought this was going to be our place for some time to come, at least I hoped so. It was clear winter was getting close so this was going to be our home for at least that long. When we began exploring the cabin the surprises continued. There was a fully stocked kitchen with plenty of pots and pans and everything else we would need. The kitchen had a nice electric stove and a full size refrigerator so we knew there was power here. I opened the refrigerator and almost blew chunks when the smell hit me. I wondered why they had left full of food and without power.
To our surprise we even found a fully stocked pantry with all the dry goods we could want, it looked like real pancakes for breakfast. The place had two bedrooms with nice soft queen size beds and a loft over the kitchen area.
Continuing to look around, I noticed a big double door on the back wall, the one that was up against the cliff face. I almost fell over when I opened the door and realized it was the entrance to a mine. There was a light switch by the door, though it didn't work, but at least I knew it had lighting. We found a couple of flashlights by the door and headed into the mine. It went back quite a ways and branched off.
At the far end of one of the tunnels we found digging gear stacked up like it had been placed there yesterday. It was almost too good to be true. We had found an abandoned cabin and mine miles from anywhere and everything. We knew now we would make it through the winter.
We made our way back out of the mine and decided to check out the grounds. About that time everyone else showed up and they were excited to check it all out. While the rest went inside, Bill and I decided to continue looking around.
I remembered the lights in the mine and kitchen and decided we needed to figure out where the power came from. It wasn't hard to do because when we made our way to one side of the cabin I could see a large wire coming out and heading up hill.
We followed the wires up and were happy when we saw where they went. They came from a box that was attached to a water wheel in a dried up streambed. Without flowing water, the wheel wouldn't turn, so there was no power now, but there clearly had been power in the past. I spun the wheel by hand and found it turned freely.
We wandered up the stream to investigate what had happened to the water and we found that a large boulder had fallen into the channel and blocked the stream. From the looks of it, the channel for the generator was a man-made diversion, running parallel to the main stream.
It was easy to move the boulder and the water began to flow down that channel. Now that the wheel was turning, we figured there was power to the cabin again. We were anxious to return and check it out.
On our way back we came across a bunch of chickens running loose. There were at least a couple dozen of them running free just as happy as could be. Bill cried out, 'hot dam chicken, for dinner tonight.' We both laughed and he took off trying to catch a couple while I continued on down.
When I got back to the cabin everyone else was coming out excited because while they were in the mine the lights came on. All this was unreal after the last few months of hell. It was the first time any of us had felt this happy and at ease in a very, very long time. That night we ate the biggest chicken dinner you have ever seen. It was great, we feasted on fried chicken, fresh bread, mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, and so much more.
After dinner, Bill, Floyd and I, decided to check out the mine further since it was now well lit. This time we headed down a different tunnel. The tunnel started out like the other, but later didn't seem to be as complete as the first. We thought that perhaps they hadn't gotten to that part yet, but as we continued on we encountered what looked like a cave-in.
We decided to leave it alone for now and to stay out of that tunnel until we could reinforce it like the other one. Seeing we had lots of time on our hands we decided to tackle that later. But then we spotted a smaller third tunnel with pile of wood which had already been cut and was ready to put in place.
Given that we had what we needed, we went ahead and made the tunnel safe, then we decided to clear the cave-in out of the way. As we moved the rocks we started to smell something very unpleasant. All of us had already smelt it before, so we all knew exactly what we would find. Then when we moved a big rock from the top of the cave-in, the smell hit us like a brick.
The area was well lit making it easy to see the pile of bodies just at the bottom of the cave-in. There were four bodies in all and it looked as though they had been dead for some time. Looking around it was pretty clear they had been trying to get out, but didn't make it. The cave-in was so complete that it had cut off all oxygen to the tunnel beyond that point and they all suffocated.
We stopped for a moment to pay our respects, and then continued to clear the cave-in. Once we had them out we gave them a proper burial. In this case it was by fire. We built a large fire and put them all on it to make sure no predators could get to their remains.
It was all starting to make sense now. It had all seemed too good to be true, EVERYTHING was here, the cabin, the food, the power, everything. I had been asking myself why would anyone just leave a place like this? Why would anyone leave a nice cabin fully stocked with everything and not come back? Why had the refrigerator been left the way it was?
After finding the bodies and giving it some thought, we all came to the conclusion that the four of them had been working at the end of the tunnel when the quake hit. Every other part of the mine had been well reinforced. The bracings were just a few feet away, so the section we found them in had to be new.
The quake also explained why the water wheel had stopped, the shaking had dislodged the boulder and it had blocked the channel that fed the wheel. It must have been hell in there when
it happened. Not only did was there a cave-in but the lights went out too, so they could not even see to dig their way out.
One day I was wondering what it was that had all four of them at that end of the tunnel, so I decided to check it out. We had cleaned out the cave-in and finished supporting the mine but had not gone back in since. Even though it was kind of creepy that four people had lost their lives there, I really wanted to know what they had been doing.
I went to the end of the tunnel and looked closely at the back wall. There I saw a large vein of quartz. As I looked closer, I noticed there was gold in the vein, lots of it. It seemed that no sooner had these poor guys found a large deposit of gold that the quake hit and they never got it out.
Now everything was making even more sense. They must have found a fair amount of gold already in order to fund this operation. They had built an amazing place with all the comforts of home. A nice cabin with hot and cold running water, heat, food, all of it. Unfortunately, the cave-in was too bad for them, but it was great for us.
Now we all knew we were going to stay there as long as we could. We took turns working the mine while others explored the area. One day while Floyd and I were out exploring and hunting we came across a very old and little used road. That was a bit disconcerting because we both knew it meant someone could find their way out there.