Cal’s Quest 1

As promised, following is the beginning of what I am calling Cal’s Quest, for now at least.

Each Monday I will post a little more of the story. It will be mostly a rough draft, edited only for spelling errors that I catch and obvious syntax errors. If and when Cal’s Quest is published, it will be smoother and most likely look a lot different. But it gives the reader an insight into how a story is made and progresses.

I would also welcome positive criticism and comments or suggestions. Just use the comments section found at the end of the post.

That being said, I do have a definite plot line and things that seem confusing, will slowly become clear as the story progresses.

Patience is a virtue.

Cal’s Quest

The winter had been mild. Only a few days had been sub-zero, now it was late March, most of the snow was gone even in the high country. Migratory birds were returning and the woods were alive with the sounds of birds fluttering through the trees or calling for mates. While it still dropped to below zero at night, it warmed up in the daytime, sometimes enough to not require a jacket.

Spring break from school had just started and Cal had loaded all his gear into his old Chevy pickup truck the night before and hooked the two horse trailer up to the back of it. He had enough canned goods to last two weeks, water for two days and three in one freeze dried emergency rations for five days, just in case. His sleeping bag with foamy inside, a tarp, axe, collapsible shovel, rope to build a corral, oats, nose bags for the horses, a cast iron frying pan, small camping kit of a pot, cup, plate that fit inside each other.

His girlfriend would be going to Phoenix for the spring break with her parents in their company private jet. Candice’s father was the CEO and majority shareholder of a mid-sized oil and gas company and her mother came from ‘Old money’. Why the very popular, cute head cheerleader had decided he should be her boyfriend at the beginning of the school year kind of baffled Cal, but he definitely didn’t mind. Although he was a good athlete, he didn’t play on any of the schools teams. He wasn’t a geek, his marks were enough for him to be accepted in a local university, just. It was just that he lived on the very outskirts of the school district and between the farm chores and the long forty five minute commute to school, he didn’t have time to attend practices or games. He would graduate in June this year, the last of his high school life. He was far from a scholastic genius and had no idea where he wanted his life to go.

His girlfriend had big plans for both of them, but Cal just went along with her to make her happy. She had their whole lives planned out for them. What their careers would look like, where they would live, what kind of house they would have, how many kids and when, even where they would vacation every summer.

Cal was not so sure. He kind of liked the nice simple farm life. His parents and Candice’s, wanted them both to finish university. Cal with Geology degree and Candice with a Law. The only thing good about Geology for Cal, was that he could spend a lot of time in the mountains, Candice had other plans, so did her parents, they had big plans for Cal. That they had flown to Phoenix for the spring break and not even asked Cal to come along, told him where he fit into their scheme of things. Not that he minded all that much, he would be up in the high country for the whole two weeks, by himself, trying to figure out what he wanted to really do with his life.

He had loaded his horse in the trailer as the first hint of grey dawn was showing itself on the eastern horizon Saturday morning. With a last wave to his parents watching from the front door of the house, he started off, turning left on the gravel road that led to the secondary highway. It had taken him almost two hours to reach the remote staging area where he would leave the truck and trailer. The last hour on a very rough road, really just a trail barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass cut through the trees with a little gravel spread on it.

The area he was headed to, was fairly popular in the summer by the horse packing locals and the hard core back packing crowd from the big city and was off limits to any motorised vehicle traffic. But this time of year, he would have the area to himself.

The sun was going behind the mountains as he unsaddled the two horses at the spot he had chosen beside a stream that had flowing open water. Cal quickly set up his rope corral for the two horses using trees surrounding a small open area, brushed down both horses and took them for water. He collected enough dry brush and old branches to start a fire, took enough food for the night out of the horse pack panier that held the food, then hoisted the panier up in a tree. No sense in tempting any bears. After supper, he laid the spread out tarp on the ground, took the foamy out of the sleeping bag, put the sleeping bag on top of it and both on the top of the tarp. Taking off his boots and jacket, he got in the sleeping bag, wrapped the tarp overtop and was soon asleep.

After breakfast, Cal set about building the lean to shelter he would use for the next two weeks. It was wide enough for him to lay out comfortably, high enough for him to sit under and deep enough to store the saddles in. He had laid pine boughs on the floor and the tarp over the pine boughs. The pine boughs that made up the roof and the sides, were tightly interlaced and would let in no wind or rain. He had dragged over two logs and placed them one on top of the other behind the fire to provide a heat reflector that would reflect some of the heat from the fire into the lean to.

The next day was spent in collecting enough firewood to last a few days. That night as he looked up into the clear night sky, he noticed there were more than the usual amount of shooting stars. It must be a comet storm or something, he thought and stayed up late watching the show in the quiet dark night.

The next morning, the horses were restless. They were not excited or nervous, just restless. Pacing the corral perimeter, stopping to scent the air or to cock ears listening for something. Nothing appeared out of the normal to Cal. Squirrels were busy doing what squirrels do and the birds were chirping and flitting about normally. Looking to the west at the mountains, Cal saw no indications of a weather change coming. Maybe they were just bored he thought, so he saddled up one of them and placed a halter and lead rope on the other. Taking his fishing rod, he rode into the bush for about an hour until he came to a beaver pond he knew about. He unsaddled the horse he had ridden, hobbled both horses and began fishing while the horses grazed on the meadows grass.

As he lay on the grass, hands under his head gazing up at the sky, he noticed that the comets, or whatever, were visible somewhat, even in the day. Then in a flash, just about noon, they were all gone. About an hour after that, a visible shimmering coming from the south and the east swept across the sky and the horses jerked up their heads as it went over them. Then another more powerful one came, this one Cal felt. The hair on his arms and at the back of his neck rose as the shimmering past over them and it felt like a light electrical charge passed through him. As suddenly as it appeared, it was over. The now silent woods slowly came back to life and soon it was like nothing had happened.

Cal shrugged his shoulders, things happen. He would find out when he returned home and right now he was busy. His red and white bobber had disappeared under the water and his line was unspooling. He had caught a fish! By the time he left, Cal had three two pound brown trout, enough to last him the rest of the week.

Now it was time to go back home. He was a little clearer on what he wanted to do. He would wait until the spring semester to go to university and work on the farm until then. He was only seventeen, turning eighteen in July. He needed more time and knew his father would support him. When he did go to university, he would take general studies courses until he really figured out what he wanted to do.

Cal started to break down the camp he had been in the last two weeks. Collapsing the rough lean to he had constructed from dead fall and scattering the pine boughs that had made up the roof and side walls. He put his garbage into the now mostly empty pack saddle paniers along with what was left of his supplies, bedding and clothing. Then he collected both horses, brushed them down and first saddled his riding horse and then the pack animal.

It was just past eight in the morning when he stepped in the saddle and made his way down the trail to where he had left his pickup truck and horse trailer two weeks before. He should make it by night fall, even taking it easy. Which he intended to do, savoring each of the last moments of solitude.

The truck and trailer were till there undisturbed. There were not even any tire tracks indicating anyone had been around. Cal unloaded the camping gear and horse equipment and put it all in the back of the pickup, then started the truck and let it warm up as he loaded both horses in the trailer. Then he turned around and drove back home. The only thing on the radio was static and there was no traffic on the highway and no signs of life on the farms he passed. A half hour later and he was driving down the gravel road that led to his parent’s farm nestled in the trees.

The family SUV was missing and after Cal unloaded his horses into the corral, he found no one in the house. He also found the power was off. He had told his dad that just keeping the grid-tie option on their solar array functional would do this, but obviously he hadn’t listened. Now as he walked over to the old original pump house that now also contained the batteries and invertors to allow the farm to work off grid from solar, he hopped the batteries had enough charge to at least allow the system to start up.

The big battery bank was only partially discharged and when he flipped the control lever, the invertors fired right up, the battery chargers came alive and the ten kilowatt solar array began to do its job. There were still three hours of daylight left and the array would be at its full capability for more than enough time to charge the batteries up fully and provide full power to the house. He heard the water pump fire up to re-pressurise the water system and walked back across the yard to the house.

The radio in the house was on, but there was only static and whatever channel the tv had been set to was broadcasting snow. Cal turned on the kitchen water taps to full and heard the air discharging from it, then turned on all the other water taps in the house to drain the air out of them. Once that was done, he went into his bedroom, turned on his cell phone and found it had no signal. He turned on his laptop and found he had no internet, which was strange because they used satellite internet out here. Flipping through the tv satellite, there were no signals coming from anywhere. His phone GPS had no signal and when he checked it, no satellites seemed to be in range. There was also no dial tone on the landline telephone.

Cal went back outside and started unloading the truck. He dumped all the garbage into the old horse trailer they used to store garbage in to haul to the dump. Then gathered everything else up and put it all away, finally grabbing his clothing and walking back into the house. He dumped the cloths on the floor beside the washing machine, then retrieved a clean set of clothing from his bedroom, walked into the bathroom, stripped off and started a shower. It turned out to be a fast one, because the hot water ran out almost immediately.

Drying himself off, he went into the basement. The pilot light was off on the gas fed water heater and it would not light. Cranking the furnace thermostat up to high, the electronics shut it down after trying three tries to lite. There was no gas.

That would not be all that serous of a problem. The sub-zero temperatures of the winter were a thing of the past and the family had a large airtight wood stove that would keep the house warm. The power often went out, sometimes for days, as they were at the very end of the power grid and were usually the last ones to have power restored when there was a disruption.

Cal tossed his dirty clothing in the washing machine and turned it on. They would get clean in cold water. Then he went outside and made sure all the stock waterers had water in them or were filing up. He checked that the batteries were still charging, then walked to the wood pile and started to split enough wood to keep the airtight going all night.

By dinner time, his folks were not home yet, so he cooked himself up a quick meal and did the dishes. He had dried his clothing while the sun was still high so there was no excess drain on the batteries and was now folding and putting them away. When the sun went down, he got a fire going in the air tight, damping it down as soon as it reached safe operating temperature and stared into the flames he could see through the glass, trying to make sense of what was going on.

By midnight, his folks were still not home, so he loaded the stove up with wood and went to bed. In the morning they were still not home. Cal went out in the yard and fed the horses and cattle that had come into the yard pasture, then fed the chickens and grabbed the eggs. After that, he checked out the power room, the batteries were fully charged and the array working properly at full output. Now he went back into the basement and turned on the high output, on demand electric water heater. During full daylight hours, it would not drain the batteries and he could have a hot shower and clean his dishes. He tossed some more firewood into the stove and had a hot shower.

By ten o’clock, his folks were still not home, so he decided to drive to town and see if he could get any information. He had lots of fuel in his truck, so headed off. It was a half hour drive to town and something must have tipped him off, because he slowed to a crawl as he crested the last hill before reaching it and slammed on the brakes. Grabbing the binoculars he always kept under the seat, he glassed the town below him. Something was very defiantly wrong.

Copyright © 2016 R. P. Wollbaum