Excerpt

Chapter 1

Dj vu.

What an odd word.

Especially in such a context.

Feeling like youve experienced something before.

They all had experienced something like this before but what it reminded him of was a million miles away. Or seemed like it had been a million years beforethats more accurate.

From another time.

It was the heat and the smell but mostly the particulates.

All the flotsam thats transported by the air.

During Mt. St. Helens period of activity, he had experienced something similar from forty miles away.

Forty miles!

It had been from a point just to the east of it, back in 2014. The smell of distant fires, started by lava, was conveyed by the wind along with the ash.

But that is not what this was.

The particulates here were cottonwood seeds borne on the wind with the incongruous smoke.

So many seeds that the air was filled.

The release, by the trees across the way, was early again. It used to be that they would go to seed in mid-May. Not sincea long time ago had they been punctual.

The earlier heat apparently made the trees crazy.

And the firedefinitely not started by lava.



It was another hot day in April and the haze was there again. This was the second day in a row. And, yes, they had dealt with this before. What it meant was what was important.

Fire.

It was difficult to guess how far away it was. At night there was a glow to the west that was considerable.

There were many things members of the settlement worried about. The inhabitants had been through considerable strain during the last few years. The specter of disease and conflict with competing tribes had made day to day living very stressful. But fire was the last thing they needed to see and deal with.

There had been fires in the past.

The worst was seven years ago in August of 2022. It had come upon the encampment quickly, driven by a stiff, constant wind that didnt let up for a week. Everyone was forced to flee and much had been lost. The animals, the seed and herb stock, the weapons, and the tools as well as maps and personal belongings were luckily preserved.

They had been well practiced at fleeing.

The trek north had continued that day, in search of water and cooler weather. It had caused the troupe to be nomadic once again for over a month. For the first time the nomads had crossed what used to be the U.S.-Canadian border subsequently settling near Allison pass just a mile east of the Silverhope River.

Further movement north had been necessitated soon after by conflict with an aggressive nomadic colony.

Another one.

They had apparently coveted the animals, especially the five horses, three of which were fertile mares.

Though Pomeranz, which is how the group referred to itself, had had eighty-seven people, the horses had allowed a rapid escape from the larger, aggressive troupe without direct conflict.

This pattern had repeated itself nearly semi-annually it seemed until two years ago. That was when they had settled into an ideal location at Stump Lake, about thirty miles south of what used to be Kamloops, British Columbia.

This locale afforded a water supply, adequate game, and what seemed to be an unlimited supply of seasonal mountain berries. The area was defendable due to the occupation of higher ground and the existence of a narrow entrance point into the Stump Lake canyon.

The best aspect, though, had turned out to be the presence of a relatively friendly non-nomadic group located a number of miles to the west at the northeast part of Nicola Lake.

Nicola, as the society had come to be called, was nearly four times the size of Pomeranz, numbering probably three hundred fifty.

Parting with one of the female horses had cemented a friendship that although at times had seemed tenuous, nevertheless had lasted ever since. Limited trading had occurred, the chief exchange having been a pregnant female hunting dog for a mating pair of sheep received in return.

Good dogs that could hunt were rare.

Luckily Pommeranz had a surplus.

Interaction between the troupes had been kept to a minimum, though, due to the constant threat of disease transmission.

It was just two months after their arrival to Stump Lake that another aggressive band of about twenty had appeared to the south. There had been tension for nearly three days but the perceived solidarity between the Pomeranz group and the Nicolas had seemed to deter direct conflict. Sentries had been kept out at key spots after and the outsiders apparently had moved on or returned to where they had come from.



This fire was the problem of the moment, though.

The leader of Pomeranz and the reason for their name was their headman, Jordan Pomeranz. Muscled and hardened by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, his imposing 64 frame belied a kindness and intellect that were essential for leading a colony in times such as these. Steel-blue eyes complemented a shaggy mane, and unkempt red-laced brown beard.

He was forty-one but couldve passed for thirty-one.

He sported garb consisting of what could only be described as overalls punctuated by animal pelt in at least ten areas where holes had been patched. A frayed, short-sleeved light-blue undershirt hugged his torso and his size twelve feet boasted Baffin Technologie leather Mountain boots.

Deluxe boots.

While others had long ago patched their footwear with some such animal skin, he had made his pair last over ten years since trading an extra pair of binoculars for them during what became known as Terminal Days.

Good movehe had a habit of making those.

His cool nature during stress and broad grin had salved many a tense moment. This was one of those moments. The look on the faces of the leaders, assembled to discuss available options, told it all.

Would another move be imminent?

What of our allies to the west?



We need to send Thompson and Aradi to see Grape, the one called Troy, offered with certainty, as he raised his brow for emphasis, then followed with his characteristic head cock and shrug.



Troy was, though not officially designated, the second in command.

He and Jordan went way back to college. Both had attended the University of Washington and had played baseball for the Huskies. While Jordan had studied and received degrees in Microbiology and Environmental Science, Troy had studied Forestry. He ultimately had earned a Masters degree before becoming a river guide in Oregon soon after graduating in 2012.

The unstructured lifestyle that employment had afforded him had made the decision to get a real job easy to delay.

After August 31, 2016 jobs didnt matter much anyway.

His first-hand knowledge of the wild and his athleticism coupled with an unquestioning loyalty made Troy the best of lieutenants.



Grape was the leader of the Nicolas.

His real name was Earnest but no one and I mean no one called him that. He was 65 and weighed two hundred-seventy pounds. Because the Nicolas had been sedentary for nearly thirteen years he had acquired some extra baggage to the tune of about thirty-five of those pounds.

The name Grape derived from a habit of constantly chewing meadowsweet, an herb that contained salicylates, a type of natural aspirin. Grape was fifty-eight years old and his family apparently had a pronounced predisposition to arthritis. He had said that since he had started chewing meadowsweet, when he was fifty-three, his pain had hardly been noticeable. It seemed, though, that the salicylates caused him to retain bismuth, a heavy metal, which gave his Northern European countenance a purplish tinge.

The bismuth was in the soil where he lived.

Chronic exposure to bismuth was known to lead to kidney problems but he was none the worse for it.



The size and stability of the Nicolas tribe was attributable to two things. The first was the masterful way this man handled so many of the problems besetting their settlement. He had God-like status in their society as a result. The second, without question, was the fact that they had one hundred-seventy odd head of prized Brewster sheep.

The sheep type was important here.



Named after a British scientist, Lord Arthur Kenneth Brewster, the Brewster sheep was an immune system boosted, hardy, healthy, fast-growing, walking rib steak that flourished under the bleakest of conditions.

Arthur had discovered the technique, in 2012 (the British medical journal Lancet had finally published his research in June of 2016, creating a stir in some scientific circles yet hardly a ripple in the daily news and on the street. As a bitter irony, this was in sharp contrast to the animals importance to what was left of mankind seven years later), for crossing and manipulating the genes of the Black-bellied Barbados sheep and the Karimen hairy sheep. This had led to the creation of quite an animal.



They been here longer than we havelets see how worried they are about it, Troy continued.

Troy was merely recapitulating what Jordan and he had discussed not a half hour before in private. Whether it was a designed strategy or simply an old habit, the approach to advancing ideas before the group always seemed to progress the same. Everyone seemed to understand that if it came from Troys mouth that it already was agreeable to Jordan.

It really didnt matter anyway.

It wasnt like there was competition between the two. They were the best of friends.

The other eight men and Jordans common-law wife, Laura, all nodded in agreement.

It obviously was the logical thing to do.

The Nicolas, after all, were located between the fire and the settlement. And they had predated them in the area by many years. If anyone knew anything, they would.

But contact with other groups was always risky even if they were supposedly friendly. Inadvertently passing germs from one troupe to another with resultant disease could be a pretext for war.

Great care must be taken.



Well go, chimed Thompson.

The biggest of the eight and in fact the entire troupe was easily Anthony Thompson.

Ironically as a youngster he had had the nickname Ant. This was partly because he had been smaller in stature until about sixteen (when he had just continued to grow) and partly because of the abbreviation of his first name. As he enjoyed retelling, when anyone had called him Ant after about age seventeen, the offender had been quick to remind him of this latter fact so as to not suffer from the miscue.

The nickname had died out a long time ago and everyone in Pomeranz had always called him either Thompson or Thommie.

He and his sidekick Aradi were best friends and had been the most recent additions to the colony. Their inclusion had come over four years before when they had become separated from their own small troupe and had strayed into Pomeranz during a storm.

This had created some tense moments due to the fact that Thompson and Aradi were so big and imposing.

A chance had been taken to embrace the duo by feeding and sheltering them. When it was later surmised their group had been annihilated they had been welcomed into the fold.

Unusual gallantry and reliability since had made them indispensable members of Jordans inner circle.

And they both were big.

Thompson was 67 tall, just like an uncle of his he would say. He was two hundred-sixty pounds of muscle, too. He looked like the consummate mountain man. A mass of reddish-brown hair obscured his entire head except for two wide-set piercing green eyes. He wore nothing but animal skin and fur but his mammoth, muscled arms were bare from the shoulders down. He had an odd, sweeping walk that caused his large head to sway back and forth and he invariably carried a large, straight limb of some tree, usually about six feet in length.

He had been likened to Little John from the Robin Hood tales by a few at first but disapproved of the comparison and it understandably had been forgotten. Nevertheless, he could be recognized from a quarter mile, easily.



He had met Grape before and had been one of only four that had been accepted by him, as friend.



Aradi was the racial exception to the group although you would have to know him and talk to him to ascertain his heritage. He was of Middle-eastern descent, Jordanian specifically.

But he looked more Hispanic, which given the events surrounding August 31, 2016, had obviously been beneficial. A sharp Arabic inflection to certain consonants, especially Fs and Ls, easily confirmed his roots. This is probably why he usually remained mostly quiet.

He was 64 of chiseled granite yet his face was boyish with a cherubic characteristic. He kept his brown hair on the top of his head and his face cut short with a large hunting knife he always seemed to be sharpening. He had very dark, big brown eyes and an unusual nose, though it would be difficult to explain its oddness.

It just seemed to not fit his face.

His mouth was large and though he didnt smile or laugh much, when he did the lack of three upper front teeth would catch ones attention. It had been the byproduct of an altercation with a swimming pool bottom as a teen. He used to have a partial denture to replace those missing teeth but was unconcerned with its absence now.

He was the only one that was without footwear of any kind but it seldom seemed to be a problem for him.

There had been exceptions to that.

On his body he wore what looked like the remnants of a leather motorcycle ensemble. Yet, it too was interwoven with patchings of animal pelt.

His arms were also bare and they were darkly tanned and muscled. He had large hands but short, stubby fingers.

Aradis main complaint of his life, as bizarre as it had become, was with his compromised vision. He had worn glasses all his life until their demise six years before during a hunting foray. Ever since then he had been dependent on others and in fact this was the main reason why Thompson and Aradi had become joined at the hip so to speak.



Jordan and Troy briefed the two prior to their departure as to what kind of information they were to obtain from Nicola and with a turn they left.



It was just past noon and with luck they would return before dark.

Now it was just a waiting game.



The wind was barely blowing so it was figured that the fire couldnt move too quickly.

The encampment should be all right.

Other tasks had been appointed regarding the days foraging details, hunting parties, and the like so it was merely theirs to wait for word.

Jordan nestled back into the makeshift chair at the V of a willow tree.

He dozed and thought back to life before it had so radically changed.

He wondered how he hadnt seen the serious trouble the earth and its civilization had been headed toward.

In hindsight it seemed so obvious.