She had some forest service maps from when she first moved her and had plotted out the trails she knew by heart out to an area that was going to be more “there be dragons”.
There was a chance she could end up at a dead end, forced to get down to the road which could signal her doom. Once she was on Nevada soil, she’d bury the rifle. Getting shot or arrested by a Nevada native or LEO was not how she wanted to say “hi — can I stay here?”
She saddles up Taxi and with a wave, heads east using trails that parallel the road but at a safe distance, keeping out of the most difficult of terrain, but not within eye or earshot of the road. She wonders how it all got to this point. She should be enjoying life like most young people her age, not riding out from all she loves like some contestant in the “Hunger Games.” But she knows that if she doesn’t do something to save herself, no one else is going to help her.
In just a couple of generations, it seems the entire concept of being accountable to oneself has been undermined, ridiculed even. Self-reliance, the learning of skills that extend beyond a paycheck or a computer screen is treated as some archaic riposte of foolishness, unnecessary symbols of bygone days. Those that practice such skills are often perceived, not as practical or frugal, but as paranoid survivalists who should be viewed with fear and monitored by others.
If you’re afraid to fail, you’ll never try. If you give up, you just go back. The decision to hunker down and live off of her own work and efforts when Calexit happened may have been a foolish one and there has been more than one time when she has stood in tears in her empty meadow softly saying “why?” as the words catch in her teeth and tear. But she didn’t give up even as she may have wept a tear of frustration as she discovered that often immitigable discrepancy between will and capabilities.
She figured she had to travel over forty miles. A horse in good condition could do that in a day in easier terrain. But Taxi had been mostly shuttered in the barn or munching grass in a meadow. She basically had a “couch potato” horse. That was going to mean it would likely take three days to travel that distance. There was a direct, and much shorter way, but the last few miles of it were in totally open country and she’d have to cross a fairly large high highway, likely covered with Militia. The longer way kept her in tree cover until she was much closer to the border.
She had ridden about five hours, stopping to relieve herself in the bushes and let Taxi drink from a small stream when she heard a noise. It was coming down from the trailhead, and it sounded bigger than a coyote or feral dog. Taxi heard it too and stopped, likely remembering the bear incident.
The sound continued towards her as she struggled to make out what it was, with a strained, listening attention. If it was Militia, and more than one of them, she was done, as she would likely take a bullet before she could get the second shot off. Better that than to be wounded, and then raped and left to die, things she’d heard from her neighbor had happened down in the cities when families tried to escape.
From the trees, a flock of birds took to the sky with a loud cry as a man came into view. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, not the garb of any organized group but Lisa threw herself into the posture of a lunging fencer, aiming the revolver at his chest.
He slowly drew a small knife, holding it out to her, and gave her a grin saying “Miss, I think you won.”
“What are you doing out here?” she says as he lowers the knife, stepping back from her slowly as she had done when she met the bear.
“I live in a small cabin up on the next ridge line. I was hunting for mushrooms as I’m getting low on meat and haven’t seen much game in the last couple of weeks. I mean you no harm, but if you have any extra food it would be appreciated.”
She looked into his eyes as a sailor might look at the sea, a watchful gaze that tries to see into what could be friend or adversary, making a decision on which a life depends as to the force and direction of nature’s thrust if it chooses to attack.
She lowers her revolver and reaches into her saddle bag for a handful of protein bars.
She looks at the man and says, “I have very little but I will share what I have. I’m going to toss them to the side of the trail, please step off the trail and let me pass before you pick them up. If you don’t, please remember I have a firearm.”
“Thank you.” he says with eyes that were twenty years older than his form, as she carefully walks Taxi past him as she continues up the trail.
That night, as she lay in her sleeping bag, her food supplies high up in a tree downwind of her camp and Taxi happily munching on some fresh grass, she realizes how close she came to shooting him. She prays he is okay as she realizes how much she has missed seeing other people. She is normally happier alone. She had found few people in her life that can be content with time alone like she does, most preferring the excitement of crowds, the adulation of the unknown, look at me, watch me, head towards the lights and the noise. That was not for her. She can’t find peace in that, though it haunts the edges of it, as if it almost knows what it is like, but can’t give in to it. The peace isn’t just the silence, it’s not the trees or the animals or the water. It’s all the senses wrapped up in one as she breathes it in deep from the musty confines of a sleeping bag as she lies under the stars. That smell that has a color to her, almost green, not the longing green of envy or the gray-green of aromatic herbs, but the green of clarity, a smell that makes her weak for childhood, when every morning came with this sense of freedom and purity.
She is ready now to find others like herself, and hope they will offer her a welcome.
A day and a half later, she’s within a few miles of what she believes is the Nevada border, there is still one road nearby that she will get closer to than she wishes as she travels those last miles, but in the early morning dim light, she knew she would continue. Stars still glinted overhead as the sun rose ahead of her.
She is going to continue heading downhill and east to American soil or die trying. California was her home but her roots are rooted deep in the freedom of American soil and one way or another, she would return to it.
By mid-morning on day three, she was in the high desert, few trees to shield her, making sure she stayed well away from the road. At one point, she came to a rough barbed wire fence, one built for cattle, of which she saw none in sight. Having no other option, she got her ax and chopped out an opening big enough for them to pass through. In the far distance was a small house. As she approached it a young man, a teen really, looked at her, probably surprised to see an attractive but very dirty redhead on a horse in his yard, even as he had a shotgun at his side.
“Miss?” he said.
Lisa replied, “Where am I?”
He said, “You are a mile from Hot Springs, Nevada. Reno’s just over the hills there.” Looking at her with eyes full of concern, not of fear he said, “You’re not the first person to escape Cali this way; if you need transportation into town my dad is the Sheriff and he will take you someplace safe. I’ll take care of your horse until you know what you want to do. Welcome back to the United States Miss.” She could do nothing but cry. She should have been lost in wonderment, but like people in fairy tales where everything seems to work out in the end (unless you are the witch) she was too exhausted to be astonished.
She simply got off of her horse, laid down her weapons on the ground and hugged him, looking at their family truck in the driveway as Cinderella probably looked at that pumpkin coach, never doubting that it was real.
The Farm