There was a murmur of agreement. Cate was so grateful to the crusty old man she could have hugged him.
"Going over the mountains in that direction will take too long," Cal pointed out.
"If you kept on in that direction, yes, but these mountains are riddled with abandoned mines." Roy Edward hauled himself to his feet and unsteadily made his way over to them. "I know because my daddy worked in some of them, and I played in 'em when I was a sprout. There used to be trails from the cut that wound all over, because even' one of them started from there. Makes sense they weren't going to climb up from the other side, don't it? As I remember, one or two of those old mines go completely through a fold in the mountains. Don't know what kind of shape they'd be in after all these years, but if you could get through one of them, that could save considerable time."
He traced a shaky forefinger across the mountains to the cut and looked up at Cate. "Even if the mines are blocked, which I expect they are, you could work your way over to the cut. You'd be way above where these bastards would be looking, and the cover is dense up there. Once you got to the cut, you'd be behind them."
She wiped the tears from her face and turned to face Cal. "I'm going," she said shakily. "No matter what you do, I'm going."
He was silent a moment, his pale gaze searching her face and reading the desperation there. He glanced at Creed, and she couldn't read the message that passed between them.
"All right," he finally said in that calm way of his, as if she'd said she was going to the grocery store. "But I'm going with you."
Chapter 25
Cate was astonished - you didn't just "go" rock climbing; it was something that took conditioning, preparation, and experience - but then she recalled a conversation they'd had when Cal opened the door to the attic stairs after she broke the key to it, just days ago. Days. Dear God, so much had happened it seemed as if weeks had passed. "You said you'd done some mountaineering." Mountaineering was different from rock climbing, but a lot of the equipment was the same. She supposed it was basically the same principle, too, just some different techniques. "Mostly mountaineering," he corrected. "Some climbing." Greed spun the notebook around in that decisive way he had and took up the pen. "Okay, let's make a list of what you'll need so nothing is forgotten. How long do you think it will take you to get through the cut and to a phone?" He looked at Cate as he spoke, because she had been on climbs here.
All the climbs she'd done had been day climbs, but she knew the terrain they were talking about. The mountains loomed behind her house, and she saw them every day. She could look at several of the rock faces and think, "I climbed you ". She knew how long it took to get to them, and how long to go up them. In some places the ascent might be easier than the climbs she and Derek had mapped out, because a challenging climb had been what they were there for. Memories flooded back, crystal-clear mental pictures of exactly what she was proposing to do, the climbs and hiking they would face.
She finally said, "I'm thinking a day and a half, maybe two days, to get to a point where we can start hiking. How far would it be to the cut, Roy Edward?"
He snorted. "As the crow flies, maybe five miles, but you're not a crow. With all the up and down, I'd say you're looking at fifteen, twenty miles."
"Daylight hours only," Cal said. "We won't be able to use lights. So... two days of hiking, and that's a hard pace. Four days total to the cut."
Four days. Cate felt sick to her stomach. That was too long, way too long. So much could happen in that length of time -
Neenah reached out and took her hand. "We'll be all right," she said firmly. "We'll hold out. no matter what they want or what they do."
"Damn right," Walter said. He looked tired, they all did, but there was also an undiminished fury in his eyes. They had been attacked, friends had died, and he didn't look inclined to throw up his hands in surrender. "Just about all of us have some sort of rifle or shotgun; we have ammunition - and more of it in the general store if we need it. We have food, and we have water. If those sons of bitches thought we'd be an easy target, they can just think again."
A muted chorus of "yeahs," "damn straights," and "that's rights" filled the basement, and heads nodded.
Cal scratched his jaw. "Along that line - Neenah, you have a good many fifty-pound bags of feed in the back of the store."
"Yes, I've started stocking up for the winter. Why?"
"Not even an armor-piercing bullet will go through bags of sand, which is why the military uses them. We don't have sand, but we do have those bags of feed. Feed won't be as good as sand - it isn't packed as tightly - but stack 'em two deep and you've got an effective barricade." He paused. "By the way, I chopped a hole in the ceiling."
She blinked, then smiled. "Of course you did. I wondered how you got to your rooms." She indicated his clothes. If having a hole in the ceiling of her store bothered her, she didn't show it.
Cal looked around the basement. "All of you can't stay here; its too crowded, and it isn't necessary. We'll pick out the safest houses, the ones with the least exposure, and spread out. We can use the feed bags to fortify the walls exposed to gunfire. That way you can function better and keep a better watch. Get some trenches dug, too, so you can move from place to place in safety. They don't have to be deep and they don't have to be long, just long enough to cross some open areas and deep enough for a belly crawl."
"We need food, too, and blankets, and clothes. Some people need their medications," said Sherry. "Show us how to get from place to place without getting our asses blown off, so we can start gathering stuff."