Ninety Degrees Out

“Jett, over here,” Alicia called.

Before he could say anything, she raced over and threw her arms around him for a bear hug, and he swung her around like she was a girl again.

“Me too!” Arimina tugged his arm as he settled his sister on her feet again.

“I don’t know, you’re a lot bigger than you were,” Jett teased his niece.

“You lifted Mommy up, me too,” Arimina pouted and then squealed as her uncle tossed her into the air.

“Again!”

Jett bounced her over his head once more and caught her at the last second. The game was her favorite and had been since she was tiny.

“Okay, sweetie, you’re getting too big for me to do this more than a couple of times. Go see your Meemaw and Pawpaw,” Jett told her. “Thank you for asking us all to come up here. Or maybe I should say over here. You’re not north of us anymore.”

Alicia nodded. “It’s so strange to be sweating in February, when we were bundling up in ten layers of windproof clothing just a couple of weeks ago. I’m glad to have you up here. At least we should be safe from the caldera when it goes up.”

“We brought our clothing, and the battery packs and not much else.” Jett told her. “Oh, and I’ve got my cameras and computers. I hope we’ve got power to run them here.”

“What’s in the big crates?” Alicia scanned the wooden boxes the crews off loaded from the huge cargo plane.

“Windmills. And more solar panels. We took them off Mom and Dad’s house and brought all the storage batteries too.”

“We’re trying to decide if we’re staying down here at Hakan’s ranch or going out a little further west to bring the entire family out to Chay’s parent’s homestead. If we go up there, we’re going to have to build houses.” Alicia explained the problem they were facing,

“What are we going to do with all this stuff?” Jett wanted to know. He knew they couldn’t leave it on the tarmac. The military had only managed to put barriers up to keep the water away over the last couple of days.

“We’ll load all of it into the bush planes we’ve got in the family.”

“You sound like you’ve become part of it,” Akira Stroman commented.

“Wait till you meet them, especially Chayton.” Alicia told her mother. She turned to find her daughter straddling her father’s hip as he carried her toward the piles of supplies, they had brought with them. The last things the Coast Guard unloaded were three kennels, which sat in the bright sunshine.

A tall man with dark eyes and black braids walked toward them, and Arimina reached her arms out toward him. Kelton Stroman passed her over.

“And who is this?” he asked.

“Mr. Stroman, I’m Dr. Chayton Stargazer. Astrophysicist and at the moment, survivalist.”

“Yeah, he’s Mr. Chay,” Arimina said from her perch on his shoulders. “Put me down. I see Bear and you brought the cats too.” She bounced on Chay’s shoulders until he swung her down. “I hope Jazz and Bear get along.” She raced toward the animals.

“Ari don’t open the cages! We don’t want our pets to get lost,” Kelton Stroman yelled after the excited little girl. “We’ll talk later,” he added in a quieter voice.

“I’m sure we will. Right now, we’re going to move all this into the hangar over there and load the most important stuff into the twin Otter over there. I’ll take some of it in my Cub, my father will use the Caravan over there. Planes are the only way to get around right now. Roads are being repaired but the earthquakes did more damage than we thought it would.”

“Where are we staying?” Akira asked.

“Ma’am, my brother’s ranch is the best place for the moment. We might end up at my father’s homestead, but conditions there are quite rough. Building shelter would be difficult.”

“Then I’ll watch my little darling there, and you all can deal with the cargo.” Akira pointed to where a huge Tibetan Mastiff was trying to lick Arimina through the wire grid of his kennel door.

“Come on, Meemaw. I’ll show you the airplanes. I rode in this one,” Arimina raced back to pull her tiny Chinese grandmother after her as she headed toward Chayton’s super Cub.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The dining room at Hakan’s lodge was full. His entire crew plus his family and Alicia’s parents and brother were spread among the tables.

Kanti sat on the bench behind the longest table with her son Kallik cuddled under one arm, and her daughter under light blanket asleep on her lap, Armaruq had his arm over her shoulder, as his fingers kneaded the tension from his wife’s.

“Attention everyone.”

Hakan tapped his fork against his wine glass and waited for the hum of conversation to quiet.

“Now that we have everyone here, we have a community we need to think about keeping safe and together.”

Nods and quiet exclamations of hear, hear were heard throughout the crowded room.

“The first thing we have to establish is trust between the people here. You all know I have your back. Those of you who have worked with me for the past few years are aware I care for you as I would my family. We have a few new faces here. I’d like to introduce the Stroman family.”

Hakan gestured to the table where Chay sat with five strangers. He nodded toward his brother.

“You all know Chayton. He’ll do the honors.”

“I’m pleased to Introduce the Stroman family. Alicia moved into the old Markham place between Christmas and New Year’s. She’s a zoologist up here to do a study on the polar bears and the Kodiaks. She’s going to be busy figuring out how they will survive this shift.”

Chay continued, pointing to each of the members of the family who stood and waved as their names were called. Arimina jumped up and did a cartwheel between the tables when he introduced her, and he scooped her up to sit on his shoulders before he walked up to stand with his brother.

“Jett Stroman and his parents have brought valuable survival gear with them. Two experimental miniature wind turbines as well as solar panels and enough storage batteries to keep us going until things get back to normal. You all have heard the news of electrical hydro plants going down due to earthquake damage to dams. It’s no different here.” Chayton explained.

“To the pilots here, we are gathering and filling as many barrels of avgas as we possibly can. My parents are on a homestead further northwest of here and on higher ground. It may come down to us taking the horses and wagons along with a couple of four-wheel drive vehicles and moving us all up there.” Hakan scanned the faces he knew so well and waited for the excited whispering to settle.

His foreman Jake Ingersoll jumped to his feet.

“I’ll volunteer to stay down here with a skeleton crew to watch out for our buildings and your house, Chayton. The little lake we’ve got forming in Twig Creek Canyon will make sure we’ve got all the water we need. Leave us three or four more solar cells, and the radios and we’ll be able to keep in touch no matter what happens.”

“You might get caught in the ash fallout of Yellowstone when it blows. In fact, I think we’ll be in for a period of reduced sun and colder temperatures when it happens. The last data I was able to look up, says the other two mega calderas are active as well.” Catherine Ingersoll, Jake’s younger sister worked at the ranch as a guide to pay her way through university. She’d just come back from Redoubt where she worked with her professor to set seismographs all over three volcanoes in the same valley.

“What about the volcanoes on the Alaska Coast and the Aleutian Islands? They were going to blow or at least we thought so in the days post flip,” Dasan Stargazer asked.

The room quieted. Everyone wanted to know the answer. The closer volcanoes were a big worry.

“The best guess of our team is the magma boiling to the surface here, has been sucked into the mega calderas. The seismic activity on Redoubt is down to a tenth of where it was, the same is being reported from all the Pacific rim volcanoes. I haven’t heard from Europe or the Caribbean, but Antarctica’s McMurdo Station is reporting Erebus has settled into dormant state as well.” Catherine answered.

“Will our solar panels be worth anything at all once those big volcanoes blow?” Arika Stroman’s question had everyone talking again.

“I’m glad you asked, sweetheart. Even on the cloudiest day we get some solar gain. The cells we’ve brought up are the newest technology, and extremely efficient.” Kelton Stroman answered projecting his velvety bass over the din. “I’ve made them my pet hobby.”

“It looks like we have the skills and people to make ourselves into a viable community. I don’t want to leave anyone behind, but the choice is yours. I think we have a better chance as a group. If anyone has family who wants to make the trek, it’s going to be rough. Talk about it with them. We still need medical help for humans and animals.”

“My mother is a veterinarian, but she’s stuck in Florida.” The blonde giant who spoke could have been a star center for any basketball team. Erik Amudson was close to seven feet tall with white blonde hair and bright sky blue eyes. Broad shoulders and long legs, he was in charge of security and kept the records on all of the animals on the ranch.

“If she can find a way up here, she’s welcome along with any supplies she can wrangle, Erik.” Hakan said. He made a mental note and continued. “Anyone else who has family, let’s try to have them find their way west to us as soon as possible.”

“Our best estimate on the mega calderas blowing, is less than two months. Yellowstone is most active with steam venting from geysers which have been dormant since European explorers discovered it. There are one or two places where magma is melting through mini domes.” Catherine’s words had everyone scrambling for the doors. She went over to whisper something in Jake’s ear.

“Hey, Hakan!” Jake went over to stand by his boss’s side.

“What?” Hakan was writing in his every present notebook.

“Catherine just reminded me, maybe we can get our Dad up here. He’s been humming and hawing about retiring, but the point is, he’s an MD. General surgeon.”

“Really? You never mentioned anything about your parents. Get hold of him and invite him up here with anything he can scavenge in the way of supplies. Like I told Erik, if we’re going to make a go of it, we need medical supplies and equipment if we can get it. We’ll worry about a building once they’re here.”