The Crest

It was a wretched day on the Columbia plateau. Vark was famished, weak. His razor-sharp sense of humor dissipated too, like the fat on his body. Living in an apocalypse wasn’t nearly as fun as writing about it.

“Okay, Commander, what are we looking at?”

“Here we have an arrow-leaved balsamroot. Of course, all parts are edible.”

“Is this some sort of power root? One that will keep the boys going, if you know what I mean?”

“Nope, it’s just an edible root that you find out here on the steppe.”

“Okay, let’s get a cameo. Can you position yourself with the plant on the old plateau here?”

The Commander held the plant up. Vark snapped a shot of him with the blackened sagebrush steppe in the background.

“Mind if I try?” Vark asked.

“Go right ahead.”

Vark chewed on the root, the bitterness gagged him.

The Commander laughed. “Most people boil them to remove the bad taste.”

“Thanks for letting me know.”

Vark looked up and down the badlands; he saw a bunch of guys looking for food and they didn’t look like they were having much success either— like zombies trudging across the land. This was the mighty Antisis army? He conjectured.

Vark had consumed maybe four-hundred calories in the last three days. Count em, that’s 133.3 calories a day. Foraging upon the soot-covered sagebrush steppe sucked. The world came to that.

He thought of his next broadside headline, Foraging on the Badlands. It would capture the public’s attention. The public always loved starvation, it made their miserable potatoes and carrots back home feel appreciated.

The men looked for patches of green in the steppe, something that could be eaten.

One guy ate death camas. Woooeee! Did Vark enjoy that photo op? Nirvana, he remembered. The poor soldier confused death camas bulbs with the regular camas bulbs, an easy mistake really but he guessed wrong, curtains, belly-up, and helloooo grim reaper. Vark was there shooting the guy from the get go. He always had the knack for being at the right death scene at the right time. Vark attracted human anguish like cheese attracted mice. The first photo of the death sequence started with the guy staggering. That lasted five minutes before the frothing of the mouth. Vark zoomed in with his 200 mm lens. Then the vomiting hit and the victim finished up with a lovely coma. Vark captured it all in stunning detail, right down to the final heart attack.

He couldn’t wait to get that story to the folks out east, they’d go haywire. The world came to that.

Still, that didn’t solve Vark’s immediate food problem. All his energy bars were gone and he figured hanging around the Commander would get him something to eat. Fat chance, the Commander fancied himself some kind of ethnobotanist. Ha! So far, he’d gotten countem, one arrow-leaved balsamroot, one mariposa lily bulb, and a few fireweed shoots.

The Commander didn’t want to lose face in front of his men, and he didn’t like the press corps, all one of them named Vark, scrutenizing his botany skills or his leadership. He came up with a convenient excuse. He told Vark that he’d never seen it this dry, which was in fact true, it was historically dry. He said that there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of plant production that took place out on the steppe over the years since the Shift. The plants were dormant, in a long-term quiescence. All of this was true, but it didn’t negate the fact that he was leading an army of 10,000 men across the hills without food. Nor did it obfuscate the minor detail that every day on the radio he spoke of abundant foraging, with lots of plants and game to hunt. The world came to that.

So, the Commander told Vark to buzz off for a few hours. “Why don’t you go interview the other guys for a while?”

“Can do, Commander, I’ll see you this evening for the radio interview.”

So Vark tagged along with the rest of the men through the quiet arroyos and gullies, in and out of the sand bars. The men found a decomposing antelope covered with turkey vultures. God, it didn’t take long before they started cooking that thing up. It stunk to high heaven, but they ate it. Vark got some good frames of men stuffing antelope guts in their mouths. Brilliant, he thought. More fodder for the media machine back home. They gave Vark a piece of the mandible to chew on. Not half bad. he thought.

They crossed the dried-up John Day River and made camp near a town called Shaniko. The terrain began to change from burnt sagebrush to burnt ponderosa pine. Vark thought that was a positive, but he wasn’t sure why.

Vark got out the radio setup and the commander prepared for his radio broadcast. The Commander sat on the tailgate of the old pickup as the dust swirled around his face.

Vark held up five fingers and spoke. “We’re on in five, four, three, two, one. We’re live. To our listening audience across the vast lands of good old Oeste Americano. We bring you the Commander of the Antisis.”

The Commander began his opening monologue like on some late-night talk show. Vark thought it could have been hilarious to add a little humor to the Commander’s oration. Good evening from apocalypse central ladies and gentlemen. We are out here in the desert and boy are we getting our asses kicked by the elements. Needless to say, foraging didn’t go as well as we had hoped today and finding water is always a problem, but our guests tonight include Mr. howling coyote, a flickering bat, and our special friends, the scorpions.

Vark thought his soliloquy could have been riotous, instead, the Commander started off with the same dialogue as he always did.

“To our fighting men and women on the frontlines. We are the sons and daughters born of the desert, and blessed by God almighty.”

As usual, the program came across scratchy and staticky but intelligible. As expected, the Antisis fighters scattered in their miserable hovels across Oregon tuned in on their AM radios.

The Commander continued, “We have liberated towns across the west from the shackles of science and technology. As we destroy the government and these institutions, society will remake itself. Only through the complete liberation of nature can we improve the lives of humans and live more simply. Remember, we are like the wandering tribe from the book of Joshua. The sons of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, living off the land.”

Vark began the question-and-answer part of the program. “Thank you, Commander. How did the foraging go for the men today?”

The Commander stared intensely at Vark, wondering if the reporter was on his side or mocking him. “It went well actually, today we collected hundreds of pounds of camas and tiger lily bulbs. Too many in fact. We’ve boiled them up and stuffed our faces and we’ll eat the rest of them tomorrow. I say to our fighting men and women out there, there is wild food aplenty, and all you need to be is persistent and you will find the motherlode. There is also plenty of burdock, wild asparagus, lamb’s quarters, miner’s lettuce, and nettle out there for all. Today we snared twenty-two rabbits and fifteen sage grouse. In fact, we’re all quite full tonight sitting around the fire.”

“Wonderful, Commander. Do you have any remarks on the Peregrine Project that you spoke of in your broadcast a few days ago?”

“I’m glad you mentioned that. My team of advisors is working on a plan where we as a people will be free from cities, science, and corporations. For the first time in hundreds of years, men and women will be uninhibited free agents. In two days’ time, I will announce the Peregrine Project, as the press corps is now calling it. The good word is out. Soon, we plan to march on the Crest and take down the Greater Portland Enclave.”

"Excellent commander, do you have anything to say about the Alberta Complex."

"The Alberta Complex is a myth generated by failed heads of state to cover their asses. Ladies and gentlemen of the listening audience, the Alberta Complex is not real, it is another fairy tale of the Conference of Parties to get you on your side. If you want to migrate to Alberta, be my guest, but you're wasting your time."

"Thank you Commader, any final words for your listening audience out there in wilderness?"

"The only thing I'd like to add is keep the faith my brave fighting men and women out there in the great sands of the west. Victory is near. Good night, and I salute you."