Trapped in the Cascades: A Luke McCain Novel by Rob Phillips

Author:Rob Phillips [Phillips, Rob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Latah Books
Published: 2024-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

The gale force wind actually roared as it blew the snow through the trees. Luke had heard people describe the sound of a tornado, and he wondered if this was what it sounded like. It was almost deafening.

He gave his snowshoes to Austin so he could lead the way to the spot where he’d found the firewood earlier. Both men had their heads down and fought the wind and snow every step of the way.

“It’s just up here by this stand of firs,” Austin yelled to be heard over the wind.

Luke didn’t say anything. He just nodded and followed when Austin plodded on. He looked ahead and saw a dark form in a sheet of white that was the group of trees. It was impossible to focus on anything with snow hitting his eyes and face.

When they got to the trees, they began breaking dead branches from under the canopy of the green branches at the bottom of the trees. Most had snow on them, but they were dead-dry underneath the wet snow and would burn well.

Austin moved over to a spot that Luke could see had been disturbed earlier. The young man took the snowshoes off, stuck them in the snow, and began kicking at the ground under the newly fallen snow. Within a few kicks, he displaced a dead lodgepole pine.

He picked the eight-foot log up, turned to Luke, and said, “Pecker poles. There’s a bunch of them in this area.”

At some point, probably several years ago, a big wind had blown through and knocked dozens of the small trees over. Luke had seen the phenomenon many times. It was like a giant had dropped a container of eight-foot Pick Up Sticks onto the ground. He had walked through such a blow-down twice, and both times it had been a nightmare.

Within a short time, they had scrounged up ten of the lodgepoles and a big armful of the dead limbs. Austin gave Luke the snowshoes and said, “You can wear them back. I’ll follow you.”

As they dragged the dead trees and branches back to the culvert, it felt to Luke like the storm had gotten worse, which he didn’t think was possible.

When they arrived at the makeshift door of the culvert, both men were covered in snow. Because it was blowing into them as they walked, snow and ice encased their clothes in a sheet of white that, when they hit it with their hands, broke into pieces and fell to the ground. Luke pulled the logs into the culvert, while Austin started a fire. Earlier, he had built a fire ring with rocks from the creek and, with the help of some fire starter from his pack, had a crackling fire going within a couple minutes.

The culvert ran north and south into the creek, which helped in keeping the west wind from blowing straight through. Still, some wind and snow snuck through the cracks in the barriers Austin had constructed at each end. The draft worked perfectly in moving the smoke from the fire out of the culvert.

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