Chapter 4

When I woke the ground was trembling, and I heard the goats baying in fear. Holly rubbed her side on my knee, and her baby tried to hide under her. Thankfully, the earthquake didn’t last long, probably only thirty seconds. The sun was starting to rise over the omnipresent clifftop.

I petted the goats to calm them and got nearly a whole bottle of milk. Holly was recovering well. I walked to my bathroom corner and noticed a lot of loose black rocks at the base of one of the cliffs. Was it coal? There were tons and tons of it! If it really was coal, firewood wouldn’t be a problem for a long time.

I picked up an armful and carried it to the fire. I put a few pieces on the remains of the fire from last night. It took a while, but the coal started burning. Great! Coal would burn a lot longer, too, so I wouldn’t have to check the fire every hour or two.

I walked over to the wall where I had talked to Anna yesterday, to check if she was still there. A large pile of loose rocks laid below a gap in the cliff wall! I only had to climb five meters of loose rocks, before seeing a shoulder-wide path! I could see the tops of palm trees!

I yelled “Anna? Hello?”

I heard, “Pedro! Help! Please help me!”

I carefully walked through the gap. Anna’s area had hundreds of palm trees in the sand, and at least a third of the trees had a coconut or two hanging from them! Coconut would be a nice change from avocados and carrots every day!

“Over here! Help!”

I ran toward her voice, and found her laying on her back, with a large palm tree across her lower legs. I thought of digging her out, but she was on a large rock, instead of the sand.

“I woke up when a tree fell on me, then the ground started shaking! Please, get it off me! I can’t move!”

The tree was obviously too big for me to lift or push, but I had to try. I leaned into it and pushed with all my strength. It only moved slightly.

“I have rope, but I don’t think it’s strong enough to lift this.”

Anna surprised me with, “I have an axe, over on the other side of my campfire. Can you try cutting it?”

The axe was actually a sharp rock, stuck in a hole she had burned through a long stick. For being only a rock, it worked well.

It took me about an hour to cut through the log. I made sure to stay at least half a meter away from her, for safety. While I cut, she told me she was 61 and her children and grandchildren had all moved out of town. Like me, a week ago she woke up naked next to a cliff with no apparent reason.

She had been alone most of the time, since her husband passed away five years ago. He was a machinist and blacksmith the thirty years she was with him. Tools and tool making was all he wanted to talk about. She said it bored her to tears then, but she was glad for the knowledge now. She knew how to smelt iron and make iron tools! Using the coal for fuel and mud bricks to build a simple furnace, we could melt down the old car door and make what we needed!

I got her out and saw her legs were badly bruised. She said she didn’t think they were broken, but she wouldn’t be walking for a while. She pointed out her other few tools, a very sharp obsidian knife with a wooden handle, and a torch igniter she had found.