Walk A Different Path 🤍 Jaa/First

Chapter 15 ~ community spirit ~

He had already booked his flight back to North America and was leaving at the end of the week, just enough time to offload his car and go out for dinner with Paitoon.

He was going to charter a helicopter from the airport to fly him up to the village because he had too many clothes to carry in one rucksack and on horse back, he was selling almost everything and donating most of his clubbing outfits but he couldn't give up his suits.

His designer suits would never go out of fashion and who knows, they might go out to dinner or dancing up at the ski resort one evening and he wanted to be prepared. He couldn't wait to see Maskwa's face when he climbed out of the chopper.

He couldn't wait to see Cara again and Maskwa's parents and he couldn't wait to become a member of their community even though he didn't really have much to offer them other than funding but they were a proud people who liked to work for what they had.

He called Paitoon and arranged to meet him for dinner on his last evening in Thailand, he hadn't been this excited in a very long time but he couldn't leave without seeing toonie.

Several hours later, Maskwa was sitting in his kitchen with his parents, his mother had been cooking and baking all day and he and his father along with the other men and been distributing food and blankets to their neighbours and doing any outside chores that needed to be done.

They were all exhausted, too exhausted to talk and after eating, his parents went to wash up and get some sleep. Maskwa dragged himself up to his room and took a hot shower then he had to get dressed again to go back outside to shut off the generator until tomorrow morning.

He'd been so busy today clearing snow and bringing hot food to the elders that he had forgotten to charge up his phone so he wouldn't be able to contact Sam until tomorrow but he wondered if he was ok and missed him terribly.

Heading back downstairs the house was in silence so he assumed his parents were asleep, it had been a long day for everyone concerned, he put on his coat and boots and went out to shut off the generator.

He would go and check on the horses real quick and that would give the diesel engine time to cool before he covered it to keep it dry overnight. When fully loaded the generator could run up to 48 hours but with all the cooking they had done, it had been running for about 13 hours today.

He had some back up diesel in the out house but they should really talk about only turning the generator on if need be. They had the iron range fireplace for food and hot water and candles for light, yes they should conserve the diesel for later on.

Maskwa spent a while in the barn with the horses then he went back outside to cover the generator. When he was done he looked up at the ski resort at the top of the mountain, he couldn't see it clearly but he could see lights up there so they must have a generator too.

The snow was still floating down, big candy floss flakes that looked so pretty, it was difficult to believe that something so delicate and pure looking could cause so much chaos.

It was then that Maskwa realised that he couldn't hear anything, no owls, no wolves, it was so calm and he was just about to go inside when he heard a deep rumbling noise, it sounded as if it was emanating from the very bowels of the earth.

He felt his feet vibrating as the rumbling noise seemed to get louder and he wondered if a helicopter was flying over but what pilot would be stupid enough to take a chopper up in this weather?

He looked up at the resort and saw the lights flickering up there as the rumbling became louder and then he saw the resort lights go out.

Running inside, he didn't stop to take his boots off as he bounded up the stairs calling out his fathers name.