Surprisingly, the doors weren't locked. Inside, the place had a light dust coating from fifteen years of abandonment, but everything looked intact. The whole interior was varnished natural wood. The first floor had a large central living space with a huge, beautiful stone fireplace that took up the center of the room. It was open on all four sides, and leather couches and overstuffed chairs and western style coffee and end tables surrounded it. A large kitchen and dining area filled one end of that floor, and two bedrooms, a meeting room, and a large office were on a hallway off the common area. Pine stair treads led to eight furnished bedrooms on the second floor and four more on the third floor.
Paige inspected the huge kitchen and pantry and proclaimed the pots and pans, dishes, and cutlery were more than adequate. Of course, we'd need to strip wood fired cook stoves from the cabins we were leaving to replace the shiny gas and electric stoves in the custom designed, modern stainless steel kitchen.
I turned to Richard. "Ride back the way we came. A sign a short distance back said there had been a golf course. It may do for our garden plots and hay field. I like the lodge, but we need ground for farming and room to build barns for the horses and cattle with enough ground for livestock pens."
As Richard rode off, I inspected the exterior and judged the green metal roof panels should last another twenty to twenty-five years. The dry logs would soon require a fresh coat of spar varnish. Across the main road, a side road ran off to the west through a thick jumble of weeds. White painted board fencing, matching that around the lodge, ran several hundred feet on both sides of the gravel road. After telling Paige I was going exploring, I crossed over to the road that had once been gravel but was now more dirt than rock. Fifty feet up the lane, a sign drew my attention. It was huge and deteriorated; the post had rotted away, and the body of the sign lay almost flat to the ground. Up close, I read the faded, peeled lettering. Cleary's Stables - Boarding and Trail Rides. With a few nudges, the horse laid into an easy gallop over the curved lane toward a stand of trees in the distance. Within a quarter-mile, large, green metal barns came into view in a huge clearing. I couldn't help but grin widely; if Richard had any luck at all at the golf course, we'd found our new homesite.
In front of and centered between the two barns sat a long, single-story, white painted bunkhouse-looking building. Faded signs hung along a wide front porch indicated it had been an office, general store and restaurant. Four cars and two pickups, all fifteen to twenty years old, sat at the edge of the asphalt parking lot across from the building.
Tall, wide double doors at the end of each barn stood open, so I rode into the north barn. My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and what I saw sickened me. Bleached horse skeletons lay in many of the stalls. They had been left uncared for at the zombie invasion and starved to death. Outside, I rode along the dingy, white painted board fence of the pens. As expected, more horse skeletons lay scattered in the weed infested lot.
The same sights waited for me at the south barn. The owners and help had likely been overrun by zombies before the animals could be released. Out of curiosity, I walked up a set of steps to the loft. At the sound of my deer hide moccasins scraping the wood steps, a flock of startled pigeons took flight through the open loft door. Bales of hay and bedding straw filled three-fourths of the area. I hoped the feed and bedding could be used after drying fifteen or so years. The materials at the top of the piles would need to be destroyed because bird dropping contaminated it. In the southeast corner, stacks of commercial feed still sat. Many of the sacks had been bored into by rodents, but some appeared to be intact. A legion of cats would be needed to thin the ranks of mice, chipmunks and birds.
Outside the barn, I walked along the fence and noticed a large mechanical shed several hundred feet to the left of the barn. Two tractors, several trucks and numerous farm implements were parked under the roof. Hopefully, Vince could rework the equipment so it could be pulled by horses.
As I climbed the rickety fence, a large pond was visible past the back fence. After crossing the weed covered horse lot, I climbed to the top of the back fence and balanced precariously near the top. A large field lay in front of me on the other side of the pond. It ran at least a quarter-mile and filled the small valley between two ridges. That had to be where the stable owners raised hay. I fisted the air in glee; we had a new home.
When I dismounted at the lodge, Richard's
