by Sally Six
As the sleeping bag waspushed to Toad’s feet, he stood up and he said. “You fella’s best get out of here. The boss doesn’t like to be interfered with. If you mess with us, it’s the same as messing with him.”
“You had better listen mister.” Said the big man across the fire pit from the first man talking.
All three had stepped out of their sleeping bags by now and thought they had these yahoos conned into leaving.
The shorter black haired one on the left of Matt started to slowly drop his right hand towards his holster and gun which he was still wearing. “Can’t say that was a real comfortable way to sleep,” thought Gary.
Gary told him. “Stop right there shorty. There was plenty of menace in his voice. Put that hand back up or you will have a hole in you in a few moments.”
The short black haired man stopped and put his hand back in the air.
Matt looked over at his son, Leroy, quickly and saw how nervous his son was and said. “Leroy just take it easy and stay where you are.” Everyone’s eyes went to Leroy including the bad guys.
“Oh great Dad,” thought Leroy. “That’s the way to get everyone’s attention on me. Like I really wanted that, NOT”.
Matt had made up his mind of what to do with this scum in the time that he had everyone’s attention off of him and Gary. He hoped it wouldn’t come back to haunt them all. Matt looked at them and said. “Okay gentlemen, I want you all to take off all your outer clothes and shoes except for your underclothing. They had gone to bed just like they had been the night before being drunk out of their skulls.
“What?” Yelled the big man. “You have to be kidding. It’s cold out here.”
“Nope,” said Matt. “I am dead serious. Clothes off or a bullet which one do you want? You decide?”
From behind Gary a woman’s voice said. “Put a bullet in the murdering scum. That’s what they deserve.”
All the bad guys flinched and turned to look in Gary’s direction to see who was behind him.
“That’s a lie. We never hurt nobody.” Shorty whined.
“Yeah, we is innocent,” said the brown bearded man closest to Matt.
“Something tells me that’s very far from the truth,” said Matt. “Now get with it. You’re going to slow. Strip.”
The three scum got a bit faster at undressing after the talk and the woman telling the men to just shoot them. Soon they were all down to their skivvies. All three stood there shivering. When they were all undressed, Matt had made them take off their socks also.
Matt turned to his son. “Come over here, but keep your gun on those three. Gary back up until you’re passed the tree that they had the ladies tied to as these three move over to that tree.”
All of them moved as the three scum moved closer to the tree. “Now all of you stand beside each other and then sit down with your hands behind your backs.” Matt said.
Then Matt said to Gary. “Gary get that rope there that the women were tired up with and cut three shorter lengths to tie their hands with.
The rope cut and ready they had the three-scum crawl over on their knees to the tree and Gary tied them to it. Gary also went over to the scum’s clothes and retrieved the belts off the pants and used the belts to bind the scum’s feet. “There that should help keep them in one spot.” Gary said with a grin on his face.
The woman that had come to watch was stilling grumbling about keeping the dirt bags alive when Gary told her to go ahead and go get the other woman.
“All right, but I still think you ought to cap them.” She turned and headed for the woods.
Gale walked through the woods with an ease that most wouldn’t have believed. Gary had watched her go and realized she was used to being in the woods. She automatically watched where she stepped to make as little noise as possible. “Now that’s different these days,” he thought to himself. “She’s a good looker too. Well best get those thoughts out of my head not too many look my way.”
Matt looked up at his son who seemed a lot less wound up. “Leroy would you mind going back to the van and truck. Have your mom drive the van and you the truck up to the bridge.” He looked over at Gary. “Is that okay with you Gary?”
“Yeah sure, that would be great. No problem as far as I am concerned.”
Leroy holstered his pistol, turned and started towards the road and the bridge at a trot. He came up onto the bridge, skirted around the cars and headed across the bridge then up the road to where their vehicles were parked.
Meanwhile Gale had gone into the woods to find her sister, Tracy. When Tracy saw her sister, she came running out from behind a tree and grabbed Gale giving her a big hug.
“Oh Gale, it’s so good to see you. Are you alright? Who are those people that cut us loose? Now what are we going to do?”
Gale took her sister’s hand as they started to walk back to the scum’s campsite and to their rescuers. The two guys that had rescued them were all done tying the murderers to the tree when they got back to the camp. Gary looked up at the women as they came into the camp. He could tell they must be sisters now. They looked so much alike.
Matt walked up to them. “Sorry but with all the excitement we didn’t get to introduce ourselves. I’m Matt Graham. The boy that just left is my son, Leroy, and this is Gary Lopez.”
The older of the two women spoke up. “I’m Gale O’Conner and this is my sister, Tracy. Thank you so much for coming to our rescue. I had begun to think we would shortly be slaves to this bunch of scum.”
She looked down at the men tied to the tree and gave them a look that could freeze water. She then started to talk out loud. “Alright, where’s our stuff?”
One of the men nodded towards camp he was afraid to say anything else. Gale spied a small hump of stuff under a brown and green canvas tarp.
She walked over and pulled the tarp off the pile of booty. She started to go through the pile looking for her and Tracy’s things. She pulled out her colt, a case of ammo, a 14-inch bowie knife with a special metal finger hold on it and a leather case that were hers, her purse and her BOB bag.
By this time, Tracy was by her side pulling out her things, a Glock 17 that her sister had given her plus the ammo, an 8-inch hunting/skinning knife, BOB bag and both their sleeping bags were next.
Gale turned to her sister. “You know that they must have left the rest of the stuff in the Cherokee.”
“Cherokee,” said Matt. “We haven’t seen a Jeep Cherokee. It’s sure not on the bridge.”
“Well if you ladies say you have one, it has to be around here somewhere.” Gary said.
They all kind of spread out. Gary headed to get his shoes and then went down the road a bit.
“Over here.” Gary yelled. There parked behind a clump of bushes was a Forest Green Jeep Cherokee.
Gale smiled and said, “Right on.” Both the O’Conner sisters ran over to the Jeep to check it out.
Gale climbed in and found the keys in the ignition. Everything looked like it was fine and their other things were still in the back. Why in the world they had taken the other things out was beyond her. Maybe they thought they might have to use it in the camp or something if they were attacked. Gale started the engine and pulled out of the bushes. She headed over to the scum’s former camp to pick up their other things. Maybe there in the pile of things there also might be able have a use for. No sense being stupid. The owners of that stuff weren’t going to need it anymore.
After getting back to the scum’s camp, Matt said. “Leroy and Cass should be here any minute. I best go out and watch for them. We need to get out of here just as soon as possible so we can get a head start before these scum’s buddies come looking for them when they don’t show up today.”
***
Cass saw her son come around the corner of the road and she let out a breath of air. She had been so nervous that it seemed like it had been hours and hours since the guys had left to see who had blocked the bridge. She and the children were not in the van. She had m
oved the kids over into a small clearing in the middle of some bushes 50 feet from the van and truck. She had kept her eye on the road with a glance or two over at the kids who were at this time sound asleep on a blanket with a sleeping bag over them. Even Lily the 12 year old was asleep which Cass was very glad of.
Leroy ran up to the van and was looking around when his mom came out of the bushes. She walked up to him. “Is everything alright son? What was going on down there?”
“Everything is ok Mom. We snuck up on three guys that were asleep and rescued two women tied to a tree. Dad wants us to drive the van and truck down to the bridge right now. Where’s the kids?”
“I stashed them over in the bushes. They’re sound asleep. At least they were when I came over here. Help me wake them up and get them to the van, would you?”
With that Leroy and his mom went, got the other children and tucked them into the van. Leroy ran back up to the truck, retrieved the keys from under the seat and started it up. His mom waved her hand out the window of the van. They started back towards the curve and down the hill to the bridge.
They pulled up to the bridge. Leroy shut off the engine and headed back to the scum’s camp. He spied his dad by the left side at the end of bridge. His dad met him part way. Matt turned to his left and signaled to the others. The two women came out with Gary behind them.
Matt did the introductions. “Cass this is Gale and Tracy O’Conner, Gale and Tracy this is my wife, Cass.”
With the introductions out of the way, they started to talk about what they were going to do. Gale asked if they could join the convoy so this wouldn’t happen to them again.
Everyone agreed. Cass didn’t think too much of it, but she kept that to herself. Her husband was a good looking man and she had seen That Gale woman looking at him.
“By the way Gale,” said Matt. “Is there a place you and your sister were heading when you encountered this mess?”
“No, not really. Our folks died two years ago in a car accident and everyone else passed away years ago. It’s just her and me. We’re from Cedar Falls, Iowa. We were just heading off to the hills to hunker down until we found a place to stay.”
“Well in that case, you’re headed to Badger, Minnesota,” said Gary piped in.
Matt looked at his crew. “All right. It’s time to headum up, move um out and roll on.” He always did like the old show, Raw Hide.
All he got was a few funny looks from the others, but they all knew what he meant.
A few minutes later as they had started to climb into their vehicles, they could hear the three scum yelling and cussing from their camp. “We need to stop that right now,” said Gary. “You would have thought that they would have at least waited until we were gone to start that.” He went over to the cab of his truck and looked under the driver’s seat where he had a roll of gray duct tape.
“A thousand and one uses.” He said out loud.
That brought a smile to everyone’s face and they watched Gary trot back to where the men were tied to the tree.
In a few minutes there was nothing but quiet. Gary came back up onto the bridge.
“Okay,” he yelled over to them. “That’s taken care of. Now let’s get these cars out of the way.”
Gary, Matt, Leroy and Tracy helped push the cars out of the way while Cass and Gale kept lookout for anyone coming down either end of the road.
Matt looked at the others. “Something I forgot.” (When they were finished pushing the cars out of the way.) “We need to know where those guys came from so we can go around rather than right to where the rest of them are. I guess we can take the tape off of one of them and ask.”
“Oh you don’t have to do that. I heard where we were going.” Gale said. “They were talking about it last night when they were sitting around the campfire drinking. It’s a little town called Madison Lake.” Matt when and snagged the map and found it wouldn’t be hard to avoid. They wanted to stay away from Minneapolis also. They would be taking a roundabout trip from it too. They were sure things in the cities had to be disintegrating with no produce or anything else being trucked into them. Food would disappear quickly out of the stores with so many only having enough food for a day or two in their homes. So from now on things were most likely going to get bad fast. They would have to keep a better lookout.
“Maybe finding Gale and Tracy was a good thing,” thought Matt. The more people the better our chances of making it to Granddads may be.” They got on their way again wondering what the next few hours would bring. It would take all day to get up to Granddad Grahams in northern Minnesota.
They were now on Route 60. They took a small dirt road around Madison Lake to Route 99 and then onto Route 5 West, hit Route 15 North for a while and then a left at Winthrop onto Route 19 West where they received a few holes in their vehicles. They stepped on the gas and got the heck out of there as fast as they could. Gary got a gully on his forehead from a bullet which gave him one heck of a headache. So Leroy drove while Gary recovered. Their route then took them to Route 71. They got off Route 71 and took Route 200 to Lake Itasca. That’s where they ran into another roadblock, but this one was manned. Leroy saw it was made of four pickup trucks and several saw horses. The road was pretty straight at this point and Leroy radioed back to his dad that he knew they had been seen.
“Okay Leroy. I guess things couldn’t stay like this forever. Stop where you are and I will come on up and take a look.”
The caravan came to a stop behind the truck. Matt went on up to the truck. Right behind him was Gale and Tracy and they came packing.
Gary climbed out of the truck cab. He was doing better. The last few hours of rest had helped him immensely even if the top of his head looked like he had been mummified bandages wise.
“What’s up Matt?” Gale asked.
“Looks like we have a road block ahead of us. Leroy says we have been spotted.”
“Yeah Dad,” Leroy said. “I saw three people at the road block duck behind it when they saw the truck.”
Matt made a face but he knew what he must do. “Okay that means there could be more. There’s only one thing for us to do. The rest of you stay by this truck. Hopefully, I will be right back.”
“Wait a minute,” put in Gary. “You have a family. You can’t go taking a risk like this. It’s me who should be doing this.”
Matt looked at Gary and shook his head. “Gary you may be feeling better but you’re in no shape to be making any quick moves if you have to. Sending anyone else just wouldn’t be wise. I’m afraid I’m elected.”
Gary looked down at his boots. “I hate to admit it Matt, but you’re right. Go ahead. We will cover your back as best we can.”
“There is one more thing that I have to do first.” He headed back to his van.
He walked over to the van. Cass had slid over to the driver’s side to keep an eye on what was going on up ahead of her at the truck.
She rolled the window down. “What’s wrong Matt?”
“Oh not too much right now Cass, but someone has to go up to that roadblock and see what’s going on and see if they will let us through. I am the one going.”
Cass got a wide-eyed look and said. “Matt you can’t do that. You have a family. Have Gary do it.”
“Cass I can’t. He is barely recovered from that bullet hit he took. There is no way that he could move fast enough if he had to. You know that I can’t send Gale or Tracy.”
Cass just sat there seething. “You can’t Matt. You just can’t.”
“Cass look at me. I love you and you know it, but again we are living in different times. There are things we have to do now that we never thought we would have to do. I have to go. There is no one else plain and simple. Now give me a kiss.”
Cass leaned forward and gave him a kiss, but then said. “I still don’t like it.”
“No one said you had to Cass. I’ll be right back.”
With that Matt turned around and headed back down the road for the roadblo
ck.
He walked back past the others by the truck, gave them a nod and continued up the road. He didn’t really want to get too close to the roadblock. He was about to stop, being about 50 feet from it, when someone yelled for him to stop. “That is close enough mister.”
A head popped up from behind one of the pickups. It was a heavy duty 1 ton 3500. The guy was wearing a Bronco orange and white cap, but it was pretty dirty at this point.
“The things you notice.” Matt thought.
“Hey mister,” the voice said. “You and your folks just need to turn around and go back where you came from. We don’t need anyone else to help feed.”
Matt spoke up. “We’re not here to eat up your food. We just need to get through to get where were going. We’re not here to do anything, but be on our way to my family’s farm.”
Matt didn’t hear anything for a few moments. He tried to keep his hand away from his gun sitting in its holster on his hip. He didn’t like standing out here in the open like this. He felt like a sitting duck. He kind of looked around while he was waiting to see where he could get to if he had to move for cover.
“Okay mister. Where is this family farm?
“Further up north by Badger.”
“That wouldn’t give much away,” he thought. “Granddad lived 30 north miles of Badger.”
More time went by. It seemed like forever, but really was only a couple of minutes. A man walked out from around one of the pickups on the right side of the roadblock. He was a medium sized man maybe 5 foot 10 inches tall with brown hair. He had a medium build to go with it. He must be the type that worked the land and worked hard at that because he also looked like he was all muscle.
The guy stopped about 10 feet from Matt. “I’m taking a chance here. I have no way of knowing what kind of people you are. I came out because you look like a decent sort. I can see you have women along with you. I saw you got out and talked about things before coming up here. A big boss would just have standing orders to take people out. You could have snuck around us if you had a mind to also. I have tried to tell my people that but they just won’t listen. You could also be bad guys just playing that you’re good to get to us. Look at me complaining to a complete stranger.”
