by John Grit
Nate pulled Brian behind the truck. He looked around, searching for the safest route to the woods. Keeping behind other vehicles for cover, he made it to the edge of the road, Brian at his heels. “Follow me.”
He ran, jumped across the narrow ditch and disappeared into the woods with Brian two steps behind him. He could not stop in time, so Nate stepped out of the way. Brian crashed into brush. “Shit!” He got up and pulled thorns from his hands. “I hope there is trouble. I feel like shooting somebody.”
Nate paid him little attention. He watched the road from behind an oak tree thick enough to stop bullets.
“Aren’t we going to help the soldiers if there’s shooting?” Brian stood on his toes but could not see anything from where he was.
“We’re not part of their team, they and us both are better off out of their way.” Nate looked through binoculars. “I doubt there will be a fight. The Colonel said they were working with the sheriff, cleaning out the brigands.”
“Then why are we hiding in the woods?”
“Because we have only one life.” Nate continued to scan the road with binoculars. He caught motion out of the corner of his right eye and looked at Brian. “Get back behind that tree. There’s nothing to see anyway.”
Brian hustled behind a large oak tree. Six months earlier he would have argued with his father, or at least said something smart. But the last months had matured him, and he had seen his father proven right so many times he just did what he was told and stood silently, searching the woods behind his father in case someone came up on them. Danger can come from any direction.
“Well, it looks like they have kissed and made up,” Nate said. He lowered his binoculars. “We’ll get back to work, but keep your eyes open.”
They walked out of the woods and searched a nearby truck after Nate checked it for booby traps.
“Nothing here I recognize,” Brian said.
They left that truck and came up on another one fifty yards farther. “Stay back until I check this one out.” Nate looked into the back of the overloaded pickup. “Bingo. It’s full of our canned goods, Mason jars galore.”
Brian rushed closer.
“Stay back.” Nate watched his son back off a few yards. “Farther. And keep watch.”
Nate found no booby traps. He pulled a few boxes of Mason jars out and stacked them on the dirt road.
“Mel and that lieutenant and some man with a shotgun are coming.” Brian moved closer to his father.
Nate set a box down and grabbed his rifle. “Careful where you point that AR. They are likely to be as jumpy as us.”
“The guy with the shotgun looks mad.” Brian shaded his eyes from the sun by pulling the front of his boonie hat down.
“We’ll see,” Nate said. “Stay behind this truck and overwatch without looking menacing. I will meet them halfway.”
“Damn, Dad. Let them come to us and stop worrying about me. The farther away you are from that other bunch the safer for you. Just remember, if there’s any trouble it won’t be coming from Mel.”
Nate smiled and gave Brian a funny look over his shoulders. “Okay, Mr. Brian, but I’m going to walk a ways to them anyway, just so they will be less worried about you back here.”
“Yeah, right,” Brian said. “You figure I will have more time to stop them if they come for me.”
“You’re smarter than you look.” Nate walked down the road.
Brian held the carbine tighter, keeping his eyes glued to the man with the shotgun. As he came closer, Brian could see he was wearing a uniform.
Before anyone else could say a word, the sheriff threw down on Nate with his shotgun from twenty yards away. “You’re under a—“
Mel slapped the shotgun barrel down. “Are you trying to get shot? His son will blow your head off!”
Nate stopped in his tracks and looked the sheriff in the eye. “The next move you make will determine how long you live. Now calm down and tell me what is going on.”
The sheriff glared at Mel, then turned his attention back to Nate. “You and that boy are under arrest for looting.” Sweat ran down his thin face and down his thin neck onto a frail frame of a chest where he had left his filthy uniform shirt half-unbuttoned.
“Looting hell,” Nate said. “We’re just recovering what was stolen from us. We’ll leave the rest. The Colonel said we could pick out what the raiders took from our farm. When we’re finished with that truck, we will bring it back here and whoever claims it can take it and the rest of this stuff. We just want what’s ours.”
The sheriff stood back on his heels and sneered. “And how the hell are we supposed to know what is really yours?”
The Lieutenant had been quiet until now. “I have orders to let him get his stuff back. Mel says he knows the man and his son. That is good enough for me. But direct orders from a colonel would be more than sufficient anyway, Mel or no Mel.”
The sheriff looked at the Lieutenant. “Don’t give me any shit. My people need all of that food. They’re starving.”
“I have orders.” The Lieutenant stepped around to face the sheriff.
“And I have you outnumbered today.” The sheriff talked through his teeth. “One word on this radio and four hundred rifles will be firing at you and your men.”
Nate’s voice boomed. “You’re a damn fool.”
The sheriff’s eyes flashed to Nate. He started to speak.
Nate spoke first. “If you were going to play guerrilla army, you should have had your men spread out in the woods, not gather in one wad in the road where a chopper with a mini gun can kill half of them with one pass.” He shook his head and looked the man up and down. “This county deserves better than you. Sheriff Fergusson must be dead. I wonder how there was an election in all this chaos. Or were you actually elected?”
The Lieutenant walked away and spoke into his radio. Thirty seconds later, two helicopters flew over low and fast. One fired into a burned-out truck, chopping it to pieces with its automatic cannon. It kept going and flew low over the treetops, turning to the left, until it came back around and hovered, ready to fire again. The other helicopter circled at high altitude.
Mel grinned. “Sheriff, we might not be regular Army, but we are the US military!”
“I thought the sheriff was working with you, Lieutenant,” Nate said. “This man is an idiot.”
The Lieutenant smiled. “Indigenous personnel are not always of the finest quality, but I have been ordered to work with him and his men.”
“Someone needs to tell the Colonel this man is a fool.” Nate stared the sheriff down.
Mel smiled. “Yep. A damn fool. Retarded in fact.”
“Sheriff,” the Lieutenant said, “you need to back off a while and wait until Nate gets his stuff. I’ll tell you when he’s through.”
The sheriff’s face turned red and his eyes bulged. “We earned what’s in those trucks. If not for us, those thieves and killers would have gotten away.” He glared at Nate. “This bum had nothing to do with it.”
“You are misinformed,” the Lieutenant said. “He and his son and friends had everything to do with the capture and killing of the brigands. They kept the animals penned down at the bridge for days.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Whaat? Bullshit!”
The Lieutenant ignored him. He spoke to Mel. “Escort this man to the ditch,” he pointed, “over there. And keep him there until further orders.”
Mel smiled. “Yes sir.”
The sheriff did not move.
Mel clicked the safety off his M-4. “Come on. We don’t have all day. Get that shotgun slung on your shoulder and keep it there, or my trigger finger might get twitchy.”
The sheriff walked away to sit on a log on the other side of the ditch. Mel followed him and stood a few yards away.
Nate told Brian, “We better get that truck and get out of here as soon as possible.”
Brian followed. “We need our tools back too.”
“Yeah. Keep an ey
e out for them.” Nate stepped up his speed. “We may not get more than one truckload.”
The truck was still running. There was not much fuel in the tank, but they did not have far to go. Nate and Brian worked fast. Nate took a tire and wheel off a nearby truck and replaced the flat tire on the running flatbed while Brian unloaded it.
When Brian finished, he pointed. “Look. That fourth truck…There’s our tools.”
Nate climbed behind the wheel and put the truck in gear. He revved the engine before letting the clutch out and heading for the truck Brian pointed at. He stopped next to it and left the engine idling roughly. They worked quickly, loading tools, leaving anything that was not theirs.
Back at the truck parked by the Lieutenant, Nate and Brian spent twenty minutes loading the Mason jars onto the flatbed. The Lieutenant spoke to the sheriff and it looked to Nate like he was giving the sheriff a lecture. Nate and Brian were about to check another truck farther down the road, when the others walked up.
“You’re out of time,” the Lieutenant said. “I can’t stay here anymore. Take what you have and go.”
“Shit.” Brian looked up at the Lieutenant. “We don’t have half our stuff loaded.” His ears burned when the sheriff laughed.
“Lieutenant, what do you think is going to happen as soon as you and your soldiers leave?” Nate looked the Lieutenant in the eyes. “I might as well kill that so-called sheriff now.” The sheriff stopped laughing.
“I can’t stay here and hold your hand, Mr. Williams.” The Lieutenant looked at Brian and sighed. “Get in that truck and get back to your farm.” The Lieutenant stepped closer to Nate and whispered, “I will try to put the fear of God into the sheriff and make it clear your farm is off limits.”
“Get in the truck Brian,” Nate said.
“This isn’t right.” Brian yelled over to Mel, “Can’t you do anything?”
Mel looked sick. “I have to follow orders. Sorry.”
“Stay safe Mel.” Nate stepped up behind the wheel of the truck.
Brian got in on the passenger side. He yelled out the window past his father, leaning forward to see around him. “Come and see us as soon as you can.”
“I will,” Mel said. “Stay alert and stay armed. You already know this, but it’s bloody out there, and the plague is still hot in places. The larger gangs have been just about wiped out, but there are a lot of smaller gangs roving around murdering, raping, and looting. And don’t think the government is back on its feet. It’s not. They’re trying but have a long way to go.”
Nate looked out the window at the Lieutenant. “If they come, there’s going to be a fight.”
“You’ve got five minutes before we’re out of here,” the Lieutenant said.
When they were seventy yards down their driveway, Nate stopped the truck. He looked at Brian. “I want you to drive down the east side of the field and get as far into the river valley as you can before you get stuck. Get as close to the river as possible.”
“I won’t get far,” Brian said. “The trees will stop me before the mud does.”
“Get as far as you can. Then carry the load down to the river. Start with the tools.”
Brian stared back at his father, his eyes slits. “What are you going to be doing?”
“There may be shooting. Just keep hauling the stuff to the river.” When the shooting stops, head upstream and wait for me at the first island. Leave everything where it is, just get yourself upriver.”
“No way!”
Nate put the truck in gear and continued down the drive. “If I do not show up by three hours after dark, get back to the bunker.”
“It’s the same old shit. What’s the point of you staying? You can’t stop them anyway.”
“Maybe you can get some of the stuff hid in the swamp, if I slow them down.”
Nate drove down their driveway two hundred yards past a curve and then stopped the truck and got out. He grabbed his backpack and put it on.
Brian slid to the driver side. He leaned out of the open door. “Mel won’t let this happen.”
Both heard the helicopters leaving.
Brian sighed. “Shit.”
“He must follow orders.” Nate looked down the driveway, and then walked to the cab and looked up at his son. “The way things are, military discipline is likely to be strict. Mel could be shot for disobeying orders. The world is a brutal place right now. Mel would help us if he could.”
“He’s having fun, though,” Brian said. “He’s got that smile of his on his face half the time.”
“Better get going.” Nate checked the driveway again.
Brian slammed the door shut. “What’s with that sheriff? I don’t think he was elected.”
“You think right. I wonder if there are even any real deputies in that mob. That bunch is not a hell of a lot better than what we’ve been fighting.” Nate motioned with his head. “Now stop wasting time and get that thing out of here.”
Brian almost killed the engine when he did not give it enough gas before letting the clutch out, but he managed to get the truck moving. He left it in first gear, and the engine whined as he picked up speed. The truck disappeared around a curve in the drive. In less than a minute, Nate could no longer hear its loud muffler.
Chapter 2
Nate waited behind the gnarled oak. It was diseased and past its prime, but its four-foot-thick trunk offered cover capable of stopping any rifle bullet. He could see two hundred yards down the driveway, where it curved to the left and disappeared behind a sun-dappled wall of trees, mostly tall pines. Centuries-old oaks lined the right side of the drive and spread their limbs out, creating shade, and Spanish moss hung straight down from them, as lifeless as the hot, still air.
Thirty minutes went by. Nothing happened. Nate had not slept or even rested for so long, weariness seeped into his bones, and his eyelids grew heavy, but he managed to stay awake, if not one hundred percent alert.
Nate stood silent, dripping sweat, holding his rifle, waiting for trucks loaded with armed men, who would try to kill him. Combat in the Army taught him he did not like this, but here he was, again, waiting to kill human beings. Would he ever survive long enough to get away from it? More important to him, would his son ever survive long enough to live a somewhat normal life again?
The rattle of a vehicle coming down the driveway brought him to full alert. He shouldered his rifle and pushed the safety off with the back of his trigger finger. Only a fool would come right down the drive knowing a man is waiting with a rifle. He wondered how many had been sent on foot, walking down each side, back in the woods. Or was the sheriff too stupid to even do that much?
Nate’s eyes lit up. He heard a familiar sound, coming in low and fast. Then came the roar of two mini guns, a short burst, and then the helicopter was gone. He had caught only a glimpse of it as it belched flame from both sides, strafing. The pilot’s skill and quick reflexes impressed him.
An explosion shook the ground, and a fireball billowed and rose over the treetops, into the clear sky, followed by black smoke. Nate smiled. He could not see around a bend in the drive, but he knew what had happened. So Mel came through after all. He heard men running in the woods, back from where they came, back up the drive.
Mel must have more sway than his rank would have you believe. In the end, it had to be the Lieutenant or the Colonel who gave the order. He made his way quietly through the woods until he knew there could be no men close by hunting him, and then ran to help Brian unload the truck.
Nate skirted the clearing around his home and barn, kept back in the trees, and made his way down into the river valley and into the wetlands. He followed deep ruts in the mud left by the truck’s tires. He approached the truck with caution. No one was there. Many items had already been unloaded and were piled on a small hill where the ground would be a little drier. He slung his rifle on a shoulder and grabbed a bundle of farming tools. He wanted to take the items to the house, but knew they were not out of danger yet. He
sighed. Things are hard enough on us without being forced to deal with assholes. Holding the tools as tight as possible so they would not rattle, he started for the river.
It was not easy going. Nate was forced to weave his way through thick brush and closely growing trees while carrying his load. He stopped when he heard boots squelching in mud and heavy breathing. Someone was moving fast, coming upslope out of the swamp straight for him. His hands were full, and dropping the tools would make more than enough noise to alert anyone nearby. He stood behind a bush and waited, hoping it was Brian.
Nate’s eyes lit up when he recognized his son. “You’re making enough noise to wake the dead.”
Brian stopped, froze, and looked around. He held his carbine at the low ready like his father taught him. “You scared the hell out of me.”
Nate stepped around the bush so Brian could see him. “The river’s not far, is it?”
“No, about thirty yards. Follow my tracks in the mud.” Brian eyed him as he walked closer. “I didn’t hear any shooting, but there was a big explosion.”
Nate did not show any emotion on his face, but his eyes were telling Brian something must have went right. “Remind me to thank Mel.”
A smile spread across Brian’s face. “I will. Did you see it? I mean, what happened?”
“No. I could not see, but I think they just attacked the first truck in their caravan. Probably killed everyone in it. That was enough for them to get the message: Our farm is off limits. It might not hold them off for long, so we need to get this stuff out of here as fast as possible.”
“I’ll go on to the truck,” Brian said.
