Obstacles

by David Wilson

  As Talon returned, he leaned in and spoke in a low voice, “We are going to walk the horses for a few minutes. We should be coming up on the Leesburg water treatment plant before long. I don’t know if we will be able to pass on the riverside of the water plant because of the piping that is usually running from the plant to the river. I think it would be best if we swung around to the south of the plant.” They had been lucky so far with nothing but farmland running along the edge of the river. Just ahead of them was a tree line running from the river to the south as far as they could see. Talon believed this tree line was bordering the road that led to the water plant and said as much to Ben.

  Angling slightly to the south, Talon and Ben were exposed crossing the open field, but it also was the shortest route to get back into the trees. The crossing of that open space seemed to take forever, but after checking his watch, Talon knew they had only been out in the open for a little more than 15 minutes. Slowing his pace as they approached the tree line, Talon moved over to Ben and handed him his reins. Holding up his palm and then pointing at the ground, he got a head nod from Ben. Talon carefully covered the last 25 yards to the tree line with his M-4 in the low ready position. Stopping briefly at the edge of the trees to listen, Talon could not detect any voices or manmade sounds. He was just about to step into the woods when he caught a brief shine or reflection off of something from within the trees.

  Freezing in place, Talon clicked his mic button twice, to let Ben know that he had seen or heard something out of the ordinary. Slowly taking in a breath of air and concentrating on letting it out slowly, Talon scanned the trees in front of him. Not seeing the shine again, he began to doubt himself and was just about to move forward with the brief shine appeared again. Ahhh, thought Talon, now he recognized what he was seeing. Someone had a night vision scope mounted on their rifle, and they were using it to watch down the road. Lady luck was still with them Talon thought if they had not just about walked straight into this guy, they would have been in a bad place when they attempted to cross the road.

  Now the challenge was to find out if this guy was by himself and if he had a radio on him. Once he could find that out, he would go and have a talk with the guy and find out why he was sitting out watching the road. Talon began moving very slowly, taking steps of about six inches at a time and carefully sitting his boots down. Beginning with the outside of his foot and slowly rolling the boot to the ground so he could feel any obstruction under his foot before he put weight on it. It was a slow process, but it worked. After moving forward into the tree line about three feet, Talon could see the tree row was only about ten or fifteen feet thick, ending with a small drainage ditch between the trees and the edge of the two-lane blacktop road.

  The guy appeared to be by himself unless someone was sitting apart from him. He froze again when a brief ripping sound of Velcro came to him. A stifled curse came right after that, and just before a flare of bright light caused Talon’s PVS-14s to blackout for just a second before coming back online. What the fuck, did this guy just light up a cigarette thought Talon. Looking back at the guy, Talon confirmed that was what the guy had done. The bright light of the end of a cigarette flared up as the guy took a drag off it. Moving a little more quickly now that he knew no one was in the immediate area, Talon moved steadily towards the guy. Talon got to within about three feet from the guy before one of their horses blew out.

  The guy jumped as if he was shot and began to turn towards the sound only to find himself looking down the barrel of Talon’s M-4 from about six inches away. At first, it confused the man as he could not tell just exactly what he was seeing. But Talon fixed that when he almost gently reached out and touched the man right between the eyes with the muzzle of his suppressor. As Talon did this, he said in a low voice, “I’m friendly, but if you reach for that radio or your gun, I will take that as you don’t want to be friends, and I will have to shoot you. I would hate to do that as I have almost made it through a whole day without having to shoot anyone. Now it is your turn to talk, keep your voice low, and explain why you are out here and who is on the other end of that radio.”

  The guy hesitated, but Talon touched him again with the suppressor. “Mister, I’m sitting here on guard duty because my boss told me to. Someone has been tearing up the water treatment plants, and my boss, the Police Chief of Leesburg, doesn’t want to let anyone tear ours up. This is a police radio, so I can talk to dispatch.”

  “Are you a policeman?” asked Talon.

  “No, I was in my third week of the academy when the power went out, but the Police Chief swore us all in as reserve officers. So I guess I am, kind of. I’m not from here, but I’m kind of stuck here. At least the Police Chief is feeding us and letting us stay at the academy.”

  “That’s enough, who else is out here?” asked Talon of the frightened man. The guy couldn’t have been much older than Ben.

  “There is one more post down the road towards Leesburg where this road meets Highway 7, and there are two guys up at the Water Treatment Plant. It’s about 500 yards on up the road towards the river. That’s it,” the guy replied.

  “What time do you have to check in next?” asked Talon.

  “At the top of the hour, I checked in about 15 minutes ago,” said the man.

  “When I tell you to, and you only do exactly what I tell you to, no more, no less, I want you to stand up. Do you understand what I want you to do?” instructed Talon.

  “Yes, Sir, only do what you say, no more, no less,” repeated the young man.

  “Ok, just so you know if you do exactly what I say, I won’t have to lock you up with your own handcuffs, and no one will have to know this ever happened. That’s if you cooperate if you don’t I’m going to handcuff you and duct tape you up to a tree. Now that would be embarrassing, and you might just get fired or worse. So what’s it going to be? Tape or no tape,” asked Talon.

  “Sir, I’m not going to do anything but what you say, so no tape, please,” replied the man.

  “What’s your name,” asked Talon.

  “James, you’re really not going to kill me,” the young man asked.

  “Now James, do we look like the type of guys that just go around killing folks for the fun of it, and don’t you think if we were going to kill you, wouldn’t we have already done it? No, we are not. We are just a couple of law-abiding guys out for a ride minding our own business. But what you are going to do is carefully and slowly stack all your equipment right there where you are standing. This M-4 has a hair-trigger, and I’m a little nervous right now, so don’t do anything stupid and startle me. Just stack it neatly, you will be putting it all back on in just a few minutes. It is now 10:40, so we have 20 minutes before you have to call in again, and nobody will be the wiser to what happened here. I would recommend that you don’t say anything to anyone because if we find riders coming upon us, we might decide it would be easier to just kill them. Do we have a deal?” Talon asked.

  James said, “Yes, Sir, that sounds good to me, and I sure don’t want to have to explain to the boss that I let someone get the drop on me.”

  Talon pointed at the ground, “So let’s not waste any more time, take the sling off over your head and lay down the rifle, good, now the duty belt. I’m going to ask one time, do you have any other weapons on you?”

  James pointed at his pocket and said, “Just a pocket knife.”

  Talon nodded as James reached in and pulled out a pocket folder, then placing it on top of the pile of gear. “Anything else?” asks Talon.

  “No, Sir, that’s everything other than the vest I’m wearing under my shirt,” responded James.

  “That’s ok. You can keep that on,” Talon said as he paused and keyed the radio, “Ben come on in we have to move this right along.”

  Just a few moments passed before both of the men heard the horses moving into the trees, then emerging onto the blacktop before stopping. Ben gave James a questioning look but didn’t say anything. Talon walked over to Shadow
and swung into the saddle before turning to James and saying, “Mount up on that one, you are going to take a short ride with us, and then we will let you go, and you can walk back here, put on your gear and pretend this never happened.”

  James walked over to the spare saddled horse and looked it over as if it was a tiger set to eat him. “Damn it, James, just mount the horse, it isn’t going to bite you, but I just might shoot you if you don’t hurry up,” encouraged Talon. At that, James moved next to the horse and, after several attempts, got his foot into the stirrup and pulled himself into the saddle. Without saying a word, Talon moved out across the road and back into the field. Staying just within the edge of the tree line, they rode at a fast walk for about ten minutes before Talon pulled up into a stop.

  “This is where you get off, James. I just want to remind you that we have been really nice about this, and to point out it would have been much easier for me to just shoot you. So play nice, get your ass back to your post and forget this ever happen. You understand that don’t you, Son,” Talon stated.

  “Yes, Sir, I do understand it. I have to go, I don’t want to be late calling in my post. Thank you for not shooting me,” and with that, James took off at a trot back towards his post.

  “When we stop, you will have to fill me in on what just happened,” Ben said with a smile.

  “I will now let’s go some ground covered, I don’t really trust James to keep his mouth shut. You comfortable with a slow lope once we get back out of these trees?” asked Talon.

  “No problem, but I am beginning to get a headache from either this harness or the NVD,” replied Ben.

  “Once we move into the open ground, we can take them off. It should only be a few more minutes before we hit Highway 7. We can pick up the pace there. Figure, we have about another five hours of riding before we need to find a place to hide,” stated Talon.

  The pair rode in silence until they came up to a small stream on the edge between two fields. Pulling up, Talon swung down from his horse and led his two horses to the water, Ben followed suit with his two mounts.

  Ben turned to Talon and asked, “So what was going on with that guy back there.”

  Talon replied, “He was a guard posted by the Leesburg Police Department to help protect their water treatment plant. We just didn’t need to get held up for hours or days while we explained ourselves. We would be lucky to be able to keep our horses from being confiscated and, for that matter, our weapons from what the radio said. You have to remember that Northern Virginia is mostly made up of the far left, and that includes a lot of their elected law enforcement officials. By far, the average law guy is conservative, but right now, I do not want to get into a confrontation with any law enforcement. Just so you know, if you don’t already know, I’m not giving my guns up to no man, not under any condition. Without our guns, we wouldn’t survive the day, let alone get home. So be prepared, if we get cornered by anyone, to include law enforcement, we will attempt to talk our way out of the situation, but if I ever say, ‘Well I tried,’ know the next thing I’m going to do is start shooting."

  “I understand that, and I agree with everything you say, and just so you know, I’ll be there backing you up,” replied Ben. Talon looked over at the young man and nodded his head in acknowledgment.

  Remounting their horses, they crossed the small stream, and Talon led them on a more southeasterly path. After another 30 or so minutes, they came within sight of Highway 7. Pulling up, they sat quietly on their mounts, just listening to the night sounds. Hearing nothing out of the ordinary, Talon reached up and shut off his night vision and removed the monocular, then stripped off the night vision headgear. Seeing him strip off the accursed headgear, Ben quickly removed his and stored the device back into his saddlebags.

  After getting all the gear situation settled, Talon pulled a small night vision monocular out of his vest and draped the lanyard around his neck. It was a much cheaper Generation one type device but would do the job of checking their surroundings without the pain of having to wear the PVS-14s. Then again, the PVS-14s were not designed to wear while riding horses. The constant jarring of the horses' movement became painful after only a short time, and now that they were back into open country and with an almost full moon, there was no need to keep putting up with the pain.

  Without a word, both riders moved their mounts forward towards the highway. Talon winced inside as they crossed the westbound lanes, the clatter of the horse’s shoes were loud enough to wake the dead after the quiet of the night. Oh-well Talon thought, at least we will find out if anyone is out and about. Once they were across all the westbound lanes, Talon once again pulled his horse to a stop and listened again for any reaction to the noise their horses had made. Taking a quick scan with the NV monocular, Talon did not see anyone or anything moving under the bright moonlight.

  Turning to Ben, he nodded and gave the big Belgian a gentle kick with his heels. Talon was hoping that by staying in the median, they would avoid any holes that the horses could step into, and that would allow them to make pretty good time. Bringing the Belgian up to a canter, Talon looked back and saw Ben a horse length back from the horse Talon was leading and slightly to his right. If they could maintain this pace, they could cover a lot of ground.

  Talon held the horses at a canter for close to thirty minutes before he eased the big horseback to a walk. Ben pulled up beside him and gave him a questioning look. Talon explained, “Need to check the mile marker, I know we are coming up on Lansdowne, and I want to cut south and go around the town before we hit that big intersection. According to the map, we have about two miles to go before we need to head south. Plus, if that glow on the horizon is any indicator, we don’t want anything to do with trying to go through Lansdowne.”

  Ben looked at the horizon then looked back at Talon a little sheepishly, “I did spot the glow, but didn’t give it a second thought until you said that. I’m just so used to seeing a glow from a large built-up area from the lights. Now that you say that, the whole town must pretty much be on fire to light up the sky that way.”

  Approaching the intersection of Lansdowne, Talon and Ben could see several fires burning on top of the overpass. From a distance, it was difficult to tell what exactly was going on, but they could see people moving around what looked like barrels with fires built in them. Talon didn’t worry too much about being seen or heard by these people, but he also didn’t want to take any chances. Being discovered by these guys could result in several scenarios, all bad for him and Ben.

  They directed their horses up onto and across the eastbound lanes of Highway 7. Crossing the blacktop as quickly as they could, they both saw the exit ramp for the intersection. Ignoring the exit ramp, Talon guided the Belgian down into the tree line bordering the highway and continued on into the woods. Keeping the pace down to a slow walk, Talon allowed the big horse to pick his own way through the woods.

  Pulling the horses to a stop as the woods begin to thin out, Talon lifted the NV monocular to his right eye and scanned the area to his immediate east. He could barely make out the road, and from what he could see from his vantage point made him hesitate. Swinging down from his mount, he motioned Ben to join him. Keeping his voice low, Talon explained what he was going to do to Ben. “I’m going to go do a quick scout of the road ahead, from here all I can see is a bunch of cars backed up on the road. Stay here for now, but if you hear shooting come save my ass, I’m not kidding, any shooting get your ass down there and begin laying waste, I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Ben nodded and hefted his weapon of choice, the DP12, which he had been carrying ever since he had seen the destruction Talon had displayed with it back at the ferry crossing. Talon handed his reins to Ben, and after checking over his equipment, Talon slipped into the woods and was gone from Ben's sight within seconds.

  Talon moved slowly but steadily towards the road until he came to the edge of the tree line. Once there, he stopped and listened for a few minutes before, once ag
ain bringing up the NV monocular to his eye. With the assistance of the light of the full moon, Talon could now see what the dark lumps were lying on the road's surface. Just with the quick scan, Talon estimated there were several dozen dead lying between or around the stalled vehicles. The darker discolorations around the bodies indicated these people had been shot multiple times while they attempted to flee whoever was killing them. Talon didn’t have to strain too many brain cells to figure out who was responsible for the killing.

  What a waste he thought, he understood that towns needed to keep people out and that refugee horde could become dangerous if they were desperate enough, but what he was looking at was a massacre. These people were not thinking beyond the moment. Towns should be screening for skills their towns needed to survive. Chances were better than even there were doctors, nurses, electrical engineers, or even skilled labor like mechanics mixed in with all those dead people. But from all appearances, whoever had done this had just opened up on the crowd and killed everyone they could. Talon had seen enough. Turning away, he made his way back to Ben as quickly as he could.

  Walking back to where he had left Ben, he just shook his head in the negative when Ben started to ask what he had seen. Taking his two horses reins, he turned and began walking south. They walked in silence for several minutes before Ben’s curiosity got the better of him, “So what did you see back there?”

  Talon began to say he didn’t see anything, but he knew Ben needed to know what they were up against. “There were dozens of bodies, maybe more scattered all over back there. It appeared they were all in one big group when at least 10 to 15 guns opened up on them and killed them as they attempted to flee. I would guess they tried to be allowed to enter the town, and something happened that made the town people open fire on them. Hard to tell other than a bunch of people was shot down in cold blood, at least that’s the way it looked to me. We need to be really cautious and try and not make contact with any local people. Most of these small towns will have sealed their town to any outsiders by now, and most will not hesitate to shoot to protect what they consider their home.”