High Lonesome

by T J Reeder

  “Forgot what?”

  “Would be so cool”

  “Shit”! I hate you!”

  “Do not”

  “I could”

  “Not!”

  Get the point? Ever have that problem? No? Wanna know why you never have that problem? Because you don’t live in a pillow case with two rabid baby Badgers. Nope, I have the lock down on that.

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “Who you thinking at?”

  “I’m asleep, stop getting into my dreams.” “John?”

  “WHAT?!”

  “You were talking out loud.”

  “Shit.”

  “Stop cussing.”

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “We’re hungry.”

  “So? Go chase some small creature down and kill it and eat it.”………’ “OUCH!!!”

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “Where you going?”

  “I’m gonna get up and feed you two before you hurt me, or kill me and eat me.” “Giggling…Who say’s we would kill you first?” See, voices in my head, all the time, day and night. But I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

  “John?”

  “What?”

  “Where you going?”

  “To feed you, you said you were hungry” “Giggling again, Poor John, who said we wanted food?” “Oh”

  Sometimes the voices are pretty nice mostly, kinda, sometimes not so but always entertaining.

  We were riding side by side with the pack string loose behind us munching pretty much everything that didn’t have sharp pointy stuff on it. We love our mules, they really are family and each has its own personality, just like people, they respond well to kindness but will remember a harsh word or deed for twenty years while they wait for you to forget for just a second. Then watch out.

  May suddenly sat up straighter in the saddle and said “Hey! Know what would be cool?” I seemed to remember this conversation but kept my mouth shut, earning me a beautiful smile and a kiss even tho she had to climb damn near all the way up on Buck. Sandy on the other hand wasn’t about to be quiet and said “Hey we went thru this crap before day light and you forgot what it was.”

  May flashed a bright smile at Sandy and said “Well I remember now!” “So speak up” say’s Sandy.

  “No I think I won’t because you were snotty at me.” “Was not!”

  “Was too!”

  “Enough!” says I. Which surprising me all to hell and back worked, both looked at me in something akin to shock for maybe 2.2 nano seconds before they started poking my ribs and telling me I could be in big trouble if I wasn’t careful. I said “I’ll be in trouble regardless of being careful.” Which both agreed with.

  It took another hour to get to the bottom of what would be so cool. May says with a straight face that we should go to the Canyon, spend a while then take a HV with loads of fire power and a trailer full of ammo and spare parts and go have some excitement. Now I shit you not, this was what her cool idea was. Sandy was all for it and already planning what hardware she could pack along.

  I finally got a chance to say “We spent the entire summer riding to Montana, we got involved in a war up there and had to shoot up half the countryside, then we headed home and had to detour to burn Vegas to the ground and wipe out a army of bad guys. And you’re bored? Really?” I mean “REALLY! REALLY!?”

  May looked at me like I spoke in tongues and continued the big cool plan with her sister in destruction. Most women would be talking about nails and hair and dresses. My two ladies were talking about how many guns they could pack in a trailer and ammo of course and maybe we needed to find a bigger trailer! I think you can see where this is going right?

  Finally I was asked my opinion, I wondered why they wanted my opinion because it wouldn’t matter right? Well “Yes” they both agreed it wouldn’t but it made them feel better asking me. Now if you can unravel their logic please explain it to me.

  I have no idea what it is that drives them, maybe it’s some latent gene from so many eons of suppression so now that they have more guns then God and are both faster then chain lighting and never have a second of remorse when they drop some shit head. So…. maybe it’s just payback time. I’m glad they are on my side. “Smiles and hugs”

  Sandy “See I knew he would come around.” May “There was never any doubt silly! He was never gonna let us just take off without him.” Me “Let you?” I laugh HA-HA - FKN- HA, I never had a choice, never for a second. If I had balked I would have woke up three days out of the canyon and cuffed to the roll bar in the HV, so who are they shitting?

  I did try one more time and finally May turned to me with tears in her eyes and said “John that son of a bitch in Vegas killed god knows how many people and got away with it but he screwed the pooch when he killed our people. And we know he’s in the Barstow area and I’m going to get his black or green or white or spotted ass. Makes no never mind what color he is, he will look good all grayed out and laying out to be converted into buzzard shit!

  So I hauled her over into my lap and wondered if I was getting played as is normal with them but Sandy was wiping her eyes and I knew she felt the same way.

  So I said “Well fine, lets go kill the bastard,” now it’s all hugs and kisses and promises of good things to come! I asked if that meant a full nights sleep. I never know when to shut up.

  So now we had a plan more or less, a destination, sorta, and a purpose. That was for sure. The rest of it would fall into place when the time was right.

  And someplace to the West of us some asshole didn’t have a clue what was coming his way. He would know when we got there but he would not know when we left because he was gonna be dead, not because I say it but because “They” say it and I know that makes it so.

  I asked them if they were ready to head home and put the plan into action, they were so we are.

  I was thinking it would be about five days to the canyon but that strung out to ten. One of the mules threw a shoe which hung up in a rock and snapped off a part of the hoof, he was ok but wouldn’t be able to be shod for a good while until the hoof grew out. Mules have hard hooves and as a rule can get along just fine without shoes so I removed the other three and let him run barefooted. We split his load up with the others which wasn’t a burden since our supplies were getting low. We put the stuff like the tents and bed rolls on him and he was fine but we took it slower for a day or two.

  Then Walker came in on three feet and looking for sympathy which he got way too much of in my opinion, which was grounds to discuss current sleeping arrangements all while the big sissy smiled. I hate him. “Do not!” I now shut up. “Smart man”

  I will give the mutt his due he had cut the hell out of his right front foot. I had some of that stinky black crap that’s good for cuts and after washing the cut and looking close for anything that might be in it I put the stinky stuff on and wrapped the foot real good. While he was playing it for all the sympathy he could I found some leather and in about an hour had a bootie for him which would be on in the morning when we pulled out. By evening the leather was almost worn out so I fell back on an old Marine trick, I used duct tape. That lasted most of the next day so I just put another layer over it, I figured by the time we got home his foot would be as big as the roll of tape, I laughed and they glared.

  All this did slow us down but they used the time to work up their idea of a supply list for the coming invasion of California.

  I would describe it like this. “One HV with Pig, extra pig in trailer, 50,00 rounds of belted ammo. Fifty extra assorted weapons with another 50 K ammo for them. Then our American Express weapons we never leave home without. A few cans of fuel, a few cans of beans and we were ready to go.

  I’m glad I’m the adult in this cluster fk coz somebody best be! I believe we might trade some ammo space for more food and fuel. But I’ll do it quietly. “Just try it buddy boy!” “Why do I bother?” “We
ask that a lot too.” “Shit.” “Stop cussing.” You see? Life in a pillow case with cute rabid baby badgers.

  We had a surprise today. We were riding along enjoying the sun as it washed the cold of the high desert away when we heard a sound not heard anymore, it took a moment to recognize the sound of an airplane off in the distance, I moved us close to a overhang and into shadows, careful is not a waste of time.

  It became obvious the plane was flying a search pattern and shortly it was in sight. Sandy had the glasses out and after a long look said “It’s our plane!!” I took a long look and said “Well yeah it looks like it! It has 2 wings and a spinnie thingie on the front.” She didn’t laugh. As it came closer on every pass it did become obvious it was our plane, our “Air Force.” We rode out into the open and were spotted right away; it banked toward us and flew overhead. I could see somebody looking down at us and a hand waving.

  When it flew back over as slow as it could go a message tube with a high glow yellow streamer flew out the window. Sandy took off to recover it and returned with it. Inside was a note that said. “Chopper coming soon stay here.” It was signed by Willy Bean. When the bird flew back over we all waved, the wings waggled and it flew away.

  We looked around a bit and found a wash with graze in it and turned the stock out to eat while we sat in the shade of the overhang. Walker stayed with the stock; he was turning into a wonderful addition to the family. I mean he always was but he was so smart he picked out jobs for himself to do that relieved one of us.

  We spent several minutes talking about what it could be but gave that up and just settled into a restful silence. It was three hours later that we heard the chopper coming.

  As soon as we heard the chopper May went to the livestock to keep them settled, not that we expected any problems but best to be safe.

  As soon as the bird was down and the rotors slowed a bit the door opened and Willy and Joe jumped out and were running stooped over headed for us. After the howdy’s and hand shaking and hugs from the girls we retreated to the shade and sat down to hear the news. Ralph finished walking around the bird like he was looking for bullet holes then joined us.

  Willy made a ‘you first’ motion to Joe who said “Guess what!” I hate this game so I refused to play, but Sandy and May started off with wide eyed wild assed guesses that went from not likely to fkn never gonna happen and after a while Joe waved his hands and said “Shut up and let me tell you.” He’s better at the game then me. He said “You ain’t never gonna guess what anyway!!” Sandy slugged him on the shoulder and he got back on track.

  The news was Ta-Da!! The Asshole from Vegas had surfaced and our radio geeks snared him like a fish and knew right where he was!! I turned and looked at May and then Sandy and asked “How did ya’ll know?” They both just looked smug and then I had to explain to the guys what was going on.

  Willy said “You three were planning on heading out with one HV to find this guy?” I shrugged and pointed at “them.” Joe just nodded in understanding. Willy said “Have you ever just once said not only no but HELL NO!!??” I laughed out loud along with Ralph; Joe kept quiet while they stared at Willy. He finally held his hands up and said “Pardon the hell out of me!! What was I thinking?” Now we all laughed, Willy is such a coward!

  I just sat back and made a come on motion so they got back on track and told the story.

  “The comm geeks had set up a tower on a high hill with a damn near straight shot to the west, then they started monitoring a scanner that grabbed every signal that popped up and after a week they hit the jackpot. They were getting clear transmissions from a powerful base station and from conversations in the clear soon knew they had located the leader of the gang in Vegas. That was the up side, the down side was he was recruiting as fast as he could and was openly saying he was coming for us!”

  I sat there for a bit and decided that this was good news, we knew he was coming, we knew where he was and we knew this area, he on the other hand was out of his element, even if he had fought in the Middle East his experience there wasn’t gonna do a lot of good here in this desert, this would become a rifleman’s war and one thing we had was riflemen, everybody in our “army” was first and foremost a rifleman and all were well versed at long range shooting and even if you have armor sooner or later those men in the armor have to come out and when they do a single rifle shot from 300 yards out will put the fear in them. No, this piece of garbage wasn’t gonna do well here.

  But we did have a problem in that as he rolled along he would be adding other trash to his gang and causing a lot of trouble to innocents just trying to survive. We would have to find a way to deal with this problem because we couldn’t just sit back and let him roll over people while looking for us.

  We spent a couple of hours brainstorming it and decided we had time to figure it out and get it right before he got here.

  We were only two days riding time out of the canyon area and if we pushed it we could make it sooner. Walker was doing ok with his foot and the mule was fine with the light load so we told them to head back and start working up an inventory of supplies on hand including the vast pile of stuff at Fort Navajo. They were going to fly to the Fort and do just that.

  We headed out on as much of a direct course as we could and pushed till just before dark.

  We had water at this camp and had a hurried meal, and sacked out, the girls chattering about the coming battle, me just counting stars; I think I was asleep by two hundred.

  Morning came and by first real light we were on the road again and moving at a good clip. I kept an eye on Walker but he was doing ok as was the mule so we kept pushing and by dark we were only hours out from home Camp was the same as the night before but no water so we used the water bags and everybody got a good drink.

  Morning found us moving with just some dried trail mix and coffee in us but we were almost home so that wasn’t an issue. Just before mid-day we rode into the canyon and were surrounded by everybody. It felt good to step down off of Buck who was just as happy to have me off of him.

  The older boys took the stock away and unloaded the packs at our cave door then took them to water then into the deep blind canyon that had graze.

  I stood there for a minute and then headed for the lake where I pulled off my boots, emptied my pockets and removed anything water might damage and fell over backward into the cool water, close to shore it was warm and a dozen yards out it was cool, I just hung there floating while the girls hurried to catch up. Being smarter then me they took time to pull clean cloths and soap and towels from the pack and then joined me. In the water they peeled off their clothes and turned it into a skinny dip. I joined them.

  Everybody stayed away and let us have some privacy and we really scrubbed the road dust off. May swam back to shore and walked out in her beautiful birthday suit and returned with a bottle of JW!! God I love these women.

  Walker did come down and wade around but he was not gonna ever be a water dog. We soaked and just relaxed for an hour then got out and dried off and put on the sweats the girls brought. We wrung out the wet clothing and carried it to some bushes near the cave as I insist on calling it.

  We went in and fell into bed and never moved till early evening, then we went out front and sat down in the deck chairs salvaged from a hardware store. After a few minutes the girls went off and returned with a lot of food. In the canyon you could get a platter and wander from fire to fire and fill up on whatever was being served. Everybody was welcome at anybody’s fire and it made for some great conversation and fellowship. People would leave their fire and go eat some at a different fire. We have a good life here and I intend to see we keep it.

  Willy drifted over and was followed shortly by Joe then Ralph. All that was missing was Charley whom I missed a lot when we were off on some trip. Sandy leaned over and smiling gave me a kiss and said “It’s ok baby.” And there come a pickup that pulled up and Charley got out. I should have been surprised but I really wasn’t, this is the
canyon, this is Navajo land, nothing surprises me anymore, in fact I would have been very surprised if Charley hadn’t arrived right after Sandy said that.

  I stood to meet him and told him I was happy he was here. He smiled and said “I’m happy to be here my brother.” I’ve never had such a bond with another human with the exception of the girls. It’s a wonderful thing; a gift to be cherished.

  We sat in the cooling evening and drank some new kind of tea made from some weed the women of the canyon had found that hadn’t killed anybody yet and it was good and pretty cold too, since it was pulled from the depths of the lake. As I said, we have a wonderful life here and we will keep it.

  Charley said the comm geeks had called his people and since we used only Charley’s people as our talkers nobody knew what was what unless they had somebody who was able to translate it. Doubtful. Anyway, he headed this way as soon as we arrived so it worked out very well

  We talked late into the night about how to save the folks in this turds line of march and all we could come up with was to have people moving along his route a day or two ahead of him spreading the word to get out of the way, and hope they would. We also thought about offering a new home here on the lake, but only to the ones who looked like they were workers and who had built a decent community, anybody else was on their own. The one way to really screw up what we were building was to invite in trashy elements and that was out of the question. Picky? You bet, non PC? Fkn A.

  Everybody here was a worker, a grower or a builder or a shooter who guarded the area. In other words doers welcome takers not so. Hard yes for sure, but we here in this place were not going to make the same mistakes that were made just a few years back. We were no longer an entitlement society.

  Here everybody was entitled to get up with the sun, entitled to work and build and be a productive member of the community or they were entitled to pack their ass on down the road. Minus any small kids, teens fine, they could choose, under that and they couldn’t, they would have a nice home here with people who cared for them and would show them a better way. Of course that was just talk; it had never been an issue, not once. I couldn’t even think of anybody who shirked any job, people would just show up to help with anything being done and when it was done they would wander off looking for something else to do. We have a good life here. Did I mention that?