by T J Reeder
A Long Lonely Road
Desert Winds
Book eight
By
TJ Reeder
We had spent the last couple of weeks in the Canyon we called home, peaceful, quiet, and silent.
Well most of the time it is quiet, I’m up in my secret place, it’s a ridge splitting our canyon from the main lake. If I want I can sit on the edge of the cliff and look down on the entire settlement, or I can walk about fifty or so yards and look out at the lake. It’s fairly flat up here and I’ve packed up a rubber sleeping mat and love just watching the clouds drift over.
The sounds of laughter can be heard like a distant bird calling. I can see sail boats out on the lake where folks are running fishing lines. The lake is our bread basket so to speak, Water, food, and it keeps us cool in the heat of the summer.
The canyon shelters us in it’s heart of stone thru the cold. I love it here.
I love dozing in the warm winter sun; I can sleep and hear the birds. They call my name.
“John.”
Silence
“JOHN!”
“Go away, I’m not here.”
“Yes you are.”
“No I’m not.”
“John If you don’t open your eyes we will throw you off the cliff!”
I laugh…..wrong thing to do. One sits on my chest, one on my belly and that fkn mutt trying to step on my balls, I hate them!
“Do not.”
Finally after not breathing for five minutes I asked what they wanted now. They didn’t move, I asked them to pout off of me. Nothing. Shit, I groveled and said, “Please tell me what I can do to make you happy.”
I hate myself for being weak, but with no air in my lungs it’s hard to be a walking talking bad ass.
At last they slid off on each side, now they were bringing the other weapons to the fight, they must really want something big. I may as well give in now.
After I could breath and they buttered me up a bit we got down to it. And they surprised me, A lot!
May said, “John you love it up here in your “secret“ spot. We love it up here in your “not so secret spot too, (snickering) and we love our Hobbit home but we like being able to look out over long distances.”
I looked at Sandy who said, “Yeah, what May said” then added that they wanted a place they could look out and see the world, not the other wall of the canyon, plus after being with me they had learned the value of taking the high ground and would rather be up here.
I said, “Why not just tell me this instead of crushing my ribs in?” They both gave me their killer smile and May said, “Cause it’s more fun to torture you into giving in?” then they both laughed, shit so did I. I love them. Dangerous pets, but loveable.
So we took a walk and I looked it over with a different eye and soon I could see what they meant. The view is awesome, and it’s for sure the high ground! Hell we could see the settlement across the lake; well we could see the smoke and smoke from several smaller places along the shore line.
We walked out onto the very point of the ridge where it dropped off what looked like a mile but was probably three or four hundred feet. A long way!
I did point out that if we were ever over run and had our backs to the edge we were fked! May said, “Well then don’t ever let that happen, ok?” Sigh. Then I asked what and how we were going to build up here when getting stuff up here was damn near impossible.
That’s when I learned they had been working on this all the time I was laying up here soaking up the quiet.
First of all I have failed to mention that when we got here we found that Harvey and his family of miners had arrived and fell in love with the place, but they needed more room then we had here so they started looking for a home canyon of their own, and found it about a half mile away, it was as big as ours and it too had a creek of fresh water running into it, as hard as it is for people to believe there is a lot of water in the desert country. Their creek was smaller then ours but was plenty for them.
They had also found a great place for digging cave (Hobbit) homes into the red rock of the canyon walls. I call it sand stone, hell it could be granite for all I know, rock is rock. Anyway they had found a good place with soil above the high water mark in any low spot, the run off builds up soil pockets and makes for great gardening.
Harv and his clan had brought everything including the kitchen sinks and among their goods was air driven rock drills and a pretty good supply of blasting powder and the knowledge to use it right. By the time we had got home from burning Vegas and all the other stuff they were settled in and still working deeper into the cliffs, our places were small but comfy theirs were large and very comfy!
It was great seeing them again and of course I caught a lot of shit for burning Vegas. The girls got to use all their comments like, “What burns in Vegas stays in Vegas.” I won’t go into all of them, some get pretty raunchy and there were kids present.
Anyway, the girls had been working with Harv and his Moles and had cut a deal for them to bring their rock working experience up here and build our home, which they had already drawn out while I snoozed!
I looked at their plan and could find no fault with it, oh sure there was minor details like getting water up here but they had talked to some of the others and they had a plan for that as well. It was looking like the whole damn group was involved.
I was kind of ashamed of myself for crapping out while others planned the work. Sandy patted me on the head and said it was ok; building big fires was hard work. (Laugh - laugh) They never let up.
May snuggled me and said, “It’s ok John, it was a really nice fire.” (laugh-laugh) Actually it was a really cool fire, I didn’t know concrete and glass could burn so well, but those many tens of thousands of cars parked in the city with fuel in them were an added bonus!
They had laid out the new house with a decided Spanish influence, open rooms, plenty of windows to let light in and a couple of fire places. There was a large master bedroom and a pair of smaller guest rooms. And of course a large gun room, very large, May was just starting to get into collecting but Sandy really had a big collection. I will say that they were all unusual or real collectors items she had found or bartered for, plus the troops went out of their way to bring them both goodies. I left it to them. It was their baby I was just gonna live in it, the living room was huge by hobbit house standards, the dividing wall between the living room and our bedroom had the bigger fire place which was open into both rooms. They had really worked on this and I was proud of them.
The whole place was going to be made from big blocks of stone quarried from the ridge. The walls looked to be two feet thick. I had to ask just how we were paying for this. Of course they smiled that smile and said “Don’t worry John, you’ll think of something.” (Sigh)
I left that to them and the Moles, I had bigger fish to fry, mainly the asshat in Barstow who seems to be pissed off about something. Dude either don’t have a sense of humor or don’t drink enough!
I could send him a slap in the mouth and challenge him to a shoot-out but ‘they’ would drug me and one of them would shoot the bastard and I’d be snoozing. I know them too well!
I did have boots on the ground out there close to his rats nest, thanks to Charley and his people who seem to be everywhere. Somebody’s brothers first cuz’s aunt’s uncle knew somebody who lived near the area and so Charley sent a radio team out there so we knew he was there and not sneaking up our ass from the East.
They didn’t have eyeballs on the dude but they did know where he lived and it was a big place with a wall and guard.
My first thought was to cobble together an air strike with Ralph and his air wing, but we couldn’t get anything off the ground big enough to do the job. But he wa
s working on some other stuff and I knew from the smile from “them” that it had to do with the chopper and some kind of guns. I really thought I raised them proper but someplace they went wrong. Or maybe I did? Naaa, can’t be that. Whatever, I plan to keep them both grounded where the chopper is concerned. (“Keep thinking that buddy boy”) Get out of my head!
May looked at me all funny and said, “John? Are you ok? Are you having daymares? While awake?” I told them both no way were they gonna lay this shit off on me! They do something, whatever it is, it ain’t me! I hear them in my head when nobody around us hears them. Now they are laughing so I tell them I’m gonna have a talk with Charles mom! They really laugh and say his mom don’t even talk to him about anything so good luck with that. I file that one away.
Back to the asshat, my plan is to wait until he makes a move and then plan a counter but I think I have it lined out so I’m gonna start the first phase of the plan today.
I ask them if they wanna be included in the plan but they say no, they already have a plan. I know better but I have to ask what that might be?
Sandy said, “Well, we decided to kill him.” May said, “Yep, that’s our plan. Simple.” So I left them there and went in search of my troops. Actually I had told them to meet me in the blind canyon we used for a range. When I got there I had about 30 people, both sexes, all had rifles with them which is as it is, always.
I explained what I had in mind and said anybody who wanted to opt out of this phase was free to go. One of the ladies said she had a cake in her earth oven and took off. We sat around for a while talking about what I wanted to do and what the idea was and everybody liked it a lot, coz nobody wants to play Marine (“Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle”) nope we were going to fight the careful war and if my plan worked we just might win and not lose anybody. I like that.
We had the ability to shoot out to five hundred yards here and I had steel targets made out of good steel cut in the shape of a human torso. First thing was to sight in the rifles at 100 yards then get to work. I should add that all the rifles were bolt guns we had picked up as we went. I guess I had a plan like this in mind all along because all of them were whatever the shooter wanted and could handle, nothing smaller then 308 up to a few 300 magnums.
My plan was simple, when we knew the Asshats route we would pick the place for the fight and it was gonna be a long range sniper battle between us and his ground troops.
Our armor would deal with his, but our shooters would be in secure bunkers built to hold up to three people.
I wanted help in case somebody got hit, one shooting and one doing first aid, I had this plan all laid out in my head and I believed it would work. I wanted no more funerals if we could possibly avoid it. The when wasn’t important, the where was critical.
We had 10 shooters on line and the rest acting as spotters, the 100 yards sight in was just a formality because everybody here was a damn good shooter, so the 100 yard stuff was done pretty fast. I wanted them sighted in dead on at 300 yards and to know just what to do to make 500 yard shots.
The first relay started slow firing and the steel was clanging, I saw a couple working on their scope adjustments and when everybody was happy I called out one at a time, the object was to hit the 300 yard steel with the five shots in the bolt gun, but also with speed. The first shooter had five shots off in under ten seconds with one miss, the rest took a bit longer but nobody missed a shot.
The first shooter asked for a reshoot and was hooted loudly while smiling and flipping everybody off. At the buzz of the timer he opened fire and did it in under the 10 seconds with no misses, amid more teasing and some clapping he bowed.
We got everybody thru the three hundred in good order with only two people having trouble, I was willing to believe it might be a scope problem or maybe a tight spot in the stock warped and pressing the barrel a bit, we would work on that.
At the four hundred the firing slowed a bit but the hits were very good, a few misses but that’s to be expected. At the five hundred I told them to slow it down and work at a hit every shot. By now they all knew where their rifle shot and they delivered. Nobody rushed it and other then the same two with the rifle issues it was a clean sweep.
I saw everybody look past me and turned around in time to face two very pissed off ladies, who marched up and started finger poking me in the chest while taking turns talking. The gist of it was, “How can you just go off shooting and not tell us? How can you treat us this way? What did we do to deserve this?” On and on until I felt terrible ,which was their goal.
Finally I just gave up and told them that tomorrow we would do it again just for them. Smiles,
I hate getting played like a cheap piano in a whore house, but that’s my fate so I take it like a man.
After I gave in and gave them what they wanted the others applauded their performance and got bows and curtseys out of the two…
Of course everybody had seen them work me before and everybody loved the show, sometimes I try to be strong and fight back and the audience boos me and if “they” start pushing me around they get cheers and shouts of “ Hit him, kick his ass!!” well you get the picture? I’m abused.
Now why did I say that out loud? I’m being booed. I give up and take a bow myself which gets cheered.
We really don’t have much entertainment so we make fun when we can. Why am I always the bad guy? Now they are each holding an arm and we head home. Life took a twist and a lot of turns but I swear that outside the deaths and the hardship at the beginning it’s turned out damn well.
I asked what was for supper and they had no idea but grabbed their bowls and tossed me mine, so I guess we were going bumming tonight.
First we had rabbit stew with wild greens of some kind and garden veggies.The next fire had thin sliced deer with a garlic sauce and new potatoes and creamed peas, hot bread and fresh butter at the next fire where we sit to eat. Then on to the cake that Beth, the lady shooter took off to save! It was awesome! She told the girls about having to leave early so they told her they were shooting the next day and she was welcome.
Everybody was happy; I was stuffed and as the sun started hiding behind the edge of the canyons rim we thanked everybody for the great meal and headed for the hobbit home and early night to bed, not sleep, just to bed. I’m too full of dinner, that didn’t work.
Morning is my favorite time of the day, the canyon is still kind of warm from the day before, there is a wisp of foggy vapor curling off the water and I head for my stump outside the door, cup of coffee in hand and followed shortly by two quiet, sleepy, snuggle bunnies who drag a blanket with them so my stump (log, flattened ) gets crowded in a nice way, one under each arm. It’s hard to drink my coffee this way but its how our day starts and I love it.
I get a lot of thinking done this time of the day, but soon it will get to be a normal day in the abnormal life we now live. Well our new normal.
Without giving it any thought I got up and ambled over to another of my sitting spots on a rock point that jutted out over the canyon back water, during the heat of the day the little kids played here using it as a diving cliff all of four feet to water about six foot deep.
I liked the spot because you could see down into the water and watch the fish. I stood there just looking at my shadow jutting out over the water and soon I heard “them” coming, still grumping at the early day.
We stood there me in the middle and them on each side just admiring the day. Until I dropped my hands down to their butts and with just a little push off they went!! It was beautiful!!
Well it would have been, but each of them grabbing frantically managed to get a bit of my shirt and we all three went off the rock!
They screamed! Loud! I would have but my nads were trying to climb up into my throat. Then they were sitting on my head on the bottom. I think, which they later denied, they were trying to drown me.
Just as I got loose and stood up that fkn mutt hearing his mommies screaming launched hims
elf right into my chest and back to the bottom I went. And he hates water!
With Walker working his feet to get someplace else I was getting scratched all to hell and gone so I launched away from it all and surfaced twenty feet from shore where they were still trying to make shore and cussing a blue streak! I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Most of the community was now standing on the ledge looking at us, most were holding weapons. I love my extended family.
I saw Joe look at Willy and nod and their wives were launched into the water and it turned into a free for all with people falling in as they lost out in the battle to remain dry. I was still laughing when “They” came for me. Both had stripped to their gym shorts and tank tops and were hell bent on drowning me.
The water war as it came to be called lasted for a half hour with the kids getting in to it which kinda tamed down the action since we are after all responsible adults, (yeah right) I grinned at them and caught them both up since I was standing on the bottom and they were a foot away from touching, a kiss and a big hug got them to laughing and we all realized we were freezing so I walked out with one on each arm. Great way to start the day! Next, Breakfast!
