by AJ Newman
“Rick! Rick!” There wasn’t any answer, so she turned to yell when she saw Rick standing beside her, looking at the shiny yellow dust on his wife’s hand. Rick took her hand and stirred the dust with his finger. He wasn’t satisfied, so he reached down into the stream and scooped up two handfuls of the dirt and sand from the bottom of the stream. He slowly washed the dirt away by swirling his hands in the water to reveal more of the shiny yellow metal. He even saw several small nuggets.
They had been silent until Jackie picked up one of the small nuggets and rolled it between her fingers. “Gold! It’s Gold!”
Rick tried to stay calm. “Let’s take our mess kits from our backpacks and see if we can find more.”
They feverishly ripped their mess kits apart and took the shallow dinner plates to pan for gold. After several hours they’d found a half-full coffee cup of the gold flakes and small nuggets. Rick was ready to pan for gold the rest of the day when Jackie noticed the sun was lower in the sky. “Rick, we’ve left Granny B alone for hours. She’ll skin us alive. Let’s go!”
“Darn, you’re right. Grab some brush and wipe away all traces that we’ve been here while I mark the area so only we can find it again.”
While walking back to the cabin, Jackie said, “Gold is worthless now, but someday that stream could mean a fortune to us.”
***
“I tell ya, I smell bacon a cooking.”
“Pop, we have to get to the corral and get those cattle down the hills to the city, or those freaking Mexicans will kill us,” the young boy said.
Grant Hogan was a grizzled old man who’d lived in the shady region of humanity before the lights went out. He’d recently run a group of teenaged car thieves and a chop shop. Even if the boys were arrested, Hogan’s lawyer would get them off with light or no sentences. He’d also started teenage car theft rings in California and Washington State. If a member was arrested in Oregon, Hogan would move the boy to another state with a new ID.
Hogan was in his mid-sixties, fat, and had stringy gray hair that he kept in a long ponytail. He’d always been too lazy to work, so criminal life suited him well.
“Y’all be quiet and follow me up the hillside. Those Mexicans don’t have a clue where we get the cattle. There’s a camp up there and someone’s frying bacon. I’ma gitting me summa dat bacon.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hogan peered through the brush and saw the old lady cooking outside the old log cabin. He whispered. “Hot damn! There be two cabins up here, and dis one comes with a cook.”
***
Granny B had set up her display of plants on the dinner table and short wall between the main cabin and the outdoor cabin. She’d changed her mind several times about teaching the class but settled on a method that was sure to get their attention. She’d feed them a delicious meal and then explain how she’d made it with ingredients found on the hillside by the cabin.
She busied herself by boiling the yellow pond lily roots before peeling them. She added them to a nice rabbit stew and placed the pot just far enough from the fire to keep it warm but not boil. While the lily roots were cooking, Granny B made a green salad from sheep sorrel, mustard, and watercress. The hot bacon dressing was made with twelve strips of bacon, one and a half cups of sugar, three teaspoons of starch that she’d made from biscuitroot, and a quarter cup of water. Granny B didn’t have any vinegar, but the dressing was pretty good without the bitter vinegar.
Roasted parsnips were the only side dish due to the lack of time to prepare much more. Granny B was upset that Jackie hadn’t come back as planned. She hoped Jackie had found a great source of food and would be forgiven. She looked around the cooking area and spent a few minutes to make sure she didn’t mix any poisonous foods with the edibles. Granny B thought, This will be one hell of a good lecture on edible and non-edible plants. She never heard the Hogans slipping up on her.
***
Grant Hogan said, “Zeke, go take a look on the left side of the cabin. Carl, take the right side. This is too easy with only an old defenseless woman to get rid of to take this cabin.”
They were only gone a few minutes when they reappeared. “No one else is here.”
“Let’s go see what’s for dinner.”
*
Chapter 15
Granny B’s land – Granny B’s cabin in the hills below the cave.
Granny B heard them a bit too late to hide, so she played it cool. She turned toward them with her hand on the butt of her .45 Colt, which was hidden under her shirttail. There were six of them. An older man, three young men, two young women, and a teenaged girl stood before her. All of them had guns pointed at her.
Granny B moved her hand slowly back in front of her. “I know my cookin’ is world-famous, but no one ever tried to steal it from me. Y’all put yer shootin’ irons away and join me for supper. My husband and grand kiddos should be joining us in an hour or so. Come on! Don’t just stand there gawking. Y’all have a seat, and I’ll finish cookin’.”
Grant Hogan sniffed the air, and his mouth watered. “I guess we’ll join you. Come on over and sit a spell. Move it.”
Grant grabbed a spoon and sneaked a quick taste of the rabbit vegetable soup. “Damn, that’s so good it’ll make your tongue smack your brains.”
Granny B whacked his hand with the end of a long wooden spoon. “Now, just ya wait a minute or two until the mexican cornbread is ready.”
“You’re a feisty old broad.”
“I might be feisty. Some folks say I’m a nasty bitch. But call me old again, and I’ll tan your hide just like a whimpering schoolboy.”
Grant looked stunned. “I believe you would.”
Grant’s family swarmed over the table as Granny B finished preparing her twigs, leaves, and foraged food items. She placed several bowls of salad on the table and drizzled the hot bacon dressing on the greens. She gave a bowl and fork to each and poured them a glass of sweet tea to wash it down.
“Now, y’all eat up. I’m finishing my vegetable stew and cornbread, and they should be ready by the time you finish your salad. Don’t worry about my family because as you can see, I have plenty of food left,” Granny B chuckled.
Grant’s grandson took a small bite. “This is damned good. We need to slaughter one of those cows we stole and have this old bitch grill some steaks to go with this salad.”
Granny B retorted. “Oh! No! You won’t want a steak after you eat my stew.”
She brought a bowl of hot steaming rabbit vegetable stew to each of the family and added a piece of cornbread for each one of them. She sat on the top of the short wall with her .45 Colt in her hand behind her. She’d placed herself so she could drop behind the wall for cover when the shooting started.
“This is the best meal I’ve had since the damned commies nuked us. We might have to keep you on to cook for us.”
They ate like pigs at a slop trough. Granny B was surprised they even got a taste of her cooking. That kind of pleased her because several of the ingredients were a bit bitter. Grant belched, and he said, “That’s not bad manners. It’s just darned good food.”
Granny could now hear Grant’s stomach growling. Grant belched, farted, and then his eyes flew wide open. Granny could hear their stomachs churning from ten feet away. One of the young men jumped up and ran toward the outhouse. The light finally came on in Grant’s brain, and he raised his pistol. “Ya done poisoned us.”
Granny B dropped behind the wall a split second before the wild shot hit the cabin twenty feet away. The man dropped his gun as he tried to run to the outhouse ahead of the others. Grant Hogan ran a few steps, crashed into his son, and started cussing. “I shit myself. I haven’t shit …”
Grant Hogan felt a severe pain deep in his bowels as he watched his whole family struggling to drop their drawers. Granny B couldn’t help but chuckle as she watched them all drop their guns so they wouldn’t crap their britches. Her laughter enraged Grant, who tried to reach his rifle. Granny B aimed, fired, and hit the ma
n just below his nose, and the back of the man’s head exploded all over his family. One of his sons dropped dead along with Grant. Granny B’s shot killed two asshats with one bullet.
The others rolled in their feces, clutching their bellies, begging for help. Granny B asked one question. “If you want relief, answer this one tiny little question. Have you killed anyone while rustling their cattle? Be honest. I can tell if you’re lying."
The teenaged girl shouted. “I didn’t kill anyone! They killed several ranchers and planned to kill the cattle rustlers at the other cabin when we found them! I didn’t kill anyone. Please stop this pain in my belly!”
The girl started vomiting as Granny raised her pistol. Granny B didn’t second-guess what must be done and calmly shot the girl. “That stopped your pain.”
Next, she turned to the young man who’d called her a bitch. “The next bullet is for you because you’re a waste of air. Oh, people don’t call me Granny Bitch. It’s Granny B to you. Bye bye, and I hope you go straight to Hell.”
Her Colt barked, and the young man’s body jumped backward as the fat slow bullet tore through his flesh. She shot every one of the scumbags. The only thing that pissed Granny B off was that she’d have to make Rick and Tom clean up the crappy mess. Granny B thought about that and laughed aloud just as Rick and Jackie burst through the brush with guns ready.
Jackie yelled, “What happened? Darn, what’s that smell? Oh! Crap!”
Rick stared at the half-naked bodies strewn around the cabin’s front yard and said, “I’m never eating your foraged food again if that’s what killed them. A truckload of Imodium couldn’t have plugged those bastards up. Were they the rustlers?”
“Yep, I bamboozled them, but I must admit, they had a taste for good cookin’. Perhaps in retrospect, they shoulda’ spent more time learning to identify wild poisonous plants instead of spending time stealing. They literally crapped away their lives,” Granny B chuckled at the joke she’d made.
Jackie pointed at the man sitting on the throne in the outhouse covered in crap and a bloody wound over his heart. “I shit you not, this is a crappy situation. Darn, the flies are getting thick around here. Rick, let’s rope a leg and pull them away from the cabin until Tom and Kate get here. Granny B, is there any way to divert some of the cave streams to wash the ground?”
“As a matter of fact, there’s a pump inside the cave just past the entrance from the cabin. I placed several fifty-foot hoses beside the pump. Rick, the good news for you is it’s a hand pump.”
Jackie’s eyes flew wide open, and she glared at her grandmother. “So, I have to wash the crap from the bodies and front yard?”
Granny B batted her eyelashes at her granddaughter. “Pretty please? After all, I had to do the hard work. Killing those jerks will cause me to lose about a minute’s sleep. Granny B – Have gun, will travel! Jackie – Have hose. will wash!”
“Granny B, if you weren’t four times my age, I’d…”
“You’d crap and fall back in it before you could get the best of me. Hey, watch the old jokes. I’m a young sixty-four years old and can outshoot and outsmart any young whippersnapper. Just look around you. Now get to work while I get rid of my special salad and stew. Isn’t it amazing that a little nightshade, pokeweed, and buttercup salad and stew can do for a body? Saved my ass today. Everyone should know their edible and non-edible plants. Also, proper cooking makes pokeweed and buttercup pretty good to eat. Nightshade is never edible.
***
Tom heard the gunfire in the distance and gave his horse a kick. “That sounds like it came from the direction of Granny B’s cabin. Let’s pick up the pace, but I don’t want to run blindly into an ambush.”
Kate spurred her horse on and stayed a few yards behind Tom in their controlled rush down the valley. Tom pulled up and tied his reins to a tree. “We’ll walk on in from here. Check your weapons and take your safety off. Be ready to walk into a gunfight.”
Tom led the way as they snuck through to tall grass and scrub brush. They were only fifty yards from the cabin when they heard a blood-curdling scream. “That was Jackie. I have to save her. Let’s move on in and be ready to fight.”
They came to the clearing and were shocked to see Jackie washing something with a water hose while Granny B supervised. Kate gulped. “I think those are dead people.”
A gust of wind blew past Jackie to them. “Whew! What’s that smell?”
“Smells like someone crapped their pants. Hey, Jackie! We’re coming in!”
Jackie turned and squirted them with a stream of water. “Stay back. This stuff is sickening.”
Tom saw the bodies. “Why are their pants down around their ankles? Did you shoot them?”
Jackie laughed. “No! Granny B poisoned them and then shot them at her leisure. These bags of crap are the rustlers. They loved Granny B’s salad and stew until it upset their poor tummies.”
Granny B brandished her pistol and acted like she was blowing smoke from the barrel. Then she pointed to Jackie. “Granny B – Have gun, will travel! Jackie – Have hose, will wash crap!”
Jackie knew better than to complain. Tom just stood there and shook his head. “Now, we have to bury the bodies before the vultures start hoovering over us. That would draw a lot of unwanted attention.”
Granny B said, “You can dig or pull them into the cave and drop them into one of the pits. There’s one on down about fifty feet from the cabin’s door into the cave. That would beat digging, but I’d let Jackie keep washing them if you know what I mean.”
Rick and Tom put gloves on and carried the first body into the cabin and then into the cave. They pitched the body into the pit but never heard it hit bottom. Rick asked, “Are we just setting up a rat infestation problem?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. I don’t want to dig six graves in this hard-assed rocky soil. We’ll find some rat poison and pitch it down into the pit.”
Rick high-fived Tom, and they didn’t stop until all six of the rustlers had been disposed of that evening. They came out of the cabin and washed up before joining the women at the table. Tom saw three ARs, an AK47, and an assortment of wheel pistols and semi-autos. “Let’s distribute the 9-mm Glocks and Berettas but place that .357 Magnum and the two .38s in the arsenal.”
Granny B wasn’t upset that no one wanted to eat her foraged plants or rabbit vegetable stew. She did make them sit through a class on poisonous and edible plants. She even told them how to make more potent poisons from the already toxic plant life.
After supper, Tom filled the others in on their trip back to the ranch. “Jack and Bill were a bit surprised when our cattle came wandering back to the ranch. Jack is getting Bill and James to help put up a fence in our northern pasture to keep them out of sight. We’ll need to make a scavenging trip to get more fencing for the project. They were impressed that the first group of rustlers killed themselves. They’ll laugh their asses off when we tell them Granny B’s supper story.”
Granny B laughed. “The best thing you youngsters can learn from today’s events is that you make the best of every situation, and anything can become a weapon.”
Tom scratched his jaw. “I just remembered the Hogans left us a bunch of equipment and a couple of radios in the other cabin, trailer, and barn. There are two ATVs, some camping equipment, and several cases of liquor. They had quite the setup over there. Apparently, they’ve been raiding as well as rustling in the area. I’m not familiar with Ham radios or radios at all. Granny do you know anything about Ham radios?”
*
Chapter 16
Granny B’s land – The cabin in the valley.
Early the next morning, Tom led the effort to sort through the rustlers’ supplies and equipment while Granny B completed her list of supplies needed to stock the cave. Tom and his grandmother compared notes after lunch, and they hauled most of the Hogans’ supplies over to the cave to store for later use. They found more weapons and ammunition of all types. Tom and Rick placed most
of them in plastic bags and put them in the supply chamber at the cave's front.
Tom and Rick went to the mouth of the cave to join Granny B and the others. His grandmother had one of the Ham radios sitting on a rock. The girls had an antenna tied to a tree limb about fifty feet up above the cave’s entrance. The ladies took turns cranking the portable generator. There wasn’t any sound, not even static. Tom examined the apparatus and found two batteries hidden under the cover of the generator’s dynamo. They were very similar to ones found on a motorcycle or lawn tractor. “Granny, I think we need new batteries. The generator only charges the batteries, which supply constant voltage to the radio. I’ll fetch the batteries from those ATVs the rustlers left for us and see if they’ll work.”
A short while later, Tom had changed the batteries, and Rick and he took turns cranking the generator. Tom saw a light begin blinking on the generator’s control panel, which indicated the batteries were charged. He flipped a switch sending electricity to the radio. Nothing! Granny B frowned and then turned a knob, and they heard static. She turned the tuner knob, and they heard voices faintly in the background. She kept turning the knob, and a voice came across but had a lot of static.
“… taken over Seattle, Portland, and Eugene. They aren’t safe. Pistol Pete, any news from the south?”
“Yes, I saw a Navy ship off the coast this morning. It sailed through the channel and into the bay. A helicopter flew over for a while and then went back to the ship.”
