Cowboy

by Jerry D. Young

  Jenny didn’t get everything she wanted on that first trip, but as things accumulated after more trips and trading others for them to look for specific things for her; she was finally able to equip herself with everything needed to do work of the tradesmen of old.

  For safety reasons, Jenny did all the black powder production well outside the retreat inner compound. When she’d found the small ball mills at a scientific laboratory supply business she took all of them, knowing there was a high likelihood of losing one or more in accidents.

  She traded out the work she couldn’t do to convert the ball mills to twelve volt, with a deep cycle battery and solar panel on a tall pole to drive it. The work also included a remote on off switch so she never had to be close to the mill when it was operating. But that was a couple of years in the process to get it ready and test it out.

  Though she found plenty of the chemicals she needed to get started, as trade was set up in the area, she began trading for the potassium nitrate and sulfur. The charcoal she made herself. She made willow charcoal for the black powder, and used other woods for charcoal meant for open fire use.

  One of the first things she started doing was cutting hair. Primarily men’s hair. There were a couple of experienced hairdressers in residence but Jenny was the one with the specialized barbering equipment. She charged a small fee for the others to use the equipment to work on the women’s hair.

  Making soap and candles were the next two trades she was able to master, again with knowledge she gained from the retreat library. Like the black powder, the initial batches of ingredients she obtained on the salvaging runs. Later on she traded finished goods for raw materials. Going so far as to get several dozen wax myrtle saplings and transplanting them on the property.

  Learning to make basic paper took almost as long as making the black powder safely, but she managed to make a useable form of paper. It wasn’t too popular until a few years after the attack, when it became about the only game in town.

  When she learned to make a paper thin enough and still absorbent enough, to use for toilet paper, her fortune was made. Despite being in individual sheets, it went like hotcakes.

  In the interim Jenny traded sharpening of knives and other edged tools for small needs. Quite a few of the men had some sharpening tools and skills, but they were often busy doing the myriad of jobs required in the post-apocalyptic world, so Jenny had plenty of sharpening to do starting about a year after the attack, as knives began to dull to a dangerous point. The axes and saws so needed for firewood cutting needed constant attention.

  But Jenny didn’t rest on her laurels. She continued to go on the occasional salvage expedition, preferring to find things on her own than trade for them whenever she could. On the last trip she made, she made a tactical mistake and it nearly cost her her life. It convinced her to leave the adventures to the younger set.

  She was after material so she could have some new clothes made for her and the children and she went into a fabric shop in a strip mall that the team had been to several times already. Jenny wasn’t expecting anything. The attack came without warning. The estimates varied between twelve and twenty attackers. There were only six in the salvage team, with Jenny the only woman.

  She heard the firing start outside and went to the door to add her M1 Carbine to the return fire. Jenny found a target, and fired twice, but she was tackled from behind and dragged back into the shop, the M1 Carbine falling from her hands.

  The man had his left arm around Jenny’s neck and she was trying to get free with her left hand, pulling on the arm nearly strangling her. When she tried to draw the Glock with her free hand the man was able to knock it free.

  Jenny stumbled and went down hard on her back. Close to passing out from the choke hold she’d been in, Jenny tried to scream, but the man had his left hand on her mouth. He was sitting astride her waist, and as he kept her from screaming, the other hand went to the buttons of her shirt.

  Barely able to think, she almost didn’t remember the PPK in its ankle holster. With the last of her strength, Jenny brought her knees up to man’s back as hard as she could, hoping to knock him over her head, but she just wasn’t strong enough. The man just pressed on her mouth and nose, completely cutting off her supply.

  But the movement had brought her right ankle up within reach of her right hand. She fumbled the PPK out. The man was too intent on his actions to realize what Jenny had done. He only found out when Jenny pressed the barrel of the PPK against his side and emptied the magazine into him as quickly as she could pull the trigger.

  He fell off her and Jenny scrambled away, grabbing the Glock where it lay on the floor of the shop and turned the gun on him. The man was as good as dead, with seven .380 ACP slugs having ripped his insides to a bloody mass, but Jenny, without a second thought put a .45 slug into his forehead just to make sure.

  Taking only a moment to refasten her shirt, she hurried back to the door of the shop and picked up the M1 Carbine. She helped turn the tide of the battle with her furious attack, and the team managed to kill eight of the attackers, including the man in the fabric shop. The rest finally broke off and disappeared, several of them injured, from the blood trail they left.

  The team didn’t follow them. With four standing alert guard, two gathered up their needs and they headed back to the Retreat. Jenny had her fabric, and she left it at that. She would trade with others for what she needed, just as others had traded with her.

  And so the years passed. Jenny aged slowly, and contemplated marriage several times. She was considered quite a catch with her many successful businesses. But she declined them all, determined to leave to her children everything she had to help make their life easier.

  Julie grew up, too, finally, but was killed during one of the raider attacks that became commonplace some fifteen years into the recovery that was very slowly taking place, not long after Jenny passed away from a new strain of flu that was too virulent for the level of medical technology that remained. There were many herbalists practicing, and they prevented much suffering, but in the case of the new flu, only a natural resistance seemed to be the way to avoid dying.

  Craig had started helping his mother as soon as he was old enough. She even, reluctantly, let him begin helping with the black powder production when he was fifteen. He was a studious and cautious young man, well liked at the retreat. He did more than his fair share from the very beginning. That didn’t stop when he reached manhood.

  He’d been wounded three times driving off attacks on the retreat over the years, including the wound he’d received in the attack in which Julie had died. Craig became even more of a reclusive loaner than he’d been before his mother’s and sister’s deaths.

  Other than the barbering and tool sharpening his mother had done, Craig kept up all the other production businesses going, doing most of the black powder production himself. He did hire a man he thought had the patience and was reliable enough to make the black powder. Craig hired him and started his training. He was able to hire employees for the other work.

  Due to his relative wealth and capability in handling PAW situations, he was considered the most eligible bachelor in the area and had young women, and some not so young, interested in him as a husband. He let their approaches slide off him like water off a duck’s back, except for one. And that was primarily because she wasn’t chasing after him.

  Sally Chambers, Harvey’s daughter, was a couple of years younger than Craig, but had yet to declare any romantic intentions that anyone knew about. She and Craig had become good friends over the years that Sally had been Julie’s best friend. She worked for him but showed no more interest in him than in any of the men that actively courted her.

  Harvey’s oldest son had inherited the responsibility of the retreat when his father retired from the active, day-to-day running of the place. Quentin was much like his father. Thoughtful, slow to anger, fair, and understanding.

  When Craig went to him to explain his plan, Quentin lis
tened quietly and then tried to dissuade Craig.

  “Craig, you are a major asset to the retreat. You’ve done well for yourself, since your mother passed on. You’ve continued her dreams and are making them come to fruition. So much so that, now, you don’t have to keep working physically. Your businesses are supplying your needs and then some. I know that the loss of Julie has hit you hard, but leaving the retreat, to just go adventuring? That I don’t understand.”

  Craig wasn’t there to argue. Just to inform. “They were my Mother’s businesses. Meant for Julie and me. I’m not going to give them up, but I intend to make my own way in the world, not live off my Mother’s foresight.

  “Mathew and Mitch Armstrong are good young men,” he said. “They are more than capable of picking up the slack in the defenses when I leave. And I don’t plan to be gone forever. Just a year or two, to see how things are done in other parts of the country. Maybe set up some trade deals for some of the people here in the retreat and around it.”

  Quentin sighed and nodded. “I agree with you about Mathew and Mitch. I had hoped that they would give us that edge, with you still here, to go out and maybe prevent some of the attacks before they happen.”

  Craig stayed silent. After several moments Quentin continued. “No one thinks any less of you for continuing your Mother’s businesses as your own. And the opening of more distant trade routes is something the group has been discussing, as you well know. You’ve sponsored the idea a couple of times. But it doesn’t have to be now. It’s too dangerous for the traveling parties.”

  “I might be able to do something about that, and the local attacks,” Craig said softly.

  Quentin’s eyes widened. “You’re on a vendetta! Because of your sister! Man! You can’t go after those gangs single handedly. You don’t have any idea which person in which gang killed your sister!”

  “Not a vendetta,” Craig said slowly. “And I’m not out hunting anyone in particular. But if I happen to run into someone I know is a raider… Well, I’ll take appropriate action.”

  “I’m not going to be able to talk you out of this, am I?” Quentin asked.

  Craig shook his head and stood. “I just thought it proper to tell you, in person, ahead of time, what my plans are, since I do know they might affect the retreat.”

  “In that case, good luck, Craig.” Quentin held out his hand and Craig shook it.

  A day later Craig had a long talk with Sally. About business. “Sally, I need a business manager and I’d like you to take on the responsibility. I’ll be leaving in a few days. For a good while.”

  Sally looked at him calmly for a few moments and then nodded.

  “I’d like you to keep your regular job with me and take on this new one in addition. I’ll double your salary and give you a percentage of everything.”

  Again Sally nodded and Craig began to feel a bit uneasy. “And… well… you know how it is outside the retreat. If I don’t come back, or you don’t hear from me, in… five years, everything is yours.”

  “Sounds like too good of a deal to pass up,” Sally said quietly. “Considering the dangers there are in the world outside. What’s in it for you?”

  Sally was very perceptive, Craig realized. More so than he had given her credit for. “I just want my mother’s foresight to continue to help people, the way she wanted. And I get to get away from my responsibilities here. I’m not a businessman. I like to do things.”

  “That’s all?” Sally said. Craig barely heard her.

  He had to clear his throat before he could respond. “And I’d like to have something to come back to, if I make it.”

  “Something… and someone?”

  “Yes.” Craig’s voice was as soft as hers.

  Someone knocked on the door of Craig’s trailer and the mood was broken. It was someone wanting to buy candles and there’d been no one at the little shop that housed most of Craig’s businesses.

  Neither said a word about the conversation in the trailer during the next few days as Craig got ready. With the limited amounts of fuel available, except right around someone producing biodiesel, transportation had reverted primarily to horses for trips of any distance. There was just no way of being sure you could get fuel away from your home base. It was the same at the retreat. They made plenty of biodiesel for internal use, with a bit set aside for trades important to the MAG.

  Three of the MAG member families had horses at the retreat when the war started, and two more brought theirs with them when the alert was sounded. With those, plus all that could be rounded up from dead owner’s places, horses became available for sale or trade. As more and more people bred them, the price came down.

  Julie had loved horses and got one of the early ones available. Jenny had paid dearly for it, but at thirteen, it was the whole world to Julie. Julie had bred the mare when she could and had been able to develop a small herd of her own. Craig had farmed out the care, feeding, and breeding the horses after Julie’s death to one of the other horse owners for one of colts. The horses were available to Craig whenever he needed them, but didn’t have the responsibility of caring for them on a daily basis.

  Since they were such a valuable commodity, Craig kept them close to home, primarily as a breeding herd, trading off the occasional stallion to someone wanting fresh breeding blood. The rest of the males were gelded and traded. Part of the deal with Elmer, the one taking care of the horses for Craig, was to provide stud service to Craig’s mares to keep the herds genetically diverse

  Other than the original horse owners, Craig had the largest herd of horses, and had the most productive breeding program of anyone in the area. So when he was ready to leave on his trip he had two saddle horses that would take packs, and four pack animals, two of which were also broken to ride. All were geldings. Craig wouldn’t take any of the brood mares from the breeding program.

  He loaded the pack horses lightly, so he could travel at a fast pace, without wearing them out. And being the big, tall, strapping man he was, he had the second riding horse with its own set of tack, to switch off to so he didn’t wear one down riding it constantly.

  Elmer was an excellent horseman and trainer, so the horses were some of the best trained one could ask for. Astride his favorite saddle horse, Clyde, a beautiful Barb gelding, the other horses strung out behind him, Craig left at dawn on a cool May day, with a nod to the guards at the gate to the compound.

  If he had looked back he would have seen Sally watching from the porch of her father’s home. But he didn’t. His eye was on the immediate future. He had traveled the area on salvage jaunts after he became old enough, and had learned part of it the hard way, chasing down retreating gangs that had attacked the retreat. So he knew the best paths to get out of the immediate area without getting spotted.

  The first few days he circled around quite a bit, to check his back trail for followers. Not too many people knew of his journey, but it would only take one to slip and let it be known that he was going, with a fortune in horseflesh, not to mention personal goods.

  He kept his weapons handy at all times, with at least a pistol on him, no matter what. Since they could be reloaded easily with black powder, since that was the initial loading for both the .45-70 and .45 Colt, he had one each of them, and a pocket reloader for each, and plenty of primers. They were a Marlin 1895 Cowboy .45-70, and a Ruger New Model Blackhawk in .45 Colt. They and their accoutrements were carried on the pack horses.

  For immediate reaction he carried a Glock 21 .45 ACP, on his belt, with one of his Mother’s PPK .380’s in the same ankle holster she had worn. There was also a cut down Stoeger 12 gauge coach gun, referred to as a Whippet, in a handmade holster on the opposite side from the Glock.

  His main fire power was a scruffy M1A taken as the spoils of war from a dead raider that had been too slow to fire on Craig. He only had eleven magazines for it, but had plenty of extra ammunition in stripper clips and a handful stripper clip guides so he could load the rifle while in use, or load ma
gazines at his leisure. The M1A was carried in a saddle scabbard on whichever riding horse he was on.

  Much as Jenny had gone more than out of her way to get Julie her first horse, she had made a significant trade to get Craig something warm to wear when he was on night guard duty. He preferred the night duty, and stood it often. Jenny had found someone with an oilskin Drover’s coat with lamb’s wool lining and a hood. It was much too big for Craig when she got it, but he soon grew into it. Just as he did the Orvis Rogue River wide brimmed hat the man threw in with the coat. He’d been a Cowboy Action Shooter and needed things for his family more than he needed the western style accoutrements.

  For hunting small game he had traded for a Savage 24 over and under combo gun in 20 gauge and .22 Hornet. It rode in the second scabbard each horse carried. It would take rabbits and squirrels and sitting birds, as well as birds on the wing.