He began to back-track the raiders. It wasn’t that difficult. No one had ever gone after them before. There were just too many of them and they were too well armed. They left an obvious trail if you looked for it. Craig did.
Wherever they camped, they left a mess behind. From the looks of it they weren’t eating all that well. Craig was more certain than ever that the attack on the Retreat had been a probe. It had been almost a year since the last attack. This was July. There would be no food to harvest while the MAG members were pinned down in the Retreat compound. A raid was in the offing that fall, for sure.
Suddenly Craig felt a chill go down his back. But why scout so early? It was more likely to be an attack soon. There very well could be a determined raid this time, to take over the entire Retreat. Only it wouldn’t be a raid, it would be a conquering force.
The trail led back to where the raiders had taken up residence, at least some effort taken to shake off any pursuers. It took Craig three weeks of careful tracking to find the raider’s compound.
It was much like the Retreat. Probably had been another MAG group retreat that the raiders had taken over. Craig couldn’t leave the horses for very long, but he scouted the compound several times, with the horses and his gear left in what he hoped would be a secure area.
There were women and children in the compound and that fact bothered Craig to no end. Perhaps he’d lost the original track and stumbled upon just another MAG retreat. The fourth scouting trip cleared that thought from his head. They were definitely raiders. He’d seen a party of eight leave on an earlier scouting. They came back to the compound, with much jubilant fanfare. They unloaded one truck of food. The other truck had half a dozen prisoners in it. All women.
The women of the compound made themselves scarce when the group showed up, taking the children with them. What looked like a short auction took place and each of the women was taken away by one of the raiders in the compound.
Craig rolled over on his back and fought back the bile and the tears that tried to flow. There wasn’t anything he could do at the moment. “But soon, very soon…” Craig told himself. He withdrew from the area and went back to his camp, determined to do something. Soon.
Soon was the next day. Riding Clyde, carrying the M14E2 across the saddle horn, Craig made his way back to the raider’s compound.
In his previous scouting trips Craig had spotted half a dozen spots he could use to snipe from. Tying Clyde to a tree out of the way, with a loose knot that he could eventually work free if something happened to Craig, he worked his way silently to one of the spots, carrying the M14E2.
He had a 100-round dual drum magazine in the gun, with two more in a shoulder bag. When he got to the spot he wanted, Craig made a hide for himself where he could go prone and be well hidden. Folding the legs of the bipod down, Craig readied himself.
Craig watched for some time, taking note of where the women and children were. When he was certain there were none in one of the wooden buildings, Craig lined the sights of the rifle up and began to dump round after round of automatic fire into the building. He worked the rifle slightly side to side and up and down to thoroughly saturate the building.
He switched to a fresh drum and began firing semi-auto at the survivors that stumbled out of the building. Though the raiders were still not returning fire or even trying to get organized, Craig emptied the second drum at targets of opportunity and then switched to the third drum. He stood, shouldered the bag with the empty drum magazines, slung the M14E2 over his other shoulder, and took off for Clyde.
He rode as quickly as he could back to his small camp, loaded up the horses and took off their hobbles. Craig left the area with his string of horses, determined to come back and work the compound over again.
Craig gave it a week, scouting out a wider area around the raiders’ compound. He had two opportunities to ambush vehicles leaving or returning to the compound and took advantage of both of them, making sure it was all men in the vehicles both times.
Having heard many of the old prep hands while he was growing up, stating that full auto weapons had no place in a preppers battery, Craig decided that while they were right probably 95% of the time, full auto was a very handy thing to have that other 5% of time, such as laying ambushes, attacking vehicles, and taking on groups of assailants that tended to bunch together.
Plus there was the psychological factor. People tended to keep their heads down when auto weapons fire was aimed at them.
Craig found another place to set up camp and leave the horses when he attacked the compound again. It was much the same as the first attack. Catch a group of male raiders together, in a building or out in the open, and pour the fire into them.
There was no sign of any pursuit this time, just as there hadn’t been any but a token response the first time. And there’d been no sentries roaming about, only guards at the two entrances of the compound.
The third time Craig approached he had to stop and conceal himself. When the man walked past him, Craig put Hicks’ Natchez to good use. It slid silently between the sentry’s ribs, into his heart. The man died never knowing what happened.
Craig took up another sniping position and watched the compound for a while. Apparently the man on sentry duty was late in reporting in. A group of eight men gathered and seemed to be talking the situation over, if Craig was reading their body language correctly, including waving arms and pointed fingers in all directions.
Not one to pass a good chance up, Craig put a long burst from the M14E2 into the group. Every man went down. This time Craig waited for more targets. Instead, what he saw was a group of women, with several children in tow make a run to one of the trucks. When one of the men tried to stop them, Craig cut him down and then shot the gate guard so he couldn’t try to stop the truck. When it was clear, Craig left the area and went back to his camp. He left the area for several days again.
When he came back a month later there were new faces in the compound. The feel of the place was completely different. Sure they had a guard at the gates. The Retreat did the same thing. And women and children were moving about openly, not furtively.
Craig decided to risk contact. He stashed the rest of the horses and went back to the compound, taking the main road in to it. Stopping well back from the gate, Craig called out, “Hello the gate! I’m friendly. I’d like to talk to someone in charge.”
“Just rest easy there, mister,” said the guard that stepped forward out of the woods just enough for Craig to see him. “Keep your hands there on the saddle horn, just like you’re doing. You even twitch toward any of them guns you’re carrying; I put a hole in you the size Detroit used to be.”
“No problem,” Craig replied. He saw someone running up the driveway. “I was by here a month ago and they ran me off at gunpoint.” It was only a bit of a twist on the truth.
“You’re not one of them raiders, coming back, are you?” The man held the shotgun more tightly, letting the muzzle come around a bit more towards Craig.
“Easy there, guy,” Craig said. “I’m not one of them. I just need to know you aren’t either. I’d like to do a little trading. Get a little information. I’m just passing through.”
“We’re not raiders!” The man spit in disgust. “Them that was here took off someplace else. Heard they was run off. Never even saw who it was drove them out, according to some of the women that got away from them just before the rest took off.”
“That’s what I was hoping to hear,” Craig said. “What do you think people here would want to trade for?”
“No more talk, mister,” the man said. “I’ll let Dirk Cameroon do the talking for the retreat.”
Craig nodded. “Not a problem.”
It wasn’t very long and Craig could see three men coming down the driveway into the compound. When they got to the gate the one in the middle asked, “Who are you and what do you want?”
“Just a trader, looking to do a bit of business, and get what information I can
about routes west.”
“Don’t much care for someone that won’t give his name,” came the reply. “I’m Dirk Cameroon. Now state your name or just ride away.”
Craig was a bit tempted to do just that. But the Retreat needed some trading partners and this might be a good place to start.
“Craig Davenport. I’m with a big retreat near Sullivan.”
“Sullivan, huh?” said Dirk, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “I think I heard about them. Big outfit. Been doing really well for themselves. Even do a bit of outright buying, with real gold and silver money.”
Craig nodded. “Yes. Still not many that will take precious metals, but more and more are using it the way cash was used before the war. We’re looking to set up some regular trade routes with other good outfits. We’re particularly looking for salt at the moment.”
“We need salt ourselves. You find any, and we’ll for sure do some trading. What do you have for trade?”
“Not too much with me. I’m mostly scouting for future trades. Have some premium black powder if you have anything you can use it in.”
“We got a couple of guys that hunt for us. They use muzzle loaders. Need powder and caps.”
“Got a few,” Craig said. “Any chance me coming in to do a trade with them?”
It was obvious Dirk was considering it. The men flanking him had not said anything up to this point, but at Craig’s request both leaned toward him and whispered something, one in one ear and the other the other ear.
“Don’t want to be inhospitable, but that’s too big of a risk until we get to know you a bit better. We’ll check with the men and if they are interested, send them down here. You’re welcome to wait.”
“If it is okay, I’ll get off Clyde here, and stretch my legs a bit while I wait.”
“Keep an eye on him,” Dirk told the guard, and then headed back up the driveway.
Craig threw his leg over and stepped down off the saddle, careful to keep the Calico hidden under the duster he now wore in lieu of the Drover’s coat, which was too hot to be wearing yet. But the duster performed the same tasks as the coat, and was much lighter and cooler, and still took the chill off at night. The weather patterns had changed. They were still getting hot summers, but short ones, with short fall and spring seasons, too. Winter was on the land for five months out of the year now.
Craig stepped to the edge of the woods and relieved himself, stretched and passed back and forth a bit while he waited.
“Hey,” said the guard. “My name’s Gary. You got any tobacco to trade?”
“Little. You looking for some?”
“Yeah. Tough habit to break.” He gave a little laugh. “I been holding some good shine, for somebody that has tobacco.”
Craig neither smoked nor drank. But he was a natural born trader. It took a couple of minutes to dicker, but Gary had his small can of tobacco and a booklet of papers, and Craig added the moonshine to his saddle bags. The pint bottle that the whiskey was in went in the saddle bag next to three small bottles of Everclear he’d brought for trading.
The two men stood silently for the rest of the time it took for Dirk to come back with two poorly dressed men. Both were carrying vintage style black powder rifles that looked a lot better than the two men did. Apparently they took the kind of care of the firearms that they demanded to stay in working condition.
“Dirk here says you got black powder,” said one of the men as soon as they came to a stop at the gate. “Any good?”
“Ball mill ground using willow charcoal. Screened out FF, 2F, 3F, and 4F if you have a flintlock. Welcome to try a shot if you want.”
That surprised both men. Craig went to Clyde and opened the saddle bag again. He took out a one pound bag of FF powder. He went to the other side of the horse and opened the saddle bag on that side. He took out a small flat box containing #11 percussion caps, thanks to Hicks.
“One shot on me,” Craig said, handing the first man a cap and opening the powder sack so he could take a bit out to charge his rifle. He capped it after the patched ball was loaded and raised it to his shoulder. Taking aim at a tree some distance off, he fired.
Bark flew off the tree and the man grunted slightly. After checking the barrel for residues the man said, “Okay. It’s good stuff. Burns clean. Not much residue. What are you asking?”
“Roll of silver quarters, if you got it. If not, make an offer,” Craig replied.
The two men stepped back and whispered to one another for a moment. Finally one of them said, “Got a spare .32 flintlock squirrel rifle, now that we have some caps, but it’d take more than a pound of powder and a box of caps to get it.”
“Two pounds of powder and another box of caps, if you’ve got a bullet mold for the .32,” Craig immediately said.
Again the two men talked it over quietly.
When the negative shake of the head began, Craig said, “And I’ll throw in a pint of quality moonshine, small box of tobacco and some rolling papers.” The guard looked a bit taken aback.
“Done!” said one of the men. The other man didn’t look too pleased, but he didn’t object. The first man told the second, “Go get it. Mold and all.”
As the man headed back up the driveway, Craig got out the items he was trading to the men. He held onto them until the man returned with the rifle and accessories. Craig checked out the rifle quickly. The men knew good black powder arms. This was one.
Craig handed over his trade goods to the first man and took the rifle and accessories from the second. “Unless someone has another trade in mind, I guess I’ll be off,” Craig said. He gave Dirk a frequency and added, “You can contact my people on that frequency if you want to set up something permanent, retreat to retreat.”
Craig climbed back up on Clyde, balanced the rifle on the pommel of the saddle and slowly rode off, just a bit tense. There was still the possibility they could shoot him in the back. But it didn’t happen and Craig breathed a sigh of relief when he went around a bend in the road and was out of their direct line of sight.
After making his way back to where the horses were hobbled, Craig got them ready to move and headed back out, still angling southwest, parallel to I-44.
But he didn’t stay on that route for more than a couple of days. He thought about the salt that had been mentioned. The Retreat had laid in a large supply before the war, but there were a lot of uses for it. Their stock, while not critical, was getting to the point where they had to start taking measures to conserve what they had and find a source for more.
If he was remembering one of the history lessons his mother had taught him correctly, salt had once been produced in central Arkansas, near Little Rock. He headed south with that goal in mind.
Traveling slowly, again to allow plenty of time for the horses to graze, Craig stopped occasionally to trade what he could for fresh food. He was getting plenty of game, but craved salads and vegetables. And fruit. He missed the fruits the Retreat produced in quantity.
Those fruits would probably one of the trade items the Retreat used to get the things they needed and wanted, along with Craig’s steady production of quality black powder. Without the raiders to contend with, assuming another group didn’t form, the Retreat should be able to triple their production of just about everything.
Especially the biodiesel. They still had plenty of the chemicals to convert plant oils to biodiesel, but planting and harvesting the oil crops had been severely limited by the risks from raiders. The major oil crops were grown on property some distance from the Retreat.
Even with the usage to make the trips for trading, there should be a significant amount for trading. Though, with the possibility of a refinery coming back on line in Texas, they might have to concentrate on trading the biodiesel to the north.
Craig was somewhat surprised at the positive reaction to the idea of regular trading routes. He came to wonder if it wasn’t as much to have outside human contact, rather than just the radio contact through the network of Ama
teur Radio Operators that became the major source of news for the surviving population of the world.
But every community seemed to have some special resource of one kind or another that other people could use. That was reason enough for the trading to progress as far as Craig was concerned.
Craig found that the Sullivan area wasn’t the only one that still had trouble with raiders long after the war. There were many retreats in the Ozarks of Missouri and Arkansas that had weathered the war and aftermath. Nearly every one of them kept regular armed guards around to protect their compounds, fields, and workers from attacks by raiders. Most of it was small scale and manageable.
But there was a large group of raiders based somewhere south of Harrison, Arkansas. At least according to the reports Craig was hearing. And apparently they were as vicious, or more so, than the group that had been harassing the Retreat for so long.
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