Uncertain Times

by Travis Wright

  “Rick, you need to get down here, now!” Naythan called over the radio.

  “On my way,” Rick replied as he started running.

  “It’s Eric! They shot him in the chest.”

  “Is he OK?” Susan called.

  “He’s lost some blood, but he’s talking.”

  Most of them converged on Eric’s position while being covered by Bill and Mary.

  “I don’t think he’s in immediate danger, from what I can tell. It appears to be his upper right chest, but there’s a lot of blood. The bullet looks like it missed his lungs but the exit wound severely tore through the muscles of his shoulder,” Jim said, examining the boy, who was in shock.

  “I’ll get Eric and Matthew inside so we can treat their wounds,” Rick told him, as he scooped his son into his arms. “Matthew, come with us.”

  “Roger that, we’ll start the cleanup,” Jim said.

  “Oh my god, are you two OK?” Jessie asked with a look of horror on her face. Her dad and brother were covered in blood as they entered the cabin.

  “He’ll be fine,” Rick tried to comfort her. “I need you to get me the medical kit from under the sink.”

  She brought it over to the dining room table where Rick placed Eric.

  “What do you need out of it?”

  “I need gauze, saline and QuickClot. Bring me a couple of towels from the bathroom, too.”

  Susan walked in while Jessie retrieved the towels. “Rick… is he…?”

  “It’s a pretty clean wound, but he needs a doctor and he’ll need antibiotics.”

  “Listen up!” Jim yelled, getting everyone’s attention. “I want teams of two to search the troops. Take the weapons, ammo and anything else we can use. Don’t take any chances if you find any survivors. There will be no quarter given, am I clear?”

  “Don’t you just love this smell?” Terry asked Naythan as they searched the enemy troops.

  “What smell?”

  “Burnt gunpowder, of course.”

  Jim walked toward another group of slain soldiers when an explosion detonated. He saw a cloud of dust burst into the air by the vehicles. He took a knee, pointed his rifle and keyed the mic on his radio, “Report, what happened?”

  “Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”

  —John Adams

  Chapter Twelve

  “A grenade detonated,” Danny said, coughing.

  “Are you OK?” Jim asked him.

  “I’m good. I turned a guy over and a grenade rolled out from under him. The pin had already been pulled and the spoon flew off as it came out of his hand.”

  “Everyone be careful. It might not be the only one.”

  “Jim, we need to get Eric to a doctor,” Rick said over the two-way.

  “Bill, what are our options?” Jim asked.

  “We need to go to the clinic and see if we can get Doc to give us some supplies, or get him to come up here and take care of Eric.”

  “Don’t forget about me,” Matthew reminded them.

  “Alright, you and Terry get the ATVs out, and the three of us can leave once it gets dark.”

  The ride down the mountain took longer than normal since the three men took trails for cover, instead of the gravel road. Running in the dark with night-vision goggles on the narrow trails proved to be more difficult than they had expected.

  They made it to the clinic well before dawn. Bill stopped a short distance from the building and turned off his wheeler.

  “We should walk from here. Lisa’s little ankle biter will be loud enough as soon as we knock. They live right on the other side.”

  “OK, you and Terry know this guy, so I’ll hang back in the shadows,” Jim told him.

  When Bill and Terry made it close to the house next to the clinic, a motion light activated, making them freeze in place momentarily.

  “I’ll go knock on the door,” Bill said.

  Sure enough, the little shih tzu yapped loudly from inside even though Bill didn’t knock loud. In next to no time, he heard footsteps.

  “Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked from the other side of the closed door.

  “It’s Bill Odman, ma’am. We need the doc.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Let me put Jade in the back room.”

  The doctor came to the door, still half asleep. He wore only a white t-shirt and blue boxers with pink hearts on them. His long black hair hung free past his scraggly, graying beard.

  “What’s so damn important you had to wake me?” he asked after opening up.

  “Sir, we have a friend who needs medical attention, but we couldn’t bring him to you.”

  “Why the hell not?” he asked as he put his hair up in a ponytail. “Do you know what time it is, son? Lisa, shut that damn dog up!”

  “Yes sir, I do and I wouldn’t bother you at this hour if it wasn’t urgent.”

  “Well, since I’m up, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s a gunshot, and it’s bad.”

  Doc knew Bill wouldn’t have come if he wasn’t in dire need.

  “Lisa, can you please get my bag and make sure it has meds in it. Don’t tell anyone where I’ve gone. If anything, tell them I’m fishing and you don’t know where. Bill, let me get some clothes on.”

  The four of them climbed aboard the wheelers and disappeared into the darkness. The ride back to the cabin went a little slower with a passenger.

  Finally, right before dawn, they made it to within visual distance of the cabin. They stopped and shut off the machines.

  “What are we doing here?” Doc asked.

  “Just hold on a sec, we have a plan and don’t want to get shot,” Jim told him, then squelched the radio 3 times slowly.

  “There it is,” Bill spoke up.

  “There what is?” Doc asked, staring into the void in front of them.

  “Infrared light flashed at us. Now we can go.”

  The men rode the four-wheelers up to the cabin. Doc, Bill and Jim walked inside while Terry put the ATVs away.

  “What do you think, Doc?” Jim asked once he’d examined Eric.

  “Well, this isn’t pretty, but I think I can fix him up. I need more light, a nurse and might need blood.”

  “We’re both O positive,” Rick said.

  “I’ll let you know if we need any.”

  “I’ll assist you,” Mary offered.

  “OK, young lady. Wash up and let’s get started.”

  Several hours later, Doc and Mary walked wearily down the stairs.

  “The boy’s going to make it,” Doc said. “Now I need a nap.”

  “There’s a spare room, and we’ll take you back once it gets dark tonight,” Bill said.

  Rick, Susan and Jessie walked in to see Eric while the rest went to get some much-needed sleep.

  Later that day, once everyone was awake, the group had a meeting to discuss the situation. The only way they could defend the stronghold against any force bigger than what had recently attacked them was to have more people on their side.

  “This is our country,” Rick said as he stood in front of them. “We need to organize a militia and go kick their asses.”

  “I agree,” Jim said, “This conflict has already come knocking twice, and we can’t continue to sit by and hope it doesn’t come back.”

  “There’s a back way into the cave system farther to the west. With a lot of effort and more people, we can occupy and fortify that end, too. We can keep the cabin separate from the rest and access the other side underground when we need to. We should see if Doc wants to do the recruiting from town,” Bill suggested.

  “We will need to train and organize people. Food, water and supplies will be a priority. We have guns and ammo from what we’ve recovered so far and can continue to scavenge,” Jim added.

  “There’s a well over here and plenty of good water, how will they get it over there?” Rick asked.

  “There’s a stream close to the entrance on the other
side. That will have to do for now,” Bill said.

  “Dad, what about the…”Terry began, but Bill glared at him.

  “What about the what?” Jim asked.

  “We’ll talk later,” Bill whispered.

  “I say we find a convoy to hit,” Matthew said. “That will send a message and we can get people to join us.”

  “I agree,” Jim said, “but how are we going to get intel for the enemy’s supply routes and times?”

  “I have an idea,” Jessie spoke up.

  “I don’t want you getting involved,” Rick insisted. Seeing the spark in her eyes showing him he wouldn’t like the plan.

  “I could go to the local bar and coax some information out of a soldier.”

  “No!”

  “I can help her,” Alexis offered.

  “Absolutely not!” Jim ordered.

  “It might be the best way to learn what we need to know,” Mary reluctantly conceded.

  “Lexi and I can do this and you guys can be our body guards,” Jessie beamed at Rick.

  “I hate to say it, but it might work,” Bill agreed.

  “If you girls are going to do this, we need to devise a plan, a backup plan and a backup for the backup plan,” Jim told them. “We’re not taking any chances.”

  Jim and Rick were reluctant to send their daughters into harm’s way, but they agreed the idea had merit, and they’d be close by so nothing happened.

  October 7th

  The plan should be simple and we’ve gone over it numerous times. Jessie’s ready, but Alexis has been acting more reluctant as the days pass. She knows she doesn’t have to do it, but it looks as if peer pressure might win out. The girls know we’ll be close by and won’t let anything happen to them. They simply need to be themselves, flirt and ask questions. We have two more days to prepare and then go to town and put the plan into action. Here’s hoping everything goes well.

  “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

  —Ronald Reagan

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I can’t take anymore of this. I’m gonna go kill those guys!” Rick insisted.

  “I don’t like this anymore than you do, but we need to wait for the signal before we move in,” Jim reminded him. “Otherwise, we’ll blow the whole thing, possibly put the girls in more danger and this will have been a huge waste of time.”

  “The bastard has his hands all over her!”

  “She knew she would have her hands full. We’ll go get them both soon enough.”

  Alexis yawned minutes later.

  “There’s the sign, now back me up and don’t do anything you’ll regret,” Jim told Rick as they made their way over to retrieve the girls.

  October 10th

  The information Jessie retrieved from the drunken soldier a couple of days ago has panned out. The first convoy she heard about had the desired effect. Even though lives were taken for the cause, most in the group agree it’s justified. A foreign and domestic enemy has a foot hold right here at home. The consensus among the group is the fight will not be over until we can go home and live in peace.

  Another calm, crisp late October morning showed more signs of winter as patches of snow were scattered over the frozen ground. The newly formed militia had staged a car wreck right past a corner in the highway. They hoped the soldiers would stop and not try to run through it. They had people in the wrecked cars posing with injuries, and teams on both sides of the road lying in wait.

  “Here we go people,” Matt radioed, just north of the main force. “Four trucks headed your way.”

  The trucks stopped slightly short of the staged wreck, and the turret gunners of the Humvees started scanning. Simultaneously, using 2 squelches of the radio, Jim and Rick took out the turret gunners and the drivers of the vehicles with their sniper rifles.

  “Now!” Jim yelled over the radio after he and Rick stopped shooting.

  More than a dozen men and women popped up from cover in culverts in the ditches on both sides of the road and from the staged vehicles, surrounding the military trucks.

  “Get out now!” Matthew yelled at the last two U.N. troops who remained alive.

  “Search the trucks carefully,” Jim said as he and Rick approached.

  “What do you want me to do with these two?” Naythan asked.

  “No survivors,” Jim said.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Matthew said as he pulled out his knife and approached the men.

  “There are people here,” someone announced over the radio from the back of a five-ton truck, “Ten, to be exact.”

  “Well, at least we know what they were transporting,” Rick said.

  “This one has guns, ammo and food!” Matt said about the other truck.

  “We don’t have much time left before we need to leave,” Jim barked. “Why are you people in this truck?”

  “We were woken up in the middle of the night,” a man in the rear said. “They put hoods on our heads and put us in this truck. We weren’t told where we were going.”

  “I heard one of them mention a labor camp,” a woman said.

  “OK, everyone out of the truck and help with the supplies,” Jim commanded.

  “What are we doing?” Rick asked.

  “We’ll figure out what to do with them shortly, but for now we have to get going before reinforcements arrive. Take what you can carry, people.”

  They left the trucks and bodies where they lay and carried scores of the supplies back toward the mountains.

  “I can’t go on,” a woman said, dropping to her knees after less than half an hour of walking.

  “OK, time to take a break,” said Matt, who had been on point. “How’s everyone doing?”

  “Well, They really aren’t dressed for this,” Jim said. These two women have slippers on. I want everyone to get under the cover of these trees and huddle together for now.”

  They did what they were told.

  “Base, this is Mongoose,” Jim said over his radio.

  “Go ahead Mongoose,” Bill replied.

  “I need a few four-wheelers and trailers to head our way, over.”

  “Roger that. Uh, where are you?” Bill questioned.

  “We’re three clicks south of Checkpoint Two, Mongoose out.”

  “We need blankets and whatever else you might have for these people to stay warm. I want a 360-perimeter set up around them with two per spot in 25-yard dispersions. All of you stay alert until the rides come,” Rick said.

  A couple hours later the four-wheelers showed up with Danny in the lead.

  “That boy wants to be a part of something so bad he’s going to get himself, or someone else, killed,” Rick said quietly to Jim.

  “He’ll be fine. Danny grew up around here, and his knowledge of the area can come in handy,” Jim told him. “Some of you have had concerns about Matthew, too, but the truth is that kid has a lot of potential, and I’m going to stand by him. He walks into every situation like he knows what’s coming next, and I find that invaluable. Now, let’s get these people to safety.”

  “Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.”

  —Confucius

  Chapter Fourteen

  “What are we going to do with these people?” Bill asked Jim after they returned to the cabin.

  “For now, we can get them warm and fed. Once we establish who they are and why they were in the trucks, we can see who wants to stay and fight alongside us.”

  “We need to revisit the idea of the other side of the mountain for a base.”

  “You didn’t end up telling me what you and Terry were talking about a couple weeks ago.”

  “There’s a tunnel spu
r that may lead to a water source. I heard stories about it years ago when my grandfather was still with us, but I’ve never seen it. Some passages have collapsed and others don’t look safe enough to enter.”

  “Let’s tend to these people and we’ll address that later.”

  But the refugees had questions.

  “Are you taking me back to my family?”

  “Can you check on my daughter? She was still at home when they took me.”

  For some unknown reason, parents had been taken away from their kids.

  “We’re not the military, we’re just a group of people fighting for our freedom, as we all should be. Now, we need to know why you were taken,” Jim said. “One by one, please tell us your full name, history, family size and occupation.”

  As they asked around the room, a few military veterans spoke up and a couple asked to join the fight. Men and women with prior service experience would help out immensely. They had a machinist, a doctor, and other professionals, as well. Bill was also a machinist and started talking to the new man.

  Rick pulled Jim aside. “There’s a reason these people were chosen and taken. It’s not because they’re criminals and pose a threat.”

  “If they were resisting or causing problems, it would make sense, but something doesn’t add up,” Jim agreed.

  “For now, you can stay in one of the sheds until we can make the necessary modifications inside,” Bill announced. “The buildings were built into the mountain, so they are insulated fairly well. We can round up some heaters to warm it up even more in there.”

  “With your help, things will move faster,” Jim added.

  “When can I go home?” A woman asked.

  “As soon as we can, we will take you and whoever else wants to leave to town so you can try and get home.”

  “Will the mine be safe enough for us to live in?” A man asked.

  “Why can’t we just stay here?” Another said.

  “You will be safe,” Bill told them. “We will reinforce the walls and ceiling for your protection.”

  “We still don’t know the reason they were rounded up,” Matt pointed out.

  “We’ll get to it,” Jim said. “Right now I’d like to know what that guy’s doing over there.”