TEOTWAWKI: Beacon's Story

by David Craig

  Beacon knew Gail wouldn't leave him to fight alone, but he hoped to get her to the fort anyway. "Gail, take the horses to the fort as quick as you can and tell Old Bill I need "Mac" he'll know what you mean. Then bring it to me as fast as you can."

  She started to protest but he shouted over his shoulder as he rode towards the sound of the guns, "Please hurry, I'm depending on you!"

  She hurried.

  People were running into the fort as she trotted into view with the two pack horses. They held the gate open for her. "Don't seal it up yet," she yelled at them, "I'll be going back out in a minute!"

  Old Bill was just coming out of the trailer with a brace of long barreled six guns on his hips and a lever action rifle in his each hand.

  "Beacon says he needs Mac!" she shouted to him," then asked some men to take charge of the two pack horses.

  Old Bill hobbled back into Fort Apache coming back out with "Mac." It was just an old green messenger bag, but very heavy.

  Handing her a heavy OD duck bag he said, "Only the top three magazines are loaded. You'll need to load the rest for him."

  Without asking him what "Mac" was she slung the bag over her shoulder next to her rifle and shouting at the young man at the gate to open it she dug her heels into her horse's flank. She was gone before the gates were fully open.

  Back at the tree line Beacon had his hands full. It was the Blue Heads again, he was sure of it; they all wore dark blue bandannas around their heads. They had cornered Buck in a tangle of dead trees at the edge of the meadow and were trying to outflank him when Beacon arrived.

  Using the Sergeant York method again he shot three of them in the back before they realized it was they who were being outflanked. He got two more as they retreated. But there seemed to be an endless stream of them and they kept coming. This time most of them had guns.

  Shouting Buck's name as he charged into the thicket so he wouldn't get shot he discovered Buck was wounded in the leg and unable to even stand.

  Moving back and forth behind a fallen log between two trees Beacon set up a withering barrage of fire. Beacon broke up two charges while Buck lay behind the other end of the log pumping rounds into a bush at the edge of the meadow that seemed to be drawing an inordinate number of attackers to it. Once the Blue Heads established a fire base behind that bush Beacon and Buck's position would be untenable.

  Then Gail arrived with the horses riding at a gallop. As she slowed to enter the thicket one of the blue headed horde tried to run in and grab her but she put the reins in her mouth and pulling one of her little .38's shot him dead without slowing.

  "Only the top three mags are loaded", she shouted as she jumped from her horse she handed Beacon the Mac bag and unslung her rifle.

  Now with resources Beacon had a plan. "Put him up on a horse and take him back to the fort, I'll cover you with this and follow on the other horse."

  She laughed, "Yeah, like I can pick him up." Then she saw what he'd pulled from the bag. "What is that thing?"

  "It's a forty-five caliber Ingram MAC-10" he said slapping a 30 round magazine into the bottom of the pistol grip and pulling the bolt to the rear as a determined group of Blue Heads tried to rush them from the left. Holding the strap in his left hand Beacon stepped from behind a tree and fired from the hip in a sideways sweeping motion. The whole group toppled over like bowling pins and those who'd jumped up to join in the charge quickly changed their minds and dived back behind cover. Evidently this was the first time the Blue Heads had come up against a machine gun.

  Realizing his mistake Beacon pulled the now empty magazine from the MAC and replaced it with the second of their three loaded magazines. "OK, I'll take him and you fire a whole mag all across our front when we break cover then you follow us on the other horse."

  "That's more reasonable, how do you work that thing?"

  As Buck kept up a barrage of covering fire Beacon gave her a ten second course in firing and reloading the MAC then slung his and Buck's rifles over his shoulder. After throwing the bag back over Gail's head he threw the kid up on his horse's back and jumped up behind.

  As they broke from the thicket he heard not the one long burst he'd requested, but three short ones. However they seemed to be keeping the heads of the Blue Heads down just as effectively as one long burst would have.

  Gail was so surprised by the jump of the little gun when she pulled the trigger the first time that she released it. Then, trying again she released the trigger too soon again.

  Her third attempt emptied the gun and she traded the empty mag for the last loaded magazine thinking she'd failed. But the three bursts had dug up dirt, splintered wood of tree trunks and shot leaves from tree branches down onto the heads of Blue Heads on three sides of the thicket. Shocked by the two displays of overwhelming firepower they pulled their faces from the dirt just as they heard her horse galloping out of the thicket.

  As bullets started to wiz by her head she turned and holding the deadly little weapon with a death grip sprayed one last long burst that punched holes in dirt, trees and sky while sending the Blue Heads diving for cover again.

  Gail had a good start on them when the Blue Heads broke cover coming out of the tree line in futile pursuit. Exposing themselves in the open at the far end of the meadow in a broad daylight like that was obviously not part of their original plan.

  Buck had not only warned the fort, he'd forced a change of plans on the leader of the Blue Heads.

  As soon as the second horse broke from the tree line Old Bill let loose with his Winchester '94 from the top of the stockade. The old rifle had iron sights because Old Bill didn't believe in those "new fangled optical things" but Bill was an old school marksman adjusting for windage and elevation as he shot.

  But at that range his front sight appeared to be wider than the man he was aiming at. Also, gravity required that the big fat slow moving round nosed bullets coming out the barrel of the old rifle be aimed high so their trajectory would bring them back down to earth where the target was.

  The first bullet from his 30-30 kicked up dirt at the foot of the lead Blue Head. His second shot whizzed over the guy's head. His third shot hit a tree behind him. Old Bill was putting out a slow but steady stream of fire. The Blue Head took the hint and retreated.

  A man with a scoped semi-auto rifle on the palisade opened fire. His sight picture through the scope showed the crosshairs on a Blue Head's throat. He squeezed off the shot. The Blue Head went down with a bullet in his chest. The man acquired another target and fired again. Another Blue Head went down. The rest of the Blue Heads lost interest in shooting at the rapidly retreating horses as they dove for cover.

  A new group of Blue Heads emerging from the tree line saw the bodies of their comrades and changed their minds about shooting at the fleeing horseback riders.

  As they ran back into the trees one of Old Bill's bullets struck one of them in the shoulder. The already retreating Blue Heads literally dived into the bushes seeking concealment from the rain of old lead and modern jacketed bullets.

  With the first lever action rifle empty Old Bill grabbed the other relic rifle and proceeded to put rounds in and around every Blue Head still visible at the edge of the tree line as Beacon and Gail rode out of range. Old Bill's fire kept their heads down so they didn't shoot at the retreating pair.

  Second Blue Head Attack

  Whistles began blowing and the Blue Heads at the tree line retreated out of sight into the forest as the horses pulled into the gate.

  Beacon gave the MAC and the bag to Pat and showed her how to load the magazines. With her strong dexterous hands hardened by years of hand sewing she'd be able to load them as fast as he could and he had other things to do.

  After making sure the gate was barred he pulled some logs he and Old Bill had cut to size for propping against the gate to help it withstand the battering rams he expected.

  Then he went to the trailer and began calling out the names of men and women he considered stouthearted e
nough to stand and fight. The men, and in some cases the women, got rifles, the spouses got a quick course in loading magazines, two boxes of ammo and a pistol. Most of the women chose to remain in the courtyard tearing up sheets for bandages, but Beacon's chosen women went to the loopholes and up on the parapets with their men.

  Someone thought to put all the children into Pat's protective care despite the fact that the old woman's home was right next to the gate which would probably be a main target. Beacon didn't have time to argue the point and he had no better ideas.

  Beacon gave Pat a short course on the operation of the MAC then ran her through a few dry firing and reloading drills with the unloaded weapon. Then he watched her load the weapon and told her to guard the children.

  It took almost an hour for the Blue Heads to reorganize and move into position for their attack. They'd lost the element of surprise when their advance guard stumbled into Buck, but for some reason they didn't wait for nightfall, perhaps thinking that would give the defenders too much time to prepare a defense.

  Despite Maggie's indifference the mountain men had been slowly and painfully building an inner wall of horizontal logs behind the stockade's vertical logs. Limited by time and resources Beacon had started at the side of the fort nearest to the tree line which just happened to be where he'd first seen Gail on the trail. He stationed her there with his scoped Mini-14 besides her own and all the magazines he had for the little carbines.

  "I've got so few people I can trust to do the right thing under stress and you are the best of them." He said looking into her eyes. "I expect a feint from somewhere else and then a main attack from those trees" he said pointing through the loophole just above the top horizontal log. Don't waste time trying for fancy shots, just shoot for center of mass and move on to the next target there will be hundreds of them and just knocking one down before he gets to the wall is good enough. I'll try to get over here and help you once the main attack starts, but I'm depending on you to hold the line whether I make it back over here or not."

  Beacon tried to station the most dependable people he knew at the various strong points he'd reinforced while hotheads rushed about up on the parapets. One even tried to climb up into the watchtower. Beacon called the kid back down as the crack of a rifle shot and splintering wood emphasized his point. The kid was tactically ignorant, but Beacon liked his Chutzpah.

  The kid was husky, sixteen and armed with a scoped bolt action twenty-two caliber match rifle with which he claimed he'd won some ROTC shooting matches.

  His name was Randy. He was an Eagle Scout who along with his mom had recently bought their way into the Settlement with a wheelbarrow load of medical supplies and his mom's RN certificate.

  Beacon gave Randy his scoped M1A and a bandoleer of loaded magazines.

  "Use your twenty-two for sniping until the main charge. Any of them you can take out of the fight or slow down, even if it's just a leg wound, will help us fend off the human wave attack."

  Randy extended the bi-pod legs on the M1A as Beacon continued.

  "We need to keep them out in the open as long as possible where we can pour fire into their ranks before they overwhelm our walls. Once the main attack starts switch to the .308 and aim center of mass. Just shoot as many as you can. Remember what Wyatt Earp said, 'Fast is fine, but accuracy is final.' We haven't much ammo, so aim center of mass and make every shot count."

  Without doctors, antiseptics and antibiotics almost any wound could eventually be fatal if not kept scrumptiously clean. But Beacon wasn't interested in revenge -- he wanted to survive. To take the fort the Blue Heads would have to kill Old Bill and Gail. Beacon wasn't going to let that happen.

  If the Blue Heads took the fort they it would be over his dead body.

  Beacon wanted to use his sharpshooters; Old Bill, Gail, Randy and a few others to break the back of any attack before it could breach the walls.

  Beacon found another kid he knew to be a good shot. He stationed the kid on top of a trailer at a gap in the stockade logs overlooking the livestock corral. If the kid remained in the prone position he'd be virtually invisible to Blue Heads crossing the field.

  The Blue Heads would have to come across a much wider expanse of pasture to get to this side of the fort. Again and again he hammered home the imperatives, "aim for center of mass, squeeze the trigger, shoot once then go on to the next target don't waste time or ammo finishing them off."

  The kid seemed open to instruction so Beacon added, "There'll be one or more fake attacks to draw all the suckers over to one side of the fort or another. Don't be a sucker. Stay here and wait for the attack on this side. When it comes you'll have plenty of targets. Shoot them coming and going. The one you let get away retreating from the first attack will be back to kill you in the second attack." When he thought the kid had it all down Beacon moved on to the next weak point.

  Maggie had gathered the Coven of Crones in the tent at the base of the watchtower and rolled the sides up so she could keep an eye all around the insides of the fort. They were using the younger boys as runners for messages and ammunition resupply. She had assigned a section of the wall to each clan thus reducing the number of panicked people running around.

  Maggie had a small contingent of preteen boys armed with twenty-twos, butcher knives and a spear gathered under the watchful eyes of their mothers to act as a mobile reserve in case the Blue Heads broke through somewhere. There was a woman and her daughter who couldn't have been more than fifteen armed with bows and arrows.

  Beacon liked Maggie's plan and told her so. He wasn't so sure about the reliability of the boys and their mothers but told himself beggars can't be choosers and kept his mouth shut. He filled her in on what he'd done and what he expected to happen. For once Maggie didn't argue with him. He went back to the trailer and got the Dirty Harry magnum and the half box of bullets for it as well as his last of his trade revolvers. He gave the .44 to Maggie and the revolvers to the older members of the reserve to augment their pitiful weaponry.

  Beacon wasn't confident of getting all of his loaned weapons back, but survival was more important than maintaining his wealth.

  Beacon ducked into Fort Apache and donned his "combat match shooting rig" a tooled leather belt with a quick draw holster for his forty-five and open top seven magazine pouches each holding one seven round magazine. He could reload a magazine from one of those pouches in less than a second.

  The horde tried to swarm the fort late in the afternoon. Hundreds of them with blue bandannas on their heads ran at the fort from all sides. Beacon had expected a diversionary attack on one side of the fort followed by a real attack on the opposite side as soon as the fort's defenders had concentrated their forces to fight off the feint. He hadn't counted on the horde's commander having so many men he didn't bother with finesse.

  As he made a last check of the fort's defenses Beacon saw a little girl who couldn't have been more than four and a half feet tall at a large crack in the palisade. He went over intending to tell her to get back with Maggie and the rest of the junior reserves.

  "Honey you should get back with Maggie and the rest of the kids."

  "Honey, my name's Jackie and I'm fifteen," she haughty informed him, "and I need more ammo."

  Just then the Blue Heads attacked. "No time for lengthy speeches." Beacon thought abandoning his attempt to talk the little girl out of leaving her post as he took up a position at a crack between logs next to her.

  He was torn between his desire to pick up the little girl and physically carry her beck to the safety of Maggie's headquarters and his need to stop the Blue Head charge. In the end he chose to fight with a backup plan which included hauling the little girl off under his arm if things here got too hot.

  Beacon concentrated on shooting the ones with guns as they exited the tree line. There seemed to be more of them this time. The roar of his centerfire rifle was punctuated by the pops of her little twenty-two.