by A J Newman
“Is that part of your life over?”
“Well I slipped a bit on the drinking when Geena was killed, but I won’t go overboard ever again. I like beer and will drink. I just won’t drink to excess and I won’t chase women now that I am seeing you. Hell I haven’t been with a woman since the lights went out. Geena and I came close, but something always got in the way. God knows Joan tried to get me in bed, but you know how I feel about her.”
“And you’re okay with going slow?”
“No, I’d rather go much faster, but it’s what you need and I care for you a lot.”
We chitchatted the rest of the way and the more I was around Ally, I knew this wasn’t a passing fad I was experiencing.
We arrived at Sailsberg and as expected, there was another roadblock. I asked to speak to their leader and they brought the Police Chief out to meet us. I told him that I was from the Owensville area and Bert had told me to look him up when I got to Sailsberg. The Chief knew Bert and that helped us get our foot in the door. We met with the town council, explained what we wanted to do and they were in favor of getting the railroad back in operation. The community was doing fairly well since the initial rioting and brief lawlessness. The Mayor and Police Chief appeared nervous about our visit, but were very accommodating. The area was peaceful and reminded one of a rural town before the turn of the century. They had a large Amish community nearby and sought out their help in adapting to the new life without electricity. They were using horse and buggies and never even tried to get any vehicles running and had no plans to in the future.
“Would you trade us some of the old cars and trucks?”
“You can have them. What do you have that we can’t provide for ourselves?”
“What do you need?”
“Some medicine, books and some more horses.”
“We have a ton of books, a small amount of medicine that we can spare, but we also need more horses.”
“We’ll take the books and any medicine that you can spare.”
“Have ya’ll checked the stalled trailers on the roads, railcars and warehouses for food and other supplies?”
“No we hadn’t. Wouldn’t that be stealing?
“Since it is abandoned and those companies no longer exist, I think that it would be okay to salvage the supplies.”
They were argued among themselves and concluded they would take a town vote before they seized someone else’s belongings.
On a whim I said, “Would ya’ll mind if we take what we find out on the roads around here? We won’t come into town and look into warehouses.”
“That’s okay for you; we just don’t want to before we put it to a vote.”
“Now is it okay if we see if we can get the locomotive running?”
“You don’t have to. Billy Gratten is the curator and train engineer for the museum. The train was in operation until the lights went out. He’ll fire it up for you and oversee putting the rails back in place to move it to the main tracks. We only removed them after we brought the last locomotive into the museum yard.”
“How many locomotives do you have?”
“Two that are running, two more could be running, but only Billy can tell you how much work has to be done. The other two look great, but are only here for the kids to climb around on. By the way, we have a whole wing of the museum filled with industrial and small steam engines that powered America until the 1930’s. About half of them are in running condition and most of the others could be placed back into operation.”
“Don’t ya’ll want to keep most of them for yourselves?”
“No, as you probably see, we have embraced this new less complicated life. We don’t hold it against you that you want cars, electricity and modern conveniences, but we don’t want to go back into the rat race. We would like to keep trading you for things we need and if you don’t mind, you can take what you need on the promise of repaying us with trade goods or help when we need it.”
“That is great news. Yes, we agree.”
“Thanks, I think this will be great for both groups."
“I agree.”
“Jacob, I think I should go back and bring some men and trucks to haul some of these steam engines and hit and miss engines back to the farm and get people started fabricating the ability to power tools.”
“I agree. It’s safe enough here and you have the big guns for the trip back. We’ll work to move the train to the tracks and learn all about the locomotive while you are gone. I’d only take some of the smaller ones since we should have the train on the main tracks in less than a week.”
“Great, I’m just in a hurry to get the lights back on and get a jump start on starting manufacturing again. Besides, I always guard against our plans failing. This way, I’ll know that we get at least a few engines.”
“I’ll pick out some equipment in my spare time and get it moved to the dock. How many trucks will you bring?”
“Probably three or four flatbed trucks.”
“Not to question your judgement, but isn’t Jacob right? All of the engines could be brought over on the train.”
“Yes he is, and never be afraid to question my judgement. I believe in the brainpower of the many. In this situation, I’m glad you didn’t question it in front of Jacob because I’m diverting some of the engines to our hideout. The train doesn’t stop there and even if it did we don’t want everyone to know it even exists.”
“Great idea. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”
“I haven’t seen a check in months.”
Ally pulled me close, kissed me on the cheek and said, “That’s an advance on your big salary.”
I replied, “I need to be paid more than once every four months.”
She pulled me close again and whispered in my ear, “Don’t get greedy. Where are you going to get coal for the boilers?” and kissed my ear.
“Coal?”
“Yes you need to burn something to heat the water to make steam to power the engine.”
“Yes we need coal and maybe wood before we get back into the 21st century. Believe it or not, there is a humongous pile of coal at the city power plant and at the dock on Green River and I’ll bet in several barges tied up at the dock. We won’t have to mine coal for a while.”
“Is there any gas or diesel in those barges? There should be thousands of gallons just in the tugs.”
“You are one smart lady. I was focused on getting fuel from Owensville and forgot how common it is around the country. I’ll have Roger start a crew searching for it.”
We enjoyed telling each other stories about our past lives on the trip back and were back to the farm in no time. I wished that we’d seen the people watching from cover just a few miles out of Sailsberg.
***
“That’s a great idea about checking the barges for fuel, but Paul already found a string of barges on the Green River loaded with gasoline, diesel and fertilizer. He went fishing this morning with Sam’s grandson and came back with a stringer of fish and the good news.”
“I’ll give Paul a pat on his back for that one. We need some tanker trucks.”
“Paul came up with something that will work until we can get some real tankers to do the job. His idea is to use the empty plastic chemical totes to haul gas. We have a bunch of 250 and a few 500 gallon totes around the farms. Roger has already made two trips over to the barge and now the problem is storing the gas safely. We don’t want 10,000 gallons of gas around the house here, do we?”
“Darn, Paul is our hero.”
Ally chimed in, “I’m one proud mom. We need to do something special for him.”
“Think of something and we’ll do it.”
“Hey Mike, we came back early to take some trucks back to Sailsberg and bring some small steam and hit and miss engines back to the farm, which were traded to us for some books and what medicine we can spare. We can stop by that warehouse, get a load of books and take them back to trade. Three trucks should do with two men per t
ruck.”
“Or women,” Ally replied.
“That’s what I meant.”
“Yeah.”
***
The men had been watching since the new people arrived, but stayed behind cover and reported to their leader. He had already been forcing the city to pay him not to attack and didn’t like seeing this new group show up with the Humvee. He knew not to attack while the heavily armed vehicle was guarding the newcomers. His spies came and told him that the armored vehicle had left with two of the people. The others didn’t appear to be much of a threat. Three men, an old man, a young girl and a woman weren’t much of a threat. The spies reported that they didn’t see any weapons and that meant the only weapons that they were likely to encounter were the deer rifles and .22s that the Sailsberg people had. He wasn’t worried about the two cops; he’d have one of his men create a diversion to draw them and perhaps some of the town’s people to the other end of town. He didn’t want to hurt the town’s people, but would kill the men and capture the two women for his own use. The town’s people had to be able to work hard and pay tribute to him if they wanted to live in his kingdom.
Jacob looked up and saw the armed men walking towards them.
“Hey everyone, it looks like we’ve got company.”
He looked at the museum curator and asked, “Should we be worried? These guys are armed and look a little rough.”
“Be worried.”
The men were still over a hundred feet away when Callie said, “Everyone slowly get your pistols and be ready to grab your rifles. These are the bad guys and we’re about to be robbed or shot. There are only six of them and six of us. Shoot until they are down if they attack.”
The men walked on up and the leader said, “That’s a nice truck you’ve got there. I know you won’t mind if we borrow it for a few years.”
Jacob replied, “Sorry sir, we need our truck and you can’t borrow it today.”
The man raised his pistol and started to say something when Callie shot him in the chest and started shooting at the others. Jacob shot one, Callie killed another and the others killed the rest of the thugs. The thugs were no match for the well trained group; the fight was over in a minute. The attackers were killed and none of the team was injured.
“Damn, what have you done? Those bastards will come back with more men and kill us all, “said Billy, the curator.
Callie asked, “Do you know these men?”
“Yes, they have been extorting us to pay them not to attack us. We wanted to kill them and get it over with, but the Mayor wanted to pay them to leave us alone. The problem is that they always want more and more.”
A few minutes later, the Police Chief and Mayor ran up and were horrified that the six men were lying dead on their street.
The Mayor moaned, “You have started a war. These men will come back and kill us all.”
Callie asked, “How many of these assholes are there and where do they come from?”
“There are about thirty of them and they just moved in here from Ohio County a month ago. I thought we could pay them and they’d leave us alone. Now they’ll kill us all.”
“No they won’t. We can hold them off until my Dad returns this evening. Go get more people with guns and let’s make a stand here at the museum. Take the elderly and children and hide them until this is over.”
“Now young lady, who put you in charge?”
Lynn answered, “If you want to stay alive, you’d better do what Callie says. Those men had pistols, shotguns and deer rifles. We have ARs, carbines and pistols. Moreover, we all have a couple of hundred rounds of ammo each. We can outshoot and outlast them in a fight. Get your asses in gear and let’s fortify this place.
Callie asked, “How many rounds did ya’ll fire?"
No one responded with more than six, so they were in great shape on ammo. Callie pulled the magazine out of the SUB 2000 and saw that the indicator holes showed 28 remaining bullets. The extended Glock 17 mags had the numbered indicator holes, which was much better than the magazines that came with the carbine. There was no accurate way to tell how many rounds were left in them.
“Only fire if you have someone in your sights. We have to hold them off, but we also need to kill as many as possible. Our goal is one shot one dead asshole.”
The man who led the cops away from the attack ran all the way to the truck hidden on the south side of town and hauled ass back to the gang.
“It was a massacre. They ambushed us before we could draw our guns.”
“Those peaceful scared people in that town ambushed and killed six of my men. Don’t you mean the visitors killed them?”
“No the two in the Humvee left and only three men, an old man and two women stayed. We never saw any weapons on them. It had to be the town’s people.”
The leader thought for a minute and had all of his men rounded up.
“We just lost six good men today and I want to punish that town. We don’t want to kill them all because someone has to work the fields. I want the people at the museum killed or captured, and then we’ll gather up the town folk and make them wish our men were still alive. We won’t kill them; we’ll just have a little fun with the women.”
The second attack began as an attempt to overrun the museum with sheer numbers. Eighteen of the thugs rushed the front of the building while another twelve covered them from the woods across the street. They came charging across the street shooting and yelling. Lynn saw them break out of the woods, yelled to her friends and started methodically shooting one after another.
Lynn yelled, “Callie, get those two sneaking around the side.”
Her carbine barked twice and she replied, “Got ‘em.”
It was a turkey shoot. The dumbasses thought they could run headlong across the street, scare the crap out of the helpless people and then celebrate. Only five of them made it across the street and they were pinned down behind a couple of trucks that were to haul the track and railroad ties to be laid to move the locomotive.
“Try not to damage the trucks, we still need them,” Jacob hollered.
“I'll take care of them,” replied Lynn.
She dialed her scope on the AR in to the distance and waited for one to reveal a body part. It only took a few seconds and one lost most of his foot. He fell out from behind the truck and she shot him in the chest. A few minutes later, another lost the top of his skull as he dared to peer above the bed of the truck. The rest used the trucks for cover and retreated back across the street and blended into the woods.
***
I caught Mike off to the side and told him what the real mission was, so he could make sure he and Sally were one of the teams. We were back on the road in an hour and planned to load up the trucks today and start out early in the morning to bring the engines back home. I drove the Humvee towing a large trailer. We brought some come a longs, block and tackles and other gear to make moving the heavy engines a little easier. The ride over was quiet and peaceful until we were about five miles out and heard Lynn on the radio.
“We’re under attack. Please help!”
I replied, “Lynn, we’re about five miles out. What happened?”
“Some thugs are attacking from the front side of the Museum. We’ve fought them off four times, but the dumbasses keep attacking.”
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes. Hurry, they're attacking again.”
We arrived in Sailsberg and all hell broke loose. The fight was going on and we came up behind the gang that was attacking our people in the museum.
“Ally, you drive while I man the SAWs. Drive right up behind them. Mike, park the trucks and pick off any that try to escape.”
I aimed, squeezed the trigger and strafed them from behind. They were so busy trying to kill our people that we caught them by surprise. Six were dead before I let up on the trigger and Mike’s crew shot eight more trying to escape. Several escaped and ran into the woods. We didn’t follow them so we could check on our pe
ople. I asked Ally to man the SAWs, so I could check on Callie. I approached the Museum and I saw heads popping up from behind rail cars and railroad ties. Callie waved at me and I ran over and hugged her.
“Are you okay? Is anyone wounded?”
“They came up trying to steal our truck and then drew their guns. Several of the Sailsberg people were wounded and killed in the first attack. They weren’t counting on us to be able to resist them. We had our pistols in our bags and rifles ready, but hidden. We killed six in the first attack, over twelve in the next and a couple more in each attack after that. They even left, got reinforcements and came back for this final attack. Ricochets hit Jacob and Grant, but the rest of us are okay. Lynn put some WoundSeal on the wounds and the bleeding has stopped. The bullets were spent and only grazed them.”
The Mayor came over and thanked us for helping fight off the thugs, but seemed worried that they would return later. The Police Chief explained the situation and I asked if he could round up some of his people to help us go over to the gang’s hideout and wipe them out. He told me that there were only a few fighters in the whole bunch and that was what got them in trouble in the first place. He left to raise his army while I checked on our team.
I looked them over, “I understand that there are only a dozen men left in the group that attacked ya’ll and many of them are wounded. I think we need to hit them hard right now before they regroup. The SAWs will make up for us being shorthanded and I don’t think they will expect a counter attack. Who’s in?”
Everyone, but Grant volunteered and I had to ask Jacob to stay behind due to his wound. We loaded up and followed the Chief’s directions to the gang’s hideout. It was only a few miles away, so we stopped about 500 yards away. Mike and Lynn snuck up on them to see if they expected an attack. They left for half an hour and came back with good news.
“Zack, only eight made it back and all, but two were wounded. They are all dead now. The women captives slit their throats when they came back and tried to get them to load up and move to another town. The women knew the attack weakened the gang and they killed the thugs when they returned. Chief, they want to join your city. Over twenty of them are from your town.”
