Cautiously, the soldier approached the man who was still busy talking himself into killing, if he had to, if the soldiers tried to steal his deer, or do anything else. As he got closer, the man could see he was quite young, just a kid, probably not even twenty-one. Too young to even shave regularly.
The boy soldier stopped about ten feet from the man, “Sir, we heard your shots, and then we saw that deer of yours and we thought maybe we could do some trading. We’ve got …”
“How many of you in that thing?”
“Sir, two of us, just me and my friend.”
“And you want my deer?!” The man was becoming more anxious by the moment as he wondered what this soldier really wanted.
The young soldier was trying to be calm but it was difficult with an obviously wound up man holding a rifle on him, his finger on the rifle’s trigger. “Sir, we would like to trade for some of it. Like I said, we’ve got stuff to trade, maybe we can make a deal.”
“And if we can’t then maybe you’ll just shoot me in the head … or maybe drag me off to that damn camp of yours!”
“Sir, you’ve got the wrong idea about me and my friend.”
“I don’t have the wrong idea! I’ve seen what you all did in Lexington!”
“Sir, me and my friend are not in the army.”
Staring at the young soldier from behind his rifle the man couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous thought. “You’re not in the army?! You could have fooled me!”
“Sir, what I mean to say is that we’re no longer in the army.”
The man was still tense but now also confused, “I don’t understand what you’re saying. What are you trying to say? There’s no army anymore?”
“Sir, what I’m saying is that we deserted our post. We’re deserters, sir.”
The man still wasn’t sure, this could be a trick, “There’s just the two of you, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell your friend to come over here. Leave his guns over there and shut the doors too.”
The soldier turned his back to the man, the rifle still trained on him. “Edgar, come on over. Leave your guns there and shut the doors too!”
The man kept his rifle pointed right at him and had already decided he was going to pull the trigger if the boy turned back around with a weapon in his hand.
The soldier turned around, his hands empty but a forced friendly smile on his face. “Sir, I’m sure we can make some kind of deal … I know we can.”
Edgar got out and shut the door on his side. He then walked around the front of the Humvee and slammed the other. Then putting his hands in the air, he started walking towards his friend.
The man was getting nervous again, “Tell your friend to stop and turn around!”
“You heard him Edgar, turn around.”
Edgar slowly spun just as his friend did moments before.
“Okay, he can come over.”
“Come on over, but be careful.”
Edgar approached with caution and then stopped next to his friend. “Sir, I understand why you’re careful but you’ll get no trouble from us.”
Then the man got to his feet but kept himself partially concealed by a tree there by his side. “You two are the ones that want to make a deal … so start talking.”
The one with a phony smile started on him again, “We have some MREs left but we don’t know how long it’s going to take to get where we’re going. We’re trying to save them. This trip is already taken longer than we thought it would. You’re not going to eat that whole thing are you?”
At that moment the man thought maybe he could. He stood there seriously considering the idea.
Baby face continued without a response, “Sir, I know we could work something out. We’ve got some guns. We have an M16 and a couple M4s. You want one?”
“I’ve already got a rifle …” at first the man thought it best to remain threatening, “and I know how to use it!” But with another instant of reflection, thought the two seemed honest enough. “No, I don’t need another. You got any .308 ammo?”
“No, sir.”
“What about pistols? What kind of pistols are those?”
“Yes, sir, we do have a couple of M9s, but we need them. You sure you can’t use a full auto rather than that semi you’ve got?”
He was feeling a little more at ease the more the boy talked, “I’m sure, I’m happy with what I’ve got. You have anything else to trade?”
“We’ve got another pair of boots that look like they’ll fit you. If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, yours are looking pretty rough.”
“Yeah they’re pretty torn up. I’ve barely been out of them in months. Okay, one pair of boots, what else you got?”
“How ’bout some medical supplies?”
“Maybe, I’ll have to look, see what you’ve got. Anything else?” The man was still concerned but was just desperate enough to take a chance on the two.
The boy soldier thought about it a moment, “Well, we could give you a ride. Where you going?”
“I’m going to Louisville … and then Wyoming.”
The soldier’s false smile changed into a large honest one, “We aren’t going anywhere near Wyoming but we can get you to Louisville for sure. How about it? Sure beats walking.”
The man thought it over a few moments, still holding his rifle ready. “Let me get this straight. Some boots, my pick of your medical supplies and a free ride to Louisville, for …?”
“Half that deer.” Both soldiers spoke at once and they seemed quite set on their price.
Although he had no proof except the feeling in his gut, he thought the two boys trustworthy. He let himself relax a little, “Okay, you’ve got a deal.” Then at long last he took his finger off the trigger and lowered his rifle to the ground. With that, a new mood was suddenly in the air. “We need to get away from the highway, before anyone else sees us.”
The two young soldiers instantly agreed and Edgar walked right to the buck, looking it over and he finally spoke. “Brad, go back and get the Humvee and we’ll put it on the hood. We’ll need a knife to cut it down too.”
Taking his rifle in his weak hand, the man then produced his trusty knife from his front pocket. “That won’t be necessary.” He then flipped the blade open and handed it to Edgar, handle first.
“Thanks.” The young ex-soldier now seemed much less threatening to the man even though there was a knife in his hand.
Brad quickly ran back and brought their truck right up to the tree line. The man was still a little wary when he stepped back out. But seeing the boy had no tricks up his sleeve, he let himself relax some more. It took the three of them to get it down from the tree and onto the hood. Brad then told the man, “Get in,” and gestured to the back of their encrusted home on the road.
The man picked up his gear and rifle and as he stepped into the back door was hit with the smell of it, and even though he was dirty himself still found it disgusting.
The floorboards were covered with assorted garbage, soda cans, food wrappers and such. The floor was sticky to the touch. Among the refuse there were also several unfolded maps and in the back left floorboard a long length of heavy chain, two more rifles and a can of ammo. In the back compartment behind him it was filled to the top with the same and more, which also included a few extra fuel cans, several cases of bottled water, sleeping bags and a large duffle bag that seemed stuffed to the top with unknown surprises.
They both entered together, Edgar doing the driving. “Sorry ’bout the mess.” Then they all slammed their doors shut while the truck’s motor started up with a confident roar. They took off heading away from the road, slowly searching for a good place to stop. Further north, about 1500 yards from the highway, they found a clearing through the trees completely hidden.
Watching from the back seat, the man looked for just the right spot until with certainty it arrived. “That looks good! Turn in there! That’s it!”
The two boys agreed and s
teered into a secluded nook set back into the tree line far from spying eyes.
The vehicle came to a sudden stop and then Edgar turned the motor off. “That tree right there in front of us looks pretty good.”
They all got out but the man held back keeping an eye on the two who went to work without any delay. After watching them a moment, his gun still in hand, that last bit of doubt left in the man disappeared once and for all.
The two young men went right to their task and the man mostly tried to stay out of their way. It had been years since he had seen it done. They took the deer and by its hind leg strung it up. Brad then took his knife and plunged it into the deer’s chest and started to cut it open, and it looked like it wasn’t the first time he had done it. As the boys worked on their supper, the man built a “Dakota Hole” and cut numerous small branches to hang the meat on. All three then sliced up the deer into small strips, cooking it over the fire. As the sun was setting, they were at long last done with it all.
With nothing left to do, they all quietly sat around waiting for the meat to finish, staring at each other, an awkward feeling growing between the man and the boys.
Finally Brad ended the uneasy silence that hung over them in the dusk air, “Let’s get this out in the open, right up front. I’m Brad Emmett and he’s Edgar Ruiz, and like I said before, me and him are deserters. We had enough. We left our posts and then took off for home.”
The man soberly watched the two and couldn’t think of a delicate way of asking what he wanted to know. “You just run off? Deserted your post? Abandoned your friends?”
“That’s right, sir, I didn’t join the Army to kill Americans … or even illegals,” the young soldier giving Ruiz a deliberate look as he finished speaking.
Ruiz turned to Brad and bluntly responded, “I’d watch my mouth if I were you, white bread.”
The both of them paused, looking right at each other and after an uncomfortable silence the two turned to the man. Then to the man’s absolute confusion, they both burst into an easygoing laugh that only good friends could share. Then it went quiet again.
Brad broke the silence once more, “Relax sir, we’re just joking, we’ve been friends our whole life. We grew up together in the same small town, Holbrook, Arizona …”
The man just stared at them both.
“It’s about ninety miles east of Flagstaff.”
Finally, the man smiled and nodded when a familiar name came to mind.
Brad continued their story but with a much more solemn tone, “We joined the army together right after high school. We hoped to serve together but that didn’t work out … but we still kept in close touch.”
Edgar interrupted his lifelong chum, “Yeah, we’ve been best friends since the second grade, Brad here tried to steal my lunch money and I had to give him a beat down, been best friends since.”
The two of them shared that relaxed laugh again and then Brad picked up the story without missing a beat. “My battalion was working up in Boston … different city but the same stuff you saw in Lexington. Finally I had enough. I took an oath and as far as I was concerned it didn’t include stealing food from hungry people or rounding them up and herding them into train cars like cattle. Hell, they never even told us where we were sending them to. Can you imagine … shooting … killing … Americans because they refused to give up their food or guns? Or because they wanted to stay in their own homes? I never thought that could happen in this country …” Brad dropped his head in his hands and the man wasn’t sure if he crying or not.
Edgar put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and picked up the story from there. “Brad finally got hold of me a couple weeks ago. A few phones were still working back then. It was the same story for me except we were two states away clearing out Pittsburgh. I couldn’t take it anymore either and I knew plenty of soldiers in my company that felt the same way too. Ours was nearly out of fuel and the few vehicles still running were heavily guarded. I didn’t have any chance of getting one anyway. There was this guy in my squad, an E-2 named Miltkens, a real cheese eater. He was watching everybody. If he even thought something suspicious was going on, he’d run right to the old man. Brad had it better than me. He had a friend in charge of their motor pool and had a lot more chances to steal something.”
Picking up his head, Brad seemed ready to speak once more. “One night I was supposed to be assigned to CK duty, but instead just packed up a Humvee, everything I could stuff into it, food, water and lots of diesel, a couple of M4s and ammo. Then I just took off. This friend of mine that Edgar just mentioned … he let me drive right out of there with it. He felt about the whole situation like I did, like a lot of us did, but couldn’t leave his post. He said he would make something up so he wouldn’t get in trouble. I hope he didn’t. I had some fake orders he made for me too but I didn’t use them, I didn’t want to take a chance at the checkpoints. With the way the Humvee looks, I thought there might be trouble, even with fake orders. I went off road and I made it to Pennsylvania without much trouble, picked up Edgar there. He just left during guard duty one night, after that we started for home. By West Virginia we were able to start using the roads again. Since then it’s been a lot quicker although with all the junk cars we still haven’t been able to get anywhere near the speed limit yet.” The two old friends shared that familiar laugh once more.
The man then told the two his own story and where he was heading. Nothing seemed shocking to them, they appeared to have heard it already.
They were all going in the same direction, at least to St. Louis and they decided it was best to work together until they got that far. The man would then be on his own again after they crossed the Mississippi, traveling west and north towards Wyoming. But their more immediate problem was Louisville, and crossing the Ohio River.
They decided not to wait for morning, so under the lights of the Humvee, they packed up the gear and bagged up the food and were quickly on the highway again. Their trip was uneventful between the two cities although the eerily quiet road seemed dangerous in its own strange way, the only illumination their headlights cutting a narrow slice through the pitch-black void.
The only people they saw were a group of around thirty caught in their lights for only a moment. The group was on the other side of the highway traveling in the opposite direction, towards Lexington. Many of the adults were armed with various types of long guns and the three of them made no effort to stop or talk to them at all.
As they slowly moved along abandoned Interstate 64 and as they got further from city, the road cleared up some. They were now heading for Louisville and picked up their pace as much as the darkness and debris would allow. The man noticed at times they got up to nearly forty and after over two months of walking it felt to him like moving at light speed. Their journey hardly took two hours and the man didn’t even want to think how long it would have taken on foot.
As they approached the city, they could smell the smoke from the fires nearly thirty miles before they arrived there in the suburbs on the edge of town. Along with the smoke came that unforgettable stench of burning flesh. The man first experienced it in Lexington and it was a smell he would be unable to forget the rest of his life.
Driving through, they noted many small fires still burning throughout the city. When daylight arrived the next morning, they would see that just as in Lexington large portions of the industrial areas downtown were burning, and scattered sections of the outer suburbs too. The largest by far was at the fairgrounds and must have been smoldering for days. They concluded that someone must have been burning bodies at the site as there was little doubt where that unforgettable stench was coming from.
He guided the two younger men through the streets and although it was completely dark, and he hadn’t been there in over two years, the man still quickly found his way.
Their goal was to cross the Ohio River into Indiana and with three bridges to choose from, they all thought Louisville was their best chance of success. Of the t
hree, the one furthest west was also the most convenient as it took I-64 all the way to St. Louis. They set out for their first choice following the back roads and side streets as all the main arteries were hopelessly gridlocked.
As they made their way in the darkness, the silent abandoned neighborhoods gave them all a peculiar feeling right through to their bones.
Finally they approached the west side of the city and slowly navigated through the derelict cars and scattered remains that covered the streets, but now with their lights turned off and being as quiet as they could. As they got closer to the river, they heard faint gunfire somewhere north or east of their position. More caution was definitely needed.
After their prolonged journey of only a few miles, they finally came within sight of the bridge just before midnight. They hid their vehicle in an old garage and with a short search found a concealed position near the crest of a hill, a hidden spot to carefully observe the bridge from for as long as they needed.
They settled in for the night and took turns guarding their camp, and with their binoculars and the man’s rifle scope they sat there gathering “intel” on the bridge nearly half a mile away. Throughout the night they didn’t see much except a few fires. But with the coming of the sun they were finally able to get their first good look and spent most of that day studying every detail, Brad taking it all down in a tablet.
From their hours of observations they could see crossing this bridge wouldn’t be easy, if not impossible. The Sherman Minton was a two level bridge with both being heavily guarded. The upper section was hopelessly dammed up and the man counted at least seventy derelict cars and semi-trucks spread across its three Indiana bound lanes. The two boys weren’t completely sure if an Abrams tank could cross it.
As they watched throughout the day, they could also see there were six armed guards on duty on the top deck at any time. The lower level was also blocked in the same way, although there seemed to be a narrow passage all the way through on the north facing side. On the lower level there was an open area in the middle that contained several trailers and what appeared to be fifty-gallon drums with fires inside.
Joshua (Book 1) Page 15
