A long Lonely Road Box Set 3

by T J Reeder

  We checked, and it wasn’t gonna do for the C130 (or the Warthog if it came to that) so we pushed on.

  Ralph headed to the next place to land. All went well there. It had been a town of maybe 15,000 and was now down to about 1,000, but it had a pretty good airstrip, and it would handle the big stuff.

  We did the fuel check and found it to be unusable for aircraft- bonfires yes/ flying no. But we could leave some fuel here in their fuel truck, so we drained it out and filled it with good fuel then parked the truck inside a hanger. It would do in a fix.

  We spent the night in a roadside park and everybody got a hot meal and a good night’s sleep. We were rolling right after coffee and some road rations. Ralph was up and heading west again with us following.

  He checked in when he flew over the next place we had picked to look at- it wasn’t an outpost town but they knew who we were as we had passed by on the coffee hunt.

  He loitered in the air until we arrived and then landed on the strip outside town. The locals came out to meet with us and were happy to let us use the place. They hadn’t bothered with it because they had nobody who could fly or fix anything that might be wrong.

  I saw Ralph’s eyebrows raise up and he asked what, if anything, was in the hangers? The man in charge said he really didn’t know because they hadn’t bothered to look since none could fly.

  Ralph asked if he could check things out and was told to have at it. He headed to the closest hanger followed by the girls who weren’t gonna let anybody go treasure hunting without them.

  Sandy trotted back for a prybar and was off again. We talked with the locals and explained the coming problem. They were stunned to think somebody would come from halfway around the world to collect a debt these days. I laughed because I hadn’t looked at it as a debt collection.

  I could hear the sounds of locks breaking and doors sliding open but hadn’t paid any attention. Now I saw Ralph headed back and I could tell he had found something.

  The town’s leader asked if he found anything he could use and he said yea there is some stuff I can put to use, the man said, “Well, help yourself- we sure don’t need it.”

  Knowing Ralph had found something that was giving him a woody, I asked if they needed ammo or anything like that.

  He said they had mostly civilian weapons and was thrilled to hear we had a truck load of ammo for civilian weapons. I asked the driver of the truck in question to drive in with these folks and find what they could use. They were excited by that and headed right out. After they were gone we headed to the hanger where Ralph was standing.

  I didn’t know what I was looking at, except it had two props which I guess would get a guy like Ralph excited. The girls just shrugged and May said Ralph was running around drooling like it had tits.

  Ralph ran back and said, “Don’t you have any idea what that is?” Sandy said, “Well, duh- it’s an airplane, Orville.”

  Ralph just sighed and said, “It’s sad. This work of art you know nothing about, but if it was a damn old gun you’d be peeing all over yourself!”

  Sandy got all squinty-eyed and asked me if she could shoot him. I said, “No.” She said, “Just a little bit?” “No!” “With a small bullet?” I said, “No, we need him to fly the plane.”

  She smiled her evil smile and said, “Then I need to speed up my lessons.” Ralph was getting that look in his eyes that he gets when he’s exposed to her too long. He looked at me and said, “She’s joking, right?” I just shook my head slowly. Poor Ralph.

  He shook himself and said, “Well, whatever… back to the plane!” and he rattled off all kinds of stuff like its sex, family history…I was getting bored but Sandy wasn’t. She wanted to know why he was so excited?

  I walked into the hangar and even I could see this thing was a high dollar toy. Ralph was drooling again and I think starting to pant. To calm him down I said, “What is this thing?” “Thing? THING?” he said, voice climbing as high as an excited 13 year old girl.

  The girls were open-mouthed with astonishment. Hell, I was too. He finally took a deep breath and said, “John, this is a Hawker Beechcraft Baron 58.” I said, “OK, but what’s it do?” “Do?” (Back to the squeaky voice). “It flies!” “Ok”, said May, “But so what? So does the puddle jumper!”

  “John, this plane will fly at over 20,000 feet at speeds of 190 knots which is 115 miles MPH and has a range of almost 300 miles fully loaded- with just a pilot and an observer I’m not sure how far it will go , depends on winds and such.”

  I’m slow, OK? I mean, sometimes folks have to talk slow and use small words. Sandy beat me to it by asking, “So what?” Now, Ralph was smiling! He said, “This plane will run faster and jump higher than anything we have and will be the cat’s ass for spotting the Chinese ships because 20 thousand feet is way up there and we can see a looong ways.”

  Now I was getting it. I put it in non-pilot talk by saying, “So, if this crate will fly, you’re saying it will make finding the enemy much easier?” He said, “Now you’re getting it!” I asked if one or two observers was best, and he said two- because it gives a better chance of seeing them by a factor of 100% better.

  I said, “OK, so we need to get this thing running if it will fly, and we need time for you to really test it. Then we need small sharp-eyed people to go along, right?”

  He started shaking his head and saying, “No John, please not both of them! And no jar bombs, please!” Poor Ralph.

  I would never send both of them up in the same plane. Losing one would kill me, losing both would rip my soul to the point even Beth might not repair it. But I didn’t say that, I just smiled. I’m a shithead at times …

  I called for the gearheads to send somebody who could spell ‘plane’ to see if this thing was gonna make it or not. While we waited, we rolled it out into the light and Ralph went to checking it over. He said it was almost brand new with hardly any hours on it; the oil was clean and all in all it looked like it just needed a good dusting and maybe the tires aired up and she would fly.

  At last a mechanics’ truck rolled in with the head wrench and three of his people who piled out and just started taking the thing apart with Ralph hovering over them.

  Finally Henry, the head greaseball said, “If you don’t go sit down I’m gonna tell ‘them’ you kept that 1911 engraved beauty you found.”

  Ralph started stuttering while ‘they’ circled like land sharks. Poor Ralph’s head was trying to turn 360 degrees. I told them to leave him be, so they each took an arm and said, “Let’s go sit down some place quiet, Ralphie buddy.”

  I told Henry he was an asshole and I held him responsible for any harm to our pilot. He said, “Ah shit, John- they won’t eat all of him right off.” Gearheads are a strange breed- I think they drink gasoline.

  They spent an hour looking it over and turning the props and making doctor sounds, like ‘uh huh, OK, yep, hmmm…’ They drained the tanks, cleaned them with more fuel, then filled them.

  At last Henry said, “Ralph, come on. Let’s start this thing!” He hit the door running and had it shut before ‘they’ could climb in. I told them they weren’t flying in anything that sat for almost three years until it was tested. Sandy called me a pussy and May said all Marines were sissies. They’re a laugh a minute.

  They had hooked jumper cables to the battery (or whatever a plane has). I’ve heard pilots make mention of winding the rubber bands so (?) I don’t know.

  Ralph hit it and it started making motor sounds. One prop was turning a bit, then *bang* it was running! Then the other one started. Ralph was smiling like it was Christmas and he got a Playboy Bunny in his stocking.

  We backed off and he rolled her forward and out to the runway. He ran it up and down the runway for an hour, then he finally lifted off the ground and staying about 20 feet up ran it around the place in circles, then he went higher, then he landed and took off and landed and etc.

  He rolled back to the fuel truck and shut her down and the mechanics start
ed filling the tanks and checking the oil. It looked great.

  He took off and went right up and up and up some more then came down like he was gonna splatter on the ground but he didn’t- he shot right back up and was gone. We looked and couldn’t see him, and then Sandy said, “There he is!” and pointed. At last I made out a tiny dot way the hell up there.

  He flew around for an hour, then landed and got out with a huge grin and said, “John? This baby is awesome!”

  OK , I’ll take his word for it. The girls wanted to fly in it so he looked at me and I said, “OK, one of you!” They did the rock paper scissors thing. Sandy always does the scissors and May always does the rock. It’s like Sandy can’t leave go the sharp things. May gets her every time. Now Sandy wants to go best 2 out of 3, but May laughed and said, “Come on, Ralphie! Let’s fly, buddy!”

  They took off. Sandy stomped around fuming and finally I said, “Babe, why do you always go with scissors?” She said, “I don’t know, why?” I said, “Because May knows you will and always goes with the rock. So change!” She looked at me like I said ‘burn the bible’, so I gave up.

  Ralph came back, switched girls and took off again. He was in hog heaven. I shook my head, then Henry came over and said, “John? You know much about planes?” I said, “Yep, you can shoot ‘em down.” He said, “Well, that’s true but did you know that’s a million bucks’ worth of plane?”

  I tried to look impressed but what the fuck, we weren’t buying it. We were …stealing it? Nah, ‘taking it’ sounds better. But I could see it was going to be damn handy if we could always have nice landing strips.

  Ralph got it back on the ground without bending it, had it filled again and said he was ready to go when we were. I figured we would stay here for the night, but nobody wanted to sleep in the motel so we camped out at the airport.

  The gearheads used the time to pop the wings off the puddle jumper and load it on a lowboy. Ralph couldn’t leave her behind, so she was going as a ‘spare tire’.

  Morning came, and as we were gearing up to leave the town boss and a few of his folks came out to see us off. One of them spotted the plane with Ralph doing his walk around and asked what we were doing with the Doc’s plane. He said it belonged to a doctor who came around once in a while to fly and he had just got that one when the balloon went up. I said, “Well, now it’s in service.”

  He actually stood there and said, “Well, I think you need to pay us for it!” My jaw dropped, the town boss’s jaw dropped and Sandy said, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  He was opening his mouth to get himself killed so I slugged him before he said it. The rest of the townfolks just tossed him into the bed of a truck, shook hands and said, “Thanks for the ammo!”

  Sandy looked at me and said, “Thanks babe, I hate shooting people on an empty tummy… which reminds me you haven’t fed us yet.”

  I handed her a bottle of water and some homemade granola. “She said, “Well I guess the romance is over!”

  I remembered to ask if they had found out what the gearheads meant about Ralph having a fancy 1911. May said short of pulling out a few fingernails they couldn’t get a thing out of Ralph. I put an end to the nail pulling idea.

  I also said Ralph had a very fine-tuned sense of survival and I doubted he would be dumb enough to hold back on them since everybody knew they were crazy and would inflict pain and suffering to get a 1911 they thought belonged to them. They agreed, but I still had a bit of worry for Ralph’s sake.

  We made good time even with all the stopping and starting to check out landing places. I was really surprised at how many there was- I guess it’s one of those things you don’t think about if you’re not a flyer.

  We had reached the midpoint of the area I thought might be the landing area and decided to hold there and use the coast watchers and air recon to do the spotting.

  We used the time to set up a good camp and the gearheads serviced all the vehicles. The gun guys did their thing while fighting off ’Them’, who had decided every weapon needed to be tested… which took me to stop.

  They don’t often listen, even to me, but once in a while they do- usually when they want something and use listening as a bargaining chip. I will find out later what they want, I’m sure.

  We now had scouts scattered all along the beach areas where ships could unload, and had people warning the small port towns what was coming.

  Many flat-out weren’t going to run away, but that would change as soon as they saw thousands of troops heading for shore. These troops weren’t here to take prisoners, they were here to take this land and they didn’t want to leave any of us alive (so said Col. Chang).

  We waited and then waited some more for word to come in. And three weeks after we got here Ralph and Sandy were flying way the hell offshore, and at peak altitude spotted the enemy fleet. And it was a fleet.

  Ralph flew back and landed to report rather than use the radio, which was our new rule if there wasn’t a Navajo speaker there.

  He pointed to the map and said it looked like they were headed right for a place called Winchester Bay on the Oregon coast. If they did in fact land there in that bay they were pretty restricted as to where they could go; due west to Interstate 5- north or south didn’t gain them a thing.

  The only thing I could allow was they thought we were looking down south on the border for them. This wasn’t making much sense to me.

  I was starting to think I had been wrong about it- landing in San Francisco bay did make sense because of the very strong Chinese community and the place wasn’t exactly a hotbed of gun ownership (being the leftist leaning place it was).

  Whereas landing on the Oregon coast was not in their best interest- the routes away from the coast were narrow and thru steep country, not good for armor or artillery and hell on troops. And there was a strong gun culture there.

  I decided we would wait and see just where they were landing for sure. I’d still bet on further south, and we had plenty of time to move south if they did.

  I had no intentions of fighting them for Frisco- they could have it. Getting out of there was going to be their Achilles heel: Sure there are tons of roads and freeways, but they will be jammed solid with stalled vehicles and trying to move troops thru that mess was gonna be extremely difficult.

  And liberals or not, some of the people in there were gonna fight- if not for the flag, then to save their own hides. And when the enemy finally broke free they would run into a buzzsaw.

  Morning came and Ralph and May took off. It was hard knowing May was out there miles from shore in a tin can with props and anything could happen. Sandy sat in my lap and said, “Hey, don’t worry. Ralph is a damn good pilot and don’t take chances.” It didn’t help, but I smiled at her anyway and hugged her close. It was the same when Sandy was out there.

  In the afternoon Ralph returned and landed. May jumped out and trotted over to us. She was smiling and said, “Well, the bastards did it. They turned south and have to be heading for the Bay area. I gave it a minute and said, “OK!” and told the radio man to have all units moving inland and to plan to converge on us as we moved south.

  If I had it figured right, they were going to head east out of Frisco and take the state highways heading right at us in our canyons.

  My ego isn’t so big that I think I’m so important that all this is about me. I think we have been making the most noise and seem to be the big dog on the block (which in many ways we are).

  But there are many big dogs- Texas is one. Oklahoma has kept their own borders and is separate but joined with Texas and that right there is a big bunch of good ol’ boys with rifles. Those two areas are the best set-up of the surrounding states.

  But I have no intention of allowing these bastards to get anywhere close to our people. The desert is vast and not friendly, and while I believe these troops are good and tough they are far from home and hearth and their will to fight isn’t like ours.

  We will pull back away from their
landing area and watch and wait. Soon enough they will meet us.

  One thing I do insist on is alerting the people of the area of what’s coming, and for that I need dear ol’ Mr. Whipple at the fort.

  I sent a message thru the Navajo hotline requesting him to run off about a hundred thousand fliers with all the information of what we think is coming, along with the advice to move away from the coast and south or north- leaving the way east wide open.

  I added a PS to it stating that if he even thought about asking for a receipt for the paper I would send the girls to see him. Even Sandy said that was cruel and not nice. I thought it would cut out a waste of time.

  That done, we rolled along heading south and west a bit; thru the day we were joined by scout units and by day’s end we were already a large force compared to anything local.