by T J Reeder
I rode in the lead with Walker out front doing his job, Molly ranged all over the place. May and Sandy took turns riding drag while the other one rode flank when possible. All in all we were pretty well covered, which I hoped was just un-needed paranoia- but life is very different these days.
Our first night we spent in a low spot with a spring-fed pool of ice cold water and none of us were getting near it to bathe. I took a canvas waterproof tarp I brought and tied the corners to tree limbs making a bowl affair. We heated buckets of water boiling hot and added it to the cold water in the canvas bowl. I left that for the kids and Beth, and then added hot water to the cold in a solar shower bag until it was perfect, hung it on a tree limb and showered. It wasn’t fun like showering at home, but the view was great when the girls showered. Of course they used the whole five gallons doing hair (among other things).
One advantage was I had it all to myself and I used the whole bag-full myself. Clean and with happy kids and wives we all pitched in with cooking our evening meal. I hauled in enough firewood to last the night, and with the sleeping bags on ground cloths we watched the stars and dropped off one at a time. We slept very well, stayed in bed until the sun was well up, made breakfast, loaded up and headed out.
This became the daily routine as we headed ever higher into the mountains. We were getting into the area with hot springs and after a week we found one. We had never been to this one; it was near an old forest service road so it had been a popular camping spot for elk hunters in times past. The pool had been deepened and was big enough for all of us.
We decided this was a place to stay a few days so we made a good camp with a canvas fly over the saddles and other gear and our big tent with big bedding that turned into a king-king bed- any bigger and the kids were gonna get lost in it.
I built a one holer with a canvas screen around it for privacy, a nice big rock lined pit for the fire, and the tripod for the big Dutch oven and cowboy coffee pot. I used Buck to drag in a couple of logs for seats by the fire and by dark we had a really nice camp set up.
Dinner was a hobo stew the girls made with canned stuff we brought with us but that wasn’t going to last. We had a big load of dehydrated veggies and fruit plus plenty of flour and dried beans and rice. We were not gonna starve.
We planned to find small towns where we could buy or barter for stuff we might need. All in all we were just fine. The first morning I slipped out with my rifle with the can on it and two would-be bow hunters. We headed down the creek made by the overflow and found where the deer came to water. But it was late for them to be moving around.
That evening we were back in place waiting when several does wandered in range of the girls’ bows- now we would see if all their practice was gonna pay off. And it did; two arrows and two big does kicking on the ground. The others took off but stopped to look back. I was tempted, but we didn’t need all that meat right now.
Sandy and I started dressing them out while May went for a mule. She was back just as we finished, and we loaded them, tied them down and headed for camp. Dinner was going to be a feast! Fried backstraps with fried potatoes and onions we brought with us, and a can of cream corn dumped over the spuds, (try it before you knock it!)
After mashing the spuds and corn together we were amazed at how the kids packed it away. Tiny bits of meat just to taste and they were happy as could be. Beth had mixed up hotcake batter and made a six-layer cake with them using powdered sugar and peanut butter for frosting. It was awesome. Hot coffee and I was ready for a soak and bed. Wonderful day!
We slept the sleep of sleeps; guess you had to be there to understand that. Sometime late in the night Walker and Molly both gave out warning growls and whatever it was left posthaste. I went right back to sleep.
We spent several days just like this, and it was wonderful! But we weren’t seeing much country this way so we loaded up, looked at the maps and located another hot springs listed a long day’s ride north, so we made a bee line for it. We had to make camp for the night by a small trickle of water but it was enough to handle our needs.
By noon the next day we found the hot spring. It wasn’t much, but we did make it deeper by cleaning it out and it worked OK. We decided to head on the next morning and made a simple camp. We headed out early moving north toward a small town that might have some things we needed, if it was still occupied.
We found the small town in the afternoon, and it was still occupied. We made quite a parade riding in for sure. The townspeople turned out to gawk- being well off the beaten path they didn’t get many visitors. We spotted the local café, hotel and livery stable, which was clean and looked like the owner had pride in his place. We headed right for it and found the owner standing just inside the big open doors.
He introduced himself as Jake- just Jake. We made his year I believe! He was a nice old coot and loved the mules and the kids…in that order. We got the packs and saddles off and placed in his tack room and spent an hour brushing down the gang while Jake put out good hay and a bit of grain for them. We left the dogs with the stock and headed for the café.
The place was clean and smelled great- both good signs. The old gal who run the place waited on us, bringing some weak coffee (which sent Sandy back out the door). She came back with a vacuum-sealed bag of ground coffee and headed into the kitchen. After a bit she came out smiling. Said the old gal hugged her so hard she thought she had a cracked rib. Their supplier hadn’t shown up and was running two weeks late. She was worried about him because of lack of supplies and because she had ‘something going’ with him. Sandy got it all in five minutes.
We had big bowls of beef stew with plenty of veggies and home baked bread (since that’s the only kind these days). Bread is something I miss a lot out on the trail. After eating and making plans to return for supper we walked around town. There was a general store with mostly empty shelves, and a saloon with very little to drink. The town wasn’t doing so well, and they didn’t have much of a supply system set up. I couldn’t understand that.
We got rooms at the hotel, adjoining with a door between. We spent a while getting things settled the way we wanted them and then crashed for a nap. We woke up an hour or so before dark, starving, headed for the café…and walked into a problem right off.
Some loudmouth was giving the old gal a hard time because he wanted to buy the coffee we gave her and she wasn’t selling it except by the cup full and was just telling him he also wasn’t getting any in a cup either. We took our seats and watched the show until she came to us to tell us what was for dinner. The loudmouth followed her, still giving her a load of crap.
I knew this could end up with him getting his head blown off if the icy look in Sandy’s eyes was any indication. So I stood up and said, “Mister? I gave her that coffee and if she says it’s not for sale then it’s not for sale, so please just leave her alone so I can get my family fed.”
Now that was as nice as a person can be but he was an asshole, and proved it by throwing a punch at my head. Being old and tired I just pulled my 45 and laid him upside the brain locker, causing him to go to sleep for a bit. We gathered him up and sit him in a chair with a cup of coffee in front of him and left him be.
When he came to his senses, he picked up the coffee, sipped it and seemed to enjoy it. He rubbed his head a bit, felt the knot and looked around like he had no idea how he got here. Shit, I didn’t mean to give him a concussion! But he sipped his coffee, got up and wandered out the door. The old lady watched him and then busted out laughing.
She said he was generally a fairly OK guy but had temper issues. She said the word had spread that she had fresh coffee and had been swamped with folks looking to get some. Interesting! I could see a market here. Not that I wanted to become a traveling peddler, but there are always folks looking to be doing something.
I saw Beth get out a notebook and write something in it. She was the one who would follow up on the idea; we have tons of coffee and if we are going to keep hauling it in then
we need to do something with it. I had a feeling some of the scavenger crew at the fort would be interested in developing a trade route. What they would trade for is beyond me but if the doing makes them happy, then cool.
We spent a comfortable night and headed for breakfast. The same guy was in there eating and having a cup of coffee. He looked us over, and then at me, and went back to eating. We were midway thru our feed when the gent got up, dropped a coin on the table and walked toward our table. Sandy and May both laid down their forks, (which is never a good sign) so I simply said, “Howdy, feeling better today?” He smiled and offered his hand saying he was real sorry about the day before- that he was just one of many who had been on some kind of meds and when they were gone things went to hell. I could understand that.
Beth asked him what he had been treated for, and he said PTSD and depression. She made a note in her notebook. He again said he was sorry and headed out. Beth said she was going to get with the folks at home that were doing the herbal thing and see what might work for folks like this guy. The traders could haul herbs to trade as well as coffee. If we were still in a normal society Beth would make us millionaires the way her mind works.
We decided to head out and were packed and gone in an hour; we were getting good at it. We headed up an old forest service road and by dark had made several miles. We camped by a stream and the girls tried their hand with the fishing gear. They caught a mess of brook trout- supper was taken care of! After we ate and cleaned up the mess we built up the fire and settled down for the night. Walker and Molly were out and about so I slept sound.
The next six days were the same- beautiful vistas from horse back. Beth was loving it, the kids were happy in their moving seats. I could feel a lot of the stress of the month before just sliding off. We were in a beautiful place, as wonderful in its way as our canyon home.
We needed some supplies and worked out which direction we could find the nearest town. It took two days to get there. It turned out to be bigger than the last one and was pretty clean looking. It had been on a state highway and was about fifty miles from the nearest interstate. From the 18 wheeler trucks and trailers parked outside town they had gotten right to the scavenging.
There was some vehicles moving around; older ones, and most of the street was lined with hitch racks. We did attract a lot of attention as we rode in but that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was the lack of a friendly smile or nod from any of the people we saw. Most just stared as we rode by. If I was a dog my hackles would be standing very tall. Sandy had eased up beside me and said, “John, I think we need to just keep on keeping on.” I agreed. We didn’t need anything bad enough to hang around here.
Sandy dropped back to the last mule and gently slipped the rope tying the canvas cover on the load. I knew right under that cover was the 300 Black Out as well as our M-16’s. May had moved up on the other side to kind of block the view of what Sandy was doing.
Seeing the chance, I turned off the main street between a hardware store and a boarded up building. We stopped and dismounted. Sandy handed the 300 to May and a 16 to Beth and Kid. I headed back to the street and into the hardware store. Behind the counter was a man who just stared at me. I asked if he had any matches for sale. He said no. Candles? No. So I said, “Well, since I see both on the shelf behind you, I’m gonna say you’re a liar and you’re gonna tell me what’s wrong with this place. Why are y’all so unfriendly?”
I think hearing a stranger calling him a liar set him off. He reached under the counter and blinked into the big round hole of the 45 he was looking at. Walking behind the counter, I saw a sawed-off double barrel 12 gauge which I took. He sputtered a bit and said, “We don’t like strangers.”
I nodded and said, “OK, you don’t like strangers. But as long as we ain’t hurting you and want to buy your goods what’s the problem?”
He just looked at me, so I said, “Well then I guess we will just leave your nasty little town to go to hell and look for another place to spend our silver.” He laughed a nasty laugh and said, “Mister, you ain’t getting out of here alive.” Now I was scared! I have my whole family in an alley in a town with a problem. I told him we were leaving and he was coming along. He didn’t like that idea and promptly sat down in a chair and said, ”I ain’t moving.”
It only took slapping his nose sideways with the 45 to get him off his ass and high stepping for the door. I could see knots of people gathering in the street and some moving towards us. I marched the bent-nose dude around the corner and found the girls loaded for bear.
I told them what I knew, what I thought and what I figured we needed to do- which was mount up and ride. I sent Sandy and Beth with the livestock out the back of the alley while May and I stayed at the mouth of it. I stepped out where I could be seen and the crowd was getting bigger. The hardware store man was still bleeding from the nose and that seemed to piss off a few of the ones in front of the crowd.
I raised the rifle where it could be seen and said, “Y’all need to understand that me and my family are leaving this place and it would be in y’alls best interest to just back off.”
Several of the men in front of me were armed with rifles and all had something in their hands. One of them said, “You ain’t going anyplace, and you ain’t leaving town.” One of the crowd said, “Alive, that is!” And they all laughed. Was the whole town crazy? The one in front said, “Harvey, we are gone shoot so you just drop” and damned if he didn’t and every one of them raised their weapons!
If I was ever in doubt of their intentions I wasn’t when they all opened fire just as I stepped back a long step and watched their bullets tearing the hell out of the hardware store wall. And my brain said, “ Fuck this shit!” so I moved just enough to see the ones on the far left of the bunch and I opened fire on full auto and introduced them to a beta C 100 round drum magazine and I just kept moving the barrel to the right as I leaned out just enough to see the next targets. The silly bastards just froze and then fell down. When the crashing roar was over none of them was standing but it opened a hornet’s nest because there was well over a hundred more in sight running at us. We took off running and turned the corner to find Kid there with Buck and Beth’s horse. Kid leaned around the wall and hosed the alley, causing a lot of screaming and yelling.
Then we were at a full-out run down the side street. I could see more people trying to cut us off, but they stopped when more full auto fire started raking their ranks. Beth and Sandy had waited behind good cover. We closed the gap and they were in a flat-out run when we got there. We cleared the town in damn fast order and didn’t stop until the animals were blowing hard.
I could hear the sound of vehicles coming hard so I got off Buck and slapped my second and last Beta C mag in the rifle. I got back to the road and watched several pickups heading my way real fast. I was sighting in on the lead truck when I heard an old very familiar sound. It was that wonderful bloop gun! The two sneaky shits had brought it along. Bless their evil little hearts! The grenade hit right in front of the third truck back and ended its run- it crashed with bodies flying. I hosed the lead truck and watched the second one take the next grenade right in the windshield; damn, she was good with that thing.
The other pickups stopped and people were spilling out of them and running for cover which works well against direct fire such as rifle fire, but indirect fire like from a bloop gun is a different story. Sandy was lobbing rounds out as fast as she could load the gun and doing a damn good job of it. Pretty soon we could see the survivors hauling ass thru the trees back the way they came.
I sent the girls on ahead at a slow pace to allow the stock to catch their breath, and I stayed behind with Buck as rear guard. After a while I headed on up behind them but paused every few hundred yards to sit a while. Right now I wanted my 308, not the squirt gun. It had done its job wonderfully but we were at longer range now.
I headed on, following the trail left by the bunch in front. I came around a big boulder to find Sandy there
with my 308 and a big grin. She said, “Witches have their place, big guy.” I just grabbed her, (gun and all) and lifted her up for a hug and kiss. She snuggled and said, “Later ace.” A laugh a minute.
We stayed there for an hour but never saw anybody following us. Hell, after the show we put on I wouldn’t follow us either. But I sure wanted to get my hands on a few of them with time to really question them.
Sandy and I caught up with the rest of the family an hour before dark. I took the lead and took us up a game trail and then across a clearing. We headed right on thru it and after about a half-mile we turned off and circled back to the timber near the clearing. We tied the stock in a gully where we made camp, it was a dry camp but we had crossed a stream back a ways and the stock drank their fill. It was going to be a no frills night- no fire, no coffee and damn little sleep.
I spent the night on a ground cloth under another one with the 308 and the night viz glasses. I had Molly with me and kept her under the cover with me for warmth and so I would know if she sensed something before she could bark. She’s a lot better at this stuff than Walker. He’s all ‘balls to the walls’ whereas Molly will quietly rumble a bit before getting loud. We spent a quiet night but never moved because I didn’t think this was over by a long shot. Whatever was wrong with this town, we had gotten away and they weren’t gonna allow that.
