by T J Reeder
A couple hours after full daybreak I heard something moving behind me and felt Molly’s tail moving. Shortly, Sandy slid under the cloth and eased up beside me with some food. She fed Molly while I ate my jerky and an apple.
She said they had been looking at the maps and figured they knew about where we were. If we got back on the trail we were on it should take us to an old forest service road that would take us out of the area pretty fast. She said it looked like the road didn’t go near the town, but we didn’t know that for sure.
I figured we had waited long enough when Molly rumbled; Sandy quieted her while I put the glasses on the trail where it came out into the clearing. It was several more minutes before a rider appeared followed by another and finally eight more. They ganged up and looked around, and their leader got off and walked a bit studying the trail we left. They were too far away to hear, but I could tell they were arguing a bit. Like maybe some wanted to just let us get on out of the area while others wanted our heads.
I was now watching their leader thru the scope of my rifle. He was the one who would decide it. Thru the scope he looked like a man with a huge hate and not one to stop for anything. Sandy had taken the glasses when I went to the scope and I heard her take a sharp breath. She then whispered, “NO. Fucking NO! Not again!” Now she had my attention!
She said, “John, I know who and what these bastards are!” Well I was lost, so I said, “Wanna share it with me?” She said, “I know you don’t remember it, but when we were burning out the cannibals in new Mexico I almost missed a shot at one I thought was a boss. I was bitching about only burning him across the face around the nose.” I said, “Yeah, I remember that. So what?”
She said, “Look at the leader- look at his face.” I cranked the scope up to 14 power and the man’s face was huge. The scar across his cheek and what was left of his nose was very visible. I asked her if she really thought this was the same guy. She said without a doubt- after she shot him he turned and glared right at her, then disappeared into the smoke.
I had to think about this shit. If he was who she thought he was, then that whole town could be filled with those bastards. The memory of that still-smoldering fire with the tiny bones in it flashed back at me. I was seeing my babies’ bones in the fire until Sandy nudged me and said, “No John, never!”
I set the cross hairs on his head and just as I was about to touch the trigger his head snapped around and he looked right at me! It startled me so much I jerked the trigger and hit the man beside him, and then they were gone back the way they came. Nothing left in the clearing but dust and a dead man.
We were up and running before the echoes of the shot were done bouncing off the peaks. We found the animals loaded and ready to haul ass, which we did in damn fast order. We headed for the trail and then the old forest service road. When we found it I held them back while I went in on foot to scout it and found fresh vehicle tracks all over it. These fuckers had us bottled up, but we could cross the road and keep going where their vehicles wouldn’t go.
We looked for the hardest place in the road and crossed one at a time slowly so as to not dig up the road. I went over last doing my best to clear any sign of our crossing. I sent all but Sandy on ahead, while we stood over watch on the road.
Sandy had the Blackout with its can on it while I had the ruger 10-22 with its can. We waited for almost two hours before we heard a vehicle coming slowly. When it came into sight we saw it had three in front and three in the bed.
Had they kept going all would have been well, but one of the guys standing in the back saw something and said, “Stop.” He jumped out, looked around a bit, and said, “They crossed here. Call Jasper” and Sandy lit them up with the blackout. They never knew what hit them. I took the driver in the head and then the other two. After waiting a bit we eased out and checked them. All were dead- now to get rid of them and their truck.
We loaded them in the back and drove along looking for a drop off. We found a good spot, just let the truck roll over the edge, and down it went! Then it rolled and tossed bodies everywhere. Thank god it didn’t blow up and burn.
We had gained a few hours and maybe a day or two if we were lucky. We caught up with the rest of the family, mounted up and hauled ass.
We spent the next three days playing tag with these bastards. Every road thru the area had tracks on it. I was tired and pissed, so we headed for the highest place we could find where Kid, (being the tomboy) slithered up the tallest tree on top of the whole mountain with a wire tied to her belt and an antenna on her back. She got the antenna cinched to the top and hooked the wire to it.
After she was on the ground she hooked the five watt to it and turned it on. She hit the transmit button and called out several words in Navajo! surprising the hell out of all of us. She said, “What? I’ve been working on it!” She kept repeating the call for several minutes, then stopped and turned it off. We would wait a while. Where we were we held the high ground. There was a bowl where the stock and ourselves were out of sight. There was a trickle of water from under a rock down a ways from the top so I took the shovel and dug it out a bit until it made a basin that would hold enough for our needs.
We stayed there for three days before we heard a voice answering Kid. It was weak but it was for sure in Navajo! She listened to it and wrinkled her brow and then slowly said something. The answering voice talked much slower after that. Kid slowly said what we had agreed on and waited for a reply. It was fast coming and the speaker was talking too fast. She asked him to slow down, please. He did and she got it.
She said something else, then turned to us and said, “OK, best I can understand it, he’s one of our scouts operating with a crew from the fort. They are only about 50 miles as the crow flies but a long way for our needs. He got excited when I got the point across about the cannibals.” She said she didn’t have the words for that, but said she got across ‘the fight in Albuquerque’. He said something she didn’t catch but said yes, he really got excited at that.
She spoke to him again and got it across that we were in trouble and really needed help! Bad! She signed off and said they had set a time to make contact again later. I figured we were in about as good a spot as we could find. We had food, water and graze for the animals and we weren’t leaving tracks all over the country. We also have a lot of firepower.
We set to making secure fighting positions and a safe place for the kids to be when and if it comes. I never said a word, but if it came down to it my kids were not gonna be food for these fuckers. Just the thought put me in a rage. We spent our time getting everything ready for a fight. My beta c mags were reloaded and that 16 was now our squad auto weapon (aka SAW). I took the time to tell the girls that I would never again give them shit for packing too much ammo!
Sandy asked Beth to note that in her notebook and I was gonna sign it. I flipped her off. We were in a good place and had good firing places. We couldn’t waste a shot but we were OK. I had a feeling these scumbags had no idea who or what they had messed with. If they came.
And they did. Using the night vision, I spotted some riders below us looking around. They knew we came thru here but they had no idea we were still here. The girls went to the stock and made sure they didn’t try to do a shout-out to the new horses in the area.
The riders headed on out of the area but I figured they weren’t going far and we didn’t know how many there was out there. And right then I decided I was going hunting. We knew they would eventually track us here, so why not hit them tonight when they thought they had the upper hand?
I told the girls what I had in mind and got an instant argument, but I was going- so Beth said, “Not alone, you’re not.” Sandy said she was going and that was that. We took nothing but firepower and the night vision gear. Sandy was digging around in the baggage for god knows what, then showed up with the bloop gun across her back. We wore our body armor and that with the weapons and ammo was a load.
We headed down hill and got on their trai
l. The unit I was using had FLIR/thermal capability and registered heat: I could see the horse crap still cooling where it fell. We closed as fast as we could and soon heard them talking. There was no laughter- just anger in the voices. One voice was giving the orders, telling the rest to get camp set up and some food going.
They got a fire going and soon had something cooking; I could only imagine what or maybe who it might have been if Sandy was right. We got close enough to count at least twenty-five of them but what with all the moving around it was hard to say just how many there was.
I wasn’t going to do a thing until I knew without a doubt these people were bad. I really believed they were, but I wanted some proof. And that came soon enough. The leader said in a loud voice, “People, this fucker we’re after is John Walker. He’s the bastard who killed our former Master. Our people in Timberline identified him and the whores he runs with. How he found us I’ll never know, but he dies in these mountains watching us chow down on his kids and women.”
That brought some laughter. Sandy was seething and I had heard enough. I was just going to charge in with the SAW blazing but Sandy put her hand on my arm and shook her head. She eased back slowly and I followed. We got back a hundred yards and she handed me something. Hand grenades! She had brought several. She whispered that I was going to toss them as fast as I could, she would open up with the bloop gun, and then we would hose the camp with the full autos. Damn, I love this woman.
We worked our way back in close and waited for them to settle down for the night. Two hours later they were sound asleep, and the fire was burned down low. Then one man got up to take a leak and built it back up. The whole area was lit up and no guards.
I straightened the pins on the grenades and set them in a row. I looked at Sandy and nodded, then one by one as fast as I could I pulled pins and tossed them among the sleeping mounds. I got rid of several before the first one went off. We were behind trees by then and heard the shrapnel smacking the trees, (also the screams of the wounded). The bloop gun sounded off several times, adding its voice to the sounds ripping the night apart. After that we both opened up on the whole mess and hosed them down like dust. Then we took off and faded into the night. The yelling and screaming faded away the further we got away.
We made it back to the top of the hill and collapsed out of breath. My legs felt like I had run up a mountain loaded with weapons. Oh, I guess I did. Sandy wasn’t blowing like I was; youth and better shape helped her.
We waited thru the night but heard nothing but the sounds of people in the distance, just sounds- not voices. Morning came and we were still on watch when a few men rode into the area below us. They were tracking us for sure; I was really surprised any were alive!
We watched the ones we could see and then two of them broke off and headed back down the mountain, going for more people. Kid was on the radio talking to the scout team she had made contact with. They were on their way and had put out the word- all said was help was on its way.
Kid signed off and had just put the radio down when a bullet clipped the tree right beside her head! I looked for the shooter but couldn’t see him, he must have seen just the top of her head somehow. He had to be up in a tree, it had to be one of the tallest out there so I started slowly scanning them and an hour later I spotted him. He had slipped a bit and had to grab the main trunk to hang on and fate screwed him because I was looking right at him when he did it. He was wearing a gillie suit and was well hidden but once I had him he wasn’t going anyplace. I lined up the cross hairs and after Sandy had him spotted and had lasered his range I squeezed off the shot and took him right out of the tree. I watched him falling all the way to the brush below the tree.
Now they were pissed and opened fire with all they had. It sounded like maybe a half dozen rifles working. The lip of our depression was getting shot all to hell, and I wasn’t planning to try for a shot just yet. After a bit it stopped and a man yelled out that we were ‘dead meat’ and told us in graphic detail just what fate awaited us. Hell, I said I figured if they smoked the meat of their dead buddies they could last a long time. Sandy said I was a ghoul, I thought it was funny. Kid did, too.
I spent a while trying to recreate the whole thing in my mind from start to finish and as best I could figure we had killed or wounded upwards of fifty of these assholes and they still wanted to get us. The events in New Mexico must have really pissed them off.
I found a place where I could peek over the rim and not be seen, but saw nothing. I was starting to think this spot wasn’t all that great. They could keep us pinned down while their friends moved in on us. One possibility was to use the big tree that Kid had climbed as a sniper hide; I could shoot from behind it with just a tiny part of my head and shoulder exposed. It was worth a try so I eased back and around using the tree for cover and crawled in behind it, it was even better than I thought it would be. I had a good view of the whole front area and if they tried a full out frontal attack the SAW would ruin their day.
So far these people hadn’t shown much in the way of military skills and I hoped to use that against them. Thru the scope I saw movement and zeroed in on it. One of them had actually lit a cigarette! I could just see the smoke thru the scope and figured the small bush he was using for cover wasn’t bullet proof. I lined the crosshairs on the spot where I figured his head was, squeezed the trigger and heard the sound of the bullet hitting the target. I’ve heard that sound so many times there was no mistaking it. Well, that and the pink cloud that shot up. Headshot! He wasn’t gonna be eating some poor bastard anymore.
With the can on the rifle it didn’t give a clue where the shot came from and sure enough shortly another one moved to see what happened to his buddy. I could see his shoulder from the side and the bullet went in and thru the chest and out the other shoulder. The odds were dropping like a rock. I must have really pissed them off, because they opened up again and were spraying the rim of our cover.
Sandy came crawling up beside me with her beloved bloop gun and after watching a bit picked out a spot with several muzzle flashes and lobbed a grenade at them. It was short by 25 yards but the second one was right behind it and landed right among the bunch. She lobbed three more along the line and caused a lot of pain- we could hear the yelling. She scooted up, kissed me and with a evil smile said, “You show a girl such a good time!” God, I love these ladies! I heard the crack of a 223 round and saw May had one in sight and nailed him.
These guys had to be running low on manpower, but they weren’t acting like it. I saw Kid on the five watt and wondered about that. The kids weren’t bothered by all the noise and were playing in the grass of the bowl, Molly sleeping beside them. Walker looked worried. Ever since he had adopted JC he was always worried about things. We might need to give him some kind of anxiety meds. (That was a joke).
Things got quiet after the last round. They were down several more bodies with nothing to show for it, and the bloop gun was sure earning its pay! Sandy leaned against me and said, “Apology accepted.” “What apology?” I asked. She smiled and said, “The one you owe me!” She had me there.
For the next two days it was quiet except for the occasional shot from them. I was getting worried- they had to be up to something and I figured it was gathering more people. We couldn’t stay pinned down here forever. It was time to make a change and tonight was the time. Digging thru my years of reading everything I could find, I finally remembered something from an old western I read where the good guys padded their horses’ hooves and eased out of a trap after dark. I had no idea if it would work but anything beat this.
That night Sandy and I eased out of the hide using the night viz gear and finally located their camp. They had a low fire and were mostly sitting around it drinking from bottles they passed around. We backed off, returned to our camp and quickly saddled and packed the stock- to hell with padded hooves. We eased out again with everything; Sandy leading the way
while I went back to their camp. They were mostly s
leeping and as long as none heard anything to get them moving I wasn’t gonna ruin their sleep. I figured if we got away without alerting them it could be a full day or more before they knew we were gone.
We just eased back down the trail everybody had been using which was chopped up from all the horse traffic, so I doubted our tracks were going to stand out. I did have the girls, all on horses, bringing up the rear to chop up the mule tracks since they would stand out to an even fair tracker.
We moved along slow for a mile or so then let the stock set their own pace (which in the dark wasn’t all that much faster) because they could see the trail better than we could. Thru an open space in the trees I saw what looked like a trail that cut off of this one and took the chance with a flashlight to look it over. It wasn’t showing any use at all so I led us down it, then went back to try to sweep our tracks as best I could. We then headed out hoping the trail didn’t head off a cliff.
We finally stopped after a few hours. It was near daylight and I figured we were clear enough to wait for light to see where we were. I was very surprised the kids had remained so quiet thru all this but they were riding in their little chest packs on Beth and Kid’s chests. Between the warmth and the motion they seemed to be really out of it. For that I was very thankful.
