It could be merely a coincidence.
Perhaps this was another Explorer which just happened to crash through the rail the day the EMPs struck the earth.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
Dave knew himself pretty well.
And he knew if he didn’t go down to check it out, he’d wonder for the rest of his life.
And besides, if it was his SUV down there, the weapons that might still be inside it would make the climb down and back up again more than worth it.
By now a curious Sal and an even more curious Beth were at his side.
“Daddy, that looks like our old Explorer down there.”
“Don’t get too close to the edge, honey. Back up just a bit.
“It might be our old Explorer, honey.”
“Boy, it’s really messed up.”
“Yes indeed. That’s what happens to a vehicle when it rolls ten or fifteen times down a mountain.”
Sal asked, “Do you really think that’s the vehicle that was stolen from you?”
“I think there’s a good chance, yes. And if it is, there’s also a good chance my weapons are still in it.”
“You’re not going down there, are you?”
“Yes. It doesn’t look that bad. Should be a piece of cake.”
And it wasn’t that bad. It was indeed a piece of cake.
Going down.
Just before he got to the wreck he came across two bodies. Men, based on the clothing they wore.
Beyond that he couldn’t be certain of anything.
They were badly decomposed after being exposed in the desert heat.
And the vultures and coyotes had done their work, leaving just scattered pieces of meat on blood-stained bones.
Despite what they’d done to him, Dave felt no animosity or hatred toward the men.
For he was a Christian man.
Normally he’d have considered burying them.
But the ground here was almost pure rock, and he had no shovel.
It light of that, he considered burning the bodies.
But that would almost certainly start a brush fire which might spread to hundreds of acres and kill thousands of innocent creatures.
He finally decided there wasn’t enough left to burn anyway. He’d just let nature run its course. Who was he to deny a flock of buzzards or a couple of coyotes a good meal?
He found his bag of weapons and ammo fifty feet beyond the wreck. They’d flown a long way through the air before bouncing on a boulder and coming to rest against another.
He inspected the weapons closely. The barrel on an AK-47 he’d taken from one of the Dalton’s Raiders gang was bent. He discarded it. No sense taking any risks when he had other weapons.
The rest looked okay.
He smiled.
Temporarily.
Then he began his long climb back up the rock face which was somehow much steeper than it had been on his way down.
It took him another hour to make it back to the roadway, dragging the hundred pound bag of weapons and ammo with him.
It turned out the “piece of cake” was anything but.
Back at the rig he lifted the mattress from the truck’s bed and placed the weapons and ammo beneath it in a single layer.
He flattened out the bag and placed it atop them.
“I spent a lot of time and trouble collecting them,” he explained to Sal. “I don’t want them to get stolen again.”
He didn’t mention having to kill several men along the way, or that some of their weapons had become part of his collection.
Sal had but one question.
“Do you really think you’ll need all those weapons, now that you’ve found Beth and are headed back home?”
“I hope not, Sal. I really do. But these days you can’t take anything for granted.”
Chapter 16
“Are you sure about this?”
Sal looked at Dave as if he was crazy.
And that was okay, for he certainly appeared to be.
“Yes, Sal. I’m positive.”
“But why? It took a lot of time to gather that food and water.”
“And I assure you, somebody will appreciate our efforts when they stumble across it and wonder why it’s here, all piled up like it is.”
Sal looked to Beth.
Beth was no help. She merely shrugged and said, “My daddy is a very smart man. If he says we need to take everything out of the pickup and leave it all behind, there has to be a good reason for it.”
She looked at Dave and said, hands on her hips, “You do have a good reason, don’t you Daddy?”
“Yes honey. I certainly do.”
They were on the bank of the Colorado River. Ahead of them, to the east, was a long steep grade.
Long as in two miles.
“You see, we don’t need any of this stuff. You can’t see them from here, but at the top of that grade are hundreds of tractor trailers. And none of them have been cracked open yet. Once we get up there we can go shopping. There’ll be all this stuff times a thousand. So much stuff we could fill fifty pickups to the brim.
“But first we have to get up there. And the lighter the load, the more chance the horses can make it without falling down and dying on us.”
“I remember the trucks,” Sal said. “They were very hard to maneuver around.”
“And they’ll be hard to maneuver around again,” Dave answered. “But not if we don’t get up that grade.”
They took all the provisions off the top of the mattress in the truck bed. All the food, all the water, the tents and the rain tarps.
Everything except the three backpacks which held their personal items and a single case of water for the climb.
“Let’s wait until first thing in the morning,” Sal suggested. Let the horses get a good night’s sleep so they can do the job fresh. And it’ll be cooler then.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Dave agreed. “We all need to make that climb after a good night’s sleep.
“That’s why we’re going to spend the night here.”
They parked the rig under the bridge and had a picnic next to the Colorado River.
It would be their last night in California and Dave wanted to make it a memorable one. The last trailer they dug through, just their side of Barstow, contained some items Dave snuck into his backpack and didn’t tell anyone about.
A bag of extra large marshmallows. A box of chocolate bars, which were melted but would harden when put into a waterproof bag and placed under the cool river water.
And a box of graham crackers.
Slightly stale after being in the back of a trailer for a year and a half, sure.
But nobody would mind.
They’d caught some fish and fried them up and feasted on them.
All three of them swore they were stuffed.
Then Dave pulled out his booty. Sal and Beth decided they had a bit more room.
Beth hadn’t had s'mores in three summers.
Sal hadn’t had s’mores since he made them for little Becky four years before.
And, honestly, there is always room for s’mores, no matter how stuffed one feels.
After Beth killed the last of the campfire delights, she crawled onto the mattress in the truck’s bed and looked up at the stars.
Dave and Sal set up their tents, as was their habit since leaving Adelanto. One on either side of the rig.
Because little Beth felt safer that way.
Dave stood watch for awhile, sitting outside his tent with his rifle across his lap.
He didn’t know why, exactly. He’d noticed nothing which might be a threat. There were no other people, as far as he could tell, within a mile or more in any direction.
He could hear a lonely coyote cry way off in the distance, but coyotes tended to fear humans and avoided them as much as possible.
He let his mind drift. Back to the early days of the blackout, when he was all alone in the world. How he’d cried h
imself to sleep at night and told himself that if only he could get his family back he’d never let anything happen to them again.
It had been an incredibly long journey. But it was still only half over. He’d verified that Sarah and the girls had survived.
Thank God for that.
But they weren’t all together yet. That was the half the battle he had yet to accomplish.
But he would.
There was no doubt in his mind.
It occurred to him then that’s what he was guarding against.
That was why he felt a need to pull watch, even though there seemed to be no threats.
He was terrified of losing Beth again after working so hard to find her.
He walked around the camp one last time, just to make sure things were secure. Then he crawled into his tent, chuckled at himself for being so foolish, and drifted off to sleep. For the first time in a very long time he was contented and happy.
Sal dreamed of Nellie. Beth and Dave about Sarah.
It was the best night’s sleep Dave had in many months.
But it didn’t last long.
The dawn came way too quickly.
At about five thirty in the morning Beth sat bolt upright in bed and said, “Daddy! Daddy!”
Dave had gotten out of the habit of being awakened by Beth’s excited voice. At first he thought it was a dream.
Then he realized it was real and expected the worst. He scrambled out of his tent calling for her.
“Look Daddy! Look at the sunrise over the mountains! Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Yes honey. Yes it is.”
His baby was growing up.
Chapter 17
Unfortunately watching the sun rise with his daughter was the only pleasant part of the morning for Dave.
Sal was also awakened by Beth’s calls and peeked out of his own tent to make sure everything was okay.
He almost joined the pair as they gazed out at the horizon, but decided not to.
Father and daughter had missed so many things in recent months. This would be a cherished memory only the two of them would share.
He waited until Dave took her fishing before he emerged and started breaking down his tent. He broke down Dave’s as well, then restarted their tiny campfire.
It was a wasted gesture, as the fish were refusing to bite.
They wound up sharing two cans of Spam, but nobody minded much.
As they set out, Dave walked alongside the team.
“Daddy, come sit with me.”
“I will after we crest the hill, honey. Right now though, every pound of weight we can take off the pickup will make it easier for the horses to get up the grade. We have to be careful not to injure them. We need them to get us where we’re going.”
She hopped off the slow-moving rig and announced with great flourish, “Then I’ll walk too.”
Sal laughed.
“Just how much do you think this little bit weighs, Dave?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Not more than a church house mouse, I suppose.”
“Na-uh! I weigh lots more than a mouse!”
“I don’t mind you walking next to me, Peanut, under two conditions.”
“Okay, Daddy. What are they?”
“I get to walk next to the horses. And you have to hold my hand.”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll fall down?”
“No. Someday when you’re a mommy you’ll understand that one of the finest things is the world is going for a walk with your daughter and holding her little hand.
“I haven’t been able to hold your hand for a year and a half and I’ve missed it.”
“In that case, Daddy, I accept your terms.”
To make it to the Arizona border they had to climb a two mile long, twenty degree grade.
It was difficult for any horse to walk that far uphill.
These two were pulling a heavy pickup truck.
Granted, it was a quarter-ton truck. But the nomenclature was misleading, for quarter-ton indicated the weight it could safely bear. The pickup itself weighed much more than that.
A bit less so since the engine and tranny had been removed.
Everything had been taken out of the back except for Beth’s mattress, a case of drinking water and the tents.
But it was still quite a load.
The horses started to bog down after half a mile or so.
“Why don’t we give these guys a break?”
“Not too long. That sun, once it’s high in the sky, is gonna make their task a lot harder.”
It took both men to water the horses. Sal cupped his hands together and Dave poured water into them. The horses lapped it up as fast as he could pour it.
Four bottles for one horse, five for the other.
“Maybe we should have brought a second case.”
“We can use all of it. Once we crest that hill there’s a long line of trucks and many of them will have water.
“It won’t be hard to replenish our supplies.”
It was the horses who decided it was time to go on. They tugged at the brake and seemed to grow restless.
Sal was quick to accommodate them, and they made it to the top of the hill without further incident.
It took almost four hours to travel two miles and they were all spent.
The crest of the hill came just before a long curve in the highway, and after they traveled another mile or so the sun reached its highest point in the sky and began to move downward again.
Since the highway didn’t run true east and west, two p.m. brought a bit of a shadow on the north side of the trucks they were passing.
Three o’clock brought with it a more pronounced shadow, and the group was finally able to stop and rest in the shade.
The horses seemed to appreciate it the most.
“Why don’t we take a long break here,” Sal suggested. “I’m worried the heat will break them if they continue as is.”
“Agreed,” Dave said. “In fact, there should be a half moon tonight. If we night travel we can get a good bit through the desert by morning.”
Sal didn’t have to be told twice. He’d professed concern for the horses, and he was indeed worried about their welfare.
But he didn’t mention the sun was getting to him as well. A couple of times, while driving the team, he’d felt light headed and in danger of passing out.
It wasn’t dehydration. He knew the dangers of not getting enough water in a desert environment and drank up every chance he got.
No, he suspected this time it was his blood pressure.
He’d stopped taking his medication months before because he simply couldn’t find it any more. The druggies cleaned out every pharmacy in the country. They took the opioids first. Once those were gone they started taking everything else, just in case they could get a high off of it.
Sal could generally keep the blurred vision and light headedness at bay by staying hydrated and avoiding stress.
But the climb up the mountain, and the long stretch across the desert was inherently stressful.
He could use a nice long nap. It would allow him to keep his secret a secret. If he tried to go on and collapsed Dave might insist on taking him back to his brother Benny’s place.
And that wouldn’t do.
Now that he and Beth had finally become close, he couldn’t imagine a life without her.
It would be almost like losing Nellie all over again.
Chapter 18
The time had finally come. There was nothing else to be done, nothing else to be said.
At just after eleven they broke camp and set out.
They traveled due north through the heavy forest, staying low to the ground and holding their weapons at the ready.
They maintained strict silence.
Parker made sure of that.
Scarface Manson was already at the dozer.
It was already idling, and his men were fascinated by it. It was the first vehicle they’d seen running i
n well over a year.
It wasn’t that they doubted Manson when he said he could get it running. It was just that… well, it was just a joy to behold.
It gave them the sense there was hope for the world to return to normal someday after all.
Whatever normal meant.
Manson was in the engine well adjusting the air mixture. He needed for the big machine to creep on its own, up a steep hill, without hesitating or bogging down or dying.
Satisfied, he crawled out and closed and hooked the compartment door.
“Let’s go,” he commanded.
Manson, sitting in the driver’s seat, shifted the Cat into the first forward gear. He took his foot off the creeper clutch and the bulldozer lurched forward.
It would never break any land speed records, crawling along at about half a mile an hour or so.
But it would get the job done.
A full five minutes later the dozer broke into the open.
Manson aimed it directly at the pillbox on the other side of the clearing, perhaps three hundred yards away.
Parker, hunkered down on the half-inch thick track cover which served as a fender, yelled out instructions to the men.
“Okay, one last time. The blade extends eighteen inches wider than the sides of the dozer. As long as you stay low and walk behind the machine they can’t see you. Any shots they fire will hit the blade and be deflected.
“Stay in the tracks. Walk where the Cat walks. If you don’t walk directly behind the tracks you may step on a mine. And it’ll ruin your whole day.”
From within the pillbox, the sentries knew their goose was cooked. They fired shots at the dozer, but couldn’t see any of the men behind it. They could see the driver’s seat, but it was now unoccupied.
Manson was now on the track cover directly behind Parker.
The dozer was on a collision course with the pillbox and was chewing up the ground beneath it at a maddeningly slow, yet terrifying rate.
Most people think a mine is a mine is a mine. But Manson and Parker knew better.
Anti-personnel mines are intended to maim their victims, not to kill them outright. A wounded man requires many more resources to evacuate and treat than a dead man.
For that reason, anti-personnel mines aren’t powerful enough to disable a tank.
A Tearful Reunion Page 7