“Yes, ma’am,” Chris said, grabbing his socks. Looking over at his brother trying to pull his sock over the bandages on his foot without pulling the bandages off, Chris moved over and helped.
“I can do it,” Tyler whined as Chris took the sock away and pulled it on.
Grabbing the other sock, “I know, but we need to move fast like I always tell you,” Chris said, putting the other sock on. “Now, start rolling up the bedroll.”
Rolling his eyes, Tyler stood up and folded the bedroll over and then moved to the end. After he rolled it up, Tyler stared at the bedroll. “It’s fatter,” he noted out loud.
“You have to roll it tight,” Chris told him, rolling up Mary’s bedroll.
Bending back down and unrolling the bedroll Tyler tried again, and it still didn’t look like it did when strapped on the back of the saddle. He glanced over at Chris’s work and his didn’t look right either. “Let me show you,” Mary said, coming up behind Tyler.
Getting on her knees, Mary unrolled it and then spread it back out. Smoothing it out, Mary folded it over and then rolled it up slow and tight. When she was finished the bedroll was tightly rolled up. “Like that,” Mary said, and unrolled it and spread it out. “Now you,” she told Tyler, getting up and left to help Sandy with the saddles.
Watching Mary walk over and lift a packsaddle up, Tyler mumbled. “But you already had it done.” Giving a sigh, he dropped down and copied what Mary did and saw Chris was also, but Chris was already rolling the bedroll up. Not to be outdone, Tyler concentrated hard going to work on the bedroll.
“Wait till you load your saddle,” Sandy grinned as they buckled the packsaddle on. “You can tell its missing thirty pounds.”
Pulling her hat off and wiping the sweat off her brow, “That’s good with the boys riding with us,” Mary said.
The first hint she got was loading the saddle they’d replaced with Johnathan’s. “Wow,” Mary gasped. “I know the horses will like that.”
When they were done, they turned as Chris and Tyler came over carrying the bedrolls. “All right, those look good,” Sandy told them, taking hers from Tyler.
“I’m riding in my own saddle?” Tyler beamed, looking at the smaller saddle behind Sandy’s.
“Yep, but you still have to keep an eye out,” Sandy told him, strapping the bedroll down.
Watching how Sandy tied the bedroll down, “I will,” Tyler promised. “When will you teach me how to shoot a gun?”
“I’ll let you shoot when we get home,” Sandy answered, turning and looking down at him. “We really can’t practice out here. Mary and I have only showed you how to work the guns in an emergency, so no touching them unless we are around.”
“Okay,” Tyler replied happily, just ecstatic he was going to learn how to shoot a gun.
Grabbing the empty water bottles from the front saddle bag, Sandy moved over to Mary’s horse and grabbed her empty water bottles. “You can help me fill them,” Sandy said, walking over to the stream.
Tyler held the bottle as Sandy used the filter pump to fill them up. “Tomorrow, we will boil water and wash the bottles out,” Sandy told him and Tyler just nodded, watching her use the hand pump.
When they were done, Sandy let Tyler carry some back and they refilled the saddle bags. Mary called them over and passed out bowls of food. The boys still ate fast, but nothing like that first day. “I miss soda,” Chris announced and then drained his bottle of water.
“Well, I’m sorry there isn’t any at the cabin,” Mary told him, and both boys looked at her in shock. “We drink tea, juice, coffee and water.”
Scared to ask why, Chris just nodded as Tyler spoke up. “As long as there’s food, I don’t care.”
“Then you’ll be fine,” Sandy grinned, reaching over and ruffling his hair. Showing the boys how to wash the dishes, they packed up what was left.
“Why do we walk around before leaving?” Tyler asked.
“To make sure we packed everything,” Sandy answered and Tyler nodded, walking around and looking at the ground.
“Because if we forget something, we aren’t coming back for it,” Tyler offered.
“That’s right,” Sandy chuckled, then led Tyler over to her horse. She helped Tyler up into his saddle then adjusted the small stirrups until he could put his feet in them.
Looking down at the stiff loop instead of a saddle horn, “I won’t be able to see in front,” Tyler told her.
“But I’ll be able to shoot stinkers much easier. Which do you prefer?”
Nodding and answering quickly, “You shooting stinkers,” Tyler assured her.
Glancing over and seeing Mary adjusting the stirrups for Chris, Sandy climbed on her horse. “Ms. Sandy,” Tyler said timidly. “Um, it’s still light out. Are we leaving now?”
“The sun is setting, so it won’t be light much longer, but yes, we are leaving. We want to make sure you two don’t have issues with your saddles and we still have light to work with.”
“Golly, you guys are smart and think of everything,” Tyler gasped in awe.
“Wait till you meet Lance and Ian,” Sandy told him, turning her cap around and fitting the head harness on. Flipping up the monocular, “You have your night vision goggles?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler answered holding them up, but Sandy didn’t glance back.
“Is my backpack pushing you off?”
“No, ma’am,” Tyler told her. “It’s not even touching my saddle.”
Steering her horse over as Mary mounted up, Sandy thought her horse was moving better. Patting the horse’s neck, “Yeah, you like the new saddle also, don’t ya, Asshole?” Sandy grinned.
When Mary nodded, Sandy moved through the small patch of trees that covered the oxbow and glanced over her shoulder at Tyler. He was looking around with a smile, holding onto the loop. “Tyler, don’t turn on your goggles till I tell you because too much light can break them,” Sandy told him.
“I remember,” he replied as Sandy turned around, thinking Tyler was riding very well.
“Tyler, have you and Chris ever ridden a horse?”
“We’ve only seen horses on TV and driving down the road,” Tyler informed her. “I didn’t know you had to check their feet.”
Pausing at the tree line, Sandy pulled out the thermal binoculars. “You have to take care of your animals,” Sandy told him, then lifted the thermals up. A house was half a mile away and Sandy could see three stinkers in the yard just standing there.
“The door is open,” Mary said beside her, looking through regular binoculars. “It wasn’t open this morning when we got here.”
“Yeah, I see three stinkers in the yard.”
“I only see two,” Mary stated, leaning forward and scanning the yard.
“Two are on the right and one is next to the porch,” Sandy told her.
“Oh, I see it now. It was standing in a shadow,” Mary said, lowering her binoculars.
“Like I said, I love having thermals,” Sandy restated, turning the thermals off. “To be honest, I like seeing the cooler shapes of stinkers rather than the hot shapes of humans.”
Putting her binoculars away, “I would be just as happy not to see another human till we get home,” Mary admitted.
“Ready?” Sandy asked, and Mary nodded. Kicking her horse, Sandy led it out into the field but turned east, following the trees that ran along with the stream. Barely going three hundred yards, Sandy was climbing off and handing the reins to Tyler, then grabbing the bolt cutters for the first fence of the night.
“At least now my AR doesn’t crack my knee,” Sandy mumbled, moving to the fence.
Putting the cutters away, Sandy climbed back on and steered through the opening. Moving through a field, Sandy guided her horse near the trees on the fence row. “Can I turn them on now?” Tyler asked in a whisper when the sun was down.
“Go ahead,” Sandy replied, and turned on her monocular. It wasn’t long until Sandy felt Tyler shifting in the saddle, scanni
ng around.
To the east, dogs started barking, a lot of dogs, and everyone turned. Even the horses lifted their heads higher. “I don’t see them,” Tyler whispered.
“Tyler, they are at least a mile away,” Sandy told him, but still stared in the direction of the barking.
“Ms. Sandy, dogs are mean now,” Tyler informed her. “We had some chase us up in a tree. They stayed there for an hour till some stinkers came along and tried to eat them.”
“Did the stinkers stay for you and Chris?” Sandy asked, lifting the thermals.
“No, Chris told me to be quiet and the stinkers never looked up in the tree before they took off after the dogs.”
Not seeing any heat signatures, Sandy turned the thermals off. “Chris is very smart,” Sandy nodded.
Riding through the field, Sandy grinned to see the next field had a fence row without a fence. Passing through the tall grass and few trees Sandy barely paused, only spotting two houses and both were dark.
Crossing the blacktop road, Sandy felt Tyler tense up when the horse’s hooves clattered on the road until they reached the other side. “We need some tennis shoes for the horses,” Tyler informed her.
Sandy just chuckled, not even correcting him and then the barking to the east stopped as suddenly as it had started. Again, everyone turned, expecting to see dogs charging over the land. “Stinker,” Tyler called out softly and Sandy turned looking around and found it to the west, walking through a field over a hundred yards away.
“Good boy,” Sandy whispered, proud Tyler hadn’t locked in staring to the east after the barking like she had. The stinker never turned back as they rode on to the northeast. They were near Oakdale when Sandy had to climb off for a fence.
When she put the cutters back in the saddle and climbed on, “I don’t like fences,” Tyler informed her.
“Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t,” Sandy replied, moving through the fence and lifting the thermal binoculars.
Seeing hot spots of cows, a few deer, and half a dozen stinkers stumbling after a cow but nothing closer than half a mile, Sandy turned the thermals off as they neared another blacktop. Reaching the other side, Sandy guided her horse to a dirt road heading east and then out into a field. The field was very large, she knew because she could barely make out the fence rows to the north, east and south. That alone told her each direction was over three hundred yards.
“Sandy,” Mary called out softly, riding up beside her. “Look to the southeast.” When Sandy turned to look, “No, with your thermals,” Mary told her.
After the thermals warmed up, Sandy flipped her monocular up and lifted them to her eyes and immediately sucked in a breath. “Holy shit,” she gasped. “They are just over six hundred yards,” Sandy said, staring at a huge pack of dogs.
“All I could tell was it was a bunch of them, but they looked about the size of dogs,” Mary told her.
“I can’t see them,” Tyler whispered in a trembling voice.
“Tyler, your goggles can’t see that far, so keep looking around for stuff close,” Sandy told him, still staring at the pack. Even from this far away, Sandy could tell the dogs saw them. She passed the binoculars over to Mary.
With the thermal binoculars, Mary saw further out and in much better detail. “That’s over a hundred fucking dogs.”
“Were those the ones barking?” Chris asked.
“I don’t know, but that sounded like a hundred dogs barking,” Mary admitted, then handed the thermals back to Sandy. “What do you think?”
“We need to move on,” Sandy answered, and turned the thermals off. “If the puppies get closer, we shoot a few.”
Nodding as she flipped her monocular down, “For once, I’m glad there aren’t a lot of trees around,” Mary admitted, gripping her AR.
Sandy kicked her horse and it moved back into a walk but was acting skittish and turning to look southeast. Reaching forward, Sandy popped his neck. “You look ahead, Asshole, we’ll worry about those,” she informed the horse.
Crossing the fields at a steady pace, Sandy kept scanning around, but couldn’t help but glance more toward the south. “Stinker,” Tyler said, but Sandy saw it stumbling on the road they were about to cross.
“Tyler, I need you to look all around us not just the direction the dogs are,” Sandy told him, since the stinker was to the south.
“I am,” he answered in a small voice and Sandy turned the thermals on and flipped up her monocular.
Saying a silent prayer, Sandy lifted the thermal binoculars up and shivered seeing the massive pack paralleling them to the south. Getting her bearings, Sandy put the pack at four to five hundred yards away, just out of range of the night vision devices. When the pack took off running, Sandy almost dropped the thermals to yank up her gun, but saw the dogs running parallel. Watching, Sandy saw they were angling more toward their route. Starting to get worried, Sandy’s mouth fell open as the pack started barking for a few seconds, then engulfed the stinker walking on the road.
“Ms. Sandy,” Tyler called out. “The dogs just attacked that stinker.”
“I see, baby,” Sandy told him and swiveled around, scanning the area around them. To the southeast she could see a few stinkers at the edge of the binoculars range of a mile. Turning back to the pack, Sandy shivered seeing the pack standing on the road and could see most looking at them.
Lowering the binoculars, Sandy didn’t turn them off and flipped down her monocular. “Tyler, keep your eyes on the dogs now,” Sandy told him, since she was able to see the dogs rather easy with the monocular.
“Yes, ma’am,” Tyler answered as the clack of hooves sounded on the road, startling him.
“Sandy, I’m going to shoot at them,” Mary said after they crossed the road and the dogs again started to parallel them.
“Hold on, I’ll shoot also,” Sandy said, stopping her horse and turning it toward the pack. “On three,” Sandy mumbled, lifting her AR as the dogs stopped. When her monocular hit the scope, Sandy flipped them up and could make out the shadowy outline of the pack. “How far do you think they are?”
“Two hundred yards,” Mary answered, flipping her safety off.
Having not shot anything that far, Sandy flipped the safety off and held high on the shadowy pack, then counted, “One, two, three,” Sandy said, squeezing the trigger and then gave up on being a sniper. Sandy squeezed the trigger rapidly, just bracketing the area as did Mary.
The pack bolted away heading south and they both heard three yelps. Sandy lowered her rifle panting hard and looked down at her open bolt. Yanking the empty magazine out, Sandy slapped in a new one after dropping the empty in her dump bag. Lifting the thermal up, Sandy’s heart sank to see the pack was stopped six hundred yards away.
“They just moved south,” Sandy groaned as Mary moved over and Sandy passed the thermals.
“I’ll take that,” Mary said, noticing two hot spots where the dogs were and four limping figures heading for the pack. “Looks like we got two and hit four.”
“I used a whole magazine,” Sandy gasped, expecting more than that.
“So did I,” Mary responded, handing the thermals back. “At least now, they know getting close to us is bad.”
“Mary, if that was the case, they would’ve run off,” Sandy pointed out and then turned her horse and continued on. Even though there were strips of trees in the massive fields, Sandy kept them in wide open areas.
Moving for a mile, Sandy turned to the south with the thermals and again saw the pack keeping pace with them. Turning in the saddle, Sandy scanned around and spotted a few houses she could see, but nothing else. To the south, the pack started barking and Sandy spun and saw the pack engulf a group of stinkers. The pack took them down so fast, Sandy couldn’t even get a count.
“What?” Mary asked, moving up as the barking stopped.
“They took down a group of stinkers,” Sandy answered. “The group of stinkers was too bunched up for me to count before the dogs took them dow
n.”
Turning to the south, Mary nodded. “Okay, they aren’t all bad.”
“Then they need to stop keeping pace with us,” Sandy grunted, passing the binoculars over and Mary scanned to the south and found the pack already moving with them.
Handing the thermals back, “We can’t outrun them,” Mary sighed.
Putting the lanyard for the thermals over her head, Sandy was about to respond when gunfire erupted in front of them. Both turned east and could tell it was several dozen guns shooting. “That’s close,” Sandy said, looking around and wishing she had stayed near the strips of trees.
“That’s over a mile, but I don’t see anything,” Mary said, and Sandy wanted to slap herself as she lifted up the thermals.
Looking over Highway 100, “There are trees between us and the shooting,” Sandy told her. Then Sandy turned to the south and panic hit her not seeing the pack, and she spun around and then saw the pack running southeast toward the gunfire. “Mary, the dogs are running toward the gunfire.”
“I see them,” Mary said, looking through the thermal monocular.
They crossed the highway and soon lost sight of the dogs behind some trees. “We are heading further north since the dogs are heading southeast,” Sandy announced as they crossed the highway and guided her horse just a little southeast and the gunfire picked up in intensity.
Then it seemed half the gunfire stopped when they entered a large field, and the gunfire rotated around them to the south. The trees to the south ended and half a mile away near a large house, they could see the flashes of gunshots, but didn’t hear that many reports. “Some of them have suppressors,” Mary noticed, then turned and saw Sandy looking at the scene with the thermals.
“It’s a group attacking a house,” Sandy reported. “I saw one shooting from inside the-,” Sandy stopped with her mouth hanging open.
Waiting for several seconds, “What?” Mary cried out, watching Sandy shiver and the gunfire die down slowly.
“The dogs are attacking those outside and the people inside are shooting any that try to get to the trucks in the yard,” Sandy mumbled, passing the binoculars over.
Forsaken World (Book 5): Homecoming Page 26