We started back. The trailer was a heavy load. It was clear it would be slow moving headed home.
“On your left!” shouted Lonnie. “A hundred yards.” The tractors slowed and then came to a stop.
“Looks like about 25-30 guys up ahead,” said Jessup, “and they don’t look too friendly.”
“Is there another way around?” I asked, hoping Vladimir or Jessup might know.
“I don’t think so,” cautioned Vladimir.
“Lock and load!” shouted Lonnie.
“We’re going to make it home and we’re not giving up shit,” added Mike.
We sat for five minutes, not moving. The other guys stayed still but we had to get past them.
“Let’s go real slow,” cautioned Jake. “Be ready for an attack but don’t shoot first. Don’t shoot first!”
We crept slowly along at about five miles per hour towards the main road, where they were standing and milling around. “They’re not organized,” yelled Mike, “but let’s be real fucking careful.”
As we got within 20 yards, a few of them held up their now visible rifles and yelled “Stop!”
It was clear now that most of these guys had rifles. A few had ARs but most looked like deer hunting rifles, shotguns and 22s.
We stopped and waited as eight men slowly came forward, pointing their rifles just over our heads.
“What’s your business?” asked Jessup before they could say anything.
“What’s in the trailer?” asked what appeared to be a lead man.
“None of your fucking business,” said Mike, now clearly pointing his rifle at him.
“We’ve been watching you load a trailer out of that there gun store for a while now,” he said as he spit tobacco on the ground.
“Let’s say you’re right,” snapped Mike. “It’s still none of your fucking business.”
I looked at Jake the same way I did not so long ago when I thought things could go bad quickly.
He gave me a nod and I jumped in.
“All right, guys,” I interjected. “We are just passing through, that’s all. We don’t want any trouble. If you will kindly step aside we will be on our way.”
It sounded stupid as I was saying it. Jake nodded his head and whispered to me, “Sorry, buddy. It’s not going to be that easy.”
The other guys started shouting about taking the trailer and I thought about Joy and our boys. Don’t do anything stupid, I thought. We can get through this and back home.
Crack! came the sound from my left side. Crack, crack, crack! I looked to my left and saw Sam rapid firing his 22 rifle. Three shots and three men down.
“Return fire!” shouted Mike, clearly not realizing that we started the shooting.
We all started firing and the group scattered, running in all directions.
“Don’t shoot if they’re retreating!” I yelled. “They’re just like us—men protecting their families.”
A minute later it was quiet. Ten men down from what I could see.
“Anyone hit? yelled Lonnie. “Got a graze on my hand,” called out Jessup, “but it’s nothin’ a few stitches won’t fix.”
There were two men on the ground still clearly alive. “We can’t just leave them like this,” added Lonnie.
“No we can’t,” agreed Mike, walking up to the closest one. “He’s gut shot,” he shouted. “Just a matter of time,” as he pointed his 9mm pistol and shot him in the head.
“What the fuck, Mike!” yelled Lonnie. “That’s not your call!”
“I’ll check the other one,” I exclaimed, jumping out of the truck.
I ran over to him, as I saw he was unarmed, and asked his name. “I’m Dane,” he answered. “Please don’t kill me. I have a wife and kids.”
“Where are you hit?” I asked, as I couldn’t see any blood.
“Here in the leg,” he replied, uncovering the bottom of his shirt to reveal the wound. “It’s not too bad but I was afraid to run.”
“OK,” I instructed. “If I let you go, you’re going to go straight home to your family?” I asked. “Yes, yes, that’s all I want,” Dane said. “I didn’t want any part of this. I just want to go home.”
“OK, don’t move until I get back,” I directed. “Not one inch.”
I walked back to the truck. “He’s good and he is going to walk out of here. Any problems with that?” I asked, looking at Mike. “As long as he doesn’t turn around,” he said with a sly grin.
“All right, Dane. Go,” I told him, as I reached him. “But no sudden moves and don’t look back. Got it?”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
We headed down the road at a slow pace. I leaned over to Jake and whispered “What the fuck are we going to do with Mike?”
“I don’t know, brother, but we need to talk about it later,” Jake replied.
I noticed Sam sitting in the corner of the truck bed, tears streaming down his cheeks. I put my arm around him and whispered, “Thank you, son. You did good.”
He replied in a choked voice, “I had to do it. It was gonna be real bad and I got no one left.”
“I know, Sam. You’re a good boy, a good young man,” I added. “Jessup is real lucky to have you helping out on his ranch.”
Jessup nodded, as if he heard the entire conversation from his tractor.
In a flash Mike raised his rifle and shot two rounds into the back of the man who I had just let go.
“Mike!” I yelled. “Stop! What you doing?” Now I was not the only one shouting at him. It was clear that Dane, the family man, was dead.
“Take no prisoners and leave none,” Mike insisted in a low voice with no emotion.
I shared a look with Jake and knew he agreed that Mike was going to be a problem. We rode in silence for the next 30 minutes, passing cars and an occasional person clearly wanting nothing to do with us. “They don’t even make eye contact when we pass,” I marveled to Jake. “Nope. Not anymore,” he replied. “Not anymore in this new world.”
An hour later we turned into the road that led to Jessup’s farm. I was feeling relieved that we made it this far without any more bloodshed. I just wanted to get home to my family, and I was sure I wasn’t the only one.
Not long after, we pulled up to Jessup’s house and were met by a small group of his family, most of which we hadn’t seen when first coming in.
They all seemed happy to see us, with the exception of Jessup’s son-in-law. “Better be good,” the son-in-law insisted, with a condescending tone.
Jessup was having none of it. “I run things around here, boy,” he shouted back. “Don’t forget that,” he added.
“Are they going to be all right with me here?” Sam asked Jessup in a low voice, clearly worried.
“Sure, son,” he added. “You will be staying with the wife and me up in the main house. I’m going to put you on perimeter security and you will answer only to me.”
“Yes, sir,” exclaimed Sam, with a huge smile on his face. “You can count on me, no matter what.”
We exchanged the guns and ammo promised with Jessup for a fair amount of goods, including honey, wheat, corn, fresh vegetables and smoked pork and beef.
“We’ve got to hit the road,” announced Lonnie. “A little more than an hour of sunlight left.”
We said our good-byes, knowing we would never cross paths again.
I was half expecting to run into the guys who shot that plane out of the air, but there was no sign of them.
“Keep an eye out for the car the girls were in,” I mentioned to Jake. “We missed it on the way out, but I want to see if Mom or Dad got our note.”
Thirty minutes later we passed slowly right past the car, with the original note undisturbed. “They’re family now,” stated Jake.
“I’m sure all the boys will be happy to have a couple sisters,” I noted. “Thank you, Lord, for directing us to them,” I added.
We rounded the corner into our neighborhood just at dusk. We were all relieved to be back h
ome and safe. I heard Ringo barking as we pulled into the driveway and I couldn’t wait to see Joy and my boys.
After introducing “Vlad,” as he asked everyone to call him, we unloaded the trailer into the garage. We had not eaten since breakfast and were surprised by a meal ready to eat of pasta with canned clams in white sauce. It was paired with grilled broccoli (a first for me) and a nice salad with vinegar honey dressing.
Everyone ate the dinner without complaints and some of the guys met out on the patio after for a glass of Glenlivet 12-year-old scotch.
“Thank you, Jim, for watching out for the group while we were out,” I said. “It means a lot.”
A short time later, I pulled Lonnie aside and whispered, “What are we going to do with Mike?”
“I don’t know, but let me think about it?” he asked.
“OK, but we need to figure this shit out quick,” I pointed out.
* * * * * * *
Chapter Twenty ~ Raton, New Mexico
David awoke to the sound of his son, Mark. “Dad! Dad! Wake up! We’ve got some guys on the east side of the lake.”
When the lights went out, David was ready and not too surprised. He had been following the news, like most Americans, but as a computer programmer he had access to a few other “nonpublic sites,” as he liked to call them.
He had been keeping family and some close friends in the loop in the weeks prior to the day everything changed. It took him a couple years to get his aging parents onboard with the idea of being prepared. They lived near the top of Raton Pass, New Mexico, just up from the small city of Raton, where David had raised his only child, Mark. Mark was a strapping young man of 15. His father sported a full black beard, just as he did in college.
“OK, son,” David asked, a little groggy. “How many are there and what are they doing?”
“There are three I can see. Two with deer rifles, I think, and they are just sitting back in the trees… I think they are watching us too,” he added.
“All right, Mark. Head back to lookout and I’ll be there in just a few. Stay low and don’t engage unless you have to… And Mark…” “Yeah, Dad?” “I’m proud of you, son. You’re getting to be a good young man. Someone we can all trust.”
“Thanks, Dad,” said Mark, as he headed back out the door.
David got dressed as fast as he could, knowing the situation could change at any moment. He grabbed his Glock 17 and Ruger AR15 on his way to the lake.
“What’s the problem?” asked Beatrice. “No worries, Mom,” replied David, as he walked out.
He jumped on the four-wheeler, one of three they were able to get running in the past few days for the one-mile-ride to their side of Emerald Lake.
He stopped a hundred yards before the lookout post he and his boy had made three years ago, long before they moved up here last week. He and Mark both knew they had to keep their vantage point concealed from sight.
When he reached Mark and his three buddies from school, he could see the intruders hadn’t noticed them yet. He barely needed his binoculars to tell that the three men were bumbling around the far side of the lake. It was fairly obvious to him they were still hungover or had already started drinking this morning.
He could hear them talking loudly and occasionally yelling at each other, with two of them pointing their guns.
“Shit,” exclaimed David, as one of the men shouted to the others: “Look over here!”
“They found the boat,” declared Mark. “What should we do, Dad?”
“Nothing yet,” David whispered. “Hopefully they will just go back the way they came.”
The men got into the boat, one man falling out as they pushed off. He was swearing and pointing his rifle at his friends.
“They’re coming across!” called out Mark nervously. “Yeah,” added one of his friends.
David knew it would be twenty minutes before they got over, if they didn’t capsize first.
“Get back,” he told Mark and his friends, “but cover me.”
“Dad, I don’t want you to...”
“Do what I say, son,” barked David harshly.
In a softer voice he added, “I’m sure they are just messing around, but I can’t have all of you guys here if it gets bad.”
“OK, Dad, but I’m not going to let you get in trouble.”
Mark and his friends moved back as the men had rowed the aluminum boat nearly one third of the way across the small lake.
David waited until the three men were dead center in the middle when he yelled “STOP!”
The men stopped rowing and raised their rifles, pointing out in all directions. David knew the next time he spoke it would give his position away.
The men in the boat were arguing, one wanted to turn back and the other two insisted on crossing the lake… After a few minutes they pressed on, straight ahead.
David knew he couldn’t let these guys get anywhere near his parents’ house.
Raising his AR, he fired three shots into the lake, ten feet below the boat.
The men ducked down and froze. “They’re going to head back,” David shouted to Mark. There was no movement from the boat—only the sounds of yelling from them.
A shot came from the boat, just above David’s head. Two of the men were standing and firing.
Pop! Pop! Pop! came from behind David, as the first man hit squarely in the chest fell off the back of the boat.
David was now shooting and caught the second man just above the left eye, dropping him into the bottom of the boat.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” yelled the third man, holding his hands up.
“Cease fire!” David yelled to Mark and his friends. Let’s give him a chance to talk.
“Keep your weapons in the bottom of the boat,” he yelled out, “and come in slowly.”
The man slowly rowed the boat to shore and stood with his hands up.
“Awe hell,” exclaimed David. “Is that you, Mel?” he asked, already knowing the answer. “Yeah, maybe. Who’s asking?” said Mel. “It’s David. David Jenkins.”
David and Mel were friends in high school but hadn’t seen each other in years. “Sorry, old buddy. I’ve got blood in my eyes from those damn fools you shot and I can’t see a fucking thing,” said Mel, as he removed his glasses from his bloodied face, wiping his short blond hair with his bandana.
“What the fuck just happened?” asked Mel.
“Your friends were a threat,” answered David.
“No. No. Wait a minute,” Mel interjected. “They were not my friends. I just met them yesterday and they kind of just took over my house, so I went along with it until I could get away.”
“It’s been a long time,” said David. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You can trust me because I know you and your parents,” said Mel. “I knew your wife before she passed and I drove you to the hospital when your son was born.”
“All right. Get out of the boat before that son of mine shoots you.”
Mel got out and grabbed the one rifle left in the bottom of the boat.
“I didn’t know you lived up here,” added David.
“Just came up a few years back when the news started getting bad. I’ve been preparing a bit but guess it didn’t help much since those assholes got over here.”
“It happens,” David replied. “How far is your house from here?”
“About two miles from the far side of the lake,” said Mel. I have quite a bit of food and some other things I think we could use.”
“We?” asked David, suspiciously. “Yeah, Dave. Looks like we’re family now,” Mel announced with a smile.
“Well, there is safety in numbers, I guess.”
David took Mark aside and asked if it was he who fired the first shot. “Yes, sir,” he confessed.
“How are you feeling, son?” “Not great, Dad. I wished I didn’t have to do it.”
“I know, son, but you had no choice and you saved the lives of your friends and me
. I’m proud of you and you did everything right. We are all going to get through this together, no matter what.”
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate that,” said Mark, as he headed back down to the lake.
“Mom… Dad…,” called David as they entered the kitchen. “I’ve got an old friend with me.”
Next World Series (Vol. 1): Families First Page 17