“There are five or six men milling around over there,” Stan whispered, gesturing in the direction of the crossing. “I didn’t get close enough to confirm they were raiders, but I think it’s a safe assumption.”
Jack and Will agreed, and the Rangers decided to move due west and pick up another road that led to Kings Town, Jack once again leading the way. They moved slowly through the trees, until they could see the road ahead. As they crept up to the edge of the tree line, Will tapped on Jack’s shoulder. Jack looked back at him and saw Will point up the road, and signal that he saw people.
Jack went prone, as did the Rangers Dando. Within minutes, a small raider patrol came into view, the men speaking loudly, apparently with no expectation that anyone was around to hear them.
“Joe Crow is a damned genius. What he has us doing is great. We’re some lucky bastards, Buck,” said one raider.
I know, Jazz. Best time of my life. Rangers been after him for years, and they ain’t never caught him, never will,” answered Buck.
“We’d be in trouble if we lost him, he’s what holds this whole thing together.”
“You really think those bastards in Kings Town can hold out for awhile longer?” Buck asked.
“Yeah, because they’re desperate.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they’ll hold out until they can’t do it anymore, Buck. They got to be getting low on food and they don’t have much water. They got lots of wounded and scared idiots who fled from Tishomingo, Madill, and all the other places we kicked ass, so they have to be hurtin’. But they’ll hold for awhile,” the raider answered as they passed a mere thirty feet away from Jack hiding in the trees.
“How so?”
“They know what’ll happen when they quit, and that scares them. The ones that fled there would have told’em about our sport. They had to have told’em,” Jazz replied.
“Heh! I guess so. That redhead in Madill was a piece. Did you try that on?”
“Nah, she was all messed up by the time I got there. I bet she was a looker before all that though.”
“Oh yeah she was. A screamer too. I’m looking forward to seeing what they got in Kings Town,” Buck said.
“Me too. I ever tell you about the time I—” Jazz said as he passed out of earshot.
Jack was sickened by their words, and glared at them as they walked down the road and disappeared from sight.
“I couldn’t understand all that. What were they talking about, Jack?” Will asked a few minutes later when he crawled next to Jack.
“They were talking about what fun they had planned once they got inside Kings Town,” Jack said disgustedly.
“Bastards. I thought so. Somebody better come up with something to help those folks,” Will replied.
“Yeah. Let’s move, dawn isn’t that far away.”
The Rangers stayed at the edge of the tree line, moving slowly toward Kings Town. They stopped periodically to listen for any indication raiders may be near.
About a mile from the settlement, Jack stopped near a fading old sign that read:
Stripper Fishing Tournament
Bartleby’s Marina
Lake Texoma
June 9-11, 1995
Will looked at the sign, then poked his cousin in the ribs, gesturing at the words. “Does that mean they were fishing for strippers, or it was a tournament for strippers to fish in?” he asked in a whisper.
“I think they meant striped bass, you know, a striper. But fishing strippers is something I’d like to see. Fishing for strippers sounds like fun too. We have a cousin Jeffrey that works in the Deva State, Will. We should suggest he do something with the idea.”
“Are you guys finished?” Jack asked. “We still have a ways to go.”
“Yeah, sorry, Jack,” answered Stan, “we just got a little distracted.”
“Let’s go then.” Jack whispered impatiently.
“Right behind you. Imagine being able to catch strippers from a lake...,” mused Will.
“Imagine strippers catching strippers. The water... the stripping...,” whispered Stan.
“I thought you said you were finished,” hissed Jack.
“We were finished. We just started up again, that’s all. Won’t happen again, I assure you,” replied Will.
“Yeah, yeah. You assure me,” Jack muttered as he stood and moved down the edge of the tree line.
As dawn approached, the Rangers were near the settlement’s defensive wall. They decided to stay hidden in the woods until it was light enough for the people in Kings Town to be able to see that the three of them were not raiders, “So we don’t end up with any extra holes,” as Stan put it.
Once it was light enough to see clearly, the three Rangers decided to approach the town. Jack volunteered to go first, with his rifle slung across his back.
As he stepped out of the trees, Stan asked quietly, “Jack, if those townspeople shoot you, would you mind if I asked Ranger Lewis out for dinner or something?”
Jack stopped, then rolled his eyes and sighed heavily. Without turning to look at Stan he moved toward the town.
“I take it he would mind, Stan,” Will said.
Jack raised his left hand and extended his middle finger in a reply to the cousins as he continued walking.
The cousins laughed.
“He really is a good sport,” Stan commented.
“Yes, it’s good to have him along,” replied Will.
Jack approached the wall slowly, until a shout from inside the wall said, “Hold it right there. Who are you and what do you want?”
“I am Ranger Jack Traipse. I am not a raider,” he yelled in reply.
“I know you aren’t a raider. If we thought you were you’d be dead already.”
“No doubt. Can I approach?”
“Slowly. You got six or eight weapons aimed at you.”
“Slow it is,” Jack replied as he approached the gate with his hands held with the palms out in front of him.
The militia questioned Jack at the gate, and once satisfied that he was a Ranger, they let him inside the gatehouse, followed shortly by Stan and Will.
“I figured you might get these folks to shoot us after the crap we’ve been giving you, Jack,” Will commented with a wry smile as he stepped through the gate.
Jack eyed Will askance in reply.
The three Rangers were directed to a door that led into the settlement. As they exited the gatehouse they discovered a small crowd of people waiting for them, word having already spread about their arrival.
The people approached the Rangers as they walked from the gatehouse wishing to speak with the newcomers.
“How many more Rangers are coming?” asked a grey-haired man.
“Have the raiders been pushed back?” asked another older man.
“What about relief supplies, food and medical items?” asked a woman carrying a toddler on her hip.
The Rangers did their best to answer their questions, noticing the underlying bitterness within most of them. The people were not happy to find that the three Rangers were merely messengers and not part of a relief force,
Jack didn’t arrive expecting a hero’s welcome, but he didn’t expect the bitterness and desperation shown by so many in Kings Town. After hearing some of the tales people told he thought, I should have expected this I suppose. Commander Straily surely must be aware of this, right? The rank and file Rangers don’t know, that’s for certain. Is this why he’s so testy, he thinks we’re going to lose this settlement? There has to be a way to turn this around.
Most families within the community had suffered the loss of a member: mothers or fathers, sons or daughters, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins. Those that had not lost a kinsman had almost certainly lost friends.
A woman tugged at Jack’s sleeve and asked, “Are the Rangers trying to reach us? Captain Holden told us they were. What is happening out there?”
Jack told her of the failed assault on Tis
homingo, and the losses suffered by the Rangers.
She replied, “So there is no hope then.”
“Don’t say that, ma’am. I don’t know how, but we’ll find a way,” he said earnestly.
“I’ll take you at your word, but we are nearing the end of our rope.”
“Then we need to do something soon, don’t we.”
“Yes, but we aren’t done just yet. If we know help is coming, we’ll hold out. Thank you, Ranger,” she said as she walked away.
“What did you just promise, Jack?” he whispered to himself with a pained look on his face.
“I can’t believe Commander Straily isn’t aware of the situation here, if things are as bad as they say,” Will Dando said.
“I don’t know what to make of it. Let’s find the captain,” Jack replied.
The three Rangers found a haggard looking Captain Holden at the Ranger post, and learned that the situation was every bit as dire as the townspeople said.
“Straily knows, I’ve told him. He insists I am overstating how precarious our existence is. We are running low on fuel for the power generator, and that is our only source of electricity. We lost control of the power station three weeks ago. We lost half of our water treatment capabilities so our supply is insufficient for the number of people we have here, and our food and medical supplies are dwindling. It is just a matter of time before we have a disease outbreak.
“We have dozens of wounded and sick people, not just from here, but from Tishomingo, Madill, and small homesteads in the area. They are not complaining, either. They just want to know help is coming. These folks here are tough. The two things we are not short on are ammo and guts,” Holden said grimly.
“Is it pride that keeps Straily from admitting we are losing?” the captain asked. “Something has to change, or else we are lost. We cannot possibly evacuate all these people, and I will not abandon them, so flight is out of the question.”
“Captain, we had no idea things were this bad. You know about the failed attack on Tishomingo two days ago?” Jack asked.
Captain Holden nodded.
“Rumor has it there will be another try at it in a few days,” Jack continued.
“And if that fails? Does Straily abandon us?” Holden asked bitterly. “My apologies, Ranger. We are nearing the breaking point here, and I don’t have a solution. The answer must come from outside. When were you planning to return to Mead?”
“Tonight,” Jack answered.
“Okay. I’ll have a couple of letters for you to deliver, if you don’t mind,” he said. “One will be for Ranger Commander Straily, and the other for Captain Briscoe. He’s a friend of mine, and I want to make sure he is aware of the situation here. I don’t like going behind the commander’s back, but if Straily won’t do something I pray somebody else will. This might place you in a bad position with the commander, so if that bothers you…”
Jack gave a slight smile and said, “The commander already has a negative opinion of me, Captain.”
“So the old grudge was passed on to you. Commander Straily and his grudges,” he said shaking his head. “Speaking of that, your uncle Gordon tried to reach you. Were you aware of that?”
Jack nodded. “He said he had some information about my father.”
“That’s right. I’ll let Gordon explain it all to you. Do you know the way?”
“It’s been a long time since I was last here, but I think I can find the place,” Jack replied.
Jack parted ways with Captain Holden and the two Dandos, and made his way to his uncle’s house. He knocked on the door and his aunt Carol answered the door, giving him a big hug and pulling him inside with her arm around his waist. She led him to the living room, where his uncle Gordon was intently reading from a stack of papers on a table, and said with a smile, “Gordon, there is a Ranger here to see you.”
Gordon looked up from his work and smiled broadly when he saw Jack. “You young pup! Get over here and let a one-legged old man look at you. You took up the star. I knew you would.”
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Carol said.
Jack crossed the room and bent to hug his uncle. “You didn’t waste any time getting here. I assume you got my message?” Gordon asked as Jack sat down in a chair next to his uncle.
“I got it just as I left Heaven for Mead Ranger Base. Barlo talked Straily into letting me sneak in here.”
“Straily. How is the bastard?”
“Stressed out and disagreeable. He’s still pissed with you and father. And I it seems.”
“That sounds about right. I’d hoped he would be big enough to leave you out of it, but I guess that was wishful thinking.”
“It didn’t help matters that I angered him less than a minute into our first conversation,” Jack said with a trace of pride.
“Ha! You are a Traipse, my boy. Good for you.”
“I don’t want to rush things Uncle Gordon, but I have to return to Mead tonight. What did you find out about Hardin?”
“Well, we now know what happened to him.”
“What happened?”
“It might help if I tell you what happened before Hardin took off after the rads, if you want to hear it.”
“I don’t think I was ready to hear it five years ago. I’ve heard the basics, but I need to know.”
“To be honest, I wasn’t up to telling you, or your mom and sister then either, but here goes.
“You might remember your dad was down here to see Captain Logan on Ranger business, and to visit Carol and me. We got word that some rads had attacked the Barton place northeast of here. They shot Paul Barton in the leg and made off with his daughter, Emily. He said the rads had another kid with them and they were headed northwest. Captain Logan gathered every Ranger we could spare and we took off within the hour.”
“How many Rangers did you have?” Jack asked.
“Let me see, I guess there were nine of us, ten if you take Big Ben Barstow’s size into account,” he said with a chuckle. “We were able to track them easy enough. We pursued them for two days, gaining on them steady. I don’t think they knew we were on their trail. They were moving fast, not even trying to cover their tracks.
“We figured we’d catch up to them by late afternoon, and we were right. What we didn’t figure on was them linking up with a big group of rads. Biggest gathering of the bastards I ever heard of outside of the Wolf Creek nuke plant up north. Must have been ninety or a hundred of them.
“Captain Logan stopped us well short of their encampment, and sent Pete Anders ahead to scout them. That little guy was the sneakiest man I ever saw. The captain figured we’d either sneak in after dark and get the kids out, or we’d go in shooting come sunup, based on what Pete turned up.
“When Pete got back and told the captain what he found, Logan decided we’d go in quiet a little after midnight and grab the kids, then head for Kings Town. If we got out undetected, we would have had a few hours head start if the rads made chase.
“Captain Logan tabbed Pete, Lou Gross, and me to be the snatch team. We would go in and grab the kids. The captain took Chuck Harstens and your dad with him to cover our exit, and Ben Barstow and two other Rangers stayed outside the camp to cover us and act as a rescue force if things went sideways, which they did of course.”
“What happened?” Jack asked.
“Things went well enough to start. Pete had pinned down the location of the kids. They had them locked in a box, like animals. We knew where their sentries were. Pete went in and knife-killed two sentries like it was nothin’. I told you he was a sneaky one,” he said shaking his head in wonder. “We got inside the camp and moved in to where the box holding the kids was sitting on the ground. We figured they’d have a guard there, but no, nothing. Instead of a guard they had the box padlocked.”
“Let me guess, no key with the lock,” Jack said.
Gordon laughed. “Right, at least as far as we could see. We weren’t gonna light a torch!”
“So ho
w did you open it? Did Pete pick the lock?”
“No. I don’t know if Pete could pick locks or not, but he had another way. He crawled up to the box and talked to the kids. He told them who we were and asked them to keep quiet, then he gave the box a once over, pulled out a screwdriver from his belt pouch and went to work. Ten minutes later, he had two panels off. There was just enough space for the kids to get out. I slung my rifle and picked up the little girl Emily while Lou grabbed Mark, the boy. I was carrying the girl in my left arm and had my revolver in my right hand.
“Pete crawled over to the captain’s position to let him know we were ready to move. Captain Logan’s group had moved past us farther into the camp while we were getting the kids out of the box so they could cover us while we pulled out.
“Just as Pete started talking to Captain Logan, the flap on a big tent maybe fifty feet away flew up and ten or twelve people came out. They lit up some torches and started heading our way. All of us were already down on the ground waiting to see what they were going to do, so once we saw them headed at us Logan put up a closed fist to signal us all to stay put and stay still. I whispered to Emily to stay quiet, and I’m sure Lou must have done the same with Mark. Both them kids did great.
“The group kept coming toward us, but veered off to our right before they got to us. There was a guy in the middle of the group carrying what we thought was a bag or a satchel. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it turned out to be important.
“Anyway, the group was pretty much past us and it looked like they didn’t notice us. I thought we might just get out of there clean, but I’ve always been an optimist and it always bites me right in the ass. One of the guys at the tail end of the group looked over our way and moved toward us.
“Your dad was the closest Ranger to the nosy bastard, maybe fifteen feet away, lying against the base of a bush. The guy walked right up to the bush and stopped. He stood there for a few seconds, right over Hardin, then it appeared like he saw something. He grabbed for a pistol that was jammed in his belt and turned to yell when your dad shot him through the head. The bastard never saw it coming.
The Blastlands Saga Page 28