B00C74WTKQ EBOK

by Tackitt, Lloyd

  “One more thought Admiral. Could the Chief make modifications to the Angel’s truck? Not chain guns of course, but radio and armor and one of those wood gas generators he made for our truck?”

  “Of course, no problem. Although, now that I’m getting to know the girls a bit better, I have to say ‘Angels’ seems a bit on the optimistic side. Those girls are damn near feral, Adrian. I’m not sure they should be trusted out of sight…No, don’t get alarmed, a deal is a deal, no matter what second thoughts I’m having.”

  The last two days were spent checking the supplies on the truck, their weapons, and plotting their route.

  Adrian, the Admiral, Ryan, and Jose were sitting at the Admiral’s table going over a map of Texas. Adrian, tracing the route with his finger tip said, “We’ll take Highway 77 to Kingsville, then follow it all the way to Harlingen. In Harlingen we’ll switch to Highway 100 and take it to Brownsville. From there we’ll get on 281 and follow the border west until we get to Pharr. From Pharr we’ll go on to Laredo. From Laredo we’ll continue heading west on Farm to Market Road 1417 here, then Farm to Market Road 1021 to Eagle Pass. From there we take 277 to Del Rio. From Del Rio we cut back to Corpus, crossing south of San Antonio. We’ll be covering a lot of miles with frequent stops for intelligence gathering and recruiting. It’s rough and desolate country and will have its full share of outlaws. It’s a long trip. I’m guessing two months or so, but this route takes us right along the border, where we want to be to get information. Any questions?”

  “Can you carry three months’ of food for three men?” The Admiral asked.

  “We can’t. We could carry a month’s supply of MRE’s if you had them, but you’ll need them for the Marines if they get activated. We’ll take a week’s supply of canned food and water. The rest we’ll hunt or scrounge along the way. There’s always plenty of rattlesnakes down there. A man can hardly walk twenty feet without finding one, and they’re pretty good eating.” Adrian was watching Jose and Ryan’s faces as he said this, hoping to get a rise out of at least one of them. All he got were two grim smiles.

  “Water won’t be a big problem, we won’t be far away from the Rio Grande once we start moving along the border. It’ll be close enough we can make a run to it if needed. We’re taking plenty of water purification tablets and micro-filters too.”

  “Our radio reports will be sent in every day at 1900 hours, the frequency is already set. If we hear something interesting enough, we’ll let you know as soon as we can. Otherwise, you’ll hear from us every evening.”

  The Admiral said, “Alright Adrian, sounds like you’ve got it figured out as well as it can be figured out. I’ll say goodbye now, I won’t be able to see you off in the morning.”

  The three men left the Admiral’s dining area. They would leave at four in the morning.

  Adrian went to say goodbye to the girls.

  Adrian gave each girl a hug. He promised them all he would take care of himself, and reminded them that he knew how to do that. He had expected tears, at least from some of the younger ones and was surprised that the girls didn’t seem to mind his leaving. He knew that something was up with them, but not quite what.

  “Race, I want one promise from you. You won’t try to follow me. You’re up to something and I don’t know what it is, but if you’re thinking of following me…don’t.”

  “We’ll live within the strict confines of our agreement Adrian.”

  Adrian left satisfied with her response. It wasn’t until much later that Adrian thought over her words and realized that she hadn’t actually given him a direct response to his demand.

  Chapter 16

  Six weeks later the trio had reached Zapata. They were camped outside of town, well off the road. Summer was coming on strong and it had been a hot, dusty drive that day. The truck had an air-conditioner, but it drew too much power and slowed them down too much to use. The wood gas-fueled engine wasn’t as efficient or powerful as when they’d used the diesel fuel, which they had long since run out of.

  Adrian was cooking a huge rattlesnake for dinner.

  “I kind of thought you were kidding about eating rattlesnake back in Corpus,” said Ryan, “but here we go again. How many does this make, five or ten thousand that we’ve eaten?”

  Adrian replied, “Exactly seven. This makes the seventh. We’ve actually eaten a lot better than I expected. The Javalina population is pretty good; besides, rattlesnake is damn tasty, tastes just like chicken.”

  “The hell it does.” Jose piped in. “It doesn’t taste anything like chicken…but it’s not bad.”

  “Time to radio in.” Adrian said changing the subject. “Whose turn is it?”

  “Yours.” Ryan and Jose said at the same time.

  “But I’m cooking.”

  “Doesn’t make any difference, it’s your turn.” Jose said with a smile.

  Adrian didn’t mind radioing in, it was generally a quick report. This one wouldn’t be more than just a check in. They’d had some interesting news to send in the past few days, but nothing today. They had recruited five spies so far. He climbed into the truck, pulled out the radio and hooked it up, then pushed a button and listened while the antenna rose ten feet into the air. Turning on the radio he called in.

  “Base one this is mobile one, over.”

  “Mobile one we read you, over.”

  “We’re doing fine here, making progress, nothing else to report, over.”

  Then the half-bored sounding operator was replaced by the Admiral’s voice. This was the first time the Admiral had responded directly. Uh-oh, this can’t be good. Adrian thought.

  “Well I’ve got something to report.” The Admiral said in a strained tone. “You’re so-called ‘Angels’ have captured my ship and I am not well pleased.”

  Adrian sat stunned for a moment. “Excuse me, Admiral? I must have misunderstood you, please say again.”

  “I said, and I know damn good and well you heard me, the girls captured my ship. They went out for their maneuvers as they call them. They were gone two very blissful and quiet days. I was up on the bridge on the third night when they came in with guns and told us we were captured. The little demons snuck onto the ship, past all of my security, managed to sneak all the way to the bridge and start a fire in a trash can for a diversion. When everyone was focused on the fire they came in through the hatch and took us prisoner. Over.”

  Adrian took a deep breath and then said, “Was anyone hurt Admiral, over?”

  “Damn it Adrian this isn’t funny! They made a complete mockery of our security! And don’t think security isn’t getting a hell of an ass-chewing over this. I’m completely revamping how we secure the ship, it’s a total cluster-fuck damn it. Over.”

  Adrian couldn’t think of a thing to say. He was torn between being upset with the girls and being proud of them.

  “Adrian? Answer me.” The Admiral was too furious to continue using radio protocol.

  With a mighty effort, Adrian pulled himself together and tried to sound serious. “Sorry Admiral, the signal grew weak there for a minute. What is it you want me to do? How did they get on board without being seen? Over.”

  “The little brats climbed up the power cables. Do you know how fucking dangerous that is? Every one of them, even the littlest, crawled right up those cables.”

  Adrian waited a beat making sure the Admiral was waiting for a response. “My deepest apologies Admiral, I’m sure you’re plenty upset and rightfully so. What can I do to help? Over.”

  “I want you to give Race a good old fashioned ass-chewing, that’s what I want you to do. Here she is. Start talking.”

  “Race? You there? Over.”

  “Yes sir. Oh…over.”

  Adrian could hear the pride in her voice, even over the radio and in those two words. “Race, this isn�
�t what you’re supposed to be doing. Besides, it’s damned dangerous climbing those cables. What the hell were you thinking? Over.”

  “We made safety harnesses out of rope Adrian, no one could have fallen. It was safe. I decided that we needed realistic infiltration training. We came up with the plan and practiced on it. Then we did it, and Adrian, we did it damned well, too. Oh, and the guns were unloaded. Uh, over.”

  Adrian finished chewing Race out and instructed her to quit disrupting the ship’s routines. After signing off with a still very upset Admiral, he turned off the radio and exited the truck, laughing so hard he could barely walk. Jose and Ryan looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  “What the hell Adrian? You losing it on us?” Ryan asked, perplexed.

  “Wait til you hear this!” Adrian managed to gasp out. When he got his breath back he explained what the girls had done and the Admiral’s less-than-pleased reaction. All three of the men then laughed until their sides hurt.

  Wiping his eyes, Adrian said, “Well the Admiral has met his match, that’s for sure.” Starting the laughter all over again.

  Two days later Adrian, Ryan, and Jose were sitting around a kitchen table with their host Reynaldo. They had spotted the ranch earlier that day and drove up to the ranch house, a medium-sized frame dwelling, and stopped at a distance. Adrian honked the horn three times to alert the inhabitants, waited a short interval for the inhabitants to look them over, and then stepped out of the van with his hands in the air.

  There was a cautious introduction phase as Reynaldo, armed with a shotgun, assured himself that these strangers meant no threat to him or his family. Reynaldo, along with his wife and three young children, had a subsistence farm better than any Adrian had seen so far. They were far enough from any dense population center that they hadn’t been run over by the walking starving when the grid dropped. This was remote, near-desolate country. Except for losing the luxury of electricity, their lives had not been strongly impacted.

  Adrian took a sip of goat’s milk and thought, This is pretty good. Probably very nutritious, a great survival food. Adrian said, “Thank you again for your hospitality sir.”

  “Please call me Reynaldo. Only the police ever used to call me ‘sir,’ makes me nervous.” Reynaldo spoke English with a heavy accent. He was fluent, but the accent sometimes made him hard to understand. “You are most welcome; we get so few visitors that you’re a delight to have. I understand what you are saying about an invasion. I’ve heard much about it. My cousin Juan just came up from Oxaca and has many stories. I sent my son to go bring him here to talk to you about this. He knows much more than I, so we wait for him.”

  Reynaldo’s wife served an excellent lunch while they were waiting. Corn tortillas wrapped around spicy goat meat and pinto beans, and a side dish of cooked greens that Adrian didn’t recognize but found delicious, all served again with goat’s milk. Adrian asked about the greens and Reynaldo told him they were Moringa leaves. After lunch, Reynaldo took the three men on a tour around his ranch. Adrian told Bear to stay by the truck. The wolf curled up in the shade of the truck and waited patiently.

  Goats were the perfect livestock for this arid area, able to survive and even thrive, on the native vegetation. Reynaldo had a windmill that pumped water into a series of tanks. This water kept the goats nearby, and hand feeding them with corn twice a day kept them tame, thus no fences were required except around his corn and vegetable patch to keep the goats out. Reynaldo explained that he planted the corn first and when it was the right height he planted beans around the corn stalks. Once the beans started climbing the corn stalks he then planted squash as well. It was a symbiotic relationship between the plants, each providing something the other needed whether it was shade or something to climb on or nutrients.

  “We call them Tres Hermanas.” Reynaldo said. “It means ‘Three Sisters’ in English. They work together in many, many ways, and if tended well, bring us great bounty. It is as old as our people.”

  Adrian was thoroughly impressed. He had never heard of or seen this system before, but then again, he wasn’t a farmer. He intended to report this back to the Admiral and ask him to broadcast this information by clear communication to the ham-net so that other people could learn of it. He didn’t know it at the time, but the word would spread rapidly and be adopted all over the country.

  “Reynaldo, what kind of trees are those?” Adrian asked while pointing to a small grove of trees he had never seen.

  “Those are the Moringa trees, señor, the leaves we ate are from them. They come from India and grow very well in dry country—they can go a long time with no rain. We eat the leaves and the seeds and the flowers, even the bark can be used. The roots, too, but only a little. The roots can make you sick if you eat too much but they make a good seasoning, like…horseradish. The tree is very strong food, makes us very healthy and strong. I bought the seeds from a man that was travelling through the area selling them. He said the tree has enough food to live on without anything else. He said the tree has more vitamins and other good things than any other plant on the earth, and that they are easy to grow. I took a chance and bought the seeds and planted them and he was right. The trees, they grow ten feet per year and have many branches if the tree is pruned back each year. Much food from these trees, they are a blessing.”

  As they were walking back to the house Reynaldo’s son and a handsome young Hispanic man appeared out of the brush. Reynaldo introduced his cousin, “This is Juan Zuniga, my cousin from Oxaca.”

  Adrian shook his hand and smiled. Juan returned the shake with a firm grip, something Adrian knew was unusual for the culture, and a small cautious smile. Adrian said, “Happy to meet you Mr. Zuniga.”

  Juan replied with a bright full smile to this, “Please, just Juan. Thank you.”

  They all returned to the house and sat around the kitchen table. Adrian asked Juan what he’d heard about plans for an invasion by the cartels.

  Juan nodded somberly, and said, “It is everywhere in Mexico, wherever I went, there is talk of conquering the yanquis. They have always seen the United States as a rich paradise, and they still think it. The cartellistas are joining up into an army, perhaps thousands are going to come together to move north. Many who talk will not come, talk is cheap and the trip is hard and dangerous. It took me many months to walk from Oxaca to here, many hard times on the way. But many will come for they have nothing where they are, these are hard men, señor, very hard men. They will come and take what they want. Much killing will happen.”

  Juan’s English was only fair, he referred to Reynaldo often for the right words.

  “Can you guess how long before they get here?” Adrian asked.

  “I don’t know señor. Some have already started, some are waiting to see what happens before they come. I think maybe two months before they get to the border, maybe less, maybe more. I think the first will be many hundreds, maybe a thousand, maybe more. If they are successful, the word will travel back and then many many thousands will come.”

  “How well are they armed Juan?”

  “Oh, very well señor. They have many guns, many bullets. They were rich from the drug smuggling and have many guns. The others that follow, maybe later, not so many new guns but many old guns.”

  “Do you know where they will cross the river at? Have you heard anything about that?”

  “Sí. Ciudad Acuna, it is spoken of often as the center. I think they will cross there.”

  Adrian knew from his map that Ciudad Acuna was the sister city of Del Rio, a week’s drive from their present location. “How sure are you of this?” Adrian asked.

  “No one can be sure señor, but it is said often. I think it is so.”

  “So in summary you believe that up to a thousand heavily armed former cartel soldiers will be invading Texas near Del Rio within two months, is that ab
out right?”

  “Sí, that is what I think. I have walked all the way from Oxaca, deep in south Mexico, to here. I hear much, I say little, I listen. I think when I get here I warn Reynaldo that we must move very far north, maybe to Canada. This is going to be very bad. It will start maybe slow, but will get bigger as the stories go back to Mexico of easy food and riches. The people have nothing and will dream of being fat and rich and will come. They will tell their neighbors and friends and those will tell others and so it will spread quickly. They have nothing so they have nothing to lose. They will come, and it will be very bad. Muy malo, mucha muerte.”

  As the three men were leaving Reynaldo handed Adrian a small bag, weighing about five pounds. “These are Moringa seeds señor. When you go home, plant them. They are very important food.”

  Chapter 17

  In Fort Brazos, Texas, Colonel Linda Fremont was meeting with the elected town council: Roman, Sarah, Matt, Perry, and Tim. Linda put her cup of hot tea back on the table after a careful sip. Linda was a Colonel in the Fort Brazos Militia, formed to fight a large band of raiders, she was widowed and had a young son, Scott. Adrian had led the militia to a successful battle that ended the threat. The raider’s commander, Rex, had been a personal enemy of Adrian’s and Adrian had eventually killed him in an unusual way. Roman and Sarah were Adrian’s Uncle and Aunt and had raised him as one of their own after Adrian’s parent’s had died when he was at a young age. Matt, Perry, and Tim were old friends of Romans and had come to live in Fort Brazos shortly after the grid had dropped. Perry was formerly a lawyer and Tim an engineer. Matt had been an engineer also, and had become the town’s blacksmith and preacher. Perry had written a constitution for the Fort Brazos settlement and had become the local judge while Tim had become the town’s law enforcement officer.