“How much longer do you think the fuel sources will hold out?” Chet asked.
“Since the four of us have been the only people using the sources in Laramie, I think we still have several years, maybe up to five years, worth of gasoline for the trucks over there. Propane will last for a long time. Since we learned how to transfer the gas, we’ve been able to drain off propane from other sources, refilling our tanks we have on trailers. We still haven’t used up the propane sources of Albany and Centennial yet. Diesel will last much longer as we don’t use much of it, only the tractors and generators.”
“Maybe you can grow enough corn to make synthetic gasoline,” Chet thought aloud. “If you mix that with swine droppings, it will work. I don’t know how you’d refine it, but I’m sure the libraries in Laramie or Cheyenne would have the information.”
Now he had my wheels turning. In a matter of hours, the kid had given us two major ideas that could have a major impact on our future: the underground greenhouses and now making our own synthetic fuels from corn and swine methane. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and once again had that little nag of doubt. For a cowboy, one with a few college hours under his belt, appeared smarter than he was.
“I going up to bed,” Ruth said, getting up and starting up the stairs.
“I’ll be up in a minute,” I told her as she climbed the stairs. “I’ll throw a few logs on the fire first.”
“I may as well go on up, too,” Chet said. “I’ll read my Bible some. See you in the morning, Doug.”
“Yep,” I said. I put two more logs on, checked the doors, readied the coffee pot, and went upstairs. Ruth was sitting on the bed and she hadn’t changed clothes yet, just sitting there thinking. “What’s wrong?”
She looked up at me with a look of concern on her face, “Maybe it’s just me, but I have this feeling of doubt about Chet. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a good kid, but something just doesn’t feel quite right with him. I get the feeling I need to keep a half-eye on him. That make any sense to you?”
“You’re not the only one,” I agreed with her. “Dave and I both have little nudges of doubt. I have the same feeling you do, that I need to keep an eye on him. Dave and I both feel the way you do; something just doesn’t add up.”
“What do you think we should do?” she asked.
“I don’t know, really. He has given us two great ideas in just a few hours, one we can act on right away, and one we’ll really need to think through and plan. Still, I feel…I guess uncomfortable with him here.”
“It’s almost like we felt with Darrell and Jeff.”
“Yeah, you’re right. OK, then, we’ll need to keep on our toes and be watchful. I’ll talk to Dave, Wednesday, and see what he thinks. Come on, let’s get ready for bed.”
Chapter 4: Round Table and More Prep
The next day, I continued to add boulders along the upper road to the Underground. Chet helped, putting on heavy gloves, goggles, and a hard hat, grabbing a six-foot steel pry-bar and helping to set the stones. In several places, where the dirt road had curves, on the west side of the road I dug some half-moon pits, placing the dirt and stone I took out in the front, or roadside of the emplacement. When Chet asked what they were for, I told him they were firing positions if needed. I told him if we prepared positions first, then we wouldn’t wish for them when needed for real.
“You going to do this on the other side, too?” he asked.
“No, it’s too steep over there,” I explained. “Anyone coming up on the west side would be at a real disadvantage. At best, they would be limited to a handgun because they would need to hang on to something. Anyway, a few well placed M-68 grenades would take care of anyone coming up.”
“Strategy and tactics – I get it,” he said.
“You know strategy and tactics?” I asked him.
“Board games,” he explained. “I played war games, Dungeons and Dragons, World War II board games with tanks, ships, and land and air forces. I even got to play some three-dimensional board games on-line a few times with the computers at the university. They were cool. I had to learn strategy and tactics fast playing those things.”
“Ah, I see. Well, since you’re a strategist and tactician, you see anything we could improve on for our defense?”
He stuck the steel pry-bar in the dirt and standing on the embankment I’d just built in front of the firing position; he surveyed the area. He slowly took in the valley, the lane leading up to the house, the bridge and the choke point, the eastern side of the river, both north and south of the bridge, and the small hill or rise, up to the house. He turned to the west and looked at the barn, the garage, and house.
He turned and looked at me and said, “The west side is still vulnerable. That ridge over there,” he said pointing to the southwest, “would be a good position for someone that had talent with a rifle. They would have both the house and the Underground in sight. I don’t know what’s beyond that area, or even if there’s any kind of access to it, but a determined enemy could have someone that can shoot go hike over there and radio when in position and begin an attack. You’ve done the east side very well. To the south, you have the forest and the creek. You could add boulders and other things to hamper travel; that’s the only improvement there.
“The north - that’s the other vulnerable area. I don’t know what you have to the north and northwest, but that would be the other areas to consider. Is there access up there? If so, you need to block that some way. Otherwise, just like to the west, they could have men come down the mountain on you. You have any mines or something you could use to surprise and slow down someone from up there?”
“No, and I don’t think that would be good anyway because of the animals. We see deer and elk up there all the time. I’d hate for one of them to step on a mine.”
“Yeah, that’d be a bummer. Well, those are my suggestions. I think you’re right on with everything else. Too bad we don’t have internet anymore. We could look up a few satellite sites I knew and take a look at your property from space. Get a real bird’s eye view, you know?”
“Yes, I know what you mean. I did use that back when the net was still up. It was useful to say the least. It was one of the things I used selecting this site, actually.”
“You had it loaded on one of your computers you have now?” he said looking at me with a grin.
“Yeah, why?”
“What was the last thing you remember looking at?”
“This valley, I’m pretty sure…maybe Laramie, but I’m thinking the valley here. Why?”
“You done up here?”
“For the most part. I still have a few things I want to do around the Underground’s upper bulwarks. Otherwise I’m done.”
“Can we go down and fire up your computer?”
“You still think the internet is up where we can look?
“No, it’s been down for a long time, even before I left Wheatland. Computers have a habit of ‘remembering’ the last thing you looked at. Those satellite images may still be useable.”
“Oh, that’d be great; come on, let’s put this stuff up. Climb aboard.”
He climbed on the tractor and I drove down to where I parked it behind the garage after refueling it. We cleaned up the tools we’d used and went inside, getting a mug of coffee first then settling in the library. I booted the computer up and we waited a few minutes to let it do its thing.
I clicked on the icon for the satellite image site and sure enough, the valley quickly came into focus. “I never thought this would be here,” I said to Chet. “Here’s my home site and this is where the Underground is. Here’s the bridge and the house is here,” I explained to him.
The computer allowed me to zoom in an out on the same view. I moved the view over to the east and we could see Dave and Julia’s home. Dave was going to flip when he saw this. I quickly saved the image then moved the view back to my place.
Chet pointed to the Underground and said, “See this ar
ea to the northwest?” I nodded and he said, “Is there access up there?”
“No roads or anything that I know of,” I told him. “When Dave and I put the antennae for the base station up there, we had to haul all the cement and components by horseback and on foot. That was a chore.”
“What’s it like on top?”
“Rough, heavy forest and rock, and over here,” I said moving the view to the northeast some, “we found an old dirt road they must have made when there was a fire or something. Even though overgrown with trees and shrubs, we could still see the trail remains, the ruts. Otherwise, it’s all mountain top wilderness area.”
“There’s too much area to worry about and not enough people to defend it. That being the case, I think you’re doing great with what you have. The fence was a brainstorm and bracing it with the trees…that was genius.”
“Thanks. I guess we can add things as we think of them, but for now, I think we’re as ready as we can get from a defensive standpoint. Thanks for the advice.”
“It’s for my good, too. I’m in this for the long haul now, and that means I need to help as much as I can to improve things around here for my own protection as well as yours.”
I reached over and got the mike we have for communication and called Dave, “Dave you or Julia within earshot?”
“This is Dave, good buddy, what’s up?”
“You two heading this way anytime soon?” I asked.
“Wasn’t planning on it, why?”
“We’re going to be doin’ some shootin’ over here and I don’t want you driving into a lead storm.”
“What kind of shootin’?”
“Long range stuff with the fifties and .308’s, so keep your heads down. Don’t worry, we’ll be aiming to the south and west, not in your direction.”
“We thank ya’ll for that good buddy. See you tomorrow…out.”
Chet looked at me and said, “Shooting…at what?”
“Just some target practice from up top,” I said. “You want to try out a fifty?”
“Whoa, I’ll say, that would be swell.”
I stood up, turned off the computer after saving another image, went into the kitchen to get another mug of coffee and told Ruth what we would be doing. She said she’d be in the tub in our room, relaxing with a book and some wine.
Together, Chet and I climbed up to the Underground. From the armory in the mechanical room, I took out a fifty and one of the Remington .308 sniper rifles. We carried the pair and ammunition to the western portal and climbed out.
The sky was blue and clear. The air and temperature were fair with a light breeze coming from the northwest at about ten miles per hour. The humidity was low, probably around twenty or twenty-five percent - all in all a beautiful day. I sat the fifty down, pointing it to the southeast, and set the ammo close by.
Chet asked, “What were you doing when you were just standing there?”
I looked at him and said, “Testing the air; temperature, humidity, wind; did it feel heavy, stagnant, cold, or hot. Stuff like that.”
“Why?”
“The air and its qualities have an affect on bullet trajectory. You need to take all that into consideration when long range shooting. If you don’t, you’ll most certainly miss your target. For instance, you see that ridge, there?” I asked him pointing.
He followed my finger and said, “Yes, that dirt strip way over there?”
“That’s the spot. We had a sniper over there. He’d put three rounds through one of the ATVs and had missed us with several shots. I fired from right here, after gauging the wind, temperature, humidity, and angle of the drop for the bullet. I fired five rounds. What I didn’t know, was the first round had hit the sniper, ending the threat. That spot is over seven hundred yards from here – just under a half mile.”
I could see the surprise in Chet’s face. He looked from me back to the ridge where Darrell had been, then back to me and said, “Were you trained as a sniper or something?”
“No, but I learned about bullet trajectory during my stint in the Army. I never dreamed I’d hit the guy with this thing,” I said, giving the fifty a nudge with my toe, “but I did. And those other two in the black hummer…they were more than a mile and a half away when I shot them.”
Chet looked down at the ground and quietly said, “You’re not proud of that are you?”
“No. It makes me sad actually. We’ve had several occasions where people just start shooting at us for no reason and we’ve used deadly force on them. It’s never pretty and leaves us with a hole in our stomachs when we must defend ourselves like that. It’s sad they didn’t want to be friendly – unlike you are,” I said looking at him and smiling. He smiled back and I pointed to his hearing protection and said, “You’ll need those,” and put my foamies in then the muffs on over the top.
Raising my voice to be heard, I said, “The fifty or the .308 first?”
Chet pointed to the .308, so I opened one of the ammo cans full of .308 ammunition and pointing to the west said, “See the dead tree?” He nodded and I said, “Go for it.”
He lay down on the ridge, took out one round and loaded it into the black rifle, took a few deep breaths and letting the last one out, took another deep one and let out about half, took off the safety catch and fired. The bullet hit at the base of the tree, which was about five hundred yards away. He loaded another round and going through the same ritual, fired, and hit the tree on its left side. He took the elevation and windage covers off the scope and making a few adjustments, fired another round. The bullet hit center point in the tree.
I called out, “Good hit. Now load five and hit the same spot.”
He loaded the five rounds, set himself and fired all five rounds. You could have covered his hits with a one-pound coffee can lid.
“Not bad,” I congratulated him. “You shoot well. Who taught you?”
“My Dad; he taught my brother and sister and I how to shoot with his 30-06 and a twenty-two.”
“Well, you’re about to graduate to a real cannon,” I told him with a smile. “Get the fifty and bring it over.” While he got the rifle, I got one of the big shells and one of the .308 rounds for comparison. He set the rifle up where he’d had the .308 and looked at me. I held up the fifty-caliber round and the .308 next to each other and said, “Note the difference. It’s huge compared to the .308. Remember that because when you fire this for the first time,” I said indicating the fifty, “you’ll be real surprised. I was, even though I knew what to expect.”
He took both bullets from me, looking at and comparing the sizes next to each other, and shook his head. “Does it hurt?”
“Good question. It can and after firing those five rounds the first time, I was very sore the next day. The important thing to remember is to pull it in tightly to your shoulder before pulling the trigger. If you don’t, it’ll break your collarbone. You need to hold this thing tightly. You ready?”
“I suppose,” he tentatively said. He lay next to the big gun and getting underneath it, held it tightly into his shoulder and looked through the scope. He looked up at me and I handed him one of the big bullets and pointed to the tree. He opened the bolt, inserted the one-pound bullet, closed the bolt, and really hugged the big weapon. He released the safety, took a few deep breaths, sighted on the tree and letting out another breath, squeezed the trigger.
Yes, I jumped, as did Chet. I always jump the first shot from that thing. I knelt next to him and said, “You okay?”
The smile said it all and he was ready for another round. I handed him one and he loaded it, went through his preparation ritual again and squeezed the trigger. I didn’t need the binoculars as the bullet hit the tree just below the spot, he’d been hitting with the .308. The tree slowly fell to the right as he’d blown the thing down.
“Nice shot,” I congratulated him.
“May I shoot it again?” he said with a grin.
I knew the look and handed him a loaded magazine that held five r
ounds. He inserted the mag, pulled the bolt back chambering a round and said, “What do I use as a target now?”
“Put the safety on and bring it over here.” I moved him back to the eastern portal and pointed to the dirt patch where I’d shot Darrell. “Hit the dirt over there. Remember, it’s a little more than two-hundred yards further than the tree was from you.”
He lay next to the fifty, settled in and looked through the scope. He said, “You see that big stone on the right side of the dirt?”
I lifted my binoculars, looked and could see the stone he meant and said, “I got it. That your target?”
“Yes sir,” he said. I saw him begin his ritual, so I put the binoculars back on the stone and watched. Of course, I jumped when he fired, but quickly got the binos back on target and could see an impact crater to the left and low. I told him and he made two corrections on the scope and prepared to fire again.
This time I kept my binos on the target and saw the bullet impact just over the top, but square on. I told him and he began his breathing, squeezed the trigger, and fired. The bullet hit the lower left side of the stone, which flew up and to the right, the rolled down the ridge into the brush.
He said, “I saw that. Two more rounds, what’s next?” he asked.
“A little higher on the ridge is one of the beetle-kill trees. It’s about a foot in diameter, see it?”
“Got it…firing,” he said and let another round fly. A spray of wood chips flew out the back of the tree and the brown, dead needles rained down from the hit. He settled in and fired the last round and the tree went over to the left and down the ridge.
He looked up at me and said, “I’m done…or rather my shoulder is done. That was great. Thank you for letting me fire this thing.”
I'm Tired of Zombies | Book 2 | Full Scale War Page 12