The Hunters

by T J Reeder

  She too smiled and said well yes and no, but I want to know it’s ok with you. I pulled her over and hugged her and said it will be just fine, welcome to the family.

  At the meeting I laid out my thoughts and found them well received and even more so there was a lot of ideas flowing among us, even Wyatt had some good points ( no, not those! ) After we had hashed it out for a few hours we headed down to the main camp where we found everybody not on guard duty waiting for us.

  I jumped ( crawled) up on a flat bed and waited till it quieted down and laid it out for them.

  First I thanked them for always being there when needed and told them that this new plan wasn’t engraved in granite and anybody who wished could leave at any time and would be given whatever they wanted to get where they wanted to go.

  First we were going to go to Chicago because as the “Red Leg” said in the movie, I don’t want to hear “Josey Wales dead, I wanna see Josey Wales dead”.

  I always loved that line but I swear ninty percent of these folks acted like they never heard it before. No wonder the country went to hell.

  Anyway we were going to Chicago or as close as it was safe to. Regardless of May’s assurances, The rest of the plan was to run down anybody who was involved in the enslavement of the people forced to work for the traitors and I really wanted to locate the women who had been taken as toys for the hopefully dead bastards.

  So we were just gonna head down the road singing “Hey

  diddle- diddle, straight up the middle” and god help the poor stupid bastard who opened fire on us. I wanted to get this shit done and head off into the high country with my woman…er women? This got a loud laugh and at least Sandy and May had the good grace to turn bright red.

  Shit I need to get briefed on this. Plus I didn’t get the seemingly bonding time with May that Sandy and I had so to me she is still a stranger. Long black hair and bright blue eyes. Nothing wrong with that! As I said we will be a hit in Utah.

  So as per my usual I closed with “Talk it over and if you’re tired of chasing after somebody who can’t keep the same plan more then two days then you are free to go and be and do what you wish with my thanks. And in three days I’m heading East and plan to bring hope and help to them as want and need it and I plan to rain doom on anybody who thinks the old rob, rape, kill shit is still in vogue. And we are going to haul ass as much as possible considering the heavy loads the track haulers are pulling.

  And with that I headed to the nearest coffee pot where I was joined by the command staff and a lot of the folks who seem to be willing to follow my screwed up way of leading.

  Sandy and May had disappeared but that wasn’t a surprise. I figured I’d know what I needed to know when I needed to know it and not a second sooner.

  We sat and drank coffee until it was happy hour in Thailand and then switched over to whatever one wanted. By dark we were all pretty well sloshed and headed off to our tents to crash, Mine was empty so I crawled into the nice soft bed and went to sleep in two seconds, and woke up sandwiched between two warm bodies. I did what any real man would do and went back to sleep to let it sort its self out. When I woke up next time there was only one warm body there and it was nice, very nice.

  After I was showered and coffee’d up and ready for breakfast I was joined by the ladies who sat one on each side of me causing a few folks to smile. Tuff shit and there it is!

  Three days later we had worked out the travel plan, the main convoy made up of everything except the scouts (who were ranging all over the area in front of us and on each side) were lined out with the heavies pulling drag the drivers said they could move at 55 mph no problem so that was the main speed.

  Ralph was up scouting the road ahead of us with his faithful observer who was still campaigning to have a gun mounted on the bird. So far it hadn’t happened but I know she was working the mechanics and anybody else who could make it happen and I’d no doubt she would one day be blazing away from on high. Poor Ralph would be lucky to not see one of his wings get sawed off when she got to rocking.

  May was riding with me and Walker who for a bit seemed put out to have her in Sandy’s seat but it only took a few treats to win him over. Us guys are so easy. We spent the day really getting acquainted, She had gotten her higher education at MIT and had three degrees all in one form of engineering or another. Too much for me to understand, if it ain’t got a trigger I’m lost. She and her brother came from a family of engineers and just followed suit.

  Her parents had died in a plane crash a few years before the EMP leaving her and her brother who was now gone leaving her alone, I told her she now had a family in Sandy and I and a few hundred “kinfolk” who were rolling along behind us.

  I finally had to ask just what the agreement was between her and Sandy, She smiled and said “No John, we aren’t into girls, either of us.” She said Sandy just took her in and said she could stay as long as she wished or she could leave if she found a better offer but until that time she was family. With that she looked at me and I said as far as I’m concerned you’re a part of me and Sandy and apparently Walker since his head was resting on her shoulder and would be as long as she wanted and I hoped it was for a long time. Which got her crawling over the housing unit between us and hugging me.

  We made four hundred miles that first day with no problems at all, the scouts said they were seeing a lot of small groups away from the roadway who seemed to be doing fine, growing their food and most had live stock, cows and goats and chickens which had my mouth watering for a real mess of eggs. I asked if they thought they could approach some of them and offer to trade for fresh food and eggs.

  By the time we stopped for the day the scouts had traded some of the non standard ammo we had a ton of for enough produce to feed us a kings breakfast for supper! Which is my most favorite meal. Only fools think Bacon and eggs are just for mornings. HA!

  They said the folks they traded with knew who we were and where we were going but knew nothing of events in Chicago and weren’t told, why worry them. They all seemed to be doing fine, and seemed happy but did need some things they just couldn’t make or grow. I had the scouts get with Sandy and May to work out what we could supply them with and the scouts could deliver it next day.

  God knows we have tons of stuff we’ve gathered so now it’s time to return it to the tax payers.

  One scout team said they had run across a place that the men seemed very edgy and unfriendly and only wanted ammo and whiskey for trade, there were no women in sight. One of the scouts said something to Charley who looked at him a bit then nodded and looked at me. I waited for him to gather his thoughts He said that the young man had spoke of seeing a tattoo on one of the men and it was a gang tat from a very nasty bunch who were mostly from New Mexico and Arizona and who specialized in abducting women to sell across the border.

  Where did these shitheads come from? Another planet? I was now pissed and sick and tired of this stuff and we were by god gonna clear this one up, so I gathered the usual suspects to plan it out and from what the scouts said this was a job for the old farts who wouldn’t let go of their deer rifles. 300 yards average shot which these ol boys could make in their sleep.

  Charley sent the scouts back with a second team to work with them, while we waited for morning and more information I called the old farts as they called themselves together and explained we needed their skills.

  I was hoping to do this done and over with. The main convoy would push on and we would catch up.

  I figured twenty shooters could handle it and with the HV’s as heavy back up we could get it done and move on.

  Sandy said she and May were coming but would stay with the HV, now you gotta know this made me raise a brow! She smiled and said until we get May up to speed on shooting she and I will just hang back but she wants to see what’s gonna happen.

  I was so surprised by this I never for a second thought to wonder if they were staying with the HV’s how was May gonna see anything? See how ea
sy a woman can screw with a mans mind?

  Well the convoy beat on down the highway and we were waiting about a mile from this place where something might be going on that needs stopping.

  And there was, something going on I mean. The scouts reported that about an hour after the convoy was past the road to this place a dude on a motor cycle showed up and must have reported that we had rolled on because shortly they herded a bunch of women out of the old barn and set them to working in the big garden. They reported being able to see ten man out in the open and there seemed to be more in the big old farm house.

  We caught a big break when it was noon time and the women were allowed to sit in the shade of the barn with only one guard on them and the barn was blocking the view of the other men.

  We moved in on foot and eased into places where we had concealment if not cover. I didn’t plan on any of these dirt bags getting many shots off.

  Charley said one of the scouts had worked to within fifty yards of the guard and had my 22 Ruger with the can on it so I nodded and he spoke into the mike and shortly said the women were scared but moving out and into a low spot where they were safe from fire.

  Now all we needed to do was draw them all out into the open so Charley spoke again and one of the scouts yelled out” Stop you fuckin bitch!!” and fired three shots. And that had them all running out of the house and toward the back of the barn

  So far it seemed that with good planning and superior fire power we had prevailed every time we faced these kinds of situations. The Old Farts opened up and it was ear blasting, I was used to the pop pop of the 16’s these guys were armed with everything from 308’s to big bore magnums and jeeze did they tear the assholes all to hell.

  The bad guys were dropping like leaves in a storm when one of them unloaded with an M-16 and sprayed the area where several of our people were shooting from behind bushes. I knew right away we had people hit and was already calling up the med teams.

  The guy with the 16 was hit so many times he was a red greasy spot on the ground. We called a cease fire and got to our people and it was bad, two were killed out right and two more were hit hard. I was on the horn fast calling Ralph to get the chopper in here fast.

  Our corpsmen were working like demons doing all they could but we need to get these men to the docs damn skippy.

  It wasn’t 10 minutes and we heard the chopper coming full throttle and the scouts were marking out a landing area.

  Ralph was still a few feet off the ground when people were bailing out of the bird, WTF I was planning a medivac but here was the doctors making a house call. They were all over the two wounded men and we all backed off to await the word, meantime we headed into the old ranch yard to finish the job.

  We searched the place from top to bottom and found nobody and several of the women said there had only been 15 of them here at the time, and we had 15 bodies, I asked what was meant by “ At the time” and was told the main man and three others had rolled out several days ago to meet up with people coming from the South to help expand this place and another they planned to hit when the extra shooters got here. It seemed that these fools talked openly about their plans in front of the women because they didn’t consider them as any problem. I was very disappointed we had missed this dirt bag but the women said he was due back today.

  Plan time! We quickly got the bodies into the barn and backed everybody off and out of sight. The women agreed to keep working in the gardens and several of our men put on old jeans and shirts and carried around the weapons the dead guys had. We parked a HV in the barn as a real surprise I wasn’t chancing anybody else getting hurt, the machine gun could deal with the next bunch if they showed up today. We had shooters in the old house and the Old Farts were ready and pissed since losing some of their own.

  And as fate had it they did! Ralph was up high spotting and saw them coming a ways off, he reported around 20 vehicles with no scouts out all just rolling along like it was normal times which for them it was.

  About an hour later we could hear them coming, all our people were ready scattered out a bit in small groups like they were having a BS session, all were close to good hard cover. The women were all ready to make a mad dash for the low spot when given the word.

  And with a roar they rolled into the place, some of our people waved a bit mostly using the arm to cover their faces. With all the dust and noises nobody seemed to notice our people just disappearing from sight. As soon as they had all stopped and shut down their vehicles and were getting out stretching and working the kinks out I gave the word for the women to drop out of sight. Nobody could see them from the yard area so that went well.

  The next sound was the HV pulling out of the barn but most never heard that because the gun on top opened up in a long stutter, opening the gates of hell for these dirt bags. At the first shot the rest of us opened up and I doubt there was a returned shot. I wasn’t shooting, just watching but I did look around for the girls and they weren’t in sight. I didn’t even have to look to know who was on the gun in the HV, I couldn’t do a thing but shake my head. The biggest issue was getting her to let up on the trigger, that girl could burn out a barrel faster then you can say overheating. I also had no doubt who was driving the damn HV.

  I looked at Charley who just shook his head and said something, I had to lean over close to hear it when he repeated it, he said “what did you expect?” I just shook my head.

  At last the gun stopped it almost non stop chattering so I figured she was out of ammo. In the quiet that followed which was caused by the fact we couldn’t hear shit, nothing was moving. I watched some of our people easing forward and did hear the shots that finished the trip for the ones still kicking. Well I had said no prisoners and there wasn’t any.

  I wondered if this crap was gonna weigh on my soul and if so when. I knew it wasn’t right now.

  When it was done we had a meeting with the women and they were asked if any wanted to remain here, all said no of course. So we started stripping the dead of anything of use meaning weapons. The vehicles were shot to shit and most of the cargo was too. We took what wasn’t then dragged them into the old house and barn and torched the place. The last thing was a sign painted on the side of a shed, it read “ Slavers and rapist, gone to hell”

  The women asked for time to salvage what they could from the garden which made a lot of sense, so we pitched in and helped them. Some of them were shell shocked but all looked like they were young enough and tough enough to make it given time.

  I explained to the women who we were and what we were doing and where we were going and offered to try to get them back to their families if possible. But for the moment they were stuck with us but I assured them they were safe and would be treated with complete respect. I understood the looks of doubt that a few had but I figured in time they would learn.

  We caught up with the rest of the convoy who were pulled over by a river for the night. It was a somber time because we had lost people for only the second time and it weighed heavy on me.

  We found on our arrival that one of the two who was flown out had died on the flight and the other was stable more or less with the doc’s working hard to keep him alive.

  I took Charley with me and we found a spot on a hill overlooking the river where we would bury our friends.

  Charley and I started digging the grave since they would be buried together as is fitting for Warriors who die together in battle. Soon Sandy and May came up and took over digging and soon everybody who was not busy was there all wanting a turn at honoring our people.

  We didn’t stop until everybody had a turn then we walked down to the camp and carried our fallen friends to their resting place. Everybody wanted to help with that so we would walk a short distance and hand off to the next group. It was very touching and I have never seen such a display of loving friendship.

  When everybody except the scouts on guard duty was present I told the story of what happened, what went wrong and what might have prevent
ed these deaths. A few of their closest friends spoke for them and told us who they were in their life before and where they were from. And with that we took a moment for silent prayer and proceeded to fill the grave. And again everybody wanted to help, when it was done the ladies scattered wild flowers over them and we headed back to our camp. The gear heads had used some flat steel stock and had used a welder to put the names of the dead man on it and welded that to a steel pipe which was placed on the grave, hammered deep to prevent removal.

  We all spent the evening just sitting around in groups sharing a drink and telling tall tales, it was as good a way to hold a wake as any. I hated that I knew so little about those men who had given their all but our life style seemed to not allow that but I intended to do all I could to change that.

  Sandy and the other women had taken charge of the ladies we rescued and were working to make them comfortable.

  The female members of the medical staff were giving physicals and our one Lady Doc was very busy but the thought was that these women had seen all the men they needed to for the time being.