Debbie finished settling in, put her eye to the rifle’s scope, and placed the crosshairs just behind the doe’s ear. She took a deep breath, let a little out, and held it. Debbie slowly put pressure on the trigger, keeping the crosshairs steady.
The rifle popped like a cap gun. The doe’s head fell to the ground. The other deer jumped up and looked around, trying to find the source of the noise.
Jake jumped up and patted Debbie on the back. “Great shot, Mom!”
The remaining deer bounced down the canyon, kicking up a cloud of dust. Jake was talking excitedly now. Debbie just smiled at him. Once he got started, there was no stopping him. She’d quit trying when he turned five.
“When she turned, I froze,” Jake said. “You said she could see me if I could see her eyes. They didn’t know we were here. You made a great shot. I wonder if I could have shot that good. It’s a big one, huh? You think it will be a lot of meat? I hope it tastes good. Can we eat some for dinner? The Ferrells won’t believe it!”
“All right, buddy, we gotta take care of it now, and get it back to start smoking it. Do you think you can find your way back to the horse and bring it down?”
“No problem, Mom. The horse is just up that way. It’s not very far.”
Jake pointed in the right direction, so Debbie let him go after it. He started to walk off, then turned around. “Mom?”
“Yeah, buddy?”
Jake pushed out his chest, tried to stand a little taller, and got a serious look on his face. “Can you wait to clean it till I get back? I think I should probably learn how to do it. That way, I can do the huntin’ from now on.”
“Okay,” Debbie said. “I’ll drag it out in the open and wait till you get back.”
Satisfied that he wouldn’t miss out on anything, Jake moved off to retrieve their horse.
Debbie crawled down the rocks and moved up to the deer. “They really are a pretty animal,” she muttered. She grabbed the doe by the front legs and dragged her into the open. She’d pulled her hunting knife out and was sharpening it when Jake appeared on the trail, leading their horse. He must have run the whole way, Debbie thought. Her heart nearly burst with pride. He was so brave and tried so hard to be obedient. He really was a great kid. She felt very blessed.
Jake tied the horse and joined her at the deer’s side.
“Okay, buddy, I’m going to let you help,” Debbie said. “Make sure you watch closely. Next deer we get, I’ll let you do it all. Now go back behind her and hold that back leg over to the side.”
Debbie field dressed the doe, skinned it, cut it into quarters, and deboned it. Together, she and Jake tied the meat onto their saddle and started leading their mount back toward the camp.
The sound of automatic gunfire echoed through the pines.
Debbie stiffened, her mind trying to process what she’d just heard. How close was it? Which direction did it come from?
The sounds of the living, breathing forest ceased. No birds sang. No squirrels chattered. It seemed like even the bees and flies were no longer buzzing, but holding their breath, anticipating another peace-shattering event.
The stillness was again broken by another burst of shots.
The Ferrells!
Debbie untied the meat from her horse and jumped in the saddle. “I need you to stay here,” she said to Jake. “Don’t leave this spot till I come for you!”
Debbie didn’t wait for Jake’s reply. She spurred her horse into a gallop and tore through the brush at breakneck speed, her horse jumping logs and plowing through brush. She reigned up a couple of hundred yards from the lake and jumped off, pulling her pistol. She slowly edged around the lake, keeping to the tree line. When she was seventy-five yards from their camp, she crouched by the root wad of a giant, blown-down pine tree.
She could see at least seven armed men in uniform going through their belongings. A couple of them stood thirty yards beyond the camp, arguing. One of them pointed behind him down a little hill and yelled at the other man. Debbie didn’t recognize their language. It sounded German, or maybe Russian. She didn’t see the Ferrells anywhere. Their horses were about two hundred yards uphill, toward the lake, grazing under the trees.
Debbie was unsure what to do. She didn’t know what had happened to the Ferrells. She didn’t know who these soldiers were. Why were they on foot? How did they get into the mountains? They had on the same uniforms the soldiers were wearing when the raiders had ambushed them earlier—camouflage fatigues with an emblem of what looked like stalks of wheat, a black “U.C.” over the top. Were they part of an invading army? She couldn’t take the chance of being spotted, and there were too many to take in a firefight. She decided to continue to crouch by the safety of her root ball and wait until they left.
Finally, the soldiers finished going through Debbie’s things. They were thorough, she had to give ’em that. They’d scattered stuff everywhere, but weren’t taking anything except the automatic weapons she’d taken off the attackers the day before. They left the other bolt-action rifles and shotguns behind and walked over the hill, out of sight.
Debbie moved out of the cover and followed them, keeping back a couple hundred yards. She got to the last place she’d seen them and froze. An engine roared to life. She heard the sound of doors closing. Debbie crawled to the edge of a hill and looked down. Two Humvee-like vehicles were just disappearing around a corner. Below her was a paved highway.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “How could I have been so stupid?”
She knew she should never have set up a camp without searching the perimeter at least a quarter mile out. If she’d known there was a road right below them, she would have chosen to camp farther up the mountain.
When she could no longer hear the trucks and was satisfied no more were coming, she stood and went back to the camp to search for her friends.
Travis Ferrell lay in a heap fifty yards from camp, three bullet holes in his back. Debbie checked his pulse. He was dead. Stephanie Ferrell was twenty yards farther. She had one well-placed bullet hole in the center of her back. Another bullet had gone through her right kidney. Tears formed in Debbie’s eyes. No matter how tough Debbie had become or would have to become, it didn’t change the fact that she was human, and a woman. Estrogen flowed through her veins like every other woman’s on planet earth. Sometimes a woman just has to cry.
Stephanie moaned. Debbie quickly knelt beside her and turned her over. She had blood drying on her lips. Her eyes were vacant.
“Travis?” Stephanie said. “Where’s Travis?”
“He’s fine,” Debbie lied. “He’s back at camp getting you water. What happened here, Stephanie?”
“We’d just put more wood on the fire. I was cold. The wood was wet, so it was really smoking, and not putting out any heat.”
Stephanie coughed. Fresh blood droplets emerged from her mouth and settled on her pale lips.
“Travis went to find drier wood. While he was gone, soldiers came out of nowhere. They walked right into our camp and started yelling at me in some language I didn’t understand. One of them grabbed me by the hair and yelled in my face. Another one came over and made him let go of me.”
Stephanie took several labored breaths. Her lungs rattled. She coughed again and said, “He spoke to me in broken English: ‘What number you are?’ He waited for a response, but I didn’t know what he was asking. He hit me in the face and knocked me down. I fell on top of one of our rifles, grabbed it, and took off running towards the trees. That’s all I remember. I’m so thirsty.”
Debbie searched and found one of their canteens. She took it back to Stephanie and held it to her lips. Stephanie coughed and wheezed, but managed to drink some before fading into unconsciousness.
Debbie picked Stephanie up and carried her back to the fire. It amazed Debbie how light she was. Even after all the extra food she’d been eating the last few weeks, she was still way underweight. Debbie covered her with a blanket and went back to get Jake.
>
They rode into camp a half an hour later. Stephanie was dead. She and Jake dug a couple of graves side by side and buried their new friends in the shade of a giant ponderosa pine. Jake was crying. Debbie did her best to console him as they covered the bodies with dirt.
“Jake, do you have anything you want to say about the Ferrells? When someone leaves us and goes to heaven, sometimes it helps to say a prayer and tell God what you like about them.”
Jake got a faraway look in his eyes. Then he prayed: “Dear God, Mr. and Mrs. Ferrell were nice people. Mr. Ferrell was kind of scared about lots of things, but he was strong too. They were both real nice to me, and I’d like it if you took real good care of them in heaven.”
“That was very nice Jake.” Debbie said. “Now I think it’s time to get our stuff together and decide where we go next.”
They spent the next twenty minutes retrieving the other horses and repacking their gear. Should they stay here and smoke the meat they’d need for the rest of the trip or backtrack farther into the mountains first? If they stayed, there was the chance that more soldiers would travel the road below and discover them. She and Jake would lose a half a day if they backtracked, but that was probably the wisest move.
The next question was should they continue toward the Nirschell ranch in Oregon or make a home here in these mountains? They could probably survive here on their own, but if they were smart, they could probably make it to Oregon. The trip would be more dangerous than hiding out in these mountains, but the thought of never having other adults around to talk to was unbearable. Debbie made up her mind. They would backtrack, smoke the meat, rest for a couple of days, and continue toward her uncle’s ranch.
They started back into the forest. Jake suddenly stopped.
“I forgot to tell God something about the Ferrells,” he said. “I need to go back.”
Debbie put her hand on his arm. “God will hear you wherever you are, Jake. We don’t need to go back. You can tell him now.”
Jake closed his eyes tight. “God, I would also like to ask you to help the men who shot the Ferrells. Help them to not be mean anymore.”
Debbie smiled and rubbed the top of Jake’s head. “I am so blessed,” she said, “to have a son like you.”
They rode several miles deeper into the forest before stopping at the edge of a meadow with a cold, clear stream running through it. They unpacked the meat, some rope, and their bedrolls. Debbie cut several large tree branches and leaned them against each other in the shape of a tepee. She tied them together at the top. She then cut several strands of rope and wove them between the poles of the frame, creating a rack. Debbie pulled out the Ferrells’ bedrolls and fastened blankets around the outside of the tepee, leaving about two inches at the top. Jake helped her cut the deer meat into long, thin strips. They filled the rope rack with meat. Debbie dug a hole in the center of her tepee and built a hot fire. She closed the gap in the blankets, then she and Jake fixed their supper while the meat smoked.
“How long does it have to smoke, Mom?”
“It’ll take ten to twelve hours. We have to make sure the fire stays going. We’ll take turns staying awake tonight. Tomorrow we’ll do another batch. In about five hours it will be cooked enough to eat some, but not enough to be completely cured.”
After dinner, Debbie tucked Jake in. Then she lay down and looked at the stars. She didn’t wake Jake the whole night. He needed his rest, and she couldn’t sleep anyway.
She had so many questions. Life before the attack was hard, but it didn’t even come close to the hardships they now faced. Would things ever be the way they were—cars on the roads, television, modern appliances, new clothes, airline travel? All those things seemed years in the past, not months. What kind of a world had her generation left their children? How could they have been so wrapped up in their world and their lives to not know the danger they were in? Everything they’d built over the last hundred years had seemed so solid and indestructible, yet was so fragile.
Debbie and Jake stayed in their new camp three more days, curing meat, resting, and daydreaming about what lay ahead. At dawn on the fourth day, they rode out. The crisp morning air smelled sweet as it wafted through the pines under the painted light of sunrise. Debbie felt more alive than at any other time in her life. She actually felt connected to her world for the first time.
She looked at her little man and smiled. She had no doubts, no fear, no apprehension. They would make it to Oregon. Nothing, no matter how strong, would stop them now.
34
UNITY, OREGON
MAY 28
NIRSCH MOUNTED HIS HORSE AND RODE EAST UP BROGAN Hill, leading 836 men, women, and teenagers. Everyone was armed with hunting rifles, bows, or pistols. Some of the men actually had long knives and swords hanging at their sides. The ragtag army had been divided into divisions, each with a commander that Nirsch had selected out of the people with prior military experience. It wasn’t perfect, and he thought that when everything hit the fan, some of these people might turn tail and run out of sheer terror. Yet he had no doubt that those with military and law enforcement background would hold steady and fight to the death if need be.
The thought of anyone dying filled Nirsch with dread. These people had families. Some were just teenagers, the youngest being only fourteen. Nirsch had tried to explain to them what he feared it would be like, how horrible it could be. No matter how well he described it, he knew there was no way for them to know what awaited them.
It took several hours to reach the top of Brogan Hill and the lush grass of the prairie. The pace was slower than Nirsch wanted, but with an army this size on horseback, it would take a while. He rode in silence, pouting and dreading what was to come.
Nirsch suddenly noticed Bill riding beside him. Bill turned in the saddle and appraised the army. “It’s not much to look at, boss,” Bill said. “But I think they might surprise us. Everyone here has lived in the country their whole lives. They grew up hunting and camping. I think they have what it takes.”
Nirsch also surveyed the group. “Killing a deer isn’t like killing an armed man who’s trying to kill you,” he said. “Half of these people don’t have experience riding horseback at all. By the time we get to Boise, they’ll be so covered in saddle sores I’ll be amazed if they’re able to walk, let alone fight. How can I live with myself, knowing that a lot of them will die because I talked them into going to war? They got together and built something amazing after the attacks. Would it have been so bad to let them live in the community in peace, away from what’s coming? For all we know, the U.C. would never reach John Day. Maybe we should have left them alone to live out their lives.”
Bill spat on the ground as he rode. “I’ve been a part of your life as long as I’ve been alive, boss,” he said. “I admire you, always have. You’re fair and honest, and until this very moment, I’ve thought of you as one of the wisest men I’ve ever known. But what you just said might be the stupidest thing anyone has ever said. Do you actually think, with what you’ve seen from President Hartley and what he’s started, that these people or anyone on U.S. soil would ever be allowed to live free?
“Let me tell you something else. These people came of their own free will. You didn’t force this on anyone. The tyranny of those in power forced it. These people would have fought back regardless of whether or not you were going to Boise. They would have fought when the troops came to their town. I can guarantee you a lot more innocent people would have been killed at that point. By going to Boise and taking the fight to them, these people have a lot better chance of survival and protecting their families.”
Bill turned his horse and rode back down the column. Nirsch rode on in silence, letting the words sink in. Bill was right. Nirsch knew he was right, but it didn’t take away the knot in his stomach or the lump in his throat. Nirsch had seen enough war and killing in his lifetime. He wanted to live his life far from all of it. He wanted to raise his boy in the safety of their little valley. Nir
sch had a daughter starting her family. He had grandchildren to see grow up. He finally accepted the reality. If they didn’t fight now, he would not get to see his boy become a man. Nirsch would not see his grand-children playing under a cloudless spring sky. Everything would be lost. Freedom in America would die, with no hope of resurrection.
Nirsch looked up at gray clouds blocking the sun. He closed his eyes tight and spoke to the heavens: “The end begins now!”
Late in the afternoon on the fifth day, they crossed the Snake River and rode into the edge of the Treasure Valley. They camped just over a hill from I-84 in a long, narrow canyon, fifteen miles out of Boise. They would stay here until 4 A.M., then move into position just outside the fence. Nirsch passed the word down the column that there would be no fires tonight. Everyone was to stay in tight and sleep while they could. Bill, Larry, Pat, and Nirsch sat inside a tent and made final plans.
“If we hit them with the majority of our forces,” Nirsch said, “just outside their main barracks, we can take away a large percentage of their forces in the first few minutes. They aren’t expecting an attack. Their confidence and lack of preparation will be to our advantage. Chad and his boys are the key to it all. I hope and pray they made it in and started preparing. If the fence isn’t blown down in the sections where we’ll be advancing, then we’ll be sitting ducks and completely massacred in minutes.”
Nirsch took a deep breath. “We’ve divided our forces, and each one of us knows his job. We’ll rest until 3 A.M., pull camp, and start our final march. I’m a little concerned about aircraft from Gowen Field. Let’s make sure the archers are ready with dynamite arrows in case they do show up. I know that’s like trying to knock a condor out of the sky with a flyswatter, but maybe they can keep them busy until our boys get into the fence and secure some heavier firepower. The helicopters have a chance of being destroyed. Any jets or large ground artillery will be a different story. Several of our men with experience in heavy artillery are supposed to go through the fence as soon as it’s breached and secure what they can. If they’re successful, our disadvantage will be taken almost completely away. The sooner we get into the fenced area and among the U.C. troops, the less chance we have of being hit with aircraft or artillery. They won’t want to risk destroying their own troops.”
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