A Long Lonely Road

by Tj Reeder

  Well I have to report the first batch of Jerky turned out pretty good. A bit too much pepper and maybe a bit too much time in the oven .

  But Miz Molly likes it!! She eats a chunk and heads for the creek…lololol , she thinks I hate her but she won’t stop taking it. Hell I even ate some to show her it was ok. I beat her to the creek!!

  It’s been 4 days since I woke up to a world where time stopped . And there is nothing to report except to say the jerky making is coming along real well .

  I also had a real brain storm! I had made a lot of deer sausage and wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  Then I remembered a few years back somebody made a little machine that pressed burger into strips and folks made burger jerky or some such .

  Well I tried it , and it kinda worked out ok , I used a cookie sheet and laid the little ropes of sausage out and then into the oven .

  I had to dump off the fat that cooked out of the meat but I mixed it into Molly’s food and she loves me again .

  When it was done it was kinda like those pepperoni sticks they used to sell in the bars because if you ate one you had to have three beers to wash it down .

  What in the hell am I gonna do with all this stuff? I can’t carry it on my back and I never got a deer cart ( Note to self…a deer cart would be pretty handy!!) but I’m not beat yet!

  Panic Mode!!! Heard shots last night! From the highway direction . Molly and I have been sleeping out from the camp in a spot I found that was pretty good defensively .

  It took a bit of work but it ain’t like I’ve got anything better to do between changing out the jerky.

  It was a low spot with a tree that had fallen across it so I shoveled it out until I could sit up under the tree and could lay down and sleep pretty good .

  I had the mattress from the camper and my covers and Molly to stand guard so I was doing just great.

  I used the excavated dirt to build up a ramp to fill in some of the space between the tree trunk and the ground .

  I spread dead ground cover over it and tossed a few dead limbs on that then stood off and looked at it . Damn I’m good!! And having way too much fun with this .

  After hearing the shots last night I never slept a wink wondering when the shooters were gonna come down the road.

  I knew damn good and well they would so I needed to be ready no matter when they came.

  Walking around the area I located other places where I could and did stash some weapons . My AK with 6 loaded magazines went behind a concrete outhouse with heavy brush behind it so I took my hatchet and cut a narrow pathway thru the brush in case I needed to beat feet .

  I placed a Remington 870 loaded with slugs and a dump bag full of buckshot back a bit further into the camp ground since there was only one way in and if they were driving I figured the slugs just might ruin their day or at least their ride!

  I carried my AR with me everywhere I went. 10 feet or 100 yards, it went along as did my Para.

  In my sleeping bunker I had my ace in the hole, my Ruger 10-22 with the beautiful suppressor / can, from Elite Iron over near Potomac Montana.

  It’s a dream!! And even with super sonic rounds is still quiet.

  I have another few tricks up my sleeve but unless they come in force I doubt I’ll need to use them. I do have a devious mind!

  My jerky making has improved greatly and the meat is about all done which is damn lucky because the dry ice is done for.

  I’ve kept the ice chests out of the sun and covered with extra sleeping bags and a tarp which seems to be helping.

  Soon I’m going to have to really get out and patrol, I’ll admit I’ve been hiding out of fear of what I may find or maybe what might find me .

  Regardless I plan to go on an extended patrol at first light and set up an outpost where I can watch the highway for a few hours and see who’s playing Road Warrior out there and for this I’ll load for bear .

  This going to bed at dusk and up at day break ain’t all that bad nor is being active all day. I know I’ve lost more weight, had to take the gun rig up a bit and the old knees seem to be better, all in what?? Damn a week? Time flies when it don’t matter coz ya ain’t got a watch nor a reason to be looking at it.

  After a good nights rest and a pot of coffee with some sausage and eggs for both of us and a fast visit to the outhouse we were off. for this little trip I took along my other ace in the hole .

  I’m packing my Savage heavy bbl 308 complete with it’s super neat Nam era Tiger Stripe paint job done by a friend in MT and the beauty of it is the other can from Elite Iron .

  I have some sub sonic loads that will do very nicely to a point and some super good rounds by Federal that just shoot one hole groups all day long .

  I figger if the shooters come around and need be I can deal with them from a ways off.

  And who knows I may get a set of wheels out of the deal which means I’m almost but not quite as bad as they are.

  Except they will have the opportunity to show me they are not the AssHats I believe them to be .

  After making a slow stalk to the road with my lead scout out front I found a hide and settled in to observe which is about as boring as watching

  Paint dry .

  There was nothing to watch. no cars and of course nothing moving except the trees swaying in the breeze which was turning pretty damn chilly I might add .

  After several hours I gave up and eased out of my hide and had to wake up Miz ever alert who was not bored in the least. I could learn to hate her!

  I was stiff as a board and cold and gimpy and enjoyed a childish smirk when I saw Molly kinda gimping along , guess we both got old. But we have it to do and we are gonna do it.

  One thing is for sure, we will either grow stronger every day or it will kill us and we ain’t going easy. But for now the walk back to camp is not a lot of fun.

  The good news is the jerky is all done! I may not be able to carry it but at least I’m trying!

  I’ve been going thru my gear trying to figure out what I can’t do without and what I will have to leave, this is not an easy task.

  It’s really only been about a week since “ IT” happened but seems at times like yesterday and at other times like a year ago.

  I’m sure when I leave my safe little hide out I’ll not be so comfortable .

  Just before dark I again heard shots from the same area and can’t understand what anybody would be shooting at. It’s only a few shots but it is becoming a common thing around this time of day.

  After another good nights sleep I got dressed and grabbing the AR I legged it up the road staying real close to the woods on the side.

  After I got where I could see and it was all clear I eased out toward the car with the dead man. why I have no idea but he’s the only thing around that might attract any attention .

  I stayed low and belly crawled ( rolled might be more accurate ) until I could part the weeds and see down into the ditch , he was still there but he had been shot to pieces !

  All around his body was 9mm brass which made me think the folks who killed him might be really pissed off at his for shooting one of them and stop once in a while and use his own pistol to remind themselves they are the top dogs.

  Well I gotta say this didn’t sit too well with me and after looking at him for a while I decided I was gonna do something about it. I headed back to my camp and grabbed my shovel and a hunk of 2x6 I used as a jack pad for the trailer. I also took a magic marker.

  After getting back to the body and making sure nobody was around I started digging a grave which was hard doing .

  And frankly he didn’t smell good even though the week had been cool.

  And the Ravens and Magpies had been at him, poor bastard.

  I did the best I could for him and using the shovel I rolled him into the hole and covered him and placed some rocks over him to maybe help keep the critters off him.

  Then I took the marker and wrote on the 2 x 6 in large letters “ RIP Stranger. M
urdered by low life scum. I figured this just might bring them looking and I planned to be ready for them.

  I joined the Marines when I was 17 years old and that was a long time ago but as the old saying goes, Once a Marine, Always a Marine .

  And along with that I had also been a City cop and a Deputy Sheriff and an active shooter all my life so I figured I could hold my own if I planned this right.

  We legged it back to camp and I quickly fixed us a good meal and packed us

  Food for tomorrow morning . I didn’t plan to move from the hid until late.

  It turned out that the morning snack wasn’t needed, about an hour before dark I heard a vehicle coming pretty fast so Molly and I got into the bunker.

  I tied her close to the log where she couldn’t do anything foolish.

  I had left the fire smoldering and a candle burning in the trailer. If this worked they would be distracted enough for me to maybe get the drop on them . Well that didn’t happen, guess they never read the script!

  They just drove right into the camp gate and after seeing my rig they stopped and bailed out of their old truck.

  Three of the nastiest looking trash you could ever not wanna see.

  The didn’t talk at all just walked up the road, lined up and opened fire at the trailer. It wasn’t a fair fight.

  Hell it wasn’t even a fight or even self defense. I guess some bleeding heart liberals would call it murder but since they never even checked to see if there was any kids or women in the trailer tuff shit!

  What with all the noise they were making then never heard the not so quiet sound of the 10-22 shooting super sonic ammo thru the can. Hell they wouldn’t have heard it without the can.

  Three shots in the back of the head and it was quiet , no movie type stumbling around. No nothing , just pop pop pop and they were all down.

  I stayed in my hide for a few minutes waiting for some movement .

  When it was clear they were down for the count I eased out of the hide and walking slowly closer while looking thru the scope I stopped at around 10 yard and shot each one in the head again. Done.

  I checked their old truck and found it was an old Chevy, around a 70 or 71 ¾ ton 4x4 and beat all to hell and full of trash but there was a full 5 gal. gas can in back and a turn of the key showed about half a tank.

  I used to have a truck like this and it was a good rig. It got 11 MPG moving or sitting motor on or off 11 mpg. But it was gonna serve me for as long as the gas lasted.

  I checked over the dead dickheads and found the one with the 9mm. He also had a festering bullet hole in his left side, the bullet had gone all the way, in and out but infection might have killed the turd .

  I took everything they had on their bodies, their weapons weren’t all that great, 2 30-30 lever guns and a bolt action that had seen a lot better days but

  It was a 30-06 and he had a lot of ammo for it. I put all the guns in the cab.

  That thought made me look at the three bodies laying where they dropped and they were trashing up a nice place so I spent a bunch of hard minutes getting them in the back of my new old truck. A limp body is not an easy thing to pick up and toss around regardless of how HollyWeird makes it look.

  I drove out of the camp and further away from the highway until I came to a steep bank off the side of the road, with little or no thought I simply rolled them over the edge .

  I stood there looking down at them wondering what had brought us to this place and time. I really hadn’t looked at them but now I did and what I saw was a lot of jail house ink.

  One had 3 black tear drops in a row down his cheek, any thoughts of regret I may have has just washed away right there. For those who don’t know the Black tear drop is prison ink. It signifies the person wearing it has a kill for each tear drop to his credit. This son of a bitch got his last tear drop and good riddance .

  Now I need to explain something here and now. I’m not somebody who sits around thinking about playing Wyatt Earp. I never had day dreams about being some wild assed pistolero. I saw this as something that needed doing and I did it, just like making jerky. a job. Taking out the trash which in this case wasn’t far from wrong.

  I wasn’t planning on losing sleep over it and I wasn’t gonna dwell on it, these assholes came to kill not me but anybody and they didn’t care who unless it was a woman and her fate would have been worse then a bullet.

  No regrets! No remorse and no more assholes killing people for fun. Now to get moving back to the camp to get loaded and ready to roll out at first light.

  After I dragged out all the stuff I just couldn’t leave it was a lot!! 3- 3 lb bags of coffee beans with a hand grinder ( thank god ) 20 lbs of sugar, same of salt and around 4 pounds of coarse ground pepper even after the jerky making.

  Being a wimp and a candy ass I like my coffee strong blond and sweet! So I also had plenty of creamer packets. 4 large jars of peanut butter. Large plastic jar of strawberry jam ( again thank you lord!) almost a case of toilet paper.

  This could drag on so just know when I traveled I took the whole pantry. And as usual I was loaded down with weapons and ammo but I have plans for that stuff! It just may be my ticket home.

  After the truck was packed as good as I could get it I was ready to go. I poured the extra gas in the tank and looked at my beautiful Dodge 3500 Cummings and my trailer.

  I hoped the trailer would shelter other folks moving thru the area. Then I remembered the 5 gal can of gas I kept for the Honda gen set. Got it and poured it into the truck.

  One last check produced 3 boxes of sub sonic 22 shells, a couple of butcher knives and other odds and ends.

  Molly and I spent a quiet night and slept very well and by full light we had fixed breakfast, done our morning business. I knew I’d miss that outhouse!

  Without looking back I headed out to the end of the road where we scouted `the area. I did stop by the grave and told the man that he could sleep well coz the trash was carried out.

  One thing I really am grateful for is the Montana Atlas I carried in the Dodge. It shows every goat trail and back road in the whole state and I had been looking at it real hard for a week so I knew just where I was going .

  It was a small county road that bisected this road about 20 miles south and that’s where we went. It felt really strange to be driving along on empty roads. Only the occasional car or truck sitting where they stopped when the fire went out. I never slowed down because it was easy to see the gas raiders had been here.

  I did wonder where they had stayed but not enough to waste fuel looking for it. I did fear they may have taken some women or girls and who knows where they might be. It wasn’t a good thought but I really knew I couldn’t do a thing about it no matter what I wanted. Bitter pills seldom come with water to wash them down.

  The miles passed quickly and I soon found the road I was looking for and turned off the pavement and stopped at the start of the dirt road to study it for tracks which I didn’t see any new looking ones.

  From here on I really needed to be sharp or I could drive right into a

  Mess. By the map it was a road that cut across the state line and into Idaho.

  I knew what I was looking for because I had a plan. Not the best plan but about the only one I could see that gave us a chance to make it home.

  So I drove on slowly to avoid raising too much dust. I slowed down and eased over the hills until I could see the other side. I was pretty sure this was empty country with the exception of scattered ranches.

  Which is just what I was looking for and I needed to find one before the fuel was gone in the truck. But the tank was close to full and I hoped the slow driving was saving fuel.

  About an hour before dusk I looked for a good place to pull over for the night and found it right away, a clear water creek flowing along at a good rate over a gravel bottom wonderful !

  There was a goat path trail heading off along the creek so I headed that way and got a good way off the main road. I parked in a thicke
t of brush and trees and got right to fixing something to eat.

  After the meal was done I cleaned up the things that were dirty then I took my bed roll and the 870 shotgun and a ground cloth and headed into the woods. I circled around and found a nice spot off our back trail where I set up my night camp. No fire but it wasn’t that cold .

  In the Mountains a sunset seems to last forever and then slowly turns dark. Bt the time that happened I was in the sack with my sweats on and my clothing for a pillow.

  I slept in heavy wool socks in case I had to bail out and run, better then bare feet. I also slept with my 45 in hand and the 870 beside me with Molly on the foot of the bed roll. We slept the sleep of the innocent.