by Tj Reeder
Another day was coming to an end so I looked for a camp site which wasn’t all that hard to find in this kind of country. This was hunting country and there were spots where hunters in times past had set up camp.
I stopped at the next place where a stream ran close to the road. I moved us off the road a ways just because. And following what was to become a normal routine for a long time We set up camp.
I was just as tired as the evening before so once the chores were done I ate some jerky, shared with Molly and rolled into the bedroll and went out like a light.
I did hear Molly grumble in the night and a mule stomped around a bit but nothing more.
Another day another dawn, funny how that works. I was slow getting ready to move out. I was feeling the effects of doing more then I was used to and admit it John, yer not a kid no more.
But get going we did and once in the saddle everything felt good so I guess my ass is getting used to it.
When I was young me and a few friends talked about riding the Continental Divide from the Canadian Border to the Mexican Border. Never happened as those things never do.
And now here I was, old as dirt with gray hair what there is of it and a beard doing just about what was planned all those many years ago. Except now I was doing it armed to the teeth and watching everything like a hawk.
Long about late afternoon I heard a sound I never thought to hear. A chain saw! Now this was interesting. It was off a goodly distance but still ahead of me so I needed to stay alert.
I debated riding on a ways but needed to find a spot for the night, which I did and simply followed what was now routine. Stock cared for, food heated, bed. Life is actually pretty simple if you throw away the watches and time clocks. Slow down and smell the coffee.
Come day light I got moving, chewed jerky in the saddle with Molly ranging out ahead as was now her custom. I think she’s getting into this stuff. Seems to be doing better by the day.
After almost an hour easing along the Forest Service road I finely heard the sound of an ax in the distance. It’s amazing how clear sounds are up here with no traffic noise.
As I got closer to the sound I slowed even more and finely stopped in the shadows of some tall Fir trees. Nothing sounded out of place to my ears just the slow steady axe thunking into what I figured was firewood.
Well now what was I gonna do? I could ride around the area but it was pretty steep here and it would add an extra day of two just to do so. I decided to do as Bill said and loose the mules.
After that was done I started on down the road until I smelled smoke and food cooking which was smelling really good I might add! I started Buck moving again and shortly I could see smoke drifting thru the pines.
I was just about to step down off Buck when Molly growled, looking at her I saw her tail flagging and her hackles up, She was looking off the side of the road but I couldn’t see a thing.
Then I heard a voice. It said “ Well now, I ain’t seen a set of Tiger Stripes in must be Nye on to 45 years. I sat frozen in the saddle thinking what a green horn fool I was. The voice chuckled and continued, Yep he said, musta be 45 years ago, and them ol boys weren’t riding no beautiful Mule!
Finely I said “Well if your not gonna shoot me can I un freeze“?
He said “ Well ya know, I don’t think anybody riding cross country on a mule is looking for trouble so why not just step down and we can chat a bit.
I was more then happy to do so since if need be I could at least make a go at my 45. Better then not trying at all.
Out from some brush that now looked more like it was placed there not grown there stepped a man about my age wearing woodland BDU’s carrying an AR.
We looked each other over a bit and he finely stepped closer and put out his hand. And said “ Names Harvey, Harv for short. He had a firm hand shake not one of them dead fish types.
To avoid the usual comment I told him I was Long Walker, he nodded and said “yer lucky coz ifn my daddy’s name was Walker I’da been named Johnny!” Well I had no choice , I just flat busted out laughing while he smiled at me. Then said, “got ya didn’t I?” I had to admit it was so.
He was a tall skinny ol boy with the hills of West Virginia in his voice. Long hair worn down on his shoulders and bush hat. He saw me look at the scars on his neck and left hand.
I knew what it was coz I’d seen it before, long ago. He nodded and said. Up in the Ia drang in 65. I just nodded at him, what was there to say?
I asked him about his comment on the Tiger Stripes. He said a while after he returned from the hospital his unit was pulling security at a fire base and they were told some friendly’s were moving thru about dark.
He said the people made radio contact and popped smoke, after being given the ok they filed out of the jungle.
In his words “ Well sir, them was the wildest bunch I ever did see, they was all wearin them stripes and even their faces were painted in stripes. It took us a moment to see that it was 8 Americans and about 30 little people who turned out to be hmong fighters.
“They was all carryin them AK’s even the Americans who turned out to be Marine Force Recon types. Them boys had been out in Indian country so long they even squatted like the Hmong.”
He said the unit was kept away from the other troops and after loading up on food and patching up some who were wounded they just up and walked right out disappeared like smoke in a breeze.
They were later told it was a hunter killer team who did just what their name implied, they hunted down the enemy and killed them. I just nodded at him and said yea I seen em too. Which I had, up close and personal.
Harv said come on I’ll take ya down to our place. I asked about him leaving his post but he smiled and said hell there was two of his boys out there learning to do the job.
I told him they was doing a good job since Molly never noticed them, he smiled with pride and said yea they’s gooduns. I enjoyed his dialect because I served with ol boys from his neck of the woods. It brought back memories of good men and hard times but lots of laughs too.
We walked on down the road with Molly in the lead and Buck and his buds following along with the occasional pause to rip parts of some bush to eat. I love mules for this reason. They will eat damn near anything. Easy keepers.
Walking into his ….I guess FOB ( forward operations base) is the only words to describe it , was a flash back to the land of bad things. Except there was pine and fir trees not jungle growth.
I started to think maybe Harv had spent a little too much time out in Indian country himself. He sure as hell hadn’t forgotten any lessons that were learned the hard way.
The place was shaped like a triangle with a solid earth covered log bunker at each point to allow good fire support to any other point.
There looked to be about 20 people I could see and I knew there was a bunch I didn’t see. He walked me thru the tangle foot barbed wire in the usual zig zag pattern that slows attackers down a bunch.
His tangle foot was laid out perfect, and he really did it using two layers, one too low to crawl under and the top one a bit to high to crawl over. Anybody trying was a deader.
After we were inside the walls it was laid out with the living areas built as a series of snug above ground earth bermed bunkers would be my name for them but they were also nice living areas.
I was just flat blown away with what I saw and it must have showed cause Harv laughed and said remind you of anyplace? I said nope, we never had a thing this nice.
He took me into the biggest .. I guess bunker will have to do, and inside it was real nice and comfortable and big enough to use as a fall back last ditch stand fighting position but was also the mess hall and entertainment center and school which was going on in a corner.
We took a seat at a picnic table and within seconds a young girl about 16 had cups on the table with another looking like a twin bearing a big coffee pot. She said “Pops Mom said she will be serving breakfast to the first wave in about uh hour and
yawl gotta make do with this till then.” This was a big hunk of apple pie!
I looked around and after swallowing my first bite of the best apple pie I’d ever eat I asked just how the hell this came to be. Harv was an ol boy who loved to tell a tale I could see that.
He said well the main area here is a patented mining claim about 20 acres, the rest is just squatters rights he said with a grin.
Seems that Harv and his clan had all moved to Idaho after reading a book by a guy who was a believer in being prepared. He said they all read the book and all agreed to get the hell out of where they were. So 10 years back that’s just what they did.
The pooled everything they had after selling off about 150 years of living in the Mtns of West Virginia and headed west. But first Harv and two of his brothers came out and looked the whole state over.
Being mountain folk they didn’t cotton to the flat lands so they headed for the high country. And there they found Mining! Now one thing a West Virginia man has in his blood is mining and even though is was Silver not Coal they were happy as could be.
They all three found jobs right away and with the promise to not only return but to bring a whole bunch of men just like them they returned home and packed up lock , stock and barrel and here they were.
This mining claim was something they went to looking for right off and after digging around it they knew that with hard work they could get enough Silver out of it to start preparing for whatever came.
He said the USFS being the huge pain in a working mans ass they are tried to revoke the patented rights to the land but weren’t able to do it so they tried gating them out, that didn’t work and pretty soon the Timber Nazi’s saw they were good stewards to the land and stopped fighting them.
All the building I could see was preplanned and they had a small dozer and had been doing what they could without pissing the Feds off. And sure nuff one days it happened.
And they just loaded up everything that wasn’t already in their mine tunnel into their older pickups and headed here. I was wordless , I had never seen such a thing in my life.
After a super good breakfast Harv took me on a tour of the place which had so much more to it then meets the eye. Back in a small gully we followed a trail that lead to a …valley being the wrong word I’d have to say clearing that was one big garden with a small spring fed stream running thru it watering the whole area but being late in the year it was all put away in the cave and canned.
They had about a hundred hens running around scratching and bug hunting with two youngsters up in perches with a couple of old 22 single shot rifles to ward off critters looking for a chicken dinner.
And I was astounded to see a couple of milk cows and some goats. These people had it going 15 ways from the center. I’d never seen nothing like it in my life. But I was making mental notes as fast as I could so that when I got home there was gonna be some new ideas. Which made me stop and once again think of home.
After we were done touring we went back for more coffee and since breakfast was coming we settled in to wait which got some words from his wife with a smile added. I think lazy and gabby were two of them.
While waiting for breakfast I had told Harv and one of the brothers what I was doing and why I was doing it the way I was, both agreed it was best since they knew first hand as did I just what was going on out there.
They had an outpost a few miles from their compound manned 24/7 by members of the group. And the reports called in daily from the over watch point were bad.
Even decent types were in a shoot first mode and to hell with the questions. So far they had only had to turn back a few people who had somehow gotten vehicles running.
They had as yet to fire the first shot and just shook their heads in dismay at my report of my involvements with raiders. But I could see that with a lot of thought and preplanning they had beat the odds and truly were prepared far beyond what most “preppers” were able to do.
Now these ain’t the rich types you read about in most shtf stories. You know, the type who has a few million bucks and one day decided to build a fort. Nope these were working folks who all got the same bug bite at the same time and who come with a family /clan type mind set. Nope these ol boys did it the old fashion way, They Worked for it!!!
After the lunch I was offered a bed for the time I was staying which was not going to be very long. Harv and his brother asked what supplies I could use and flat refused to let me pay with the silver of which they seemed to have plenty.
Being hardheaded I asked how they were set for ammo and received a smile so that was out. It looked like I was just going to have to accept their generosity or hurt their feelings.
I explained I had been using my can goods since it was what I had plus cans didn’t break. Harv took me into the mine tunnel which was flat out awesome! They had not only braced the thing six ways from Sunday they had turned the side areas into more dorm rooms and recreation areas.
Best of all was the “cold” room which was sealed off from the main shaft by what looked like a reefer door, inside looked like a warehouse for a grocery chain.
Walter, Harvs brother said they had spent the past few years building this room and filling it. And I believed it. There was enough food in there to feed 5 times their numbers for a long time.
Harv grabbed a flat bed cart and took a case of Denny Moore stew off a stack and placed it on the flat bed, next was a case of canned butter, canned bacon powdered eggs and milk.
I had to remind him my mules had to pack all this but he said not to worry that we would take some of everything and the rest would be added to the store room in the dinning hall.
After he had loaded all he could pile on the cart we pushed it thru another door into a room carved out of the rock and thru another door into the store room of the kitchen. I was just blown away… again.
We set out to figure where to pack it so I started unpacking when I noticed Walters eyes open wide.
He was looking at the 45 ammo. I asked if he was short and Harv said that was an understatement as they had placed a order but it never made it. So now I was off the hook for their kindness.
I had way more then I needed simply because if I went thru the rifle and shotgun ammo a 45 wasn’t gonna save me, so I took out 200 rounds and gave them the rest which made them both smile big.
I also had a lot of 7.62x39 but they had bought all Ar’s in 223 and were heavy in that. I did offer and they accepted some 12 gage buck. All in all it was a wonderful surprise to meet such people such as these.
I knew out there in the cities it was 100 percent different and I once again thanked the Big Boss for the chance to see home again.
I told them that I would stay the night but at first light I had to roll out and keep going. How easy it would have been to stay here or back at the ranch but I just couldn’t.
After a wonderful dinner and a drink or two I headed for the bed and slept the night away, Molly seemed to be happy with the place too.
Morning came and I was up and dressed and heading out to get the mules packed. Their loads were heavier but we were steadily moving down to lower elevations and I’d be lightening the load daily.
Once again I was saying good by to good people, the kind that would be needed to rebuild a nation from the ashes of stupidity.
With hand shakes from the brothers I mounted Buck and headed out of the compound and back onto the road. I had told them of my promise to return after things settled out and I’d stop and see how they had faired .
With a final wave and good-bye we rode away into the new day. Molly in the lead, the red mules following on their own and Buck stepping out like he had someplace to be.
We were heading for a trail Harv had showed me on his map which now was my map. We couldn’t follow the road because it lead out to the Interstate system which was not a good place to be.
It wasn’t bad climbing out of the canyon and up onto the open country where we headed down the spine of the range. I knew
from Harv that we were in empty country for the next several days and other then crossing some old jeep roads were not likely to see anybody and more importantly not be seen.
And so it was for the next several days. Ride all day, make camp, eat, sleep and get up and do it all over again. And to a degree it was kinda boring. In fact it was real boring but I hastened to remind myself to be careful what ya wish for!
I truly ain’t got the words to describe the beauty of the high country and how it can make one feel both powerful and small and insignificant all in a moment.
I remember some words I read once. At least I think I did, hell maybe I dreamed them but no they are to eloquent to have been a by product of my brain.