by Ron Foster
“ Hey Donald, hope you don’t mind. I just traded off that small 4 led lighting system that you gave me to evaluate and review awhile back. Lomax said he would give a horse and tack for Cat.” LowBuck said hugging a very happy wife.
“ No problem, that SUNRNR solar generator of mine can run pretty much anything I can dream up and I still got a couple small motorcycle battery sized solar lighting units anyway. Good trade! Lomax those got to be some sorry horses or you getting old giving LowBuck such a sweet deal.” Donald said skeptically.
“ No Donald it’s a matter of value. I don’t have a light system like that and can’t buy one and LowBuck and I thought it was worth one of those hay burners. Besides I need the stall space for my goats. Having to keep some of them indoors at the moment if you know what I mean. “Lomax said fondling the black leather 45 shoulder rig he was now proudly wearing.
“Damn LowBuck, I should of let you negotiate for me. I Think I got the short end of the trade now.” Donald said while mock grumbling and smiling at the pair of traders.
“ No you didn’t, you got first pick of the horses, a trailer plus the hay and oats, by the way our deal needs to get adjusted a little if you want. I will give you a hundred bullets back if you share that hay and oats with LowBuck. He is a good trader , part of our deal rests on you being willing to settle on some new terms. Them hay bales are cumbersome and if you giving his horse a ride in your trailer you are going to have to hang them off the sides of the trailer and play wide load.
“You agree? “ Lomax said extending his hand before Donald could even think about it
Donald took it without pause just like he would do to most men when a handshake was offered. “By the way, them goats Janice has need some medicine so I will trade you them bullets back for some.” Lomax managed to get in before releasing his hand.
“What the hell Lomax? That was sneaky but I don’t have a use for that caliber. Still seems an awful stiff price for some goat medicine.” Donald grumbled
“No its value for value, I got plenty of bullets but I am light on goat medicine so I value it more. You aint got any use for the bullets but need the goat medicine. Simple economics.” Lomax said matter of factly.
Donald made a wrinkly face at LowBuck and Michael who were grinning in his direction that Lomax had one upped him again as well as LowBuck profiting from it.
“Alright Lomax, you win. While you are gone I am going to dream me up something simply economical to trade you.” Donald said pretty much good naturedly.
“Sounds like fun, see you in a bit.” Lomax declared and he and Amy headed off for his truck.
“Dang looks like I am going to be riding goats in my car.” Janice fumed “Ha! I forgot about that! And you owe me for some goat medicine sometime in the future.” Donald said laughing.
“ BAAAAAAAAAAA!” LowBuck bleated as he was started chuckling and pretended to watch Cat and Catharine getting in the truck that would be pulling the horse trailer.
“Hey Mom, why don’t you and Michael take your car and follow them. Catharine has too much stuff in that duallie`s backseat to carry any passengers.” Donald suggested.
“Ok! Here Michael you drive.” She said handing him the keys. “ Damn LowBuck, that was a very nice thing to do for Cat but you should of told me you wanted a horse while I was negotiating with Lomax`s for Amy’s ride.” Donald complained.
“Well I hadn’t really decided to do it or what I would trade for it yet. You all did that deal pretty quick. I figured it would be nice for Cat and Amy to go riding together and besides you haven’t heard the rest of the deal yet!” LowBuck said with a Cheshire cat grin.
“Will I like it?” Donald said warily and thinking it might cost him some more.
“Dang straight, you going to love it! “ LowBuck guffawed “What’s up?” Donald said grinning evilly and leaning forward to hear the low down on whatever deal LowBuck had cut with Lomax.
“You remember you told me one time the only thing Lomax liked better than trading was a good joke?” Bubba began.
“Yea, So?” Donald said getting real interested. “Well I studied your little situation and came to the conclusion you were most likely going to give that horse to Amy anyway and might have forgot about getting Michael to do something for it so he could give it to her, so I saved you the trouble and made another little side deal with Lomax. You know how they train you in vacuum cleaner sales 101 to keep asking people yes questions and nodding your head yes until you say would you like to buy one? That’s funny as hell, try it with someone who isn’t expecting it sometime. They will start nodding their heads yes with you. Anyway Lomax got you on that handshake thing a few minutes ago but you won’t believe what Michael has in store for him.” LowBuck said and then did his best Earnest T Bass interpretation from the Andy Griffith show and said “It’s Me! It’s Me. It’s Bubba the Barterer! “ LowBuck chocked out laughing.
“ Ah Hell! What did you do to Michael now?” Donald said grinning “Well Lomax is going to do that handshake is your word thing on Michael and he aint going to like it.” LowBuck said laughing and slapping his thigh.
“Ok give brother, what kind of crap you going to pull on him.” Donald said laughing already with his friend even though he didn’t know what was up yet.
“ Lomax is going to be doing that asking only questions that can be answered yes thing and nodding his head at Michael and cut a little deal for us.” Bubba said exaggerating the mystery of it all.
“Shit man, you are killing me! What’s he going to trade or do?” Donald said sitting on the edge of his chair. “All in good time. Them women folk are going to be gushing over and patting them horses while Lomax and Michael look over the trailer. Lomax will have Michael primed with them yes questions and when they get back to all them excited ladies Lomax is going to announce that you said Amy could have her horse pick if Michael agrees to help with the two ladies horses by hauling water and such. You know Michael going to shake his hand and agree and that’s where it gets fun. After the handshake, Lomax is going to say here you need this and hand him a manure shovel! And say LowBuck said he didn’t think he had one yet!” LowBuck described before he and Donald both broke out in peals of laughter that required them to go to LowBuck`s motorhome and fix a drink.
“So you assigned him Latrine room orderly for them damn horses? That is funny as hell. Won’t last long but it’s still funnier than shit. Let’s start calling him the lucky man or the optimist. You remember the punch line of that joke that had somebody shoveling shit out of a stall saying “There has to be a pony in here somewhere.” Donald quipped and laughed as LowBuck choked on his drink.
“I guess I get to talk about his pony tail now!” LowBuck declared “Ahh come on man, I am threatening to grow my hair backout and don’t need to hear that. Not that you would have that problem. Don’t you comb your hair with a washcloth?” Donald said smiling.
“Watch it sucker. I did you a favor today.” LowBuck said grinning. “Man he is going to have the ass with us! We got to quit screwing around with these fun feuds or we going to get distracted from our routines. He is going to get even, that you can engrave in stone and I don’t like the idea of having to check my sleeping bag every night for snakes or whatever else he might dream up.” Donald said dreading the vendetta that LowBuck had probably unleashed by playing a prank on Michael.
“ All in good fun my boy, all in good fun. But that snake in the sleeping bag thing got me spooked. You damn country boys are nasty spirited. I hate snakes.” LowBuck said grimacing.
“ You better worry about me too, I owe you one for that commandeering my horse feed.” Donald said poking at his buddies snake alarm.
“ Now damn it Donald that aint funny. Me and snakes don’t get along if we got to share space together. Don’t be doing nothing like that or mentioning it to Michael. You got to promise me on that. You said yourself we got to get more serious these days.” LowBuck concluded looking worried.
“ I aint never going
to do something like that Man but you pulled the pin on the hand grenade with Michael so watch out.” Donald said while reminiscing mentally about a National Guard Lieutenant that came into his unit from a supply depot trying to make captain in a combat arms artillery unit. That boy was green to the woods and scared of everything that creeped or crawled. Back in the day the Fire Direction Center (FDC) was pretty primitive by today’s standards but still managed to be able to mathematically compute how to put a 155 howitzer round in a garbage can 15 miles away. They called it “charts and darts” back then and used slide rules, charts, and a big aluminum range deflection protractor (RDP) about 2’1/2 foot long to figure out how to put steel on target.
The big architect style tables that gridded out the battlefields were taboo back then if you were not an operator and that asshole lieutenant had the bad habit of always putting his helmet or dust goggles on Donald’s chart table. Army regs said you were allowed to knock anything off your table that could interfere with your work but that was always questionable when dealing with a uninitiated LT. He probably got rid of his 90 day wonder butter bar quickly and hadn’t had the chrome one on long before he decided the only way to make captain was to go combat arms. Donald didn’t respect the type writer jockeys or supply specialists that had no experience in his world that just wanted to make rank. They were dangerous and had too much control until you broke them in. Donald and Private Rafferty chased down a baby armadillo one day and Donald got sneaky and placed it under the offending LT`s steel pot helmet that was sitting on his chart. When the pasty faced officer reached over and started to drag his helmet off Donald`s chart table that danged baby armadillo started to run up his arm with them long clawed feet and mayhem set in as it clung to his fatigues and skin not to be shaken off.
It was one of the funniest sights Donald had ever witnessed as the LT run out of the tent of the CP carrier (Command post carrier armored track, which is basically a 6 inch aluminum armored office ) that carries a tent on its back to extend the work area. That boy squealed like a stuck hog as the armadillo tried to make tracks up his flailing arm and dancing around.
Thank god his captain saw the humor in it and told the LT that was a reminder from a “ Red Leg” ( someone who is Airborne and wears a red stripes on the side of their pants as well as jump wings on their chest” to not disrespect the chart table or them. Donald had been the only “Red Leg” in the ground unit and the only one who had jumped with tons of ammo and cannons falling through the sky with him. Donald could be a dickhead about this in the back when and depended on his glory days to keep him out of trouble. Nobody was going to tell the newbie officer that an armadillo curls up in a ball when threatened and that Donald had carefully held that baby one together in a ball and placed it under that fool of an officers steel pot helmet. Earlier he had got himself in Dutch with the commander by telling a British naval officer on an exchange program that if you pissed on an electric fence green smoke would come off. The idiot tried it while Donald was up on top of the track putting up a 2 niner two radio antennae about dusk and he had been treated to the sight of a very large spark heading for that man’s tally whacker. When the Brit went to report him for the prank to the commander, the poor guy pissed himself once again and the Captain who was CPT.Marles at the time just laughed a little and told him to clean himself up before giving Donald a lightweight and humorous tongue lashing.
“ I am serious, I don’t know these Alabama snakes the way you do and no screwing around with bugs or spiders neither. Do you have scorpions here? No he wouldn’t do that.” LowBuck said exasperated at the possibilities.
“Actually I hear we do in regards to scorpions, but I aint never seen one. He aint either I am sure and wouldn’t even mess with one. What he most likely would do if he wanted some animal payback is try to catch a skunk in a bag and throw it in your room. I doubt he would try that though I told him how much we ostracized those boys that tried to put a bag over one end of a culvert and chase the skunk in so they could throw it in the neighboring units CQ room (Command Quarters). Them boys got sprayed first and were last ones in line for the chow hall for weeks. “Donald said grinning at the memory.
“Uh oh, Harley dog has found himself something” LowBuck stated watching his hound beginning a chase.
“ That dog never caught a rabbit in its life but he is fun to watch.” Donald commented observing. “He ain`t built for that kind of chase, but he sees something. By the way Lomax told me to look out for Strychnine baits. Said they look like donuts, they had a rabid fox scare down here and the county warned everyone to keep the pets inside the house while they were solving it.” LowBuck declared looking concerned.
“Tie his ass up, we are not staying here long. I didn’t know about that. Lomax said they were also hunting some damn sex offender that might of got bit by a rabid dog. I aint shitting you, I haven’t said anything yet to the ladies because that’s too weird to imagine but he says a posse is in the area.” Donald said showing all his cards.
“And for some reason you aint informed me of that?” LowBuck said angrily while rising to go get his AR 15. “Calm down bro, we got enough fire power in our pistols to take care of that situation if it presents itself. If it’s true that man is a wack job and not thinking clear. He is more scared of water than causing harm and is wandering aimlessly.” Donald concluded.
“ As long as he don’t wander this way.” LowBuck said obviously put out that Donald had not mentioned this apparent danger yet to anyone else.
“ Hey Man this is just a layover, You can’t shoot a man for what he might do.” Donald attempted to rationalize.
“Thinking is not knowing Donald. If there is a weird threat like this about we all need to know it!. You letting me down Man.” LowBuck said intensely.
“Didn’t mean too. I figured sacred ground and all the folks hunting him we be safe for the moment. Guess I was wrong. That level of insanity I can’t imagine but didn’t want to scare the girls unduly. Lomax said not to bring it up if I didn’t have to. We got our pocket pistols, I thought we could easily handle a confrontation.” Donald began.
“Screw that, everyone should be on high alert! Armed and ready. The girls put up their guns and are not expecting this kind of shit. I still can’t believe you let that warning slide. We should bring them practical pistols and long arms to them NOW! LowBuck said disgustedly.
“Ok I am already worn the hell out and this jitterbug doesn’t have all the answers.” Donald fired back.
“You are doing a good job so far making us a family, but Bro? You aint found the time to inform us yet?” LowBuck said concerned. “Lomax is deadly with a 45, Janice has her 380 and Catharine got that 30-30 there is no risk MAN! “ Donald concluded
“Maybe so, but I wished you had talked about it more instead of keeping it to yourself so long.” LowBuck Concluded.
34
THE LAKE CAMP
After a day of eating well on barbecued goat and garden vegetables, much laughter at Michael’s expense for the prank Lomax and LowBuck played on him and the joy of the two girl’s acquisition of the horses the prepper tribe settled in wearily for the night at the church and got ready to head out in the morning.
Traveling slowly down backcountry dirt roads and county highways seemed to be taking forever but it was a safe and necessary way. They saw very few people and fewer cars out on the road. Miles and miles of probably starving desperate people lived on these roads; it was hard for the caravan of travelers to wrap their minds around the magnitude of this disaster. The discussion last night about the possibility of staying in Lomax’s community was very tempting but in the end it was decided that it would be best to try to ride the worst of the disaster out in the secluded summer camp at the lake if they could. If need be and they could somehow find the gas they could always try coming back.
Donald had taken the point position and was nearing his objective. They had decided they would all just drive in at once depending on how it looked from the road.
The camp had a huge front parking lot so turning around wasn’t a big deal and the long driveway to it assured that they wouldn’t have to bunch up traveling in. Donald slowed and pointed to his right indicating they would be turning into their destination now. Big pines obscured the roads view of the actual camp but soon thinned out and as far as Donald could see the place appeared abandoned. His suspicions were confirmed when he noted the empty parking lot.
“Alright!” Donald thought as elation flooded over him. The perfect bug-in location was open for squatting and it was all theirs!
The convoy pulled directly to the front of the building and parked next to the for sale real estate sign. Everyone got out of their vehicles greatly relieved the place was unoccupied and happily babbling to each other as they got organized to explore the area and find a way into the main building.
“Let’s see if we can find an open window or something. I would rather not damage the doors if we don’t have to.” Donald declared.
“Ok, we going right so you go left.” LowBuck said as he walked off with Cat and Catharine. “We are going to go check out the out buildings.” Michael said and he and Amy left to check out what looked like a big tractor shed and a storage building.
“Mom you want to hang out here or go along with me and Janice?” Donald asked.
“I will stay here, just be careful.” she said Donald and Janice checked all the front windows and peered into the interior whenever they could. This place was Huge! It had a grand hall as well as separate classrooms and a cafeteria. It was at the cafeteria that Donald noticed a partially open window and waved to LowBuck exploring the rear of the buildings windows to come over and help him.
“Give me a leg up buddy and I will see if I can get in here.” Donald said pointing at a vent window over another large paned window.
“I think you going to have a hard time getting through there unless you can somehow reach the latch for the bottom pane and open it.” LowBuck said studying it.