by Ian Daniels
How long would there still be a president, a congress or a government people wondered. I wondered how long it would take for the decisions made by big named political positions to trickle down to us.
I actually hadn’t stopped caring or completely cut myself off, a long time ago I had just stopped paying much attention to the national matters and concentrated on things that could and would directly affect me or insulate me from the indirect effects of national matters. So to me, not knowing what was going on in the outside world didn’t mean a whole lot in my everyday life. It didn’t help me to know what tree would be good to take for next year’s firewood stash. It didn’t inform me on how the pheasant flocks in the fields were doing or where the deer had been hanging out. I had more important things to occupy my time than worrying about politics and a bunch of bureaucrats doing bureaucrat things.
“So when do we get to see this house you’ve been building?” Blake asked once we had come inside and washed up to sit around the wood stove and get warmed back up.
“Yeah, I haven’t even seen any pictures of it,” Danielle added.
“There’s not much to see. Tomorrow if you guys can give me a lift I’ve got some stuff to work on over there so you could check it out.”
“Sure, we’ll drive you over. I want to take a look at some of those things you’ve piled up for this 308 build you’re dreaming up too, “ Clint said, then got up to check on Kathy who had gone to bed early. She had said that she could feel a cold coming on and wanted to get some rest to help ward it off.
“I bet the gun room was done before anything else, am I right?” Blake kidded me.
“Well…”
“Ha! I knew it. Speaking of which, check this thing out,” he ducked into his bedroom and came back out with a full sized pistol in his hand. Dropping the magazine and checking the chamber, he held up his prize.
“Is that a damn Raffica?” I exclaimed.
“Kind of but not really; it’s not a true 93R anyway. It’s built off a standard 92 and doesn’t have a burst option, so it’s either full auto or single shot. A buddy of mine built it and was getting deployed so he slipped it to me for safe keeping. Pretty awesome huh?” he handed over the big handgun for me to survey.
“So it only breaks like every single one of the federal laws then?” I asked somewhat hesitantly.
“Coming from a guy that punched out two cops a couple days ago…” Blake retorted.
“I never threw one punch and how the hell did you hear about that?” I asked him, wondering just when it was that Clint had found the time to tell him about that little escapade.
“Whatever man. Look I’ve got two twenties and one thirty round mag for it, plus a handful of the standard capacity ones,” he proclaimed, opening the top of his backpack to showoff the supporting gear for his cherished, completely illegal, machine pistol.
It really was a beautiful and deadly looking gun. All matte black except for the dark wood grips, I felt like I was holding something with a soul, and somehow that soul was dark and ominous. The thing looked like a coiled snake or a pining horse before a race; an attack dog just waiting to be let off its leash.
“My buddy put on the compensator and milled a fore grip but never got around to doing a butt stock. I like it like this better anyway,” he said extending both hands to mimic a shooting stance.
“How’s it shoot?” I handed it back over to him.
“I’ve only tried it out a couple of times and it’s a handful. But it’s reliable, fun as hell, and puts out a lot of lead at one time.”
“Yeah, a good close range, break contact gun.”
Or a kill everyone in the room without worrying about who’s on what side gun, I thought to myself.
“Well either way, I’d keep that thing out of sight, especially in town.”
“No way man, that’s where I might actually get to use it,” he said with a big alarming smile as he walked over to check the tea kettle on the stove.
Clint reappeared in his and Kathy's bedroom doorway and before he got the door completely closed, we could all plainly hear the sound of a wet, hacking cough from inside. Clint's eyes blinked a fraction slower and longer than normal.
"Coughs getting worse," he told his family.
Kathy had been fighting a good head cold for a week or more and it wasn’t getting any better despite all the over the counter and medicinal remedies that she had been trying.
"She's had pneumonia before, like two or three years ago right?" Danielle asked him.
"Yeah, the docs treated it but they said once you’ve had it, you're pretty susceptible to getting it again. I hope it's not going there," he answered her.
Blake stared off as if he hadn’t heard either of them.
Chapter 7
Clint drove slowly down the road to avoid the random wind blown tree limbs and icy spots. Kathy had stayed at home with a neighbor friend to help with some baking and also to make sure she didn’t do too much while trying to fight off her cold.
We were all settling in for what was usually a ten minute drive that now looked like it was going to take four times that long with the weather and road conditions. The first popping sound none of us really could identify, when the truck lurched in one direction, and then the other, we started to get worried. Clint fought it all the way into a hard stop into the ditch on the wrong side of the road.
The impact was enough to kill the engine of the truck and we all kind of just sat there, confused and stunned. Clint was in the middle of asking “Is everyone alright? I don’t know what just happ-” when the hood started being pockmarked with little black holes, the sound of the impacts creating a distinct “thwap” sound each time a new one appeared.
I finally put two and two together, getting my head into the game, and hopped it wasn’t too late already.
“Bail out the driver’s side! Blake, you and me lay out suppressive fire! You two grab the gear in the back, GO!” I yelled and slammed open my passenger door with enough force to have it spring back and hit me in the knee as I was slipping out into the cold, wet air.
I had a general direction that I knew someone was shooting at us from, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint it even when they opened up on us again. What I did know was that they were across the road from us, and it was all uphill in that direction. When they fired again, the rounds snapped by close enough for me to imagine that I could feel their kinetic heat and I started firing my pistol in the general vicinity I had figured they were coming from as I moved quickly and steadily across the road.
My Glock held plenty of rounds but I was all too aware that I had only one spare magazine on my belt. I hit the ditch on the other side of the road across from the stricken truck and Blake waited long enough to make sure that Clint and Danielle were out and momentarily safe from the incoming fire before he opened up with four quick bursts of fully automatic pistol fire, then he too made his sprint to join me from across the road.
Out of the corner of my eye I caught his slide locking back on an already empty gun, he wasn’t yet fully across the road to my side when it ran dry. I peeked my head around a slight rise and patch of bushes to realign with the spot I thought the shooting was coming from and pulled the trigger a few more times, more to keep the shooter’s head down than anything, while Blake finished his quick sprint.
“Where the fuck are we, Sarajevo?” Blake yelled to me as he crashed into the frozen bank of dirt on the side of the road.
My gun wasn’t yet empty but I used the temporary lull, knowing it was as good a time as any to load a fresh, full magazine. Blake and I made eye contact, neither of us really interested in assaulting up a hill on an unknown number of people with only pistols. Looking back across the road, I caught sight of the tail end of Clint hauling the last of the bags out from under the truck canopy to a more secure spot back in the wood line.
“Screw this?” I asked Blake who immediately nodded his head in agreement.
“Bound on this side back the way we ca
me,” he said loud enough for me to hear, and hopefully not our attacker, who had yet to continue to shoot at us. I had no notion that our random fire had hit anybody; the best I could hope for was that our armed response might have scared them off. Or maybe they were just waiting for us to show ourselves again to take a clear shot.
Blake and I ungracefully leap-frogged each other, one covering the other’s retreat, until we got back to the spot in the road where our fun had first started. A rope that had pulled a homemade tire spike strip was easy to spot as we made one last sprint back across the road to join up with Clint and Danielle.
Blake got to the others first and as I ran up, I noticed the different behavior of my three companions. Clint had produced a pump action shotgun from the truck along with his Enfield, and he was busy scanning for targets, his hands steady as ever. Blake's chest was heaving up and down from the quick sprints across the road, and he had a bold look to him, maybe one a little too devoid of caution too. And Danielle, she at first looked disconcerted and drawn back, then after realizing her own hesitation, quickly un-holstered her pistol too. A nice little Sig Sauer I recognized.
“You guys alright?” I asked as we met up in a small bowl of the ground where they were waiting.
“Yeah. Truck is cleared out, you see anyone?” Clint handed the shotgun over to Danielle and picked up his SMLE to peer through the scope. I noticed too that his jacket was pulled back; allowing quick access to the 1911 pistol on his hip if it was needed. He was constantly looking, inspecting areas with his scope, and generally keeping us from getting surprised again.
“No one, and no more fire once we opened up either,” I reported to him.
“Okay, grab what gear you can, we’ll head north then hook around…”
“Wait, what?” Blake interrupted him. “What do you mean? We’re just leaving?”
“Basically, yes.”
Clint had the ability to make two simple words sound like a paragraph of an explanation, at least to me. Blake was understandably a little more resilient to his father’s ways though, so I jumped in.
“Smart move is to E and E then regroup,” I implored reasonably.
“And that’s what we’re doing here,” Blake countered. “Come on, that’s our truck! We aren’t going to just leave it there! We can go from here and hunt them out, or set up an ambush to take them when they come for it. Or heck, let’s do both!”
I tried to catch Clint’s eye, but he was still scanning everything around us so I again attempted to get Blake on board. “I hear you man and I feel the same way, but if we push this it could get stupid. My place is not that far away. We’ll get there, warm up, arm up, then you and I can come back for it.”
“We’re here already, let’s set up on the truck and wait for whoever it is to come out!” Blake again argued.
“We’re behind the curve here and need to extend. Dude might have back up or be maneuvering for a shot right now. We have to E and E, let's get gone,” I told him, starting to get slightly angry myself.
“Would you two keep your voices down!” Danielle hissed at us.
“We need to move,” Clint said again, and this time it was less of a suggestion.
Wasting no more time, we each shouldered the bags we would carry and started off. Well the others started off, I thought I was going to have to physically pull Blake away from the area, until finally he too turned and went, leaving me kneeling there on the frozen ground, acting as a rear guard for the others. Taking one last look around, I slinked off reluctantly.
I was almost basking in the option of taking on an unknown sniper in the woods versus taking on Blake’s surprisingly reckless attitude. I knew what he was like when he got in a mood, but it had been years since I had seen him really get worked up first hand. And in that time, he had been places that could change people I unhappily reminded myself.
We walked with little to no talking for a good half hour until we reached a spot that made for a good area to take a break in. I had doubled back and set up on our back trail twice since leaving the truck, just in case whoever it was out there had been trying to follow us. I caught back up to the group as they were rearranging the load in the backpacks that Clint and I had tossed into the back of the truck.
“Lets see what we have and what we can spread out,” Clint suggested quickly. Even though Danielle was used to wearing a ruck, and we could all carry a load, it still made sense to do a quick revamp and inventory of the contents of our bags, even if we only had another hour or so left to walk.
“You guys do at least know where we are right?” Danielle asked aloud. She was looking at her watch and the overcast skyline through the trees, obviously concerned about our current situation after having to abandon the truck with the weather threatening to turn ugly and the distance still to go to the next friendly house. Well that and the whole someone having just tried to kill us all thing.
“Up shit creek,” I murmured half to myself and went back to blowing on my hands to warm them.
Clint, on the other hand, knew that he needed to keep up Danielle's confidence in us, as unfounded as it may have been at that point, as opposed to my ability of being able to shake anything reliable apart with a few simple words. What can I say, he was Ying and I was Yang. Or he was really smart and experienced and I had a lot to learn. Whatever.
“About a good eight miles or so to home,” he said, not really needing to check the map he had opened up. I still didn’t know how he had managed to grab it, along with nearly everything else, on his way out of the truck.
"And only about two miles from my place now," I added. "You remember this spot?" I turned to Blake which seemed to surprise him out of a stupor.
"Huh? No, where are we?" he asked.
"You don't remember?" I said, well aware of the faint smile on my face that had been brought on by an old memory.
"It's been a while since I've hiked around here. Maybe with all the gunfire and frigid cold, I must've got turned around and forgotten a few things," he said grumpily.
"You guys have been here before?" Danielle took the hint I had been giving.
"A long time ago," I reminisced.
"Okay..." she prompted.
"Back when I was a kid, I read this book about Johnny Appleseed. So for a while, whenever I'd go on a hike, I'd take a bundle of seeds or the starts of some plants, and stick them in the ground. I always thought it would be cool to be out in the middle of nowhere and come up on a field of sunflowers or find a patch of pumpkins or something like that."
"Guerrilla gardens," Clint provided the proper name for all of us.
"So what did you plant here?" Danielle asked, somewhat confused by the idea.
"Potatoes," I answered her. "The last time I was out this way there were a few bunches growing here and there. By now I bet they've spread out pretty good. It was always just some kid game; I never dreamed I'd have to live off of it."
“Ha! No shit huh? I had forgotten about that," Blake laughed. "Wait, that means we're not too far away from the old highway that goes to Wrangle right?” Blake supplied after studying our position on the map with renewed interest. He had recovered from the adrenaline dump and the walk in the cold air had cooled his temper enough for him to be the normally level headed guy I knew once again.
I was very familiar with the little farm community of Wrangle that he was talking about, I was also not all that interested in going anywhere near there. I knew some very good people that attended the church out that way. I was also not on such good terms with one or two of the prominent families of that church either. Unbeknownst to me, come to find out they take sides and blame you, when you and their daughter breakup after living together in sin. Thankfully, my own unfinished hole in the ground of a house now gave us a sanctuary to shoot for, besides the church.
Chapter 8
Opening the sub-basement door next to the big roll up garage door, I stood aside as the other three filed through the doorway and out of the cold. The air had been mistin
g again and combined with the dropping temperate and setting sun, we were all happy to have a dry place to sit and rest.
“This is it. Throw your bed rolls anywhere. Bathroom is upstairs but you have to fill the tank to flush,” I told them as the backpack slipped from my shoulders to land next to a pile of moving boxes.
“I’ll be right back,” I said scooping up a set of keys from the plywood work bench I had cobbled together and went back outside.
On the opposite side of the house I had a small lean-to style carport that had already been framed in so it could be sided and roofed at the same time as the house. Three months ago I had hitched up and towed my little travel trailer out here after hearing how so many other people’s RV’s, motor homes, tent trailers and even barbeque grills had been easy targets for thieves.
Unlocking the trailer, I went in and retrieved some extra blankets, an oil lamp, and another battery powered light for us to use in the house. It was way too cold to sleep in the travel trailer right now without running a heater and I had already burned a couple of fires in the wood stove I had in the basement, so I figured that was where we would be holed up for tonight at least.
Coming back inside, Danielle took the lamps out of my arms and I tossed the blankets over to Blake and Clint.
“Hammer and nails are on the bench,” I said, continuing my whirlwind of getting the house in respectable order for guests.
As the windows didn’t have any blinds or shades to cover them, not to mention any trim either, I wanted to hang the blankets over them to keep the heat and light inside. While the others started on the windows, I again went out and brought in a few armfuls of scrap lumber to get a fire going in the wood stove. We would have to bring in some of the actual firewood later, but this would get us started.
“You do know there is a car in your living room right?” Danielle stated, finding my decorating and accommodations amusing.
“Well actually there is a living room in my garage,” I cryptically answered her back.