“No,” Colonel Adkins states. “I was probably one of the few in this room totally against this mission when we sat down. Now I am convinced that we have to do this mission. We will not survive the hammer that will be coming crashing down from what is left of the elites and those in the military that will follow them if we are not well armed. Without the resources available to us at the Letterkenny depot, this island of stability will be overwhelmed.”
The vote is to continue planning or to stop planning. It is taken by anonymous paper ballot. The vote is six to one to continue planning the Letterkenny mission.
After counting the ballots, I announce the results. There are a few sighs and a few grim smiles, but no celebrations. We have decided to move on a very risky mission. It will take the whole community coming together to pull it off. Men and women, trucks, food, ammunition, leaders, soldiers, medics, will need to be pulled from their positions protecting our valley to attempt this mission.
After a brief discussion, it is decided that Colonel Adkins, Captain Hutchins, Colonel Brit and Lieutenant White will be in charge of putting together the team for this mission. The entire militia is to cooperate with them, providing what they can within means. The first order of business is to scavenge good maps. A scavenger crew is sent out to find any topographical maps. Two good state wide topographical maps are found at a couple of local gas stations. The planning begins.
Chapter 29, Red Again
Laurel Mountain Ridge
10/13
Two miles from the Chaffe estate, Red stops his horse and waits, scanning the woods intently. He knows he saw movement. He sees unnatural movement again, two hundred yards ahead and to the right. He freezes and watches. A man in Realtree camo aims at a distant target. Red follows the rifles trajectory and sees a small buck and four doe. As he watches the deer, he hears the rifle bark. It is loud and echoes across the valley. The largest of the does kicks, runs a few feet and falls. A clean chest shot. Red watches as the man in cammo keeps his sight on the deer he just killed.
The hunter gathers his gear looks around, then heads off to take his kill. An unseen partner rises and follows the hunter. It is a young girl, maybe in her early teens. Red scans the woods and sees no other movement. He decides to do a bit more intel gathering. He whistles as he prods his horse forward. He raises his arms as he approaches the two hunters field dressing the deer. He notices that the man is instructing the girl on what to do. On his approach, the man grabs his riffle and points it at Red. The young girl also pulls a small caliber over/under off her back and aims it at him.
“Peace, friends,” Red hollers. “I have no interest in your kill. I am sure that deer will go to good use. I would like to talk with you though, if you allow.”
The man eyes him warily as he approaches. They both keep their guns aimed on him. Fifty feet away, Red dismounts and casually leads his horse towards them. “Go ahead, finish field dressing the deer. I have no interest in taking your food. I am more interested in your story, I am looking for information.”
The father and daughter move away from the dead deer but don’t say anything as he approaches. Red walks up to the fresh kill and pulls out a knife. He turns to the girl as he begins to clean the fresh kill. “This is the part you have to be careful about. You only want to penetrate the skin. You don’t want to hit the internal organs. It’s not hard to do. Just pull the skin up and stick your knife in gently, like this, parallel to the skin. Don’t plunge it in, or you will hit the guts. You don’t want to do that, smells real bad and can ruin your meat.”
The young girl is watching and listening while the father scans the woods not sure of what to make of the man field dressing his deer. Red ignores the man and continues to talk to the young girl who watches intently.
“Once you have punctured the skin, make sure you get your knife through this thin layer of meat and fat, but keep the tip of your knife up. Now you need to keep cutting all the way to the rib cage.” Red quickly slices the belly of the deer open.
“Here’s where it gets a little bloody.” Red rolls up the sleeve of his shirt. “I am going to reach up here behind the belly and find where all the guts are attached. When you find that spot, you have to cut that and yank real hard. If you do it right, all the guts will come spilling out.” Arm deep into the deer carcass, Red finds the knot and with a quick slice he yanks hard, disconnecting the stomach and intestines, which he pulls out of the deer.
“Now here is the real bloody part, we need to cut out the diaphragm. All the guts are below the diaphragm. The lungs and heart are above the diaphragm. That’s where your daddy shot the deer, so it is going to be very bloody.” Red cuts out the diaphragm, and blood pours from the cavity.
“Now we need to pull out the heart and lungs,” Red states, as he reaches deep into the chest cavity and yanks hard on the softball sized heart of the deer, bringing with it the shattered lungs. Red quickly cleans up the heart, and gathers the liver from the lower entrails. “You want to keep this, it’s good eating,” he says, handing the liver and heart to the father. He nods, then turns his attention back to the woods, scanning for threats.
“Thanks mister,” he states. “Now we gotta get going. People will have heard that shot and may come looking for some of this kill. Most of them are feeding themselves by poaching cattle, but some are taking deer like me. Stealing a farmer’s cow don’t sit right with me if I can still take deer.” He states with a sense of justice.
“What can you tell me about what’s going on around here?” Red asks, taking a hold of the pull rope with one hand while leading his horse with the other.
“Where you been? Under a rock? Aside from the power going out and the world going to hell in a hand basket, what do you want to know?” The man responds a bit mystified.
“I know about the attack and the grid going down, friend,” Red replies. “You’re a local, I want to know what’s happening with the locals?”
“Getting overrun by the scavengers is what’s happening to the locals! Freaking mayhem everywhere. My cabin is a good two miles off 381, so we been okay. But folks closer to the road are dealing with the mobs just looking for food. I got two extra families stayin’ with me cause they got run off their property. One said his sister’s family was heading our way too. This deer won’t last long. I don’t know what we’re gonna do come winter!”
“Some rich folks live in this area. You thought about trying to side up with them?” Red asks casually.
The man laughs out loud. “No friggin’ way mister. The folks got targets on their backs. Several of those mansions have already been overrun. And there’s a crew gearing up to break in to the Chaffe’s place, and take their stuff. They figure those folks got stock piles of supplies. I hear they got some insider information too. Nah, we can take care of ourselves.”
“Don’t mean no offense, stranger, but me and my daughter need to head home, and we don’t need no more mouths to feed, so you best be moving along. I appreciate you showing my girl how to gut a dear. You look like a mercenary, if you are looking to hook up with the Chaffes and their crowd, be careful.”
Red and the man shake hands. The man looks him in the eye and sees warmth, something he has not seen often in the past few weeks. “You find yourself in trouble stranger, ask for me. Geyser is the name. Just don’t bring trouble with you.”
Red watches the direction they head, before turning and heading towards trouble, the Chaffe’s estate.
* * *
Three men watch intently from seventy five yards away. They have found another remote entry to the Chaffe’s estate. It is well disguised in a rock outcropping. Most of the outcropping is real, but some of it is well sculpted concrete.
The three men are pissed. Half their people were killed earlier in the morning by the filthy rich bastards they are pursuing. One of the men lost a brother, another has a wounded shoulder from the ambush. They all have family in the encampment and they all know that taking this compound will mean safety for their l
oved ones.
The wounded man is a fifty year old accountant with a wife and three kids; he considers himself an outdoorsman. The youngest is a National Guard member of nineteen; a college student who has been through basic training but has never been deployed. The third member of the crew is an unemployed semiskilled laborer. He takes a sip of his whiskey flask when he thinks the others aren’t looking.
* * *
Red regrets what he is about to do. Duty tells him to do it, his conscience tells him to walk away. He thinks of the young girl and her father hiding from these folks. He makes a decision, the one he knew he would make.
He hobbled his horse two-hundred yards back from the three sentries. Now, just twenty-five yards from his prey he has already made several decisions. The alert young man will die first. The punk will be next to be taken out. The older man will be spared if possible. He is injured, so he is the least threat; maybe he can provide more information.
He crawls closer to the three sentries, his crossbow aimed at the young stud. He breaks a twig with a snap and his cover is blown. He is farther away than he would like to be. He fires his crossbow which catches the stud in the chest. Not the heart shot he wanted, but a clear shot through the ribcage; a mortal lung wound.
He rises from ten yards away and charges the punk. He is on him in a flash and through shear memory drill, slashes his throat before the schlub can raise his shotgun. Red spins on the wounded man, expecting to deal with an angry man and a high powered rifle.
The wounded man is sobbing with his hands in the air. “I can’t do this! I can’t do this anymore! Just kill me!” the wounded man falls to the ground. “Help me dear God! I am done. Just kill me now,” he sobs.
Red moves quickly and kicks the man’s rifle away, then pats him down for hidden weapons. He knows he needs to move quickly. He slips plastic cuffs on the man, then retrieves his horse.
Five minutes later, with his captive strapped to his horse, he is moving down the wide tunnel that leads back to the Chaffe’s bunker
Chapter 30, Who’s Stuff
Richland
10/13
I wrap my wife up in a huge hug, squeezing her tightly. “We are so blessed babe. Even in this chaos, we are so blessed.” She nods and hugs me tightly.
“Don’t ever stop believing, Mark Mays,” she says tearfully. “Never stop believing.”
“Know Jesus, know peace,” I state, hugging her tightly.
We just finished a game of football in the front yard with the grandkids. Being immobile, I was the designated quarterback; no tackling the quarterback strictly enforced. Throwing a football one legged proved challenging, but I got the hang of it. We ate a good lunch of BLT’s using late planted lettuce along with fresh tomatoes and some of our own bacon Herc and Hairy smoked in the smoke house they built.
The massive six foot five inch Hairy, and the compact yet powerful five foot eight inch Herc have become best of friends. With Becca’s supervision, they have been taking care of the farmstead. They make sure to keep the youngsters involved in harvesting the crops and taking care of the daily chores and maintenance projects. Grace’s arm, injured by a gun shot on the second day, is nearly fully healed and he takes part in all activities now along with his communications room duties.
The kids head out to the front lawn while the adults digest the good lunch on the front porch. “How’s the bunk room in the barn coming along, Herc?” I ask.
“We’re short on materials for that boss. I can make it big enough for four, which will take care of Hairy and his crew. But you want it big enough for twelve. We’ll need a lot more lumber to do that. Chad, at the lumber yard, is tapped out. But we did get a wood burner installed.”
“There were a few saw mills in the area,” I respond. “I’ll talk with Paul about moving the saw mills close to a stream and setting up a watermill to power them. I am sure we are not the only ones needing wood. That’s more work for people to do as well. And that will give the brainiacs something to do other than toppling windmills!”
“He’s serious about bringing down a generator,” Hairy says. “He was asking me about man power to help do it. I told him we’re all in! If he can come up with a way to get those generators of those towers, I’ll freaking grow wings to help him. Don’t slow him and his team down, boss.”
“He needs a three hundred foot crane to do it!” I reply. “We have that on our scouting list, but seriously?!”
“Mark,” Herc begins, “his crew got water pumpin’ to the water towers and the sanitary plant back up and runnin’. They also got the high school cleaned up for the refugees. Don’t underestimate what they can do. Dude, givin’ the Brainiac squad their own quarters and takin’ care of them and their families may have been the smartest move you’ve made.”
“Okay, okay. I get it, the brainiacs get what they want. But, while my people are lookin’ for a three hundred foot crane, his team can work on setting up a saw mill or two.”
Right then, Grace comes out onto the big porch. He had gone back to monitoring the radios with his mom, Colonel Brit. “Pap, we got trouble in Richland. Mom has already dispatched a quick reaction team, but this sounds bad. Paulie has lost control and we got two scout teams in trouble.”
* * *
I hobble back to my old office, now our com room, filled with electronics protected from the EMP in our faraday cage, and good old solid state transistor radios and salvaged CBs. “What’s up Brit?” I ask.
“Shit storm, general,” Brit replies. “That asshole Paulie apparently doesn’t have control of Richland like he said he did. We got two teams pinned down by locals wondering what the hell we are doing. One of those teams has a ten- thousand gallon tanker pumping gas from a locally owned gas station, the Funky Bear. They are telling our crew we are stealing their gas”
“Okay, we need to move fast on this. If there is another group in Richland that ain’t workin’ with Paulie, then they are hungry. We’ll bribe them with food to smooth this over, then work out a deal with them.
“Relay to the team at the Funky Bear that we’ll send a strong food shipment to trade with this new group for the gas. We need five steer, and a truck load each of potatoes, cabbage and hay with some feed corn.”
“Feed corn, Pap?” Grace responds.
“Yeah, Grace, that way they won’t have to butcher all the steers at once, they can feed them for a few weeks and butcher them as they need them; Paulie bitched about that. Throw in twenty pounds of salt and a few bushels of onions and some garlic. Maybe one of them can figure out how to make sausages and preserve the meat.”
The message gets relayed to our relief team, heading up the highway into Richland, but we are unable to contact the team at the gas station. A few minutes later our outpost at the McNally Bridge reports a large explosion in Richland and that they see a huge fireball followed by a mushroom cloud.
The com room grows silent. Our gasoline retrieval system uses a sump pump run from the truck’s alternator. It uses an inch and a half wide pipe, stuck into a six inch wide hole. This is not a sealed system so gas vapors escape during the process, which takes several hours. If a fire fight broke out at the Funky Bear, it would not take much to ignite those fumes. That would set both the tanker and the tank on fire. The resulting situation would be a large explosion followed by an uncontrollable fire.
“What do we do now Pap?” Grace asks, breaking the silence.
“We pray, Grace, we pray.” I close my eyes and bow my head. “Dear Lord, I pray that any who may have just lost their lives know you, I pray they are with you now. Dear Lord, I pray that many survived and ran away before this explosion occurred. Dear Lord, I pray that you grant us compassion in reaching out to the family members of those who have lost their lives. And Dear Lord, I ask that you grant us wisdom and grace in dealing with this situation. Allow us to reach out in love to this new group, despite the loss of life and mayhem, allow us to be your ambassadors. Help us to glorify your kingdom even in this time of loss. In
Christ’s name I do pray, Amen.”
“Why did you pray for the people who attacked our guys, Pap?” Grace asks. “I know those people out there. They are good guys. The gangsters that attacked us can go straight to hell as far as I’m concerned.” He walks to the doorway in a huff.
“Son, the people who attacked our people are not to blame. If anyone in this situation are to blame, it is us for taking Paulie’s word that he controlled Richland. He traded stuff he didn’t own to us. We are the asses for accepting him at his word. We will straighten that out.
“As for the people who harassed our gasoline scavenging crew, they were protecting their own property. We were stealing their gas as far as they are concerned. I am not surprised that there is another group vying for control of Richland. We need them as allies, not enemies, Grace. So we will pray for them, and reach out to them.”
Grace looks at me for a bit. The room is quiet except for the radio chatter. ‘You got a big heart, Pap,” Grace states. “I guess I get it, but some of our guys died. I want revenge for that!” he says passionately.
“Revenge doesn’t solve problems, it only leads to more problems,” I reply softly. “Our mission right now is to make contact with the people we stole gas from and make things right. Some of their people died too. We need to limit the killing, not amplify it.
“Get on the radio, Grace. Have our rapid response team approach with a white flag and let them know about the food teams heading their way. They need to negotiate a truce with this new threat. That’s an order, Grace, not a request.”
Grace reluctantly returns to his station and relays my instructions by CB radio to a com station in Stoystown, who relays the instructions to the patrol camp at the McNally Bridge who then relays the instructions to the heavily armed team approaching the hot spot. I pray that the team receives the instructions properly, know that things can become confused when using a relay system, despite the confirmation systems we have set in place.
Righteous Sacrifice Page 20