by Tj Reeder
Jody told the cooks to bring food and coffee, the three looked like they had heard God speak, the woman started crying and one of the men put his arm around her and talked to her in a low voice causing her to sit up and calm down, as they were eating they told us they had been living on a small abandoned farm several miles down the road, there had been 4 couples with no kids, they were all people who were traveling when the EMP hit, stranded so far from anyplace they had drifted together and moved into the old farm house, they said it looked like whoever had lived there had either been away and couldn’t make it back or had simply run for it, using what they had to work with they had stayed alive for several months until the day before when a group of vehicles had roared down the road and the men in them shooting at anybody they saw, these three were behind the house and near the woods working a small garden patch and had no choice but to hide in the woods, they said the shooting ended real quick and they heard the other 3 women screaming with a lot of loud laughter going on, with no weapons nor fighting skills they had no choice but to leave.
Jody asked few questions and asked if they were willing to show us where the farm was, they all said yes, Jody put one of the men with the scouts and sent them ahead, 5 minutes later we pulled out, moving slow and as quiet as possible we followed the scouts, after about 2 hours we got the call that they had the place under observation and it looked to be about 10 to 20 people all armed with a mixed bunch of weapons, the only women in sight had been ID’d by the man with them as his friends.
After talking it over with the scouts it was decided that they could flank them and hit them from behind with some heavy fire power driving them right into our waiting arms, we were hopeful that the two women could escape in the confusion or at least hit the ground.
We moved slowly forward until we were met by one of the scouts who just seemed to appear from nowhere, he guided us into a good spot to park most of the vehicles out of sight, we moved two of the armored pickups forward and Jody placed them so they would have the best possible field of fire when the BG’s rolled into the trap.
Only eight of us were doing the ambush the rest of our force was guarding the convoy and providing rear guard security.
10 minutes after we were in place and after Jody had explained to us again that slow aimed fire was better then wildly spraying the area we heard the scouts open up, it sounded nothing like the movies, it was just a lot of popping sounds followed by the roaring of loud vehicles racing at us, the first few were allowed to pass and then were hit by the 60's which did sound like a movie, we had all fired them on the range but this was different because our adrenalin was pumping, also the sounds of cars and trucks crashing into trees and each other was very loud, then the second truck mounted 60 joined in, as the survivors came tumbling out they were cut down ,
Jody’s rules worked great, no more then 150 rounds were fired by our guys and none of the BG’s got off a shot, 5 of them tossed their weapons away and surrendered , we stayed in place while the BG’s laid down with their fingers laced behind their heads, two of our guys went forward, one armed with a shotgun the other with a pistol, the pistol man searched them while holding the gun to the BG’s head, after he was sure there was no more weapons he moved on, all had some form of a weapon on them from handguns to knives.
The scouts at the house called in all clear and that both the women had reacted great by falling flat at the first shot, all the BG’s that weren’t with us were dead, none had gotten away, the house and grounds had been searched and the women were then allowed to help check out the grounds.
After we had searched the dead and their vehicles and again took everything of use we loaded the prisoners and rolled to the farm house. From the count we had of the dead and alive and what the women and the three who escaped told us we had got them all.
Before Jody called the rest of the unit to come forward he walked over to the five survivors and said do any of you scum bags have anything to say? All demanded a lawyer and then shut up, our crew all laughed at this causing the BG’s to look a bit white lipped.
Jody went to the two ladies who we had saved and asked what they wanted to do, one just cried, the other looked at Jody and said can I borrow your pistol? He asked her if she was sure, she said Oh yes I’m very sure because all of them raped us and one of them killed our friend while he was raping her.
Jody handed her his 1911 and asked her if she knew how to use it, she just smiled and walked over to the five who were sitting on the ground, she looked at them and said to the first one, do you remember me, he just said again I want a lawyer, she shot him in the head, then asked the next one who tried to crawl away, she shot him in the back of the head, she repeated it two more times then came to the last one and said I remember you , you slimy bastard , I watched you rape my friend and while you did it you cut her throat .
He just sat there shaking, but she didn’t shoot him in the head…well that ain’t entirely right, she shot him in the little head, several times while he screamed and tried to get away while spraying blood all over the area...
She then walked to Jody and said nice gun, very nice trigger, did you do the work? Jody just looked at her then busted out laughing and said ya know I think your going to fit in real well with us if you want to leave here.
She said oh yea I want to leave, you guys are going to be doing a lot of house cleaning and I want to get in on that.
Deciding that he didn’t want to deal with anybody complaining about allowing the BG’s to be executed without a trial he had the bodies piled with the rest in the old house and had one of the empty trucks stop and load the bodies we had left behind, they were also added to the house, after the weapons and everything they BG’s had that could be of use was loaded up the house was lit off with several gallons of fuel from the collection of cars they had been driving when they raided the place.
We rolled away as it burned, after a bit Ellen asked Jody if there were any survivors among the BG’s, he looked over at her and smiled a gentle smile and said no honey none survived.
The people we had rescued from the farm were being treated in the ambulances as we moved out; all were given something to help them sleep while we rolled thru an empty countryside.
When we stopped for the night we pulled off the road into an abandoned home beside the road, the scouts gave it the all clear, the place was trashed and looked as if human pigs had been living in it , none of us would stay inside and we pitched out tents under the trees and settled down to sleep .
With the number of men we had nobody had to do more then two hours of guard duty, Jody and I pulled the last watch. The cook crew had their kitchen set up from dinner and turned out a really good breakfast of ham steaks and hotcakes slathered with butter and hot syrup, the people we had rescued couldn’t believe the food and the cooks really poured it to them, the real coffee was something they really couldn’t believe and real sugar and real cream. It was a real wake up for us who had lived thru the worst of it all on the ranch where life never changed for us; it did make us more aware of how blessed we were.
Jody and I had a talk with the 5 people we had saved and all but the one who handled a 45 so well wanted to go back to the county area and be absorbed into life there, the shooter as the guys were calling her who’s name was Kate said she was going with us and if Jody wouldn’t allow it she would find some useable guns salvaged from the BG’s we had so far eliminated and go it alone in one of the BG’s vehicles.
Jody said she was welcome to go with us and had one of the ladies dig out a clean pair of BDU’s for her, with her red hair and green eyes and cleaned up she was going to be a force to be reckoned with, she was taken in tow by the weapons team and while we drove she drilled with her new AK and 45 acp. Not that she needed much with that!
Ellen had talked to her the night before and this morning and said she seemed very well adjusted after her ordeal; Jody just smiled and said good honey, I’m glad to hear that.
The other four were loa
ded into a truck with another rig for security and headed back where they would be met by a force from the ranch that would transport them on to the county where Jim had somebody waiting to take them on in to start getting them into the group.
We rolled on for the next two days stopping at places with people who didn’t offer battle to our force, we talked to them and gave them a radio to contact our big base tower on the Sheriffs department building, we also offered them any weapons they might need from the pile we had taken, several of them were short on both weapons and ammo, we gave them what they needed and rolled on after telling them that shortly they would be seeing patrols moving thru the area in rigs like ours and dressed as we were who would contact them on the radio and for gods sake don’t fire on them !
So far we had only made it about 150 or so miles from home because of having to remove trees from the road and in one case finding a way around a blown out bridge which we never did find out who did it or why.
Another day and 50 miles further on and the radio crackled , the lead scout team reported smoke ahead and were rolling slower, 10 minutes later they said they were on a low hill looking into a pretty valley with green fields of hay, big gardens and lots of people moving around, they also were looking at a large bunker about 500 yards away, they put up a white flag and waited until we had rolled to within a few hundred yards, we drove the command rig up to the scouts and got out, in that time a signal had sounded and all the people had disappeared, many running to other smaller bunkers, all was now quiet in the valley .
Jody asked for a scout to ride down with him and got into the scout rig, one of the scouts jumped in with him and white flag flying drove to within 50 yards of the bunker where he stopped and stepped out into the open, this had Ellen very upset but that was Jody, not one to ask somebody to do what he wouldn’t
He raised his hands and walked forward to within a few feet of the bunker and stopped, soon a man came from behind it and walked up to Jody, after a few minutes and a hand shake Jody turned and waved us forward.
Rolling into the yard area of the big old house was a bit disquieting as nobody was in sight except the man from the bunker who had ridden in with the scout unit.
After he climbed out, the front door of the house opened and a tall grey headed man walked out and wearing an old Stetson and worn boots with a gun belt on, all he needed was spurs to look like it was another century.
He stepped off the porch and looked at Jody then at all of us and our vehicles and said welcome to Dry Gulch Ranch I’m Willis Duncan and this is my ranch and shook hands with Jody. He then invited the command group up on the porch while the rest of our people set up a defensive area around the vehicles, Willis watched our people and nodded and said well you folks are for sure not military but you sure act like it.
Jody told him who we were and where we were from and what we were doing, he left nothing important out just what we had done and planned to do.
Willis said his family had 10 sections here on the ranch and had been here since the first white folks came into the area, his family had fought Indians, Mexicans, Yankees , Rustlers , and Horse Thieves for over 150 years ,right here on this land, he pointed off to a nearby hill which was covered with head stones and said that’s my family and our people who lived and died here and when things went to hell we just stayed on because nobody is going to run us off this land, and we still live just like we always have so when the lights went off it was no great loss to us, but then he smile real big and said , Well of course we do have a big generator and about 10 thousand gallons of diesel to run it and 2 trucks we use when needed, but almost all the work on the place is done on horse back, always was, always will be.
Willis and Jody worked out a system using radios to allow contact with the Willis place being the out post for this area, and that a call for help would bring us as fast as possible, Willis said he was all for the idea of a free Texas and had no desire to see the old order come back to power in Washington DC.
We also asked what he could do with a hundred AK 47’s and a thousand rounds for each, that got his attention and he admitted that they were low on ammo for the weapons they did have and would love us forever if we could do that, Jody got on the radio and instructed the base where we were and the GPS locations and said to bring an “Able” load to this location, an able load was the name of the load we promised Willis, with which he would arm any of the people in his area that fit into the overall plan, we also left him some commo gear to pass out to the smaller groups.
We spent the night there and everybody got a real good nights sleep with only a few people on duty and who took the whole night in return for getting to sleep in the ambulance during the day while we moved on which had a working AC to help the wounded if we got any. Jade said maybe we should try that deal. I didn’t smile!
The next day we rolled out at day break and on the advice of Willis we cut across his ranch to another road, cutting off a lot of extra miles, he told us about another working farm that had taken in a lot of folks when the balloon went up, that would be our next stop, if they were friendly we could set them up with a comm. set and have another outpost.
Our idea was to just work outward from the ranch and county and set up these outposts who could call for help if needed and to warn of raiders if such happened to be spotted.
We figured that in time , with us recruiting more people and training them and arming them we could build up a not so small army to patrol the entire state and Once the BG’s were all dead life could settle down and folks could get on with life , free of worry.
We did find small groups here and there that were just existing, some wanted to join us but some just wanted to be left alone and didn’t want to be a part of the outpost system, but the funny hold over from the nanny state we had left behind, was that while not wishing to be a part of cleaning out the trash and rebuilding they all wanted us to send supplies and medical help and just about everything you could thing of.
Jody took great pleasure in telling them that if they weren’t willing to work with us, we sure as hell weren’t going to feed or protect them, all were left standing with their mouths open, some folks just never learn.
We had gone as far West as we wanted for now, so we turned North and headed toward the Oklahoma state line, we started to find more small settlements some with only a few people some with 50 or more, some wanted to know if we were the government come to help them, Most were doing pretty well on their own, the most over ridding thing we were hearing was that a majority of these folks just flat did not want the old Government intruding in their lives.
To these Jody explained the idea of a building a free and sovereign place filled with free citizens living inside whatever the new boundaries became, that was added because Jody had no thoughts of stopping at the old state lines, and he said freedom needed big room to stretch in.
We had all been wondering why there seemed to be such a drop in population and we started to find out from folks further north, seems that a mysterious bug had swept through the country side and it was fast at killing it’s victims but also had a very short life of it’s own, if not passed on right away to the next victim it died with the last infected person, here in the less crowded heart land when folks went to ground they allowed nobody into their area and made no contact so it didn’t spread like it did in the more populated areas of the country, we got this bit of information from the log books of a hospital in a small town, the medical staff had worked hard to quell the bug but didn’t make it, the last doctor alive had written a paper on the bug and how it worked.
He said that in the beginning the town leaders were taking in anybody who came along in the belief they were doing the Lords work, before they could wake up to the fact it maybe wasn’t a good thing it was too late, they had let death in.
Ellen and her staff after reading the journal went thru all the records they could find and said it seemed that when the last person died that was it for here in this place, this
scared the hell out of us at first but all these people had been dead since almost the beginning of the collapse which was good for us if not them as the bug died with them….we hoped… it was decided we would get out of the town and find a place to hold up while we waited to see if any of us got sick, we could not chance taking it home or into any other place where people had built a safe haven.
We found a small out of the way state park with a clear water spring fed lake and the usual pitcher pump after the scouts gave it the all clear we moved into it and set up our camp for more then a night, the scout teams patrolled out from camp for a mile in all directions, after giving the all clear they set out electronic safe guards 200 yards all around the area, these were from our storage supplies, just another small well needed item on a long list of stuff nice to have when the shtf.
With these out nothing bigger then a small dog was getting near our camp without us knowing and who or what would have no idea they had advertised their presents.
We got our cooking done and eating over before dark and settled in for the night, no fires and no talking above a whisper was the rule for now at least, morning came with no alarms being sounded and with first light the scouts moved out on foot quietly into the forest around us, this was where the Clan hunters were worth their weight in gold, nothing could move in the bramble infested woods like they could, after two hours they started coming in, two different teams had scored on deer with their cross bows so fresh meat was a welcome addition to our usual freeze dried rations.