"You are doing fine George," I said. "The violence should lessen over time. Cap, my pa-in-law..."
"Your other pa-in-law," George smiled. "I sure am glad you are here, Wayne. For my sake as well as Julie's."
"OK, my other pa-in-law," I said, "told me that in the first year after an EMP, somewhere around 80 to 90% of the population will die off."
"Yeah, I read the same. No food, violence, lack of water, sickness, no medical treatment, and simply not knowing how to cope. Most of the casualties will be in the cities. Once the food deliveries stop, the people have little to eat, except each other. That's what seldom gets mentioned."
"Well, there is that. Julie ran into cannibals,” I said. “I am sure there are more of them."
"It wouldn't be the first time people turned to cannibalism in a tight spot. Have you heard the story of the Donner party?"
"Yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe there will be more survive than Cap thinks. Anyway, if enough of the population dies off, the survivors will have more resources, at least in areas where they can grow food or hunt."
"If they have seed. Wayne, I think seed would be a great trade item for you if you can find some. Also, my father told me about the great depression. He said that game was hunted out in the first year and that it was years after the depression before hunting got good again. He said in some areas the deer were almost wiped out, even in the boonies."
"Breeding age cows and bulls would be a good trade item then," I said. "The caravan will move slowly. Cattle could just walk along with us."
"It could be done," George said, "but it will take a couple of cowboys to do it."
"Something to consider."
I put my hand on George's shoulder. "You just hang in there, George. In about a year, things will be better."
"I hope so. You take care of Julie, please."
"I will."
That evening, Larry led a patrol to look for enemy observers. He said it might be two days before they returned.
I was tired when Julie and I went to bed. She filled me in on the doings of the day among the women and then fell asleep. Being alive after the End of the World was hard work. I looked at Julie sleeping peacefully in my arms. The End of the World did have its benefits though. I counted myself a lucky man to love two women such as Lucy and Julie. Then it occurred to me that I was not such a nice person to be doing this when Lucy was waiting for me in Indiana.
I had discussed this a bit with George the day before. He just said to take it a day at a time and that he did not think less of me at all. I wished I didn't.
The next day I helped Yeti with the defenses. He and Jared stayed up most of the night developing a plan. The lack of sleep didn't appear to have bothered either of them. In the course of one day, with the help of six men, a tractor with a loader bucket, and a skid-steer with a blade, both of which were old enough to be EMP proof, they managed to dig a deep ditch, about six feet wide on either side of the ranch road about a hundred yards from headquarters. They were planning on extending this ditch, or moat, all the way around headquarters. Jared said it would take almost a month to finish the defenses unless they could get their hands on a real bulldozer and maybe a trackhoe.
I drove a shovel all day. By evening I was worn out. Julie massaged my shoulders and I fell asleep before supper. I found a plate of food beside the bed when I woke about midnight. Julie was no longer the stranger with a shotgun I met right after the End of the World. She was now my wife, lover, friend, and companion—a trusted partner. I kissed her cheek as she lay sleeping and we discovered we both had more energy than we thought.
The next day was a repeat. I played shovel man again with Max and Dave.
"At least we aren't digging for gold," Max said.
"And there are no guns pointed at us," Dave said.
We worked hard and enjoyed each other's company. Working with friends is the best kind of work there is.
The patrol returned about dark. George called a meeting in the kitchen and Larry filled us in on what they found.
"They were out there," Larry said. "There were four of them. None near the sniper."
"Any indications who they were?"
"No, but they wore combat boots. We also found some buried packaging from MREs."
Dan took his hat off and laid the map of the ranch on the table. "They had rifles and horses. I saw where the butt of a rifle was set on the ground. It looked like an AR15 variant. It wasn't a 30-30 or a bolt gun like most folks around here use. From the tracks, the men are fairly tall and wear good sized boots; one eleven and a half, two twelves, and a thirteen."
"How can you tell?" I asked.
"Well, it is just a rule of thumb. The track of a size twelve boot is usually just over 13 inches long; maybe 13 and a quarter. Street shoes are a bit shorter than boots. Each boot size above 12 adds a third of an inch and each size below 12 subtracts a third of an inch."
"Thanks, Dan. I will remember that."
Larry removed a scrap of cloth from his pocket and laid it on the table. "They were wearing camo. Government issue camo."
From the scrap of cloth, I didn't think they were the Boss's men and I told everyone that. "Are they soldiers?" I asked.
"From their movements, yes. Also, they rode horses, but they were not horsemen. Dan saw footprints from two clumsy mounts. An experienced horseman doesn't do that."
"Did they seem organized?" I asked.
"Yes, pretty much a standard recon patrol," Larry said. "But they split up and that is not normal protocol."
"Which way did they go when they left?" George asked.
"They met up and went north."
"How far did you track them?" George asked.
"To our border with the Sullivan's ranch, and a ways farther."
"Headed for Sullivan's headquarters?"
"Looks like it."
"How far is the Sullivan Ranch headquarters from here?" I asked.
"Twenty miles as the crow flies."
"By road?"
"About 35 miles," Dan said.
"Would the Sullivan Ranch be hard to take over?" I asked.
"Not really," Dan said, "easier than here."
"Can you get a recon team over there to check it out?" George asked.
Larry conferred with Dan for a bit. "Yeah. It will take us three or four days."
"Get some rest then and put your patrol together," George said.
The recon patrol left the next morning. I was invited to go, but I declined.
The next four days were spent fortifying the ranch headquarters. If I had to describe them I would say, dig, sleep, and repeat. The recon patrol wasn't back on the evening of the forth day. George was getting worried. So was I but I didn't let it show. The patrol showed up one man short on the morning of the sixth day.
"There are almost 40 of them. They are disciplined and very well armed. Not all of them are in uniform. I don't think it is a regular military unit, although at least half of the men may be military, or former military. In any event, they are a formidable fighting unit. They have at least two armored cars, a Humvee, and a couple of old trucks."
"Larry, what happened to Pete?" George asked.
"Booby trap," Larry said. "A trip wire attached to a rifle. He never knew what hit him. We cleaned everything up and left a dead calf in Pete's place. Maybe they won't notice."
"And Pete?" George asked, obviously shaken.
"We buried him on the hill he liked in the north pasture."
"Thanks for that. Pete was a good man. He worked for me more than twenty years. He always said the ranch was his home and we were his family. He never talked about where he came from."
"Larry, do you think they will attack us?"
"I am not sure Wayne, but I think so. They aren't ranchers. I doubt they know how to live off the land. I think they will come after what we have at some point."
"We better finish fortifying the ranch," Yeti said.
"We could strike first," Larry said.
/> George shook his head. "I don't want to lose anyone else. If we wait there is a chance they will just move on to easier pickings. Yeti and Jared, we need this place to look like we could stand off the Russian Army."
"Yes Sir," Yeti and Jared said almost in unison.
I expected them to attack at any time while we were working on the fortifications. I shoveled with the 30-06 slung over my back or within reach. Many others did the same.
It took three weeks of hard work before Yeti and Jared declared the fortifications essentially complete.
A lot of foodstuffs were running out. I was amazed at the supply George had on hand but soon we would be down to beef, beef, and more beef. I laughed as I remembered a small restaurant out in the boonies in New Mexico where I had eaten on a previous sales trip to Farmington. The sign over the counter said, 'Ask for anything you want, as long as it is beef.'
Finally we had a day of rest. I spent it mostly with Julie. I cleaned guns, sharpened knives, and generally got gear ready for action. I found the .38 snubbie we had taken off one of the riders on our way here and made a holster for it. I encouraged Julie to wear it all the time as well as carry her A4 carbine. She smiled and opened a dresser drawer and showed me the three pistols she carried when she left the ranch and said I needed a hideout gun or two as well.
I also spent some time in our bedroom practicing my left-handed draw with the sixgun. The gun was empty of course. In a few minutes I was noticeably faster. In an hour I was pretty darn quick. I decided to practice about 10 minutes each morning. I was almost as quick with my left hand as with my right. Julie was surprised when I drew the sixgun with my left hand. I asked her not to tell anyone that I could shoot left-handed.
That afternoon Julie and I sat on the porch for a while and watched the landscape change as the sun fell in the sky. The porch now had a short wall surrounding it. The wall had two wooden sides and was filled with 18 inches of dirt. Larry said it would stop anything short of a 50-caliber.
It was cold outside. We were wrapped in a blanket. For the moment, life was good. After the End of the World, life was still to be lived as long as you had it. Maybe danger made life sweeter for those who did what they had to do, and sour for those who let fear overcome them. But then, it has ever been so.
Chapter 18
Wayne
"George, I worry that the Boss's remaining men could be a threat to us. What if they join up with the crew at the Sullivan Ranch? When we escaped, there were still several working Humvees there and several of them are armed with machine guns. The Double H or the Sullivan Ranch are within easy driving distance for them."
"You don't think that losing their leader shut them down?"
"No" I said, "The Boss was not the only bad man in the group. One of the others may have filled the void. I think that is common with gangs like that."
"How many of them do you think there are?"
"Dave, Max, and I have been discussing that and we think there may be as many as 20 or so, or as few as 10."
"Do you think they are still looking for gold?"
"I doubt it. I think the Boss was insane. It is unlikely the others are as crazy as he was."
"Therefore they might be a greater threat?"
"Yes, because they will most likely focus their efforts on raiding and acquiring food and other resources."
"What do you want to do?"
"We have been discussing that too. We don't think a face-to-face confrontation would be advantageous for us. We would lose people. Instead we think we should find out how many there are, where they are, and what assets they have. Then we should use the recon team to destroy their assets."
"And leave them stranded?"
"I am not sure. I dislike killing..."
"But if they could be a threat and they have already established that they are willing to kill people..."
"Then they deserve to die."
"Yes."
"I will be glad when things are peaceful again."
"If they ever will be?" George said. "I am beginning to wonder about that."
Yeti
Wayne asked me to develop a plan to get rid of the gang that kidnapped him. He is not sure he wants to kill them, but I think it is necessary. Since the EMP, there is a new morality, one free of liberal or politically correct bias. Now, if someone tries to take what you have by force, it is your responsibility to defend yourself and to kill that person if you can. Food and other resources cannot be wasted on people who would kill you. That is simply not logical, or even possible given the scarcity of food and water.
I don't like killing either, although I have killed several people myself now, but this gang cannot be left in a position where they can hurt us. It is them or us, nothing could be simpler, nor could anything be more repellent than what must be done.
I am going to study the maps that George has of the county. I need to study the terrain for access routes. Then I need to interview Max, Dave, and Wayne to determine what technology the gang has, what methods they use, their armament, their discipline, their habits, their style, and what means of transportation they have. The planning will take me a day or so because I don't want to make any mistakes and I couldn't bear to lose any of our people.
Julie
Wayne is planning an expedition to destroy the gang that took him prisoner. This time I am going with him, whether he likes it or not. I will not be separated from him ever again.
Before the cannibals I would have begged Wayne to let well enough alone. Now I know there is evil in the world and it must be eradicated if we are to ever live in peace. Never again will I be as naive as I was when I encountered the cannibals. From now on I will shoot quickly and never assume anyone is harmless until I know him or her well.
I will talk to Yeti when he has finished his plan. I need to understand what we will be facing. I know Wayne and Larry are setting up a model of the gang's headquarters for Yeti to use in his planning and I want to study that too. I think this will be our best-planned and coordinated venture. I just hope it goes as well as Yeti's defense of Mountainair. I worry because we only have a few people and I am not sure we can be as effective as an entire town working together.
Wayne
We left the ranch at 2:00 in the morning, nine of us on horseback. If there are still observers watching the ranch, we don't want them to know we aren't there, even though the ranch is still well defended. It will take us three nights travel to reach the Boss's headquarters. Yeti says we should travel by night as much as possible and that there will be sufficient moonlight for the next few days.
Our party consists of Julie, Yeti, Dave, Max, Larry, Dan, two newcomers, and me. Yeti's shadow, Darrell, wanted to come, but he is too young.
Dan is leading the way. We are armed with rifles, handguns, gasoline, rope, rolls of fiberglass cloth, two gallons of fast-drying epoxy, and paint; quite the armament for an attack against machine guns and Humvees. I trust Yeti though. He is the smartest person and best tactical planner I know, and he is only 15. I wonder how good he will be in a few years as he gains experience?
Yeti
We have been traveling for three nights now and we are at our objective. Larry and Dan have positioned everyone so we will be able to watch the enemy's headquarters all day tomorrow. We will do our business tomorrow night or the night after. It should prove interesting.
Wayne
I watched the Boss's headquarters all day though binoculars with tinted lenses. Yeti insisted that we only bring binoculars with tinted lenses. He made long brown cardboard sunshades for the binoculars to help prevent any flashes of sunlight from the lens. I think that is why he inspected each of us before we left and asked us to remove anything shiny. He even painted Julie's stainless steel 38 special snub-nose with black paint. None of us is wearing bright-colored clothing. All of our clothing was dyed tan and brown camo before we left. Yeti's attention to detail is incredible. Even our rifles are painted brown camo.
The Boss's headquarters i
s bigger than I thought, but I didn't see all of it before. It seems much larger than the model we made because there are several buildings we were not aware of. Yeti said he would deal with all of that. I am sure he is modifying the plan right now.
It looks like the place used to be a working ranch, but no more. The buildings are decayed, and in some cases, falling down. There is a house, four small outbuildings, an absolutely huge barn, and three old bunkhouses, one of which has almost completely collapsed. There are four Humvees, a truck, and two horse-drawn wagons parked in the yard close to the house.
As I watched I saw four men walk away from a bunkhouse in four different directions. I saw one of them relieve a sentry and I assumed the others were doing the same. Our watchers were positioned so that someone would be able to note each of the sentries' positions.
It was a long day and my muscles ached from inactivity by dark. We gathered, except for two left to watch, in a concealed location to discuss what we had seen.
"How many men did you count?" Yeti asked me.
"Seventeen," I said, "no women."
"Dan said, "I counted 18, no women"
The consensus was that we were facing 19 men, all armed with rifles. Two of the men slept in the house, and the rest, except for the four sentries, slept in one bunkhouse. The sentries changed at 12:00 and 6:00. We would make our move at 3:15 AM. Julie and one of the newcomers would remain on guard and in position to cover the buildings with rifle fire from two directions if needed. The rest of us would infiltrate after the sentries were removed.
Dan, Larry, and Max were to remove the other sentries. My sentry was in front of me. I crept up behind him as quietly as I could. My Bowie knife was in my right hand. I waited. Sure enough, he stood, leaned his rife against a rock and walked a couple of paces. He then proceeded to take a leak. I grabbed him from behind just as his piss stream reached maximum intensity. He was dead before he hit the ground but he kept peeing anyway.
By the time I got back to our rendezvous, Dan, Larry, Max, and the others were waiting. I was surprised to see one sentry had been captured alive. "What took you so long?" Larry whispered.
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