by T J Reeder
The scout team radioed they were past the convoy, back on the pavement and pushing as hard as they could.
Ralph was up and gaining altitude when I last heard him. Now, if all went well he would be back pretty quick with as many shooters as he could haul. He would dump them and return for more plus the door gunners.
We might be a bit thin on the ground but I believed we could handle it since they had no idea they were in trouble.
It was an hour before the Hummer came flying over the hill and slid to a stop when I flashed by gun light. The scout team bailed out and we went right into setting up the ambush. I wanted one shooter to take out a tire on the lead vehicle and another to do the same on the trail rig. I planned to take out the bus driver when he slowed down for the lead rig when it responded to the blowout. I wanted one of the scouts with me to take out any bad guys in the bus. We all had 308 rifles so the glass deflection wasn’t a real issue for a straight-on shot at flat glass, but I wanted that bus almost stopped if not in fact stopped.
Handled right we could take out every one of the BG’s before they got off a shot but I wanted some alive. There
was a lot of information I wanted before they checked out for good.
We had it laid out by the time we heard the chopper coming. Ralph set down on the road and six shapes unloaded and he was up and away. I thought six bodies with all their gear was a bit of a load, but I don’t know shit about it. But it became clear when the shapes all
turned into women and surprisingly Sandy and May were both there.
I asked why they weren’t fighting over the door gun and was informed that they felt the need to be on the ground protecting my bullet-magnet ass. Everybody else laughed but me. They are so cute, in a primitive meat-eating creature way… look but don’t pet.
But all the women can shoot damn well and they were light enough that more ammo could be brought in…somebody was thinking! Sandy smiled and said, “Thank you, oh great and glorious leader!” All I could do was flip her off which got more laughs and her saying she took that as a promise and was gonna collect.
Fun time was over. We got everybody in their spots and ready behind good cover and prepped on the plan. I put two of them in a spot on the other side of the road and off to the front, where they had a great field of fire but were safe from our fire. Friendly fire ain’t friendly.
These ladies were going to get me a couple of prisoners to chat with; I figured they would have the best chance to wing a couple of runners. I hoped.
We settled down and waited, but it was another hour before we heard the distant sounds of the approaching vehicles. Now I sweat: If I blow it, some of our family were gonna die and I don’t want that. The dead scouts were on my mind: I couldn’t shake it and I didn’t want to. When I didn’t worry about our people anymore I would hang it up and let somebody else run it.
The BG’s drove over the hill, down into the low spot and things worked like a well-oiled machine. The lead vehicle had a blowout from a suppressed rifle, causing it to fishtail all over the road before it stopped. The bus driver slowed down and stopped about 30 yards from the crippled rig and I shot the driver thru the head with my suppressed rifle. Nobody else moved around in the bus. The vehicles in the back all stopped and the BG’s unloaded.
How these assholes had survived this long will always be a mystery to me- they had no skills, no training at all. They simply unloaded and either started pissing or lighting smokes, a couple were cracking beers.
It wasn’t a fight; it was simply putting dumbshits out of their misery. It was embarrassing that these assholes were able to ambush our scouts and kill two. I will have to look into that ambush and see what we did wrong because these people were not that good.
One aimed volley and they were all down. There was only eight of them and the girls on the other side of the road took all three from the lead vehicle down with leg shots. After we checked the bus and the girls took over with the captives I headed for the three wounded leaders from the lead rig.
The lady shooters were standing over them waiting for help in searching them. We got that done, removing several handguns. One I stuck in my shirt, and yes it was a keeper that I beat the scavengers to.
Questioning wounded people who know they are dead usually don’t get much but after we separated them one of them talked his head off, telling us what we wanted to know. The other two were tougher for a bit, but there are ways of enhancing their pain and we are not slow to use it.
After talking to all three we compared what we had and figured we had it all. Two of Charley’s scouts came over and took over from there. It was fast, and they had it coming and the scouts had earned the right. Harsh? Bet your ass, hard times call for hard people.
We cleaned the mess up by dragging the dead off the road into a gully where we left them for the desert to deal with.
They may have been the most inept gang we ever dealt with but they had a lot of loot- booze, weapons and ammo and even a case of coffee, which made me wonder again if the coffee ship was also a slave ship. I hoped not. I really wanted to get this coffee deal worked out. In truth there was more to this coffee thing than just coffee.
If I could make contact with the ship and the captain I would try to arrange a shipload to be delivered via the Gulf if at all possible. Probably not, unless the canal was working (which I really doubted) but if somebody is in the business of selling a product and wants gold bad enough then they will find a way. Hell, I’d think it was possible to do without even messing with the canal.
As my ol' grandpa said, “Money talks, bullshit walks and water seeks its own level.” And no, I’m not sure what it means but I have an idea so…we have gold, they want it. There are a lot of things down there that we can use that are in short supply up here. I’d love to have a banana in my cereal, if I ate cereal.
I want to set up a trade route, and at the same time I want to track down the head of all this trafficking in girls and cut off its head. I’m sick and tired of it and it needs to be stopped. And I have a plan! Everybody thinks I lay around napping all the time but I do my best thinking in the quiet with my eyes closed…when ‘They’ let me.
‘They’ of course are Sandy and May. Beth is usually the one standing back laughing at their antics and I suspect pushing them on.
Case in point: I was napping (thinking) a while back when Sandy came over and said
“John…..”
“JOHN!”
“I’m sleeping…”
“No you’re not, you’re talking….”
“Only because you woke me up…”
“Nit picking belittles you…..”
“Waking me up belittles you…”
“Well, you’re awake now…”
“Yes, I am….”
“Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“Why I woke you up?”
“No, because it will be something that makes no sense at all….”
“You’re such a sad example ….”
“OK…sigh…why did you wake me up?”
“I’m glad you asked!”
“Well?”
“Well what? OH! I just saw the most beautiful bird!”
“And you woke me up why?”
“Well to share it with you…”
I open my eyes…”Well, where is it?”
“It was over by Bucks pasture!”
“You came all the way here to tell me that?”
“Yes…”
“Show me…”
“OK! John? Why are you taking your 22 rifle?”
“To shoot the bird and feed it to our cat…”
“We don’t have a cat…”
“I’ll get one…”
“Walker doesn’t like cats…”.
“Walker don’t like anything but JC…”
“Well yea that’s true… I wish I hadn’t tried to share the moment with you…”
……………
“Shit…
”
“Don’t cuss…”
“Where is everybody?”
“They took the babies to the cooking area to visit…”
“Ahhh haaa… so we are alone?”
“Yes...”
“That’s really why you woke me?”
“Yes…”
“Why not just say John, we are alone, wanna make love?”
“Because this was more fun?” Giggling as she gets carried inside…
See what I mean? Never a moment’s rest to think... But this time I thought it all out and this idea is gonna work. Unless we have to kill the ship’s crew for slaving. I hope not.
After the main group caught up it was midday so we rolled on until around dark. The scouts had found a nice lake to camp by and the fishing crowd was at it. Fresh fish is always good, and soon we were eating our weight in fresh fried fish with french fries.
We settled down for the night and the captives joined us around the fires. Sandy and the other ladies had explained who we are and where we live and what we are doing. All said they had lost their families to the raiders and having no place to go agreed to stay with us.
I warned the girls again about trying to ‘adopt’ another member into the family. Both just smiled at me. I warned them again but it’s like talking to a rock, well no, there is a chance the rock will listen.
In a moment of quiet Sandy leaned over and hugged me and said, “Hand it over, John.” “What?” I said. “You know what” May said. Now both are moving into my space. Everybody else was just watching. The former captives were big-eyed not knowing what was happening. Our people were all smiling; Charley was just shaking his head and sighing. I think the scouts were wagering on how long I would last.
I tried a last time and said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Then I got gang tackled and they were ripping thru my clothes. May let out an, “AH HA!” and brought out MY former loot.
They acted like it was the great train robbery, glaring and saying bad things while examining the pistol. It was a Colt Combat Commander in 9MM, which I thought was cool. They did too, since they didn’t have one…until now. Sandy commented it was cute, and May added that it shot baby bullets! Sweet!
They are a laugh a minute. Then both were kissing me and thanking me for the new ‘present’ for their collection. I asked if being mugged and robbed of my gun was considered giving a present. The answer, of course, was, “Yes!” After they were thru entertaining everybody at my expense we got back to it.
Around the fire I explained what I hoped to accomplish with this trip to the coast and what it might mean for all of us. ‘All’ meaning not just the canyon folk but everybody we can reach if and when supplies of stuff we can’t grow start arriving- hopefully down in Texas at a gulf port.
Everybody was open to the idea, but wondered what we might get besides coffee, which most agreed alone was worth the effort.
I mentioned sugar and herbs that wouldn’t grow even in south Texas. Bananas got a standing ovation. Who would have thought? Hell, I don’t know what all might be available but I just know there will be goods from down south that we will find useful. I hope.
After all the trouble of the last few days we were rolling again. Charley had requested that his dead be taken home so a scout team left with a trailer behind their Hummer for the sad journey home. They took the two wounded scouts with them since both could travel. We were now short of scouts by eight but we would be fine. It’s not like most of us can’t scout, it’s just the Navajo are so much better at it. We can split the four man teams into two with two of our shooters along with them.
We rolled past Winnemucca without stopping- no trouble and I wanted to avoid any. We spent the next couple of days just easing along and arrived near Lakeview OR in the early evening. We had taken two days to travel what used to be a three hour trip but we took side trips off any of the small roads and goat paths just looking.
We found a lot of small settlements with folks working together and doing fine. We traded ammo for fresh food after making peaceful contact.
The down part was the few places that wanted us to be the military coming to make life easier. I wonder how many people even now after three years are still sitting on their ass waiting for the Government to save them.
I would expect not many, since it was root hog or die these days, but there will always be those who will do the minimum to survive if they think a handout is coming. Fortunately they are getting to be a vanishing species. Most communities won’t put up with that crap and we sure as hell won’t.
We asked about raiders and found a few places where they had hit but were fought off and didn’t lose anybody. We offered the women we had saved the chance to remain in any community that would welcome them, but all were having none of that. I got the feeling that most had come from places where the leaders tried to deal with the raiders and lost; they were now with a strong force that protected them and they weren’t leaving. I can identify with that.
Most were between 10 and 20 years old and some had been ‘used’ by the raiders but seemed to be fine since they got to see the assholes die. I understand that. The real young girls were left alone because they were worth more untouched. God, I hate these bastards and only wish they could be killed more than once.
I wanted to start our search for the coffee ship at Port Orford OR but we would be dropping down into California near Crescent, around four hundred miles south. Then we would head north up the coastline.
I was getting restless and decided we would pick up the pace and bypass the bigger towns and cities. It would add miles but I felt the need to get on with it.
We took four days to get to the junction with highway 101 where we turned north. We stopped in some of the communities- mostly to see if anybody knew of the ship we were looking for. All had heard of it but nobody knew where it made stops. There are only so many actual seaports so we would keep trying. Our first contact with anybody who had real information was at the Smith River Indian reservation on the coast.
Charley met with their Elders and learned that while the ship hadn’t ever stopped near them they knew of it and had never heard a thing bad about the ship or the crew. My hopes are improved.
We gave them ammo for the weapons they had that we could match, and we also gave them the weapons we’d gathered from the slavers. They gave us a lot of smoked salmon, and it was very good.
We worked our way up the coast, stopping to visit with the communities we came across. It seems that things weren’t as bad here as in a lot of places, which leaves me wondering why that would be. Of course we hadn’t visited any places bigger than small towns. But so far I’m impressed with the way these folks have held it together.
We stopped for a few days near Brookings and just relaxed from all the movement. A few hardy souls went to the ocean for a dip. It lasted about 15 seconds, because the water was like ice- so much for a nice dip.
Sandy and May had their longbows with them and spent the time working on their skills, which attracted a lot of interest. I can see that future scavenging will include overlooked archery equipment but I’d bet the Fort had a ton of it…now if they don’t kill each other.
The girls were talking about hunting again, but I talked them out of it for now. I figured the folks living here might need the meat more than us. When we head east into the open country they can chase down all the poor critters they want.
As we move north along the coast we have asked everybody we meet if they know about the trade ship. Most know of it but not much else. When asked about a ship buying women there seemed to be shock but nobody knew anything about it. And then one day while stopped at a small village we met a woman who said she had heard of the slave ship. She said it was painted black.
She heard it from a girl who had escaped from it by diving overboard and swimming to shore. She had not met the girl, just heard the story. She did tell us where the girl came ashore, which was a few miles further up the coast. She made it
to shore and was taken in by a family who gave her food and clothes and a gun since she was going to leave regardless.
We made a beeline to the place where the girl came ashore and met the folks who took her in; they welcomed us and were very open about what they could tell us.
They said the girl was about 16 years old and had been on her school’s swim team. When the black ship was passing close to shore she took the chance and dove overboard. She swam about a mile thru the cold water and was in pretty bad shape when she made it ashore. She saw their house, headed for it and woke them up.
The girl had said the ship was small and had a crew of about ten people; they had taken over fifty females from five years old to early twenties. She said they were not abused and were well fed and allowed to shower. She said one of the guards had laughingly said the buyers wanted them in good health and clean and untouched.
They said the girl had seen the opportunity, made a run for the side of the ship and went over the rail in a dive. She told them she had been taken in a raid a few days earlier before the ship sailed from a small cove down the coast about a hundred miles. All this had happened a week earlier and word hadn’t really spread due to lack of travel.