by T J Reeder
Eventually I’m sure the people here will come up with something that the folks in CR want and work out a trade system.
We hung around in camp for a week, just getting our land legs back and getting our gear in top shape for the trip ahead. We spent a little range time just making sure all was well in that area.
Early fall was making its presence known when we headed out. We had about 600 miles to travel but we were staying on back roads and wandering wherever the road went as long as it was west and a bit north.
We took it slow and easy, making about 200 miles a day and camping where we found water. We saw a lot of outlying farms and ranches that were doing well, and we didn’t need supplies so we just kept trucking. Why scare them for nothing?
We did stop and talk to folks who were close to the road.
I still think the flags helped a lot; all these folks were friendly and were doing good.
All were more friendly when they found we weren’t from the former government. I think the winds of real freedom are sweeping the land! I have no idea what the future will bring but I somehow think the people had enough of the “G” and are happier making it on their own with no bullshit from Washington. Works for me!
May said her people were on a small farm/ranch near Pomeroy WA. According to the maps we had, we would get there around midday. She was getting quieter by the mile. Sandy got in back with her and just hugged her and they talked in quiet voices. I was feeling pretty good because the area had missed most of the shit that hit other places.
We finally came to a gate turning in on a paved road that May said was ‘the one’. We turned and moved slowly forward with a scout vehicle out front about 200 yards. The Scout rig eased up a small rise and stopped. Two of them got out, moved up to the top of the hill, dropped onto their bellies and crawled forward. After looking a while they slid back down and walked to the rig.
May was about to jump out when the radio clicked and the scout communications man said, “All clear.”
We drove up beside them and walked to the top. There below us was the prettiest picture you could ask for: A fast-moving stream flowing thru the small valley and over the bridge was a stone house that looked like it had been there for a hundred years. I must have said it out loud because May said, “It has been.”
There was wash on the line and several people working in the big garden. We just stood there until we were spotted. I made a motion and the scout rig rolled forward to the crest and showed the colors.
We waited until an old pickup headed up to where we were. An older man stepped out and asked if he could help us. May stepped into sight and the man’s knees buckled.
May ran to him and grabbed him along with a scout. He recovered and with tears in his eyes he said, “Oh My God! You’re alive!” She just hugged him and cried. I felt pretty good right then, but I wondered if we were losing May.
“No John, she’s not leaving us, she wants them to come with us.”
I didn’t even say, “Shit” for a change; I looked at Sandy and put my arm around her.
May stopped crying and turned to introduce us. His eyebrows went up when she said I was her husband but he just nodded. They really went up when she mentioned Sandy was my wife also, but he held it together.
He said, “Come on. Mom’s gonna be worried” and with that May joined him in the old truck and they headed down the hill. I said we would lay back and give them time.
After about twenty minutes May walked out and waved us forward. “Time to meet the mother in law”, Sandy laughed.
We rolled into the yard area and parked near the barn. Sandy and I headed over to where May stood with a lady that must have been her aunt- she was not black, more of brownish color.
May introduced us and the woman walked over and looked into my eyes just like Old Woman does. I thought, “Oh shit. Another witch!” She smiled and said, “Don’t cuss, John.” Sandy was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.
Now I’m not buying this stuff. There has to be a good explanation, I just ain’t found it yet. On the other hand Charley just ignores it and gets on with his life. I need to try that.
After all the laughing was done we went inside where she offered wild rosehip tea. I looked at Sandy who headed out and returned with several pounds of coffee. The aunt just smiled; the uncle looked like he was gonna cry.
When May explained how her brother died, the three of them all cried a bit. Sandy and I excused ourselves to check on the troops to give them time. We found our people had parked the hummers in a defensive manner and were prepared to stay as long as it took. They had a fire and a pot of coffee on and were chilling.
I noticed one was missing and looked around and finally spotted him near the crest of the hill watching the road. Good people.
Sandy was telling them how it went and that it would be up to May whatever happened next. May came out to say dinner would be served in about an hour on the back porch where there was two big tables used when they were feeding hired hands during harvest time.
I was worried about using their food, but she laughed and said her aunt could feed our whole army for a few days.
She noticed one person missing and it took her less time to spot him than it did me. She smiled and said, “You know, they haven’t seen one bad person since the event.”
I was finding that hard to believe, but they were way off the beaten path and out of sight. In the winter their wood stoves would put smoke up but still they had no problems.
May took Sandy and me off to the side where we sat under a tree. She took a moment to get her thoughts right and then, looking at me she said, “I wanted you to meet my aunt. She was born in Louisiana and is part black.
She added that her mother was too, and that she felt that ‘IF’ she were to have a baby there was a chance it might be darker than expected.
They both looked at me until I looked down and shook my head and let out a moan and looked up at their confused anguish-filled faces. I waited a beat and said, “I never knew!” with as much sadness in my voice as I could. May looked crushed while Sandy looked like she was gonna shoot me so I added real fast, “I never knew I was color blind!”
It took a moment and May was in my lap, arms wrapped around my neck so tight I could feel my head getting light. She let go just in time before I choked out. I was hugging her when Sandy said, “Good save, butt head!” Then she wrapped around me.
After they settled down I asked May if she actually thought it would matter to me. She said it had mattered to the one person she brought home to meet ‘mom’. I said, “Well, your taste in men has improved.” She hugged me again and said, “Thank you, John. You’ve made me very happy!” “Which is lucky for you, buddy boy” the other one piped up.
It would be several days before I remembered her comment about maybe having a baby. So that heart attack was still days away.
We ate on the back porch while three of us stood guard. We had met everybody living on the place- mostly friends who had moved in after the event, and most were about the same age. Hell, I was thinking of them as old and yet they were my age. It would be funny if not so not funny.
There was a total of twelve people living here; four older adults and two younger married couples and their teen aged kids. I’m not going into names, because when we leave (unless they go with us) we most likely won’t see them again. And it was pretty obvious that none wanted to leave here.
May’s aunt asked me if we had been married by a preacher. I had to think a moment and decided since Charley was an elder of the people and was in some ways a shaman or whatever, and since we lived in Navajo country it made him our spiritual leader. Yeah, it’s a stretch but what the hell. So with an absolute straight face I said, “Yes we were.”
She asked how it was I had two wives; I was kind of stuck since it was really three, so I said, “Well, you’ll have to ask them- they worked it out and informed me the day of the wedding.”
She laughed out loud and said, “John, you’re so ful
l of shit! Please don’t ever take up poker playing.”
Everybody was laughing their asses off so she admitted she had asked May already and knew the whole story, including Beth and the babies.
I made a decision right then and said, “I think you folks have been very lucky to not have been hit by raiders.” I then told then about what we had done on the coast just a while back. They were shocked to hear we had lost two of our people and in the process had killed about 20 or so slavers. I reminded them that like me, they weren’t getting any younger. I told them all about life in the canyons, how easy the life was, nobody working hard at all and having lots of time to follow their dreams in whatever they never had time for.
After I stopped talking May took over and told it from a woman’s viewpoint, with Sandy chipping in. I could see the younger couples thinking about it and the older folks were looking worried. I took the girls out to relieve the guard so they could eat.
We spent the night in the barn on the hay which reminded us of the trip north where we found that old barn and laid out the storm. Great memory.
The next morning we met for breakfast and had a great time; we didn’t mention their moving to the canyons.
We were laughing it up when we all heard one of the belt feds open up in a long rolling burst of firing. We could hear a lot more as we hit the door running.
I jumped into my Hummer while the girls argued over the gun. I finally reached and grabbed a belt and pulled the butt over the seat. It was Sandy and she was spitting mad. I was laughing.
We topped the hill and saw two truckloads of people shooting at the guards; May opened up and was sawing their wheels in half. The other Hummer slid up beside us and their gun opened up. I was behind the Hummer with Sandy, who was yelling at May to let up on the trigger.
Now I was really laughing my ass off in the middle of a firefight. Here was the world’s record holder for burning out M-60 barrels telling somebody else to slow down.
Finally the guns went silent and I peeked around the Hummer. The two trucks were burning and nothing was moving around them. We drove over and around the trucks with the guns ready; everybody behind the trucks was dead.
We used our fire extinguishers to put out the fires. After that we dragged the dead away from the trucks. May’s uncle and the other men arrived at the scene all packing rifles which surprised me.
One of the men looked at the dead and said, “My God!” Seems he knew a couple of them; they were locals who had never amounted to much. He didn’t know any of the others. I looked around and said, “What would Vegas put the odds at that the first raid you get finds us here?”
None of them could answer that. But they were smart enough to know what would have happened since they never posted guards. I could only shake my head. We cleaned up the weapons and everything else of use and tossed the bodies in the trucks which we towed off the property and pushed them off into a deep gully.
When we returned to the farmhouse Samuel (the uncle) asked me if we buried them. I said, “No, we figure buzzards need to eat, too.”
He just looked at me a moment and said, “Yes”, then he stuck his hand out and said, “Thank you John, and all your people. We would be dead now had you not been here.”
That evening at a subdued dinner Anna (the aunt) asked if this stuff happened where we live, May said, “Never.” Anna wanted to know why, so May explained the meaning of Indian country. Nothing moved that we didn’t know about (except the bastards who shot Beth! and Buck and me). She simply told it like it was. One of our other ladies told them stories about the cooking area and the wonderful meals we all shared. She had them rolling with laughter with stories about my ongoing battle to try to have one whole brownie just to myself.
The little communications runner was the capper when they heard about her flipping me off after stealing my brownie.
It was funny to them, but since it was my brownies I wasn’t finding it too funny. One of the troopers told about the beer cave and how it turned into a meat locker and how I had gathered the miners and they hacked out a room off the side and carpeted it, put in a bar and a pool table followed by a jukebox filled with 60’s and 70’s rock. The bartender could step into the cold room for more beer so the bar, while cool wasn’t cold. It was awesome.
Anna asked about the earth ovens so Sandy told her about the first one she and I built in the high country and the hot springs. She told them about Buck and gang.
We ended the day with coffee and brownies! Anna stood guard over me while I got the entire thing. I could see it was killing the girls but Anna was laughing her ass off, and then just as I was reaching for the last bite she took it and popped it in her mouth, which set off a loud round of laughing. The girls jumped on me and kissed me saying “Poor Johnny…”
The next morning Anna and Samuel asked if we really thought they would do well in the canyon. I looked at the girls who both took a moment and then said, “Yes.”It was explained they didn’t ‘have’ to do anything except what they wanted. They talked about the ones who did the gardening because they wanted to and the ones who would gather wood for the earth ovens and the night fire, which was a good two hour job if only one person did it. Then there was the running of fishing lines, or even just fishing.
They explained about the hunting rules, and that the older boys did that because it was done a couple of miles away from the canyon so as to not scare the local wildlife that we enjoyed watching.
After the girls stopped talking Anna looked at the rest of their extended family and made a ‘come on’ hand motion. The men asked how many kids lived in the canyon and I was stumped. I had no idea.
I looked at the girls who shrugged and said they had no idea because we rescued so many kids who lived with whomever they wanted to on any given night. I could see the mothers were shocked at that. I reminded them that most of these kids had lost their parents in raids that took them captive and they lived with us because they had nowhere else to go, but shortly after getting there found they loved it.
The other mother asked about school. I pointed at one of the guys sitting there and said, “Stan is one of the teachers so he can explain it.” Stan started by telling them his own education which involved a lot of degrees- he was actually a PHD a few times over and was great on a machine gun.
He explained that the kids learned whatever they wanted to learn. Some wanted to learn to take apart diesel engines, others wanted to learn solar science and helped install and do the upkeep on our own extensive solar set up.
Some wanted to be gardeners or gun smiths, whatever they wanted to learn there was somebody there to teach them. Most learned, then moved on to the next thing. Stan said in his opinion we had pound for pound the most educated group of kids he had ever seen.
I could see that the kids here were digging what they were hearing and it was pointed out by Stan that kids needed to be around others their age to have a future.
That was a wakeup call for these people, they hadn’t thought about when their boys were ready to find out about girls.
We left them to talk among themselves, and at lunch one of the fathers asked how they could pay their way since they had nothing to trade.
I said, “Follow me.” We went to my trailer where I said, “Open that crate” which they did; when they opened it they were looking at a box full of gold coins. After they were over their shock I said, “You see? What’s value? Can you run a fishing line? Can you hoe a garden without cutting the food crops down? Can your wives cook? Can your kids be communications runners for an hour a week?”
“Can you learn to patrol, shoot, become a part of a huge extended family? Can you spend a couple of hours just helping where you see something to help with? Life is very easy in the canyons; you just have to want to fit in.”
“You will have to spend time fitting into our combat teams, learning to fight if need be. But if being home works for you then you can be on the home guard force.”
“Whatever you can do will
be fine, money has no value with us. Honor and honesty and your word are that’s required.”
That night at supper they all signed on as members of our canyon family. May was in tears. Now we had to locate some transport for them and all their personal belongings because leaving one’s memories behind just wasn’t done if at all possible.
After looking at maps, we took two Hummers and headed for Lewiston Idaho. We made contact with their guards and explained what we needed. They radioed it in and soon a big Ford diesel truck drove up and a man and woman stepped out. He looked our Hummers over and said, “I’d give you my truck and wife for one of those M-60’s.” She promptly elbowed him in the ribs, which got laughs from my two.
He said he was Blake Foster and was the head of security in the area. I asked why he needed an M-60 and if they had been having trouble. He said not until just recently when some raiders hit a couple of small places just outside town and split before they could be caught.
I gave him the run down on the ones we took out and he was sure it was the same bunch. I told him what we needed in the way of transport, and that while I couldn’t let him have an M-60 I could give him some M-16’s. He jumped at that and said to come on in.