by T J Reeder
I laid there in the following silence afraid to move or even to take a badly needed breath since mine was all gone.
In the silence that followed the yelling and screaming from the enemy convoy grew even louder. Then I heard Ralph call out again to WAIT! I heard the chopper heading our way and looked up to see him flying right up the middle of the road with things flying out the doors. I grabbed Charley and shoved him down just as hell broke loose again; not even close to the sounds of before but still they went on and on.
Sandy’s glass jar bombs- had to be. She was bound and determined to use them every chance and this time they really did their job. It looked like one hit the roadway every 10 yards and had to be taking out whoever was left from the whatever it was that hit the convoy after we did.
After the last crack of the grenades was done, I clicked the button on the five watt which was followed by a red flare arching across the sky.
And out of the dust several thousand screaming men rose and charged forward.
We hit them before they knew we were among them and it was truly belt buckle to buckle. It reached the point where rifle shooting was as dangerous for us as them and we went to the pistol, blade, the clubbed rifle butts and the morning air was again ripped apart by the screams of men fighting to the death among burning vehicles, the ground slippery with blood.
It went on for what seemed hours. We turned and headed down the road, running thru the wrecked vehicles, swarming over the stunned hapless enemy, most too out of it to even know they were dying.
I saw men from both sides falling, some in the grasp of the other. All we could do was charge forward. I was using my Colt and changing mags so fast I would be out soon. One of our men dropped in front of me, dead and clutching a short barreled shotgun. I took time to grab it along with the dump bag full of shells.
Holstering the Colt I ran side by side with Charley working the pump, shooting and loading, butt stroking heads, kicking the enemy in the balls wherever I could.
We rolled over them, leaving them to the ones behind. It went on and on until suddenly we were standing in an empty highway with nothing ahead of us.
We looked at each other and slowly turned and looked behind us. It was a scene from Dante’s Hell. People lay dead and wounded, smoke clouding the air, moans and cries for help in different languages.
I looked at Charley, who had blood all over his face from a cut on his forehead, a cut on his arm, yet he was smiling the smile of a warrior.
I said, “You look like hell, you fool. Stop smiling. He said, “Look at yourself, fool.” I looked down and saw I was bleeding from the chest- I had a slash across my ribs. But we were standing and it seemed we might continue to do so, for the next little bit at least.
I heard a chopper coming behind us and turned in time to see Ralph landing. When he was still ten feet off the ground two small forms leaped out and hit the ground running. They hit me at a dead run and clung to me a bit then saw the blood on both of us and started yelling for medics.
Ralph trotted up with the first aid kit from the chopper and started cleaning Charley’s face while the girls were washing my slashed ribs with something that burned worse than fire. I was trying to get away and yelling in pain. Sandy was calling me a pussy while May added, “Marines are wimps and sissies.” Shit, no pity here.
As soon as they were thru playing doctor we started walking back thru the smoking ruin, bodies laying everywhere.
Thankfully almost all were the enemies. I had to stop and ask Ralph what had happened when he screamed to stay down.
He laughed and said, “John, we all forgot the ace in the hole!” I was lost, but Charley laughed and said, “The Warthog!”
I had completely forgotten about the beast. It arrived in time to really break the enemy’s back- his two gun and rocket runs had finished them, all we were doing after was slapping the few still standing, most of whom were so shell shocked they couldn’t really fight. Thank the Gods of War.
Without the Beast we would have been in a meat grinder for sure. Although we took out a lot of their armor, it was nothing to what that plane did in two runs. I planned to buy that lad a beer or ten.
The ‘cleanup’ went on for longer than I would have wished, but it had to be done. When it was over we just dropped where we were and went to sleep.
It was over (or so we hoped) but I still wondered if there was more to come.
We were using the Texas guard choppers to haul our wounded into St. George where they were getting great care. After Charley and I were sewn up we crashed for an entire day and night and
woke to the new day knowing there was still a great deal to do.
The mess on the highway was being cleaned up when we arrived. The enemy dead were placed in a mass grave.
Our dead were taken to the place where we buried our dead from the Las Vegas fight near St. George. We had lost twenty of our people and a hundred more wounded. The Utah guard had lost over fifty and several hundred wounded.
The most by far we’ve ever lost but this was by far the biggest fight we had ever faced. There was a lot more of the Utah people so it stood to reason they would have more losses, but also I think our people had been in more fights than them by a lot.
We won, but it was because our enemies underestimated us, badly. Plus we had resources they hadn’t counted on. We were supposed to be a nation of spoiled, weak, fat fools sitting in front of our TV sets. They never stopped to think that things had changed for everybody, and also they never knew that yes- we might have been fat and we did like our TV’s.
But we were never weak.
Our stupid politicians were weak, thus making us look weak to the whole world, but the world never stopped to think it wasn’t the politicians who won the country and freedom from the British.
They never walked from the east coast beside a covered wagon all the way to the West coast looking for a dream, and fought the Indians for the right to live here. It was the everyday plain old American who did these things.
And anybody who sees our former stupid-assed leaders and thinks they were America will die like these invaders did.
We spent several days getting our gear together, and salvaging what we could of the enemies’ gear. We did salvage tons of ammo for the AK’s that we seem to have plenty of, and we salvaged every weapon we could find.
We even located the crash sites of the Chinese’s Command staff choppers. And of course the girls were first there searching for trinkets for their junk room. They got no 1911’s but did get a few swords, as hard as that is to believe. These guys brought their fancy dress stuff and it will now hang in the very stuffed collection room these two think of as the Smithsonian of the Southwest.
Before we could get on the road we had to deal with some stuffed shirts from SLC who were demanding to know what had justified the
shooting of the State Attn. General.
I could not believe this shit. The Utah guard officers that were there told them what happened, but somebody seemed to think that while shooting the two gun thugs was probably justified, shooting the Attn. General was uncalled for.
The dipshit running off at the mouth seemed to be in some position of authority (or so he thought). He and his entourage stalked up demanding to speak to the man in charge.
Everybody looked at me, sitting under an awning with a cold beer along with Charley and the girls. I could tell this wasn’t going to end well.
The peacock strutted over and asked if I was in charge. “Of what?” I asked. “This” he said, waving a hand around the area. I said, “Well, I’m in charge of this chair and the beer and while the Indian gentleman seems to be in charge of himself, the two lovely ladies seem to think they are in charge of everything else, so you might ask them.”
He was very impressed with himself. He puffed up a bit and said, “Are you or are you not John Walker?”
I said, “Well, if Mr. Walker owes you money than no, I’m not he. But if by chance you owe him money then I v
ery well may be he.” (And yes, I was a bit drunk).
Charley said, “Well said, old thing” in a beautiful English accent.
I could see the Peacock was getting all afluster so I said, “Cut to the chase, man. Quit fucking around, you’re ruining my beer drinking time.”
He didn’t seem to like that a bit. Not that I gave a rat’s ass one way or the other. One of the bigger lads with him said, “You best learn some respect, old man.” “Or?” asked I. “Or, you’re heading for a beating you may not like.”
Now, all around us were my people, plus the Utah guard folks also sitting in the shade drinking beer. They all started laughing and he didn’t like that a bit.
I really was about full of this shit so I stood up and got nose to nose with the guy and said, “Son, never pick a fight with an old man. If he’s too old to fight, he just might kill you.”
He started to haul back a fist and Charley said, “Look down.” He did, and my 45 was pointed at his most prized possessions. I told him that if he blinked he was going to be a candidate for High Soprano of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
While he was trying to not piss his pants, I asked the Peacock what he wanted and he started in about the Attn. General again, so I said, “Well, here’s the deal, Slick. He tried to have me killed, that was a mistake, and he paid for it so I forgive him.”
Now he really was about to blow a vein and was sputtering pretty good. He finally got it out that I was under arrest for murder. I laughed at him, even Charley laughed at him, everybody in the area laughed.
So I asked how he planned to arrest me if I didn’t wish to be arrested? And two of the dummies with him stepped forward and starting to pull guns from under their coats and I yelled, “Stop!” They did.
I said, “Now this is what got your people killed. Look.” I pointed at the girls. Both had guns, big guns, pointed at the two who had barely started to draw.
I looked at the fool and said, “Your friend had his two flunkies primed to kill me so he could take over my troops. His friends died, so did he. He died of stupidity just as you are about to do. So, if you want to die just keep going.” And I sat down.
He licked his lips and said, “This changes nothing. I want the man who killed my brother.” Now that was interesting. I asked if he worked for the State of Utah, and he said no. I asked where his authority to arrest anybody came from. He said he was making a citizen’s arrest.
I thought about it for a moment and said, “Well, here’s the thing. I won’t let you ‘arrest’ anybody, but if you want to put on a gun and join your two friends here you can face the ones who killed the man in question.”
He was looking at me like I was rolling a joint in church. He said, “You actually mean we should have a gunfight over this?” I said, “Sure, settle it like a man.”
“Put on a gun and get your revenge, because that’s all you really want- not justice but revenge. You know your brother was a slime bag yet you’re willing to attempt to exact revenge over his stupidity.”
One of his flunkies, (not the one who almost lost his balls) said, “I’ll fight the bastard, bring him out here.” I looked at him and laughed and asked how many times he had used his pistol since the troubles started. He said never, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how.
I said, “Well, it wasn’t your brother in question so you don’t count.” I asked the Peacock again if he was willing to fight, and he said he had never fired a gun in his life.
I nodded and said, “But you pay these guys to fight for you, right?” Well he didn’t quite like how that sounded so he said he needed body guards.
Sandy laughed out loud and said, “Not as bad as you need a pair of balls!” All the troops were roaring at that.
I couldn’t see a way to end this, but I saw the General of the Utah guard standing a ways away so I called him over. He said yes, he was aware of the problem. He told the fool he was there when his brother attempted to order (thus commit) an act of murder and died for his troubles, along with his two men.
The fool wouldn’t stop babbling about his right to face the man who shot his brother. Sandy jumped up and said, “I’m tired of this shit! I’m tired of this dipshit and I’m tired of his would-be gun thugs taking up our down time so here it is.”
She turned and faced him and said, “I shot the sneaky bastard and one of his thugs, so bite my asshole.”
She was joined by May who said, “Wait a minute, love. I shot the asshole too- and the other thug.”
We now had a very confused Peacock. His strut had left him, and he looked at the general who nodded and said, “Yep, and they didn’t break a sweat doing it.”
“Your brother’s two men already had their guns almost out when these two drew and shot them both and shot your brother, who by the way was in fact a slimy back-stabbing son of a bitch and I too am tired of you taking up our downtime, so get your asses out of here before I shoot you myself.” That set up a cheer from all the troops who were seeing this as good theater.
Well, that seemed to end the mess. They left and we went back to our beer. Charley told Sandy she was a lot of trouble and so was May, and if they didn’t calm down he was gonna speak to Old Woman about them both. Now that seemed to stop them both in their tracks. WOW, a new weapon in my war over control of them…I thought.
I could not believe this shit. We fought the invading army to a dead stop, killed them, buried them and this asshole who never got close to hearing a shot fired was now strutting around like he was somebody.
I sat there a bit, then stood up and said, “Fuck it! I’m going home! Right now”, and we did. We were on the road in an hour. Our wounded would stay here until they could travel. I told everybody we were leaving and everybody could do as they wanted. The ones with families waiting word went with us, the ones who were single decided to stay and see the sights; there was some very nice sights in St. George.
We camped out that night, all went to bed early and were up and on the road early. We made good time and were there by dark.
Beth, beautiful Beth was standing on the rim of the ridge watching us roll in. She watched us driving up onto the ridge and stood watching us walk toward her.
I simply opened my arms and drew her in. The girls wrapped her up from the sides and we stood there for a long time.
After we were inside she made me remove my shirt. She unwrapped the bandages and checked the wounds, cleaned them and rewrapped them.
She looked the girls over but both had escaped any injuries. Sandy did mention that for a change ‘Old Magnet Ass’ didn’t attract any bullets, but I wasn’t much of a knife fighter. May added, “Yeah- Marines suck.” I flipped them off.
I sat down in the huge chair and the girls went in for the babies who were both awake and seemed very happy to see us. Molly was happy, but Walker was too busy watching May with ‘His’ baby.
I looked around but before I could say anything Kid flew thru the door and leaped into my lap, pissing off JC who started howling which set off Sam which got the dogs worried.
I was home. We were home; the whole weird family was back together. Charley came up after a bit to spend the night, and he had a surprise. Old Woman was with him, having headed for the canyon when the wind or the birds or V’s squirrel antenna on her head sent the message we were heading in.
The whole family really was together for sure. Old Woman took over the baby watch along with Kid who seemed to be learning something from her. That worried me a little bit- it’s not like we have a shortage of witches around that we need them in training. They all turned to smile at me. Shit.
We spent the next two weeks getting stuff cleaned up and put away. We needed to check the ammo supplies at the fort and in the storage containers.
Our people were rolling in every day. When the big guns got home, the Texas guys stayed a few days. A few asked if they could move here. They were all younger guys and we seemed to have a large supply of young women. Hmmm.
Benson came to me and said h
e was missing a gun. I looked at the girls and said, “Give it back.” They whined and complained about how they always got blamed for everything, until Benson said, “Give me the gun and you can keep the ammo you stole.”
They thought about it a bit and said, “well, OK, if you throw in a couple hundred canister rounds.” Benson looked at me and Charley, but we just took a step back. Benson shook his head, sighed real big and said, “Fine.”
They hugged him, kissed his cheeks and went off to locate his gun. I waited till they were gone and said, “Be sure it’s your gun because they’ve worn out one they stole last time.” He laughed and said, “John, I’m lucky to get back anything from them.” He’s learning.
Charley shook his head and said, “Come on, white eyes- I’ll buy you a beer.” We went to the saloon and sat with MA telling war stories, drinking coffee and eating cookies we snagged from the cooking area.