by Steven Bird
“Did they have electricity there?”
“No. No, they were still without power like most everyone else, except for, well, government facilities. They had built themselves solar dehydrators. They’re simple really. Back before the attacks, people thought you had to have electricity for everything, even something as natural as dehydrating food, but that’s just not the case. Electricity should never have been seen as anything more than a luxury, not a way of life.”
Chuckling at the thought of it all, Jessie pushed a bundle of twigs into the opening on the side of the stove and said, “People are starting to figure out now that we never needed to be as addicted to power as we were. Anyway, back to my point, I managed to trade a few things I had collected along the way for some dehydrated hamburger meat, mushrooms, and a few herbs and spices. With a little heat and water, it should make a nice breakfast for us.”
Opening a small sackcloth drawstring bag, Jessie removed what looked like a pebble. “These hamburger chunks look like rocks until they rehydrate. I tried them the night I got them. They’re better than they look,” he commented with a smile.
Placing the chunks of dried meat into a small, stainless steel camping pot, Jessie poured in just enough water and placed it on the stove, stirring as the water began to warm.
After the meat had cooked for what he felt was an adequate amount of time, he tossed in a handful of the dehydrated mushrooms, and a pinch of mixed herbs.
Inhaling the savory aroma, Britney’s stomach began to growl. “I guess it’s been a while since I’ve had a hot meal,” she admitted.
Considering her statement, Jessie was curious about how and what they had been fed at the camp, but he didn’t want to stir up any lingering emotions by asking about times when her parents were still with her.
Pouring a helping of the concoction into a stainless mug, Jessie handed it to her, saying, “I know it’s not much, but we need to conserve what I have to get us as far as we can.”
Nodding as she began eating the delicious meal, she consumed it with enthusiasm, as if she hadn’t eaten in days.
Once they had both finished their breakfast, Jessie cleaned up camp and put everything back in its place.
“Are we leaving?” she asked.
“No. Not yet. But we need to be ready, just in case. I don’t want to leave anything of value behind, in the event we have to get moving in a hurry. It’s hard enough to get what you need these days. There’s no reason to have to replace things you already have.”
“Can I help?” she offered.
“Hank could probably use a good brushing down. If we have to saddle him up in a hurry, we don’t want burs or anything to be on his back between him and the saddle. That, and he could use some love. He’s an ornery, but affectionate boy.”
Handing her a small grooming brush from the saddlebags, he watched as she went to work, doing as he had asked.
Watching while she stroked the brush across the horse’s back, Jessie saw a peace come over her that he hadn’t seen since they had met. Her mental anguish was far from gone, but the act of being useful seemed to have a therapeutic effect on her. As a side benefit, Hank seemed to be enjoying his brush-down as well.
~~~~
When the sun reached its midday position high in the sky, Jessie saw a glint of light just south of their location on the hill on the far side of highway 411.
“What the…” he mumbled as he watched more closely, zooming in on the area in question. He then saw a series of flashes, and said, “Hey, that’s… I believe that’s Morse code. Yeah… it is. It says, dash dot, dot dash, dash, dot. N… A…T… E… It spells Nate!”
Fumbling around in his saddlebags, Jessie retrieved a signal mirror and flashed his reply, spelling, J.B. for Jessie and Britney. He then saw a man appear from the woods, waving his right arm over his head. “It’s Nate! He made it!” Jessie exclaimed with excitement. “C’mon. Let’s get moving.”
Quickly cinching the saddle and saddlebags onto Hank’s back, Jessie mounted up, then reached down his hand and pulled Britney up as well, urging Hank forward and down the side of the gently sloping hill toward Nate’s location.
Hearing the sounds of Hank working his way through the woods, Nate quickly crossed the road and met them just inside the tree line, keeping them out of plain sight.
“Nate!” Jessie exclaimed, dismounting with almost a leap, giving his newly found friend a hug. “What happened? Did they catch up with you? We heard an explosion.”
“Yeah, they tracked us, but I always have a few Plan B’s in my pack,” Nate hinted, returning the embrace.
Turning to Britney, Nate smiled and said, “I’m glad to see you, too.” Nate was surprised as she hugged him with a smile on her face.
“I’m tired of losing people,” she said. “I… I didn’t…”
“Well, we’re all here now,” he reassured, relieving her of the burden of continuing her dark thoughts.
“You just missed breakfast,” Jessie offered. “Are you hungry?”
“No, I’m fine. I’ve got a few more MRE’s in my pack.”
“I was wondering how we’d find you. Didn’t you think it was a bit dangerous broadcasting your position like that?”
Chuckling, Nate admitted, “Well, yeah. But if you were there, I knew you would be keeping an eye on the area and would only signal back if you deemed it safe. If anyone else homed in on me, I’d have just bolted or engaged them. I figured it would be better to broadcast from a position of relative cover like that than to just walk down the middle of the road yelling your name.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Jessie asked. “Do you have any new intel?”
Watching as the smile quickly extinguished from Nate’s face, Jessie listened as Nate surmised, “Well, it’s not gonna be as easy working our way to the east as I had hoped.” Pulling out his wrinkled, well-worn map, Nate pointed and explained, “Some friendlies in the area informed me that they’re…”
“They?” Jessie interrupted, seeking clarification.
“The UF, UN, whatever the hell you want to call them these days, are moving a mobile detachment from the Newport area to our east, and this way via 411. It seems they’re searching homes and camps along the way. One can only assume they’re trying to ruffle feathers, hoping someone will turn on our group and rat us out. Hits like the one we made yesterday really set them into motion. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Putting other people in harm’s way once the hornets’ nest is shaken, that is. But the other side of me can’t just lie down. If we live our lives trying not to ruffle the feathers of those who want to impose their wills on us, well, we’d just be submitting. I want these bastards to pay, and I want them to never get a good night’s sleep. What they did yesterday happens all too often. If we don’t fight back, well, what kind of Americans would we be if we didn’t? No, I can’t be a sheep. And if I can’t effectively be a sheepdog, I’ll be a wolf.”
Looking at the map, seeing that they were effectively boxed in by mountains to the south, Jessie wondered, “So… what do you propose?”
“If we go west, well, we’ll just be getting closer to the troops they have positioned in Knoxville. If we go east, we’ll be walking right into their arms. North is obviously out of the question because they’ve installed more hunters in the area. That leaves south,” he said, tapping on the map. “We need to move into the mountains behind us and lay low for a while. The only real drawback is that the terrain is too rough to get all the way through to the east in a straight shot. Those mountains get pretty steep. If we can get through this gap here,” he suggested, tracing his finger on the map, “we can get over to Carson Springs Road and work our way south of this ridge to Carson Springs.”
“That doesn’t give us many outs,” Jessie said, noting the terrain that would box them in on both sides.
“It’s that or wait them out in the woods,” Nate replied. “We simply don’t have many good options.”
“A few of the folks on the penins
ula warned me not to go south of 411. Have you heard such things?” Jessie asked.
“Yeah, they told us that, too. I can’t see how staying out where the UF hunters can find us is any worse than whatever the hell is in the mountains to the south. Maybe their guys just found something better and didn’t return. Who knows? Or maybe the increasing black bear population in the area has something to do with it. With the human numbers being way down, the bear numbers are on the rise. Either way, it’s not like we have a ‘safe’ option by the standard definition of safe. It’s one threat or another. Pick your poison.”
“Well, this is your area, so I’m good with whatever you feel is the best course of action,” Jessie affirmed.
“That settles it, then,” Nate asserted. “It’s into the mountains we go.”
Chapter Five
With Nate taking the point position, Britney riding Hank in the center, and Jessie covering them from the rear, the trio worked their way toward the gap in the hills where they intended to cross over to the other side of the mountain that lay before them. As they crossed through several parcels of land that had clearly once been highly productive hay fields and grazing pastures, Jessie couldn’t help but observe that the grasses had lost the competition for survival without man’s intervention. The fields were now overrun with weeds and brush that weren’t at all suited for livestock consumption.
Even the grass has it rough these days, Jessie thought as he brushed up against some sort of prickly weed. Seeing Nate signal for them to stop up ahead, Jessie glassed the area through his rifle scope to see that Nate appeared to be investigating something on the ground near a large livestock pond.
Rushing ahead to join up with Hank and Britney, Jessie took Hank by the bridle and led him and Britney to Nate’s location. “Damn,” Jessie said, surveying the cattle skeletons that were strewn throughout the area.
“What do you make of it?” Nate asked.
“Hmmm, well, I don’t see any signs of trauma, do you? No chunks of bone missing from projectiles or the like?”
“No, they look like they just dropped and died where they were.”
Looking to the pond, Jessie cautioned, “Let’s not water here. This could have been a way to run people out of the area—to destroy their ability to feed themselves by poisoning their livestock’s water supplies.”
“I’ve seen entire cattle herds wiped out by helicopter,” Nate grumbled. “So, the poisoning of herds or the like wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”
Looking around, Jessie urged, “Let’s get going. I hate being in the open like this.”
Before Jessie took a step, they heard an ominous sound off in the distance.
“What the hell was that?” Nate wondered aloud.
Taking a moment to process it, Jessie said, “It sounded like a Viking war horn or something.”
Looking around nervously, Nate pondered, “Where did it come from?” as they each surveyed the area around them.
“I dunno. But like I said, let’s get a move on.”
Continuing, the group reached the edge of a relatively level wooded area. Giving them the signal to hold their positions, Nate investigated the area ahead of them, then signaled them forward.
Joining the others, Jessie looked up to Britney sitting in Hank’s saddle and bragged, “You’re starting to look comfortable up there.”
“I’m starting to feel comfortable,” she replied.
“He’s not guiding off me now, either,” Jessie pointed out. “You’ve been doing it all since I’ve been bringing up the rear.” Turning to Nate, he asked, “See anything?”
Pointing, Nate explained, “There’s a trail up ahead. Let me go check it out before we all go.”
“Sounds good,” Jessie said, turning his attention back to Britney. “Are you sure you haven’t ridden before?” he inquired.
“My parents and I went to one of those dude ranch places in Montana a few years ago for vacation. We rode horses there, but we really didn’t control them. They followed the horse in front of them just like they had done day in and day out for years. We just had to sit there.”
Chuckling, Jessie agreed, “Yeah, I’d imagine at a place like that, those horses have done that trail several times a day every day since the time they were saddle-broke. They learn the game. That’s how people were getting to be before it all started falling apart. Just going through the motions, playing the game.”
Looking back toward Nate, watching as he worked his way down the trail in the woods, Jessie noticed a glint of light on the hillside adjacent to the trail. “What the…?” he mumbled as a shot rang out, taking Nate’s feet out from under him and spinning him around. A second shot erupted, striking Nate in the back and throwing him to the ground with great force.
Raising his Marlin .30-30, Jessie quickly fired several shots into the area from where the shots had come. Looking back to Britney, Jessie was horrified to see Hank rear up, nearly throwing her off his back.
Britney dropped the reins and instinctively gripped the saddle horn with both hands as Hank exploded into a full gallop across the field, then into the trees and out of sight.
Knowing he couldn’t catch up with Britney, Jessie ran toward Nate as the bark of a tree exploded from the impact of a hard-hitting round next to his head, sending him ducking for cover behind a neighboring tree.
Getting as low as he could, Jessie hid in the weeds surrounding the base of the tree, expecting more shots to begin to rain down on him. After a few moments of silence and calm, Jessie again heard the sound of the horn they’d heard just moments before the shooting began; this time though, it was much farther away.
For the next several moments, Jessie remained hidden behind the tree, unsure of the whereabouts of the shooter who had fired on him, or if they still remained in the vicinity. Quickly taking a peek, he saw Nate lying still in the trail up ahead, face down in the dirt with his leg in a very unnatural position.
“Dammit!” Jessie grumbled. Leaving his position of cover, he rushed forward and then ducked behind another tree. Catching his breath, he peeked again and saw no change in Nate’s position.
Making another advance, Jessie sprinted hard, ducking once again behind a cluster of trees. Now only fifteen or so yards away from Nate, he heard Nate grumble in a monotone voice as he attempted to not create any signs of movement, “Bait. I may be bait.”
Feeling better knowing Nate was still alive, Jessie turned his attention back to the potential location of their threat. Scanning the area with his rifle scope, he could see no movement. Slipping out from behind the tree, Jessie worked his way through the woods and to the hill. Working his way up the hill with his rifle at the high ready, a round chambered and ready to fire, Jessie slowly cleared the area, unable to find the shooter. Reaching a dead and rotting fallen tree, Jessie knelt down and inspected a set of strange prints and two freshly fired twelve-gauge shotgun shells.
“I think they’re gone!” he shouted down to Nate.
“I’ll cover you! Come on down!” Nate yelled as he rolled over and sat up, raising his M4 and providing cover for Jessie’s approach.
As Jessie reached his position, Nate reached out to him and said, “Help me up.”
“What about your leg?” Jessie asked, concerned about Nate’s injuries.
Reaching down and removing his prosthetic leg, Nate held it up and grinned, “This leg? It doesn’t hurt at all.”
Flinching, Jessie shuddered, “Damn, that just messed with my head.”
“I’m lucky I lost this leg,” Nate said. “I’d be bleeding to death right now if not for that,” he asserted, pointing at the shotgun pattern that peppered its surface.
“Did you get hit anywhere else?” Jessie asked, looking him over expecting to find blood.
Wiping blood out of his collar, Nate looked relieved. “I think a few of the pellets got through, but I’m pretty sure my pack took the brunt of it,” he concluded, sliding the straps to his pack off his shoulders.
Flippi
ng the pack over and surveying the damage, Nate said, “Again, I’m lucky they hit my leg, throwing me off to allow the second shot to hit my pack. My guardian angel is working overtime today.”
“I’d say so,” Jessie agreed. “Can you walk? We need to find Britney before someone else does.”
“Yeah,” replied Nate, as he began putting his prosthetic leg back into place.
The two men worked their way through the woods, this time remaining clear of the trail, shadowing the field that Hank had used for his panic-stricken egress of the scene.
Seeing something lying just ahead in the overgrown field, Jessie said, “Look,” as he pointed. “Is that…?”
After a slight hesitation, Nate replied, “I dunno.”
Stuttering, Jessie mumbled, “I… I think it’s… it’s my saddle.”
Carefully walking into the pasture while Nate provided cover with his M4, Jessie approached the saddle to find that the cinch had been cut. “Somebody wanted this off in a hurry,” he muttered while noting the intentionally inflicted damage.
“Dammit, where the hell is she?” grumbled Nate.
Hearing a girl’s scream in the distance, Jessie and Nate both erupted into a full sprint toward the sound. Catching a glimpse of what could only be described as a figure wearing animal fur for an outer garment while dragging Britney along behind, Jessie shouted, “There!” and he and Nate both changed course in pursuit of Britney and her captor.
Several shots rang out, slowing their advance and causing them to lose ground once again.
“Those shots didn’t come from Britney’s location!” shouted Nate as he took cover behind a tree with the realization that they were still completely unsure of the extent of the threat they faced.
“We need to leapfrog and cover each other until we know who, or what, we’re up against,” Jessie insisted, growing more impatient by the minute.
Nodding in agreement, Nate volunteered, “I’ll go first.” Running from his position of cover, Nate bounded ahead to a cluster of trees, taking cover once again.