by Liscom, Sean
By the time it was mid-day, we'd covered half of that distance and the fuel gauge on the quad was showing 1/8th of a tank. Stopping again, I poured the last five gallons of fuel into the tank. That filled it but I wasn't real sure how far past Rachel it would take us.
The road that we were on took us toward the town from the west. It passed through several hay and alfalfa fields and stopped at a rancher’s gate. It was padlocked but there were recent signs of activity. I brought the quad to a stop and shut it off. Dismounting, I stood directly in front of it, surveying my surroundings. It was the glint off of a rifle scope that made me freeze in my tracks. I told Melissa to get off the quad and stand next to me. Both of us put our hands in the air and I yelled over the gate.
“Hello, the house!” a full minute passed and I could still make out the scoped rifle in the
upstairs window of the ranch house. “Hello in the house! We mean no harm!” I shouted. I was about to give up when the front door finally opened and a woman in her thirties stepped out. She was wearing jeans, cowboy boots and a black tank top. Her long brunette hair was in a ponytail out the back of her baseball cap. She was carrying an AR-15 at the low ready and I could see a pistol on her right hip. She walked slowly and cautiously toward us, stopping about 20 feet from the gate.
“Y'all lost?” she asked.
“Not really. We're heading north but we are running low on fuel. Is there anyone nearby that we could trade with?” I asked, hands still in the air.
“Ain't nobody around here got gas. Best you just keep on movin,” she said.
“You know anybody that would be willing to trade a running quad for a horse?” Melissa asked.
“Nope, ain't got no fuel, a quad's 'bout useless.”
“Well, If you'll kindly point us in the right direction, we'll leave you alone,” I said. It was obvious that she wasn't much for conversation. She was about to say something when the door to the house opened and a young girl called to her.
“MA! COME QUICK!!!” the girl yelled. “HE AIN”T BREATHIN!”
“Shit,” she muttered and started backing away from the gate. Melissa took a couple of steps forward.
“Ma'am, we have medical training! Is there anything we can do to help?” Melissa asked. The woman stopped and looked at her.
“You come, you stay!” she first pointed at Melissa and then at me. Melissa vaulted the gate and ran to the house with the woman. I leaned against the quad and waited. The rifle in the widow was still pointing in my direction. I ended up waiting about a half hour before Melissa and the woman emerged from the house. As they were walking toward the gate, I could see that the woman had been crying. They stopped at the midway point and Melissa gave her a hug. After a few minutes, they continued to the gate. The woman unlocked the padlock and swung it open.
“Park over there,” she said, pointing to the closest barn. I did as instructed as both of the women walked alongside me. Melissa informed me that the woman's husband had been wounded in an exchange with some of Ray's men a little over a week ago. While the woman had been doing the best that she could, his wound had become infected and the rest of his body was becoming septic. Melissa had gotten him
breathing again, but it wasn't going to end well for him. The most she had done was to buy him a few hours. Once the quad was parked and I had
gotten off of it, I introduced myself to the woman.
“I'm Jason Sterling.”
“Monica Danville,” she extended her hand and I took it. “Come on in the house. We ain't got much but I can offer you some water,” she said. Melissa and I followed her and she took us into the dining room of the house. The two of us sat while she fetched two glasses and gallon jug of water.
“Monica, Melissa said that Ray's men shot your husband. Can I ask what happened?”
“Eight days ago, they showed up here wanting what little fuel we had. We'd been saving it to run the water pump for our well. Don refused to give it to them so they shot him and took it anyway,” she said.
“Are any of them still in the area?” I asked.
“Not that I know of, but I haven't left here. They took all of the fuel that everyone had. It couldn't have been more than 50 gallons but they had to have it.”
“Do you know where they were headed?”
“North. That's all I know.”
“How many of you are here?” I asked.
“Just the four of us. Me, Don and the two kids. He’s six and she’s 12,” she pointed to the two kids sitting in the living room. “We used to have some help but when the food ran out, they left,” she replied.
“Why didn't you and your family leave? I know that this is your ranch, but there is nothing here,” Melissa asked.
“Go where? Go to Vegas and be slaves? Hope some community will take pity on us and let us live with them..... It's bad around here,” Monica replied. I leaned forward in the chair and looked at Melissa. I could see the anguish in her eyes for this family. I felt it too
“Is there anyone in this town that we could do some trading with?” I asked.
“Not anymore,” was her simple reply.
“Okay, you two stay here, I'll be right back,” I said as I pushed myself away from the table. I went out to the quad and opened the backpack that held our food supplies. I took ¾ of what we had and set it aside then re-closed the pack. Taking the armload back in the house, I put it all
on the table. Melissa nodded in approval and Monica sat wide eyed. “If you conserve this, it should last you for a little while. It's not much and I don't know what's in the cans, could be dog food for all I know.”
“We can't take this, Jason. We have nothing to trade for it,” Monica said.
“I'm not asking for a trade. This is a gift. I just need you and your family to hang on for a little longer. I'm going to send some help your way.”
“There has to be something that I can do..…
This is too much,” she replied, she was trying to hold back tears.
“Monica, if you want to trade for this, then the only thing that I want is to sleep in your barn for a few hours, until dark. After that, Melissa and I will be moving on.”
“You don't have to sleep in the barn. We have a spare room, use that,” she insisted.
Thursday, August 17th, 2017
The ranch.
After Jill talked to Braden, she went and found Doc. He had set up an infirmary in one of the smaller, side caves. That's where she found him. When she requested the pictures from Jason's and Melissa's folders, she got a sideways look from him. She had to explain, yet again, what she knew. To her surprise, he didn't try to talk her out of going to find them. Instead, he insisted that she take Dan Hawkins along. Once she had the photos that she wanted, she located Dan and filled him in on her plan to head south.
She left the caves at about 10am and got back to the ranch at two in the afternoon. She immediately had Alex take his horse and two others back to the cave. One was for Braden, who was planning on going straight to Elko, the other was for Dan. After checking in on her prisoners in the barn, she went to the security
shack where her father had set up his command center.
“I know why they left those two Stryker’s here,” Bill said before she was all the way into the room.
“Yeah?”
“They've been stripped of all their ammunition and the fuel tanks are almost dry. They were here for show and nothing more.”
“I wonder if it's the same for the equipment left behind in Elko.”
“I hope so. Jim, Harold, Darren and 10 of their men took off toward the city on horseback about 20 minutes before you got back. They are trying to get eyes on that van with all the jamming equipment in it,” Bill said.
“Okay. I talked to Braden. He's going to leave the caves as soon as his horse gets there. I told him that he needed to be in the city before nightfall.”
“I'm surprised that he said he'd do it.”
“He pissed and moaned about it..... I help
ed him make up his mind.”
“I see. You still planning on leaving tonight?” he asked.
“Not till morning. Dan wants to procure some transportation from Elko. We can cover more ground faster.”
“Then you'll be happy to know, I may have a bead on Jason's whereabouts. It's nothing
concrete and it may be nothing at all but I thought you might want to know,” he said as he pulled a state map from under the laptop and unfolded it. Jill was immediately hovering over his shoulder.
“What do you know?” she asked.
“I've been listening in on the communications from Vegas to their units in the northern part of the state. They are using relay stations to extend their range. Well, one of them went off the air sometime last night and they haven't been able to reestablish contact. They call it Pahute Mesa and I found it on this map, right here,” Bill pointed to the spot. “Its north of the ambush spot, which was here,” again he pointed.
“You're right, it could be nothing but it could also be a place to start looking. Are there any more of these relay stations on a northerly bearing from there?” she asked.
“Yeah, this one here, in Adaven,” he pointed to another spot on the map. “There's also one here, in Atlanta, Nevada and this one here in Manhattan, Nevada. It seem that they like to put them in very remote places,” he said.
“If any of those mysteriously go off the air, you'll let me know?” she asked.
“Of course.”
CHAPTER 22
Thursday, August 17th, 2017
Southern Nevada.
Melissa and I spent the rest of the day napping in the Danville's spare bedroom. She was up every hour or so to check on Don Danville and each time she returned to the room, it was looking worse and worse for the man. The sepsis had gone too far and his organs were shutting down fast. Her best guess was that he wouldn't make it much past nightfall.
It was 8:42pm when the two of us were awoken by the crying from downstairs. Melissa rushed out of the room and I followed her a couple of seconds later. I already knew what I was going to find when I walked into the living room. Monica Danville was kneeling next to the couch and had her torso draped over the top of her dead husband. Both kids were being held by Melissa. All of them were sobbing. Not wanting to intrude, I stayed back.
Melissa had things under control and was comforting the family, so I decided to step outside for some fresh air. The smell of death was heavy in the house. I walked to the barn where the quad was sitting and started unstrapping all of our equipment. I already knew that the quad wasn't going to be leaving here, not with us on it
anyway. The barn door was open and I was setting everything just inside. I'd just pulled the last rifle from it when I heard the sound of motorcycles approaching.
There was no gate on the opposite side from where we entered and four Harley Davidson motorcycles pulled into the drive. I quickly ducked into the barn and found a spot to watch them from. They stopped between the house and the barn and shut the big bikes down. In the dwindling light, I could see that all of them were wearing tiger stripe camouflage pants. Rays men had picked a really bad time to return to the scene of the crime.
I slipped the AK-47 that was in my hands off of safety and started to work my way toward the barn door when I heard the screen door of the house creak open. There were some cat calls from the men as they began to dismount their bikes. I peeked around the door frame and could see Melissa standing on the porch. Her right hand was behind her butt.
“What do you want?” she said evenly.
“We come to see what else you had here that we might want,” the lead man said as he took a couple of steps toward her. His right hand was on the butt of his holstered pistol. “We wanted to see the lady of the house but I think you'll do just fine,” his comment was greeted with laughter from the other three.
“Is that so?” Melissa asked calmly.
“That's so, baby,” more laughter as all four now began to move toward her. As soon as one put a boot on the first step, four shots rang out so fast that it sounded like an automatic weapon. I stepped out of the barn and leveled the AK, but it was already over. Melissa stood between two of the men who were lying on the ground clutching at leg wounds. She shot one in the head, turned and shot the other without any remorse or hesitation. The other two were already dead.
“Jesus, Melissa! That was some serious John Wayne shit!” I said, quickly moving toward her.
“Who's John Wayne?” she asked.
“Never mind. Collect anything useful and see how much fuel is in those bikes,” I said then went into the house to speak to Monica. The body of her husband had been covered with a sheet, she and both of the kids were sitting in the middle of the floor. “Monica?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“Were those the men that killed your husband?”
“Yeah,” she said looking at the floor.
“Well, they won't be hurting anyone else. Now I've got a bit of a problem though,” she looked up at me, question in her eyes.
“Somebody is probably going to come looking for
those men, you can't be here when that happens.”
“Where will we go? The kids can't walk all that far.”
“You're going to take the quad and all of the fuel that we can get out of those bikes. Pack the food that we gave you and whatever water you can. If you take anything else, pack light and that quad should get you pretty far from here.”
“I don't have anywhere to go.....” her voice trailed off.
“Okay, before the world fell apart, did you guys go camping or hunting? Anything like that?” I asked. She looked up me.
“We used to go hunting.”
“Where?”
“Over near Kawich peak.”
“I don't have the first clue where that is. How far is it from here?”
“It's 45, maybe 50 miles west of here.”
“Can you hide out up there for a while?”
“Yeah. If I had some ammo for the rifle, I could even hunt. We got antelope and deer up there every time we went,” she said.
“You talking about the rifle that's in the upstairs window?”
“Yes.”
“Go get it and let's see what we can do about getting you guys out of here.”
Thursday, August 17th, 2017
The ranch.
It was almost 6 o'clock in the evening when Braden showed up at the back gate of the ranch. Jill couldn't believe her eyes when he walked into the shack where she and her father had been talking.
“You're supposed to be going to Elko!” she said.
“I know and I'm going. I just needed a couple of things from here first, you wanna help me?” he asked.
“Braden, we are on a very tight timeline here. You can't be dicking around here! They're waiting for you!” she said.
“After you left the caves, I got to thinking about something Jason said in one of the classes he had me sit in on,” he ignored her rebuke. “He told the class, when you're in unfamiliar territory and you're doing something that you probably shouldn't be doing, act like you own the place. He went on to give some examples of things he did when you guys were dealing with Marvin and his gang.”
“What?” the agitation in her voice wasn't missed by Braden.
“You've got me doing something that could get me in some pretty deep shit, Jill. I'm headed into a town that is held by an enemy force and
you want me to act the part of some super spy. This is so far out of my comfort zone that it might as well be a trip to mars. So, I'm going to do as Jason said. I'm going to go in there and act like I own the place.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“If this is what going stark raving mad is like, then yes. I need your help with a couple of things before I head out though.”
“Like what?” she asked. He spent the next 10 minutes giving her a list of what he needed and a short briefing of what his plan was.
“Braden, this pl
an of yours is so absurd, it might just work,” Jill finally said.
“Let's pray it does. Now, I need you to get the members of squad 3-2 moving, tell them to hustle. When they are in position, it's imperative that they give me 30 minutes after I get past the check point. Is all of the gear still in the underground?” he asked, moving toward the door.
“Yeah. Get what you need for this little charade of yours, I'll go get 3-2 out of here,” she replied.
It was well after dark on a nearly moonless night when the men manning the western checkpoint heard the clip-clop of a horse on
asphalt. As the sound approached, they shined their flashlights in that direction. Both beams settled on a man riding a giant Clydesdale draft
horse. He wore a black baseball cap, black t-shirt under his black body armor and tiger stripped fatigues.
The man on the horse had a suppressed M-4 rifle across his back, a shotgun in a scabbard on the right side of his mount and a handgun strapped to each thigh. When they shone the light on him, he simply kept riding toward them. As he closed the distance, the two men were trying to decide if he belonged to Ray’s army.
“Stop right there, mister,” the shorter of the two guards finally said.
“Sir,” Braden said as he continued to close on them.
“What?” shorty asked.
“You may address me as sir. Not mister or anything else. Are we clear?”
“I don't know who the hell you think.....” shorty started to say but was cut off by Braden as he stopped his horse six feet from the two men.
“Let me tell you who I am before you say something stupid. I'm here on behalf of Adolpha and she has granted me full executive powers to do as I wish to get this cluster fuck under control,” the guards shared a quick, nervous look. “In simple terms, terms you might understand, I am THE enforcer. Your enforcers answer to me.