Treasonous Behavior- in the Beginning

by Robert Johnson

  At the permanent stations every vehicle was stopped. Every passenger was asked about their citizenship status, although most Americans carried no proof of their birthplace. Some were asked about their final destination, as if it were essential for federal officers to know a person’s itinerary. All travelers were looked upon suspiciously, like they were criminals or illegals attempting to pass through to the promised land. Citizen profiling, though vehemently denied by the BP and DHS, was considered a legitimate means of checking on travelers. Trained German Shepherd drug dogs sniffed every car, truck, and bus in search of illegal drugs and contraband.

  The check points were a clear infringement on every American’s rights, but nothing was done to stop them.

  Robin glanced at the men toward the front. Two others and a woman, none known to her, did the same. There was a silent alliance established amongst strangers. When the bus stops we all do something, was the unspoken agreement. Jump the guard, take his weapons, storm the driver.

  Do something!

  Robin put up one finger as a signal for the upcoming stop. Some of the men stood up in the crowded aisle, waiting to pounce. The rest

  grabbed the chair bars in front of their seats, prepared to charge. But instead of slowing down, the convoy raced through the check station

  without question. Several BP agents, dressed in their olive green uniforms, simply threw sloppy salutes to the bus drivers as they breezed on through.

  The tension inside eased. Robin held her sleeping daughter on her lap. Jeffrey clutched onto his mother’s side and squeezed into the tight seating space. Inside the bus was quiet. There was some whimpering and sniffling, but most everyone had settled down, waiting for the unknown. Every once in awhile the guard in front stood up and peered down the rows of seats. Satisfied there was no problem, he sat back down again.

  Less than fifteen minutes later the buses began slowing down. The silent alert had roused those willing to fight. The buses were gearing down as they reached the wide turn to the interstate. Robin looked up, hoping against hope the buses would veer off and stop. Maybe they would change guards, discuss their final plans, make sure all was going well, stretch their legs.

  Something!

  “Stop the bus. Stop the bus,” she whispered as if praying. By now the dozen or so who had committed their alliance in doing something to escape, confirmed their positions through fleeting eye contact. We can’t just wait to be saved, Robin thought. We must rely on ourselves, on our instincts. We have to take control now to save ourselves and our children.

  The cluster of bold people stood up. The bus was still slowing a bit, but not stopping yet. The guard turned and yelled something in Russian to the brave men and women standing. He wanted them to sit down and remain silent. One last glance among the committed and they were ready to roll. Then the bus took a sharp left turn and raced up the long entrance ramp to the highway. They were on Interstate 10 going west toward Tucson and the lower deserts.

  The bus people would have to wait until they had another chance.

  Chapter 20

  The old pickup truck rattled as if it was falling apart when it turned west onto Coronado National Monument Road, named after the famous sixteenth century Spanish explorer who had traveled the region in search of Cibola, the City of Gold. The road wound around the southern most tip of the Huachuca Mountains through the sloping mesquite and oak covered foothills. The valley drained into the San Pedro River lined for miles with ancient cottonwoods, some five miles farther south.

  “I’ve never been down here,” Nick commented. “Where are we going?”

  “My place,” Raz said. “It’s down the road a piece on t’other side.” Actually, his home was quite a ways down the road, past where the pavement ended and the gravel road began. Then it turned into a single lane dirt trail that climbed over the mountain in switchback fashion. It wound down the back side of the Huachucas into the lower forest and rocky landscape. Near the bottom of the mountain’s sunny side, the trail hugged along the international border which comprised of a simple four-wire barbed fence separating the two countries. The land was pristine and remote, just as Raz liked it.

  Cody spoke up. “I thought you went through the Army fort on the west side to get to your house.”

  “Usually do,” Raz answered. “But ya can be sure the fort’s locked up tighter than a drum. Soon as this event happened they would have

  shut ‘er down. Anyway, my place is harder ta find comin’ this way, and that suits me just fine.”

  He meandered through the trail for a few more miles, dodging large boulders, scraping the sides of his truck against clumps of creosote brush and low hanging trees. The shadows were getting thicker in the late afternoon. Slick sections of ice that never saw the light of day caused Raz’s truck to slip off the path more than a few times. He made a sharp turn into the bush. “This here’s Forest Road, number 284. Not much of a clearin’, which is good. Makes my place almost impossible ta locate.”

  “You sure we’re not lost?” Cody had to say. Nick was thinking the same thing, but he didn’t dare say anything, remembering the old guy carried a loaded weapon and was touchy about a few things.

  Raz didn’t respond to the stupid question. In a minute he steered onto a rutted road that used to be a lumber trail from the turn of the previous century. He rolled up a short ridge and stopped. “This is it,” he said. The path opened to a large clearing with an old doublewide house trailer, probably built in the 1960s, set in the middle. Tall junipers and black oak trees growing in the higher elevation surrounded the flimsy structure, making it impossible to see from three sides.

  Raz parked his truck and got out. There was a rusted padlock on the door and with his key ring he struggled to open it. Cody jumped out and grabbed the bags of medical supplies. Nick slowly slid out of the truck holding his leg.

  “Let’s git ya inside ta look at that leg of yours,” Raz said to Nick. Cody walked over to the wobbly wooden stoop leading to the front door. “Don’t look like much from the outside,” Raz said. “That’s how I like it. If someone happened ta stumble on this place they wouldn’t bother with such a dump.”

  “No doubt,” Cody said under his breath.

  Raz removed the lock, entered, and switched the lights on. Nick limped through the door. “Wow!”

  Cody stepped inside and looked around. “Raz, this is nice.”

  The interior was well maintained, clean, and generously filled witholder, but comfortable looking furniture. A wood burning stove was in the back corner close to the kitchen. “Let me git a fire goin’,” Raz said.

  “You have electricity, Raz. How’s that?” Cody asked.

  Raz got the logs burning. “Told ya before. I have cages protectin’ my stuff. Everythin’ here works. The well pump, my lights, my computer.”

  “Oh yes. Those Faraway devices,” Cody remembered.

  “Faraday,” Raz corrected him. Damn young people don’t pay attention. “They’re basic devices that protect electrical equipment, but they work,” Raz said, about the uncomplicated protective cages. He moved toward the back of the house turning on more lights.

  “Cody, think ya can take care of Nick?”

  Nick slumped in a stuffed chair. Cody found some scissors, cut his pant leg up past the wound, and in a few minutes redressed the injury. The bleeding had stopped, so there was no need for the belt tourniquet any longer.

  Raz tossed Nick a bottle of aspirin. “It’s all I got, but should take the sting off a bit.”

  Nick swallowed a few pills and in several minutes felt better even though the throbbing sensation was still there. Then the three men sat near the hot stove and began eating their sandwiches. Raz reached for a Bud Light.

  Nick and Cody grabbed one too. “Don’t you think we should go now? It’ll be nightfall soon,” Cody said.

  “Nah, I know where ‘em buses are headin,” Raz said. “Best if we leave when it’s dark. We got a long trip ahead of us.”

  Cody wonde
red. “Hey Raz. What’s with the beer. You seem more like a straight whiskey guy.”

  Raz nodded. “Usually am. But I have this thing about Bud Light.”

  The boys watched Raz and knew he was about to say something else.

  “Back in the war we was chasin’ this band of Viet Cong in the jungles north of Saigon, near the Cambodian border. Vietnam’s a big country when ya’re slashin’ through it. A band of gooks had captured

  eight of our boys in a fire storm. Most of our men died there, but the VC kept t’others as prisoners. Figured they wanted ta drag ‘em ta Hanoi and maybe trade ‘em for somethin’. They moved farther inta the bush every day headin’ north. My company kept trackin’ ‘em. There was fifteen of us GIs hackin’ through the jungle, fightin’ the insects, sufferin’ from the heat and damn humidity. We was all young, don’t ya know. I was just a kid too. Wars are fought by the young ‘cause they believe in things.”

  Raz took another pull from his beer bottle. Cody and Nick sat back watching Raz ramble on about his war days back before either one of them were even born. They let the grizzled old man take his trip back to his earlier days.

  “So, after weeks of chasin’ ‘em bastards we knew we was gettin’ closer. We could smell their fires from miles away. Stank like road kill, the shit they was cookin’. Eight miserable days later we caught up with ‘em. Flanked the assholes while they was eatin’. Caught ‘em by surprise, we did. A few of our guys they had was tied up ta some trees like they was livestock. They was in real bad shape.”

  He stopped his story telling for a brief pause and snorted. “My whole company fired on those no good pricks until they was sprawled all over their camp site. Killed ‘bout thirty of ‘em gooks. Some of the men emptied their clips inta the bastards ta make sure they was dead. My guys was hot and tired and pissed off. I went ta cut our boys free. By that time there was only four of ‘em left. The looks on their filthy, desperate faces still haunt me.” Raz stared into the stove’s fire for a few seconds, remembering forty year old nightmares.

  “Anyway, when we went up ta the dead bodies we seen what the gooks was eatin’. They was eatin’ our boys, one at a time as they headed north. They chopped ‘em up and was eatin’ ‘em. Can ya believe that shit? What kind of human bein’s could do that? Makes me sick ta this day. That’s what the horrible smell was we was gittin’ over the past week or so.” Raz dropped his head down.

  Cody saw his red eyes. How could somebody live with that? He wondered.

  “Well, one of the guys in our company, Buddy Light, was a crazy bastard. Ya know, all gung-ho and the like. Not sure if that was his

  given name or not. Didn’t really matter, but that’s what he was called. He carried a flame thrower on his back the whole while. It was heavy, but he insisted on keepin’ it with him for when he found the VCs with

  our guys. When he seen what we seen he went berserk. He torched that camp site ta hell along with all them dead Viet Cong. He didn’t let up ‘til the whole friggin’ jungle was burnin’. It was holy hell. He’d burn up the whole damn country if he coulda. The rest of us just stood back and watched, covering our noses from the god-awful smell.”

  Raz stood up and walked to the kitchen. “ ’Bout a week later Buddy got killed in a mortar attack,” Raz finished. “So that’s why the beer, boys.”

  Cody and Nick remained silent. There was nothing they could say.

  Raz went to the kitchen, made a pot of coffee, and set it on the table with three clean cups. The coffee was so strong it could be stirred with a fork, but it was hot and went well with the last of the sandwiches and the Sara-Lees.

  “We can’t waste much more time,” Raz said. “Help me with the supplies before it’s too dark.”

  The guys followed Raz outdoors. “We’ll need gasoline. Don’t expect Texaco will be open anywhere. Some water, too. It will be a long trip.”

  Cody and Nick filled several five gallon cans of gas from a huge storage tank out back behind the trailer house. Then they filled two five gallon potable containers with fresh water from the well. Because of his leg Nick couldn’t lift them, so Cody carried the cans to the truck and loaded them into the bed. Raz went to his utility shed, unlocked the door, and gathered more things.

  He grabbed a coil of thick rope, a bolt cutter, three rolled up sleeping bags, a loaded tool box, two shovels, some gloves, a small gas propane burner stove, extra blankets, and a large canvas tarp.

  “Give me a hand with this stuff,” Raz yelled at the boys. In minutes the pile was secured in the truck bed and covered by the tarp.

  “There’s more inside,” Raz directed. In the trailer he opened a closet door off the living room. It wasn’t very large, just deep enough to hold a few jackets. Raz stepped in and slid a panel in the back wall to the side. Another room. He pulled the light string and disappeared for a minute. “Git in here boys.”

  Cody and Nick looked in the hidden space. Raz had at least six rifles hanging on the wall. All automatics. Opened drawers built into the wall revealed a dozen or so pistols and enough ammo to fight a war. Six big shiny, sharp hunter’s knives were in another drawer. A plastic first aid kit was on a narrow countertop.

  “Welcome ta the jungle,” Raz snickered. “Load ‘em up boys. We’re gonna’ need ‘em.” The weapons and ammo were jammed into two long army-type duffel bags and zipped up.

  Cody and Nick stared at each other. What in the hell does he expect us to do with all this? That was the common question.

  “Ya okay Nick?” Raz asked him. He liked the young men, but if it came to battle they wouldn’t have been his first choice.

  “Yes sir,” Nick answered.

  “Git another bag out of that bottom cupboard,” Raz ordered Cody as he pointed toward the kitchen cabinets.

  They filled the bag with foods stuff from the generous pantry. Peanut butter, crackers, cans of beans and tuna, a box of energy bars, and several bags of venison jerky which Raz had made himself. They packed a few pots and pans too, just in case they were needed.

  “Come over here, boys,” Raz insisted. He turned a key to open a double door in one of the cupboards. “Couple dozen should do,” he said. Cody and Nick dug out two dozen MRE containers. Meals Ready to Eat. They were complete meals prepared for the military while on extended duty in the field. Just add hot water and they were edible. They tasted like shit, but they were full of essential nourishment.

  “Think we have everything,” Cody said, overwhelmed with the load.

  “Not quite.” Raz went to his secret hiding place in the kitchen and retrieved an unopened bottle of Johnny Walker. “For the long ride,” he added with a wide grin. “Didn’t have no Johnny Walker in my unit, but he’s still a good buddy of mine.”

  They packed everything in the truck’s bed and tightened up the tarp. “Okay. Looks good, boys,” Raz said, looking about to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything important. “Almost forgot,” he added. Raz went back inside and came out with two flashlights, a handful of maps, and other papers.

  Then he remembered. “One more thing before we hit the road. Follow me.”

  The trio moved toward the shed that Raz had gathered supplies from. Inside he kicked at the dirt and straw on the floor. The boys

  wondered what he was up to now. Raz stopped and stomped his foot one more time.

  “That’s it,” he said. He bent down and found a metal ring, pulled it loose from the dirt and yanked on it. He raised a false floor door,

  creating a cloud of dust. Raz let the door slam back against a work bench. Then he stepped into the dark hole.

  Chapter 21

  The boys leaned over and stared down the opening. Suddenly a bright light came on. A set of steep wooden stairs lead into a cave-like space. “Don’t be afraid, boys. Come on down,” Raz said from farther back in the cavern.

  The men climbed down the stairs into a dirt walled dungeon. “Must have been a root cellar some time ago, I figure.” Raz explained. “Used ta be a log cabin on the property
behind where the trailer is. Got me ta thinkin’ some years back.”

  Raz motioned for the boys to follow him. He moved a row of rotting planks held together as a makeshift door. Behind it was a solid steel door which he unlocked with a key. He stepped into another room and turned on the lights.

  Cody and Nick followed closely behind and were amazed at what they were standing in. It was a long tube-like bunker with fluorescent lights running along the ceiling from end to end. “Welcome ta the home of the future, boys.”

  The space was at least fifty feet long, twelve wide, and seven feet tall. In a strange sort of way it resembled the inside of a commercial passenger airplane, without the seats. There were no windows, of course, but the bizarre bunker was divided into functional spaces.

  Raz moved farther in as the boys tagged along. The front roomwhere they stepped into was the living area. It was crammed, but

  looked relatively comfortable with bench seats covered with cushions attached to the outer walls. Two fold-down tables locked in their upright positions stored away to offer more room. A worn CB radio set and hand-held mike hung on the wall with antenna wires running up the metal siding through the ceiling.

  Next was a kitchen of sorts. A tiny electric hot plate was set up to cook the few foods that needed cooking. A small counter space extended three feet to a tiny stainless steel sink. Top and bottom cabinets, like those in a compact recreational vehicle, held various pots, pans, dishes, cups, and utensils for everyday use.

  “I got me a generator hid in the woods where no one could ever find it. It supplies me ‘nough power for what I need. There’s ‘nother smaller back-up one in the rear closet. There are two air filtration systems which supply recycled fresh air. Good for six months. Got water too. Thousand gallons buried underground in a sealed container with pipes runnin’ here.” He pointed at a shut off valve and small faucet sticking through the kitchen wall.