A Long Lonely Road (11 page)

But not being just exactly sure where we were in relation to the town I was kinda stumped. Sandy spoke up and said well lets head for the higher ground to the East and find a spot where we can see a light if they have anything to make a light or a fire.

She’s a sharp cookie for a woman and I so can‘t believe I wrote that.!!

So that’s what we did.

And towards late afternoon we found a nice high spot that over looked the entire country to the west. I swear if my scope was bigger we could have seen the ocean!

And she was right. Just at dark we saw some flickering bits of light to the south and closer to us then I would have thought. It looked like cooking fires or some such.

With the I compass  I found north and then just looked at the degrees to the West and hoped it worked.

I know I took map reading in the Marines but that was in the last century. And maybe it was with a needle on a thread instead of a compass. I said I was old.

But I promise I plan to learn now what I didn’t listen to then. Hard to believe most of us were willing to trust our asses to some 2
LT who wasn’t shaving yet to get us where we needed to be.

I’m so surprised I’m still alive! But some days God smiles on the lame and halt. Well somebody must because stupid kills.

Since we had eaten earlier and it was damn cold up here in the high timber we sacked out early. Sometime in the night I felt a chilly body slide into my bedroll and snuggle around my back. I knew it wasn’t Molly.

Morning came and I woke up spooned around a very warm and small body and my left had was cupping a small but nice round object. So I just laid there and didn’t move.

After a bit she did move and slipped out of the bed and went behind the bushes. Then she came back, looked at me and slid off her sleeping shorts and top and wiggled back into the bedroll.

Some time later and it’s none of your business how much later we got up and using some water heated on the fire we washed up and made coffee. I guess the transition from kid to full blown woman was done in a very nice way.

After coffee and some canned bacon and crackers with canned cheese  we packed and headed out. Neither of us said a word until about mid morning when Sandy said “ Old Man my Ass” ! and we both laughed.

Suffice to say we found Squirrel Idaho. And it was a nice little place. People were working outside in gardens and wash was hanging on lines. To call it small would be wrong, tiny..? yea tiny works..

Nobody seemed at all surprised at all to see us riding in as we were. Most folks just waved and kept working.

We stopped at what looked to be a general store or what passed for one these days. And noticed right away the new hitching rack in front.

Tying the  mules and telling Molly to stay we went in. We left our rifles but both had our handguns out in the open. Sandy hung back to watch the stock.

Behind the counter was an old gent and dusting the shelves was an old woman who looked up and smiled at me and then seeing Sandy headed over to her and started fussing like only an old granny can.

The old man said we was welcome but he was only taking silver coins or ammo. I said I’d look around if it was ok and he said help yer self sonny.

Mean time Sandy was chattering up a storm with the old woman and referring to me as “ Daddy” and talking about how horrible it was “Out There” and how lucky we were to have made it this far….I swear that gal should be on a stage! Daddy my ass.

The Old woman was tisking and tasking and shaking her head a mile a minute.. After a bit I said “Sandy honey, Daddy can use some help here!! “ this was fun, if only the old gal has seen my “Daughter” a few hours ago!! Lol…

I asked the old guy how it was that he still had supplies to sell ? He said that because of the bad winters here bouts he always had a store room full and that the men in town had got some old trucks running and had hit the freeway to the west and scored on several 18 wheelers sitting loaded with most everything in the world.

And since nobody was there they just towed them to town, I had to laugh at that. I love the practical attitude of the people city folks would refer to as hicks. City folks think food grows in stores and wouldn’t think of scavenging the roadways . Hell in truth neither had I!! (Note to self, file that one away.)

One thing we had was silver coins not to mention the gold coins. But where we were going the ammo might be worth our lives so we stuck with the coins.

While we were inside several people had gathered outside and were looking the mules over but seemed to be just interested in the show so to speak. I asked Sandy to fill our wish list while I went outside to see what was so interesting.

As soon as I walked out a man spoke up and said he wanted to buy Buck! I told him me and Buck had a long road ahead of us and we liked each others company. This guy looked like he wasn’t used to taking no for an answer and I sure wasn’t gonna lose Buck to anybody.

About that time Sandy came out and got their attention , she asked me quietly for some of the silver so I handed her the bag we had prepared for this eventuality.

Turning back to the store and the folks standing there she smiled and said

We are going home to Texas to our families and we need our mules so like my daddy said, they aren’t for sale.

Well the crowd started breaking up and drifting off but the one kept looking back at me then Buck. I headed inside to move things along and the old gent said that feller is a bad un and yawl need to keep an eye on him till yer way out of town.

I asked if he was a local and the old guy said more or less, that he was born here but between jail time and who knew what he was never around too long and it wouldn’t hurt anybody’s feelings if he left for good.

I was constantly amazed at the way the rural folks were taking this whole mess, they were just going on with their lives and to hell with the daily worries !

And how decent most were remaining. Outside of a few rotten apples it was not as bad as I knew it would be in the cities.

When we had the stuff we needed which included a good pair of boots for Sandy we headed out to load the stuff into the packs.

I was tying down the load when I heard the lever of Sandy’s 30-30 working, I looked up and saw the pushy guy and two others coming at us.

Sandy was standing behind the pack horse and was so short they couldn’t really see her …or the rifle. I was turned so they couldn’t see me very well but I knew trouble when I saw it.

One thing I did real quick was to step away from the mules and over to a car that had died right where it was. This put me away from the mules, and Sandy and it also placed them with their backs to her.

I wanted any bullets to be flying away from her and the livestock. I really didn’t want any bullets flying any place. Things were bad enough without some dumb bastard pushing his luck.

Seeing no reason to pretend this was a social call I simply said “ That’s far enough boy’s” The leader of the pack just laughed and said “look I was nice and offered to buy that mule. Now I’m gonna take him” and his hand twitched.

And I shot him, twice to the chest and one to the head. Just as I’ve trained for years. The stupid bastard thought he was just gonna walk up and push the issue with a bunch of talk like high school boys.

Welcome to the new reality of life in America! Or in his case death. He thought we would talk and argue and push each other a bit before we go to it. He was wrong, dead wrong.

I never took my eyes off him from the moment he opened his mouth until he was face down, and I heard the 30-30 blast off.

I turned to that threat and saw one of the two down and the other with his hands in the air and piss running down his pants front.

I also saw that fiery redhead slid the 30-30 into the saddle scabbard and pull the AK sling off the saddle horn. all in about 3 seconds.

The one fool just stood there with his eyes closed and shaking.

The old man from the store was standing at the door with a double barrel shotgun that had to be a 10 gauge and older then him.

I looked at him and said “he just had to push it.  He nodded and said well it was gonna happen one way or the other so don’t yawl worry about it. But best get to riding coz he had a few more friends here.”

And ride we did, hard! We cleared town and headed for the high lonesome and crossed a couple of gully’s only a horse could cross, no vehicle was going to.

After a few miles of switching back and forth we were clear if anybody came after us which I didn’t expect. In fact I kinda figured the locals were cleaning out the rest of the bad apples right about now.

We covered 10 miles before we really slowed to allow the animals to ease up, they were all in good shape by now so it wasn’t like they were about to drop. We found a creek and stopped to eat something and rest out butts.

Sandy sat a while and kinda chuckled so I had to ask what?… She asked if I ever saw the old movie “ The Outlaw Josey Wales “ I said well of course about 10 times why?

She smiled and said remember the line where the man chasing him said

“ Well he ain’t gonna be hard to track! He leaves a trail of dead men everywhere he goes”.

I  had to admit I remembered the line and she said well we are gonna get to be easy to track if this keeps up!

I had to look at her and wonder why shooting that man didn’t seem to bother her. And to her credit she read my mind just that fast. She said the one she shot was going for a pistol under his coat and she wasn’t gonna lose me to some no good trash like that.

And then she teared up and ran to me and curled up in my lap and had a good cry. After a while she stopped and said promise me something? I said “sure honey, I promise to be more careful in the future“.

She leaned back and looked at me all funny and said “well shit John I know your being careful ! I want you to promise to teach me to draw a gun that fast!”

She is a joy this redheaded runt with small tits and big brass ones! I promised her and thought about it for a bit and knew she was right.

We needed to work as a team which she was doing better then some men I’ve known as was proven back there in town.

But we needed to be better. Much better. And that was gonna take time and I made up my mine right then I’d teach her all I could while we rode and then camp early and work on it.

After we had made camp I had an idea and got out the Idaho Atlas and started scouring it for that little symbol  I had seen back in MT and Lady Luck was with me.

I found several hot springs located in the area to the east of where we were at the moment and since I had a slight idea of where we were in relation to where we had just been I figured we could locate one.

I never said anything to Sandy because I didn’t wanna fail and disappoint her. That night she laid out just the one bed roll and I guess that meant she was moving in.

It’s a good thing I had made my own sleeping set up. It wasn’t simply a sleeping bag it was wider and longer then the usual, because I’m wider and longer then the usual. And I hated not having room.

And since I had made this bedroll I guess I had lost damn near 100 pounds.  Being 6’6” tall I was big to begin with but I had really gotten lazy and larded the weight on but man it was flowing off now. I could feel it in my knees and back. Never again!

I was suddenly hit with the thought that if this SHTF event didn’t kill me it might have saved my life. I had forgotten all about all the pills and crap I usually took. They were gone and I was still here. Wouldn’t that be just the strangest thing? the world dies and I get a second chance.. Too deep.

Next morning I told her I wanted to head up in the higher hills a bit. She just smiled and said I was the boss while she carved another notch into that rifle butt plate. I thought yea right, but with a smile.

The first day in the search for hot water was a loss as was the second but on the third morning I caught a whiff of the sulpher smell associated with these hot springs.

It took some looking but I found it and it was worth the effort. We rode into the clearing where it was and it was a nice pool of hot but not too hot water.

Sandy said what the ??? Then jumped down and ran to the pool stuck her hand in and let out a yell. Scared the hell out of me, I thought she cooked her hand.

Then her cloths were flying and she leaped in with a big splash! Well actually a small splash since she’s a runt.

I took time to unload the animals and leave them to graze, Sandy was trying to coax Molly to the pool but she remembered her one time before.

I took off my cloths and after laying our rifles very close to hand I quickly grabbed Molly and tossed her in!

And handed Sandy her bath kit. She was hanging onto Molly who was dragging her around the pool trying to escape so I jumped in and between us we got her soaped , scrubbed and rinsed then let her go. Poor molly, pissed off but clean!

We spent the better part of an hour in the pool, washing each others hair and other things and made love in the hot water. I finely had to get out because it was just too much, Hot water, hot woman and old man!

I got dressed and started gathering wood and decided to build a wind break near the hot pool, sort of a lean-to as a sleeping place with the warm ground it would be nice.