The Free Republic of Texas 2015 (22 page)

Jody and I had a talk with the 5 people we had saved and all but the one who handled a 45 so well wanted to go back to the county area and be absorbed into life there, the shooter as the guys were calling her who’s name was Kate said she was going with us and if Jody wouldn’t allow it she would find some useable guns salvaged from the BG’s we had so far eliminated and go it alone in one of the BG’s vehicles.

Jody said she was welcome to go with us and had one of the ladies dig out a clean pair of BDU’s for her, with her red hair and green eyes and cleaned up she was going to be a force to be reckoned with, she was taken in tow by the weapons team and while we drove she drilled with her new AK and 45 acp. Not that she needed much with that!

Ellen had talked to her the night before and this morning and said she seemed very well adjusted after her ordeal; Jody just smiled and said good honey, I’m glad to hear that.

The other four were loaded into a truck with another rig for security and headed back where they would be met by a force from the ranch that would transport them on to the county where Jim had somebody waiting to take them on in to start getting them into the group.

We rolled on for the next two days stopping at places with people who didn’t offer battle to our force, we talked to them and gave them a radio to contact our big base tower on  the Sheriffs department building, we also offered them any weapons they might need from the pile we had taken, several of them were short on both weapons and ammo, we gave them what they needed and rolled on after telling them that shortly they would be seeing patrols moving thru the area in rigs like ours and dressed as we were who would contact them on the radio and for gods sake don’t fire on them !

So far we had only made it about 150 or so miles from home because of having to remove trees from the road and in one case finding a way around a blown out bridge which we never did find out who did it or why.

Another day and 50 miles further on and the radio crackled , the lead scout team reported smoke ahead and were rolling slower, 10 minutes later they said they were on a low hill looking into a pretty valley with green fields of hay, big gardens and lots of people moving around, they also were looking at a large bunker about 500 yards away, they put up a white flag and waited until we had rolled to within a few hundred yards, we drove the command rig up to the scouts and got out, in that time a signal had sounded and all the people had disappeared, many running to other smaller bunkers, all was now quiet in the valley .

Jody asked for a scout to ride down with him and got into the scout rig, one of the scouts jumped in with him and white flag flying drove to within 50 yards of the bunker where he stopped and stepped out into the open, this had Ellen very upset but that was Jody, not one to ask somebody to do what he wouldn’t

He raised his hands and walked forward to within a few feet of the bunker and stopped, soon a man came from behind it and walked up to Jody, after a few minutes and a hand shake Jody turned and waved us forward.

Rolling into the yard area of the big old house was a bit disquieting as nobody was in sight except the man from the bunker who had ridden in with the scout unit.

After he climbed out, the front door of the house opened and a tall grey headed man walked out and wearing an old Stetson and worn boots with a gun belt on, all he needed was spurs to look like it was another century.

He stepped off the porch and looked at Jody then at all of us and our vehicles and said welcome to Dry Gulch Ranch I’m Willis Duncan and this is my ranch and shook hands with Jody. He then invited the command group up on the porch while the rest of our people set up a defensive area around the vehicles, Willis watched our people and nodded and said well you folks are for sure not military but you sure act like it.

Jody told him who we were and where we were from and what we were doing, he left nothing important out just what we had done and planned to do.

Willis said his family had 10 sections here on the ranch and had been here since the first white folks came into the area, his family had fought Indians, Mexicans, Yankees , Rustlers , and Horse Thieves for over 150 years ,right here on this land, he pointed off to a nearby hill which was covered with head stones and said that’s my family and our people who lived and died here and when things went to hell we just stayed on because nobody is going to run us off this land, and we still live just like we always have so when the lights went off it was no great loss to us, but then he smile real big and said , Well of course we do have a big generator and about 10 thousand gallons of diesel to run it and 2 trucks we use when needed, but almost all the work on the place is done on horse back, always was, always will be.

Willis and Jody worked out a system using radios to allow contact with the Willis place being the out post for this area, and that a call for help would bring us as fast as possible, Willis said he was all for the idea of a free Texas and had no desire to see the old order come back to power in Washington DC.

We also asked what he could do with a hundred AK 47’s and a thousand rounds for each, that got his attention and he admitted that they were low on ammo for the weapons they did have and would love us forever if we could do that, Jody got on the radio and instructed the base where we were and the GPS locations and said to bring an “Able” load to this location, an able load was the name of the load we promised Willis, with which he would arm any of the people in his area that fit into the overall plan, we also left him some commo gear to pass out to the smaller groups.

We spent the night there and everybody got a real good nights sleep with only a few people on duty and who took the whole night in return for getting to sleep in the ambulance during the day while we moved on which had a working AC to help the wounded if we got any. Jade said maybe we should try that deal. I didn’t smile!

The next day we rolled out at day break and on the advice of Willis we cut across his ranch to another road, cutting off a lot of extra miles, he told us about another working farm that had taken in a lot of folks when the balloon went up, that would be our next stop, if they were friendly we could set them up with a comm. set and have another outpost.

Our idea was to just work outward from the ranch and county and set up these outposts who could call for help if needed and to warn of raiders if such happened to be spotted.

We figured that in time , with us recruiting more people and training them and arming them we could build up a not so  small army to patrol the entire state and Once the BG’s were all dead life could settle down and folks could get on with life , free of worry.

We did find small groups here and there that were just existing, some wanted to join us but some just wanted to be left alone and didn’t want to be a part of the outpost system, but the funny hold over from the nanny state we had left behind, was that while not wishing to be a part of cleaning out the trash and rebuilding they all wanted us to send supplies and medical help and just about everything you could thing of.

Jody took great pleasure in telling them that if they weren’t willing to work with us, we sure as hell weren’t going to feed or protect them, all were left standing with their mouths open, some folks just never learn.

We had gone as far West as we wanted for now, so we turned North and headed toward the Oklahoma state line, we started to find more small settlements some with only a few people some with 50 or more, some wanted to know if we were the government come to help them, Most were doing pretty well on their own, the most over ridding thing we were hearing was that a majority of these folks just flat did not want the old Government intruding in their lives.

To these Jody explained the idea of a building a free and sovereign place filled with free citizens living inside whatever the new boundaries became, that was added because Jody had no thoughts of stopping at the old state lines, and he said freedom needed big room to stretch in.

We had all been wondering why there seemed to be such a drop in population and we started to find out from folks further north, seems that a mysterious bug had swept through the country side and it was fast at killing it’s victims but also had a very short life of it’s own, if not passed on right away to the next victim it died with the last infected person, here in the less crowded heart land when folks went to ground they allowed nobody into their area and made no contact so it didn’t spread like it did in the more populated areas of the country, we got this bit of information from the log books of a hospital in a small town, the medical staff had worked hard to quell the bug but didn’t make it, the last doctor alive had written a paper on the bug and how it worked.

He said that in the beginning the town leaders were taking in anybody who came along in the belief they were doing the Lords work, before they could wake up to the fact it maybe wasn’t a good thing it was too late, they had let death in.

Ellen and her staff after reading the journal went thru all the records they could find and said it seemed that when the last person died that was it for here in this place, this scared the hell out of us at first but all these people had been dead since almost the beginning of the collapse which was good for us if not them as the bug died with them….we hoped… it was decided we would get out of the town and find a place to hold up while we waited to see if any of us got sick, we could not chance taking it home or into any other place where people had built a safe haven.

We found a small out of the way state park with a clear water spring fed lake and the usual pitcher pump after the scouts gave it the all clear we moved into it and set up our camp for more then a night, the scout teams patrolled out from camp for a mile in all directions, after giving the all clear they set out electronic safe guards  200 yards all around the area, these were from our storage supplies, just another small well needed item on a long list of stuff nice to have when the shtf.

With these out nothing bigger then a small dog was getting near our camp without us knowing and who or what would have no idea they had advertised their presents.

We got our cooking done and eating over before dark and settled in for the night, no fires and no talking above a whisper was the rule for now at least, morning came with no alarms being sounded and with first light the scouts moved out on foot quietly into the forest around us, this was where the Clan hunters were worth their weight in gold, nothing could move in the bramble infested woods like they could, after two hours they started coming in, two different teams had scored on deer with their cross bows so fresh meat was a welcome addition to our usual freeze dried rations.

Several of the team took fishing tackle to the lake and soon found the place crawling with very hungry fish, bass and crappie seemed to fly out of the water begging to be next on the lines.

After putting out some trot lines they all came back to camp for bathing suits as the water was clear and not too cold, with armed guards surrounding the small lake we all took to the water and after playing got out the soap and secretly hoping we were getting any bugs that we might have picked up in the town which was rather silly because as fast as it seemed to move we would have been showing signs by now, but the human mind will do what it thinks best for the body.

We spent three nights in the little park and never saw a soul and the alarms never beeped even for deer coming to water and I have no idea how it can tell a deer from a man I guess a deer moves much different then a man …the geeks would have the answer.

We saddled up on the forth morning and scouts out a half hour ahead we rolled, so very glad and relieved that none of us were sick, I believe if one person had caught a sniffle from the swimming we would all have just died from fright.

We turned back to the East and meandered more or less towards home, we did find another small town with about 75 people living pretty well as it had been so isolated before it all went down that they were pretty self sufficient and had big gardens and green houses for the short winter, their security was good as they saw us long before the scouts saw them, and were waiting for us, it seemed they had a working short wave and had heard talk of us and our purpose and when we arrived they were more then ready to join the outpost plan.

Their “Mayor” was rather large ladies who had a smile and laugh as big as she was, but the big old colt 45 on her waist didn’t look like it was for decoration.

She was waiting at the edge of town with her advisers and welcomed us in and they already had a big dinner waiting in the small school cafeteria where almost all the town and our crew could fit less the guards of course, we feasted on pot roast, pork roast, new potatoes and creamed peas, fried okra and black eyed peas and all the sweet tea in glasses with ice that we could drink!!! Then after sitting a while talking out came the pies and cakes and home made ice cream.

Jody leaned over and said we best watch it or we will lose half our troops to this place!! And it was easy to see these folks ate this well all the time, none was thin or unhealthy looking but they welcomed Ellen to set up and check over any who needed to be seen, even the kids were as healthy as could be, Ellen said it could only be due to hard work, clean air, plenty of sun shine and a quiet life.

Whatever it was , these folks had it and in time maybe it could spread to the rest of the country, the next morning we set them up with better weapons and ammo and any thing they might need which was very little, they were the best prepared group we had encountered except maybe the Willis ranch, after a great breakfast we rolled out and decided to head home at the best pace we could maintain, we were ready to have a quiet spell in our own beds among our own people, Jody and I had spent the entire trip talking and planning on how to keep spreading the word and the offers of help and felt we had come up with a good plan which we would get moving on shortly, but for now, home was calling.