Avalon: The Retreat (46 page)

Randy Stewart licked his cracked and dehydrated lips as he studied the bikers down below him in a small secluded valley that was surrounded by rock strewn rolling hills. Trees were scattered sufficiently in meandering patterns. It was so cold that his breath was visible.

Shirley, his wife, bumped up so close to him that he had to refocus on the Slavers he was studying intently through his binoculars.

“What are they doing?” She asked him softly as she studied the small dots moving about as if they were ants and not people.

“Not much,” he responded without emotion as he continued to watch the gang. “I think they’re going to be moving on by the looks of things.”

In a few more minutes one of them got up on a large rock and was talking to the rest of them. He looked big. Randy couldn’t hear what was being said, but the guy was animated as he spoke and moved around repeatedly, his arms flailing about in irate gestures. The talk lasted for about ten minutes and the big man got off the rock and walked over to a motorcycle, started it up, and jetted away toward the northeast.

The rest of the bikers fell in line by threes, fives, and as many as eight… all riding close together. The man in front was joined by eight other riders, four on each side of and slightly behind him, and the rest made a line on both sides of the lead figure.

They were all heavily armed. Each of them had a handgun, or two, and Randy saw a number of rifles that appeared to be AK-47s or M-16s, but he couldn’t be sure because of the distance. One appeared to have an old Thompson sub-machine gun over his shoulder that hung from an olive green strap. It was just far enough away that he couldn’t be sure, but that was what he supposed.

There were knives and side arms, and a few fellows had LAW rockets on their backs. Most of them had bandoliers of ammo over their shoulders and chests that sparkled when the sun glinted off the brass.

He also saw what he assumed were grenades strapped to their vests. These guys were well-armed and on their way to places unknown. Coming up from behind the lead motorcycles were several pickups with canopies on them.

“We’ll follow them and see where they’re going.” Still no emotion. It was a matter of fact statement said without any reply expected. “We have to find some food soon.” His voice trailed as if he were thinking aloud about what to do next.

“If there’s that many men,” he said, turning to his wife, his son, and his daughter, “And I saw a lot of women with them too… there has to be some food. Probably a great deal of it by the size of that gang. I make them out to be more than three or four hundred. I can’t be exact ‘cause they were all moving around or were bunched together, but I’m sure there are at least that many, maybe more.” He said it in a stoic manner that didn’t warrant any discussion.

“Do you think that’s a good idea to approach them?” Shirley said with conviction. He sensed the caution and fear in her voice. “They could be big trouble for us.” Her voice was melodic and he always loved to hear her speak, even when it was this serious.

He looked into her eyes, pausing to formulate a response. Slumping his shoulders a bit, he finally spoke, “We don’t have much choice, Shirl,” her eyes were a beautiful gray, “We need food… and the last time I looked, there weren’t many grocery stores open for business.” He started moving toward the small pile of essentials that they had managed to scrape together.

She sensed the sarcasm in his voice but let it slide. They were all on edge and hungry. He wasn’t a mean man and she knew he wasn’t trying to scold her. He was simply stating a fact.

“Let’s gather up our things and head east,” he was looking at his compass as he talked.

Shirley had the children working with hand signals and body movements as they prepared to move. They all knew what they had to do. They had relocated a number of times in as many days, following these bikers from nearby Crescent City on the Coast.

“We’ll stay a few hours behind them,” Randy said as he swung his pack onto his shoulders. “If they do the same things they’ve been doing, we should catch up to them just before dark or early in the morning.”

She merely shrugged her shoulders and went about getting ready to move out. She was tired… they all were… and the lack of food was draining the energy out of each of them. She wasn’t looking forward to the hike, which could possibly be another thirty or more miles. She was tired of walking and foraging around in the garbage the Slavers were leaving behind. She felt like a dog as she was doing it. The food was plentiful in the scraps that were left behind and she liked the fact that when they were able to forage and find food, it kept them alive. But just the thought of what they were doing filled her with revulsion.

“Shirl,” she knew what was coming, “Before we move out, let’s do what we’ve been doing and go over to their camp and see if we can scrounge up some of the food they left behind.”

Her thoughts evaporated at his words and she joined her husband and two children as they walked toward the abandoned camp. She thought it but didn’t say anything,
Woof woof, master
.

The four of them moved toward the abandoned Slaver’s camp and began to scavenge in the trash that was left behind. Some remnants of edible food were tossed here and there. The area covered about a couple of acres of ground and it took awhile for the family to pick through that which was left so they could eat.

Once they were all satisfied and they had salvaged enough to keep them going for a little longer, they moved out toward the large trail left by the bikers.

It was dark now, and Randy watched the moon rise over the horizon. He carried a flashlight he had found at one of the other camp sites the Slavers had stopped at earlier. It was a military flashlight with a gooseneck that looked like an inverted “L.” It was still fairly bright, but he used the batteries sparingly.

Their greatest find was a rechargeable light that people had used awhile back to light up a pathway in their garden or patio area. It was convenient and the batteries were recharged every day with a built-in solar cell on the side of the light fixture. They could use the two lights intermittently, and he simply pulled the battery from the pathway light to keep it from shining needlessly.

Tonight was a full moon, which alone would be enough light to help them see the trail they were following. He was grateful because that would help save their batteries.

He also had a small hand-held compass that had radium-covered dials and principal points of the compass, giving them an eerie glow in any darkness. They were heading toward the North and East. It would take them most of the night to catch up to the large group of Slavers and they had to be careful they didn’t accidentally catch up with any other stragglers, which would invariably result in a shootout.

They traveled for hours, stopping now and then to rest, until it was obvious they all needed to get some sleep. They set up a sleeping area by gathering leaves to lay on, which acted as an insulating barrier between them and the ground. They then spread their meager blankets and spare clothing over the leaves to form make-shift mattresses.

Randy remained awake while his family slept… he could catch cat naps later. His main preoccupation was to make sure his family was safe. He was grateful it wasn’t raining or worse, snowing.

He remembered last winter when they were on the western side of Mount Shasta. It was cold then too… freezing as a matter of fact. They had gathered firewood, then dug a pit, and built a fire that had burned for a few hours. Slowly, they gathered rocks the size of a cantaloupe and placed them in the pit with the fire. Over the course of a few hours, the hole was covered with enough dirt to smother the fire, but the rocks stayed warm all night long. Then they built a small lean-to over the covered pit and the four of them slept near the hot rocks comfortably. It had snowed that night, but they were snug and warm.

Tonight the stars were overhead, and it was dry. There was no need for a lean-to tonight. In an effort to stay awake, he concentrated on his plan.

They would follow the slavers in the morning, which was difficult, at best, because the slavers were driving vehicles and Randy and his family were on foot. Even though he didn’t believe any of the large group would come back their way, he always made sure they set their sleeping camp well off the traveled trail… just in case.

If they could ever find themselves in a place where there was plenty of food and adequate shelter, he would take the time to make safety provisions such as building booby-traps for perimeter protection. But since the war, they had not found any place that he felt would support them long-term, just an occasional area that had enough food to keep them going for a couple of weeks at most.

Instead, they simply did what the Native American tribes of old had done; they lived off the land as long as they could and then moved on. Lately, they were following this large gang and were surviving off the scraps the bikers left behind. Randy knew his wife wasn’t too crazy about doing this, but they were eating on a fairly regular basis. He knew it took a lot of energy and a lot of luck to find food in the wild these days.

He wanted to get close enough to take a couple of the Slavers out in order to acquire some much-needed items from them, such as another weapon, or two, and a lot more bullets. He was down to about a dozen for his 30.06 Mauser and Shirley only had a few rounds for her Auger 9mm pistol.

The kids had nothing except a hunting knife each and he had been teaching them some hand-to-hand fighting techniques, as best he could anyway. He wanted to get a few canteens, more blankets, and of course more firearms.

Perhaps tomorrow they would get lucky.

Morning came and Randy felt very tired. He woke Shirley up first. “Honey, it’s time.”

She rose without saying anything and immediately started to prepare something to eat from some of the scraps the bikers left behind last night. Randy lay down next to the kids and tried to rest, but couldn’t. The best he could do was nod off a bit. He remained in a twilight stage without actually sleeping.

When the food was ready, Shirley woke the kids and they ate, gathered up their meager belongings, and headed down the trail once again.

He would try to sleep the next time they stopped to rest.

It was going to be a long and hungry day!

As they followed the large and prominent trail left by the outlaw gang, they found a .357 Magnum Revolver laying on the ground, loaded. Someone must have dropped it when they hit the pothole in the road nearby.

Perhaps their luck would hold today.

Several hours later, they reached the Slaver’s encampment. They hadn’t posted any guards or patrols yet; not that they bothered half the time, anyways.

Randy crawled forward on his belly until he could get a good look with his binoculars.

He didn’t notice the mounds in the field below him and to the right… or the fact that they moved.

Eric Bell returned to his unit at Twenty-Nine Palms, California after his mother’s funeral to find orders to go to an Army Mountain Climbing School at Camp David Briscol near Mount Rainier in the state of Washington. The Camp was named after a World War Two recipient of the Medal of Honor. As a Marine Corps Sniper, Eric was often sent to a number of different training camps.

He had attended and graduated from SERE, (Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion), Jungle Training, Desert Environment, Cold-Weather Operations, and a few others over the last two years. This time it would be Mountain Climbing. He enjoyed the different schools, the challenges each one posed, and the opportunity to meet and interact with other specialists.

The Marine Corps arranged his transportation and after a couple of days to recoup from his Mother’s demise, he packed his duffel bag and headed to the airstrip at Twenty-Nine Palms. The flight to McCord Air Force Base, just south of Seattle, Washington, was an overnight layover and then he rode with a military convoy to the school near Mount Rainier the following morning. The trip would have been quite boring but a comedian by the name of Joe Smith made the trip in the Humvee a lot shorter with his barrage of one joke after another. Eric found it absolutely amazing that anyone could have that many jokes committed to memory.