B00C74WTKQ EBOK (7 page)

“Ladies”, he announced, “I think we’ll stay here another day, maybe even two. Tomorrow you can relax some more and enjoy our fine wild campsite. At noon, though, we’re going to start training on guns and tactics. That means you’ll learn how to march in step, how to move on patrol, how to take cover, and how to advance and cover. Eventually we’ll get into ambush techniques, how to set them up and how to get out of them. We’ll stop frequently on the way to practice. By the time we get to Corpus, you ladies will be as well-trained as any group of soldiers ever were. How does that sound?”

Racy replied, “Sounds great. It’ll take us a while to get used to the idea, but I love it.” With that endorsement, Adrian saw that the rest of the girls smiled.
Whatever Racy thinks is a good idea, the rest think is a good idea. They’re so used to her being in charge that they have complete faith in her. She’ll be the key to their survival.
“Race, I need you and two more girls to take turns with me on night watch. We’ll each take two-hour turns at staying awake and being alert for any signs of danger. Might as well get used to it now, you’ll all be doing it for years to come.”

“
Race?
Adrian, I
like
that!” the tall girl said with a smile. “Thank you. Race it is from now on! Which watch will you take? I’ll set the rest up.”

“Last watch. Get me up two hours before sunrise, if I’m not already up, anyway. I’m a light sleeper, and with this many girls snoring I may not get any sleep at all.” That started the girls giggling again, which spread to all the girls and quickly became hard laughter. Even Adrian was laughing
They act like escapees from a lunatic asylum. I guess it’s the release of tension making them act silly.

Race said, “Adrian, would you tell us about the bear cubs? We’re all dying to know the real story, we know you didn’t actually father bear cubs, but what
did
happen?”

“That story will haunt me to the day I die,” Adrian said with a sigh. “I can’t get away from it anywhere. Okay, here’s what happened. My wife died a little over a year ago. She was pregnant at the time, although I didn’t know it until after she had passed away. I was heartbroken and couldn’t stand to stay where everything reminded me of her, so I left home and went to Colorado, to live in the mountains like a hermit. But as bad luck would have it I wasn’t left alone. I hadn’t been there long before I was attacked by a group of raiders—cannibals. I was more than half-crazy from grief and just wanted to be alone, so when they attacked me I went
full
crazy on them. One of them shot at me, and the bullet grazed my head.”

Here Adrian pointed to the scar on the side of his head, pulling back the hair so they could see it.

“That gave me a concussion and I was in trouble. They were chasing me and I was getting real woozy, about to pass out. I found a hole up under a bunch of tree roots and crawled into it to hide, and then I did pass out. The men looking for me didn’t find me. I was unconscious for several days. When I came to, I realized I was lying with my head on a hibernating bear’s behind.”

At this the girls giggled.

“It was a mother bear, and she was pregnant. I could tell, ’cause when I woke up, my hand was on her belly and I felt the babies moving, I think that was what finally woke me up. Of course I didn’t figure that out in the cave, only later when I had time to think. Well, I scooted right out of there before she woke up and ate me. I was really, really, lucky, girls—that’s not something you would usually get away with. That spring, when me and another man were hunting, we came across the mama bear with her two cubs. At first she acted like she was going to attack, then she stopped and sniffed at the air—she moved up close and really smelled me over. I guess my smell had become familiar to her while she was asleep and she associated it with something not dangerous to her and her babies, so she shook her head and walked away instead of attacking. I mentioned to my friend that this was the bear I slept with, and wasn’t she a beauty.”

Adrian shifted his position and waited for the girls to demand more. When one of them started to say something Adrian continued. “So he spread the story, just out of fun you understand, that I had slept with a grizzly bear and fathered her cubs. The story spread like wildfire and has been ahead of me everywhere I go. It’s a bit embarrassing, to tell you the truth, but I can’t do anything about it. So, now you know—I don’t have bear-cub babies, just a wolf and a horse.”

When the giggling-laughter settled down again Adrian told Race to get the girls in bed “They’ve had a long night and a long day, they’ll have half a day tomorrow then the training begins. They need their sleep tonight.”

Chapter 8

A
drian and the girls remained
at the camp site for over two months.

He had intended for them to keep moving, but once he started training the girls, Adrian realized that he needed to devote his full attention to that effort. They were quick learners, but they had to be taught everything from the very beginning. They were too young to have any experience that could be built on.

He began by matching each of them up with a rifle they could handle. He was fortunate that several of the available guns were lightweight, twenty-two caliber rifles—easy to carry, and with no recoil, they were ideal for the smaller girls. The ammo was generally available, which made them popular for hunting small game; but in the hands of a good shot, even a twenty-two was a deadly weapon.

When each girl had her own rifle, he taught them all how to maintain them—take them apart, clean them, and put them back together again. During all this time, he was teaching, mostly by example, gun safety. He told them the rules over and over, corrected them when they erred, and then did it all over again. He obsessively drilled them on gun safety, stressing it to the point that the girls were ready to scream. He made it so repetitious that some of the girls were reciting the rules in their sleep. Adrian turned gun safety into a religion among the girls; he built it into every single lesson, whenever guns were involved.

Good thing about teaching children, they don’t have to unlearn as many bad habits and their young minds absorb readily.

When the girls had become used to carrying their rifles everywhere they went, treating them safely, and cleaning them every night, only then did he begin teaching them to shoot. He took them through all the basics of shooting, the various positions, and which positions were best for each situation. He taught them how to control their breathing, how to relax the major muscle groups and to rely on the skeletal bones to support the rifle, not muscles. He taught them how to aim, how to pick out specific small target points to aim at, and what a proper sight picture looked like. Then he taught them how to gently squeeze the trigger until the firing pin dropped. Up to this point they had been training without ammunition—except for some of the older girls when on guard duty, girls who had proven they already knew how to shoot, and how to act safely.

Before the girls got to the part where they actually shot live ammunition Adrian was confident in their ability to act appropriately—and he was proven right, they were flawless in their safety. They also quickly learned to place their bullets on target. Two of the girls he discovered were nearsighted. There were no glasses, so he changed their rifles out for pistols and taught them to shoot at the limits of their vision.

When they were all proficient he gathered them together and said, “You’ve all done very well, and are great target-shooters, but being a good shot goes to hell when someone is shooting back. Your heart races, adrenaline surges and your fine motor skills go out the window. So I’m going to teach you to shoot under stress. Be advised, this will not be pleasant.”

Adrian then set Race up to shoot at a target. “No matter what happens, you are to remain focused on shooting. Control your breathing, make sure of your sight picture, align the sights, and gently squeeze the trigger…just like you’ve been taught. Ready? Go ahead and start shooting and keep your focus.”

Race got into the prone position, and just as she started squeezing the trigger Adrian began slapping her on the butt with a piece of brush and screaming at the top of his voice. Race was so startled that she jerked the trigger, completely missing the target and turned her head to look at Adrian in surprise. Adrian shouted at her “Keep shooting! Don’t look away from the enemy, don’t look at me! Keep shooting.”

When Race had emptied her rifle she had hit the target only once, and that marginally.

Adrian told the other girls, “That’s what happens under stress,” Adrian said, both to Race and the other girls who were all gathered around. “That’s what happens when you’re being shot at. Race always hits the bull’s eye at this distance. Under stress her shooting went to shit. Now we’ll do it again, and again, and again until she learns to hit the target while under stress. Then each of you will do the same. Understand?”

It took a long time for all of the girls to learn the lesson, but learn it they did. Eventually.

During this time, Adrian was also teaching them everything he thought they needed to know. He was surprised at not only how fast they caught on to basic routines and drills, but how much they enjoyed them. The girls loved doing things in unison, and would march in close order drill at the drop of a hat, singing the heavily edited versions of the marching songs he’d taught them. Even during rest periods, one of the girls would call cadence and the other girls would fall into step.

He taught them when and how to take cover—how to choose good spots for taking cover and position themselves for best concealment. He taught them how to spread out when moving across country, how to set up ambushes, making simple booby-traps and hiding them so they wouldn’t be seen until too late, and the best way to get out of an ambush. He taught them to infiltrate and to attack and fade-out guerilla style. The girls went on daily patrols of the surrounding area, with Adrian constantly drilling them on every aspect of their training.

In addition to a gun, each girl carried a knife, concealed but accessible, at all times. He taught them basic knife fighting techniques that utilized their youthful speed, and stances that capitalized on their smaller height and weight. Armed with a sharp knife, the girls became extremely deadly in a close-in fight.

Adrian’s goal was for the girls to be a well-trained, highly organized, and skilled operating unit by the time they finally got on the road again. They hadn’t been tested under fire, and Adrian hoped to hell they never would be—but he knew these girls were not going to be anyone’s easy victims again.

Each evening Adrian and Bear went hunting taking two different girls with him, rotating each girl through as often as possible. He taught the girls how to stalk, to use the wind, what to look for, what to listen for. He allowed the girls to shoot the hogs that they found, letting them gain confidence in their shooting ability and seeing the death and destruction they caused firsthand. By the end of the fifth week, each girl had killed a wild hog, gutted, and cooked it. They had also killed and eaten countless squirrels and rabbits with throwing sticks and small spears. He showed them how to make
atlatls
—primitive spear launchers that would give them greater range with their throws—and how to chip stone to create simple but effective blades and arrowheads.

In addition to hunting and self-defense, Adrian taught them everything he could about basic survival. He showed them every edible plant he could find, and described those that weren’t in this area, but which would provide valuable vitamins and micro-nutrients to go along with the meat they killed. They learned to build an almost smokeless fire without matches, and what woods to use for cooking, and which to avoid. They learned how to build temporary shelters and how important it was to stay dry and warm. He taught them how to find water and make it safe to drink.

Adrian found that he was enjoying the teaching. He hadn’t realized how much he would enjoy it, but he was having a blast, and the girls were eating up the lessons and wanting more as fast as he could deliver. These were things they wanted to learn, knew they could use; lessons that freed them from being dependent on anyone, ever again.

During the time that Adrian was teaching them, they had slowly learned to trust, and then to love Adrian. In a way, he had become a father to them– and grown very fond of them in return, almost as though they were his own daughters. He had become invested in their success at being self-sufficient. It was the best thing he could give them; he knew it, and they knew it.

The day before they were to go back on the road, Adrian sent the girls on what he called a “Graduation Patrol.”

“Ladies,” he said to the group assembled in front of him, “this patrol is your graduation. Do everything right, and you will no longer be just a group of girls, you will officially be a patrol unit, each of you a functioning member of that unit. Your assignment is to capture a flag from a designated location on the map. Race will lead the patrol. She will read the map, assign you to your positions and tasks, navigate the terrain and lead you in, get the flag, and lead you out. You are to assume you are in enemy territory from beginning to end, and act accordingly. I’ll be watching from various places. This exercise is to show me that you can do all that you need to do without my being present. Any questions?”