Jernigan's War (14 page)

“That’s my Dad, he grew up over around Jonesville, LA.”

“Why, I knew your Daddy my whole life, he was about ten years older than me. Yep, we’re 3rd or 4th cousins on his mother’s side of your family.”

Dix smiled, “It’s a small world.”

The old man had the fish cleaned in the time they were talking; you could tell he had cleaned many a mess of fish in his day. Dix said, “Throw the heads and guts in this can and I’ll cook them for the dogs.”

“Your dogs eat as good as most people nowadays; I’ve had people swap me things for the guts they’ll eat ‘bout anything when they’re starving.”

The sun was setting and the old man said, “I need to get back before dark.”

Dix offered, “If you tie up, I’ll motor you on down to your camp.”

“No, I find it better if I don’t run any motors around when I can help it. A running motor attracts the wrong kind of attention, if you know what I mean.”

Dix needed to know, “Will I be ok here tonight?”

“The only way someone can get here is by water, either from the river or from the lake up past my camp. Those Cur dogs should alert you if someone is trying to sneak up on you.”

Dix watched the old man slowly paddle the old aluminum boat back down the lake until he disappeared into the night. A light fog was floating over the top of the water. Dix dredged
the fish in corn meal and fried them up. He boiled the heads and skins and fed them to the pups, they didn’t turn them down. Later that night, as he lay awake in his bunk, he heard a gunshot from way down the lake. He wondered if the old man was ok or if he was hunting or if some bad guy was now floating in the lake. He drifted off to sleep and once again dreamed of trying to save someone in his family. This time it was Jake who needed to get stitched up.

When he woke up it was already light, the sun was shining and it looked like it might be a pretty day. One of the pups spotted something in the water. A gentle current was flowing out of the lake and towards the river. A large man was laying face down in the water and drifting along in the current. A small red hole, just above and in front of his ear, came into view as he slightly bobbled in the water. It was the size hole that a .22 long rifle round would make. Dix took a boat hook and rolled him over in the water, his pockets were wrong side out, it looked like old man Beagle took care of business last night. Dix shoved the body into the current and watched as it drifted down the channel and out into the river. It would join countless others on its way to the Gulf of Mexico.

Dix cooked some more pancakes and he and the pups ate. The pups had figured out that pooping in the cabin was not a pleasant thing to do, particularly when they were caught in the act.

The little diesel cranked right up, Dix made a slow wide circle pulling the fishing boat and headed out into the river. He glanced down the river and found it empty so he headed into the middle of the channel and slowly made his way north. It was middle of the afternoon before he found the mouth of the Big Black River. He kept running up the river until he found a cut
running into the Big Black, he estimated that he was somewhere near Grand Gulf, MS. He found a very isolated place where he could tie up and leave the catamaran. It was out of sight of the river, someone would have to be in a boat to reach his spot. He tied limbs all over the cat and camouflaged it so that at a glance you wouldn’t notice it from the river or the bank. He cross tied it so that it could rise and fall with the river without having the rope sink it. He hoped that a falling river wouldn’t set it on a stump or sand bar in case he had to come back. He spent the night on the catamaran and spent the empty hours packing up the equipment he might need.

Dix loaded up his fishing boat with the gear that he organized the night before. He had two magazine pouches with six thirty round mags in each. He put in the Springfield and a bandoleer of ammo. He also put in a can of .223/5.56 ammo for the AR15 and a can of 30-06 for the Springfield. He had his Browning 9mm and four 13 round magazines for it. He would wear the Browning in a shoulder holster with a magazine in it and two attached to the holster. The fourth he would put in his bugout bag. He put in three cases of MRE’s in the front compartment of the boat and had seven loose in the bugout bag. He had a tool box in the boat, duct tape, flat fix and pump for the four-wheeler, electrical tape, etc. in the boat. He had a fold up hunting knife in his back pocket and a Kbar on his belt. He had to make the assumption that he may not make it back to the fishing boat or the catamaran.

He was finally ready; he topped off the fuel in the boat and put the remaining cans of gas in the bottom of the boat. He topped off the oil in the automatic oiler for the two cycle outboard motor and stowed the rest for later use. He slowly motored away from the camouflaged catamaran and headed up the Big Black River. The river was up as it had been raining. The fact that the river was up would work to his favor; a lot of the stumps and logs would be submerged below the depth of his motor. His motor had been set to tip up in the event it hit a stump or the bottom. Ben and Frank weren’t sure about the boat at first; but were soon
standing on the bow barking at birds. Dix kept the speed dead slow, he was going no faster than a fast walk.

He consulted the GPS and compared it to his map as he tried to determine his position. The weather was still cold, it was late February, and he had his cold weather gear as well as a sleeping bag and a big tarp. He would be camping at least one night on the river maybe two. He didn’t stop when he passed near Port Gibson or when he passed under the bridge on the Natchez Trace. There were some people on the Natchez Trace Bridge. They stood for a moment and then ran off down the road. Dix kept looking over his shoulder and saw that several men had joined the one that ran away. He was far enough upstream that they were foiled in whatever plans they were concocting.

Dix was surprised to see a doe and two yearlings cross the river, he thought the deer population was surely decimated by now, but it would take more than a year to kill them all. Life goes on sometimes.

He found a sandbar on a bend in the river about 20 miles northwest of Port Gibson. He built a very small fire just up from the boat. The pups slept plastered up against him during the cold night. Only once in the night did they growl. Dix woke up and listened, an owl off in the distance hooted, somewhere back down the river another answered. Ben and Frank growled real low. A reassuring pat quieted them as they lay in the darkness. It was a bright starry night. Far off to the north an airplane’s flashing light slowly cut a path across the sky. During normal times, you could find a jet’s flashing lights in almost any direction at almost any hour. A meteor flashed almost overhead and fizzled out. Dix thought, “I guess I need to make a wish.” He thought a minute and wished, “I wish I could wake up from this nightmare.” He dreaded dozing off because with it came the endless nightmares and the horrible loneliness that followed.

The nightmare came to a head around daylight this time, the first man he killed was coming for him and he had to get a shot off before the killer could raise his shotgun. Dix woke up standing by the bed with his pistol in his hand. Ben and Frank looked puzzled. Dix shook his head; it had been a bad one this time.

Dix washed up in the river and broke out a couple of MRE’s. He ate one and let the pups split another. He fed them the one with the omelet, he hated those but the pups didn’t mind at all.

The river had dropped a little overnight and he had to rock the boat back and forth a little to free it from the sand bar. He ran the boat around logs and debris and through deep quiet sections. According to his GPS he was not far from a road that would take him to his sister’s place in the country. All he had to do was find a place where he could off load the four-wheeler and drive it off the river.

He found the spot where cattle had been coming down to drink. It was a small landing where someone kept an aluminum boat. He ran the boat sideways to the bank with the four-wheeler facing the bank. A large tree was halfway up the bank, he could get it off here, getting back on would be another story. Maybe he could load it back if found some big boards. He ran the winch line over to the tree. He got back in the boat and on the four-wheeler and cranked it up. He put it in low and started taking up slack with the winch. The boat tipped a little and that was all that was needed to allow the four-wheeler to go over the side. It scratched and gouged the aluminum rail pretty bad, but having a pretty boat just wasn’t important any more. A working boat was what was important at this period of time. After unloading the four-wheeler and hooking up its trailer, it was time to load up. He could easily travel the distance to his sister’s place. In addition to food and various gear from the boat, he loaded a tool kit along with an axe, wrecking bar, and bolt cutters. He topped off the fuel tank and put in four extra cans of gas in the trailer. He
wore the AR15 and Browning 9mm. He strapped the Springfield on the four wheeler gun rack. Once again he had to assume that he might not make it back to the boat so he had to go heavy. He would abandon gear if necessary but not until it was necessary. He tied the boat on a long line and shoved it out into the river; hopefully the boat would still be floating after the river dropped. A small river like this reacted to rain or the lack thereof with big swings in its depth depending on how much rain it receives.

He drove slowly up the trail leading out of the river bottom. He wanted to let the little catahoulas run until they got tired. It wasn’t long before they rode up behind a big barn. Dix eased around it and found nothing special. The puppies tanked up in a tractor tire track full of water. They were still young enough that they squatted when they peed. He chunked one in the trailer the other on the back of the four wheeler, they caught on pretty quick and loved the ride. All the time in the boats helped. He pulled the GPS out of the bugout bag and turned it on. He punched his sister’s address in and waited. Luckily the satellites were still functioning; a time would come in the near future when they would go quiet. He was only 11.3 miles from her house.

Dix saved the location in the GPS but also found a broken bottle and some beer cans and he left them next to the road where he entered the road. He stopped and took in his surroundings. He could see the top of the barn from here and noted that a large pecan tree was standing in the field directly south of his location. He had driven this road before, but had never stopped to notice anything. He fired up the four-wheeler and headed down the road. All was quiet, no roadblocks, he headed around a curve and found a wrecked pickup in the ditch. A dump trunk was sitting on the side further down. He passed a small farm with a double wide house-trailer; there was a man on the side running a tiller in his garden. He never heard them pass. Dix thought, “Letting your guard down like that could get you killed in these
times. But you never know, his wife could be sitting under a tree with a 12 gauge.

When he got to the driveway gate of his sister’s house he found it open; that was not a good sign. There were also the skeletal remains of a man near the gate. The skull had rotten teeth; it wasn’t the skull of anyone he knew. He ran down to her house and found it open and ransacked. He found a note taped to her oven door. It simply said, Dix: We have taken the kids and grandbaby and have gone to the camp. Lucy……………

He noticed that there were spent cartridge casing on the floors, and bullet holes in the wall. However, there was no dried blood. Knowing Lucy, she probably cleaned it up before they left. Dix was relieved; they didn’t try to fight it out here. In all probability they were alive and well. He started to head back to the boat; but the fact was he didn’t know for sure if they were ok. He checked his Mississippi map and consulted his GPS. It was about a 75 mile trip one way to their camp. That was easily doable on the four-wheeler.

He topped off the tank in the four-wheeler and drove down behind the barn to where the bulk fuel tanks were kept. He tapped them with his foot and from the sound thought there might be some left in one of the tanks. He slid a shovel under the back and tilted up the rear of the tank. He kicked a brick under it and went back to the front and unscrewed the pump. He cut a piece of water hose from the spigot on the barn and poked it to the bottom. He was able to drain almost five gallons from the bottom of the tank. He had a full tank and four full cans in the trailer. That should be enough to get him there and back. He filled his canteens from the pond, tied down his gear and loaded up the pups. Three months ago Dix would not even considered traveling in broad daylight. But he really didn’t give a damn at
this point. If someone wanted to take him so be it, they just better hope they can hit what they were shooting at. Dix took the back roads avoiding the interstate. He didn’t want to be exposed from the air. The Chinese would soon be patrolling by air; he wasn’t exactly equipped to fight aircraft.

He was surprised he hadn’t run across more people. He passed a few obviously abandoned homes and there were lots of abandoned cars. He came up on a farm with a lot of activity. They had the road blocked and waved him down. The guy stopping him had a gun on his hip but left it holstered. Dix rolled up and asked, “How you guys making it up here? I’m Dix Jernigan from Gulfport.”

The guard answered, “I’m Alan Johnson, we have a group of 100 families living here and farming about 1000 acres. We are what’s left of about five church groups who forted up here.”

Dix asked, “You don’t happen to have Pete and Lucy Jackson in here with ya’ll do ya?”

Alan shook his head, “I know Pete and Lucy, they left out for the deer camp about the time we were forting up here. The food stamp crowd went absolutely berserk when the food ran out. We’re the only law enforcement in the area. How do you know the Jackson’s?”

“Lucy’s my sister, my entire family was murdered several weeks ago, I’ve been fighting almost nonstop since. I’m making this run to check on Lucy and her family, if they are ok, I’ll be making a run down into Louisiana to check on some of my mother’s people.”