Pilliars in the Fall (5 page)

Chapter 7

Clint drove slowly down the road to avoid the random wind blown tree limbs and icy spots. Kathy had stayed at home with a neighbor friend to help with some baking and also to make sure she didn’t do too much while trying to fight off her cold.

We were all settling in for what was usually a ten minute drive that now looked like it was going to take four times that long with the weather and road conditions. The first popping sound none of us really could identify, when the truck lurched in one direction, and then the other, we started to get worried. Clint fought it all the way into a hard stop into the ditch on the wrong side of the road.

The impact was enough to kill the engine of the truck and we all kind of just sat there, confused and stunned. Clint was in the middle of asking “Is everyone alright? I don’t know what just happ-” when the hood started being pockmarked with little black holes, the sound of the impacts creating a distinct “thwap” sound each time a new one appeared.

I finally put two and two together, getting my head into the game, and hopped it wasn’t too late already.

“Bail out the driver’s side! Blake, you and me lay out suppressive fire! You two grab the gear in the back, GO!” I yelled and slammed open my passenger door with enough force to have it spring back and hit me in the knee as I was slipping out into the cold, wet air.

I had a general direction that I knew someone was shooting at us from, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint it even when they opened up on us again. What I did know was that they were across the road from us, and it was all uphill in that direction. When they fired again, the rounds snapped by close enough for me to imagine that I could feel their kinetic heat and I started firing my pistol in the general vicinity I had figured they were coming from as I moved quickly and steadily across the road.

My Glock held plenty of rounds but I was all too aware that I had only one spare magazine on my belt. I hit the ditch on the other side of the road across from the stricken truck and Blake waited long enough to make sure that Clint and Danielle were out and momentarily safe from the incoming fire before he opened up with four quick bursts of fully automatic pistol fire, then he too made his sprint to join me from across the road.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught his slide locking back on an already empty gun, he wasn’t yet fully across the road to my side when it ran dry. I peeked my head around a slight rise and patch of bushes to realign with the spot I thought the shooting was coming from and pulled the trigger a few more times, more to keep the shooter’s head down than anything, while Blake finished his quick sprint.

“Where the fuck are we, Sarajevo?” Blake yelled to me as he crashed into the frozen bank of dirt on the side of the road.

My gun wasn’t yet empty but I used the temporary lull, knowing it was as good a time as any to load a fresh, full magazine. Blake and I made eye contact, neither of us really interested in assaulting up a hill on an unknown number of people with only pistols. Looking back across the road, I caught sight of the tail end of Clint hauling the last of the bags out from under the truck canopy to a more secure spot back in the wood line.

“Screw this?” I asked Blake who immediately nodded his head in agreement.

“Bound on this side back the way we came,” he said loud enough for me to hear, and hopefully not our attacker, who had yet to continue to shoot at us. I had no notion that our random fire had hit
anybody; the best I could hope for was that our armed response might have scared them off. Or maybe they were just waiting for us to show ourselves again to take a clear shot.

Blake and I ungracefully leap-frogged each other, one covering the other’s retreat, until we got back to the spot in the road where our fun had first started. A rope that had pulled a homemade tire spike strip was easy to spot as we made one last sprint back across the road to join up with Clint and Danielle.

Blake got to the others first and as I ran up, I noticed the different behavior of my three companions. Clint had produced a pump action shotgun from the truck along with his Enfield, and he was busy scanning for targets, his hands steady as ever. Blake's chest was heaving up and down from the quick sprints across the road, and he had a bold look to him, maybe one a little too devoid of caution too. And Danielle, she at first looked disconcerted and drawn back, then after realizing her own hesitation, quickly un-holstered her pistol too. A nice little Sig Sauer I recognized.

“You guys alright?” I asked as we met up in a small bowl of the ground where they were waiting.

“Yeah. Truck is cleared out, you see anyone?” Clint handed the shotgun over to Danielle and picked up his SMLE to peer through the scope. I noticed too that his jacket was pulled back; allowing quick access to the 1911 pistol on his hip if it was needed. He was constantly looking, inspecting areas with his scope, and generally keeping us from getting surprised again.

“No one, and no more fire once we opened up either,” I reported to him.

“Okay, grab what gear you can, we’ll head north then hook around…”

“Wait, what?” Blake interrupted him. “What do you mean? We’re just leaving?”

“Basically, yes.”

Clint had the ability to make two simple words sound like a paragraph of an explanation, at least to me. Blake was understandably a little more resilient to his father’s ways though, so I jumped in.

“Smart move is to E and E then regroup,” I implored reasonably.

“And that’s what we’re doing here,” Blake countered. “Come on, that’s our truck! We aren’t going to just leave it there! We can go from here and hunt them out, or set up an ambush to take them when they come for it. Or heck, let’s do both!”

I tried to catch Clint’s eye, but he was still scanning everything around us so I again attempted to get Blake on board. “I hear you man and I feel the same way, but if we push this it could get stupid. My place is not that far away. We’ll get there, warm up, arm up, then you and I can come back for it.”

“We’re here already, let’s set up on the truck and wait for whoever it is to come out!” Blake again argued.

“We’re behind the curve here and need to extend. Dude might have back up or be maneuvering for a shot right now. We have to E and E, let's get gone,” I told him, starting to get slightly angry myself.

“Would you two keep your voices down!” Danielle hissed at us.

“We need to move,” Clint said again, and this time it was less of a suggestion.

Wasting no more time, we each shouldered the bags we would carry and started off. Well the others started off, I thought I was going to have to physically pull Blake away from the area, until finally he too turned and went, leaving me kneeling there on the frozen ground, acting as a rear guard for the others. Taking one last look around, I slinked off reluctantly.

I was almost basking in the option of taking on an unknown sniper in the woods versus taking on Blake’s surprisingly reckless attitude. I knew what he was like when he got in a mood, but it had been years since I had seen him really get worked up first hand. And in that time, he had been places that could change people I unhappily reminded myself.

We walked with little to no talking for a good half hour until we reached a spot that made for a good area to take a break in. I had doubled back and set up on our back trail twice since leaving the truck, just in case whoever it was out there had been trying to follow us. I caught back up to the group as they were rearranging the load in the backpacks that Clint and I had tossed into the back of the truck.

“Lets see what we have and what we can spread out,” Clint suggested quickly. Even though Danielle was used to wearing a ruck, and we could all carry a load, it still made sense to do a quick revamp and inventory of the contents of our bags, even if we only had another hour or so left to walk.

“You guys do at least know where we are right?” Danielle asked aloud. She was looking at her watch and the overcast skyline through the trees, obviously concerned about our current situation after having to abandon the truck with the weather threatening to turn ugly and the distance still to go to the next friendly house. Well that and the whole someone having just tried to kill us all thing.

“Up shit creek,” I murmured half to myself and went back to blowing on my hands to warm them.

Clint, on the other hand, knew that he needed to keep up Danielle's confidence in us, as unfounded as it may have been at that point, as opposed to my ability of being able to shake anything reliable apart with a few simple wor
ds. What can I say, he was Ying and I was Yang. Or he was really smart and experienced and I had a lot to learn. Whatever.

“About a good eight miles or so to home,” he said, not really needing to check the map he had opened up. I still didn’t know how he had managed to grab it, along with nearly everything else, on his way out of the truck.

"And only about two miles from my place now," I added. "You remember this spot?" I turned to Blake which seemed to surprise him out of a stupor.

"Huh? No, where are we?" he asked.

"You don't remember?" I said, well aware of the faint smile on my face that had been brought on by an old memory.

"It's been a while since I've hiked around here. Maybe with all the gunfire and frigid cold, I must've got turned around and forgotten a few things," he said grumpily.

"You guys have been here before?" Danielle took the hint I had been giving.

"A long time ago," I reminisced.
 

"Okay..." she prompted.

"Back when I was a kid, I read this book about Johnny Appleseed. So for a while, whenever I'd go on a hike, I'd take a bundle of seeds or the starts of some plants, and stick them in the ground. I always thought it would be cool to be out in the middle of nowhere and come up on a field of sunflowers or find a patch of pumpkins or something like that."

"Guerrilla gardens," Clint provided the proper name for all of us.

"So what did you plant here?" Danielle asked, somewhat confused by the idea.

"Potatoes," I answered her. "The last time I was out this way there were a few bunches growing here and there. By now I bet they've spread out pretty good. It was always just some kid
game; I never dreamed I'd have to live off of it."

“Ha! No shit huh? I had forgotten about that," Blake laughed. "Wait, that means we're not too far away from the old highway that goes to Wrangle right?” Blake supplied after studying our position on the map with renewed interest. He had recovered from the adrenaline dump and the walk in the cold air had cooled his temper enough for him to be the normally level headed guy I knew once again.

I was very familiar with the little farm community of Wrangle that he was talking about, I was also not all that interested in going anywhere near there. I knew some very good people that attended the church out that way. I was also not on such good terms with one or two of the
prominent families of that church either. Unbeknownst to me, come to find out they take sides and blame you, when you and their daughter breakup after living together in sin.  Thankfully, my own unfinished hole in the ground of a house now gave us a sanctuary to shoot for, besides the church.

Chapter 8

Opening the sub-basement door next to the big roll up garage door, I stood aside as the other three filed through the doorway and out of the cold. The air had been misting again and combined with the dropping temperate and setting sun, we were all happy to have a dry place to sit and rest.

“This is it. Throw your bed rolls anywhere. Bathroom is upstairs but you have to fill the tank to flush,” I told them as the backpack slipped from my shoulders to land next to a pile of moving boxes.

“I’ll be right back,” I said scooping up a set of keys from the plywood work bench I had cobbled together and went back outside.

On the opposite side of the house I had a small lean-to style carport that had already been framed in so it could be sided and roofed at the same time as the house. Three months ago I had hitched up and towed my little travel trailer out here after hearing how so many other people’s RV’s, motor homes, tent trailers and even barbeque grills had been easy targets for thieves.
 

Unlocking the trailer, I went in and retrieved some extra blankets, an oil lamp, and another battery powered light for us to use in the house. It was way too cold to sleep in the travel trailer right now without running a heater and I had already burned a couple of fires in the wood stove I had in the basement, so I figured that was where we would be holed up for tonight at least.

Coming back inside, Danielle took the lamps out of my arms and I tossed the blankets over to Blake and Clint.

“Hammer and nails are on the bench,” I said, continuing my whirlwind of getting the house in respectable order for guests.

As the windows didn’t have any blinds or shades to cover them, not to mention any trim either, I wanted to hang the blankets over them to keep the heat and light inside. While the others started on the windows, I again went out and brought in a few armfuls of scrap lumber to get a fire going in the wood stove. We would have to bring in some of the actual firewood later, but this would get us started.

“You do know there is a car in your living room right?” Danielle stated, finding my decorating and accommodations amusing.

“Well actually there is a living room in my garage,” I cryptically answered her back.

“Is that a convertible Polara?” Clint eyed the faded blue paint and few pieces of actual car that wasn’t covered by moving boxes, a painter’s drop cloth, or other random junk.

“Yep, a seventy with the meaner looking front end. I got it cheap from a guy that worked at the grain silos. Runs good for a stock big block, and the body’s straight. It makes a good dining room table and couch too... kind of like being at my own deserted drive in theater.”

“God you’re depressing sometimes, you know that?” Blake frowned and shook his head at me.

"I don’t mean to be rude, but how were you able to afford all this?" Danielle asked. "I mean, we did pretty well in the Army, but with the economy like it is... I'm sorry, I shouldn’t ask that," she backtracked.

"No its fine, my parents retired and cashed out before the first big fall off in the market happened. When they died, what they had left went to me. Really though, everything you see, the property, the house, the car, my truck... it was pretty much all just falling into a good deal with people desperate to sell. Heck even most all the guns are just cheap mil-surplus, except for the few nice ones I pieced together myself. But really, I had paid off any debt early on and it was still having a job from my company that kept me going. I mean officially, we never have closed, even now. Of course I haven’t heard from my boss in a good two months, and that was to ask if I had any 45-70 ammo I'd sell to him," I explained. "We were one of the lucky few companies that had some really long prepaid contracts out on projects, and him and I were the last ones left, so he really helped me out by keeping me on when I found this land to buy."

"You mean you still have a job?" Blake sounded astonished. In all fairness, it was a pretty rare thing these days.

"Well no, not really. We finished our last job about four months ago. The office and shop are on his land, so for the last little bit we mostly just shot baskets, worked out, drank beer and tinkered with shit. He was into riding sport quads and I had the gun stuff to play with, so it gave us somewhere to go and something to do. No new jobs are out there for us to bid on, but it's not like I got a pink slip either. We're just on hold I guess. With what I've got here, I should be able to make it through for a while until... well until the next step."

"You're pretty freaking lucky you know that?" Blake didn’t hide the jealousy well.

Yeah, luck played a part, but I worked my ass off, and had lost a lot to get what I now had. The slowed down pace at work had also given me plenty of time to spend in cold, wet and otherwise really shitty places working with Clint and the uniformed people of ten different agencies and organizations.

"What about your place in town?" Danielle asked, maybe trying to diffuse Blake's last comment.

"I pretty much cleared out of there."

"Why, I mean obviously this place is great, or it will be, but..." she trailed off, unsure of how to stop digging a hole of her own.

"The last city council meeting I was at the cops basically ran it, and they were standing with their arms crossed on both sides, and at the front and back of the gym. It just felt weird. They started talking about pooling community and residential resources, so I went to take a pee and never went back. I saw their mentality and it wasn’t worth the effort. They don’t have a clue and won't listen, but are dang sure and insist that they need to be listened to. They're a mess I didn’t want anything to do with so I moved out here," I flourished my hands at the unfinished interior of the basement.

We spent the next hour warming up and I organized a few of the boxes of my stuff into new or different piles, more just to have a menial task to do as my mind blanked out for a while.

Blake, Clint and Danielle were all quiet, content to sit around staring at the flames licking the glass door of the stove and not talking about our most recent run of bad luck. Finally after realizing I had just moved the same box back and forth three times in a row, I came over to sit down next to them.

“Well what next then?” Danielle asked me.

I guess since this was my house, it somehow fell to me to be the one that they asked questions of. I hoped I wasn't also expected to know all the answers, because right now, I had very few good things to say.

“We stay here tonight obviously, see what we can do about getting some intel, and then go from there,” Clint came to my rescue after thinking on the situation for a second. “If we can get back to the truck, or borrow yours, then we’ll head back home when we know the way is clear and safe.”

“Radios?” I asked him, trying to get my own mind caught up to where he already was with the overall situation.

I was very decisive in a fluid situation, but still looked to Clint for guidance in long term planning. It could have been simply life experience, but he had a knack to instantly see the different paths and avenues available and to discard those that did not have a favorable outcome just as quickly. I always admired his ability to look and plan ahead.

“That’s what I’m thinking. You have all your comm gear here?” he asked.

“It’s all here but nothing is set up; most of its still in boxes.”

If I had have been in a better place mentally during the move, I would have instantly set up the priority parts of my household. As it was, things had gotten thrown into boxes and stuffed in with little fanfare. The ability to gather news and communicate was vastly important, but the mood I had been in for the last little while was not one that wanted to be connected to anything or anyone, and so the boxes with my radio gear, scanner, amplifier and antenna, were still packed away somewhere.

“Okay let’s break it out and get listening. What do you have for power?”

“Well that part might get interesting,” I stalled.

While it wasn’t my long term plan, I had been relying on the unreliable line power for the most part as the construction was going along. I wasn't without a few temporary back up options though.

“There’s the generator and a couple cans of gas, or I have an inverter that I never got around to installing in the truck. It might be better to hook up the inverter inside and run the Ford to keep the battery charged until we can dig out the solar gear.”
 

“Well that will take longer,” Clint said, although he didn’t sound disappointed with my lack of options or poor organization. I had been in the middle of building and prematurely moving, it just wasn’t an ideal state of affairs.

“Should we try to get a hold of Kathy?” Danielle asked, bringing a voice of compassionate reasoning into this group of stereotypical males.

“Who?” Clint kidded her.

“Your wife!” she said quickly before realizing he had been joking.

“Oh her, yeah I left my shortwave on. Who knows if she’ll be listening for a call from us though.”

“We should maybe be… selective… in what we tell her,” I reminded him.

“In case other people are listening, like the guy that sniped at us?” Blake asked me.

“Well that, and the part where I don’t really think we should worry your mother unnecessarily now that you’re finally home again.” I said tapping into some of that compassion Danielle was trying to provide. “Hey Mom, I’m home from war, we got in a car wreck and a gun fight, and then had to hike a couple miles in the freezing cold,” I mimicked his voice.

Clint and Danielle both smiled at his frowning face until he gave in and finally laughed with us. The levity of our moods right now strangely belied the extreme danger we were all still in. It was the beginning of a characteristic I would soon come to embrace and dispense over the next few years to come.

Clint and I got the radio stuff out from the five different boxes it was scattered in, and he started working on setting it all up while Blake and Danielle worked on getting us some food started on the top of the wood stove. Instead of focusing on one single task, I was really acting more as an errand boy in finding coaxial wire and silverware and a crock pot and electrical tape... but finally between the four of us, we were able to get the radios up and running and also get a decent little warm meal in our bellies.

“So really, what is the next step here? Do we try to call the sheriff over the radio or do we have to go into town to let them know that there are people shooting at trucks on the back roads?” Danielle asked after dinner.

“They know,” I answered, again probably before I had thought it through.

“What?” she turned her head in my direction.

“You saw the people at the train station and heard about the riots in the town,” Clint stepped in. “The cops are overwhelmed and there are a lot of desperate people out there. There’s also some pretty bad and desperate people who know there is no police presence right now, and they are doing whatever they think they have to do, or worse, whatever they want to do. I honestly think whoever attacked us today wasn’t one of those bad people, just a desperate one,” he concluded.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“Because they could have easily killed us all,” I summarized for her. “No shots through the windows at us, just skipping some rounds off the hood. They bolted or hunkered down when we fought back. They had the advantage, if they wanted to kill us, they could have.”

“They should have,” Blake said darkly, surprising us all. “Desperate or not, if I find the guys who shot at my wife, my family, I’ll smile killing ‘em.”

I had a hard time disagreeing with his anger. Sympathy and forgiveness were not my strong suits either.

“You can’t blame someone for trying to feed their kids or keep their grandparents warm,” Danielle tried to reason away the murder in his eyes.

“Maybe some people are like that, but just remember,” Clint continued to instruct us all, this time playing to Blake’s side of the issue. “One way or another, no one wakes up in the morning one day and just decides to become an armed robber. It's a gradual process that requires some bad traumas and a good deal of desensitizing. Mercy is divine, but don’t underestimate a desperate person. You get face to face with someone you don’t know better than a brother; you don’t turn your back to them.”

“It must have been your mom that told the bedtime stories when you were little,” I told Blake, “because I’m guessing in his stories, the Big Bad Wolf wins and you would’ve never slept,” I laughed at my own joke.

“Yeah no shit, when did you get so cynical?” Blake laughed at his dad’s expense.

“Must be hanging out with the wrong crowd,” he jerked his thumb in my direction.

“I guess I just have a hard time accepting it’s gotten so bad, even here,” Danielle brought us back down a notch.

“Its like I said the other night, we've been in the process of collapsing now for a few years. As the train went downhill, it picked up speed. The real collapse is when the general public realizes that the game is up and they've been had. I think that’s what we’re seeing now with these riots starting up,” I
prophesized sadly.

We sat and talked for a few more minutes before everyone found their way to bed. Or couch, or back seat of an old Dodge convertible, or wherever my guests had decided to sleep for the night. As exhausted as I was, I wasn’t really that tired, and decided to go outside with a small glass of scotch to keep me company and maybe help me to relax a little.