EMP 1500 MILES FROM HOME (23 page)

Yeti burst into the kitchen, "There are people coming. Dan says all hands on deck." In less than one minute all of us were at our posts. I looked through the binoculars. I saw three old pickup trucks and a Model A ford moving slowly up the ranch road. George showed up at my side.

"What do you think, Wayne?"

"I am not sure. There are men, women, and children in the backs of the trucks. I can't tell who is in the truck cabs or the car. Some of the men are armed, but not all of them. George, it looks like family groups, several of them. I even see a couple of toddlers." I passed him the binoculars.

"It does look like families. Do you think it might be a ruse?"

"Could be, let's take the Humvee out with a white flag and see."

Max drove while George rode shotgun. I stood in the open hatch with my rifle, and two of the ranch hands sat in the back on either side of me with their 30-30s. George was holding a white flag on a long stick out of the window.

The four vehicles stopped and one of the drivers got out and waved something white as we approached. We stopped a hundred yards from them and I hopped out of the Humvee through the roof hatch and walked to meet them. George was on my heels.

"Howdy," I said. "Who are you people and what do you want?"

The man with the white flag said, "We are just a few families in need of help. We mean no harm, and we will move on if you want us to."

"How many of you are there?"

"Counting the children, 27."

George said, "That is a lot of mouths to feed."

"Yes Sir, believe me, I know," he paused. "We are hungry, thirsty, and willing to work."

George looked at me and I nodded. He nodded back ever so slightly.

"Follow us to the house then, but leave your weapons in your vehicles when you get out. At the very least we can serve you people a meal."

"Bless you Sir," the man said.

It was a busy afternoon as the men stood guard while the women built several fires in the ranch yard and a couple of the old hands brought out some good-sized cast iron pots. Julie was soon cooking over one of the fires with a couple of the newcomer women. They were chattering away and seemed to be having a great time. George asked me to help and we dragged a huge homemade BBQ over and built a fire in it.

After a while I sat near one of the fires because it was cold outside. I had a tattered old blanket, but no coat as yet. Julie said she would make me one from some wool blankets as soon as she could. I watched the newcomers like our future depended on it, because it just might.

As a salesman, I learned to identify bad people; people who like to hurt people. They could never be trusted. I was looking for the very worst kind of person, the psychopath. They are glib and have an easy way with people when they want to, but they are incapable of love or caring and like to hurt people in one way or another. That makes them the most dangerous humans alive. They make up about one percent of the population.

I read that, a few centuries ago, the Inuit people—the Eskimos—had an interesting way of dealing with psychopaths. It seems the psychopaths would stay back at the village when the men went hunting and 'laugh' with the women. Yes, 'laugh' means just what you think it does. Sooner or later, the other men in the village would force the 'laughing boy' to go hunting with them. Somehow, the psychopath always managed to fall into the water and drown.

I watched carefully but I only saw normal, seemingly decent folk. The men were mostly married and were looking after their families. No one was rowdy. They were just tired and hungry. I introduced myself to all of the men among the newcomers one by one and managed to talk with most of them. They all seemed genuine to me.

"What do you think, Wayne?" George asked.

"I think they are just what they claim to be. Several family groups that banded together on the road from Albuquerque."

"Should we keep them?"

"Can you feed them?"

"Well, after you and your group leave this spring, it will be easier. I suspect you might recruit some of these folks to go with you."

"Yeah, that is a strong possibility."

"Let's allow them to stay tonight and see what we think in the morning?"

"That sound's good to me, George," I said.

"Call me Pa, Boy." George winked and smiled as he walked away. I wondered what the hell I was going to do with two pa-in-laws.

Several days later, the newcomers were settling in rather well. They seemed to be good people and all lent a hand whenever they could. George seemed pleased and spent a couple of hours a day in his office doing various calculations on how to feed everyone. We discussed it a few times and pretty soon he had a plan.

Yeti

I was sitting on a box by the barn when this newcomer kid came up to me. "Darn, you sure are a big one. My name is Darrell. What's yours?"

I didn't feel much like talking but I answered anyway. "Yeti."

"That is a strange name."

"Well, so is Darrell."

"Nuh uh. It's not strange." The kid paused and looked up and down. "I like you, Yeti. You are funny." After that I had a shadow. He turned out to be a pretty nice kid, even if he was only 12.

Wayne

Julie modified a couple of hats for Max and me, and she made a coat for me, and another for Max from some old olive-drab wool blankets. She said the color would blend in better on the road and she would rather have me alive than a fashionable target. Julie stayed up in a chair in the bedroom all night sewing on the new coats while I slept. She was a treasure; a treasure I didn't deserve.

The next morning, as I was walking to the barn, a newcomer fifty feet away from me fell to the ground. Then I heard the shot. It was a sniper. "Sniper," I yelled and started herding everyone near me into the barn. No one else fell and I didn't hear any more shots.

The newcomer was still lying on the ground. I crouched and ran to get him. I threw him over my shoulder and ran back toward the barn. I felt a tug at my hat and then I heard the sound of the shot. Unfortunately, the newcomer was dead, shot through the back of his head. I didn't even remember his name. My hat now had a rip in the crown.

Wayne

The ranch yard was empty. Everyone was under cover. I couldn't see the sniper but I had an idea of the direction the shot came from. It amazed me how a single sniper could disrupt the ranch. There had been no time so far to plan a sniper response. Cap told me what it would be like to be targeted by snipers and he was right.

We needed to eliminate this sniper and then set up some sniper defenses. The best would be an armored tower manned at all times by our own sniper team, preferably with a 50-caliber sniper rifle and a powerful spotting scope, but we didn't have either of those. I also needed to figure out a sniper defense and response for the caravan, but that would have to come later.

I sent two men with rifles to the barn loft and told them to stay out of sight but to be ready for an invasion. The rifle the sniper was using would punch right through the barn walls, or the house walls. The buildings all needed armoring.

As best I could tell, the sniper was somewhere within 400 yards. We could wait for dark before we went out to get him, but if he had night vision we would just be targets.

I needed to get to the house and check on Julie. Yeti was safe for the moment in the barn. I also needed to confer with George and see if there was a heavier rifle on the ranch. I sorely missed the Mosin right now.

To get to the house, first I needed to get to the rear of the bunkhouse, some 100 feet away. From there it was a dash of another hundred feet or so to the house. I was a good runner, but not that good. The 3 or 4 seconds I would be exposed between the buildings would allow a good marksman an excellent chance of dropping me, and this guy was either an excellent marksman or very lucky. I needed a diversion, but one that would not get anyone else killed or hurt.

The ranch yard was dusty. Hell, all of New Mexico was dusty. I just needed something to stir up some dust. The Humvee would work since it was armored, but it was parked in sight of the sniper. At that point I decided all ranch vehicles should always be under cover so no one would know what we had.

I found Yeti in the barn. "Yeti, what could we use to raise some dust and block the sniper's view so I can get to the ranch house."

"Let me look around and think on it, Wayne," Yeti started searching through the barn followed by his new shadow, Darrell. I scanned the barn to see if I could come up with anything. It would be nice if tunnels connected all of the buildings. I made a note to encourage George to consider that soon. He had an old skid loader alongside the barn and I thought it would dig trenches for the tunnels fairly well, if it would run. These trenches could then be roofed over, but I wasn't sure with what. Oh well, it was a problem for later.

I had not heard another shot since the sniper hit my hat. I assumed he was still there. Ten minutes later, Yeti stood beside me. "I have a plan, Wayne."

Yeti and I pushed the armored wagon between the barn and the bunkhouse. Yeti determined from the angle of the sniper's shots that he would not be able to hit our feet or legs under the wagon. Yeti, and several others, stacked the wagon tightly with lumber. Yeti also rigged a pair of ropes to the wagon tongue that let us steer the wagon. The darn thing was hard to push, but it stopped the three rounds from the sniper with no problems.

We rested for a bit in the bunkhouse, and then pushed the wagon to the rear of the house. There were no more shots from the sniper. George was waiting at the back door. "Clever," he said.

"It was Yeti's idea.”

"Smart boy."

"Yeah, he is," I put my hand on Yeti's shoulder, "but don't let him hear you say that. It might give him a big head. How is Julie?"

"Julie is fine. She is in the kitchen with Dorothy."

"We have to stop this sniper."

"How?"

"Do you have any heavier rifles, ones with longer range than the 30-30s or the ARs? Is that 30-06 we arrived with still around?"

"Yes, it is," George said, "but I may have something better. Wait in the kitchen if you want." He looked at Yeti. "I think Julie made some donuts."

Yeti grinned. He beat me to the donuts and then carefully just ate one. When I came in the kitchen Julie hugged me. "I am glad you are OK. I was worried."

"I am worried too." I didn't tell her how worried about her I had been. "I don't like snipers."

Soon George was back with a well-aged, leather rifle case. He sat at the table and removed the rifle from the case. It was an old Sharps single shot. I guessed it was a black powder version. "This was my grandfather's rifle. It still shoots just as well as it ever did. It is a .45-125 Sharps. It is a target rifle. My granddad and my father both used it to win several long-range shooting matches. It will hit a man-sized target at 2,000 yards, if you are a good enough shot." George put a cigar box on the table and opened it. "These are the cartridges for it." He laid a couple on the table. The cartridges were a little over 4 inches long and almost as big around as my little finger. "These things carry a 500 grain bullet."

I picked the rifle up and examined it. It was heavy and well taken care of, nearly pristine. "Wow, I have heard about these but I have never seen one before."

"Yeah, they are something. I think it will outshoot the 30-06, but I will get that for you too. Julie has all of the extra guns you brought in the back of her closet, except for a few we gave to a couple of the new hands."

"Wasn't one of these things used in the Old West by a buffalo hunter to kill an Indian Chief at a distance of a mile?" I asked.

"That would be Billy Dixon at the second battle of adobe Walls in 1874. They were surrounded by over a thousand Indians, so the story goes. Bill Dixon borrowed a 50-90 Sharps and fired at a group of Indians almost a mile away. On his third shot he killed the Indian next to Chief Quanah Parker. The Indians left." George smiled and pointed to the Sharps rifle in my hands. "That gun will outshoot the Sharps Billy Dixon used. It has a 36 inch barrel, and almost half again as much range as the 50-90."

"I will need to try it out to see how it shoots."

George handed me a handful of cartridges from the cigar box and walked to a window at the rear of the house. He opened the window and pointed to a man-sized rock on the top of a hill quite some distance from the house. "That rock is 6,000 feet from this window. My Dad measured the distance. He would sit here in his wheelchair the year before he died, rest the rifle on some books stacked up in the windowsill and shoot at that rock. He usually hit it. If you look at the tang sight, it is calibrated to 7,000 feet. It is a custom sight that my Dad had made for that rifle."

I chambered a round and knelt in front of the window. Adjusting the tang sight to 6,000 feet, I rested my elbow on the windowsill and aimed the Sharps. It was a heavy gun and the front sight stayed on target better than any rifle I ever held. I fired when the sights were right. My first shot kicked up dust a few inches to the right of the rock. I chambered another round and fired again, correcting for the slight breeze. This time I hit the rock. This was one hell of a rifle, in spite of the cloud of white smoke that poured from the barrel with every shot.

George took the Sharps and cleaned it while Yeti and I pushed the wagon back to the bunkhouse to talk to one of the men with military experience. I estimated we still had a good ten minutes before the sniper could be in position to hit us when we were pushing the wagon. I just hoped there wasn't more than one of them, although if there were, they most likely would have already been there to shoot us the first time we moved the wagon.

Back in the ranch house kitchen with Larry, an Army combat veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, we studied a topographical map of the area close to ranch headquarters. George pointed out a few features that were not on the map and Larry marked them with a pencil." Wayne, I think we can find a vantage point here that will put us within 1000 yards of any position the sniper is likely to take.

"How do we get there without being seen?" I asked.

"We don't," Yeti said. "We take the Humvee. It is armored. Max and a couple of the newcomers are pushing the wagon as cover and will bring the Humvee to the back of the house. The Humvee still has enough fuel for this."

"That will work," Larry said. “The Humvee is a model 1114, it is bullet-proof.

Yeti wanted to go but I told him he needed to stay and take care of Julie in case something happened to me. He said no, he was determined to come. George said to let him go along so he could learn. I reluctantly agreed. I guess it is always like that with a son. You know they need to learn and gain experience, but you never want to take the slightest risk of losing them.

Max drove the Humvee slowly across the high desert toward the hill. The sniper fired at us twice but the bullets just bounced off. "This guy is an amateur," Larry said. "He should know not to waste ammunition on an armored Humvee."

We reached the top of the hill and parked the Humvee behind a low rise. I crawled to the top of the rise and peered over it with my binoculars. Once the sniper fired at the hill behind us, probably to scare us, but he just showed me where to look for him.

After almost an hour of searching with the binoculars, I saw a small movement. After some staring at the spot, I made out the sniper. He was laying flat on the ground and was covered with camouflage. Larry looked through the binoculars and said it was a ghillie suit. In any event, the sniper made a small target. I made the distance at almost 700 yards.

Larry handed me the Sharps and trained the binoculars on the sniper. He was acting as my spotter. I arranged myself so that just the top of my head and the rifle barrel were above the crest of the small rise. I aimed and fired. The round kicked up dirt just behind the sniper. It must have startled him because his return shot at the old Sharps' smoke cloud missed me by five feet. I quickly chambered another round, corrected my aim and fired.

"You got him," Larry said. "You nailed that fucker."

We got in the Humvee and Max drove us to the sniper's position. Yeti was excited. Max, Larry, and I were quiet. Exposure to violence does that to people after a while.

We parked the Humvee and carefully made our way to the sniper. He was a gory mess with half of his head blown off. I was nearly sick at the sight. We took all of his gear and left him for the buzzards.

"Looking over the pile of shooting and camping gear we took from the sniper, Larry said, "He was an amateur, but he had expensive equipment. His rifle alone must have cost $4,000. He didn't find this stuff after; he must have already had it."

"I don't see any sign he was not acting alone," I said.

"Yeah," Larry said, "but we can't be sure."

"Maybe he was just a nutcase?" I grinned at Max and Dave and said, "we have seen at least one real nut job so far." They grinned back. "Why would this sniper be here now if he was part of a larger group?"

"I don't know? To gauge our response?"

"Well, that's a possibility, and one we shouldn't discount. If there is a larger group then they may have observers out there right now," Larry said.

It was a grim group that sat around the kitchen table. George sat at the head of the table, his usual place, and Max, Dave, Yeti, Larry, and two other guys, one newcomer and one ranch hand, with military backgrounds, two more ranch hands, and I were near him.

"If there are observers out there we need to find and neutralize them," George said.

"We can organize a patrol and see if we can find them or their tracks," Larry said. "I can take care of that, if you like."

"Do it," George said. "Dan, would you go with the patrol? You are our best tracker."

"You bet, Boss."

"The ranch also needs better physical defenses," Larry said.

"I can help with that," Yeti said.

Larry spoke. "Jared, can you help Yeti?" Jared, a newcomer, had been a combat engineer in the Army.

Jared said, "yes Sir."

"That would be great. Let's get started," Yeti motioned for Jared to come with him.

After the others were gone, George and I were alone at the table. "Wayne, I have been a rancher all of my life on this very ranch. I have never been in the military, nor have I ever shot at anyone before. I am not sure I can handle all of this."

"You are doing fine George," I said. "The violence should lessen over time. Cap, my pa-in-law..."

"Your other pa-in-law," George smiled. "I sure am glad you are here, Wayne. For my sake as well as Julie's."

"OK, my other pa-in-law," I said, "told me that in the first year after an EMP, somewhere around 80 to 90% of the population will die off."

"Yeah, I read the same. No food, violence, lack of water, sickness, no medical treatment, and simply not knowing how to cope. Most of the casualties will be in the cities. Once the food deliveries stop, the people have little to eat, except each other. That's what seldom gets mentioned."

"Well, there is that. Julie ran into cannibals,” I said. “I am sure there are more of them."

"It wouldn't be the first time people turned to cannibalism in a tight spot. Have you heard the story of the Donner party?"

"Yeah, I see what you mean. Maybe there will be more survive than Cap thinks. Anyway, if enough of the population dies off, the survivors will have more resources, at least in areas where they can grow food or hunt."