Jernigan's War (17 page)

Dix thought to himself, “Surely this crowd was not so inept that I could kill 16 of their number and not have one of them
even take a shot at me.” Evidently they never saw him. He went over to the barricade and found one of their radios. He listened as someone was barking orders. The speaker was ordering them to come at him from two angles. Apparently they weren’t sure where he was. Whoever was barking the orders was practically panicking. Dix figured it was Mr. Mayor.

Dix’s luck had been nothing short of a miracle. He kept telling himself that the old Springfield rifle was giving him good luck and he had been holding up pretty good. Other than a lot of joint pain he figured he was good shape. His one man war had been a roaring success so far.

He listened to the radio and learned that they were going to converge on his suspected location from two sides. He walked about 250 yards towards town and spotted a large azalea next to an abandoned house. He crawled under it and waited. One group of the mayor’s men was going to approach from the east and the others were coming from town. Dix hoped they would be driving. Not quite two minutes later a police cruiser came barreling in his direction down the road from town toward the barricade. When it was within about 350 yards of the barricade they pulled to a stop. That put them at 100 yards from Dix; you might as well say point blank range. Once again he started putting rounds through the passenger compartment of the car. It was a shame they had taken it out of gear and killed the engine. The 30 caliber bullets cut through the car and the passengers and as before, no one walked away. The mayor was practically screaming in the radio when he got no response from the car.

The group coming from the east had stopped and gotten out of their vehicle out of sight of Dix. He reloaded and refilled his bandoleer. He waited; this spot was as good as any. He could see them milling around the barricade and they cautiously
approached the shot up car. One of them called the mayor, “Mel’s men are all dead. There must be a bunch of them, everyone’s dead.” The Mayor fell silent for a moment, “get back here! They might be heading this way.” They retreated to their SUV accelerating wide open when they flew past Dix’s position.

Dix didn’t take a shot until they were past and heading away. He shot at the retreating SUV, trying to put the round through the driver’s side of the vehicle. The bullet went through the back window, clipping the left ear of the deputy in the back seat. It hit the steering wheel narrowly missing the driver’s hand and then through the windshield which became opaque on the driver’s side because that’s what happens when safety glass becomes a maze of zigzagging lines and miniature pea gravel sized pieces.

The vehicle was traveling about 70 mph when the bullet hit it. The driver panicked, lost control and flipped the SUV. None of them were wearing seatbelts and most were ejected in the street. From about 400 yards Dix shot the ones that tried to get up. He reloaded and headed toward city hall.

The Mayor called back over the radio “How come you ain’t here yet.”

Dix keyed the radio, “We’re coming boss, just hang tight.” Dix walked by the overturned SUV and used his pistol to dispatch a couple who were still breathing. He swapped the magazine in his Browning 9mm for a full one and continued to city hall and the police station.

He took his time as he approached the main intersection of town. He cut around the houses to where he could see the checkpoint on this end of town. It was empty as he suspected. He stood out of sight in case the sharpshooter on this end was still in position. Dix sat tight and waited, time was on his side. The Mayor got back on the radio, “Milton, you seen anything yet?” A voice that Dix assumed to be Milton came back on the radio, “I
ain’t seen nothing yet, I heard some shooting down the road, but nobody or nothing has come by here.”

The Mayor ordered, “Stay put, don’t you be moving, they’ll have to walk right by you to get here.”

Dix thought, “Thanks for the tip. That was probably the sharpshooter on this end.”

He turned the radio off so as not to expose his position, squatted, got down on his belly and ever so slowly crawled around the corner of a house and under an old Arborvitae tree. From here he could see up the street to the barricade on the north side of town. Milton’s sniping position had to be where he could cover the barricade and the road to the City Hall. Dix thought and looked and methodically covered every square inch of the area. From where he lay Dix figured this was one of the only spots that he could cover both locations.

The Mayor got back on the radio. It startled Dix as he thought he had turned the radio down. That’s when Dix realized that the voice was not coming from the radio in his hand but from Milton’s radio on the porch just above and to the right of where he had crawled. Unknowingly, Dix had crawled up next to the porch where Milton was waiting in ambush.

This was one of those times that he took the luxury of thinking about his family and why he was here. He eased his 9mm out of the holster; it was not cocked so he held the trigger down with his right hand and pulled the hammer back with the other. Ever so easy he released the trigger and then eased the hammer back down. He had silently cocked the pistol. Milton once again told the Mayor to be patient. Dix rolled onto his side. He could see Milton sitting on the porch through the limbs on the Arborvitae. Dix waited. He had the patience of Job. After what he estimated
to be an hour, his bladder felt as though it would burst. He could not take a chance of being discovered so he urinated in his pants and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Milton set down his rifle and walked over to the edge of the porch to pee. Dix waited until Milton had his hands full and killed him with the Browning 9mm. He kept firing until the gun was empty. Milton didn’t die easy, but he got off a shot from a pistol Dix didn’t see, it cut a gash across Dix’s head. Dix replaced the empty magazine in his Browning and retreated around the back of the house. He ran his fingers through his new hair part, other than bleeding a little it wasn’t hurting yet.

It was about that time the Mayor called Milton, “I heard the shooting, did you get him?”

Dix answered, “Yea boss I got him. I’m hit though I need some help.”

The Mayor answered, “We coming boy, hang on.”

Dix rolled Milton off the porch so that his body landed and rolled under the Arborvitae bush. Dix sat on the porch in his urine soaked pants and drank from his water bottle. A little blood dribbled down behind his ear. That idiot mayor was hopefully going to come up and Dix was going to kill him too.

It didn’t take long for the Mayor and two men to drive up. They were in a big white Cadillac. As soon as he saw the driver put the car in park and kill the engine, Dix fired. Once again they couldn’t get out quick enough. Dix had five rounds through the car and them before they could even move and by then it was too late. He reloaded and shot the bodies one more time before coming out from under the shadows on the porch. He called on the radio, “Anybody listenin’, the mayor’s hurt, we needs help.” There was no answer. Dix pulled the bodies out of the car, he noticed people looking out of their windows. He hopped in the car, drove down to city hall and slipped in the back door of the jail.

To the surprise of the guys in jail, Dix opened the door to the cell block shouting, “Who we got in here?” At that moment he recognized his childhood friend, Butch. “Butch, do you recognize me?”

“Damn Dix, you are the last person I expected to walk in this door, it’s been over 30 years since I’ve seen you.”

Dix unlocked the door, “I liberated the town, now you’re in charge.” Butch asked, “Where are your men?”

Dix laughed, “You’re looking at the men. I just took my time and killed the S.O.B.’s until I ran out of people to shoot. I’m going back to my camp and I’ll be coming back through in the morning so don’t shoot me. I’m sure all those men had family so look out, go look at all the bodies and see if any are missing and I’ll leave the cleanup to you guys.”

They shook hands and Butch grinned, “See ya in the morning.”

CHAPTER 17

BACK AT THE CAMP

D
ix pulled up in the Cadillac to the boat launch and was greeted by Ben and Frank. Old Man Beagle said, “I see you met the Mayor. I could hear the shooting from here; I figured you were dead and I had me a fancy boat for sure.”

Dix told the old man, “Ferriday is cleaned up unless there are some out scavenging that I don’t know about.”

Beagle nodded, “They’re probably all dead; but, if any come back I doubt they’ll be sticking around.”

Dix cleaned up and shaved his head and face. He smeared his head wound with antibiotic ointment. He looked at the old man, “Can I make it to Wildsville without much trouble?”

The old man pondered a moment, “I haven’t heard of anything major, but you never know.” With the old man’s help he unloaded the four-wheeler and its trailer.

That night they ate fish, beans and cornbread. Dix broke down and opened a bottle of bourbon and for the first time in months mixed a drink with some cola he had found in the tug boat. He
slept soundly that night, the events of the day did not weigh on his mind. He had a pleasant dream about him and Mattie making a trip in the motor home. He woke broken hearted again and couldn’t help but wish he was dead too. Once again the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He wanted to kill a thousand communists and their enablers for every member of his family that had been killed. His future was destined; he would kill until there were no more to kill or until he was dead.

He opened a big can of sausage, cooked some more pancakes and brewed a pot of coffee. He, Beagle, and the pups ate heartily. The old man told Dix, “If I keep hanging out with you, I’m going to have to go on a diet.”

Dix grinned, “Watch my stuff, eat what you need and hopefully I’ll be back, if I don’t ever come back, use what you can.”

He finished loading up the four-wheeler, thought about taking the Cadillac but figured there would be a lot of people who would recognize it as belonging to the Mayor. He didn’t want to get shot by someone thinking they were shooting the Mayor. He put the Springfield on the gun rack and put Jake’s AR15 on his back. He also had six AK47’s and about a 100 full 30 round magazines he found in the mayor’s trunk. He brought these in case his uncles and their kids were still alive. He knew they could use more guns and ammo.

He headed out with his usual full battle pack, two magazine pouches with six thirty round magazines in each, a full bandoleer for the Springfield, knifes, Browning 9mm and four full magazines for it. He loaded all the cases of MRE’s he could get on the trailer. He was close to using up his supply and really couldn’t spare any; but, he had to take care of his Uncles, if they were still around. He gassed up the four-wheeler from gas in the Cadillac.
He also filled up two empty five gallon cans and carried them with him.

When he got to Ferriday he found the barricade manned by guys he had seen at the jail. They eagerly waved him through. Dix waved, “Where’s Butch?”

They yelled, “He’s on the west end.” Dix made it to the west barricade about five minutes later.

Butch slapped him on the shoulder, “We rounded up the two you missed. You left one hell of a mess.”

“The President has brought in the Chinese and they’re rounding up citizens. I know the Chinese are in New Orleans, I saw them a couple of weeks ago.”

“Dix, you’re shitting me, right?”

“Butch, I suggest ya’ll start planning a defense and put together a militia. Anyone who stands in the way, kill them. I cleaned out Ferriday for obvious reasons. Don’t let anyone join your militia that was a supporter of the old government, they are the enemy, just like the Chinese. I would be prepared to blow the bridges around here, or at least funnel them across just one where you can ambush them.”

“I’ll get started Dix, where are you going?”

“I’m on my way to Wildsville, to check on my uncles, with a little luck, I’ll be back in a few days or weeks.”

The ride over to Wildsville was pretty uneventful. Dix had made this drive on many occasions over the years. Occasionally, there were abandoned cars and signs of life at some houses; but, most appeared abandoned. Others were burned to the ground. He found the country road leading to his Uncle’s House, turned the four-wheeler and headed down it. About a mile down that road he came to the one lane gravel road
leading to the farm. Seeing the house in the distance, he turned down the long driveway, going slowly so as not to alarm his uncle or cousins. When he arrived he found what he feared, the house was empty, there were graves in the yard, and a skeleton out under the tractor shed in the back. Dix wasn’t sure who the skeleton belonged to, the bones had been scattered. From the size of the shoes, Dix assumed it was one of his Uncle’s grandsons. Dix dug a grave next to the others and counted, there were 12 graves; that would account for his two uncles and their families.

The house had been ransacked, all the food was gone as were the guns and ammo. It was a sad day, and once again Dix wondered if he had tried harder could he have made it here in time to save them? Just as with his daughter and husband, had his actions or inactions, led to their deaths?