Jernigan's War (26 page)

Porter enticed Ruth up with a bucket of horse feed. Old Dollar wanted in on the deal so Porter slipped him a stale biscuit. Once in the barn, Charlie got out a pack saddle and showed Porter how to put it on Ruth, adjust and secure it. He helped him pack the canvas bags that mounted to it. The old mule could carry a good load, but Charlie stressed, “The more you put on her, the slower you will have to travel and the more you will have to stop
and let her rest. We are going to concentrate on food, and basic supplies. I am going to stock you with 25 lbs. of hard tack, 25 lbs. of beans, 25 lbs. of meat, 25 lbs. of rice, a box of salt, pepper, 10 lbs. of sugar, a mess kit, aluminum pot, first aid kit, sleeping bag, 4 canteens, an extra AK47, 30 loaded magazines and 5 boxes of .308. We will limit her load to around 200 lbs. We’ll have you, your backpack and rifles on Old Dollar. I want you to have a camel back water bag on your back. With you and your gear, Old Dollar will be carrying about 200 lbs. also. You’ll need hobbles for them so you can let them graze at night. I would go thirsty and give them water before I drank, whenever you find water, let them drink their fill unless they have been running. You have to let them go easy on the water until they cool down. Take their saddles and packs off at night to give their backs a rest. Wipe them down good with the saddle blankets. If you have any questions ask the other guys, they seem to know about horses too.” Porter nodded and packed and repacked the packs trying to balance the load between them. They took a file to the mule’s hoofs to head off any splits.

“How long do think it will take us to get there?”

“At least a month maybe more, traveling cross country will not be easy, ya’ll will have to stay off the roads as much as you can to avoid trouble until you get into the thick of it, then I expect you won’t be able to get away from it.”

Sandy and Ally cooked a big batch of cookies, and Ally helped fold up his clothes, they also wrote letters that he could open up each week. They were labeled week 1, 2, etc. The girls stayed close to Porter all day, they were living with the fear that they may never see him again. Bonnie cooked up the hard tack and a sack of biscuits and came up with a jar of honey. He had his compass and the atlas map pages of Texas and Louisiana tucked into the pocket of his jacket. That night they prepared him a going away feast and after supper they all sat around with him being the
center of attention. Porter was obviously uncomfortable with all the attention so everyone took the hint and told him goodnight. Sandy and Ally sat up with him. Porter insisted, “Tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, so I guess we had better turn in.”

Ally piped up, “Can we be quiet and watch you sleep?” Porter scooped her up and gave her a big bear hug and kissed her on the cheek. “Get into bed. I’ll be back before you even miss me.”

“We already miss you, and you ain’t even left.”

Sandy grinned, “She’s already sounding like a Texan.” They all laughed and the girls went upstairs to bed.

Porter lay back in his bunk and took a deep breath, he wondered what was happening to his house back in LA. He thought about his parents and little brother and the long journey getting here. He considered the journey ahead, it couldn’t be nearly as rough as the journey behind him. He looked forward to the battle in front of him and he looked forward to seeing his grandfather again. He got up and filled the wood stove with wood and slipped under the covers. A short while later Sandy slipped back downstairs and slipped under the covers next to him. They didn’t do anything but lay in each other’s arms, there was nothing left to say. Porter woke up well before daylight and sent Sandy back to her bed. He reloaded the heater with wood and got dressed. Bonnie and Charlie were up and soon had a hot breakfast of pancakes, ham and eggs.

Charlie then helped Porter saddle up Old Dollar and Ruth. His long rifle and tripod was on the side of his saddle. An oil cloth drover’s coat was rolled up around his bedroll on the back of the saddle. Saddle bags held odds and ends. He had a rope coiled and hanging on one side of the pack on Ruth. Her lead rope was secured with a snap ring to the back of Old Dollar’s saddle. Porter had on a camel back canteen, his back pack and the AK47 slung so that it rode in front of him where he could get
his hands on it. His pack held enough supplies to sustain him for several days in the event he became separated from his mules. He had six full magazines plus one in the rifle giving him 210 rounds for the AK47 rifle. He wore his Beretta with two extra magazines in a shoulder holster and his Kbar knife in a scabbard on his waist. Charlie handed him a hand drawn map that would take them off the ranch and then east and south so that they would parallel a roadway, but keep them out of sight for a few days. It also had water spots marked. “You may have to locate some locals to guide you to more water.” Porter studied the maps so he knew where he was going and several routes to get back. He told everyone good bye and in spite of his shyness, gave Sandy one last kiss. All the ladies were crying, “Tell Sam and Steve goodbye for me.”

“Remember what you learned and come on back when you get the job done,” Charlie called. Porter swung into the saddle and headed off into the darkness. The mules knew the way to the lodge they had made this trip before.

CHAPTER 24

THE HUNT

D
ix decided that the pain in his leg was too great to try and shift the four-wheeler, besides he wouldn’t have enough fuel to get back to the catamaran if he kept running it.

The next morning he was waiting in ambush for the UN patrol to come driving by. He sat up down at the end of the road where they had to almost stop to make the turn. He was directly across the ditch and waiting in the bushes. Right on cue they arrived and just as they slowed to turn, Dix emptied a 30 round magazine from Jake’s AR15. The driver punched it and drove off into the ditch. They never left the vehicle.

Dix dragged the driver out of his door and left him in the bottom of the ditch out of sight. He put the pickup into four wheel drive and backed it onto the road and back down in front of the camp. He siphoned off the gas and carried their guns and ammo back to the camp. They also had a case of Chinese MRE’s in the truck. The meals were sweet tasting cookies in foil pouches. Once again he drove the truck down to the lake and let it roll into
the water next to the UN SUV that was already there. It bobbed a minute and sank out of sight. At least he had some more fuel for the four-wheeler and there were three more dead Chinese soldiers.

Dix tried walking everyday to work the stiffness out of his leg. He remembered an old Crepe Myrtle tree near the side window of the old family home. Dix walked over to look for it. It was still there; but, the top of it was blown out. It was in sorry shape but there were green buds trying to put out. This was the tree that his father played under 80 years earlier. It had to be over 100 years old and it was hanging on to life.

Dix nursed the leg another week and finally felt he was ready to take to the field again. No more patrols came his way, but he could still hear fighting off in the distance. He ran his four-wheeler up to the east side of Jones Bayou and hid it in the brush. He once again picked up the Springfield and left Jake’s AR15. With his standard battle pack he made his way around the bayou and across the road back into his old hunting grounds. He made it all the way across the fields and around to the break where he was wounded by the exploding mortar round. The dead Americans were exactly where he left them. Animals had pretty much consumed their bodies.

He quietly made his way around the end of the break. He didn’t want to get the water in his wound unless necessary. Although his leg was hurting again it was not slowing him up. The dead Chinese were still lying where they fell on the other side of the brake. Dix made it across the big corn field to where he had killed the generator a couple of weeks earlier. The generator was still there but everyone else had moved on.

He went back to the four-wheeler and drove it down the road and towards town. The road was on top of the levee, so he turned off the road and went down to the bottom of the levee and stopped under some trees. Dix killed the motor and listened. There was fighting towards town. He got back on the road and stopped about two miles south of town. Once again he hid the four-wheeler off the road next to a pasture with large bales of rotting hay. He sat with his back to one of the bales and ate a power bar from one of the MRE packs. After washing it down from his water bottle he loaded up and headed toward town.

He stayed off the road and instead walked through the fields, meadows, and the back lots of little farms until he got into the town proper. There was a lot of shooting up ahead. He was traveling north into town and was near the river on Front Street. Dix stayed close to the houses. The battle lines were drawn with most of the Chinese on the north side of town. He ran into some guys sniping across the main highway into the old part of town. He was surprised to find Butch Erwin sitting under a tree smoking a cigarette and reloading his AK47.

“Don’t you know cigarettes will kill you?”

Butch hollered out, “Hey boy, where you been, vacationing?”

Dix chuckled, “I’ve been camping and enjoying life, the hunting has been great.”

“Have you thought about taking a bath? You look like hell, Dix!” After a good laugh Butch brought him up to date on the battle.

“We’ve been killing the S.O.B.’s for weeks. We’ve kept them bottled up. We stopped them at Lake Charles, and we’re mopping up here. There are still a couple of thousand of them holed up in town. We’re picking them off as we can; but, they’re picking us off too. There are only about 200 of us; but, they don’t know that.”

Dix commented sarcastically, “If they knew the odds were so bleak for them, they’d surrender.”

“Surrender is not an option at this point. We gave them that opportunity three days ago. They fired on our white flag.”

“So,” Dix asked, “Where can I set up?”

“That depends, how far can you hit with that Springfield?”

“I regularly make kills at 400 yards, if I can see ‘em, I can probably get a hole in them.”

“Good, we’ve got a boat on the river, if you can set up on top of the new bridge, you can probably see all over town. They don’t have snipers that we know of.”

“Sounds like a plan, my friend.”

Dix caught a ride across the river and with the help of several of the Ferriday boys carried some bags of dirt and sand up to the top of the bridge where it ended. The rest of the bridge was in the river where it had fallen after the fuel oil IED bomb went off. He lay down with the Springfield across the bags and observed the town through his scope. He was sure to draw fire from up here. They hauled more bags up, put a board across the top and set more bags on top of it. That left him an opening about a foot square to shoot through.

He took his time and looked through the Trijicon scope. He dialed it up to nine power looked over every building and opening he could peer through. At last he found what he was looking for. A soldier was sitting with his back to the brick wall of the library. Dix estimated the distance at 500 hundred yards. He counted the bricks above the soldier’s head. His bullet would probably drop a full 12 inches at this distance. The wind was still, so Dix took aim at the 4th brick above his head. He took a breath and let half of it out. He gently squeezed the trigger and was surprised when the gun fired. He looked back and didn’t see the soldier. Where he had been leaning was a large bloody
splotch with a chunk missing out of the brick where he sat. He cycled the action and got back on target. Another soldier ran to the spot where the first one fell. Dix squeezed off another shot. That solder fell against the wall and stayed propped up a moment before falling forward. He cycled the action again and continued his search.

He saw that soldiers were running across the street from one house to another. He noticed that they would pause for a moment at the corner before darting out and across the road. Dix aimed at the point where they glanced out before they came out. He didn’t wait for the next one to glance out but squeezed off a round at the corner in anticipation of the next peeping around in time to meet the bullet. The round met the man’s head knocking his helmet off. He then fired through the corner of the house in anticipation of someone standing behind the wall. He didn’t see anything move so he cycled the action again. One hundred shots and 7 confirmed hits later, the Chinese had him spotted. About a hundred of them opened up on his location on the bridge. The air was alive with rounds zipping all around. Dix retreated back down the bridge keeping the roadway between him and the riflemen. The sun was low in the sky when Dix came down off the bridge and met Butch.

“How did you do?”

“I know I hit at least 7, but I probably hit four or five more.” Butch whistled, “Why did you come down?”

“I’m getting skittish in my old age. I had about a 100 rifle bullets flying past my head every second.” Butch reached up and grabbed Dix’s hat. “Did you know that there are three bullet holes at the top?”