Sharecropping The Apocalypse: A Prepper is Cast Adrift (37 page)

“I guess we are going to walk it uphill and around unless you want to try swimming it.” Ben said.

“Seems like us swimming would get us there a lot better and faster than crawling up that ravine, but this pistol don’t swim so well. I say we walk” Beauregard replied.

Crick idled the tractor’s engine down and reduced the white froth coming off the paddlewheels and hollered at them while bobbing along more midstream in the river.

“We’ will keep honking the horns on and off down at the boat landing and you can find your way to us easier!” David called out

“Follow that redneck reveille and we’ll finally find who’s making all that noise and what it is they are driving!” Ben said to Beauregard and they set off on the rest of their trip.

It was roughly about 45 minutes later that Ben and Beauregard  who had  probably walked a little further than they had to all the while cussing the briars, the heat, the mud and life in general while figuring out the way until they came upon the faded peeling white paint signs pointing to the boat landing.

“That’s got to be where they all are!” Beauregard said with a renewed spring in his step.

“Head that way then, don’t worry about me, I can keep up just fine.” Ben said as they trudged up to a small paved road coming up on the clearing where they observed a unique heart warming sight.

An old blue and white pickup with Loomis sitting on top of the cab in that old cowboy hat of his looking like a cop siren, Crick hollering at them from the paddlewheel tractor parked off to the right, an old country man in worn overalls happily cavorting about everywhere pointing in their direction making exclamations  and an old black woman with a bonnet on waving welcome to beat the band  when  all of the sudden a gangly figure popped up out of the woods in front of them hollering “Howdy ya’ll”    as Rossy Ross came out of the edge of the woods to greet them personally with a childlike glee and a smile that would be forever be remembered.

“You let them men folks hands go and quit hugging them and come on down here Rossy!” Bertha said as everyone came up to greet the lost rafters.

“Introductions are in order! “ Crick declared and set about restoring order while grinning like a possum eating honeysuckle.

“Well I already know which one Ben is; he got that sheriffs badge on!” Bertha said, to which Crick and Clem started chuckling about it and Loomis took control of the situation by doing the intros and reliving the men of their burdens by taking their packs.

“I can’t tell.” Rossy said puzzled

“Tell what, darling?” Bertha said, talking to Rossy as everyone started greetings and shaking hands once more firing questions at one another.

“If he has got the badge on, does that mean the other one’s the dentist?” Rossy asked, poking a finger in her mouth and not quite wanting to talk about what it was paining her.

“I am not any dentist, who told you that? What is she talking about?” Beauregard said complaining. “You got a tooth hurting honey?” Beauregard said starting to reach a caring hand over at the child as she caught sight of his pistol and started to hide behind Bertha.

“I ain`t no dentist I said!” Beauregard exclaimed and wondered what his pistol she had observed had to do with that obscure fact.

“Well we don’t need to get out of jail but we do need teethies fixed around here. So are you the dentist or do you just know about dentures if someone needed some bonded?” Bertha declared.

“Just what is it that we are talking about? Stupid shirt, I didn’t even think anything about wearing it to be honest. I ain`t no sheriff or dentist neither. I am a bail bondsman.” Ben protested.

Crick said he would tell them later and not to worry about it.

“There he said it, just what kind of men is it you put bonds on if it ain`t for teeth Ben? We don’t needs no indenturing or getting out of jails” Bertha complained.

“You boys got to eat something regardless I guess! Crick said you wouldn’t bother us none and I believes him” Bertha said going to get her picnic basket of goodies.

“Ha! I tell you who the denture man is now!” Rossy whispered to Crick watching the boys salivating over the rabbit and goodies in the basket that Bertha took the cover off and shoved it their way for further inspection.

“She got pickles and other fixings in there too Gents, we ain`t going to make you sing for your supper boys, no worries, just eat real slow ands save us some. We will let you eat first in peace before we start into telling our stories and asking for yours.” Clem said, shaking a rabbit haunch at Beauregard who only took about one second to make it disappear out of his hand and headed towards his mouth.

“Now ya’ll munch munch” Loomis began, trying to talk with a mouthful of rabbit and reaching over towards Bertha’s pickles before they went too far away as his audience reached over carefully to get their own foods away from the ravenous heathen who had been waiting on that picnic basket lid to be opened and lunch to be called all day.

“Loomis! Where is your manners at son, the guests eat first and they gets the first choice!” Bertha scolded him but still enjoying how that country boy loved eating her vittles. Then Bertha snatched the pickles back and said “Here get you some.” as Ben and Beauregard’s eyes popped at the feast set out before them.

There was a momentary pause and Crick said “Get you some corn dodgers also and dip them in the syrup.” Before Ben and Beauregard fought each other to be first to get some of that good eating out of the basket Clem started taking care of the distribution in a more orderly fashion.

“I’ll get mine in a minute that is if you three leave me anything.” Crick said joking.

Well if you didn’t know anything about two ravenous dogs eyeing each other before chowing down you could have used old Ben and Beauregard as an example. Took a second or two of them wolfing down ravenous bites of country fried rabbit and corn dodgers before Beauregard finally felt sated enough to have surfaced for air and say something.

“This is the best, munch munch, food, munch,  I ever tasted! This is wonderful! Thank you, Miss Bertha.” Beauregard declared, Ben agreed, eating with two hands and seeing how much he could fit in his mouth at once with a playful poke at Loomis who acted like he was going to steal a bone from a starving dog as he reached past them for some more hot sauce.

“Settle down boys; eat slowly now it’s better on your gizzards. It’s kind of like drinking water after being in the desert; you can’t wolf it down all at once! I know you got spider webs in your assholes from not eating for a while, but you got to settle down and pace yourselves better!” Clem said looking at the two gluttons consuming even the sweat off the pickles on a napkin.

“That’s right; don’t be saying you got sick off my cooking or anything crazy like that. Ya’ll can’t be punishing yourselves that way or I’ll have to give you my old cure and dose you some later!” Bertha declared sternly. To which Crick and Loomis declared “Oh hell no”, because Clem had clued them in as to what the “Bertha cure” was that included some turpentine in it and the gamut of medicinal meadow weeds she knew that said you sure didn’t want to go there! Bertha believed in expectorants and purges to get the poisons out of you as she put it and the cure was as about as bad as the cause and they had seen she also kept asafetida and castor oil about for the occasion.

“You will end up puking or shitting your guts out either way oh believes me you don’t want to try or need the cure.” Rossy advised making a face.

“Bertha had this thing about turpentine.” Clem said. “It goes in everything she makes from horse and mule liniment to cough medicine and you didn’t want Bertha dosing you with none of her concoctions or it’ll be coming out one end or the other or both!” He declared slowing down eating himself.

Needless to say the chomping fest stopped when Bertha started fishing around in that big old purse of hers for her ‘medicine’ and the boys slowed down to a almost comical pace so they wouldn’t get that dose of medicine!

“If you don’t take a dose, you know she’s going to snatch hold of you and sit on you!” Rossy Ross said in a whisper.

“That’s the secret to good health my friends, don’t tell her you got anything wrong with you!” Clem said;

“Bertha used to chase me around when I was a boy and sit on me to dose me with that medicine of her and her maws and you don’t know which way it’s going to come out, but one good thing about it, she will wash your drawers afterwards!” Clem exclaimed. “You better leave her a clean pair of drawers on laundry day too or you are going to get dosed again!” Clem guffawed and everyone took note to be wary.

3

THE CAVALRY ARRIVES

Julie and David were traveling down a winding country road about thirty miles from Crick’s house watching the road and the horizon for any telltale signs of smoke or danger ahead.

For the last two and half hours they had been listening to the emergency broadcast channels giving directions to the FEMA relocation centers and warning of wild fires and traffic hazards. The trip had been pretty much uneventful except for a wildfire detour of a national forest that had got them lost for a while until they could make heads or tails on a map where exactly they were at.

David didn’t know if GPS was working or not and that fact bugged him a lot. GPS was relatively easy to bring down if you were a foreign power with satellite killer technology but he wondered also what a dedicated hacker could do to the system if they had a mind to. 

The military as well as many other commercial ventures relied entirely too much on that navigation system in his opinion and he had been aware for years how fragile and how dependent they were on the technology. Well maybe they will say something about it on the radio or he could ask Crick if he had heard anything when they met up.

“Julie it won’t be long until we get to Crick’s place, I guess we sort of over worried ourselves about this trip in some ways, but don’t let your guard down just yet. I don’t know if it’s just my nerves being jittery from the ride or knowing the lack of us seeing very many people means bad things about them holding up in their houses, but its downright creepy thinking about rolling up on any house I don’t know well right now.” David said carefully watching anything and everything with a detached curiosity that hoped to gain answers from the most obscure things.

The muddy river banks that looked like they would soon cave in they had seen along the way didn’t really tell him much about the hazards of the waterways.  He already knew a dam was blown around here, but it also appeared there had been a great deal of rain fall around the area recently. That was a good thing. Maybe it would help knock out some of those wild fires.

Good thing the damned terrorists had not included weather in their plans or had they? Now that was a confusing thought. It would make sense for them to blow a dam right before a deluge to magnify the effects of an attack but on the other hand if you planned on doing some economic damage as well as hamper and exasperate recovery efforts with a firestorm you don’t want a rainstorm reducing your efforts.

“I know what you mean David about feeling apprehensive and emotionally drained. Heading out on this trip I didn’t know if we were going to see the apocalypse or get pulled over by some kind of military storm troopers wanting to take some of our stuff.” Julie replied.

  “Except for that congregation of military police in Montgomery, I guess we we’re very lucky not to see anyone. They sure are warning the public a lot on the radio about what martial law is these days.” David said slowing down and observing the woods ahead.

“Why are you slowing down David? You see something?” Julie asked looking ahead to see what was up.

“I’m trying to decide if we need to go ahead and get the long arms out of hiding and make them more available.”  David replied, still scanning the area.

“You expect trouble, David? Do you think that their might be something wrong at Crick’s house?” Julie asked looking across the car seat at David carefully.

“No, but forearmed is forewarned or some shit like that, I’d just as soon have my shotgun handy driving up on that house. You get that Keltec 9mm carbine out and that bag of clips in the duffel bag when I pull over.” David said staring over toward the road’s shoulder.

  David had his 7 plus 1 shot Sig 45 pistol handy as well his .380 Keltec pistol in his pocket. Julie had a 17 plus one shot 9mm Astra A100 and a 9mm Keltec pistol in her Thunderwear holster and extra clips.  Both had relied on these armaments on the trip so far and in no way felt under or over gunned in anyway.. 

A carry pistol and a backup pistol, David advised should be the same caliber if possible. Everything Julie carried for this trip was 9mm caliber, two pistols and a thirty shot carbine. David didn’t have another 9mm pistol or he would have matched her. The 380 was his daily carry pistol, he was known to say if he had his pants on he had his pistol on.

The 45 pistol of his required some thought from him as one of his carry choices. But he did not consider this dilemma of choosing a weapon for long. His other option was the .357 single action Ruger pistol or a CZ52 semi auto pistol which shot 7.62 x 25mm Tokarev ammunition.

The CZ was a hotly debated item between him and Julie because David knew it was a vest buster with a standard load up to and a bit past a level one ballistic vest and with the hand loads he had it could surpass a level two bullet resistant vest. In a martial law situation, that was a serious thing to consider. However, after much thought and soul searching, David had opted for the 45 because of dependability and availability of ammunition over the more exotic round in the CZ52 pistol.

   A CZ52 which is Czechoslovakian made version of Tokarov famous Russian pistol of the cold war era. The Czechs didn’t like the crudely made pistol of the Soviet bloc and decide to make one themselves with precision engineering with better fit and polish as well as dependability under certain circumstances.

A normal Tokarov pistol round comes out at about 1500 fps (feet per second) but many hand loaders load the more sturdy CZ with hotter powder that pushes the 7.62 x 25 pistol bullet at a screaming rate of 1950 f.p.s. You’re not going to buy these rounds at your local department store, especially not Wally World.  They are however easily purchased on the internet as there are hundreds of thousands of imported pistols that shoot this round. The key to the CZ52 being able to be loaded so hotly is it’s rolling block mechanism versus the traditional blowback design of the Tokarov. This is what gives a CZ52 phenomenal strength of what can be loaded into it. however it has its shortfalls.

ONE THING TO NEVER DO WITH A CZ52 IS DRY FIRE IT!  It has a very brittle firing pin and it will break!

  After market strong firing pins are readily available on the market for $15.95 or less and is a must purchase if you own one of these weapons. Some folks call these guns ugly, but to David they were beautiful. It looked like a James Bond gun and fit his hand well. He was lucky enough to get a hand-picked factory refurbished one that looked like it had never been shot before with a holster and an extra clip at one time when they were plentiful. They are hard to find now but not uncommon .David had told her his doubts regarding the ammunition situation.  Now finding ammunition for that particular type of pistol or if you needed parts, was assuredly impossible these days.

He had left the pistol with Michael and advised him of its vest buster capabilities if he needed such with those foreign troops at the missile plant, but warned him of marginal results.

David also warned him about a can of ammo he had, a whole ammo can that you have to watch out for it because it’s old military Soviet bloc issue. The thing is, Russia has plenty of submachine guns that were made in the caliber of 7.62 by 25. Those rounds are too hot to shoot in a regular Tokarov pistol but some of that stuff you don’t even want to shoot out of a CZ52 with its short barrel.

Unless you read Russian or know what to look for you can make a serious mistake because it all fits in any gun of the same caliber. David got a case of it fixed from the Mole Boys and hadn’t gone through it to separate the pistol and submachine rounds but he had gotten a good deal on it because he basically got into impasse on who got the cool pistol or the ammo for the right price.

David told them not everyone wanted that old kind of caliber and they might have trouble getting rid of it when they wanted to buy David’s pistol. David told them he didn’t really want to sell the pistol anymore but if he could get that much ammo at a decent price he wanted to keep it even more. The debate was resolved when David told them about that machine gun bullet issue and that he was not about to teach them Russian to keep them from blowing the barrel off.  So they opted to sell the ammo to David cheap and try to get him on another deal another day.

  David had settled on the 45 which to him was a no-brainer over the .357 just because it was semi-auto. David had also been highly impressed with the weapons record in battle as well as Sig Sauer’s infomercials of being thrown in a muddy truck tire rut, run over by a tank, caught on fire and picked up and shooting a perfect group there after.

What is weird in the gun world is that everyone agrees straight out of the box, the Sig Sauer 220 is the most accurate 45 caliber pistol made out there. Countless people spend countless dollars on modifying Colt 1911 pistols to the nth degree with very satisfactory results. But a stock Sig beats them out of the box hands down every time. The venerated 45 caliber is a celebrated and known man-stopper. No hollow points or miracle rounds are needed for it as even a standard 230 grain military issue ball round has proven its lethality time after time. As for bullet speed and weight, big and slow is sometimes the best way to go

  “OK, Julie, here’s the game plan when we arrive at Crick’s place. I know that we’ve been over this more than once or twice but let’s do it again. When we get to Crick’s house, I will honk my horn just like I do with every country place I pull up at. We know Crick and the rest of the preppers over on the island don’t have cars, so the property should be pretty much abandoned looking. We will wait a minute or so to see if he answers the door and then I’ll get out with the shotgun. You release your door but don’t open it and you have your carbine at the ready and be glancing to the front of the house and out the rear view mirror occasionally as well so as to try and be aware of what is going on to the side of you. If I have to blow that shotgun off, get out of the car and lay down covering fire with that carbine of yours while I’m retreating. That reminds me, let me change out the first shell in the shotgun, give me a second while I unload this thing.” David said ejecting a couple shells. “OK Julie, what I’m putting in here is 3 inch number 4 buck shot, that’s 42 pellets of about 25 calibers going downrange. Poor man’s response to a machine gun, I suppose.” David said with a sly grin.

42 pellets of number 4 plated buckshot from his approach distance if someone was fool enough to take a shot at him out a window or from around on the porch and miss him would likely to be ended with about a 3 foot swath of hot lead by him depending on distance flying back in their direction. David always said the point man in an infantry patrol in  Vietnam that was ambushed in the jungle should have had number one shot instead of military issue buckshot. Its suppressive fire going down range in ambush situation you need. You want to make the other guy miss or duck; you don’t want to allow him to have an easy follow up shot and you want to and keep his head down. If you have 42 zinger pellets ventilating the leaves while breaking twigs, snapping branches, whizzing by your ears etc., then that sort of thing tends to spoil your opponents aim.

That was the basis of David’s tactics should they be fired upon from the house. David would try to respond towards aggressor and mark the position of the enemy while heavy suppressive fire was laid down by Julie with her more automatic weapon. David told her that we were lucky to have so much extra ammo that every shot didn’t have to count and don’t waste time aiming at an antagonist, you more wanted to spray and pray in his direction while you found cover.

  David had not had too much opportunity for range time with her to teach her accuracy in engaging targets nor had she ever had a target that shot back at her. The number one thing that you have to instill in everybody the first time you hand them an automatic weapon is to control and cycle their fire. The old M-16’s that David was used to could be emptied in two or three seconds if you had your finger on the trigger. The Army taught him two to three round bursts to conserve ammunition and make your fire more accurate was the thing to do.

Some time or another after he got out of the service, they put a regulator on full auto to only make the guns shoot two to three round bursts regardless of operator intent and this was implemented because in the field of battle many trainees will panic and just hold the trigger down emptying their weapon of ammo all at once.

    Julie was thankful that she had taken the time to sew the elastic cartridge holders tighter on the shotgun bandoliers. They had been so loose that not only were they not in position to grab and go but shells would often fall out of the holders. Those cheap shotgun bandoliers and slings get all stretched out with age and become a liability rather than an asset.