Chapter 15

 

 

 

The next day we both did a few things around camp to make for a nicer stay while we were here.  On our hike we had found a small spring about hundred and fifty yards back in the woods.  The water was bubbling right out of the ground there and was likely safe to drink as is but I would always filter or boil it first.  Best not to take chances with our lives over something like that.  I’m sure the water would not kill us but it could possibly make us sick and that we could not afford.

Again I dug a latrine ditch and made a natural screened barrier out of pine branches.  I also took my small shovel down to the spring and made that a little nicer for us to use while we stayed here.  The spring water was very cold.

We did some hand to hand training in the morning and again rode bikes that afternoon.  This time we went out on the highway and rode for a ways before turning back to our current home.  We saw no traffic in the relatively short time we were on the highway.

That was how we spent our days over the next couple weeks that we stayed at this camp site.  Hiking, riding bike, working out and training took up our time and kept us in peak shape.  Every other day or so I shot a rabbit for supper.  And one day I shot two squirrels for supper.  In the back of our new pickup we had found a heavy cast iron Dutch oven that Jan used to make some different meals. 

Gradually Jan got over the sadness she felt from the road block incident.  She was now back to her happy self again but she did seem to take our training much more seriously.  One day she asked about more gun training and we took my little truck some distance from camp and I showed her a few more things and we both did some shooting.  Like so many things shooting is a somewhat perishable skill so practice is always a good idea for everyone.

There were both deer and elk around here because we had seen both.  It would be easy enough to shoot either one but with the warm temps we would lose most of the meat from spoilage.  In winter it would certainly be a viable option to shoot a deer or elk for meat and let nature freeze it for us.  I had bought extra salt so we could salt cure some meat if necessary.  But so far I had not considered shooting a big game animal because we had plenty of food and supplemented it with the rabbits.

We still would listen to the radio often in the evenings after we finished supper.  Things were apparently getting worse and worse.  Things were getting very dire indeed in the cities with literally countless casualties almost every calendar day.  Then there was a big change in the reports that we heard.  The reports basically changed to just ‘local law enforcement in conjunction with US military forces now have controlled the rising discontent of the populous down to acceptable levels’.  Whatever that was supposed to mean.  From then on other than weather reports and other mundane items that was it for the news.  Tada and magically no more bad news just like that.  We mostly stopped listening to the radio after that.

Speaking of the weather, that Jan sure is a trooper because the weather here turned rainy for several days in a row and mostly because of the duration it was rather miserable here camping.  But Jan never once complained at all.  Even when I was in the military in a situation like this I would have heard a lot of whining from other troops but Jan just took it in stride.

Then the weather straightened up and it was again picturesque sunny skies.  The muddy ground dried out rather quickly and we washed out and washed up all of our gear to get the mud off everything.  I must admit it was sure nice to see the bright sun shining again everyday and watch the stars at night.

When things had dried out nice we rode down near the highway and just sat and watched it while we remained hidden in the woods.  With basically no real news, we both wondered what if anything we would see on highway.

The answer was not much.  Though we watched for most of two days there was very little traffic of any kind on the highway.  We saw no normal cars or pickups but did see a few semi trucks and box trucks.  That was it.  No cars, no motorcycles, and not even anyone on bicycles went past our location.  And no military vehicles either.  Watching the highway was a very boring job.

Neither of us knew what to make of it.  We waited about a week and again spent the bulk of two days watching the highway with about the same result.  No personal vehicles at all just a few commercial trucks of various sizes.

Then we saw the lone bicycle rider coming toward us in the distance.

“We should go down to the highway and see if he will talk to us.  You stay here and I will go try to flag him down.”

“That’s a good idea but if I was riding a bike in the middle of no where and a wild looking armed big hulk of a man tried to flag me down my only thought would be to try and get away.  You stay here and cover me and I will go.”

I did not like her plan even though it was obvious that everything she said was true.  Jan did not even wait for me to answer but left her rifle and calmly walked down to the highway.  On the way she shook out her hair to make it plain even from a distance that she was in fact a woman.

The bike rider saw her and stopped some distance away and Jan neither made any yells or motions but stood calmly on the shoulder of the highway.  After a minute the rider continued to come closer.  When the rider came near Janet they stopped and the two were obviously talking.  I could not hear anything being said by either one and at this point I did not yet know for sure if the rider was male or female.  After maybe two minutes I saw Jan wave to me to join her.

The rider visibly stiffened when they saw me approaching but made no effort to ride away.  I was carrying both my rifle and Jan’s and they rightly assumed I’m sure that I could have shot them at any time.

“Ben this is Jason.  Please say hello and tell him that you will not shoot him.”

“Hi Jason.  Thank you for talking with us.  And I have no intention of harming you in any way.”

“When I saw you with the rifle I realized that you could have shot me as I rode past without me ever seeing either of you.  There has been plenty of shooting and I have seen the results.”

“We have been camping here and there for awhile and are very hungry for news.  Is there Martial Law?  We have seen very little traffic.”

“Yes and no.  The regular military is trying to keep order and are acting as police normally do.  But they are not stopping anyone from doing normal lawful things that I know of.”

“But why is no one on the roads then?”

“There are many shortages of just about everything.  Food and fuel being the hardest to find.  And prices have skyrocketed, especially on those two items.  People are mostly just walking now or riding bike like me.  If you have gas you can drive where you want like always but most are afraid to leave home and go very far.  They know if they use what gas they have they will be unlikely to get more anytime soon.  Plus there have been a lot of horror stories about bandits and highwaymen killing and doing bad things to people just out of towns where there is no law.  So the ones that do have a little fuel use it just to go to the store to try and get food or other supplies.”

“Are the military taking away everyone’s guns?”

“Not that I have seen or heard but communications are not very good.  Cell phone service is gone and land line service is spotty at best.  I do not know what roll the government has in that if any.  Most every business is closed.  I think the military is keeping at least one gas station and one grocery store open in the towns where there is some military presence anyway.”

“We listen to a radio and it stopped really having any real news.”

“Obviously the government is responsible for that.  I think they are trying to limit everyone’s knowledge about just how bad it is across the nation.  I don’t know if that is a very wise move.  Though TV stations are all shut down now except one that the government is keeping up and going.  It is likely the same with the radio stations.

Not letting us have news is allowing everyone’s imaginations to run wild and they are many wild or even bizarre rumors floating around.  I think people are just making all of those up.”

“You are obviously taking a big chance riding bike.  Where are you going if I may ask?”

“I was going to college in Durango and I finally decided to try and get back home to my family.”

“Are they rationing food and fuel?”

“The fuel I think is, you can only get five gallons at a time.  With food some is no limit and some items are limited.  Mostly you are limited with how much money you have.  Prices are way high.  I heard that some places only take silver or gold but that might just be a rumor.”

“If we drove to town do you think we would have any trouble?  Is it OK to be armed in town?”

“Many people carry guns all the time so that should not be a problem.  Once you get into the town proper you would not likely have any trouble but getting there and back could be an issue.  I rode through but everyone could see that I have almost nothing with me.  That is probably the only reason I am not dead.  That and this bike does not make noise so I might have slipped through some spots without being noticed.”

“We see trucks going past sometimes.”

“Most delivery trucks no longer have escorts to save fuel but are always heavily armed.  If you look close you will see gun ports cut into the sides of the boxes for shooters in the back.  And there is always an armed shotgun rider too plus the driver will be armed.  Always.”

“We will run out of food at eventually so we will have to try it at some point to re-supply.  Thank you for all the information.  I hope you make it home in one piece.”

 “Thank you for not shooting me and good luck to you two.”

We watched Jason ride off and then went back to our hideout spot to watch a little longer.  As luck would have it we only had to wait a short time before another truck went past us.  Looking closely we both now saw the row of cut outs that those inside could use to shoot out from.  We had just never noticed them on the earlier trucks we saw go past.  We left back for camp after that truck had gone past.  We had learned a lot and talked about everything well into the evening.

We decided not to wait for the situation to get any worse and would go to town for supplies the next morning.  In the morning we unloaded most everything from the larger pickup.  We would take all our empty water containers with to hopefully get them filled with city water in town.  I also cut a few straight branches and taped them sticking out from the box in back.  From a distance they would look like gun barrels I was hoping and would maybe deter anyone from attacking us.  It only took a few minutes and was worth a try.  As soon as we were ready we left for town.