The Guardians (34 page)

They parked their bikes and carefully entered the marina with their weapons at the ready.  There were signs that people had been camping in and around the marina facilities, but none of it looked to
o recent.  Nate entered a metal storage building that had its sliding metal door torn from its tracks, by what he assumed were looters and thieves.  There were also bullet holes in the walls, allowing light to shine through in an eery pattern. 

As he moved some rubbish about
, he found three small canoes.  "Jackpot!" he exclaimed.  He the pulled them from underneath the trash and the unhinged door that was now laying across the top of the canoes so that they could get a better look at their find.

"Damn it!" he said.

"What?" asked Luke as he saw the bullet holes riddling the side of the canoe.  "I guess those bullet holes in the wall line up with these."

"Yep," said Nate di
sappointed.  "Help me with this other one," he said as he began to pull the next canoe out into the open.

Luke helped him drag it free and said, "This one only has four holes."

"We can work with that," Nate said.

The brothers then proceeded to remove the last canoe from underneath the rubbish to find that it had survived the situation unscathed.  Nate looked at Luke and said, "Find some rope, I'll be right back.  Rachel, you keep an eye out for trouble while we work this out."

Luke dug around and quickly found some mooring line and brought it back to where Nate was busy working with the canoes.  He noticed that Nate had an old milk jug, a few sticks from a tree branch, and a lighter.  He used his knife to cut out strips of the plastic milk jug and then broke the sticks into two-inch pieces that were approximately a half inch round. 

"What's the milk jug for?" asked Luke.

"Welding rod," replied Nate busy with his task at hand.

Nate twisted and worked the sections of  wooden sticks into each of the bullet holes for a nice tight fit.  Then
using the saw on his multi tool, he cut off a majority of the excess portion that stuck outside of the sides and bottom of the canoe, leaving the protrusion mostly on the inside of the boat.  He then used his lighter to heat up the plastic hull of the canoe around the sticks that he used as plugs.  He then followed that up by melting milk jug patches over the area.  He repeated this procedure on both the inside and outside of the canoe.  As the plastic from the milk jug melted, in worked its way into the area around each of the stick plugs, sealing what the stick alone had not.  Another layover of a larger piece of plastic was then melted overtop of the hole making a patch.

"That's brilliant," said Lu
ke.  "Do you think it will hold?"

"They are both petroleum based products
, so hopefully they will bond well enough," replied Nate as he continued working.

Upon completion of the patch job, Nate flipped the canoes right side up and placed them side by side on the ground.  He then began lashing them together with the mooring line Luke had found using the center seat and cross bra
ces as tie down points.  Next, he said, "Bring the bikes over."   Uncertain of what he had in mind, but trusting, Rachel and Luke pushed the bikes over to Nate.  He then laid the bikes over the center of two canoes, and tied the bikes frames to the canoes, creating a rigid center structure, securing the two boats tightly together.

"Wala!" he said triumphantly.

"Bravo brother," Luke said. 

"I figured you and I can both sit in the back with ores, one paddling on each side, and Rachel can sit up in front of the bikes in one of the forward seats and act as our lookout," explained Nate.  "It's gonna be dark out soon.  Let's hang tight in here and get some rest.  We can then carry the boat down to the water
under the cover of darkness, slip it in, and be on our way.

****

Chapter 36:  Recon

Back on the Homefront, it had been two days since the raid on the Muncie place.  All seemed quiet and secure on the neighboring homesteads.  Evan was getting itchy to get some intel on the current situation.  He gathered Jason and Griff to put their heads together to decide what
course of action to take next.

"Since no one has reported any hostile activity, I think we are going to have to make a scouting run over to the Muncie place to see what's going on," Evan said to the guys.  "Which one of you guys want to go with me?"

"You're call Griff," replied Jason.  "I'm feeling up to it, my leg is doing fine, but since you were involved with the raid, I figured you may want to see the results of your handy work."

"Sure, I'll go," Griff replied.  "I'll stay back on the next run and you can get back in the mix then," he said.

"Roger Roger," replied Jason smartly.

Let's head out tonight to be in position at sunrise to get a good look around," suggested Evan.  "I would feel better traveling under the cover of darkness for a while."

Griff agreed and the two men went to ready their gear.  Evan and Griff both decided to carry VZ58 rifles as their compact size and side folding stock would make them easy to carry through the woods in the dark, especially since this was intended to merely be an intel gathering outing.

That night after dinner, Evan and Griff said their goodbyes and set out on foot for the Muncie place.  It was a cloudy evening with no moonlight to guide their way so they opted to leave the bikes behind.  It would take longer, but they could move more safely and stealthily on foot they thought.

That night at the Homefront, Judith, Peggy, and Mildred entertained and cared for the children, while Jason, Molly, and Judy stood watch.  Sarah, Jake and Greg were sent to bed early, as they had the early morning shift.  Molly patrolled the immediate area of the house itself, while Judy monitored the cameras and the radio in the basement.  Jason decided to spend the evening watching over the livestock, especially the cattle, as he knew it would not be hard to trace the movement of the herd to the Homefront, giving the Muncie gang a clue as to whom the Guardians were associated.

Jason perched himself in one of the Homefront's observational tree stands with a thermos full of coffee and settled in for what he hoped would be a boring night.  The first few hours were uneventful.  He had mostly his sense of hearing to go on
, as the dark and dreary cloudy night all but made his vision useless.  There were always plenty of animal sounds in the woods at night to help occupy one's time while on watch.  Jason would close his eyes and try to identify each and every sound he heard.  Painting a mental image of what that bird, or squirrel may be doing.

At about two o'clock in the morning, the sounds of the animals fell unusually quiet.   Jason perked up knowing that the animals in the forest were often the best early warning system one could have.  He heard a branch crack off in the darkness.  Trying to focus on the direction from where he thought the sound came, he felt frustrated and helpless as he could not see what it was that he was hearing.  He heard weeds and brush move as something or someone slowly passed by, what
seemed like mere feet from the base of tree in which his stand was perched.  Just as the sound passed him, it stopped.  There was dead silence, not a single sound other than the gentle breeze blowing through the hills.

Jason desperately wanted to shine the rechargeable flashlight that he had clipped to his chest rig in the direction of the last area of known movement, but knew that if it was armed men slipping through the woods in the darkness, he would simply be giving them an easy target and would be a sitting duck.  He held off against his urges and just waited and listened.  The sound of brush being pushed aside continued once again.  Jason thought the intruder may be heading in the direction of the cattle.  Once it had gotten a safe distance away, he slowly and silently slipped down the tree to the ground.  It was still nearly pitch black outside, now that he was on the ground
, he could see just good enough to feel his way silently through the woods in the direction of the intruder.

As he left the cover of the trees for the temporary pasture they had set up for the cattle, he slipped his rifle off of his shoulder and held it in his right hand while holding his flashlight at the ready in his left hand.  At this point, he wished he had a tactical rifle with a rail mounted light, rather than his big bolt action Re
mington and a hand held light.

As he crept his way towards the cattle, he heard a cow let out a terrible pain filled sound
, immediately followed by the sounds of the other cattle begin to panic and run in all directions.  He felt the wind and heard the heavy sound of a cow narrowly miss him in the dark amid the chaotic stampede.  He immediately switched on his light, only to have another cow change course to avoid the light only a few feet from trampling him.

As that cow ran past him,
his light illuminated the fierce eyes of a large and hungry mountain lion.  The cat had just brought down a cow and was now turning its attention to Jason and his light.  The big cat began to charge with a fearsome roar.  Jason immediately knew that if he dropped his light to shoulder his rifle, he would lose sight of the ferocious beast.  With that in mind, he dropped his rifle and drew his .45 from his holster, emptying all eight rounds of .45ACP+P into the charging cat, while he held the light on his target.  As his pistol locked back empty to slide lock, just as he was engaging the magazine release to reload, the big cat fell to the ground and slid to a stop at his feet.

"Holy shit!" he said aloud with his heart pounding in his chest.

The next day Evan and Griff returned from their scouting run around noon.  Their wives and kids greeted them with a warm reception, and after lunch they met up with Jason for a debrief.  "So what did you guys find?" Jason asked as he lit a cigar from his stash.

Evan took a sip from his coffee and said, "Not much at all actually.  The Muncie place looked completely abandoned.  We tore that place to shreds during the hit and it didn't look like they picked up or tried to repair the place at
all.  The door was still off its hinges from the hits from the fifty and everything.  You would think if someone planned to continue to use the place, they would at least have put the door back up.  We watched from sunrise until about nine o'clock and didn't see one sign of movement.  We then worked our way around to the west side of the property, observed from there for a while, and didn't see a thing.  It did look like they may have burned a few bodies out back, but that is the only visible sign of activity."

"What about inside the house?" Jason then asked.

"We didn't go inside," said Griff.  "We didn't feel we had anything to gain in exchange for the risk.  Basically, they just aren't there."

"Did we miss anything here while we were gone?
  And what's the special occasion for the cigar?" Evan asked.

Jason exhaled a puff of cigar smoke and casually said, "I put some more meat in the freezer."

"How did you do that?" Griff asked.

"You fellas ever eat mountain lion meat?" he asked with a smile.

Evan and Griff just looked at each other with confusion then Jason added, "I was in a stand watching the herd last night and had an altercation with a cow killing cat.  He lost."

"Well holy crap," replied Evan.  "Well if you think about it, the subsistence hunting that a lot of folks are having to do is putting a strain on game animal herds without the oversight of wildlife management.  Take away the game animal population, and they will have to look elsewhere.  That herd of cattle is like a buffet to a mountain lion.  Just a bunch of big, dumb, slow, delicious animals, fenced in with no escape."

"Well, I'm gonna make me a hat or something out of him," replied Jason.

Griff just laughed and said, "There is always a bright side to everything I guess."

****

Chapter 37:  The River

As the day gave way to the night in Decatur, the sky began to cloud up and look like they could be in for a rainy night.  Nate stood watch while Luke and Rachel tried to nap.  He weighed the pros and cons of the change in the weather in regards to his plan.  The starless night will give them more cover in the darkness he thought.  If there had been a bright moon that night, they would be easy to see from the shore, he thought.  On the other hand, the near total darkness of a cloudy night would make it harder for them to navigate the river, and to find their intended point of landing ashore.

They
did not have spare time to waste however, especially with Rachel being down two MRE's due to her generosity earlier that day.  They only had one day of food left between them, and still had a long way to go.  In his opinion, they should press on.

As the night was upon them, Nate woke Luke and Rachel from their nap and said, "Who's ready to go sailing?"

"You rigged sails up on it now?" asked Luke jokingly.

"That was just a figure of speech," replied Nate.  "Let me rephrase that; who wants to go drifting?"

"Well Brother, knowing you I would have believed it," Luke said as he yawned and stretched.