Good chapter. Thank you.

Just got done reading the last two chapters.

Thanks for the update.

Very interesting!

Thanks for the chapter!!

With the money came better food and a new pair of boots.  For a young solider like Angus, that was wealth beyond imagine and a level of comfort just this side of divine.  

After the bagman left, two men named Pratt and something Polish that inevitably degenerated down to ‘Ski,’ took off.  They returned that evening with a panel truck full of food.  Somebody produced a giant smoker made out of repurposed tank as long as a man was tall.    Men set to work, cooking chow under the open sky, hot heaping amounts of it.  

The kid sat cross-legged in the dirt with a paper plate in his lap and another at his side.  Both were piled high with chicken, brisket, baked beans, coleslaw, bread drowned in garlic butter.   A fire-team of unopened soda cans guarded his flank, ready to be called into action.  The kid set upon the food with the ravenous appetite of a young man, devouring thousands of calories that would seem to go nowhere.

Greywald approached while the kid had a mouth full of beans and brisket sauce decorating his chin.

“What size boot you wear?”

The kid swallowed.

“Why do you want to know?”

“I’ll get you a new pair of boots, or I’ll get you a roll of duct tape to stretch a few more miles out of those.  Your choice.”

The kid looked down at his boots.  They were cracked, sporting holes, and looked like they might just disintegrate at any moment, a vaporous apparition of boots which passed out of existence, leaving behind only the stocking feet of a young man left with nothing.  Angus gave a number.  Greywald stalked off to complete his latest mission, a scowl on his face, his whole being driven by anger converted to a purposeful energy that all great non-commissioned officers were able to tap into.

The next morning the new boots arrived.  Angus put them on his feet and sacrificed the old pair in a bonfire some hands set as they waited for coffee to brew.  They watched the highway.  They saw a police rig drive slowly past the farm.  The chief was watching them, not that she would do anything.  An armed raid on the encampment would result in gunplay and death, for both parties.  There was no denying that future.  No law enforcement officer was keen on enforcing the law, not when the stakes were so high as to be mortal.  Besides, there were plenty of law abiding citizens to cite and fine, an endeavor more profitable and less hazardous than confronting the armed, organized and unashamed.

By midday and old ambulance rolled into the camp.  A peeling decal on its side weekly cried out the letters, “A.M.R.”  Each red letter cried out more weakly than the last.

“The Irishman is going to have it converted into a chuck wagon,” Nash announced proudly.  The kid nodded, appreciating what that meant.

Not long after a pickup arrived.  New sleeping bags filled the bed.   Most of the men had their own bedrolls, but those were meager pieces of kit compared to what lay in the truck.  Chin of course came with the latest and greatest sleeping bag but was quick to grab a new one.  He was a crow.   New bits of kit were his shiny bits of junk.

Another feast took place that night; pulled pork, venison chili, fried chicken, and on.  The kid ate two plates and then ate two more.  A coat of talcum-fine dust settled over one plate and slowed his appetite not a bit.  Along with the food he knocked down a half-dozen sodas and didn’t so much as bat an eye.

After the food went away and the moon came out, he and chin sat on bales of hay and watched the stars.  They made their transverse across the blue-black sky, heedless of the tiny world of modern men.  Greywald approached soundlessly.

“Can you sit a horse,” he asked the kid.  

“I can.”

“Gather up your kit.  We’re heading out.”

`“When?”

“Tonight.”

“What for?”

“To make a reconnaissance.”

“What’s that mean?”

“We’re going to scout out the headcounters.”

The kid nodded once and said no more.  Chin beamed.

“Can I come too?”

Chin had his body armor nearby.  The rig sported pouches of every shape size and purpose.  Greywald eyed the gear cautiously.   He frowned beneath his speckled chin whiskers.

“I cannot trust to the field-craft of anybody who carries so much gear,” he said in a professionally flat and without humor.  The older man cocked his head once to indicate the direction of travel.  Angus stood up and followed.  Overhead the stars continued in their brilliance, heedless of all human beings, each one so minute and finite that they might never have existed at all.

Thank you!

Great update!  

Thank you for the update!

Well said on both counts.

The "Kid" is about to step out where few will dare. Training in recon of the adversary must mean that grey beard sees potential. Because Chin is about all talk and no show, et. al "beware the man who shoots only one gun".

Great update.

(Edit: now to no)

Keep up the good work sharkman6!

Love this quote:

Reminds me of "After the first one, the rest are free"

When do we get another chapter

keep it rolling, great story so far!

Just hoping for an update. Definitely enjoying the story.

Finally got around to registering and this story is beyond worthy of my first post.
Thank you so much for this and The Spartans Last March.

More?

Okay Shark, it's time for you to give us freeloaders some new storytime!  ;D


ETA:  Also, write us some new Sean Bastle I can buy!

THIS!


and tell me where the compound is so I can drive there when SHTF in real life.

Hello? is this thing on? can we get some more kind sir!

The truck bounced along the forgotten road.  It jumped at each pothole and made mechanical complaints and protestations.  The truck pulled a horse trailer, and the whole contraption swayed rhythmically as it barreled through the night, propelling Greywald and the kid to their next destination with a muted fury.

They sat in the back seat of a white crew cab truck.  A man named Samuels drove and another man called Hiro road shotgun. The kid had no idea if Hiro was the man's real name or just what everybody called him, nor did he know if Hiro spoke English for he never heard the man talk.  Hiro was an elderly construction engineer from Japan.  He and his wife had been visiting their two daughters at Kyoto University on the day known in Japan as the Campus Massacre.  After that, Hiro was too old to start another family, too old to find another wife.  But he wasn't too old to find revenge.  He went on a quest for blood, and fate and chance had delivered him across the globe and into the Irishman's company.

"Stop here,” Greywald ordered.  Samuels pulled the truck off the broken road and onto the gravel shoulder.  He flicked a switch on the dashboard and the truck went black in the already black night.  The absence of light enhanced the predatory emotions already welling inside the kid.  Greywald and the kid exited the truck with their gear.  Without a word they unloaded their horses from the trailer and in no time they were mounted, back across the Scimitar River and in the land of the headcounters' savagery.

They went into the high country, each with one pack, one rifle and two horses.  They stuck to the hills, and their mission was reconnaissance.  The two worked together as naturally as if they'd been paired together for years. The kid stayed in the high and wild forested hilltops.  He tended the horses and held security.  Greywald moved to positions where he could observe the headcounters' citadel. From there he recorded everything.  He took pictures with a camera and sketched other pictures by hand and he scribbled notes into a battered notebook with a dingy cover of green cloth.  He recorded the size and layouts of buildings and the number and types of vehicles.  He took pictures of men he thought were important and took pictures of other men he thought might be important.  He'd crawl through the tall grass on his belly to new vantage points and continue his recordings.

At night they ate a supper of cold rations and never lit a fire.  No conversation took more than a dozen words.  They went about their mission as if they’d been born to it and born to each other’s company.  

On the fourth day the kid asked, "What the hell is all this about anyways?  We know where they're at.  Why don't we just come in here and kill them?"

"It isn't the assault the Irishman's worried about, it's the pursuit."

Then Greywald spit a stream of brown tobacco juice into the grass.

"Quit asking so many questions.  Let's ride."

They left the headcounters' citadel and rode the ridgelines to the west.  They rode in silence, moving at night and staying in the wild hills.  A network of roads ran from the headcounter's citadel west through the timber covered hills.  These were dirt roads and improved gravel roads, the old tank trails and range roads that marked this reservation before it became a peace offering to those who wanted no peace at all.  These roads were what Greywald, and by extension the Irishman, was ultimately after.  At night the old fighter would sneak down to roads on foot and get a better look.  He'd take a tape measure along, and measure the width of the road, the angle of their turns, and the steepness of their slopes.  He'd crawl into the culverts that ran beneath them, checking their dimensions too.  He had a handheld GPS, and he’d check the coordinates on that gadget against the coordinates on an old map he carried.  Everything got recorded in the battered cloth notebook.  

During the day they laid low in the timber, resting their mounts and glassing the roads with their rifle scopes and binoculars.  On the eighth morning they lay prone behind a fallen oak and watched the road beneath them.  Yellow grass moved gently with the wind.  Insects buzzed.  The sunlight felt warm against the kid's face and he was glad to be out in it.  

An hour after breakfast they saw the women and kids coming down the road.  When the kid saw them he disengaged the safety on his rifle and brought it up to his shoulder.

Sorry 'bout the delay.  Things have been busy.  I might have gotten one last chance to go down range.

I sold the compound.  I decided that building forts are for pre-pubescent boys and Frenchmen.

Funds from the sale of the compound were invested in a fleet of technical vehicles.   If you can change the tire on a bongo truck or work misfire procedures on a 120mm recoilless rifle, you're in.

Thank you for the update!

Nice ta see ya Shark.  Thx for the update...good stuff!

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

I can change tires!  Never been around a recoilless rifle, but I'm a quick learner!

Thanks for the update, and be safe if you end up down range.

Good stuff!  I enjoyed the update.

Thank you!  I've really missed your post!

thanks for the update.

Thanks for the update, more please.

“You won’t take that shot,” Greywald said.  To emphasize his point his set down his own rifle and in its place he produced a bowie knife.  He shaved a piece off a plug of tobacco and popped it into his mouth.  Down below, the head counter women and children went about their business, moving along the road in a semi-organized shuffle.

“You don’t think I can put a bullet in them from here,” The kid asked.  From their perch to the road it was an easily 800 meters. They were in thick cover. Invisible.  There was a breeze, but a soft one.

“Didn’t say you couldn’t, I said you wouldn’t.” Greywald spat.  “You ain’t going to shoot down women and kids.  Not today.”

Down below them on the road the huddle of women and children shuffled along.  The women wore veils and scarves of black and dark blue.  The children wore all manner of western clothing.  Tennis shirts with athletic logos, T-shirts with the faces of rappers printed upon their chests, smaller versions of the track suits their fathers wore when raiding.  They all gathered and carried bundles of sticks for some purpose unknown and unknowable.


Greywald shaved another piece off the tobacco plug and passed it to his young companion.  Angus took it, chewed it thoughtfully and then spat his own stream of brown into the grass.  


"If you think I won't shoot, you don't know me half as well as you think you do."


“This is reconnaissance, not an assault.  And you ain’t going to snipe women and kids.”


“Them’s headcounters.”


“Headcounter women and children.”

“What’s women and children got to do with it?  Plenty of women and kids get killed all the time.  The headcounters do it as policy.”


“Their policy.  We ain’t the headcounters.”


“Yeah, we ain’t.  We’re the ones whose women and kids are the ones getting murdered and raped enslaved.  Then we thump our chests and say how noble we are that we aren’t sinking to their level.  Meanwhile, they go about their war on us.  People getting burned alive.  People getting drowned in cages.  Women getting raped and kids being slaved.  We let it all go on around us and we call that being noble.”


“Most people nowadays got no stomach for killing civilians.”


“Most people nowadays got no stomach for nothing.  This ain’t on ‘most people.’  This is on us.”  The kid shook his head.  It was a slight motion, but with heavy with disapproval.  He continued.  


“We killed plenty of German women and kids in WWII.  Killed plenty of Japanese women and kids too.”


“That war was different.”


"That's right, it was different.  Back then we weren't afraid to win.


"You talk about ‘their policy.’  Well what’s our policy?  Nobody can answer because we ain’t got one.  One day we talk about jobs and women’s rights.  The next day we talk about the warmer weather and the rising seas.  We ain’t got no plan to deal with them.  But they got a plan to deal with us.  They ain't pulling any punches.  They kill our women and children, and enslave the rest.  They ain't just attacking us, they're attacking our whole system.  They want our lives and our whole way of life.  After they take our lives that still ain’t enough.  They want our souls too."


The kid spat again.


"If you want to noble go right ahead.  But don't go gambling with my life and my soul.  I’d rather win.  Nobility can come afterwards.  "


"Well ain't you a hard case?"

"I am. And them’s the fuckers that made me this way."  The kid pointed a long finger down at the living huddle and just as he did the women and children passed around the bend in the road and out of sight.  Greywald spat again and smiled.


“Their gone now.  I said you weren’t going to make that shot. Too busy making your stump speech.”


“You did.  I guess that shows what talking gets me.”


Greywald smiled kindly.  “C’mon.  Let’s mount up and ride.”


"Where we going."

"Forward."


“Okay.”


They rode west through wild and timbered country.  They rode to the setting sun.  Each day brought less human sign than the last until there saw none at all, and they could have been mountain men from another era exploring a country that never knew their kind before.  There hard rations ran dry, but Greywald shot an elk and they loaded its meat on one of the pack horses and kept to the west.  And one day, in the evening, they reached the coast.  A ribbon of abandoned blacktop snaked north-south along the coastal ridges and beyond that the sun melted into the Pacific Ocean.


“Ain’t that a sight,” Greywald said.  And the kid gave no affirmation as none was needed.  And when the last of the golden light disappeared, they turned their horses around and rode back the way they came.


They took the ridgelines back east.  They switched mounts often.  There was no feed left, and water had been scarce.  The two men were gaunt, bearded and dirty from the days in the bush.  The horses had it just as rough, more so, since no horse can't match the grit of a hard man.


"These horses ain't got much giddyup left."

"Nope.  How many more days.”


"Maybe two until we get back.  But we need to ride past their citadel again.  I don't want to be mounted on played out horseflesh when we pass back by their citadel."


"Nope."


Greywald sniffed at the wind.


"There's a lake nearby I know about.  Water and good grass.  We'll head there."


“You even thought about being an Indian Fighter boss?”


“We are Indian Fighters, kid.  Don’t let nobody tell you different.”


"Okay."


Greywald led them up.  Up high into the hills. Up where men were unlikely to travel. Up to the lake.   And on the sandy shore of its bank, men picnicked. There were maybe a dozen.  Old men lounged on rugs, boiling water for sweet tea, the tea sets besides tins of sugar.  Others, younger and more daring, frolicked and splashed in the cold water.  Strewn about the beach were cheap plastic sandals, open soda cans, platters of food, a rifle here, a book there.  Vehicles sat mutely at the end of an old logging road, far enough away that a quick dash would not be enough.  A cassette player broadcast a tinny recording of a man reciting something in a language Angus could not understand.  


The kid brought his mount up alongside Greywald.  They watched the headcounters for a while, and the headcounters remained oblivious to their presence.  After taking the time to absorb the scene, the kid shielded his eyes with his palm and turned in the saddle, checking for the position of the sun.  It held the sky behind their backs.  He dropped his hand and unlimbered his rifle.

“Ain’t no women and kids this time.  And I’ve run out of talk.”

Outstatnding. Thanks for the update!

awesome!

Excellent!  Thank you!

They came out of the woodline at an easy trot.  Greywald veered his mount away and to the right, to get some distance from Angus and to get a better angle on their targets.  An old man reclined on a rug turned to face them.  He smiled beneath his bristly black beard.  Then he realized the two wild-looking and emaciated men riding his way were not fellow believers.  The frown turned to horror.  The man reached for a nearby rifle, a Kalashnikov with its stock folded in.  He never made it.  

The kid fired twice.  The old man’s body gave a spasm with each bullet strike, and he sprawled dead across the rifle.  The other men on the shore and in the lake froze.  Men stood waist-deep in the water.  Others spun around from their reclined positions on the bank.  Not a man stirred.  A horse snorted and tossed its head.  Insects buzzed, and their buzzing was amplified over the surface of the lake, but no man spoke.  

Finally one of the headcounters, a young one, smiled.  He raised his hand up out of the lake.  It dripped with green water.  The man opened his mouth to speak, but not a word came out.

Greywald shot the young man through the mouth.  His body wiped backward into the lake leaving behind a cloud of misted blood and shattered teeth. Then all became thunder.  The kid raised his own rifle and fired, fired, cutting down one headcounter after another.  One horse tossed its head and neighed in protest.  She prance back and the kid quickly controlled her and then fired some more. The other stood stock still, uncaring about the affairs of men.  

The headcounters on the shore tumbled into bloody piles.  Some headcounters in the lake splashed for shore, and the kid shot them down.  Others splashed out further into the lake. To go where?  None could say.  The kid shot them down too.

One ran across the beach for the woodline.  Greywald fired, and the bullet passed through both thighs and the man spilled and tumbled like and avalanche.  The kid fired next and took the man through the head.  

Seated in the saddle, Greywald pivoted at the hips, like a shotgunner taking doves.  He emptied his rifle into the parked vehicles nearby.  Fluid gushed from the radiators like spilled blood.  He withdrew the empty magazine and replaced it with a fresh one. There came the familiar sound of aluminum scraping against metal.  One made it to a Kalashnikov and as he fumbled with it the kid hit him in the chest.  He fell back, seated on his ass on the sandy bank and struggling to breath with a punctured lung.  And as he gasped the kid fired again and blew the top of his head up and away and still seated the man crumpled forward and died.

The kid changed his own rifle’s magazine and when he came up on his sights again there was nothing save carnage, and a sole survivor, wounded and bleeding who drug himself along with one good arm, for the other hung limp and blasted.  He grunted along, moving in spurts, his blood mixing with the wet sand.

The kid dismounted.

Fantastic!

Thank you!  Looking forward to the next!

They spoiled that picnic

more please

Greywald stirred in his saddle.  An uneasiness fell upon him as the kid's feet hit the loose and crunching gravel-sand aggregate of the bank.  The horse felt its rider’s unease and snorted a disapproval.  The kid took no notice.  He marched upon his prey.  One boot tread into a pool of blood and from then on left ochre testaments of its passing.  

The lone survivor of the massacre pulled himself along. His body was shattered, and he moaned, first in pain, then in horror, for the kid slung his rifle over one shoulder and fished out a knife from his pocket.  He unfolded it.  Sunlight glinted off edged steel. The kid's countenance took on no human emotion.  He was as devoid of life as the men he had slain.  The lifeless look scared Greywald.  It scared the survivor too.  If this was revenge, it was a cold revenge, cold blooded in its execution.

The crawling man changed his direction of travel and made for the lake.  He crawled to its edge, as if he were some amphibian and might find refuge in the water.  He never made it.  The kid caught him and planted a foot firmly on the man's back.  The crawling stopped.  A shout ensured, then flailing.  The kid dropped down on the man, pinning arms down with knees.  Next the knife work began.

The knife was small, but sharp and up to the task.  Growing up on a farm, the kid was familiar with similar work.  The cut went clean, and was performed with a single curving stroke.  No hesitation and no inefficiencies.  Blood flooded out from the head wound.  The kid stood, planted a foot on the victim's back again and tugged, tugged, and tugged.  There was a ripping sound beneath the screams.  Greywald shifted in his saddle again, turning to the treeline in case the screams brought headcounters.  The kid tugged again to no avail.  Flesh ripped.  He put the knife away so he could use both hands.  Fingers grabbed handfuls of thin flesh and bloody hair.  He gave one tug and nearly fell back on his ass because the scalp tore free leaving bloodied screaming mass.

"You gonna finish him off?"  Greywald asked.

"Nope," The kid answered.  He remounted and they both set off.   Long after the lake was gone they could hear the screams.  But after a time those faded away too.  

They came down from the highcountry, out of the timber and back to the highway.  When the hoofs of their horses clopped along the asphalt, the kid took the scalp and tossed it into the ditch on the side of the road.

"You ain't gonna keep that," Greywald asked.

"Nope. Didn't want it in the first place."


"Then why'd you take it?"


"I took it for them. Not for myself.  Wanted them to see it."


"See what?"


"We’re more brutal than they are."


Greywald smiled and nodded approval.


"The horse trailer coming to pick us up?"


"Nope.  We're riding in."


"What if we see headcounters on the rode?"


"If that happens I'm going to not get caught.  I suggest you do the same."


The kid considered that fair advice.  He next asked, “You think we can make it home for supper?"


"Not if we stay here jawing."


They turned their horses to the Irishman's camp and rode without speaking another word.


They arrived at the encampment at dusk and a flurry of activity greeted them.  Three giant bulldozers were parked end-to-end, like elephants in a circus parade.  A homemade armor of steel plate covered the first.  Welders set to the second one. Sparks from their torches glowed orange against a Halloween sky of black and burning orange.  The third bulldozer silently waited its turn.   The fleet of pickup trucks was midway through an upgrade too.  Some sported pedestals for machineguns.  Others sprouted a variety of antennae; long thin whips and short squat domes.  Others were half complete, with accessories laying alongside; powerful off-road lights, thick brushbars, tool kits and first aid kits the size of suitcases.  Men rushed this way and that, and piled up everywhere were small pyramids of wooden crates, most stenciled with the word, "ORDNANCE."

"We're going to war,"  Greywald said.  "But hopefully not before dinner."

“Look there,” The kid said.  He gestured with his chin.  Near the Irishman’s house were the vehicles of the bagman.  Nestled in between them was a jacked-up and tricked-out pickup that was too gaudy to be anything but impractical.

“Trouble,” Greywald muttered.

Nash found them before any of the others.  

"We've been busy while you were gone.”

"We ain't blind."

"The Stockman's man came by twice while you were away.  Each time with bigger bags of cash. Goddamn, but the Irishman is getting himself tanks."


"Them's bulldozers, not tanks."


"Those ain’t what I’m talking about, and even if they were the headcounters won't know the difference.  How did the reconnaissance go?"


"The kid here took another scalp, but he threw it in a ditch on account he didn't want it.  What's for dinner?"


Nash shrugged.  "I ain't the cook.  Did you talk to the boss or the adjutant yet?"

"Have not."

"I expect they're busy. He's here and wants to talk to all of us."

"Who?  The Irishman?"

"Naw.  The Stockman."

"Why's he here?"

Nash made a sweeping gesture with both arms.  They passed over the crates of ordnance, the bulldozers, the fleets of trucks, the company of men all of whom were armed and well equipped and greater in number than when they left for the reconnaissance.

“He’s building his own army.  He wants to be governor.  He wants to be president too I bet.  Maybe he likes giving speeches.”

The kid noticed that amongst the weapons and vehicles and other hardware, a platform had been build out of stacked hay bales.  On the platform was a kind of crude, cobbled together podium and the snaking black cable of a microphone.  

“It ain’t election day. It’s supper time,” The kid grumbled.  “I don’t need a speech.  I just need somebody to let me fight, preferably after I eat first.”

It was then the adjutant came out.  He gave a loud whistle and waved his hand in the air, assembling the men of this free-company.  Welding torches shut off.  Tools and crates were set down.  Men shuffled towards the platform.  

“C’mon.  Let’s go get our pep talk.”

Thanks again sharkman.  Love your writing.

Thanks for the update, keep em coming.

Good stuff. Keep it comming!

Sharkman great work as always.

I have not checked this section in over a month hoping to see new additions to the story and you came through

Thanks, more?

I agree, there's a resonance to the PAW scene. Works of PAW would never have been read at all back in the day, but now? They are much more popular.

over a month and nothing new?

Prepping to deploy.  Writing on hold until further notice.

Thanks for all the writing you have given us.  Be safe and keep your powder dry.

back to Afghanistan I suppose. Oblammo basically said we are stayig forever. I guess he wanted at least one thing he didn't completely screw up.

Afghans aren't worth it though.