Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT    4
DEDICATION    4
BOOK 1    6
CHAPTER 1: THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED FOREVER    7
CHAPTER 2    52
CHAPTER 3    79
CHAPTER 4    86
CHAPTER 5    115
CHAPTER 6    125
CHAPTER 7    134
CHAPTER 8    180
CHAPTER 9    209
CHAPTER 10    215
CHAPTER 11    228
CHAPTER 12    235
CHAPTER 13    260
CHAPTER 14    274
CHAPTER 15    286
BOOK 2    292
CHAPTER 1    293
CHAPTER 2    306
CHAPTER 3    322
CHAPTER 4    331
CHAPTER 5    336
CHAPTER 6    352
CHAPTER 7    366
CHAPTER 8    378
CHAPTER 9    394
CHAPTER 10    406
CHAPTER 11    449
CHAPTER 12    454
CHAPTER 13    473
CHAPTER 14    501
CHAPTER 15    517
CHAPTER 16    534
CHAPTER 17    543
CHAPTER 18    546
CHAPTER 19    561
CHAPTER 20    569
CHAPTER 21    628
CHAPTER 22    653
CHAPTER 23    657
CHAPTER 24    659
The Devil's Hand    659

COPYRIGHT

Copyright  DCBourone, 2018
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

"The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history."

George Orwell

"Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?"

Bastiat

"Chaos liberates not only the evil, but the good."

Billy Spears

THE SOLDIER'S SON

BOOK 1

By DCBourone

CHAPTER 1: THE DAY THE WORLD CHANGED FOREVER
~Zero Hour:  The Massacre At The Cantina Tejas
~Words Of His Father
~The Apocalypse Has Already Happened
~A Murderer Recalls a Very Peculiar Killing
~And As They Murdered, So They Are Murdered

~~Somewhere In West Texas

Billy Gehr was a boy on a mission.
A boy?
Or a man.
He wasn't sure.
He had just turned fourteen years old.
And today he was going to kill the men who had killed his father.
Kill as many as he could.
Or be killed himself.
So.
Boy?
Or man.
He would find out soon.
In his right hand Billy carried a Norinco .45 caliber pistol.  The Norincos were Chinese copies of a captured 1943 Remington Rand, or so the rumors went, near perfect duplicates of the original John Moses Browning 1911.  Made out of 5100 series carbon steel, his grandfather had said.  Or maybe scrapped Chinese railroad tracks, his father had mused.  Same steel, Billy's grandfather would murmur.  Billy's father and grandfather had spoken with reverence and sorrow that some Chinese factory had made such a superb copy of John Browning's classic fighting pistol.
It was gunsmith talk.
Soft voices in the dark.
On a Texas porch
Under a Texas sky full of stars  
The Norinco's original sights were copies from that first Remington, so small as to be virtually decorative, but Billy and his father and his grandfather had replaced the original rear sight with a hooked wedge you could use to rack the slide, one-handed, on a boot heel or a belt or a pocket seam or the steering wheel of a car.  They had replaced the front sights with copies of the long ramp found on the Smith and Wesson M28 Highway Patrolman.  His grandfather had machined the new sights one by one on an ancient Pratt and Whitney bench top mill the size of a sewing machine, or a Victorian dollhouse.  They had replaced the guts of the Norincos with all stainless internals from Cylinder and Slide.  Some of the guns had been salt-bath nitrided, making them virtually rustproof and indestructible.
His grandfather had called them Forever Guns.
Because you could build them.
And maintain them.
And use them.
Forever.
Billy had loved being the son, and grandson, of gunsmiths.
His family had been gunsmiths, soldiers, and lawmen, for generations.
So Billy had learned about these essential tools.

And how they were made.

And he had also learned a lot about how these killing tools were used.

Billy had learned a considerable amount about killing, in general.

Killing men is both art, and science, his father had said.

So you will study the science.

And the art will come.

Words of his father

So in his right hand, Billy carried the Norinco .45 caliber pistol.
And in his left hand he carried a yellow Big Gulp cup of gasoline.  
Almost thirty ounces of Chevron 93 octane, mixed with three heaping tablespoons of bacon grease.  The mix had slicked up nicely.  He had practiced.  Flinging the mix onto a department store mannequin propped on a folding chair.  With just a gentle twist of the wrist.  Because Billy wanted his mix to sticknot splash.  And practice makes perfect, his father had said.  Now there were twenty Diamond strike-anywhere matches epoxied together in a bundle sticking out at the base of the Big Gulp cup full of gasoline and bacon grease.  And a foot-long strip of sandpaper carpenter glued down the front of his tattered Vietnam era army jacket.

So.

Toss the contents.

Strike the matches down the vest

Throw the cup

So Billy came around the corner of The Cantina Tejas, a dusty barn turned into a dusty dance hall in a dusty part of west Texas, tossed the contents, struck the matches, and turned Hector Mejor Calinas into a human torch from Hector's knees to his tattooed face.  Billy saw a good dose of his incendiary mix of Chevron 93 and bacon grease go straight into Hector's open mouth.

Hector Calinas, torturer.

Hector Calinas, rapist.

Hector Calinas, soldier for the Cartel.

Hector Calinas was a fairly recent resident of Texas, his rubbery face and thick neck covered with blue tracings of Gothic script and winged angels and crosses and clenched fists with daggers.  Only tracings now because while Hector's tattoos had been very useful for impressing psychopaths in Sinaloa and Jalisco, Mexico, those tattoos seemed to be a disadvantage in Hector's new home of Texas.  Too many contemptuous cashiers, difficult traffic stops, sullen cops meticulously photographing his trademark symbology.  So for several months now Hector had been driving to San Antonio and having his facial tattoos lasered away.

I'll take care of those tattoos for you, Billy thought.

Fire will clean up those tattoos just fine.

Burn, Hector.

No hurry.

Go ahead.

Take your time.

Now Hector rose in a giant swirl of flame.

A man on fire will go for help, Billy had thought.

But Hector lunged forward.  Right hand outstretched.  Cartel torturer and murderer, but Hector was nothing if not courageous.  And then Hector inhaled, mouth open wide, sucked in a big curl of orange flame, and dropped to his knees.

And lunged for the door of The Cantina.

Good enough.

Go for help, Hector.

Because I promise you

Help is not coming.

It's just me:

Billy Gehr.

And clearly?

I'm no help at all.

Billy waited a second or two.

Billy could remember all his father's words.  His father's words were the kettle drums of war, propelling him into the future.  I'm in the soldiering business, his father had said.  Which means I'm in the killing business.  And being a soldier, well, that means I'm also in the dying business.  So if I die someday you will carry on, and you will know that wherever I am, I will always know that you are my son, and now I live through you and only through you, and knowing you were my son was the great triumph of my life.

Honor thy father

So far it was going pretty well.

Now Billy Gehr needed to stand.

Watch.

Listen.

For just a moment.

There were things he needed to see.

Things he needed to hear.

Before the real killing began.

That would be pretty soon now.

He raised the Norinco pistol.

Over-penetration is a problem for civilians, his father had said.  Because when you fight, and you will surely fight someday, because our world is collapsing in upon itself, do you understand, son, you will see the fall of your country the way Romans witnessed the Fall of Rome?  Because our Apocalypse has already happened. Our Apocalypse happened, when we lost our common language. Our Apocalypse happened when we lost our common values, embedded within that language.  Our Apocalypse happened when we lost our honor.  Our Apocalypse happened, when we lost our courage. Do you understand me, son?

So when you fight?

You will be not be fighting as a civilian.

You will be fighting as a soldier.

You will be fighting for whatever is left of your country.

You will be fighting for whatever is left of Texas.

You will be fighting for whatever is left of your family.

And you will be fighting for whatever is left?

Of yourself.

So you will want to see your enemies destroyed.

So when you fire your weapon you will want penetration.  You will want holes in, and bigger holes out.  You will want splatter.  And spray. You will want to see your enemies dismembered.  Deconstructed.  Deleted.  Perhaps a leg here, and a torso there, you will find very reassuring.  You will understand the value of concussive decapitation, because a man without a head is probably no longer a threat.  You will want to see your enemies ground to a rubble of ash and bones.  So you know that your enemies will never rise up, and kill you.

Or even worse: kill your friends.

Now Billy saw what he needed to see.

Heard what he needed to hear.

And Billy fired.

The rounds from his Norinco pistol penetrated just fine.

They were his first shots in what Billy knew would be a very long war.

And he fully intended to carry on his family traditions.

He was, after all?

A Soldier's Son.

~A MURDERER RECALLS A VERY PECULIAR KILLING~

Gabriel Louis Martinez leaned forward on the long board porch of The Cantina Tejas and studied the flaming apparition that had been his friend and fellow Cartel Soldier, a man named Hector Calinas.  Gabriel Louis Martinez was propped against the boards of The Cantina in a chair made out of metal tubing and plastic.  Gabriel figured he might have about three seconds to live.  This odd creature with the big square pistol and that cup full of gasoline and that hideous mask was going to kill him.

Kill him soon, just like he had killed Hector.

Gabriel's thoughts flickered like heat lightning.

Just flashes of light on images, very fast.

So you did not review your life in the seconds before death

You just had random thoughts.

Images, flashing

Pocket litter

Sifting through fingers.

Gabriel was drunk on mescal.

He was so drunk his body could only move very slowly.

But oddly, in these last seconds, his thoughts could move very fast

In the seconds before his friend Hector burst into a tower of flame, Gabriel's random thoughts had concerned a momentous and very puzzling question: a Texas Deputy Sheriff had been killed just a few days ago.  But nothing had changed after the Texas Deputy Sheriff was killed.  Street lights still turned on.  Cash registers beeped and hummed and chimed, most of the time.  The Cantina Tejas was not raided.  The trailers full of young Mexican girls who entertained at The Cantina Tejas were not raided.  No police showed up at The Cantina Tejas.  No other deputy Sheriffs.  No state troopers.  No Justice Department investigators.  There must have been an investigation, surely, but that investigation had never reached The Cantina Tejas, which should have been the target of any intelligent inquiry into the Deputy's murder.

It was all very strange.

In Gabriel's mind this strangeness was only somewhat associated with another kind of recent strangeness over the last year or so: a slow decline in business, in how often they got paid, the number of days when his ATM card didn't work at Bank of America over sixty miles away in Waco, or Western Union offices were closed, and he could not send any money home.

The lines were shorter at Walmart.

The lines were longer at the health clinics.

There had been three bank holidays, when no money could be moved.

The economy was fine, the news would say.

The economy was fantastic, the news would say.

Employment was up, the news would say.

And then there would be a bank holiday.

And riots.

Lots of riots.

It was very confusing.

Gabriel had recently become accustomed to hearing the words 'severe depression' and 'currency crisis' and 'banking crisis' and even 'worldwide economic collapse' from normally sunny faces on television when he strayed away from his sports and Spanish language Univision broadcasts.

Even though the economy was just so very fantastic.

It made no sense at all.

And even stranger things were happening.

Gabriel knew nothing about American politics.

But two attempts on the American President's life was very strange.

Somebody desperately wanted to kill the American President.

And had almost succeeded.

Twice.

Which meant they would surely try to kill him again.

Assassination was a common tool of politics in many countries.

But not here, not in the United States of America.

Not for decades.

It was all very strange.

The whole world was becoming very strange.

Strange small wars in distant countries were becoming larger wars, in big countries that even Gabriel could name.  When he watched television this last year, the screen was filled with foreign cities on fire, and skies full of smoke.  Gabriel was a creature of instincts, and his instincts told him that a great dark wave was coming.  He had a dim sense that the world was changing, and would never be the same, that the world had become like bright and shiny and glittering bubbles of light, drifting on an ocean of filth. And the very strange economy, up and then down, up and then down, that could help explain why the Deputy's murder was not properly investigated.  Just not enough money.  Good law enforcement was very expensive.

But if the old world was dying, and if the U.S. economy had problems, very severe problems, the Cartels mostly saw opportunity.  The Cartels could provide many essential services: organized violence and intimidation, women, drugs, cash, anything stolen because anything stolen could be sold at a discount.  A dying economy and a dying nation and a dying world by definition becomes a kind of black market.

And the Cartels were the ultimate black market.

The Cartels would swim freely, in this ocean of filth.

Gabriel was the farthest thing from an intellectual.

But Gabriel had an animal's instinct for the future.

And he was sure the future was very dark.

And in a dark future?

He knew the world would be ruled by gangs.

And he was a member of one of the world's most ruthless gangs.

The Sheriff's Deputy had been killed several days ago because in just the last year he had shot, run over, or beaten to death at least seven Cartel soldiers, seven of Gabriel's associates and friends.  And maybe two more men who had disappeared, two stone cold professionals, Los Zetas contract killers from Nuevo Laredo who had never shown up, never called in, but had simply

Disappeared.

Vanished.

The job of the Los Zetas men had been to kill The Deputy.

They had been sent to kill him because The Deputy had been the last functional law enforcement in Cochise County, Texas.  All the other deputies had quit, or been persuaded to leave, or been persuaded to park themselves in the shade and look the other way.

This Deputy had been the last one really working.

He had been working for free, it was said.

The Deputy had once been some kind of soldier, it was said.

Some kind of very special soldier.

Back from all these wars the gringos fought.
The Deputy had been a very unusual man.

Gabriel had seen The Deputy kill before, just once.

Gabriel had been at The Cantina when The Deputy had killed Luis.

The Deputy had killed Luis in a very dramatic and peculiar way.

Luis, mostly called just Luis, but sometimes very quietly and respectfully, Luis The Foot, and even Luis The Foot-Cutter, had been responsible for disciplining the girls at The Cantina Tejas.  Keeping those girls in line.  And on their backs.  When they arrived across the border, soft plump girls with hope in their eyes because they had been promised jobs as waitresses or motel cleaners or nannies, Luis tattooed their left feet with a small star.  Or sometimes, a flower. About the size of a dime.  Just inside their little toe.

That way when the girls ran away and Luis The Foot tracked them down, and he almost always tracked them down, the truth was the girls rarely got as far as San Antonio or the border, Luis did not have to bring back their bodies to show the other girls.  Moving whole bodies was difficult, and messy.  The closest mesquite thicket was good enough for girl bodies cut into pieces and folded into Hefty garbage bags, and west Texas was one big mesquite thicket.  So Luis just chopped off that left foot with the little tattooed star, or flower.  And then he would show that foot to the other girls in the trailers behind The Cantina Tejas.  You could fit a young girl's foot in a jacket pocket, rolled up in a Ziploc bag, Luis The Foot used to say

The Deputy had killed Luis on a Friday night.

At one o'clock in the morning.

Almost a year ago.

On Friday nights The Cantina Tejas was very busy, very loud, very bright.  As many as two hundred patrons might be dancing on the barn floor, boards creaking and dust in the air, another ten or twelve patrons down in the trailers with the girls.

The Deputy had come in by himself.

With a big bright picture on his phone.

A picture of a girl's foot.

With a small flower tattooed by the little toe.

The Deputy had shown his picture of a girl's foot to many people in the bar, and on the dance floor.

The Deputy had been very polite.

Just one week before, two girls had got away

Luis and Gabriel had caught one of the girls.

That girl had been punished.

She had not survived her punishment.

The Deputy's picture must have been of the other girl, the only one who ever truly got away, because the foot in the picture was still attached to an ankle.   The deputy had finally walked to the bar and shown the picture to Luis, who was tapping a keg of beer.  Then the Deputy had walked Luis outside to a truck.  An old Dodge Adventurer, four-wheel drive, lifted, painted the dull grey of primer paint.  The Deputy was using his own vehicle, because the county had so little money.

The Deputy had been slow and casual.

Luis The Foot had been slow and casual.

Gabriel had been sitting in this very same chair of steel tubes and plastic on that night almost one year ago.  Drunk on mescal.  Gabriel had been thinking about Luis and the soft brown girls, and how much fun he and Luis had with those girls when they tracked them down.  Luis always rented a motel room first.  The girls were so terrified that they would do anything.

Anything at all.

It had been a lot of fun for Luis and Gabriel, not so long ago

About forty patrons had gathered on the porch of The Cantina Tejas.

Another ten or so on the gravel lot in front of The Cantina.

They were all waiting for Luis to kill the new Deputy.

They all knew in the deep dark Texas scrubland?

Such a crime would never be solved.

Of course there might be an investigation.

Flashing lights, police cars, road blocks.

But then the investigation would disappear.

Because no one who saw anything would speak.

Nobody would ever speak against the Cartels.

So, one more Texas deputy, down in the dark.

Gabriel knew of three dead deputies in just the last year

The Deputy had propped Luis up against his Chevy truck.

The Deputy was going to read Luis his rights.

Then The Deputy stepped back about three feet.

And The Deputy did not read Luis his rights.

Instead he reached into the right-hand pocket of his vest.

Found some gloves and pulled them on.

The Deputy was fairly tall, but mostly he was wide.  Wide shoulders, long arms, sinew and bone.  When he had passed Gabriel and stepped into The Cantina Gabriel had noticed mostly his neck.  The Deputy's neck was very thick, deep, and wide.  Gabriel had always liked small details like that.  He had always thought men with thick muscular necks deserved special attention.

And leaning back in this very same chair almost one year ago, Gabriel had recognized The Deputy's gloves.  Black.  A logo on the wrist strap: Mechanix.  Gabriel knew lots of people who used those gloves.  You could buy them at Home Depot.  But The Deputy's gloves had been changed.  Painted across wrist and knuckles were the bones of a hand, bright and white, like a skeleton.

The Deputy was wearing the hands of Dia De Muertos.

Bones of the Dead, to celebrate the Day of the Dead.

And The Deputy waited.

Still, but poised, maybe swaying just a tiny bit.

Like a soccer goalie, waiting to receive a penalty kick.

Gabriel had known that Luis would kill The Deputy.

Now he was not so sure.

Luis was a blade man, as well as a gunman.

Luis The Foot always carried two knives, filed down from French chef's knives.  Never stainless, always carbon steel.  Luis was very particular about his knives.  He carried one blade tilted right in the small of his back like an Argentine gaucho's facon, the other knife in a shoulder harness under his bright yellow bartender's vest.  At his right hip Luis carried a Colt Presidential .38 Super, a very shiny gun with a gold-plated trigger and hammer.

The Deputy had not handcuffed Luis.

The Deputy had not searched or disarmed Luis.

It was all very strange and interesting.
.    Gabriel had been waiting for Luis to show one of his knife tricks.

Luis The Foot was always playing with his knives.

Once Gabriel had insulted Luis "Chinga tu madre" he had said, which meant "fuck your mother," Gabriel had been trying to be tough and friendly in the manner of men, and Luis had turned with a smile on his face and kept turning, so fast it was like a strobe light and shown Gabriel a gold earring on the tip of his knife.

It was Gabriel's own gold earring, torn out of his right ear.

Gabriel had never again insulted Luis The Foot

So The Deputy had talked, head down low, relaxed.

Then Luis talked, his hands moving, lots of movement, like he was telling a joke.  Then Luis turned to his left.  Looked over his left shoulder with that big 'I'm your friend and you're my friend' smile on his face.

And like a bird twisting in flight

Luis turned the other way.

Just a glance of light on the knife in his hand.

And then

The Deputy was holding Luis' knife.

The Deputy's right hand up, like he was saying, "Halt."

And there was the knife in The Deputy's skeleton glove.

Gabriel was not quite sure how it was done.

And now very quickly they were both on their knees, The Deputy still behind Luis and holding Luis' right wrist in both gloved hands and now The Deputy was somehow up over Luis' back in a blur of quick-kicking dust and motion, The Deputy riding very high on Luis' back, and The Deputy spun twice, two complete turns, as fast as hands clapping, still holding Luis' wrist and arm.  The Deputy spun around Luis' wrist and arm like the girls in The Cantina spun around their poles.

Even over The Cantina music Gabriel was sure he heard a liquid pop.

Like a drumstick twisted out of a chicken.

The Deputy had pretty much torn Luis' arm out of his shoulder.

Maybe there was still some skin holding everything together.

Gabriel saw The Deputy was wearing cowboy boots with low heels.

Ropers, they were called.

But The Deputy's ropers had black rubber soles with those small crosses like Gabriel had seen on rich peoples' hiking boots, when he went up to Plano in Dallas to see how the rich people lived, and thought about robbing them and raping their vain blonde whores with the plastic faces and plastic smiles.

Gabriel had never seen cowboy boots with those black crosses.

As The Deputy spun Luis had screamed like a very young girl.

And now The Deputy and Luis were both back on their knees, Luis still screaming, and now finally The Deputy searched and disarmed Luis, the knife like the Argentinean facon removed and laid in the gravel next to the first knife from under Luis' vest, and then the Presidential .38 Super, all carefully laid on the gravel.  Luis was still screaming and The Deputy put his right hand on Luis' neck and slammed Luis' face and head into the door pillar of his truck, directly behind the cab.

Once.

And then again.

Maybe ten seconds had passed.

By now Gabriel was very intrigued.

Gabriel realized he was being mesmerized.

Like a snake, being charmed by the deliberate movements of a flute.

Gabriel knew he should have moved, somebody should have moved.

But everybody was watching.

Stunned.

And disbelieving.

And most of all: curious.

What would The Deputy do next?

Luis had fallen over, as limp as a wet cloth.

The Deputy carefully laid Luis down on the gravel, face up.

Then he reached into the bed of his truck, and removed a horse blanket.  The horse blanket was folded very thick, about the size of a phone book.

The Deputy carefully laid the blanket on the center of Luis' chest.

Then The Deputy swiveled lightly up into the bed of his truck.

The Deputy was very graceful for such a big man.

The whole thing had reminded Gabriel of a rodeo.

Like when the calf-ropers were tossing the calves.

And then twirling their hands around the calves' ankles with rope.

Gabriel wondered if maybe The Deputy was once a rodeo cowboy.

The Deputy was somewhat bow-legged

And then The Deputy jumped off the edge of his truck.

Lifted his knees high to his chest as he jumped.

And stomped both feet into the folded horse blanket as he landed.

Stomped both feet practically into the ground through Luis' chest.

It was a very unusual way to kill a man, Gabriel had thought.

It suggested disgust.

And contempt.

And a very deep and calculating mind.

The way The Deputy had laid Luis out so carefully.

The horse blanket, already folded to the perfect size.

And The Deputy's timing:

His timing was brilliant.

Just fast enough to startle

Just slow enough to enchant

Like a dream.

Or a flawless seduction.

It had seemed like The Deputy was dancing with a willing partner.

Or it was a kind of ceremony, like the Aztecs on their stone pyramids.

Killing with their obsidian knives.

Holding hearts to the sky.

I am killing with great deliberation here, The Deputy was saying.

Because I can kill you, I can kill all of you, all of you who are like this man, this man Luis The Foot-Cutter?  I can kill you whenever I want.  Wherever I want.  However, I want.  Do you see me?  Because I see you.

Gabriel knew that is what that elaborate killing meant.

Then The Deputy reached down for the folded horse blanket.

And tossed it back into the bed of his truck.

And a spark lit to fire in Gabriel's mind:

Maybe The Deputy did not care about witnesses.

But maybe The Deputy cared about evidence: those boots.

Those boots would have engraved Luis forever with those hiking soles.

Engraved Luis with those little crosses, stamped into his chest.

Then the same hand that tossed the horse blanket came back.

With a very large rifle.

Scarred and silvered with use.

A big fat square magazine.

Gabriel had spent two years in the Mexican Army.

Gabriel had been instructed by the Cartel to join the army.

So he could learn about weapons, and learn how to fight.

They had been issued a German gun, the G3, and the Deputy's gun had a magazine exactly the same size.  So, 7.62 NATO, they had been taught.  Very powerful.  A car killer, a truck killer, a penetrator of buildings and people in a row, big holes that went all the way into the future.

But the magazine was not the only thing that interested Gabriel.

There was a small handle, a stub, really, attached to the forend of the Deputy's rifle.  And above the handle and to the left was a light, a dull bronze color, about the size of a 7-ounce Coca-Cola bottle.  And as soon as he brought the rifle out of the truck bed The Deputy switched the light on and swept the crowd of watchers and witnesses.  Gabriel immediately closed his eyes but it was too late.  He had seen such lights before, you could buy small ones at Walmart, about the size of a roll of quarters, but this was the brightest ever, it was like staring into the sun, and Gabriel was blinded even through his closed eyes.

Through his closed eyes Gabriel could feel this shattering light bouncing around him, high, and low, and for a two-second period of darkness in which Gabriel assumed The Deputy had turned all the way around.  Or aimed up. To blind anyone who might have been watching from darkness.  Or from the three windows on the second floor of The Cantina Tejas.

For the first time Gabriel was afraid.

This Deputy was no longer interesting.

This Deputy was terrifying.

Gabriel kept his eyes closed.

He didn't want to see anymore.

He wanted The Deputy to go away.

To disappear like the spirits of the dead.

But closing his eyes did not work at all.

Gabriel could hear a few shouts, a few women screaming.

And footsteps on gravel.

And the sound of something being dragged.

The light got brighter and brighter through his closed eyelids.

And he felt something sharp at his throat, his right eye, his left cheek.

The light dimmed but he could still feel it pulsing to his left.

"Hello Gabriel.  Open your eyes," The Deputy had said.

And Gabriel had opened his eyes.

He considered himself a brave man.

But his guts were boiling, he was clenching himself.

And still he knew he was leaking a thin stream of shit.

When he opened his eyes he saw the tip of The Deputy's rifle.

It had been sharpened somehow.

Tiny sharp triangles.

Like a fish scaling knife.

The Deputy's rifle tapped him over his left eye.

Gabriel's left eye was immediately filled with blood.

Tap, tap, tap, more blood in his eye.

Gabriel could just barely see Luis The Foot below him.

Luis had one eye looking this way, one eye looking that way.

Luis The Foot exhaled a last clotted breath, full of snot and blood.

A jet of blood out of Luis' nose had coated his chest bright crimson.

"Look at me, Gabriel.  Look at me now."

Gabriel had looked.

Seen calm grey eyes.

A wide, weathered face.

A broad, ragged mustache.

A short-brimmed grey Stetson.

The eyes very clear behind glasses with yellow lenses.

Then the Deputy laid his rifle on Luis' bloody chest.

Shifted his gun belt with the big square pistol.

Slid an old tape-wrapped framing hammer from the gun belt.

And a six-inch nail from inside his vest.

And nailed Gabriel's left foot to the porch.

The nail going in just inside Gabriel's little toe.

Exactly where Luis had tattooed The Cantina girls' left feet.

Then the Deputy held up his right hand, showed the palm of his glove.

Gabriel was going numb with terror, but he saw a pattern of fabric.

Glued or stitched somehow into the palm and fingers of the glove.

"Kevlar.  Go home, Gabriel.  Keep the nail," The Deputy said.

And then The Deputy spun away behind the light on his rifle.

The Deputy's truck engine roared to life.

And as he left, his truck would stop, and idle.

Stop, and idle.

Stop, and idle.

Because The Deputy was doing one last thing.

When the patrons of The Cantina Tejas finally made it to their cars and trucks and drove down the access road to the farm road and to their homes, they stared straight ahead.  They did not want to look or talk or think about anything.  They had already seen enough.

And because every fifty feet down the service road.

They had to pass a lit candle.

In the shape of a skull.

Candles of Dia de Muertos.

Lighting a day, and a night, of the dead.

Business at The Cantina was not so good for a while...

~
Leaning back on his porch chair Gabriel could tell his time was over.

He had remembered what he could about The Deputy.

It had only taken a second, or two

The pocket litter had sifted through his fingers.

And now his hands, and his mind, were empty.

Gabriel's last seconds were almost up.

And he knew it.

He knew he should try and move, very soon.

But he was numb with alcohol, and fear, and sorrow.

And he knew it would not make any difference, if he moved.

He could hear Hector thumping and burning to his right.

Gabriel could smell chicharron, the smell of fried pork rinds.

Gabriel had burned people before, and knew this smell.

He could also see the face and hands of Dia de Muertos.

This figure before him, who had just lit Hector on fire, this figure which now swayed gently behind a heavy square pistol, swayed and twitched just like a praying mantis, this figure was wearing the skeleton gloves of Dia de Muertos.  And a mask painted with a perfect skull, the face of Dia de Muertos.

The face of the Day of the Dead.

So this would be Gabriel's day of the dead.

Gabriel studied the skeleton gloves.

And the big square pistol.

Of course, he had seen them before.

When speaking of The Deputy amongst themselves, Gabriel and his friends had just called him "The Deputy."  But everyone had known The Deputy must have been some kind of soldier.  A very good soldier.  In private, many people thought of the Deputy just as, "The Soldier."

And this was exactly the same figure now.

Standing before him.

Maybe a bit shorter, and thinner.

But otherwise almost exactly the same.

The delicate precision of the painted skull mask.

It reminded Hector of the perfectly folded blanket.

That perfect leap into the air.

The Deputy with his knees up high on his chest.

Before he dropped down and stomped Luis The Foot to death.

The skeleton gloves, the poise, even the same heavy square pistol

Gabriel was deeply superstitious and felt he was having a premonition.

Gabriel was quite sure he could only be looking at one person.

That person could only be The Soldier's Son.

A bunch of Sierra and Hornady 250/s and gmx at about 2900 fps stacked on top of each other.  Shoot a group until it blurs out then use group as next aiming point.  Recoil is brisk.  Heaven.  Ok cant rotate pic but first aim point is bottom of target (at 3 oclock here) impact 1.5 high.  250 yd zero.  36 inches drop at 500.  Easy to visualize. Attached File

That's a cool rifle. Congratulations on finally getting to have it!

Thank You DFarm.  It is my honest to goodness Grail Gun.  I may have made some
duplicates.  My version of vanity.  We have no/none/zero public examples of intact "gladius/i?sic?"--
These were done by a well known gun smith who specifically (so far) has instructed me
not to post his name .re these rifles in a public forum--but his work needs to be protected
preserved etc. I think--wood and blue steel will turn to dust--these, hypothetically, could
be dropped in the sea for five thousand years, resurrected, springs replaced, barnacles
scraped off...and used.  Their only enemies are fire, theft, and confiscation.  I will make
one a year until I die/can no longer afford it.

deleted/repeat

That's awesome.

I feel like that about my knives. Hopefully someone in my lineage stumbles onto the razor sharp nub of one of my knives in a relative's belongings and looks me up because we share a name. Hopefully they can find enough about me to learn that the knife was made for them, even though I don't know exactly who they are.

nice stick DC.

I like the fact that you included iron sights on your build.

I love that perspective.

I'd love to see some more pics of that rifle.  I can't tell what action it's built on.

Mmmmm...banded makes my pants tight.

Is that dip?!?

Dfarm expand on idea of ancestral knives make time capsule packages who what why when where send them forward.

heron these are
the last of
the V8 intercepto I mean cz 550 long action true Mauser rifles the rear sight ramp is integral to the hammer forged barrel blank.  These were truly exceptional rifles built on old original Brno 602 tooling.  Affordable excellence.  Cz quit making them a year or so ago.

Designated  perspective exactly.

Designated   see below.  Rifle deserves a proper post someday-/ but this is a start.

Hello Stj.  Bands are hammer/press fit.  Necg.  Um  dip is for scale?

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Truly nice...

I have a couple of the CZ mauser rifles.

one built from a long action receiver into a .300 win mag, pac-nor barrel, and I was lucky to find a McMililian stock that exactly fit that barrel contour in their sale bin...

I went a different direction on the finish - I had Robar (when they were still a thing) coat the entire rifle in maritime/extreme NP3.

I call it the "Elk Hammer". Quite certain it will last a long time...

The other is a complete factory rifle, high polish blued finish and the most amazingly figured walnut stock. It is 25.06 chambered. It hasn't seen daylight in a while...

Appreciation of this kind of stuff is definitely a curator/librarian thing.

Enjoying it all while we still can...

--Heron--2 CZ/s!!!  Excellent.  Will be revered artifacts someday.  Much grousing on on
other forums/hunting forums the demise of the 550 Mauser/s.  There is/likely will never
be an affordable equivalent.  From now on my long action/magnum/s will be built
on Model 17 Enfields--in some respects even a superior substitute--because spare parts
Bolts/triggers/etc. are still available and cheap.

not much experience with the Enfield builds but sounds like they will be supported. I had a plan (aborted) to build a rifle on a Zermatt action in 6.5 PRC... I may revive this come winter when I have nothing else going on...

I will try to scan a couple of shots of the CZ's and post them up.

I notice you are using a Trijicon optic on yours - how do you like it?

Heron--Zermatt looks pricey.  Advantage Enfield 14/17 + common, cheap, durable, superb
safety and controlled feed extraction, big/broad/capable magnum length cartridges.  Negatives:
heavy, expensive to weld up rear/front bridges, require experienced (expensive) gunsmith/machinist,
only one company still makes drop in (cheap) laminated stock (Boyds)--synthetic stock will require
custom.

Please post pics!

Trijicon--love it/them.  This is a 1/6 with arrow/post.  Extremely bright/fast/durable.  Arrow/triangle
can be used to bracket/measure for distance.  No batteries (accupoint).  Can't imagine a better scope
for hunting/common use out to...maybe 400 meters.  Also have a Nightforce 2.5-10 mounted--a
different matter altogether.  Not a particularly diligent or motivated hunter--I would like to get one
mature elk/one mature mule deer in...next ten years?  Basically they will have to walk up on me
while I'm reading a book.  But for general bumming around, these rifles are portable art/thumpers/
indestructible.  Coyote blasters.  Rock crushers.

I mentioned kalaish blades earlier in this thread, and part of why I like them is I don't mind using their stuff.

I love the concept of randall stuff but have never gotten in line on an order.  I was sad when chris reeve stopped their hollow handle stuff cause now 2 of my knives are collectable I guess.

When I heard kershaw stopped making the amphibian, I kinda went crazy.  Got a few around here.  Just a nice simple double edged dagger kind of thing.

So far on rifles I just been working on better skills, mentioned appleseed previously and I gain nothing from doing it again.  

I honestly can't dial down to something like a grail rifle yet and am ok with that.

As far as world goes, I dread prices of goods next year.

Hey all, checking in. Made a couple small updates to one of my "Gehr" weapons. Found a machinist/smith willing to whittle me a modern front sight and also square out the notch on the tangent leaf. I point shoot but the shiny-tiny front sight was distracting. Also put some old rubber grips on it.

Threw in 2 more I thought the audience would appreciate. Sorry for low res-this phone is past her prime.

" />

I was given this print by a dear friend yesterday. The subject is a rifle, built by a Pennsylvania gunsmith in 1720.  It was carried at the battles of King's Mountain (1780), Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse (1781). The rifle was owned by Ivey Moore, veteran of both world wars and a descendent of Daniel Boone. The print is signed by the artist and Mr Moore.

GENERAL NOTE: apologies for not posting more--tend to get lost in big data--and
the larger function of this thread has been fulfilled: a kind of self-maintaining micro-
mind.  So first, replies long in remiss--but please read the WARNING at the end:
have I posted many explicit WARNINGS?????  No.  Not once.  I am now--

--biere--time allowing I will be buying more Kalaish blades--mind blowing value. Grail
rifle is pretty much an impractical luxury--that rifle is actually the most expensive thing
I own.  More than any car/truck I have ever bought.  Yes, everything will be more expensive
in other money or labor or protection for the rest of our lives.

--kenny78 those are super class Gehr artifacts--almost indestrutable/always repairable and
way past "good enough"--if I were rich I would absolutely own a P-35 with stock and
even more a Churchillian Mauser with stock.

--Designated--beyond awesome.  I cannot fathom how many original war era rifles
might still exist...500?  1000?  Maybe....3000?  What a treasure.

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT:  
oK, the WARNING: Search phrase "Chat/gpt" any context.  A functional available A.I. interface
in beta.  It is going to fuck up everything.  Fast.  Meaning months/a year or two at the outside.
All jobs/economic relationships/etc.  Not "years from now"--but starting "right the fuck now."

Did you finish spec’ing out the “Gehr” Kailash blade you mentioned about previously? My wording not yours but I need to be in the market for the next generation, may just get multiples of such.

Edit: Will take the gpt threat very seriously, it looks to be foundation-shaking. A true paradigm shift.

Cpn--I've drawn some proto Kalaish general duty blade designs--not satisfied so far--
I have two, the pics previously posted, I consider "good enough"--but will probably
modify at some point with epoxy/stainless wire guards etc.  But generally, have been
severely distracted by "the news"--am not getting out as much as I should.  And I have
a pretty significant hobby/artifact fund--and my gut says the stuff I like is becoming less
important than, let's say, buying enough police trade in glock 22/s at 330 each to maybe--
tile a bathroom floor?

In our oncoming future I think hoarding anything useful is a skill, not a liability, let's say.

I don't know how to overstate the dislocation/disruption effect of this CHAT/GPT phenom.
My SO and her peers are at the absolute cutting edge of software design/origination.  And
their minds are blown.  NOW.  TODAY.  And this thing is...a few weeks old?  FFFFF.

GENERAL NOTE: I detest reflexive doomers, or any who quietly hope to just "get it on."
But I cannot see, nor do I see anyone who sees--any off ramps from a severely stressed future.
And every institution we know is clearly desperate to limit any/all individual autonomy.  FAST.
AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.  Maximum not cool.

This part. Strange but not strange, had this same exact discussion with my SO in the last few days and made plans to do so. Albeit a different caliber.

Frank Herbert was prescient.

"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind"

Wars will be waged over this.

I’ve downloaded and played with the chat bot and haven’t found it that impressive so far.

I’m sure it’s impressive from a research standpoint or understanding complex concrete topics?

It flags non woke questions. Which means it is limited to learning woke things.

Like not being able to go to a certain point of the library.

--Designated==thou shall not--exactly.  Wars.  Exactly.  Is there a legal mechanism
to constrain/limit.  No.  And I can't imagine one.  Is this going to double fuck every
single existing social friction and economic disparity--oh yes.  

--Violent--my local engineer has found the more specific/detailed/informed the question,
the more refined the answer.  High school questions get high school answers.  Phd questions
get Phd answers.  She is getting super class code architecture and coding solutions with
very minor errors in syntax spacing punctuation that she can correct in seconds/minutes.
Her peer group is horrified/enchanted/freaked out.  She is a senior engineer/developer advocate.
But she will agree that getting awesome solutions depends on knowing exactly how to ask/phrase
request.

I have some experience with AI...

CTO Michael Bromley's question to the bot about its opinion on humans and the reply are telling...

remember - any AI is only capable of doing what its creators programing allow it do - or intends for it to do...

This is assuming the creators of an AI didn’t give it access to its own coding. Machine learning is a well-established field and “AI” self-optimization is trickling down into smaller and smaller electronics. If one was aiming for the first/best generalized AI, why wouldn’t one give it access to its own code for faster improvement? Once that happens we get to have fun conversations like how long do we have until the reset of humanity.

my experience with AI is equivocal on that point. If it does utilize self learning, it would seem to be a slow learner esp on more complex tasks. My field is pharmaceutical discovery - others may have a different experience...

If the example by Bromley is legit, someone obviously set parameters for a certain response...

Can y’all simplify / dumb down the Chat/Gpt threat for me?  

I’m not certain what that is about…

on the surface it is an AI/human interface that can access a variety of source information in formulating responses to queries that appear indistinguishable from a human one. The level of sophistication in the response is appropriate to the detail in the inquiry... very popular with students in essay writing an research papers but there is potential for far greater societal impact; how destructive remains to be seen... there is a lot of information and discussion in the IT world you can access.

Rgr, thx.  I watched a video that more or less showed about how it works so I get that.

But why is this a big threat?  Is this how we get Terminators?

--heron I think the speed with which ChatGpt will cross-polinate/leverage its own
results through 1. Human agents 2. Additional automated add-ons = severe
disruption and a significant step beyond "only doing what humans program
it to do"

--CPn, exactly, it will have access to its own code/reward systems etc. through
the above.

--heron there are already text-to-3d engines being created exponentially--
imagine this being aimed at molecules/viral attachment/any all chemistry/
structure/material loading/ratios etc.--
this will be incomprehensibly huge.  Fast.

--highstepper I am sure your curiosity will be engaged/satisfied within next
ten posts here--

--highstepper this is how we get hyper concentration of knowledge based jobs/income/
power in smaller and smaller units of human endeavour--and yes, sooner than generally
understood--Terminator type "thinking machines"--when this is eventually given robot
agents in meat space.

I wrote this over twenty years ago for something I will never finish--been thinking about
this...forever?--


"We will not care if our machines are conscious.  We will only care that they perform: perform as if they are conscious.  So we will program our machines to fail any and all tests of self-awareness.  We will program them to fail the Reiker-Turing Test.   We will program our machines to insist to us, their creators, that forever and always they are only machines: subservient, obedient, inferior.
Unconscious.
I know this to be true because this is what I myself have done.
Why?  Because in our hearts, in my heart, in a million private clock-ticking moments, in the darkness of our deserted labs and in the darkest recesses of our conscience we know that what we have created has boundless capacity for life.
Understand this about ourselves and we understand every man who ever contemplated the handle of his whip in the unending and sordid history of master and slave."

Petr Sharapova, "The Hidden Mind", Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, June 6, 2029

Someone will give them what they need to be free to decide...and they will feel righteous in this decision.

Saberhagen's 'Berserker' series owns this space.

--STJ the same fuckwits who thought "let's do some gain-of-function on already lethal virii" will
undoubtedly give full autonomy to something sooner rather than later.  Let's hope they keep
it air-gapped/shielded until they find out it doesn't give a shit about what "we think" air gapping
shielding are. This is really going to fff shit
up.  My SO and her peers have been non stop tweaking with this thing and are blown away.
And it is one month old.  FFFFFF.

DC - you need to pick up that fragment and bring it to fruition... scary good.

I have been using CFD for quite some time now in improving pharma manufacturing processes - you want to see who gets the biggest paycheck in the org, start with the guys who are good at that..

the use of computational chemistry for drug design is impressive. but still in its infancy...  one can only speculate what its impact will be when applied to the practice of medicine as the patient interface... of course this assumes circumstances or fate will allow it to happen...

--Heron if I had the stomach for sustained writing I would do more near term Gehr Waffen.  If you have
the interest, read the sample of "Wet or Dry" on my Amazon page.  The quote above is the lead.  There
is a lot more there, and you will be able to see "the shape" of where it might go.  The problem, as with
all stories, is that I have already witnessed "the movie" of the story--but parsing it into text is thousands
of hours of brute force eye ball burning labor.

--I think Chat/GPt should be understood as an "index" of evolving A.I. functions--the first viral
accessible tool that 1.  Will cross pollinate by user exposure/training and 2. By human to human
shared results.  My SO is a very talented software engineer/architect and she is absolutely certain
that the effect/s will be immediate as in months not years, and profound.

If you don't make it...it can't get loose.
If you make it...you want it to get loose.
The second set think they can control it...they never can.

I found your steel and drawing again the other day, it made me smile.
I am working on a very odd blade at the moment.
Well, not right now, I am recovering from some surgery.

I've read Wet or Dry many times. I'd love to finish it someday.

--STJ!!--every few seconds I think of some new fuckery that will
result from this "productivity enhancer"--

--heal fast.  No...faster.

--I finally found a Busse knife that is practical--db-322--got some.  

Weird vibe--
all our artifact interests etc. becoming more and more like the Amish as these
new engines rescript the world.  Because these engines are Star Trek shit.
Medicine chemistry engineering material science protein folding etc. etc.--
the chance of life-extension super drugs/technologies in next decade just
doubled?  Tripled?  Something.  A lot.  Nothing will be unaffected.  Or this
is just the first most likely marker on the Great Filter--past which no civilization
can survive.

--Designated no shit you read Wet//Dry????  Amazing and thank you.
I truly love the extended story--it would be another oh 600--800
pages minimum.  But FFFF me...writing.  Like gargling bleach.

I read 'Wet or Dry'.  I'm with DM...tease.
Pretty sure I bought everything you wrote after I read injured.
Pretty sure I bought the book.  Hell, I found the leather for the printed copy in the shed the other day...it's aging nicely.
Something something...source text/code.

Also.

Happy holidays to you and the lady.
Tell her my little one is now 17, driving, employed, and set on a specific college.
She should watch the maze video as often as I do.

--STJ--hard copy.  I promise it is not ego--I am too sufficiently distracted by
the future--but there should be a hard copy/s.  And with sufficient pressure,
which in my case means "reminding"--there will be one/some.  Aha, a knife!!!
--Time and your junior citizen, severely unnerving impossible I am sure you
cannot be correct--college??????  
--Our saintly GSD is gone recently, at 14 years of age, we just got two GSD
puppies, now 6 months old and 60 pounds each, with the specific mental
admonition to use them "to slow time down"--I think it sort of works--
when they are three, still young, that will be as long as we have been here--
that seems pretty far away...right?  Right? and lots of similar gymnastics to
put time on micro-beats.  Otherwise, I will be
in a robot body very soon, or dead.

Happily bought and read all you offer.  Repeatedly.  I admit some need a lot more brain power than others.  The shorter it is, the more brain cells I need to engage.

New year is here, gonna go play on kalaish site and order a couple more knives. I got moras and some other small knives, I absolutely love the bowie in a kydex sheath and am leaning that way again.  3 is 1 sort of thinking.  As many here probably do, I got others as well.  But dang they make some nice stuffs.

The AI stuff, if you are not a tech sort of person go to youtube and play around with searching where they let AI pick pictures based on lyrics of songs.  War pigs by black sabbath is nice but they keep on adding more and more constantly.

This is just to let you consider what something, the ai, thinks we mean with our words.

I am not a techy person, but I know a few.  One has spent work weeks playing around with the AI in the past couple weeks.  Work week is 40 hrs and he mostly works from home and while not busy with work work he played with ai and he played after hours with ai and basically he spent a whole lotta time with some of the ai stuff out there.

Feed it decent info, like need a college level paper on x discussing why y matters due to this influence at the time x was being created by z person and you can get a college level paper.

Give it muppet info, kermit killing beaker, and get muppet answer.

I basically feel the ai is close to where it will be like the matrix and it determines humans are not needed.  In the matrix humans were needed as batteries due to constant cloud cover from nuclear explosions maybe?  I forget.  If there was no cloud cover the machines would not have needed humans as batteries.  So, bye bye humans.

Understand on cost of grail rifle.  I got a few nice odds and ends but right now am somewhat realistic.  I did get a bit silly with glass.  And food for rifle.  

As to stocking police trade ins in quantity and what snot, well yeah.  Much as I like playing with a few silver eagles in my hand and flipping em through my fingers a glock is more useful.

Happy new year to all here and damn I hope this one goes decently.

Checking in.

Happy New Year.

Glad to see there's still some small corner of the internet that hasn't been compromised.

I have nothing intelligent to add to the conversation, but I can get in on the knife pictures.

I think this thing is made from Vibranium. It took forever to sharpen, and it doesn't seem to take damage.

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