The Guardians (24 page)

The men just chuckled in agreement and then Evan said, "OK fella's, let's get back to
the task at hand.  Let's get our friend here down in the basement of the main house where we can lock him up good and secure, while we move the cattle and Mildred's things.  While we are doing that, Daryl, why don't you head back to your place, whip up your flint bomb, and then meet us at the Homefront.  We will work on a finalized plan from there on how to get the ball rolling."

Everyone agreed and Evan and Jason volunteered to deal with the prisoner while the others got back to the herd.  They put the man into a large wheel barrow and wheeled him to the lower basement entrance to the house.  They did not want to take him through the upstairs
, as the women were present and they would prefer to keep the dirty details to themselves if at all possible.  Once they got him to the basement, which had a very secure door that could be locked from the outside, they gagged him and tied him securely to a chair inside of the utility closet.  They then tied the chair to a support beam going from the floor to the ceiling.  "We will be back," Evan said to the man as he and Jason began to walk out of the room.  Before they exited, he turned to the man and said, "At least you had better hope we come back.  If your friends out there ambush us and take us out, we won't be able to come back for you, and it will take you quite some time to starve to death down here."  He then just turned around and walked out, slamming and locking the door behind him.

As Evan and Jason left the house via the downstairs basement door, Mildred yelled down to them from the screened in porch above.  "What were you two doing down there?" she said in a suspicious voice.

"Just putting some things away for later," he said. 

"Was that a gunshot I heard about an hour ago?" she asked.

"Yes Ma'am it was," he replied.  "Jason saw something, and he had to deal with it.  It's taken care of now, we will explain more when we get to the house, but the sun will be across the sky before we know it so we have to get back to the cattle."

"OK," she said reluctantly.  "We have everything ready to go in here," she said.

"Great, we'll help you load it all up just before we hit the road," he said.

"Oh nonsense, we aren't helpless just because we are women.  Where do you want us to put it
, and we will go ahead and load it all up?"

"Well, I guess you can put it on the flatbed attached to the Ford.  We will probably use your trailer hooked to your Massey Ferguson to load the smaller animals," he said.

"It just sounds so weird you referring to it as my tractor instead of Ollie's.  You're right of course.  I'll get used to it eventually," she said as she stepped back into the house.

Evan felt guilty about not being completely up front with her, but they had a job to do and they did not have time to keep debating everyone about it.  Besides, he sort of felt like she could see right through him and understood, just like when Ollie would bend things a little bit in order to say it in front of Haley or other guests.  She was an amazing woman
, and no man would ever beat her in a game of wits, Evan thought to himself as he and Jason walked off to join the other men.

****

Chapter 25: Tupelo Bound

After Luke left Nate's room to go check on Rach
el, Nate went through his things one more time.  He sure wished he would have gotten his shotgun back after his accident.  He felt vulnerable starting out on such a journey with nothing more than a handgun.  He knew the odds of getting all the way to Tennessee without getting into some sort of altercation were slim to none.

After he got his things
arranged, he pulled out his map of the area and tried to plan a route but realized until they hear something more specific about his mother's whereabouts, he really had no idea which direction to go from Tupelo.  Oh well, he thought.  Surely, they will have a HAM setup in Tupelo at the guard base there.

Luke returned to Nate's room about an ho
ur later.  He had a bedroll and some MRE's and said, "I've got some stuff for you for the trip."

"Thanks, the MRE's will really come in handy, but I've already got a sleeping bag," Nate said.

"You'll like this sleeping bag," replied Luke as he placed it on Nate's bed and rolled it open.

As he rolled it
open, he exposed two Colt M4 carbines.  The uppers and lowers were separated at the takedown pins in order to get them to fit inside of a sleeping bag for discreet travel, until they are on their own again in Tupelo.  Once on their own, they could quickly be reassembled.

Nate smiled and said, "You never cease to amaze me little brother.  Where did you score these?"

"They are packing up and breaking this place down right now to get ready for the move," Luke explained.  "That sort of makes it easy.  I was only able to get six thirty round magazines of 5.56mm, but that should do the job for anything short of an all out battle.  We can each carry three mags, plus you've got your Beretta."

"That's way better than what I thought we would have so no complaints from me," Nate responded.  "So what's the details of the flight?  When do we leave?"

"The TSG C-130 leaves Corpus Christi at 0600.  There is a convoy heading down this evening to reallocate some of our medical supplies.  Some of the supplies are going to the TSG Operational Support Center there, while the rest is going to San Antonio."

"Isn't that far enough south to be on cartel turf?" asked Nate.  "I've not had good luck with your convoy's so far."

"We still have a firm grip on the coastal towns like Corpus Christi, it's the inland to the western parts of southern Texas where we have lost some ground," Luke Explained.

"Oh, OK," replied Nate. "Sounds good to me.  I'm ready anytime."

"I'm gonna go and help Rachel get her stuff together," said Nate as he turned to leave the room.  "Meet us at the front of the building around 1630.  They want to be on the road by 1700, as Corpus Christi is pretty desperate for our supplies."

"See
you then brother!" said Nate.

The day seemed to drag on forever as Nate waited for 1630 to roll around.  He had already checked and
double-checked that he had everything, so he occupied his time studying his maps of Tennessee, wondering where his mother, and hopefully his father were.  On the one hand, he hoped they were in the western part of the state just to shorten the trip, however, he knew Memphis had completely broken down amidst the chaos of the collapse and that it was far from a safe place to be.  Without power and city services, it must be a total hellhole by now he thought.  Probably just like every other major metropolitan area where gangs now rule the streets.  East Tennessee however, although further away, provided the most promise as it was much more rural and had the mountains and the outdoor resources to be life sustaining.

After a long day of waiting and
planning, it was finally 1600.  Close enough, Nate thought.  He had to get out of that room he had been in for weeks before he went stir crazy, so he threw his pack on his back and walked to the front of the facility.  It was as busy as a bee hive there.  The remaining personnel, currently not on guard duty, were loading the remaining supplies onto the trucks.

The NCO in charge of the evolution, a grizzled looki
ng Staff Sargent, yelled aloud, "What's not on the truck by 1700 stays!  We've gotta roll.  Prioritize folks.  Medicine, weapons, ammo, food, and then everything else...in that order!"

He stood off to the side out of the way and thought, I sure hope they don't want to search my bags, with two of their M4's rolled up in my sleeping bag that is.  Just as he finished the thought
, Luke and Rachel arrived, each with their pack on and wearing multicam BDU's.

"This is the first time I've seen you out of your scrubs," said Nate to Rachel.

"Yea, well, there are not a lot of reasons for a girl to get dressed all up around here," she said jokingly.

"I'm glad you're coming with us," he said with a smile.  "I would have only been taking half of my brother otherwise." She just smiled and blushed in response.

They stacked their packs neatly out of the way and then all began helping with the loading effort.  There were two M35 2 1/2 ton trucks and three Humvees.  At about ten minutes before five o'clock, everything was all loaded up and lashed down tight.  The Staff Sargent walked around double-checking everything, and when he was satisfied, he said loudly, "Last chance for a piss or a smoke.  We roll in ten!"  He then walked over to Rachel, Luke, and Nate and said, "You must be Doc Stewart and her medical team."

"That's right Staff Sargent, where will we be sitting?" she asked

"In the back of the first M35 truck," he said.  "We made sure to leave some room in there.  It's a tight fit, but it's only an hour and a half, two hours max to Corpus Christi."

"Oh that will be fine.  Thank you very much," she replied.

As he walked off, Nate looked at her and Luke and with a grin said "Medical team huh?"

"Whatever it takes brother," Luke replied with a smile.

The convoy personnel milled around, took care of their last few personal items, and then began to mount up.  A security detail was posted at key positions around the front gate of the facility, as well as along the street of the intended route of the convoy.

"As they took their seats
in the back of the truck, Nate looked around at all of the cargo packed in tightly around them and said, "At least all of this stuff will give us a certain level of ballistic protection.  That's better than the fabric top alone I guess," he said.

His statement seemed to make Rachel nervous as she bowed her head and said a little prayer.  She had not spent much time outside of major facilities, and the thought of being ambushed or attacked, like has happened so many times before, terrified her.  Some of the casualties she had seen during her time in Victoria had been casualties from direct combat operations, however, a large percentage of her patients had been
victims of I.E.D's, snipers, and roadside ambush attacks.

"Don't worry," Luke said trying to comfort her.  "We've got pretty good control over the coastline.  We'll make it to Corpus Christi just fine."

She just squeezed his hand in response.  Her timidness made Nate worry how she would handle the nearly unavoidable conflicts they would come across during their journey, as well as the uncomfortable conditions they would be facing.  He knew they would be sleeping outside, on what was becoming increasingly colder nights as fall had begun to show signs of an early winter.

As the trucks fired up their diesel engines, the main doors to the facility were opened and the M35's and Humvees began their potentially treacherous journey to Corpus Christi.  "Well, here we go," said Nate. 
"This will be my first flight since it all began.  How about you two?" Nate said trying to get Rachel's mind off of what she could not see or control outside of the truck.

"I've taken a TSG flight in some sort of little propeller airplane they have," Rachel replied.  "I had to do some training with the TSG Medical Department in Austin.  They flew me from College Station to Austin and the
n back.  It was really weird.  It was a night flight, and nearly all of the lights on the ground were dark.  That was also near the beginning, when power outages were probably at their worst.  It seemed like someone just unplugged America."

Just then, the truck struck a large bump in the road and swerved to the side and back.  Nate's heart skipped a beat.  He expected to hear explosions or gunshots erupt at any moment.

"Relax Nate," Luke said.  "There hasn't been any work done to the roads around here for over a year.  It was probably just a pot hole."

Embarrassed that he flinched, Nate said, "Yea, I know.  It's my first time out of the medical center since my night from hell.  I'll be fine."

Rachel just put her head on Luke's shoulder and soon feel asleep.  She had not slept since the attack, and was completely exhausted.  Every so often, she would here a noise or feel a bump and she would be startled awake, but would quickly drift off back to sleep. 

The first hour of the d
rive was uneventful.  As they approached the town of Woodsboro, while traveling on Highway 77, the convoy came to an abrupt stop.  Rachel awoke and looked at Luke and asked, "What is it?  What's going on?"

He answered, " I'm not sure.  What is it Nate?" he asked as Nate positioned himself to look out of the back of the truck's canvas cover.

"I can't see from here," Nate said.  "Several of the guys from the Humvee behind us got out with their weapons and moved up ahead of us.  There must be something blocking the road."

As Nate finished his sentence
, Staff Sargent Miller, the NCOIC of the convoy, came around behind the truck and said," There is a broken down van in the road up ahead.  Our escorts are checking it out.  If it looks questionable, we will have to turn around and back track to avoid getting too close.  Just stay in here until given further instructions from me or one of my guys."

"Will do," Said Nate.

Staff Sargent Miller then joined his a security detail ahead of the trucks.  He went up to Corporal Hayes, who was using a high-powered Leupold 12-40x60mm spotting scope to assess the situation up ahead, and said, "What do we have?"