James Rawles - Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Laine turned and walked in a wide semicircle, stopping frequently to look through the binoculars. He paused at seventy-five yards, knelt, and shot the two men once more each, both in the head. He then cautiously approached the bodies. He found that they were both black-haired Mexicans in their twenties. One of them wore a fancy black silk shirt and black jeans. The other was in faded blue jeans and a plaid shirt. A Browning Hi-Power pistol lay on the ground next to the hand of the one in the black shirt. There was no gun near the other body, but there were at least eight pieces of fired 5.56mm brass. It was obvious that one of his partners had taken the fallen man’s M4.

Andy carefully examined where the trucks had been parked. There was a lot of blood on the ground, and chunks of broken grass. Then he walked back and more closely examined the two bodies, rolling them over and patting them down. All that he found in their pockets were a loaded thirty-round M16 magazine, two loaded Hi-Power magazines, and a Chinese pocketknife with a broken tip.

Andy pocketed the magazines and then picked up the Hi-Power pistol. He found that there were only three cartridges left in the magazine. He reloaded the gun with one of the full magazines and thumbed up its safety lever. Returning to the horse, he put his binoculars, the captured pistol, and the extra magazines in his saddlebag. He took a minute to redistribute the ammunition and magazines, putting a full magazine in the AK and three full magazines back into his belt pouch.

Before he left, he searched the ground behind the hillock and found the three-foot length of horse rein that had been shot off. He tied it on, rejoining the break with a square knot. “I’ll have to stitch that,” he said to himself. His throat felt parched, and he took a long draw of water from his canteen, taking down nearly half a quart. Finally, he eased himself up into the saddle.

He turned to ride south on the pavement for a half mile, then cut northeast across the desert. His plan was to take a wide roundabout, just in case the bandits were waiting in ambush farther north on the highway. This wide detour cost Andy a full day of riding.

After the excitement near Marathon, the rest of Andy’s ride seemed mundane. Many of the locals were wary. They talked a lot about recent Mexican gang attacks and desperate looters from El Paso. “Watch out for the narcotraficantes ,” they warned. Only a few people were willing to trade silver for food. One man even wanted to charge Andy just for letting his horse use his watering trough. Clearly, West Texas was not the land of plenty. But near Valentine, Texas, Andy was able to trade the captured full M16 magazine for nearly a week’s worth of food that included some ground cornmeal fried into bread balls, called dodgers. It was the first time that he’d ever seen or eaten them, but he had heard Kaylee talk about them.

Laine pressed on, noticing that the summer weather was abating. The nights were getting chilly. Approaching the New Mexico state line, he made a wide arc to avoid El Paso. He was jubilant when he was able to turn due north. He paralleled Highway 25, staying away from cities as much as possible. Trees were infrequent and even brushy patches became sparse, so he often had to camp more than a mile from the nearest road to avoid detection. He heard a lot of gunfire as he passed by Socorro. He cut west at Los Lunas to avoid the population in the vicinity of Albuquerque. Highway 550 would take him directly to Farmington.

His next Tuesday night radio contact was unsuccessful. Andy concluded that he failed because he was inside of the HF skip zone. This is the zone that is beyond line of sight (which is limited to about forty-five miles because of the curvature of the earth) but inside the minimum distance for an ionospheric “hop” for a radio wave. He missed conversing with Kaylee, and he ached just thinking about her. But he took comfort knowing that he was so close to home.

He camped next near Cuba, New Mexico, and ate heartily, knowing that he probably had just two more days of riding to make it to Bloomfield. As he passed through the town of Cuba, he heard that there was an operating hotel, restaurant, and laundry fifty-five miles northwest, at the Blanco Trading Post. Hearing the words “They got electricity there” was captivating to Andy. He envisioned a land of milk and honey, endlessly hot bathtubs, and clean sheets.

The weather was getting uncomfortably cold, and Andy was increasingly anxious to get to the Bloomfield ranch. As he drifted off to sleep, he told Prieto, “One more hard day’s ride and you’ll be sleeping in a stall and eating oats, boy!” He awoke at dawn and brushed the frost off his bivy bag before rolling it up.

After a grueling all-day ride, Andy reached the Blanco Trading Post just after sunset. The trading post was just a wide spot in the road, twenty miles out of Bloomfield. In the years before the Crunch, it had become more of an art gallery than a trading post, catering to tourists who were visiting nearby Chaco Canyon. But as the economy crumbled, the store quickly reverted to its roots. In addition to a trading post for food and horse tack, it was also a small hotel for travelers.

Laine learned that the owners had been able to stay in business in part because they were one of the southernmost outposts on the Farmington Electric Utility System (FEUS) mini-grid. Many of the farmers and ranchers who lived even farther south came for miles for the chance to trade food and various goods, to get their grain milled, to wash their laundry, and to charge their batteries. The trading post was so successful that they had recently expanded and constructed a new barn and stable.

Andy explained his situation to the owners, who were delighted and captivated by his story. He splurged on a bath, a shave, and a haircut, and then laundered most of his clothes. Along with his room and dinner, a horse stall, hay, and oats, his stay at the trading post cost him two five-peso silver coins. Andy felt thoroughly spoiled, sleeping in a real bed in a heated room. But he had trouble getting to sleep, worrying about his horse, and feeling anxious about getting back to his fiancee and his brother. Oddly, he missed the sound of Prieto’s tail swishing.

On the morning of Sunday, November 11, twenty-five months after he had left Afghanistan, Andrew Laine awoke early. He carried his AK, pack, and saddlebags down to the stable. Prieto greeted him with a couple of snorts. Andy said critically, “What, you gettin’ noisy in your old age? Do I smell too darned civilized for you? Well, I missed you, too, pal.” He gave Prieto a quick brush down and examined his hooves. The many miles of riding had not been kind to Prieto’s hooves, which were worn down almost to the frog. Andy now wished that he’d been able to get Prieto shod before their journey. As he saddled the horse, he promised: “Just a few hours, and you’ll be in alfalfa hay up to your eyeballs, buddy.”

Too anxious to eat much breakfast, he munched on an apple and some Indian fry bread as he rode. For the first time in many months, he was self-conscious about dripping on his shirt. Andy declared, “Lord, let this be my last day traveling. Please, Lord, if you so will!”

The guards at the roadblock south of Farmington were satisfied when Andy showed them his surname stamped on his dog tags, and explained that he was the brother of Lars Laine. They seemed impressed to hear that he had ridden his horse all the way from Belize. Andy was surprised to see that the guards at the roadblock had three swivel-mounted muzzle-loading cannons. “Yeah, those are our ‘engine block’ guns. They shoot standard two-and-three-eighths-inch-diameter pistons. They’ll go clean through a car. There are thousands of them that are available used around here, from the natural gas fields. Before the Crunch, you could buy them at just scrap steel prices. They’re made out of 4140 stainless steel.”