Anthony Newman - American Survivor

Joe then found several wide planks and cut them down to three-foot lengths and drove sharpened nails through them. He would place these inside every doorway and below every window to alert him of anyone breaking into the cabin. They would cause great pain to the jerks trying to rob or cause harm to him. Joe didn’t use most of the best traps because they would also kill innocent people who were just trying to survive.

“Mom, that VWPACKRAT must be close to us because I have plotted every city he has mentioned reports from and we are in the center of the cities and towns,” Cloe beamed at her brilliant deduction.

“I hate to burst your bubble, but the man could be anywhere since Ham radios can reach out many miles during the night with certain conditions. He could be in Boise reporting on the areas from where he receives reports. There are very few people east of Boise and fewer now. I’m not sure about Opossum, but we do need to set some traps and catch some rabbits and perhaps shoot a deer to add to our food supply,” replied her mom.

“I won’t ever eat a dirty old Opossum. They are nasty looking and greasy,” stated a girl who had never been hungry a day in her life.

“You’ll eat a dead Opossum found on the road three days old if you get hungry enough. Hey, that reminds me, have you been feeding Bennie?”

“No Mom, I think he has found another food supply. Look at his belly;” Cloe said as she rubbed Bennie’s stomach, and then added, “He is so full he just wants to sleep.”

Cobie walked over to Bennie and rubbed his stomach then looked around his muzzle and said, “He’s been hunting. He has dried blood on his muzzle. We need to teach him to share.”

Cloe changed the subject and said, “Mom, those men talking on the radio scare me. What can we do to keep them from finding us?”

“Baby girl, we can’t use the fireplace in the daytime or shoot at game. We will have to dress warmly and hunt with traps and fish a lot. I think we may have to take turns at guard duty every night until we feel safer.”

“How would that work? Would I get a gun?”

“Yes, we need to give you some more training on using a gun to defend yourself. I gave you gun safety training last year, and I know you know how to shoot but killing in self-defense is another matter. I’m not sure I could kill someone attacking me, but I know I would have no issue with shooting someone who attacked my baby girl.”

Cobie took the Ruger 10/22 and Ruger MKIV pistol from the bedroom closet and gave Cloe a refresher course on gun safety, cleaning, and maintenance of guns. Then she gave her training on the art of killing animals including two-legged thugs. She used a laser bore sight to help her daughter practice dry firing with a spent shell in each gun. She was afraid to fire the weapons for fear of attracting unwanted attention.

Cobie looked at her daughter cleaning the pistol and said, “Cloe in a couple of days we’ll take a hike on up the road into the mountains about three or four miles and kill some rabbits or perhaps a deer. We will hightail it back here before anyone can get a fix on our position.”

“I’d like that. I’d hate to get in a gunfight and never have shot at a living thing.”

Early in the morning, several days after TSHTF Cobie tried the radio and could faintly hear someone talking but couldn’t understand what was being said. She tried the walkie-talkie and listened to a man tell a friend to not go near the grocery stores because there were looting and rioting. He said people were shooting each other as food ran out. Another channel had a woman asking anyone who heard her to please meet at the Ashland Catholic Church and bring food for the needy. She continued to listen to the voices as she packed Cloe’s and her backpacks with food, a small hiker’s tent, and extra ammunition.

“Mom, we have some extra food.”

“No, we don’t. We have enough to last a month if we stretch it out. Baby, that could be someone trying to steal food from people who prepared for this crisis. Get dressed, we are going hunting. I want to be three miles east of here before the sun rises,” Cobie pinched her daughter to motivate movement.

“I’m dressing as fast as I can at 3 am in the morning. Mom, are we going to have breakfast?”

“No, we will eat these Clif Bars when we get to our destination. Fill your water bottle after you get dressed. The snow is gone on the ridge, and we can travel without leaving tracks if we are careful,” an impatient mother told her daughter.

Cobie wanted to spend two days out hunting about three miles east of the cabin. Since they couldn’t leave Bennie locked up that long but couldn’t have him barking Cobie made a muzzle out of shoestrings and strips from an old bed sheet.

Her daughter met Cobie outside after putting the homemade muzzle on Bennie in the house, and the dog immediately began rubbing the muzzle with its paws and rubbing its snout against a tree. Cloe hugged Bennie and tried to make him feel good about the muzzle without much success.

Cloe, thread your belt through this pistol holster and sling the rifle over your shoulder. Both are on safe and leave them on safe unless I tell you to shoot or we are attacked and then use your judgment. Always shoot to kill if you have to shoot someone, and as I’ve been preaching, shoot them several times until you know they are dead. Your .22s don’t pack much punch, but three or four of them will kill a man.

Cobie instructed, “Put your LED headlamp on red land let’s head out. Stay two steps behind me and try not to break any limbs or step on anything that will make noise. When we get closer to the ridge, we’ll turn off our lights and walk with the aid of the half moon.”

Cloe followed her mom who had Bennie on a leash and ambled until they covered the distance to the ridge. Cobie picked up the pace heading east after attaining the top of the hill. Cloe slowed a bit when they entered the tree line. They had walked for about half a mile when Cobie smelled smoke and gave the clenched fist sign for Cloe to stop.

“I smell smoke and can’t tell what direction it’s coming from. We will continue east but please don’t make any noise as we move on to our hunting ground,” Cobie said in a hushed voice.

They walked through the woods and crossed several dry streambeds plus one creek that was 15 feet wide and deep in spots. Cobie headed south along the creek until she found several logs jammed into a pile and walked across on top of them. They walked on for another mile until they headed back up a steep hill peppered with pine trees. The pine needles were slick, and Cloe slipped once and slid fifty feet back down the hill.

“Mom, I’m falling!”

“Hush, be quiet!”

Cobie slid down the hill to check on her daughter and found her to be okay, so they started back up the hill.

“Mom, when it’s safe around here I want to come back and slide down this hill, it was fun.”

“Girl, you ain’t right in the head. Now hush and follow me,” Cobie warned her playful daughter.

The moon was overhead, and Cobie caught the reflection of the moon off something ahead. She steered toward the light and found a large pond on top of the hill that was spring fed from higher up the mountain. She made a mental note to come back and try their luck fishing. They walked around the edge of the water and saw a Buck and two Does watering.

In a hushed voice, Cloe urged her mom to shoot the deer, but the reply was, “No, we are too close to our cabin. We need to travel about another mile.”

“Mom, how do you know how far we’ve traveled?”

“I’m counting the steps we take. I figure three miles should be about 6,000 of my short steps,” she whispered back to her daughter.