Feral Nation - Defiance (Feral Nation Series Book 8) Page 6

  “Either that, or they’ll decide to keep pouring on the heat, hitting us with everything they’ve got,” Jonathan said.

  “That’s a possibility too, you bet. But we can’t worry about it until it happens. Stay on task right now and focus! That means get your ass to bed early and get some sleep, because you and I are looking at a long day tomorrow, kid!”

  Six

  DIANE’S FRIEND, BECCA FERGUSON, and her husband, Ronnie, lived on the banks of a small cutoff bayou on the west side of the basin about fifteen miles south of where the Miss Anita was anchored. Their home had been heavily damaged by the hurricane, but in the weeks that followed, they had managed to salvage what they could of it and build a camp house so that they could remain on their property. Ronnie was a life-long commercial fisherman and trapper, working both the freshwater bayous and the salt marsh, depending on the season, so having waterfront access with a dock was essential to his business.

  Eric liked Ronnie’s boat the moment he laid eyes on it. It was simple, sturdy and all-business; built of heavy welded aluminum much like Dreamtime and finished with a non-reflective dark-earth colored coating that would blend in with the natural surroundings day or night. It was purpose built to be a low maintenance working vessel rather than a sportsman’s craft, and Diane’s memory was correct: It was 20-feet-long, flat-bottomed and powered by a 90-horse, four-stroke Yamaha. The boat would definitely get him and Jonathan upriver fast, but first they had to get permission to use it. After introductions were made, Eric wasn’t surprised to see Becca’s expression aghast at the thought of relinquishing her husband’s primary means of earning a living, even for two or three days. The only reason Ronnie wasn’t using it right then was because Joe had asked him to crew aboard his trawler for a short Gulf run. Otherwise, the big John boat would have been plying the basin waterways from daylight to dark, taking Ronnie on his rounds to check his drop lines and crawfish traps.

  “We wouldn’t think of asking a favor like this, Becca, if it wasn’t a matter of crucial importance to the security of our parish,” Keith said. “I understand if you don’t want to do it, and we’ll keep looking until we find another boat, so no pressure either way.”

  “Keith isn’t kidding about how serious this is, Becca,” Diane said. “If you’d been there yesterday, you would know. This isn’t like anything we’ve seen before. Those men that came to Aunt Lucy’s neighborhood weren’t just a bunch of criminals looking for stuff to loot. They are organized and heavily armed, and there are a lot of them! They invaded every house on the street and took everyone inside away to who knows where. As far as I know, Henri Broussard was the only other person that escaped! I know Joe and Ronnie will cooperate with Keith and his brother and do everything they can when they find out about this, and so will most everyone else we know out here. But even that may not be enough! If Eric can get help from that military post, it will make all the difference!”

  Becca was clearly overwhelmed by all of this information. The unexpected visit and request had caught her off guard, but Eric saw a change in her expression as the understanding of it began to sink in. She quickly recovered her composure and totally got on board with what they were asking of her.

  “Yes, of course, you can take the boat!” she said to Eric. “I know Keith wouldn’t have brought you here to ask if there wasn’t a real need, and I know for a fact that Ronnie would have no problem with it, after what happened yesterday.” Becca had her arm around her friend now and invited all of them to come inside and have some coffee and something to eat, but Eric said there wasn’t time.

  “Thanks, but we have work to do before we leave, and I want to leave today. We’ll get the boat back to you ASAP. You can count on it, Becca,” Eric said.

  With the use of the boat secured, the next order of business for Keith was to carry out his promise to Diane and now Becca to try and reach their husbands by radio to let them know what was going on and that it was time to head back in. Diane would ride with him on his run down to the marsh near the mouth of the river, and they wouldn’t be back until sometime that afternoon. Eric wouldn’t see them until his return from Simmesport, so the two brothers shook hands and wished each other luck, and then Eric and Jonathan boarded the big John boat and warmed up the engine. They would return to the Miss Anita to sort out the weapons and supplies they needed, and then stop by Keith’s place on the way upriver to secure as much gasoline as possible from his underground storage tank. When they made it back to the little dead lake and pulled alongside the trawler, Eric saw the approval written on Bart’s face as he took in the lines of the no-nonsense river boat.

  “Boy I’ll tell you, that’s about as perfect a boat as I’ve seen for these waters! It’ll get you where you’re going, I reckon.”

  “Yep, and I need to do it fast and get it back to the owner. I don’t imagine that Ronnie Ferguson would take all the gold I have left for a boat like this these days. I know I wouldn’t if I were him!”

  After they boarded the trawler, Eric went below and grabbed one of his canvas bags, stuffing it with loaded magazines and his other gear and selecting one of the M4s and extra Glocks from their small arsenal to give to Jonathan.

  “It’s better if we both have the same weapons in the same calibers this time,” Eric said, when Jonathan argued that he’d rather take the AK he’d favored before. “That way we can share mags if necessary.”

  “I gotcha, dude, but that AK is just so cool!”

  “You know by now that if you need to use a rifle, it doesn’t matter whether it’s cool or not to whoever’s downrange. What matters is whether you can hit what you’re aiming at.”

  “You don’t really expect to run into trouble, do you?” Vicky asked Eric. “I mean, didn’t you say it was a lot safer traveling the river than on the roads?”

  Eric knew Vicky was unhappy about Jonathan going, but he wasn’t going to tell her what she wanted to hear just to ease her worries. “It is safer, but yes, I expect trouble everywhere, Vicky. You’ve seen enough yourself to know we have to always be prepared for trouble.”

  “He’s right,” Jonathan said, “but the boat is fast, and we won’t be passing many people anyway because it’s mostly woods up that way. We’ll be okay.”

  In addition to the weapons and the magazines for them, Eric put half a dozen M67 hand grenades in his gear bag, but the rifles with the M203 launchers, he left aboard the trawler for Bart and Keith in case of an attack by boat. Then he carried all this up the companionway and ordered Jonathan to help him with the jerry cans.

  “What are we going to do with all that gas? We probably don’t even have enough of these cans to get it all.”

  “Probably not, but we need to get what we can. We’ll fill them all and take half a dozen of them upriver with us. The rest we can stash in the woods across the bayou from Keith’s property. If we hide them well, I doubt they’ll be found, because there’s no reason for anyone to look around over there in those willow thickets. As for what’s left in the tanks, I don’t know. I was thinking of maybe rigging it with a couple of grenades so that if those contractors arrive before we’re ready for them and start snooping around, they’ll get a nasty surprise.”

  “That’s a bad idea,” Greg said. “Some of Keith’s neighbors and his wife’s relatives know about that fuel tank. I doubt any of them would go there to get some without asking, but since there’s no one around to ask, you never know.”

  “I guess you’ve got a point. Maybe it’s a bad idea after all.”

  “Yeah, but it would be so sweet to set booby traps for those C.R.I. bastards!” Jonathan said. “Maybe we can set some in a way that nobody from around here will stumble onto them. There’s got to be a way. Man, I want you to teach me how to set up traps like that! That would be badass!”

  “You have yourself an enthusiastic apprentice!” Greg smiled.

  “Jonathan is good to go,” Eric agreed. “That’s why I’m taking him with me.” He turned to the kid. “I’m sure we’
ll have other opportunities to set some man traps. But first, let’s get up there and secure that fuel and then go and see if we can’t rustle up some reinforcements. It’s always better to share the fun when you can, and I think there’ll be plenty to go around!”

  Eric did a quick final check after the weapons, jerry cans and supplies were loaded into the boat, and then he boarded the schooner once more to hug Shauna and Megan.

  “We’ll make this as fast as possible,” he assured Shauna, after breaking away from her embrace. “Just don’t let your guard down while I’m away.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Bart said. “Any boat other than yours or Keith’s turns into here off that river, they’re going to be met with something they aren’t ready for.”

  Eric knew the old man wouldn’t let him down, and neither would Greg or Shauna. But he was serious about making the trip a quick one, because he felt certain they were running out of time. The brazen raid yesterday would be followed by more, and while these remote lakes deep in the swamp wouldn’t be high priority areas of interest, it was likely that the contractors or the cartel already understood the importance of the Atchafalaya as a transportation artery from the Gulf to the Mississippi River. Controlling it would give them additional options, so if they had access to boats, Eric expected to see them on the river eventually.

  It was disappointing that he couldn’t rig Keith’s fuel tank with grenades, because Eric was sure that someone would be forced to talk when the C.R.I. contractors moved in, and the property would be searched because it belonged to a lawman. Greg was right to argue against it though, because such a trap was more likely to kill an innocent neighbor before the enemy found it. His warning was a reminder to Eric that although he would probably be in active combat here, the rules of engagement would be different than for most of his professional missions. This time he was operating on homeland soil, and American civilians were sprinkled everywhere throughout the region. Eric hoped that Keith could get the word out while he was away and rally most of the able-bodied among them to join the fight for the cause of self-preservation. If he could do that and warn those who weren’t able to stay put and out of the way, it would reduce civilian casualties regardless of whether the militia had to do the fighting or it could be handed over to the soldiers he hoped would come after he paid a visit to Sergeant Patterson.

  When he and Jonathan pulled up to Keith’s dock, he barely glanced at the submerged schooner he’d been working so hard to salvage. The job was terminated for now, but he took some satisfaction in knowing that the schooner could float if she was raised off the bottom and the water pumped out. Having the installation of all those floatation devices completed was a big step, and yet to anyone who came there and stopped to look at her from the dock, the sunken vessel would look like a lost cause and probably merit little attention. One day… Eric told himself. One day, he would step her masts again and raise her sails in a Gulf breeze with the bow pointed south… But that day wasn’t in sight at all right now.

  Eric and Jonathan carried the jerry cans to the pump and lined them up after removing the caps. The pumping was accomplished by connecting the 12-volt pump motor to the battery in Lynn’s Jeep. When they were finished, there was a total of thirteen six-gallon and nine five-gallon containers full of stabilized gasoline. They were leaving nearly 200 gallons in the underground tank even after topping off the Jeep, but there was nothing else to put it in.

  “We’ll take eight of these six-gallon cans with us and stash the rest,” Eric said. “That’s way more than enough for our trip, but I’d rather not leave it all in one place.”

  When they pulled away from the dock a half hour later, after stashing what they couldn’t take with them in the woods across the bayou, Eric felt they had done all they could do here. There was no good option for thoroughly hiding the Jeep, but they’d taken the effort to back it into a thicket and cover it with branches anyway. Keith had instructed Eric to do this, as it was likely that he would need to come get it before Eric and Jonathan returned from upriver.

  “Are we going to be cool with running the river in the broad daylight?” Jonathan asked.

  “I guess that depends on whether or not the wrong folks happen to see us,” Eric said, “and whether or not they have accurate rifles and know how to use them.”

  “I’m thinking about those C.R.I. dudes mainly. They know how to shoot. You know that.”

  “Yeah, and if they are on that I-10 bridge we have to go under, we’ll be squarely in their sights.”

  “So, what are we going to do, wait ’til dark?”

  “No, because it’s barely after noon now. We’re going to take a gamble on this one, and hope we get lucky. Because if we wait until nightfall, it’ll take the whole night to get up to Simmesport, running much slower in the dark, and we won’t get there in time to do any recon before daybreak. I’d rather put some miles behind us and arrive there early. After we check things out, we can wait for sunup and then pay them a visit.”

  When they neared the bridge, Eric put Jonathan’s fears to rest by slowing the boat to idle speed and keeping in the shadows of the cypress trees growing to the water’s edge on the west bank. Once they came into view of the twin concrete spans, he stopped the boat to scan it with binoculars for movement.

  “It looks clear to me,” Eric said, passing the binoculars to Jonathan. “You take a look too, since it’s your ass on the line as much as it is mine.”

  “I don’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have an ambush set up, does it?”

  “No, but I think it’s unlikely. They’ll focus most of their resources on locking down the highways and main roads in the beginning. First, they have to locate all the remaining residents, and then try to root out any resistance. If they have reason to suspect the resistance is using the river, which they will soon enough, that’s when they’ll start setting up ambushes out here. But we’re a few steps ahead of them right now, so I think we’re good to go.”

  Jonathan had been hammering him with questions ever since Eric had said they would have to postpone sailing away for now and fight back against the coming invasion of C.R.I. and the cartel. Most of them were in regard to tactics. Eric knew the prospect of fighting such an overwhelming force would seem hopeless to most, but like Keith and Bart, he knew it was possible if they handled it right.

  “Assuming we have to do it ourselves, without any help, we won’t be going head to head with them in any straight-up firefights, if we can avoid it. Instead, we’ll hit them by surprise where and when they least expect it, and we’ll do it with one or two-man sniper teams and three-man fast action fire teams so that we won’t lose half our volunteers in one place if an ambush goes wrong. Most of the folks that live out here already know how to shoot and shoot well. They hunt deer and hogs and just about everything else that walks or flies both for sport and food, and I imagine there’s some excellent long-range rifles in the hands of a lot of them. This is a unique advantage of putting together a resistance force here in the U.S., compared to so many countries I’ve worked in where the civilians are mostly unarmed. They’re already ahead of the curve and training these folks for sniper operations will mainly be a matter of teaching them how to use those same skills they already have against a quarry that can shoot back. I have full confidence they can learn quickly, assuming Keith can find enough that are willing.”

  “Well, Keith said he was going to put it to them like it is. Either they fight or they lose everything, maybe even their lives. I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”

  “People still don’t want to believe things are as bad as they are, but word will spread about incidents like yesterday. Once they understand the enemy really is coming, the decision they have to make will be much clearer for most of them.”

  Keith would be working on spreading that word while he and Jonathan were away. With Diane’s help as a witness to back it up, Eric expected his brother’s efforts to make an impact. With any luck at all, upon Er
ic’s return, Keith would have some of his volunteers assembled, and then Eric could take charge of the training and operational planning. Eric knew that even if they convinced Sergeant Patterson to help them, it would take time for the Army to get any assets where they were needed. It wasn’t anything like Shauna imagined, where gunboats and helicopters would speed down the river and quickly take care of the problem with overwhelming force. Even in the best-case scenario, the residents of the parish and Eric’s small group would be on their own for now, and it would be up to them to impede and disrupt the initial onslaught if C.R.I. was indeed ready to move in and take control of the area.

  “I hope you’ll let me be your spotter and backup shooter when we start sniping their asses,” Jonathan said. “You already know we make a good team, and you’ve seen me shoot. I may not have shot as many four-legged critters as some of these coonasses around here, but I’ll bet I’ve already got more gunfighting experience than most of them!”

  Eric couldn’t argue with that. The kid had come a long way since they’d met, and he’d indeed proven his mettle under fire, despite the lack of any formal training. Eric knew he could count on him, and that was why he brought him along for the trip upriver. So far, they’d come out on top of every firefight they’d engaged in, but many of those were against civilian looters and other desperados, not hardened killers like the professional contractors and cartel gunmen they would likely be facing next. If things went the way Eric expected them to, people would die on both sides; that was simply the reality of war. It was a reality that rarely bothered Eric in past operations, but this time he would be fighting alongside his loved ones; family and friends that didn’t sign up for this kind of life. In combat, every second was distilled to the immediate present and every action or reaction meant the difference between life or death. No one could predict how someone new to that would perform when the bullets were incoming, but Jonathan had proven he could handle it. With the kid in the bow with an M4, helping him scan for danger, Eric felt confident as they motored under the double bridges of I-10 and continued upriver to the north.