One Eye Open
By Darrel Bird
Copyright 2014 by Darrel Bird
In 2017 the U.SA was divided about 50-50 socialists and conservatives. College kids demonstrated for free tuition, women demonstrated for free abortion and socialists demonstrated for socialism. By 2018 the demonstrators decided that burning buildings, cars and garbage cans just wasn't enough, and a few brought guns to the demonstration. There were at least four factions in the country, and the conservatives began answering fire while the politicians in D.C argued and chipped away at the constitution. The full fledged civil war the college people had been craving began, and those same people went home and hid in their Mamma's basement.
The first thing the warring factions did was to try and cut the others supply lines of food and fuel. They succeeded and in two weeks there wasn't even a can of dog food on the grocery shelves. War and starvation was the ticket for the day.
Ten years later, Hank Jasper came to the edge of the woods, stopped and looked out over an old overgrown field that was about three hundred yards wide, and about six hundred yards long. It was one of those long lazy summer days in July.
Beads of sweat beaded his forehead, and he wiped the sweat with a rag that held the scent of old sweat. The scent tickled his nose as it passed on its way back to the back pocket of his worn camouflage pants. He raised his binoculars to his eyes and began to sweep the field, and the edges of the tree line that graced the field with Oak, Hickory, and thick underbrush dotted with a few evergreen cedar.
The grass was almost waist high, and he caught the flit of a small bird that was going about its business catching small insects for its young. At the far east end of the field a covey of quail shot up, and headed for the trees. He froze the binoculars on that spot where the field narrowed to a small setback. He stood very still as he scanned back and fourth across the setback. He caught sight of a bit of blue in the tree line that began to emerge as a man. The man stopped and looked across the field, then began to move again. He was leading something on a rope and when he came forward Hank could see it was two women, one behind the other. The women had their hands tied to poles that rested on their shoulder behind their heads. Another man followed the women out of the trees, and the people began to walk up the field at the tree line.
The man punched the woman ahead of him with his rifle barrel when she stumbled in the high grass. The woman looked behind her at the man, but said nothing.
Well, none of my business. He knew that was just an excuse not to take action. It was a common thing those days for people to be taken into slavery, but he shuddered at what these women faced. Most likely they would be raped until they died by the gang these men belonged to.
Well hell! He raised his .22 rifle and shot the lead man in the back of the head, and then quickly shot the other man through the eye as he turned his head to look across the field at him. Hank favored the Ruger .22 automatic rife above all rifles. The rifle would kill a man at four hundred and fifty yards. At that distance a man probably didn’t need killing. The problem with heavier caliber rifles is that when you fired the barrel moved way off target, and he could hit a five inch pattern at a hundred and twenty five yards almost as fast as he could pull the trigger. The other plus was that the ammo was light to carry, and he had over seven hundred rounds in his back pack plus the two twenty five shot clips in his pocket.
The women froze; eyes wild, as they looked across the field at where they thought the shots came from. The woman began jerking at the rope on the dead man, but the man had looped the rope around his wrist which was caught under his body when he fell. The other woman was tied to the woman in front by a short rope. The woman in front began to scream in frustration while yanking at the rope.
“Shut up! I’m not going to hurt you!” He called across the field as he began walking out of the trees. He made his way over to the women, and walked up to them. They might have been pretty once, but they were both over forty, and the years in this land had a way of aging a person. Their faces were filthy from sweat, and dirt with no way to clean themselves, and they stared at him resignedly as he walked up. He wasn’t exactly anything to look at dressed in camouflage, with black camouflage paint smeared at random over his face and neck. He hung the sling of the rifle over his shoulder and began to cut the ropes that bound the women.
He could see the deep gouges in the flesh from the rough poles, where the blood had dried, and bled again to run down their shirts. Their wrists were completely raw from the ropes that bound them. He went as easy as he could as he cut them free with his sharp ten inch knife. They said nothing as he cut them free. He worked the dead men’s pack off the bodies, and tossed the women each a pack, and the men’s weapons.
“Who were those men?”
“They kidnapped us, caught us off guard while we were washing cloths in a creek. They were going to take us to their camp.”
“We have to get back into the trees; we are too exposed here, lets go, those men have pals who may come looking for them.”
He led off into the trees. He felt, rather than heard the women stumbling along in the thick brush, and he figured they probably didn’t have too much left in them. He had to find a place to rest. He soon came to a small clearing beside a brook, and dropped his pack by the water. He got down on his hands and knees, cupping the water in his hands and drank deeply. The water wasn’t cold in July, but it was fresh, and tasted good.
The women were feverishly dipping their hands in the stream, “Don’t drink too much or you’ll be puking that up!” He warned. One of the women looked at him, and stopped drinking.
“Who are you?” She asked.
“Names Jasper, and you?”
“I’m Jade, and this is Sondra.”
“Where is the group you were with?”
“There’s no way to tell now, we were taken two days ago, and the group would have moved on by now.”
“Yeah, they probably would have.”
That was the way of it. Whether the people were grieved about the women or not, the group would be forced to move on.
“What state are we in? Do you know Jasper?”
“Oklahoma maybe?” Hank thought about the question. “Yes, I think we are in Oklahoma. I think I will head toward the Rocky Mountains; more game there.”
“Will you take us with you Jasper?”
“I do well alone, I can’t get along with groups of people seems like. You two would just drag me down, and maybe get me killed.”
“Don’t you get tired of being alone?”
“No. Well maybe just a little.”
“If we pulled our weight, and did what you told us, you could take us couldn’t you?”
“You are putting me in a hard place Jade.”
The woman called Sondra had leaned her head against a tree, and was fast asleep.
“I have to put you in a hard place Jasper, as women we are the prey of every son of bitch we stumble up on. We are not weak, but we can’t fight the whole world.”
“So you need me to fight for you? Is that it?”
“No, we need someone to stand with us; everyone needs someone Jasper, including you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
The woman leaned back against a little bank if dirt, and closed her eyes.
“Thank you for killing those men.” She said without opening her eyes.
“I didn’t take pleasure from it.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, “I’m glad you found us.” Then she closed her eyes again.
Jasper moved back away from the women and the burbling brook to where he could hear all the sounds from the forest. His ears were trained to pick up any sound that didn’t belong. He leaned against a tree to keep watch. He could remain still, half asleep, an
d half awake for hours. I am becoming more like an animal than a man, maybe its best if I do take them with me.
He came to full consciousness when Sondra awoke and moved toward the brook for water. “I have some salve in my pack that might help with your wounds.” He said in a low voice. She rose up from the brook to look at him.
“Ok.”
“Sit down, and I’ll get it.”
She sat down on the ground, and he rummaged around in his pack, and found the little tin of salve.
He dipped a clean rag in the water, and then pulling her collar down; he began to gently scrub the wounds on her neck. He rubbed the antibiotic salve into the wounds, “Ok, now your wrists.”
He scrubbed the dirt out of the wounds on