They were speeding along the north of Lakehead on a curvy stretch of road when Jackie saw a glow above a hill up ahead. “Tom! Slow down and pull off into that stand of trees on the right. There’s a vehicle approaching with its lights on up ahead.”
Tom pulled off the road, and they waited as they saw the lights bounce from hillside to hillside as the vehicle wound its way around the curvy section of Highway 5. The pickup traveled at a slow speed as though the driver was searching for something. They all took a deep breath when the pickup drove past them while shining a searchlight along the roadside. Tom waited a few minutes and took off again, speeding away as fast as Jackie would allow.
Tom knew the outcome could have been much different had they been spotted and slowed enough to allow Jackie to do her job. They didn’t encounter any other vehicles for the next two hours. Tom could see the sunlight behind the horizon light up Mount Shasta and began looking for a place to camp during the daylight hours. He saw a large stand of trees on the opposite side of the highway and cut across to enter the woods. He drove several hundred feet into the woods and parked for the night.
Granny B looked around. “Good. You picked a place where we can have a small fire. Betty, could you and Brenda prepare supper? Tom, please start a fire. Jackie, Sam, and I’ll keep an eye out for a while to make sure no one followed us. Grab your weapons, ladies, and follow me back to the highway.”
Tom wasted no time getting a fire started. There weren’t many matches left, and he wanted to save the lighters, so he looked in his backpack and found his ferrocerium rod and old hunting knife. He found a dry stick to make shavings and then wadded up some dry pine straw and rubbed it between his hands. The smaller pieces fell onto the shavings. Then he took a plastic tender box from his backpack and took a small amount of tender from the container. The tinder was soaked in kerosene and would light quickly. Tom held the back of the knife blade above the tinder and drew the ferrocerium rod against the ninety-degree edge toward him. This aimed the sparks at the tinder. Flames leaped from the tinder, and he slowly piled the dry pine straw and then the shavings onto the fire. After he had a roaring fire, he added larger kindling and finally a few small logs.
He was hungry but wondered what Granny B had told the women to fix for supper. A few minutes later, his nose wrinkled, and his mouth revolted at the smell of roasting rabbit. “Oh, goody. More rabbit for breakfast or supper, whichever this meal is supposed to be.”
Brenda sat beside Tom on the ground. “I take it you’re tired of rabbit. You’ve been a hunter. Why don’t you go out and kill a cow so we can have some beef? If not, it’s rabbit stew, roast rabbit, rabbit soup, fried rabbit, and I don’t know, but a steak would be nice.”
“We haven’t killed any cows because most of the meat would spoil, and we haven’t seen a cow. You know, it does seem odd that we haven’t seen any cows and darn few horses. There are plenty of cattle in Oregon.”
“I know. I’m from Ashland and know of several ranches in the area. I hope the gangs haven’t looted or taken over the ranches and farms.”
Fear struck Tom’s heart. “Me, too.”
They rotated through guard duty and saw no one near them, though they did hear a few shots being fired around noon. By two in the afternoon, they were all rested and tired of lying around the camp. Granny B and Jackie talked about their ranch away from the others when gunfire broke out in the distance. Granny B stopped talking and was deep in thought. Jackie tapped her on the shoulder. “A penny for your thoughts.”
“It just came to me that we must make some sound suppressors for most of our rifles. We need to be able to pick off varmints from a distance without giving away our position.”
Tom lounged nearby. “Grandpa taught me how to make a suppressor using a Maglite tube, a spring, and some washers. Add a reducer from a hardware store, some insulation, and duct tape, if needed, and you have a suppressor for a revolver or bolt action rifle. He also showed me how to make one from an oil filter. This suppressor can cause jams on some automatics.”
Jackie frowned. “Wouldn’t the silencer wobble, and the bullets hit the washer baffles?”
“Yes, if you don’t use the right size reducer or take up the slop with shim stock. I’m betting we’ll use the compound bows for most silent work.”
It didn’t go unnoticed that none of them had used the word kill.
Tom and Sam began loading the truck before dark. Tom wanted to get an earlier start since they were only about seventy miles from home. Betty and Brenda busied themselves fixing their lunch while Granny B and Jackie walked out to the highway to make sure it was okay to leave. Jackie scanned both directions with the night vision scope, and all was clear. Every now and then, they heard the crack of gunfire in the distance.
“Granny, I hope some of those shots are hunters.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Be prepared at all times.”
They left the Black Butte area by eleven o’clock that night,
