Chapter 3

One day while hunting hogs I heard two quick shots from a shotgun. Dammit, that sounded ominous! Maggie and I rushed toward the source of the noise and were just in time to see a man in a tree firing a shotgun at a hog that was determined to kill him. The tusks on the hog made me think that this was a boar, a male hog, but that was somewhat beside the point at the moment.

The man was firing what must have been buckshot at the boar because there were a lot of bloody spots on its back, but the boar was able to ignore the injuries. Maggie charged the boar while barking like mad. I shouted to the man, "DON'T SHOOT THE DOG! SHE IS TRYING TO HELP YOU!"

The man yelled agreement and stopped shooting. Meanwhile, I found a tree to climb and got into position to shoot at the boar. I wondered if it was a lost cause to shoot at the animal's head because I assumed that the skull was too thick to take much damage from my soft-metal bullets. Therefore, I aimed at the boar's body and hoped for the best.

I had to fire three times before I finally killed the animal. Man, that was some tough hog! Normally, I had only to shoot twice to score a kill because I was using the hollow-point bullets that I had learned to make. This boar was somewhat larger than the hogs that I had been shooting at, and that may have made some of the difference.

Once we were sure that the hog was dead, we climbed down from our trees and converged on Maggie. We both lavished praise on the dog, and she ate it up. I introduced Maggie and myself to the man. He said, "I am very glad to meet you, Jack. My name is Sam Winters, and I would have been up shit creek if you had not shown up.

"At first, I wondered why you were pointing your rifle at the hog and not shooting, but I quit worrying about it after the second time when I saw the spot where your bullet landed. What kind of gun is it that has a built-in silencer?"

"This gun uses air pressure instead of gunpowder to fire the bullet. I found it some time ago and adopted it because I was never sure that I would be able to find enough regular bullets to keep me going. I do have an M1 Garand, but I don't use it because I don't have many cartridges for it."

"Well, whatever it uses, your gun is a hell of a lot better than my shotgun for hunting hogs. I do have #00 buckshot shells for it, but I am about to run out, and I don't know where to find any more. I don't know what I will do then."

"I do have an extra one of these rifles at home. Maybe we can work out a trade for something you have that I need."

"By damn, that would be great, Jack. Meanwhile, how are we going to split this hog that I found, but you killed?"

"Let's split it in half. We can field dress it here and do enough butchering to take our shares. I see you have some rope with you, so we can hang it from a limb while there is still a decent chance of draining the blood."

That was what we did, and I did the butchering. Sarah had taught me enough about that end of the job so that I would not have to haul the whole animal home. She finished up the fine details of the butchering after I had hauled the useful pieces of the carcass home.

Sam had not thought of using something to haul his kills, so I offered to deliver him and his share of the boar home in my ATV. He was amazed to see it when I pulled it from the bushes where I had left it just before the fight with the boar had started. We loaded up with the meat and Maggie in the trailer while we rode on the builtin seats.

We had to travel nearly four miles north to find where Sam and his wife Tilly were living in a trailer park. They had been scavenging from the other trailers and a nearby store for their supplies. We unloaded their share of the meat and Tilly climbed aboard the ATV to make the trip to my house. I had invited them to have supper with us and to spend the night, since I could see that they were living in what amounted to abject poverty compared to Sarah and me.

The 10-mile trip via ATV took almost 90 minutes, and they were very impressed when they saw where we were living. They were also impressed with the amount of food that we had stored in the cellar. Tilly was enraptured by the running water in the kitchen—she was hauling water in a bucket from a stream.

Sam and Tilly were very good company, and they wanted to move in next door to us if I would help them to move their stuff by means of the ATV. Sam knew where to find gasoline and oil for the ATV, and I figured that was sufficient payment for the spare air gun. He was still going to have to get bullets and compressed air from me, so I had plenty of trading stock to last me for some time.

Sarah put Sam and Tilly in a spare bedroom, which she dubbed the "guest room," and we all laughed at that. We stayed up well past our normal bedtimes just talking about our adventures since the aliens had attacked. That night in bed, Sarah and I had a long talk, and the next morning during breakfast, we invited Sam and Tilly to share the house with us.

Tilly was thrilled because she was three-months pregnant, and was scared to death of being alone when she delivered her baby. She accepted our offer on behalf of them both before Sam had a chance to contribute anything, but he was happy to go along with the idea. We started moving them in that day.

Sam and I took the ATV to their trailer park to move all of their stuff in several loads. He also showed me where to find the gasoline and oil he had mentioned. It took two days to move everything they had that was worth moving and to look through all of the other trailers for the small amount of useful stuff that was still there.

Our next few hunting expeditions involved me teaching Sam the peculiarities of the air rifle and looking for another ATV for him to use. Again, we got very lucky and found a store in Lexington that had several ATVs and trailers in stock. We immediately headed home to gather up the women so that we could drive three of the ATVs home. We would be back later to pick up the last ATV. If nothing else, it could be scavenged for spare parts.

Somewhat reluctantly at first, the women learned to drive the ATVs. Finally, they got over their nervousness and agreed that driving the vehicles was fun. Sam and I wanted the women to go on a "shopping spree" to pick up the clothes and other essentials that they and the new baby would need. While they were about it, they were to pick up clothes for us men, too. Of especial interest was the need for winter clothes. None of us were wearing warm clothing, and the winter was coming, no matter how much we wanted to postpone it.

While the women were doing this, we men were busy looking for more weapons. We realized that we needed more guns for the women to use, and we men might as well start carrying pistols as well. The women were not going to be hunting under their present scheme, so Tilly could get by with a pistol and a 20-gauge sawed-off shotgun. The two women were never to travel alone, and that meant that Sarah had her heavy-caliber rifle if they met a large attacker.

It took visits to five gun shops before we were able to find what we needed. We picked up seven more 9 mm automatic pistols, 21 magazines, and all of the 9 mm hollow-point ammunition that we could find. We did not know what we were going to do to need this much firepower, but the guns were there, so we helped ourselves.

In a storeroom, we even found three more of the air guns in the same caliber as the ones that we were using. We took those, along with all of the accessories we could find for the rifles. Included with what we found were a total of 20 pounds of "lead" for casting bullets. The packaging on the metal said that this was not lead, but it had the same properties as lead as far as the guns were concerned. Whatever ... Neither Sam nor I were really worried about the problems with lead bullets, so we ignored the whole thing. When we got through, we had extras of everything: bullet molds, air compressors, air tanks, etc.