Chapter 11: On The Road Again, Again

We packed up from last night, and picked over the cupboards, both in the kitchen and in the basement pantry. The Sterno went in one outside pack pocket, double bagged in plastic. The matches were also double bagged, and divvied up among us. I checked the women’s firearms, and checked my own. Loaded, magazines topped off, safety secured, we were ready to go.

Emily locked the door, again hiding the key where she, or John, could find it. We walked over to the control center, and checked in. Chief Schwartz had evidently finished his tour, as his assistant was “Ops Command” for the time being. He greeted us.

“Howdy. I’m Don Walker, Assistant Fire Chief. Can I help you folks?”

Emily spoke up. “Thanks! I’m Emily Luce, this is Mark Evans, and this is Lucy Mortensen. We got in last night.”

“Oh, yeah. Chief Schwartz told me about you! Come in, have a seat. Mark, is it? I have some traffic for you.”

We sat at a table, settling packs and guns beside us. Chief Walker joined us, handing me a piece of paper with a time stamp of around 3 hours previously. I read it, and relaxed. Lucy asked, “What? Is it some sort of news?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Chief. This is good news.” I turned to Lucy and Emily. “Their radio operator spoke with Eureka Control, who caught up with Marie. Then, they spoke again. Marie is fine, there has been no excitement around my home, and my daughter and older son and their families are with her. I suppose that it’s a good thing I kept buying canned food, just as if I still had three hungry teenagers in the house! My backlog of canned soup and canned ham, looks like it will be quickly resolved!”

I turned back to the Chief. “Chief Walker, could you pass along another message, telling my wife that I’m on the way with two guests?”

He turned to the radio operator seated at the radio table. “Ernie? Could you add that to our next schedule with Eureka? Mark, Evans, right? is returning home with two friends, and he’d like Marie, his wife, to know. When do you expect that to go out?”

Ernie looked at his schedule of contacts. “Probably around 1600 today, Chief.”

Chief Walker turned to me. “That work for you folks?”

I replied, “Like a charm, Chief! Can you set up a schedule for me, with Eureka Control, please? Like just before sunrise, oh, say, around 0500, and shortly after sunset, like around 2200? That’ll correspond to our bedtime and our wake up.”

Ernie was taking notes. “Will do. Can you hit 146-point-55 simplex with your HT?”

“Can do. It’s one of my pre-sets.”

“I’ll tell ‘em you will be looking for them there.”

“Thank you.”

We exited the operations center, walking past a line of adolescent boys, a couple of whom were turning a crank on a large pulley by hand. This was connected by belts to one of those “Big Box Store” generators, which was wired onto a bank of batteries just outside of the fire hall. Now, I knew how they kept their radios operating. I took a mental note, so Marie and I could arrange to charge our own electronics. One of them waved as we passed, wiping his face on the sleeve of his Boy Scout uniform shirt. Now, THAT was some service project!

We trooped along, and cleared the town’s perimeter on the south end, striking south on State Road. The operation center’s map confirmed my recollection, that it pretty much arrowed south, with occasional zigs and zags, until it crossed the Alder River. That was spanned by a bridge dating from the Depression, and was, at present, restricted to one lane traffic. Our fire department had been warned to keep engines and tankers off, due to the weight restriction. I figured that any enterprising desperadoes, arranging a roadblock so as to extract “a toll” from passers-by, would likely focus their efforts on the state highway a mile to the east, and therefore our passage was probably to be unnoticed.

So, we spent most of the night walking along. We stopped every couple of hours, for meals, for water breaks, for potty breaks, and so forth. We slowed down at intersections, and whenever passing a homestead. Once we drew up close to the state game area that the Alder River both fed and defined, we found ourselves a dense patch of woods to crawl up into, and held a whispered conference.

We had traveled something like 15 miles thus far that night, and dawn was not more than a hour or so away. I voted for a laager, and invited my companions to weigh in.

Emily was first to speak. “Do you think that there might be any night patrols? Do you know if there is a clear line of sight from any likely road block to the bridge you have in mind? How do you see the risks of a night crossing tonight, versus a day crossing? As I see it, we have generally done OK with traveling at night, and laying up during the day. I’m reluctant to change that plan without lots of thought.”

I turned to Lucy. “I don’t really have any opinion, one way or the other,” she began. “You guys saved me, you have a plan that has worked for you, and if those monsters hadn’t dragged me into your clearing, well, I’d be dead, they would be alive, and you wouldn’t have known anything about me or my problems. Sounds as if the plan you have been following, has worked out very well. What are we, ten? twelve? miles from Eureka? Is it a good idea to rush headlong into who knows what sort of trouble, simply to get home a day earlier? I don’t really know, and you have given this a whole lot more thought than I have, but personally, I’ve had enough excitement. If one additional day of sleeping in the leaves is the price of boredom, well, I’m in!”

I thought for a moment, and put my thoughts up for consideration. “Emily, you are becoming a thoughtful, deliberate tactician. I don’t think that there is any sort of line of sight from the highway to our proposed crossing, but being in a hurry does not make it smart to push too far ahead of ourselves. I doubt, but cannot know, that there are any night patrols. I bet that, if things were that organized, even in a banditry sort of way, our friends in Argyle might have heard something. Hell, that state highway has been the major artery, even back in stage coach days, before the first plank road. My betting ability is not reliable enough to stake your lives upon. We are not going to be lucky, or the most skilled, in every shoot out. Therefore, if we have an opportunity to avoid a confrontation, that is generally the best way to go. Let’s sleep. Anybody see anything wrong with laagering here?”

The women looked around, and identified nothing. As the women set up the hootch, I stepped a little bit away, on a local high point. I powered up the HT, dialed in the frequency, attached the antenna and remote mike, and held up it over my head at arm’s length. I listened for a bit, and eventually heard, “Eureka Control, calling mobile unit. Eureka Control, calling mobile unit.”

I dawdled a moment, not wanting to interfere with any other station. Hearing no one else, I keyed up. “Eureka Control, this is Speedracer, mobile out of Argyle. Over.”

A second later, came the reply. “Speedracer, Eureka Control. Say your party.”

“Eureka Control, one of my party is known on the air as Echo Lima, native of Argyle. My other companion has no radio identifier.”

Came the response, “Speedracer, very good on your party. Say your business with us.”

“Eureka Control, say the date and origin of our departure, as Argyle control passed it along to you, please.”

“Speedracer, you originated in Benzie, and did so six nights ago.”

“I confirm. My supervisor is in your town, at our home, and awaiting my arrival. She passed traffic to me via Argyle control.”

The resulting chuckle was plain, even over low power radio. “Very good, old man. She who must be obeyed, eh?”

“QSL on that, my friend. Very much so. Any traffic for me?”

“No, no traffic from us. Any on your end?”

“Yes, sir. Please advise Sierra Whiskey Mike Bravo Oscar that we are on the order of a day’s journey out. Will your roadblock personnel be briefed on our arrival?”

“Affirmative, will do. Anything else?”

“Negative. Speedracer, out.”

“Very good. 73’s. Will await your eyeball report. Eureka control, out.”

I put everything away, and looked up to see Emily and Lucy appearing confused. Again, as would any guy, I demonstrated my mastery of the situation. “What?”

Emily spoke first. “How many women do you have in your little coven?”

I was puzzled. It showed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Who is this ‘Sierra’ woman? Does Marie know about her?”

I chuckled. “Ah, jargon fail! ‘Sierra’ is the first initial, identified in the phonetic alphabet, of ‘SWMBO’. That means ‘She Who Must Be Obeyed’. And, SWMBO is my wife.”

Lucy chimed in. “Whose eyeballs are you going to report on?”

Another chuckle. “Lucy, ‘An Eyeball’ is an in person meeting, as in, you can see his or her eyeballs. Some things you cannot report over the radio, because it is possible that folks who you do not want to know what you know, will overhear. Control is letting me know that they are interested in hearing of our little stroll.”

The women had no more questions, and so we snuggled into our pile of leaves, only this time Emily and Lucy were outside, and I was situated in the midst of two soft warm female bodies. I settled in on my back, and Emily crept in, resting her head on my shoulder, my arm naturally curling up to embrace her. Lucy lay apart, for a little while, but soon rolled over, similarly hugging me. She reached up, and whispered in my ear, “I’m not ready for any sexual playtime, but I sure could use a friendly hug. Please, hold me like I was your sister, while I sleep?”