Chapter 19

Little Bear pointed to one of his men and said, "His leg, shoot it."

At this close range, the dart went completely through the man's leg, virtually cutting it off; it only stayed attached to the rest of his body by a few shreds of flesh and tendons. The bone was shattered beyond any hope of repair, even by the medicine available in the 21^st century. The man's scream sounded like it would rip out his vocal cords, it was so loud and high pitched. He fell to the ground and lay there; his companions had no idea how to help him.

Little Bear shouted, "BACK AWAY FROM YOUR FRIEND, AND WE WILL CARE FOR HIS LEG!"

The circle of confused men moved away about 10 feet, and Little Bear waved one of the "medical corpsman" over. "Put a tourniquet on his leg to stop the bleeding and we'll go from there."

The medic did as instructed and stepped back, resuming his place in the surrounding circle and taking up his crossbow again. The bleeding had stopped, but the pain had not, so the man was writhing on the ground, though he was no longer screaming—his throat was probably too sore by now for him to do that.

Little Bear spoke loud enough for every man to hear as he said, "We know that your are the beasts who tortured and killed the family a few miles back. Why did you do that?"

One of the men said, in a contemptuous voice, "What do you care, are you a relative?"

Little Bear pointed to another of his men and said, "Shoot his leg.", but the target dropped to his knees and begged before the assigned man could get off his dart.

"No, no, don't hurt me! I'll tell you. We demanded their food, but the man and boys tried to fight us, so we took our revenge on them for not doing what we asked."

Little Bear said, "That's what we thought. Are you members of a larger band? If you are, where are they?"

"I won't tell you any more. You have no right to question me about that sort of thing. Go away and leave us alone. You have done enough damage."

"You will answer my questions, or you will face more pain than you heaped on that poor family. I will show you what can happen to you if you don't answer my questions truthfully." Little Bear waved to two of his men and pointed toward the injured man, "Strip him and leave him on his belly." Once that was done, Little Bear took one of the firecrackers from his pocket. "All of you, look at me. This is what can happen to you if you don't cooperate." He jammed the firecracker into the man's rectum and lit the fuse.

A few seconds later, there was a muffled explosion and the man's flesh was ripped apart around his ass. His scream was even louder than the first time he was hurt. Everybody who saw this turned pasty white, and a few of Little Bear's men vomited. This time, there was no way to stop the bleeding, and the injured man died in a few minutes from blood loss.

At this, all of the prisoners threw down their spears and also dropped to their knees. They all began to babble so that it was impossible to understand what they were saying. Little Bear yelled at them to shut up, and he pointed to one of the prisoners and asked if they belonged to a larger group.

The prisoner said, "Yes, there are hundreds of fighters in our group, and they will torture you to death for what you have done to White Beaver. You are a walking dead man, and so are all of your men."

Little Bear laughed at this and pointed to another man. "Now, tell me the truth before I lose patience with your lies. Look what else I can do." He rolled the dead man over and stuffed another firecracker up the corpse's nostril and lit it. He stepped back to keep from being splattered with blood and bits of flesh when the firecracker went off. The firecracker made a gruesome mess of the dead man's face, and a few more of Little Bear's men vomited.

The man who was about to lie, blanched and said, "There are 53 men, women, and children in our group. We have come down from the north, where there is no food left, to try to find food here where there is no ice and snow. We have not found enough game, so we were forced to try to take food from those who already had it. That family was the first that we found, and they laughed at us when we asked for food, so we took revenge."

"Where is the rest of your band?"

"I don't know where they are right now, but we were supposed to meet them at dusk near that flat-topped mountain."

"I believe you, so we will not kill your whole band, but you have condemned yourselves for torturing and killing innocent children. Men of Doug's Town, tie their hands and feet, but don't kill them."

Once the prisoners were bound as ordered, they were tied to the back of the last wagons in line by a length of rope running from their feet to the rear of the last trailer. The troops remounted their vehicles and they drove off, dragging the bound prisoners on the ground behind them. Being dragged at 8-10 MPH over rough ground does not long leave skin intact, and all of the prisoners died long before they reached the mesa that the man had pointed out.

The two scout cars searched and quickly found the encampment of the band they were looking for, so the whole detachment drove to that location and stopped near the fires. Their arrival caused great consternation, since none of the people had ever before seen wagons or men riding on them. A fight broke out as soon as the wanderers realized that these were men and not demons, but the battle was short lived, since the crossbows were such superior weapons as compared to the stabbing spears wielded by the others. The people of the encampment fought with desperation, so that even the women were killed during the combat. At the end, there was no one left but three infants. Shit! This was not what Little Bear had in mind!

On the other hand, he did not feel quite so bad when a search of the camp revealed surplus food and what must have been loot stolen from villages along their way. The encampment was not as short of food as the original prisoners had claimed, nor were they as innocent as he had maintained. Everybody decided that these people had deserved to die, since they were criminals by any sane definition.

Little Bear had not lost any men to death, but two were wounded badly enough to warrant sending them back to Doug's Town to recuperate. Tin Man' scout car was sent back with the wounded and the three infants, with orders to return as soon as possible.

Little Bear and his men were so disgusted with the depravity of these wanderers that they did not build a funeral pyre for them, but just left them to the mercy of scavengers. They moved far enough away from the site of the bodies and waited for Tin Man to return.

A few days later, Tin Man returned in the company of another tractor pulling a pair of wagons. Tin Man told Little Bear that this new tractor was to be considered something that Doug called an "ambulance," and it should be used to transport any wounded back to Doug's Town. Little Bear thought that this was a great idea and wished that he had thought of it. In the meantime, it served to carry supplies.

They resumed their search for marauders and found sign three days later. They came across an abandoned camp that looked to have been empty for about a week. These people had turned into real slobs; Little Bear could not believe that they had always lived like this. Human shit and animal bones were scattered with reckless abandon all over the camp, as if the people had not planned to stay long and didn't care what kind of squalor they lived in while they were still there. Their trail was easy to follow, as if they did not care who knew where they were going.

Little Bear's troop set out to find out just how much harm these people might be doing to other people in the neighborhood. If they were harmless, Little Bear would leave them alone, but he feared that they were up to a lot of mischief. They seemed to him to be totally oblivious to their on best interests, so they were probably the same way to those other people they encountered. Such people could be very dangerous and needed to be investigated.