Chapter 20

We took off and flew over the convoy and I was surprised at how little dust there was. I saw Mike's arm come out and wave as we flew over his RV. I counted over seventy vehicles and to say they were a ragtag looking bunch would be an understatement. There were about every kind of camping vehicle I ever saw and I used to do a lot of camping with my daughter when I was younger. I had the pilot take us up a lot higher than we were and I used his binoculars to look over the countryside as we flew. He flew over the ghost town and I looked through the glasses. It looked like an oasis in the middle of nowhere with all the green trees, and the lower valley looked like it was full of cattle and goats. To my surprise, I saw a herd of mule deer grazing near the canyon wall in the lower half of the valley. We swung back around and I had him slow almost to a crawl as I scanned the buildings. Nothing was moving nor was there any sign of life, other than some cattle. They were drinking out of the trough next to the big tank by the windmill that was full of water. Man, I wished I could have bought this place, but the price they were asking had been way out of reach for my meager bank account. Now it was free to whoever could take it as I doubted there was anyone left who would claim it. The heirs lived back east and were probably gone along with everyone in the big cities, if everything the ham operators said had happened.

When we lifted out of the canyon, I caught a large spiral of black smoke south of our position and directed the pilot to head that way. In a short time we were over the smoke and it was a house and barn still burning. There were maybe twenty vehicles parked by the windmill tank in front of the burning house and several were shooting towards a small building.

"Raiders! Call in the position and let's see if we can give those bastards some grief."

The pilot was on the radio and as we circled, I saw two of the attack choppers coming in from the south. They split up and I watched as they opened fire with some kind of electric guns on the front of the choppers. I was almost whooping for joy as those bastards got chopped to pieces. I told the pilot to pass on that I thought there were survivors in the small outbuilding and not to fire on it. We circled and I watched as the choppers circled back over the area, shooting anything that was in the yard by the windmill without ever touching the windmill or the building. They backed off and flew high cover as we went lower. All of a sudden I could hear the radio chatter between them and us.

"Sorry about that, Sir. I forgot to switch you to the channel we use."

I just grinned at him and as we circled, I saw a man and woman and two small kids cautiously come out of the small building and look around. They both were armed with rifles and I saw him suddenly raise his and shoot at something I couldn't see from where we were circling. He went forward with the woman staying back to cover him as he did. We waited a few minutes, watching as the rancher walked around shooting several times at what I thought were wounded raiders. I told the pilot to land several hundred yards from the small building.

"You sure that's safe, Sir? I mean, any one of those raiders might be a carrier."

"Yeah, well all the more reason I need to talk to that rancher to tell him what he needs to do to make sure none of them start walking again. Besides, I need to get his name and location to report it to the fort."