Chapter 6

The only other thing that any of us could think of that we might want was night-vision goggles. There had been none left in the armory we just visited, but we would be on the lookout for other armories that might still have one or more.

We continued north and nothing of interest happened for the next three days. If the truth be told, some of us, at least, were getting a little bored at the lack of action. None of us wanted to get shot at, but it was getting kind of boring seeing the same old scenery hour after hour. We saw no towns that were not completely burned to the ground, and we found only one marina that had any gas at all. We were able to pick up 6 quarts of oil, but that was the limit of our good fortune.

At one point, we came to the mouth of a fairly large river and debated whether or not to explore it. We figured that we knew what we could expect to find along the Mississippi, so we decided to take a chance on the new river. There was so much junk in the Mississippi River that we would have had a hell of a time moving much farther upriver. We had now run beyond our decent maps, so we could not positively identify the river we saw, but it did look safe enough to give it a try.

The river turned east, and we figured that we were still in Illinois, so the river might well lead to an important city. If it did, we might be able to find some useful maps. Even a highway map would be better than what we had. About 15 miles up the new river was a town that had not been completely destroyed by fire. We guessed that this might be Moline, IL, and maybe we could find something useful there.

We found a place to dock; it wasn't a marina, but it looked more like a place for docking cargo barges. Anyway, there was plenty of open space, so we had no trouble finding a place to park. This was pretty late in the day, so we just took a quick scouting trip of only a couple of blocks from where we were docked before we shut down for the evening and had supper. Where we were looked reasonably safe, but we continued our guard rotation just to be on the safe side.

It was damned well that we made that decision, because, just as the sun rose we were awakened by shouts from the guards and the sound of gunfire. We were at a distinct disadvantage because we were staring into the rising sun, and the attackers were hiding in the shadows of the large warehouses that were still standing.

All we had to shoot at were muzzle flashes, but the shooters were so close that the muzzle flashes acted as a good marker. At the moment, we had plenty of ammunition, so we were all firing on full automatic. It wasn't exactly a spray and pray situation, but it did get close to it at times. A count of the muzzle flashes indicated that there were 14 people shooting at us, and we had 10 people to shoot back. At that time, nobody in our group still held any fear of shooting in self-defense, so even the women were doing their part with their shotguns.

We had now reached the point where we had been shot at often enough that we had put up breastworks to provide some protection. Anyway, there was a lot of shooting, but none of our people were hit. On the other hand, we were sure that we had heard several screams of pain as if we had been able to hit somebody who was shooting at us. The battle lasted about 20 minutes, and then it faded away as our attackers vanished.

Well, that was exciting, and it did wake everybody up. The women all gathered in our galley to fix breakfast while we men stood guard. The women brought us food at our posts, but there was no more shooting. After an hour of quiet, we decided that the attackers had left, but the next question was whether or not the city was worth investigating if it was populated by people who had rather shoot than talk.

We held a Council of War and decided that the city was not worth investigating. We decided to return to the middle of the Mississippi River and examine that crap that was blocking our passage north. If we could spot an easy way through the debris, then we would keep heading north. On the other hand, we still had a lot of the Mississippi River south of us that we had not investigated, and when that was combined with the thought of the approaching winter cold weather, we could head south with a clear conscience.

We headed back to the Mississippi and got there before lunchtime. We ate a light lunch and started to search for a clear channel headed upriver. We only had to make a cursory examination to see that a bridge had fallen across the river and was blocking it from shore to shore. We could not see any way around the fall of the bridge, so that seemed to settle the question: we decided to head south!

The trip south was begun at our most economical speed; that is, the speed that conserved the most fuel. We had already done a reasonably thorough job of checking out any possible source of fuel, and we were really concerned about being able to find enough gasoline to continue our trip even as far as St. Louis.

We thought we could find enough regular gasoline to satisfy our needs, but we were not sure how long our engines would last using that for fuel. It was suggested that we switch to diesel engines, but none of us had any idea where to find such engines. On the other hand, our two people with some chemical experience did say that they might be able to distill regular gasoline to purify it enough for us to run it in our current engines. John and Vivian, him a chemical engineer and her a chemist, said that they could not do the job quickly, but they were willing to try if we could find material for a suitable still.

We seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place! The only solution we could think of was to use the distilled gasoline, but the question then was where would we find a suitable still? John and Vivian said that our best bet for that was probably to find a college or university that had a chemistry lab. Even if they could not find a functioning still that we could use, they could probably construct one from various components they found in the lab. That's what we decided to do when no other ideas were forthcoming.

The nearest likely source of the still we were looking for that anybody could place with any certainty was in Cape Girardeau, MO, and that was south of St. Louis. We simply did not know whether or not we could nurse our fuel that far, but we could try because we did not have any other choice!

We started south and nursed our fuel along the way as best we could. At least, we did have the advantage of the river's current pushing us in the direction we wanted to go, but that still left us in a very chancy situation. On top of that, we would be in trouble if we had to run from river pirates. Of course, if we were unforgivably lucky, we might be able to capture a river pirate's boat and steal his fuel. On that happy note, we all secretly hoped that we would see a river pirate before our fuel ran out.

Further discussion that evening over supper prompted a way for us to hedge our bets. We could use that small boat that Bill and I had started our trip on to scout for additional standard marine fuel. The motor was tiny and did not use much fuel, but the boat was fast if we stripped out everything that was not absolutely needed. I proposed that Jess, the former Ranger, and I take automatic weapons and our pistols and scout ahead of our little flotilla to look for sources of fuel. We might be lucky, and it would not cost us very much to try.

Sue and Naomi were not overly enthusiastic about the idea, but everybody else thought it was worth trying. Therefore, the next morning, Jess and I transferred the boat to the water and set out ahead of the flotilla. We were still so far north that we were not on our maps, so we decided to do a close inspection of both shorelines to see what we could find. It might be that we had missed a marina in our trip north, or we might see a boat where we could grab the fuel. Either prospect was enough to justify our excursion, so we started out with me doing the driving and Jess acting as spotter.