The Dog Hunters: An Apocalyptic Ice Age Story Page 9

  They rode to the squawk and static of the CB, again. They passed cars parked on the side of the road, victims of expended fuel. One had a family that tried to flag him down. Clayton roared past.

  At nine‑thirty they came upon three more cars that were abandoned in the middle of the road. One had been burned. All three had the same dusting of snow the road had. That meant it was yesterday’s tragedy. Clayton drove past. He wouldn’t make the mistake of stopping again, but Danielle stared, praying there wasn’t another baby being left behind.

  When they reached Bandon, Clayton turned south onto 101.

  Five miles further south they passed a man, a woman, and a boy who were walking south. Walking to keep warm. Clayton wondered why they were without coats. They turned around to face the approaching van. The woman was holding a baby and Emily sunk her head into her hands when she saw them and moaned. Maybe they were from the cars a half hour back. Clayton drove on.

  Seven miles later they could see another family on foot ahead. They walked in the middle of the southbound lane. More refugees. The light snowfall continued. The family stopped and faced them as they approached. Clayton drove to give them a wide berth but the man suddenly ran out in front of him waving a rag. Clayton tried to swerve to avoid him and the impact was sickening. The windshield cracked into an irregular mosaic about nine inches across. Emily screamed incoherently and the man somehow held onto the front of the van, getting a foothold on the bumper as it sped along.

  “Stop, Daddy, stop!” Danielle screamed.

  The man’s eyes pleaded as he tried to maintain a hold on the van.

  Clayton swerved back and forth across the road trying to shake him loose. But he clung fiercely and his face, bleeding from the impact, was pressed against the fractured glass. The desperation there was a look Clayton had never seen before. Clayton realized he too was screaming—at the man. Everyone was screaming. Everyone but Robert. Abruptly, the man lost his grip and fell under the van. There was a sickening thump as the undercarriage hit him. Clayton couldn’t look in the mirror as he drove on.

  “You son of a bitch!” Clayton screamed hysterically at the man. “You fucking son of a bitch!” He was crying.

  Emily, Danielle, and Whoops were still screaming. Robert was still silent. Clayton had to grip the steering wheel tightly to keep from shaking.

  “You fucking son of a bitch. You fucking son of a bitch,” Clayton repeated endlessly.

  A voice on the CB came in clearly and promised Christ would save you; Jesus would keep you warm, then another voice, competing with the first, shouted, “Get off my channel, George!” More quarrelling. More savagery.

  Clayton turned it off, slowed down to avoid losing control on the sand and gravel that coated the asphalt. He clutched the wheel and drove on. He wouldn’t look at his wife.

  At noon they pulled off the road behind some trees, just north of Port Orford, and Clayton saw that the temperature had climbed to twenty‑two. He set up the camp stove and Emily fixed cereal for Whoops and sandwiches for the rest. Only Whoops and Robert ate.

  “What would you have done?” Clayton suddenly asked them. All of them. “We can’t stop and help everybody.”

  “I would have stayed back in Yakima,” Emily said.

  “We’d die back there,” Clayton shouted.

  “Maybe that’s the way it should be,” she said.

  “You just don’t get it!” he shouted and she said nothing more.

  They packed up and drove on. Over the CB they heard a plea for help. Someone offering money, food, and clothing for a lift. They had a baby. Look for a gold Lincoln on Route 18. He didn’t know where Route 18 was and, with the skip, it might be hundreds of miles away.

  He manually turned to another channel and locked it in.

  Miles went by. They passed through Port Orford without seeing a soul, and at 1:00 p.m. they passed through Gold Beach and travelled over the hill called Cape Sebastian. On the other side, as they passed over the Pistol River, a white dog came up from under the bridge and ran along the shoulder on the ocean side of the road.

  “Look, Dad, a malamute, just like Buddy,” Robert said referring to the dog they had had three years before, but got rid of when the food shortages started.

  The dog saw them coming and ran out onto the road.

  “Can’t we pick it up?” Robert asked.

  “There’s no room for dogs in this world, anymore,” Clayton snapped as he swerved and drove past.

  “Could we stop and give it some food? He looks hungry.”

  Clayton kept driving and Robert pressed his face against the side window and watched the dog disappear from view.

  A few miles later two police cruisers materialized like ghosts from behind the trees and blocked the road up ahead. Clayton hit the brakes and skidded to a stop. Two pickups seemed to come from nowhere and moved in to block the road from behind. Men emerged from all four vehicles and quickly surrounded the van. Clayton’s instinct was to grab the revolver. But there were at least a dozen men standing there and all were armed. He slid the Blackhawk under the seat.

  “What do they want?” Emily asked.

  “Just stay calm,” Clayton answered.

  “Why are there cops out here in the middle of nowhere?” she asked.

  “Shut up,” he said. “Let me handle this.”

  A red-headed cop with a moon-face walked slowly up to the van. He stopped and stood back from the window on Clayton’s side of the van.

  “Get out mister—alone,” he said to Clayton.

  “I’m staying right here,” Clayton said.

  “We can shoot that van full of holes then drag your bodies out, if you want it that way.”

  Clayton took a deep breath then slowly opened the door and cautiously stepped out onto the road.

  “What do you want, officer?”

  “I want to see your hands at all times,” the cop said.

  Clayton held his hands up with his palms out and in view.

  “Turn and put your hands on the side of the van,” the cop instructed.

  Clayton did as he was told. The chill of the van’s metal was painful to his hands.

  The cop stepped up behind him and swung his foot between Clayton’s feet, kicking the insides of his ankles.

  “Spread ‘em good,” he said, and Clayton did.

  They searched him, emptying his pockets.

  “You stay right there,” the cop said. “Now, everyone else get out real slow. No coats, I want to see what you got.”

  They got out and stood on the road: Emily, Danielle, and Robert. Emily held the baby in her arms.

  The cop looked them over. He smiled at Danielle. “Get over here with your family,” he said to Clayton, and he did.

  Several men started to go through the van while two others stood with rifles and watched Clayton and his family. Clayton couldn’t bring himself to admit what was happening and instead wondered what they wanted.

  “What’s your name?” one of the older men asked Danielle. He was the biggest of the cops, with huge hands, large ears, and thick lips. His only uniform was a police jacket with a badge. Otherwise, he was wearing jeans and he looked more like a farmer. She didn’t answer him. He kept looking her over and smiling. She looked away. She heard someone call him “Hank.”

  The men removed the gas cans, the boxes of food, and clothing. They started removing the tools. “What’s this shit?” one asked. There were air wrenches, a metal lathe, drills. Two of the men huddled for a moment then they started throwing the tools and the empty gas cans onto the shoulder.

  “Look at this,” another said and showed his companion a cell phone. They both laughed before the man sent it sailing into the woods like a skeet that gently curved in the air before it dove through the branches and fell to the forest floor.

  One of them took the M1A and handed it to another who started walking back to the pickups.

  Clayton walked toward the van. “Hey, leave that alone. That’s my property.”
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  The big man called Hank stepped forward and punched Clayton in the stomach. Clayton bent over and backed away clutching his gut.

  Emily screamed. “Leave him alone, you bastard.”

  The men turned away and ignored them and Clayton watched as they started loading the van again with the gas cans and tools, the boxes of clothes, and the food. At least they were leaving something, he thought, and hoped they wouldn’t find the revolver. Then one of the men climbed in behind the wheel and started the van. A police car backed off the road and the driver drove the van away.

  “Where are you going with my van?” Clayton screamed.

  No one answered.

  “What are you doing to us,” Clayton yelled.

  “You quiet down, boy,” the moon-faced cop said. The others called him Barry. “Things could be worse,” he said.

  “I want my goddamned van back.”

  “Hey, mister, you watch your mouth.”

  “What are you doing to us?”

  “Nothing, if you behave yourself.”

  They started walking back toward their cars and trucks.

  “You can’t just leave us here with nothing,” Clayton yelled.

  Three men lingered and conferred. They looked back at Clayton and his family several times. They were talking about something.

  “Please, help us,” Clayton begged them. “Please, you can’t do this.”

  The three of them walked back toward Clayton. The trucks and the police cars had their engines idling.

  “Take us with you,” Clayton asked. “We’ll carry our weight. Please.”

  They ignored him but the big man, Hank, suddenly grabbed Danielle’s arm and started dragging her away.

  “Hey,” Clayton shouted and stepped forward but was pushed back.

  “Daddy,” she screamed.

  “Come on,” Hank said.

  “No,” she yelled and kicked him. He threw an arm over her shoulder and got her in a head lock. She was helpless.

  Clayton knew what they were doing. “Leave my daughter alone,” he yelled and lunged forward.

  One of the men hit him with the butt of a rifle and Clayton fell to the ground and the man kicked him. The other two dragged Danielle toward a truck.

  Emily cried, baying like a wounded cow. She started walking toward the trucks holding Whoops out. “If you’re gonna leave us, take the baby,” she sobbed. “Please take the baby.”

  A man pushed her away.

  “Let Danielle take her,” she cried.

  Danielle screamed to her father and mother and struggled to get out of the cab of the truck. One of the men started beating her with his fist.

  Emily dropped to her knees before another man. She wasn’t crying now. She held Whoops out before him. Her voice was frighteningly steady and insistent. “Let my daughter take the baby. For Christ’s sake, be human.”

  The man’s name was Jerry Brady. He looked at her. His face contorted and he suddenly took the baby and walked to the truck where Danielle sat and handed Whoops to her.

  Danielle clutched her sister and screamed, “Mommy! Help!”

  “Thank you,” Emily said to Brady. She pointed to Robert, but the man shook his head.

  “Please!”

  He walked away.

  They got into a pickup truck and, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the police cars and the trucks were gone.

  Clayton, Emily, and Robert sat on a guardrail alongside the road.

  It was a little after four p.m. when a caravan of about forty cars and trucks raced by. Clayton tried to wave them down. He saw faces in the windows as they passed. Faces that would not turn to look at his own. He saw a station wagon with boxes and tires on top that was pulling a U‑Haul trailer and he was sure it was the station wagon he had left behind on the road. The caravan disappeared and Clayton and his family were enveloped in silence again.

  He sat down on the guardrail again and waited.

  The temperature was falling and the snowfall was getting heavy. Robert was crying from the cold and Emily sobbed.

  Sometime after 7:00 p.m. Robert stopped crying. Clayton looked at him. He had turned grey and was shivering from the cold. Emily was no longer sobbing. She stared out into the road. It was getting dark. There was nowhere to go, but Clayton knew they would have to walk tonight if they expected to keep warm.

  Chapter 3

  August 26

  The sound of breathing woke Zach. He rolled over in the burrow and reflexively grabbed the Model 60 revolver near his head. He was already squeezing the trigger as he shook off sleep and found himself staring into the eyes of a medium-sized malamute, all white except for a single patch of grey on its right shoulder. The hammer was almost all the way back. A little more and the sear/trigger engagement would break, the hammer would drop, and a bullet would send the canine straight to doggy hell.

  Startled by the swiftness of Zach’s reaction, the dog backed up but neither attacked nor ran. It stared at him and its tail began to wag. Then, ever so gingerly, it stretched its neck to smell the gun’s muzzle.

  It almost made Zach laugh. Carefully, he let the trigger return to its original position and the hammer gently came to rest against the frame. He slowly sat up and looked around. There was fresh snow everywhere.

  The dog lowered itself onto its haunches and watched him.

  Zach couldn’t believe his incredible luck. But he didn’t want to waste a cartridge, and a shot could draw unwanted attention to him. Loners weren’t tolerated by the two gangs that lived along this segment of the 101. Discovery could be fatal.

  The dog started to sniff around. This was no feral dog. From the number of tracks in the campsite, it had been exploring for quite a while as Zach slept.

  He shoved the revolver into his pocket and grabbed his rifle as he slid out of the sleeping bag and the burrow. Where there was a nonferal dog, there were sure to be people. But there was no evidence of anyone for as far as he could see, and only the dog’s footprints appeared in the snow.

  The prints went out into the field behind them, then doubled back. Looking down onto the road, he could see where it had come from the north, along the far shoulder. Its tracks were unaccompanied and even now they were disappearing beneath the still-falling snow.

  He was sure neither of the gangs kept dogs, they were too expensive to maintain. So he wondered where this one came from.

  It was meat and it would be a shame to let it go to waste. He’d already eaten most of the food he’d brought, and with the meat from this animal he could stay out another few days and not have to go back to his cabin. There wasn’t much to the dog. It was skinny. But every bite counted.

  “Where’d you come from?” Zach whispered.

  At the sound of his voice, the dog got off its haunches and came to him.

  “Get away,” Zach commanded. He didn’t want to become friendly with it. The dog backed up a step and sat down, again.

  Zach looked around once more to ensure they were alone and the dog got up and sniffed his pack. Zach knew it could smell the goat jerky and rye bread inside. It was hungry.

  “Get away from that,” Zach threatened.

  The dog backed off again, but soon stepped forward to smell Zach’s sleeping bag.

  “If you lift a leg to piss on that, I’ll put a bullet up your ass.”

  Each time he spoke, the dog regarded him curiously. It was used to people.

  The snow picked up. Now, even the dog’s most recent tracks would soon disappear.

  He would have to be fast. He got out his skinning knife. He’d slit its throat. It would be quick, clean, and quiet. “Quiet” was most important if its master or anyone else was nearby. He would skin it, dress it out, and use its brains to start tanning the hide. He could do all this and have the meat packed in less than an hour.

  The dog was now lying on the sleeping bag. It sniffed the pack, again, saw Zach watching him, so he put his head down and pretended to ignore it, though it was mere inches from his muzzle
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  Then Zach heard vehicles. He fell down on the snow so as not to be seen from the road. The dog didn’t move. He watched it wondering if it would get up. If someone saw it from the road and stopped there could be a firefight. He’d managed to avoid all such confrontations, but for one, in the last three years.

  He clicked the safety off on his old M1 Garand rifle and watched from behind some brush as a caravan went by. There were automobiles, trucks, and vans. Three pulled trailers, the rest didn’t.

  Just as suddenly as they appeared they were gone leaving nothing behind but fresh tracks on the road.

  He waited. Nowadays, the caravans usually came in more than one section: twenty or thirty cars and trucks in the lead followed a minute or so later by another twenty or thirty vehicles. Sometimes there were three sections. It was a strategy emigrants had adopted so if part of the caravan got in trouble the others could come to its aid. The road pirates were aware of the strategy and pretty much left the big caravans alone, now. It was the small groups and the loners who almost suicidally tried to make the trip alone that the pirates were likely to prey on.

  He pulled the bolt back on his M1 and ejected the round and pocketed it. It was a 165-grain boat-tailed soft-point. He saved these for hunting. He didn’t want to waste them in a firefight unless he had to. The remaining eight rounds in the en bloc clip were vintage armor-piercing rounds. He let the bolt slam home.

  The dog never moved.

  Then they arrived; a second string of vehicles. He lay low until it, too, had passed.

  Zach didn’t usually set up camp this close to the road. But he’d tracked a deer this far the day before and he’d made camp here before quitting for the night…he told himself it was a mistake he wouldn’t repeat.

  He waited and listened. There were no other sounds. That was the entire caravan.

  He wondered if the dog lived locally. He wasn’t aware of any settlement within five miles of where he’d camped that kept a dog like this. But who knew? People had gotten good at hiding in the hills. He had. It could also have been turned loose or lost by one of the carloads of emigrants. Perhaps someone whose car broke down.