Dan and the Bottle Ch. 22

"What... what happened?"

"You had a heart attack, babe. Doctor Grodna says it was actually a pretty mild one. You're going to be here for a while, though. He said he wants to keep an eye on you for a few days."

"I can't stick around here... I've got classes to teach..."

"Not anymore, you don't. Don't worry, we've got someone else teaching the kids."

"Who?"

"Your son."

"Oh." That was alright, then... Junior was an experienced scout.

At that moment, a nurse walked in, a stethoscope hanging from her neck, a blood pressure cuff in one hand, and a digital thermometer in her pocket.

"Ahhh... Mr. Archer... finally awake. Good... we were worried about you for a while, there."

He shot a look at his wife, who nodded and answered his unspoken question.

"You've been asleep for three days, hun."

"No wonder I feel so groggy... I need to get up, get back to work."

A male voice replied "Absolutely not!" from the doorway. It was Doctor Grodna.

"You're going to stay in that bed for at least another two days... I've got you scheduled for an ultrasound of your heart this afternoon, and an MRI tomorrow morning. As of right now, you're on vacation for at least another two weeks. No telephones, no radios, no classes to teach, and no physical exertion. No stress of any kind, do you hear me?"

"Doc, you've got to give me something... If I have to sit around in this room staring at the walls, I'll go stir crazy."

"Not to worry... we already thought of that. We've got a DVD player hooked up and ready to go, and your wife brought in a bunch of DVDs for you to watch. I want you to rest, relax, and forget about training recruits and holding classes for a while. Doctor's orders!" He concluded with a grin.

Jim gave a weak smile and nodded. "Ok, Ok, you win... I know if I fight you on it, my wife'll jump in on your side."

Jan smiled and nodded. "Damn straight. You can't keep pushing yourself, old man."

" 'Old man!' Get your ass up here, woman, I'll show you an 'old man'!"

She grinned at him, replying "Like you could get it up right now!"

He used two fingers under it to raise up the sheet in his lap... to a height of at least two feet.

"Oh, yeah? What do you call this?"

"Delusions of grandeur!" She shot back, before turning to the doctor. "Doc, is there any room in the psych ward?"

He grinned, playing along. "Oh, I think we can find room for him."

Jim looked from one to the other and back. "Don't get any ideas. Once you get those tests out of the way, I'm outta here."

The doctor just looked at him for a minute, shaking his head. Turning to leave, he began muttering to himself... only Jan heard him utter the words 'Stubborn old fart!'

She turned back to her husband, mildly amused, but with concern in her voice.

"Jim, he's right... you can't keep pushing yourself like this. Let the younger generations start taking up some of this stuff. You're seventy two. You and I should be enjoying life right now."

"I know, honey, but I can't just lay around... collecting dust like a piece of furniture.

If I'm not active, I don't feel alive."

She smiled and reminded him, "You felt pretty 'alive' last week, before all this happened."

He grinned, remembering... she'd been on top most of the time, but it still felt good to make love with his wife from time to time.

Mike O'Connell sat back on an old, folding lawn chair on the extensive front yard of his ranch, looking over the seven men before him. Three of them- Markovitch, Hughes, and Gregson- had their hands tied together before them; another, who he didn't know, was in the same state. He had been driving the big pickup towing the cattle trailer, which they had been loading up with His cattle when his people had caught them red handed.

"So... what should I do with you four?"

"Let us go... or our boss will..."

"Your boss will do what? Bring his 'army' up here? For a couple of low rent cattle rustlers? I've got news for you punks... let him. Then me and the other ranchers in this area can kill him, too."

Shifting his gaze to his men, he nodded. "Hang signs around their necks that say 'cattle rustler', then hang them, out at the edges of the property."

They were still protesting as they were led away.

Colonel Wenn was awakened by the sounds of helicopters approaching, and fast. At first, his sleep-fogged mind said it was some of the Hinds, coming back from patrol; the pitch was wrong, though. Besides, this sounded like a whole pack of choppers, and he only had two that were in any condition to fly, currently. The parts to fix the other three were months late. His mid-California base was always on the backside of the supply chain, or so it seemed.

He was jarred out of this thought process moments later, as the three Blackhawks, four Apaches, and four Cobras went to work, launching dozens of rockets into every corner of the base, destroying barracks, warehouses, and the hanger indiscriminately.

He ran out of his quarters in his underwear, just in time to avoid being blown up by the two Mavericks that hit his small house simultaneously. He ran out into total chaos, as A-10 Warthogs and Hawker Harriers crisscrossed the airspace above, strafing the entire grounds with 30mm cannon and 20mm Vulcan fire, chewing up the grounds further and making hamburger out of any man foolish enough to stand still for more than a few seconds.

His last thought, as the minigun mounted on one of the Apaches targeted him, was that he would never see China again.

Colonel 'Blackie' Hendrix smiled in satisfaction from the seat of the ancient Huey Cobra. A good day's work. There were a few Chinese still standing, but they were running in every direction, clearly terrified at the actions of the 'crazy Americans'. He wouldn't be real surprised if they ran straight to the coast and tried to swim back to their homeland. He grinned as the thought crossed his mind, actually hoping they'd try it.

After all, the coastal sharks needed to eat, too.

With that amusing thought in mind, he clicked his throat mic. "All aircraft, return to base. Repeat, RTB."

They left behind an area that looked much like it had been raked... by a farmer with a grudge.

Jim Archer climbed out of the passenger seat of the old golf cart, grudgingly using the cane that had been provided for him by the hospital wing. Doctor Grodna had wanted him to stay for a few more days, but he refused to miss his son's wedding, and he wouldn't ask anyone to postpone it while he was recovering.

As he walked in, everyone in the hall stood, some of the men in full dress uniform; these, as one, turned to face him and saluted with parade ground precision.

He stopped, shifting the cane to his left hand, and returned their salutes crisply.

Jan stood, watching as her husband spotted her and made his way to her side. They watched in amusement as Jim Junior was told 'You may kiss your bride'; Debbie had to redirect his hand away from her ass as he kissed her hungrily... slipping her the tongue in the process.

The thought running through his mother's head went back nearly fifty years; his father had done the same with her, on their wedding day. 'Like father, like son!'

Later, at the reception in Mama Maria's, he and Jan watched as the happy couple danced for the first time as man and wife. Jim shot a look at his wife. "Did you set it up?"

She nodded. "Two bottles of ten year old Champagne, one in an ice bucket, the other in the fridge, and three big doobies in the ashtray. Is that really a 'family tradition', though?"

He smiled... "Yup... goes back to Great Grandpa Dan and Grandma Barb. Grandpa Dan had his sister in law set it up for himself and his bride on their wedding night, and we've done it in every generation since, according to the family histories... although he had some other things waiting, too... video concerts, caviar, some other things he bought off the internet, back when that still worked."

Don Anderson sat in a chair in the hospital room, looking on as one of the floor nurses took the patient's pulse, temperature, and other vital signs. He felt a dull rage wash through him; this was one of his men, who had been on a recruiting trip when he and his partner had been ambushed by bandits. Jim Lautner had been in surgery for nearly six hours while the surgeons had removed eleven bullets from his mangled body, struggling to re-inflate one of his lungs and repair several torn arteries.

Jim cracked an eyelid open, and saw that he was in the hospital, and that Don was sitting in the room with him. Looking down over his body, he saw that he was bandaged in a number of places, some of the white patches showing small amounts of blood. He looked over at Don, who had his nose buried in a book at the moment.

"Where's Marcy?"

Don looked up, trying to think of a way to break it to his old friend; how do you tell a man that his girl died on the table? The look on his face said it all, though...

"I'm sorry, Jim... the doctors did all they could, but..."

"Oh, God, no..."

Mark Mills set the bolt cutters aside and pulled the remains of the old lock off of the door to the storage locker. He, Whitey Gallagher, and Tom Cornwall had come out here from the O'Connell ranch with instructions from the boss and the promise that he could have first pick of whatever they found. So far, they hadn't found much, although a few boxes of fishing tackle had caught his eye. The rods and reels that were with them were nothing special, but he already had his own, an old Zebco that had been passed down from his grandfather.

There wasn't much in this one, aside from one box of hand tools and a decent quality CB radio, so he moved on to the next. He'd just cut the lock off when Tom gave a 'Whoop!' and came running out of the room he'd been digging through, a long gun in each hand.

One was a Weatherby, chambered in .30/06, and the other was a pretty standard Remington 870 shotgun in 12 gage. He walked over, mildly irritated that Tom would get so wound up over a couple of lousy guns... but before he could open his mouth, Tom disappeared back inside, running back out a minute later with three more long boxes, then three more, stacking them outside like so much cordwood. Whoever the owner of the storage locker had been, he must have been either a gunsmith, a dealer, or a serious collector. No sooner than he was finished bringing out the long boxes and the plastic cases, he began bringing out smaller cases, obviously handguns.

He abandoned the locker he'd just opened to run over, looking into the one Tom was just coming out of again, this time with an army surplus ammo can in each hand.

"Well don't just stand there like a little girl with her hand in her pants-gimme a hand!" Tom exclaimed.

Behind him in the locker, dozens of the steel boxes were still stacked against the wall.

Mark reached for the small radio at his belt, clicking the mic button. "Whitey, are you there?"

"Yeah, go ahead."

"Bring the truck over here... Tommy boy's just hit the mother lode."

"You're gonna have to wait... I'm in a good one myself."

"What have you got?"

"I'm not sure... looks like the guy was some kind of survivalist. Got a shitload of garden seeds... must be a hundred big jars of them, all labeled. Everything from carrots to watermelons." He paused for a moment, then continued. "Got a ton of camping gear and a shitload of books, too. You might want to send someone for the second truck."

Mark nearly slapped at his forehead... all the other truck held, currently, was their traveling supplies; it was mostly empty. It wouldn't hold everything here, but it was a place to start. He went, himself, and pulled the old Chevy around, then started unloading the supplies, so they could go back in last. While he was doing this, he replied to Whitey.

"Okay, well, hurry it up... we've got about twenty guns and a shitload of ammo here."

"Copy that."

In the end, the two lockers filled both trucks, and the tools and fishing gear Mark had found filled in the corners. It was nearly midnight before they got home, exhausted but happy with the day's work they'd put in.

Mike O'Connell watched as the boys unloaded the big truck, then the smaller one, almost ready to turn cartwheels upon seeing the contents. With all of the rifles, shotguns, and pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, the Lone Star Guard was about to take a quantum leap forward... and just when he'd thought he'd seen it all, Tom pulled three big storage tubs to the tailgate of the smaller truck, telling the men who were running the new supplies to the various supply rooms and workshops to take them to the reloading shop.

When Mike lifted an eyebrow at this, Tom answered the unspoken question.

"Reloading powder, bullets, and a big progressive press... plus a couple of die sets. .45 ACP, .30 caliber carbine, 9mm, and 5.56. Should come in handy."

"Excellent... we can always use more equipment. I don't suppose you found any other supplies?"

"Powder scales, case trimmers, two cases of small rifle primers, another case of pistol primers... lots of good stuff. Got a bunch of good camping gear, too... I want one of those Weatherby's for myself, by the way."

"Done. Anything else good up there?"

Tom nodded. "Next time we go out there, we need to take about a dozen trucks, with trailer hitches. There's eight or nine good boats there, and a bunch of travel trailers... they'd make good spare bunkhouses and command centers. About seven or eight good ol' pickups there, too... if we could bring 'em back here, get 'em runnin' again, they'd make good farm trucks. They're a bit rusty, but who gives a shit what they look like?"

Mike nodded, scratching at his chin for a minute, giving him time to think.

"Okay... take a few days off, figure out how many people you need, what kind of equipment and supplies, plan on heading back out there on Thursday."

Don Anderson directed his snipers to either side of the small village, surrounding the bandits as they partied. They had apparently just come back from a successful raid; one of their number was pulling a rope, that was strung around the necks of a short string of women. He clicked his throat mic.

"Everyone in position?"

When everyone had answered, he took three deep breaths to steady himself and took aim at the leader, who was taking a deep swig from a jug of moonshine.

"Open fire, gentlemen." He said as he squeezed the trigger, taking the bandit leader through the throat.

As the bandits started dropping like flies, a woman's voice came through his earpiece.

"Watch who you're calling a 'gentleman', buddy!" It was Louanne Willis, who he could see, off to one side, picking off anyone who got close to the women they'd brought in to the camp.

Within twenty minutes, there wasn't a live bandit left in the camp.

Don, John, Louanne, and Don's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Suzie, walked into the camp, reassuring the female prisoners that they were now safe, and a brief search of the camp turned up several more, women who had been used for the bandit's pleasure for weeks; and in a few cases, months. That only one had been wounded in the crossfire was a small miracle in itself.

An extensive search of the place turned up numerous firearms, a large cache of ammunition, and all manner of ill-gotten gains, mostly food.

Jim Archer, junior, and his young wife Debbie were off on their honeymoon, tooling around in a small, restored GMC motorhome, towing a small boat behind them. They were headed for the Black Hills national forest, which, if their maps were accurate, was mostly still a pristine area, and perfect for a romantic getaway.

Of course, Jimmy's dad wouldn't leave his son defenseless... two Humvees full of veteran Scouts followed at a distance, just out of sight, loaded down with enough weapons to wage a small war.

Young Jimmy was no fool, for that matter... he had several rifles, an ammo can full of spare magazines, another full of grenades and spare rounds for his .458 H&H Magnum hunting rifle, and three Light Anti-Tank rocket launchers in the back of the vehicle. He would take no chances with the safety of his new bride.

The vehicle they were riding in was heavily modified, as well... the body was armored all the way around with alternating sheets of steel and Kevlar, and the glass was well over two inches thick. The engine was a hopped-up big block, and the fuel tanks, also heavily armored, held a combined total of slightly over three hundred gallons. The suspension and drivetrain were also beefed up, and the tires were of the 'run-flat' variety. He called it his 'vacation tank'.

They reached the old campground around noon, and Jimmy worked at setting up the campsite and launching the old bass boat, while Debbie got a head start on fixing them a lunch of sandwiches and Cave brewed beer. Jim had just finished setting up a fire pit, and was scrounging for firewood, when an old, beat up Chevy pick up pulled into the parking lot.

In the bed stood four men, all armed with shotguns, while the two men in the cab, once they got out, were holding pistols, and they were looking towards the camper with grins on their faces. All six of them were filthy, and three of them sported beards, while the other three looked barely old enough to shave.

"Well, looky here... looks like we got us a new camper!"

Debbie appeared at the door, tossing Jimmy his M-16, before stepping out with her own favorite in hand.

Jim smiled, an expression that never quite reached his eyes, and replied "Who dies first?"

One of the men in the front of the group started to raise his shotgun, and Jimmy squeezed the trigger on the under-barrel grenade launcher.

The grenade didn't get there fast enough, though; the beam from Debbie's laser rifle burned a hole in his chest three inches wide, and continued on to burn a hole in the side of the old pick up.

"Next!?" she calmly asked. Jim's launcher round hit the truck even as her beam did, the high explosive round making a real mess of the cab.

Three of the bandits dropped to the ground, writhing in pain from being hit by hot shrapnel and broken glass.

The remaining two stood there, gaping, for a second, until Jimmy opened up on them with the M-16; both flew backwards, and one discharged his shotgun harmlessly into the air as he fell backwards.

Lt. Mike Quislin looked up at the sound of the gunfire and mentally cursed, thinking to himself 'Can't leave the boy alone for a minute!' He and his men, the protective detail assigned by Jim Archer, Sr., looked around, but they were nearly half a mile back; the commander had given them specific instructions... don't intervene unless it was absolutely necessary. He clicked the mic at his throat and murmured "Holmes, Spear, Miller, go check it out... but stay behind cover, don't reveal yourselves unless you have to... the rest of you, go back to setting up camp."

The three men moved through the forest like ghosts; making their way to the campsite where Jim Jr. was setting up, they watched quietly as he and Debbie took the firearms from the dead and wounded raiders and ran the survivors off, telling them they were lucky he didn't just shoot the rest of them and leave their bodies for the animals. After disarming the survivors, he told them he'd give them a fifteen minute head start before he started hunting them for sport... but not before taking digital pictures of each one, telling them if they ever showed their faces in militia territory again, they'd be summarily shot.

They didn't have to think twice about it; they ran off down the road like their asses were on fire.

Jim chuckled as he collected the old guns that some of them had dropped and policed up the bodies, checking for extra ammunition. Then he dragged the few dead bodies into the woods, hauling them well away from the campsite, and came back with an armful of firewood.