The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Disclaimer – This story contains mind control and sex. If these things are not to your liking, don’t continue reading. This story is actually more story than sex so if you are just interested in the sex, you may wish to pass on this one. I will continue to write this story, but if I receive feedback from people that enjoy it and want more, the additional chapters are likely to get written more quickly.

Fallen Future

Chapter 13 – Ambushed

The years from 2011-2016 were interesting years for the world. Over the course of those years an observer could have watched as Germany became insular once more, withdrawing from the EU since they claimed to be its only viable financial support. They would have seen the rest of the EU fall apart into fragments after Germany left, resulting in evidence for Germany’s assertions and engendering a massive hatred against the Germans by those in the rest of the former EU. They could have watched as fortunes were made (rarely), and lost (frequently) by those who, respectively, understood the new rules of the world and those who attempted to continue with business as usual. They could have noticed food become scarcer and scarcer in the non-developed countries. They could have seen China disintegrate from problems caused when they tried to emulate Western societies that were already having problems from the systems the Chinese copied. They could have watched as civil unrest erupted in the USA and US troops were deployed on US soil to ‘assist in managing the efforts to relieve the difficulties’ or in non-politician speak simply to quell the riots however possible.

Ever since 2008, Michigan had been one of the hardest hit states by the financial problems which beset the USA. Detroit, in particular, resembled a war zone in a third world country within a year or two of the onset of the problems. Buildings crumbled, houses were empty, things were destroyed for the materials that were found in them. A pound of copper could be sold to a scrap yard for enough money to eat for a day and there was copper aplenty in the walls of the abandoned buildings.

Unemployment in Detroit led the US rates throughout the time period with the ‘official rate’ around 30% and the unofficial rate (or true rate as most claimed) just over 50%. Needless to say civil unrest was a common concern in the area. The government used the US military as ‘relief troops’ to start giving away food supplies in the area. Unfortunately, since they determined the amount to send with the government’s doctored statistics, they never sent quite enough for everyone. After the fourth food drop a group of Detroit residents who were absolutely sure that the US military wouldn’t fire on US citizens got together and hatched a plan.

A short note here: Although females had not been given combat duties in out-of-country actions, there was no thought that there would be full combat actions in the US proper and so many of the ‘relief troops’ as they were called were female. In some in-country units, females made up the majority of the unit as the US still had many troops overseas trying to keep the oil pipelines open and flowing. The thought was that the females could be used in the US while the males would be shipped overseas. The females were still given combat training, ‘just in case’. In addition, those officers who were left in the USA were either those that needed time off from combat operations or, as the majority were, those who were truly incompetent but for one reason or another could not be drummed out of the armed forces.

When the fifth food drop was driven into Detroit and the military started to distribute it, a large group of civilians converged on the convoy armed with whatever weapons they could scrounge up. They were determined to get their share (and more) of this load since they knew there wouldn’t be enough to go around again. No-one knows exactly what happened, whether there was an accidental firearm discharge on the part of one of the mob, or an aimed shot at someone, but the end result was the same. When the officers involved in the food distribution heard a gun fire, they ordered the troops to drop the supplies and stand to arms. When the mob saw this occur, they were still positive that the troops wouldn’t fire into the crowd and continued to advance. The officers, already nervous from the duty in this area that looked like it had been bombed, commanded the mob to halt. The mob refused, or perhaps didn’t hear, and continued to advance. The order to fire was given and, while many of the troops wouldn’t fire on US citizens, some would and did. As a result, the attack on US citizens by the US military made the history books.

Note that I only said the history books. A fair number of the soldiers from that group survived to tell the story later on which is how it became common knowledge. The mainstream media (MSM) never covered it. Instead they reported that two mobs of individuals in Detroit attacked one another for some unknown reason, perhaps gang related, resulting in 273 deaths, 0 wounded.

The food drops to Detroit ceased and many inhabitants starved as a result. In a textbook definition of insanity, the same units were given the same job months later in Nevada. In Nevada the overall state unemployment rate was even higher than the average in the state of Michigan. No one city was as hard hit as Detroit and its surrounding areas though so perhaps they thought the procedure might work better there. The food drops worked in Nevada for half a year before the unemployment rate had climbed high enough that once more mobs were showing up and only half of them were getting food. The officers, now with a guilty conscience and even more afraid of violent mobs, started acting nervous as the crowds grew larger.

Many of the troopers who hadn’t fired in Detroit noticed this and started discussing it amongst themselves. They decided that if the order to fire on US citizens was given again that they would not fire and would leave en masse. They worried about the portions of the units who had fired in Detroit but a half-hearted decision was made that they wouldn’t fire upon them unless they attempted to stop the other troops from leaving. Those who had fired in Detroit made up only about 20% of the unit so they were sure that there wouldn’t be much trouble if there were any.

Finally the day came when the mobs were obviously three to four times larger than what there was food for. The officers kept a close eye out, posted snipers to take out anyone in the mob that might try to lead them in a riot, and were obviously as nervous as a nude female virgin at a frat house party. The day ended badly.

When the food ran out, those in the crowds who had yet to receive any started up a relatively peaceful chant: “We want food, We want food, We want food, ...” There were no weapons visible in the crowd, at least none being brandished. Still, as the crowd surged towards the trucks, the officers gave the order to stand to arms. The officers used bullhorns to try to get the crowd to back away, but even if those in the front wanted to, they were hemmed in by those in the back still pushing forward. Once more, the officers’ nerves gave way and the order to fire was given.

The small percentage who had fired on civilians in Detroit once more opened fire on the crowd. Despite the agreement to not fire on them, except under certain conditions, many of the remaining soldiers opened fire on those soldiers who were killing US citizens. The officers saw this and broke out their sidearms, attempting to kill ‘mutineers’ that were killing other soldiers. One intrepid sniper saw this and in short time the officers were no more. Chaos reigned supreme and a full riot had begun. A core of the soldiers that were reluctant to kill US citizens kept order together, seized several trucks and refueling vehicles, and shortly after darkness they left Nevada, fleeing to a nearby state.

The overwhelming majority of the military who escaped the riots, and the state of Nevada, were female. There were fifty-seven troops that managed to escape and of those forty-two were female. After a couple of repeatedly rebuffed sexual advances from the males, the fifteen male troops were given their own truck and told that they could stick with the others if their behavior improved, otherwise they should strike off on their own. When the trucks refueled after they got into the state of Colorado, the one truck containing all the men departed by a different route than the others.

A native of Colorado that was among the women suggested hiring out as guards to one of the precious metal mines still in the state. Recent news from the state had mentioned armed attacks on some of mines and their shipments and hiring on as guards was a way to keep food in their mouths. The suggestions was voted on and the end result was forty-two female guards signing on to guard the mines and shipments of the Cash and Rex mines in Boulder County, Colorado.

Bear Creek Canyon Park, Saturday afternoon:

Erica had backed off a bit after Katrina chatted with her. I didn’t eavesdrop, or even try to, as I thought it might be a bit hazardous to my health. I spent the time they chatted with each other by getting Monica and helping her bring all our gear down into the valley. When Katrina came back, she told me that Erica and her small unit (she had two more women with her besides Angela) would keep watch on the valley while we opened her caches and loaded up. She had also managed to finagle the use of two of the four pack horses that Erica had with her.

“I suppose that was a bit of a fight, Erica doesn’t seem like the type to give up anything easily.”

Katrina actually blushed, “Erica likes me quite a bit so it was not as hard as it might have been. Also, they are going to escort us back to your area. They had to go that general direction anyway and there is safety in numbers.”

I sighed, “Well, I suppose you’re right but I just don’t think she likes me in the least.”

“She thinks, correctly, that you have my affections, which she has always desired”, if anything Katrina’s blush was even more evident now, “and so she dislikes you. At the same time, she has always thought that I had good judgment so she is unsure as to what to think of you. Add in to that a general hatred of the male gender and I think that you may confuse her more than anything else. She spoke to you at least, many times when we have encountered men she has left the speaking to someone else.”

I shook my head, “Oh boy. This is going to be an interesting day or two, in the Chinese sense of ‘may you live in interesting times’.”

I didn’t know the half of it. As we looked over the burned out remnants of the house, Katrina pointed out a small cache that she had built into the wall. It had been opened and emptied.

“Damn it!”, she cursed, “That had my favorite .45 in it. It was a model 1911 Springfield that I had customized myself.”

She kicked a bit of burnt timber and moved out back towards the garden terraces. A small cliff near to the garden beds appeared to be her destination. When she got to the cliff, she bent over in two different places, then stood up and leaned into the rock face. A portion of it slid aside and she stooped over to enter. When she emerged she had a predatory grin on her face and a massive rifle in one hand.

The rifle was just evil looking, with a futuristic hint to it as well. In her other hand was a large ammo case, which looked quite heavy judging by the visible strain on her arm.

“What the hell?”, was about all I could come up with.

“This is my baby, just as Monica has her goat for a baby. I could not get to it when we were attacked and have cursed myself repeatedly for having it stored as far away from the house as it was. It is an M-107 and it fires a .50 Browning machine gun (BMG) cartridge. Now do you still believe I do not have the firepower to take down a bear?”

I made the wonderful rebuttal of having my jaw hang open, flapping in the wind. I’d seen enough news shows, movies, and the like prior to the Crash to know that that was a sniper rifle. It looked in prime condition, even down to its scope. I wanted to know where the hell she got it but I was almost afraid to ask. As I got my jaw closed and prepared to reply, Katrina sat down, pulled a cloth from the ammo case and spread it on the ground. She also pulled out a leather bag from the case and tossed it to me.

“I would like to contribute that to the family. Excuse me now, I have to check my equipment.”

I caught the sack, which weighed in at around a pound, and heard the distinctive clinking noises made by gold and silver. The surprises kept rolling in as I watched Katrina pull several spare magazines from the ammo case, followed by a pile of rounds. The freakin’ rounds looked like they weighed in at a quarter pound a piece, they were huge. Each individual round for the weapon looked like it was over five inches long. I couldn’t imagine being able to carry very many of them around but it looked like she had a hundred or so rounds in the case she had.

“Oh,” said Katrina, almost as an afterthought, “There are several more weapons and some more ammo cases in there if you’d like to get them out.”

I hastened to comply. The rest of the weapons were M4 Carbines, obviously military issue. There were another ten ammo cases in the cache as well. Eight of the ammo cases were 5.56X45mm NATO (for the M4s) while the remaining two were of the larger type and filled with .50 BMG. As I carried them out, Katrina offhandedly commented that those carbines would also accept .223 Remington with only a slight loss of accuracy should we need more ammunition.

Katrina had her ‘baby’ slung over her back with a spare magazine bulging out the front of a utility bag which she had slung to hang on her left side, just above her hips.

“Come”, she said, “We have two more caches to check.”

Katrina borrowed my entrenching tool and started to dig in the loose soil at the base of the hill in front of the terraced gardens. I took turns assisting her and found that the hardest part was keeping the soil from falling back into the hole. The top six inches or so of soil had been desiccated into a hard packed lid of sorts but below that the soil was very loose, soft, and easy to dig.

About two feet down we hit something solid. Katrina gently cleared the dirt away revealing a manhole cover. I wasn’t going to ask where it came from and how it got here since it was obviously functioning as a lid and had been stolen from someplace. I simply assisted her in removing it (which involved breaking a seal of some sort that had been placed below it) and getting it out of the hole. Moving the manhole cover revealed a section of corrugated piping (like they run under roads to divert water) large enough for me to have crawled through it it were horizontal on the ground. This piece had been placed vertical, filled with items, and used for a cache after the lid was added.

Katrina removed eight fully loaded, military style, duffel bags from this cache.

”Mostly MREs” she commented, “plus a few other odd pieces of equipment. It stays cold enough underground here that everything should still be just fine.”

She riffled through the bags, apparently running a checklist in her head.

“Yes, it is all here. I worried that Paul might have removed something. This cache was placed several years back and I was not here for most of those years. One more cache to go.”

The final cache was under a small outbuilding. The building had been burned down but a few minutes with the entrenching tool cleared a small area that contained a trapdoor. It looked like there had been a wooden floor over the trapdoor previous to the fire.

“This was originally a small root cellar, before we placed a larger one near the main house. When we completed the newer one I put some older equipment in here and built a false floor over the trapdoor.”

Katrina pulled at the trapdoor. I could tell it was sticking and offered to help. She just shook her head, grunted, and had it open within a few seconds of my offer. When she had gotten down into the cellar, the floor above was at the level of her sternum, evidently she hadn’t been kidding when she said small.

Katrina bent down and disappeared from sight. A slight rattle and the clank of metal let me know she was retrieving whatever she had cached in there. Within a couple of minutes she was handing things out of the hole.

From this cache she produced: A Ruger 10/22 rifle (.22LR), several older model handguns including both revolvers and pistols, a couple of cardboard cartons (nearly falling apart) containing ammunition for the weapons she had handed up first, and finally five cases of Mountain House #10 canned foods (for a total of thirty #10 cans).

“Well”, Katrina said, “that is what I will be able to recover. I am still upset about the house cache being found out but... I think it was still worth the trip.”

“I’d have to agree with you.” was my reply, “Some of these weapons are much better than the rest at my place and they’ve all got plenty of ammunition if we can get it all home. I won’t ask where some of it came from since a lot of it appears military but if you decide you want to share some origins, I’ve an open ear.”

“Maybe later”, she said, “For now I think we should feed our group and Erica’s with the Mountain House. That will make less to take with us and it is easy to prepare. No offense to your foods you brought but they take up less space than the cans. Better to take as much as we can with us as I have no desire to return here again after this trip.”

I agreed with her and we lugged everything over to where we would be camping. A small hatch style door set into the ground behind the burned out house covered the entry to the larger root cellar. We had determined that we would stay down inside of it tonight. Since it was underground, even colder weather up top would not affect us as much. Plus as long as there was ventilation, and there was since they had set the root cellar up correctly, I could burn more of the stove/heating candle to warm the interior.

We covered the pile of items retrieved from the caches with a tarp, Katrina’s ‘baby’ was not included in the pile. She wasn’t letting go of that rifle for anything or anyone as far as I could tell. She showed me where there was a hand pump nearby for getting water and told me the water was safe and clean to use for drinking and cooking. I set up one of my stove candles and got to boiling the water that would be necessary for the Mountain House food. I was going to have to heat several batches of water to rehydrate this much food but she was correct in that it was fairly bulky to travel with so we should use as much of it as we could.

Erica and company cycled through to get their dinner. I got to meet the other two members of her patrol at dinner. Elizabeth and Andy (short for Andrea) were the other two members. They came in for food first and Katrina introduced me. Erica and Angela came in for their own food after the first two were done. There was little talking and what there was related directly to the situation. Erica volunteered her patrol to keep watch this evening. They would use the watch stands they had been using and if an intruder showed they would fire off several rounds to warn us.

After they left I told Katrina I would prefer that we also kept someone on watch, she agreed with me as Erica’s group was camped maybe a quarter mile from our location and she didn’t feel they could keep a decent watch on our area either.

After dinner we did a test load on the trailer with a pile left over for the pack horses. It appeared we could take everything from here if we left behind one of the bags of feed. Alternatively we could leave a pair of the duffel bags and keep the feed with us. We retired into the root cellar to discuss the options.

The end result was that one bag of the feed would be left behind. The goats could probably graze enough to stay healthy between Jess’ and my property, the feed was just a treat for them and a way for them to not have go out if the weather were unpleasant. The MREs in the duffel bags had a much greater value as barter or sale goods though and we determined that that would probably be more important in the long run.

Monica wasn’t totally happy with the decision but I think she felt a bit intimidated by Katrina. Katrina’s attitude had adjusted dramatically when she regained her rifle, she was even more assertive and forceful than she had been previously. I think that the decision was made when Monica admitted that the feed was not totally necessary and just a treat and safety measure.

It was a good thing there was adequate ventilation in the root cellar. We had brought the goats down with us. Monica had staked them into one corner but I could tell that even with the ventilation things would probably still be a bit smelly in the morning. I didn’t begrudge the goats their spot though, a major reason we had come down to this area was to retrieve them and there was no other easy shelter to get them into in the area.

Once again, Monica volunteered to take middle watch, Katrina took first, and I took last. The watches, at least, passed peacefully. My off watches were not nearly as peaceful. Now both women had reason to be happy and grateful to me and they were both still on the pregnancy kick. I was fairly worn out by the time my own watch started but had given as good as I had gotten. The added benefit was that when I slept, I slept hard and well so I started my watch fairly refreshed.

We were doing our watches outside of the root cellar so I climbed up and planted myself nearby in a corner formed by remaining walls from the house. I couldn’t see back on to the terraced slope without leaning around the corner but my position blocked the winds nicely. About an hour before sunrise it started snowing, gently at first but increasing in volume as dawn approached.

When dawn arrived we had about an inch of snow on the ground. The sun breaking through the clouds slowed the remaining snow so we didn’t get much more accumulation but it was still cold enough that what had fallen didn’t thaw. I dropped back down into the root cellar and started a heater/stove up to do some breakfast. Once again we were using some of the Mountain House cans to try to lighten the load a bit. We had a can of eggs with bacon which allegedly provided sixteen servings. Between the seven of us we finished it easily, along with putting a dent into a can of pilot crackers as well. We distributed the rest of the crackers and then tried to get everything packed.

The two pack horses took most of the heavier items. I had to leave the remaining bag of feed grain in the bike trailer though as there was no good way to tie it on the horses without breaking the bag. Katrina made a gift of a couple of the duffel bags of MREs to Erica and the others from Hell’s Fury, making those their issue to pack. I re-inflated the trailer tire to ensure that the load would stay balanced. After that we managed to get everything else secured into place and started moving, or trying to. The initial snowfall had melted when it landed and there was a thin layer of ice under everything. Getting out of the valley involved pushing the bikes up the hill, with the mounted members of the group leading their horses. I was hoping that the highway would melt by the time we reached it or those upwards 5% grades just weren’t going to happen.

After we got out of the valley things went easily for a while. Once again our biggest problem was trying to maintain a slow enough speed to keep control. As the morning progressed ,the snow (and then the underlying ice) melted. By the time it finished melting, those of us on bikes were soaked to our knees with wet splashes reaching higher up our bodies in some places. It meant we definitely weren’t taking a break anytime soon. Wet clothes in forty degree weather, even with a bright sun, was a recipe for getting sick unless you kept working hard enough to stay warm.

The first half hour, or slightly more, was spent getting out of the valley. The remaining nine miles or so went by in an hour and a half due to the slightly downhill grade. As a result, we reached the highway within two hours or so of starting out.

The highway was mostly melted, although the shoulders of the road were shadowed in many places and still had built-up snow. We found out quickly that we would be pushing the bikes up many of the slopes involved but with only nine miles to go and having six or seven hours of sunlight remaining we still hoped to complete the trip in one day.

Katrina helped out a great deal here. She reached into one of the other duffel bags that did not contain food and pulled out a series of leather straps and bungee cords. When I looked at her quizzically she motioned for me to wait a moment and proceeded to strap them to one of the pack horses. She chose the one that had a noticeably lighter load and when she told me to pull up alongside with the bike trailer I was pretty sure that she had planned this previously.

The gear she had pulled out was an improvised attachment for a horse to drag a travois. With about five minutes of adjustment she had it rigged to pull the trailer. A few extra bungee cords across the top and back of the trailer and it looked like the load was nicely secured.

After that point we sped up a bit. We still had to walk the bikes on the steeper slopes but some that I would’ve been unable to pedal up with the trailer attached were rideable now. We made steady, if slow, progress through the steeper grades leading up into the mountains. We averaged slightly over walking speed on the steeper hills we could ride, walking speed or slightly under when we had to push the bikes, and much better on the infrequent downhill dips, although speed picked up in those would occasionally carry us partially up the next slope.

We made about four miles up the highway before we stopped for lunch. The next slope was the longest of the steep grades and was followed by a three mile stretch that was at a minimal upward slope. We figured we could average almost ten miles an hour in that section on the bikes. So far the horses, possibly with the exception of the one pulling the trailer, had had a pretty easy day of it. The ten mile an hour stretch wasn’t going to press them either but it might give them a chance to get a little exercise.

Lunch was the remaining pilot crackers. I also pulled out a treat I had stashed away for my small group when we were returning. It wouldn’t go nearly as far with seven to feed but I split the soft cheese I had brought. In addition I sliced up the can of meat (spam style) that I had brought as well. I was amazed at how well received it was. We still had quite a few of those cans that I had stashed prior to the Crash but our hunting and bartering had kept us in meat so we hadn’t had to use it. My thought in packing the meat and cheese was that it would be good extra energy for when we’d need it on the return trip.

In return for my sharing out the meat and cheese, one of the Hell’s Fury members (I think it was Elizabeth) broke out a few apples that were mostly in good shape and shared those out as well. Katrina, Monica, and I ate on the move mostly. Our clothes were still wet, the day was cool, and the sun frequently hid itself behind the clouds for as much as an hour at a time. After a half hour for our lunch break we continued on.

As we were climbing the next slope Elizabeth was on point. About half way up the slope she veered her horse over to a patch of shadow on the side of the road. She turned to call out something to Erica and we were all stunned as gunfire broke out. Elizabeth pitched from her mount and lay still in the road. Her horse started bucking as though it had been stung as well but, in the manner of well-trained mounts, did not step on her.

It took varying amounts of time for us to react. From what I could see Erica and Katrina reacted first. Erica spurred her horse towards Elizabeth, pulling out a rifle as she did so. Katrina dropped her bike and ran to the horse with the trailer. She pulled out a pair of hobbles and quickly placed them on the horse’s rear legs. She then dropped into position behind the trailer and broke out her ‘baby’. Using the trailer for cover she scanned the treeline in the general vicinity that the gunshots had come from.

Meanwhile, the rest of us caught up. I dropped my bike shortly after Katrina and called to Monica to do the same. I told her to take cover over the edge of the road away from the attackers. The side of the road the attackers were on rose rapidly for about a forty foot height increase in the first twenty feet off of the road. The other side of the road had a ten foot embankment with a gentle slope that ended in a cliff.

Angela dismounted and pulled out a rifle. Using the cover of her horse she was also scanning the treeline. Andy ran over to Katrina and said something. Katrina pointed and Andy wrestled open an ammo box to pull out a pair of binoculars. She settled in beside Katrina and scanned the treeline through the optics.

While all this occurred, Erica was drawing fire to herself. She returned fire, my guess is blindly, in the general direction that the gunshots came from. She kept herself as a moving target all the way to Elizabeth and then slid off of her horse, keeping it between her and the attackers.

I had my Mossberg in my hands, instinctively grabbed when I slid off the bike. I gently set it down and pulled the rifle from my back instead. Just like all the others, I started to scan the treeline. In a moment when there was no gunfire I heard Andy say something but couldn’t quite make it out. A second or two after that there was a roar that left my ears ringing and when I turned to the source of the sound I could see Katrina nodding vigorously as Andy told her something else.

My attention was drawn back to the side of the road by a scream. Erica had laid Elizabeth over the back of her horse and was in the process of remounting. It looked like she had taken a shot to her right arm in the process though. Even from this distance the arm looked disfigured and red. She ceased trying to mount and staggered back towards us, leading her mount with Elizabeth laid over the back.

There was another deafening roar, although it didn’t sound as loud as the first. I realized that my hearing hadn’t recovered from Katrina’s first shot yet so the second sounded softer. I then realized just how loudly Erica must have screamed in order for me to hear her.

Elizabeth’s horse was now lying flat on the road, having evidently provided some cover for Erica’s actions and taking bullets as a result. Softer sounds, like the cough of a baby, came from Angela’s direction and I looked to see her shooting at the treeline as well. Realizing that I was badly distracted I kept my eyes on the treeline and took cover myself. I put my rifle to my shoulder and noticed some movement the next time the attackers fired. I sent several rounds in that direction and then waited some more.

Meanwhile Erica had almost made it back to us. She was leaving a trail of blood across the road and I could see that her forearm had been shattered. I was amazed that she was still moving but she wasn’t for long. She collapsed about ten feet away from the rest of us. Elizabeth’s body started sliding off the horse when it began to skitter after Erica was no longer leading it. Looking around I could see that no-one else had noticed, their attention was focused on the treeline. When another loud roar came from Katrina’s direction I slung my rifle on my back, darted out, and grabbed Erica.

I was going to just grab her under her armpits and drag but I realized, just in time, that if I did so it was going to have her injured arm dragging through the dirt and over the concrete. I squatted and put her in a fireman’s carry and started heading back to cover. Erica wasn’t really light. While she was relatively short, around 5′ 6″ or so, she had masculine shoulders and the build of a weight lifter who lifted for use and not show. Because of that I was moving a bit slower than I had hoped.

Just as I made it to cover and started to move behind the hobbled horse I felt a burning tug in my right thigh. That burning tug rapidly developed into a searing pain and a cold sensation. I laid Erica down near Andy and looked at my leg. I had taken a round through the fatty part of the thigh. I could tell it had hit more than just fat though. The leg was spasming and, although I could use it, I wouldn’t want to rely on it very much.

I was about to unsling my rifle again and get back to watching the treeline when another scream caught my attention. This one was off the other side of the road, where Monica had taken cover. I darted to my Mossberg, or tried to since my right leg was somewhat uncooperative, and snatched it up. I could move but I wasn’t going to be running. A fast hobble took me towards the side of the road where the scream had come from.

As I reached the edge of the road I could see two men converging on Monica. They had weapons, but they were slung, and the looks on their faces told me that they thought the success of the ambush was a given and that they were going to have a little fun. The click of my shotgun as I pumped it to chamber a shell caught their attention though. As they looked up I aimed at the first one, going slightly high to ensure that the spread wouldn’t catch Monica. When I pulled the trigger the results elicited another scream from Monica. The majority of the 00 buckshot I was loaded with had caught his neck and face, almost decapitating him.

The second man was grabbing his rifle but a quick pump had me loaded and ready to go again. Monica wasn’t in the way for this one so I went for a more traditional center of mass shot. The wonderful thing about a shotgun is that so long as you can aim it within a few inches of where you want to hit, you’re most likely to get at least some of the pellets there. I was pretty good at aiming and a twenty foot shot had a small enough spread that all nine .33 caliber pellets hit his torso. The results were similar to being hit by nine rounds from a light machine gun so I wasn’t too worried about him getting back up again.

When I turned to try to get back up the hill, having moved three or four feet down it, my leg seized up. I tumbled onto the slope when my right leg refused to hold my weight. Monica looked like she was in a bit of shock but I called to her anyhow. She seemed to focus on my voice and came over to help me up, studiously ignoring the bodies that were now behind her (both figuratively and literally).

I had Monica help me up the slope and onto the road. When I got up there, Angela and Katrina were mounted up and Andy was pulling a first aid kit from the saddlebags of her mount.

“They are falling back into the woods.” called Katrina, “We are going to hound and harry them until we get them all. The snow is fresh in the woods and we will be able to track them. If we are quick enough they will not have a chance to recover before we come upon them and so we are off.”

The last was called out as she turned Erica’s horse and headed up the slope, Angela in tow.

Andy first went over to Elizabeth’s body. Shaking her head she came back over and dropped to her knees beside Erica, looking to be somewhat at a loss. Monica helped me over there and I took the first aid kit from Andy.

“She and Elizabeth were the ones with the medic training.”, said Andy. “I don’t know how to deal with something this major.”

“Tell you what. I’ll do what I can for her. Can you bandage my leg while I look at her wound?”

Andy looked down at my leg. “Oh, I didn’t know you took a hit. When did that happen?”

“When I was bringing Erica in, just as we reached cover. It held me while I took care of two men at our backs but then it gave out on me.”

“There were more behind us?”

“Yes, you can thank Monica for alerting me to them.”

I sprawled on the ground, almost laying on my side, my wounded leg on the upper side to keep it away from the ground. I asked Andy for a canteen to wash Erica’s wound with and she grabbed a pair, handing one to me and using the other to clean my leg.

“I’m going to need to cut away the pant leg here, sorry.”, she said before suiting actions to words.

I rinsed Erica’s arm off and saw that the wound was bad. A bullet had passed through her arm, shattering the Ulna and nicking the edge of the Radius. One end of the Ulna was sticking through the flesh of her arm. I pulled my belt off and applied a tourniquet to the upper arm, trying to slow the blood flow. I was mentally making a list of what I was going to need when all of a sudden I needed to choke back a scream. I was only partially successful at doing so. Andy had just flushed the wound with water and I can tell you that you never want to feel ice water running through your flesh. It’s just wrong.

I asked Andy to grab the first aid kit I had in the bicycle trailer as I needed a few things from it for Erica. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to fix it in the field but I thought I might be able to get her stabilized enough to get her back to Doc. It was only about five miles and most of the worst slopes were over so I thought she had a chance. I knew Doc would be able to do ten times as much as I could, if I could only keep her alive long enough to get her there. I told Andy we’d need to get Erica to a local doctor ASAP in my opinion.

Andy got back with the first aid kit and I popped it open, it was a fair bit larger than hers since I was able to carry it in the trailer as opposed to on my person. I pulled out some honey. After flushing the wound with water to clean it as best as I could in the conditions, the honey would help kill bacteria in it. Honey has many similar uses and can be used as an antiseptic, an anti-fungal, or an anti-bacterial. I’ll admit that with a wound of this magnitude that it wasn’t going to help a lot but I’ll take whatever I can get.

Meanwhile, Andy had torn open a small package and poured some sort of powder into the wound in my leg.

“I’ll bandage that up.”, she said. “I just put a coagulant in there to help slow the bleeding.”

“This is going to sound stupid but would you insert this in the wound?”, I said while handing her a tampon.

“You’re kidding, right? You’ve got a sick sense of humor?”

“What are they designed to do? Absorb blood, lots of blood. Plus it’ll help the wound coagulate more quickly. It’s an old military trick. Sorry that it freaks you out, I can do it myself.”

Andy quickly removed the wrapper and slid the tampon into the wound.

“Can I just bandage it like normal now?”

“Please do. Then I’ll work on Erica some more.”

She quickly wrapped a bandage around my leg, moderately tight but not enough to cut off circulation.

“Okay, next thing we need to do for Erica is straighten out that bone. I hate to do it here since it may cause more damage going back in but I think we better.”

Andy helped me straighten the bone, getting it back under the flesh. I rinsed the wound again, from both entry and exit points, then added more honey on both sides. I then pulled a pair of maxi-pads, with wings, out of the first aid kit.

“Same principle.”, I said as Andy just stared at me.

I put one maxi pad over the entry wound and a second over the exit wound, using the wings to adhere them in place.

“Can you bandage her up tightly, more tightly than you have mine, we want to disallow any seepage around the pads.”

A loud bang echoed from up in the woods, followed by several softer, but similar, noises.

“Looks like they caught the rest of them.”, said Andy.

“I guess, I hope that second gun wasn’t them returning fire.”

“Nah, you would’ve heard more than two guns if they were returning fire, that was Katrina and Angela, I’m sure.”

Andy finished bandaging Erica’s arm. As I looked around, I caught sight of Monica, slumped over against the back of the trailer. She looked quite pale.

“Monica, are you alright?”

I had to ask several times before she looked up. She was white as a ghost.

“You weren’t wounded were you?”

“No, just... I don’t know. I don’t feel so well. I just vomited and... I don’t know.”

“Andy, would you grab a sleeping bag out of the gear on the trailer? Open it up and wrap it around her. I think she’s in shock.”

“What, she hasn’t seen fighting before?”

“Nah, she’s killed men herself. I think it was the head shot with the Mossberg that freaked her out. She was only a couple of feet away from the guy when I fired so I had to aim high to keep her out of the spread. The guy’s head almost came off and he fell right next to her.”

Andy’s face had gone a touch green at the description and she hustled off to get the sleeping bag. I bet myself that within a couple minutes she’d go look over the embankment to take a look. I won my bet.

“Ewww, I’ve been in a lot of fights and that still looks nasty. I’ll lay off on Monica.”

A few minutes later we could hear the sounds of horses being ridden back onto the road.

“Report!”, said Katrina as she swung down off the horse.

“Elizabeth is dead, Erica and Tim have been treated for their wounds. Tim thinks Monica is in shock. Tim is of the opinion that Erica needs better medical attention quickly. Two raiders coming in from the rear were dispatched by Tim, no sign of other raiders.”, snapped Andy.

Damn, they sounded like they were in the military. The weapons, the attitude, and the abrupt change in Katrina’s attitude led me to a few conclusions. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that yet. At this point I was pretty sure that the core group of Hell’s Fury had been females in the US military before the Crash.

Katrina’s face softened as she came over to me.

“Where did you get hit?”

“I took one in the thigh. I don’t think it’s too bad though. I’ll let Doc make the call once we get back. Erica is in a bad way though, she needs to get to Doc as soon as possible. I’ve done what I could but that’s pretty limited out here.”

“Will tonight be soon enough for her?”

“I’m not a medic, as such, but my opinion is that she should get there as soon as we can get her there.”

“With Erica and Elizabeth out Andy and Angela are going to need direction. You’re wounded and Monica doesn’t look so good. Who are we going to send her with?”

“Angela used to live in the area, let me talk to her for a minute. She might know Doc, if she’s met him, he’ll remember her.”

“Angela, did you ever meet Doc back before the crash?”

“You mean the old veterinarian that people would fly their animals in from all over the country for him to treat?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s our doctor now. We need someone to get Erica to him as quickly as possible. Can you handle it?”

“Yes, I can do that. Where is he located?”

“He’s still in his old shop, a couple blocks up from the old post office.”

“I know where that is, I had cats I brought to him before. How are we going to get Erica there?”

“Katrina, can we clear off enough stuff on the trailer to make a bed for Erica? We can repack as much of it as we can on the horses and cache the rest if need be.”

“Andy, help me here.”, Katrina started unloading the trailer. I pumped the tire up while they did that so it would get Angela to Doc’s office. The process took about ten minutes and we used one of the sleeping bags to cushion Erica. We also tied her in, Katrina commenting that if she woke up tied down there was going to be hell to pay. I loosened the tourniquet a couple of times and we didn’t get any spurts of blood, although we did get some seepage. I cautioned Angela to stop every half hour and loosen the tourniquet for a minute so Erica’s arm didn’t get damaged any more than it already was. Then Angela took off like a bat out of hell.

“Andy said there were a couple coming in from the rear? Did you search their bodies yet?”

“No, we were busy with triage.”

Katrina headed over the embankment before I could warn her. When she came back up she was loaded with firearms, ammo, and a few miscellaneous items.

“Aimed a bit high there, yes?”

“He was right over Monica, I didn’t want to catch her in the spread.”

“Well, let us get packed up so we can continue on ourselves. I am sure that you will not be riding a bicycle, have you ever ridden a horse?”

“I’ve ridden but only with a lead rein on my horse, so no, not on my own at all.”

I tried to stand up and discovered that my leg no longer wanted to answer to my brain.

“Plus I think this leg isn’t going to co-operate.”

Katrina glanced over at my efforts to stand and shook her head.

“Let me repack the horses as quickly as I can here.”, she said and got about doing so.

With six horses remaining, three bicycles, and no cart, the four of us were going to have an interesting predicament. There was no way I was going to be able to ride a bike so unless the other three all did, leading horses as well, we would be leaving at least one bike behind.

Elizabeth’s body was wrapped in a tarp and a quick cairn of rocks was built over the corpse so the wildlife would not get into it.

“I think I will have to come back with the bike trailer to recover her corpse. Do you mind if we leave a bicycle here as well? It may well be stolen but at least one of us should be riding a horse. I imagine I’ll be back by tomorrow to pick it up.”, said Katrina.

“That’s fine, we need to get ourselves, the goats, and your cached items home. If we lose one bike it’s probably a fair trade. But let me write my name along the main bar there, most of the folks liable to come through this area know me and if it does disappear, we might get it back.”

Katrina wheeled my bike over to me and I scavenged through my pack for the permanent marker I carried in it. Writing my name took less time than repacking the load so I sat back to watch. Katrina and Andy packed everything onto the four pack horses. The two riding horses remaining to us were left empty. When they were done packing, Katrina wheeled my bike over near the cairn. Andy was standing in front of it and from the shaking of her shoulders I was sure she was crying. Katrina paused by her momentarily and then continued on towards me. Monica was still involved with calming the goats who had been panic stricken by the gunfire.

“I told Andrea that we would give her a few minutes here, Elizabeth was a good friend of hers. Monica and I will be riding the bikes that were set for us and Andy will be on a horse. You and the kid will be on the second horse, with the goats on long lead lines behind it. It is not the best of arrangements but it is all I can think of at the moment.”

“I don’t know that I can sit a saddle with this leg.”

“You won’t have to. Please do not fuss though, we’ll have to put you over the saddle and tie you in place. I apologize but there is no other way.”

I really wanted to bluster and complain but there was no way I could ride a bike and if my leg wasn’t working I couldn’t sit a saddle. Barring making a travois, there was no other way for me to be transported and I didn’t think we had all the materials on hand, or the time, that we would need to make one.

About ten minutes later, Katrina called Andy back over. She turned to Monica and explained that we would need to tie the kid onto the horse to get it home. Monica seemed recalcitrant but eventually came to the same conclusion that I had. In an attempt to cheer her up I told her that the goat would be in good company. She blinked a few times, not having thought through how I would be getting out of this spot, then nodded her head.

The kid was tied on first and it was offended mightily by the ordeal. It loudly voiced its displeasure, disturbing the mother goat as well as Monica. When I was hefted into position beside the kid I asked that they leave the hand closer to the goat untied and secure me with the other one. I ended up with my stomach over the saddle, my left hand tied to my left leg. The wounded right leg and my right hand were left untied. My right leg had started to complain vociferously, sending throbbing bolts of pain up into the rest of my body, my stomach would be brutalized as soon as we started moving, and I could already feel the blood rushing to my head. I was still happy to be getting out of there though, home was close enough to taste.

I attempted to distract the rest of my body from its pain and discomfort, as well as calm the kid, with my loose right hand by petting and stroking the goat’s head. The first minute or two I tried the goat bleated even louder than it had been and the mother goat looked as though she might try charging my dangling head. Eventually the kid quieted some, whether due to my stroking or the repeated impact on its stomach driving its breath out of it and making it unable to bleat. Either way, it was much quieter for the rest of the ride back to our neighborhood. It was times like these that I wished I had practiced self-hypnosis more as I would’ve been much happier being utterly oblivious to the rest of the trip.

I was dropped off at Doc’s office, which was only a quarter mile or so out of the way of the route back to the house. Angela was there and had gotten Erica into Doc’s care. She volunteered to help me into the office and keep an eye on me while the others brought all the gear home. As she helped me in she told me that Doc thought Erica had a good chance of recovery and could probably regain most of the use of her arm but the Doc didn’t want to start anything until Erica regained consciousness.

Angela called out to Doc once she had me in the building and he came bustling out.

“Tim, Angela said you had been wounded as well. I see you’re conscious at least, unlike our friend in back. Sit down and let me take a look.”

I sat down and maneuvered my right leg out in front of me with my hands. The left hand and leg were only just starting to regain feeling from having been tied and the pins and needles took up the slack time between the throbs from my right leg.

Doc removed the dressings and chuckled when he came to the inserted tampon.

“Ingenious that, those things were designed to hold a great deal more blood than many wounds will generate. Plus, the tampon swells as it absorbs blood and puts pressure on the bleeding points. Good way to help them close off.”

Willing to try anything to keep my mind off of the pain I replied to his small talk.

“Well, Holly had a reusable cup and Sandra had reusable pads so when the Crash hit, I confiscated these for the first aid boxes. They raised a hell of a fuss about it for a bit, now I can show them exactly why I did so.”

“Well, I’d wish for some here but I think they probably serve their function better as a field dressing. I imagine if you had a way to affix sections of those old disposable diapers to a wound they would do nearly as well, they absorb nearly as much liquid as the pads do.”

While Doc was making small talk, he was also working on my wound. He removed the tampon and examined the wound channel. It was a relatively small entry hole with a much larger exit channel.

“I’ll need to flush this out but I think there is nothing seriously damaged. I saw that you were moving it with your hands, can you move the leg at all?”

When I tried to move it, the throb of pain that raced through my body convinced me that it wasn’t a good idea. Doc noticed:

“Well, it did twitch a little but I’m guessing that hurt quite a bit, yes? Try moving just your toes.”

My toes twitched just fine with only a little bit of pain.

“Okay, I’m going to ask you to move your leg again in a moment. Sorry, I know it will hurt.”

Doc grabbed a desk lamp and aimed it down through the wound channel. He moved around a bit to get a good field of view into the wound and then told me to move the leg. I tried to move it again and could even see it start to move before the bolt of pain had me terminating my effort.

“Alright, I don’t think any of the tendons are seriously damaged or anything. Looks like one might have been nicked though. There is a lot of swelling in the wound and that may be causing the leg’s problems. Let me guess, you were moving on it just fine right after you got shot?”

“Yes I was, then a minute or two later after I stopped moving is when it seized up on me.”

“Nothing to worry about then most likely. That army medic that was up here ran you on a course of antibiotics, didn’t he? When did you take the last one?”

“Yes he did, and I took the last one just a couple of days before we left on our trip, so it must’ve been Wednesday.”

“Well, I’ll irrigate and disinfect your wound, then I’ll bandage it up but I think you’ll be fine. You will have to stay off the leg for a few days and then you’ll be using a crutch for a couple of weeks though. I’m hoping that those antibiotics you just stopped taking are going to help prevent infection in the wound. So long as it is kept clean I think it won’t infect and will heal right up. In addition I was told that a coagulant that contains some antibiotics was used when your wound was being bandaged on site.”

Doc headed into the back room and came out with several bottles and a square of cloth. He placed the cloth under my leg, replacing the bandages he had dropped there to catch the occasional drop of blood that trickled out. Then he poured a liquid on the wound out of the first bottle, and I thought my leg had taken a trip to hell. It burned incredibly, feeling hot enough that sweat broke out on my forehead. He waited a couple of minutes before pouring the second bottle over it. When he did, the burn diminished immediately and went away entirely by the time he was done.

“There”, he said, “It is disinfected and then cleaned with distilled water. I’ll bandage you up in a couple of minutes when the wound finishes drying.”

As I sat there waiting, the door burst open. In poured Holly, Rita, Sandra, Susan, and Jess. A moment later Katrina walked in and shrugged at me. As the women surrounded me, my leg was jostled several times, eventually causing a cry of pain to escape my lips. They look abashed and pulled back a bit, coming in one at a time to give me hugs. I tried to inject a note of levity:

“See Holly, I didn’t get any more holes in my coat.”

She just glared at me, her eyes tearing up.

“Honest, I’m fine. Doc looked at it. I’ll have to stay off of it for a couple of days and then use a crutch for a week or two is all.”

“For now!”, she blurted out, “What about next time? You keep getting shot like this, sooner or later someone will have better aim and you’ll be dead!”

I sat back, slightly stunned at her outburst.

“I’m sorry”, she said, “I’m sorry I burst out at you like that. I know it isn’t your fault. I know we discussed this and decided the risk was worth it but knowing you might get hurt or killed in theory didn’t impact me the same way it did when you got hurt in reality.”

“Holly, I can’t promise that I won’t get shot again but I will promise that anytime there is a risk that I might get shot, I’ll discuss things with you if I can. If I just stayed in the neighborhood, I might still get shot. That’s what happened the first time. Right now, I think I’m a little bit in shock so please just give me a hug and we can discuss this later on?”

Holly leaned in and gave me a hug, careful not to jostle my injured leg. The other women followed suit with Sandra, Susan, Rita, and Jess each being careful near my leg. Katrina was the last and whispered to me:

“Sorry, when I told them you were at Doc’s but mostly fine, they all swarmed out to come down. I left Andrea and Monica guarding the house. Andrea needed something to do to keep her mind off of Elizabeth and Monica was trying to settle her goats in.”

Katrina gave me a quick hug and asked where Erica was. I gestured to the back room and she headed that way.

“Doc is going to bandage me up in a bit, then I imagine I’ll have to have someone pull me home on...”

A loud scream from the back room interrupted my statement.

“I guess Erica is awake. You don’t want to see what happened to her if my little leg wound has you upset.”

“I don’t know her”, said Holly, “So I doubt it would have the same impact.”

A loud refusal echoed from the back room, followed by another one.

Katrina and Doc came walking out of the back.

“She won’t take alcohol or marijuana for an anesthetic?”, asked Doc.

“No she doesn’t allow herself to touch anything of the sort. She might not even allow a regular anesthetic, even if you had some still around.”, replied Katrina.

“I don’t know that I can operate on that arm without her being under anesthesia. Even tied down she’d still be involuntarily moving things in it.”

“Doc”, I interjected, “I might be able to help you out here.”

After all the fun I’d had with hypnosis so far, it looked like I might finally be able to use it the way I intended to when I first learned it.

“I learned hypnosis back before the Crash, as a part of prepping for it. Some of my books mention ways it can be used in place of anesthesia. Would that help?”

“Can you get her arm totally immobilized with it?”

“Most likely, plus I can make her not feel the pain in it while you operate.”

“That would be wonderful. Why haven’t you brought this skill to my attention sooner?”

“I didn’t realize you were having problems with getting some form of anesthetics into people. Hypnosis won’t work on everyone either so it isn’t a totally reliable solution. Plus, I really don’t want people to know I can do something like this. I can’t help but think it would affect the way they think about me.”

“I can see that, but may I call on you for your skills in an emergency if necessary? Assuming, of course, that we can get it to work in this case.”

“Certainly. I probably should have mentioned it before but like I said, I just didn’t think of it.”

“Let me go ask the young lady her opinion of this option.”

Doc turned around and headed back towards Erica. Once more a vociferous refusal echoed out of the back room, followed by some softer speech I couldn’t make out.

Doc reappeared, “Unfortunately, the young lady refuses to allow a man to do such a thing to her. Her words, not mine. She is, evidently, willing to allow me as her doctor due to my advanced age but...”

Doc was easily in his late 70s and possibly his early 80s. He claimed not to know for sure but he was the oldest person still alive after the Crash that anyone in my acquaintance was aware of. He was still in excellent health though and some of us believed he’d keep going well after we were gone.

“Not a problem Doc, Holly has a little experience here as well. We can go get the books or I can just talk her through it.”

“Once more, let me go and inquire of my patient.”, Doc said, a touch of annoyance in his voice as he turned to enter the back room again.

In a few minutes Doc came back out again and let us know that Erica had agreed to have the hypnotic anesthetic if it was administered by a woman. I wondered if she would have consented had she known what Holly had used these same skills for in the past.

I took a few minutes and ran Holly through the differences between what I thought she had been doing and the way she should do it to use as an anesthetic. There weren’t a lot of differences except that for use as anesthesia you wanted to have them as deeply under as you could possibly get them. Sometimes repeated trance states were necessary, where you would put your subject under, wake them, put them under again, etc... Each time you put them under, you were taking them deeper into trance. When you had them quite deep you would simply have their mind numb the portion of the body that needed to be worked on.

After my run-through Doc escorted Holly back to Erica. Doc was back out in a couple of minutes.

“Holly said that I would be more of a distraction than a help for the time being. I understand as I have to concentrate on some of my work to that degree as well. So here I am. Tell me, I know that these are gunshot wounds, but what happened?”

I explained to Doc about our trip to recover the goats, our encounter with the Hell’s Fury, and the ensuing ambush on the way home. Midway through the story Doc noticed me fidgeting, trying to find a comfortable manner to sit with my wounded leg, he excused himself for a moment and came back with a bottle.

“Here, take two of these. I’ll give you several more to take home with you as well. They are codeine based pain relief. They may be slightly weaker with age but they should still have some potency, they are only a couple of years beyond their date and before the Crash many medicines were given expiration dates far earlier than when they would start to deteriorate if they were stored correctly.”

I continued the story and when I was close to finished I realized that my leg wasn’t throbbing nearly as much. When I did complete it Doc piped up:

“So, you will now have milk and can make butter and cheese, yogurt, and any number of other things.”

“Yes, don’t forget the ice cream either. I haven’t mentioned that to Susan or Sandra but I’m guessing it will be well received, assuming I can pull it off. I have some recipes in some of my books as to what goat milk can be used for. Primarily I wanted a regular steady source of milk for Susan and Rita so they would continue to grow as they should.”

“Well, malnutrition is an issue nowadays, if you find yourself with excess you can bring it here and I can ensure it makes it to those in need.”

“Technically it will all belong to Monica, who I don’t think you’ve met. She may well want to sell her excess at market to bring in money. If she has extra that she doesn’t know what to do with, I’ll suggest it to her though.”

“So Tim, just how many woman do you have at your place now?”, Doc asked, looking at the others in the waiting room who had also listened to my story.

“Well, at my place? I’ve got Holly, Rita, Susan, and Sandra. Technically Katrina and Monica are living next door with Jess. Jess’ sister Pam will be back soon and staying with her also. She may have another boarder also as Mary was asking about moving out of the market. Please don’t mention that to Allan though, I don’t know that she has discussed it with him yet.”

Doc was shaking his head, “You realize all those women are going to drive you to an early grave? Stress and physical exertion don’t combine too well. By the way, no sex until you’ve been up and about on your crutch for a day with no bleeding.”

“Not much stress on me yet from it and as to physical exertion? I’d love to be able to be doing some. Aside from some maintenance, tending indoor plants, and my market runs all my chores have been taken away from me. The no sex will certainly be harder on me than the no chores though. Might get some stress there but I think the ladies will understand and not nag me about it.”

“Well, to each their own then. I need to go back and check on Holly’s progress.”

Doc was back out in a couple of minutes.

“It’s amazing!”, he said, “Holly has her totally out of it. I put pressure on the wound and there was no flinch even. Holly said she wanted to get her a little bit deeper under before I started to operate. So it’s time for me to clean myself and my instruments for that.”

Doc wandered out again leaving me with the remaining women. I was peppered with questions about what we had recovered from Katrina’s caches, and questions about the goats, and questions about Hell’s Fury. I answered what I could for a few minutes and then started to drift off into a bit of a haze.

It was a while before I came back out of that haze and when I did, Holly was sitting beside me. I heard the clatter of instruments in the back room and knew that Doc was still operating or just finishing up. When Holly noticed my head moving and me mostly coherent again, she told me that Katrina had asked that we wait while Doc was working on Erica so we would know how it went. Angela and Katrina were having a hushed conversation in the corner of the waiting room and the others were entertaining themselves with magazines that had to be five years old or more.

It wasn’t long from them when Doc came out. He announced that Erica would most likely retain use of that hand although it might not be 100% and there might be some mobility restriction on it. He came over to Holly:

“I’d like to keep her here for a few days under observation. Do you have a way I can get her into that state when I would normally have her sedated?”

“I didn’t set anything like that up but I can if you need me to.”

“Please do so and let me know how to do it.”

“You’ll just need to say ‘Sedation Erica sedation’ to trigger it. I’ll go back and set that up now if I may. I shouldn’t need to wake her for it. If it doesn’t work for some reason, just send someone up to get me.”

“Thank you, this should make my job easier and her chances of recovery significantly better.”

“Doc,”, I interjected, “I know that you normally do a barter system for people getting treatment and I’m game for that, I’ll have some provisions brought down. Aside from that though I’d like to give you this as well. If you don’t want it yourself please use it to buy some provisions for your clinic or help some of those people you mentioned before.”

I reached into the limited stash of coins I had brought on the trip, just in case, and pulled out a 1/10 ounce gold eagle (the equivalent of Colorado’s $20 gold coin) and gave it to him. He obviously had qualms about accepting it but, possibly due to the suggestions I had given him for its use, he pocketed it. Doc had the same ideas about money that he did about stress. He hated using it and preferred to work with barter.

Katrina and Angela came over and we discovered what they had been discussing. Doc had already told Angela that Erica was not going to be up to extended travel for a minimum or a month and more likely three months. Katrina asked if we had space to add another person and allow Erica to stay with us. I told her we’d have to check with Jess because I didn’t want to put an injured person on the couch for a long duration but that I had no problem with it. Holly chimed in claiming that having her stay with us, or Jess, would be a wonderful idea. I immediately started wondering what else Holly might have done while she had Erica under but this was not the place to talk about it.

Angela ended up volunteering to stay with Doc and help with Erica. Doc had one assistant who was currently not in the clinic but adding Angela in meant that each person would only have to be there eight hours instead of twelve to keep an eye on Erica. Plus Angela would be bunking in the waiting room and available if either of the other two needed help.

The rest of us headed home through the remnants of dusk. I was settled in on the bike cart (after its tire was pumped up again) and pulled by a horse. They kept the speed slow so I wouldn’t be jounced and as a result it was fully dark when we got home.

To be continued...