Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Moving quietly but quickly, he saddled and tacked up Prieto, but he left the horse’s hobbles on for fear of his running off. He rubbed the horse’s neck consolingly and whispered in his ear: “Bueno, Prieto, muy bueno. Muchas gracias. You are Superhorse.”

He stepped down the hill to examine the bodies of the bandits. Both of them looked like they were in their twenties. The moonlight was just bright enough to make out their tattoos by. He could see that one of them had some large numbers tattooed on his neck. Most of the rest of the markings were swirling and geometric patterns. These were obviously crude prison tats.

He stripped the men of their rucksacks. The small packs were surprisingly heavy. He looped them over his saddle horn. Then he picked up their guns. He flipped up the one safety lever that had been released. One was a folding-stock AK, but the other had a wooden stock. The wooden stock, he saw, had been split and cracked-pierced by two bullets from Andy’s SIG. Neither of the guns had slings, so Andy pulled a hank of OD parachute cord from his left saddlebag and quickly cut off two four-foot lengths. He tied them on as makeshift slings. Andy slung both AKs across his back. Then he inserted Prieto’s bit, saddled him, and removed the hobbles. He walked north for two hundred yards, leading the horse through the dense trees and up onto level ground. Based on the setting moon’s position, he judged the time to be about three or four a.m.

He swung up into the saddle unsteadily, unaccustomed to the extra weight of the two AKs. He nudged his heels into Prieto’s flanks, prodding him forward. The horse went immediately into a trot. “Let’s go, Prieto. We gotta lot of ground to cover before daylight,” Andy urged.

He didn’t stop for either breakfast or lunch. He rode hard, halting briefly only to water his horse at creeks. By six p.m. his stomach was growling, and he was feeling saddle sore. Even with regular shifting of the guns from side to side, the thin parachute cord that he’d used for ersatz slings was digging into his lower neck, rubbing it raw. He had covered nearly eighty miles, paralleling Highway 180 and intentionally bypassing the town of Aldama. Now, just ten miles short of La Coma, he dismounted and walked Prieto for the last half mile to cool him down. He halted in a small grassy opening in a forest far from the nearest ranch house.

After reloading the partially expended SIG magazine and unsaddling and hobbling Prieto, Andy dug into his pack and wolfed down some carne seca and an apple. Then he groomed the horse thoroughly. He heaped praised on the horse as he did so. He said over and over, “You are Superhorse,” “Muy bueno, Prieto,” and “Some of God’s blessings come with four legs.”

As he did the grooming, he thought about the two rifles that he’d taken from the dead men. He concluded that it would be wise to keep one of them. Both of them were selective-fire models, with a full-auto selector position. Ideally he would have kept the fixed-stock AK, since they are more accurate and more comfortable to shoot. He had never liked the feel of folding-stock AKs with underfolding stocks. Their skeletonized butt plates were uncomfortable on his shoulder, and his cheek wobbled on the thin rails.

Working in turn, he unloaded both guns, popped off their top covers, and pulled out their bolt assemblies. Looking closely at each, he could see that he should keep only the folding-stock gun. The wooden stock on the other AK looked beyond repair, and the gun was old and rusty. Looking down its bore with a bit of white paper tucked into the receiver ahead of the open bolt to act as a reflector, he could see that the wood-stocked AK had a dark, badly pitted bore. But the folder AK was nearly new and it had a very good bore. He also realized that for some of his upcoming travel, he’d have to keep the gun concealed. For that, the folding-stock AK would be the obvious choice.

Andy oiled and reassembled the folding-stock AK. Then he reloaded it. He decided to keep the magazine and the entire bolt assembly from the fixed-stock AK to use as spares but discard the rest of the gun. He just left it on the ground. He mused about who would eventually find it there, and when. Perhaps an archaeologist. He whispered to himself, “Durobrabis.”

Next, Laine searched through the bandits’ rucksacks. One of them had three spare loaded AK magazines, and the other one had two more. One of these magazines was a black polymer Bulgarian waffle magazine. The rest of them were typical Russian steel magazines, mostly in good condition, although one of them had heavy pitting. There was just one magazine pouch that held three magazines. He decided that it would be the largest size that he could comfortably carry on his belt, positioned on his left hip, so that it wouldn’t bump up against the back of his saddle.