Bonner Incident (39 page)

Lifting his range finder and finding the trail was two hundred and eight yards away, he lowered it and checked the rifle while hooking up the camera. After looking through the scope and not seeing shit, he clipped on the thermal and turned it on. He had practiced with it and really liked it, but he knew he would never spend seven grand on a scope unless the Wizard of Oz himself came with it.

Hearing King snort behind him, he fought the desire to shush him. Sitting down next to the tree, he brought the rifle to his shoulder. At two hundred yards, he was fine with shooting from the shoulder. Moving the rifle across the rocky area till he hit the trees, Joshua continued sweeping down the trail and froze. “You have got to be shitting me,” he said seeing hot spots moving between the breaks in the trees. “Shit, if I can see them with thermal, they can see me,” he mumbled setting down the rifle.

Trotting up to King, he pulled off the sniper blankets and threw one over King, mule would just have to make due. Taking the other, he moved back to his rifle and covered up, lifting his rifle. The first one was only a hundred yards from where the trees stopped on the exposed rocky slope.

Hitting record on the camera and taking his eye off the scope, he looked down at his magazines. “Only a fool would shoot at me on that trail, but only a complete idiot would be on that trail,” he mumbled and pulled the magazines closer.

Resting his elbows on his knees, Joshua flipped the safety off and controlled his breathing. The cool rain really made them stand out as the leader stopped where the trees ended and the rocky slope started. Joshua could tell he was wearing the huge four tube night vision like he’d taken from the FBI guys. He’d loved the field of vision, but the damn thing was heavy as hell and tilted his head down.

The group stayed in single file because that was the only choice they had and he could tell they were talking. Most in the group pointed forward, but two kept pointing back. “If I wasn’t here, I would say go back,” Joshua mumbled.

Seeing the leader turn in his saddle and face forward, Joshua relaxed when he saw the horse had better sense than the rider and didn’t want to walk on the scary trail. “Sorry horse,” Joshua mumbled watching the horse finally move and the others followed closely in single file. With each horse so close its nose almost touched the horse’s rump in front of it, the group was barely spread out over a hundred feet.

Slowing his breathing but not holding his breath, Joshua centered the crosshairs on the first horse’s chest and slowly squeezed. The rifle bucked and coughed as the round hit almost instantly. When the bullet hit the first horse, it reared up and threw its rider as they fell down the slope.

Racking the bolt, Joshua swung to the last rider seeing another horse rear up and fall down the slope with its rider. When the crosshairs centered on the chest of the horse, he squeezed the trigger and the horse stuttered and stepped off the trail, flipping to roll head first down the slope.

Moving his crosshairs back to the front, he saw another horse and rider go into the ravine and he pulled the trigger, sending another. Racking the bolt, he saw another horse and rider go as a rider jumped off his horse and tumbled down the slope into the draw. Feeling good about that, Joshua aimed and shot another horse and racked the slide.

Shifting his aim, he saw the riderless horse fall into the draw leaving only one who was pulling the reins hard and digging in his spurs to make the horse hold. “Bet he won’t stay,” Joshua said pulling the trigger.

When the bullet hit, the horse bucked straight up and when it came down it landed off the trail, tumbling down into the draw with the rider still pulling back on the reins. Dropping the magazine, Joshua slipped in another and aimed into the draw, but couldn’t see the horses or riders because of the trees.

Throwing off his ghillie blanket and grabbing his magazines, he moved along the slope till he found a spot where he could see them. Raising the rifle, he saw several of the horses trying to stand. Sitting down, he centered the crosshairs on one of the horses trying to stand and squeezed the trigger and the animal dropped.

In the end, he just shot all of the horses, making sure they were down. Moving his aim around, he saw several of the men moving with arms and legs bent at unnatural angles. None were standing and he only saw one that crawled a few feet. “Sorry,” he said lowering the rifle. “The horses were worth ten bucks a shot to put down.”

Gathering his magazines, he moved back to where he had started and gathered his gear, stopping the camera from recording. Loading up, he looked back down into the draw and then down at his M4. “Well, I guess the agents are worth a quarter,” he mumbled thinking of the 5.56. The last lot he had bought, he got them at a quarter a bullet.

Taking up the reins, he led King and the mule down into the draw. His slope wasn’t sixty degrees, but it was still steep so it took a little while. Reaching the bottom and crossing the stream, he looked down to where they’d fell. “Well, shit,” he huffed.

From up on the slope he’d been looking down at them and could see them easily, down here even with them, the ferns hid them and the horses’ bodies rather nicely. Looking back at King and thinking about just climbing on and leaving them, Joshua sighed and walked over to King. Pulling the thermal off the Lapua, he clipped it on in front of the Trijicon scope and turned it on.

“If this humanitarian shit gets me shot, I’m going to be pissed,” he said looking at King, then checked his M4 and moved up.

He found the first horse and saw a man trapped underneath it. Raising his rifle, Joshua didn’t even aim just pulling the trigger and watching the man’s head jerk. It was really creepy moving through the ferns and finding the wounded men. Joshua was reminded of that movie that William loved with the dinosaurs when the characters moved through the ferns and were picked off.

Shuddering and dropping in a crouch, he eased through the ferns to put the men out of their misery and hopefully, his conscience would shut up. He had killed because he was at war, but he wasn’t inhuman. When all but one was taken care of, Joshua moved closer toward the stream searching, and found it was the one who could crawl. From the way his body was twisted, it didn’t take a genius to figure his back was broken.

“We didn’t do anything to you,” the man moaned as Joshua moved up aiming his rifle.

“What are you doing here? No patrols are supposed to be this far north.”

“Searching for the bodies of team eighty-one that those troopers killed,” he panted.

Joshua laughed, “Those troopers didn’t kill them, I did. Don’t you wish you could tell someone?” he said pulling the trigger.

Lowering his rifle, he looked around. “That was spooky. Next time, I’ll save my quarters,” he said and started gathering gear. He paused as lightning raced across the sky lighting up the area. “This can wait,” he said and trotted to King.

Not climbing on, he led King and the mule into the trees. When lightning flickers through the mountains, you don’t want to be the tallest thing in the area. It really didn’t matter if he was in a draw, the area he was at was covered with ferns. Leading King a few yards in, he stopped between two large trees and tied King to a bush.

“Yeah, we get rain this early; this year is going to be wet as hell,” he said looking at King. Pulling the tent out, he undid the snap and tossed it, watching it spring out to a tent before it hit the ground and still chuckling at the sight.

Taking his rucksack off and putting it in the tent, Joshua took the saddles off of King and the mule. Before he climbed in the tent he looked at King who had his head down. “Sorry, buddy, and I know I usually don’t have a tent and tough it out with you, but this is a cool tent,” Joshua said and ducked inside.

***

Hearing King snort, Joshua’s eyes snapped open and he grabbed the 1911 beside him. When the mule brayed, he quickly unzipped the tent climbing out in his underwear in the light drizzle. Seeing King and the mule looking up the draw, he spun around bringing up his pistol.

Two nice sized coyotes were outside the trees near the stream looking at them. “Don’t. You’d better go find the roadrunner if you want to play,” Joshua said lowering his pistol and realizing it was light out.

Lifting his wrist, he looked over at King. “You let me sleep till seven.” The mule charged the coyotes and they ran down the draw making the mule stop chasing. With an almost happy gait, the mule trotted over to him and King.

Joshua reached out rubbing the mule’s head. Contrary to popular belief, mules were rather intelligent. Though he had owned dozens, using them as pack animals, Joshua always called them ‘mule’. None had ever endeared to him. “Well, I think your name is Jack,” Joshua said rubbing him between the ears. “Because sometimes, you act like an ass.”

Jack turned his head so Joshua could scratch behind his right ear. Stepping over and bumping Joshua with his head, almost knocking him down, King reminded Joshua, that Joshua belonged to him. Chuckling, Joshua petted him then pulled out the feed bags. There was some grass beside the stream but with all the bracken ferns, he didn’t want to chance the horses getting sick.

Climbing back into the tent, he dried off and dressed while digging out his rain gear and long range drover coat. After he’d dressed and pulled his gear out of the tent, he twisted the tent’s frame, folding it into a circle again. Not able to help it, Joshua tossed it again, laughing as it popped back into a tent before it hit the ground. “I don’t care what it cost, I’m buying more of these,” he chuckled, twisting the tent back up and packing it.

He almost headed to the bodies without King and Jack but stopped. “No, predators have already showed up,” he said and put the saddle on King and the pack saddle on Jack. When they were done eating, he pulled out an energy bar to eat and led them to the bodies.

Walking up, he saw the ferns move as coyotes ran off. Seeing how many ferns moved, he was glad he’d brought King and Jack. Coming to the first body, Joshua shook his head just looking at the twisted limbs. “Gravity is a law we can’t break,” he said bending down.

Most of the equipment was useless after the fall. Even the barrel of the M4 was bent and the scope was smashed. Taking the man’s helmet off and looking at the quad night vision goggle, Joshua sighed seeing the tubes were busted. Then he saw the wires didn’t run to one side of the helmet, they ran to the back.

The one he’d taken had the battery box mounted on the right or left side which tilted your head down and depending which side you mounted the batteries, to the side. This one’s battery box was at the back of the helmet and acted like a counter balance.

Taking the battery box and setting it aside, he moved to the ripped open backpack. Looking up the slope at the trail of contents from the pack, he started gathering what wasn’t destroyed. Moving to the horse he found two saddle bags full of grain and fought to get them from under the horse.

Setting them aside at the beginnings of his pile, Joshua moved on and saw a rifle scabbard and pulled out the rifle giving a low whistle. It was a nice Lapua, but the barrel was bent in two places and the scope was destroyed. He looked at the corpse beside the horse. “Why didn’t you protect this? I would’ve used this.”

Tossing the useless rifle away, he started stacking what he could use. Like the first one, this pack had been ripped open during the fall. Moving up the debris trail, he stopped at a green plastic ammo can. Opening it up, he pulled out a custom cast .338 match grade shell. He turned to the corpse. “These things are like twenty-three dollars apiece and you were going to shoot at me with them?” Joshua asked amazed. “Much obliged.”

When he was done, only three backpacks were salvaged and sitting beside Jack. The only cool electronics he’d found intact were two thermal scopes. One was a clip-on like he had and the other was designed as a standalone and much bigger. Even the wrist watches they wore had been destroyed in the tumble down the mountain. What intrigued him about this group was that they’d had two of the big radios like he’d gotten off of high-top. One was destroyed but the other was working, sort of. Digging in their stuff, he found a notebook on one that had the radio code that actually let the radio work. Unlike the radio he’d gotten from high-top, this one was locked on one frequency.

Setting it aside, he lifted up the next new discovery. Each man had had a handheld radio mounted to them. Like the radio that he’d taken from Wayne, in what seemed a lifetime ago, these looked like cop radios but were bigger with longer antennas and like the big radio, locked on one frequency. In one man’s pack, he found a notebook with codes, tried it and found that was how you were able to change frequency. Of the ten handheld radios, only two had survived. Another new discovery was there were four satellite phones, but only one wasn’t broken.

Looking at the pile, he grinned. “So, if one gets separated, they can call the others and with more phones, the better chance they can call home. Seems having several teams getting lost have taught you some lessons.”

Only four M4s were of any use, and on one he’d had to toss the suppressor because it was bent up so bad, but pulled another off one of the M4s that the barrel had been bent. Out of eleven pistols, he found five were okay, along with one stainless Remington 870 shotgun.

He looked at the IDs spread out in front of him on the ground. Six were BLM agents and the other four were Homeland. The BLM agents were from Utah and Nevada and that made more sense to Joshua why they’d pushed on. To the agents, these were more hills than mountains.