I was sitting and having one more cup of coffee when I head something at the edge of the brush and woods. Cally was up and alert almost on point to the spot where I had heard the noise.
It was John's 24 year daughter standing and looking at me with big tears rolling down her cheeks. (In the country a neighbor can be 7 miles away and still be considered a neighbor.)
"Sally" I said as she took a step and basically crumpled to the ground with her .22 rim fire rifle still strapped to her back .
I sprang to her side as she said, "Everyone is dead." and then she passed out, fainted, or whatever.
I carried her to the shed and tried getting water down her throat after dabbing coolish water over her head and neck. After choking a few times she came back enough to grab the water hose and greedily drink until I told her to stop. Sure enough she turned on her side and puked a gush of water into shed. She was shaking and white as a clean white sheet.
"Sip slowly Sally.... you just puked in my bed room" ! She looked around but finally figured out what I was saying and attempted a weak smile and a "Sorry"..
I checked Sally's few scrapes and scratches and after cleaning off the blood I applied a few dabs of three and one antibiotic. I figured she would live unless there was something I was not seeing.
She was very weak so I told her to rest and sleep.... which she did almost as soon as I finished saying sleep.
Sally slept for a solid 7 hours and would have slept more but hunger and thirst drove her to open her eyes for water and ask if I had anything to eat ?
Over a can of beanie weenies and crackers out of the C-rat stock I got her story.
Same as me, her home was on fire when she woke up to the sound of her pet Parrot screaming. The master bedroom was on the second story of their farm house and her Mom and dad were there while she had been sleeping down stairs; that was the only thing that saved her as the entire upper story was consumed by the fire.
She threw on the clothes she had been wearing the day before and got her .22 she had been using to kill turtles in the ranch pond. She had just enough time to set the parrot free, who flew the hell out of there as soon as she opened the door just before the upper story collapsed into the room Sally had been sleeping in; smart bird.
She had walked the 7 miles to my place with a small fanny pack of ammo but otherwise nothing but her rifle and the clothes on her back.
Sally was not the typical callused farm girl as she had been away at college finishing her degree . She was around 5''7" of a slender build, brownish black hair, and would no doubt be consider pretty by most all the college boys when cleaned up.
When extracting her story from her I got to thinking this was another clue. The fire at her place had started upstairs as had the fire at my place which had started upon the roof.
We stayed at the mower shed for the next day after I cleaned out her watery puke so we could rest an form a plan.
There was a small private airport where I kept my plane just about 10 miles away so if my bird or any of the numerous Cessna's and Pipers were still flyable that would be our ticket out of the boonies and back to some form of civilization.
Sally agreed so the morning of the second day we set off with Dennis the mule acting as a pack animal carrying our water and other supplies we had agreed we needed as we proceeded to see about some transportation with wings.
Sally had been able to save her Cell phone (mine had burned in the fire) but she said it was dead even though it had been on charge the night of the fire. I had a look at it but could not determine why there was nothing when you tried to turn it on. It was dead as a door nail and no way to get a signal....
It was John's 24 year daughter standing and looking at me with big tears rolling down her cheeks. (In the country a neighbor can be 7 miles away and still be considered a neighbor.)
"Sally" I said as she took a step and basically crumpled to the ground with her .22 rim fire rifle still strapped to her back .
I sprang to her side as she said, "Everyone is dead." and then she passed out, fainted, or whatever.
I carried her to the shed and tried getting water down her throat after dabbing coolish water over her head and neck. After choking a few times she came back enough to grab the water hose and greedily drink until I told her to stop. Sure enough she turned on her side and puked a gush of water into shed. She was shaking and white as a clean white sheet.
"Sip slowly Sally.... you just puked in my bed room" ! She looked around but finally figured out what I was saying and attempted a weak smile and a "Sorry"..
I checked Sally's few scrapes and scratches and after cleaning off the blood I applied a few dabs of three and one antibiotic. I figured she would live unless there was something I was not seeing.
She was very weak so I told her to rest and sleep.... which she did almost as soon as I finished saying sleep.
Sally slept for a solid 7 hours and would have slept more but hunger and thirst drove her to open her eyes for water and ask if I had anything to eat ?
Over a can of beanie weenies and crackers out of the C-rat stock I got her story.
Same as me, her home was on fire when she woke up to the sound of her pet Parrot screaming. The master bedroom was on the second story of their farm house and her Mom and dad were there while she had been sleeping down stairs; that was the only thing that saved her as the entire upper story was consumed by the fire.
She threw on the clothes she had been wearing the day before and got her .22 she had been using to kill turtles in the ranch pond. She had just enough time to set the parrot free, who flew the hell out of there as soon as she opened the door just before the upper story collapsed into the room Sally had been sleeping in; smart bird.
She had walked the 7 miles to my place with a small fanny pack of ammo but otherwise nothing but her rifle and the clothes on her back.
Sally was not the typical callused farm girl as she had been away at college finishing her degree . She was around 5''7" of a slender build, brownish black hair, and would no doubt be consider pretty by most all the college boys when cleaned up.
When extracting her story from her I got to thinking this was another clue. The fire at her place had started upstairs as had the fire at my place which had started upon the roof.
We stayed at the mower shed for the next day after I cleaned out her watery puke so we could rest an form a plan.
There was a small private airport where I kept my plane just about 10 miles away so if my bird or any of the numerous Cessna's and Pipers were still flyable that would be our ticket out of the boonies and back to some form of civilization.
Sally agreed so the morning of the second day we set off with Dennis the mule acting as a pack animal carrying our water and other supplies we had agreed we needed as we proceeded to see about some transportation with wings.
Sally had been able to save her Cell phone (mine had burned in the fire) but she said it was dead even though it had been on charge the night of the fire. I had a look at it but could not determine why there was nothing when you tried to turn it on. It was dead as a door nail and no way to get a signal....