Jernigan's War Read Free

it was just an antique .22 and being small his mother thought it looked almost harmless.
    His grandparents had divorced while his dad was just a boy. Porter’s grandmother had forbid his dad hunting with hisgrandfather and pushed him into more urban interests. As a result, his dad knew a great deal about golf and tennis and next to nothing about hunting, fishing and camping. His Grandmother had been dead for several years and couldn’t object now to him learning to camp and shoot.
    Porter had spent two weeks at his Grandfather’s home in the country when his folks went on a second honeymoon the previous summer. His Grandfather paid for the honeymoon under the condition that Porter and his little brother come to visit for those two weeks. Other than speaking with his grandfather on the telephone every month or so, he had never had any contact with him. He spent those two weeks, fishing and camping. As far as Porter was concerned that was the best two weeks of his life. The home was located in the heart of Louisiana out in the middle of nowhere. Porter figured that was the place he needed to go. He couldn’t stay in Los Angeles as there was no water, no food and millions of starving people. Porter looked in his Geography book and studied the route he would have to take to get to Louisiana. He found a road atlas in the glove box of his Dad’s truck. He tore out the maps of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana, folded them up and put them in his pack. For now all he had to concentrate on was going east.

CHAPTER 4

    DECISION TIME
    P orter looked out the front door and saw a gang walking down the sidewalk. He hung back from the window and decided to head up into the hills behind the house. He went out the back door and up the mountain. It was not so steep as to prevent him from making his way up through the brush. From this vantage point he could look across the neighborhood and city.
    So there he sat with his water and his rifle resting across his lap thinking about his situation. He could see buildings on fire and hear sporadic gunfire as the world he had known came unwound. He was dusty from taking a tumble and rolling down the hill earlier. Luckily he and his rifle were ok. He wiped the tears and dirt off his face onto his shirt sleeve. He had no idea how he was going to make it across the desert and into Texas and then Louisiana. Porter thought to himself, “I’ve got to eat, drink, sleep and evade thieves and killers. I can do this!”
    He climbed the mountain until he came to a road. He stopped when he heard voices coming and retreated to the safety of the scrub brush on the side. He felt a sense of relief when a police cruiser pulled up beside a family that had walked into view. Thisfeeling of relief was short lived when the policemen stopped, killed the family and started rooting through their pockets and their belongings. After relieving the family of their meager belongings, they got back into the cruiser and proceeded down the mountain and out of sight. Porter was so shaken that he had forgotten that he was armed and could have done something. Porter walked up to the dead family as they lay in the road. Flies were already buzzing the bloody bullet holes. He could hear another car coming and rather than wait he moved on across the road and down into the valley on the other side of the road. The sight of the vacant, open eyes would haunt him for the rest of his life. But what could he have done? He didn’t know.
    It took Porter the rest of the afternoon to make his way to the floor of the valley. He was terribly thirsty but resisted the urge to drink from his jugs, having no way of knowing when he would find water again. Porter recalled the tumble he had taken earlier in the day. He quickly realized that there was no one to take him to the doctor or the emergency room, a small injury could kill a person. The valley floor was narrow at this point and there were no homes here. Lucking up on a large