The Last Rebel: Survivor Read Free Page A

like a little trough with his fingers, then used the other hand to sprinkle on and tamp down some Prince Albert tobacco. He rolled the cigarette closed, licked it, popped it in his mouth, and lit it with a Zippo lighter.
    He took a deep drag and focused inward. He smiled. For a moment he got an image that was straight out of a movie. A wonderful movie. He could see himself, knee deep in rapidly running water that was so clear that he could see the pebble-covered creek bed almost as clearly as if the water wasn’t there, and then flicking his wrist to make a fly sail out on the end of his fishing line, there to make a little splash and wait for one of the fat trout that, hopefully, would get a hankering for the fly bobbing above him on the silvery water.
    He knew he could he could live indefinitely in the wild, and in harmony with everything from bears to marmots. His grandfather had once said, “Jimmy boy, you know the wild so well I sometimes think you were born part wolf.”
    The relatively narrow road was flanked by evergreens, and Jim knew that this was an ideal situation. The trees provided great cover though he knew that many parts of Wyoming, which he had traveled through extensively while still living in Idaho, were not forested. Besides its spectacular mountain ranges, much of it was desert, and most of it was covered with various kinds of sagebrush, which provided zero cover when you were traveling by vehicle, particularly a camouflage-painted HumVee.
    His route was typical backcountry road, mile after mile of forest; occasionally he could see a house through the veil of trees. So far, he thought, so good. His mood, he sensed, had gotten just a little better. It wasn’t a square dance on Saturday night in Jaynesville but it was better than it had been.
    Most of the road was straight, but of course some was curved, and as he came around one curve he got a surprise that put him on full alert.
    The road was blocked by a barricade. It looked like a steel I-beam had been placed across the road, the ends of the beams housed in some sort of sawhorse arrangement about four feet above the ground. But that wasn’t the only thing barring passing. There were six men all wearing khaki uniforms, all wearing the same short beards, albeit different colors, and red berets. And armed to the teeth. Four of the men looked like they had shotguns, and two Kalashnikovs. They also had holstered handguns and belts of grenades.
    Jim slowed the HumVee and then stopped but kept the engine idling. Just like he had done when he was hunting game, he started to calculate what he would do if they would, in effect, charge—started to fire on him. There wasn’t much he could do. The firepower they were toting would make Swiss cheese of the HumVee, and him, in short order and maybe turn it into a fireball, this thanks to the gas cans he had stored in back.
    And if he wanted to make his butt scarce, he couldn’t do that either. There was no room to turn. If he wanted to move out, all he could do was throw it in reverse and put the pedal to the metal.
    Then two of the men, both muscular, maybe in their thirties, one tall, the other short, starting walking toward him, each carrying his gun at port arms. They did not seem threatening, but one never knew. Jim pulled the Glock, which was on the passenger seat in a holster, flicked the holster out of sight near Reb, and pushed the gun under his right thigh. Then a plan hit him. He was very conscious that he had a loaded, thirty-cartridge AK-47 under his seat. If the men were hostile and drew down on him he would shoot first one and then the other in the head, and bolt out of the Hummer, using it for cover, hopefully before the other four men made mincemeat of him with their weapons.
    Then something glittering on their chests caught Jim’s eye. He saw something he hadn’t noticed because of the grenades. Each had silver medallions held by silver chains hanging from their necks. The medallions were