Bonner Incident (24 page)

Shifting his aim to high-top, he walked over and shook his head, seeing the exit wound on his belly from the first shot and the pool of blood around him. Almost walking away, Joshua moved over to feel for a pulse, but didn’t find one. Swinging his AR toward the FBI guys, he moved over to them, coming up behind the log they were resting against.

He looked at the first one he’d shot and cringed, seeing the Sharps bullet had hit him low in the pelvis just above his manhood. “That’s not where I was aiming, just to let you know,” he told the corpse and stepped over the log and saw the massive hole on the guy’s back where the shot from the Lapua had exited from the chest.

Even with the massive exit wound, Joshua checked for a pulse and didn’t find one, nor did he on the other guy. He slung his rifle and went back for King and the mule. Leading them to the stream, Joshua went back to the two FBI guys and straightened them out, side by side.

Going through their pockets and emptying them, Joshua stacked what he got beside each body in a pile. He moved to the others and did the same. When that was done, he stood up and looked at the sky, seeing the sun was close to setting.

“Well, shit,” he said and grabbed King, leading him over to the bodies and grabbing the rope off of the saddle. Using the rope tied to the saddle, Joshua moved the bodies into the trees. Then, keeping the piles of stuff he’d taken out of their pockets, Joshua kept it with each man’s gear, moving everything to the trees.

With the light leaving fast, Joshua led the mule and King away from the killing zone into the trees with the bodies and gear. Taking off his backpack, Joshua sat down and glanced over at the bodies. “I felt worse when I had to shoot Gene’s dog for him,” he finally said, and didn’t know if that was good or bad.

Knowing he couldn’t use light, Joshua dug out his night vision goggles and put them on. He had no depth perception, but he could see fairly well. Taking the saddle off of King, Joshua started setting up camp. After watching the group move down the valley, he wasn’t all that fond of staying down there, but didn’t see another choice.

When King and the mule were taken care of, he fixed some food and sat down, looking at the five piles of gear. Setting down his bowl, he pulled a blanket out of his backpack and went over to the gear he’d sat neatly in a row. Throwing the blanket over his head, turning off his goggles and pulling out a flashlight, Joshua turned on the light and started looking through what he had taken out of their pockets.

He found that high-top was a BATF agent out of Utah, and the camo wearers were Idaho State troopers. “Sorry, guys, but you were with them and coming after me. How you could help people that knock down old women like Ms. Ethel, I don’t know,” he said having heard that and a lot of other stuff on the FM radio.

Looking at the IDs, Joshua turned off the light, flipped the goggles down and walked over to grab his backpack and pulled it over. Covering backup, he flipped the goggles up as he turned them off and turned the flashlight back on. Digging out zip-lock bags, he put each man’s pile in a separate bag. The only one that had a pistol on the body was high-top. The other’s pistols were on their vests, on platforms that buckled to the thigh.

Wanting to check that out later, Joshua pulled the sleeping bag off of each backpack. Throwing the blanket off as he turned off the light, Joshua flipped the goggles down and looked at the two troopers. Shifting his gaze to the FBI and high-top, a plan of intrigue and deception started forming in his head, remembering the broadcast that no sheriff’s department in the state was helping the feds look for him. Thankful for his love of reading, Joshua pulled out two more zip-lock bags.

On the side of high-top’s pack was a combat machete. The only reason Joshua knew that was because Chris had one. It looked like a mutated bowie knife. It was seventeen inches long with a twelve-inch blade that was just under two inches wide and the blade was an eighth of an inch thick. Joshua had only ever carried pocket knives and then, had started carrying the spring-assist knives that he could clip inside his pocket.

He’d always thought the combat machete that Chris had looked neat, but didn’t think it was practical until now as he carried it over to the bodies. Grabbing one of the trooper’s arms, he moved it away from the body and swung at the wrist severing the hand from the body. Stepping over the body, he did the same to the left hand. Picking them up, he put them in a zip-lock bag and did the same for the other trooper.

Cleaning the blade, he put it back and then brought over the sleeping bags. Thankful they were mummy bags, he zipped them open and rolled a body in each one. Walking back, he grabbed his AR and moved down the valley to a small gully he’d seen from his sniper spot, to see if he could hide the bodies there.

Chapter Thirteen

Before the sun came up, Joshua had moved the bodies up to the gully, using the mule to carry them. He wasn’t in the mood to pick them up high enough to put on King. At the head of the gully was a small cave that went back almost thirty feet. The opening was only four feet tall and barely two feet wide, but he was able to drag the bodies in.

When the last one was in, the sky was getting bright and Joshua backed down the gully, doing his best to clear his tracks away. He could track game with the best of them and knew how to tread lightly but without good light, he was doing the best he could. Leading the mule back to the glade, Joshua went to work on ‘cleaning’ the kill zone. He had enough light now that he could do much better work, but only gave himself one hour to do it.

With his hour up, he looked around, satisfied that unless it was someone who knew what they were doing, people would walk over the spot. Grabbing the saddles, he started getting ready to move. He really wanted to go through the packs of the group and check out their equipment, but he was going to apply his hunting to his war: don’t stay around the kill zone.

He wasn’t worried about night because he would’ve heard anyone coming but during the day, he started to wonder if they had stuff that could be tracked. Keeping to the principle that it could be tracked if it sent out radio waves, he would stay in valleys. The part he didn’t like was that he had seen this group only stay in the valley.

One of the FBI guys had had on a nice pair of boots that looked his size and brand new, so Joshua took them off and found they fit great. When the mule was loaded down, Joshua started arranging the packs over King and tossed the boots over the saddle. He didn’t know what the hell those guys had packed in those backpacks because they were heavy as hell, but now he understood why they weren’t moving for shit.

The vests the four had worn weighed around twenty pounds and the packs weighed close to a hundred. As he led King and the mule down the valley, he could tell they were overloaded and kept a gentle pace. Now that it was light, he pulled out his small notebook and flipped it open to where he’d started outlining his plan of attack. Walking along, he added his new ideas.

When he was two miles away from the kill site and just less than three miles northwest of North Priest Lake, Joshua found a gully and buried the explosives, since he planned on using them down this way. After the explosives were buried, he redistributed the packs and climbed on King.

King was half Percheron, but his mom was a Tennessee walker. He was big as hell, but his back wasn’t as wide as a Percheron, so you didn’t have to sit in the splits when you rode him and King had the best of both lines: strength and endurance.

Knowing where he wanted to go, Joshua kept a good pace as he rode King with the mule tailing behind. Stopping a mile east of Hughes Ridge, Joshua guided the horse under a rock overhang. Even sitting on King, he couldn’t touch the overhang till he was thirty yards back.

Climbing off, he pulled the gear off of the mule and what little he’d left on King, setting them in a row. Taking off his jacket, the first thing Joshua did was pull out the bag with the severed hands and poured salt in with them, using all of the salt he had with him.

Putting the bag down, he picked up one of the camo vests and studied it. It opened on the sides and was slipped over the head. Feeling it, Joshua saw the front and back were stiff and hard, so he laid the vest out. Seeing a tag that read ‘Level IV ballistic plate’, Joshua nodded, liking that as he flipped it over and looked at the magazines attached to the front.

At first, he thought the magazines were for a different type of AR, but realized they were just fatter from the neck down. Each magazine was set in a hard plastic-like pouch that you had to ‘pull’ out. Taking off his gloves, Joshua started taking the bullets out and when he’d emptied the magazine, he counted sixty 5.56 rounds. Except looking a little fatter, the magazine was like a regular magazine.

“More bullets is much better,” he said reloading the magazine, and then went through the pouches, finding knives, a multi-tool, a first aid kit, a tactical flashlight, batteries, and a bag at the back left-hand side attached at the waist with a tag.

‘Dump bag’, if Joshua hadn’t heard Chris talk about these, he would’ve gotten the wrong idea really fast. It was a bag worn to toss your empty magazine in, so you could keep up with them. “I’m upgrading,” Joshua said and pulled the other camo vest over. He found it fit him better and pulled the Glock out of the holster.

“Never liked these,” he said and took the vest off. Looking at the FBI vest, the only difference between them and the camo ones, was that they were black with FBI written on the back. Looking at the drop platforms, he knew this because it said it on a tab, Joshua saw one of the holsters held a 1911.

This 1911 had a rail with light and laser and the holster was some type of hard plastic that was designed for the light and laser attachment. Taking the platform off, Joshua saw it could replace the drop holster on the camouflage vest.

He took the agent’s 1911 and took off the light and laser, attaching it to his Springfield 1911. His had a rail system, but he’d never found a holster he liked that would hold a light attachment. When his 1911 slid in perfectly, Joshua smiled and moved to the first pack. It belonged to high-top or the BATF agent. A satchel was attached to the side and Joshua opened it to find maps, notebooks, GPS and other items he could go through later. Making sure the GPS was off, he laid it to the side and started with the pockets on the left side of the pack.

The first thing he pulled out was the ‘shaving bag’ that had held the antique cellphone. Joshua unzipped it and realized quickly, this was no antique. It was so new that some of the cords were still in plastic. He pulled out the phone, saw it was off and set it down. Seeing a booklet inside, he pulled it out, reading, ‘Iridium Satellite Prepaid Phone’.

“They make disposable satellite phones?” he gasped and flipped the book over, his eyes getting wide when he saw the price tag. “Three and a half grand for a phone?! No wonder the fuckers want all my money!”

Repacking the phone, he pulled out the radio and saw it looked brand new and read ‘Harris’ on the front, with a headset attached with spaghetti cord. He had seen National Guard units using radios similar to this, but not this advanced. He pulled the radio out, making sure the thing was off and looked in the pocket he’d pulled it from and found an instruction book. “Guys, I’m so grateful,” he said and laid the book to the side. In the same pocket, he found two spare batteries.

With that pocket emptied, he opened the main compartment and sat back on his knees as he pulled out two six packs of canned cokes. Shaking his head, he put them down and continued laying out a ton of useless equipment, canned food, drinks and snacks. He found over twenty pounds of what he called shit; an electric razor, an electric toothbrush, propane bottles with a portable stove, and other stuff he just shook his head at. He just used heat tabs and wondered why they didn’t.

What he really didn’t understand was when he found ten MREs that had heat tabs in them, and high-top had a dozen cans of food. If he’d been on horseback, Joshua could understand that, but this much unnecessary weight was ridiculous.

Digging more out, Joshua stopped when he pulled out a folded circle of silky cloth. The circle was a flexible wire he could feel. Seeing a snap, he popped it and the circle started opening up and he tossed it away. “Holy shit,” he gasped as the circle opened up in a one-man tent before it even hit the ground. “That has got to be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” he said looking at the blue tent.

It was long enough for one man and the material looked sturdy. Moving over, it did take Joshua a few minutes to figure out how to twist and turn it to fold it back to the circle. After he did, he tossed it again, watching it pop open before it hit the ground. “Well, I’m going to eat my words because I’m taking that. I’ve never used a tent as I’ve moved, but always wanted a light one.”

Folding it back up, he guessed the tent didn’t weigh much over two pounds. Snapping it closed, he laid it aside and continued digging and pulled out six changes of clothes but only one pair of socks. “You were going to be funky smelling,” Joshua mumbled and continued pulling out gear and stopped. He reached down and pulled out a bandolier of 5.56 that held three hundred rounds on stripper clips. What shocked him was the bottom was full of them.