Jernigan's War (34 page)

Dix spent the day packing up his gear, once again he packed heavy. He was running short on MRE’s so he took the fillets of about 30 catfish and smoked them into jerky over the driftwood fire. He put these into a pillow case along with some hardtack he made from some old flour. He had 12 thirty round magazines for Jake’s AR15, his Browning 9mm with four extra magazines and the Beretta .22 in his back pocket. As usual, he carried his folding knife and the Kbar knife on his belt.

The A10’s roared overhead when they came out of the Natchez airport. Dix knew that reports would come in from them as to the whereabouts of the Chinese. Butch showed up about an hour later as expected with a report for Dix. He hopped out of his truck grinning, “They caught them with their helicopters on the ground near Alexandria. The next sortie is on its way.” They watched as three A10’s roared overhead with three more about two minutes later. Dix looked back at Butch, “Where do you want me to deploy?”

“Do you mind heading back into Catahoula parish. If they come from that way, they’ll have to come across next to the swamp south of Catahoula Lake on Hwy 28. We took out the bridges down on the Achafalaya and Red River. Their only chance to get equipment across is to build a pontoon bridge here on the Black River. We’ll get you across the river with your four-wheeler and trailer and top off your gas tank. I’ve got you four
five gallon cans of gas plus a couple of quarts of motor oil. How’s your ammo holding up?”

“I’m good to go. All I’ve got to do is find a good camp. If I shoot up all the bullets I’ve got, I’ll just have to find some more bad guys and get theirs.”

Butch laughed, “I’m giving you a radio, oh, by-the-way, I’m Captain Erwin now, Colonel Miller told me to tell you that you are now officially conscripted into the Constitution Army at the rank of Major. You still have complete autonomy; but, we follow your orders when you bark.”

Dix frowned, “I don’t suppose any of this was your idea?”

“Look,” Butch said, “We’ve been following your lead ever since you saved our butts, this just makes it official.”

“Make sure that Beagle and Rachel get a barrel of ground wheat, a barrel of corn meal, rice and soybeans and take Chuck Harris a big mess of catfish in exchange.”

Beagle came up about that time and Dix told him, “I just traded a big mess of your fish for several barrels of food, go get Captain Erwin a sack of fish.”

He called Rachel out and told her and Beagle that he was heading back into Catahoula parish to do some scouting. “If the fighting comes here, take the boats down the lake and stay out of sight. Keep the fishing boat ready to run in the event you have to make a quick getaway.”

Ben and Frank had finally given up trying to follow him every time he left, Dix thought to himself, “When all of this is over I need to try and take them with me more often.” But he knew in his heart how it would probably all end.

Butch had a truck and trailer ready to load up the four-wheeler and its trailer. They headed into town and made a stop. Dix had found another four-wheeler with almost new tires and rims.
His guys swapped out the wheels on the four-wheelers, the tires on his old Yamaha Big Bear were almost worn down to nothing from all the road time. Dix was relieved that he had new tires, he had been afraid this would have been the Yamaha’s last trip.

They had a ferry rigged up across the river with a barge and cables. The trip across went faster than it did when he and Butch had to float the four-wheeler across on its own tires.

Dix ran back along the gravel road on the river side of the levee until he came to the opening in the flood wall that protected a portion of Jonesville. He made a long run around the town and slowed when he passed the house his father was born in and where his grandmother and great grandfather died in 1930.

He ran the Yamaha in third gear because he was loaded and didn’t want to tax the bike or take the chance of losing control. The Springfield was strapped on the gun rack and he was wearing Jake’s AR15 on his back as usual. He ran out to an area known as French Fork that was located just east of Catahoula Lake. This was part of a huge drainage area in central Louisiana where the freshwater lake was a significant feature of the region.

He turned down a long straight gravel drive that made a dead end at the home of his grandfather’s baby sister; she had died almost 20 years earlier. Dix had some cousins who had lived there now but hadn’t seen them for years. He got down to the house and found that they had managed to survive with no casualties. They didn’t recognize him but did recognize his name. They were self reliant people and had a working farm with gardens, crops, and livestock. Dix told them that the Chinese may come through there. His cousin Boyd explained, “We retreated back in the swamp with our food and animals when they came through the last time. We have animal pens already back there.”

They gave him a dozen boiled eggs, a pone of corn bread and a jar of buttermilk. Dix thanked them and headed further into the zone where he would meet the enemy, if they made the run in this direction.

He camped down a dirt road in the edge of the swamp staying within ear shot of the road. Dix slept pretty good considering he was in the wilderness. At one time this area was full of wild hogs, deer and alligators. The alligators were probably still plentiful. This area’s close proximity to Alexandria, LA, meant that it was one of the first places anyone who thought they could live off the land would come to; but by now, most of the big game and a lot of the small game were gone. Because much of this area was only accessible on foot or by boat, it would always have some dangerous game. The thought of a black bear or a big old razor back boar stayed in the back of Dix’s mind, even as he tried to sleep.

The next morning he ate half his corn bread, drank his buttermilk and ate an egg. He topped off his gas tank and headed toward the intersection that anyone traveling from the east would have to cross. Dix determined that to set up here would be suicide, there was nowhere to retreat and the shooting would be no more than 100 yards distance. At that distance, a man with an AK47 could easily take him out. Dix didn’t fear he would get killed, but that he would get killed before he had killed an appreciable number of the bad guys.

Dix ran back down the highway until he reached the intersection of Hwy 28 and Hwy 84. A local truck stop sat vacant about a quarter of a mile away. He went across the intersection and up and over the levee then hid the four-wheeler next to an old barn. He cleared out a narrow shooting lane so that he could lay on the back side of the levee and out of sight from down the highway. He had at least a one mile straight line of sight down the road. He could engage a target as far as he could see and shoot. He also had an escape route to the rear and could even cross the river if necessary.

Dix sat on the edge of the levee in the spring sun and waited. He finished the buttermilk and ate a couple of eggs. He wished he and his wife were heading up Back Bay in their fishing boat; but instead, he was man hunting again. He called Butch on the radio and told him he didn’t have anything to report.

“Dix, you may get some action as the A10’s have been running nonstop. The Chinese have to take the planes out, or they will be toast.”

Dix had about decided that the Chinese weren’t going to show. What he didn’t realize, was how hard they had been hit by the A10’s. When they came, they were rolling all out. Dix had expected scouts or something, not a flat out racing column of trucks and equipment.

He replaced the cartridges in the Springfield with five armor piercing bullets. He radioed Butch that the Chinese were five miles out of Jonesville and coming like a locomotive. Dix signed off and put the crosshairs on the driver of the lead vehicle. At 400 yards the 30 caliber armor piercing bullet passed through the bullet resistant glass, the driver’s chest, the back of the seat and through five of the men in the back before passing though the back door. The personnel carrier careened off the highway and out into the field and sheared off a power pole. Dix didn’t wait to see the results but concentrated on the truck behind it. This time, the armor piercing bullet passed through the windshield, the top ring of the steering wheel, the driver’s arm at the elbow, and hit a rocket propelled grenade that exploded setting off a chain reaction among all of them in the box. The truck was blown into two pieces, one of which caused the truck behind it to careen off the road and turn upside down in the ditch.

Dix’s third shot went through the windshield of the 4th truck missing the driver, but killing two men in the back before it passed through the radiator of the 5
^th
truck. Dix cycled his action and with his fourth shot managed to hit the driver of the 4th
^th
truck this time; the bullet continued on and wounded another man in the back. It continued through the back of truck and hit the 5
^th
truck in the radiator and on to the engine block. It had lost enough momentum that it did not damage the engine block. Dix cycled the action again as the 4
^th
truck came to a stop. The 5th
truck with the radiator blowing steam pulled around it. Dix put the 5
^th
and last armor piercing bullet through the front glass and it went through the fuel cans in the back. The truck swerved off the road, rolled over and burst into flames.

He thumbed four cartridges into the magazine. He fired again this time on the 6th personnel carrier in the line, it stopped instantly in the road. He had killed the driver and three of the men in the back. His next bullet went through the front window, on through the back killing two more and striking the 7
^th
vehicle behind it. In the space of two minutes he had stopped seven vehicles, killed and wounded a number of men, and made several thousand more angry.

The levee seemed to come alive as all the AK47’s in the hands of the dozens of men behind them opened up in his direction. He rolled off the back of the levee to head to the four-wheeler when all hell broke loose. Cannon fire turned the scenery in every direction to dust, fire and deafening sound. He lost all sense of space and time. The concussions took him off his feet. He was laying flat on his back with dirt and debris all around still in the air. He found his rifle and crawled on his elbows back on top of the levee. The A10’s had made a run down the length of the Chinese column with the last few 40 mm cannon shells hitting the levee in front of Dix. The only reason he was alive was because he had turned to run. He topped off the magazine on his rifle and started looking for live targets. He quickly located them and made five shots. He reloaded and emptied his rifle again. He radioed to Butch that this column was destroyed and he was doing a little clean up. He kept firing until he could no longer see any targets within range. An A10 was making another run down the line so now was the time to make his escape.

It wasn’t until he tried to return to the four-wheeler that he realized he had been hit. A hole in his lower back was matched by a corresponding hole on the right side of his abdomen. He was hurting all over from the concussions of the exploding shells; so, he didn’t know if he had been hit by shrapnel or if he was hit by
a rifle slug. He pulled up his shirt and examined the wound. It oozed a squirt of blood with every breath.

He strapped the Springfield on the back of his four-wheeler and headed down the river road until he could cross back onto the highway. A Chinese helicopter had landed in the highway in front of the bridge where it had been blown. He came under fire from men pouring out of the helicopter. Dix gunned the four-wheeler and turned south towards his dad’s home place. He grunted as a bullet went through his leg high on his thigh and passed through the four wheeler seat. It was bleeding profusely when he stopped out of sight. He took a roll of duct tape out of his pack and wrapped the wound so that it would stop bleeding.

He pulled Jake’s AR15 into position and limped back up the road until he could see the helicopter. He placed the yellow dot from the Trijicon sight on the men and started popping off rounds. He emptied the magazine and fell back, dropped the empty magazine and slapped in a fresh one. He paused long enough to turn and return fire. He emptied the magazine into the pilot and copilots positions. When the magazine was empty he turned to run and took another hit to his body. It felt like someone had hit him between the shoulder blades with a hammer. Somehow he got back on the four-wheeler and headed south. He would need to get to his bamboo camp at the old home place and lie up.

Dix ran the four-wheeler flat out and several times had to shake his head to clear the fog. He had lost a lot of blood. He stopped at Jones bayou to call Butch. “I’m heading back to my camp down on Grassy Lake; I’ve taken a couple of hits. There’s a helicopter at the Jonesville Bridge, I shot it up pretty good, but had to retreat.”

Butch said something but Dix couldn’t understand, so he just rode on until he reached the old home place. He saw the old
cypress tree down on the lake bank and stopped the four-wheeler in the road. Suddenly he felt a little better, he figured that the adrenalin was wearing off, so he took another sip of water and steered the four-wheeler down the hill towards the old tree. He lost control of it when his arms and legs went weak. The four-wheeler turned over in slow motion and he went flying.

He found himself lying on his back looking up through the branches and envisioned his father doing the same thing. He remembered looking up through those same branches when he was a little boy and marveling at how big they seemed. He dozed off and started to dream.

He woke to two big old ugly Catahoula Cur dogs licking his face. He pushed them off and looked up to see his Dad looking down at him, “You have a good nap?” Jake was there and so was his wife Maggie. His Dad said, “Dix, Mama Shelly’s got lunch ready.” They helped him up and he saw his mother waving from up the hill. The road was gone.