“Someone was here before us,” Sue said as she eyed the scene.
I shut the motor off and pulled my Glock free. It was not a job for the twenty-two. Sue followed me to the front door. It stood open a few inches. Instead of immediately going inside, which might get me killed, I moved to the far side of the house, then to the rear to examine all entrances. The back door stood wide open, banging a little as it hit the doorstop as the wind pushed it. The garage sat off to one side about twenty feet away, the siding and style didn’t match the house. It was obviously different construction, and not as good. I looked inside and spotted a red gas can. The motorcycle gauge showed a half tank, but I didn’t know how far that would take us—or how far we needed to travel if things went sideways. Maybe all the way to Canada. My orderly mind shouted at me to fill the tank, just in case.
Nothing else unusual caught my eye. I used my ears and nose to confirm what I saw. “Carry that gas to the bike and see if you can fill it.”
“And you?”
“I’m going inside.”
She lifted the can and hurried to the front where we parked. I went to the rear door and burst inside, rushing ahead, ready to shoot anything that moved. That showed what two weeks of anarchy can do to a man who lived alone too long. A person, dog, raccoon, or pretty much anything alive was going to be shot before it could harm me.
Nothing moved as I darted through the kitchen into the living room and down the hall to the bedrooms of the one-story structure. I drew a breath and gagged. The stench of death filled the rank air. Rotting flesh and other foul odors I did not want to identify. I bent, puked, and was forced to inhale the foulness again. My stomach again revolted, but I held it in and headed for the last doorway in the hall and threw it open. Whoever had died inside was no longer there. Blood and ocher smeared the wood floor where they had been dragged away from the bathroom by someone or something unknown. From a few smeared tracks, I suspected a bear, but that was a guess.
If there had been corpses inside the room, I’d have slammed it shut to keep some of the smell from filling the house. The room held two large windows and a straight-back chair sat at a dressing table. I swing the chair and broke out the first window, stuck my head outside and caught a lung full of air that didn’t gag me. I used the chair to break the next window on the adjoining wall too. A little cross breeze helped improve things.
My search began. A nine-millimeter without an obvious manufacturer was in a bedside drawer. I grabbed it. Inside the closet was a safe. I had no time, skill, or interest in opening it. A shotgun stood in a corner; boxes of shells were stacked neatly on the shelf above. I took one box of shotgun shells and two boxes of nine-millimeter that would fit the new gun and my own gun.
The dressing room table caught my attention. A jewelry box sat below a tall wooden unit that held dozens of necklaces on display. I upturned the jewelry box and rings, bracelets, and other items spilled out. Those things had probably meant a lot to the person who had lived here and had died in the bathroom a few steps away. The rank smells increased as I moved closer to the bathroom door. I wouldn’t open it for anything. I left all the things on the table. They were valueless. A can of beets was worth more.
On the way out, I paused in the kitchen long enough to locate the canned goods in a cabinet. I stuffed soup, stew, and barbecue beans inside the front of my jacket, zipped it to like a kangaroo’s pouch and went outside. The air smelled wonderful after the foul stench. Sue was setting the gas can aside after topping off the tank.
“Broke a couple of windows? Temper tantrum?” Sue teased.
“Couldn’t breathe.”
I dumped most of the food items into the saddlebags after tossing out more stuff from the previous rider that we would never use. I refilled my partially empty jacket pockets with new, shiny shells and felt relieved. The magazine in the gun, the two in the holster on my other hip should be enough for anything, but a handful of loose bullets in my jacket pocket felt comforting. We rolled the bike down to the paved road instead of starting the engine. Sue carried the shotgun in her other hand.
We were in a catch-22 situation. We had weapons we’d never fired, which could cost us our lives because if they didn’t work, or we didn’t know how to use them. We were essentially betting our lives that the previous owners had them in proper working order, or that there was not a safety, or the firing pin removed, was a poor wager. Inexperience with the guns was a poor excuse. I drove slowly down the driveway and stopped at the edge of the road as I explained to Sue, “We’re going to test-fire the new pistol for you and the shotgun. Quickly. Then we’re going to ride away before anyone can react.”
“Won’t that attract people we don’t want?”
“If it does, we’ll be gone when they get here. Right now, you need a lesson.”
She nodded. She attempted to hand me the pump shotgun. Instead, I handed her five shells. Only three would fit. The type, if not the manufacturer of the shotgun was vaguely familiar. I reached for it. A threaded screw let me remove the lower part of the barrel where a wooden plug that was fitted inside fell out. It was designed to restrict the number of shells the gun would hold fell out. I reassembled the barrel and this time five shells slipped neatly inside. The old hunting rules in Washington State about how many shells were allowed in a gun didn’t apply anymore.
Then I leaned the shotgun against the bike and explained the workings of the nine-millimeter. We ejected the magazine and counted twelve bullets. I hadn’t seen a spare magazine or holster, and a quick check revealed mine were not interchangeable with her gun, despite them using the same ammunition. “Ever shot either of these?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, we want to ride out immediately after shooting, so let’s do this quickly. We’ll stop down the road and reload, not here. You’ll shoot one shotgun shell, pump another into the chamber, and fire again. Then, without pause, set the shotgun aside and fire three shots from the nine-millimeter. Bang, bang, bang. I’ll have the motor running and you’ll get on. Carry the shotgun across your thighs. Put the pistol in your waistband.”
“If we run into trouble?”
“If they’re that close, use the shotgun until empty. After that, don’t reload. Use the pistol. Carry spare shells for both in an outside pocket. Now, for the three shots, you need to hold the pistol in both hands.” I showed her how. “The shotgun is different.”
“Will it knock me down or rip my shoulder off like in the videos?”
“You’ve heard wild stories. Here’s what is really going to happen. If you put the stock firmly into your shoulder, it will feel about like this.” I gave her a short punch on her shoulder. “If you hold it loosely, it will knock you off your feet.”
She planted her feet, bent her knees and pointed the shotgun at a small decorative tree at the edge of the driveway. I could see she was scared. And determined. After a quick glance at me for a reassuring nod, she pulled the shotgun tight to her shoulder and then added a little more pressure. A moment later, the small tree in front of her exploded. She worked the pump and fired again.
“Damn,” she muttered as she handed me the shotgun and reached for the nine-millimeter. The mailbox ten steps away was her next target, and she put all three slugs into it as if she had used the pistol a dozen times before.
A few seconds later, the gunshots still ringing in our ears, we rode off. I had never twisted the throttle fully, but the bike was heavy, huge, and intended for the open road. It had power to spare. We went a few miles before pulling off down a dirt road into the trees and around a slight curve where we were out of sight from the main road.