Post Grid: An Arizona EMP Adventure by Tony Martineau Page A

long-sleeved button-up shirt, a large bandana, blue jeans, a pair of leather batwing chaps, and well-worn cowboy boots. Next, Kelly donned a leather belt and holster holding her Ruger GP-100 .357 revolver. Her dad had given her the gun as a present just before she left for Navy nurse basic school. The reflection in the mirror was of a true cowgirl.
    “I wonder how Dad's doing… you don't think he would try to come down here, do you?” Kelly asked Hokey.
    Kelly's dad lived on a ranch in Utah. He and her mother had split amicably when she was ten. He went off and bought his ranch, but her mom had stayed in Arizona, where she had grown up. Kelly loved spending her summers with her dad. The weather was cooler in Utah, there were cattle to herd and you could grow more vegetables in the garden because they had ample rain and fertile soil. Maybe they weren't affected there. Even if they were, the ranches would be better off because it was more rural and they were pretty much self-sufficient. She hoped so, for her dad's sake.
    Kelly threw on her cowboy hat, saddled Hokey, a paint mare, and Pokey, a stallion quarter horse. She owned two saddles, but only one set of really nice saddle bags. Using her head, she fashioned two more sets of saddlebags out of laundry bags tied together with wide fabric straps. A bedroll was packed with extra clothing and a coat. One horse would be ridden until it showed signs of fatigue, then the other horse would take over. “A lighter load will lessen your burdens, my friends.”
    The last thing to be thrown in was a manila envelope with Kelly's bank records, birth certificate, retirement documents, nursing license, and the like.
    The three of them, Kelly and the two horses, walked down the street away from the fires, away from their old way of life in the rural Lehi neighborhood, toward the sparsely populated Indian reservation and ultimately, to open road. Kelly called out to Mrs. Horne, her next-door neighbor, “Take what you want out of the house.”
    “Where you going?” Mrs. Horne called.
    “My mom's,” Kelly called back, without as much as a cursory backward glance.
    The desert heat rose from the ground in waves; the pavement looked more like a river than a road. Kelly sighed and tipped her hat lower over her eyes. The horses must have been hot too, but they were a steady team. Relaxation came over her body for the first time this morning as she listened to the steady clip-clop of hooves on the road.
    The horses were excited at first to be traveling, but soon settled into a consistent pace, gazes toward the ground. It didn't take long for sweat to bead around Kelly's sunglasses and hatband.
    She took Gilbert Road north out of Lehi toward Fountain Hills. Suburbia gave way to the rolling hills of open desert, tall saguaro cactus and low, scruffy trees growing in miles and miles of finely ground stone. All of this existed within sight of mighty mountain ranges to the north and east.
    They covered eight miles easily in the first two hours. It seemed that Kelly was the only one leaving Phoenix. City folks wouldn't voluntarily head off into the desert without transportation; to do so would be suicide.
    There was the occasional person walking into town on the desolate highway, or someone resting at the side of the road. Kelly was an impressive sight, sitting tall on her horse with firearm visible, but she remained wary and approached everyone cautiously. Each begged water. They didn't seem to know what had happened. She assured them that they should keep walking in the direction of the big cities, and that help would be coming. She wasn't so sure about this last statement—after what she had seen last night, town looked dangerous—but she didn't have any other advice.
    Water containers could be refilled at the Verde River, so she portioned out water to each one if they had a container, or let them drink from her “guest cup.” The plan was to reserve the last gallon for herself. These folks