The Bonner Incident: Joshua's War by Thomas A Watson, Michael L Rider Read Free Book Online Page B

one felt nauseous, but only one more puked. All at once, the nine men pulled out something to call someone on. Two pulled out radios, three pulled out the brick satellite phones and he chuckled, seeing the others were pulling out regular cellphones. All the while, point man was still screaming.
    “You have to call someone to find out what to do,” he mumbled seeing all of them starting to look at each other. One finally stepped over to one of the men with a radio and pointed up the slope, then turned to the others pointing at the point man who was still screaming.
    The others, glad someone else was taking charge, moved to do what he’d said. Joshua moved the crosshairs to the man running up the slope and saw what looked like a pole sticking out of the side of his backpack. “You going to raise a flag up there? They could use your pole,” he said and ran his scope up the slope then back down to the man.
    Catching glimpses of the man through the trees as he ran up the slope, Joshua moved his crosshairs to the bare ridge then down to running man, and found he wasn’t running anymore up the steep slope. The man was gasping and only moving at a walk, using bushes and trees to pull himself up the slope. When he reached the cleared ridge, the man dropped to his knees gasping and pulling his pack off.
    “Joshua says, no,” he mumbled holding the crosshairs on the man’s chest while slowly squeezing the trigger. The rifle bucked and Joshua watched the man fall on his side. He knew even with a suppressor, the ones in the draw might hear three hundred yards away, but he wasn’t worried about them. With all the gunfire he knew their ears were ringing, not to mention the bloodcurdling scream from the point man.
    Seeing that the man he’d shot was barely moving, Joshua moved his crosshairs back down to the draw, hearing the scream suddenly stop and saw that the point man had passed out. Looking at the leg, Joshua knew the bear trap probably almost amputated it. Someone had had the frame of mind to use a belt and make a tourniquet as Joshua had dealt with the running man.
    He watched as four men argued and three tried to pry the trap apart with their hands. The only thing they accomplished was jerking the point man’s leg waking him up to resume screaming. They next fed belts into the jaws to see if that would give them some leverage, but only made the point man scream louder.
    “Guys, unless the springs are pressed, you aren’t moving those jaws,” Joshua mumbled and moved his crosshairs back up to running man to find him laying still. Moving back to the group, he saw they were now trying to use their belts on the springs to compress them.
    “Points for being inventive,” Joshua said and realized if they used their belts like a tourniquet it might work, if they could crank them down hard enough. But they were trying to tighten the belts up by hand like they would wear a belt and that was just moving the trap and making the point man scream.
    His screams had gotten much weaker and Joshua could barely hear them now as the leader waved everyone away from the trap and looked at it. He pointed at the cable and two men and then he pointed at the others. The two men moved over and went to work with multi-tools, trying to get the bolt out as the others pulled out hatchets and started chopping down small trees.
    Watching in fascination, Joshua saw one of the men who was working on the bolt jump up and start screaming at the leader. The leader screamed back, waving at the cable and Joshua realized it was the machine gun man who was screaming at the leader as he lifted up the machine gun, aiming at the cable. The others moved back as he sighted on the cable. “Not a good idea buddy,” Joshua said as thunder erupted in the draw when machine gun shot at the cable.
    One of the men off to the side dropped down grabbing his lower leg and the leader started waving his arms to get machine gun to stop. Machine gun only stopped when his