Copyright 2024 Woodsmudder All rights reserved

Chapter 4- Mud and Guns in the Sierra

(This story was inspired by Muddybootsnlevis' excellent "The Mud Business". My story and the characters in it are all 100% fiction with one exception - like my story's narrator Jason, I wished I could work at Muddybootsnlevis' fictional Drilling Mud Company)

(This chapter is based on an actual experience I had in the Sierra, but I've changed all names, crucial details, and anything else that might identify people I was with that day)

I woke up knowing I needed to make changes asap.

Number one was that I changed my route. I had planned to drive north to Washington, then east to Wyoming, and then drop down to Colorado before returning home. Instead of that, I would go straight to the Sierra today. Camping last night reminded me of all the great times camping in the Sierra with Melinda. I wanted to see the Sierra again. From the Sierra, I'd go straight to Colorado. We'd often talked of someday living there. I wanted to see it.

I immediately reserved a campsite on the west side of Lake Tahoe. I was lucky to get one. Melinda always preferred camping on National Forest land, not campgrounds, but this was my first time alone. I wasn't ready to really rough it.

Number two was that I needed different clothes, at least until I could run my nice new Levi's 501's, Carhartts, and the rest through a washer enough times and get them muddy enough to get the new out of them. That's how I prefer my clothes anyway. I've always hated new jeans. I always put them through a washer a few times before wearing them. What happened in the bar last night proved I needed different clothes, so as I drove towards the Sierra, I stopped in every thrift store along the way, looking for used Levi's and other good work clothes that looked old. I was lucky to find one with a bargain table in back where I found clothes that although they'd been laundered, had clearly been worn by guys doing real work. I bought everything my size, including two very worn pairs of coveralls. I'd probably never need even one, but the price was too low to pass up. I was ready for change, any kind of change.

I emailed Axel:

axel
i camped in humboldt last night. beautiful. change of plans. i'm driving to the sierra, then colorado
jason

melinda-
u wont believe this, but i camped last night. in humboldt. heading to the sierra now. hope ur well. im on 3 week camping trip, believe it or not. yeah. me of all people.
jason

I hadn't seen her in five years. Probably she was married with kids by now, but we weren't just lovers, we were friends. It was special. She'd definitely want to know about my big camping journey.

Then I hit the road. The closer I got to the Sierra, the more the memories of my days there with Melinda flooded back to me, but I also kept thinking about Axel. I couldn't get my head around about how I thought about him. I'm not gay, but I knew that by pretty much any standard, Axel looked hot. But the great thing is that he didn't seem to know he was hot. Just down to earth. I still didn't understand the night I spent in bed with him. I just didn't. I was totally confused about who and what the hell I really was. I slept with a guy. What did that make me? I was tormented for the entire drive.

I reached the campground, got set up, and spent much of the evening looking at Forest Service maps, trying to remember places I went with Melinda, and locating places that looked promising that might not require much off road driving skill. Tomorrow would be my first time four wheeling.

During the night I heard what sounded like explosions or shots in the distance, but I was half asleep and went right back to sleep without thinking about it, not suspecting I'd learn more about them.

I woke up late the next morning. I must have been exhausted from the drive. I ate a filling lunch and packed food and water to take with me. Before leaving, I checked my email. Axel had replied.

Jason
Your trip is exciting. I'd love to see more pix of you.
Axel

I finally got away about 11am and drove onto a forest service road. I was tempted to immediately put the Ram into 4WD, but I'd been reading a lot of four wheeling websites and had learned that you should never put ii into 4WD until you need actually need 4WD. Otherwise you might get stuck before you even know you're in trouble, so I left it in 2WD and putted slowly along the rough dirt road.

I'd driven about twenty minutes when I noticed a truck in the middle of a narrow river, with a couple guys in the muddy water around it. I stopped and watched. The guys were soaked in mud. The back of the truck was connected to a cable, which was connected to a tree on my side of the river. The truck had a strange paint job, just a dull green, almost like a military truck. I watched for a while. Finally walked down there and watched. I saw the truck had regular California plates, so it wasn't military.

One of the guys was holding an electronic controller for what I they later told me was a winch, trying pull the truck back up to dry ground, but it wasn't budging. Two guys were deep in muddy water front of the truck, pushing, and another was behind the steering wheel stepping on the gas whenever the guy on the winch gave him the signal.
The guy with the winch looked at me. I was watching from only few feet away, fascinated. "You here to help?"
Oh boy, that was the question. But the whole point of this journey was adventure and to get muddy, so I said "Yeah".

"You're gonna get muddy. And it might not help. She's stuck pretty bad."

Trying to act like I did this all the time, I said "sure".

"Name's Adam. I do appreciate you helping. Get in front with those guys and push when I yell."

"I'm Jason."

I waded into the water. It was cold. Man it was cold. The mud was deep, not like last night's shallow and almost warm mud. I was up to my waist in water and mud when I got to the front of the truck. The two guys moved to let me in. One said, "Watch yourself. Don't get in front of the wheels. They could throw stones, do some serious damage. Here, between us".

We worked on it for quite a while. Adam would yell, the truck's wheels would spin, and we'd push like hell. But the truck rarely budged. Mostly what happened was that over and over again, one or more of us would fall into the mud. We were drenched and coated with mud. We looked a lot like those photos we see on UMD. No matter what we did, the truck never really moved.

I don't know how the other guys liked it. To them it was probably just mud. But I was loving it. My first time muddy with other guys. My first time muddy in public. And I was hard. I hoped I was covered with enough mud that they wouldn't see my bulge. These didn't seem like the kind of guys I saw on UMD. They probably wouldn't understand.

One of the guys pointed up at the road. People had stopped on the dirt road and were watching. Some were taking pictures. None of the bastards offered to help.

Adam finally gave up and accepted that he'd have to call a tow truck. It wouldn't be cheap. I offered to drive him to town.

All his clean clothes were at their campsite, so I gave Adam one of my coveralls and I put on the other. He suggested I put some tarps on the front seat to protect it, so used some ground cloths. Fortunately I'd brought extra. I drove him into town, where he arranged for a tow. Adam rode with the tow driver and I followed them back to Adam's truck.

Watching the tow truck get Adam's truck out of the mess was fascinating. The tow truck driver got pretty muddy too. It might be a cool job to have. All of us were in the mud with him, helping. It was fun, muddy wet fun. I couldn't think of a better way to spend time. And I was doing something worthwhile, helping a guy out.
I know, however, it sure wasn't a fun day for Adam. He'd have huge tow bill, but for me, it was the best day of my life. I wanted to never take these clothes off. They felt so good..

After Adam's truck was safely on dry ground, a woman who'd been watching said she'd been taking pictures and offered to transfer some to our phones. I asked her to get some just of me, which she did. I still have those photos. I still love them.

When it was all over, Adam and his friends thanked me profusely and invited me for a beer at their campsite. We were all wet and muddy and great friends. It couldn't have been a better introduction to mud. The drive to their campsite was scary. I really did need 4WD for some of it. It was rough in places. Dangerous driving, but somehow I made it. At the campsite, they broke out the beers. Steaks were already grilling. Somebody put on more. It was smelling delicious.

Adam gave me his coveralls back. I left mine on. My clothes underneath were still soaked with mud. They felt fantastic. The coveralls were keeping the mud from drying out and they hid the bulge that kept growing. .
I had noticed when we were helping try to unstuck Adam's truck that they all wore knives, but when they were covered in mud, I didn't think much of it. Now I saw they weren't just knives, they were big knives. I'd seen guys wearing knives before, but not like these. These were more like weapons. There were over a dozen guys here, all of them wearing those knives. Then I started noticing the guns. Lots of guns. Some of the guys had a pistol in a holster. I tried to be casual about looking around, but it's hard to be subtle when you realize that there are rifles and AR type guns all around you.

Adam must have seen me looking. Handing me a paper plate with a huge steak, he asked," Did you hear us?".

"When?"

Another guy, Alan, laughed. "Last night." Alan laughed, playfully poking another guy. "He nearly got hisself killed, dumb son of a bitch."

I began to understand. "Yeah. Last night. Guns. Almost like explosions."

Adam laughed. "Both. It was amazing." He explained that they were training. Apparently, some kind of militia, but I don't know what kind. Definitely not government.

Alan said they were training much of the night. "Society's gonna break down. We'll restore order."

They were becoming really animated. They loved this stuff.

Adam warned, "When it all goes to hell, you won't have the police and military to protect you. Most of those guys are pansies. Not worth much."

"And the fags and bitches they're letting in." Alan added.

Adam started pointing to guys at the campsite, showing which ones were police officers or sheriff's deputies, and which were active military. "We're are the guys who'll protect you when everything goes to shit. We're training and ready."

They really got into talking about it. It was weird. These were scary dudes. Both them and me knew that if we met under different circumstances, they wouldn't have anything to do with me. To them, I'd be just a wimp who didn't matter. But today I'd gone out of my way to help Adam and his friends when they were in trouble. I'd gotten muddy with them - I didn't let on that I loved it. I'd worked hard with them to free Adam's truck, and I'd driven far out of my way to get a tow truck. They knew they owed me for that and they treated me like a king. I liked these guys when they weren't talking about guns. I could enjoy being with them, except for the guns and the war talk.

I finally finished my steak and said I had to go. I made up some excuse, I don't remember what. I just had to get out of there. The 4wd road out of would be a scary drive, but not half as scary as those guys.

I found nice little lake to clean myself up. Carrying my clean clothes in a trash bag, I walked down to it and found a hidden spot. I took off my coveralls and was going to start washing, but noticed some mud and couldn't resist. I stepped into the mud, lowered myself into it, getting muddy up to my chest. The mud was warm. The feeling was phenomenal, I felt a genuine high. I rolled around in the mud and lowered my head into it. It felt wonderful. I was rock hard again. I'd never in my life felt this way so many times in a day.

Suddenly I froze in paranoia when I saw some other people coming down to the lake. I was embarrassed. I didn't know I'd explain being covered in mud. But they just waved to me and went to another spot on the lake. In a few minutes, they were in the mud too, whooping and hollering, having lots of fun. I relaxed and went back to loving the mud.

Finally, though it was time to go. I had to get ready for the drive to Colorado tomorrow. I washed up and changed into clean clothes, washed as much mud out of my clothes as I could, then drove into the nearest town with a laundromat where I washed my muddy clothes and all my new clothes. I ran them through the washer twice to make my new clothes a little more comfortable.

What a glorious, glorious day in the Sierra, even despite the guns!

I'll continue my story in chapter 5, Muddy Colorado Job.