By the Dawn's Early Light

by David Kershner

  “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  “Sorry. I think I’m just nervous about Aunt Jenny. What if she doesn’t want to come? On top of that, I’m crampy.”

  “Phew!” Josh said emphatically. “I was worried you might be pregnant!”

  Sam playfully punched him in the gut. “Once we are home, we should go and get the Reverend to perform our wedding ceremony. There’s no school schedule to conflict with anymore. Then maybe I can show you where babies come from.”

  Josh smiled. “Works for me. Be careful,” he answered and gently kissed her on the forehead.

  “You too,” she replied and then grabbed the back of his head and made a show of kissing him. Once she broke the embrace and felt he was thoroughly embarrassed, she said, “See you tomorrow.”

  In an effort to show it didn’t have the desired effect, he slapped her loudly on the butt as she turned and headed toward the door.

  “Dad!” Layla admonished him.

  “What? She started it,” he replied playfully as he shrugged.

  * * *

  Josh reached into the kitchen and grabbed the two pocket sized notepads he had placed there prior to the impromptu meeting. Hoplite followed him out of the cabin and continued as they headed off into the woods. After several hundred feet, they made the turn onto a game trail and began working their way down the hill toward the creek and the railroad tracks. The pair spent ten silent minutes just walking through and climbing over downed trees and limbs until they abruptly exited on to the gravel bed of the Norfolk Southern railroad line.

  “Here’s your diesel, Captain,” Josh said as he gestured up and down the line.

  “What the hell,” Hoplite replied in amazement. “How did you know this was here?”

  “This train comes through here every twenty four hours. It passes my farm around 5:30 in the morning,” he answered.

  “What’s on it?”

  “Usually kiln dried lumber, fuel, and coal. On occasion there will be a handful of cars that are full of live ribeye and bacon.”

  “As in, on the hoof?” Hoplite asked as he smiled. “How many boxcars are on this thing?”

  “Typically there are around a hundred or so. Generally there is an equal mix among the three primary loads. Wanna take a look?”

  “Absolutely!” Capt. Rayna responded as Josh handed him one of the two little notepads he swiped on his way out of the cabin.

  “You go north, count up what you see, and take notes. I’ll head south and do the same while I try and find the engineer or conductor. If there are any hogs or beef cattle on here, let me know. We can get the ramps and trailers and move them up to the fields. We’ll save a few of the pigs, but we’ll probably set most of ‘em free.”

  “Why would we do that? What good would come from that?”

  “Well for one thing, assuming there are any, we don’t have the feed for all of them. The cows I can turn out into the pasture or barter a side of beef. If we turn most of the ham out, they’ll find mates and cross bred with the boar in these parts. After a couple of generations, depending on a how many are harvested by hungry travelers and locals deeming them a nuisance, we will have increased the wild population two or three fold.”

  “Did you just sit in that cabin of yours thinking up this stuff over the years or what? Gregg might be right, maybe you are a savant.”

  Josh laughed. “Farmers, by nature, are the original survivalists. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, you don’t need it. Overly expensive material possessions are generally out of reach for most of us. You just have to make do with what you’ve got and what you can afford.”

  “How much did you earn as a farmer, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Before the greenhouses, we were just making do with the sale of wheat. We aren’t a large operation with thousands of acres so the profit margin was infinitesimally small.

  “Ballpark it,” Hoplite said.

  “Figure an average of fifty bushels per acre. Multiple that by a hundred acres, and then multiple that again by an average of eight bucks a bushel.”

  “Forty grand,” Hoplite replied.

  “Now take away the cost of fuel, seed, organic fertilizers and pesticides, and labor. That’ll run ya an average of fifteen. So now you’re down to twenty five grand. Thankfully, that only lasted about two years before the produce company approached me. After the greenhouses were built, we were able to remain steady at a shade over six figures, but that was only because we diversified. We still had to subtract all of that other stuff for the wheat operation plus now we had the hourly rates of any workers we employed in the greenhouses. In the end, it worked out to about sixty.”

  “Technically, you’re down to fifty four after if you deduct six grand a year on preps. That’s assuming you spent the full five hundred dollar allowance you set aside each month.”

  “Captain Rayna was paying attention and is apparently a math major! Well done, Cap’n,” Josh replied jokingly. “There were some pretty lean years in there too. Hard winters followed by horrible springs. It’s a tough living, but you do your level best and pray you don’t need a government subsidy or have to take out a loan against your land. We maintain all of our machinery meticulously and carry spares of what we can. We survive by being prepared to survive is the best way to put it.”

  “What about the solar panels, windmill, and battery banks? The EMP protection for the pumps?”

  “Why do I feel like I’m being interrogated, Captain Rayna?”

  “Oh, I’m not. I’m just curious is all,” Hoplite quickly replied. “I’ve never told anyone, but I was looking into getting out of the Army before all of this. I’ve seen and done my fair share of nasty shit on several continents over the years. I’ve been in and out of the sandbox so many times I think I lost count. I’m jealous actually. Just looking at what might have been… that’s all.”

  Josh was surprised by the candor, but didn’t feel the need to question the man’s assertions or credentials. Anything Hoplite said was already verified through conversations with Gregg, his former subordinate.

  “Do you have any family you want to try reach? I mean, after we get back from DSCC,” Josh asked and then clarified.

  “Nah, my dad split shortly after I born and my mom died a few years ago. It was just me and her. I don’t have anywhere else to be,” the man answered reflectively.

  “Well, you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Now let’s count these cars. I’ll tell you about the other stuff on the hike up the hill.”

  Chapter 5

  Juan walked Gregg, Samantha, and Emily around the exterior of the truck and pointed out its various attributes and deficiencies. When the two men went all ‘gear head’ on the woman by checking fluid levels and yammering about the engine underneath the open hood, Em pulled Sam aside.

  “Hey, Sam, as one of your bridesmaids, I think it’s my duty to ask you something.”

  She cocked a weary eyebrow in response.

  “First off, do you have a dress? If not, it might be a little late.”

  Sam smiled, “Actually we picked one up a few weeks ago when we went to visit. We’re picking it up along with Aunt Jenny.”

  “Look at you, you little planner,” Emily replied. “And the shoes?”

  “Those too.”

  “How about the wedding bands?”

  “We got all of it, Em. Unfortunately, everything except for the rings is in Springfield.” Sam could see that the questions were just a pretense for something else that was bothering her. “What’s really on your mind?”

  Then her friend delicately asked what she really wanted to know. “Josh sure has been at this a long time.”

  “At what?” Sam answered casually in an effort to get to what she really wanted to know.

  “I mean, he had us validate all of those lists and all of that stuff. It’s almost like he knew this was going to happen. Maybe not this exactly, but –,” she started to continue before Sam raised a hand and she stopped.
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br />   “I know, I know,” she said sounding exhausted by the topic of Josh and his preps. “I asked him about it when it was just he and I out here, this was before the Congressional Hearings and Javy Dolbrow. That’s when he took me in to his office and for the first time in my life I finally got it. He showed me all of the research he had done and told me that when he bought the farm and moved the girls out here, it was for their safety. But, there was more to it than that.

  “He explained how everything was interconnected. Trade, money, technology, all of it. I’d spent so many years in the Air Force I was more or less insulated from the wild throes of the world around me. Suffice it to say that, in actuality, he was wrong. He thought it would be a financial crisis that would be our undoing. He could never have dreamed of this scenario. Regardless though, the man is a certifiable pack rat!”

  “Well, he’s damn giddy about it,” Emily countered. “I think he’s the only one out here that seems to be enjoying himself.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too,” she replied casually trying to keep the conversation light. “Don’t let his exuberance fool you though. He knows what’s coming in terms of the toll on American lives. He’s just happy knowing that he has his family and friends around and knowing they are safe and out of harm’s way.”

  “And the fact that he’s getting remarried,” Emily stated with a smirk.

  “Well, there’s that too,” Samantha answered as she reached out and the pair hugged.

  As the two separated, Em added, “Oh, you can give my Diva Cup’s to someone else. I don’t have the internal parts anymore after the cancer scare.”

  * * *

  As Josh and his group headed toward the DSCC, he stopped the convoy in McArthur to speak with Sheriff Watson. The man was sitting at his desk reviewing files by the filtered sunlight of the window.

  “Hey, Jim,” he said as he entered the man’s office. “Do you have a minute?”

  “Close the door,” he answered without looking up. He finished reading through the stack of papers, shuffled them back into a neat pile, and pushed them aside. “What’s up?”

  “I’m guessing you noticed the light show this morning. The power won’t be returning any time soon. I thought you should at least know that much for certain.”

  “I figured, what with all your subtle clues of late. Care to provide an estimate on its return?”

  “Ballpark? Couple of years,” he answered matter of factly.

  The small town lawman sighed heavily. “Can’t do anything about it now, but you came to see me. What’s up?”

  “It’s simple, really. I would ‘suggest’ that you post deputies at the banks, gas station, and grocery store.”

  His friend furrowed his brow and Josh reminded him that the residents had made a half-hearted run at some of the financial institutions in town after Rayburn’s radio broadcast. He explained that with no power, and with the town still gripped by winter, people would panic.

  “Plus, the presence of uniformed officers has an added incentive of discouraging price gouging by unscrupulous managers and cashiers looking to make a quick buck.”

  The Sheriff chuckled. “But we have such fine, upstanding, and law abiding citizens, Josh... folks like yourself. I shouldn’t need to worry about that,” Jim said sarcastically. “Actually, I was just going through the rap sheets of my usual suspects to try and get a gauge on what kind of depravity these idiots have.”

  “Well, with no power and very little transpo available, I think you can safely assume that the drug traffic from Meigs County will cease and the meth houses in the area will be closed for business.”

  “Honestly, that’s what troubles me. When these folks start going through withdrawal, it’s gonna be hard on all of us if they decide to do anything stupid to try and satisfy their urges. The ones with meth-mouth are easy enough to spot and keep an eye on.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Yeah, they look like they have a mouth full of rotted teeth, if they have any left. Plus they’re skinny as a rail, not a lick of fat on ‘em, and they can’t seem to stand still for very long. Always shifting around and looking over their shoulder.”

  It was Josh’s turn to sigh.

  In the end, the Sheriff heeded Josh’s warning. In so doing, he prevented the town from consuming itself in the panic that might have erupted.

  * * *

  By 3:00 PM, the three deuce and half’s had lumbered up Route 33 and made it to the outskirts of Columbus. The engineering platoon was as surprised as everyone else when the engines cranked right up earlier in the day. For all of the shortcomings of the diesel hulks, the power plant was still just as basic as ever. The onboard radios and upgraded dashboard electronics were toast, but the Detroit motors purred all the same.

  As they approached the I-270 outer loop for the city, the unofficial convoy began seeing the first of the abandoned cars. They had seen maybe three or four on the rural roads, but now pockets of vehicles, five, six, seven deep, were grouped together where they had stalled. The drivers at least had the wherewithal to put them on the shoulder of the road.

  “What do you make of that,” Sarkes asked from the cab of the lead vehicle.

  “Nothing for now. Just some unlucky souls caught on the road when it went off.” Josh squawked his radio and said, “Changing lanes. Abandoned vehicles on the right.”

  The driver whistled as he drove by, “Brand spanking new Mercedes S-Class. Bet that guy’s pissed beyond all get out. As for your previous comment, everyone is still dazed and confused. The people driving those probably walked to a gas station asking about a tow. In about a week, I would have crossed the median and floored it thinking it was possibly an ambush.”

  “You really think society will turn on itself like that? That quickly?” Sarkes asked.

  “Our society is inherently broken, sir,” Josh replied. “You saw New Orleans.”

  “Yeah well, that was shocking to say the least. We’re American, son. Americans don’t do that,” the former President responded plaintively. “Not the America I know.”

  His driver didn’t reply with words, but the snorted sigh of a chuckle told Sarkes all he wanted to hear.

  Unable to let it go and wanting an explanation, Sarkes said, “You and you band of merry misfits don’t seem willing to see society fall apart.”

  “That’s because, for better or worse, we are all of similar mind when it comes to certain things. Don’t get me wrong; you and your eight years in office did a great deal of good. Hell, I voted for you... twice.”

  “I’m sensing a ‘but’ in there somewhere, Josh,” the President replied.

  The driver smiled and nodded. “There is still a whole lotta distrust and resentment towards Congress, the Executive Branch, and for the policies and civil liberty redactions you guys tried cramming down our throats for years. Why do think we bought, sold, and traded guns without the involvement of FFL dealers? Because none of us believes that it’s the governments business to know what we have in our gun safe. Have you considered why so many people started living off-grid and took to the homesteader lifestyle? Because the common man got tired of their paychecks being eaten away by higher taxes to pay for government programs we didn’t want in the first place.

  “That’s not to mention the federal regulatory crap for the utilities that they so graciously passed on to us, the consumer. They still made their millions and billions, but we got stuck with the bill… twice. Those people on ‘The Hill’ stopped listening to their constituents a long time ago. Even with your Amendments, we saw from the Congressional Hearings that the people supposedly governing our country were just as corrupt as ever.”

  “I swear, nobody ever seems to vet this crap through before you propose it or sign it into law. Shall I go on?”

  “No, son. I think you made your point.”

  “Dang,” Josh replied somewhat jovially. “I had a whole spiel about the trampling of states right and the lack of border security. You sure you don’t want to
hear about that?”

  Sarkes shook his head ‘no’. “I would be interested in hearing your ideas for fixing it though. Assuming there’s even still a functioning government.”

  “Oh, that’s short and sweet. Try enforcing the Constitution. That would solve about ninety-five percent of the citizenry’s discord. We can delve into the meaning of that a little deeper later tonight. Right now we need to concentrate on getting in and out before everything goes haywire.”

  Josh paused to take in the man’s demeanor after his last comment. He detected a hint of smile. If he didn’t know better, Sarkes looked as if he was looking forward to the possibility of a policy discussion.

  To change the subject, Josh added, “Look on the bright side, sir. We were able to at least reach the POTUS. Beyond that, no one fired back at us and the Russians spared the European and Asian continents from a similar fate.”

  “Yeah well, after you guys finished your ‘kid in candy store’ routine with the SecDef, Rayburn told me that the Russian’s salvation of Europe might devolve into a full blown curse.”

  * * *

  “Turn right at the next corner,” Sam directed as she provided the navigational turns to her aunt’s house. Gregg did as instructed.

  “It’s the fourth one on the left,” she added.

  “Got it,” he replied.

  “How far are your parents from here, Em?” Sam asked.

  “About ten or fifteen minutes. They live close to the university. Mom’s been teaching in the Science Department there for years. Dad’s law office is downtown though.”

  “You don’t think he’s down there do you?”

  “I doubt it. He doesn’t even walk the golf course anymore so he definitely didn’t hoof it down there.”

  “Uh, Sam?” Gregg asked interrupting the two. “Do you know this guy coming out the front door?”

  Samantha quickly glanced up to see her aunt’s caregiver exiting the home. The African American man was dressed in a freshly pressed Navy enlisted service uniform.