by Darrel Bird
The next morning the group stood in silence with shocked looks on their faces. Their breathe steaming in the close air of the barn as Zack told them about the crosses, and about the executions for attempting to raise crops. There was only the sound of an occasional horse stomping in a stall. When he finished Virgil stood at the head of the group, “I don’t expect they will come here until the spring, but they will come, and we will have to fight again. This has been a long hard road for all of us, and I know some have probably thought about giving in, but dying by a bullet might be the easiest way out.”
“We are forced to forage farther out as most of the houses, and all the stores have been picked clean.”
“Yeah, Ben has quit smoking.” Someone remarked loudly, and the group laughed.
That seemed to relieve the stress, “Ok. I need four groups of two men each with pack horses to forage for food, and ammo. The AR-15’s, and the AK-47’s we took off the soldiers gives us the automatic weapon’s we need, but we need ammo for them. We’ll have to send out two vehicles to search for fuel up the interstate, and that’s going to be the most dangerous assignment. If there are no volunteer’s names will be pulled out of a hat. Ok, that’s all I’ve got for now, so let's get back to the business of surviving the winter. All the volunteers gather in front of the main house in two hours.”
Zack fell in step with Virgil as the group filed out of the large barn, “Virgil… is there a chance, we might be better off to run up the interstate toward Oregon, or maybe even into Oregon?”
“Sure I’ve thought about it, and I’ve heard talk about it. I guess it just boils down to whether we want to die on the road running from some Eastern block trash who’s sitting in Israel claiming he’s Jesus, or whether we want to die like American’s, and die at a place of their own choosing.”
“Yeah…I guess, sorry for bringing it up, I for one, am against the idea, but I’ve been asked by a few to put it on the table.”
“And well you should. Now is not the time though, we need to get through the winter.”
“Yeah, there’s that.”
“Well, let’s get up to the house, and get ready to send out foraging parties. You don’t go on any of these; I want you to get rested up for a while."”
November passed into December, and the people decided to set up tables in the barn, so that all could have dinner together on Christmas day. They built tables out of saw horses, and leftover plywood for the occasion. The barn was cleaned, and fresh straw was scattered over the floor, and the plywood tables set end to end with sheets spread on top.
December 25th came with about an inch of snow upon the ground in an unexpected cold snap. The ladies quickly brought the steaming dishes, and set them on the tables. Donaldson, being the oldest man in the group, was chosen to say a few words after prayer.
He stood up at the end of the table and began, “Ladies, and gentlemen; I suppose it is very fitting that we have this dinner together in a barn, for that is where our Lord was born, the best I understand. I think we will all be dead by this time next year, but it says in the Bible, We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him, so let us be thankful in all seasons, courageous, love one another until the end when the work in this earth is done. Amen?”
There were amen’s all around the tables as they partook of that Christmas dinner together.
That night it warmed, and the next day the snow was gone by noon. That night Virgil lay on the bed with his hands laced behind his head.
“Virgil?” Jan raised herself up on her elbow.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think God allowed Donaldson to see into our future when he said that about us not living through another Christmas?”
“That is certainly within the realm of possibility…yes I believe that is what was happening.”
“Virgil?”
“Yeah?”
“You are a different person than the mechanic I married.”
“Do you want that mechanic back?”
“No.”
She started to say something else, but then heard his gentle snoring, and knew that he was asleep. She reached over and kissed him.
January, then February came and went as the small group struggled to survive on the last dregs of an economy long gone, and March saw the last of the diesel fuel, and there would be no more electricity even for the Doctors small hospital.
Virgil sat atop the hill in back of the ranch scanning the Porterville road through his binoculars, when he saw a long line of trucks loaded with troops emerging from around a bend in the road, and knew that the end for the little group of Christians had come.
The end