by G.R. Carter
Chapter Seventeen
Okaw Valley Self Defense Cooperative
Three Months after the Great Reset
Phil Hamilton’s feet crunched on the white gravel driveway leading up to the sprawling metal building that housed Delbert Kuhn’s immaculate machine shed. The huge bi–fold vertical door was raised, releasing the sweet smell of fried dough that hung on the moist morning air. The pungent aroma of burning soy and grease intermixed, one overcoming the other as Phil approached. Delbert was positioned in the traditional “farmer lean,” one shoulder up against the door post and right leg crossed over the left. He had obviously been deep in thought when Phil arrived.
“So the rumors are true, huh, Delbert?” Phil asked his old friend.
“How’s that, Mr. Founding Farmer?” the crusty old genius replied, shaking out of his distant stare.
“I heard you kidnapped Mrs. Dearborn and her donut-making crew. Wanted to make sure that the Dixie Cream Donut Shop lived on. So you took an opportunity the end of the world presented to drag that poor woman and all her equipment out here,” Phil chuckled.
“Listen, you young punk,” Delbert shook a gnarled finger at the middle-aged Phil, “I’ve got twenty guys living out here now. If I didn’t come up with a solution to feed them, Mrs. Kuhns would have kicked me out here to live among the smelly apes. Mrs. Dearborn needed a safe place to go, and we get to evaluate her cooking equipment. Maybe we can replicate it for the shelters your better half is working on.
“Besides, she has to switch the recipe from wheat flour to potato flour. She ran out of her regular supply days ago. What better place to experiment than here on a farm full of fried dough experts? Just want to make sure she gets the formula perfected…for the greater good.”
“Whatever the reason is, I can smell that it’s working out for you,” Phil said.
The old man smiled at him, dropping the mock outrage. Even as the world collapsed around them, their Midwestern sense of humor wouldn’t allow complete despair. They would make the best of what they were given.
Delbert got to the point: “I suppose you’re here to discuss the Middle Eastern monstrosity you proposed to my intrepid group of mechanical geniuses?”
“Well, I was thinking more Midwestern than Middle Eastern, but Maryanne Olsen had the right idea. We need to give our salvage people better protection. Deputies, too. The trip to the river port proved it’s going to be dangerous out there from now on,” Phil replied.
“Won’t work, Phil. Too much weight and not enough gain,” Delbert said, shaking his head.
“Better than nothing, isn’t it?” Phil fired back. He was a bit more confident when dealing with the Wizards these days. Pragmatic respect had replaced his previous hero worship and he’d played these mind games with the old men more times than he could remember.
“Depends on your definition of 'nothing,' Mr. Founder,” Bob Ford replied for his friend. Bob was wiping heavy black grease off his hands as he walked out of the machine shop door. “What he’s saying is you can’t just bolt armor on a vehicle like that. You need to remove weight from other places on the vehicle. Make it part of the overall design.”
“No, Bob. I really was saying the whole thing wouldn’t work,” Delbert corrected the other Wizard... “But now that you mention it, we could essentially strip the thing down to the chassis and build it back up. Couldn’t hold enough armor to stop heavy weapons, but you won’t be seeing too much of that I’d guess. Mostly rifles and such.” It was clear from the faraway look in his eyes that Delbert’s dream problem had arrived: an impossible puzzle no one else could solve.
“If'n we built these idiot things the right way, the look alone will scare the crap out of any pain-in-the-kiester moron that tried to take a run at our boys,” Delbert concluded.
“So you actually think it could work?” Phil asked.
“Oh no, I still don’t think it will work,” Delbert responded defiantly. “But Bob and I gave it a try anyway. Used my old F–350 dually. It had a busted transmission and needed a total going through anyway. If this won’t work, I can still salvage the parts.”
Phil looked back and forth at the two grinning faces in front of him, shocked when he realized what they had just said. “You mean you already built one?”
“Of course! Ain’t like we need a permit to get something built, nowadays. Besides, we got a lot of willing help around here now,” Bob said, smiling.
After helping Paul Kelley start production at the lifesaving Greenstem biofuel refinery, Delbert and Bob gathered a following of problem solvers who all adopted the Wizard nickname. Phil’s old farmer friends took charge of all the municipal maintenance departments throughout the county; they even coerced the county highway department and township highway commissioners into joining them also. Added to the mix was one very lonely Federal Department of Transportation base out along Highway 16, giving the Wizards a fair amount of men, materials and vehicles to work with. The concrete plant producing pieces necessary to create Fortress Farms and School Shelters kept at least one Wizard busy all the time. Each new fortification spurred modifications to improve the next.
There was no official list of Wizards, or way to tell if someone actually was one. Older gentlemen in a ball cap sporting the logo of a seed company or equipment brand showed up and workers paused to listen to whatever wisdom was handed down. A suggestion to create an official badge was laughed down, mercifully saving the person who had suggested it the indignity of facing Bob and Delbert with such nonsense.
The Greenstem biofuel refinery was their greatest accomplishment, but improvements all over Shelby County could be attributed to them. A new communications system using old coaxial cable allowed many School Shelters and Fortress Farms to enjoy limited contact. Rural Shelby County never received the updated fibers that gave networks life in the larger metro areas of the country. Most of County’s old coaxial lines lay underground, insulated from the Solar Storms. With ingenuity and the help of the archives at the main library now managed by Maryanne Olsen, the Wizards were learning how to create receivers immune to the radiation bursts that fried anything electronic.
After the accomplishments of the Wizards so far, Phil felt a little sheepish being surprised by the announcement of a working prototype of his armored truck. His friends waved him into the shed, up onto the spotless concrete floor that reflected the generator-enabled floodlights hanging from the ceiling. Anyone else in the county might be questioned about using the precious fuel supply to provide light during the day; not the Wizards.
Phil stared in awe at the metal beast squatting in front of him. Not content to just slap some metal plating on an existing vehicle, Bob and Delbert created a true hybrid tank/truck.
“Only weighs a few hundred pounds more than the truck it originated from,” Delbert assured Phil. There was seating for four, with a stand-up swivel shield on top for placing either a heavy machine gun or just for protection of a man with a rifle. There were also firing ports on each side that could slide open when needed.
“Got the engine heavily protected, with exhaust running out the top towards the rear of the vehicle. Because of this arrangement, we think it should be able to ford water up past the wheel wells,” Bob continued.
Metal skirts came down to cover approximately half of the wheels, which were shod with reinforced small tractor tires for extra durability. A brief argument rekindled between Bob and Delbert about whether the tires should be solid rubber to prevent blow outs.
There simply couldn’t have been an uglier vehicle ever designed, but you would have thought it was Christmas time for Phil.
A familiar voice came up behind him: “It’s a game-changer, guys. You’re going to save lives with this one, I promise it. I know it won’t haul much salvage, but it will get us there and back in one piece,” Clark Olsen praised.
Maryanne Olsen walked beside her husband with a mixed look of relief and joy. She w
ould sleep much better knowing her husband and his men now had an advantage over the Ditchmen, the murderers and thieves lurking in the fields all around.
Delbert pointed to the back of the shed. “Back there is the salvage carrier. It’s a wagon that will hook up to the back of the vehicle. You’ll be able to pull that with you. If things get too hot and you need extra maneuverability, there’s a quick-release for the hitch that you can activate from inside. Kind of like ejecting extra weight in a fighter plane during a dog fight. We’ll have one wagon for each of the vehicles we’re building.”
Maryanne looked confused, “How many are you planning? You speak as though you’ve already got production going.”
“We do have production going. Each one of the municipal sheds and township highway buildings have welders, so we’ve got a chassis being built in each one right now. We’ll have seven done by the end of the week. Just need a name for them. Oh, and a paint color,” Bob answered.
“Can we spare the vehicles?” Phil asked.
“I think Clark made it clear this was a priority to you both. Several of our Wizard friends had old vehicles they liked to tinker with, and we were able to find enough CAT diesel engines that could be retrofitted with the soy diesel system. That way, any decent engine mechanic should be able to work on all of them.”
Delbert had his biggest smile on now. “That’s not all, Mr. Founder. We knew we’d run out of Ford pickups eventually. So look at the whiteboard.”
Delbert’s whiteboard was actually an entire wall outside of his office. The slick material covered an area nearly seven feet tall and over twelve feet long. Phil couldn’t even guess how many patented schemes came and went on that idea factory. On it was a scale drawing of a bulldozer, expanded to provide detail for parts and specs.
Phil focused in on what appeared to be a track-type vehicle with armor and weapons.
“That, my friends, is the Mark 2,” Delbert beamed.
Bob couldn’t pass this one up, “Yes, that’s right. We don’t even have a name for the first vehicle, or even have one we've tested in the field yet. But we do have a name for an armored bulldozer we don’t even have a prototype for.”
“Plans must always have a name,” Delbert said. “Gives a person something to believe in. Besides, the very first tanks in World War I were called Mark 1s, the second Mark 2s, etc. These are plans for the 2nd version of Mr. Founder’s crazy idea. So Mark 2 it is!”
Phil quizzed the Wizards on some of the details. “This looks like a hitch, here. What will these pull?”
“Well, that’s the beauty, Mr. Founder. We made it so that the farms can use these as tractors during peace time. If there’s a crisis, we call all of them in. If they’re in the field and the Ditchmen come at ‘em, they can hole up and fight from behind the armored plating. If there’s a big fight of some kind, you can call them all together to form a metal shield. Kind of a Mechanized Minuteman,” Bob explained.
“That’s brilliant, guys. Truly brilliant. These old bulldozers are all over the place. And it would be great for defense on the farms. One of these could hold off a group of Ditchmen until help arrived. They wouldn’t be able to pull as big a plow or disc as a standard tractor, but that’s well worth the tradeoff. None of us will be farming nearly the same acreage as we were. A few hundred acres will be a big enough farm for quite a while. When can we start on these?” Phil asked.
“As soon as we get Clark’s patrol cars done, we’ll switch over to the Mark 2s. Seems reasonable to think each shop should be able to get one done a week. The biggest problem will be getting enough welding supplies. And we’ll need a heavy weapon for each.”
“Ok, I’ll work on that one,” Olsen offered. “Hate to see a hard-shelled turtle out there with no beak to snap back with.”
“Well, there you go, Bob” Delbert laughed. “I think we have a name for Clark and the Founding Farmer’s vehicles: Snapping Turtles!”