Grid Down Perceptions of Reality

by Bruce Buckshot Hemming

  Several of the men volunteered, so the uninjured horses were spared and would be taken to the unknown location.

  They started heading back and Philip rode up beside Joe. “It sure wasn’t like I thought it was going to be. I know it never is, but . . . still.”

  Joe replied, “It never is. Humans, deep down, know it’s morally wrong to kill their own. The only problem is, sometimes we have no choice.”

  Philip asked, “How do you deal with it? I could have gone my whole life without killing another human being. You think God will forgive us?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t speak for God, but I do know there are many wars in the Bible that God did condone.”

  Philip quickly interjected, “But the Ten Commandments say ‘thou shall not kill’.”

  “You know, that was poorly translated. In the Hebrew text, the correct translation is ‘thou shall not murder’, and what is the definition of murder? It is the unlawful, premeditated killing of one human being by another.”

  “But that’s exactly what we did. We carefully planned and trained to murder those men.”

  Joe took a deep breath and said, “Okay, let’s analyze this. Who drew first blood? They did. Anywhere in the Bible does it say give up your daughters, and allow them to become whores as part of your taxes? What lawful and legal authority does this warlord have to rule over you?”

  Philip understood, when it was put that way, “I understand they did draw first blood, as well as stealing from us, and abusing our daughters.”

  “Exactly. This was clearly self-defense. You have the moral high ground. And if you look it up in the Bible, what do they say about thieves?”

  Philip thought for a moment and said, “I don’t remember exactly what it says, it’s something like if thieves enter your house at night, they should be there in the morning.”

  Joe smiled and added, “Right. Now why would a thief still be there in the morning? Because you defended your family and the thief would be dead, therefore, he would still be there in the morning.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, but I still don’t feel right.”

  “Philip, you have to remember that you’re an American. This country was born out of blood. Force and coercion is not rule of law. It’s not the color of law; therefore everything they were doing is immoral, unjust and reprehensible. If you are really religious, I suggest you pray about it. You’ll find the answer you’re looking for. I think every man has to come to peace with it in their own way.”

  Philip nodded and seemed in quiet reflection of Joe’s words.

  “Remember, I did warn you that once this started, there’s no turning back. If this warlord’s truly a millionaire, that means he’s not stupid. He will assume his patrol got taken out. He just doesn’t know if it was from you, that he considers peasants, or if there’s a new force in the area. Either way I fully expect them to retaliate in some fashion, because he assumes somebody knows the truth. The only question that remains is how long before he reacts, and the form of that action they take.

  Chapter 15

  The Farm Visit

  All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Preston, Amy, and Michael rode their bikes down to Fred’s house. He had a really nice dairy farm, with a nice house and a modern insulated metal barn. He had pastureland for the cows, plus a huge area for growing crops.

  Fred said, “Amy, why don’t you go inside, my wife and daughter would love to meet you. I’ll take these two around and teach them the ropes. You can put your bikes over here,” as he pointed to a spot next to the barn.

  Fred turned to Michael with a smile on his face, and said, “I’ve got a horse for you to ride. Would you like that?”

  Michael grinned like he was in a candy store. “Oh yes sir, I sure would. Thank you.”

  “I have a job for you too. I’d like you to ride fence. Do you know what that means?”

  Michael had a confused look and said, “Is that like riding on the fence?”

  Both men burst out laughing. Fred said, “No son. What it means is you ride the horse along the fence, to see if there are any breaks in the fence. There’s a scabbard on the side of your saddle, for your rifle. Your job as a ranch hand is to shoot any coyotes, wolves, dogs, foxes, or any other predator that could hurt our cows or chickens. Think you can handle that?”

  Michael grinned from ear to ear and said, “Yes sir, I would love to do that.”

  “Okay, here’s your horse. Her name is Star, because she was my star quarter horse in her time. She’s an old mare now, but she’s in good shape and very friendly to first-time riders. I want you to go through the gate and work your way around the whole 80 acres. That means the section where the food crops are. Go out the gate on the far corner, and make sure you close it behind you. Check all the fences where the cows are. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yes sir.” Michael said, as he was helped up onto the horse. Michael carefully put his rifle into the scabbed, and headed for the first gate.

  Preston asked Fred if it was safe for a boy Michael’s age to ride out alone. Fred assured him that his ranch hands were out in the fields and would keep an eye on him. If there were any trouble, they would be there in a matter of minutes. Preston breathed a sigh of relief.

  Fred motioned for Preston to follow him and said, “Let me show you around.” Fred led him into the barn and showed him the milk stalls. “We’re running 20 head of milk cows, and have one bull. We get right around 20 gallons of milk a day. The heavy cream is separated and we make butter out that.” He led them through a door to a side section and took him to the chicken pen. “We have about 50 chickens. They provide us with eggs and meat.” He pointed to the field out back. “We plant extra corn for animal feed, and also soybeans because of the high protein count.”

  Preston asked, “How many people does your farm support?”

  “Well aside from my family and hands, we support many people. We’re part of a larger community. We either trade or barter for the things we don’t produce ourselves. There are other farms that produce things we don’t produce. One is a pig farm, with a smokehouse. They produce the ham, bacon, and pork chops. Another specializes in honey crisp apples. If you’re not familiar with them, they are a hybrid apple, that I believe was developed by the University of Minnesota, and are one of the best tasting apples around. They can withstand the harsh cold weather of northern Minnesota. That farm also keeps bees to pollinate their crops, so they trade honey too.”

  They walked around to the back of the barn and Fred showed him his collection. “I collected old farm equipment for years. You see that,” pointing to a machine, “that is an early 1900s hay cutter. Without that, it would be very hard to get our winter hay in for the cows. Over there,” pointing now to the wagon with some type of disc on the back, “do you know what that is?”

  Preston looked at him like he was crazy. “Of course I do. It’s a wagon”

  Fred busted out laughing. “Well, you’re right, it is a wagon but it’s an early 1900’s manure spreader. That’s how we fertilizer the fields.” He then pointed to a plow and said, “And of course we have horse-drawn plows to till the fields.”

  Preston told Fred how impressed he was with all of it, and asked, “How do you get water for the cows?”

  Fred just pointed at a windmill standing out in the field. “That, my friend, is how the ranchers and farmers got their water before electricity.”

  “What, that powers an electric pump?” Preston asked.

  Fred laughed, “No, it’s on a cam and as the wind turns the windmill, it works the pump up and down to pump the water into that tank.”

  “What do you do in the winter?”

  Fred said, “We teach the cows how to eat snow, and there’s no shortage of snow around these parts,” as he chuckled.

  “We also have a blacksmith, a very talented one I might add. He
can make just about anything you need, and is indispensable at keeping all this equipment up and running.”

  “Tell me how you guys all came together and formed this community,” Preston asked.

  “Well, after things ended, we went through a pretty tough winter, people understood that we must come together if we wanted to survive. It’s kind of like a tribe, but not like that hippie commune nonsense, it’s more like the Amish, where we work together for the benefit of all.”

  Preston had to ask, “Have you had any problem with the Rainbow Warriors?”

  “None. About 50 miles east of here, there were some coming, but they were persuaded to turn around and go back to Green Bay. We haven’t heard of any trouble from them since. Overall, all we had to do was clean out the dog packs; the small gangs and assorted other lowlifes. When we came together as a community, those who were prepared to work and earn their keep, found various spots to work. We even have a 78-year-old lady that still earns her keep by doing all the sewing. It’s a simple concept, and everybody works. We even have an electrical engineer, who is trying to get five monster electric producing windmills up and running. He has two former linesmen that think they might be able to get them up and running on a small grid. That would provide the hundred households that we have with electricity.”

  Preston smiled, “That’s very impressive. Do you really think they’ll be able to repair those windmills? What about the months when the winds isn’t blowing?”

  “He tells us that he’s got a real good chance to get them up and running. They were enclosed in steel and grounded, and he’s taking what parts he needs from other windmills, ones that were down for a repair when the EMP hit. Winds coming off Lake Superior should give us electricity for at least eight months out of the year. Granted, it’s not perfect, but we should be able to at least enjoy lights and electricity in the winter months.”

  “That’s great. So how do we fit in?”

  “You are in great shape, and with your military background, we definitely want you for patrols. We need people for all kinds of work. As long as you’re willing to work, you and the family are more than welcome here.”

  “Here? You mean move into the farm with you?” Preston asked.

  “No. You don’t understand. You can stay where you are, or you can go on patrol tomorrow and see if you can find a nicer, vacant place that would be on the grid when the power is turned on. That’s up to you.”

  “We thank you. Of course we will jump right in and help. You’ve already put Michael to work, “he said with a laugh. “I know we need to rebuild, so what would you like me to do first?”

  Fred smiled as he handed Preston a hoe, and then grabbed one for himself. “There’s no shortage of weeds.” They spent the rest of the morning going through the cornrows, hoeing weeds. Just before they broke for lunch, Preston looked around and thought that this was really good. For the first time since the end of the world happened, he felt uplifted and had a sense of community. It was a smart move coming up here. He would have talk it over with Amy and Michael, and decide if they should they look for a better house, or stay in the camp? Decisions, decisions.

  Amy fit right in and became friends with Fred’s wife, Molly, like they had known each other for years. Today they were canning blackberry jam. Amy asked, “How many lids do you have, and what will you do when they are used up?”

  Molly laughed, “Well I’ve been kind of frugal my whole life, and I just hated the thought of buying canning lids every year, so thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I was able to find reusable canning lids. They were really hard to find, and just one small company made them, I believe they were out of Denver, Colorado somewhere. I think there name was Reusable canning Lids LLC. We’ve never been really well off as farmers, and we’ve had good years, along with some bad years. So anyway, I would try to help save money everywhere I could, and it really helped us survive.”

  Amy said, “So really the end of the world didn’t change your life much.”

  Molly responded, “But I do miss going to the store and just grabbing what we need. Canning salt for pickling is the only thing that I believe we will run out of, and I haven’t been able to come up with a substitute for it yet.”

  Amy said, “Well I guess we’ll just have to get used to life without salt. And besides, it will probably help us keep our girly figures,” she laughed.

  “Yes, but our bodies need salt.”

  Amy responded, “That’s true, but how did the Indians survive all those thousands of years without salt. It must come naturally in the foods and we just don’t taste it.”

  Changing the subject, Molly asked, “Are you folks going to stay around? We’d sure like to have you in our community.”

  Amy replied, “I guess that’s going to be up Preston. He has kept us alive this far, so I will abide by his wishes, but I do hope we can stay.”

  Molly was a little hesitant when she asked, “Tell me about your son, Michael. You look a little young to have a son that old, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  Amy laughed, “Well, technically he’s not my son. I’ve never had any children myself. It’s a long story, but in a nutshell, his mother and him were traveling through our area, and unfortunately she was killed. Michael was left an orphan, so we sort of adopted him and he’s been with us ever since.”

  Molly said, “Oh my, that’s horrible. So Preston’s not his real father?”

  “No. Preston and I got together a few days after the lights went out,” she laughed, remembering Sharon, “Preston was with this super skinny model type, and I lived in the apartment across the hall from him. The little “Princess” could not come to terms with what happened, and flipped out. Preston did everything in the world to look out for her, trying to save her. We planned on riding bikes to his friends Joe and Jane’s place. That night she snuck out of the apartment and left. To this day we don’t know what happened to her. She was being totally unreasonable. Anyways, that’s how Preston and I got together, because it was the end of the world. I guess it’s not the most romantic story out there, is it.”

  Molly laughed, “I don’t know, it does have a romantic tone to it. Big strapping guy saves damsel in distress.”

  Amy, in her own defense, said, “Well, I’m not exactly helpless, but I sure am glad I met Preston. By the way, is there a preacher around? Preston and I would like to get officially married. We had planned to do it during the fall harvest, before our place was wiped out and all our friends killed.” Her eyes teared up, remembering the battle scene. She turned away, and Molly walked over and gave her a hug.

  “We have all lost dear good friends during these trying times.”

  Amy gathered herself together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to breakdown, it’s just been a long time since I had another woman to talk to.”

  “That’s all right. Come on, we have more work to do. Those blackberries aren’t going to turn into delicious jam all by themselves.”

  After giving it some thought, Molly said, “There is a preacher over in the next county. Maybe we could get him to come over and married you two.”

  Amy was beaming and in quiet thought about having a ceremony.

  For lunch, they made peanut butter and blackberry jam sandwiches. Before the EMP, Molly had bought dehydrated peanut butter on a whim. It was another of Molly’s ways to try and save money. With food prices constantly rising, she thought storing a case of number 10 cans of it just made good practical sense.

  Michael had safely returned from riding the fence, and reported no damage, and also no predators. After he groomed the horse and put her out in the pasture, he helped Fred and Preston weed the rows, until the women called them in for lunch.

  At lunch, all Michael could talk about was getting a horse of his own. He was so excited about his ride that the others could barely get a word in edge wise.

  After lunch, they all went back to work. When the day was finished, and the goodbyes said, they headed home with fresh butter and eggs. />
  In the morning Preston rode out to the main road to join the men patrolling the area.

  The man in charge was about 5’9”, 200 pounds, and had a full beard. As Preston got off his bike, the man said, “You can leave your bike here, we brought an extra horse for you. You do know how to ride, don’t you?”

  Preston laughed, “No, not really.”

  “Well, there’s no time like the present. You’ll get the hang of it”

  After Preston got mounted, they rode off and the man introduced himself as Scott. He stopped and turned his horse around and rattled off a bunch of names, introducing everybody. Preston thought, “Maybe in a COUPLE weeks, I might have all their names down.”

  “Our job is to keep the riffraff out. We don’t interrupt people when they’re working, unless of course they’re offering us something to drink or eat. We try not to impose on people. We pack our own lunch. We’ve not had any real problems in this area. We’d heard about that gang down where we helped you out, but there’s nothing coming through our area. After that first winter, those who weren’t prepared perished. What we are facing when strangers do come through, are more vicious and well-organized gangs. They have already seen the blood and the guts. They are a tough hard-working unit, but even those we haven’t seen since, I believe it was June.”

  Preston nodded and said, “How often do you guys patrol?”

  “Every other day, but we have been talking about moving to every three days. I believe we will have to go down and clean out the rest of those men that took your wife, but other than that, I think we will be able to concentrate more on rebuilding our community.”

  Preston said, “I think we should stick with every other day, at least for this year. We’re spread pretty far apart, and it would be easy for a small gang to come in and take one homestead at a time. There would be no time to call out any extra support, at least until this year is over. After this coming winter, we should be able to go to patrols once every three days.”

  Scott looked at Preston and thought for a minute. “You make a good point. I for one will feel a lot better once that gang is cleaned out.”