by D A Carey
“Right here. I’ll take you to the sheriff myself and vouch for your safety.”
The group made camp and discussed the situation. Carol was practically in tears at the thought of abandoning the truck. She didn’t think she could peddle long distances and had grown accustomed to sleeping in the bed of the truck. She was afraid of sleeping on the ground. Junior stayed quiet. It was Liz who said what Vince was thinking.
“As much as I hate to admit it, it seems to me that you need to trade the truck. It could break down any time, and then we’d wish we’d made the trade. Furthermore, we need to think about how far we’ll get without more fuel. I sure don’t relish another fight. More food and water and a safe night or two doesn’t seem like a bad deal if you trust these people, Vince.”
“I trust them. I don’t know why; I just do. Everything you say is true except one thing. This trip suddenly gets a lot longer and hotter without the truck. You can’t imagine what all the miles we’ve covered would have been like without the truck to create a breeze, eat up miles, and carry water.”
“If you can think of something better, I’m all for it. I’m like Carol. I don’t know that I can do all that peddling and don’t like sleeping on the ground, either. Don’t forget that with the tow behind wagon for one of the bikes, we can take along our remaining food and ammunition. I don’t see another choice. Besides, we’ve been darn lucky so far with this truck. We got lucky to have it this long, and we’ve got the bikes as our backup plan.”
“Let’s sleep on it. If we can’t come up with a better idea by morning, I’ll go see what kind of deal I can make.”
The next morning, Vince went to see Cliff and was escorted to the sheriff. Vince immediately judged him as one of the good ones. While the sheriff was apologetic over the severe rules, he wasn’t willing to trade fuel and allow the truck through the city. In the end, they did strike a bargain for as much food and water as the four people could carry and a night sleeping in the city. The sheriff must have felt guilty because he gave in when Vince asked for one more provision in the deal for the truck.
As Cliff was taking Vince to the courthouse, he spotted a bike repair place near the center of the city. When Vince asked to go through the shop for supplies for their bikes, the sheriff smiled and said, “Within reason.”
Vince, Cliff, and the sheriff went through the shop, and Vince picked up a pump, some tire patch kits, a basket, and a couple of bike saddle bags. When they were leaving, he spotted another tow behind wagon and glanced over at the sheriff quizzically.
The sheriff began to hedge, then it appeared as if his conscience got the better of him. “Aww hell, take it. Don’t get crazy with expecting me to fill it with food, though.”
“How about with water?” Vince pushed.
“Fine. Water we got plenty of.”
A few hours later, Vince returned with his group and the deal was completed. Some of the people in town recognized Liz and offered to have her stay with them. The sheriff even offered for her to stay in town permanently where it was safer. It wasn’t clear if that invitation was for only her or the whole group. Liz declined, and the group camped out in a large conference room in the courthouse.
The next morning, they peddled out of Fort Stockton on the east side. Vince planned for only a couple of hours of peddling at a time, followed by thirty minutes of rest. The mid-day breaks would be an hour or more, and they would peddle later into the night and earlier in the morning when it was cooler.
At the end of this long trek, they had to find the San Antonio chartertown and hope it was standing and in good hands. While Vince had directions to the chartertown, he’d never been there and was aware it was well off the beaten path and not easy to find.
About a week later, they reached Sonora, Texas, and turned southeast on Highway 1691, and Vince believed they were in the homestretch.
<< Liz >>
Getting to the Texas Chartertown location had been more difficult than Liz could put into words. The last few days, they’d stopped more often than they rode. A few times, Liz had taken Carol away from the men so she could cry in peace and lean on Liz for support. During the many stops, Vince had rifled through abandoned cars and buildings to find things for them. Sometimes he refilled water, and twice he found Tylenol to ease their muscle pain.
The pull-behind carts had been a godsend and a bane at the same time. They were clunky and hard to tow, increasing the strain on the legs of whoever had to pull them. Vince wasn’t up to his full strength yet, and while their frequent stops were as much for him as for Carol, he didn’t admit it.
As they got closer to the Texas Chartertown, they zeroed in on the location by observing the pedestrian traffic flow. It reminded Liz of an old movie in which they found water in a desert by observing what direction the bees flew, knowing the bees needed water and the plants near water as much as people. The scavenging parties they saw in the vicinity of the community had a disreputable appearance, so Vince chose to avoid them until he got a better understanding of how things stood in the area. The Mexican cowboys they saw several times working cattle on horseback appeared wary of strangers, yet they seemed more trustworthy, so they waved a couple of them down and spoke with them. That was how they confirmed their final directions to the chartertown they were told was now called Turk-Town after the small hill it was built on with a view of Lake Medina.
“I’ll approach the gate first by myself in case they’re jumpy,” Vince said.
Liz laid her hand on Vince’s forearm, corded with muscle despite the ravages his body had been through over the last year. “Why don’t you let me go?” When Vince opened his mount to object, she said, “You know I can be difficult when I don’t get what I want, Vince. Besides, you look ragged and mean right now. They might shoot first and ask questions later.”
“The same applies to you. I don’t want to risk you getting hurt.”
Liz’s laughter made Vince smile and think of wine glasses at a cocktail party. “Really? You think they’ll shoot me? Honestly, Vince, you know I’m not conceited, and you’re right, they may be bad men with bad intentions who we might have to fight later. However, I don’t think shooting me will be the first thing that comes to mind.”
“You’re right.”
It didn’t take much conversation to get them admitted into the community. While Vince naively thought his uncle’s name would be all he needed to open any door here, it was really Liz’s celebrity that did the trick. If Vince hadn’t been so tired, he might have noticed that for some people, the name Cavanaugh did create excitement, yet for others it had the opposite effect.
The group was led to a small building set apart from others in the community that had rooms for each of them, a central living space, and hot and cold running water in the bathroom. Liz’s knees trembled at the sight of it.
While they took turns showering, a messenger came by to get their clothes for laundering and invite them to a reception hosted in their honor by Big Jim Tarpley later that evening.
* * *
When they entered Big Jim’s lavish quarters, it was noticeable that he was friendly yet taken off balance by the group’s arrival. While Liz was flashing her million-dollar smile, she took note of Big Jim’s body language when he was near Vince. The man seemed off kilter, only having a couple of hours to adjust to their arrival. Even more so, Big Jim came across as a self-confident bully to her, and reading the mixture of fear and hostility in his body language didn’t mix. Big Jim was the community leader ostensibly chosen by Dave for this site, so Liz kept thinking she must be making a mistake. Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling she wasn’t wrong.
Big Jim asked both Vince and Liz more than once if Dave knew they were here or if they had been in touch with him. After Big Jim was satisfied that Vince and Dave hadn’t spoken since the EMP, Liz noticed a strong change in his posture. He relaxed and became almost effusive in his praise for their journey and their safe arrival. The gushing celebratory version of Big Jim was worse,
and Liz thought Big Jim came across like a used car salesman or politician.
Despite her misgivings, they had drinks, a party, and good food. During a short tour, it was obvious that Vince and Liz were steered toward certain parts of the compound and away from others. They didn’t think too much of it at the time, but some of the people in the community faded into the background with sullen expressions when they came around, while others appeared to be rehearsed in their comments or actions in a way only an actress would notice. Finally, Liz decided that she was exhausted and just overthinking things. In the post-apocalyptic country, these people had safety, food, shelter, and running water for goodness sakes. What could be wrong with all that?
There was one awkward moment when Big Jim assumed they were a couple when the group was assigned more permanent quarters. It got more awkward when he made the same assumption of Junior and Carol. While Liz could understand the mistake between her and Vince, the mistake with Carol was a social faux pas that further lowered Big Jim in her judgment. While he might not be expected to know that Carol’s preference was not men, it should have been obvious to anyone that there was not a love connection between her and Junior. To make matters worse, when Vince told Big Jim they needed separate rooms, Big Jim’s smile got larger, and he gave Liz what she was sure he thought was a winning smile. It only made her stomach turn.
The next day when Vince asked to call his uncle Dave’s home base in Colorado, Big Jim insisted they couldn’t get in touch with Dave because all the communications equipment was destroyed during the EMP strike. He did offer that a messenger had gotten through once. He wasn’t sure if it would be done again with all the violence to the north. He speculated that it was probably safer to head east and contact him by satellite when they got out from under the EMP umbrella. That was the first time Vince had heard that the eastern half of the U.S. had been spared the effects of the EMP, and it filled him with relief.
<< Dave >>
Dave and Louis usually conducted their one-on-one meetings while walking through SOP-Town. Dave enjoyed seeing the thriving community and liked the small town feeling. The mountain air invigorated him. It helped that Louis had impressed on him how much the people in the community liked to see him out and about, acting calm and cheerful.
At first, it had been hard to do a one-on-one meeting this way because so many people wanted to shake hands or stop the pair for a chat. However, over time word got around that this was the way Dave liked to meet in a casual situation, and they gave him his space.
“Louis, are the people of the South Park Valley still holding the council meetings?”
“Yes, sir. In fact, they meet in a smaller group every week and in the full assembly every month.”
“Do you think they’d be open to me meeting with them?”
“I’m sure they would. You’re well liked and well connected, and both would be appreciated right now.”
“Do you think you could arrange an invite to the next full meeting?”
“I’m sure I could. What should I tell them the purpose is?”
“Tell them I want to share what I know about what’s going on in the world and discuss how to secure the valley.”
“Won’t that be risky if they know all the supplies and facilities we have cached up here, sir?”
“I’ll be careful with how much I reveal. They’re smart people, though, and have probably guessed a lot already. It would be disingenuous to hide it so overtly. I don’t want to earn their enmity. “
“Yes, sir.”
“In the meantime, I’d like you to call a meeting with Levi and some of the other senior security folks. I know he’s been spending a lot of time in the field training those people. I need him inside the walls more.”
“I agree. Is there anything else?”
“Yes, before we meet with the valley council, let’s get with Levi’s team and some of the engineers to talk about the best way to button up this valley. I also want to meet with our drone operators to see how many we have and how we can expand our routine surveillance to cover more of the valley.”
“Yes, sir. There is a risk to that, though.”
“What risk?”
“There could be a follow-up EMP strike. Everything we have that works electronically does so because they were safe in the Faraday cage rooms in the old mines even when we didn’t know to expect a strike. Currently, we keep everything in the cages when not in use to keep them safe. We only keep one or two drones at most out at a time. Running drones across the entire valley would take four or five at a time. While we have backups, losing that many at once would hit us hard.”
“I believe it’s a risk we have to take. Let’s see how much ground we can cover with two or three up at a time.”
“I’ll talk to the people who run them and see.”
“Can you get a list of how many Colorado National Guardsmen live in the valley?”
“Probably not electronically, however, the valley leaders might have something. I’ll talk to them.”
“Please do so if we can be discreet. If you think they might wonder what we’re up to, don’t worry about it.”
“What are we up to, sir?”
“I want to ask the valley council to call up the National Guard for defense of the valley. They could form roving patrols and ready reaction forces that would be indirectly led by our men. I know the state sent out a call for the National Guard and many of the members didn’t report or didn’t get the call. They might be more open to performing their duty here at home in defense of the valley.”
“Is that legal?”
“Well, it’s semi legal,” Dave chuckled, “if the local guardsmen can’t make it to Denver or Colorado Springs and they’re working to defend the valley.”
“Okay.”
“If you can get in touch with the governor or any state leaders, let’s try to get the paperwork done to designate this valley as a muster site for local guardsmen and one of our team as an officer in the guard. That will make it legal.”
“The public officials at both the state and local levels will probably want something in return.”
“If it’s easy, go ahead and give it to them. If you have questions, run it by me.”
“I’m expecting some will want to move their family here.”
“We can talk about that when the time comes. They would have to follow the rules, pay dues, and perform personal service like everyone else.”
“Haha! That I want to see, this governor and his wife working in a garden.”
“You never know, you may get your wish.”
<< Levi >>
“Good work, people.”
Levi’s time in the Israeli army prepared him for a Special Forces unit with both men and women. The American Special Forces units hadn’t integrated yet. However, there was no way an American Special Forces unit could be as well prepared as a similar Israeli unit under this political climate. It wasn’t that the U.S. soldiers weren’t as good as the Israelis; it was that the rules for co-mingled units would be so watered down by political correctness in the U.S. that the quality of the unit would suffer and get people killed.
Levi chuckled to himself at how the politicians would begin forcing quotas on the units both by race and gender. Then they would lower standards in order to meet the quotas. Then the unit cohesiveness would break down when soldiers knew that one member got in with lower standards than they had to exhibit. That would lead to a breakdown in morale, training would suffer, resulting in deaths. If they could just set extremely high standards for people in these units and tie those entrance standards to extremely high ongoing personal conduct and ethical standards, they could have a truly elite unit, representing a diversity of gender, race, and religion in the right way. Of course, as a soldier, Levi wanted special perks and pay for those who made the cut.
“Mr. Goldman,” Odell Watson radioed. “HQ is trying to reach you.”
The team had been in the mountains practicing their small unit tea
m combat coordination skills. The day before, Levi had used one of the abandoned mining towns in the mountains to work on urban warfare skills. He wanted his people to learn to cover and move and protect each other. They couldn’t afford casualties. Everyone was needed for the long haul.
He picked up the hand unit on the thirty-year-old military surplus radio strapped to Sergeant Watson’s back. “This is Levi.”
“Levi, this is Susan. Mr. Clark asked me to let you know he and the boss need to talk to you. They’re asking how much longer you’ll be out.”
“How urgent is it? Do I need to double time back?”
“Hold on, I’ll ask Mr. Clark.”
“Roger that.”
After a moment, Susan replied, “He says as long as you’re back mid to late afternoon, that’s fine.”
“Roger. I’ll be there as soon as we complete the training up here. I want to do a final hike up to Quandary Peak to try the radio equipment there to see if we can raise Turk-Town.”
“The radios in the caverns are cabled to peaks nearly as high as Quandary Peak.”
“Roger. I know reaching Turk-Town is a long shot, but it’s a good hike to keep my people in shape, and I like the view. Besides I’m worried about Turk-Town. Something doesn’t feel right to me.”
“It’s your call. You know how long it takes you to get back.”
“Roger that. Out.” Levi handed the ancient mic back to Odell. As old as the units were, they were practically indestructible and worked well. Levi had purchased six dozen of the military castoffs at a surplus sale before things went bad.
Connivance
“Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good character.”
- Corinthians 15:33
<< Big Jim >>