“Yeah, if you don’t mind. I have a buddy who’s trying to get ahold of the Texas Rangers in Austin. I figure if anybody knew how to do it you would.”
“Hold on a minute, Big Bill.”
Steve and Shultz made small talk while they waited for John the Baptist to return. The “one minute” turned out to be four.
“You still there, Big Bill?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sorry it took so long. Had to find the right binder. You got something to write with?”
“Go ahead.”
“They used frequency 105.45 before the blackout. Monitored it twenty four hours a day through their command center. Whether their equipment still works since the blackout is anybody’s guess.”
“Thank you, John. If their radios got fried, is there a backup way to get ahold of them you know of?”
“Yeah. But it wouldn’t be very pleasant.”
“What is it?”
“You could walk.”
“Thanks for your help, John. I owe you one.”
“Make her a tall blond, a bit top heavy.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Signing off.”
“Good day to you.”
Shultz observed, “He doesn’t sound much like a man of God to me.”
“Well, you know. A thing like a worldwide blackout tends to bring out the worst in some people.”
He adjusted his radio and locked onto the Ranger’s old frequency.
Then he handed Shultz the microphone and stood up from the chair.
Shultz sat down and hoped for the best.
“Ranger HQ, this is Major John Shultz from Company C in Lubbock. Do you copy?”
Almost instantly his hopes were answered.
“Major Shultz, it’s good to hear from you. Before you say anything else, just a reminder, this is an unsecure network. Instead of reporting your strength by numbers, just tell us how many of your men are not certified for duty.”
“None. All are on duty and awaiting further instructions.”
“Good. Those are the words we were hoping to hear. So you’re fully operational, then?”
“Yes, sir. Tell me what to do and we’ll get it done.”
“Right now your orders are to report to the mayor of Lubbock and to place yourself and your men at his disposal.”
“We’ve already done that.”
“Good. Continue to do so for the time being. Are your men afoot?”
“No, sir. They’re all mounted.”
“Good. Should we assume you have your own working radio?”
“No, sir. This belongs to a citizen who was kind enough to let me borrow it.”
“We’ve been working our prepper network. We’ve purchased a unit for you, as well as a small generator to operate it.”
Shultz was surprised.
“You have a prepper network?”
“Oh, yes. It was one of our contingency plans. One we never advertised. Your radio and generator will be delivered to your office tomorrow afternoon. Will somebody be there to sign for it?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve got muster scheduled for high noon. I’ll make sure somebody stays back when we break out.”
“Very well. Once you have your own radio, check in once a day, and have somebody monitor it from oh eight hundred to eleven hundred each day. Help the people of Lubbock as best you can for the time being. We’ll advise you by radio of any mission changes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, and John…”
“Yes, sir?”
“You’re doing well. Pass onto your men we appreciate what they’re doing. Tell them it’ll get a lot rougher as each day goes by. And tell them to be careful out there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 8
Randy was systematically working his way through west Lubbock, from 19th to 50th streets, from Slide Road to Frankford Avenue.
Most people didn’t answer their doors, even after he identified himself as a peace officer.
It was the first time in his career he wished the Rangers wore a recognizable uniform.
He couldn’t blame the citizens. For all they knew he was just a thug in street clothes holding up a costume-store badge to their peephole. Most people in Lubbock didn’t even know the Rangers had a detachment stationed in Lubbock.
Still, he tried.
He stepped onto the porch of 8316 27th Street and rapped on the doorjamb.
He announced in a loud clear voice, “Ranger Maloney of the Texas Rangers.”
He waited a full minute, just in case the occupants were debating whether to answer.
Finally, a strong male voice.
“Who are you, and what do you want?”
“I’m from the Texas Rangers. My name is Ranger Maloney. I want to know if you’re in need of medical assistance.”
There was less hesitation this time.
“No. We’re hungry and scared but otherwise okay.”
“Good. I also bring you a message from Mayor Haislett. He has declared a state of emergency. He has directed the police not to arrest anyone taking bottled water or food from the stores, provided they are not hoarding anything. Take only a two day supply at a time so everyone has a chance to get some.”
The voice sounded a bit happier.
“Okay. We won’t get greedy.”
“Also, only go out during daylight hours. It’s too dangerous at night.”
“Okay, we won’t.”
“One last thing. Do you know if any of your neighbors are shut-ins or unable to fetch their own food or water?”
There was a brief delay.
“Mrs. Riley at 8320. But her neighbors might have taken her in. Also, Mr. Gonzalez at 8328 is confined to a wheelchair.”
Randy wrote notes on a tiny spiral notebook he carried in his shirt pocket:
8316-27: Checked and okay.
8320-27: Possible shut-in
8328-27: Possible shut-in
“One more thing, sir. Please write this down. I live at 10022-28th Street, apartment 105. If anyone harms or threatens your family, please get word to me, okay?”
“We will, Ranger. And thank you.”
There was no answer at the next house. Two houses over he knocked on Mrs. Riley’s door.
There was no answer there either.
Randy was debating whether or not to break into the house to check on her when he heard someone yell from across the street.
“What can we do for you, stranger?”
Randy turned to find two armed men approaching him.
He held up his badge and said, “Ranger Maloney. I’m canvassing the neighborhood looking for people who may be in need of help. I’m checking on Mrs. Riley.”
The taller and older of the two men inspected Randy’s badge. Randy got the sense they were father and son.
“Mrs. Riley is with us. We’ll take care of her until this… whatever it is, blows over.”
“Thank you, sir. And your group… is everyone okay?”
“Yes. We’re running out of water, but we have enough food to last for a couple of weeks, if this lasts that long. Just what in the hell is going on, Ranger?”
“The scientists at Texas Tech say we’ve been bombarded with a massive electromagnetic pulse.”
“What in the hell is that?”
“From what I understand, it’s similar to static electricity, generated from solar storms. It doesn’t affect humans at all. But it does short out anything electric or electronic.”
“Holy crap. How long will it take to fix everything?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, friend, but some of the people at Tech say it might be years.”
The man’s face reflected fear for the first time.
Randy went on, “The mayor of Lubbock has declared a state of emergency. The police will not arrest you for taking food or water from stores, provided you take only a two day supply on each trip. Only those who take more than their share will be arrested.”
“Okay. Fair eno
ugh. We’ll comply.”
“You might also get some seeds from the garden department as well. I think it’s quite possible we’ll be growing our own food from now on.”
Twenty minutes later Randy walked up the steps of 8328-27th. The house he was told would be occupied by a paraplegic named Rodriguez.
He instantly got an ominous feeling.
The front windows were both raised and a sickening stench was coming from within the house.
The screens were covered with buzzing flies.
From inside the house, not outside.
Randy knocked several times, calling for Mr. Gonzalez by name.
“I’m a peace officer, sir. I’m just here to check on you. If you’re unable to make it to the door, just call out. I’ll come inside to make sure you’re okay.”
It was deathly quiet inside the house, prompting Randy to try the doorknob. It was, to his surprise, unlocked.
The living room was a shambles. The couch was overturned, and the cushions had been cut open, their stuffing thrown everywhere.
Most of the rest of the house wasn’t much better. Whoever had ransacked the house was obviously looking for something.
Apparently they found it, whatever it was, before they got to the bedroom. For the bedroom was still neat as a pin.
In the kitchen he found the body of Jesse Gonzalez, age seventy, who’d been in a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident at eighteen.
He was still in his chair, strangled to death from behind, the rope still tied tightly around his neck.
Chapter 9
In any emergency, there’s a tendency for people to seek out their loved ones. To wrap their arms around them and to protect them. To help them get through whatever crisis has befallen them.
It’s no different for law enforcement officers.
Randy was alone in the world even before the blackout. Alone in that he was an only child. And that his parents were both dead. He had some aunts and uncles, but they weren’t close. In fact, none of them lived in Lubbock.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t concerned for them. But they lived too far away for Randy to help them, even if he knew exactly how to find them.
Friends were another thing. Randy had a wide circle of friends, drawn in by his easy going personality and gentle nature.
Major Shultz had known going into the blackout that it would be hard on his men. Caring for a panicked and hungry public would be draining on them, both physically and emotionally.
“This is an order, gentlemen. I want each of you to take every fifth day off. Relax as best you can. Catch up on your sleep. Spend that time with your friends and family. Do whatever you need to do to recharge your batteries and relieve your stress.
“I want you on your game out there. And you won’t be if you burn out. If you let everything get to you.
“Every fifth day is your day off. No exceptions. If I catch you disobeying this order I’ll have your ass.”
There was no debate.
And so it was that the day after Randy found the body of Jesse Gonzalez and buried him in his back yard, he had some free time on his hands.
The Rangers had followed the lead of the Lubbock Police Department. Bodies were starting to pile up now, and everyone by now admitted that no one would be arrested, no one prosecuted. There were simply too few homicide detectives left, and the court system had collapsed. Their new tactic was to tell citizens to defend themselves with deadly force if they had to. The bodies were to be prayed over, then buried or burned.
The criminal element in Lubbock, and in every other American city, had a ticket to murder at will without consequence.
As for the restoration of electrical power, the prospects were equally bleak.
At the Ranger muster two days before, the men listened to an engineer from Texas Tech University. A man who helped design the power grid which powered all of west Texas before it was destroyed by the EMP.
“We were woefully unprepared,” the man admitted. “We’ve known for a very long time about the dangers of electromagnetic pulses. For years we tried to get the federal government to provide funding to shield our power grids from them. Their position was it was a problem which belonged to the power companies. They didn’t want to jeopardize their own reelection chances by burdening the taxpayers with what would have been a half-trillion dollar retrofit.
“The power companies which shared the grid were too busy fighting between themselves to figure out how to tax their customers without a massive backlash. A backlash which would have unseated all the CEOs and most of their staffs. It was easier for them to just do nothing. To hope that when the EMPs came, they came on somebody else’s watch.
“To use a very overused term, they all became very good at kicking the can down the road.”
Someone asked him, “What’s the bottom line, sir? How soon can we get everything back to the way it was before the blackout?”
“In my opinion, it’ll never be the same. Maybe in ten years, with help from the federal government, we can begin moving around again. My personal estimate is more like thirty.”
It wasn’t what anyone wanted to hear. But it was what it was.
After the meeting Major Shultz cozied up to Randy and asked him, “What’s this I hear that you haven’t had a day off yet?”
“I’ve scheduled one, sir.”
“For when?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“That’s our next muster day. If you show up I will cut you off at the ankles and string you up by your thumbs. Then I’ll really get angry.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’ll take every fifth day after that, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
Randy spent his day off on horseback, visiting his friends to make sure they were okay.
The one person he wanted to visit the most was one he couldn’t. For he had no idea where she lived.
He got a lot of hugs that day, and handshakes, from friends who were as worried about Randy as he was about them.
A few tears were shed as well.
But all day long he was dogged by the memory of a woman.
A woman by the name of Sarah Anna Speer.
Chapter 10
Randy didn’t drink. It wasn’t that he had a religious or moral objection to it. He’d tried it, and just never developed the taste for it.
That wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy socializing, however. He frequently went to bars with his friends, and always volunteered to be their designated driver.
It was at a cozy little bar in Lubbock’s depot district he’d first laid eyes on Sarah.
He and Tom sat at a table for four and waited for two other friends when a very inebriated blonde plopped herself down into one of the empty chairs.
“Mine if I half myshelf a sheet, cowboy?”
Before Randy had a chance to respond, she turned to her friend, a striking brunette.
“Did you hear dat, Sharah? I ashed him if I could half myshelf a sheet, an’ I called him cowboy.”
Sarah replied, rather patiently, “I heard, Rachel. And it looks like you already have a seat.”
“Wall, yeah. I gish I have.”
Sarah apologized to Randy and Tom for her friend’s behavior.
“Think nothing of it,” Randy said. “I have to apologize for Tom all the time.”
Rachel was enamored with Randy. Randy was enamored with Sarah. Tom was just trying to get anyone to notice him.
Then Rachel passed out, snoring softly and leaving a puddle of drool on the tabletop.
“I’d better take her home,” Sarah said.
Randy offered to help. “You clear a path to the door, and I’ll carry her out to your car.”
He returned to the crowded bar a few minutes later with a wicked smile and a wadded up piece of paper in his right hand.
It said:
Sarah 548-6708. Call me cowboy.
When she’d given it to him he cracked a joke.
“You want
me to call you cowboy? But why?”
Randy was good at many things, but telling jokes wasn’t one of them. Still, she smiled and laughed a bit.
And it seemed genuine.
He was smitten.
Randy had never dated seriously. He was up front with every girl he ever went out with and told them he had no plans to marry until he was at least thirty one.
And he understood why most of them weren’t willing to wait.
They always asked him why.
And he always explained his family legacy. How he was the fifth in five generations to join the Texas Rangers. And how he planned to be the last.
“My great-great-grandfather Wilford P. was the first. He fought Comanche on the south plains and was wounded by a brave’s arrow. He started a tradition that’s followed the oldest son in each generation since. For four generations in a row, Maloney men have joined the Rangers and their wives have suffered a heavy toll, never knowing whether their husbands were coming home each night.
“I saw my mother die an early death, partly brought on by that stress.
“I decided to end the tradition. I’m the fifth generation of Texas Rangers in my family. And I’ll be the last.
“The Rangers offer a limited retirement package at ten years. If I survive that long I plan to take that retirement. And only then will I entertain the thought of getting married and having children.
“If I’m lucky enough to have a son someday he’ll never see me get up in the morning and strap on my duty weapon and pin on my badge. He’ll never grow up admiring me as a lawman, as I admired my father and my father did his.
“My son will never feel a need to carry on a family tradition. And my wife will never lay awake at night worrying about me.
“Instead of saving my old weathered badge to pass down to my son, I’ll bury it atop old Wilford P.’s grave. He was the first one to wear it, and I imagine he’d like to have it back.”
It was a story he’d told at least a dozen times before to a dozen women. A couple of them accepted it at face value and moved on, unwilling to wait several years for a maybe.
Several others dated Randy, hoping they could change his mind with their feminine charms.
A Whole New World: Ranger: Book 2 Page 3