Survivors - A Novel of the Coming Collapse

by Rawles James Wesley

  “Well, technically the term is ‘selective fire,’ ’cause it will shoot either semiauto or full auto.” After checking the gun’s chamber to ensure that it was unloaded, Laine thumbed the carbine’s selector lever on the left side of the receiver, explaining, “The rear position here is semiauto, but when it’s flipped forward, it’s full auto. A lot of guys converted M1 Carbines into M2s back in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, since the conversion parts were pretty widely available, and it doesn’t require any modification to the receiver.”

  Shad grinned, and said, “Oh, yeah, I read about M2 Carbines once, in a gun magazine. But that’s a major bust if you get caught with it.”

  Lars went on, “Yes, legally it’s a contraband gun, but given the present circumstances, I think that’s about to become a nonissue, if it isn’t one already. But just the same, I don’t think that I’ll go around advertising that I have an unregistered Class 3 gun. I’d appreciate it if you’d also keep your lips zipped.”

  Shad said, “Yes, sir!” The other boys gave exaggerated nods.

  In another canvas case, this one reinforced with green leather at the ends, was a Valmet M62, the Finnish equivalent of the Russian AK-47, with a tubular stock. Laine let out a whistle when he saw the gun. He knew that the Valmet was considered the Cadillac of the AK family, and very valuable.

  One ammo can held eleven spare magazines for the M2 Carbine, and another had seven green plastic “waffle” magazines for the Valmet M62.

  There were also various slings and pouches for magazines, and an odd-looking bayonet for the Valmet M62, in a green leather sheath. It was marked “FISKARS.” To Lars, it looked more like a filleting knife than a bayonet.

  Later, after the boys went into the house to help get dinner ready, Lars was examining the Valmet M62 and realized that it, too, was selective fire. Looking closely, he saw that instead of just two positions, the safety/selector had three positions, with one in the middle for full-auto fire. He concluded that it was an original Finnish Defense Force M62, rather than a converted civilian-production Valmet. Later he told Beth that the gun had probably been smuggled into the U.S. by his uncle Aki, who for many years was an engineering officer on a Finnish merchant marine ship.

  The last of the guns was a Lahti 9mm semiauto pistol with five spare magazines wrapped in brown waxed paper, along with an original Finnish military holster. The pistol had a single-column magazine and looked vaguely like a Luger. It had plastic grips marked “VKT.” Lars chortled when he saw that, and put on a deep radio announcer’s voice: “Yet another fine product from the industrious workers at Valmet.” He explained to Lisbeth that since the end of World War II, Valmet had expanded into a conglomerate, branching out to make everything from log harvesters to military aircraft. Lars had read about Lahti pistols, but he’d never handled one.

  Finally, Laine began to inventory the ammunition in detail. In all, there were 1,100 rounds of 7.62x54r for the bolt actions, almost 1,500 rounds of .30 Carbine, 1,280 rounds of 7.52x39 for the Valmet M62, and 650 rounds of 9mm for the Lahti. He was thrilled to find that one of the .30 caliber ammo cans was filled not with ammo but with rolls of pre-1965 silver quarters.

  It was not until the next day that Lars had the opportunity to examine the can holding the rolls of silver quarters. When he emptied it out to count the rolls, he found a sealed envelope tucked in alongside the rolls. It was marked “Lars and Andrew” in his father’s handwriting. He opened it and found a typewritten letter. It read:

  My Dear Sons:

  It was my intention to give you these coins when you’d both graduated from high school, but back then I had my doubts about your maturity, so I decided to hold on to them until after you earned your commissions.

  I want you to appreciate these silver quarters for what they really are--not just an investment, and not just a “family heirloom.” They represent REAL money. Pardon the lecture, but you need to judge their value four ways--in terms of wages, manufactured goods, services and real property.

  First, let’s look at wages. Back in “the old days”--say, before World War I--the average wage for a working man was around one silver dollar a day. One day’s wage right now for someone that works at a minimum wage job (at $7.25 per hour) is $58 for an eight-hour work day. A more typical wage for a workman with experience is around $11 per hour ($88 per day.) One dollar (face value) in 90% silver pre-1965 coinage contains 22.5 grams of silver, or 0.7234 troy ounces per dollar face value. Today’s spot price of silver is $17.55 per troy ounce. So that makes a pre-inflation dollar (a true DOLLAR in silver coin) worth $12.79. (Or just think of it as roughly 13 times $1 in face value--“13 times face,” whether it is silver dimes, quarters, or half dollars.) So, to put things in perspective, it takes $6.76 in pre-’65 silver coinage to equal one typical day’s wages ($88 in the current fiat paper money). Thus, in terms of wages silver SHOULD have a spot value about five or six times its current value. By this measure, silver is now grossly undervalued.

  Next, manufactured goods. In 1964 (the last year that silver coins were in general circulation in the U.S.), a basic blued-steel Colt Model 1911 .45 automatic pistol cost around $65 retail. Today, a comparable Colt M1911 (a Series 80) costs around $775 retail. So if you were to sell $65 face value of this cache of silver coinage at your local coin shop, and they offered you 12 times “face”--that would net you $780 in the current funny money. You could then easily go buy a .45 at your local gun shop with the proceeds. The bottom line: it is not pistols that have gone UP in price. Rather, it is paper dollars that have gone DOWN in purchasing power.

  How about services? In 1964, a haircut cost around 75 cents, or perhaps $1 in the big city. My last haircut cost $14. I suspect that other services are comparable, whether it is your local dentist or your local brothel. (I trust and pray that neither of you will ever use the latter service.)

  Now let’s look at the relative values of silver coinage and real property. In 1964, the median house price in the U.S. was around $18,000. Today, it is around $170,000. (A 9.4x increase.) If you had set aside $18,000 face value in silver coins in 1964 (18 bags of $1,000 face value each), and held them until the present day, they’d net you around $216,000 if you sold them to a bullion coin dealer. That is enough for an ABOVE AVERAGE house. So obviously silver coins have held their value far better than paper dollars. Anyone who sits on PAPER dollars for very long--at least dollars that aren’t earning much interest--is a fool.

  I hope and pray that you keep investing in silver. You should acquire much more than this little nestegg.

  In my opinion, you can trust tangibles (like silver and guns), but you shouldn’t put much trust in paper currency in the long term. To safeguard your net worth in the inflationary days to come, always remember: Don’t leave your earnings in paper money for long. As quickly as possible, convert it into tangibles, to protect your savings from the ravages of inflation. Consumer price inflation is mild now, but that probably won’t be the case in the near future. So adjust your way of thinking and doing business, accordingly.

  Never forget: Inflation is a hidden form of taxation!

  Divide these coins equally between you. Spend them wisely, and up until the day that the balloon goes up, spend them only as a last resort. And never forget their REAL worth.

  Love,

  Dad

  As Andy tucked the letter back into the envelope, he said resolutely, “Yeah, Dad, you were right.”

  Each of the Phelps boys was given one of the M39 bolt-action rifles in lieu of their first two months’ wages. The next day a few precious rounds of the hard-kicking 7.62x54R were used to sight in each of their rifles. Because that ammo was corrosively primed, Laine showed the boys how to carefully clean the rifles’ bores and bolt faces, making sure that they cleaned their barrels for several successive days, to be sure that all traces of corrosive priming salts had been removed.

  Th
e bunkhouse was soon decorated with a Monument Valley poster and maps from National Geographic magazines. The boys settled into a routine of guard shifts, caring for their horses, some house chores, and reading—lots of reading.

  Having the Phelps Boys at the ranch was a great relief to Lars, Beth, and Kaylee, who up until then were starting to feel the strain of guarding the ranch by themselves.

  Lars’s morning routine was to first pray at dawn silently and then cuddle with his wife. Then he would sit up and put on his eye patch and his prosthetic hand. As needed, he’d put some silicone cream on the stump first. Lars had learned that the size of his residual limb changed during each day. Fluid pooled in the limb at night when the prosthesis was off, and was pushed back out when “Mr. President” was strapped on. Thus, the fit was slightly tighter in the morning than in the afternoon or evening.

  Still in his pajamas, Lars did twenty rapid push-ups and forty sit-ups. Then he’d shower and get dressed. Before the Crunch, he would also read his e-mail and have a cup of coffee with breakfast. But both of those diversions soon became just memories. In recent days he would eat at the kitchen table with Matthew Phelps, who was the early riser of the Phelps trio.

  19

  Gainful

  “As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”

  —Adam Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

  Lars and Beth Laine were cuddled in bed, by the light of a single candle. For the first time in many days, they rested comfortably, knowing that one of the boys would be on guard duty all night long, listening and watching for intruders. Beth asked, “How are we going to make do? Your disability retirement checks are still coming, but they’re a joke. The check for one month might buy a couple of days’ worth of groceries, if we’re lucky. And at the rate things are going, in another couple of weeks a check might just buy one can of beans.”

  Lars sighed. “Well, we aren’t going to make a living on twenty acres in this country, especially with seven or eight mouths to feed. If we just barter for food and fuel, our stash of precious metals will eventually get depleted. It’s pretty clear that I need to look for work, putting my military training to use.”

  “What? As a mercenary?”

  “Not exactly. There are a lot of businesses in town that are doing a pitiful job of securing what they have. Whether it’s a burglary or a robbery at gunpoint, they know that sometime within a few months somebody is going to come and clean them out. It’s only the refinery that seems to have their act together so far, in terms of security. So I think I ought to go hire myself out as a security consultant. I could set them up some rudimentary physical security—maybe I could team up with one of the welding shops on that—and also train their employees on shooting and small-team tactics.” Stroking his wife’s back, he added, “Now that we discovered my dad’s guns and that silver, I also have some leverage in bartering situations. I’d like your blessing to poke around town and see what happens.”

  Beth sighed, “That sounds good to me. You just be careful, and proceed with prayer.”

  Upgrading the security at the Laines’ ranch went quickly, with the help of the boys. The main task was constructing an observation post (OP) with railroad ties. Lars carefully positioned it on a gentle rise fifty-two yards from the southwest corner of the house. From there, there was a good view of the house, barn, and bunkhouse. The OP measured just six feet square and five feet high. By heaping split pinyon pine rounds over it, they made it look like a nondescript pile of firewood.

  After building the OP, they moved on to upgrading the house itself, for defense against looters. Lars was fond of saying, “When it comes to stopping bullets, there’s nothing like mass, and sandbags are cheap mass.” It was clear that they’d need sandbags—a lot of sandbags. There were sixteen empty feed sacks in the barn. These had been made to hold fifty pounds of grain, so they were oversize for their needs. If filled with sand, they would have weighed more than one hundred pounds. So Lars cut each sack in half and restitched the cut off ends to form additional sacks using a large curved upholstery needle. This task was just like the sailcloth stitching that his uncle Aki had taught Lars when he was twelve years old. But this yielded just thirty-two sandbags—not nearly enough for their needs.

  They made inquiries all over Farmington and Bloomfield, but found that all of the available feed sacks had already been bought up by others with the same idea. After a few days of searching, they heard that feed sacks were still available from Southwest Seed, sixty miles away, in Dolores, Colorado. Unlike a typical retail feed store, this was a seed-packing and grain elevator operation set up to handle wholesale quantities.

  When he arrived, Lars was not surprised to see several armed men guarding the feed and seed complex. They were, after all, guarding something quite valuable.

  The sales manager walked Lars around. He pointed out their inventory, which included many pallets of brand-new bundled feed sacks. Most of them were white, but about one-third of the twenty-pound size were tan. It was those that Laine wanted, since they were the right size for sandbags and they’d blend in well in desert country.

  Negotiating the sack purchase took a while. This reminded Lars of transactions he’d witnessed several years before, at the bazaar in Basra, Iraq. It started with pleasantries, followed by a few outrageous offers and counteroffers and finally some serious dickering for more realistic prices.

  They eventually agreed on $4.50 face value in pre-1965 quarters and two hundred rounds of .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridges in exchange for six hundred empty tan sacks. While he was there, Lars also bought forty more pounds of pasture blend for $1.20 face value in silver dimes. It was more than Laine needed, but he anticipated that it would be good to keep on hand for barter.

  Life at the Laines’ ranch was comfortable, at least by post-Crunch standards. Everyone had enough to eat, and the rotating security shifts were just four hours per day from Monday through Saturday, and six hours on Sundays. They soon instituted “L.&L.’s Standing Rules.” These rules were penned on a large piece of card stock by Lisbeth and posted inside the door of the bunkhouse:

  1.If in doubt, sound the alarm.

  2.Keep all doors locked 24/7.

  3.Never leave the house unarmed.

  4.Never leave the house without a walkie-talkie.

  5.Always carry at least 40 rounds of ammunition with each bolt-action rifle, and at least three magazines for semi-autos.

  6.Treat every approaching stranger as a potential enemy.

  7.Keep your friends close and your enemies at 9x distance.

  8.No guard quits their post unless properly relieved.

  9.Severe punishment for anyone who falls asleep while on watch.

  10.Horse grooming and hoof work daily, without fail.

  11.No lights visible from outside after dark.

  12.Good stewardship in all things. No wasteful behavior!

  13.Keep proper sanitation and cleanliness.

  14.Leave every gate the way you found it, unless told otherwi
se.

  15.Maintain everything to last a lifetime—it may have to!

  16.Rust is an enemy. Oil and grease are allies.

  17.Maintain the “need to know” rule. No loose lips!

  18.Courteous behavior and Christian attitudes, always.

  19.No foul or blasphemous language.

  20.Respect everyone’s privacy.

  21.100% effort. No slacking on chores.

  22.Health and safety are top priorities.

  23.Watch for signs of dehydration and hypothermia—self and others.

  24.Be honest and forthright in all business dealings.

  25.Recognize the head of the house as final authority on all decisions.

  26.Count your blessings.

  27.Be charitable and tithe consistently.

  28.Smile! God loves you. You are in His covenant.

  Below that, Lisbeth added a quote from her favorite Psalm:

  “The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.”

  —PSALM 37:18–19

  20

  Tentacles

  “The government turns every contingency into an excuse for enhancing power in itself.”

  —John Adams

  Fort Knox, Kentucky

  November, the First Year

  Maynard Hutchings and his council that headed the Provisional Government soon consolidated their power in Kentucky and much of Tennessee, declaring themselves “The Sole and Legitimate Provisional Government of the United States of America and Possessions,” with Hutchings himself voted by his council as “president pro tempore.”

  The Provisional Government spread its sphere of influence rapidly. Any towns that resisted were quickly crushed. The mere sight of dozens of tanks and APCs was enough to make most townspeople cower in fear. Anything that the ProvGov couldn’t accomplish through intimidation, it accomplished with bribes. A new currency was spread around lavishly among the Hutchings cronies. Covertly, some criminal gangs were hired as security contractors and used as enforcers of the administration’s nationalization schemes. Some of these gangs were given military vehicles and weapons and promised booty derived from eliminating other gangs that were not as cooperative. Hit squads were formed to stifle any dissent. These did so through abductions, arson, and murder. Nobody was ever able to prove a link, but an inordinately large number of conservative members of Congress from the old government disappeared or were reported killed by bandits.