“Jason, meet Taylor. Our resident book worm and history nerd,” Mike joked as she softly smacked him on the back of the head.
Mike stewed over these revelations the rest of the day, and late into the night. The reports, even from the individual news broadcasts, had said nothing about family gardens or such force being used against families. He sat up in bed around midnight, and Taylor reached over to put her hand on his back. "You can't sleep either huh?"
"I didn't know you were awake?" he whispered.
"Yeah, well, I didn't know you were either or I would have spoke up a while ago."
"This is really bugging me," he said. "People dying over defending their right to feed themselves?"
"It scares me," Taylor said, her voice still soft and raspy from being sick. "You've got to do a recording about this. It's just wrong. Why isn't anyone else reporting on it?"
"I don't know,” Mike answered. “My bigger concern is what's going to happen if they catch us. We've got to come up with a plan to either defend ourselves, or escape safely. I can't let what happened to them happen to us."
"We can work on that tomorrow. When can you do a recording?" she asked.
"I don't know. I could now, I guess, but I don't want to wake the others."
"Are you even tired?" she asked.
"I should be, but no, I'm not. I think I got enough rest this past week, and now I'm just itching to do anything."
Taylor sat for a moment, then got up and used the comforter to hang over the door and help muffle the sound. "There. Whether you record something, or we just sit up half the night talking, that should help keep from waking them up."
Mike motioned for her to come sit by him, then grabbed the laptop Bishop Christensen had given him.
"Last week, you were expecting to hear my voice bring yet another message about freedom and peace. But instead, you heard nothing. That's because my family found ourselves in a situation having to rescue a family in need. Women and children fleeing the Guard while their husbands and fathers died so that they could live. Women and children who were left stranded in the snow, their homes and livelihoods taken from them.
“What was the horrible crime these people committed? What awful deed did they perpetrate to deserve being shot at? Did they murder someone? Did they enslave or torture innocent people? No! They violated The Filburn Act. They dared to eat the vegetables they'd stored up from last summer, and the meat from their own animals.
“They exercised one of the most basic rights of natural freedom, feeding themselves. And for that, two honest, hardworking men, a loving mother, a handsome, young, four-year-old boy, and a beautiful three-month-old baby girl lost their lives. Yes, you heard that right. Two young children are dead because the Guard wouldn't let this family feed themselves.
“Our government is going to work to distract you from paying attention to events like this one. They're going to try to keep you from learning of tragedies like this. They are going to give you more and more things in their efforts to win over your support. They're going to tell you of all the horrible things to fear, that they want you to seek their protection from. Do not let yourselves lose sight of the goal of freedom.
“To all those willing to risk your own regular broadcasts of news, stop being content with the seeming stability that's been returned to our lives. If people's most basic freedom to eat from their own work is being taken away by bullets, you have an obligation as part of the human race to report it. If infants lives are going to be ended because their parents dared to grow food, it must be told to the world. Do not create false events, just to generate something to talk about. But do not let such a loss of freedom and life be silenced.
“I know there are guardsmen listening. To each of you in uniform I say, the time has come for you to make a decision. We all are aware that many have already abandoned their posts to return home. And you well know that some of these gave their lives just for refusing to take away freedom. Now you must choose what you will do. Such oppression can not continue. You must either let your loved ones be killed for seeking their natural rights, or you must return home to defend them. The choice is yours, and the time to choose is now.
“A few months ago I encouraged you to seek freedom through peace. Nearly two-hundred and forty years ago, the American Colonists tried this as well. But when peacefully working to reclaim their natural rights failed, they were left two choices: accept oppression by force, or use force of their own. As we all proudly celebrate with fireworks every year, we know they chose the latter. Now it appears, we must prepare to do the same."
"Holy shit," Taylor exclaimed, seeing Mike push the stop button. "That was... did you -"
"Basically put out a call to arms?" he said. "Yep. And I need to send this out before I change my mind."
Chapter 9
Preparing For The Worst
The next morning, Taylor and Mike finally started getting tired about the time everyone else was waking up. Both were sleepy, but felt more like themselves than they had since the rescue. Mike was starting to get around pretty well without the crutches, and that was clearly helping his mood.
As Mike came in from trying to help with chores, Taylor was getting breakfast started. She had insisted that Jessica and Stacy wouldn't stand at the stove again that week. At breakfast, Mike told them all that they needed to start coming up with plans for defending or escaping their ranch.
"We need to analyze the entire ranch, and even the surrounding land, for weak points we could be attacked from. Ways to block road access on a moment's notice. And we need some viable escape routes where we're not at risk of being caught by nature like they were," he told them.
Stacy immediately expressed her shock that they were even discussing such an idea. Taylor had been discussing it with him long before the others woke up. Jessica and Brad made it known that they had talked about the same thing the night the Hepworths were rescued.
"Stacy, I think you need to start getting in a lot more range time," Mike said. "I know you don't enjoy shooting quite as much as the rest of us -"
"Mike, I don't think I could bring myself to shoot at someone."
"You could if you had to, Stacy. You just had to hold a dead baby in your arms last week. You being a good shot could end up being what prevents you from holding one of our bodies."
She started to cry at the memory of little Rachael and the possibility that the same could happen to them.
"Mike, that was kind of harsh," Jessica commented.
"I know. And I hate saying it as much as you all hate hearing it. But look at what they just went through."
"He's right," Stacy replied, trying to calm herself. "I don't know that I could take the shot to defend myself. But I could for you all. And I could for those kids, too."
"I know you could," Mike said, grabbing her shoulder. "Brad, you know this ranch as well anyone. I want you to work on drawing out a map of it, and all the dirt roads leading in and around. Get with Taylor on figuring out which spots would be easiest for anyone to sneak up on us, and try to come up with ideas to fix it."
Brad nodded as Taylor confidently said, "We got this," giving Brad a high-five.
"Jessica, you and I are going to work on escape plans. If it was still just me, I'd die before leaving my home. But I'd give up this place in a heartbeat to know you all are safe."
Everyone just sat quiet for a moment. The reality that they might have to engage in a gun fight or abandon their home began sinking in. "Anyone have any thoughts or ideas, besides the fact that this sucks?" he added.
"You want me going out shooting right now? Alone? It's freezing out there. Heck, getting up to freezing would be a welcome warm spell. I'm not -"
"Calm down, Stacy. Not right now. But I'll go out there with you this afternoon. Okay?"
"Then what do I do for now?" she asked.
"Start figuring up minimal needs for us if we have to escape, and come up with good ways to carry and store caches of supplies. We'll have to in
tegrate what you come up with into what the rest of us are working on."
They worked busily all day on what Taylor had dubbed their "Battle and Retreat Plans." Mike spent the majority of the afternoon going over Stacy's rifle with her, and showing her how to quickly adjust between different distances for "real close" hits.
"This isn't as good as knowing how to adjust your scope on the fly for changing conditions, but you could kill anyone within a hundred and fifty yards, and then swing around to pepper an approaching vehicle a half mile away," he explained.
As she was missing less shots with each magazine she emptied, she got more and more in to it. "How do you hit the one way over there?" she asked, pointing to the one mile target.
"With a bigger gun, plenty of time studying, countless rounds acquiring a sore shoulder, and a fair bit of luck," he said. "If you want to learn to shoot really long range, ask Taylor or Brad where the book “The Ultimate Sniper” is. One of them will know. But be ready to exercise your math skills."
They sat back in the small shelter to get out of the wind and enjoy the views looking down range. "God this is so beautiful, Mike."
He looked over at her. Her cheeks were red from the cold and her eyes sparkling with the bright reflection of sunlight off the snow.
"Look, an eagle," she noticed as it flew in and perched on a tall tree.
He glanced over at the majestic-looking bird, then went back to staring at her. She had a peaceful and happy look about her. A look he'd not seen much of through the winter. "I love you," he said, causing her to smile and her eyes shine even more.
Later that evening, after dinner, they started going over what they had come up with during the day. Taylor and Brad started off by saying that they had a hard time coming up with things they could achieve before the snow melts, and that the things they did come up with would be big projects.
Taylor had told Brad that limiting road access should be their first priority. With all his time riding his bike everywhere, he knew each dirt road and where they went better than he knew the freckles over the bridge of his nose. Taylor's input was in knowing where they would likely have a need to travel to. So they drew a new map, taking out some existing roads, and adding in one main new road that would be more easily defended.
"Um, you two have a road coming up the canyon to the reservoir, then looping around the hill. There's no road through the canyon down there," Mike said, wondering what was going through their minds.
"I know that. We're going to build it, and close down the main road we use now," Taylor said, as if building a road down a raw canyon was going to be easy.
Mike just laughed and shook his head.
"Shut up," she snapped as she continued. "It's going to be about a three-mile long road down the canyon. Then probably around one and a half miles looping around the mountain to connect it to the main road."
"Taylor," Mike cut in. "Do you have any idea what you're proposing."
"Mike, I think she might be on to something here," Jessica said, backing them up.
"Thank you, mom!" Brad said.
Mike just gestured for them to continue.
"Okay, Mike. To the point," Taylor went on, hoping to convince him they had a good idea. "This gives us about a five mile view of anyone coming, and we can see them from the house. And a lot of it from inside the house."
"Okay, okay. Good idea. But that's a massive amount of work. You're talking about building -"
"Hang on, there's more," Brad said, wanting to get his turn in explaining the idea. "It's all downhill of the reservoir, Daddy. You can't shoot as far as the road, but if we can find some way to be able to put a drain on the levee that could be shot open, then we could wash out the road and anyone on it." Brad was excited. He too didn't seem to grasp what the level of work required would be, but he was very proud that washing out the road somehow from the reservoir was his idea.
Mike, trying to hold himself back from shooting down their ideas any more, asked what else they had. They proceeded to show where the best spots were to get around the ranch easily and secretly, and have the best vantage points to watch or shoot from. Taylor, with a huge smile, added, "And the best part would be, with the echo of the canyon, anyone coming up that road would have a hell of a time trying to figure out where the shots were coming from!"
Mike suddenly busted out laughing as they were explaining why they had picked a certain place to dig in a shelter on a hill side, causing Brad to get a very discouraged look on his face, and Taylor an annoyed look.
"No, no, no. I'm not laughing at this. I think this is excellent," He assured them. "No, I was laughing because I had another idea that could work out with your road idea. Brad, using the reservoir to stop passage down the road was smart thinking, but it would mean draining it first, and then we have to wait for it to refill. We use that water, so that would be a really big deal."
"Okay, so what?" Taylor asked.
"Have you ever seen the old movie Swiss Family Robinson?"
Taylor shook her head 'no,' but Jessica and Stacy both started cracking up too, knowing exactly what Mike was talking about.
"Alright, well, I'm not explaining the whole movie to you. But at the end, the Robinson family is having to defend their island against pirates invading them." He got blank stares back from both of them. "So what they did was build traps at the top of the hill. Contraptions holding logs and rocks that they could release, and let gravity wipe out the pirates."
"Oh, cool!" Brad exclaimed.
"Okay, anything else, you two?" Mike asked.
"That's it for now," Taylor answered. "But we've got a few other ideas we want to try to work out before we bring them to you. Hopefully stuff we can work on even in the snow."
"Okay, Jessica, you want to tell them what we came up with?"
"Um, sure. Unfortunately part of our ideas for escaping involved building new dirt roads too. But we're only looking at maybe a mile of as narrow of a trail as we can get away with. On the other side of the mountain, to our west, there's a seldom used road. It's on BLM land. We want try to make a secret access road off of it that dead ends into the woods, and hide one of our vehicles in there. It'd be a hell of hike to get there from here, but anyone coming here could only follow by foot through woods that we know better than anyone else."
Stacy, Taylor and Brad all had blank stares on their faces. The thought of leaving the ranch just didn't seem acceptable to anyone.
"Okay," Jessica continued. "That's the ultimate last resort. I think everyone's preferred escape option would be to stay here. Escape by hiding. Basically, we build another cave. One better hidden, that doesn't have a radio tower and wind generator on it."
"Wouldn't it make more sense to move the radio tower and wind generator?” Stacy suggested. “Set them up somewhere else? I mean, Mike, you've been able to tune in the news, record and send your broadcasts, all with just that small radio and old laptop."
"She's got a good point. You know, if we're really concerned about how much work we're taking on, you guys are suggesting similar ideas to ours," Taylor added defensively.
Mike agreed. "You're right. And that's something we can do while there's still snow on the ground. So, Taylor, you want to help me move and reconfigure the radio station? We can put it in the loft of the barn, and put the wind generator just uphill from the barn."
"What are we waiting for?" She replied enthusiastically.
Jessica turned to Stacy. "So, what about you? You come up with anything?"
Stacy sighed. "Not really. I overheard the new cave idea and figured it'd be rearranged to use the cave we already have. The biggest problem we have with moving around emergency supplies is not having any good means of carrying what we all would need. Mike, you don't even have a suitcase that I know of."
Smiling, he replied, "Oh sure, I've got a nice luggage set for all my world travels!"
"Smart ass," she shot back as she rolled her eyes.
"Alright. I guess -" Mike started.
"Hang on there. We're forgetting something. We all know not a one of us has it in us to leave behind the Hepworths if anything happens before they leave," Jessica added.
Mike let out a groan. "If my choice is saving them or saving you -"
"Then you'll make damn sure those kids are safe. or I'll be your biggest threat," Jessica cut him off.
Mike could only nod in agreement. "Alright then, as I was trying to say. Taylor, we'll get started tomorrow on moving the radio station to the barn. Brad, could use your help too. You're probably the best snowmobile driver here and that's what we'll have to use."
Brad smiled and nodded.
"Stacy, Jess, why don't you two work on ideas for taking care of anyone we're giving refuge to, whether it's the Hepworths, or someone else in the future."
Chapter 10
Three Powers
Mike and Jessica woke up the next morning to find Stacy, Taylor, and Amy all hovering around the radio. Taylor had gone down to get the Hepworth family and bring them back up so Amy could help her give Jessica and Stacy another day off from any household chores, and so that Brad and the other kids could all play together.
"Good mor -" Jessica started to say, as Taylor cut her off.
"Shhhh!"
Mike could hear something from the voice on the radio about Canada and Mexico, but he was still too tired to really care and just wanted to enjoy some tea, and some quiet, while he tried to wake up. Jessica had brought him a glass, and he held on to her to try to get a chance to feel the baby kicking. "Lucky little stinker," he said, after not feeling anything. "Enjoy sleeping in while you can."
Crashed: The Death Of The Dollar Page 11