Seeking a Sane Society: Nothing is the Same (The Seeking Series Book 2)

by Albert A. Correia

  Larry Campbell’s function during that period was less strenuous than what his friends faced but it still caused him sleepless nights. He had to determine what the heck an impromptu governor of a very large state with very few residents would do in a world that now had virtually no rules.

  With five days to go before the election, the three men met in Campbell’s office to determine where things stood.

  West told them he that made contact with people on two hundred and four ranches, farms, and dairies. Three hundred and twenty people said they would vote. Of those, sixty-two were gun owners. Seventeen served in the military during the war. Another twenty had experience with guns but were presently unarmed. West promised to get rifles for them.

  Madruga reached people in twelve towns. Most were sparsely populated and had no cohesive leadership. He was fortunate enough find people in ten of the towns who had ways to get messages to others in their area. After a series of talks with numerous people, he was able to establish a “loose” calculation of about two hundred people who would vote. He urged them all to bring weapons but did not know how many would. He estimated that twenty-five to thirty would. In Tracy, he had thirty-seven people who could shoot accurately and another twenty who could handle weapons but did not shoot well. Several were veterans but only three were ever involved in an actual gunfight. Knowing both sides of the equation was important.

  “When Madruga finished his report, he said to Campbell. “What about you, Larry? Did you come up with a workable plan for after the election?”

  “Yes, and No.”

  “Aha,” joked West. “You haven’t even been elected yet and you’re already talking out of both sides of your mouth.”

  “And to think he told us he wasn’t a politician,” Madruga added.

  “Okay, guys, enough,” Campbell laughed. “I see now how drastically things change when a person goes from being a critic with no responsibility to being the guy who has to make the decisions. I immediately started thinking of the hundreds of things that we still need to do. Frankly, it overwhelmed me. It dawned on me that I was trying to do what I have written more than one biting editorial criticizing politicians for doing. I was trying to figure how we were going to solve everyone’s problems, even though I know nothing about most of them. So, no, I have not worked out solutions to all the problems. But, yes, I think I have an idea where to start.”

  “We’re listening,” West said.

  “Once I sifted all that other junk out of my mind, I realized we all have to start with the basics. Water, food, health, and safety. The rest can wait. Shelter is not an issue. Even people who didn’t have a home before will have hundreds to choose from now. We can work out the legal issues later. It’s good that we have so many people coming together for the election. We need to keep them here for a while to find out what specialists are available, such as health professionals, electricians, and water experts. Besides drinking water, we need to get an irrigation system in operation right away, and we need power.”

  “In my travels I noticed that many of the windmills are still in working order,” West offered.

  “Good. There are operational solar units around, too,” Campbell said, “so that part of reconstruction should be completed relatively fast. That will make getting other things functional that much sooner.”

  “I’m in agreement with you on all of that, Larry,” Madruga said, “but right now I think we need to focus on the last item you mentioned. Safety.”

  “Yes,” Campbell lamented. “It’s unfortunate but we are going to need a sizable police force.”

  Madruga nodded. “In a sense, we’re building one with what Ted and I have been putting together. Having people on the right side of the law with weapons is really important. If we don’t have enough of a force for the election, though, we won’t need one later. Silva will have us all killed.”

  “Based on what you two reported, we should have enough people and guns to keep Silva at bay.”

  “If Slaughter and his men stay gone, yes,” said Madruga. His brow furrowed. “But, I keep remembering what Ted said about those people at BOC getting hold of the election notice. If Silva knows about it, he could be planning to call in reinforcements. He may have already made the arrangements. If so, he’ll have us outgunned.”

  “Mary has overheard almost all their discussions,” Campbell told him. “They’re talking as though everything is going exactly as they have planned. They have over seventy people at the motels now – the slave labor force they will put to work once his ‘navy’ destroys Two Harbors. And, with Slaughter gone, they aren’t even talking about defense. There’s no sign they have even a hint of the election.”

  “It’s been weeks, so it’s possible the guys at BOC aren’t part of his group,” Madruga admitted. “I still doubt it, though. Silva is thorough. I don’t have a good feeling about that whole situation.”

  “In three days, it won’t make a difference,” Campbell reminded him. “That’s when we will tell him about the election ourselves. By then, it will be too late for them to get enough troops back from the Catalina attack force to stop us.”

  “Three days.” Madruga stated. He shook his head. “In a situation like this, that’s a very long time.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 34

  THE men who had tried to corner West near BOC still hadn’t warned Silva about the election. As they saw it, they worked for Slaughter, not Silva, and Slaughter had not been in contact with them in weeks. After the first week of silence, they sent Slim, a one-time burglar, to look for him.

  Slim parked several blocks away and walked over to peek in the front window of the Tracy Inn. He saw Silva and Venable sitting on a sofa not far from the window and in what appeared to be a serious conversation. Across the lobby, at the reception desk where Slaughter usually sat, he saw a man he didn’t recognize. The man was talking on the single sideband radio.

  Slim walked around to the back of the building and tiptoed to the back door. He saw two guards in the lobby area and was careful not to alert them. In his profession, he did many similar things before. The back door was near the reception desk, and he could hear the end of the conversation by the man on the radio. He called the person he was talking to “Mal” several times, making it clear that he was talking to Slaughter. Apparently, Slaughter was asking what Silva was up to because the man described the scene, which was, simply, two men talking on the sofa. When the man signed off, he said, “Okay, Mal, I’ll see you in five or six days.”

  There was no telling where the big guy was, but Slim didn’t know the man on the radio and thought better of going in and talking with him. Nor was he about to talk to the governor.

  He returned to the prison without telling anyone in Tracy about the election, but at least he learned that Slaughter was still alive and not in the area.

  That created more uncertainty at BOC and led to more unproductive discussions about what they should do. When things got so volatile there was a threat of out-and-out violence, they dropped the subject for a few days while they cooled off. As the election drew near, they realized that they needed to settle the issues, and things again heated up.

  “For the thirtieth time, I’m telling you, we’ve got to let them know about it,” argued Bennie, the man who discovered the paper.

  Lon, the man who insisted that they wait until Slaughter called them personally, said, “How many times do I gotta repeat this? Mal made it clear that we ain’t to initiate contact. Never, under any circumstances.”

  “Look,” Bennie said, pointing at the paper, “that election is only a few days away. What if Mal doesn’t get back? What if the other guy gets elected? Then where will we be?”

  “I don’t know, but I sure ain’t gonna be the one who goes against Mal’s orders.”

  “Mal’s been gone for two weeks.”

  “And the guy he put on the radio in his place probably don’t even know we’re here. We got nobody to talk to.”

  “We
could talk to that guy Silva.”

  “You kiddin’? He’s the governor.”

  “Hey, the guy was in jail. You think dudes like us didn’t talk to him then?”

  “People like him don’t go to the same jails we do.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We need to tell him.”

  “I told you. . . ”

  “Hey!” Slim barked. Bennie and Lon stopped to stare at him. He lowered his voice and went on, “All you need to do is let this guy Silva know, right?”

  “Yeah, the other two said in unison.

  “In that case, you don’t need to talk to nobody and nobody needs to see you, or anyone else.

  Look at what you have in your hand.”

  Bennie looked at it. “Yeah, what about it?”

  “All they need is to see it,” Slim explained.

  “Giving it to them is the same as talking to them,” Lon noted. “They’ll want to ask questions, and pretty soon they’ll figure out something’s going on that they didn’t know about before.”

  Slim rolled his eyes. “Nobody needs to see nobody. I can just take it and slip it under the door. All they’ll see is the paper and I bet that guy Silva knows about it two minutes later.”

  Lon said to Bennie, “You were so all-fired anxious to let them know, so why didn’t you think of that?”

  “Me? You’re the one who keeps acting like you’re the boss. Not that I think you’re really the boss, but if you think you are, why didn’t you think of it?”

  Ignoring the question, Lon spat back, “Mal put me in charge.”

  “Yeah, well he didn’t tell me that.”

  As the two argued about who was most responsible for the mess up, Slim plucked the paper out of Bennie’s hand. “I’ll take this to the Tracy Inn,” he said.

  The two stopped arguing for a second and looked questioningly at him. “What?” asked Bennie.

  “I’ll slip this under the door so they can find it,” Slim repeated.

  “Don’t get caught,” Lon warned.

  “I’m an expert at not being seen, and this time I’ll be extra careful,” replied Slim. “The main thing is, you can be sure they’ll have it today.” As Lon and Bennie resumed their squabbling, he went out to his car. In less than a minute, he was on the road to Tracy.

  * * * * *

  Everyone at Two Harbors knew the assault would come in two days, and many were getting antsy. They were prepared but waiting for people to come to try to kill them, they found, was a bit nerve-racking. Peckham thought he would give them something else to think about, so he called a meeting to restart talks on their long-term plans.

  Because the thugs at Avalon were gone and replaced by people Peckham thought could be trusted – most of them, anyway – he felt they should be included. He talked to Zach and Warren in Avalon, and they agreed it was a good idea. Among other things, it would give the appearance that no one knew that an attack was imminent. It was still important that the spy not be aware that they knew the attack was just two days away. Everyone at Two Harbors was aware there was an unknown spy in Avalon and no one let on that they knew the attack was imminent.

  It was late summer and the weather was clear and warm, so they arranged an outdoor meeting at Two Harbors. Zach and Warren located more than one hundred folding chairs at the school in Avalon and transported them to Two Harbors. They set up chairs in the level open space between Isthmus Cove and Catalina Harbor.

  Seventy people from the Two Harbor community were in the group that gathered for the initial meeting. Twenty of the attendees were from Avalon, including Zach and Stacey Arthur. Ten of the older children from the two areas, including Glen and Denise Arthur, were there as well.

  Captain Wang was invited and attended with one of the crewmembers who also spoke English. All the others from Catalina’s two populated areas stayed busy, either working in the fields, preparing other goods for consumption, or guarding the bays. Everyone was supposed to be at the meetings when they got near a final plan.

  Marcus and Barry Goldman were part of the Avalon contingent. Both were reluctant at first and initially declined to participate, arguing that the meeting should be held later because they might be attacked at any time. What if the meeting went on for days and they were caught off guard? Zach and Warren, still acting as though they believed the attack would not come for almost a week, said the meeting would be held with or without them. Other members of the Avalon group opted to attend, so both men finally determined that they should be there.

  It became apparent that it would have been better for the others if they held fast to their initial judgment and stayed away.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 35

  ONE OF the guards at the Tracy Inn was aware of the faint sound of a car stopping two blocks away. The sound came from the opposite direction that the sounds of the occasional cars that stopped at the newspaper office. He didn’t move, but he did become more alert.

  There were few other sounds in the area. Richard Silva and Victor Venable were, as usual, in the lobby holding a quiet planning session. It sounded more like plotting than planning to the guard, but they were the bosses and he kept that opinion to himself. The new fellow sat at the old reception desk monitoring the radio. The guard recalled that Mal Slaughter used to go over and talk to the guys on the sofa when he was around, but all this guy did was click the radio on and off and drum his fingers on the desk. The single sideband was used only when Slaughter called, which was becoming less and less frequent.

  Four or five minutes after the car stopped running, he thought he heard faint footsteps near the back door. He started to get up, but saw that the guy was drumming his fingers on the desk again. That sounded a lot like footsteps, so he decided not to waste his time and sat back down.

  In another four or five minutes, a car’s motor started from the same direction where the motor stopped earlier. Was it a coincidence that there might have been footsteps at the back door almost midway between the time a motor stopped and one started? It sounded like the same engine, and he read once that good cops believed there were no such things as coincidences. He certainly wasn’t a cop, and in his lifetime he witnessed many things that he was certain were coincidences, but his curiosity was aroused.

  He got up and went to the back door, looked out, and scanned the area. There was nothing unusual that he could see. As he closed the door, he noticed a piece of paper on the floor. It wasn’t there when he came in that door earlier. He picked it up and walked back to his chair.

  Why, he wondered after he looked over the paper, are they having another election? He just voted, along with his pals and all the others working for Mal and the two dudes over on the sofa. That wasn’t much over a month ago. He looked over at the two men.

  It occurred to him that they might not like the idea. They weren’t doing anything about it, though. Man, he thought, Silva goes ape when he doesn’t like something. Maybe he doesn’t even know about it.

  He got up and walked part way to the sofa with the paper, but hesitated when he got near. They didn’t like being interrupted when they were “in conference.” Even Mal got chewed out sometimes for doing it.

  I’ll just wait until they take a break, he thought. That’s best.

  He turned around and started back to his chair.

  “Well, what is it?” came Silva’s harsh voice from behind him.

  He turned and saw the men had halted their conversation and were looking at him curiously.

  “Sir?”

  “You started over to talk to us. You must have something to say, so say it.”

  “I, ah, I found this in the doorway.” He flashed the paper.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s about the election.”

  “Election? What election?”

  The guard took the paper over and handed it to Silva.

  “What the devil?” stormed Silva. He thrust the paper at Venable.

  “This says there’s going to be an election for govern
or in three days,” Venable pointed out. “Who’s Larry Campbell? Isn’t he the editor of the local newspaper? What’s he doing?”

  “He is, or was – the newspaper doesn’t exist anymore. He has as much chance of being elected governor as. . . this guy.” He jerked a thumb to indicate the guard.

  “Unless he’s sent out a lot of these.” Venable looked at the guard. “Who brought this?”

  “I don’t know sir. It just appeared under the door but there was no one there.”

  “There could be thousands out there, Dick,” Venable surmised. “This is serious.”

  “Okay, you got me thinking the same thing,” Silva replied. His face flushed with anger. “That hack editor caused me some problems in the past, and I’m not about to let him do it again!”

  “What are you going to do?•

  “That’s easy enough to figure out. I don’t know what this silly election is all about, but I’m going to put a stop to it. It isn’t going to happen!”

  * * * * *

  Peckham started the session by going over how the people at Two Harbors created a temporary organization, with him as acting mayor. “We knew from the start that we will have to come up with something more permanent.”

  They didn’t have a loudspeaker system, so he spoke loudly. The only competing noise was from lightly breaking waves on an almost windless day, so he could be heard as long as he did not lower his voice. They had arranged the chairs in a semi-circle and even those at the far ends were only forty feet away.

  “The problem at the time was, and still is,” he went on, “that we don’t know the shape of the government of the United States. We assume that it still exists and whatever we come up with needs to take that into account. However, we also have to realize that we may be on our own for a long time – possibly forever. So we need to have something that is somewhat permanent, but flexible. My thinking is that we need to start by spelling out a few basic things we can and can’t do.”

  Barry Goldman raised his hand.