by Ginger Booth
“Mrs. Schwabacher airlifted out with the rest of the dependents,” Schwabacher said. “And shipped all of our things. I’ve been visiting the SAMS today to thank each of you personally for staying at your task. Time is shorter than we’d hoped. Your little ‘BOQ’ is the first furnished home I’ve visited today.”
“We never did have our families here,” John said. “And they’re safe and well. Cheers!”
“It’s very kind of you to come around, si—Charles,” Cam said. “I feel as though we should offer to join you for caroling or something.”
“Not practical,” Emmett said regretfully. “Cam and I are on call.”
“Oh?” inquired Schwabacher.
“Colonel Tolnay’s wife—National Guard—was about to go into labor. He left with her. We’re covering until his replacement arrives. Fun for us.”
Schwabacher pursed his lips, without comment.
“Where is Mrs. Schwabacher now?” John asked.
“Ohio,” the general replied gratefully. “We have a house on Lake Erie, not far from the Pennsylvania border. Things are alright there now. Pretty.” He sighed. “Not too close to any city. I’ve considered requesting a post as a Resco.” They all grinned. “But I don’t imagine they’ll let me do that, at my rank.” The grins faded uncomfortably.
Cam’s phone buzzed him, quickly followed by Emmett’s. “Please excuse us,” Cam murmured. Emmett was already sliding the long hall to the bedrooms.
A young Guard lieutenant, Sokolski, arrived before the majors were dressed. He’d been nervous enough already. Finding two such stratospheric officers lounging in the living room seemed to petrify him.
Schwabacher doubled down on genteel calm assurance. He and John invited Sokolski to take a seat, and plied him with a small glass of hard cider. When Emmett and Cam emerged, weighed down in full battle kit, Schwabacher smiled and shared that Sokolski was from Oklahoma City.
Emmett smiled warmly at the lieutenant. “Never met an Okie I didn’t like. Major Emmett MacLaren, of Missouri. Senior to Major Cam Cameron.” Unlike Schwabacher and John, they didn’t relax the military formalities. Lieutenant Sokolski was going into action under them. “Report.”
“Sir. Estimated 800 armed civilians, broke through at Maltby, proceeding north on route 5 in vehicles.” He pulled out a paper map to show Emmett and Cam. “We have 250.”
“Could be worse,” Emmett murmured. “Lieutenant, that’s an ‘armed mob’ or ‘armed looters’, not ‘armed civilians.’ It’s a distinction with a difference. Persons in an armed mob are no longer civilians. They’re combatants.”
“Sir.”
Cam shot him a sideways look. Emmett ignored him. They’d been fleeing as unarmed civilians in Kansas City. Demonstrators and fleeing civilians were not ‘mobs’ or ‘looters.’
“Alright,” Emmett continued, “Cam, you’ll take one hundred. Block them out of Lansing at Gilman Road here, and East Mary Street here. Your fall back is Ninemile Creek. But your goal is to keep the mob headed north on 5. The rest of us are headed for the intersection just south of the Lansing wastewater plant, here. We destroy them there.”
“What about the right, sir?” Cam asked.
“All roads to the right dead-end at the railroad tracks. Until the wastewater plant. Which is why we stop them there. Damned good thing they’re in vehicles. Try to keep it that way.”
“Got it,” Cam agreed. “Car bombs?”
Emmett gave him a pained look. Ever since that trick went into the draft Resco manual, every guy who read about it was just itching to try it. “If you must, Major,” he said witheringly. “But I can think of simpler ways to block a road. Just make them continue north.”
Cam grinned. “Point taken, sir.”
“We, on the other hand,” Emmett confided to Sokolski, “will blow up a fuel tanker. Won’t that be fun? No more than one quarter full. Waste of fuel.”
Sokolski’s eyes lit in delight at the prospect.
“Let’s roll,” Emmett ordered. And they were off.
John consulted a map on his phone in concern.
“Emmett’s proposed stand is about 6 miles from here,” Schwabacher told him mildly. He held the map in his head.
“You don’t seem concerned,” John replied, with a pinched smile.
“I have every confidence,” Schwabacher assured him.
“How much longer do we stay in Fort Leavenworth?”
Schwabacher shrugged slightly. “Leavenworth will remain a border garrison for the Missouri River line. Young Lieutenant Sokolski will not be leaving here.” He rose. “Well, I should continue my holiday rounds. You’re welcome to join me, John.”
They brought along the hard cider.
Some of the looters were bright enough to abandon their vehicles. Emmett and Cam kept trading off duty to supervise the mop-up, hunting down looters through the streets of Lansing, until the National Guard replaced its Colonel a couple days later.
The delayed Hungarian goulash was excellent. The men took to using the crockpot most days. The results never tasted as good again. They decided that 10 hours was long enough to cook anything, with no need for all that pesky peeling and chopping. They just dumped raw ingredients in, and let them cook.
-o-
The SAMS abandoned Fort Leavenworth in February, and dispersed to complete their work remotely. Before they left Kansas, they solemnly swore as a group that they would never divulge each other’s part in writing the Calm Act. None of them wanted to be associated with it.
Cam and John were air-lifted out to the East Coast, and returned home.
Emmett packed up his trailer—minus his chickens, stolen the month before—and crossed the near-empty Missouri River. He drove down to stay in Joplin Missouri first. The Internet connections, and ability to keep an eye on developments, were better there than at his mother’s backwoods farm.
The Calm Act was passed into law, effective immediately, in May. The SAMS continued work on the manual, to train the Rescos to be recruited that summer.
-o-
“It’s time you level with me, baby,” said Emma. She placed her hand on Emmett’s, as he tried to hurriedly collect up his work from the farm kitchen table, to hide it. She sat down and thoughtfully dunked a lemon wedge in her iced tea with a spoon. The humid summer evening was stiflingly hot, and they didn’t use air conditioning. A small scrap of cloud parked in the tree outside the window, just hovering there without a breath of wind to budge it.
Emmett sighed. He stuffed the papers into his computer bag anyway, and closed his laptop. “Can’t do that, Momma.”
“Uh-huh. You’re planning the defense of Ozark County for when the government collapses because of the Calm Act.”
Emmett winced.
“That’s a waste of your God-given gifts, my son,” Emma opined. “I can handle Ozark. And all the surrounding counties beside. Hell, Emmett, they’re aren’t ten thousand people in this county. And I know every one of them. You don’t. They’re not gonna look to you. They’ll mind me, though.”
“Orders,” Emmett murmured. He got up and poured his own iced tea. And wistfully considered it.
She was right, of course. His best route to control this county was to simply ask his momma to do it, and kick back while she did. There wasn’t much to worry about. Even if a few lost looters did wander in, pretty much everyone here was armed and able to shoot for themselves. He could brief Emma in less than a day. Leave her the Resco manual for an idea book. Preparing for now, he’d expected to take all of southern Missouri, but that wasn’t how the official word came down. He was ordered to hold Ozark County for the next two and a half years. And that was it.
“Zack called last night,” Emma observed. Emmett had looked even more miserable after talking to his best friend. “How’s he doing?”
“Psyched,” Emmett replied. “He’ll be doing the same sort of thing, up in Connecticut. Asked if I wanted to come.”
“John and Cam, from Leavenworth—they’re in Connec
ticut too, aren’t they?”
“Yeah.”
Emma nodded. “You should go. Ask for a transfer.”
Emmett looked at her sadly. “That might be a one-way trip, Momma.”
Emma nodded again. “Go. I love you, baby. But you don’t belong here.” She sighed. “There never was scope for you here, Emmett.”
Before bed, Emmett made a call. “Hey, John. I need a favor. I want to transfer to Connecticut. I’d like Resco of New Haven, where Zack is. Can you swing that?”
-o-
“So good to meet you, Emmett, Zack! Now, how do you and Cam know each other?” Professor Cameron greeted them warmly at the glorious September wedding reception. The willowy older blonde beamed at them, on cloud nine today as her last baby finally got married.
“Oh, you know the service, Ma’am,” Emmett drawled. He wore formal dress blue uniform, matching Cam’s for the occasion. “I’m sure we’ve run into each other at a cocktail party or something. Actually, we overlapped at West Point, didn’t we, Cam?”
“Must have,” Cam agreed vaguely, turning to greet them. “Mom, Emmett was posted to New Haven a couple weeks ago. He’ll be doing the same work as I am. I invited him because he’s new to the area. His friend Zack is ex-Army.”
“Oh! Welcome to Connecticut!”
Brief puzzlement flitted across Emmett’s brow. The wedding reception was on the cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades—not Connecticut—with a fine view over the Hudson River to Manhattan. And like Cam, he’d graduated from West Point, just up the river. But they traded champagne-addled smiles anyway.
Champagne flowed freely on empty stomachs at the posh venue, far cheaper than food these days. Miss Manners had decreed that enough was enough. No one could afford to bankroll food at a wedding reception anymore. The new standard was cutely decorated potluck themes even for an upscale rehearsal dinner. Wedding guests could feed themselves. Everyone was getting sloshed on their empty stomachs.
Cam’s euphoric mother drifted off to meet someone else.
Cam traded handshake-plus-hugs with Emmett and Zack. He murmured, “I’m so glad you could be here. John and Pam are drifting around somewhere. I don’t know how you could connect up with them.”
Emmett shrugged. “Only so many of us here in uniform. I’ll greet ’em all. I’m sure John’s doing the same.” They both chuckled at that.
“You’re really staying?” Cam asked hungrily. Emmett nodded. “Outstanding. It’s truly good to have you here.”
In the event, John and Pam Niedermeyer wandered over to them at that point, and introduced themselves. Pam was tolerant of the playacting. She recognized their names, of course, but hadn’t met them. And she fully understood why, officially, John had never been to SAMS in Kansas. Why would he, after all? The Coast Guard kept no station in Kansas.
“My kids are with us, too,” John added, eyes lighting up mischievously. He pointed through the tipsy throng. “That’s John Jr., Emmett. And Cam, that’s our daughter Bets.”
Cam and Emmett grinned and waved at their alter egos for the first time. John Jr. and Bets smiled wanly, and politely waved back to the creepy guys waving at them.
“Hello, hello!” Dwayne boomed, descending upon them. His soberly fashionable tux was gorgeous, but somehow looked extra penguin-like with his dreadlocks. “It’s so good to see you again!”
“No, sweetie, you’ve never met them,” Cam corrected him. “This is Emmett, and Zack. You’re thinking of someone else.”
“Oh! Oh…” Dwayne agreed. He understood—or at any rate, had been told—that Cam’s SAMS buddies had never been in Leavenworth last year. Dwayne leaned in to confide campily, “You know, it means the world to me that guys like you are willing to be role models for gay servicemen like my sweetie.” He grinned at them.
“We try,” Zack deadpanned. Emmett smiled crookedly.
Pam skewered Emmett with a look. “I didn’t realize,” she said, eyes narrowing.
“Oh, honey, there are so many gay men in the Army,” Dwayne confided to her. “Last year my sweetie was at Leavenworth—” That was no secret. Cam was never officially in the SAMS. There were over a thousand men and women at Leavenworth in the ordinary ILE command school program last year. “They called his apartment the GOQ. Gay officer’s quarters?”
“Really,” said Pam sharply, glancing at Emmett again.
“Oh, one time, we even went down to Kansas City. Stayed in a hotel? The room was just wall to wall beds, four men!” Dwayne shook his head and clucked his tongue. He confided to Emmett. “Thank God they closed that place before my man started to stray, you feel me? Not that your Zack would ever stray.”
Emmett’s squelched laughter was taken over by a paroxysm of real coughing. Zack squeezed his shoulder in reassurance. Emmett’s napkin came away spotted with brown phlegm.
“That wore off in a couple months for me,” Cam said, pointing at the napkin. “Emmett just moved here from Missouri,” he added perfunctorily, for the sake of all those present, who already knew that, but supposedly didn’t.
“I look forward to that,” Emmett agreed. The prospect of slowly suffocating as his lungs filled with dust had horrified him, back in Joplin. “It’s so beautifully green here. And cool.”
By northeastern standards, it was a hot Indian summer afternoon, over 80 degrees. Slanting yellow sunlight made New York, across the Hudson, look golden and picture-perfect. A park-like city of lovely buildings, rising over summer-green trees. Very little of Manhattan actually looked like that close up. But from the top of the Palisades cliffs, at a distance, it looked clean and beautiful as some magical Oz. The fresh breeze smelled of open ocean and mown green grass.
“Do you still have family in Missouri, Emmett?” John asked, with a sudden pang, thinking of gutsy Emma, their onetime gun-toting army wife.
“My momma and step-dad,” Emmett agreed. “It’s not so bad in the Ozarks. They have a farm. They still get rain.”
And they wouldn’t leave. Emma and her husband were married to their own land, there. The wooded Ozark highlands weren’t devastated by drought like the plains of Kansas. That farm had been Emmett’s home once, for a few years, after his mother remarried. But he’d left for West Point half a lifetime ago. The boy had cultivated the land of the Ozarks. The man had never lived there, only visited.
Pam didn’t care one bit for the sentimental looks being exchanged by her husband and Emmett. She stalked off to rip champagne flutes from her children’s hands.
Emmett laughed and coughed up dust again. “John, your wife may have the wrong idea.”
John dismissed that with a smile and a wave of the hand. “Oh, she likes it. Got to keep it interesting, you know? Remind her she can trust me. But not to take me for granted.” He beamed at Cam and Dwayne. “Our twentieth anniversary next year.”
Cam threw an arm over Dwayne’s shoulder for a quick hug, to soothe a sudden anxiety. “Congratulations! I can only hope we’ll get that, sir.” Twenty years didn’t seem likely, all things considered.
John shook his head slightly. “It’s not how much, that matters. Or where it leads. Every bit of joy is worth it. Best of luck to you both.”
From the Author
Hope you enjoyed Dust of Kansas! If you want more, I’m writing further installments in the same universe, and am always eager for beta readers.
Please!
I’d really appreciate a review on Amazon. Reviews help sell books. But also, I’m energized by feedback, to write more, faster, better. Reviews tell me that people care. So please leave a review – no matter how short – and help create the next book.
Join My Community
Bonus content, sneak peeks, free advance reading copies.
Visit me online at books.gingerbooth.com.
About Ginger Booth
Ginger Booth is a writer and programmer. She's worked in the seismic industry, semiconductor electronics, academic research in biology and environmental science, and online teaching simulators. She l
ives in shoreline Connecticut, with crops spilling out the balconies and down the driveway. Contact her online at books.gingerbooth.com.
Books
The Calm Act series:
End Game
Dust of Kansas – a prequel short story, the birth of the Calm Act
Project Reunion – the sequel to End Game, saving New York City
Nonfiction:
Indoor Salad: How to Grow Vegetables Indoors
E-Cigarettes 101: How to Start Vaping
E-Cigarettes 102: DIY E-Liquid
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
From the Author
About Ginger Booth
Books