by Carl Trotz
“So, what is this place?” Erin asked.
“It’ll be a sort of safe house, you could say. If I can just remember where to turn.”
“Connected to your illegal activities?”
“Harm always has a back-up plan. This land belonged to some of our people, they wanted out of this state but couldn't find a buyer, and Harm stepped in. They got out, and Harm got something he wanted, a back-up location just a few miles away.”
“Very secretive.”
“He needs to be.”
“What sorts of things do you smuggle? Maybe I shouldn't ask, but I'm curious.”
“I suppose there’s no reason not to tell you. It’s not like you can go back. Harm, in the past, he's moved booze, and tobacco, along with guns. This little Heckler & Koch bullpup,” he said while patting the stubby submachine gun on the front seat next to him, “you can’t just go to the store and buy one of these. Like he says, the more laws they make, the more opportunities for those willing to break them. But he's moved away from most of that, except the guns and ammo, and he only sells those to people he sympathizes with. And with government rationing, food is a valuable item right now. He connects a lot of our people to markets, alternative markets they might not have access to without him. Beyond that, and what I mostly help with, are things that hardly make money.”
“Like what?”
“Well, they have all those new laws against medicinal plants, herbal medicine, you know, the government wants a total monopoly, so they can use medical care as blackmail, scaring people into not getting out of line. So Harm started selling to renegade herbalists. Really, he practically gives the stuff away, just to help them. And there’s the war on so-called invasive plants, which is really a war on self-sufficiency, so he’s also been dealing in banned plant material to the homesteading types. But there’s not much money in that, either. He does it just to undermine the system.
“So, the illegal plants, that’s where I've been helping mostly. We have so many of them growing on the old property, kinds we bring with us wherever we go. And our own people, when they move out of places like this in a hurry, they don't always have time to bring all the plants with them, so we help make up for that.”
“You said it again, Bern. You keep mentioning your own people.”
“Oh? I suppose I do. Here it is!” He braked and turned sharply to the right, then proceeded along a narrow, overgrown trail that left the pine plantation for a thicket of young broadleaf trees.
“That’s all you're going to say?”
“Ha!” He shook his head and stroked his beard. “It's not something we talk about. But I've let it slip, haven't I? Harm says I'm dangerous that way, I talk too much.” He sighed and drove without speaking for a few minutes. Erin finally leaned forward.
“Bern?”
“I know, you deserve some sort of an answer. But it's not easy to explain.” They came abruptly to a three-sided pole shed in the midst of the thicket; not far beyond, a small, similarly overgrown cabin was visible. He drove into the shed and shut off the engine. “I don't know how to say it, and anyway, you wouldn't believe it.”
“You could try.”
“Let’s get inside. I’ll think about it.”
They exited the car and headed for the cabin; it was a mild, sunny afternoon and the path was fairly straight and level, passing through dappled shade and dense undergrowth. Bern lugged the diaper bag, the milk crate, and his gun, while Erin cradled the sleeping Hughie.
“Stay away from the brush,” he said. “For deer ticks. Without Harm and Mangler around here to eat them all, I'm sure the deer are out of control. I see they’ve been browsing.”
“I was wondering why I never saw any deer at home. Or ticks.”
“No. We always have venison, though. Mangler, too.”
“Isn't there supposed to be a certain season when you can hunt?”
“Ha! For subjects of the crown, maybe. I suppose you expect Harm to get a hunting license on his own land?”
“No. I’m seeing the pattern. So, it’s his land, and not yours?”
“It was mine. He bought it under one of his aliases, so my family could move, but he still calls it mine sometimes, he says it doesn’t feel like it’s his.”
The single-story cabin had only one window, which was boarded up; the sagging porch and shingle roof were in decay.
“Good thing it's not raining,” Bern remarked as he glanced up through a hole in the porch roof and fumbled with his keys. The sturdy steel door and frame were newer than the rest of the building; he turned the key in the brass lock, the deadbolt clicked, and he pushed the door open.
Inside was a single room, with a fireplace to the left, a small wooden table and two folding chairs in the center, and a gray metal storage cabinet on the right. A cot was leaned against the wall by the door.
“People lived in a place like this?” she asked as she stepped into the musty air.
“Oh, not recently. This was the first house of the family that lived here, and it was only temporary, for a couple of years, before they got a better house built. The newer one was closer to the road, maybe a half a mile east of here. This one probably hasn't been lived in for a hundred years. But they kept it as a guesthouse. The main house burned down a few years back. Thieves taking out the copper pipes, I think that's what started it.”
“So for how long are we going to be here?”
“Till nightfall, at least. Harm had some errands to run. He should be here in a few hours. Then we’ll leave, in the night.” He looked around and scratched his head. “Let me go back and get the crib, and the other bags.”
“Thank you.”
She sat on a chair and waited for him to return; the door was left ajar to provide light. As her eyes adjusted, she could make out images of heart-shaped leaves painted on the daub between the logs; the wooden mantelshelf above the stone fireplace was carved with similar shapes, as well as acorns and oak leaves.
Bern returned, leaving the door open behind him, and quickly unfolded the crib as if he had done so many times before. After setting it in the corner near the fireplace he went to the storage cabinet and removed a plastic jug of water, which he placed on the table.
“We don't seem to have drinking glasses,” he said, searching the cabinet, “so just drink from the jug when you're thirsty. There are more in there I can drink from, if you're worried about germs.” He switched on a battery-powered lantern and came to sit at the table across from her, then turned the light off.
“It works. I’ll save it till dark. We can leave the door open till then.“ He leaned on his elbows and shook his head. “Busy day. And I didn't see the half of what you did, from what Harm told me.”
“I'm in shock, I think, because I don't even know how I feel.”
“Me either.”
“I mean, I feel horrible, and scared, but at the same time I feel almost relieved, because life has become so unbearable anyway. Is that strange?”
“Hardly. Living like you’ve been, hungry, isolated, and at the mercy of bureaucrats? That's no way to live.”
“But how will I be living from now on, do you think? Where will I go? I have skills, but where will I be able to use them?”
“We’ll work that out. We have people who can help figure these things out.”
“You said ‘we’ again. Like Harm called me ‘you people’. There’s nothing else you can tell me?”
He nodded. “My people. About that.” He leaned back and stroked his beard. “It's hard to know where to begin. A little of our history, I suppose. We’ll have to go back to the eighth century, to the time of Carl the Butcher.”
“Carl the Butcher?”
“You people call him Charlemagne.”
Chapter 11
“Charles the Great!” Bern exclaimed. “You people are taught to idolize the most brutal killers, and empires that slaughtered on epic scales.” He slipped the machine gun off his shoulder and set it on the table, then leaned forward to
rest on his elbows. “When it suits them, they dress it up as noble, as heroic, as necessary. The difference between gangsters and governments is that gangsters don't run education, entertainment, and the press.”
Erin looked at him in bewilderment.
“So Carl the Butcher,” Bern continued, “he was in the business of killing, conquering people, taking their land, demanding tribute from the survivors in perpetuity. Common enough, the Romans did it, they do it today, invading in the name of peace or democracy or human rights, then cramming hopeless debt down their throats. But unlike the Romans, and really, clearing a path for the puppet masters we have now, the Butcher understood that if he destroyed a culture, then the people would be easier to control. You wouldn't need an occupying army. Those are expensive, you know. And because he controlled the Church, forced conversion became the way to do it.”
Erin's expression grew more confused.
“So when he took his war to the Saxons,” he went on, “it was a bloody fight, it went on for years. The Butcher and his churchmen, they killed our people for refusing conversion, young and old, man or woman. Eventually the Saxon nobility capitulated, they entered the Church, accepted Frankish rule, and agreed to pay homage, because they were allowed to keep an elevated position in life. But the Saxon freemen? We lost our freedom, our way of life, and our laws, which is to say, the rightful, allodial ownership of our land. We were reduced to servitude. But those forced conversions never took root in our hearts, and neither did any allegiance to the thieves called leaders. Of course armed resistance was futile at that point. Some tried to revolt, a generation later, long after the Butcher was dead. They called it the Stellinga, but not surprisingly, they were mostly all killed. There’s a saying, you know, that lightning strikes more trees than grass. It’s always better to keep a low profile.
“So,” he said, patting the table with his hand for emphasis, “we've kept hidden since then, following the old ways and the old law, but blending in to survive, finding our freedom in places other than war or politics. Plenty of stories there. And some of us came to America, obviously, it was over three hundred years ago, and here we are now. In fact, we're all that's left. Those who stayed back in the old country, they disappeared over time, with all the wars and upheavals over there. Cultures can be destroyed, you know, people forget who they are, through the mass murders, education, relocations. It's the machinery of empires, turning people into material. The European tyrants have been working at it for a long time. Now it's come full force to America, and viciously. Though I suppose the Indians were thrown into that meat grinder a long time ago, so it's not really new here, either, it's just getting around to the rest of us as they run out of people to rob.
“So there it is, in a nutshell and transplanted across an ocean. We’re the Frielingen, or the Freibauern, depending on the family and the dialect. We're descendants of the Saxon freemen.”
She sat speechless. He took a long drink from the water jug and sighed.
“I don't know what to say,” she finally managed.
“You don't have to say anything. We just go on about our business, whatever goes on in the world. We remember who we are. You folks don't, at least it doesn't seem to me, you become whatever your shapers want you to be. Soldiers, wage slaves, consumers, idiots. Oxen trudging around the mill. Sheep, but you shear yourselves and hand over the wool. Ha! Self-shearing sheep!
“But we've kept our memories, our traditions, and our knowledge of the natural law, in our hearts and our stories. It's the only law that binds us. The only power they have over us is that of the sword - or the gun. And of course, they outnumber us. But they have no power over our minds.
“And now that they’ve sucked the last fat from the land, and they’re spilling blood again, we remember and we know. It's nothing new. These fools in charge now, they have so much power, so much wealth, such deadly armies, but they’re still only flesh, and they’ll rot with time. As they always do. Their castles crumble, and the vines of freedom run rampant over the ruins. We keep our heads down and outlast them. That's what we’ve done for the last twelve hundred years or so.”
He stroked his beard and leaned back in his chair as he contemplated.
“You and your baby,” he continued, “you’ve been caught in their machinery, the same as we’ve been, many times. So you’ll be called an outlaw, but you know what? Their laws are nothing to us but defilements of the natural order. Be glad you’ve escaped them.”
“So then,” she began, holding Hughie a bit closer, “what exactly do you believe, that makes you so different? You don't sacrifice people, I hope?”
“Ha! No, don't be afraid. We follow our own ways, and the natural law, like I said, and not the rule of men or mobs. We try to blend in, but we also keep to ourselves at the same time. Our customs, well, those are private matters, but they don't involve anything like human sacrifice.”
“And you’re sure you don't mind helping us? Even though we’re not your kind?”
“We help our neighbors. It's our way. And beyond that, there's an understanding among us - most of us - that we need to help outsiders, particularly where we share a common enemy. Harm is always busy moving guns or food or bullets to people fighting the system. Not that we all feel that way, families aren't bound to agree. We have no authority above the family level, so I can't generalize. Families do what they will.”
“It's an incredible story. Maybe it should be documented somehow. I could help -”
“No. I know you mean well, but that's one thing all the families have always agreed on. We keep ourselves private. Always.”
“But that could change, couldn't it? People are more open-minded now. Maybe I could get permission?”
“From whom?”
“I don't know. Do you have a chieftain? Some sort of a leader?”
“No, certainly not.”
“There's no leadership?”
“As a group? No. If anyone tried to lead us, we'd have to kill him,” he said with a smile. “Because we follow custom, we need not follow any man. We meet as equals, with some deference to age.”
“So there must be some social pressure to behave in a certain way.”
“There is, but isn’t that always the case, everywhere, to some degree?”
“I suppose.”
“We refer to ourselves as being in our own circle, ’im Kreis’, as we say it. That means you're in good standing with all the families, at least all the families you know. It can get confusing when someone’s been shunned by some families, but not others. There are some gray areas that arise, but they usually sort themselves out over time.”
She nodded her head but yawned as she struggled to process it all.
“You’re tired,” he said, “and I’ve given you a lot to digest. Why don't you put the baby down, I'll set the cot up over there. I don't know how much sleep we’ll get tonight, we’ll probably be on the move. You should try to rest.”
“Okay. I guess it's all catching up with me.”
He placed the cot next to the crib and set his chair outside on the porch.
“I'll be out here,” he said, grabbing the machine gun.
She gently placed Hugh in the crib and faced him as she settled in on the cot; Bern waited until she was situated before he pulled the door nearly closed. Though she found the situation uncomfortable, and her mind was racing, exhaustion soon carried her into sleep.
Chapter 12
Erin awoke to Hughie’s crying. She sat up disoriented and looked to the door; it was still daylight outside.
“Bern?” she called as she lifted Hughie.
“Yeah?” he answered from just outside the door.
“Is it okay if I change Hughie on the table here?”
“Of course.” He pushed the door open with his foot but remained seated.
“Did I sleep for long?”
“Maybe an hour and a half.”
She quickly had Hugh clean, dry, and quieted, sitting comfortably on her arm.
“What should I do with this dirty diaper?”
“There are some garbage bags in the cabinet. I'll bury it out here in a bit.”
“But it's not the biodegradable kind.”
He smiled wearily. “We have bigger problems than that right now, I think.” He stood and went to the storage cabinet, where he retrieved a garbage bag and held it open for her; after tossing the bag out the door, he returned to the cabinet and removed a steel cylinder with openings at the top and side.
“What's that?” Erin asked.
“A rocket stove. You can cook with just twigs. They burn off most of the smoke, so they’re clean and hot, and next to no smoke to give you away. Clever design. Harm came onto these, and liked them, so he bought a few hundred and gave them out to our folks, so the idea could be made use of. And of course, he stocked all of his hideouts.”
He carried it to the porch and placed it near his chair, then returned for a pot and a bottle of milk.
“Might as well use this milk. It won't keep long without an icebox. And I did some gathering while you were asleep.”
Only then did she notice two small heaps on the porch, one of twigs and another of leafy greens. He sat down again and began putting small twigs and pine needles into the aperture at the side of the stove.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked, moving closer to watch.
“No, don’t worry.”
“What have you got there? You foraged some wild food?”
“Not exactly wild. Half-wild, maybe. Wherever we go, we bring certain plants with us, like I was saying before. They're our fellow travelers, you could say, part of our Kreis, our circle. And a lot of them will fend for themselves, once you get them established. Cicely, bear’s leeks, Giersch, which I think you people call ground elder, violets, hops, rampions, mallows, linden, all still growing here in the wake of our kind. No doubt there was an elderberry outside the door here at one time.” He took a lighter from his pocket and ignited the tinder. “It’s our way. Alongside more conventional crops, we keep these foods that can grow on their own, that others don't notice. The more food you can grow without the crooks knowing about it, the freer you are. Because if they know about it, they'll regulate it and tax it, or if they can't profit from it, they'll outlaw it.” He added some small twigs to the fire. “From medieval overlords to modern agricultural bureaus, it's always about a return on leverage, to make farmers profitable to the people at the top. Grow only what can be enumerated and taxed, traded as a commodity, exported. Not that there's anything wrong with making money, mind you. But it's not the farmer making it, most of the time, not when he listens to them.