Rockfall

by William Allen

  My landline phone rang and I answered it without hesitation. With the cell service still patchy, many were falling back on the old ways. I’d almost opted out of restoring regular line service, but fortunately I’d decided at the last minute to pay the nominal fee, since otherwise I wouldn’t have received Mike’s urgent call that first night.

  This time it was my sister, Nikki, and she sounded upset. Upset, and a little scared.

  “Bryan, can we come stay next week?”

  “Of course, Nikki, you know you and your family have a place here,” I replied reflexively. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, God, haven’t you been watching the news?”

  “I’ve got it on CNN right now,” I replied quickly, scanning the screen in front of me for any breaking news. Nothing jumped out at me. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  I heard a deep sigh on the other end of phone, as if my words confirmed her fears.

  “The gangs in San Antonio have been running wild the last two days,” Nikki blurted out. “Ever since the Mexican government started moving troops up on the border.”

  “What? Where did you hear this?”

  “Nothing concrete, but the rumors are flying everywhere. Word is, the Mexican government is rushing Federal troops to reinforce key border crossings, with the intention of closing the border. It’s gotten the Hispanic population in San Antonio riled up, and the gangs are just taking advantage of the rioting to hit the banks and electronics stores. My god, you can see the clouds of smoke on the horizon like a veil.”

  At the word ‘bank’, I felt my anxiety trigger.

  “Are you okay there?”

  Nikki could read me like a book and knew what I meant.

  “Yeah, so far. The big gangs haven’t made it this far out yet. We’ve closed the doors, pulled down the shutters and turned all our drive-through lanes into service for our business account holders.”

  “Well, that sucks. Glad I don’t have any funds in there,” I teased, trying to get back on course.

  “Goof, this isn’t us,” Nikki complained. “This comes from the president and his chief economic advisors. They need to wait out the panic withdrawals. I just wish the National Guard would get their act together and crush these maggots. I don’t know about how the censors are dealing with local news broadcasts, but the TV stations out of San Antonio have just been showing the unedited shots they’re getting from helicopter cameras.” Nikki paused, swallowing her tears. “I’ve seen dozens of bodies lined up in the streets. Looks like execution-style murders.”

  I sat back in my seat, digesting the news. After working for years at a bank in Killeen near Fort Hood while Patrick was still in the Army, Nikki had been offered her own branch manager position five years ago if she agreed to relocate to San Marcos. The move had been a hassle, but Patrick was able to hold onto his position and just commuted north instead of south for work in Austin, where housing remained so outrageous that even with their double income, getting a house with a yard was prohibitively expensive.

  I’d been to the visit them a few times since they’d relocated to this city of slightly more than sixty thousand. They had managed to purchase a lovely little brick home with five acres out in the country, but the downside was their proximity to both Austin and San Antonio along the Interstate 35 Corridor.

  “All right. I assume Patrick is still being held hostage by Travis County?”

  “Pretty much,” Nikki confirmed, giving a sigh that sounded a little bit like a sob. “They let him come home this weekend, but he has to be at work tomorrow morning for his shift at four am. Bryan, they’ve threatened to lock him up in jail if he doesn’t go. There’s this Executive Order signed by the president that they’re quoting, saying this is a National Emergency and they are enforcing the Order with the threat of prosecution.”

  I shook my head and frowned, glad Nikki couldn’t see my angry expression over the phone. I was familiar with the document, signed by a previous occupant of the White House, that many thought was intended to be used only in the event of a national catastrophe. Global nuclear war, basically, even though the terms weren’t spelled out. Several survivalist sites debated the existence, validity, and enforceability of the EO over the years, but the courts hadn’t been called upon yet to determine the Constitutionality of the order. Well, I guess this qualified as well, though the order was for federal compliance, not something the state or county could use. I could try to fight it, but likely I’d just end up in a jail cell next to Patrick.

  “Please get Patrick on the phone,” I asked, more directed, my sister, and I heard the phone drop, then rustle as someone else picked it up.

  “Real mess, eh?” I heard Patrick say.

  “How bad is it?”

  “In Austin, we’ve had violence flare up, but not as bad as other places. I mean, worse than I’ve ever seen stateside, but it’s relative.”

  “Are you safe? Got an escort and all that when you got out on calls?”

  That was something that I’d worried about. What little news released about the violence in the big cities stressed the senseless nature of the attacks, including ambush tactics targeting first responders. For example, in Chicago, ambulances no longer ran at all. For any reason.

  “Oh, yeah, we roll like back in the ‘Stan. Including armored vehicles and gun trucks.”

  That sounded both comforting and terrifying at the same time.

  “What the hell, Patrick?”

  Patrick laughed darkly, his tone bitter.

  “The liberals finally got a whiff of grapeshot last Wednesday. A group of anarchist rioters broke into a townhall meeting and murdered the city manager and two members of the city council. Now, the police chief was ordered to switch from tear gas and water cannons to rubber bullets and sniper fire. That calmed these mama’s boys and girls down, let me tell you.”

  “That’s not the whole story though, is it?”

  Patrick didn’t hesitate to voice his fears, mirroring what spooked Nikki.

  “I’m worried if the violence in San Antone spreads, our place is right in the path. And I won’t be here to protect them,” Patrick stated flatly, confirming my own fears.

  “Patrick, get your wife and kids in the minivan five minutes ago and point them in my direction. I’ll watch over them, and frankly, I could use the company.”

  I debated saying something about Matt Sherwood, but I quickly decided not to add to Patrick’s stress. Based on this short conversation, I concluded that the situation in the major population centers was worse than even I had feared, based on the television reports. I understood why the media was downplaying the danger, but where were the HAMs?

  Stressed by this latest bit of news, I moved into the kitchen and started working on making sauces. The canning operation actually took place on the screened-in back porch, where I had the All-American canners and several cases of jars stacked up for use. For straight-up food preservation, the outside kitchen worked fine, with the four-burner stove and deep, two-bay sink, but for anything that involved an actual recipe, I used the kitchen. I preferred the extra prep space, and the setup with my food processor made the work so much easier and quicker. Plus, while I was in the kitchen, I could keep an eye on the television and listen for the gate buzzer.

  The All-American Model 941 Pressure Cooker and Canner was a beast. The mass of metal weighed thirty-three pounds empty, and filled with thirty-one pints or twenty quarts on two racks, I found myself getting a workout just setting the damn thing on the stove. I had smaller canners, but since I was flying solo for the day, I decided to knock out a big chunk of the waiting canning work in one load.

  My pasta sauce was nothing special, since I wanted something palatable for a wide group, and the option remained to spice up the sauce later. The tomatoes, garlic, and basil all came from the garden, and I cheated a bit, using store-bought vinegar instead of lemon juice this time. I’d made it this way before with satisfactory results, and I could make vinegar easily enough, but
I was fresh out of lemon trees.

  With the freshly-washed and dried jars arranged in assembly-line fashion and a large funnel already on hand, I finished my preparation of the huge pot of sauce and carried it out onto the back porch. Compared to making the pasta, this process of preserving the sauce was easy-peasy, as Tamara might say.

  Thinking of Tamara made me want to talk to her dad, so after setting up the canner for the two plus hours needed to finish the jars, I went back into the kitchen and disconnected my cell phone from the charger. Since I had Mike on speed dial, entering my security code took longer than dialing his number. Miracle of miracles, the call went through.

  “What’re you wearing?” I asked, dropping my voice into a sad approximation of a sultry pout.

  “Khakis and a button-up shirt,” Marta replied with a suppressed giggle, then I could hear her shout in the distance, “Mike, your pervert brother is on your phone!”

  “Uncool, sister,” I pouted again, using my real voice this time. “What are you doing home at six thirty on a Sunday?”

  “Uh, I live here,” Marta protested feebly, before admitting the truth. “I actually just got home at about a half hour ago. Got called in for a half-shift, then ended up working a twelve. And he’s your brother.”

  “Marta, please put me on speaker for both of you,” I asked, all trace of my earlier kidding banished as I thought about what Nikki and Patrick had revealed.

  “What’s up, Bryan?” I heard Mike ask, and I thought I caught an edge of guarded concern in his voice.

  “Just got off the phone with Nikki and Patrick,” I said, then I went on to quickly outline what I’d learned from the two of them, including the rumors regarding the movement of Mexican soldiers along the border. Neither had heard anything about this latest outbreak of violence in San Antonio, either.

  “Well, that will certainly stir the pot,” Marta observed. “We were certainly seeing an uptick in surgery today, and Melinda didn’t show up for her shift. You think it’s true?”

  Mike answered before I could respond. “Doesn’t matter, in the short term. This will stir up families migrating south in a hurry.”

  “But why the sudden urge to go to Mexico?” Marta asked. “Most of the undocumented in the U.S. have been here for years, much less the folks with their green cards.”

  “Because the idea is, if the Mexican government is closing the border, then they must know something the rest of us don’t,” I explained. “So we see a trickle of people returning to Mexico, then the Federales respond, and then more think getting out of Los Estados Unidos might be like a good idea.”

  “Herd mentality,” Mike added. “And when a herd gets spooked, it’s liable to stampede.”

  “The irony is, we don’t even know if the Mexican government has done anything,” I concluded. “But if they get hit with a mass of illegals heading back across the border, then the Mexican president will have no choice but try to stem the tide.

  “And that’s not our main concern at the moment,” I said, plowing ahead. “Now I have Nikki and her kids on the road when things are starting to get dicey. Added to that, I had a run-in with one of the Sherwood boys this morning, trying to figure out how to defeat the electric lock at the front gate.”

  When I described the details of the attempted sabotage of the gate mechanism, Mike agreed that it sounded like an effort to mess with the locking mechanism. My brother sounded grim as he thought about the implications.

  “If they simply wanted in, they could ram the gate with a big enough truck to accomplish that mission,” Mike went on, “but this would be slicker if they could carry it off.”

  “How so?”

  “This wasn’t going to be a simple smash and grab. Think about it. You go to work in the morning, confident the gate is secure. Then they slide in behind you, push the gate open and spend all day looting the farm while you’re at work, and no one passing by is any the wiser.”

  “That is a terrifying thought,” I agreed. “Hopefully, getting Nikki out here starting tomorrow will let me feel more confident leaving the farm when I go to work. Plus, Nancy and Lisa got the tour yesterday, and Nancy has asked for permission to stay in the bunkhouse if the situation in town deteriorates.”

  “I need to meet this woman,” Marta interjected. “I know she’s Dorothy’s sister, but I don’t think we’ve ever run into each other. Is she as hot as Mike said?”

  “Hey, I never said she was hot!” Mike shouted defensively, and I could hear muffled fumbling at the phone as Marta likely covered the speaker.

  “You didn’t have to, Michael,” Marta teased. “I could tell by the way you described her. Like a police description over the television. White, female, tall, early thirties, blonde hair. Yeah, that narrows it down to half the female Caucasian population.”

  “She’s an attractive lady who’s already survived some tough times,” I conceded. “She is apparently a devoted mother and a hard worker. We’d do well to have her services here.”

  “Don’t sweat it, Bryan. I was just busting your chops,” Marta retorted easily. Then more seriously, she asked a question I almost would have sworn Mike would raise first. “So, is it time to hoist the flag?”

  There goes another code phrase, burned over the cell phone. The proverbial flag, of course, was the color of midnight, and meant no quarter to our enemies. Mad Max time, in other words.

  “No, we still got a ways before things get that complicated, Marta. I could use some more bodies down here, though. Think we can talk your mom into making a visit, taking over the supervision of the canning efforts?”

  “I’ll ask her again tomorrow. I know she’s more worried than she wants to let on,” Marta revealed. “But she’s too stubborn to stay with us. Doesn’t want to be a burden.”

  I thought about that for a second as the static-filled silence over the phone stretched.

  “Okay, here’s the plan. Get her to agree to come down for two weeks to help me with the garden and such. Then go back and pack up her house after she’s gone. Then pick a weekend when you can come down and bring her things. By that time, I’ll have the standing greenhouse in production, and we can get with Wade to figure out a location for the second one that same weekend.”

  I rattled off the steps in staccato fashion. This wasn’t spur of the moment, since my family had discussed this very issue several times. Beatrice Muckleroy wouldn’t want to be a burden on her daughter, but by holding out like she was, she couldn’t see she was a sword hanging over Marta’s head. When things went bad in Denton, Mike would charge off to save her, heading in the wrong direction from this safe haven and exposing his wife and kids to more danger. Fuck it, I decided, if she wants to get mad, she can get mad at me. I liked the old lady, but her anger would roll off my back like water off a duck.

  “You think we should be there, too,” Marta observed. She was a deep one, that sister-in-law of mine.

  “Yeah, I really believe you should,” I replied honestly. “I know you don’t want to leave your job, or your house, but think about it again. You guys are the bear with his paw stuck in the knot hole of the tree. You’ve got a paw full of honey, but you’re stuck, and the only way you can get out is to let go of the honey.”

  “Is that some ancient Native American wisdom?” Mike added, his voice sarcastic.

  “No, dumbass, I saw it on an episode of the Simpson’s, I think. And you could use some Homer therapy right now,” I all but hissed. “Look around. Yes, the lights are still on and most of the stores are still open, but then look closer. Where’re the fresh bananas shipped in from Chile? What about the kiwis from Australia? What about when consumers realize the iPhone in their pocket is the last model that’s ever going to be made? These are small things right now, but I’m telling you, the disruption in the supply chains are about to become more obvious.”

  Marta cleared her throat, and I could hear the stress in her voice.

  “The Racetrack store over by the hospital was closed today,” she r
evealed, “so I went to the Shell down from the house. With the rationing at five gallons per vehicle now being enforced via credit card limits, I heard someone offer the clerk an extra hundred bucks for another ten gallons. On top of the cost of the fuel.”

  “Did he do it?” I asked, more out of curiosity than concern.

  “I’m not sure. The guy doing the offering, he looked like he was just as likely to rob the store as he was to pay extra for more gas. I got out of there and headed home.”

  The new price for fuel was pegged at five dollars per gallon, lowest grade only, and six dollars a gallon for diesel. Five gallon max per day, and with the required payment now being via credit card transactions, the federal government could theoretically eliminate cheating, but where there was a will, there was a way. This new provision also managed to piss off the working poor and the lower income households, since many didn’t have credit cards. The new work-around would involve issuing debit cards with pre-loaded amounts set aside for fuel purchases, and I wondered how many gallons of postal service fuel would be wasted delivering these latest handouts.

  I had a stray thought, wondering how oil was being purchased and traded with the markets down, but then I realized that the buying and selling of commodities just became a lot more hands-on.

  “Just think about getting out of there,” I continued. “Nobody has said anything yet, but how exactly is the government paying for all this? Not just the direct recovery efforts, but the other stuff. The pre-paid fuel cards, the cost of feeding the hundreds of thousands…”

  I stopped there, realizing I was treading on dangerous ground and Big Brother was listening. Nothing I said was seditious, not by the definition of the word, but I didn’t need a detachment of Homeland agents showing up at my front gate, either.