E&E (standard:science fiction, 22536 words)
Author: Saxon Violence	Added: Jan 04 2013	Views/Reads: 5370/12808	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A Murderer is asked to escape from prison and escort a guard's daughter to Refuge during a Civilization-Killing Drought.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

feeling. I could hear the radius and ulna snap. I brought my own club 
down as hard as I could on the top of his head in retaliation. I got in 
a mediocre follow-up shot to his temple and then the World went away. 

I came to in the prison infirmary. My left arm had a cast on it. My
right eye was swollen shut. I had no idea if I still had a right eye or 
not. The tissue around my left eye was swollen enough to make 
everything very blurry. 

Someone had stomped my right hand into the floor after I was down. A
couple fingers were splinted and there was a patchwork of stitches 
across the back of my hand. I felt bruised and battered all over. 

Riemann came to see me a half day after I woke. 

“You could be in a lot of trouble,” He said. 

I let that lie. I was doing thirty to life. I already had trouble. 

“You killed two of the prisoners. One of the others lost his nuts,” He
said. 

“Clients.” 

“What?” 

“Don't call them prisoners. They were my clients.” 

“Well, fortunately you didn't kill any of your guard ‘clients'.” 

“Pity.” 

“Don't feel too bad. Schmitt is blind. Johnson lost his spleen and his
gall bladder. He's never going to be the same. Dixon has some brain 
damage. He's going to be more or less palsied for the rest of his life. 
I'd say that you got your licks in,” Riemann said. 

Riemann called the prison Doctor over. He was a real MD and he was doing
a very long sentence—maybe life—over some sort of drug trafficking. I 
never cared enough to find out the details. 

“How long until this man is well?” Riemann asked him. 

Doc shrugged. 

“We generally leave a cast on for six weeks. The splints can probable
come off his fingers sooner, but they'll be one of the last things to 
fully heal—if they do fully heal,” Doc said. 

“Would anabolic steroids or the new super healing drugs speed up his
recovery?” 

“Probably and definitely, if we could get some.” 

“You have steroids. You peddle them to the muscle heads. You have plenty
of morphine—you sell that to the other prisoners too. 

“This man will not lack for pain medication. He should be blissed out
throughout his stay. You will start him on the appropriate dose of 
steroids at once. If that leaves you short—O well... 

“I'll try to get you some of the new drug and nanites combos within a
couple weeks. 

“I know that you're protected. I don't care. If this man isn't taken
proper care of, I will beat your kidneys into a Christmas pudding. 

“Verstehen Sie?” 

“You ain't gonna buy my gratitude Riemann,” I said 

“Skew gratitude!” Riemann spat back. 

******************* ****************** ********* 

Four weeks later I was moved from the prison hospital to a rather
spacious cell in an unused part of the building. It was Spartan but it 
was a definite step up from the average cell accommodations. 

I had a rather weak hand gripper and a nice loose foam rubber ball to
exercise my broken fingers. I could do a few partial squeezes on the 
sponge-rubber ball with my casted hand. 

I did a lot of deep knee bends, sit-ups and leg raises and flexed the
muscles of my arms—particularly the muscles partially immobilized by 
the cast—several hundred times per day. It was a form of isometrics or 
dynamic tension. 

I wasn't at the top of my form yet but I was improving. 

“Your arm bones are probably healed already, but we're going to leave
the cast on for the full six weeks, just in case. The new healing 
nanites speed the body's recuperation a great deal, but we didn't get 
any into you until partway through the third week. 

“Anyway, they affect different people to varying degrees,” Riemann told
me. 

“You're too good to me,” I said without emotion. 

“Zin, you're a killer,” He began. 

“Got that right.” 

“You know I hesitated over what I'm going to ask you. Why did you help
me?” 

“I don't like to see the strong sticking it to the weak. It's the way of
things—Nature's Law—but I find it unaesthetic,” I said. 

“Don't be fooled though. I don't love you. When the day comes that you
stand between me and a way out of here, I'll drop you like a bad 
habit,” I said. 

“But you keep your word, don't you? You have Honor?” Riemann asked. 

“I have Honour,” I replied. 

It's easy to express in writing. I spelled the words for him. 

“ ‘Honor' is what other folks give you. It can be based on Right-Action.
It can also be based on deception or other's misinterpretation of the 
facts. 

“ ‘Honour' is necessarily genuine. It comes from within and takes no
account of what other's think. I have Honour,” I stated firmly. 

I would only say it once. If he chose not to believe, I didn't care
about his—or anyone else's—opinion enough to try even the feeblest 
attempts at persuasion. 

“If I could get you out of here—set you free—would you do me a small
favor? 

“Actually, I need a really big favor from you,” He said. 

“Don't know. No homo stuff—and I won't kiss your bass—or your catfish
either. 

“Do you want someone killed? 

“I'm not an assassin. I'd have to be convinced that they deserve it,” I
said. 

“You guys don't realize it. Y'all eat fairly well in here, even if most
of it is sugar, starch, vegetable oil and textured vegetable protein. 

“People on the outside though—they're going hungry more and more often.
This drought just won't let up. There's rationing, black markets and 
more and more riots. We're facing mass insurrection,” Riemann said. 

“Don't look at me. I'm not the Prophet Elijah. I can't get God to make
it rain. 

“I know about hungry people. My neighbor threatened to kill and eat my
Dog. I told him that if he killed my Dog that I'd kill his whole damned 
family. 

“I came home and my sister was crying her eyes out. The fat Lopslicker
had come into my backyard shot my little Dog and had taken him home to 
cook,” I said. 

“What did you do?” 

“I kept my promise.” 

“His wife, his two sons and his daughter didn't kill your Dog,” Riemann
objected. 

“If you already knew the story, why did you ask? His youngest child was
fourteen. The boy shared in the meal and he knew the consequences. 

“I left the old man for last. He got to see his whole family precede him
into death.” 

“Why didn't you run? Or resist arrest?” 

“There were two other Dogs and my sister to consider. Besides, I felt
called upon to explain myself—once—without special emphasis or 
pleading. 

“The reprobate judge and the degenerate jury sent me to prison.” 

“And your sister?” 

“She died about eight months later, resisting the confiscation of her
stored food and the murder of her Dogs—our Dogs—by lawfully constituted 
authority.” 

“I have a daughter. She's fifteen. I have a place that she could be
relatively safe with a rather large amount of stored food. I know a 
couple of the other guards in the same fix. 

“We can't afford to lose these jobs... 

“But if I could get you out of here and get you Guns, gear and
food—would you be willing to escort our children to my Retreat? I'd 
want you to stay and protect them—For an equal share of the food?” 

“I'll think on it. Meantime, what weapons can you get me?” 

“You'd be surprised. Times are hard. Money is tight. Most weapons are
contraband... 

“But I've read your old blog online and we Laws have our sources. You'll
be surprised how well we've managed to accommodate most of your weapon 
preferences,” Riemann said. 

“It's sounding better all the time. By the way, thank you for the spam.”


Meat, even commuted meat was a rare thing in the prison. I'd always
loved spam, and Riemann had arranged for me to get a can every day. 

“What about the eggs?” 

I shook my head once—from side to side. 

“Don't eat eggs—but the trustee brings me a Roast Rat or Song Bird every
few days in exchange for letting him eat my eggs.” 

“Well this should be a treat,” Riemann said. 

He handed me a dozen packages of M&Ms and a small can of peanuts. 

“You do eat candy?” 

“O Yeah!” 

********************************************* 

Chapter Two 

Riemann took me to a small suite of rooms that the Laws were using for
an Armory. Funding had gotten mighty tight and even the unimaginative 
civil masters were having to improvise. 

Haney had taken a bullet to the spine when the Hobnails came to bust him
on weapons charges. Fortunately he could still stand and get around 
with leg braces and crutches... 

He was one of the best though uncelebrated Gunsmith/Machinists around.
The Laws had gotten him some pretty good, though used, equipment: 
LeBlond Lathe, Bridgeport Mill, both Gas and TIG Welding gear, a very 
large compressor and quite a few smaller machines and hand tools. 

I say “Fortunately he could still stand”, maybe not. Haney was a rare
find. If he'd been stuck in a wheel chair, they'd have just figured out 
some way to build the floor up to get him high enough to run the 
machines. 

He had two assistants and the three of them were sort of unofficial
“Super-Trustees” living in luxury with the run of the whole damned 
place. 

I hadn't even heard of him until that day and I never expected that the
Hobnails were running their own clandestine armory. 

Riemann told me that not only did Haney keep their Guns in top-notch
shape and customized their personal weapons for them—But they traded 
Haney's products to other Laws in order to accrue “Favors”. 

Haney held up a Nickel Plated Smith and Wesson K Frame. 

“This is a Model 19 Smith and Wesson .357. It has a six-inch Barrel. In
accordance with your oft-quoted preferences, the butt has been 
converted to the round configuration and the hammer has been bobbed. 

“It has elk stag grips and a stainless Tyler “T” adapter. They aren't
selling stag grips anymore but elk horns are. I made these myself. It 
has the smoothest double-action pull you'll find on a Combat Revolver 
anywhere,” Haney said. 

I took the Revolver with trembling hands. 

“This two-inch Model 10 is the best that I could do for a hide-out. It's
been round-butted and dehorned. The grips and finish are identical to 
your .357. 

“What happens though, if you run out of .38 Special? I could have simply
reamed the chambers to .357 and warned you to only fire .357s in it in 
dire extremis. That wouldn't have been a solution but it wouldn't have 
been ideal. 

“Instead I swapped the reamed .38 cylinder with a .357 cylinder a State
Trooper wanted to have refinished. It was a Four-Inch Model 13 by the 
way. 

“This is a five-inch Bull-Barreled Ruger Mark II .22 Automatic. It is
Bright Nickeled, has stag grips and is externally threaded for a 
Monoblock Suppressor. There is a nice thread protector for when you're 
not using the suppressor. 

“Incidentally, your suppressor is also Bright Nickeled. You have a thing
for Bright Nickel, don't you?” 

I was admiring my Smith and Wesson Revolvers and my Ruger when he
continued. 

“I Nickeled one of our .30 Carbines for you. I made the stock of
birdseye maple and checkered it special for you. 

“No, the fancy stock wasn't necessary, but it won't hurt anything. I
know you like fine woods and maple is one of your favorites. I rarely 
get a chance to do really fine work for someone who knows the 
difference. 

“I made that custom leather dual-magazine pouch on the stock. There is
also a belt-mounted six-pack with six 15 round magazines in it. There's 
eleven of the special tuned and Nickeled 15 rounders altogether. There 
are also three 30 rounders but you'll have to carry them in you 
possible bag or in your pack,” Haney continued. 

The .30 Carbine had a nice three-point sling along with a special sling
attachment to let it be carried fairly well concealed muzzle-down under 
the right arm. The leather was all a rich red-burgundy color. 

Finally Haney had a Marlin Model 336 .30-30. He'd converted it to
takedown. He'd given it a one-inch Vortex Flash-Hider. The magazine 
tube had been replaced with a thicker walled tube. 

{The tube on tubular magazine Guns is a bit of a weak spot.} 

It had Ghost-Ring Aperture Sights, finely checkered birdseye maple
Pistol grip stocks and the Gun had been engraved—Some very fine 
German-Style oak-leaf and acorn engraving along with running bucks, 
pheasants rising and hunting Dogs. 

The barrel was Satin-Nickeled per my blog-published preference and the
balance of the steel was Bright Nickeled. 

It had a burgundy leather cheek-piece to hold nine rounds and a burgundy
sling. 

“Thank you,” I said to Haney with a catch in my voice and a tear in one
eye. 

“No, thank you. That look in your eye was all the thanks I'll ever
need—and the only payment.” 

Haney was a real artist with metal and leather and wood. Only sometime
later did I notice The Carbine also had some tasteful engraving. The 
leather on my 2” Model 10 holster and the Rugers holster were also 
stamped. 

The 19 rode in a shoulder holster and a shoulder holster wasn't a good
platform for stamping. 

I never saw Haney again and I've often wondered what became of him. I
Honour his skill and his memory. 

I didn't get out for another month, but Riemann let my keep my weapons
in my cell for plenty of drawing and dry-fire practice. No one who 
wasn't in on Riemann's plot was supposed to know that I was hidden away 
somewhere anyway. 

Lots of people were already in trouble if a non-initiate found me, never
mind the Guns. 

Riemann took me three times to a makeshift range he'd set up in a
basement tunnel. It let me get the Rifles fairly well sighted in—though 
a bit closer range than I'd like to have sighted them in at. 

The last time he handed me a small package. There were two Buck
lock-backs rehandled with stag. Each one had a stamped burgundy colored 
leather sheath. There was a handmade Damascus Steel Bowie, stag 
handled, with a big “S” shaped hilt guard, brass backing on the spine 
and a razor-sharp blade patterned after the Old Western Bowies that I'd 
admired so much but upsized to a thirteen-and-a-half-inch blade. 

There was a note: “I'd never done Damascus before. I wanted to be sure
before I got you excited.” 

The note was signed simply “Haney”. 

Riemann handed me another small gift—An old time H&R Breaktop—a
five-shot .32. The barrel was cut back to 1 and 7/8ths Inches. It had a 
modern style ramp front sight and a beefed-up rear sight. 

The finish was Bright Hard Chrome. The old steel was a little soft. The
Hard Chrome should partially protect it from undue wear. Best of all, 
it had Mother of Pearl Grips. 

It was a true tiny “Pocket Pistol”—only it wasn't a Pistol. It was a
Revolver. 

I had enough ammo to try several cylinders full and still have a good
stash. Face it; if I had to shoot the tiny Revolver very often, I was 
doing something seriously wrong. 

****************** ************** ************* 

I got to start the first 45 some-odd miles of my journey riding.
Riemann's daughter lived in a little town called “Medaryville” just 
South of Michigan City. 

“I get the girl one month every summer, starting the first of July. If I
tried to get her away sooner, my ex-wife would turn me in—the GCB!” 

GCB means “Good Citizen Bass-surd” 

Only maybe with his ex-wife being a female—one might hope—the “B” might
stand for “Witch”; or “Itch” or some such... 

“There are three extra Carbines—Though not as fancy as yours. One is for
my daughter and the other two are for the daughters of the other 
guards. 

“I can take you about ten miles further south, but then I have to head
back. The other girls are in Indianapolis, but I've made arrangements 
for them to meet you outside of town,” Riemann Said. 

“It would save days, if you could drive me to Indianapolis,” I said. 

Riemann shook his head. 

“I'd like to, but there is satellite tracking on all official vehicles
and most others aren't allowed on the roads. I got permission to come 
get my daughter and a ten mile discrepancy can be explained, but not 
much more.” 

******************* ***************** ********* 

Riemann's State-owned van hadn't much more than gotten out of sight when
Sissy, Riemann's recently turned sixteen-year-old daughter, threw the 
.30 Carbine at me like a Marine Drill Instructor. 

“Take this old-fashioned POS!” She snapped. 

She also threaded the holster bearing the four-inch Model 13 Smith and
Wesson .357 that her father had spent two month's pay getting for her 
off of her belt. 

“And take this relic from the OK Corral!” 

“What! Are you like one of those sissy-psycho vegan anti-Gun pacifists?”
I asked. 

She gave me a look like I was a piece of Dog spritz stuck to her shoe
sole; then she raunched around in her Pack. She came out with a short 
barreled Rifle with a folding stock. 

“This is a short-piston PDW IN .17 Fireball,” She told me with the air
of someone trying to explain Calculus to a baboon. 	“It has a 14 inch 
barrel—including flash-suppressor—it has three-shot burst capability 
and fires from a 24-round magazine or a 50-round drum.” 

“Where on Earth did you get that?” I asked. 

“Where do you think that I got it, you cretin? I made it!” 

She started strapping on a big black Pistol. 

“Did you make that too?” 

“Hardly, this is a 5.7x28mm FN Five-Seven.” 

“Where did you get it?” 

“I made some homemade Semtex for some Freedom Fighters.” 

“Yeah well, you're going to carry two of these .30 Carbines. I'm already
carrying two Long Guns and most of the victuals. One extra Carbine is 
load enough for me,” I said. 

“And what if'n I don't?” She sniffed. 

“I'll put out your right eye, take all the grub and leave you on your
own. Those two young girls in Indianapolis are counting on me.” 

“Skew those inner-city hussies!” 

“Do you want to carry these Carbines or do you want to be called
‘Lefty'?” 

I wouldn't have looked that disgusted, if I'd had to carry a bag full of
rattlesnakes and copperheads—but she slung the two Carbines over her 
shoulder. 

*********************************************************** 

Chapter Three 

In theory, covering the ground to the Guard's Retreat was simple. Travel
at night—we'd be far less visible than by day. Don't travel on the 
roads. The potential for ambush was unacceptable. 

Anyway, walking in the open with Long-Guns at port-arms would have
attracted the notice of any Laws patrolling the highways. Martial Law 
was in effect. There was a curfew and some severe restrictions on 
travel. Guns were widely prohibited. It just didn't work. 

Then again, to anyone watching the roadway from a safe vantage point,
the possession of arms—and packs—would be a fair indication that we 
were worth the trouble to kill and rob. 

On the other hand, I had no real familiarity with the ground I had to
cover. Riemann had given me plenty of satellite photos of the general 
area—and a reasonable amount of side territory, in case I was forced to 
sidestep and improvise. He'd given me road maps and contour maps as 
well as GPS Coordinates. 

Thing was, it probably wasn't wise to have maps leading right up to the
door of Riemann's retreat as well as maps to all (or many) of his 
caches. I wasn't entirely sure that Riemann wasn't holding back some of 
the good stuff. I certainly would have in his place. 

It really didn't matter. Riemann didn't want me to end up alive and
loose, still in possession of my wards, but with the map to the kingdom 
and all its riches in someone else's possession. 

Couldn't fault him there. I didn't want that either. 

I'd spent six weeks pouring over the maps and memorizing. Then Riemann
had given me one of the new drugs that was supposed to give one total 
recall of everything that happened during the few hours the drug 
lasted... 

And I went over every scrap of “Google Maps” data as well as contour
maps, county road maps and precise longitude and latitudes of the 
hideout and caches. 

The drug lasted long enough for me to go over everything three or four
times—look at photos of selected sites—though several years out of 
date—and to read a few things that I'd always wanted to “rememberize”. 

Riemann had me memorize as much as possible before giving me the memory
enhancer, since he didn't quite trust it. Should the artificially 
enhanced memories fade at some point, I should still have what I 
memorized earlier... 

And obviously, I couldn't do a creditable job of memorizing stuff that
I'd already downloaded via chemical enhancement. 

The best that I could tell, the drug did an admirable job of burning
stuff into one's memory—just as advertised. It had a vicious comedown 
though. I felt as though I'd been beaten and then shot full of 
Thorazine for a couple weeks. 

Just about the time that I started feeling halfway like my old self,
Riemann wanted me to take one more dose. This time he had me wear 
virtual reality goggles and he fed me a double dose. 

I was out of it pretty much the whole time. Riemann claimed that they
had speed-downloaded virtually every bit of geographic data available 
for all the states east of the Mississippi and several states that 
bordered the Mississippi to the west, only stopping when the monitors 
told him that the levels of the drug in my blood had slipped too low 
for more super-fast downloads to be effective. 

But that was just something to fill in what would otherwise have been a
bunch of wasted memory drug bandwidth. The main thing that I was 
supposed to memorize was a complex pattern of map-colored points and 
lines. 

The pattern was meaningless in and of itself. I had an Atlas though—as
broad and long as a wire-bound notebook, with thick nylon covers and 
almost three hundred plastic sheet pages—as thin as a page from a 
Bible, impervious to moisture and advertised as impossible to tear by 
hand. 

The pages were uncommonly tough. I didn't try to put my full strength
into tearing one since I was satisfied they were tough enough and 
didn't want to chance ruining a page. 

The maps were very detailed—but they detailed places that existed
nowhere on this Earth. Stare at them while summoning up the random 
pattern though and they became perfectly good maps. 

The scheme wouldn't work with anyone though, unless they were an eidetic
or they had spent several hours studying the pattern while high on 
memory drug. 

I still hadn't fully recovered from the last use of the drug though. I
think that's why the stuff was so tightly regulated. I wasn't at all 
sure that it hadn't wrecked my brains delicate biochemistry with just 
three doses (a single and a double dose). 

I was in no mood to be doing forced marches though the chigger weeds. I
wasn't in a fit mood to do anything but sit and sulk gloomily—but I had 
to go on. 

I medicated myself with Caffeine and Benzedrine to get going along with
more modest doses of Opiates to try to sooth my battered endorphin 
systems. 

And Sissy raising hell every step of the way wasn't helping. 

“Why do we have to walk through the weeds? There is the highway right
over there,” She griped. 

I called a halt. 

“We're walking here because anyone can clearly see us walking down the
center of the road. We'll be right on top of someone staking out this 
side of the road before they can react. 

“Someone on the far side of the road may miss us completely. 

“That is if we're quiet. If you keep bellowing like a calf in a
hailstorm, blind folk a half-mile away will know that we're passing. 

“Shut up!” 

I wasn't in any type of top shape myself and humping a pack through the
weeds is hard on anyone. I didn't figure that the drama queen had ever 
attempted anything like it. 

I was hoping to get close to ten miles per day, but the first night I
settled for about four. 

The east was just turning light as I finished the camp. 

I pitched a small tarpaulin—what vulgar people inexplicably refer to as
a “tarp”—to keep the blazing hot sun off of us and to shield us in the 
unlikely event of rain. The tarpaulin also shielded us from casual 
aerial view—though if they started searching for us with top of the 
line satellite and aerial surveillance gear, we'd be what is known in 
old Sanskrit as “Skewed!” 

I gathered enough sticks to start a small fire in a coffee-can stove and
cooked us a brief meal of instant oats along with some beef 
jerky-jerky. 

Oats are good for you, no doubt, but I put more faith in the ounce of
wheat germ, the third of a cup of powdered milk, the big hunk of canned 
butter and the generous heap of brown sugar that I stirred into each 
bowl. 

“Eat this,” I said. 

“I don't care for oats, especially with a glob of fat in them, “ She
sniffed. 

“Pond and Honour! You don't like them or you just don't care for them?”
I asked. 

“What do you mean?” 

“ ‘I don't care for it' means ‘I could eat it but I'd just as soon
not'...” 

I stopped to look at her meaningfully. 

“My grandmother always tried to get me to say that I didn't care for
something, when the bald fact was that I didn't like it. 

“ ‘I don't like it' means that I wouldn't eat it with a Gun to my head
and that if, for some bizarre reason, I tried to eat it, I'd heave my 
guts up before I got it halfway to my mouth.” 

“Well then, I just don't care for it—though I'd imagine that you'd eat
most anything with a Gun to your head,” Sissy opined. 

“I wouldn't eat any sort of fried egg to save my life, or mayonnaise. I
could eat a boiled egg or a raw one with sufficient motivation, but I 
wouldn't at Gunpoint. 

“I wouldn't eat a beautiful combo pizza with a vanilla malt to wash it
down, if I was under duress,” I said. 

“Humph!” She snorted, largely through her nose. 

“Sissy listen, we took it easy today, but we're going to have to travel
hard and as fast as circumstances allow. You need Calories. You really 
need fat in your system. 

“You don't have to eat your oatmeal. I'll be happy to eat it for you.
Thing is, if you force it down, you won't suffer nearly as much 
tomorrow. If you pass up this meal, you'll be feeling the after-effects 
for two or three days. 

“Tomorrow morning you'll be hungry enough to wolf your oats down, but
today's oats will be gone—and you will miss them.” 

She considered that and started eating her oats with little pleasure. 

“Take off your shoes,” I said to her when she'd finished. 

“Why?” 

“You have blisters. I can see you limping,” I said. 

As I had feared, her feet were soft and tender—without any signs of
calluses or hard conditioning. 

“See, you have some rather large blisters. A blister can't even begin to
heal until all the fluid is let out. Thing is, the skin under the 
blister will be very raw and tender. 

“I learned this trick from a book about Israeli Paratroopers,” I said.
“It's a good trick. We take a sterilized needle threaded with a nice 
sterile cotton thread. 

“Pierce the blister here—pull the thread through—and out here on the
farthest side of the blister. 

“The thread will wick the moisture out, but we've only compromised the
tough blister skin at a couple of points. 

“We tie the ends together like so... 

“Tonight we'll snip the thread and pull it out. A really big blister
like this one may take two or three threads running at various angles. 

“You will still lose the skin in a few days and it will still be a bit
tender, but nothing like it would be if we took the skin off today,” I 
said. 

“Are you a Jew?” 

“What?” 

“You said that was an Israeli Paratrooper's trick.” 

“What, are you getting your prejudices all lined out? No, I'm not a Jew.
Even if I were, you're not in a position to look down your nose at 
anyone. 

“Try to sleep. I know it'll be hard in the open like this, in broad
daylight, but do try. At least close your eyes and rest,” I said. 

After about an hour she said, 

“Zin, I'm not Anti-Semitic. My mother was Jewish, though she wasn't
practicing...Does that matter?” 

“Pond and Honour! Sleep!” 

*********************** ****************** ***** 

As it turned twilight I stowed most of our camp gear and cooked us a
supper. Dehydrated beef stew, if you can imagine such a thing. I 
fortified it with some jerky-jerky and some mashed potato flakes—and of 
course—a big glob of butter. 

I used five of the stew packs—two for Sissy, three for me. This was a
forced march, not a Weight-Watchers Convention. The food was calculated 
to last us through our journey even with our high Caloric intake. 

“I don't much care for coffee,” Sissy said. 

“Try to drink it. Drink it for the moisture and the Caffeine and the
sugar,” I said. 

“Can you put some of that powdered milk in it then?” 

“Sure. Take one of these with it, “ I said. 

“What is it?” 

“Caffeine tablet. I'm not sure how hard the coffee's Caffeine will hit
you buffered with milk. I'm neither going to poison you, nor drug you 
without your knowledge,” I said. 

“While we're at it, here are some Vitamins: 1000 mgs of C—some evidence
suggests that big doses of Vitamin C can prevent or alleviate muscle 
soreness. 100 mgs of Niacin, Folic Acid, Vitamin D, a B-Complex 
combination and 1000 IUs of Vitamin E. 

“We'll take some more C, B-12 and Iron when we stop. Iron eats Vitamin
E, so it isn't wise practice to take them together. 

“Here, take a couple Aspirin too. That will help out any minor pains
that you may have and helps the blood run more freely,” I said. 

“You mean that it's an anti-coagulant, don't you?” she asked. 

“You got it.” 

“What if I'm shot?” 

“Try not to get shot,” I advised. 

I took the threads out of her blisters, got her to grease her feet with
Vaseline and double sock—cotton inside, wool outside. 

“My feet feel squishy and greasy,” She complained. 

“In a half-hour they won't. In an hour, you'll have forgotten—until
tonight, when your feet aren't so blistered. 

“Now please, try to keep quiet tonight. Our luck can't hold out forever,
if you keep talking nonstop. 

“Let's try to get at least eight miles tonight,” I encouraged. 

************************************************************************


Chapter Four 

We made pretty good time the second night, almost nine hours. Sissy did
a good job of marching without a constant stream-of-consciousness 
dialog. 

We could have gotten ten or a bit more—but water was getting to be a bit
of a problem. 

You know, there are deserts in the World. There are Nomadic
Peoples—mostly hunter-gatherers who live there even today. They are 
relatively few of them though and they move around constantly to avoid 
over-stressing their resources. 

I've always been amused at PAW Fiction that depicts drinking water
selling for as much per gallon as gasoline does. O granted, as a 
short-term expedient in the desert and dying of thirst, a gallon of 
water would be worth a Gold Krugerrand—several Gold Krugerrands. 

Long term though, with comparatively many people living in an area, if
you're paying a quarter-ounce of Gold—or equivalent value—for every 
gallon of water you drink, how in the seven burning hells are you 
growing food? 

Far more people will starve to death in any sort of reasonable drought
than will die of thirst. 

No one in America was going thirsty yet—well, maybe some folks in the
cities when their utilities were interrupted. That was happening ever 
more often and only a few seemed motivated to save old plastic bottles 
and stock-pile a few days worth. 

There were quite a few hungry folks in America due to the drought; there
were few dying of thirst. 

Sissy and I were an exception. We were traveling and sweating a lot—even
through the day, under the tarpaulin. Water is one of the heavier of 
life's essentials. It is all but impossible to carry more than a very 
few days worth of water on foot. 

And one can't do without it more than two or three days at most—two or
three miserable days at drastically reduced performance at that. 

Years ago, Google used to send out scores of cars—maybe hundreds—I'm not
sure—to take ground photo's of millions of ground level American 
scenes—partly as an adjunct to their satellite maps. 

Some worried about the potential for privacy violation—which was a
perfectly valid concern. Any information the Hobnails requested should 
only be handed over grudgingly at a Judge's orders—if then. 

Too many people lack the stubbornness to emulate Thoreau or G Gordon
Liddy and flatly defy the old transvestites with hammer fetishes. 

No! No! They want to fall to their knees, lick the toe of the boot that
stomps them and sell out before they're even asked. 

Thing is though, the State has vast data gathering apparatus while real
people do not. The Google street surveys might have been bad in 
principle but once they were out there, I spent many happy hours 
vicariously tooling down small town streets or country roads—either in 
places that I'd never been, or places that I hadn't revisited in years 
or decades. 

With everything falling apart, most of the street-level surveys were
years out of date—but the satellite photos were updated regularly. 
There is a lot of planning that goes into trying to maximize food 
production and other things during a drought—and not just by Government 
planners but also by farmers and entrepreneurs. 

And it was like: 

Really man! Be for real! I'd spent many hours studying the satellite and
street level surveys, and I thought that I knew a small farm where 
Sissy and I could walk right up to a very large water spigot next to a 
barn and shielded from view by anyone in the small farmhouse. 

And fill our bottles with little risk of exposure. 

Are you familiar with Quatrain #57 of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam? 

Oh Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with Gin 

Beset the Road I was to wander in, 

Thou will not with Predestin'd Evil round 

Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin? 

Leave out the theological arguments about Predestination—that's a thorny
metaphysical question that isn't germane to my story. 

Look at the first two lines though: 

“Gin” is an old timey term for “Bait”—though some dictionaries define
“Gin” as the trap itself. Many old English trapping and hunting 
regulations prohibit using “Gin” to lure game birds. 

Well Sissy and I weren't in Old Gentrified England but that large,
highly visible spigot was a Pitfall and a Gin—and it Beset the Road—or 
lack of Road—that we wandered in. 

I slung my .30-30 over my shoulder. It was loud. I screwed a six-inch
long suppressor onto my Carbine and the little five-inch suppressor 
onto the Ruger .22. 

“That Carbine is Supersonic,” Sissy told me condescendingly. 

“Yeah, I know. It does capture the bulk of the muzzle-blast though. That
lowers the signature and makes locating the source problematic. It is 
also one hell of a flash suppressor and easy on my ears,” I replied. 

“What are we doing here?” 

“Gonna try to get some water,” I replied. 

“I have a filter. Can't we get some out of a stream or ditch?” Sissy
said. 

“Love to. Do you remember crossing a stream or creek so far that wasn't
dry as a bone yet?” 

I could tell that she was grumpy again. O Well... 

“There are pros and cons but I've decided to take you with me. Don't
want to take the chance of us being separated. I know that you've 
probably never tried to stalk anything but do try to be as quiet as 
possible,” I said. 

“You'd be surprised!” She sniffed. 

And then to my total amazement, she pulled out an old Beretta .25
Auto—the single action. I always get the “Minx” and the “Jetfire” 
confused. One is a .25ACP the other is a .22 Short. 

She proceeded to screw on a rather thin Suppressor—maybe three-quarters
of an inch in diameter, but almost a foot long—onto her mouse-gun. 

“You do know that even if you wait until you're at arm's reach and shoot
for the head, that is a rather marginal weapon. It's as likely as not 
to bounce off a skull rather than penetrate. 

“Shoot for eye sockets, the ear holes—or that general area—or through an
open mouth. Fire a three-shot burst while you're at it. And be braced 
in case he comes at you in spite of your shooting,” I said. 

“HMMMmmnnphhh! That's what you think! This little baby is loaded with
homemade armor piercing bullets—turned on a Lathe from beryllium bronze 
and double coated in teflon. They're loaded hot too,” 

“Not too hot, I hope. Be a shame to blow up a nice old Gun like
that—even though you've gommed it up with that parkerized finish,” I 
opined. 

“Idiot! Would I make a mistake like that? Besides, that's flat black
teflon, not parkerizing,” she hissed. 

Pond and Honour! I thought. Truly, a man can only be happy and have
peace when he's alone. Men and women both put up with all sorts of 
annoyances because they think that they can't get by without sex or 
they want to pass their genes to another generation. 

Fortunately my libido had left me completely free in my middle years and
I'd given up the idea of passing my genes on as highly 
unlikely—certainly nothing to cause me to alter my path. 

But I was stuck with Sissy and the two girls that I'd yet to meet. I was
obligated to escort them to Riemann's retreat in the Hoosier National 
Forest and to continue to guide and protect them there. 

Truth be told, I'd be far happier if I could occupy that retreat all by
myself. I had a little retreat of my own across the Wide And Beautiful 
River—that was a comparative trickle nowadays—but only enough food to 
last me a couple years. 

If the drought continued to worsen, then growing food, hunting and
especially fishing would be a no-go. 

Besides, I'd given my word to stay and protect the girls. 

Perhaps if I'd been a bit less absorbed in my glum musings, maybe, just
maybe I'd have sensed the trap. 

They were smart. They waited until I'd had a big long drink and filled
all our water bottles and bladders. I thought I had almost gotten away 
clean... 

No matter how cautious you try to be, that is when you're most
vulnerable. 

A bullet plowed into the concrete surface at my feet and ricocheted off
with that telltale whine. I dove for cover. The grasny shabnasticators 
proceeded to shoot all the water containers that hadn't been firmly 
attached to me full of holes. 

Right then I didn't much care if they shot all my containers as long as
I wasn't in line with one of them. I had more immediate concerns. It 
did show a shocking lack of respect for property that they might have 
put to good use and a startling lack of fire discipline. 

I stayed under cover and hoped that Sissy might weigh in soon, from the
strategic firing point that I'd left her at. That hope vanished when 
one of the clients walked into the lighted barnyard with a double 
barrel sawed-off Shotgun firmly planted under her chin. 

“Don't shoot Tramp! I got your old lady right here,” He said. “Drop your
weapon and come out or I blow her head off.” 

“Go ahead. I've never been that fond of her anyway—but then you die. I'm
psychic and the only way out of this that leaves you alive, is to let 
her go,” I said. 

I was going to take the shot eventually, but a few words first gave me
time to study things a bit. 

I saw another dim figure trying to flank me. I shot Sissy's captor with
a three-shot burst to the head and then I turned and put three rounds 
into the torso of the stalker to my right. 

I think that the suppressed Carbine confused them momentarily. When
Sissy's captor dropped though, it clarified the situation immediately. 

One fellow raised his head to survey the scene, and a quick headshot
dropped him. Sissy still had her FN—sloppy prisoner handling there, but 
it was apparent that we were dealing with idiots—though heavily armed 
idiots. 

She had dropped when I shot the client but once she had the bulky Pistol
out of the full-flap holster, she emptied a magazine all around, aiming 
at muzzle flashes I suppose. 

Then she reloaded and made a very short dash towards her Miniature
Assault Rifle. Once I realized what she was about, I tried to help. 

Once she was under cover, I swapped the Carbine for the .30-30. I aimed
at the fellow behind some weathered 2”x10”s. The .30-30 penetrated the 
boards with enough power left to take him out of the fight. I'd fired a 
two-shot burst just to be certain. 

I topped off the tubular magazine by feel, while keeping my eyes on the
scene. 

One fellow broke and ran and Sissy shot him down with three three-shot
bursts from her .17Fireball. Then she started hosing everything in 
sight with three round bursts. She'd insisted on starting our mission 
with a 50 round drum inserted in her Gun, so I had hopes that she 
wouldn't go dry anytime soon. 

I never saw much use in peppering the mound someone was cowering behind
or the air over his head, with precious bullets. 

On the other hand, one fellow had taken cover behind one of those big
yellow plastic barrels that they use to haul water to construction 
sights and such. If it had been full of water, or one of those big 
three or four hundred gallon tanks, then he'd have probably been safe 
from my .30-30... 

But this was a small tank; maybe thirty gallons and it appeared to be
empty. 

I know that my first round struck him, but it must have lost too much
oomph pushing through the barrel. He staggered but held his feet. I'm 
not sure exactly what happened to the second round. Maybe it 
fragmented. Maybe it drove some pieces of the plastic back at him, but 
as I later learned, it took out both his eyes. 

He stood holding his hands in front of his face, blood streaming down
and screaming. He moved too fast for me to line him up in my sights and 
then he fell. 

I put a single round into the only part of his body still exposed—his
thigh. A single round of .30-30 shattered the femur and severed the 
femoral artery. I could tell by the fountain of blood that briefly 
erupted. 

Every light in the place went dark and I heard someone firing a large
caliber semiautomatic Rifle—an old H&K .308 we later learned. 

“All the bounty hunters are dead friend. I have night vision goggles.
The dip-spritz fired off a magnesium flare for some stupid reason. You 
can bet that will draw the Laws here soon, even if all the Gunshots 
don't,” an unseen voice proclaimed from several speakers set up around 
the yard. 

“Who are you?” I said. 

“This is my farm. I saw you coming and I was willing for you to get some
water and go in peace—then these scum showed up.” 

“I'll be going, if you don't object,” I proposed. 

“You can go, but they'll be beating the bushes looking for Tramps for
the next few days. Let me hide you,” the voice said. 

God knew what Hannibal Lector games this dude might be into. Still, I
knew that I'd probably be captured if I left. This dude was an unknown 
variable. 

Do you know how “Double-Dealing” works? I've never been into gambling
but the mechanisms fascinate me. 

There is a way to deal, where you get a quick glimpse of each card
before you deal it. If you are about to deal yourself a particularly 
poor card, or if you're about to deal your opponent a rather good card, 
you deal one from the bottom of the deck instead. 

Of course there are a hundred chuckleheads getting beat up for
attempting double deals for every pro cheater who's really mastered it. 
Even a skilled cheater can get caught with painful results. 

That's kinda beside the point. You can't see the bottom card as you deal
it. You might still deal your opponent a fine card or deal yourself a 
hiss-poor one. 

The Mathematicians who study Game Theory will tell you though—it is
always better to accept a chance of a bad event happening, as opposed 
to accepting the absolute certainty of a bad event. 

You know, a good Mathematician could probably tell you how much
Double-Dealing raises ones odds in the long run—be interesting to know. 


At any rate, my knowledge of Game Theory prompted me to accept the
chance the farmer was planning something wicked, because I knew that 
the Laws were up to no good. At least the farmer wasn't asking us to 
disarm. 

I'm not a trusting soul though. When he asked Sissy and I to step into a
hidden storm shelter until the Laws left, I pulled the pin on one of 
the two hand grenades that Riemann had been able to get for me. 

If he gassed us unconscious, I'd drop the grenade and hopefully Sissy
and I would be deader than Judas Iscariot. 

I'd prefer death by hand grenade to waking up strapped to the table in
someone's dungeon. My only misgiving was whether there was enough oomph 
to reliably off both of us. 

I didn't know it at the time, but with all the homemade explosives that
Sissy was toting, he would have lost a fall-out shelter, but gained a 
fair-sized catfish pond... 

If he could only fill it with water and stock it... 

****************************************************************** 

Chapter Five 

Sissy and I sat down to a banquet that Farmer's wife had made for
us—Heavy on pork and homegrown onions, tomatoes, green beans and okra. 
There was cherry pie for dessert. 

I didn't fully trust Farmer but I was reasonably sure at this point that
he wasn't going to poison us. 

The stuff was very tasty and it let us conserve our own supplies. 

“Where do y'all get this stuff? I thought that there was a famine,”
Sissy said around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. 

I was beginning to think that tact wasn't her long suit. 

Farmer shrugged. 

“You might say that I'm a collaborator. I'm one of the few farmers that
get irrigation water hereabouts—and in exchange; I sign the bulk of my 
crops over to the State,” Farmer said. 

He had a good chuckle. 

“But I can do miracles with the water I'm allotted. That gets me
extra—much more than you'd think. That lets me eat very well, make some 
cash on the side and have plenty to bribe the local Laws. 

“That's why the Deputies were so quick to accept my story that I'd been
attacked by Marauders rather than jumped into a shootout between bounty 
hunters and Tramps.” 

“What is the deal with these “Bounty Hunters” and why are we referred to
as “Tramps”? Makes me think that I'm in an old time movie about hobos,” 
I said. 

“To ‘Tramp' is to walk. That's how the term came to be used for
itinerant wanderers. They ‘Tramped' from one locale to another, looking 
for work or handouts—depending on the individual and the circumstances. 


“Today, lots of people are unemployed and/or hungry. They got some kinda
script playing in their mind, that there is manual labor waiting to be 
done in the farmlands and that they can eat well, and make a little 
money for the road by doing it. 

“Of course, some just want to beg or steal food from the fields and a
few are just desperate to get out of the cities and Townsteads,” Farmer 
explained. 

“Big G is afraid that too many loose cannons roaming around the
countryside will bollix crop production... 

“So there are all sorts of laws against itinerants wandering around
free. Bounty hunters are folks—generally folks with nothing 
constructive to do—who either make their living capturing Tramps or 
more likely, pick up a little spare cash from part-time bounty 
hunting,” Farmer said. 

“What about Marauders?” Sissy asked. 

Farmer gave a brief shake of his head, as if he found the subject
unsettling. I know that I would find it very unsettling in his place. 

“They blitz farmhouses. Sometimes they come with semis and rustle
livestock, any good food on hand and anything of value—gold, silver, 
Firearms, ammunition, antiques—anything portable and valuable,” Farmer 
said. 

“Tilt! Something doesn't track Farmer,” I said. “With all the satellite
surveillance going on, how can anyone move a semi-truck and trailer or 
a convoy of semis without being tracked?” 

“Maybe they wait for overcast or rainy nights,” Sissy said and laughed
long and loud at her own cleverness. 

“More like they have someone on the inside and only move with tacit
State approval. Sure will get the attention of farmers or ranchers 
trying to do things ‘Their own way',” Farmer said. 

“What about you?” I asked. 

“I only defy the State discretely and as I've said, I have friends in
medium-high places—at least locally. 

“But hell, often times the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is
doing. I live in fear of he day that the Marauders come for us,” Farmer 
said. 

It was provocative, but I had to say it. 

“Cowards theorize with the idea of staying alive firmly in mind,” I
said. 

Farmer shot me a hard look. 

“Is that from ‘The Hagakure'? Well, I'm not afraid for myself. Let me
show you something,” Farmer said. 

Sissy and I had kinda had the run of the house—much of the house—but we
hadn't been into all of it. 

Farmer took me into a very impressive home library. There were ten-foot
tall hardwood shelves filled with books, a neat step-ladder/stool for 
fetching books down from on high, a huge unabridged dictionary sitting 
on a wooden podium and a homemade hardwood card catalog. 

There was a small girl inside. 

“This is my granddaughter. She's twelve, but small for her age. I want
you to take her with you,” Farmer said. 

I was a bit shocked. 

“But why Farmer? Surely you'd rather keep her with you and your wife,” I
said. 

“It's not safe here anymore.” 

“And it's safe on the road with us? Dodging Laws, bounty hunters and
run-of-the-mill psychopaths taking advantage of the general confusion?” 


“This is really ‘need-to-know', but it's nothing that you couldn't
figure out on your own. 

“I'm part of the Underground—hiding in plain sight, so to speak... 

“But I know they're onto me. They may come in a day, a month, a year,
maybe even a week... 

“Maybe never...But that's highly unlikely. I know who you are. I watched
your trial on TV. You killed that man and his whole family and 
willingly went to prison for it—Just because you'd given him your word. 


“Take her. Teach her to be strong,” Farmer begged. 

“I know you're on your way to somewhere safe. Is Sissy the Warden's
daughter—or one of the Guards? Never mind. Don't tell me. I don't need 
to know.” 

“What's your name little one?” I asked. 

“Jerri,” She replied. 

“Can you shoot? Carry a heavy pack ten miles every day? Do what I tell
you? Kill someone if it's called for?” I asked. 

“I am proficient, “ She began, “With small-bore rifle, minor Gauge
Shotguns and most any Pistol.” 

She held up a six-inch model 66 Smith and Wesson .357. Lo and behold,
someone cared enough about the Gun to polish it bright and fit it with 
some very attractive horn grips. Her Gun was also Mag-Na-Ported. 

“Just like yours,” She stated. 

“Well, not exactly but close enough. That's a very big Gun for a small
Girl. And by the way, it isn't a Pistol. It's a Revolver. 

“Can you handle it?” I finished. 

“I sure can,” She assured me. “Not everyone makes a distinction between
Pistols and Revolvers, but since you do I'll use your preferred 
terminology.” 

She said all that with a most agreeable smile. 

“She's precocious,” Farmer shrugged. 

It turned out that Farmer had an M1 Carbine he'd fixed up for the girl,
along with the traditional two 15 round magazines on the stock, she had 
a Mini magazine carrier to carry three more as in the manner of M-16 
Magazine carriers. 

Farmer gifted me a bunch of what he assured me was just slightly hot 110
Grain Hollow-Points in .30 Carbine. He gave me a few extra magazines 
for her Carbine. 

Face it, a Carbine and a K Frame Smith and Wesson was already a big load
for such a small girl. And Farmer got her a canteen of her own, and 
insisted that she pack a wool blanket, poncho and about three days 
worth of freeze-dried rations in her little pack. 

It got worse. She had a 28 Gauge that Farmer had cut down to eighteen
inch barrels. Farmer had loaded some small game loads for the Gun along 
with some home brewed buck and ball loads... 

A fifty-caliber Punkin ball was loaded on top of thirteen buffered and
plated BB shot (.13 Diameter). 

Then as she prepared to say her final good-byes, Farmer gave the girl a
double Gunfighter rig with another K Frame Smith at 11:00, in the belly 
button cross-draw favored by many CASS Shooters. 

This one had ivory grips... 

I almost wanted to sit down and cry. I'm a firm believer in “No Gun left
behind”; but I had visions of having to carry Jerri and her arsenal 
piggyback on top of my ALICE pack. 

“O no! Not your Model 17!” Jerri said and then she hugged the old man
and cried. 

I think she had gathered for the first that he didn't hope to see her
again on this side. 

I had no family left, but I grimly decided that I'd carry the little
girl and her bizarre arsenal how ever far I needed to when and if it 
come down to it. 

I was in for another surprise. Farmer told all of us to get into the
back of his truck—one of those big multi-axle farm trucks and gave me a 
ride to Indianapolis. 

“You could have given us a ride out of the beaten zone five days ago,” I
said as Farmer let us out. 

“I needed to get to know you a bit, before I trusted my granddaughter to
you,” Farmer explained. “And I had a gift for you that took a few days 
to arrange.” 

I reached for my .357 as he pulled something out of a Bag. 

“Do you remember the sawed-off Shotgun that the Bounty Hunter held on
Sissy?” 

I remembered—a nice Stoeger double barreled 12 Gauge that had the
barrels crudely amputated at about fourteen inches—the stock uncut, 
leaving it look like an old timey Blunderbuss. 

Farmer had the barrel trimmed down to twelve inches, a small plate
silver soldered into the gap between the barrels exposed by the 
shortening, a nice big brass bead in the middle and two modest brass 
beads on each barrel as if for a single barrel Shotgun. 

The stock and the abbreviated fore-end were very fancy grained Walnut.
Farmer assured me that the trigger pulls were the lightest and 
smoothest possible on a Stoeger Double. 

It came with it's own low-riding holster and Farmer included a couple
dozen rounds of 00 Buck and a Dozen .69 Caliber Punkin Ball 
Loads—backed up by three 00 Buck. 

I'd dreamed of a sawn-off double ever since I'd watched “Roadwarrior”
the first time, though I'd refined my vision a bit over the years. This 
Gun was the perfect embodiment of my dreams. 

“By the way, those beads are pure gold,” Farmer said. 

I guess that I lied about them being brass—but who would have suspected?


“How on Earth...?” I began. 

“I read your Blog.” 

“Is it still online?” 

“It's available if you dig enough. I used to read it in happier times
though.” 

At least, I told myself, Farmer had the Smith and Wesson Model 17 .22 LR
Revolver's barrel cut and crowned back to five inches some years ago. 
That ought to save at least an ounce... 

********************* *********** ************* 

I popped one of the new three-dollar coins into the payphone and dialed
a fast number. 

It made the skin between my shoulder blades crawl just to be in a Truck
Stop close to a town. 

After a quick sign and counter sign, I delivered the curt message. 

“It's on.” 

We had to travel about four miles to get to the rendezvous. Sissy wasn't
complaining, but she was having a real hard time moving. 

Before I knew it, Jerry had talked her into letting her carry Sissy's
two surplus M1 Carbines and she asked me several times if I wanted her 
to scout ahead. 

The little girl seemed tireless and she could move like a ghost. 

*************** **************** ************ 

I moved to the meeting place and clapped my hands semi loud. Never could
whistle worth a damn. The handclap wouldn't travel far and locating the 
source of the uncouth sound would be problematic. 

Three people strode out of the small shed they'd been hiding in. I let
them get close, them I pointed my new Roadwarrior at them. 

There were supposed to be two girls, not two girls and a boy. 

Sissy didn't pick up on anything, just came sauntering into the open.
With Sissy out in the open and not pointing her weapon or doing 
anything else useful—Jerri decided to run up at close range and point 
her 28 Gauge right at the three, backing up my hand. 

“What is the matter?” Sissy bellowed. 

“Who are you?” I asked them. 

“I'm Trinity Armstead and this is my cousin Joandell. We were supposed
to meet you here,” A very tall black girl said. 

“So who is the basketball player with the long blond hair and the
delta-stocked M-16?” I demanded. 

“That's my boyfriend. When I said goodbye, he wanted to come along to
protect me,” Trinity said. 

“How old are you, Rasputin?” I asked Chuckles. 

“Twenty-Seven.” 

“Aren't you a little old to be dating Trinity?” 

“I'm nineteen, “ Trinity added hotly. 

“Thought you were seventeen,” I said. 

“That's me!” Joandell interjected quickly. 

I knew their ages, but I was checking to see how well they could match
my cover story. 

I got rid of the extra M1 Carbine and a large compliment of magazines
and loads with a sigh of relief. Sissy emptied her pack of .30 Carbine 
stuff, and was glad to be rid of the extra weight. 

Jerri surrendered one of the Carbines, and elected to continue to carry
the extra one that we had between us due to Sissy having brought her 
own weapon. I don't think that Jerri would have been unhappy or felt 
she was over-burdened, if I'd asked her to carry both Carbines and 
their ammo and magazines all the way to the retreat. 

As we started to get ready to make a few more miles before sunrise,
going wide around Indianapolis in the process, Rasputin came close to 
me. He leaned close enough to kiss me, had that been his intention. 

“The name is ‘Larry' and that's not an M-16; it is an AR-15. 

“ I built it myself, from a parts kit and I'm not a roundballer.
Basketball is for tall skinny kids without the musculature, brains or 
intestinal fortitude to Wrestle!” 

“Cool. What's that Revolver you're totin'?” I asked. 

“That's a Colt Python. It cost me six month's pay a few years ago,” He
replied. 

“And Joandelle?” 

“She's packin' a Glock.” 

Pond and Honour! Just when I thought that things were going so well... 

Hate Glocks! 

Hate Glocks! 

Hate Glocks! 

***************************************************************** 

Chapter Six 

It was just getting dark and I sat eating my oatmeal. 

“How far are we going to travel tonight?” Larry asked. 

I don't mind a modest amount of talking during mealtime. I lowered my
spoon to answer because I thought halting halfway to my mouth like a 
pitcher balking on the mound, would underline his lack of 
consideration—causing me to “check swing”. 

“Whatever comes without too much effort. A lot depends on the
micro-terrain between here and where we stop tomorrow morning,” I said. 


“Are we getting close to our destination yet?” Larry persisted. 

This time I did stop with the spoon halfway to my mouth. Surely he'd
catch the hint to let me eat in peace. 

“We're quite a few miles closer than when we started,” I said. 

I didn't want him to know too much about our destination. There was no
reason to trust him. He didn't need to know. 

“Where is this place anyway? Why are you so evasive?” He said. 

This time I held the spoon close to my mouth and stared at it. I twisted
it this way and that as if trying to figure out how to get it into my 
mouth while still talking. 

“Why are you so inquisitive? Are you writing a book?” 

“I want to know where the retreat is—in case something happens to you,”
He persisted. 

“What in the Seven Burning Hells is the matter with you? Can you not see
that I am trying to eat? You keep jabbering like a Chimpanzee and ruin 
the enjoyment that I should be getting from my oatmeal—such as it is,” 
I snapped 

“You inhale your food,” He said. 

He'd said the wrong thing. I'd put up with my father criticizing the way
I ate for over four decades. I owed my father a certain measure of 
respect and I loved him. 

I owed Larry less than nothing. “Inhale your food” was one of my
father's favorite expressions. Word choices are very important to me. 

I understand hyperbole, but I always found the mental image of apples,
oranges, peanut butter sandwiches, and pieces of cherry pie along with 
thick slices of ham being sucked through my nostrils like some kinda 
cartoon runaway vacuum cleaner extraordinarily annoying. 

I calmly reached for the oatmeal still in the pot. It was hot enough to
really burn. I threw it right in his face. When he jumped up in 
consternation, I stepped close and planted a fist in his solar plexus. 

When he bent over, I got a breaking lock on his arm and forced him to
the ground. 

“Now tell me smart bass, how does one suck food up one's nostrils? Do
you want some oatmeal brought over so you can demonstrate?” 

When he didn't answer, I increased the pressure on his arm dramatically
and he screamed in pain. 

“That was not a rhetorical question. I expect an answer,” I said. 

“No.” 

“No...what?” 

“No I don't want to try to snort any hot oatmeal up my nose,” He said. 

Sissy seemed lost in her private World as usual but the two Indianapolis
girls moved as if to intervene. Jerri ran between us and held them back 
with her .357 Smith and Wesson in one hand and her .22LR Smith and 
Wesson in the other—pointing one at each. 

“Would you like satisfaction?” I asked him. 

“What?” 

“You're left-handed. I have your right arm. Say the word and I'll let
you to your feet and give you an even break,” I said. 

I had no idea how fast he might be. That's the point. Living and dying
don't matter. Another man can defeat you only when you back down from 
him. Being killed is meaningless. It proves nothing. 

He was a coward though and he indicated that he didn't want to draw
against me. 

“Never speak to me again,” I told him. 

“But...” 

“Never speak to me again,” I said, while twisting his arm painfully. 

We covered fifteen miles that night. I pushed hard hoping Larry would
try to speak to me again. He was too cleaver—or scared—for that though. 


When we made camp that night, I told them there would be no morning
meal, since we needed to conserve food. 

I caught Jerri's eye and motioned for her to eat something out of her
pack. I stayed awake all day to make sure no one except Jerri sneaked 
any food. 

“Why are you punishing the girls along with Larry? They didn't do
anything,” Jerri asked me. 

“They came running to take his part. They were as guilty as he was,” I
said. 

“They thought you would kill him,” She said. 

“What if I had? That still wouldn't excuse them taking his side instead
of mine,” I said. 

“Sissy didn't do anything,” Jerri argued. 

“Exactly! Sissy did nothing. He who isn't for me, is against me,” I
said. 

I announced that we wouldn't be eating an evening meal either. 

We barely made four miles that night. 

But something happened to me as I marched along angry and hissed at the
whole Wicked World. 

All the data that I'd uploaded into my memory while under the total
recall drug—it had always been there—only now, all the multiple 
topographic features that I'd “Memorized” had somehow become fully 
functional. 

I didn't need to call remembered maps into my consciousness—instead I
felt as if I were in a 3-D Holographic projection superimposed over 
what my eyes and other senses told me was “Out there”. 

I knew without thinking about it that there was an irrigated farm just
ahead. I knew that as even precious as water was that nonetheless there 
was a small drainage ditch and that we could fill all our water 
containers there. 

There was also a rather lush bit of woods—maybe an acre's worth—bounding
the irrigated field on one side and benefitting from the small run-off. 


America hadn't quite turned into a desert. There was rain enough to keep
most of the trees alive—though leaf size and particularly seed or fruit 
production was way down. 

This little woods had done better than most wooded areas. 

I called a halt and pitched the tarpaulin and then started cooking some
oatmeal for everyone. 

“Is everyone hungry enough to eat and not jabber?” I asked. 

Larry nodded while everyone else assured me that that was the case. 

“Don't nod or shake your head at me Larry,” I told him. “That is a form
of communication—and I don't want you to try to communicate with me. 
But I've noticed you being totally silent. You're welcome to talk to 
the others—just don't speak to me.” 

After everyone had eaten, they lay down to sleep. They'd be struggling
for the next few days; recovering from the ordeal I'd put them through. 
I didn't really care. I was coming to hate them. 

Jerri was the exception though. I respected her fortitude. 

All the heretofore recalled but jumbled recollections of drug-enhanced
memories seemed to have unblocked my mind... 

It was like when you're ill but don't realize how clogged your sinuses
were until they start draining big-time. 

Certainly, I was within my rights—Still without the fuzziness,
irritability and the general crankiness the comedown from the memory 
drug gave me, maybe I wouldn't have been as hard on the girls. 

Maybe it was time to stop downloading opiates to sooth my memory drug
jangled nerves. 

I screwed the long suppressor onto my .30 Carbine. I could have screwed
off the Flash suppressor from my custom .30-30 and used the suppressor 
on the Marlin. The suppressors were designed for multi use. 

The rather small suppressor wouldn't have done as good a job stifling
muzzle blast on the bigger Rifle though. It wasn't even One Hundred 
percent effective stifling the .30 Carbine's Muzzle Blast—quite apart 
from supersonic crack. 

The .22LR could have been very quiet with subsonic ammo—and I had a box
of subsonic .22s—although generally, with something as feeble as a .22, 
I prefer to use supersonic for the power and accept a bit of sonic 
boom. 

I was after a bit bigger game than I liked to tackle with a .22LR
Pistol. 

I lay watching the field where the others slept—or at least laid around.
It was hard to sleep during the hot and dry days. 

There I spotted him—a nice fat groundhog—living off the soybean leaves
and the greenery in our small oasis. I'd spotted the tracks and other 
sign earlier. 

There was a muffled crack accompanied by an odd whiny ricochet-like note
as the 110 Grain Hollow Point sped on its appointed round. The 
groundhog was hoggish and only took one shot. A less greedy animal 
might have taken more than one shot to put him down. 

Roasting the groundhog would have created a smell that a blind man in a
fish cannery could follow. 

Instead I dug a pit about two feet deep. I shoveled in about six inches
of hot coals and heated stones. On top of that went a thick layer of 
leaves. I stuck to leaves that I knew well—mostly maple leaves, 
sassafras, dock and big handfuls of clover. 

I'd seared most of the hair off the Groundhog and carefully shaved off
the rest. The singed hair would smell—but only momentarily. 

I'd carefully gutted the carcass and carefully saved the intestines and
kidneys in a Zip-Lock Bag. I rubbed salt, pepper and garlic both inside 
and outside the carcass. I reinserted his heart and liver inside the 
body cavity along with the garlic. 

The carcass went on top the leaves, then another thick covering of
leaves. Then a GI Canteen's worth of water and then still more hot 
coals and heated stones. Then I filled the pit back up even with the 
ground. 

Finally, I moved the fire over the pit—not really essential, but it
couldn't hurt. 

Up until then, Larry and the girls had only seen me cook with very small
fires built from pencil-sized sticks and confined within my coffee can 
hobo stove. 

I could tell that they were all curious, but no one questioned me, so I
let them wonder. 

I slept for about six hours. When I woke, it was almost dusk. I raked
the coals off the pit and dug up the groundhog. 

The hot steam poured out and I leaned way back to avoid singeing my
face. I waited a half hour for the excess heat to dissipate and raked 
the groundhog out of his last hole. 

I raked the remains of our fire into the pit and stomped it back as flat
as possible. 

There was a festive mood as everyone got a big piece of groundhog and
some of the baked potatoes and onions that I'd also inserted. Farmer 
had given the onions and potatoes to me to raise morale when it needed 
to be raised the most. No one else knew that I had them. 

It had been quite a challenge to insert six extra big potatoes and six
medium onions into the body cavity surreptitiously with everyone 
watching me—but I'd managed somehow. 

After everyone had a good meal, I asked, “Is anyone hungry?” 

No one answered. 

“You're sure?” I persisted. 

“Okay, everyone hand me your canteen cups,” I said. 

Everyone got a four-ounce jigger of Scotch. My own load—minus the
potatoes, onions and the Scotch was going to be noticeably less than 
previously. 

“People, we're very close. We're going to take today off. That liquor
should help you to just relax and lay around, if you let it. 

“ ‘Silly', I don't care about, but we can't afford to be noisy. That
shouldn't be enough to make anyone drunk—particularly if you'll sip it 
on top of a full stomach. 

“No one is required to drink it if they don't want to,” I finished. 

Later Jerri came to sit beside me. 

“Do you want this? I couldn't finish it,” She said. 

“You are kinda light, but I wanted too stress you're on the same level
as the others,” I told her. 

She'd consumed more than half of it though. I finished what she'd left
in a single drink. 

“Why are you giving us a day off?” Jerri asked me. 

“Out of the goodness of my heart?” 

She laughed. 

“You are one of the least goodhearted people I know,” She said. 

“Well then, from the badness of my heart? 

“No, we should be at the retreat in a couple days. It is supposed to be
fairly well hidden but folks aren't blind. If it's near several small 
springs as Riemann claims it is, the local vegetation will be richer. 
There will be a bit more game. 

“We may find squatters on Riemann's land. I want everyone ready for what
we'll need to do, if that's the case.” 

“What will we do?” She asked. 

“No one with any sand would walk away from an area like that. We'll have
to shoot them and if anyone gets away, like as not, he'll try to 
recruit a gang to come repossess what he'd already stolen.” 

“Sounds grim,” She said. 

“It will be,” I assured her. 

************************************************************************


Chapter Seven 

We'd broken camp and left the small woods where we'd shared the
groundhog. We'd covered perhaps two and a half miles when all sorts of 
Laws showed up. 

There were multiple cars driving up and down the road shining their
spotlights this way and that. Worse yet, there were at least two 
helicopters doing sweeps back and forth across the highway. 

If they had night vision or infrared we'd have been skewed... 

Well, maybe not with the night vision. Even the best night vision
devices give a monochrome view a good bit narrower than normal vision. 
More than likely, one could sit tight and remain hidden from folks with 
NVG Devices—Especially folks flying by at least fifty feet in the air 
in helicopters. 

Passive infrared is different though. It actually “sees” one's
body-heat. I think that skin temperature is about ninety-two degrees. 
Yeah, I know all about ninety-eight point six. That's core temperature. 
Skin's a bit cooler. 

The nighttime temperature was hovering in the nineties, so perhaps a
warm body wouldn't have stood out that much. 

But in all probability, if the Laws had IR Imaging they wouldn't have
been flitting around shining spotlights every which way. 

I think the whole thing was a make-work feel-good project to assure
someone that the Laws were doing their best to apprehend indigents. 

The “Chang Tzu” says that you can do a bang-up job hiding your net
inside your Johnboat—do such an excellent job that no one will ever 
find it... 

And it all goes for naught when someone steals the whole Damn Boat! 

We could get caught—even in a very crude net—If we happened to luck out
the wrong way. 

I had everyone cover up with several yards between each of us and we
simply waited the hounds and hares game out. 

They stopped a couple hours before dawn. Were they through? Did they
move their search to another area? Was it a cleaver trap? 

I had everyone sit tight until dawn. I made my way to each of my wards
and told them to dine on jerky-jerky, raisins, M&Ms and Hardtack. We 
weren't going to risk a fire. 

It was a long hot summer day. Come night everyone was more than ready to
move. 

“Guys, we aren't going to cook tonight. Eat some more jerky-jerky. We
really need to make some tracks and get out of this beaten zone. 

“We're going to leave the highway behind and travel cross-country. It'll
be harder going. Up until last night, I thought that it was reasonably 
safe to parallel the highway—and it was. 

“I don't know if the light-show last night was a rare occurrence or the
new SOP... 

“But we've come too far to get netted like a bunch of fish.” 

“What does ‘SOP' mean?” Joandelle asked. 

“Nah, that's okay,” I headed off Sissy's sharp retort. “If you don't
know, ask. ‘SOP'—Standard Operating Procedure.” 

Larry half raised one hand. 

“Speak,” I told him. 

“What about me?” 

“You can talk to me if you want or need to. Maybe I was a bit too hard
on you. 

“Listen guys... 

“I hate to say this—It makes me feel like a drug-dealer, but we have to
lift-off and lift high and lift fast. 

“Have any of you ever taken Speed?” 

Sissy, Larry, Joandelle and Jerri raised their hands. I raised my
eyebrows at Jerri. 

“I was on Ritalin for a couple years before I went to live with
Grandpa,” She explained. 

“Everybody gets ten of these Phentermine Tablets. We used to call them
‘Yeller Jackets'. Take two to start. Two or three hours later, if 
you're getting tired—take another. 

“I wouldn't take more than two at one time. Those big white lozenges are
Vicoden. I imagine that your backs, knees and ankles are very sore by 
now. 

“You have to exercise a little more discretion with those. We don't need
you falling out by the wayside grooving on an Opiate buzz. 

“Take those pills, save them for a souvenir or shoot them out of a
slingshot. I don't care. I don't want to know. It's between you and 
your better judgment. 

“I will say that Sissy's father gave me the pills—in quantities that
presupposed that we might all need them. 

“The only other thing that I'm going to say is, ‘Keep Up!' “ I said. 

Several days later we arrived at the Riemann Retreat, Hunting Camp,
Vacation Home—whatever. 

******************** ************** ********** 

Riemann's Retreat was in the Hoosier National Forest—north and east of
Derby. 

I've never quite understood how that works, but much of the land that
falls inside the green “Hoosier National Forest” area on the map, isn't 
public land. In fact, most of it isn't. 

Riemann had found some land fairly cheap, because it was on the side of
a hill, and way too steep to do anything with. 

They call that kinda terrain “Corduroy Land” in Kentucky. 

If you read Horace Kephart's “Our Southern Highlanders”—a classic book
about the Appalachian Clans—he talks about folk trying to cultivate 
land that was so steep that it was hard to even stand on. He told of 
one fellow who'd tumbled out of his cornfield while trying to hoe and 
broke several bones. 

Nowadays America as a whole is too well fed to make farming Corduroy
Land necessary or even marginally profitable—so most of it goes fallow. 
Besides, when you do try to grow crops on it, erosion is a woolly-bear 
worm to deal with. 

During the spectacular drought it made even less sense to farm
extra-steep ground. Whatever rain does fall upon it, runs right off of 
it—like water off a duck's back. 

There are ways to deal with steep land though. The people who built
Machu Picchu knew about it. The Chinese have been doing it for 
millennia. They did it in Oman. “Mother Earth News” is filled with 
cleaver examples. 

The solution is to build a series of level stair-steps down the side of
your hill. It's called “Terracing”. 

I used to puzzle whether one started building a terrace from the top
down, or vice-versa. Then one day I got curious enough to look it up. 

Start at the bottom of a hill and build a stone wall. Make it however
high that you think convenient. Riemann's walls were about seven feet 
tall. He'd used two walls of Flemish pattern red bricks about a foot 
apart and then he'd put rammed earth between them. 

You'll want to put some kind of drainage on the inside base of your
wall. Then you dig from the rear and backfill against the inside of 
your wall until you have a level section going back, and there isn't 
the height to contain anymore dirt with your wall. 

Right where the level piece ends, that's where you build your second
wall—backfill and so on. 

Riemann had used a lot of salvaged materials and apparently he could
work many long hard hours. He had seven terraces going up the side of 
his hill. He'd written that the bottom two terraces weren't his, but 
who would care about someone improving their property, even if they 
cared enough to come look? 

He also went quite a few yards beyond his property gradually tapering
off his terraces and letting the topography revert to normal hillside. 

Riemann had about three acres of his own in terraces and another couple
acres that he had expanded his terraces into and was “Squatting” on. 

There were stairways between the terraces and they were wide and gentle
enough to take a large Rototiller up and down them. He'd spent a lot of 
time and money building up the fertility of his soil. 

There was several tons of charcoal per acre carefully turned into the
ground. He had added manure and some pulverized terra cotta grout that 
he'd picked up as landscaping material. He'd bought truckloads of 
mussels from the fellows who dredged the river to keep the waterways 
open. He'd pulverized the shells, meat and all, in a homemade tumbler. 

It had stunk to high heaven, but he'd turned it into the land. Then he'd
grown crop after crop of good alfalfa hay and plowed it under. 

The old “Terra Preta” that the soil scientists were so excited about
owed most of its super fertility to the charcoal it contained, and from 
whence it acquired the black color. But the studies that he'd read said 
that there were also noticeable amounts of Terra Cotta pottery shards 
and beaucoup fish bones. 

Riemann's homegrown Terra Preta covered his own tillable land from six
to eight inches deep—and he'd used a post-hole digger to run four-foot 
deep shafts of the charcoal-rich soil deeper into the ground every so 
often. 

He'd also planted some apple, pear and cherry trees both at the crest of
his own hill and on the backside of his terraced hill. He owned a 
couple one-acre plots on the far side, but nothing like on his strong 
side. 

He'd limited himself to a few partial containing walls and a few
strategic fruit trees planted in their own mini-island of black soil. 

There was an old converted school bus that Riemann had converted into a
pretty nice hunting camp quarters—but there was a trap door in the 
floor and a fairly extensive underground home. 

Living on the side of a steep sandy hill solved most of the dampness and
water seepage problems right at the beginning. 

Dwelling underground can be problematic without electricity or
kerosene—or something for illumination. Riemann had solved the problems 
with skylights. He didn't want his underground property to show when he 
wasn't there though. 

The windows were covered with thick telescoping slabs of concrete
lowered with hydraulic jacks and buried beneath the soil. All you had 
to do to make the underground compound livable, was to dig out the dirt 
and lower the concrete shutters. 

******************** ************* ******** 

“Your father put a lot of work and money into this place,” I said to
Sissy. 

“He had two brothers, a cousin and the cousin's son. They all worked on
it as much as possible, but his cousin and his son lived here and 
worked on the place full-time,” Sissy said. 

“About fifteen years ago, both my Uncles died in a car crash. The
younger cousin died in Iraq and his father lost interest in life and 
grieved himself to death. 

“I've only been here a few times, when I was little. We were on vacation
and just kicking around. I didn't even know about the underground part 
and the hidden food, weapons and ammo,” Sissy continued. 

“So he really hasn't done much to the place in the last ten to fifteen
years?” I asked. 

“No.” 

“How will we grow food during the drought?” Trinity asked. 

“Well, we won't grow much of anything this year—it's too late in the
season,” I said. 

“Next spring...well, you see how there is a large unterraced section of
hill at the top? That water will flow downhill to the first level. 

“Each level slopes backward a bit so it tends to absorb every bit of
rain instead of letting it run off. When it finally does run off, it 
goes to the next terrace below it... 

“And there are a couple hillside springs—little more than a trickle.
You'd be surprised what a trickle running twenty four-seven can amount 
to. 

“We can't get by with no rain at all—but we can get by with a lot less
than some flatlanders,” I explained. 

“And until then?” Larry asked. 

“We've got some stored rations,” I said. 

I didn't tell him that according to Riemann, there was enough stored
grub to support us in style for twelve to fifteen years. He just didn't 
need to know that. 

“Come on guys, listen up,” I said. “We are going to need to keep a low
profile. There are both animal and vegetable products that can be 
harvested from the woods even now. 

“We can't live here without leaving some trace that a good woodsman
could find—especially come next spring when we start to plow. 

“But we don't have to make it easy for them. We're going to have good
light and noise discipline. 

“If you meet someone in the woods—well, first of all, be very cautious.
Keep a weapon to hand. Don't turn your back. Certainly, don't accept 
any food, drink or something to smoke. 

“Don't tell them Jack Spritz about what we have, say, do or plan. Just
don't say anything.” 

“That's harsh,” Trinity said. 

“Let me tell you a story that I read about maybe twelve years ago. This
little bald-headed guy with a pot-gut approached a woman in a parking 
lot to ask directions. 

“When she turned away, he held a handkerchief soaked in chloroform over
her mouth and nose till she passed out. 

“She woke up in a little six foot by four foot concrete room that the
old pervert had built about twenty feet below the ground. There was a 
mattress and one blanket and a five-gallon bucket to urinate and 
defecate in. 

“There was just room to sit, but not to stand. She was in the dark much
of the time and her ankle was chained to the wall. 

“The old man came by every day or two to feed her—mostly crackers with a
little peanut butter along with Kool-Aid. Then he'd have sex with her. 

“He made a point of telling her that he never had the key on him—so even
if she killed or overcame him, she'd still be chained to the wall. 

“Finally after seven years of this, he chloroformed her again and left
her lying naked in a field. 

“She turned the old bass surd in. Two or three previous detainees were
too broken by their experience to even turn him in. 

“Imagine the horror of being imprisoned far below ground—to never see
the Sun or breath fresh air. You'll live there. You might die there. 

“What if your captor simply loses interest in you? What if he dies
suddenly?” 

I stopped to let them carefully consider. 

“Now this happened in relatively civilized times, when there were Laws
to investigate disappearances and such. 

“Do you think that there are no foul and filthy perverts around now that
society is coming apart at the seams? 

“We can trust each other to a degree—but we can't trust anyone else. 

“Trust no one! I mean it. If that makes you seem arrogant, hostile or
mean spirited—so be it. 

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that folks won't try to take
advantage. 

“I used that story, because to me it is particularly disturbing. It's
more likely that the local psychopaths will simply want to rape you 
once then kill you—or just kill you. 

“Even nominally sane people will be wanting to steal food. 

“Does everyone think that they fully understand? 

“I'm going to keep repeating my lectures, to be sure that you understand
and remember. 

“No one is ever completely safe—not anywhere. A Warrior knows this. He
expects treachery at every turn. 

“If he meets treachery, he meets it. He lives or he dies. If he cannot
live, he at least strives to take his client with him—or failing even 
that, a piece of his client. 

“One thing that it never occurs to a Warrior to do is to complain. He
knows that enemies surround him. He knows that they may succeed in 
ambushing him, in spite of his best efforts. 

“He has long since come to accept that life often isn't fair. 

“He lives or dies with courage and without complaint,” I said. 

************************************************************************
***** 


Chapter Eight 

Fall and winter came and went without anything worthy of note and then
came spring. 

Riemann had two big Troybuilt Rototillers cached in his oddly methodical
and secretive way—along with plenty of Heirloom seeds. I wasn't sure 
how old the seeds were, or what percentage of them was still viable. 

Beside which, I wanted some livestock—rabbits, chickens perhaps a pig to
fatten at the very least. 

A small town was. Money—or at least gold and silver were. The problem
was buying without making myself a target. 

I went to Church that Sunday—a small black Pentecostal Church—good
people. I'd been several times getting the feel of the place and the 
Pastor. 

I buttonholed the Pastor after the service. 

“Money is tight,” I said. 

“Yes, but God provides,” He said. 

I placed a small suede bag on his desk. It had $50 worth of the old
silver Kennedy half-dollars in it. I saw his eyes widen as he saw what 
was within, but he sat there and counted and checked each coin to 
verify that it was silver. 

“Spend that where it will do the most good,” I told him. “Now I need a
little something from you.” 

He'd known that other shoe was going to drop—He just didn't know how
hard that it would land. 

“I need laying hens, rabbits and a small pig. I might be in the market
for a milk goat if the price is right—and a bull calf, not a steer. 

“I have silver. I came by my silver honestly but who wants to come under
government scrutiny at the moment? Or to have his neighbors look on him 
with covetous eyes? 

“Hook me up with people who will deal honestly, keep their mouths shut
and not flash their newfound silver around flamboyantly,” I said. 

“And on second thought, I'll need some building supplies too.” 

***************** *************************** 

I was currying the young bull calf to get him used to being handled and
led around with a halter. 

“Let me know if you need help cutting him,” Larry said. 

He sounded almost turned on by the idea. 

“He isn't going to be cut you flip-silly bastard. If I'd wanted a steer,
I'd have bought a steer.” 

“What is he for then?” 

“I'm going to use him for a saddle animal,” I said. 

“Is that safe?” 

“Nothing is safe. Any animal large enough to carry a man is dangerous.
They can break bones or kill you without even intending to. 

“Some folks—most folks who break cattle to ride believe that bulls are a
worse risk than a cow or a steer, but I won't ride a castrato,” I said. 


“Ever train a bull?” 

“No.” 

“What if he kills you?” 

“Then I'll be dead.” 

I didn't really get the question. 

“Do you have a saddle?” 

“No but I'm going to talk to a man today who believes that he can make a
bull saddle.” 

“Believes?” 

“He's a good leather worker. He tans his own leather and makes holsters,
belts, even cowboy boots. He actually took a class in saddle making 
once and he has plenty of books.” 

I saw Eli coming down the road pushing his handcart and broke off to go
talk to him. I had about exhausted my limited patience with Larry and 
his endless stream of questions anyway. 

“Is that the bull?” Eli asked. 

“That's him.” 

“I'll have to wait till he's grown to measure him,” He said. 

“Obviously. What I want now is something vaguely saddle-like that I can
tie around him to get him used to the idea of being saddled—and I'd 
like it to be able to grow with him—at least for a while.” 

“Yeah, I can do that. Listen, I didn't have to push this handcart all
the way out here to talk to you about a saddle,” He said. 

“No, certainly not.” 

“But my wife makes some of the best wines around—ask anyone. And I do a
bit of distilling to make some brandies. I'm on the road peddling my 
wares,” He said. 

I bought a few gallon jugs from him. The concentrated liquor could be
used in a number of home remedies and wine is a spirit lifter 
occasionally, when used in moderation. 

“I have some herb too,” He said—a bit shyly I thought. 

“That's okay. I don't have glaucoma,” I said. 

“I'd sure like to have some,” Larry said. 

I paused to consider. Marijuana was illegal. On the other hand, so was
home brewed brandy, most Firearms and come right down to it, I was an 
escaped convict... 

No, I don't guess having a little grass around the place would dig my
hole any deeper. 

“Number one, you go outside to smoke it. I don't want to risk the
slightest bit of a contact buzz. Keep it put up and don't get too 
wasted to help out around the farm,” I said. 

I paid him for a half pound of the stuff—all dried and tightly packed. I
also bought a small pipe for Larry. 

As we walked over to see the calf Eli spoke to me out of Larry's
hearing. 

“I know a woman that grows poppies. If you ever need opium let me know.
I can also get meth, not some semi-toxic crap—pharmaceutical quality,” 
Eli said. “Didn't want to speak in front of the boy. You're going to 
have trouble with that one.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it. I'll get back to you on the other. Might be
prudent to lay in some good pain reliever,” I said. 

“Just let me know. I don't carry that stuff around with me, unless there
is a prearranged purchase.” 

******************* ********************* 

“I been thinking about something,” Larry said at dinner. 

“Don't strain your brain,” I said. 

“Why do you hold all the money and make all the final decisions on
everything? It's not fair,” Larry continued. 

“Well this retreat belonged to Sissy's father. While he's not here, that
means Sissy is the owner. 

“However, Riemann made me a full partner in exchange for escorting Sissy
here—so I own half this place. 

“Trinity and Joandell were part of the deal Riemann made with me. Where
that leaves their say in anything, I'm not sure... 

“Somewhere below Sissy and me. 

“Jerri's grandfather asked me if she could come along—so her upkeep is
my responsibility. 

“No one asked you to come Larry. You just kinda crashed the party. 

“You know you do have a point though. Everyone should have a little
money of his own. I'm going to start giving everyone an allowance to 
spend any way they choose,” I said. 

“Well I think we all ought to vote on how things are run around here,”
Larry said. 

“When I care to know your opinion Larry, I'll ask you. 

“I would be well within my rights to ask you to leave.” 

“Trinity and Joandell would go with me, wouldn't you two?” Larry asked. 

Joandell looked down at her plate while Trinity looked from one to the
other faces, seeing how everyone was reacting. Jerri had her hand on 
one of her Guns under the table, just in case... 

I couldn't see the Gun and I didn't know which one she had. I just could
tell by her posture and the look on her face. 

Sissy seemed lost in space considering some abstruse and abstract
puzzle. 

“Besides, if I get kicked out, I'll turn you all over to the Laws,”
Larry said. 

“Have you ever killed anyone Larry?” I asked. 

“No, but...” 

“I have—with my bare hands and with a Gun. The next time you threaten
me... 

“I don't care how innocuous or innocent a threat it might be. If there
is any possible way that it can be construed as a threat... 

“If you so much as threaten to put coal in my Christmas stocking... 

“I will kill you on the spot. Now are we clear?” 

He sat and glared at me, but he wouldn't answer. 

“That's okay Larry. You don't have to answer. If you somehow fail to
comprehend and it gets you killed, then it's on you. 

“Get whatever else that you might want to eat and go somewhere out of my
sight to eat it. I've had enough of you right now.” 

After he was gone, Sissy spoke to me. 

“Are we really partners?” 

“Yes.” 

“I want two or three more nanny goats and a ram. I want to start making
cheese on a fairly large scale. And next spring I want you to buy 
enough pigs that we can raise our own and not have to trade for one 

“I'd also like you to see about getting me some tools. I always wanted
to be a Gunsmith,” Sissy said. 

“A Gunsmith? Okay, but don't we have plenty Gunsmithing tools?” 

She started to get that look on her face, when she was getting ready to
say something really cutting and sarcastic—and then she just mellowed 
out. 

“Machine tools, I mean,” She said sweetly. 

************************************************************************
***** 


Chapter Nine 

Fall came and we had a good harvest. The drought seemed to have slacked
off some—with reservations. 

There wasn't enough rain in the grain belt for the big agricultural
concerns to have anything at all like optimum harvests. They grew just 
enough to stave away famine—only just. 

The prices of pork and chicken rose perhaps three hundred percent, since
commercial hogs and chickens were largely fed with corn—with a minor 
smattering of other grains. 

Beef could be largely raised on pasture—and many were—but the relative
dryness meant that even pastures weren't optimal. Cutting way back on 
the corn-fed fattening stage meant that most of what beef there was, 
was noticeably less prime. 

People had to spend a much larger portion of their income on food. 

Gasoline prices went up. Oil hadn't vanished, but it wasn't quite as
cheap as it once had been. Higher diesel prices added nickels and dimes 
to the prices of most everything transported by trucks or trains. 

Foreign countries accepted American dollars for their goods in
expectation that somewhere down the line, those dollars could be used 
to buy material goods from America. 

One of America's big exports had been grain. Grain exports hadn't
ceased—but they had dropped off considerably. 

That meant that the price of the electronic toys that many Americans
used to distract themselves from the bleakness of their lives also 
tripled and quadrupled in price. 

All of life's necessities and luxuries had gone up in price. The
government stepped in with price controls and rationing as well as 
financial aid where the government thought that it was called for. 

Then the government had no way to cash the checks it sent out, but to
crank up the printing presses and make more money the old fashioned 
way. 

Black Markets sprang up. Actually, Black Markets were the best means
that people had for dealing with a very bad situation. The government 
preached against Black Market Profiteers and promised draconian 
punishments... 

But they couldn't fail to understand that without the Black Markets
full-scale insurrection and eventual collapse were imminent. 

Folks in the cities were already in a flabby sort of Martial Law as it
was. 

The thing that surprised me was that the government opted to leave large
chunks of rural America—areas that weren't tried and true parts of the 
American Agricultural Machine pretty much alone. 

Folks with small farms could be and were pretty much self-sufficient. If
the State closed their farms, they'd either have to kill them outright, 
or add them to the roles of folks that needed to be fed from public 
pantries. 

The government didn't have the time or resources to devote to smashing
all the small-scale farmers. Most of them wouldn't be willing to leave 
their homesteads without a fight. Many folks would have been surprised 
how well armed and trained many of the farmers were. 

But above all else, the small farms often generated a small to moderate
surplus. 

Fat hams, Thanksgiving turkeys, eggs and cheese as well as grape,
strawberry and blackberry jelly along with numerous fruit 
preserves...and whisky too—well few if any of those things made their 
way to New York or Washington DC. 

We didn't have to bribe Washington though. Our produce—by “We” I mean
the small-scale farmers—made its way to Louisville and Indianapolis, 
Bloomington, Evansville, Lexington and Cincinnati. 

Keep the commissars in those local urban centers happy and they'll
create excuses to keep Washington off our behinds—as a general rule. 

That's why I thought that it was a reasonably prudent course of action
to go to the fair at Tell City. 

There were still barges going up and down the Ohio, though the River got
too low too navigate for weeks at a time. Barges were excellent means 
to smuggle Black Market food and luxuries to Evansville, Louisville, 
Cincinnati and other cities on the River. 

Tell City, being about halfway between Evansville and Louisville was an
excellent place for local traders to bring their wares. 

Most farmers didn't make the journey themselves, but traded with the
free-market middle-men who'd sprang up to fill the newly created 
economic niches. 

But I had a special reason that I'd wanted to go. I had a friend in
Birdseye. A lot of people are Survivalists. Stephan pondered at great 
length, what it would take to make a comeback from a collapse. 

Stephen was well versed in the theory of vacuum tubes and he was set up
to make his own. It's not that hard if you know what you're about. He 
figured that some sort of EMP or MCE might fry most of the World's 
transistors. Getting silicone pure enough to make useful 
transistors—not to mention gallium and germanium or whatever, to dope 
the silicone with was well nigh impossible in the home workshop. 

But anyone with a good understanding of diodes, triodes, pentodes, etc,
and a way to blow glass and create a modest vacuum can make tubes. 

Personally, I've always felt that transistors were a passing fad anyway.


I didn't want a super-heterodyne radio receiver with seventeen tubes
though. Stephen made some brilliant manually powered machine tools too 
though. 

Have you ever seen an old watchmaker's lathe? Some of the more advanced
ones are treadle-driven, but some of the oldest ones were driven with a 
bow operated with the left hand, while the right hand held a cutting 
tool... 

And those dudes made watches from the parts they turned that way. Of
course those were rather thick pocket watches, but still... 

Stephen had a treadle-powered lathe he'd designed—though borrowing
heavily from old models. 

It was foot-powered, had a cross-feed and a compound slide and an
automatic feed. That was a matter of driving the compound slide at a 
constant rate with the same motive force turning the spindle. 

He also had rifling machines and a hand-powered shaper. 

I'd contacted him, he was going to the fair anyway, and he'd built a
small foot-powered lathe suitable for most Gunsmithing work and a 
shaper along with the hard-to-build parts of a rifling machine. 

There was relatively little theft or rustling going on in our area. Once
things had shaken down and settled into a stable pattern, there were 
more than enough duly appointed deputies to keep the peace. 

I didn't feel at all bad about leaving the Farm for a few days. Joandell
had been feeling poorly and hadn't wanted to come. 

I'd locked away and cached most of the really irreplaceable things and
I'd hired three brothers to stay there and watch the place and Joandell 
while I was gone. 

The youngest brother was seventeen. They were all armed with M-16s,
almost certainly looted from some National Guard Armory. They were 
fortunate to find M-16s instead of M-4s. 

They all carried Machetes too. 

They came highly recommended for honesty, dependability and competence
with their weapons. 

It was seventeen miles to Tell City—no more than an hour's drive under
all but the most extreme driving conditions. But the traders stopped at 
every cow-path and wide place in the road to trade and swap with folks 
along the way. 

It was going to take us two or three days to get to Tell City, though
our return would be much faster. 

Farms and Townsteads were fairly safe from brigands, but a trading
caravan might prove too much of a temptation. We had several armed 
guards accordingly. 

The traders charged me to travel with them, but we got a heavy discount
because of the firepower we brought along. 

Oddly, they seemed to put more stock in Larry's delta-stocked AR than
they did in Jerry's .30 Carbine and Sissy's home-made .17 Fireball. In 
a firefight, I'd have rather had either of the girls than three of 
Larry. 

I'd brought along an H&K .308 Main Battle Rifle. I figured that if
heavily armed bandits attacked then every bit of power and penetration 
was good. 

I also kept a .308 Scout Rifle close to hand. If wurst came to wurst and
I had to run and hide, I could cache the H&K and carry the much lighter 
and potentially more useful Scout Rifle. 

Riding through the countryside was relaxing. I took no part in the
trading, but I watched carefully and made note of what was dear and 
what was common. And I noted just how well fed and healthy the folks 
were and how prime their produce was. 

I was put just a little on edge by the possibility of bandits. So when
we pulled into Tell City I heaved a sigh of relief. 

The traders set up their booths to trade while I went in search of
Stephen. 

I noticed that they were setting up some of the same carnie games to
fleece the Rubes that I'd worked on thirty years earlier. 

They even had a few carnival rides up and working. I saw a Spider, a
Tilt, a Scrambler and a thirty-three-horse Carousel. 

I talked with the show's electrician briefly. 

You know there's some oil in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky? 

I knew, because I'd seen the small pumps, looking for all the World like
giant praying mantises, tirelessly bobbing up and down like Mussulmen 
at prayer. 

Did you know that since the crisis, virtually all of those small oil
wells have gone dry? 

Yeah, right! 

That's where much of the fuel to run convoys, local Law vehicles and
carnie generators come from. 

Not that there aren't vehicles running on Methane, Ethanol, Bio-Diesel
and other alternative fuels. 

I found my friend and was more than pleased with the goods that he had
for me. Gold changed hands and I made arrangements for him to transfer 
the machines to my truck. 

Larry made his move a couple days later. I'll admit that his timing was
flawless. 

************************************************************************
********* 


Chapter Ten 

We all had fun at the fair. That is, everyone seemed to be enjoying
themselves. 

Larry and Trinity puzzled me a bit. He'd said that Trinity was his
girlfriend. And presumably, love for Trinity had caused him to leave 
home and undertake a perilous journey. 

So it was strange that I never saw them hold hands or kiss. Indeed, they
seemed to scrupulously avoid all physical contact. 

I had assigned everyone a private bedroom, but I hadn't forbade them to
cohabit. Issuing an order that you can't enforce isn't wise and having 
to punish someone for a rule infraction that was bound to occur is 
something best avoided. 

So far as I could tell though, they'd never played musical rooms in the
dead of night—not that I watched them. I really didn't much care what 
they did so long as it didn't cause me grief. 

But I did see Larry put his arm around Trinity as they walked off to
enjoy the fair. 

I did a bit of trading. I had a little gold and beaucoup silver, along
with a few semi-precious stones well cut. I found a few bargains. 

The third night Larry and Trinity came in with their arms around each
other. Larry in particular seemed to have been lubricating himself with 
adult beverages. 

He wasn't falling-down drunk, but he seemed to be a bit clumsy, and loud
and very happy. 

“I bought several bottles of wine cordials,” Larry enthused. 

All I know about cordials are that they're a very syrupy wine generally
consumed it tiny quantities—I think. 

“We always used to toast Christmas and the New year with a glass at my
house,” Larry said. 

“I want everyone to try some.” 

“Shouldn't you save them for Christmas then?” I asked reasonably. 

“Pshha!” Larry spat. “I wasn't going to buy them without trying a
bottle...” 

Larry paused and held up one finger like an old professor getting ready
to make a telling point. 

“I made them select a bottle at random. Anyway, I think that they don't
keep well once you open them. I know that father never left an open 
bottle unfinished,” Larry concluded. 

Larry poured everyone a shot only marginally larger than a thimble, in
tiny goblets made for consuming such minuscule quantities of hooch. 

He poured everyone's drink out of the same bottle. I never saw any
particular reason to distrust him. 

I was a bit surprised when he had everyone do a “Bottoms up”. I'd
thought that one was supposed to sip such concoctions demurely. 

But I rationalized that this was the way that Larry's family had drank
their twice-yearly libation of cordials—a mini-tradition, as it were. 

Larry refilled everyone's glass. The stuff tasted like nail-polish
remover, Wild Irish Rose and a bit of vanilla extract all stirred 
together and left to get tepid in the summer sun—but I took the second 
libation. 

If he'd just told me that he'd already drugged me, I could have forgone
another sip of his nasty brew. 

He had enough left for a couple of us to have a third round. That was an
honor I cheerfully left for someone else. 

I seldom drink, but I poured myself about four ounces of Scotch to help
wash that nasty taste out of my mouth. 

It may vary a bit with the individual, but I've long noticed that almost
any drug that I take orally, takes about twenty minutes to hit me. 

You would think that liquid alcohol would work faster than an Aspirin or
a Vicodin that needs to dissolve first. I'd experimented with Aspirin, 
putting them into a capful of water. They totally dissolve in less than 
a minute. Never been so blessed with Vicodin to waste one clowning 
around. 

At any rate, it was almost twenty minutes to the second, when Jerry
started vomiting. Trinity looked stricken and when the smell reached 
her, she started throwing up too. 

I tried to rise, but all of a sudden my balance was off. The room seemed
to tilt crazily. I started seeing streamers around everything. 

I fell flat on my ass and started laughing hysterically. 

While the World experimented with all sorts of new ways to whirl
colorfully around my head, three strangers walked into our tent. 

I ‘d never seen Larry kiss Trinity, but he sure was making up for lost
time with this knob-gobbler—whoever he was. Never had made Larry for 
splayed, but I'd had little reason to question his sexual orientation. 

“What was in that?” Larry asked one of the others. 

“Three four-milligram Dilaudids and enough LSD-25 to waste a squad of
Marines,” Larry's new—maybe old—friend said. 

Larry giggled. 

“I wasn't sure whatever it was would be enough, so I added a Cogesic
tablet,” He confessed. 

“Damn! I hope he doesn't OD before we can find out where he hides the
gold and silver,” Larry's kissing buddy said. 

One of them slapped a pair of handcuffs on my wrists. He didn't bother
to roll me over and put them on from behind. 

“Do it right!” I heard one of them say. 

“He's going to go beddy-bye for awhile. Those pain-killers will have to
wear off before we can torture anything out of him. I don't want him to 
drown in his own vomit. 

“That's what killed Mama Cass Elliot. With his hands up front, he can at
least lift himself a little.” 

“What about the girls?” Larry asked. 

“I hate women!” One fellow said. 

“I hate black women, black people period,” another one said. 

“Big ten-four on that good buddy,” said Larry. “That little
one—‘Jerry'—she's white though.” 

******************* ************* ******** 

Larry, you stupid Spritz, I thought to myself. 

There's a joke about a fellow who moves into a ghetto neighborhood. He
sets out rat poison. The rats keep him awake all night, beating on his 
door with the empty rat poison box, wanting more. 

I clowned around altering my state of consciousness by means of chemical
assistance for the better part of a decade before I left that rather 
sterile field of endeavor for other pursuits. 

Right from the beginning I had a taste and a tolerance for
Brobdingnagian quantities of drugs. 

Thanks for the cheap high Larry, but do you have some more? 

I am moderately claustrophobic. I seriously don't groove on having my
hands tied behind me. Consequently I've driven myself to practice 
getting out of restraints. I have small picking devices concealed in 
several places on my person. 

Getting out of cuffs with a head full of acid with my hands behind my
back might have proven rather challenging. With my hands in front, it 
wasn't challenging. 

Larry had taken all my visible Guns. I don't think that it even occurred
to the dip-spritz to pat me down for hideouts. 

That was protein for my team. 

One of Larry's buddies came into the room to check on me. 

I rolled over onto my stomach and held my breath momentarily. He turned
me over to see if I was still on alive. 

I grabbed him with my legs to pull him close and shoved the small
stiletto into his heart. The Stiletto had a four and a half inch blade 
and was square in cross-section. I pumped the stiletto seven or eight 
times while throttling his throat as tightly as I could—but it was the 
first and most accurate thrust that really settled his bacon. 

I had a .45 Auto—a 1911A1 type that I carried concealed in a low-riding
front holster. It had an Officer's Model frame, but a Commander slide 
and barrel. Sometimes the Officer length slides can be a bit of a 
bother to tune for maximum reliability. And the longer barrel gives a 
bit more “Oomph!” 

The .45 and the stiletto should be more than enough to settle Larry and
company—but we were in a city. I was an escaped convict. I couldn't 
afford to have the local Laws poking around. All they'd have to do 
would be run my fingerprints and I'd be skewed—as the term is in Old 
Sanskrit. 

I grabbed my Bowie and a nice Wakazashi from my trunk. I'd just bought
the Wakazashi from a local blade-smith. The blade was twenty-four 
inches long and there was room for both hands on the handle—though not 
widely spaced as in Kendo. 

The blade was also wider and thicker than the traditional Wakazashi. It
would have done reasonable service as a pry-bar. 

As I stepped into the other tent, I swung the Wakazashi in a wide arc
and took the head off of one of Larry's co-conspirators. 

I used to have an old book that was supposed to be about Assassination
Techniques. Looking back, I think that about eighty percent of the book 
was kibble for chuckleheads. But I'll always remember that illustration 
of a dude's head leaping off his shoulders, a bloody sword along with a 
veritable fountain of blood. The caption said: 

“Decapitation is instant visual and tactile confirmation of
termination.” 

I threw my Bowie underhanded at Larry's last remaining comrade. If he
hadn't been so greedy, it might have taken several thrusts with knife 
or sword to settle him. But he was hoggish enough to take one wound and 
be satisfied with it. 

All that I'd really intended to do was discomfit him momentarily as I
dealt with Larry—but the man grasped the hilt of my Bowie and folded up 
like a cheap card table. 

Larry went to draw his Python. As I've observed, he was left-handed. At
least he carried his Revolver for a left-hand draw. 

I was using the Wakazashi left-handed—“Blade-Hand; Gun Hand”. 

I was in an ideal position to intercept Larry's forearm just slightly
after he cleared leather. I cut his left hand off about five inches up 
his forearm. 

He stood there momentarily, holding onto his spurting stump with one
hand. 

“What will life be like with just one hand Larry? I did that to you. Go
on, I'll give you an even break. Try to pick up your Python,” I said. 

I sheathed my Wakazashi and shoved the scabbard into my belt on my right
side. 

I'm right-handed. I practice my blade techniques diligently with my
left-hand, seldom if ever bothering with right-handed drills. And since 
I'm right-handed, I can do most blade movements almost as well with my 
right hand—that never gets blade practice—as I am with my highly 
trained left hand. 

It saves beaucoup time. 

Larry had seen my practice Kendo and Polish Saber Technique. 

He'd never seen me try to do any fencing maneuvers right-handed. 

He waited till my left hand was buried in my pocket and then bent to
scoop up his Revolver with his right hand. 

I drew the Wakazashi with a right-handed reverse grip. I slashed across
Larry's forearm as he raised his Colt. 

I wasn't expecting to take his hand completely off with a backhand
slash, but as I've said, the new Wakazashi was both razor sharp and 
heavy. 

“Now you have no hands at all,” I told him. “Don't worry though. I
wouldn't leave anyone alive like this. Say any prayers that you'd like 
to say and then I'll end it.” 

He surprised me then. He begged and pleaded with me to spare his life. 

Who in their right mind would want to live with just one hand? And he
had no hands at all. 

I was kind. 

I took his head off with a quick cut. He never saw it coming. 

It might have been a give-away to leave the fair early. 

Larry and his buddies were carefully dismembered, bound into weighted
burlap sacks and tossed into the widest part of the Ohio River. 

I don't think that it took the local catfish long to swim in through the
small rents in the sacks, and eat the flesh. 

The prints and the teeth were thoroughly obliterated before they went
into the water. 

Folks have other concerns nowadays. I doubt that they'd put much effort
into finding out who killed an unknown quartet, even if they should 
somehow happen to stumble upon them. 

The girls all recovered fully from their drugging. 

Me? 

Larry was rightfully afraid of me. He'd given me far more LSD-25 than
he'd given all the girls put together. 

I was pleasantly spaced and seeing streamers and scintillating scotoma
for a couple weeks. I had flashbacks, though with decreasing frequency, 
for three or four years. 

I enjoyed the aftereffects tremendously. 

And for anyone who feels that I shouldn't have toyed with Larry at the
end... 

Yes, it was needlessly cruel as well as reckless. 

I was high as all hell at the time—and who's fault was that? 

************************************************************************
****** 


Chapter Eleven 

It was dry, but crops grew fairly well in our corner of the state. 

There is a difference, of course. If I had ten acres of cropland and say
fifteen acres of pasture and all I needed to do was feed my family, and 
me with a bit left over for trade—that was quite doable. 

If I had one hundred and twenty-five acres and was farming it with
tractors, using fertilize and insecticide, and I was farming for 
profit... 

Well there goes my pasture and woodlot. I need a much bigger wield per
acre, to pay for my agricultural machine and to pay taxes—plus I had to 
contend with nidderlings at the State Capitol or DC shackling me with 
idiotic regulations, quotas and God alone knew what else. 

In the middle of the drought, we weren't doing too badly. 

****************** ********** ********* 

I was cleaning up the rabbit pen. Feed the rabbit turds to the worms and
then feed the worms to the tilapia fish. The fish live in the 
hydroponic solution and the whole aquaponic system is under glass, so 
most of the evaporate can be collected and reused. 

And we got fresh vegetables and fish year round. 

And as a bonus, the worm turds helped fertilize some of our outdoor
agriculture. 

Joandell and the youngest Goins boy walked up to me. Ever since he'd
guarded the farm, they'd been together a lot. 

“I have something to tell you,” Joandell said. 

She looked at the ground as if she were ashamed. 

“You're really a dude?” I asked in mock horror. “Great disguise!” 

“I'm pregnant,” Joandell said. “That's why I didn't go to the Fair.” 

“It's my fault,” said the youngest Goins boy. 

“Y'all do know how this happens, don't you?” I asked sternly. 

They both nodded and mumbled in embarrassment. 

“That's wonderful! Could y'all explain it to me? I've always been a bit
fuzzy on the details... 

“Especially since Joandell is a man...” 

“I'm not a man!” Joandell said. 

Then they both cracked up laughing. 

“Can't you be serious about anything?” the Goins boy asked. 

“You'll find that I'm serious about everything,” I told him. “But my
seriousness is skewed off-center. 

“Alvin, have you seen me ride my bull? I wouldn't consent to having my
ride castrated, so what made you fear for your jewels?” 

“Actually, the thought hadn't entered my mind,” he said. 

He grabbed himself unconsciously. 

“I just thought you might content yourself with lesser punishments—like
a good beating or shooting me.” 

“Joandell, I'm not your father. Why would you hesitate to tell me about
this? It's not my place to scold you.” 

“But you're like a father to me,” she blurted and then started crying. 

“That's flattering. So what y'all gonna do?” 

“I want to do the right thing,” Alvin stated confidently. 

“Never held with suicide myself—though there may be special
circumstances—I really don't think that this is one of them though,” I 
said. 

“I don't want to kill myself. I want to get married,” Alvin said. 

“Okay, what does your father think of the idea? I get the idea that he's
not too fond of black people,” I said. 

“He's not too fond of anyone, get right down to it. He called a family
meeting and told my brothers that they had better not follow my 
example, because he'd exhausted his tolerance with me,” Alvin said. 

“Does that mean that it's okay?” I asked. 

“Well, not exactly okay, but he won't disown me.” 

************* *************** ********** 

So after harvest, we had a big wedding at Riemann's Retreat. 

Joandell's father wasn't there, so I gave her away. Never been part of a
wedding before. 

Old man Goins seemed to be drinking a bit much and I was getting a bit
concerned. 

Then he took a Double Barreled Shotgun and fired both barrels into the
air to draw everyone's attention. 

“My youngest son come to me and told me that he wanted to marry this
woman,” he pointed at Joandell. “This poses a problem...” 

He paused dramatically. 

“I'm calling a meeting of the Farmer's Guild. Everyone stick around,
everyone is concerned.” 

“The Farmer's Guild” sounds like it could be most anything. In fact, it
was a secret society dedicated to undermining the Government at every 
turn, and to keep them from expanding into the nominally unincorporated 
parts of the country. 

Sounds good when you say it fast. Thing was, the structure was based on
the Olde-Tyme Ku-Klux-Clan, The one Thomas W Dixon lionized. 

Whatever else they might have done, they sure drove the Carpetbaggers
and Reconstructionists out of the old South. 

Rumor was that they were a bit racist though... 

Gee! Do you think? 

Old man Goins gathered his Knights around him. I fought the urge to
raise my hands, so as to be in “Contest-Ready” position. 

“As you know, to be inducted into the Guild as a Full-Fledged Knight,
one must be of pure-bred Aryan stock. 

“Does anyone challenge my son Alvin's purity?” 

No one dared—and of course the boy was about as white as the come. 

“Does anyone challenge my son's wife's purity?” 

I got his plan. He was going to declare his daughter-in-law white by
Fiat. Of course, I had to antagonize the situation. 

“I understand that she's got more than a hint of Celtic Blood,” I
stated. 

I'd read that there was an ongoing controversy whether folks of Irish
descent qualified as “Aryan”. 

“We accept Celtic Blood,” Old man Goins stated levelly, while staring me
down. 

So they voted Alvin a Knight and Joandell a Lady of the Farmer's Guild. 

**************** *********** **** 

That spring, the middle Goins boy started spending a lot of time with
Trinity. 

“You're going to get all of us into trouble,” I told him. 

Not that I ever stepped a half-inch out of my way to avoid trouble. 

“Not really,” Connor said unconcerned. “If Joandell is purebred Aryan,
Trinity is her cousin after all...” 

*********** ************* *************** 

After the wedding, old man Goins pulled me aside. 

“What exactly is your ethnicity?” He asked. 

“Scots-Irish with more than a little Indian. Whichever tribe was still
hangin' on in Southern Indiana in the early 1800's,” I said. “Along 
with some German and a little Gypsy.” 

So when he knighted his middle son Connor, he also knighted me. 

I never was much for joining things, but I got a nifty silver chain and
a medallion out of the deal. 

Besides, he didn't really ask... 

I always told my sister that I'd be knighted some day. I meant to buy a
title somewhere, just for the Hell of it...and to spite her for 
doubting me. 

Guess one meaningless title is as good as another. 

****************** ************* ******** 

The drought hung on for another twelve years—though some years were
worse than others. 

I never saw Riemann again, or got to meet Trinity and Joandell's
fathers. They got lost somewhere along the line. 

When Sissy was twenty-three years old, she proposed to me. Never fancied
marriage, but I was afraid she'd turn into an old maid. And few of the 
farm lads shared the Goins boys' indifference to race. 

Jerry married one of Alvin and Connor's cousins when she was sixteen. 

Now I'll tell you a little secret that I gathered from my reading of
history. 

When folks are starving and living hand-to-mouth, when famine stalks the
land, they very seldom rise up in insurrection and revolt. They're too 
weak and hungry to rock the boat. 

No, when things start to improve, when the wrinkles are gone from
people's bellies, people start to get impatient and intolerant. 

They figure that they could reach the destination quicker and more
certainly with themselves at the tiller. 

The first year after the drought broke; the floods were almost as bad as
the drought. 

Three hurricanes in succession pretty much wiped New Orleans off the
map. Most of the southern cities within a hundred miles of the Gulf 
were heavily damaged. 

A huge Atlantic hurricane almost obliterated Miami and the southeastern
Florida coast. 

Force five tornados hit Dallas, Houston and St Louis. 

New York was hit by a Force Five tornado and before the debris was fully
cleared, two hurricanes hit the city, one after the other. 

There was a bad earthquake in California. It wasn't the hypothetical
“Big One”, but it was bad enough. 

Mt St Helens and Mt Shasta had the biggest eruptions in three or four
centuries. Volcanoes were erupting in Hawaii, Japan, Italy and a 
half-dozen other places. 

Then the ARk Storm hit California and Oregon. It rained over an inch of
rain for more than the Biblical “Forty Day and Forty Nights”. One day, 
over nine inches of rain fell. 

But the second year, the weather became as ideal as it had ever been.
The land bears more on a few acres, farmed indifferently, than the old 
Agricultural Combines grew on hundreds. 

When you plant a seed, you almost have to step back fast, so the growing
stalk doesn't put out an eye. 

Scientist say that we had entered a period of the best weather—and
fertility—that mankind has ever seen. 

I'm not too sure about that. 

Eric Hoffer claimed that ancient Jericho existed before the invention of
Agriculture and Herding. This ancient city supported a large 
metropolitan center with the food that Hunter and Gatherer specialists 
brought in. 

Look at all the mischief the ancient Jews got up to in Israel. Nowadays,
I can see folks getting fat, decadent and effeminate. For the rank and 
file to get into that kinda shape in ancient days... 

It must have been one Hell of a lot easier to provide the essentials... 

At any rate, three years after the drought broke, the folks in the Govie
enclaves decided to ditch Socialism. They are back to being a 
Constitutional Republic now. Only thing is they want to expand. 

We keep telling them that since we weren't under the thumb of Big Govie,
that they didn't free us. We don't owe them and we want to continue on 
our own way. 

One other thing—Remember the healing nanites Riemann got for me? 

Well they're certainly able to do their job. I don't seem to age.
Eventually some random glitch will stop the nanites from replicating, 
and I'll start aging once more—slowly. 

They've moved a lot of my internal plumbing around and “Improved” me.
But the nanites will probably last a few hundred years... 

Being one of the few “Ageless Ones” and with a Knighthood to my name, I
unintentionally parleyed that into a Kingship. 

Zin convicted Murder and King of the Nation of Kentuckiana. 

Just goes to show that you never know. 

The End 


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