by Steven Smith
"Have a seat," said Jim, quietly.
Mark and Rod each took an unoccupied chair and sank into them.
Jim got up, picked up a bottle of Wild Turkey and two aluminum cups from a small table and walked over to the sheriffs. He handed a cup to each of them and poured a generous amount of the bourbon into both.
"You two look like you've had a day."
McGregor threw the contents of the cup down his throat in one shot and held the cup up for a refill.
"We've had two days in a one-day bag," he growled.
Jim refilled the cup and looked at Freelove, who shook his head.
Putting the bottle back on the table, Jim returned to his chair and sat down.
"Tell me about it."
"We now live in the country of Kansas," said Freelove, his voice cold.
Jim took a slow sip of Turkey. "Yeah? How's that?"
Freelove leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. "They've written and ratified a constitution establishing a country within the borders of the former state of Kansas. Anyone living within those borders is considered a resident of the state, subject to its laws and responsible for paying taxes based on property and commerce."
"Who wrote and ratified it?" asked Bill.
Freelove shrugged. "I don't know who wrote it, but it was ratified by representatives of two-thirds of the population from the last census."
He shook his head. "We never had a chance."
"It's a steamin' buffalo pie, is what it is," growled McGregor, "but they've got an army to enforce it."
"What army?" asked Christian.
McGregor spat into the dirt. "The place was crawling with them. The don't look like they're worth much as individuals, but there's a lot of them. I heard several thousand."
"Where did they get that many," asked Christian.
"From what we heard, it’s a lot of guys from the urban counties that voted in the constitution," said Freelove.
Christian nodded. It was what the I-Team had picked up as well.
"It's headed up by that piss-ant, Briggs, that we ran out of Riley. They call him general now."
Jim studied those around the fire, their faces given a warm appearance by its light. He thought about what each of them had been through and had done to return a life of quality and meaning to a world in collapse.
He rose from his chair and walked to the edge of the firelight, staring into the night toward Stonemont and thinking of Kelly and the kids and everyone else who lived there.
He took one last sip of the Turkey, turned and walked back into the firelit circle.
He looked at all the faces turned toward him, then looked at Freelove and McGregor.
"I don't live in the country of Kansas."
He paused for a moment to make sure his meaning was clear before asking, "Do you?"
35
Barre Magan Samatar looked down from the balcony, watching the prisoner being positioned for ritual execution.
The man was petty, a former city official and of no importance himself, but had provided Samatar with an excuse to make an example of him when he protested the impending sale of his daughter at the market in Des Moines. Now, through his rebellious actions, he would become the vehicle by which Samatar would reinforce to others the importance of obedience.
Samatar watched as the man was forced to his knees in front of his wife, children and neighbors, his arms bound behind him. His sluggish movements and the glaze in his eyes indicated that the drug was in full effect.
The fuliye, the executioner, dressed in black, held his knife up to Samatar, awaiting his instruction to begin.
Samatar looked out over the surrounding crowd. All who were not involved in critical tasks had been instructed to attend and they stood in silence, facing the man as they had been instructed to.
Looking back at the executioner, he gave a slight nod.
The executioner's hand dropped and drew the knife across the man's throat for the initial cut. The man jerked, and a curtain of blood spilled down the front of his neck.
The prisoner's wife screamed, restrained by two of the faithful, and the executioner tightened his grip in the man's hair, pulling the head back to further open the wound.
The woman's scream evolved into an animalistic wail of indescribable anguish as the executioner plunged the knife into the side of the prisoner's neck and began sawing through the skin, muscles, sinew and blood vessels.
The body began jerking of its own accord and blood shot into the air as the first carotid artery was severed, then slid to the ground as the dead weight pulled it from the executioner's grip.
The fuliye knelt beside the inert body, continuing to saw through the tissue around the neck, then through the tougher, more fibrous trachea and esophagus until he reached the cervical vertebrae. There, he dug his knife between the vertebrae, cutting through the ligaments until only a few tendons attached the head to the torso.
Cutting through these, he rose to his feet, holding the head high toward Samatar, then tossing it to the ground in front of the wailing wife and children.
Samatar nodded. The lesson would be remembered for a while. Then he would teach it again.
He looked to the south and thought about his next move. Winters were too cold here for those accustomed to the heat of the desert. He had intended to start his push south by now, but raids by the heathen in the north, the one they called Patrik, had caused him to postpone it.
He would have to spend one more fall and winter here before moving south to the more welcoming climate of Kansas and Missouri, where he would unleash the faithful and all their fury on any who remained there.
He shrugged. It was not his to decide or to question when, only to obey the commands revealed to him in his heart. The time would come soon enough.
He heard the call, smiled, and turned to his rug. It was time for prayers.
Coming in 2020!
The
Blessings
of
Freedom
Book l of the New America series.
A sequel to the Stonemont series.
With the former United States fully fragmented, groups are fighting to establish new territories, new states, even new countries.
The expansion of these groups begins to bring them into contact with one another, sometimes for good and sometimes not.
With Reconquista moving from the southwest, a warlord pushing south out of Minnesota to establish his own personal caliphate and the newly formed country of Kansas now surrounding it, Stonemont must decide how to retain its autonomy while continuing to build a new society worth living in and improve the lives of its inhabitants.
