Fortress Farm - The Pullback

by G.R. Carter

  *****

  Clark hugged a very relieved Maryanne for a long time. Long enough to make Phil really wish he had waited outside for a while. Finally, Maryanne went off to make supper and Clark snuck upstairs to wash up and change. The Olsens had made the decision to stay in their home for a while; they intended to move out to of the new fortified farms when the time was right, but for now they stayed put.

  Clark and Maryanne joined Phil sitting in the study. The sheriff began to relay the story of the convoy's journey, and as they listened, they realized that they needed to completely reconsider how they imagined the outside world.

  The convoy made the trip to the Sweet Water port along the river with little drama. The biggest problem came in negotiating their way through a couple of small-town roadblocks; some other communities had managed to stay organized, barricading themselves against dangers prowling the countryside. Once convinced the Shelby County men weren’t there to loot their towns, the townsfolk let the convoy continue on to their destination. The concrete plant employee loaned by Mike guided them to the port with just a couple of wrong turns.

  “The good fortune of finding a fixable loader tractor allowed them to progress at a decent rate,” Olsen told them. “I decided by the second afternoon to chance a food patrol. The small group managed to find a few promising locations to search. I told them to stay out of the buildings and, instead just mark the prospects on a map and bring the info back.”

  “Did they run into any people?” Maryanne asked hopefully.

  “None,” he said, shaking his head. “At least, that’s what they thought on the first trip. I was going to get the empty trucks together and send them out to check out the locations with the most promise. We only used about three quarters of the trucks for the concrete supplies. So if figured we’d leave most of the guys back to finish those up, and then take the empties out in one big group. Figured both groups would be large enough to discourage anyone we might run into from messing with us.” Then the Sheriff grew very quiet and stopped his story to stare at the table.

  There’s something big coming, Phil thought. Something big that he’s having trouble telling us.

  Maryanne sensed the same thing, and she spoke up. “Clark, what is it? What happened then?”

  Olsen sighed and continued, “Unfortunately, the scout group brought back some unwelcome guests. They must have followed them back to the convoy. Whoever it was just started blasting us from all directions. Caught me and the entire crew by surprise. I’ve never faced gunfire before, and neither had any of the guys with me. Even that one deputy of mine who spent a few years in the Army spent his whole time as a mechanic behind the lines.”

  Phil thought he could see the Sheriff's hands trembling a bit as he continued. “Adrenaline or something kicked in and me and two of the deputies started firing back with our ARs. We couldn’t see what we were shooting at, but at least the incoming fire seemed to die down a little. Men scrambled to jump into the trucks, and a couple even put the trucks in gear and began to move away. Unfortunately a couple of the guys were hiding beneath the trucks when they moved…” Olsen’s voice trailed away and cracked as he recalled the scene in his mind.

  He gathered himself and looked back up for a moment, “We got enough concrete supplies to last for months. But we high-tailed it out before finding any food. We even had to abandon our fuel wagons. After we felt we had escaped, we drained some of the fuel from some of the empty trucks and refilled the ones carrying the materials we found.”

  “I once heard the expression ‘seen the elephant’ by soldiers seeing combat the first time. Now I understand what that phrase really means,” the small town sheriff said as tears clearly formed in his eyes.

  Olsen wiped his eyes and sniffed with a loud cough. “Phil, we have to be better prepared if we’re going into these cities. I never even got a look at the people shooting at us. I’m not even sure what they wanted. Bullets just started raining down on us. All we could do was escape. It was the worst, most helpless feeling in my life. I got good people hurt because I didn’t know what to do.”

  Phil felt terrible for this good man, his friend. I hoped I wouldn’t have to make any more decisions affecting other’s lives. I never considered how he would feel when facing that situation. Time now for all of us to confront what’s happening to our souls.

  Aloud he spoke: “I’m not going to patronize you or tell you not to be so hard on yourself. I know you’re going to be. So just let me say, let’s not let these lessons go in vain. Clark, our food isn’t going to hold out long enough for harvest. Paul is running out of things we need to keep the refinery going. We’re going to have to go back out on salvage trips, and soon.”

  Clark and Maryanne looked at each other, a perfect mental connection formed between husband and wife. Phil and his wife Anna definitely had the connection, but the Olsens had the uncanny ability to communicate simply by gaze.

  Maryanne spoke first. “You asked me to go to the library and pull out anything I thought would be helpful to our group. Like books talking about life in the last century or some of those homesteading magazines for hobby farmers, right?”

  Olsen nodded, glad for something to take his mind off what he just went through. “Did you find anything useful?”

  “Definitely for small farming and gardening. Hobby Farms Magazine, Farm and Ranch, and I pulled Popular Mechanics for Delbert and Bob to show the rest of the Wizards. It's all old, though, there’s been nothing published on paper for the last several years. The ones I got were in the archives. Most of the issues come from the time before things like Wristbands and GRAPEVINE,” Maryanne said.

  Phil interjected: “Wait, the library is open? Who’s working in there to let you in?”

  The sheriff and Maryanne looked at one another sheepishly. “I sort of let myself in. There’s no electric locks on the doors, so I just broke some of the glass and unlocked it.”

  “Oh, ok. Well, I guess the sheriff can put you under house arrest for breaking and entering?” Phil asked sarcastically.

  “I’m not necessarily proud of anything like this. But I’m telling you guys, there’s a reason that our ancestors thought it was so important to put a library in every little town across the prairie. The information in there is going to be invaluable. We just have to save those paper books before somebody figures out they burn for warmth,” Maryanne replied defensively.

  “I understand, Maryanne. I have to admit, removing a few books is a lot less of an offense then commandeering entire stores and refineries! I think we’ll all be making confession with Father Steve before this is done,” Clark assured her. “So tell me, what did you find?”

  “In one of the Popular Mechanics magazines, there was a cover story about these homemade tanks used by tribes in the Middle East. Crazy stuff, you know? Those people over there took whatever vehicles they could find, put some armor on them, and then drove them around their neighborhoods. Our troops were making fun of them because the flimsy armor couldn’t stand up against heavy weapons. But our guys had big tanks, and those tribesmen were just working with what they had,” Maryanne said.

  “So you’re thinking we could piece together some tanks?” Phil asked a bit incredulously.

  “Clark was asking what I thought would happen if one of his deputy patrols ran into the animals that attacked and killed the Porters. We both figured that the bad guys would outnumber the good guys, beings how they run in packs usually. I told him too bad our guys didn’t have a tank to fight back with.”

  The sheriff nodded while his wife continued: “I’ve listened to some of the soldiers who served in the Middle East, and they were always outnumbered by the groups they were fighting. But since our guys had the armored vehicles, they usually came out on top. So I thought our deputies ought to have a tank to fight whatever came their way. Of course, I was joking. But Clark asked me to figure out a way we could reinforce the patrol cars
to at least give a deputy some protection against bad guys. Until help arrived or give them a chance to escape, at least.”

  “What I discovered was that in every theater of war in the last hundred years, a particular type of vehicle kept showing up. Our soldiers called them ‘technicals’, but in reality they’re really just pickup trucks with big guns in the back.”

  Phil cut in, “Well, if there’s one thing this county has a lot of, it’s pickup trucks!”

  “Right,” Maryanne continued. “But the flip side of that is that there still isn’t a lot of protection. Those are more of an intimidation vehicle. I like to think we can do a little better here in farm country.”

  “So what did you have in mind, my dear?” Olsen asked.

  “We’ve got people all over this county who know how to weld. I’m sure some of the local shops have got enough welding gas to do quite a bit of work still. I propose we take some of the heavier framed trucks and armor them. Not like a tank, more like something in those 'Mad Max' movies.”

  Phil chuckled just a bit. Absurdity keeps getting one-upped in the new normal. What could possibly surprise me next?

  He looked at Maryanne with some skepticism. “By the time we weigh those trucks down with armor, they won’t be able to haul any salvage. And they’ll handle like a drunk elephant on the roads. I’m not sure we can spare any running vehicles to experiment with.”

  “Phil, will you at least give my plans to the Wizards and see what they say?” Maryanne pleaded.

  “Of course I will, Maryanne. I know they’ll say no at first. But honestly, this is just the kind of project they’d love to tackle. I’ll take it to them first thing in the morning.”