“You can’t do this,” Smelter yelled as they led him back to the jail. “I have rights. This wasn’t a trial. I demand a real trial.”
His ranting fell on deaf ears.
****
The temperature was hovering around thirty degrees when they brought Smelter out of the jailhouse. A gallows had been built in front of the station. Even with the cold, almost everyone in the community was standing outside, watching the proceedings. They led him over to the gallows and placed a noose around his neck. His face was uncovered and his hands were tied behind his back.
“Having been found guilty of assault, inflicting severe bodily harm and attempted rape, you are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead,” the officer read to the public.
“You can’t do this. This isn’t legal. I want due process. You are nothing more than a bunch of vigilantes,” he screamed.
“May God have mercy on you,” the officer said.
He was hoisted by the neck until his feet were off the ground. He wiggled, shook, and convulsed. His eyes protruded and his tongue hung out. He face became red and then purple. He struggled for several minutes before he went limp. His system evacuated and he was still.
No one said a thing. They left his body hanging in front of the police station for the entire day before finally removing it for burial. The image was burned into everyone’s memory.
Randy had been totally wrong. No one protested. He still didn’t agree with the way it was done but he had to admit one thing. It certainly sent a strong message to anyone considering violating the Capital Punishment codes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Herminie, Pennsylvania
For the first three months after the decimation of the earth’s population, small communities of survivors slowly evolved. Some areas were more fortunate than others. Canada, South America, Mexico, Japan and many of the Pacific Rim countries were hardest hit. Other areas such as Africa, China, and many parts of the former Soviet Union did fairly well by comparison.
The diamond mines, iron ore, and coal mines saved many of the countries' inhabitants. One thing all nations shared in common was the lack of a surviving central government.
Communications between survivors was impossible so each community was left on its own to determine what course of action they would take. Even in America it was almost four months before the people in Colorado Springs learned about the existence of those at the Waynesburg Mining Company in Herminie, Pennsylvania. It came as a shock to both communities to learn of the other’s existence. Even the way it came about was haphazard.
****
“Do you hear that?”
“What?”
“That. The airplane,” he said holding his hand up to cover the sun.
“Yeah, right,”
“No, I’m serious. Can’t you hear it?” The man stood still and listened intently.
“Hey, I think you’re right. It does sound like a plane. A prop job of some kind.”
“They didn’t say anything about having a plane,” he said.
“Maybe someone was able to get one working.”
“Let’s get going. We only have twenty more miles to go before we reach the mine, according to this map.”
“It’s really going to piss me off if we could have flown instead of driving for five days. I mean, how hard could it have been to pick us up?”
“Guess we can ask them that when we get there.”
“Damn right.”
****
When they got to Herminie, so much activity was going on that they forgot to even mention it. It wasn’t until the next day that one of the men happened to ask about the airplane.
“What airplane?”
“We heard a plane when we were on our way here. It was a prop job of some kind.”
“You actually saw it?”
“No, but it was fairly close by and it was definitely a plane.”
“Have you told anyone?”
“Just you. I kinda forgot about it with getting settled in and all.”
“Come on. We need to let Ben and the others know.”
They rushed to the strip center and hurried in.
“Holly, is Ben around?”
“He is in with that KC guy and Randy.”
“I need to talk to him right away,” he said excitedly.
“Did something happen?” she asked, becoming alarmed.
“Just get them.”
Holly went back and explained what was going on and the three men came out from the back.
“Hi Edgar. What’s this all about?” Ben asked.
“This is Tommy. Sorry I forgot your last name,” Edgar said.
“Stine.”
“Yeah, Tommy Stine. He just got here a couple of days ago.”
“Nice to meet you Tommy. Now, what’s this all about?”
“Tell them Tommy,” Edgar said.
“While we were on our way here we heard an airplane. We didn’t see it but it was definitely an airplane. Prop kind. We all heard it. It’s the only thing it could have been.”
Ben and Randy looked at each other.
“You’re absolutely sure it was an airplane?”
“Look, you know how quiet it is. We turned off the car just to make sure. It was definitely an airplane. We thought it had come from here. You know, like maybe you had gotten one working.”
“Show me on the map where you were,” Randy said.
Tommy looked at the map for a few seconds before pointing to a spot, “Right about here.”
“Which direction was the plane in?”
“I honestly don’t know. Maybe to the west. It was hard to tell.”
“Geez. This has many implications,” Ben said.
“So how do we locate them?” Edgar asked.
“A fire. A large enough fire with enough smoke to attract anyone that happens to be in the area. It may even lead others to us as well,” Randy suggested.
“We would have to keep it going all the time,” Ben added.
“From where you were on the map, it looks like you were around fifteen miles from here,” Randy said, studying the map.
“Seemed like a hundred but fifteen to twenty is probably right,” Tommy replied.
“Then let’s get started and have that added to the job list,” Ben said.
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Randy replied.
Six days later, Captain Raleigh and his crew were making another run across the Midwest. The plan was for them to head east from Colorado Springs and once they hit the east coast they would turn north. They decided to head to Washington DC first to refuel and then follow the coast all the way to Maine and then back to DC for one last refueling before heading to Colorado Springs. So far twenty-three flights had been sent out and sixteen had found survivors. All had been transported back to Colorado.
“Where are we?” Raleigh asked his navigator.
“Uh...just a second. If that’s still I-70 below us then we should be about ready to leave Ohio behind and we will probably see Pittsburg on our left.”
“Too bad they don’t put little dotted lines on the ground so you can tell when you cross from one state to another,” he joked.
“Yeah, with no navigational aids, it is kind of hard to know exactly where we are. I–70 kind of meanders north for a ways before heading east again.”
“Can’t we just keep this heading and pick it back up again?” Raleigh asked.
“I don’t see why not. I mean, we’re bound to cross it again at some point. It would save us some time and fuel,” the navigator told him. The Captain looked out the left side of the plane.
“That must be Pittsburg. Too big to be anything else.”
“That sounds about right. Just keep going in this direction and we will pick I-70 up about a hundred miles further up the road.”
“Further up the road. I get it. That’s a joke boy. Granted, not a funny one.”
“Tough audience,” Greg Slater, his copilot chimed in.
They were skimming over the ground at five hundred feet. They wanted to stay low so if anyone was trying to attract their attention they could spot them. They flew on for another ten minutes before the copilot noticed smoke out of the right side of the plane.
“Wonder what that is?”
“What?”
“Looks like a fire. Lot of smoke. I guess that’s to be expected. At some point it was bound to happen.”
“Cotter said he saw smoke on his last trip down south and checked it out. Just a house that caught on fire and spread to some woods out back. Probably the same thing.”
“More than likely,” Greg agreed.
“Don’t you think we should check it out?” the navigator asked.
“Ah hell Phil. We ain’t got enough gas to go pissing around all over the place. That’s why I bypassed Pittsburg. Hell, that’s a good thirty, thirty-five miles from here,” Raleigh replied.
“What if it is someone trying to attract us?” he persisted.
“How would they know we were here?”
“Maybe they heard one of the planes on another trip and decided to try a signal.”
Raleigh didn’t say anything as they flew on.
“So?” Phil asked.
“I’ll check it out but I swear if it’s just a house on fire I’m going to toss you out to smother it.”
“No problem. I brought a water bottle with me,” he said grinning.
Raleigh banked the plane right and headed toward the smoke. It turned out to be further than they thought. It was closer to fifty miles and Raleigh grumbled all the way.
“Holy shit,” Greg exclaimed as they approached the area the fire was coming from, “Do you see that?”
“I sure the hell do. That’s a hell of a fire and look at all the wood stacked up.”
“Hey, look over there,” Phil said.
Several people were running out of houses and waving.
“Look at all of them,” Raleigh said as more and more were running to the clearing where the fire was.
He banked the plane, circling around the crowd that was growing bigger by the second.
“I’ll be damned,” Greg said, “I have to hand it to you Phil. One hell of a good call.”
“That’s a lot of people. We ain’t going to get them all to Colorado anytime soon,” Phil said.
“Brother, you ain’t wrong about that.”
They pulled up a little higher and started looking for a place to land.
“How about that field?”
“Lot of rocks but that cornfield or whatever the hell it is looks okay. I’m going to set it down there.”
He circled the area two more times just to make sure before he started his final approach.
“Flaps down,” Greg said.
“Lower the landing gear.”
“Landing gear down.”
“Full flaps.”
“Flaps full.”
“Hold on. It looks kind of rough. I’m going to flare it a little more than usual so hang on tight.”
The plane bounced once before settling down and lumbered across the rough field.
“That wasn’t so bad,” the Captain said as the plane lost speed and rolled to a stop.
He checked the fuel gauge and decided it would be best to just shut her down. It would probably take the folks some time to locate where they landed. They climbed out of the plane and the Captain and Greg immediately started checking the plane for any damage.
They were just finishing up when four trucks raced into the field. Men and women poured out of the vehicles and came running toward them. They were shouting and yelling. They rushed up to the crew and swarmed them, all trying to talk at once. Finally, one of the men told everyone to calm down so they could talk.
“Boy, are we glad to see you. I’m Randy. This is Ben and a whole bunch of anxious folks that have a million questions for you.”
The men shook hands.
“I’m Captain Raleigh. This is my copilot, Greg and this is Phil, our navigator. He is the one that actually talked us into heading this way.”
“Phil, we can’t ever thank you enough. Man it’s good to see someone else. Where are you from?”
“We came out of Colorado Springs. We were with NORAD at Cheyenne Mountain. We have been scouring the countryside for survivors. We have found a few at various times but nothing like this. Where are we exactly?”
“Just south of Pittsburg. Herminie, Pennsylvania,” Randy told them. As they were talking more and more people began to arrive.
“This is fantastic. We didn’t know if anyone else existed outside of this little region,” Randy said.
“This is exciting for us as well. This is the first contact with a large group of survivors. How many people are here?”
“Right now we are at seven hundred and fifty-eight. We increase a few at a time. We have teams out looking for people like you but without the luxury of an airplane.”
“You are probably better off that way. It is very difficult to spot anyone on the ground unless they were smart enough to try to signal us. We probably have even flown over some people and didn’t even know it.”
“We wouldn’t have thought of it except one of the newer arrivals said he heard a plane. We weren’t sure if we believed it or not but decided to err on the safe side. Turns out, it was the right thing to do.”
“Can you bring us up to speed on what you have been doing? Everyone seems healthy,” the Captain said.
“Sure. Come on back with us and we can show you around and exchange information. I assume you have been doing basically the same thing we have. Rounding up survivors so you can start rebuilding.”
“Essentially that is exactly what we are doing. We couldn’t see any other way to rebuild unless we gathered as many people as we could find.”
****
The three crew members rode back with Ben and Randy. It was a tight fit in the old faded red Pinto. Fortunately the ride only took a few minutes. Ben and Randy took turns filling them in on how they went about processing survivors and how they set up the food for work system. It took them the rest of the day to walk around town and explain how each segment worked as a whole.
“This is a hell of a set up. My hat is off to your organizational abilities. Hell of a job. Hell of a job,” Captain Raleigh said when they finished the tour.
“It takes the efforts of all of us. All survivors have their input. We hold a meeting every other Friday night, kind of a social affair and also a chance to keep people apprised about what we are working on. It seems to alleviate some of the uncertainty we all feel,” Randy told them.
“The military could take a page from that book. The one thing we are bad at is getting input from others. We feel like we always have to have all the answers,” Greg told them.
“I guess we just looked at it as we are all in the same boat and it would be better to put a lot of heads together rather than just one or two trying to make all the decisions,” Ben replied.
“Hey, I’m all for it. Especially now. Who is really in charge? No police, no real military to speak of and no one has the power over everyone. It’s a whole new world. One question. How do you resolve conflict?”
“We listen to everyone first then we have a council of eight people that talk it over and try to come to a consensus about what it best for the long term. It doesn’t always end up so neat so that’s where Randy comes in. He consented to join our committee. He only casts his vote when it is a virtual tie. The rest of the time he acts as moderator and occasionally referee. Just kidding about the referee part. No one has come to blows yet,” Ben said.
“How do you keep the peace?” Ben and Randy glanced at each other. Neither spoke for a second.
Finally Randy said, “We have what we call the eight Capital Punishment crimes. That means that if one of them is broken, they are executed.”
“Whoa. Executed? You actually use capital punishment? Like in the death sentence?”
“If they violate on
e of the eight CPs, as we call them. All of our citizens understand the system and if they elect to breach it, they pay with their lives.”
“And everyone is okay with that?” Phil ask, amazed.
“I don’t know if ‘okay’ is the right word but they understand the rules and the need to have a society that doesn’t allow violent crimes. Not all crimes are treated the same. Some mean banishment from the colony. Others require a short stay in jail. We don’t want to have to designate a full time penitentiary system. It serves very little useful purpose. The threat of banishment or death seems to be working for us so far,” Ben said.
“What about due process? What about the appeal process? What happens if you are wrong and find out too late?” Captain Raleigh asked.
“We simply are not going to get bogged down in dealing with those that choose to operate outside our laws. If they make the conscious decision to ignore the rules, we feel we have the right to protect the community. Lawyers are not allowed and we will not go back to feeding the system so everyone can just make money off of it. Don’t do the crime if you can’t pay the fine, is not only a motto with us. It’s simply the way we handle the situation. No excuses, no exceptions,” Ben said.
“That sounds incredibly harsh. I don’t see how you can do that.”
“It really isn’t all that hard. We let the rules be known and the consequences of their actions. We are going back to the basic Bible. An eye for an eye. Crooks, murders and molesters aren’t going to get pandered to here,” Ben told him.
“Have you had to actually execute someone yet?”
“Just one. I doubt that that anyone will do that sort of thing again for a long, long time.”
“And the people here know what you did?”
“Certainly, it was a public execution. Everyone in the town saw it. No one can say they didn’t know what they would end up hanging if the violated the eight CP’s,” Ben said.
Captain Raleigh shook his head quickly, “I see some real issues with this type of justice. It's certainly a violation of about a hundred different laws and legal precedents.”
THE END - Book I - Of THE EVENT SERIES Page 30
