I started pulling things out, looking for the camping gear. Jill was holding the flashlight for me as I worked, when I heard the crunch of steps in the snow behind me. The hair on the back of my neck rose as I smelled the scent of alcohol.
“Man, isn’t this freaky?” A man’s voice brought home to me just how vulnerable I was. Taking the flashlight from Jill as I turned, I saw two men, both Caucasian. The first, medium build, unshaven with hair combed back. He had on a greasy, tan colored, Carhartt jacket. His hands were in the pockets of the jacket and I could tell that the right hand held something.
The second man was also unshaven and unwashed. A dirty stocking cap was on his head with long greasy hair sticking out the sides. He packed a gut but was a mountain of a man, and under the fat, one knew there was solid mass. If I was to guess his weight it would be over 325 pounds. He was the one who held the flashlight and he was looking at Jill. Starting at her feet, his eyes moved up and back down, taking her all in.
Primal instinct kicked in and I was hyper-vigilant. The Maglite that I held in my hand was a six cell light which Dad had given us for Christmas. Dad gave no trivial gifts and, like so many other gifts, it came with training. Thus, I held the flashlight with my hand next to the lens. Holding it shoulder high, the base of the light extended back over my shoulder.
“Sure is,” I replied as I watched the big man step to the side of the U-Haul and shine his light into the windows of the Escalade.
“Just those two, Joe, nobody else,” the big man said, and a nasty grin came upon the face of the smaller man.
With each second that passed pressure had increased inside me. My wife, my children—must keep them safe.
I was now a bow, bent to the max and that grin released the string. Springing forward, I brought the flashlight arching down with a crash upon the smaller man’s skull. He collapsed at my feet. Leaping to the right, I swung for the head of the big man. Had he not been grabbing for something in the waistband of his jeans he could have blocked the strike. The heavy Maglite smashed flush alongside his head and he should have dropped but did not. He staggered and I struck again and again till he too lay upon the snow. He had fallen upon his back and I reached down and pulled a gun from his waist band. A Kimber 45 auto. So much for gun control keeping guns out of the hands of the bad guys.
Were they bad guys? Had I over reacted?
The first man started to rise and I reacted again with another strike to his head.
What was I doing?!
The desire to keep my family safe was overpowering my reasoning. I grabbed the tool box I had placed at the back of the U-Haul and took a roll of duct tape from it.
With the tape, I had them both bound hand and foot before they started to stir. Sputtering foul words, the big man was first to come to. That brought a fresh wrap of tape covering his mouth. For good measure I taped the smaller man’s mouth too. Kneeling beside the man, I withdrew a snub nose 38 caliber revolver from his right jacket pocket. The left pocket contained a handful of bullets. I was about to thrust them into my pants pocket when the words of my father came again into my mind. “Keep track of your ammo, son. Don’t get sloppy.”
1, 2, 3, 4 … 13 and five in the gun, making 18 total. The Kimber had seven in the magazine and one in the chamber.
I stopped and looked up at Jill. During the confrontation I was unaware of her actions, but she was standing beside me holding a fist size rock over her head. It startled me. She had not frozen during my fight. She had found the only weapon she could and was ready to use it to protect me.
“Easy Jill, easy.”
Where had that reaction come from? I knew she had an internal strength but this was beyond anything I had seen before.
She lowered the rock and I handed her the 45 auto.
“Take this and point it at them. If they try to get loose, pull the trigger. The safety is off and it’s ready to fire.”
Shoot someone who had done nothing more than walk up to us in the dark? Was I still over reacting? This was crazy.
Jill was a city girl, beautiful with medium brown hair. The quality of her character had quickly won my father’s acceptance. It was he who had taught Jill to shoot.
Retrieving the big man’s flashlight, I shined it on the snow and could see their tracks.
How far had they walked? It couldn’t be far. I shined the light back down the freeway. About fifty yards back was what looked to be a late model Lincoln Town Car. I could see no one in it.
“Jill, I’ll be right back.”
Following the tracks in the snow led me directly to the car. This vehicle did not match up with the character of the two men I had bound in duct tape. The exterior was white with a cream colored leather interior. I opened the driver’s door and looked in. There was dried blood on both the driver and passenger seats. I was not surprised. My gut instinct was right and I had not over reacted.
Rummaging through the assorted bags in the back seat I came across a box of 45 auto cartridges. It was the only thing useful and I opened the box. It was partially full and I counted the bullets; five in a row, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Six full rows plus one row with only three. “Thirty-three rounds,” I said to myself. “That’s good; someone is looking out for me.” Truly, it was a God-send and I whispered a few words of thanks.
The trunk was full of valuable items that looked to have been lifted from a wealthy home. On second thought, many of those things had just lost their value within the last half hour. The large assortment of high-end electronics were all worthless now.
There was a mid-sized wood box with Oriental carvings on it. Opening the lid, I found some stacks of 100 dollar bills bound by bank wrappings marked $2000 dollars. 1, 2, 3 … 10, I counted ten bundles of $2000 each, making $20,000 total. Two years ago $20, 000 could buy a lot more than it would today, but two weeks from now it would be worthless. Still, in the next two days it could have some value. The other items in the box would definitely hold their value much longer. There was an assortment of jewelry. Rings, bracelets and necklaces made of diamonds, pearls and gold took up the remainder of the space.
I was confident the owners of this wealth had departed this life recently and violently. In this rapidly evolving world there would be no investigation by law enforcement of their deaths, no APB on a stolen vehicle. Filling both pockets of my parka with the jewelry, I zipped them shut. I took no more than what the two pockets could hold and then I stuffed the bundles of cash into my shirt. My mind was working fast and a plan was forming on how to keep my family alive and get them home to the ranch.
Returning to our U-Haul, I could see Jill had not been idle. With one hand pointing the automatic at the bound men, she was pulling items from the U-Haul with the other. She had our two year-old child’s carrier out and the infant’s Moby wrap. The carrier was like a framed backpack in which our little Will could ride. It was built to be able to be worn either on your back or in the front of you. I was glad Jill had loaded that. I could put a backpack on my back and still carry a child at my front. Using the Moby wrap, Jill could do the same for the baby.
I took over the unloading from Jill and she kept watch on the men. I soon had the camping gear out. All I was really looking for was our bug-out-bags. Two Christmases ago they had been Dad’s gift to each of us children. He bought the quality backpacks and the items that would go into them but he made us kids put them together. He wanted to make sure we understood what was in them. They had food and water for three days along with items such as first aid kits, space blankets, small polar fleece blankets and fire starters. My opinion of Dad was quickly retuning to that of my childhood perception. As kids we always thought Dad knew everything and could do anything. These Christmas gifts that I had been dismissive of two years ago now gave me increased hope. And I needed that. I needed that because there was a fear growing inside of me. I was a young father with a family that I loved more than life itself. The fear that I might lose one or all of them in the coming days was starting to take root. Th
e fact being, I had already come close to losing them all just moments ago.
With my backpack on and with little Will cradled in the carrier at my front, I helped Jill put baby Jamie in the Moby wrap. The baby coughed. I put my cheek to her forehead and felt. The forehead felt warm; a little feverish? Being out in this cold I couldn’t tell for sure. “She will be okay, she will be okay,” I thought to myself, “Need to move. Need to move forward.”
“Jill, we need to be going.”
Without saying anything, she took the flashlight from me and opened a cardboard box she had set aside on the ground. It contained our photo albums. Kneeling on the ground, quietly she turned the pages of the largest album. Coming to the page she wanted, she withdrew a photo of our wedding day. Then she took the large family photo that we had just taken a month ago. Carefully she folded the large picture and placed them in her inside coat pocket. Standing back up she turned and pointed to the men lying in the snow.
“What about them?”
I didn’t want to think about them. I didn’t want to think about them because there was not an easy answer. There would be no law enforcement to take them into custody. No jail to hold them, no sheriff to investigate, no court to try them. If I let them go they would prey upon the next unsuspecting and unarmed motorist that was stranded on this road. I revolted at the thought of shooting them. If I left them as they were they would freeze to death.
Taking some quilts from the back of the Escalade I rolled their smelly bodies up in them. Hate poured from their eyes as they were unable to speak. They were now bundled up on the ground at the back of the U-Haul. I took a tube of lipstick from Jill’s purse, which purse I had to coax Jill into leaving behind. With the lipstick I wrote upon the door of the U-Haul. “Bad men, be careful,” with an arrow pointing downward towards them.
It was still not a good answer. They would die there or other bad men would let them go. If they were let loose they would then join together to plunder others. But this answer would have to do; I couldn’t shoot them.
“Dan,” Jill came close to me, “What are we doing? How will we ever make 300 miles like this?”
“Jill, I have a plan.”
_____________________
1. An EMP is an electromagnetic pulse that is created by a nuclear blast detonated in the atmosphere which will fry all electronic circuits in the line of sight. A single nuclear bomb detonated high above the state of Kansas would shut down all of the United States.
2. It is clear that Russia and China are increasing the pace of their nuclear weapons build up while the U.S. is unilaterally disarming its own. Russia alone is greatly superior in their amount of nuclear arsenal compared to the United States. (See Joel Skousen’s research at “World Affairs Brief.com” link; Strategic threats of this decade. And his book, Strategic Relocation.
3. Bill Clinton changed the nuclear doctrine of our country in 1998 of “Launch on Warning” by his order (PDD-60) to that of retaliating after absorbing after strike. The U.S. government has been and is currently engaged in number of important transfers of military technology to Russia and China. Again, see the above references of Joel Skousen’s research.
Chapter 5
THE TWINS
January 27th
HayLee and KayLee were the names of the twins. That was their mother’s doing. She was from the Deep South with ancestors that had fought for the Confederacy. Her family still had a reverence for General Robert E. Lee, hence the names. The problem being, when you called for them it was hard to tell the sound of the names apart. By default, the family started calling them HayLee-H and KayLee-K. Mom didn’t like it, but it worked and the names stuck. The only ones that didn’t use the hyphenated names were themselves.
They were 21 and in their second year at the Utah Valley University in Orem. They were on a full ride scholarship as guards for the University’s basketball team. Basketball ran strong in the mountain valleys of southern Utah. The high school was located in the small town of Orderville which town was not even big enough to warrant a stop sign on the main street. They were identical twins with very few differences between them. One significant difference, however, was that HayLee-H was right handed, and KayLee-K was left handed. That only complemented them on the ball court as HayLee-H took the right wing position, and KayLee-K took the left wing. They were a dynamite pair on the court and led the team to two state titles in their league. With their long blond hair pulled back in braided pony tails, they were spitting images of their mother in her youth.
It was late in the month of January when KayLee-K awoke in the early morning hours to an eerily quiet world. Laying in the dark, she wondered if she were back home at the ranch. As her mind began to clear she concluded that, no, indeed she was still at her apartment in Orem. The quietness and darkness were puzzling. Those two things went with the ranch, but not with Orem. Climbing out of the warm blankets she stepped into an apartment that was colder than usual. Moving to the window she peered through the blinds of their second story apartment. There were no lights at all. No car lights, no street lights, no traffic lights. She could make out people standing by their cars trying to punch numbers into their smart phones. This all had a very eerie feel to it. This was not like a normal power outage; it was all the stalled cars that caused the uneasiness. Cars always ran during power outages. In the West vehicles moved society. They moved people. They moved things. They moved food.
“HayLee, get up,” she called to her sister in the dark. “We need to be moving.” The tone of her voice brought her sister wide awake. “What is it KayLee?”
“I think our world has changed and we need to be moving.”
“Turn on the light, KayLee.”
“No can do, sis. They don’t work.”
With that, HayLee-H rolled from her bed and onto her knees. Reaching under the bed, she pulled out a dark colored quality backpack. From the backpack she pulled a light stick. Bending the light stick, she activated the chemicals and it began to glow a soft green color. Holding the glowing stick, she walked to the window by her sister.
“It’s dark, KayLee, and I can’t see a single car running. This looks pretty bad.”
“It looks bad and it feels bad. I don’t know about you but I think it’s time to take a break from school and go see Dad,” HayLee-H said.
“Yep, I think no cars running and no electricity qualifies for an activation of Dad’s Get out of Dodge plan.”
HayLee-H laughed wryly. “Get out of Dodge. That used to sound funny.”
In short order both girls were dressed in warm clothes.
Not only were they sisters, they were best friends. Where one went the other one did too. Cheerfulness was their nature and they were full of life. Being raised on the ranch, they grew up doing hard things. They had started helping Dad with the ranch work well before their legs were long enough to reach the saddle stirrups.
KayLee-K had also pulled a matching backpack from under her bed. No need to check the contents of the pack, it was always ready to go with enough food and water for three days. The only thing she took out was the 45 caliber Sig Sauer auto. It was just like the one HayLee-K was pulling out of her pack, a full size P-220. Both had matching belts and holsters made of fine leather with a magazine pouch that held two extra magazines. Highly illegal nowadays, but Dad had insisted that the girls take them when they went to college. Dad had always been a law abiding man but as things had changed in the country, there were lines in the sand which he had drawn and from which he would not be moved. One of those lines was the unalienable right a man (or a man’s daughter) had to protect himself, his family, and his property.
“Those rights come to us at birth,” he told the girls when he had helped them pack the Sig Sauers into their bug-out-bags. “They come to us from God and no man, or group of men, has the right to take them from you. It does not matter if it is the tyranny of a tyrant or the tyranny of the majority, tyranny hates the right to self-defense. It is a threat to them. Now you are goi
ng to be taught different things at the university. You will be taught that the collective society determines what rights a man has and does not have. Therefore, those rights are always changing and drifting with the tide of popular opinion. Remember, the vast majority of Germany supported Hitler in the beginning. Majority rule must stop at our unalienable rights. Without that, pure democratic rule is a terrible thing. It’s like two wolves and a lamb voting to see what’s for dinner.”
The cold morning was grey and hinting at snow as the girls stepped out of the apartment. Backpacks on, they carried their mountain bikes down the flight of stairs to the ground level. It was 260 miles from Orem to the ranch. Divided by three, that was 86.6 miles a day. For HayLee-H and KayLee-K that was very doable. They were in great shape from playing college ball. Their long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail which protruded out the back of their matching ball caps above the size adjustment straps. They had on warm ear bands that went under the ponytail, over the ears and over the front of the ball cap. These also matched. They had on warm coats, matching, that covered the holstered pistols.
The sisters stood a moment beside their bikes before mounting.
“KayLee, look at them. Don’t they look lost,”she said, motioning to the people now walking away from their cars. “They don’t know what hit them. This looks just like Dad said it would right after a nuclear strike. If they think the high inflation was a serious hardship, well, what do you think is going to happen when they figure out that, along with their own cars, the semi-trucks that bring the food to the stores are not running either?”
“It’s going to be bad, HayLee. I feel for the good people that turned in their guns in the mandatory buyback program of the Feds. This is no place to be in a couple of days so let’s blow on out of here while they’re still scratching their ears.”
“You said it, Sis. Let’s make some tracks.” With that they gave each other a fist bump with fists that were bundled in warm gloves and mounted their bikes. Leaning forward, they soon were up to a good clip weaving in and out of the people and stalled cars. Puzzled people stopped to watch them go. It was the contrast that made the people stop and look. As they passed, there was an air about them that people could feel and see. No confusion, no hesitation. Two on the move, two that knew where they were going, two that were prepared.
Only by Blood and Suffering: Regaining Lost Freedom Page 3
