A Powerless World (Book 2): When the Peace is Gone

by P. A. Glaspy

  Angie stared at him, then Tim, then back to Gary. Her expression softened a bit. “I do. I’m staying, too. We can work together to come up with a plan to keep the town as stable as possible. You guys can bunk in the offices and I’ll set up a cot in the basement.”

  “Angie, I don’t think –“ Gary started to protest, but she shook her head.

  “No, Gary, you’re not talking me out of this. This is the best plan. We have plenty of time to figure out how best to help the most people since we don’t have anything else to do. Plus, we’ve only checked on the folks on my side of town. What about north and east? We need to know who needs help and where they are. We also need to figure out something for the foreseeable future. We need to talk to the farmers – not the ones with the little quarter-acre gardens, but the big farms. We need food for a lot of people for the long term, and that’s where it’s going to come from. We’ll have to come to some sort of agreement with them, something in exchange for the food. We can’t expect them to feed everyone for free. The people who are able to will be expected to help work the fields in payment for some of the crops. We need to set up medical facilities, and figure out how to get the doctors and nurses to them. They can be paid in food. Money is worthless. We need to start bartering for services and commodities. We need to secure and protect our community and its inhabitants. Everyone is just sitting around waiting for everything to come back on; waiting for someone to fix this. We can help ourselves, but we need to get our butts in gear. It’s spring. It’s planting time. It’s planning time, right now.”

  Angie had been saying whatever came to mind but when she stopped to take a breath, she realized she had already started planning their future, the town’s future, and she could see it succeeding. She smiled to herself, and Gary saw it and grinned at her.

  “Been planning this for a while then?”

  “Actually, I just came up with that while I was saying it. And it sounds like a damn fine plan.”

  “And that’s why you’re the mayor.” He gave her a nod and a wink. “Alright, I guess we have a plan then. Tim, let’s get to rearranging in here. You can set up a cot in the break room. I’ll take the sofa in my office. Unless you want us to haul it down to the basement for you, Angie.”

  “No, a cot is fine for me. You keep your couch.”

  “Great. Let’s get busy.”

  Tim stood there trying to figure out when he lost control of the situation. Yes, he got to stay with the food, but now he was relegated to a cot in the break room. He went from running the place, and having control over everything, to the bottom of the food chain of the current inhabitants. Nice way to pay me back for keeping everything safe. And now I’m sharing it all with both of them! Even worse, they’re going to give most of it away!! He turned away without a word and headed down to the basement to bring up a cot and more blankets. As he walked away, Angie looked at Gary.

  “Is he going to be a problem?”

  “No. First sign of trouble, he’s out the door, with nothing. He’ll do what he’s told or do without.”

  “I hope you’re right, Sheriff.”

  Gary thought to himself, Me, too.

  CHAPTER 22

  When the sheriff showed up at the gate, we were all concerned and curious. Was it a “just here to see you how you folks are doing” visit, or a “we got some news from DC you need to hear” call, or the one we feared the most, a “you’re going to have to give up all your stuff for the greater good” nightmare like we had heard about on the ham radio that night. None of us wanted to think that the sheriff, an elected official and the highest authority in the county, would capitulate to that mindset. Only one way to find out.

  There was nothing that was going to keep most of us away, so we walked en masse to the gate. Millie stayed back with the kids. We armed ourselves with both side arms and rifles, not knowing what to expect, but curious to see what the man had to say. Depending on what that was, this could be a long, interesting night.

  ****

  Sheriff Burns knew where the Warren farm was located but had not been out that way intentionally looking for it in a couple of years. He was surprised at how well camouflaged the gate was now. He had been working his way down the road the better part of the afternoon. He found a few people still in their homes, but most of them were empty. The ones who were toughing it out had small farms with livestock and gardens. They reported being robbed of both, to the point that they had taken to guarding their property day and night to try to stop the thefts. The Glass brothers’ names came up more than once as the suspected culprits, as they had made the rounds in the area looking for “help”. It was no coincidence they had shown up at their neighbors’ doorsteps and then a day or so later the garden had been worked over, or some chickens or rabbits came up missing. He would definitely have to pay them a visit when he got back to town.

  He stopped on the road and looked long and hard at the foliage. It took him about 15 minutes before he finally found the gate. Good work, Monroe. Hopefully you and yours are safe inside. He went to the gate and yelled out, “Hello! Anybody out there? It’s Sheriff Burns, looking for Monroe Warren!”

  Brian and Ryan were in the holes. Brian radioed in what the sheriff had said, but they did not acknowledge him, nor reveal their locations. Russ told them to hold tight; we were on our way.

  We got to the gate and Monroe went through with Mike and Bob flanking him, as well as the dogs. The two biggest, the GSD/Rottie mixes Max and Roxie, had taken it upon themselves to be alongside whoever went through the gate. The rest of us waited inside the perimeter, but in full view of the sheriff. Monroe walked up with his hand extended.

  “Evening, Gary. What brings you out this way?”

  Gary was visibly relieved to see Monroe, though cautious at his security detail. He shook Monroe’s hand. “Hey, Monroe. Good to see you, and good to see that you’re well. Might I have the pleasure of being introduced to your companions?” He wasn’t intimidated, just curious.

  “This is my nephew Bob and Mike is a friend. The rest back there are friends and family who are staying here for the duration. What can we do for you?”

  “Glad to see you’ve brought a bunch of folks in to weather this storm together. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that everything has kind of gone crazy out there. Angie, Mayor Hale, thinks we need to bring the community together and help each other get through this mess. She’s asked me to call on the farmers who have large pieces of land that can be farmed for a community food bank.”

  “Well, as you can see, we have a small community here now.” He gestured behind himself, taking us all in. “We’re feeding and housing over two dozen people, and actually looking to bring in another dozen or so. I’m not sure we’ll have food to spare for feeding that many more people.”

  “Oh, I think you might have misunderstood me, Monroe. We’re hoping you’ll plant more crops than you already have, more than what you need to maintain your people here now. We’re looking for new food sources, not any you’re currently using. We’d like you to till up and sow as much of your land as possible.”

  “I’m not sure my people can work that much land. We’re pretty busy taking care of all the day-to-day chores that need doing right now for us. I don’t know how we’d be able to add more work to the load we already have, which includes security watches. We’ve already had trouble here, and at the Callen place. Not to sound petty or anything, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in that situation that would benefit us.”

  Gary held his hands up. “No, no, that’s not what I was asking for. Sorry, I’m not doing a very good job here. Let me lay it out. We need food to feed hundreds of people in town. You have the land. In town we have access to gas storage tanks, seed and fertilizers, and people to work the land. You provide the space and the instructions, we’ll do the rest. We’ll also want to figure out some kind of trade for some of your livestock. We already have a couple of butchers lined up. We’re finding out who all have skills that could
benefit the community, like sewing, blacksmithing, even cooking – you wouldn’t believe how many young people can’t actually cook. We are going to set up a medical area so we can have doctors and nurses there to offer care to those who need it. In exchange for your part, you will have access to the medical facility and probably anything else you may want or need. Does that sound like something you would be able to help us with?”

  Monroe was quiet, mulling over what the sheriff had said. Mike leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Nodding, he replied, “I’m going to have to talk to my folks about this first, Gary. I don’t know how I feel about a bunch of strangers traipsing through my place to work a garden, seeing everything we have, thinking they might want some of it, or all of it. We’ve spent a lot of time making this place invisible and securing it as much as we can. If you hadn’t known where it was, would you have been able to find it?”

  Gary shook his head. “No sir, I sure wouldn’t. But, I don’t think…”

  Monroe stopped him. “We ain’t willin’ to take any chances with the safety of our people. We’ve got too much at stake here. Come back in a couple of days. We’ll talk more then.”

  “Can I come back to talk again tomorrow? Every day that goes by is another day someone goes without food in town. It’s getting pretty desperate there. We have the emergency rations in the emergency shelter at the office, but that won’t last long. We need to get moving on this right away if we can.”

  “Alright then, tomorrow. We’ll talk tonight. You’ll have my answer when you come back.”

  The men shook hands all around and Gary headed back to his truck. He started it up, waved at everybody, and headed back toward town. Monroe, Mike, and Bob came back inside and closed and locked the gate. As they were sinking the big post, Monroe kept walking toward the house. The rest of us followed.

  “Group meeting up at the house. We need to talk about this right now.”

  ****

  Most people in this country are clueless as to how to survive without power, or grocery stores, or the internet. A hundred and fifty years ago there was no such thing as electricity. People used lamps and candles for lights, and fireplaces and wood burning stoves to cook and heat their homes. They worked hard all day on crops and livestock for food, as well as barter items to get the things they couldn’t or didn’t grow, like flour and sugar. They hunted and butchered their meat themselves, preserving it in methods no longer in use today, for the most part. They made their own clothes or traded with someone who possessed that skill. There were general stores, but they held very little in the way of “prepared” food – maybe some jerky, or a few canned goods. The stores would trade with people for items they might not have were it not for their bartering, so they could offer those bartered items to other customers – say a bushel of apples for a bolt of cloth. Then someone would trade two dozen eggs for half a bushel of those apples. Yes, there was money, but there was quite possibly just as much purchased through barter as with gold or silver.

  As far as knowledge and experience, people back then learned how to do the things they needed to do every day to exist, such as farming, cooking, hunting, or sewing, from their parents and grandparents. If someone wanted to learn a special trade, like boot making, they would work for a person who had that skill or craft, many times for room and board, just to learn how it was done. They could then use that skill to make goods they could use to barter for things like food, if they lived in a city and didn’t have the means to grow it. They didn’t look stuff up in books. They learned by doing, as part of living in that world.

  While we didn’t know how to “do” everything they did then, we did have the resources to learn it. If Millie or Monroe didn’t know it, we could look it up in one of the hundreds of reference books I had saved on the ereaders. We had already started canning meats for the winter. Bill and Ryan proved to be above average hunters and were good for at least a deer or wild turkey a week. We had brought male and female together in the farm animals so our herds and flocks would grow. We were turning a small “hobby” farm into a small business without even realizing it. We knew that places like ours would be an integral part of any rebuilding that happened in our little part of the world. Food was in the top three most needed and valuable resources, and we had the capacity, knowledge, and manpower to produce quite a bit.

  We didn’t have a lot in the “need” category right then, but at some point we probably would. Fuel, candles, seed (in case ours weren’t viable for some reason), as well as clothes, shoes – or shoe repair at least – these things meant we weren’t completely self-sufficient. Though we could probably learn how to do most things, being able to barter for them would save us the time of learning it, as well as the time it would take to do it. Surely there were people in town who had skills they could barter for food, besides actually working the land. Not everybody was physically able to do that kind of work but they could possibly possess other skills or knowledge they could offer instead.

  Still, the idea of letting the world know where we were, even our small part of the world, was a frightening thought. Letting people in our gate, to walk through the yard, with all of our buildings and gardens and livestock there in plain view, with no way to hide or disguise it? I, for one, was not on board with that. If that made me a shitheel, so be it. We had worked hard to get this place set up for us, and the people we loved and trusted. It was hard enough to keep it all safe when people didn’t know what we had. How much harder would it be when some of them found out?

  I voiced all that at the meeting. “If there was a way to give them access to only the part that had the fields we were planting for them and nothing else, that would be one thing. The problem with that is if we cut a new road or entrance for that purpose, then we have a new security problem. Right, Mike?”

  He nodded in my direction. “Yep. You nailed it, Anne. We were talking about the exact same thing on the way back from the meeting with the sheriff. The only way this can work without anyone seeing this place is with a new entrance. Even then, we’d want the fields they were working as far from this section as possible. I haven’t been much further back than the other wood shed. How far away could we plant and keep the workers from seeing the place, Monroe?”

  “This property is a long tract. We’ve got about 400 feet across and about 2000 feet front to back. We lose probably a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet of that in the foliage we’ve let grow up. We use about four to five acres for everything up here. That would leave us with a good ten acres to play with for this project. The upside is there’s a rise that would keep anyone from seeing all this from back there. The downside is there’s nothing to stop any of them from walking up the rise.”

  “Could we put up a fence?” Russ asked. “I know fences only keep honest men honest, but is it an option? Four strands of barbed wire could be a deterrent.”

  “We could, but then we are going to have to keep an eye on that area as well. What else could we do?”

  Mike had a question. “Who owns the land just east of this?”

  “That’d be Matt and Nick’s family. Why? What you got in mind?”

  “You think they’d let us use their property to cut the access?”

  “I don’t think they’d mind at all, since we’re keeping their kids safe and fed.” Monroe laughed at his own comment, and the rest of us joined him. Reasons to laugh had been in short supply the last few days.

  “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. We come in from their property, as far back as possible. No one can see this place through the tree line. I know, I’ve walked it. We cut the access road in back there. Yes, Russ, we need to start immediately on a cross section of fence, just on the other side of the ridge there. Then, we drag the trees we cut down for the road up and pile them up against that side of the fence. Another deterrent, and it hides the fence and makes it look like the trees were just dropped from other land clearing. I don’t know that it will keep anybody out who really wants through, but it’d be
a lot of work for someone who should already be drag ass tired from working the fields. What do you guys think?”

  Nods, smiles, and thumbs up from the group were the answer. Monroe called for quiet. “Everybody here has a vested interest in this place, so everybody has a right to speak. Does anybody have any opposition to us helping out the folks in town this way? I know some of you have felt guilty for being here safe and fed while other people have been going without.” He glanced at Sara, who gave him a slight smile in return. “This is something we can do to help, without putting our people or this place in jeopardy – hopefully. Is there anything we’ve missed or forgotten that you can think of? Now’s the time to speak up.”

  Everyone was looking at each other, but no one had anything more to add until Luke raised his hand.

  “I would suggest when we get some more campers in here, we kind of line them up on this side of the rise. That would block the view from that side as well.”

  Mike grinned at him. “Excellent idea, man. Make it look like a trailer park on this side. Much harder to see around. I love it.”

  Monroe stood up. “Then we’re all in agreement. We’ll get started first thing tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Jim Dotson had hurried back to his family to share with them what Monroe had proposed. The more he thought about what they had discussed, the more sense it made to him – and the madder he got. The idea that someone might try to take or harm one of his girls made him so mad he saw red. He ran up the steps and into the house. He dropped the rabbits on the kitchen table and called for his wife.