Dust of Kansas (Calm Act Genesis Book 1)

by Ginger Booth

  Calm Act Genesis

  Dust of Kansas

  by Ginger Booth

  Copyright © 2016 Ginger Booth

  All rights reserved.

  Cover photo copyright © Kasia Bialasiewicz, BigStockPhoto.

  Cover design by Ginger Booth.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Chapter 1

  Interesting fact: Fort Leavenworth Kansas was home to the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, which offered a number of master’s degree programs in military science. The majority of students were mid-career Army officers—ranks Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel—with a smattering of inter-agency, international, and inter-service students. Fort Leavenworth lies on the Missouri River, about 30 miles north of Kansas City.

  Emma MacLaren, recovering army wife, looked around the kitchen judiciously. All the newly stocked white cabinets were closed, cooking utensils at the ready. She nodded approval of a job well done. “Well, that’s the last of your crap stowed away. Welcome home, Emmett. And welcome to the Midwest, Cam, John.” She smiled warmly at her son’s new roommates.

  “Thank you, Momma,” crooned Major Emmett MacLaren, giving her a peck on the cheek. “See guys? Told you I had a pro army wife.” There was no mistaking the resemblance between mother and son, from the twangy Ozark accents, to bushy brown hair, craggy tanned features, and wiry buffed strength. Though at 53, Emma looked too young to have a 34-year-old son.

  “Uh-huh,” Emma said, mock-scowling at her only child. “But not your wife, Emmett. Men can learn to do this crap on their own. And don’t forget to mind the chickens out back.”

  “We have chickens?” Major Cam Cameron asked, surprised. Blond, handsome, earnest, fastidiously dressed and erect of posture, Cam was only a couple years younger than Emmett, but looked wholly too young for his new oak leaves.

  “Six,” Emmett confirmed. “Should be enough eggs for the three of us. I’ll introduce you later. So what else do we need, Momma?”

  “Supermarket for supplies and food. Basic furniture for Cam and John—beds, dressers, desks, desk chairs, lamps,” Emma replied, considering. “Emmett only has linens for full-size beds,” she cautioned the other two. “You’ll need sheets if you want a queen or king-size bed. And whatever else you want. You’ve got two kids, right, John? Maybe a second daybed.” She stopped, considering. “You could buy new if you want, but… Seen the Okie camp down by the river yet?”

  “Last year,” agreed Emmett, subdued.

  Last year, Emmett alone of the new roommates had been here at Command School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He’d taken ILE, Intermediate Level Education, required of Army Majors seeking battalion-level command or staff positions. Cam was here for that now. Emmett and John would attend SAMS this year, the School of Advanced Military Studies, a post-ILE master’s degree program focused on planning complex inter-service operations.

  Emma nodded, lips pursed. “You should see the camp again. Let’s go shopping down by the river.”

  Coast Guard Captain John Niedermeyer was bald and virile and a good dozen years older than Cam. He frowned. “We were warned that was a dangerous area. Race riots?”

  “Uh-huh. Lotta that going around,” replied Emma. “Good thing you got a county sheriff along to protect you then, huh?”

  Her son smiled crookedly, as the other two officers looked abashed. “Momma retired as an Army wife a few decades back.”

  “PX first for shopping,” declared Emma, and hustled the sheepish scholars out the door. On the way out, she hung a plaque on their door—BOQ, for Bachelor Officer’s Quarters.

  -o-

  The point of going to the PX first was soon apparent—Emma had them stock up on meat, fruit, vegetables, and canned goods not for their fridge, but for barter. They hit the ATM there for several hundred in cash apiece, as well.

  “Last year, there wasn’t a tenth of this,” Emmett murmured, as they jostled their way into the vast migrant camp. “That’s not safe, camping on the river bottom.”

  There was no road. This was once good farmland by the side of the broad Missouri River, partway between Leavenworth and Kansas City. The green fields were long dead, the trees leafless, the Missouri shrunken, its mud flats cracked and bare under the blazing summer sun. Trucks, campers, SUVs, cars and tents stretched as far as they could see down the river bank, and out onto the bare river bottom. The stench attested to open-air latrines and no wash water. The wind was still today, carrying less dust aloft than usual. Still, the air was alive with dust motes sparkling gold, the cloudless sky a haze of yellow.

  “Can’t stop ’em,” Emma returned, glancing at the river bottom. “State police had the bridge barricaded on route 92. Stopped me before I came across, asking for ID.” Emma had driven up from her home in the Ozarks in southern Missouri that morning, towing Emmett’s furniture trailer. “They warned me coming back, they wouldn’t let me through without Missouri proof of residence.”

  “What if you’re just driving through?” asked Cam. He and John were from Connecticut.

  “Don’t know,” Emma sighed. She studied the squatter community from her seat in the back with Cam. Emmett threaded her pickup truck through the camp, barely going 5 mph to avoid the darting children and cheerless milling adults.

  “There was nothing about this on the news in the Middle East,” Cam said. He’d just rotated back to the States from active duty.

  “There were bits on the national news back East,” John allowed. “But nothing like this.” He pointed to a big sign. “Homeless veterans, will work for food.”

  “Good enough, Momma?” Emmett inquired.

  “Keep going, Emmett,” Emma directed. “Might visit them on the way out. But they won’t have furniture for sale.”

  “Where are these migrants going?” Cam asked. “Or trying to go. Race riots?”

  “They’re going nowhere,” Emma confirmed. “They’re trying to flee Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oklahoma—this whole stack of states. Missouri’s not much better off on this end. The drought’s been too long. The wells ran dry. Then where there is enough rain, the farms had to burn out the GMO blight. Soybeans and corn were the biggest cash crops. We just can’t take any more. They’ve started shooting migrants at the Arkansas border.”

  “What?” said Cam. He and John looked at her unbelieving. This was news to them.

  Local to the area, it wasn’t news to Emmett. “But why ‘race riots’, Momma?” he pressed.

  “Sounds like b.s. to me, my son,” Emma replied. “Why I wanted you to see this.”

  “Why don’t they just cross the river?” asked John.

  “Too deep to drive across,” said Emmett. “Yet. Maybe not for much longer. But they’d have to leave everything they have left, to cross without a bridge.” He frowned. “Is it legal to block the bridges into Missouri, Momma?”

  “Yeah, to preserve public order,” Emma replied. “Kind of an oversight in the law, I always thought. Pull up here, Emmett, on the left. Be sure to lock the truck.”

  They alighted into an open-air bazaar. Late afternoon brought less painful light, but no less breathless heat. The summer sun baked off the ground in 105-degree waves. A gaunt 60-ish man nearby offered drinking water for 5 dollars a ladle, from a half-full grey trash bin. Scraps of awning provided scant relief to gaunt and deflated p
eople hiding beneath.

  As healthy Emma and her three strong upright men appeared, the hawkers began to swarm.

  “Water!” “Clothes!” “Furniture!” “Sex!” “Take one of my children!” “Do you have food?” “I’ll sell my car!”

  “Back away!” yelled Cameron, arm held out.

  Emmett and John traded shrugs of surprised ‘not bad!’, impressed at how much menace their pretty younger roomie could project. They took Cam’s lead, extending arms with elbows locked, to signal the crowd back.

  This paused the crowd only briefly. People pushing from behind forced the front lines to stagger forward.

  Emma unslung her pistol and shot once into the air. The crowd backed up.

  She bellowed, “We’re here to buy furniture—ONLY FURNITURE. Anybody else, go away!”

  As the crowd sloughed backward, many cast angry sneers back over their shoulders.

  Emmett suggested warily, “Momma, maybe we should go while the going’s good. Some of these people would kill for what we’ve got.”

  “Buck up, Emmett,” she growled. “We’re going shopping.”

  “Could you at least wait in the truck, Momma?” Emmett bit out.

  Emma shot him a derisive look. She stepped forward to look over the less pushy cluster of several dozen vendors still vying for attention. She picked a woman from the crowd. “You! Do you have beds, size full? No? Who has full-sized beds?” Several timid hands went up. “Good, step to the left. Who has desks and desk chairs for sale? To the right. No! If you’ve got beds, stay to the left.” She rapidly sorted the sellers into clumps and dismissed everyone else.

  Then she turned to Cam and John. In a low voice, she advised, “Make ’em describe the item, and make ’em bring it here. Offer fair dollar value, and offer to pay them in food and cash.” She looked back over her shoulder to reassure herself the sellers remained docile and sorted. “They can’t get food for the prices you paid at the PX. Not for five times that.” She looked both men in the eye beseechingly. “Try to spread it around? To families with kids if you can. People will do anything if their kids are starving. They make stupid choices.”

  Emmett added, “Try to make it quick. Exposed position. I don’t like it.”

  John and Cam nodded resigned agreement with Emmett, and started dickering. This went surprisingly quickly, as other sellers caught the gist, and ran off to drive their furniture back to show it off. The roommates divided the work, John selecting bedroom furniture for both of them, Cam picking out their desk sets.

  The furniture on offer wasn’t flea market rejects. These migrants had set out with their perfectly good middle-class home furnishings in their trucks and vans. And that baggage no longer did them any good at all. As Emma had suggested, Cam and John spread their purchases across as many different sellers as they could.

  Emma directed the successful vendors in packing their sales into Emmett’s trailer. Emmett stood looking relaxed in the pickup’s truck bed, keeping a wary eye on the crowd. He kept a loaded shotgun laid to hand on the truck storage box. Once a seller was done with the trailer, he handed each some bottled water and fruit as down payment and thanks for waiting, then directed them to wait behind him, under an awning. He wanted the bulk of the food and cash to stay locked in the truck cab until they were ready to roll.

  “That’s the last of it,” John reported, coming to hang on the truck bed. The trailer door clanked closed, and the lock re-applied. Cam and Emma joined them on the side of the truck facing the waiting sellers.

  “Cash first, then food, I think,” suggested Cam. “John—how close to empty are we?” They’d split their cash and food budget, then kept record of their promissory notes, torn off a memo pad, on their phones. John hopped the trailer hitch so they could compare spreadsheets.

  “Let’s keep one pack of steaks and the vegetable juice for the vets,” John suggested. “Emmett, are you staying up there?”

  Emmett kept his back turned to them and watched the other direction. “Think I might,” he agreed. “Momma, why don’t you and Cam set the food out on the ground while John settles up the cash.” His drawl and posture exuded lazy calm. But the shotgun was in his arms now. He pointed it at onlookers occasionally to suggest they find somewhere else to be. “I’d like to be out of here in ten minutes. Five would be better.”

  After paying them cash, John sent each seller to stand in a protective arc around the food being arrayed for selection on plastic bags on the ground. Emma and Cam set it out as swiftly as possible, sorted by type. Emma kept a wary eye on who was staring most fixedly at what.

  “That’s it for cash,” John announced. He walked back to take bags Cam passed out of the truck.

  “And that’s the last of the food,” said Cam quietly.

  Emma hopped onto the truck bed, to stand back to back with Emmett. She gestured that Cam should stand right in front of her. She tossed the truck keys to John, with a jerk of the head that he climb into the cab.

  About 15 sellers waited, dripping from heat and exertion.

  “Alright!” she called out. “We’d like y’all to stay here until the food is divvied up. That way we can all see that this is split up fairly. Now—who wants meat? Raise your hands.” She muttered in an under-voice to Cam, “I hope you can figure this out in your head.”

  “More or less,” he agreed. But as each seller came up to collect food, he noted on their memo pad slip how much of their food balance remained.

  “Too slow, Cam,” Emmett directed. “Once they take their share of meat, make ’em pick the rest of their balance from the other stuff.”

  “Got it,” agreed Cam. He held off the first meat-grabbers to wait for last turn on the rest, which they seemed to accept as fair enough. He invited two sellers at a time to select food, and kept them moving fairly quickly. He rarely had to suggest someone had taken too much or too little. A jury of their peers ringed them all to assure fairness. Indeed, the sellers kept track for themselves when it was time for the first to go back up and take the last. And with good money in their pockets, and the PX food prices so much better than any store open to them, the sellers all felt they were getting a bonanza.

  Three 3-liter bottles of juice and a big tote of apples remained. “Who’s got kids?” Cam demanded of the group. About 10 raised their hands. He beckoned to them in turn and doled out a fair share of the leftovers as best as he could, based on the value of the goods they’d sold.

  “That’s it,” Cam told Emma.

  “Thank you all!” Emmett called out. He hopped off the truck bed, and slammed into the passenger door of the truck, shotgun still in hand. Cam and Emma followed his lead promptly.

  “My wife isn’t going to believe this,” John muttered, as he got the truck moving.

  “Thank you, Emma,” said Cam. “What a stimulating way to shop for furniture.”

  “Uh-huh,” muttered Emma and Emmett in unison.

  Emmett’s eyes remained glued to the side window. “We still have stuff for the homeless vets?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure where to find them again,” said John. “Where are we going?”

  “Just keep tending to the right,” Emma directed. “You’ll see homeless vets somewhere. They’re all over.”

  Chapter 2

  Interesting fact: The Calm Act was introduced by the U.S. President in closed session, debated, and passed with a 78% majority in the House, and 63% in the Senate. Few sections of the Calm Act were ever made public.

  “Emmett, what on Earth are you doing?” Emma inquired the next morning. She brought a half dozen fried eggs and toast to the table from the kitchen. Cam trailed her carrying a pot of coffee, John with sliced cantaloupe. Emmett dutifully collected up his pages and put his place setting back where it belonged.

  “Just thinking, Momma,” he replied. “Show you after breakfast. You take the eggs.” She’d served two each to the men, leaving none for herself.

  “Emmett, I eat fresh eggs every day.”

&n
bsp; “Uh-huh.” He split them, one each.

  “These are delicious!” Cam said. “What did you do to the eggs, Emma?”

  “Fresh eggs taste better,” said Emmett. “I’ve missed them. Thank you for taking care of my chickens, Momma.” He smiled and gave her a peck on the cheek. “And thank you for driving up. I could’ve done that,” he said thoughtfully, eyes challenging her over his coffee cup.

  She shrugged, challenging him back. “What state’s your driver’s license these days, Emmett?”

  “Kentucky still,” he replied, frowning slightly.

  “Want me to leave the trailer here?” she suggested.

  “…Yeah,” he eventually agreed. “You wanted me to see the camp again.”

  “Uh-huh. That what you were thinking about?”

  “I didn’t make a contribution yet,” said Emmett. “All that yesterday was from Cam and John.”

  Emma quibbled, “You bought the dining room set there last year. Half the living room, too.”

  “You’ve done this before?” asked John in surprise.

  Emmett nodded, lips pursed. “Changed a bit, since last year.”

  Emma nodded at Emmett, with another pointed glance. “Wanted you to see.”

  “I saw plenty down the Rio Grande, Momma,” Emmett replied. For Cam and John’s benefit, he elaborated, “That’s where I’ve been since ILE last spring. Researched and wrote my thesis down in Texas. Techniques to gain cooperation from migrants. Whole lot of migrants down there, too.”

  “You dating again yet, Emmett?” Emma inquired. She’d heard enough about his thesis.

  “Hell, no. What for?” he growled in return.

  “Hm,” his mother replied, pursing her lips. “Still trying to figure out what you did wrong?” she inquired archly.

  Cam looked amused. John looked like relationship breakups were outside his experience. Maybe he was one of those statistical flukes who married their first love for a happily ever after. It was bound to happen to someone, just by dumb luck.