Patriots

by James Wesley, Rawles

  The third Templar ambush was sprung by their communications expert, a seventy-four-year-old retired Navy signalman. Situated at an ambush at a trail junction, he spotted a man wearing a black leather jacket and armed with an inexpensive Maverick riot shotgun running toward him. Not wanting to waste his Claymore, he took careful aim with his M1A and shot the man twice at a range of sixty yards.

  Two hours after the shooting stopped, the Templars began to file into town singly or in pairs. They gaped at the bodies lying in the street and at the bodies of the bikers that were being dragged into a growing heap by the Northwest Militia.

  One of the Templar women recognized the boy who had been found in the wall locker. She identified him as the son of her hairdresser before the onset of the Crunch. She asked, “Where’s your mommy and daddy, Timmy?”

  The boy gave her a vacant stare. After a long pause, he uttered, “They shot my dad when they first came. My mom’s dead, too. Greasy stabbed her. I saw him do it.”

  With tears in her eyes, the woman asked, “Would you like to come and live with us? We live near Troy. It’s safe there. There are no bad men there.”

  Still sullen, the boy said, “Sure, I guess so, Molly. But first I want to see Greasy. I want to see him dead.”After a few minutes of walking from corpse to corpse, Timmy pointed out the body of the biker called Greasy. He walked over to the corpse and spit on it. Then he walked back to stand under the arm of Molly.

  Taking the boy by the arm and leading him away from the corpses, Molly said, “Don’t worry, Timmy. It’s over now.” The boy looked up at her and gave her a painful look of disbelief.

  After posting a perimeter of security, Todd, Mike, Roger Dunlap, and Ted Wallach sat down for a quick meeting in the back of the gas station. First, they compared notes on the number of gang members that they had killed. Todd brought out matter-of-factly, “We killed sixteen. Captured zero.”

  Dunlap nodded and said, “We got seven in our ambushes. That adds up to twenty-three, which squares nicely with the figure that your man Trasel gave in his recon report. At most, one or two might have slipped away.”

  With an edge on his voice, Todd said, “I hope that we got every single one of them. There’s no way to be sure, though.” The discussion then shifted to their options for dealing with the dead bodies and captured equipment.

  Most of the afternoon was spent in an even more thorough search of the houses, including, basements, crawl spaces, and attics. Both the Northwest Militia and the Templars were used in this search. No more bikers or towns-people were found, except for one putrefying corpse in a basement. Todd ordered that anything usable, including fired brass, should be collected. During this time, both of the groups sent small patrols out to bring back their respective vehicles.

  All captured equipment from the gang was piled by the side of the bikers’ van. The van itself provided some of their best finds. There, they found over two thousand rounds of assorted ammunition, a pair of night vision goggles, four cases of liquor, and one-hundred-and-twenty gallons of gasoline. In the various buildings and in the saddlebags of the motorcycles, they found still more ammunition, road maps, marijuana, clothing, and a pair of binoculars. In searching the bodies of the bikers and their personal effects, they also found the keys to the van and all the motorcycles.

  The only particularly curious find was a box of nearly a hundred caltrops. These devices, three-inches long and an inch-and-a-half wide, were pieces of sheet metal cut in the shape of bow ties. Each of them was twisted 90 degrees in the middle. This twist insured that one of the four points on the caltrop pointed upward, regardless of how it landed on the ground. Mike surmised that the bikers had made the caltrops either for vehicle ambushes or perhaps to seed on roads to evade pursuers.

  When it came to divide up the captured equipment, all that Todd asked for was the M60, its ammo, and accessories. The rest, he said, could go to the Templars. Dunlap quickly agreed to this proposition. Todd also offered to let the Templars keep four of the unused Claymore mines. Dunlap considered this a tremendous windfall, and expressed his gratitude.

  From the heap, Todd and Jeff extracted four belts of 7.62mm ball ammunition, a twenty-millimeter ammo can brim full of metal links for assembling additional belts, and a rubberized green nylon bag containing a spare barrel and cleaning kit for the M60.

  Todd took Dunlap aside, and described how they had taken the gear captured previously from looters and set it aside for the use of deserving refugees or charity groups. Dunlap nodded his head and agreed that it was probably a good course of action. With this in mind, Dunlap selected six of the best, captured weapons to set aside for Timmy. These included a Mini-14, an M2 carbine, two Springfield Armory XD .45 automatics, a Mossberg riotgun, and a Smith and Wesson Model 629 .44 magnum revolver. He also set aside all of the ammunition in the calibers that would fit these guns.

  Dunlap announced, “We’ll clean these guns up and crate them up with the ammo in some sealed cans and call it Timmy’s trust fund.” He later said that he would save the rest of the gear and food for refugees or for locals who were particularly in need.

  All of the dead bikers were dragged to an abandoned frame house at the north edge of town. The dead townsmen were dragged to another abandoned house across the street from it. Then flammable items from nearby houses, including stacks of newspapers, firewood, cans of waste oil, furniture, and the bikers’ marijuana were piled on top of the two piles of corpses. Tom Kennedy then conducted a funeral service in front of the house containing the dead townsmen. No one asked for any prayers for the dead members of the biker gang, but Tom said one anyway.

  When the funeral prayers were over, Tom Kennedy lit a road flare and set both houses afire. Within minutes, they were both totally engulfed in flames.

  After half an hour, it was clear that neither of the burning houses presented a fire risk to any of the other houses in town, so both groups proceeded to load their vehicles. After exchanging handshakes, the Templars drove off in their three jeeps and the captured van. They remarked that they would be back later in the day with their large flatbed pickup and a ramp to collect the motorcycles, including the four that had been caught in the Claymore mine blast.

  Mike soon had all of the militia loaded into their two trucks and headed back to the retreat. In the cab of the trailing vehicle—Kevin’s Ford pickup—sat Kevin, Lisa, and Todd. After they were a few miles down the road, Lisa turned to Todd and gave him a sour look. She complained, “I can see why you asked for the M60. Tactically, it’s worth as much as everything else combined. But you should have asked to keep those night vision goggles, too. They would have been great to use at the LP/OP.”

  Todd answered, “The only problem with those goggles is that they were the PVS-5 model. As I recall, that model needs a high-current two-point-seven-five volt battery, and it’s a battery that’s been known to explode if you try to recharge it. I didn’t see any spare batteries when I looked through that pile of captured gear, did you?”

  After a few moments, Lisa said glumly, “No.” After letting out an audible sigh, she gave in, “If that’s the case, then you were right when you insisted that we invest our money in trip flares, parachute flares, and the tritium sights and scopes, rather than night vision equipment.”

  Todd brought out consolingly, “Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that starlight gear is no good. It’s just worthless without the proper batteries, and most of them are exotic, can’t be recharged, and have a limited shelf life.

  There are a few of the later models made that use standard batteries like the double-A nickel metal hydride and standard nine-volt rechargables we use in some of our electronic equipment. Now any of those would have been a good investment. The only problem was that all starlight gear was so expensive, particularly the third-generation stuff. And as for the Russian gear… It was so poorly made I didn’t bother with it, either. The imaging quality is low, the weapon sights don’t hold zero very well, and the intensifying tubes bu
rn out pretty quickly. If only we’d had the money, I would have bought some good quality American-made gear….”

  Kevin interrupted with the words, “If only we had the money we would have bought a lot of things, like one of those surplus PSR-1A seismic intrusion detection sets; or, how about an amateur radio transceiver. I don’t know about you, but I get pretty frustrated sitting there just listening to the shortwave receiver. I hear those hams talking back and forth and wish that I could join in on the action. Just think of the intelligence that we could be gathering. We could quiz hams all over the western half of the country about local conditions.” Todd cupped his palm under his chin and quoted, “Oh well, hindsight is twenty-twenty.”

  CHAPTER 16

  For an Ounce of Gold

  “The Almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages.”

  —Washington Irving, Creole Village

  In early May of the third year, just as the transplants were ready to be moved from the greenhouse to the garden, the group had a pleasant surprise. One afternoon, a young man on horseback with a High Standard Model 10-B bullpup shotgun slung across his saddle horn stopped at the front gate. Kevin, who was on LP/OP duty, closely scrutinized him through his binoculars. He recognized the man as one of the Troy Templars. Up the hill, Shona let out three low barks. The man didn’t wait for anyone to come down from the house to greet him. He just leaned out of his saddle and stapled a handbill to the power pole nearest the gate and rode away.

  Kevin called a message in to the C.Q. concerning what he had seen. Mike soon dispatched Doug and Della to go check it out. They weren’t back until ten minutes later, since they had moved cautiously, treating the short walk as a patrol. Della was clutching the flyer. She blurted, “Sounds like big doin’s in Troy!” as she handed the ink-jet-printed flyer to Mike. It read:

  Announcing the

  Troy Barter Faire

  Come One, Come All!

  For three days, starting the 21st of May

  (The next full moon for those of you who have lost track), the town of Troy is sponsoring a barter faire.

  Bring your trading goods, and come prepared for some serious dickering.

  Secure camping areas will be available at Memorial Park.

  A barn dance with a string band is scheduled for the evening of the 22nd.

  Security to be provided by the Troy Templars.

  “Well, well, well,” Mike muttered. Just then, Todd, still wearing his slippers, sauntered up. Mike handed him the flyer, which he quickly scanned.

  Todd pronounced, “Tell everyone we’ll be having a meeting at noon.”

  After everyone had quieted down, Todd started the meeting. He began, “I’m surprised that someone else hasn’t set up a trading event before this. I guess that until the looters got thinned out, folks were too frightened to travel. You can’t blame them. There, of course, has been small-scale bartering going on ever since the Crunch started, but that has mainly been between contiguous neighbors. I’m glad to see some organized commerce getting reestablished.”

  There were vigorous nods of agreement. “Personally, I have no objections to us going to the Faire. My main concerns are about securing the retreat while we are gone, so I’ll give the floor to Mike.”

  Mike Nelson stood up and cleared his throat. “Okay, the way I see it, we can’t all go. We’ll need a minimum of four of us to stay back here and hold the fort. I suggest that we draw lots.” Todd then spoke up, “Does that sound acceptable to everyone?” There were more nods of agreement.

  The militia members drew lots from lengths of dowels, as was their custom for such proceedings. The unlucky losers who had to stay at home were Todd, Jeff, Rose, and Marguerite. Margie offered to babysit little Jacob.

  The main topic of conversation for the next three weeks was the Faire. It was decided that they would take Todd’s Power Wagon and Kevin’s F250 pickup. Mike would head the expedition. To the relief of some members, Mike decided that they could wear “civilian” clothes if they wished. He didn’t need to remind them that they all had to be armed. By now, they would have felt naked without carrying at least a handgun.

  After much anticipation, the big day arrived. Della and Mary were by far the best-dressed and most civilized looking representatives of the retreat. They both wore dresses. It was the first time that either of them had worn dresses or shaved their legs in a long time. The heavy leather belt and holster rig for Mary’s Colt looked incongruous, but she didn’t care. She commented that it felt good to get out of trousers and feel like a woman again.

  Della wore a knee-length turquoise dress that she borrowed from Mary, who was about the same size. She decided to carry only her CAR-15 with a duplexed pair of thirty-round magazines.

  The two pickups from the retreat left an hour after sunrise on the twenty-first. Heading to Troy in the pickups, they passed dozens of people on foot, on horseback, and in wagons. Mike laughed when he saw one man was riding a moped with a cage containing three live chickens strapped to the back.

  When they reached the edge of town they noticed that there were only a few Fairegoers that had driven motor vehicles. There were literally dozens of horses tied up. Most had their saddles slung over fences or laying next to them.

  Because of the value of the gear in the trucks, Mike insisted that they take turns guarding them and monitoring the CB radio—two members per two-hour shift. There were also orders to check in with the retreat via the CB once an hour.

  Before they left the trucks, Mike called a huddle and reminded them that their main priority was to barter for kerosene. He asked that they take note of the items that other Fairegoers were looking for, so that the next day’s increment would bring the most appropriate trading goods. Mike also reminded everyone to be careful about their personal safety, and not to reveal anything about the militia or their retreat to anyone they engaged in conversation. He warned them, “Be real vague. Change the subject. For goodness sake, don’t reveal the location of the retreat or give any indication of our strength or logistics base. The people that you are talking with might be nice enough, but interesting tidbits of information tend to travel far and fast. I think it’s best we take the cautious approach.”

  The Barter Faire itself was spread out up and down the main street. It seemed like a veritable horde, since they hadn’t seen large gatherings of people for nearly three years. In fact, though, there were less than four hundred people in Troy at the Faire’s peak. As promised, the Troy Templars were there, mostly armed with M1As and parkerized Ithaca Model 87 eight-shot riotguns draped across their chests with extra-long slings. Dan noticed that their quick detachable sling swivels were mounted on the sides of the barrels in the front, and on the top of the stock in the back, so the guns didn’t flop upside down. Two Templars were posted at each end of town, and two walked a roving patrol.

  Their security force really wasn’t necessary, however. Nearly everyone, with the exception of young children, was armed. About half the people carried holstered handguns. The rest carried long guns slung across their backs. More than a few carried both. This latter category included most of the Templars and the Northwest Militia.

  It was a simple affair. Anyone with a sizable quantity of goods to sell simply rolled out one or more blankets on the pavement, and spread out their goods.

  Direct barter of goods and services was the most common form of payment, although there were a considerable number of pre-1965 mint date silver coins changing hands. There were several people swapping big game and furbearer hides. One man was making custom belts and rifle slings to order, right on the spot. He was also taking orders for making holsters and rifle scabbards. These were paid-in-advance orders that would be delivered or picked up on a later date. He was also selling leather gloves, and moccasins and sandals that had pieces of car tire for soles. The latter sold out very quickly.

  One enterprising gentleman who folks called “Mi
ster Steam” was one of the busiest dealers at the faire. He offered freshly recharged twelve-volt car batteries in trade for fifty cents in silver coin and a discharged battery. Without a discharged battery in trade, the batteries were three dollars each. Mister Steam was a portly man with a graying bushy red beard. He wore overalls and a pinstriped railroader’s hat. Mister Steam recounted to Mike how three years before the Crunch he had joined a small engine hobbyist group in eastern Washington. Most of the members had one-cylinder gas-powered engines, and a few had older steam-powered engines. He described the group as “a bunch of us old farts who played with steam, Stirling, and hit-and-miss engines.”

  Since steam locomotives were one of his long-time interests, he started looking for a steam-powered stationary engine or tractor. He eventually found one: a half-scale two-cylinder Avery steam tractor. It produced fifty horsepower. He spent a year restoring it. He recounted, “I bought it, basically on a lark. My wife thought I was nuts, spending that much money on a ‘big toy.’

  Well, it’s no toy now. It’s going to make me a good living the next few years. I can do a lot with the power take-off. I’m trying to work a deal with a machinist to help me set up a small sawmill. With fifty horses, I can run a mill and the alternator at the same time. I’ll tell you, that engine is the best investment I ever made!” Before he left, Mike looked at the signboard advertising his batteries and displaying pictures of his tractor. At the bottom was a note penned with a bold magic marker: “Needed: Lithium grease and clean 90 weight gear oil! I will pay in silver!”