Ichabod

by Mark Goodwin

  Danny adjusted the sling of his rifle. “So make every shot count, even in training, right?”

  “Even in training.” JC nodded. “How much ammo do you have?”

  Danny peered up toward the edge of the barn roof as he ran the calculation. “I started with 400 rounds, shot some training, blew through a few mags in firefights; probably about 275 rounds left.”

  “That’s not much. And when it’s gone, it’s gone. I know you feel comfortable with that AK, but you should talk to Nick about letting you get his extra AR. I’ve got thousands of rounds of 5.56. So does Nick, and all of us are already trained, so we only need to shoot a minimal amount to stay sharp, make sure our weapons are zeroed in, plus whatever we need for hunting and defense.”

  Danny gritted his teeth and looked at Alisa. “We should have bought a lot more ammo.”

  “No sense kicking yourself. You did good. You prepared as best as you knew how, and everyone in your group got here safely. It could have been a lot worse.” JC gave Danny’s shoulder a squeeze.

  Danny gave a light smile. “Yeah, thanks.”

  JC waved as he walked away. “I’m going to go have a chat with Korey. I’ll see you guys later.”

  “Bye,” Alisa said.

  “You’re welcome to eat dinner with us. Nana always makes plenty,” Danny said.

  JC turned to answer but kept walking. “Thanks, but we’ll probably eat in the trailer tonight. It’s our family time.”

  “Okay, see ya later.” Danny waved.

  CHAPTER 15

  But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

  Psalm 3:3

  As was becoming the norm, Danny awoke Saturday morning still exhausted from the day before. He turned over to look at Alisa, who also looked tired. “I’m crawling back in the bed after church tomorrow.”

  She put her finger on his nose and smiled. “Good luck. The Reeses are moving to the compound after church.”

  “Why did you have to remind me?” He rolled back over and covered his head.

  Nana’s voice rang out from the foot of the stairs. “Y’all get on down here. It’s time to eat.”

  Alisa got up and jerked the covers off of Danny. “Rise and shine, country boy.”

  He made a vain attempt to cling to the covers, a symbol of the extra sleep he so desperately desired. “Okay.”

  The two of them quickly got dressed and made their way to the breakfast table. Grits and eggs were both readily available, so they were the two staples for the morning meal. The coffee was becoming gradually weaker as Nana rationed and rebrewed the grounds to make them last longer.

  Danny hurried to get his chores done so he could meet the scavenging team behind the barn. Alisa helped him since Steven was still not speaking to Danny, other than forced courtesies and saying what had to be said for the morning’s division of labor.

  They arrived at the back of the barn where Nick and Cami were already waiting.

  Nick handed an all-black AR-15 to Danny. “I spoke with JC last night. We decided the two of you should get trained up with this rifle. It’s just like the one that’s being used for night watch, except for the night vision scope.”

  Danny passed the rifle to Alisa to look over. “Thanks, that’s great. Is it just like yours and Cami’s?”

  “Similar. Ours are Rock River Arms, slightly more high-end. This one and the night watch rifle are DPMS. They sold for less than $600 each before the EMP, but still very good guns. We figured they’d be our backup guns if anything happened and we lost our rifles on the way home. Or as it has turned out, we figured they’d be more useful than the $1200.”

  “Fantastic, thanks so much,” Alisa said.

  Nick handed a couple full magazines to Alisa. “You, Cami, and Melissa will be the primary defense for the compound while we’re out on Monday, so you need to get up to speed on this weapon today. Danny, I assume you’ll want to have your AK on Monday, right?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Okay then, let’s do some shooting.”

  Alisa asked, “Should we be shooting so early in the morning?”

  “Rocky had night watch last night. If he’s sleeping with earplugs, the shots shouldn’t bother him all the way over on the other side of the creek.”

  “I assume his watch went okay last night? No major events?” Danny asked.

  Nick snorted. “Yes and no. No major events with animals or invaders obviously, but Pauline came running down here in the middle of the night. It scared him half to death, thinking something had happened to her.”

  “Is she okay? What happened?” Alisa looked concerned.

  “No big deal,” Nick said. “She had a bad dream, dreamed that Rocky was shot on the scavenging mission.”

  Danny didn’t like the sound of that. “In my world, bad dreams are a very big deal. Are you sure you should be so quick to write it off?”

  JC and Jack walked up as they were speaking.

  “Did you tell them about Mrs. Cook’s nightmare?” Jack inquired.

  Nick nodded. “We were just talking about it.”

  Danny turned toward JC. “Do you think there could be anything to it?”

  “Not really. She’s never had a dream come true before.”

  Danny looked at the ground in front of him. “Neither had I, until three months ago. There’s a first time for everything.”

  Nick rubbed his chin. “I don’t think we can scrap such an important mission over what is probably just a case of Pauline being worried about her husband. That’s a pretty normal dream for anyone who has a loved one going into a potentially dangerous situation.”

  “I agree.” JC nodded. “Danny, if it were you having the dream, that would be a different story. I’d walk away from the mission in a heartbeat.”

  “Yeah, well, we still have to get through the next two nights.” Danny knuckled his brow.

  “Who’s going to fill in for Rocky? At training I mean. Since he had night watch, you’ll be missing your fourth lookout,” Alisa said.

  Danny knew exactly where this was going. “It’s just training. We don’t have to have a person in that position. We can just pretend Rocky is standing there.”

  “Wow.” Alisa held the AR with one hand and put her other hand on her hip. “Did you get promoted to tactical coordinator? I didn’t know. Congratulations. I’ll see if I can get Nana to bake a cake to celebrate.”

  “I’m your husband. I don’t have to be tactical coordinator. It’s just training, Alisa. Don’t get so bent out of shape.”

  “If it’s just training, what would be the harm in me standing in for Rocky?”

  “It’s just not necessary.”

  JC pursed his lips. “I hate to get in the middle of this, but it would help to have another body standing in for Rocky, but not if it’s going to cause friction. Danny, you can say no if you want. And Alisa, it’s only if you promise not to rub it in his face. No I-told-you-so.”

  “Pinky swear!” Alisa’s face lit up. “Danny, I’m sorry. Like you said, it’s just training. After all, the better trained I am, the more I’ll be able to protect myself while you’re away. Can I? Please?”

  Nick, Jack, and JC were all looking at him, and he knew they thought that Alisa should fill in. He did not, but he’d promised that he wouldn’t be overprotective of her and that he’d let her live her life. And there was no way to argue that more training wouldn’t make her safer. “This, in no way, implies that you’ll be going on this or any other mission.” Danny stuck his index finger in the air to emphasize his point.

  Alisa bit her lip. “Thank you, Danny. And of course, I know that; you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Hmm.” He pursed his lips. He had plenty to worry about.

  Nick spent the next several minutes going over the function of the AR-15 with Danny and Alisa. Then, they took turns firing the weapons at the various targets left out from training the day before.

  Catfish soon arrived with K
orey.

  Danny shook Korey’s hand. “So you got sucked into this, too.”

  “Yeah,” Korey laughed. “I guess we’ll be living in one of those trailers, so I figured I better go along and earn my keep.”

  “Where’s the little guy?” Danny asked.

  “I don’t want him or the girls worrying about me while we’re out on Monday, so I didn’t want him to know what we’re doing today. I practically had to hogtie him to keep him from coming today.”

  “You’ll all be out here tomorrow, living life in the compound.”

  “Yep. It’s tough on Tracey, and the girls. They’ll miss their house, but it’s a different world, and we have to do what we have to do.”

  The team practiced getting in and out of the truck for twenty minutes, with JC timing them and pushing them to move faster and faster.

  It seemed like such a monotonous task to Danny, but he trusted Nick and JC, who assured the group over and over that the precious seconds lost, getting in or out of the truck, could cost a life.

  Next, they practiced backing the truck up to Catfish’s old flatbed trailer, which stood in for the travel trailers. Assorted types of locks were placed on the coupler to mimic the various hitch locks that would likely need to be cut off. Danny and Korey were responsible for cutting the locks and getting the trailer hooked up while Catfish backed up the truck and the others stood guard.

  “Everybody is doing great. Let’s put another lock on the coupler and run the whole operation from the top.” Nick pointed to Alisa. “Switch with Korey. I want to make sure he’s trained to handle a security position in case we need him there.”

  “Okay.” Alisa got in the bed of the truck, between Danny and Nick, where Korey had been sitting in the previous drills.

  Everyone returned to the truck once more and Catfish drove around the barn, as if they were just pulling up to the trailer lot. The team bailed out of the truck in a precise order, depending on their positions. Danny waited for the rear security team, Nick and Korey, to sweep their area and yell, “All clear.” Danny and Alisa dropped the tailgate, set their weapons on it, and retrieved the cutting tools from Danny’s backpack. She handed him the hacksaw and held the bolt cutters in case he needed them.

  Danny had sawn through a piece of rebar, drilled out the keyhole of an old lock, and cut another lock with the bolt cutters in the past three rounds of training. His arms were getting tired.

  “Want some help?”

  Danny stood back. “Go ahead.”

  Alisa positioned the bolt cutters on the old lock and began to squeeze. She put all of her strength into the task. Finally, the blades of the cutters bit together with a snap and the old lock dropped to the ground. “Voila!”

  “Good job.” He couldn’t deny that she was a real trooper and put her heart into everything she did.

  Nick began clapping. “You all did a bang-up job. Give yourselves a hand.”

  They all clapped.

  JC addressed the group before dismissing them. “This mission is a little bit of a touchy subject for some of the other folks living in the compound. The less we talk about it, the less of an issue it will be. Everybody, go home, get some rest. And be ready to roll out at five o’clock Monday morning.”

  Alisa reminded him, “We’re moving the Reese family tomorrow, right?”

  JC turned to Korey. “Since we’re probably going to have a new trailer for you Monday, would you rather push your move back till Tuesday?”

  Korey nodded. “Yep. Otherwise, it’ll be like moving twice. The girls will be happy to have two more days in their home. And maybe Tracey won’t be so anxious while we’re out on the mission.”

  “Okay, then. See you all at church tomorrow.” Nick waved and headed back to his trailer.

  Danny smiled. He was happy for Korey’s family to have another day in their home, but he was also happy to have a true day of rest. It was a much-needed break, especially with the mission on Monday.

  Sunday morning, Danny and Alisa went to the barn early to straighten up before church. There was no way of making the venue look like anything other than a barn, but they could, at least, put the tools back in their proper place and arrange the hay bales in a manner that felt more inviting.

  Everyone else living in the compound began arriving soon after. Catfish arrived with the Reese family just before Nana began singing from her handwritten song sheet. Even though they had postponed their official move date until Tuesday, the Reeses did not want to waste a trip and had loaded some of their belongings into Catfish’s truck to bring over.

  After four songs, Steven stepped to the front with his Bible, a notebook, and a sullen face. He opened the service with prayer, then flipped through the pages of his Bible. “I’m really torn on what to talk about this morning. I don’t think I’m telling anyone something they don’t know by saying we have a major split in opinion about tomorrow’s mission. I know how I feel, but I also know how Danny and the men leading the team feel. I was tempted to use the pulpit as a vehicle to promote my agenda this morning. I’m not going to do that. I am going to talk about why I think it’s the wrong thing to do, but I know that Danny, JC, and Nick are good people and what they are doing is being done out of love, so I’m going to talk about that. At the end of the day, we’re all family now. We all depend on one another, and that means we’re going to see things differently from time to time. We’re going to have to look past our disagreements and focus on loving each other, like a family.

  “I’m going to first start with a verse that I believe reflects the heart of Danny and the others. Turn with me to I Timothy 5:8, ‘But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.’ I think this verse represents the motivation of the team that is going out tomorrow.” Steven continued to speak about the love, devotion, and self-sacrifice of the men who would be going out the following morning.

  Steven flipped through the pages again. “Now, if you’ll turn with me to Exodus 20:15. ‘Thou shall not steal.’ It’s a very simple verse, with no need for an elaborate explanation. It doesn’t have any criteria that need to be met before its application, nor does it provide for any exceptions. It’s a hard and fast rule, and God saw fit to list it in his personal top-ten list of things he commanded us to do. It’s my honest opinion that we find ourselves in our present predicament because of moral compromise. Our country and our culture found excuse after excuse to do away with moral absolutes, panning through grey areas until we found ourselves in such a condition that God Almighty had to turn his back on us, remove his hand of protection, and allow our ultimate destruction.

  “Aside from all of that, I see tomorrow’s mission as trusting in the flesh. I believe wholeheartedly that if we trust in God and honor his commandments that his providence will be our shelter and our refuge.”

  Nana shouted out, “Hallelujah!”

  Her impromptu praise was loud enough and disruptive enough to break the seriousness and bring a grin or giggle to everyone in the barn, Steven included.

  Steven smiled, then took a deep breath. “With all of that said, I would still like to go around the room and have each one of us pray for their safety tomorrow. We all know what a dangerous world it is beyond the hedgerow that separates Miss Jennie’s farm from the rest of this broken world. I’ll start, and then we’ll go around the room until everyone has had a chance to pray. It doesn’t have to be long, but this team does need God’s protection.”

  Steven bowed his head and led in prayer. For the next half an hour, the rest of the attendees went around the barn, praying in turn.

  Sunday dinner followed the service. As usual, Nana and Pauline Cook oversaw the food preparation efforts. Cami and Tracey Reese assisted with the meal, while Danny, Alisa, Steven, and Dana took care of setting up the outside eating area. Several wood boards pulled from the side of JC’s barn sat atop a row of old metal barrels to make a serving table as well as a series of dining table
s. For benches, more boards from the weathered barn were placed upon five-gallon buckets. Each eight-foot-long bench consisted of a bucket at both ends and one in the middle for support.

  Since tomorrow’s mission was such a subject of contention, the topic was avoided except for the low whispers amongst those known to be in agreement with each other on the matter.

  JC accompanied Danny as he walked around to the hand pump in order to draw water for teaming off the iced tea. “Need some help?”

  Danny handed him one of the buckets. “Sure. Nana brews the tea very strong, so we can mix it with cold water from the well. It’s not exactly iced tea, but as long as we mix it right before we serve it, it’s still relatively cold tea.”

  “Good enough for me.” JC stood next to the pump as Danny began lifting and pushing the handle. “Listen, I’ve got some bad news.”

  “What happened?” Danny stopped pumping for a moment.

  “Nothing terrible. It’s Rocky. Pauline is hung up on that dream. She’s convinced him not to go on the run tomorrow.”

  Danny resumed working the pump. “Oh. So, we’ll be a man short. The security team is just precautionary, right? Can’t we work with what we have?”

  JC took the filled bucket and handed Danny the empty one. “We’re totally exposed in an operation like that. I don’t feel comfortable having any less than four people on security, to cover all four corners of the op. Splitting the security team into three zones leaves way too much room for someone to slip up on us.”

  “So, what are you recommending? We stay home?”

  JC pursed his lips. “I hate to ask this of you.”

  Danny started shaking his head. He didn’t need to hear the question. He knew exactly what JC was going to say. “You know, JC, this is exactly why I didn’t want her to train. I knew something like this was going to come up.”