At what point was a person a murderer when killing people stealing their supplies? Was it okay to kill someone for plucking a wild plant from your land? And, even when justified, how hard was it to sleep at night after killing someone?
Every time she holstered her gun in the morning, she wondered if today would be the day she killed someone. The romance and cool factor of firearms had entirely evaporated. Her gun had become a battered tool and she resented what the gun implied.
Once Tom had given her a funny, over-sized tee shirt for Christmas that said, “Prepared, not Scared” with a picture of a bullet between “Prepared” and “not Scared.” It had become one of her sexy, funny nighties. Every time she thought of that tee shirt—she’d left it at the house—she shook her head and smiled at how asinine she had been.
She and Tom had been fairly well prepared. Even so, like the potato fiasco, they now spent every minute painfully aware of all the things they had forgotten. This whole Homestead group had been maybe fifty percent prepared. That put them ahead of the curve of ninety-nine percent of humanity. But it did not mean they would survive. They weren’t competing against that ninety-nine percent of humanity. They were competing against Mother Nature plus the rest of humanity. Just one mistake like eating the last of their potatoes could mean starvation.
A hundred terrifying deaths awaited them and their children—marauders, rogue government forces, disease, crop failure, animal sickness. Every day, new threats emerged, and those threats weren’t like the threats from the old, modern world. They no longer faced fears of tax audits or rumors getting back to their boss about spending a sick day on the lake. The new fears carried the ultimate consequence―death. For the first time in her life, Jacquelyn felt like it was very possible she would die at a young age. Worse yet, her children might never see adulthood.
Prepared or not, the odds of a life free from crippling grief were not good.
Peña Residence
Rose Park, Salt Lake City, Utah
The smell of wood smoke. What could be better? For Gabriel Peña, wood smoke evoked memories of sitting around a campfire with his father, enjoying tacos de carne asada. If only life could have remained that elemental, that simple.
Laced with the smell of plastic and oil, the wood smoke today foretold menace. It hung over Rose Park like the coming of death. This smoke scared the hell out of Gabriel.
The last thing his brother Francisco told him before the court sentenced him to prison was, “Take care of Mama and Abuelita. You’re the man of the house now.”
Nothing mattered more to Gabriel than the respect of his brother, and he would do anything to carry his brother’s burden. But the smoke troubled him to the point of distraction. Drifting into every corner of every room of the house, every piece of clothing, every bite of food, the smoke threatened terrors that Gabriel could not fight with fist or gun. The smoke brought death―dark, silent, and ephemeral as a curse.
Gabriel could fight; his brother had taught him. Gabe kept a fully-loaded Cuerno de Chivo, or AK-47, behind his bed, unbeknown to his mama. He owned two knives and several handguns as well. Still, Francisco forbade him from joining the gang and, as captain of Los Norteños del Utah, Francisco’s word was law.
Gabriel put on a good show of resenting his brother’s mandate, just to protect his scrim of machismo. But, secretly, he knew the life of a gang soldier wasn’t for him. He liked his brother’s vision of laboring beside the common man, sacrificing privilege in the name of equality, but Gabriel and Francisco both knew they were fundamentally different people from the gang soldiers who followed Francisco’s every word. The Peña brothers were more intelligent and capable of greater things than the other gangbangers.
Francisco used his intelligence as a leader in the Mexican underworld, planning operations and calling shots. The path of a criminal revolutionary required total commitment to brutality, and Francisco built his street reputation with the flair of a Hollywood image consultant. Behind his back, the soldiers called him “El Barbero”―“The Barber”―because Francisco employed an old-fashioned straight razor in moments requiring a dash of vicious showmanship. He lashed out at anyone using the nickname “El Barbero,” but it was a calculated response meant to inspire trepidation.
“Just Francisco,” he would insist, “like Francisco ‘Pancho’ Villa.” Even so, Francisco had intentionally inspired the nickname “El Barbero” and he wanted his men to think of him as a vicious killer. He certainly was a vicious killer, and a criminal genius.
Gabriel was just as smart, but he lacked the darkness of his brother. Francisco understood the difference and he permitted Gabe no opportunity to join the criminal world of Salt Lake City. Like a good mother’s son, Gabriel worked at a small Latino grocery around the corner from his home.
“Gabriel, no vas afuera.” Don’t go outside, his grandma insisted, her eyes darting around the living room, glancing out the front window. A group of teens howled as they passed by on the sidewalk dragging a shopping cart full of electronics. Gabe’s grandma seemed to shrink with the racket.
He led his abuelita back to her room, helping her into her favorite chair. Gabriel dashed into his room and came right back with his iPod and Beats headphones. He scrolled through his music list and found Pedro Vargas, his grandmother’s favorite crooner. Gabe gently popped the headphones over her ears.
She quieted and he took it as his cue to check on his mama and sister. The ladies had been going through the pantry, getting ready to boil beans for tomorrow’s meals. As a single Hispanic mother who knew food was never guaranteed, his mama was a bit of a hoarder. Ever since Francisco had risen in the world of crime, showering the family with gifts and money, their mama kept a massive amount of food in the cupboard, perhaps a silent nod to the impermanent nature of their good fortune. Beans, rice, cooking oil, flour and sugar were stacked in bags and huge gallon jugs. His sister sometimes criticized her mother’s obsession with stockpiling. Nobody criticized her now. The store had been closed for a week and the Peña family still had enough food for a month or more.
Despite the revelry and violence outside, no one so much as stepped a toe on their front yard. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the home was protected by Los Latigos, and Gabriel had noticed Latigos soldiers passing by, checking in on the family.
While he watched his mama and sister work in the kitchen, Gabriel heard something thud to the floor in his abuelita’s room.
He jogged down the hall and peeked inside. His abuelita dozed in her chair, still enjoying The Songs of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. Half inside the room through the window, a white man stared back at Gabriel. The man was filthy, with matted hair, and flecks of food caught up in the tangle of his wild beard. The two men paused for a millisecond staring at one another, then both men sprang into action. The intruder, clearly a homeless man looking for drugs or food, scrambled inside the room, struggling to climb across a bookshelf while holding a kitchen knife.
Gabriel bolted for his bedroom. He dove across his bed and grabbed the AK-47, working the bolt as he launched himself back toward the intruder. As he burst back into the room, the homeless man stood behind his abuelita. Seeing the gun, the man shielded himself behind her small body in the chair and put the kitchen knife to her throat.
His abuelita awoke to find her grandson pointing a rifle at her and somebody behind her, grabbing her around the shoulders. She flew into a frenzy, bucking and shrieking like a dog caught in a net. The homeless man tried to restrain her, but she flopped so violently that she flew up and out of the chair and dropped to the floor, holding her throat.