He heard a familiar voice. “These are all lies people. We united to save our community. The militia stole food, fuel and supplies from us. They want to sell it back to us while they keep what they want for themselves. The murdered Jim Simmons last night in cold blood, he was unarmed.” Haliday smiled; a propaganda war. The sad thing was this could lead to a civil war here within this little part of the state.
“We had a kid who belonged to them. When we contacted them to turn him over, they set up an ambush and killed the two guys who were taking him back to their compound.” Haliday was taken aback at this. He wished he would have told them how to handle the turnover. How the hell did that happen, he wondered.
The bantering would go on back and forth every so often. Haliday flipped over to Rob’s frequency. “Rob, you there?”
“Ya, I’m here. They shot two more guys.”
“I heard. Sorry to hear that. You didn’t offer to trade the kid for supplies did you?”
“No, we told them it was a straight up return. We just wanted him out of our hair. The guys were walking him down the street toward their compound and they came out from the bushes and shot them.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Listen, you guys need to get busy with what we talked about. You get everyone you can on board. You’ll get those who will be on your side, those who will join you if they think you are winning, and those who will care less. You’ll also have some against you. I know it’s only been a little more than half a day, but time is important.
“Rob, listen up. Someone needs to move into that feed store or co-op, whatever you call it. You need to make sure that remains in your control. Fortify the hell out of it. Don’t let those guys get it. See if the guy with the tooling shop can build some boxes to cover the pintles on those trailers so they can’t be towed away. I’ll check in on you late this evening, but you call if anything major goes down. I suspect they’re still licking their wounds.”
In another couple of hours, it would be getting dark again. He needed to get out and check a few things. He went into the pole barn and got into the ranger. He and Kevin took a quick ride around the property boundary. It was simple fencing in most places. He drove toward the west property line and checked the woods. He scribbled some notes on some paper.
He followed the property line around and kept making notes. When he got up to the front of the lot he looked across the street at the neighbors. He had noticed the curtains pulled aside in one of the windows. He looked around some more not to make it obvious, but he made a mental note. Someone was watching them.
They drove back up to the pole barn. Haliday checked the vehicles real quickly. He walked over and looked at his old Jeep. He jumped in and started it up, just like Kayla said, ran like a champ. He looked up and saw Dawn and Diana bringing the horses in for the night. They put some hay in the stalls for them. Each fall they had a round bale delivered just as a prep. They rotated it out each year.
Haliday checked the small aluminum boat hanging over the Jeep. That should be fine, oars were EMP proof. He walked over to an old outboard motor from the 70’s. It was a simple engine, it too should work ok and if not, no big deal. Last but not least, the tractor. If it didn’t work, the horses would. They secured everything and went back to the house.
He could smell the cooking. “What are we having for dinner?”
Sarah said, “Burritos.” Karen and Bev were sitting there making tortillas and Sarah was making the beans and the beef.
“Sounds good to me.” He raised his voice slightly. “Everyone else please gather around, we have some things we need to do in the next couple of days, and we may have a problem.”
Everyone gathered around sitting at the table or standing nearby. “We need to get the concertina wire put in place. We also need to put out the foot spikes.” These were much like the stop sticks he had described, only they were just a couple inches wide and had slivers from the edge cut and bent upwards, then sharpened. These had barbs cut into them to tear flesh as they were pulled out. These were easier to hide in tall grass and bury under loose dirt. You’d spot them in the daylight, but not at night.
“We also need to make sure we clean out the holes and have them ready to go.” Near the front of the house by the corners he had built some decorative plantings. Small curved landscape walls, but when you took the grass off and removed the cover there was a concrete culvert pipe sunk into the ground.
These were just like the ones he had remembered using multiple times in basic training at the rifle range. Pea gravel on the bottom and sand bags in each to adjust the height of the shooter. These would let two gunners provide much needed coverage to the front of the house and the sides as well. He had installed planters around the whole area made of double rows of landscape bricks stacked 2 and 3 high in places. A few spots of fieldstone built up and holding garden sculptures.
The holes near the back of the house need to be cleaned out and ready as well. These appeared to be old tractor tires used as sand boxes. Those four holes would provide coverage for all four sides of the house. He continued on with a few other tasks to up the security and make it a more formidable structure to defend.
At the top of the house was a large decorative square with a weather vane on top. This was actually a 6X6 fortified hide. One man with a rifle was protected by two rows of wooden beams with 3/16 inch sheet metal sandwiched between them. The roof was sloped, but under the shingles was some ¼ inch. Might not be perfect, but it would work. He called it the crow’s nest.
He looked at everyone. “The militia might have a spotter across the road. You guys didn’t notice?”
“No, not really. Just thought it was a nosy neighbor.”
“That’s what I thought, too.” Nobody gave it much thought but he had. He told them what he thought.
“After watching them peek out through the window, I was turning around when I spotted a whip antenna on the chimney. Not sure how long it’s been there. But with the extra patrols around here it makes sense now. With you guys staying put inside, I don’t blame anyone for missing it; hell, I almost did myself. I’m not sure they heard or saw the bikes come in last night.”
“I’m going to go over there tomorrow with a couple of you and we’ll introduce ourselves. See what they are up to. Plant a little propaganda ourselves. However, we need to prepare for a fight just in case. I would say we have three or four days before that happens. It might not. I might be grasping at straws. But, I doubt it. If they know where to find me, they will come on strong.”
Everyone just kind of looked at each other. Rich asked him, “Are you sure?”
“Ya Dad, I’m sure.” Dinner was served up soon afterwards, but not a lot of people were really hungry. Almost half was put away for later. Normally this would have all been gone. They were good at guessing how much to make so nothing went to waste.
Haliday walked over and grabbed a glass and tossed some ice in it. The idea of not having gas for the generator one day, or a cold fridge really ticked him off. He had a solar array and battery bank, but that would push it even if operating nothing but the fridge and a few lights. He poured himself a couple fingers of Jack Daniels, sat at the desk and listened to the radio and took more notes. He told Mike what was going on, he checked in with Rob, but didn’t say anything to him.
Rob told him he had recruited a few more families. Once word spread, they knew who to believe. There were still doubters, and there were still those believing the militia, but the tide was turning. Not bad for a day’s work. Rob told him they got the truck from the parking lot and put tires on it. He also said they managed to round up some quads and a couple of bikes. They were working on a couple other vehicles, but not sure.