“We have multiple vehicles due in one minute. Decision time!” Alan announced.
Ray said, “If we were suspects for the Williams Lake thing, then they wouldn’t bother with the RCMP.”
After just a moment, Ray made a snap decision. “Stealth mode!” he shouted.
Following their well-rehearsed procedure, Alan’s elk rifle and Ray’s shotgun were both quickly handed to Phil, and he was ushered into the Ten Boom Room closet. Within a few seconds, he was slapping the wedges into place. Claire straightened Phil’s bed covers, and Ray hid Phil’s shaving kit.
As Ray and his parents walked into the living room, they heard footsteps on the porch. There was a loud knock on the door. A man shouted, “RCMP. We have a writ. Open the door or we will enter by force.”
Alan opened the door.
A portly RCMP sergeant with a holstered S&W 5946 and a clipboard said, “I have writ here, from UNPROFOR, formally requisitioning one Ford F-250 pickup, brown in color.”
Alan said nervously, “I see.”
“Sorry to put you to this trouble, but you’ll be compensated very generously with nine hundred dollars in LGP currency. Do you have two keys for the vehicle?”
Alan handed over the keys, acting as if he was miffed. In reality he was greatly relieved, since he had expected to be killed or arrested.
34
SUSPICION
A caged canary is secure; but it is not free. It is easier for free men to resist terrorism from afar than tyranny from within.
Dustin arrived at 3:00 P.M. on September 28, driving an old brown crew cab Chevy pickup with an extra-tall camper shell that Joshua had never seen before. It had CHEM-DRY CARPET CARE OF BOWLING GREEN painted on both sides, and a Chem-Dry logo painted on the back.
Obviously agitated, Dustin said, “Let’s talk inside.”
Immediately after the door had been closed, Dustin said, “A little bird told me that some MPs will be arriving in Bradfordsville sometime before noon tomorrow to put the bag on you and haul you to Fort Knox for questioning. Somehow, I don’t know how, you ended up on The List.”
Joshua, Megan, and Malorie were all wide-eyed.
As he handed Joshua an oversize Chevrolet logo key with door-lock remote buttons, he said, “I got a pickup from the county impound yard, which has rather lax paperwork. I picked it up during the lunch hour, and I didn’t sign it out. There are no security cameras there. I’d already earmarked this one because it had belonged to some looters who were planted in the Calvary Cemetery, and because there is a signed title in the glove box. Anyway, the tank is nearly full, plus I put ten full Scepter cans of gas in the back end—courtesy of Maynard Hutchings. There is also a skinny unleaded Scepter spout and a lollipop fuel-can lid wrench.”
Joshua nodded and sighed. “So no good-bye parties for us. We’ll roll out of here before 0200. I’m going to miss you, Dustin.”
Dustin gave Joshua a hug and said, “I’m going to miss you, too, bro. Give Ken and Terry my regards.”
“Will do. Thank you for all your help.”
Dustin bent down to shake hands with Leo and Jean, and said, “You boys are going on a big adventure with your mom, dad, and auntie Mal. Make me proud, and behave yourselves.”
Leo said gravely, “We will, sir.”
Dustin gave Malorie and Megan hugs, and then said, “Well, I’d better get back to the station before the shift change. I’ll be praying for you. Don’t blow OPSEC and try to contact me until Maynard Hutchings and his band of fools are in prison, where they belong.”
As they backed the pickup up to the garage, Joshua said to Megan, “We need to act fast. Sheila’s store closes in less than one hour.”
Joshua unloaded all of the gas cans into the garage while Megan and Malorie gathered all of the items that they had accumulated in the past seven months that they wouldn’t need or couldn’t carry on their upcoming trip. They loaded everything in the pickup, including a push lawn mower, a hibachi barbecue, a shovel, a hoe, a spading fork, a stiff-tined garden rake, a leaf rake, a wheelbarrow, a pressure canner, three cases of canning jars, two bicycles, a wood-splitting maul, some clothes and shoes that Jean had outgrown, two boxes of books, a wooden clothes-drying rack, a washtub, a washboard, and a four-gallon earthenware crock.
Megan and Joshua went to the store while Malorie stayed at home with the boys and continued to pack. She also pulled the guns, ammo, magazines, and false IDs out of the wall cache.
Joshua pulled the pickup up in front of the store at 4:52 P.M. They were relieved to see that Sheila had not yet closed the store. When they walked in, she was behind the counter working on her ledger. There was no one else in the store. Megan knew that Sheila was a resistance sympathizer, so she was direct. She said, “We’ve been told that we’re under suspicion, so we’ve got to get out of Dodge City tonight.”
Sheila nodded.
Megan asked, “Can we trade our heavier possessions for seeds and other compact, lighter-weight trade goods?”
“Yes, but it’ll have to be at a discount. You see, by taking trades like that, I’ll be violating one of the cardinal rules of barter, which is, ‘Don’t trade hard for soft.’”
Megan gave Sheila a puzzled look.
“Okay, let me explain,” Shelia said. “In barter, if what you’re offering in a trade is a compact, durable item that is in short supply, or something that is otherwise highly valued, then a savvy barterer doesn’t make the mistake of trading it away for items that are less durable or less desirable. That is trading hard for soft. Otherwise, at the end of the day, your counterpart will be going home with the better goods than you. The only exception to this rule would be if your counterpart is willing to trade a much greater quantity of his items and you know that you have a ready market for them. A corollary to this rule is that ‘it’s better to trade your bulky for his compact.’ Or, as one old gun show dealer I met said, ‘Don’t never trade away handguns for rifles or shotguns.’”
Megan said, “Okay. Understood. I’m willing to trade at a deep discount.”
“Go ahead and bring in what you have to trade.”
As Joshua started to unload the back of the pickup, Sheila flipped around the sign on the front door from OPEN to CLOSED.
With three of them working, the pile of tools and other barter items rapidly grew in the middle of the store’s sales floor.
Sheila sized it up and said, “Okay, this is better than I had expected. We can negotiate swaps for each item individually, or we can expedite things by just calling all of this a $5.25 silver coin purchase credit.”
Megan said, “I vote for expediting things.” Joshua nodded in agreement. Megan stepped forward to shake Sheila’s hand, and said firmly, “Deal.”
To use their purchase credit, they settled on eight AA rechargeable Sanyo Eneloop batteries, a 12V DC AA battery charger with a cigarette lighter plug, two cans of dark brown spray paint, a large roll of masking tape, a U.S. road atlas, and a box of fifty .22 LR cartridges. Together, those purchases came to $4.75 in silver coin. They used the rest of their purchase credit on some packets of nonhybrid carrot, squash, lettuce, and celery seeds. These were all varieties that would grow well in northern climates.
Once they were back at the house, they packed everything that they had originally brought with them to Bradfordsville, including the deer carts, in case they might have to abandon the pickup at some point and continue on foot.