Grafton sighed. “His time has run out. The American people have gotten a good look at Soetoro this past week, and I don’t think they like what they saw. I thank my stars that I’m not Barry Soetoro. He won’t like his future.”
I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t. For once I did the smart thing: I kept my mouth shut.
“Help me to bed,” Jake Grafton said.
As I hoisted him, my resolve melted. I asked, “Do you really think Joe Six-Pack and the missus will shoot at Soetoro’s thugs?”
“This republic is their heritage,” he said. “If they don’t value it enough to fight for it, a great many men have wasted their lives fighting for them.”
The next morning, Saturday, the first day of the three-day Labor Day weekend, the radio gave us the news that seven more states — Kansas, Nebraska, South and North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and New Mexico — had declared their independence. Georgia had tried to, but federal paramilitary police broke up the legislature and arrested half the politicians. In South Carolina, a gun battle had broken out in the statehouse and at least ten people had died.
The governor of New Mexico read a statement to the press after the Declaration of Independence was read. “The proud citizens of New Mexico will never escape poverty unless the flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America is drastically curtailed. New Mexicans are being robbed of the American dream, the dream that by hard work and thrift they can improve their lot in life and provide a better life for their children. We have taken a stand here tonight. Let history be our judge.”
“The liberals are going down hard,” Jake Grafton remarked.
“You knew they wouldn’t go easy,” Sal Molina shot back.
“Yes. I did know that,” Grafton replied, glancing at Molina’s face. I was watching him. No doubt that is why he kept his mouth so firmly shut about Soetoro’s plans, which he had overheard on Sarah Houston’s White House bugging operation. I wondered what Molina’s reaction would be when he learned — if he ever did — that Grafton had been listening to all the White House bullshit and plotting for the last six months, including Molina’s.
That Saturday was the day the Mexican army invaded Southern California. Maybe the Mexicans thought they could carve off a chunk for themselves, or maybe the troops were funded by the drug cartels that wanted their own country.
As the day wore on, we heard that the Marines at Camp Pendleton were fighting back. All up and down the west coast, U.S. military units raced south to engage. Two carriers left San Diego and began launching strikes against the invading troops and fighting to maintain air superiority.
When I had had all of the news I could stand, I went out onto the porch, carrying my M4. Sarah joined me and we climbed the hill and sat under a tree. A breeze whispered in the pines, and we sat for so long and so quietly that a doe and her two fawns eventually wandered by.
When they were out of sight, she whispered, “Life goes on.”
“With or without us,” I said.
Ten or so minutes later an airplane broke the silence, flying low, just above the trees. A piston-engine plane. Then I got a glimpse of it through the forest canopy. A tail-dragger. A little Cessna by the look of it. It circled the safe house twice, and the pilot probably got a look at the trucks, even though they were parked under the trees.
I was up and running, searching for a hole in the canopy so I could track the plane, which was still humming pleasantly. The sound was fading though. Then and I saw it in the distance, to the south, apparently circling to land on the grass runway in the valley.
“Come on,” I shouted at Sarah. We trotted down the hill, jumped into a pickup, and raced down the road toward the valley.
The little plane was sitting by the hangar when we arrived. It looked like a Cessna 170, all polished aluminum. I took the carbine as I got out of the truck. A man was helping a woman and two small boys. I didn’t see any weapons on them.
“Hey,” I said as I walked up.
“Hello. Is this your place?”
“It’s private property, but I don’t own it.”
“The thugs from Philly are looting and burning houses in our neighborhood. We got to the airport and I got my plane. I didn’t know where to go, and when I saw this runway, I said, ‘Guess we’ll try our luck here.’” He had been eyeing my carbine and the pistol on my web belt. Then his eyes shifted to Sarah, who walked by us over to the woman.
“My name’s Johnson. That’s my wife,” he told me. “We had to get out. I think thugs killed the woman next door and left her body in the house when they burned it down.”
We opened the hangar and shoved his plane in tail-first, chocked it, and closed the doors. I loaded everyone in the truck and took them to the safe house.
Jake Grafton was sitting in an easy chair in the main room. He perked right up when I told him about the plane. He skipped the social pleasantries with Johnson. “How much fuel is in it?”
“Both tanks are about half full.”
“Tommy, go back to the hangar and see if there is any avgas there.”
As I left, Grafton was asking Johnson about bridges and roadblocks he might have seen from the air. Maybe this will galvanize Grafton, I thought. Get him moving. God, I was tired of sitting doing nothing while America went back to the stone age.
A plane would be a good thing to have if we could keep it fueled. Our own air force. I opened a panel of the sliding hangar door and went inside. And Lady Luck smiled. I found a fifty-five-gallon plastic drum full of fuel in the hangar. The drum had a hand-crank pump mounted on top and a hose. I was maneuvering the drum under the left wing when I heard a pickup truck drive up. I figured it was Armanti and I needed him to crank the pump while I stood on the ladder with the hose.
I turned. Two scraggly faced locals in filthy jeans and T-shirts stood at the door of the hangar and had me covered with scoped deer rifles. Both were grinning at me with yellow teeth.
“Well, well, well! By God, we heard it and here it is,” said one of them.
“Just shuck that pistol, asshole, and maybe we won’t shoot you,” said the other.
I pulled out the Kimber and tossed it in the dirt.
“Look the plane over, Benny. You, get over here against the wall.” He waggled the barrel of his rifle and I went.
The one called Benny picked up my shooter, examined it, and tucked it into his pants. The other kept his rifle pointed at my belt buckle while Benny opened the door to the plane and looked around inside.
“Jearl, that kid is gettin’ away!” A call from outside. So there were more of them out there.
Jearl must have been the stalwart guarding me, because he forgot me and ran back to the open panel in the door. “Hey!” Jearl went dashing out of sight, shouting, “Get off your asses and catch her!”
I grabbed a heavy wrench off the shelf and stuck it up my sleeve. Benny strolled over from the plane, pulling my Kimber from his waistband. He had a big wad of snuff under his lower lip. “You’re a big one, ain’t you?”
“Your mom know you boys are out causing trouble?” I asked.
“Man, the country has gone to hell. We can be just as bad as we wanna be and ain’t nobody to say we can’t.”
“And how bad is that?”
I heard the sound of another truck. So did Benny, and he turned his head to his right toward the door. I let the wrench slide down into my hand; as he turned back toward me I hit him in the jaw with it with everything I had, right on top of his snuff wad. The blow put him down hard and I was all over him. Got my pistol and his rifle. He was only partially conscious. His jaw was obviously broken. Blood, saliva, and brown tobacco juice dribbled from his open mouth.