“I’d like to know just who’s on that team of journalists and experts. Were they handpicked by the Administration?”
They all nodded in agreement.
“…This shocking news just came in.” The announcer’s voice sounded genuinely shocked, rather than the faux emotion that they often evidenced. The room fell silent.
“The Governors of Iowa, Montana, and Wyoming have just announced their secession from the United States of America!” Radio silence claimed the air for several long seconds. Cooper imagined that the man on the other end was actually speechless after reading the newsflash.
“I repeat, it is confirmed that the States of Iowa, Montana, and Wyoming have announced that they are seceding from the United States. They are calling their new nation the Patriotic American States. The declaration of secession issued jointly by the three Governors cites, and I quote, ‘the long-standing infringement of our inalienable liberties and freedoms by the overbearing and intrusive Federal Government….after an extensive review of all the proven information related to the Brushfire Plague, we have decided the government of the United States was complicit either intentionally or through wanton negligence in the commission of this horrendous crime upon our beloved land. We see no other course of action and honor our revolutionary forefathers in announcing our total revocation of our ties with the United States…”
“Is this really happening!” Julianne exclaimed, hands grabbing her head.
Cooper just shook his head.
Dranko was notably calm, “There had to be contingency plans in place before the Plague even struck. No way they move all this so quickly otherwise.”
“What are you talking about? You see a damned conspiracy under every rock!” Cooper scowled at Dranko.
Dranko raised his hands, palms up, “What me? I’m just stating the obvious. There had to have been some discussions and plans about this already on the books. In fact, there was a famous survivalist, James Wesley Rawles, who said those states should secede.”
“You are making my head hurt,” Cooper responded. “What does this all mean?”
“It means that the pitch of the cliff we have been travelling over just got steeper,” Dranko replied smugly.
“It means the end of the United States,” Julianne added dryly.
The door flew open so abruptly that everyone had pistols drawn and pointed at the door in a flash.
Tim’s flushed face peered over the edge of the door, he recoiled when he saw the multitude of guns pointed at him. His face appeared a second time, this time more slowly.
“We got company.”
Julianne hustled Jake into the basement, while the others grabbed their rifles and took up their pre-arranged defensive positions inside and outside the cabin.
Headlights stabbed through the darkness haphazardly as a single vehicle made its way up the winding driveway.
“Either a friendly or someone incredibly brazen to be coming up like that,” Dranko observed.
He and Cooper were standing exposed in front of the cabin door. Someone had to do it. They had reasoned that if everyone was hidden away, that the risk of mistaken identity with someone who was friendly was very high.
As the vehicle rounded the tree line, they breathed a sigh of relief when they saw it was Mile’s truck. That relief was very short-lived.
He piled out as soon as the wheels stopped, “We need you guys now!”
“What’s going on?”
“That son-of-a-bitch Hodges came out to Keith’s place tonight, drunk as all get out. He just took Valerie off, kicking and screaming. Junior’s men held Keith down until she was good and away.”
Cooper’s face felt warm and his hand quickly ached from gripping his rifle so tightly, “So, what’s the plan?”
“We’re gathering at my place in thirty minutes. I want you guys to be there.”
Dranko and Cooper exchanged a quick look and immediately knew their answer, “Okay. We’re there.”
They decided to bring Tim with them, since he was from the area. Calvin and Angela would stay behind and split guard duty in case they were gone all night. They gathered their gear and got into Dranko’s Jeep for the short drive to the Stott’s.
When they arrived, the Stott’s place looked like a parking lot at a busy summer fair. Cars, but mostly pickups and SUVs, were squeezed into every available patch of land. Drivers had long ago stopped worrying about boxing others in and the vehicles were parked nose to tail, and side to side. Cooper quickly counted over twenty. He noticed the wide range of vehicles, from old rusted out pickups that looked like they would keel over and die at any second to brand new trucks with extended cabs and shiny new paint. The handful of cars in the yard told a similar tale: from an old Dodge K car to one as new Cadillac. You can always tell the economic background of who has come to a meeting by checking the parking lot, his father had said more than once or twice.
Any pretense of holding the meeting inside had been abandoned and a crowd mingled in the chilly air. Cooper felt the electricity in the air and the hairs on his arms stood up.
“Feels like home, eh?” Dranko asked, winking.
He smiled back, “I guess you’re right. Feels like an eternity ago when we gathered on my stoop and tried to figure out what to do next, doesn’t it?”
Dranko grunted as an affirmative, paused, and then commented, “Good crowd.”
“What do you mean?” He intoned, curious
“I bet we got more guns on hand up here than back in Portland.” He’d laid the scorn so thick into his voice that Cooper felt scolded, even though he was a gun owner himself. Now, it was Cooper’s turn to grunt in agreement.
Someone tugged on his elbow and Cooper turned to see Miles with a flushed face and small beads of sweat on his brow, despite the obvious chill hanging in the air. Cooper offered him a reassuring smile.
“Nervous?”
Miles gulped, “That obvious, huh?”
Cooper clapped him on the shoulder, “You’ll be fine.”
“I ain’t never spoke to this many people before. What do I say?”
Cooper thought for a moment before responding. “My father did a lot of public speaking in his day and he gave me precious advice when I asked him the same question.”
“What was it?”
“Ask what you need to know. Say what you know to be true. And, most importantly, don’t screw it up and embarrass me!”
Cooper exploded in laugher, hoping his boisterousness would carry Miles along in the joke and get him laughing, too. It didn’t. Miles looked like he was turning a shade of green.
“Look, I’m sorry, Miles. Bad joke! I was just trying to get you to loosen up. If you get stuck, I’m here to help you,” Cooper said as he clapped him on the other shoulder.
Miles nodded his head quickly a few times, “Yeah, Okay. I’ll be fine.” With that, he turned on his heel to make his way to the edge of the group. He was breathing so rapidly and shallowly that Cooper was worried he might pass out.
“Breathe! Deeply!” He shouted after him.
He watched with bemusement as Miles clambered up onto the hood of an old Chevy pickup that was bereft of a single flake of paint, as near as Cooper could tell. Rust had long since claimed its victory.
“Can everyone gather here along the fence line?” Miles shouted to the group.
“Hey, Miles, watch it. Don’t scratch the paint on my beauty there,” a gruff voice yelled. A round of chuckles ran through the crowd.
“Hell, Frank. Any scuffing he does will be an improvement!” This catcall got more laughter than it should have. People venting their anxiety, Cooper mused.