The OP measured just six feet square and five feet high. By heaping split pinyon pine rounds over it, they made it look like a nondescript pile of firewood.
After building the OP, they moved on to upgrading the house itself, for defense against looters. Lars was fond of saying, “When it comes to stopping bullets, there’s nothing like mass, and sandbags are cheap mass.” It was clear that they’d need sandbags-a lot of sandbags. There were sixteen empty feed sacks in the barn. These had been made to hold fifty pounds of grain, so they were oversize for their needs. If filled with sand, they would have weighed more than one hundred pounds. So Lars cut each sack in half and restitched the cut off ends to form additional sacks using a large curved upholstery needle. This task was just like the sailcloth stitching that his uncle Aki had taught Lars when he was twelve years old. But this yielded just thirty-two sandbags-not nearly enough for their needs.
They made inquiries all over Farmington and Bloomfield, but found that all of the available feed sacks had already been bought up by others with the same idea. After a few days of searching, they heard that feed sacks were still available from Southwest Seed, sixty miles away, in Dolores, Colorado. Unlike a typical retail feed store, this was a seed-packing and grain elevator operation set up to handle wholesale quantities.
When he arrived, Lars was not surprised to see several armed men guarding the feed and seed complex. They were, after all, guarding something quite valuable.
The sales manager walked Lars around. He pointed out their inventory, which included many pallets of brand-new bundled feed sacks. Most of them were white, but about one-third of the twenty-pound size were tan. It was those that Laine wanted, since they were the right size for sandbags and they’d blend in well in desert country.
Negotiating the sack purchase took a while. This reminded Lars of transactions he’d witnessed several years before, at the bazaar in Basra, Iraq. It started with pleasantries, followed by a few outrageous offers and counteroffers and finally some serious dickering for more realistic prices.
They eventually agreed on $4.50 face value in pre-1965 quarters and two hundred rounds of .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridges in exchange for six hundred empty tan sacks. While he was there, Lars also bought forty more pounds of pasture blend for $1.20 face value in silver dimes. It was more than Laine needed, but he anticipated that it would be good to keep on hand for barter.
Life at the Laines’ ranch was comfortable, at least by post-Crunch standards. Everyone had enough to eat, and the rotating security shifts were just four hours per day from Monday through Saturday, and six hours on Sundays. They soon instituted “L. amp;L.’s Standing Rules.” These rules were penned on a large piece of card stock by Lisbeth and posted inside the door of the bunkhouse:
1.If in doubt, sound the alarm.
2.Keep all doors locked 24/7.
3.Never leave the house unarmed.
4.Never leave the house without a walkie-talkie.
5.Always carry at least 40 rounds of ammunition with each bolt-action rifle, and at least three magazines for semi-autos.
6.Treat every approaching stranger as a potential enemy.
7.Keep your friends close and your enemies at 9x distance.
8.No guard quits their post unless properly relieved.
9.Severe punishment for anyone who falls asleep while on watch.
10.Horse grooming and hoof work daily, without fail.
11.No lights visible from outside after dark.
12.Good stewardship in all things. No wasteful behavior!
13.Keep proper sanitation and cleanliness.
14.Leave every gate the way you found it, unless told otherwise.
15.Maintain everything to last a lifetime-it may have to!
16.Rust is an enemy. Oil and grease are allies.
17.Maintain the “need to know” rule. No loose lips!
18.Courteous behavior and Christian attitudes, always.
19.No foul or blasphemous language.
20.Respect everyone’s privacy.
21.100% effort. No slacking on chores.
22.Health and safety are top priorities.
23.Watch for signs of dehydration and hypothermia-self and others.
24.Be honest and forthright in all business dealings.
25.Recognize the head of the house as final authority on all decisions.
26.Count your blessings.
27.Be charitable and tithe consistently.
28.Smile! God loves you. You are in His covenant.
Below that, Lisbeth added a quote from her favorite Psalm:
“The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.”
– PSALM 37:18-19
20
Tentacles
“The government turns every contingency into an excuse for enhancing power in itself.”
Fort Knox, Kentucky November, the First Year
Maynard Hutchings and his council that headed the Provisional Government soon consolidated their power in Kentucky and much of Tennessee, declaring themselves “The Sole and Legitimate Provisional Government of the United States of America and Possessions,” with Hutchings himself voted by his council as “president pro tempore.”
The Provisional Government spread its sphere of influence rapidly. Any towns that resisted were quickly crushed. The mere sight of dozens of tanks and APCs was enough to make most townspeople cower in fear. Anything that the ProvGov couldn’t accomplish through intimidation, it accomplished with bribes. A new currency was spread around lavishly among the Hutchings cronies. Covertly, some criminal gangs were hired as security contractors and used as enforcers of the administration’s nationalization schemes. Some of these gangs were given military vehicles and weapons and promised booty derived from eliminating other gangs that were not as cooperative. Hit squads were formed to stifle any dissent. These did so through abductions, arson, and murder. Nobody was ever able to prove a link, but an inordinately large number of conservative members of Congress from the old government disappeared or were reported killed by bandits.
Some foreign troops were clothed in U.S. ACU digital or OCP camouflage. But most foreign troops stayed in their own uniforms and were used as shock troops, to eliminate any pockets of resistance. Disaffection with the new government smoldered everywhere that they went to pacify.
Within the first three months of launching the new government, Hutchings was in contact via satellite with the UN’s new headquarters in Brussels to request peacekeeping assistance. (The old UN building in New York had been burned, and the entire New York metropolitan region was nine-tenths depopulated and controlled by hostile gangs.) Hutchings had at first naively assumed that the UN’s assistance would be altruistic, with no strings attached. It was only after the first UN troops started to arrive in large numbers that it became clear that UN
