Wish we had:
K’s study Bible (left in Bronco)
GPS (left in car)
Gerber Omnivore LED flashlights (both left in car and Bronco)
Fishing kit
Full-size tent
Fry pan
Tweezers
Hard candies
Granola bars
More food!
More ammo!
Sunscreen
Mosquito repellent
Gaiters
Better variety of plastic bags
Katadyn water filter (one left in Bronco, one left at Todd’s in Idaho)
Each time that Terry mentioned something that had been left behind in the Mustang and the Bronco, Ken groaned. But then, when she’d finished the list, Ken said resignedly, “We can’t worry about what we lost. We’re never getting any of that back. That’s just water under the bridge. I know it’s hard, but we even have to forgive the people that robbed us.”
Terry snorted. “I’ll let you know when I feel ready to do that. Don’t hold your breath.”
Ken gave Terry a hug and said, “I know it’s really hard, but we’ve got to let it go. It’s the Christian thing to do.”
“And shooting those guys?”
Ken answered, “That’s different. They were still
Terry gave Ken a kiss and said, “Okay. I’ll try. I’ll pray about it. Your turn to sleep, until it gets dark. I’ll wake you then—I figure that’ll be about four hours.”
Early in the afternoon, Terry first heard and then saw a group of people walking alongside the river, on the same bank that they were hidden. She woke Ken, pressing her index finger over his lips, to warn him to be quiet.
They lay still, watching the group as it passed by. They counted twenty-two people—fifteen adults and seven children. All of them were African American, carrying their belongings in backpacks. They moved downstream, oblivious to the Laytons’ presence. The adults were carrying guns, but only the man in the lead carried his gun at the ready. He was armed with a Saiga 12 shotgun. All the rest had their rifles slung on their shoulders. Some also had holstered pistols. They had an odd assortment that included two AKs, several scoped deer rifles, an AR-180, a SIG-556, and a couple of .22 rimfire rifles. As they passed, several of the people in the group were talking loudly, debating whether the water in the river was safe to drink. Several children were complaining about the weight of their loads.
Two minutes after the group was out of sight around a bend in the river, Terry whispered, “Amazing. Talk about an invitation to get ambushed.”
Ken nodded. “Yeah, notice how they were mostly clumped up? And the guy out front wasn’t acting like a real point man, either. Their spacing—er ‘intervals’—sucked.”
“Noise discipline was sucky, too.”
Ken sighed. “I hope they don’t have to learn those lessons the hard way. At least they had the sense to get out of Chicago.”
Terry gave a thumbs-up and said, “Yep, bonus points for that.”
“That’s the way I want to see everyone from here on,” Ken said. “From concealment, and preferably from a distance. Okay, it’s your turn to get some sleep.”
At 5 p.m. another group of refugees passed through, this time on the opposite bank of the river. Ken watched quietly, not bothering Terry, who was sound asleep.
This group was nine people, all white—four adults and five children. Like the last group, they were walking clustered together and the adults were carrying backpacks and slung long guns. One of the women was wearing a white ski jacket that, compared to most of their other clothing, stood out like a beacon.
When Terry awoke an hour later, Ken told her about the group that had passed by. He concluded with the words “Low life expectancy, no doubt.”
Terry replied, “Ours isn’t much better.”
“Well, at least we’re in all earth tone and camo clothes, and we’ll be traveling at night.”
“But there’s just two of us. That makes us vulnerable.”
Ken countered, “Yeah, but we’re also not in a big, noisy
Terry grinned.
Darkness was falling. They relieved themselves and buried their waste and the empty wrappers from their MRE. They applied foot powder and put on dry socks. As they were rolling up their sleeping bags, Terry whispered, “I’m starved.”
“Me, too, but we’ve got only what’s in our packs. It might be
Terry nodded and put on a glum face. She finished stowing the gear in her pack. They applied green and loam camouflage from a stick onto each other’s faces and the backs of their hands. Standing in the cleared spot where their sleeping bags had been, they took turns jumping up and down to check for noise. Other than a slight slosh from Terry’s canteen, their gear was quiet. Terry made a mental note to refill her canteen as soon as possible.
Weaving their way out of the willow thicket, they resumed their walk alongside the river. They began passing small refugee camps. These numbered from five to forty people. Most of the camps were lit by large campfires. There was a fistfight in progress in one of the camps. It ended with a pistol shot. Ken and Terry kept moving, leaving them wondering what had happened. The camps were easy to skirt around unobserved. At one of them, Ken recognized the woman wearing the white ski jacket. “She won’t blend in until there’s snow on the ground. That is,
6. Walking by Faith
“Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times. After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening, on a lucky day, without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena.”
Near Joliet, Illinois
October, the First Year
Ken and Terry continued to follow the river for two more days, moving slowly and with extreme caution. They rested during daylight in clumps of brush or far out in fields of harvested corn that had been left with their
