Just beyond 9th Street, a young man armed with an M1A rifle and carrying a handie-talkie on his hip stepped out of a small building that looked like it had formerly been a drive-through espresso shop. The shop’s windows had been painted over and prominently marked “CLOSED.”
Before the young man shut the door, Ken caught a glimpse of someone else inside, with just his head exposed over the top of a low cinder block wall. This wall was set back three feet from the building’s lightly constructed outer wall.
Ken whispered, “Clever.”
The young man walked up to them and asked for the bandanas.
Terry handed them over, saying, “Have a nice day.”
16. Good Fences
I do not believe there ever was any life more attractive to a vigorous young fellow than life on a cattle ranch in those days. It was a fine, healthy life, too; it taught a man self-reliance, hardihood, and the value of instant decision…. I enjoyed the life to the full.
North of Newell, South Dakota
October, the Second Year
Four miles north of town, Ken and Terry Layton turned east on Parilla Road. The day was warming up, but the earlier chill in the air made it clear that winter was coming.
Two miles down Parilla, they came to a house on the south side with a mailbox marked in faded paint, “NORWOOD.” Even before they arrived, a pair of mixed breed cattle dogs began barking at them. A large ranch house that looked like it dated from the 1960s or 1970s was located twenty yards from the road. Behind it there was a hay barn and a combination shop/tractor shed. There were various other outbuildings and corrals on either side. They could hear cattle mooing in the distance.
As they approached the gate, they heard a shout coming from inside the closest outbuilding, a woodshed: “Identify yourselves!”
Ken answered, “Kenneth and Terry Layton.”
A teenager carrying an M1 Garand rifle and a large revolver in a cross-draw hip holster stepped out of the building, and declared, “Hello! I’m Graham. My dad is expecting you. Come with me, please.”
Graham was lanky and had oily brown hair. He was wearing a heavy brown Carhartt stockman’s jacket, black jeans, and hiking boots.
As they walked, Graham asked, “So, you’re from Chicago, and you’re a car mechanic, and you worked doing security for a farm last winter in Iowa?”
Ken laughed. “You seem to know all about us.”
“We were briefed,” Graham replied matter-of-factly.
As they walked up to the porch, he shouted, “They’re here!” Then, in a quieter voice he said, “If you folks will excuse me, I got to get back to my guard post.”
The front door swung open to reveal a tall man in his late forties, wearing a large-frame Glock pistol in a Kydex hip holster. He was wearing denim pants and a plaid flannel shirt. The man said, “I’m Carl. Please come in.”
He motioned them in the door. “You can put your rifles and packs under the coatrack.” Before leaving his pack, Ken pulled out the letter of introduction, which was protected in a Ziploc bag.
A tall, big-boned woman stepped out of the kitchen. She was also carrying a holstered Glock, but it had an unusual green polymer frame. “Hi, I’m Cordelia,” she said with a friendly wave of her arm. She motioned the Laytons to sit on a couch.
Ken reached across to Carl Norwood’s armchair and handed him the letter.
Carl flipped his eyeglasses up onto his forehead with practiced ease, and took a few minutes to read the letter from Durward Perkins. He held the letter just six inches from his nose, explaining, “I can never find my reading glasses, and I never got bifocals, since I can’t use those shooting with a scope.”
The Laytons sat quietly while Carl Norwood read the letter. At a couple of points while reading, Carl chuckled. Finally, he flipped his glasses back down and handed the letter to Cordelia. He seemed impressed, commenting, “It sounds like you handled yourselves very well when those looters came at you.”
Ken replied, “Well,
Terry giggled. “Yeah, accompaniment in
Carl grinned broadly. Then he put on a serious face. “Let me give you the layout: It’s just the three of us here—my wife, my son, and I. All our relatives are in Texas and Oklahoma, and we haven’t had word from them since the Crunch. We’ve got 320 acres, mostly paid for—although I’ve
Terry cocked her head, and asked, “We’ve only been around Brown Swiss, and some neighbors had Jerseys. What’s a Bald-Faced—?”
Carl jumped in. “If you cross a Black Angus with a Hereford, they throw a cross called a Black Baldy or what we call a Bald-Faced Black—a black cow with a white face. They’re known for their hybrid vigor. They do really well in this climate, and the cows make really good moms.”
Terry nodded.
Carl Norwood continued, “We have a creek running through the property that by God’s grace runs year- round. We cut hay on about thirty-five acres, and the rest is grazing ground. It’s mostly good ground, and we’ve reseeded a lot of it in a pasture blend. The hay ground is mostly seeded in LG-31 Orchard Grass. A lot of our neighbors have had problems with Knapweed and Leafy Spurge, but we’ve managed to keep those sprayed out.”
Ken and Terry both nodded, as Carl was now speaking in terms that were familiar to them.
“We’ve got three good saddle horses, two geldings and a mare. We also have a semiretired twenty-five- year-old mare, Molly. Her back isn’t up to any heavy loads these days. The other three saddle horses are all less than ten years old, so they have a lot of good years ahead of them. Two of those three are bombproof. We also have Andre—‘Andre the Giant.’ He’s half Fjord, one quarter Percheron, and one quarter Heinz. We use him for all the pulling around here. He’s saddle-broke, but he’s so tall that he’s not comfortable to ride.”
Ken asked, “Okay, I’m stumped. I know what Percheron draft horses and what Norwegian Fjords look like, but did you say ‘Heinz’? What’s a Heinz?”
Carl answered with a laugh, “That’s like a mutt dog—Heinz 57 Varieties.”
“Tell them about our firewood and fuel,” Cordelia urged.
“Oh, yeah. We heat and cook mostly with wood. We have enough wood laid in for this coming winter. I’m out of gas for the chain saw, but we have friends that swap firewood for beef. We have a pickup, an SUV, and two quads, but again, no gas left to run them. We only have about 480 gallons of diesel left on hand and we’re keeping that in reserve for cutting, baling, and hauling hay. I’d like to switch to haying with our horses, but I haven’t found a hay mower yet. I also need more horse collars, hames, and other harness bits. A lot of the horse-drawn mowers either got melted down for scrap iron during World War II, or turned into yard ornaments. Most of those are rusted junk. So I’m still searching. You know, I had the chance to buy any one of
After a pause Norwood continued, “At least I had the common sense to switch our propane delivery contract to ‘keep filled,’ back when there was the big fight in Congress over raising the federal debt ceiling. So when the
