Founders

large fields. A sign at the county road proclaimed, “L. & L. Prine Farm, Hay Sales By Appointment Only,” with an 801 phone number. The stylized outline of a beehive was painted beneath the phone number. Ken knew that this symbol indicated that the family was associated with the LDS Church.

Down the lane, on the porch of the farmhouse a dog barked, already aware of their presence. They walked slowly with their rifles slung muzzles down. Another dog joined in on the barking. A teenage girl stepped out onto the porch, armed with a lever-action carbine. Another girl, slightly younger, soon joined her armed with a Mossberg .22 rifle. The front door opened again, and a portly man stepped out, carrying both a scoped rifle and a holstered revolver. “We don’t want any trouble,” the man warned.

“We’re not trouble,” Terry said. “We’re the antidote to trouble.” She and Ken made a show of laying down their rifles, packs, and web gear.

Larry Prine interrogated the Laytons for twenty-five minutes. While they spoke, Larry’s wife, Lynda, and more and more of their family emerged from the house. Soon, six children ranging from five to sixteen were lined up, listening intently. Larry was curious, and seemed to take pity on the Laytons. He read the letters of introduction from Durward Perkins and Carl Norwood.

After their interrogation, Terry asked, “How are things here in Morgan City?”

Prine leaned back against the wall casually and replied, “We’ve gotten by a lot better than most towns, since we have irrigation water from the river. We’ve prospered, but we’ve been shorthanded. When those derivatives imploded and the dollar collapsed, the town Elders panicked and got a little overzealous. They sent home every student enrolled at Weber State, and they ran all the migrant farm workers out of town. They did the same to the druggies and drunks at the halfway house. At least that move made sense. But as it turned out, we could have used the help from the college kids for the next summer’s harvest, and for security, too. If they hadn’t been in such a rush, they could have taken their pick of the students from the college. For instance, they could have kept all the ROTC cadets and criminal justice majors, and some of the ag students. That was very shortsighted of them. But like I say, everyone was very panicky when the hyperinflation kicked in and the riots started in the big cities.”

“So how have things been recently?”

Prine scratched his chin and said, “The last few months, things have been getting dicey, with the looter gangs that have come up from Nevada and west from the Plains states. Some of ’em have armored vehicles— mostly old bank armored cars. I heard that St. George and Vernal both nearly got destroyed. More than half the houses in both those towns burned down. And in Richfield there was a gang that moved in and stayed for months, just brutalizing everyone in town. Then that same gang moved on to Price, and did the same thing, and they’re still there. Hopefully the new government in Kentucky will send the Army to come and clean them out.”

“What about here, around Morgan?” Terry asked.

“This is an agricultural community, so we apparently draw from quite a large radius. Burglaries, mostly. But once in a while there’s a really wicked home invasion. Looters will sneak into farms in the middle of the night. They catch a family sleeping, and then…” He glanced down at his row of children and said tersely, “…Well, you know what happens. It ain’t pretty.”

After glancing at his wife, Larry said, “If you are willing to both put in eight-hour guard shifts, you’re welcome to stay for at least a couple of weeks while your blister heals up.”

It took a full week for Ken’s foot to heal. Then he spent many hours each day in the Prines’ fields, weeding with a hoe. He developed a technique that he called speed weeding. His goal was both to eliminate thistles and other weeds, and to toughen up his feet. He would sprint to each weed he spotted and then come to a sudden stop and start hoeing. Then he would sprint to the next patch. It looked comical, but it worked. Day after day of this exercise toughened up his feet.

Just when Ken felt that his feet were ready for him to resume their journey, Terry had an accident. After more than a week of doing her guard duty from ground level, she decided to try manning a shift from atop the Prines’ silo, just as she had done at the Perkins ranch. Coming down the ladder at the end of her shift, she reached the bottom of the caged section, turned, and absentmindedly hopped off the ladder. But unlike the ladder at the Perkinses’ silo in Iowa, the transition to the caged section of the ladder began eleven feet off the ground instead of six feet. She landed on her right knee. Recognizing the intense pain, she realized that she had broken it.

She shouted for help, and soon Ken and several of the Prine children were standing over her. “I feel like an idiot,” she said, grimacing. “There’s nothing stronger than habit. At the Perkins place, I got used to turning and jumping off the ladder just when my head got below the caged part.”

Five weeks after Ken and Terry’s arrival, Mrs. Prine’s sister Kate, her husband, Roy, and their two sons arrived from Oak City, Utah. They were seeking refuge because the town had been savagely attacked by looters just a few days before, and it was feared that the looters would return and burn the rest of the town. Their arrival made the already crowded house even more crowded. Several of the children were sleeping on the carpeted living room floor in sleeping bags.

For two weeks, Ken and Terry had been trying to get a message through to Todd Gray’s retreat group in Idaho, via the regional CB radio network, but they found that it didn’t extend any farther than southwestern Idaho and Bozeman, Montana.

Next, Ken and Terry spent several hours composing a letter. It read:

Dear Todd, Mary, and Whoever Else Arrived:

Terry and I are writing to let you know that we are safe and living temporarily at a farm three miles north of Morgan City, Utah (twenty-five miles northeast of Salt Lake City—see enclosed strip map). We walked most of the way here from Chicago. We had planned to stay here only a week to rest up and then press on to the retreat, but Terry took a bad spill off a ladder, breaking her kneecap. That was nearly two months ago. I’m afraid that the break is not healing properly. I don’t believe that there is any way that we will be able to continue on, at least not on foot. We hope that all is well with you. This is the third letter that we couriered up your way. If you got either of the previous ones, I apologize for the redundancy. However, we figured that sending multiple letters by different couriers would be the best bet in getting our message through to you.

We are staying in a spare bedroom at the Prines’ farm. They are wonderful people. Like most of their neighbors, they are Mormons, and thus were relatively well prepared for the collapse. To earn our keep I am being employed as a night security guard on the farm. I also help out with the heavy work during the day (mending fences, splitting wood, etc.). Terry is still confined to bed most of the time.

Because of Terry’s injury, the Prines have agreed to let us stay on as long as we’d like, but we don’t want to wear out our welcome and their stock of supplies. (Mrs. Prine’s sister and brother-in-law and their two teenage boys moved in three weeks ago, and the stored food supply will soon be critical.) Is there any way that you could provide transportation to the retreat? I realize that this is asking a lot, and would involve considerable risk, so feel free to say no.

To avoid missing you, we promise that we will stay here until we either hear from you or somebody shows

up. Please send word via courier or by radio if you get a chance. Do you have the nighttime CB voice message relay network set up? Well, that’s all for now. Once again, we hope that all is well with you. God bless you all.

Ken Layton and Terry Layton

D.V.—Ps. 37

Terry then wrote out five copies of the letter and map by hand. Her hand felt cramped when she was done. She and Ken added their signatures and Ken appended his characteristic stylized “D.V.—Ps. 37” logo, which was short for “Deo Volente, Psalm 37.” For many years, he had penned this logo on all his personal letters.

They sent the letters out via couriers over the course of the next three weeks. Two of the letters went with traveling traders, two with refugees heading toward Idaho, and one with a circuit-riding Baptist minister. They hoped that at least one of them would get through.