gradually accumulated a useful assortment of livestock. She had a Guernsey cow named Matilda, dozens of chickens, a few ducks, some sheep, and a few barn cats. When Rebecca would go out to milk Matilda she would dance out the kitchen door with her milking bucket singing “Milking Matilda” to the tune of the Australian folk song “Waltzing Matilda.” Rebecca loved drinking their own fresh raw milk, making their own butter, yogurt, cheese, and ice cream; and growing, canning, freezing, and drying her own homegrown fruits, vegetables, and herbs.
Although he was a city boy, Ben learned to love their place in the boonies. The wild game was abundant, and the fishing was good, both in ponds and in the local streams and rivers. Under the tutelage of a retired neighbor, Ben learned how to shoot, and he in turn started teaching his son to shoot when he was just six years old.
Later, after the Crunch, when Ben and Rebecca’s oldest son, Joseph, had turned thirteen, he was trusted to hunt on his own. He hunted on the Fieldings’ own property and the 320 acres of adjoining timber company land. Joseph dearly loved fishing and hunting. After his homeschooling was completed each day, if the weather was passable, the thirteen-year-old would go out with either his fishing pole or his Mossberg single-shot .22 rimfire rifle. He was proud that he could help feed the family in a substantial way, and his parents were appreciative of his efforts. Joseph was a patient, self-taught hunter, and was famous for rarely missing a shot. (His .22 rimfire cartridges were strictly rationed, and the use of every one had to be accounted for.) He often brought home bullfrogs, grouse, opossums, quail, rabbits, raccoons, and even armadillos. (The latter they called “possum on the half shell.”) Less frequently, he would bag wild turkeys and deer with head shots. In all, Joseph made a substantial contribution to the family’s food needs.
Ben preferred trapping and snaring to hunting. As he explained it, “A trap is hunting twenty-four hours a day.” He used wire snares in various sizes ranging from squirrel size to deer size. Most of his success around the house was with rabbits. He also used Conibear #110 traps for squirrels. Between Joseph’s hunting, Ben’s trapping, milk from Matilda, and Rebecca’s big vegetable garden, the Fielding family ate much better than most other families in Tennessee in the aftermath of the Crunch.
4. Rushes
“A nuclear-missile silo is one of the quintessential Great Plains objects: to the eye, it is almost nothing, just one or two acres of ground with a concrete slab in the middle and some posts and poles sticking up behind an eight-foot-high Cyclone fence; but to the imagination, it is the end of the world.”
The Monroe Ranch, Raynesford, Montana
October, the First Year
Joshua and Kelly’s wedding was at the outset of a socioeconomic collapse that made the Great Depression of the 1930s seem mild by comparison. The Crunch was a devastating global banking and currency collapse without precedent. Seemingly overnight, stock and bond markets fell into turmoil, the U.S. dollar was declared “trash” by foreign investors, and mass inflation ensued. The price of gasoline vaulted to $6 per gallon, then $10, and finally $25 before becoming virtually unobtainable. The price of groceries followed a similar trajectory. Nationwide, there was a mad scramble to convert paper dollars into practical, tangible items. People stocked up on anything and everything they could find. The gas stations, grocery stores, gun shops, and pharmacies were the first stores to have their shelves cleaned out. Toward the end, even sacks of livestock feed, bundles of rags, and thrift store castoffs were eagerly sought. Ultimately, those who foolishly held on to their dollars saw their value melt away in the blast furnace of hyperinflation.
Kelly’s diamond wedding ring was a gift from her mother, Rhonda. It had been her grandmother’s wedding ring. For many years, Rhonda had hoped that Kelly would someday wear it. The rushed circumstances didn’t leave much time for the usual bridal shower. But a visiting neighbor did ask, “What would you like for wedding gifts?”
Kelly answered without hesitation, “We need .30-06, .243 Winchester, and .22 Magnum ammo. We could also use a good pair of binoculars.”
They could have been married in Great Falls—which was closer—but Kelly had the idea of getting married at the county courthouse in Stanford. After seeing the store shelves in Great Falls devastated, she was hoping that the hardware stores, sporting goods stores, and ranch supply stores in Stanford would still have some inventory since it was a smaller town. Unfortunately, she was wrong. In visiting seven stores in the towns of Geyser and Stanford the only useful items that they bought were a few pieces of horse tack, two grain buckets, one can of Coleman white gas, and three bottles of Hoppe’s #9 rifle bore cleaner. The store shelves looked like those they had seen at grocery stores in news footage from the Gulf Coast just before a hurricane hit.
The county courthouse in Stanford was uncharacteristically crowded. Not only were there several other “hurry up” weddings like Joshua Watanabe’s, but there was also a flurry of mortgage settlement filings—as people had just recently taken advantage of the hyperinflation to pay off their home and ranch loans. Simultaneously, there were also a large number of land subdivisions, swaps, and grants that resulted in deeds being filed. Many of these were “In Exchange for $1…”—quit claim deeds, caused by families “doubling up” or otherwise co-locating for mutual security. Under a quit claim deed, title was conveyed without any significant amount of cash changing hands. The grantee would then assume responsibility for any claims against the property.
The civil ceremony was rushed and informal. Rhonda came with them to sign as a witness. She consoled Kelly, saying, “Don’t let it bother you, Kel. You’ll have a big church wedding after all this economic mess blows over.”
Another exigency of the Crunch was that it went without saying that Joshua would move into the Monroes’ ranch house, rather than Kelly moving into Joshua’s rental. In the new paradigm, safety in numbers trumped all. Moving to the Monroe ranch took only a few hours, accomplished the same day and evening as the wedding. Like many young men in the Air Force, Joshua didn’t have many possessions. His pickup and horse trailer made the move easy. By 11 p.m. he had his horse and tack in the barn and his uniforms, civilian clothes, and camping gear piled in Kelly’s room.
Kelly said, “We’ll go back and get the straw and hay bales tomorrow. And speaking of hay, how about our consummating roll in the hay?” She locked the door.
Chicago, Illinois
October, the First Year
Ken and Terry Layton were nervous and they chattered anxiously on their two-way radios as they drove through the blacked-out streets. “I can’t believe we just walked away from our house.”
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Ken radioed back.
Over the sound of their engines, they could hear the low staccato of numerous gunfights. One of them was close enough that they saw muzzle flashes. There were no streetlights, no traffic lights, and no house lights. Just a bit of candlelight visible in a few windows.
Ken was disappointed when they had to diverge from their planned route. Terry touched her microphone button. “We can’t take the Eisenhower Expressway. Just look at it: It’s jammed up, bumper-to-bumper. Let’s head west on the surface streets.”
“Okay, how about we head out West Fillmore?”
“Roger that.”
Shortly after they got on West Fillmore Street the cars ahead came to a stop. Apparently there was a stalled vehicle ahead. They backed up slightly and turned south on Ayers Avenue. Then Terry led them west on West 14th Avenue. Ken didn’t like the look of the neighborhood. There were a lot of run-down houses. Ken was also apprehensive that now their car was the only one moving on the street.
They had driven just another five blocks west when suddenly from the right side a trash dumpster was pushed out into the street in front of the Mustang. Immediately after, a seven-foot-tall cable spool—one that had originally held large-diameter telephone wire—was rolled in from the left. Ken and Terry slammed on the
