The Guardians (18 page)

He also learned that the emergency powers enacted via executive order also allowed the president seize and redirect food assets to the urban populations that he had attained direct control of and where his support was the strongest.  Basically, if you comply you will eat.  If you resist, your supplies will be slow to come if at all, and will be lacking in sufficiency to feed the local population, leading to hunger and desperation.  This tactic has been used to get resistant populations to submit repeatedly throughout history.  If the loyal population centers are living well, people tend to give in to the will of the oppressor to be among those who are favored.

The most disturbing news that Nate had learned, was that the Federal Government had been engaging in armed conflicts with some of the resistant state's National Guard and organized militia forces.  Some drone attacks on opposition leaders had even been reported.  Even more disturbing, were reports that due to the weakened state of the federally controlled armed forces as a result of the mass desertions, the President was calling in "UN Peace keepers" to help quell the open resistance to his heavy handed rule.  The timing of these outside forces being requested also coincided with the President's announcement that due to the current state of the nation, no further
national elections would be held until total order was restored.  The reports also stated that the congress was no longer functioning in a constitutional manner, as the senators and representatives who opposed the presidential dictates were either arrested on insurgency charges and held without trial, or had fled the capitol to their home states.  Only the loyalists remained, and were now nothing more than a rubber stamp for the president.  This partisan rubber stamp congress gave his dictates legitimacy with the remaining world powers.

Nate wondered if there was collusion between the president's administration and the remaining world powers to bring America to its knees, in order to form a world government.  Many of the people he had talked to who had first-hand accounts of some of the reports, were inclined to believe it was possible. What once was a concept that only the most extreme conspiracy theorists could believe, was becoming more likely by the day.

During his brother's visits, Nate would brief him on his proposed routes of travel, as well as the events going on around the country from the reports he had collected.  After today's update, Luke said, "Dang Brother, you should have been an intel analyst instead of an MP."

"Well little brother, unlike you who always wanted to be a doctor, some of us didn't know what we wanted to be when we grew up, so we just fell into things.  Heck, I probably wouldn't really want to know what was going on though as a spook.  I don't think I could keep my mouth shut.  I would just be another whistle blower accused of treason," Nate replied.

Luke laughed and said, "Yea, probably so.  Anyway, I have a surprise for you."

"What's that?" Nate asked curiously.

"Bring it on in," Luke yelled to the hallway.

In walked Doctor Stewart with a lower leg prosthesis for Nate.  "It's about time you guys stopped talking politics long enough for me to bring this thing in.  I was getting tired of waiting in the hall," Doctor Stewart said with a smile.  She looked at Nate and said, "Your brother here wanted to be all dramatic about it," she said as she winked at Luke.  "Anyway, normally we would fit you with a preparatory prosthesis, and then move you on to a permanent one over time.  This is due to the fact that your stump will go through some physiological changes as time passes, most notably losing some mass and becoming smaller.  You of course are a man on a mission, so we simply don't have that luxury.  I pulled some strings with one of the local gentleman who was a prosthetist before the collapse and he made this one to the best of his ability to be permanent for you.  It has quite a bit of adjustability to it, and he included numerous stump socks as well, to help you adjust the fit as things change over time."

Nate reached out and took the device and said, "Thank you so much.  I can't wait to get up and around on it."

"Well, let's see how it fits," she said. 

For the next half hour, she explained the basics to him and explained the proper care of his stump during its use, as well as the general care and maintenance of the prosthesis.  She had him don and remove it several times to make sure he could adequately secure it to his leg without causing any problems with improper fit.  "I've got one of our TSG guys that currently uses a prosthesis similar to this scheduled to come by and pay you a visit tomorrow," she said.  "You'll do much better getting his first-hand accounts of what to expect than me reading from a manual.  I encourage you to get up and around on it as much as you can today, with a cane of course until it becomes second nature.  That way you may come up with some specific questions to ask based on your initial experience with it."

Nate immediately hopped up out of bed, though a little unsteady at first, and began to experiment with the way it felt and the way he would now have to concentrate on his gait to get
it to function properly.  He started off holding on to things, but was soon able to begin to let go and experiment with his balance.  "I'll be up to traveling before you know it Luke," Nate said.

Luke and Rachel left Nate to experiment with his new leg in private.  Luke knew that his brother worked better that way.  Knowing people were watching him stumble around would just hurt his pride and hinder his learning.  Luke also felt that he needed to be spending as much time as possible with Rachel, as he could feel their departure for the east coast rapidly approaching.  He knew Nate wouldn't need much time to acclimate to his new leg before he would be dragging him out the door. 

That night, Luke and Rachel spent some much needed quality time together. They made hopeful plans for the future, and to an extent, enjoyed the bliss of their intentional disregard for the cold hard truths that surrounded them. 

The next morning, Nate was visited by TSG Corporal Johnny Reid.  Corporal Reid showed up bright and early, knocked on the door, and entered and introduced himself.  "Johnny Reid is the name, I hear you are the brother of Doc Stewart's sweetheart."

"Is that what they call Luke around here," replied Nate with a laugh.

"Yep, but that's just out of jealousy," Reid said with a smile as he took off his hat and took a seat.  "She's a fine woman, and not too bad on the eyes.  Any dirty grunt around here would feel like the king of the world to be picked by her."

"Yep, I imagine so," replied Nate as he started to feel bad about pressuring Luke into leaving such a good situation for the danger and uncertainty that lies ahead.

"So you've joined the club I hear?" said Reid.

"Club?" Nate said in a curious tone.  "What club would that be?"

Reid rolled up his right pant leg and said, "This club."

"Oh yea," Nate replied as he moved his bed covers and swung to the side of the bed revealing his amputation.  "Rachel...uh, Doc Stewart just brought me this yesterday evening," Nate said as he picked up the prosthesis and handed it to Reid.

"Yea, this thing is made real good," said Corporal Reid as he inspected it.  "This thing ought to last quite a while.  So, you got any questions or concerns?" he asked.

"I'm not sure quite what to ask," Nate replied.  "I've messed around with it some.  I guess I need to just get used to it so that I can trust putting all of my weight on it.  Right now I'm obviously favoring my good leg and putting a majority of my weight on it, and when I do put my weight on the prosthesis, I find myself trying to get back to my good leg as quick as I can."

"That will come with time.  For now though, I recommend you consciously distributing your weight as evenly as possible.  If you spend a majority of your time with uneven weight distribution, it will cause you other problems down the road.  Back problems being one example of that.” said Corporal Reid. 

The two men spent the better part of the next two hours walking up and down the halls.  Reid shared some of his pointers, and helped point out some of what he felt were Nate's issues.  It was a real help to Nate to have him there.  He was a self-motivated individual, but some lessons are best learned from someone with first-hand experience, and Nate did not have any time for setbacks.

"Well, I have to get back to work," said Corporal Reid as he looked at his watch.  "I've got a supply run later this evening and have some briefing and preps to do.  You take care of that leg and it will take care of you," he said as he turned to leave the room.

"Thanks again!" said Nate enthusiastically.

"No problem man.  Oh, and good luck on your trip; but to be honest, if your being able to hang with Sargent Wilson and his pack of wolves is any indication, you are one tough son of a gun and I'm sure you'll make out OK."

"I didn't feel tough compared to those guys," Nate replied.

"Yea, they had that effect on people.  They are sure as hell gonna be missed around here.  Take care of the Doc's sweetheart," he said with a smile as he turned and left the room.

****

Chapter 19: A Community's Strength

After the horrible events that unfolded at the Thomas Farm, Evan, Jason, Peggy, Judith, and now Mildred and Haley, all made it back safely to the Homefront.  Molly set up temporary accommodations for Mildred and Haley in the basement, and the two were welcomed into the home with the loving embrace of everyone there.  While the women were focused on getting the two newcomers settled in, Evan, Jason and Griff discussed the matters at hand.

Evan and Jason gave Griff a debrief on everything that had occurred on the Thomas Farm.  They shared every detail, in order to help bring him into the thought process for how to proceed with the two problems they now saw before them.  First, they needed to better secure the Homefront from any similar hostile intruders.  Second, they needed to secure and care for Mildred's cattle.  Not only were the cattle Mildred's property, but they were also an important source of milk and meat, as well as a critical barter item with the other cooperative homesteads.

"First things first," said Griff.  "We need to secure this place, and do it now.  We don't want that kind of thing to go down again.  Mildred and Ollie were pretty much alone out there, so there was no way Ollie could have kept a perfect watch on one hundred and fifty acres by himself.  Those guys were able to slip in and out undetected for who knows how long, gathering intel and sizing up their opponents before you guys stumbled on to them and threw a wrench in the works.  We've got the advantage of numbers here, so we need to put together a better strategy that what we currently have."

"What do you suggest?" asked Jason.

"Well, I think we need two watch standers at a time.  One on the inner perimeter, basically the home and the surrounding structures.  The other watch stander should be on the outer perimeter, consisting of the property line and surrounding roads, and of course the access road."

"There is an awful lot of outer perimeter to cover with just one person," added Evan.

"Yes, that's not the ideal staffing," Griff replied.  "At least that way even if we don't observe a threat directly, we may be able to see signs of their presence, such as foot prints and the like, so that we can take preemptive action before things start to turn up missing or worse.  Also, we could intervene before the intruders were to get overly familiar with our situation, like happened at the Thomas place.  It's impossible to know just how long those guys have been getting in and out of there before Ollie noticed."

"Ollie had mentioned he thought some cows may have been missing before we even made the trip out to the Murphy place," mentioned Evan.

"I think we should have the watch split up like this," explained Jason.  "There are three of us men, four if you count Greg, and five with Jake.  Whether we include Jake or not is up for debate, but I think Greg definitely needs to be in the mix."

"Agreed," responded Griff.

"The men can take the outer watch.  We can have a random roving foot patrol that looks for signs of entry onto the property, with some tree stand observations thrown in as well.  Basically, rove searching the ground from tree stand to tree stand, and then spend some time in each stand making sit and wait style observations.  The women, which would be five without Mildred, and I don't think we should include her just yet, can rotate the inner perimeter watch.  They can make occasional rounds of the home and the structures in the immediate vicinity, as well as monitor the cameras from the inside.  That's a fairly even spread.  We can have three eight-hour watches per day.  I know that seems tedious, but considering that now two of the properties, the Murphy place and the Thomas place, have had fatal confrontations with intruders, I don't think our convenience really needs to be at the top of the priority list."

"I agree, and I think Jake is old enough and responsible enough to be put into the rotation," added Evan.  "We can't spread ourselves too thin, we still have a lot of work that needs to be done around here just to feed and clothe ourselves, in addition to protecting ourselves."

"Yea, we can discuss the particulars later, but for now I think that is the game plan we need to pursue," concluded Griff.

"Well, I think that is settled, what about Mildred's place?" asked Jason

"I think we need to drive the cattle over here for sure.  There is no way we have the staffing to cover two properties," Evan said.  "We need to relay what happened to Ollie to the other homesteads anyway.  When we do, I was thinking we should solicit volunteers to help us relocate Mildred's herd.  With two homesteads being hit, we all need to band together when things like this occur.  If we don't share intel and manpower, over time we will be picked off one by one by every band of thieves, looters, or psychos that comes along."