The Rule of Three (29 page)

“Are you sure?” my mother asked.

Herb was holding the gun. “You can check to confirm it hasn’t been fired. We searched the vehicle thoroughly and found no other weapons,” Herb said.

“Then the gunshots came from somebody else,” Howie said.

“They did come from someplace else—from one of the guards on the wall. Those people in the truck were probably nothing more than innocents driving by.”

“Oh my lord,” my mother said.

“That can’t be!” Howie gasped. “Are you saying we just shot three people for no reason?”

“That’s half of what I’m saying,” Herb answered. “Your guards shot three innocents, but for about a dozen good reasons. You know they were just trying to do the right thing.”

“There’s no reason good enough to explain what happened,” Howie said. “Look, they’re my guards, I’m in charge, so what happened is on me, not them. I’ll tender my resignation and—”

“No you won’t!” Herb snapped. He then turned to my mother. “Sorry, I’m overstepping. I know this is your call. It’s just that it’s not his fault, and we need Howie to be in charge of the guards.”

“I agree,” my mother said. “You’ve trained them well, Howie, and they have confidence in you.”

“Obviously, I didn’t train them well enough,” Howie said. “And any confidence they did have will be gone when it’s discovered what happened out there tonight.”

“And that’s why it’s best that they don’t find out,” Herb said. “Nobody else knows about this beyond the four of us and Brett. Nobody else needs to know.”

“What about the committee?” my mother asked.

“I don’t know if there’s any value in looping them in either. If anything, we could tell them later, but for now it should be known only to us.”

“So what are we going to tell people about what happened?” Howie asked.

“I think we should tell them what they want to hear,” Herb said. “We were attacked and our guards bravely fended off the attack.”

“Won’t that just encourage them to shoot at the next car that drives by in the night?” my mother asked.

“We’ll find another way to stop that from happening,” Herb suggested.

“And what will that other way be?”

“I’m not sure, but we’ll figure it out,” Herb said. He reached up and put an arm around Howie’s shoulders. “You can’t change what happened, but we can change what
will
happen. You’re a good leader and, more important, a good man. The fact that this does bother you so much is why you need to keep being that leader.”

31

I sat as quietly as possible as the committee members went
over the day’s events. They hadn’t gotten to the last item on the agenda, which was the incident with the truck on Burnham two nights before. As I sat and listened it was reassuring to hear about the things that were going right in the neighborhood. The school and day care were up and running well. The dentist’s and doctor’s offices were functioning, as was the vet’s.

The big supper meal was a huge success, and Ernie was coordinating the existing food supplies, reporting that things were surprisingly better than he originally thought. I should have seen that as a positive, but instead it was disconcerting—I didn’t like surprises, even if they worked in our favor.

Walls and fences now covered almost ninety percent of the entire perimeter of the neighborhood. The last parts were the hardest, but the committee members figured within a week the workers would be finished. Then they’d go back and strengthen the walls wherever they thought there was a weak spot. There was a whole crew out disassembling the concrete walls on the other side of the highway and reassembling them as part of our perimeter. The more, the thicker, the higher, the better.

The gutters on every house now had been rigged to harvest rainwater. After a heavy rain every pool in the neighborhood was filled to the top. The first well had been dug, and water was flowing from it. All drinking water was now coming from a central location—halfway between the creek and the new well—where chlorine was being added to make it completely potable. I had to admit that it tasted funny, but the important thing was that so far there had been no reports of any waterborne sickness.

The engineers, along with the mechanics, had been active in rejigging things. Aside from the rain collection, they’d converted three snowblowers into rototillers and another two lawn mowers into go-carts. The new tillers were already in use cultivating backyards, and the go-carts were given to the security teams to use for patrols. Mr. Nicholas estimated there were at least a hundred snowblowers and over three hundred gas-powered lawn mowers in the neighborhood. I had a vision of hundreds of go-carts streaking along Folkway like it was a little track.

Most interesting, a couple of moms who lived in the neighborhood had started a newspaper. It was called
The New Neighborhood News
and they were using an ancient mimeograph machine they had found in the school storage room to make copies. Herb spoke to the committee about the importance of communication, of giving people information so that they wouldn’t be reliant on rumors and misinformation. It all sounded so good, so freedom-of-the-press-like. I would have been more impressed had I not known how much Herb wanted to make sure only
some
information got out. I couldn’t help but think about what wasn’t going to be printed about the attack the other night. Information could be controlled and given out to move people in the direction they needed to be moved. On some levels I knew what needed to be done, but part of me wondered how much of that was being
done to me
as well.

“We’re down to the last items on the agenda,” Judge Roberts said. “Stan, please provide an update.”

Mr. Peterson got to his feet. “The larger fields, including the school yard and parks, have been completely prepared, and some have already been planted.”

“Excellent,” the judge said.

“We’ve made good progress. We’re working on the backyards now. Those converted snowblowers are making a difference. Is there any chance of more of those being available for use soon?”

“Top priority,” Mr. Nicholas said. “Count on one or two being made each day. That is, assuming that we can convince people to give up their snowblowers.”

“Is that a problem?” my mother asked.

“People are still possessive of things they own,” he said.

“I’ll make sure that isn’t a problem anymore,” Councilwoman Stevens said. “I’ll have people go door to door, secure the machines, and bring them to your workshop.”

“And of course they’ll be issued receipts and the confiscation of their property will be duly noted in our official records,” Judge Roberts said.

The workshop was part of the backroom of the grocery store. As supplies were distributed, more space was opening up, and tools and workbenches were filling the openings. There the engineers and their crews could take advantage of the generator to make the power tools work.

“We’ll do our best to put land under cultivation, but even then you have to realize that we won’t be able to produce the quantity or variety of food necessary to feed sixteen hundred people indefinitely,” Mr. Peterson said.

“What would make it possible for you to increase the quantity of food you can produce?” Herb asked.

“More land and a longer growing season.”

“More land being put under cultivation is happening, but more land in general isn’t a possibility right now. Yet maybe we can help with the growing season,” Herb said.

“You mean I’ve been worrying about rain when you can control the weather?” Mr. Peterson joked.

“In a manner of speaking. Isn’t that what a greenhouse does—extend the growing season?”

“Definitely, but we don’t have any greenhouses, do we?”

“Not yet. How much more productive is a greenhouse than an open field?”

“At least ten times more productive than open land,” Mr. Peterson said. “Are you planning on scavenging some greenhouses?”

“I think we can scavenge the components necessary to build some greenhouses.” Herb turned to Mr. Nicholas. “What would we need?”

“Panes of glass and supports, metal or wood, and caulking, nails, or even glue.”

“We need to put the scavenging teams on it,” Herb said.

“Does anybody object to that?” the judge asked.

People nodded or said a few words in agreement.

“You’d mentioned limited varieties of food,” Councilwoman Stevens said. “What exactly is being planted?”

“I’m concentrating on potatoes.”

“Why potatoes?” she asked.

“We have the seed, it’s a high-yield crop, and it is less dependent on rainfall. Besides, I can even get two harvests in this season.”

“But we can’t just live on potatoes.”

“Actually, you can for a long time,” Herb said.

“But that’s not all that’s being planted. There will be beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and assorted squashes that I’ve already put in. And if there were greenhouses I’d be able to expand the range and the length of time they’d be available,” Mr. Peterson said.

“You’ll have those greenhouses,” Herb said.

As far as I was concerned, Herb saying he would have them built was as good as them already being built.

“Excellent,” the judge said. “Now, returning to the agenda: starting next week we will be convening a civilian court three afternoons a week to deal with internal disputes.”

“Are there that many disputes?” Councilwoman Stevens asked.

“So far there have been a few, but we can expect many more to surface in the weeks to come,” my mother said.

“What types of disputes are taking place?” the councilwoman asked.

“So far just minor things,” the judge said.

“But it’s inevitable that conflicts will arise when you put this many people together in such a confined space, and put them under pressure,” my mother said. “What makes it more dangerous is that many of the people are now in possession of weapons.”

“That sounds ominous,” the councilwoman said.

“Actually,” the judge said, “it would probably be good if you were willing to sit on the panel.”

“I’d be more than willing to do that,” she said.

“An excellent addition,” Herb said, and my mother nodded.

“Now, shall we turn to the unfortunate altercation on the south of the neighborhood?” the judge asked.

“I think we successfully showed that we can defend the neighborhood,” Herb said.

I looked over at Howie. His eyes were on the floor. He looked not proud but ashamed. I guess that look could have been interpreted in other ways.

“I applaud you for defending the neighborhood,” the judge said, “but I never consider it a success when people are killed or injured. Three dead, right?”

“Three heavily armed men who attempted to attack the neighborhood were killed, and we have no idea how many were wounded and escaped,” Herb said.

“An unwise tactic on their part,” the councilwoman said.

“They probably didn’t realize the extent of our defenses and the training of the people on guard,” Herb replied.

“But there were no deaths on our side, correct?” the judge asked.

“Howie, do you want to answer that one?” Herb asked.

Howie looked up. “Nobody even wounded.”

I knew our people had been in no danger unless they were shooting at each other.

“I think what we’re doing in preparation has really paid off,” the judge said.

“Obviously,” Councilwoman Stevens agreed.

“There are, however, other issues that have significant implications for the ongoing survival of our neighborhood,” Herb said.

Was he going to tell everybody what had really happened?

“There was a terrible cost,” Herb said. “A cost that nobody seems to want to mention.”

My heart skipped a beat. He was going to tell them. How were people going to react when they found out we’d killed—
murdered
—people who hadn’t even attacked the neighborhood?

“The sentries fired approximately three hundred rounds of ammunition,” Herb said.

“That’s a lot of ammunition,” my mother said.

“We simply cannot afford to lose that many rounds every time there is an assault on our walls,” Herb said. “If they continue to discharge that much ammunition every time we’re threatened, we’ll be in a position where we won’t be able to defend ourselves in the future. I’m going to suggest that Howie, the captain, and I sit down and work out protocol around firing weapons. I think we have to limit how many rounds of ammunition are given to each sentry and to insist on nobody opening fire without permission.”

“Counting the rounds is easy; training people to hold their fire is not so easy,” Howie said.

“Not easy, but it can be done,” Herb said. “I have every faith in you and know you can train them. I was also wondering if you think the attack could have been averted had there been enough light to see.”

“Definitely,” Howie said. “If there was light we could have seen them coming and probably they would have been less likely to attack.”

“Then let me meet with our engineering people and see if we can come up with a way to establish perimeter lighting to be turned on if needed,” Herb said. “Mr. Nicholas, does that sound workable?”

“If we only needed it for short bursts, like spotlights, we could draw power from car batteries.”

“We have plenty of those available out there,” Mr. Saunders added. “We just need lights.”

“Another item for the scavenging team to procure,” Mr. Gomez added.

“We may not have to go outside the neighborhood to get those lights,” Herb said. “Let’s look internally first. I have an idea about where we might find some. Other than that, I was wondering if you could give us an update on what the sentries are seeing from the walls.”

“There are still lots of people out there, generally moving either west or north, away from the city and toward the country,” Howie said.

“Mainly families?” Herb asked.

“Family groups and what we’re calling wolf packs.”

“What’s a wolf pack?” Councilwoman Stevens asked.

“Groups, mainly young and male, who look like they’re up to no good.”