Glen Tate: 299 Days: The Stronghold

Grant and Chip spent the rest of the night talking about everything and nothing. It was great to be talking to an old friend, especially with a good buzz going. All the problems were far away. Grant was where he wanted to be with the people he wanted to be with. He couldn’t ask for much more than that.

The sun started coming up, along with the sound of birds chirping. There was a very distinctive early morning bird chirp in western Washington. Every time Grant heard it, he was reminded of good times. He recalled searches he went on while in CAP, camping trips, late night drinking in college. All good memories.

“Well, we have a funeral to plan,” Grant said. He knew that this was an important community event, not just a way to honor Mrs. Roth and saw it as a chance to show the community that he and the other leaders were providing important services to the community. He could show them that the Patriot way was the best way.

John walked up to the guard shack with a cup of coffee. He probably didn’t get much sleep the previous night, either, with Mary Anne being so upset.

After exchanging “good mornings” and inquiries about Mary Anne’s emotional state, Grant said, “I’ll get the funeral going. Right after I sleep.”

Grant went as quietly as possible into the cabin and slept on the couch; he didn’t want to wake Lisa.

He opened his eyes about two hours later when Manda was up and starting the pancakes. He talked to her for a bit and then got the CB that they kept in the cabin. He got Rich on the line, which required a walk up to the top of the hill to get decent reception. He was tired and starting to have a very mild hangover. He hadn’t drank much in the past few years and it didn’t take much anymore to give him a fuzzy head the morning after.

“Hey, Rich,” Grant said when he slowly got to the top of the hill overlooking the water near his cabin, “sorry to wake you but we have a funeral to plan. Mrs. Roth down here died. Hey, can we use the Grange for this?”

“Yeah, sure,” Rich replied. “The one thing we don’t have is a mortician here. Could we get away with using a wood box that’s covered up? A quick burial before…things break down without embalming fluids?” Rich was grossed out by what he was saying.

“Sure,” Grant said. “Do we have any clergy out here?”

“Not really.” Rich said. “There’s Pastor Pete. What’s his name…Peter Edmonds, I think. He tried to start a church out here but there wasn’t enough interest. Most people who go to church—and that’s not too many—go to ones in Frederickson. He was a mechanic supervisor at the Ford dealership in town before it closed, but studies theology. Nice guy. Not a Bible thumper. He lives by me. I’ll go by his place after breakfast and call you back.”

“Thanks,” Grant said. “Who can make the box?” Before Rich could answer, Grant said, “How about John Morrell? He’s a carpenter and his wife, Mary Anne, was taking care of Mrs. Roth.”

“Sounds good,” Rich said.

“See you up at the Grange in a couple hours,” Grant said.

“Roger that,” Rich said and then said, “Out.” Talking on a radio was different than talking on a phone, but it was helpful to make sure the messages were clear.

Grant went to find John. Grant didn’t know how John would react to his request, but there was only one way to find out.

“John,” Grant said, “we probably will have more of these…events. I don’t think we’ll necessarily have enough wood for all the coffins. We might need to ‘recycle’ them. Could you make one that’s big enough for most people? We can use the coffin for the funeral and bury people straight into the ground without the coffin. Sorry, but…”

“No need to be sorry,” John said. “It’s practical. Besides, I never understood $5,000 coffins back when we had $5,000 to waste on such things.”

“Any thoughts on a place for a cemetery?” Grant asked, realizing how serious this whole thing was. With so many people cut off from their medications, like Mrs. Roth, Grant was afraid several people would be dying. Planning a cemetery would force the community to confront that reality.

John thought. “There’s a vacant lot on top of the hill overlooking the water. It’s right off the road leading here, so people could stop and visit graves. I don’t know who owns it, but it’s been vacant for years.”

Grant suggested they could figure that out by using the map with the lot numbers.

“If it’s owned by someone who hasn’t made it out here yet, they just donated the land,” Grant said. Of course, to be the good Patriot role models they were striving to be, Grant would make sure that an owner of the land who could actually be located would be compensated for the land by the community. They could make sure some of the deceased’s property went to the people who owned the cemetery property. Something like that: simple, but fair.

As Grant walked back down to the cabin, he realized that he needed to get to the Grange, but he didn’t want to use all the gas that Mark’s truck would burn. He had walked home from the Grange a few hours ago, been up most of the night, and was coming off a buzz. It wasn’t exactly prime strolling conditions.

When Grant got back to the guard shack, he asked John, “Hey, anyone around here have a bike or something?”

John thought. “Oh, yeah, the Sharpes up on Covington have a couple of mopeds. Their teenage kids ride them around in the summer. Would you like me to introduce you to them?”

“Yep,” Grant said. “I might need to borrow them.”

“Sure,” John said as he motioned for Grant to follow him. Grant, who was wearing his tactical vest and carrying his AR, would not force the Sharpes to give up their mopeds, but he sure hoped they would. A moped was a perfect way for one person to get somewhere using very little gas. Grant thought that he should have got one for his preps. With gas prices going up like they had, moped prices went up, too, since so many people were riding them to save money. Oh well, you can’t prepare for everything. Someone in Pierce Point would hopefully loan the security guys the mopeds they needed. It wasn’t exactly badass to patrol on a moped, but it beat walking.

The sun was fully up by now. It was beautiful. During the walk, Grant noticed deer paths and fruit trees that he usually missed when he drove past them.

They got to the Sharpes’ house, which was up on the hill overlooking near where he had made the CB transmission. A dog barked and a man came out and waved to John. He introduced Grant to Mr. Sharpe (John had forgotten his first name) and Grant explained why he needed the moped.

“Sure,” said Mr. Sharpe. “We have two. My kids like riding them, but I’m not sure where we will get the gas for them now. They go a week or so on a gallon of gas, but even that gallon is hard to come by now. Besides, you guys are protecting us,” Mr. Sharpe said to Grant. “My neighbors said you guys were a SEAL team. Is that true?”

Grant laughed. “No, sir. The only seals I’ve been around were in a zoo, eating fish that a trainer threw at them.” But Grant didn’t want Mr. Sharpe to think they had no security, so he added, “But we know how to use these things,” he said, pointing to his AR slung across his chest.

“Great,” Mr. Sharpe said. He was glad to have well-armed guys around who seemed to be nice. A friend of John’s must be an OK guy.

“Happy to help,” Mr. Sharpe said. “My oldest boy is eighteen. He’s driving me crazy just sitting around like he is. Can you guys put his lazy ass to work?”

“You bet,” Grant said. “Have him come up to the Grange today and we’ll get him a job.” They talked about the skills his son had, which weren’t too many, but he knew guns, so it looked they had found a new guard for the gate. John assured Grant that the eighteen year-old Sharpe boy was a good kid.