James Rawles - Liberators

The drive west through Winnipeg, Regina, and Calgary was tiring but relatively uneventful. The news on the radio was disturbing. The looting was getting worse, and more widespread. Most of it was in the U.S. and in the eastern provinces, but there were also disturbances in Edmonton and Calgary. For Ray, worst of all was the uncertainty about whether he’d be able to buy gasoline. The prospect of being stranded left him feeling tense. Where he was able to buy gas, he made sure that both his truck’s tank and all of his six gas cans were completely full. He also topped off his motorcycle’s gas tank and even the pair of two-gallon plastic gas cans for his chain saw. One service station charged thirty-five dollars per gallon, which he considered larcenous. But he paid the price without comment. His cash was rapidly dwindling.

After leaving Thunder Bay, he drove another three hundred miles, carefully choosing a camping spot where he’d be able to turn around with the trailer, but where the pickup and trailer were not visible from the highway. Rather than sleeping in the trailer, he slept back in the woods with both the shotgun and pistol in his heavy sleeping bag. The truck and trailer were just barely visible to him. He reasoned that if anyone spotted the truck and trailer, they probably wouldn’t spot where he was sleeping.

He drove almost twelve hundred miles the next day. He repeated the same process for camping the next night and again he got only six hours of sleep. That left nearly a thousand miles for the final day of his drive.

Nearing Kamloops, he came upon four burned-out vehicles by the side of the road—two vans and two SUVs—that were so thoroughly shot full of holes that they had obviously been in a recent gun battle. There were no bodies and just a few badly burned remnants of baggage, so he assumed that the RCMP had hauled away the corpses. He didn’t come to a full stop to take a close look, but the charred vehicles gave mute testimony to what had happened. The lack of crime scene tape left him troubled. He wondered out loud, “Have things changed that quickly?”

His final stop for gas was at 100 Mile House. He didn’t have enough cash for all of it, but the attendant seemed content with taking eight silver dimes for the last four gallons of gasoline.

Although FM radio reception got increasingly spotty as he headed west, he was able to catch some news reports. Most of the large cities in the United States were in absolute chaos, and the collapse of the three U.S. power grids was anticipated by one expert. The key issue, he said, was the level of staffing at power plants. So many employees were in fear of leaving their homes because of the rioting that there wouldn’t be enough staff to keep the nuclear power plants running within a few days. And the supply of coal at the coal-fired plants was reaching critical levels because the nation’s rail network was imperiled by the widespread rioting.

Malorie had sat in the passenger seat, leaving the driver’s seat open for Joshua to drive. She secured her folding-stock M1 Carbine and began finding the best westerly route out of town. Megan was buckling up the boys in the back, making conversation with them about their cookie fortune. While both Jean and Leo had been real troupers the whole day, she knew that this was major upheaval for them. Megan stroked their hair and gently applied the long-practiced craft of maternal interrogation to ensure that both boys were indeed okay.

Joshua said his good-byes and thank-yous to the Townsends, as they briskly closed the door, a distinctive sound of breaking glass ringing out from the apartment building behind the church. Joshua picked up a trot across the lawn and with one smooth motion climbed into the seat, secured his long rifle, started the Jeep, shifted into gear, and was off in the direction that Malorie was pointing. Malorie gave him immediate right and left directions as she correlated the map to the unfamiliar terrain they were driving through. Everyone could noticeably feel the difference in tension from being in the city to being on country roads.

Once they were passing farm country again Joshua said, “I feel pretty good to drive. Obviously we all heard what the sheriff’s deputy said about stopping on the side of the road, so I think we need to head west and south as fast as we can.” Malorie had stashed a couple of 5-hour ENERGY drinks in the glove box before they left Kearneysville that morning, and she offered one to Joshua, who accepted it. “Normally I don’t drink these, but this is not a normal day—thank you.”

“I don’t think that we will see or even hear about normal for quite some time yet,” Malorie said. “Okay, look for a right-hand turn coming up.”

Megan, who was confined to the backseat, was starting to feel carsick. She opened the window a crack and tried to sing songs with the boys to take her mind off it. There were noticeably fewer cars on the back roads, and most of the houses that they passed by still had power. The moon was full and the air brisk as Joshua piloted the Jeep down the West Virginia back roads.

In Hamlin, West Virginia, there was a full-blown riot erupting at a local gas station. As Joshua looked to find an alternate route around the bad situation, he noted aloud that it was good that there were still cops responding to the scene. “I wish that I could think of an expedient way to cover those gas cans we have hanging off the back of the Jeep; they would make us a huge target if the wrong crowd spots them.” Malorie asked if her sleeping bag would help, and Megan said that it would irreversibly smell like fuel forever.

The Jeep cleared Hamlin and Malorie was just briefing Joshua of his left turn onto Route 10 in West Hamlin when he interrupted her and said, “Whoa, there are road flares up ahead—everybody stay buckled up in case we need to turn around quickly or make an evasive maneuver off of the pavement. We don’t know who the friendlies are here, and we don’t want to drive into a trap.”

There were houses on each side of the road with lights on inside, and just past the bridge in the town a delivery truck from the local lumberyard was blocking the roadway. Flanking the road on either side were a dozen or so men with hunting rifles and shotguns. Joshua didn’t see any presence of the law there, but this didn’t appear to be an officially sanctioned checkpoint. Joshua rolled the Jeep to a stop about 250 meters ahead of the action and left only the parking lights on. “Malorie, jump in the driver’s seat and keep the Jeep running. Keep one hand on your shotgun and one on the wheel. Be prepared to get out of here in case I don’t come back.”

“Where are you going?” Megan asked from the backseat.

“I’m not going to drive us into a trap—we need information at arm’s length. You staying here with the car while I walk up won’t be as threatening to them, and I have no idea how triggering happy anyone is up there. If I’m detained and don’t come back in thirty minutes, please leave and find another way around. I love you!” Joshua was moving quickly because the situation could change just as fast, and he didn’t want to expose everyone by driving up into the fatal funnel. As the door closed, Megan cried out, “I love you, too!” She hugged the boys and rolled down both windows while loosening the bungee cord that retained her shotgun.

Joshua walked deliberately in the direction of the checkpoint and interlaced his fingers behind his head when he was a hundred meters out. The air was definitely cold, but he had kept his NSA Police service jacket unzipped so that they could see he was carrying a pistol. He hoped that the embroidered badge on his left jacket breast would at least give him some opportunity to speak with the person in charge. Malorie couldn’t hear what was going on, but she could see three men approach Joshua as he neared the checkpoint, their weapons generally aimed at him. Joshua stopped and Malorie could tell that he was trying to say something. The three men escorted Joshua around the back of the truck and out of sight.