James Rawles - Liberators

Joshua smiled and said, “Thank you, Mayor Simons. Peace be with you.”

Mayor Simons smiled and replied, “And also with you.”

Joshua was escorted by the man in the vinyl puffy vest back to the checkpoint. He wasted no time, jogging toward the Jeep. Another car was lined up at the checkpoint now and Joshua could sense the tension rising among the guards and people waiting in the car. Malorie had wisely stayed with the Jeep. Joshua got in and promised to fill them in later as he told Malorie to approach the checkpoint with caution. Malorie noticed the car ahead being turned around, and the driver was angry as he roared past them. She proceeded forward by letting the Jeep advance in second gear at idle. Joshua turned to Malorie and said, “Give this chit to the guard; it should get us through.”

With only the parking lights on, Malorie rolled to a stop by the guard and handed him the chit. The guard looked at it and said, “Maryland plates? We are redirecting all vehicles with out-of-state plates.”

Joshua said, “We spoke with Mayor Simons, he granted us safe passage through town. Since we have women and children here we’ll need to make a pit stop in town and Mayor Simons said that would be fine.”

The guard looked incredulous and asked, “Mayor Simons said that?”

Malorie gave the man an Academy Award–winning shrug and a sly smile. Joshua replied, “If that man over there with the tan coat and the pistol is Mayor Simons, then yes.”

As if on cue Joshua waved to Mayor Simons, who waved back. The guard said, “Okay, then. I’ll take the chit and radio the checkpoint at the south end of town. You have thirty minutes to get there.”

“Thank you,” Joshua said as he handed ten .357 rounds to the guard, “Please see that these get to Mayor Simons from us.”

When they cleared the command tent and came to the left-hand turn to pick up Route 10 South, Megan and Malorie both let out an enormous laugh. “I’ve only seen that work in Dumb and Dumber ! I had no idea it would work in real life!”

Joshua, too, was chuckling, and said, “You don’t even know the half of it; wait until Father Dustin Hodges hears about this.”

Megan’s face was perplexed. “You never mentioned that Dustin was a Catholic priest. I thought that he was a sheriff’s deputy.”

“He is a sheriff’s deputy, but for our cover story Dustin had to be a Catholic priest in order for us to get through. I learned that technique from a missionary at my church. They never have much cash and can’t pay out bribes to those who ask for one—so they hand them a tract and play on their religious sympathies by insisting that it is worth more than money.”

Jean said, “I’m hungry, Mama.”

Malorie answered, “We all are, buddy. And like Joshua told the guard”—she promptly elbowed Joshua—“Auntie Malorie has to pee.”

The disarray of Hamlin contrasted sharply to West Hamlin. They noticed a distinct calm in the town. The steps that its citizens had taken kept the riffraff out of the town but would likely seal in their own native population of ne’er-do-wells. A patrol of four men walked briskly down the street with rifles at relaxed port arms, and Megan noticed that there were no women and children out, never a good sign.

Joshua suggested that they pull over at the local diner, and he stayed with the vehicle as the group went inside. The girls both had their pistols concealed and Joshua had them leave their carbines in the Jeep to avoid drawing attention. Joshua was never good at remaining idle and sorely wanted to take advantage of the stop to top off the tank, but he was sure that he was being watched.

Megan, Malorie, Jean, and Leo returned and got into the Jeep. Joshua discreetly told them about the fuel situation and they all agreed. As Joshua was just ready to walk inside Megan said, “Hey, check to see if our cheeseburgers are ready—I ordered them to go.”

Joshua smirked and said, “I guess that means I’m paying?”

Megan answered, “Yes, that was about how I had it figured. If not, I’ll gladly let you listen to the revolt that you’ll have from the peasantry here in the backseat.”

“Coming right up.”

Joshua returned a few minutes later. He said that he was feeling awake and good to drive. There was something about having to talk your way past local corrupt politicians that markedly raised your blood pressure and adrenaline. Driving and eating takes a certain amount of skill. Driving a standard transmission, eating, and trying to not stand out as you pass through a well-organized town defense is something else entirely, and not for the faint of heart.

At subsequent checkpoints Joshua asked Malorie to do the talking, and she was able to get to the right person with a radio to confirm their bona fides. Mayor Simons wasn’t exaggerating when he said that he knew all of the other mayors between West Hamlin and Kentucky. By the time they got to Wayne, West Virginia, they had somehow earned the code name “Pope Mobile,” which one of the guards even wrote across the top of the windshield in yellow grease pencil to identify them. Functionally this moniker and Malorie’s batting eyelashes got them through the checkpoints, but Joshua knew that God would be the judge of his transgressions in the final accounting. The necessity of Joshua’s lie to Mayor Simons was the topic of rather heated discussion among the three adults when the boys napped. Malorie was grateful to be past that hurdle but was still perplexed and asked, “We prayed to God this morning at the homestead, which seems like a lifetime ago now, for His help to get us to Kentucky, and we have to break His law to jump through an administrative hoop?”

Joshua wasn’t proud of what he had done, but there seemed to be little choice. “Okay, I can take your critique here—but what would you have done?”

“Well.” Malorie swallowed hard before she continued. “Maybe he would’ve taken one of our guns in trade.”

“True, Mal, but we’d run out of guns before we ran out of corrupt people looking to take them,” Megan replied.

“No, I get that our resources aren’t inexhaustible, but the rules are different right now under martial law,” Malorie said.

“Why, exactly, should we follow these rules?” Joshua asked.

“Well, for starters they have guns—that seems to make it persuasive. Also, they are the governing authorities, which also makes it biblical according to Romans 13.”

“True,” Megan replied, “but those rules, having the teeth of law in our circumstance, are they just or unjust?”

“What does that matter? Are you taking his side on this?” Malorie asked her sister.

“I think that my thought process is pretty rational here, so I’ll try to explain. Now, if a law is a law, what gives it power over people? If the answer is just guns and more of them, then all we need to do is get a whole lot of people with guns to agree with us and just declare the Constitution legal again. If it were that easy, then it would’ve been done by now. I’m talking about a battle of ideas here, not the profession of arms.”