James Rawles - Liberators

Phil replied, “No, only the most vicious ones.”

Alan asked, “Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. It will only be the really vicious looters who’ll get this far north and west. Now, granted, the statistical chance of any looters making it out this far and then picking this particular ranch’s little side road are pretty slim. However, the consequences if they do would be enormous. So I think from here on out, we keep every gun fully loaded at all times, and we should each carry a rifle with us whenever we’re outdoors. Ray and I both have concealment holsters for our pistols, so we’ll carry those whenever we’re doing heavy chores where we can’t carry a rifle. And that means whenever we hop on a quad or drive a pickup. A rifle in a scabbard has got to be part of our routine every time.”

Keeping guns handy yet out of sight required some creativity. Since they had unregistered handguns and Phil’s M4 at the ranch, those all had to be kept hidden when not in use. Ray’s Hi-Power pistol and magazines were hidden in the top of the antique oak expandable kitchen table. Reaching under the table and pulling the lever that would normally be used to add wooden leaves to the table revealed a compartment atop the table’s central pedestal.

As a heavily armed illegal alien, Phil Adams presented a problem. A hiding place was constructed for both him and his gear by converting his room’s four-and-a-half-foot by seven-foot walk-in garment closet into a hidden room. The shelves in the closet were well-stocked with MREs and dozens of half-gallon canning jars filled with water, as well as all of his guns and ammunition. Several more sturdy shelves of rough-cut lumber had to be added to accommodate all of this.

The hidden room also had a night-light, a foam pad, and a sleeping bag. It was even equipped with a small chemical toilet from the McGregors’ camping trailer and a folding chair, in case he had to be there for an extended period. Phil was also careful to leave his small assortment of books and military manuals in the closet, since many of them were marked with his name. There was just enough room for Phil to lie out full length with his feet beside the chemical toilet.

The twenty-nine-inch doorway to the closet was cleverly concealed by removing the trim molding and placing a tall, lightly stocked thirty-four-inch-wide bookcase in front of it. Once inside, a pair of handles mounted at waist level could be used to precisely position the bookcase. Then, nine steel brackets screwed on the back side of the bookcase could be wedged in, using scrap pieces of tapered wood roofing shingles. Once the shingle scraps were in place, the bookcase had no gap or tilt, so it appeared to be built-in. And with these wedges it would not move at all, even if subjected to very firm shoves. Air circulation was provided by a small retrofitted vent to the attic. They called his closet “The Ten Boom Room.”

If the house were raided by authorities, the cover story would be that they had a dim-witted hired man named Phil Quincy—a Canadian citizen—but that he would be “out in the back acreage, working on fences,” or alternatively, if there was snow on the ground, that he was “visiting a friend down at the lake.”

It came as a logical conclusion that Phil would remain on the ranch at all times and that he should be ready to go into hiding on short notice. For any visiting neighbors, if Phil was spotted, then he was to play the role of a “slow” hired ranch worker with a speech impediment, who would wave and say little more than: “Hi, I’m Phil,” and then wander away.

As their small party of five with two carts merged into the crowd of foot traffic already walking across the bridge, Megan grabbed both boys by the hand and instructed them in French to stay very close to her and not let go of her hands for any reason. As they descended the bridge on the Kentucky side, they saw the Kentucky National Guard HMMWV with a Gore-Tex-clad soldier manning the crew in front of the two commandeered Coca-Cola trucks, just as the cop at the Fort Gay entry checkpoint had described it. The soldier on the Mod Deuce looked as though he was very cold and indifferent as he squinted in the morning light to see the approaching walkers. Joshua noticed—as did Megan—that there wasn’t actually any ammunition belt hanging out of the .50-cal. It was simply a “show of force” measure.

Malorie kept the sense of direction in her head and successfully navigated them out of town on a westerly route past the Kentucky National Guard soldiers carrying their issued M16s without any magazines in their rifles. It seemed that the presence of the good guys was enough to keep law and order without having to actually risk life in this part of the world. There wasn’t any power in the town, and although the streets were eerily deserted by day, Joshua wondered how long you could keep thousands of hungry people from looting the shops under the cover of night.

Once they were on the other side of town, they stopped and adjusted their loads and drank some water. Malorie had her M1 Carbine across her lap as she sat down for a halt, as did Megan. They all discussed the importance of the Cooper situational awareness color code and one’s ability to react to threats if one hesitates and/or is not paying attention. Their fluid SOP would be to pull out their long weapons at the halt with the exception of either Megan or Malorie—whoever wasn’t pushing the cart—because she would already have her carbine at the ready. Joshua decided to keep his .270 rifle secured on the cart to not risk bumping the scope, which he had sited in for two hundred yards.

“By the way, thank you ladies for helping me to balance the cart so well back there on the West Virginia side. I’m doing okay with mine, how about you, Malorie?” Joshua asked.

“Mine seems to be riding well, thanks.”

Megan suggested that they try to take a halt every hour if possible and rest for ten minutes so that they could maintain their endurance—especially with the little ones.

Malorie had her regional road map out and said, “I think if we stick to 32 at a good pace we can probably pick up Route 7 West tomorrow; that should take us to the Olympia State Forest by tomorrow evening.”

Joshua craned his head over to Megan and said, “Can I please have the state forest map, beautiful?” She handed him the map and brushed his cheek.

He opened it up and as he looked at it he said, “Here’s my thought process, but please let me know what you think. We should aim for the west side of the lake. Like this dovetail-shaped protrusion into the lake here. We’ll have plenty of firewood and lots of access to water and fishing. This will also mean that we’ll be over any major bridges, an obvious key choke point, after winter is over. Our strategy is not very complicated, but it is difficult—wait out the winter. Like you said, Megan, ‘Stay warm, dry, and unseen.’ We can’t travel fast enough on the road to cover the 120-ish miles to Bradfordsville before winter, and it’s not like we can get ahold of Dustin to come and pick us up, either.” Megan and Malorie nodded in agreement.

“As cruel as it sounds, we’ll have to let the starvation and cold of winter partially clear the way for us. Based on our dependency on cheap energy and given that winter is imminent, plus the fact that people typically only keep three days’ worth of food in their house and the grocery stores operate on a just-in-time delivery system—I’d estimate that we’ll lose about a third of the population before spring.”