James Rawles - Founders

At Vale, they began asking if there were any ranchers who might be looking for hired security. As they were talking to an elderly woman, they noticed two armed men approaching them from behind. As Ken turned to greet them, two more men walked around the corner from the other direction, also armed. Before they could react, one of the men shouldered a Benelli shotgun and shouted, “Put your rifles on the ground!”

With four armed men confronting them, the Laytons didn’t think twice about doing as they were told. Another man shouted, “Hands on top of your heads!” Again they complied.

The four men closed in on them and pulled off Ken’s and Terry’s backpacks and disconnected their web gear, pulling it off and laying it on the sidewalk.

From behind one of the men asked, “What are you doing here?”

“We’re just looking for work,” Ken answered. “We’ve done ranch and farm security before, and I’ve got a letter of introduction in my pack that I can show you.”

Two more men approached, armed only with handguns. One of the newcomers asked, “Do you think these could be more scouts?”

Another one agreed, “Yeah, they could be spies.”

Ken asked incredulously, half shouting, “Scouts? Spies? You’re making a mistake.”

They had Ken remove his DPM shirt so that they could check him for tattoos.

Finally, they let Ken tell them where they could find the letter of introduction from Durward Perkins.

One of them read the letter aloud. That seemed to satisfy most of them.

Terry was perplexed. She asked, “What’s all this talk about spies?”

The man with the Benelli riot gun explained, “The biker gang that hit Belle Fourche last week sent some spies in first to scout it out. They weren’t dressed like bikers. They were posing as a husband and wife—refugees. Now can you see why we’re being cautious?”

Ken was surprised to hear the man pronounce the name of the town Belle Fourche “Bell Foo-Shay.” Up until then, Ken and Terry had seen the town’s name only on his road map and they had not realized how it was properly spoken. Ken nodded. “Yes, indeed I can see why you are taking precautions.”

Ken then spent fifteen minutes describing where they were from, where they had been, and where they were headed. The men seemed satisfied. The leader of the Vigilance Committee apologized for detaining them, returned their guns and gear, and wished them well.

Ken and Terry continued on, still traveling in daylight. Whenever they met anyone, they asked about employment. The region was dominated by sheep ranches and sugar beet farms. At the junction of Highways 79 and 212, a sign read “Welcome to Newell, South Dakota.” Another, below it, advertised the Lions International club. Within 100 yards of passing the signs, they were again intercepted, this time by three men on horseback, who shouted, “Put your hands on your head! Vigilance Committee!”

As the men wheeled their horses around them, Ken muttered, “So this is how it feels to be ‘Welcome’ in Newell, South Dakota.” They both laid their rifles on the ground.

A man with a flamboyant mustache wearing a gray cowboy hat with a high Montana peak halted his horse five yards in front of the Laytons. “Keep your hands up, and no sudden moves.”

They again went through being searched and questioned. And again, it was the letter of introduction from West Branch that established their bona fides.

After the townsmen seemed satisfied, Ken asked, “We’d like to find security work around here, like we had last winter in Iowa. Do you know of anyone who might be hiring?”

The eldest man with a gray beard answered, “Yeah, you could talk to the Norwoods. I heard that they’ve been real worried since the big shootout in Belle Fourche. That was two weeks ago. Carl Norwood and his son have been watching their place 24/7 ever since. They’re about a mile beyond the area that our committee keeps patrolled. I think he’s looking for just one man, but I don’t know, he might consider hiring a couple. They’re cattlemen. They live out on Parilla Road, north of town.”

Ken was given directions to the Norwood ranch and was told that the committee would contact Carl Norwood via CB radio to let him know to expect the Laytons. Just before the members of the Vigilance Committee left, the leader reached into his saddlebag and pulled out two lime green bandanas. He instructed Ken and Terry to tie them around their boonie hats. These, he explained, would ensure their safe passage through town. He noted, “You’re expected to turn these in when you get to the committee’s guard post on 9th Street, up at the north end of town. You can pick up your rifles and packs now.”

As they walked the ten blocks through Newell, Terry commented, “They have a pretty clever and low-key security arrangement. It seems to work well for anyone coming in on foot, or I suppose on horseback or bicycles. But I wonder how they’d stop vehicles without a roadblock.”

Ken countered, “Maybe they have some security measures we haven’t seen yet.”

“Yeah, given that reception, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

As they continued their walk through town on Dartmouth Avenue there were no motor vehicles moving, but they saw several people on bicycles, and one on horseback. The town of Newell evidenced a mix of 1950s culture and early-twenty-first-century trash culture. There was a bakery, a used bookstore, and a hardware store that all could have been from the set of The Andy Griffith Show. But alongside them there was a payday loans and check cashing storefront and a tattoo and piercing shop. Terry mentioned that she was happy to see the latter were both boarded up.

Most of the businesses that were open in town were repair and secondhand stores. The local abundance of wool had inspired a group of local women to open a store called the Fiber Farm. As Ken and Terry walked by, there were four women in the store’s front room operating spinning wheels, chatting and treadling their way to prosperity. Signs in the window advertised “Hand-Knitted Wool Socks,” “Sweaters Made to Order,” and “We Trade.”

Just beyond 9th Street, a young man armed with an M1A rifle and carrying a handie-talkie on his hip stepped out of a small building that looked like it had formerly been a drive-through espresso shop. The shop’s windows had been painted over and prominently marked “CLOSED.”

Before the young man shut the door, Ken caught a glimpse of someone else inside, with just his head exposed over the top of a low cinder block wall. This wall was set back three feet from the building’s lightly constructed outer wall.

Ken whispered, “Clever.”

The young man walked up to them and asked for the bandanas.

Terry handed them over, saying, “Have a nice day.”

North of Newell, South Dakota

October, the Second Year

Four miles north of town, Ken and Terry Layton turned east on Parilla Road. The day was warming up, but the earlier chill in the air made it clear that winter was coming.

Two miles down Parilla, they came to a house on the south side with a mailbox marked in faded paint, “NORWOOD.” Even before they arrived, a pair of mixed breed cattle dogs began barking at them. A large ranch house that looked like it dated from the 1960s or 1970s was located twenty yards from the road. Behind it there was a hay barn and a combination shop/tractor shed. There were various other outbuildings and corrals on either side. They could hear cattle mooing in the distance.