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  Staying off the freeway, they kept to the back roads and headed south. South to home, south to the ranch, south to Dad. They did not stop for people that called to them, they did not stop for those that waved to them, they did not stop for lunch. On they peddled into the grey day with soft flakes of snow falling upon them. They had gone 90 miles by the time they reached the town of Gunnison. It was not dark yet and they could have gone further but it was the habit they had picked up from Dad that stopped them.

  “When traveling by foot or horseback in wintertime, secure your camp before dark. Have wood, fire and shelter before you lose your light.”

  They were not on foot or horseback, but it was still a good habit.

  The first low-class motel they passed had a group of men standing in front of it. Having got caught away from home, some of the motel tenants were already banding together. With no cars running, instinctually, people knew that something major had happened. There were no city police cars, no highway patrol cars, no county sheriff cars, and that meant no law enforcement.

  They whistled and made cat calls at the girls passing by on their bikes.

  “Hey, girls, wait a minute. Don’t be in such a rush. It’s cold, come have a drink and warm up.”

  Ignoring them, the twins did not stop. It was not until the third motel, a small strip motel with all the doors facing the parking lot, did they stop. It was a motel where the manager lived in the room behind the office. The glass door was locked but an Asian man could be seen behind the register counter. They tapped on the door but the man waved them off.

  “Not open, not open.”

  KayLee-K did not reply. She simply unzipped the pack and pulled out two silver dollars and held them against the glass door by the flat of her palm. Dad made sure a little “junk silver”1 was included in everyone’s bug-out-bag. The Asian man was no fool. With the crumbling value of paper currency, he could see the silver and knew of its value. Opening the door, he asked, “Do you want room?”

  “Please,” KayLee-K replied.

  “No water, no heat,” he tried to muster authority through his thick accent, but his kindly heart showed through.

  “It’s okay. We just want a bed to sleep in and maybe some extra blankets.”

  The girls had picked the old motel for a reason. It still used conventional brass keys for the door locks. All the motels with electronic door locks and key cards no longer worked. It was getting cold and getting out of the breeze and falling snow was a necessity.

  Pulling their bikes inside with them, HayLee-H hooked the security chain and turned the deadbolt. For good measure, she propped a chair under the door handle. It was dark and KayLee-K activated another light stick. They soon were undressed down to their Under Armor and tucked into the same bed under layers of blankets. KayLee-K on the left side of the bed and HayLee-H on the right, each with her pistol under the pillow.

  “It’s been a good first day Sis,” KayLee-K said. “Two more of these and we’ll be home.”

  “Yes it has, but I’ll bet Dad’s a frettin.”

  “You know he will be,” KayLee-K replied. “He told us that something like this was bound to happen and worked to prepare us for it. I hope he doesn’t worry too much and trust that we haven’t forgotten all he’s taught us.”

  “How would you feel right now if you were one of the millions upon millions in this country that didn’t believe this could ever happen and never prepared for it?” HayLee-H asked.

  “Yeah, no cars running sounded like an impossibility. What was that scripture that Dad would read from the Bible?”

  “I’m not sure, but let’s find it,” HayLee-H replied as she leaned over to open the drawer of the night stand. There happened to be two Bibles in the drawer; A Gideon and a King James. Being Mormon country, there was also a Book of Mormon. Pulling out the King James Bible, she held the light stick close to it. Turning to the Bible index she looked up the word “chariots.” After turning the pages for about five minutes HayLee-H stopped. “Okay, I think I’ve found it.”

  “Micah 4:10. And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that I will cut off thy horses out of the midst of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots.”

  “Well, Sis,” KayLee-K said somberly, “I think we have lived to see that happen. Overnight our fast paced, jet propelled world has found itself going at horse and buggy speed.”

  There was a long pause in the conversation then HayLee-H broke the silence.

  “KayLee, do you think Cat was successful in getting Mom to come back to the ranch in time?”

  “I hope so, HayLee. Dad didn’t want Cat to go to Albuquerque. He wanted Mom to come to the ranch and Cat thought that if she went to Albuquerque she could talk Mom into it. Dad was worried that they both would get stuck there.”

  Again, silence in the room.

  “Sis,” HayLee-H started, “I’m worried about Dan. You know that when he got older he had a hard time believing Dad when he would say that things could get really bad. Dad has been calling him and trying to convince him to come back to the ranch. So far, he hasn’t been willing to leave San Diego.”

  “HayLee, you know Dan is tough. If anyone could get out of there it would be him.”

  Both girls were again silent. The strength and comfort the sisters drew from each other had been a lifelong thing. To have complete trust and confidence in another human being was a gem beyond price.

  HayLee-H put the Bible and light stick in the drawer of the nightstand and closed it. It was now dark in the room and the girls drifted off to sleep. Sleep that was welcomed, sleep that was needed. But what is welcomed and what is needed is not always what one gets.

  The sisters were in their sleep but for only an hour when a brass key was entered into the deadbolt of their motel room door. Silently it was turned back leaving the door unlocked. The door knob was then turned open and two shoulders slammed against the door. Had there been no chair propped under the door knob the door’s safety chain would have been ripped from its anchor screws. As it was, the chair legs cracked but the chain held. It held for the first blow but it didn’t hold for the second. With another lunge, the assailants crashed through the door as the legs of the chair splintered and the safety chain ripped from the wall.

  It was that split second between the first lunge and the second lunge that cost the men their lives. The darkness of the room was ripped by jags of light from the muzzle flashes of duel Sig Sauers. HayLee-H fired six shots and KayLee-K fired five.

  With ears ringing from the concussion of gun fire, HayLee-H grabbed the glowing light stick from the nightstand drawer. Both men were on the floor. Moaning, one of the men tried to rise to his knees and KayLee-K put two more rounds through him.

  Within four minutes, with recharged magazines, the girls were dressed, packed and peddling into the dark.

  _____________________

  1. Junk silver is a term used for U.S. silver coins minted in 1964 and earlier that contains 90% silver.

  Chapter 6

  CAT

  January 27th

  The rumble of the nuclear explosion reached my little camp as I stumbled to my feet. I wanted to turn my back to the city and the horrid scene of destruction but my feet would not move, so I buried my face in my hands. How could this happen, how could this happen? Where was our government that was supposed to protect this country? What fools in Washington thought that by unilaterally disarming1 ourselves it would make the rest of the world like us more? There were actual fools in Washington but there were also traitors. Traitors that knew this would happen. They would not be the ones caught by surprise. Their families would not be in a nuclear strike zone nor downwind in the path of any fallout.

  Traitors. That word burned in my mind. One of the few things that the federal government had the right and responsibility to do was to protect this land. Democrats and Republicans both had their share of treasonous representatives. As a whole, the Republican party continue to alienate their conservative base. Freed
om loving people put their trust in them because the leadership sounded good when they spoke, making promises and pledges, pledges of loyalty to the ideas of a responsible and limited government. They were hollow pledges that gave only token lip service to the Constitution. Almost no politician considered the Constitution to be the supreme law of the land anymore. They each placed their hand on the Bible and swore an oath to protect and defend it. Once in office they would promptly dishonor that oath. Moreover, the size and scope of the government continued to increase, abetted by their lack of integrity to the promises.

  It was the disgust that the people had for congress that brought in the third party, The Independent American Party. I had joined The Independent American Party. It split the Republican Party and gave The Democrats unchallenged majorities everywhere. Many of the Tea Party and libertarians flowed into the new party. There were honest Democrats that truly believed in the right of privacy that also joined. It was like spitting into the sea. Government was entrenched, embedded and inserted into every aspect of our lives. The train could not be stopped, it could not be turned; it was off its tracks and had just gone over the cliff.

  It was still hours before the light of the new day would come, but I could not wait. I did not want to wait. The falling snow was a blessing. It would help pull down the radiation from the nuclear blast. The prevailing winds were also in my favor as they came from the southwest, pushing the fallout away from me. The people that lived in the Sandia Mountains east of Albuquerque were not so lucky.

  Throwing the last of the cedar limbs onto the fire, I piled all the items from the buckets onto my bed. One bucket had a full sized, unframed backpack. It took me a half hour to order, organize and pack things from the buckets into my double strapped back pack. When I was done I was dressed in Under Armor thermals with good jeans made of Gore-Tex over my thermals. I had located my holster for the Sig and it was now buckled around my hips.

  I pulled on two pair of wool socks and inserted them in a pair of Danner Pronghorn boots. The leather Pronghorns were lined with Gore-Tex and had 400 grams of Thinsulate. (Dad was big on taking care of one’s feet.) My coat was goose down with a Gore-Tex shell and insulated hood. Both pants and coat were Mossy Oak camouflage as was my backpack. Before putting on my pack I had one more thing to do.

  Returning to the hole, I picked up the tin can and dug a little more. Out of the dirt I pulled a thin, long case. Three strong snaps bound this waterproof container closed. I brushed off the dirt and opened it. Kneeling in the dirt and snow, I let the beam of my flashlight rest upon the rifle, a simple bolt action Remington 700 in a 243 caliber. A Leopold 3x9 scope mounted to it and four boxes of bullets. I did not remove it from the case but for a moment just looked at it. Distance was now a manageable thing with this rifle. With the scope I could see more things at a distance, I could bag game at a distance and I could better keep hostiles at a distance.

  “Dad,” I spoke as if he were here. “How did you know that I would need all these things?” I then picked up the gun and loaded it.

  My world, my life, now had a fighting chance of survival. With my backpack on, and rifle slung over my shoulder I headed west. In my coat pocket was a map of New Mexico and a compass. No GPS would work now; we were back to maps and compasses.

  Over the years, when we would come with Dad to visit Mom in Albuquerque, he would always stop and make a stash along the way. Mom thought it strange. As children, we thought it fun and an adventure. The first stash he had made was the one I had just opened and it was the most extensive of them all. The other stashes were simple: a five-gallon waterproof bucket containing a three day’s supply of food for two people. The food was a mixture but each had a long shelf life of 20 years or more. There was water, but only for two days for two people. From this place there would be another stash 50 miles to the west. Approximately every 50 miles from here to the ranch one could find, if he had my map, another stash. Five hundred miles from ranch to Albuquerque, that meant nine stashes. Traveling slow and careful, it would be three days between stashes. That made 30 days between me and home.

  Using my compass, I would travel cross country paralleling I-40. I wanted distance between me and the burning city. I could not bring myself to look back. Like Lot and Lot’s wife from the Bible, I feared that if I turned and looked back I would be overcome. Not that I would become a pillar of salt but I feared emotions of sorrow might overpower me.

  “No time, no time for sorrow,” I thought to myself and I pushed on. The grey day came slowly to light. I had walked another three hours, now tired, I needed sleep. On a high ridge there was some tall, thick brush which I worked myself into. It had a good view of the land around me while concealing me from others. Not undressing or building a fire, I wrapped myself in my bedroll and sat down. Looking through the tangled brush, I could see the freeway in the distance below me. No cars were running and there were strings of people walking; walking west away from Albuquerque. Bringing my rifle to my shoulder I looked at them through the scope. I could make out men, women and children. All walking, some carrying bundles, others carrying babes. How would they make it? Where would they go? Who could help? It would not be FEMA, or Homeland Security, it would not be any government agency. They had long promised that if everyone did their fair share that all would have security, all would have a home, all would have a job, and all would have health care. Liars. All of them.

  Keeping the rifle in hand, I lay down to sleep.

  _____________________

  1. Most people think that everyone will die in a nuclear war. This is inaccurate. The initial loss of life in America with a full nuclear attack is about 20%. The majority of countries in the world will not even be targeted in a nuclear war. The blast radius is about 5 to 10 miles and the radioactive fallout dissipates in one to two weeks. The fallout is much different than that of a nuclear reactor meltdown, (See Joel Skousen’s research at “World Affairs Brief.com” link; Strategic threats of this decade.

  Chapter 7

  DAN

  January 27th

  I had a plan. A day ago I would have thought such a plan to be reckless and foolish. Today it was probably my only hope of keeping my little family alive.

  “Keep your head about you,” Dad would say. That was his way of saying, use your brains, don’t panic and problem solve.

  From the moment the Escalade had died my mind had been working. Mentally I looked forward to what I would be facing. In a few hours, once it became light, this freeway would be a string of refugees walking into the town of Williams, four miles ahead. Williams was not capable of caring for itself let alone any refugees. Like all other cities, it depended upon the daily flow of semi-trucks that delivered food and fuel to it. The city of Flagstaff, that lay 21 miles past Williams, would be worse, much worse. This was high mountain country, it was winter and a storm was threatening. Even if I got my family through Flagstaff I would have to go north across the Navajo Reservation. That long stretch of reservation was high desert plateau. There were few trees for firewood. The land was wide open, with little to break the wind and storm. The dangers upon the roads would increase daily as more people became desperate. It was 260 miles from Williams to the ranch. In the Escalade that distance was nothing. Now, packing children, with all we had on our backs, the outlook was very bleak. If I were a crow and could fly straight to the ranch, it was only about 180 miles. The trouble being, there was a large canyon between us and the ranch, namely the Grand Canyon and I was not a crow. But it was to that canyon that I looked. I knew the canyon and its trails a little. The land and roads on the other side I knew very well.

  “Dan,” Jill put her hand on my arm as we walked up the freeway. “I’ve always trusted you,” she said. “And I trust you now. You were not raised like most people. I know that you have skills from your up-bringing that can get us through.”

  A vote of confidence; it strengthened my determination. She was right about that up-bringing. When I was young, Dad took me hunting a lot
. The hunting I loved most was running the hounds and chasing the big cats. A great deal of that lion hunting took place no more than 60 miles due north of where we now stood. It was the canyon that stood between us. Even the canyon I knew from my youth. Many of the side canyons on the north we had hiked and ridden by horseback. As a Boy Scout, I had hiked from rim to rim, crossing the river at Phantom Ranch.

  Boy Scout. I laughed in disgust. I used to take pride in the Eagle Badge I had earned. Now I wouldn’t want anyone to know that I had been a Scout. The Boy Scout organization had violated their own Scout oath; their oath to be morally straight. Where in our Nation’s landscape could one find a people, a group, or an organization that stood by unchanging principles? If half of the troubles that Dad said were coming to this land actually came, only those who had unshakable principles would be left standing in the end.

  Re-focusing my mind, I reviewed my plan. My plan was to have my family in warmer country before nightfall tomorrow. The light snow on the ground made it possible to walk on the road without the use of my flashlight. The cars were easy to make out as we walked by. All the windows were now fogged up by the people inside who were trying to stay warm. We had walked no more than two hundred yards when I saw what I was looking for. It was a large motor home with two mountain bikes mounted to the rear bumper.

  Going to the side door, I knocked. “Hello. Hello, the motor home,” I called out.

  There was a rustling from inside, then silence.