299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 315 Sheriff Bennington

It was sunrise on the third day of the new year in Frederickson and Sheriff Bennington—he named himself Sheriff and no one seemed to mind—was working hard to bring the county under control. His posse of former law enforcement, the ones who left the force when it was getting corrupt, and their volunteers were doing a nice job of cleaning things up.

The population was incredibly receptive to the new Sheriff. They had suffered enough from Winters and the gangs. They were turning in people left and right. Bennington’s posse was overwhelmed with leads and citizen arrests of cops, FCorps, and the remaining gang members hiding out. Bennington had more volunteers than he could handle. This was, he reminded himself, a good problem to have.

Some citizens in Frederickson weren’t content with just turning in the bad guys. Instead, they became paras and were going after them on their own. The paras didn’t trust the police to prosecute bad guys, which was understandable given the Winters’ administration. The paras were even going after the bad guys’ families. Some of the paras’ brutality was shocking and if it didn’t stop soon, would hurt Bennington’s efforts to win the hearts and minds of the population. He was trying to keep the worst of the para activity under control, but his primary concern was rooting out the Winters people and gangs. In a breakdown of society, there are always regrettable things that happen, but Bennington would have to focus on the paras after Winters’ people were gone. He had to prioritize. Then again, the more of Winters’ people Bennington’s men killed or captured, the less there was for the paras to do, so focusing on Winters’ people indirectly eased the para problem.

In addition to dealing with the remnants of the Winters administration and the paras, Bennington also tried to do whatever he could to support the Patriots. Even though Olympia had been taken, it was only a few miles away. The Patriot ham radio network warned the areas surrounding Olympia to expect fleeing Limas to try to hide out there. Bennington responded by alerting his volunteer gate guards at the city limits, who replaced the corrupt Blue Ribbon Boys, to be on the lookout for people in cars with government license plates or strange stories about why they were suddenly coming to Frederickson. Sure enough, a carload of SWAT officers from the Olympia area rolled up to the Frederickson gate. They were arrested without incident. Bennington, wanting to show the population that his way was better than the para way, made sure to use valuable jail space for the SWAT officers instead of shooting them in the street. Their trials would be the first ones when the courthouse opened back up.

Bennington wanted to do more for the Patriots than just hold Frederickson. He wanted to help the statewide Patriot effort. It was the 17th Irregulars, after all, whose massive presence on New Year’s Eve made it possible for Bennington to clean out Winters and his minions. Bennington had limited resources because he had to focus on the holdouts and paras, but he decided he would do two things to help the Patriots. The first was to care for their wounded scout, and to make sure the two Pierce Point scouts who were killed in action got a proper burial. It was the least he could do.

The second thing he did was announce to his posse that after Frederickson was stabilized, any of them wanting to join the Patriots in Olympia were free to do so and dozens volunteered.