Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse

CHAPTER 7 Low Profile

After leaving the campground, Chase did most of the driving. Matt rode in the back of the motor home, out of sight. They stopped first for fuel, filling the motor home’s sixty-five-gallon tank in Roanoke,Virginia. An hour later they dumped the black plastic trash bags in a large commercial dumpster behind an office building that looked like it had just been constructed, but was not yet leased. They drove as far as Baltimore that day, and parked behind a Flying J truck stop an hour after dark. Matt went into the truck stop and bought a Sunday newspaper and a few groceries.

There was nothing in the Baltimore newspaper about the shooting incidents, but they surmised that the events were top news stories in North Carolina. They went through the want ads and discussed the various possibilities that they saw. They picked out five likely candidates. Chase complained that he couldn’t sleep because of the noise of the idling big rigs. They started making phone calls at 8 o’clock Monday morning. It being a weekday, there weren’t many people home to answer their calls.

When Matt called the number in the fourth ad that they’d circled, he got an answer. He was promptly given street directions. Chase waited in the motor home three blocks from the proffered address for what seemed like an eternity.

Matt looked the truck over carefully—smelling the transmission dipstick, looking for oil leaks, watching for telltale smoke from the tailpipe when the owner started it up cold, and listening carefully under the hood as it was idled.

It had some defects. The passenger-side rearview mirror was broken, the rear quarter panels were starting to rust out, and the upholstery was torn up on the driver’s side of the bench seat. Otherwise it was a good, serviceable truck. He dickered with the old man for a few minutes, quizzing him about the leaf springs, the air shocks, and how “dry and tight” the camper shell was, and finally settled on a price of fourteen hundred dollars. The man had advertised it at sixteen hundred. Matt counted out the fourteen hundred in cash, and was handed the signed title and two sets of keys. Just before he drove the truck away, the old man told Matt, “She don’t burn much oil.” It wasn’t until ten minutes after Matt had left that the man realized that he should have got the young man’s name and address. He said to himself, “Makes no never mind. I’ll get word back from the DMV, soon as he’s re-titled it.”

Matt pulled the Chevy pickup behind the motor home and tapped his horn. Without pausing to get out and examine their new purchase, Chase started up the motor home’s engine and headed out. They were well out of the Baltimore metro area into the farm country of Frederick County before they stopped. There, they pulled into a deserted county park. Playground equipment near the front of the park sat idle, since the weather was cold and drizzly.

There were several corrugated metal buildings there that looked like they were used to house exhibits during the summer county fair. Chase pulled in behind the biggest of the buildings. Matt backed up the pickup to the motor home’s side door. They rapidly transferred their load, putting the heaviest items at the front of the truck’s bed.

Their gear completely filled the pickup bed, all the way to the roof of the camper shell. Matt stowed his backpack, briefcase, and AUG duffel bag in the cab. Chase kept only his range bag and his rucksack in the motor home. He realized that he was going to need something to read during his upcoming journey, so he tucked a copy of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged into his rucksack.

Before Matt stepped out of the motor home, Chase hugged his brother and vowed, “Okay. I’ll see you in four days, maybe five. God Bless.”

As they drove the motor home and the pickup out of the fairgrounds gate, Matt turned left and Chase turned right.

Chase drove west to Fargo, North Dakota, driving twelve hours a day. He left the motor home at an informal campground a mile north of town. Following Matt’s advice, he left it unlocked, with the keys in the ignition. He made no attempt to remove any fingerprints. Their prints were so numerous, and on so many items in the motor home that he would have certainly missed many, even if he had worked a full day. He further reasoned that the authorities probably already had several samples of their fingerprints from the van and merchandise that they left behind in Asheboro.

Shouldering his rucksack and heavy range bag, Chase walked back to town.

He bought a bus ticket for Grand Forks, but instead boarded a bus bound for Fergus Falls, Minnesota. Both buses left the station about the same time. He apologized to the driver for boarding so late, and paid cash for the ride to Fergus Falls. Chase immediately stuck his nose into his book, to avoid eye contact that might encourage conversation. After having dinner and waiting four hours in Fergus Falls, he took a bus to Minneapolis. He slept most of the way there. In Minneapolis he shaved in the restroom at the McDonald’s across the street from the bus depot. Then he walked five blocks and had breakfast at a diner. From there he walked another five blocks in the same direction, toward the financial district, and hailed a cab, and asked to be taken to the Amtrak station.

Two hours later, he was on an Amtrak train headed for Chicago. The next day, he left Chicago on a bus to St. Louis. In St. Louis, he took another Amtrak train. This one was bound for Dallas. Eighteen hours and thirty-three chapters of Atlas Shrugged later, he got off in Hot Springs,Arkansas, even though he had bought a ticket that was paid all the way to Dallas. In Hot Springs, he thumbed a ride to Texarkana. In Texarkana, he bought a bus ticket to Baton Rouge.

From a Baton Rogue bus station he hitchhiked to De La Croix State Park, five miles west of town. He arrived at the campground totally exhausted. It had been one hundred and seventeen hours since the brothers had said their goodbyes in Maryland. He found Matt sitting in a lawn chair, sipping a root beer. Matt exclaimed, “Hey little brother, I’ve been waiting here a day and a half. What took you so long?”

The day before, Matt had stored most of their gear in a commercial storage space. He chose a small “mom and pop” storage company, because they were less likely to have a lot of paperwork to fill out. Matt made up a story about inadvertently leaving his wallet on the counter at a truck stop two days before.

“Hey, give me a break,” Matt pleaded. “I just moved down here from Maryland, my wallet was ripped off, I haven’t found a house to rent yet, and I’m scared to death that all my clothes and TV and stereo are going to get stolen out of my truck!” The owner was reluctant to rent him a space without ID, but was finally persuaded when Matt offered to pay a full year’s storage fee in advance, in cash. Matt rented the storage space in the name of Marcellus Thompson.

When he arrived at the campsite, Chase immediately noticed that the Chevy pickup was now adorned with Louisiana license plates with current registration stickers. He asked, “Now where did those come from?”

“I bought them at a wrecking yard—well, sort of. I paid for them at least.

Let me explain. The same day I got into the state, I went and found myself two cardboard boxes about eighteen inches square, back behind a restaurant. I cut one of the boxes up. I made a panel of cardboard the same size as the bottom of the box and laid it inside—basically a false bottom. Then I selected a few tools from my tool kit and threw them in the box. I found a wrecking yard on the interstate. I walked into their office carrying the box, and told them that I was looking for an exterior mirror for a ’79 Chevy pickup, and a few odds and ends. It was one of those ‘pick and pull’ places. I paid my five-dollar fee to get into the yard, and went to work. I found a new mirror all right, from about the same year Chevy. I also got replacements for the missing radio knob and door lock button. And… a set of license plates off a recent wreck that still had a few months to go on the registration sticker. I put the plates under the false bottom. They deducted the five-dollar yard fee off the price of the stuff, so everything only cost a total of nine-fifty.”

They spent that night in the back of the camper. They were surprised at how warm the weather was, compared to the Carolinas, even in February.

The Keanes got busy building their “legends” the next day. Their first stops were graveyards. They spent hours walking row after row of headstones, looking for males of about the same birth year, who had died before the age of three. Matt picked “Jason Lomax.” Jason was born a year later than Matt was and had died at the age of six months. Chase picked out a “Travis Hardy” who would have been a year older than him, had he lived. That afternoon, they rented drop boxes using their new names from two different UPS Store franchises in Baton Rogue. Both franchises told them that they could use “Apt.

number” in place of “Box number” if they wished. A quick phone call yielded the address of the parish recorder’s office, and the fee required to obtain a duplicate notarized birth certificate. “Jason” bought his money order at the post office. “Travis” got his at a Circle-K.

Matt’s letter explained that he needed a spare notarized birth certificate because he was getting married. His envelope went in the mail to the recorder late that afternoon. Chase’s letter explained that he had lost his original birth certificate. His letter and money order went in the mail the following day. Both of their birth certificates arrived at their respective drop boxes two days later.

Not wanting to linger too long and attract suspicion, they moved their camp to St. Pierre State Park, on the other side of Baton Rogue. They also each bought fishing licenses in their assumed names. They bought spin cast fishing outfits, a Coleman camp stove, a cast iron frypan, and a small inexpensive barbecue. They spent a lot of time bank fishing at the park, and caught a surprising number of fish.

Soon after their birth certificates arrived, they got library cards at two different library branches. Then they sent in SS-5 forms to apply for Social Security numbers. Their cards took an agonizing two weeks to arrive. During the interval, the Keanes started looking for work. Chase got a job with the local power company, working on a pole replacing crew. Since Chase was young, the fact that he didn’t have a Social Security number didn’t arouse any suspicion. He explained that he had been in junior college and hadn’t previously worked jobs that required a SSN. His Social Security card, he explained, was “on the way.” The card in fact arrived just two days before his first payday.

They carried their fishing licenses, library cards, and folded birth certificates inside their shoes, to quickly give them a “used” look.

Chase was assured steady work in the pole yard, due to the ongoing infesta-tion of Formosan termites in New Orleans. Not only were they destroying many historic buildings and eating the cores out of living trees, the termites also had an appetite for power poles. Most termites wouldn’t eat treated wood, but the Formosan termites were ravenous. In three years’ time, his crew had to replace more than half of the power poles in the Venetian Isles area, one of the most extensively infested regions in the parish. The work accelerated following the 2005 hurricanes, which left thousands of poles downed or waterlogged.

After another week, they moved their camp back to De La Croix State Park. Chase used the pickup to commute to work, while Matt fished and casually guarded their tent. Immediately after their Social Security cards arrived, Matt and Chase got drivers’ licenses in Baton Rogue suburbs, using their drop box “apartment numbers” as mailing addresses. Chase’s birth certificate and SS card was considered sufficient identification. Only Matt was asked to show additional ID. He flashed his fishing license and library card.

Two days after getting his driver’s license, Matt bought another pickup with a shell in his new name, again from a private party. This one was a 1990 Ford, rust free, and had four-wheel drive. It cost $2,200. This wiped out the last of their cash. Chase sold one of his gold Maple Leafs at a pawnshop to provide them enough cash to live on until they started bringing home paychecks.

Chase was disgusted that the pawnshop owner paid him twenty-five dollars under the spot price of gold for the coin. He considered that highway robbery. At least the man at the pawnshop didn’t ask for any ID.

Wearing gloves, Matt vigorously rubbed both sides of the title to the Chevy pickup with a gum eraser, to remove fingerprints, and then put it in the truck’s glove box. The following day, he drove the pickup to Beaumont, Texas. He spent hours laboriously wiping it clean of fingerprints with a bottle of Break Free CLP lubricant and two rolls of paper towels. Then, wearing gloves, he drove it to the worst looking neighborhood he could find. He parked it in front of a liquor and check-cashing store that had bars on the windows. As with the stolen Cutlass, he left it unlocked, with the keys in it. The signed title was still in the glove box. He took a Greyhound bus back to New Orleans, arriving late at night.

Matt rented a single-wide trailer in New Orleans East for $275 a month. There was a shopping center with a Laundromat and a grocery store within walking distance, and a city bus stop just two hundred yards from the trailer park. It was an ideal location. The New Orleans East neighborhood was appealing because it had an independent streak and was decidedly blue collar.

Nobody asked a lot of questions. Matt read a newspaper editorial that derided the residents of New Orleans East for shooting rabbits with .22s even though the district was within city limits.

The Keanes rented drop boxes at separate firms in downtown New Orleans. Now that they had driver’s licenses, it was a breeze. Then they each opened checking accounts at different nearby banks. It took a month of looking, but Matt found a job as a warehouseman with an oil distributor outside of New Orleans. It paid nine-twenty-five an hour. He ran a forklift, wrote up orders, and kept inventory. Compared to previous jobs he had held digging postholes and stringing barbed wire, he considered it easy.

A month after Matt started his job, he picked up a crumpled March first issue of a national news magazine that was on a desk in the company office. He was shocked to see an article titled “Radical Right Gone Wrong” and subtitled “Carolina Shootouts Part of Growing Militia Resistance to Traffic Stops.” He brought the magazine home for Chase to see that evening. There was a large but blurry photograph of the shootout. The photo was digitally captured from a “much aired” video that was shot through the front windshield of the trooper’s car.

The article explained that the trooper’s cruiser was one of a group of North Carolina patrol cars that was equipped with dash-mounted automated video cameras to film traffic stops. The intended goal was to get footage of motorists who were pulled over for suspected driving-while-intoxicated, to gather court evidence. It was coincidentally one of those camera-equipped cars that ended up behind the Keanes’ van. Matt studied the photo carefully, and decided that their faces were not recognizable.

Matt turned the page to see a muddy picture of Chase and a disturbingly clear photo of himself. By the background and the way he was dressed in the photo, he immediately recognized it as one taken the previous June, when he was a groomsman at a friend’s wedding in Coeur d’Alene. Below these shots was a color photo of Chase’s Dodge executive motor home, captioned “Abandoned getaway vehicle.” The article had a rough chronology of the two shooting incidents, and a surprising number of biographical details about Matt and his brother.

Matt was disgusted by the blatant statist bias of the magazine article. In describing the first incident, it incorrectly stated that Chase had fired first, and that the trooper and deputy had “fired back in self-defense.” The article went on to describe the later “rapid fire sniper attack” at the strip mall. It described the officer “bravely radioing in reports…while at the same time Keane allegedly concentrated his deadly fusillade of full metal jacket armor piercing bullets on the officer, trying for a head shot.”

The article went on to gleefully describe the items that the Keanes had left behind in the van. It described the six “paramilitary” guns—“two of which were described by a sheriff’s deputy as easily convertible to full automatic fire,” four thousand rounds of ammunition “most of which could easily pierce bulletproof vests,” a stretcher, body bags, FBI logo hats, FBI raid jackets, U.S. Marshall’s badges, latex gloves, and a roll of duct tape. The lists were set in the context of describing the gear as an “arms cache” and “crime tools.”Whoever wrote the article failed to mention the fact that the guns, ammunition cans, and law enforcement items all had price tags on them, because they were part of the Keanes’ gun show inventory. The stretcher and body bags were also both gun show merchandise, and were similarly marked with price labels. Nor did the writer mention that the duct tape was inside the van’s tool kit, and that the latex gloves were inside Chase’s medic’s bag, along with various first aid supplies, bandages, and minor surgery instruments.

The lengthy article was full of innuendoes and references to the Keane brothers as “gun nuts” (somewhat true), “survivalists” (true), “militia cell members” (a lie), “white separatists” (a lie), “with ties to the KKK” (a lie), “unlicensed gun dealers” (a half-truth), “organizers of a jural society” (true), “adherents of racist ‘Identity’ Christianity” (a lie), “reputed members of the Aryan Nations neo-Nazi group” (a lie), and “having extensive contacts with the Elohim City neo-Nazi compound” (a lie).

The most blatant piece of innuendo was a reference to the roll of duct tape. It was described by an ATF spokesman as “the same type of tape that is often used to bind the hands and feet of victims in home invasion robberies.” These comments infuriated Chase. He quipped, “You know, they ought to rename it the BATFE&DT: ‘The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, & Duct Tape.’” Putting on a mocking falsetto, he added, “If they just put all the sickos in this country who own any of that evil ‘assault duct tape’ in prison, we’d live in a much safer society. There is no legitimate purpose for private citizens to own duct tape. Mere possession should be viewed as criminal intent.”

Matt added, “Yes, and only properly trained law enforcement officers should be allowed to own duct tape, or high capacity duct tape dispensers.”

In the following weeks, Matt often joked about the magazine article and others like it that they saw later. “I sure am glad to live in a country with a fair and unbiased media!”

In early June, Matt bought a copy of The Gun List at a New Orleans news-stand. He was still hoping to find some additional high capacity magazines for their guns. There were none advertised. Leafing through the magazine, he was stunned when he saw a prominent half-page reward ad, placed by the BATFE.

The agency was offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward, and North Carolina authorities offered another ten thousand. The ad had blurred second-generation photos of Matt and Chase.

It read:

After seeing the article and reward advertisement, the Keanes were glad that they’d gone completely underground, changed their identities, and made no attempt to contact their family or friends. They were on the BATFE’s “10 Most Wanted” List. After seeing the pictures of himself with and without a beard, Matt decided to grow a mustache. He wore his dark Ray-Ban shooting glasses almost constantly. Chase began growing a full beard. He let it grow for the four years that they were in hiding. It eventually extended three inches below his chin.

Each workday, in what became a relentless grind, Chase took the bus to the pole yard, and Matt drove the pickup to the warehouse. They didn’t use any of their accrued vacation, and consciously avoided developing more than a “wave and say hi” relationship with anyone at the trailer park or at work. Because of their reclusive habits, some of their neighbors at the trailer park concluded that they were gay. They rarely ate out, and saved as much money as possible. For relaxation, they mainly went fishing on weekends. They developed tastes for Cajun music and Creole cooking. With a conscious effort, they soon slipped into a slower pattern of speech and a soft southern accent.

They realized that since they knew so many people from their gun show days that it would be a risk being recognized at a gun show. So they avoided going to any gun shows. They began attending a nearby Baptist church. There, too, they kept a low profile. It was frustrating, but they avoided all contact with their family or any of their old friends. It was the only way to make a clean break. They knew that the vast majority of wanted criminals were captured because they returned to their old haunts and renewed contacts with their former associates. The Keanes weren’t stupid, and they wouldn’t make those mistakes.

In June, Matt emptied out their storage space in Baton Rogue, and rented another one near New Orleans, as Jason Lomax. In August, Chase found a large box trailer for sale. It was a sturdy homemade trailer, made out of a pickup bed. He bought a used camper shell that fit it the following weekend. After getting the trailer registered to Jason Lomax, rewiring the trailer lights, and fitting overload springs, they left it in their new ten-by-twelve-feet storage space. They stored it with all their tactical gear packed inside it, ready to go at a moment’s notice. The humid Louisiana climate could quickly destroy guns that weren’t kept clean and well oiled, so four times a year, they brought the trailer home from the storage space to oil their guns and rotate the packets of silica gel dessicant. The day before each of their gun maintenance trips, Chase would put a batch of silica gel packets in the oven on low heat to drive out any moisture that they had gathered. Chase had a ready supply of free silica gel from a New Orleans piano shop. The shop had large packets of silica gel that came in each of their pianos received from overseas shipment. Until Chase started asking for them “for his tools,” the shop had thrown most of the packets away.

The following January, using his company discount, Matt bought four twenty-gallon drums of gasoline and a pint can of gas stabilizer. He waited until January to buy the gas. From his experience at work, he knew that gasoline made in the winter months had more butane added to it to provide better cold weather starting. This also greatly increased its shelf life. The drums of gasoline soon went into storage with the trailer. Starting the following January, and in the subsequent winters, Matt replaced the drums with fresh ones. Since he had just a short commute, burning up the old fuel took several months.

Not content with just one false ID apiece, the Keanes gradually developed two more false IDs each during the next eighteen months. They had gone through the experience of living in campgrounds while waiting for their documentation to arrive, and they feared being so vulnerable again. With their later false IDs, they decided to “go all out.” They even got passports.

In May, unexpected transmission and differential repairs on the pickup used up most of their savings. They slowly began to build up their savings again, becoming even more frugal.

Once their budget had restabilized, Matt and Chase worked on increasing their food storage program, and made themselves ghillie camouflage suits. Ghillie suits were first developed in the nineteenth century by British game wardens.

The wardens used them to camouflage themselves as they lay in wait for poachers. A ghillie suit is covered with strips of random length rag material, in earth tones. It is designed to thoroughly break up the outline of its wearer. When still and sitting or prone, someone in a ghillie suit looks like a clump of brush.

To make his ghillie, Matt started with a large piece of shrimp netting that he found at a surplus store. It was from a nearly new brown nylon shrimp net that had been caught on a snag and ruined. The undamaged portion was perfect for Matt’s purposes. He cut the netting material to the shape of a rectangular poncho that reached his knees. He reinforced the hole for his head by stitching it with a four-inch-wide ring of forest green denim material. This kept the netting from tearing at the point where it would take the most stress.

After he had bought the net, Matt mail ordered ten rolls of two-inch-wide military surplus camouflage material from The Gun Parts Company in West Hurley, NewYork. The company advertised them as “Cama Rolls.” Half of the rolls were forest green, and the others were brown. The burlap made perfect ghillie suit making material. The Keanes supplemented the green and brown strips with a few strips of tan burlap that they cut from potato sacks. Sewing the random length strips of burlap to the net poncho took countless hours.

With their evenings and weekends free, however, the ghillie construction work went quickly. They laboriously shredded the edges of each of the strips, to give them a frazzled, uneven appearance. After the poncho was done, Matt used more of the burlap to cover one of his boonie hats. The burlap hung down to his shoulders in the back. The full coverage ghillie effect was completed when a camouflage face veil was worn beneath the hat. When the entire ensemble was completed, he soaked it in Flamecheck FC-1055 fabric flame retardant.

Chase decided to make an even more elaborate ghillie. His was similar to those he had seen commercially made by Custom Concealment. He started with a set of Army surplus mechanics’ coveralls that was one size larger than he would normally wear. He did this because he had heard from a man at a gun show that the material in the overalls would gather together as each successive band of camouflaging material was sewn on. The man was right. By the time he was done sewing on twelve pounds of garnish, the overalls fit Chase nicely.

Since the ghillie material came down over the top of his boots, the effect of the suit was astounding. Even when standing up, Chase looked like a bush. When he tried on the full suit, hat, and face veil, he proclaimed:“Look at me, I’m the incredible shambling mound!” Before it went into storage in its duffel bag, his ghillie suit was also treated with Flamecheck flame retardant.

When they were done making the ghillie overalls and cape, the Keanes had a lot of shrimp net and burlap material left over. They eventually used most of it to make ghillie covers for each of their CFP-90 backpacks, and covers for each of their long guns. The backpack covers were attached with sewn-in rings of elastic material they bought from a fabric shop. The long gun covers were specially designed to not interfere with the operation of the gun’s actions. It took several tries to get them just right.

When the dollar started its dive and the riots began in the north, “Jason” and “Travis” gave two days’ notice at their jobs. They spent nearly all of their saved cash on canned foods. With the galloping inflation, their money didn’t buy much. At the end of his last day at the warehouse, Matt got another twenty-gallon drum of unleaded premium gas. His boss gave it to him in lieu of his last week’s paycheck. That evening, Chase dropped off the key to their rental trailer with the manager, and told him that they were moving out immediately. It didn’t take long to pack up the back of the pickup, drive to the storage space, load the other drums of gasoline, and hitch up the trailer. They were on the highway by 8 p.m. They drove in shifts to West Yellowstone, stopping only to refuel. They camped near West Yellowstone for one night. Then they did another marathon drive to Spokane. Most of their drive had been uneventful, but they arrived to find a city in flames. There were more than twenty fires burning out of control in the downtown Spokane area.

Except for the prolonged power failure, things were fairly normal in their parents’ neighborhood. There was no answer when they rang the doorbell, and the front door was locked. They got through the back door by reaching in the dog door to unlock the back door lock; a trick that Matt had used on the door for many years. It was clear that their parents, sister, and dogs had made a rapid departure. Coat hangers were scattered in their sister’s room. Some dog food was spilled on the garage floor. The pantry was empty. The hand tools and chain saws were gone. Most of the dishes, pans, cutlery, and clothes were missing. All of the camping gear, fishing equipment, archery gear, and guns were also gone. The family’s car, Suburban, and utility trailer were absent.

None of the furniture except a futon had been taken. After surveying the house, Matt and Chase met in the living room. Chase said, “It definitely doesn’t look like burglars did this—much too systematic. Looks like they just decided to take a philter. If I know Dad, he went up to the cabin.”

Matt and Chase left immediately for the Kaniksu National Forest, in Pend Oreille County. Their father had a cabin there on a deeded mining claim, fourteen miles east of Chewelah,Washington. As they wound their way up Flowery Trail Road, Chase wondered out loud, “Are they going to be up here, or over in Montana with Uncle Joe?”

When they arrived at the cabin there were shouts of joy, dogs barking, and a torrent of conversation. Everyone tried to talk simultaneously, both about the current situation and about where Matt and Chase had been for the previous four years. Their mother and father looked noticeably older. Eileen was by then twenty-one years old. One of the family’s dogs had been hit by a car during Matt and Chase’s long absence. It had been replaced by a pair of golden retrievers to keep their aging dachshund company. Their father said that the dogs were “city bred” and “worse than useless.” He complained, “They don’t watch for intruders worth a darn, and they bark at the game and scare it away.”

While their mother started a stew for dinner, the rest of the family spent some time going through Eileen’s “Fugitive Scrap Book.” It contained dozens of newspaper clippings, the “Radical Right Gone Wrong” article, fourteen letters to the editor that had run in the Spokesman newspaper, one of the Gun List reward ads, and a FBI wanted poster that Eileen had taken from the local post office.

One article that Chase found considerably alarming was a piece from USA Today that had a color picture of Chase’s motor home. The article had run the very same day that he had left the motor home in North Dakota. Another USA Today article that ran the following week described where the motor home was abandoned, and was titled, “Keanes in Canada? The Hunt Continues.”

As they leafed through the scrapbook, Eileen kept up a running monologue, describing the media hoopla, “You probably saw this one… and, of course, you saw the video….”

Matt answered, “No, we never saw the video of the shootout, just a still shot from it. We didn’t have a TV at the trailer.”

“You didn’t see it? You’ve got to be kidding! Nearly everyone in the country saw that video! It’s ironic that you two are in the tiny minority that didn’t see it. It was on the network news two days in a row, and on CNN about a bazillion times—you know how they keep repeating things. Mom taped it and sent a copy to Uncle Joe and Aunt Ruth. Then a while later it was on America’s Most Wanted. I saw it again last year. They put it in a PBS documentary on the militia movement.”

That evening over dinner, Eileen teased her brothers about their acquired southern accents. She said, “I’ll bet you spent all your time sipping mint juleps and taking those southern belles to cotillions.”

Mrs. Keane was beaming. She was happy to have the family together. Mr. Keane voiced his concerns to Matt just after dinner. He breathed, “You don’t know what kind of stress you boys have put your mother through, Matthew.From seeing that video and from what I read in the papers, I’d say you showed very poor judgment. You should’ve just let them arrest you, and argued it all in court.”

“You weren’t there, Dad. They were about to splatter us all over the pavement. That trooper had made up his mind, I could tell. That’s why I ran. And they shot first.”

His father sighed. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it now. It’s history. It’s time we got back to more pressing local concerns. I just thank the Lord that you boys made it here to help us out.”

The small cabin was crowded. To save on floor space, Mrs. Keane made three hammocks out of spare blankets for Matt and Chase.

That winter they ate the dogs.