Survivors: A Novel of the Coming Collapse

36. Emboscada

Andy’s journey through Texas and New Mexico went by in a blur. He often pushed Prieto fifty miles in a day. His stops were predicated upon increasingly infrequent sources of feed and water as he progressed into desert country. When riding in open country near Marathon, Texas, Andy saw a group of five men who were standing around two pickup trucks parked on the shoulder of the highway. Since there were no houses nearby, it seemed an odd place for them to be stopped. He didn’t like the feel of the situation. It smelled like an ambush. At a distance of eighty yards, he yanked the reins to the left and reinforced his intent by leaning leftward and applying pressure from his knee to urge Prieto into a tight turn, yelling, “¿Andale!” His horse responded by breaking into a full gallop. Glancing over his shoulder, Andy could see one of the men raise a handgun, and two others shouldered M4 carbines.

The situation didn’t look good. There were just a few undulations in the ground-very little to provide good cover. Andy jabbed with his boot heels and alternated jerks on the reins, putting Prieto into some rapid serpentine turns. He could see a small rise about sixty yards ahead. It was no more than three or four feet high. There was no other cover in any direction. Andy grunted to himself, “This’ll have to do!”

He heard the crack of a rifle, followed by the distinctive snap of a bullet going past his ear. As he topped the rise, there was a tug at his sleeve as a bullet passed through. Andy reined Prieto to a halt at the base of the hill, which was thirty yards wide. He did his best to pommel off the saddle, even before Prieto came to a full halt in a cloud of dust. As he hit the ground, the AK jabbed painfully into his chest. There were several more rapid shots.

As he had practiced several times before, Laine ordered the horse down with a shout of “¿Bajate!” and a firm tug downward on the reins. Prieto obediently knelt and rolled to the ground. Andy was startled to see one of the reins hanging loose in his hand; it had been shot in half. He dropped to the ground, holding the remaining rein, and tugged Prieto’s nose to the ground. The horse obligingly stayed on its side. The horse was still breathing hard and its nostrils were flaring. Andy lost sight of the men on the other side of the rise, but could still hear shots and bullets flying overhead. He extended the stock of the AK and flipped down its safety to the middle position. He crept slowly forward, low-crawling up the reverse slope of the rise. Once he could just see the tops of the men’s heads and the roofs of the pickup trucks, he lay prone and shouldered the rifle. He could hear Prieto’s heavy breaths behind him and hoped that the horse had the sense to remain prone. Laine took careful aim at a man armed with a rifle. He estimated the range was about 220 yards. He fought to control his breathing, paused, and slowly squeezed the trigger. The AK’s wire stock bucked against his shoulder. The man that he had aimed at went down hard. Seconds later the others also dropped to the ground, out of sight. Andy cradled the AK in his arms and slithered backward down the hillock. He crawled over to Prieto and whispered reassuring words. He took a moment to wrap the remaining rein twice around a large flat rock that was size of a bread loaf. Rubbing the horse’s chin consolingly, he said, “Stay down-quedate abajo, Prieto.”

He high-crawled five yards to his left and again crawled forward to near the crest of the hillock. He could see the pickups but could not see his attackers, who were concealed by some low scrub brush. Andy fired six times, aiming at the side and rear windows of the pickup trucks, doing his best to put the fear of God into the bandits. The windows disintegrated in showers of tempered glass chunks. Andy again backed off the hillock and swapped magazines, inserting a full one. Then he crawled behind Prieto ten yards to his right before gradually working his way back to near the crest of the hillock. He again found that he couldn’t see any of the bandits. There was no more shooting coming from them. He scanned intently. Then he spotted one of the men, armed with a pistol, crawling toward one of the pickups. Taking a deliberate aim, he shot the man twice through the chest.

He could indistinct shouts from the men in the distance. Then, more clearly, he heard, “¿Ahora o nunca!” Andy echoed in a whisper, “That’s right, it’s now or never, and it’s you or me. This, boys and girls, is where we divide the quick from the dead.” Andy heard one of the pickup doors slam-on the far side. He caught a glimpse of someone dashing toward the other truck and fired three rounds rapidly before the man disappeared behind the pickup. He heard another truck door slam but couldn’t be sure which one. He could hear the engines being started. Andy began firing in a rapid tempo, concentrating on the driver’s-side doors of the pickups. The two pickup trucks lurched forward, kicking up dust, and they drove away quickly. He fired six more shots in rapid fire at the back windows of the pickups. He stopped shooting when they were four hundred yards away. In his excitement, he shouted, “Concealment is not cover, you dumb mothers!”

Andy crept back down the hill to assess his situation. He again switched the AK’s magazine, then checked himself and the horse for injuries. All that he found was a hole in the right sleeve of his shirt and the severed rein. He muttered, “Thank you, Lord.”

Andy again reassured the horse, patting his neck and repeating, “Superhorse. Excelente caballo. Superhorse.” He decided it was best to wait, just in case the bandits hadn’t all gotten away or the one that he’d shot had not yet bled out. After twenty minutes he pulled his binoculars out of his saddlebags, crept to the top of the hill once more, and spent a half hour with the binoculars, scanning the area where the trucks had been parked. He could see two bodies, one faceup and one facedown. Andy rose to a crouch and walked back to Prieto. He unwrapped the rein from around the rock. Without any urging, the horse stood up and shook off some dust. He led the horse fifty yards farther away to a substantial mesquite bush and tied on the rein.

Laine turned and walked in a wide semicircle, stopping frequently to look through the binoculars. He paused at seventy-five yards, knelt, and shot the two men once more each, both in the head. He then cautiously approached the bodies. He found that they were both black-haired Mexicans in their twenties. One of them wore a fancy black silk shirt and black jeans. The other was in faded blue jeans and a plaid shirt. A Browning Hi-Power pistol lay on the ground next to the hand of the one in the black shirt. There was no gun near the other body, but there were at least eight pieces of fired 5.56mm brass. It was obvious that one of his partners had taken the fallen man’s M4.

Andy carefully examined where the trucks had been parked. There was a lot of blood on the ground, and chunks of broken grass. Then he walked back and more closely examined the two bodies, rolling them over and patting them down. All that he found in their pockets were a loaded thirty-round M16 magazine, two loaded Hi-Power magazines, and a Chinese pocketknife with a broken tip.

Andy pocketed the magazines and then picked up the Hi-Power pistol. He found that there were only three cartridges left in the magazine. He reloaded the gun with one of the full magazines and thumbed up its safety lever. Returning to the horse, he put his binoculars, the captured pistol, and the extra magazines in his saddlebag. He took a minute to redistribute the ammunition and magazines, putting a full magazine in the AK and three full magazines back into his belt pouch.

Before he left, he searched the ground behind the hillock and found the three-foot length of horse rein that had been shot off. He tied it on, rejoining the break with a square knot. “I’ll have to stitch that,” he said to himself. His throat felt parched, and he took a long draw of water from his canteen, taking down nearly half a quart. Finally, he eased himself up into the saddle.

He turned to ride south on the pavement for a half mile, then cut northeast across the desert. His plan was to take a wide roundabout, just in case the bandits were waiting in ambush farther north on the highway. This wide detour cost Andy a full day of riding.

After the excitement near Marathon, the rest of Andy’s ride seemed mundane. Many of the locals were wary. They talked a lot about recent Mexican gang attacks and desperate looters from El Paso. “Watch out for the narcotraficantes,” they warned. Only a few people were willing to trade silver for food. One man even wanted to charge Andy just for letting his horse use his watering trough. Clearly, West Texas was not the land of plenty. But near Valentine, Texas, Andy was able to trade the captured full M16 magazine for nearly a week’s worth of food that included some ground cornmeal fried into bread balls, called dodgers. It was the first time that he’d ever seen or eaten them, but he had heard Kaylee talk about them.

Laine pressed on, noticing that the summer weather was abating. The nights were getting chilly. Approaching the New Mexico state line, he made a wide arc to avoid El Paso. He was jubilant when he was able to turn due north. He paralleled Highway 25, staying away from cities as much as possible. Trees were infrequent and even brushy patches became sparse, so he often had to camp more than a mile from the nearest road to avoid detection. He heard a lot of gunfire as he passed by Socorro. He cut west at Los Lunas to avoid the population in the vicinity of Albuquerque. Highway 550 would take him directly to Farmington.

His next Tuesday night radio contact was unsuccessful. Andy concluded that he failed because he was inside of the HF skip zone. This is the zone that is beyond line of sight (which is limited to about forty-five miles because of the curvature of the earth) but inside the minimum distance for an ionospheric “hop” for a radio wave. He missed conversing with Kaylee, and he ached just thinking about her. But he took comfort knowing that he was so close to home.

He camped next near Cuba, New Mexico, and ate heartily, knowing that he probably had just two more days of riding to make it to Bloomfield. As he passed through the town of Cuba, he heard that there was an operating hotel, restaurant, and laundry fifty-five miles northwest, at the Blanco Trading Post. Hearing the words “They got electricity there” was captivating to Andy. He envisioned a land of milk and honey, endlessly hot bathtubs, and clean sheets.

The weather was getting uncomfortably cold, and Andy was increasingly anxious to get to the Bloomfield ranch. As he drifted off to sleep, he told Prieto, “One more hard day’s ride and you’ll be sleeping in a stall and eating oats, boy!” He awoke at dawn and brushed the frost off his bivy bag before rolling it up.

After a grueling all-day ride, Andy reached the Blanco Trading Post just after sunset. The trading post was just a wide spot in the road, twenty miles out of Bloomfield. In the years before the Crunch, it had become more of an art gallery than a trading post, catering to tourists who were visiting nearby Chaco Canyon. But as the economy crumbled, the store quickly reverted to its roots. In addition to a trading post for food and horse tack, it was also a small hotel for travelers.

Laine learned that the owners had been able to stay in business in part because they were one of the southernmost outposts on the Farmington Electric Utility System (FEUS) mini-grid. Many of the farmers and ranchers who lived even farther south came for miles for the chance to trade food and various goods, to get their grain milled, to wash their laundry, and to charge their batteries. The trading post was so successful that they had recently expanded and constructed a new barn and stable.

Andy explained his situation to the owners, who were delighted and captivated by his story. He splurged on a bath, a shave, and a haircut, and then laundered most of his clothes. Along with his room and dinner, a horse stall, hay, and oats, his stay at the trading post cost him two five-peso silver coins. Andy felt thoroughly spoiled, sleeping in a real bed in a heated room. But he had trouble getting to sleep, worrying about his horse, and feeling anxious about getting back to his fiancee and his brother. Oddly, he missed the sound of Prieto’s tail swishing.

On the morning of Sunday, November 11, twenty-five months after he had left Afghanistan, Andrew Laine awoke early. He carried his AK, pack, and saddlebags down to the stable. Prieto greeted him with a couple of snorts. Andy said critically, “What, you gettin’ noisy in your old age? Do I smell too darned civilized for you? Well, I missed you, too, pal.” He gave Prieto a quick brush down and examined his hooves. The many miles of riding had not been kind to Prieto’s hooves, which were worn down almost to the frog. Andy now wished that he’d been able to get Prieto shod before their journey. As he saddled the horse, he promised: “Just a few hours, and you’ll be in alfalfa hay up to your eyeballs, buddy.”

Too anxious to eat much breakfast, he munched on an apple and some Indian fry bread as he rode. For the first time in many months, he was self-conscious about dripping on his shirt. Andy declared, “Lord, let this be my last day traveling. Please, Lord, if you so will!”

The guards at the roadblock south of Farmington were satisfied when Andy showed them his surname stamped on his dog tags, and explained that he was the brother of Lars Laine. They seemed impressed to hear that he had ridden his horse all the way from Belize. Andy was surprised to see that the guards at the roadblock had three swivel-mounted muzzle-loading cannons. “Yeah, those are our ‘engine block’ guns. They shoot standard two-and-three-eighths-inch-diameter pistons. They’ll go clean through a car. There are thousands of them that are available used around here, from the natural gas fields. Before the Crunch, you could buy them at just scrap steel prices. They’re made out of 4140 stainless steel.”

As he approached Bloomfield, Andy realized that it was Sunday morning, and that his brother, Beth, and Kaylee would likely be at church by the time he reached the Refinery Road. So he pressed on to town, turned right at Blanco Road, and urged Prieto from a trot to a canter.

Lars, and Beth, Grace, Kaylee, and Shadrach were at church, while Reuben and Matthew were at home, guarding the ranch. As Andy rode his horse up to Berea Baptist, he could hear the congregation singing. He tied up his horse, unstrapped his pack from his saddle, and set it inside the church foyer. With his AK slung muzzle down, he slipped into the sanctuary. His hands were shaking with excitement.

The congregation was singing “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” Demonstrating his flair for drama, Andy slipped in on Lars’s blind side unnoticed and stood behind him. Lars and Shadrach were in the second-to-last row of pews. Beth and Kaylee were one row farther forward. They were standing beside Grace and two other eight-year-old girls, holding hymnals for them as they usually did. Just after the hymn ended, Andy tapped his brother on the shoulder and said: “Sorry that I was a little late.” Lars gasped and grabbed Andy around his neck. Reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a plastic bag, Andy said, “Oh, I got those gas lamp mantles that you asked me to pick up for you on the way home.”

Kaylee nearly fainted. The church erupted into a huge commotion, with lots of hugs and back slapping. Shouts of “Praise God!’ spread like a wave across the church sanctuary. Even the two ladies in the nursery came out to give Andy a hug. Grace ran up to hug Andy around the waist, exclaiming, “Uncle Andy, we really missed you! You got so brown!”

The sermon, to mark Veterans Day, was in praise of military service and its biblical context. Andy and Kaylee sat holding hands all through it, intently gazing at each other, not paying much attention to the pastor’s words. After the closing hymn and benediction, Andy stood up and announced, “I’ve never been one to waste any time, so I’d like to ask everyone to stay for a brief ceremony.” Kaylee put on a huge smile and gave him a hug. Twenty minutes later they were married.

In parts of the territory controlled by the Provisional Government, the supply of gasoline preceded the restoration of grid power. This was the case in most of western Tennessee and western Kentucky. In what was later seen as a brilliant move, Greg Jarvis, the owner of Apogee Solar, in Moreland, Kentucky, ran an AC power line over rooftops two doors down to the gas station that was owned by his second cousin, Alan Archer. The station was open six hours a day, six days a week, and did a booming business. Before the advent of the ProvGov currency, regular gas was twenty cents a gallon, and both diesel and premium gas were twenty-five cents a gallon. These prices were in silver coin.

A prominent sign hand-painted on a four-by-eight sheet of plywood warned, “Silver coin or ammo only! No paper dollars, checks, debit cards, or credit cards accepted.” Archer and Jarvis worked out a credit arrangement with the Catlettsburg refinery. Under the terms of the agreement, they got gas and diesel in bulk at a 25 percent discount, and got their first two tank truck deliveries on credit. After that, they were able to pay in silver, from the proceeds of sales.

Within a few months, Jarvis and Archer launched several other enterprises. The first of these was a store selling packaged petroleum products-nothing larger than five-gallon cans, including kerosene, motor oil, and two-cycle fuel-mixing oil. By agreement, they charged the same prices as offered at the Catlettsburg refinery, but their profit came from buying in bulk at a discount. This store was located in one of the buildings that had “the big dang extension cord” draped over it-between Apogee Solar and the gas station.

The new Jarvis Lubricants store had previously housed a hardware store, but it had been stripped clean because the former owner had imprudently continued to accept payments in greenbacks. In the end he was left with a pile of worthless paper. He sold Jarvis the empty building and the remaining shelving for just two hundred dollars in silver coin. The new store was lit by a pair of 60-watt compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Nobody complained about the dim lighting.

Just as the crash began, Greg Jarvis had used a small-business loan to purchase 212 large REC brand photovoltaic panels at a closeout price. This served as his primary barter stock, through much of the Crunch. After the Crunch set in, he bought up as many deep-cycle batteries as he could find. Most of these came from a forklift company in Frankfort and from the golf cart fleets of two local golf courses. The shipment from Frankfort came by truck, COD, payable in silver. The batteries from the golf course owners were both barter transactions, paid for with compact solar power systems. One of these systems was installed on a golf cart, making the cart into a mobile, self-charging system.

Apogee also harnessed the excess power from their PV array that was not needed for their storefront by charging car and tractor batteries for a fee in their attached shop. This was a profitable business until the grid power was restored.