“I’m sorry, Don, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m not interested in being business partners with you and your two men.” Jason pushed back. “I’d rather be family. So how about this: we protect the refinery together, we share our food and conviviality together and we benefit from the refinery together?”
Don thought about it for a long minute. He reached out his hand. “Family it is.”
Jason gloated a bit to himself and wished Jeff had been there to see him finally take down the refinery. Jason would have loved to rub it in: diplomacy can win wars too.
Jacquelyn carried Tom’s M&P 9mm handgun now. She had her own gun, but it was a compact—a smaller pistol designed for concealed carry or for women with smaller hands. She liked Tom’s gun better. It was easier to hit targets with the longer barrel, and the bigger magazine meant more bullets in a fight. She pulled his holster off his belt the morning after he died and slipped it onto her own belt.
All the magazines had been empty except one. That meant Tom had been fighting when he died. Even though he had been killed by friendly fire, Tom had given his life to protect those he loved. Somehow, that made it a little better.
Tom would like being the guy who died with an empty gun. In fact, he would think that was perfect.
Jacquelyn smiled, remembering what a good man he had been.
The kids were hurting. They were hurting bad, but she had seen Kayla smiling a little this morning while she played with the other Homestead kids. Many of them had lost parents in the big battle too. Everyone had lost someone they cared about. That didn’t make it better, but it made it easier. Everyone shared grief, and it showed up in a hundred ways.
Jacquelyn walked toward the cook shed with a bucket of dried milk. They were going to make brownies for dinner. Jason had stashed a bunch of freeze-dried brownie mix, and the cooks wanted to make something special tonight.
This afternoon, they had buried their dead up on the knoll overlooking the Homestead. The view of the Homestead and the valley below was stunning from there. Those who had died could look over their loved ones eternally, continuing to protect them. The rest of the memorial service would happen after dinner. It was time to move on and celebrate the victory they had bought with the lives of their dear ones.
Jenna Ross joined Jacquelyn and helped her with the bucket, each woman with one hand on the wire handle. “How’re you doing, sister? Anything you need?”
“You don’t happen to have an extra husband around you can spare? I’m a little short this month.” They both chuckled.
“Who needs ’em?” Jenna shot back.
“Right now, I definitely need ’em.” Jacquelyn smiled, her eyes welling up.
“Yeah… I guess I need mine, too,” Jenna said. “Tom was a good egg… Well, sis, we’re in this together for the long haul, come what may. You and your precious ones can count on us—all of us. We’re family and it’ll take hellfire to pull us apart. You get me? Mi casa es su casa. My food is your food. My man is your man.”
Jacquelyn stopped walking and turned to Jenna. “Thank you. That means a lot. Right now, my biggest fear is that Tom left me to protect our kids alone. I was counting on him to stand between us and the mayhem.” Jacquelyn looked toward the valley, the endless smoke rising from hundreds of fires.
“After what’s happened, I don’t think any of us thinks like that,” Jenna said. “I don’t think we’ll be tearing the group apart with our big opinions or petty rivalries anymore. I think we’re a family now. We all live or we all die. End of story.”
The two women started walking again. “Well, thank God for that,” Jacquelyn said.
“God?” Jenna smirked.
“Maybe,” Jacquelyn said with a smile, knowing she had been caught with her emotions showing.
Jenna pointed at Jacquelyn’s big handgun. “Do you know how to shoot that hog’s leg?”
“Yes, ma’am, I surely do.”
“Teach me how.”
“Jason never taught you?” Jacquelyn asked.
“Maybe once upon a time, but I need to start from scratch. I always had too much going on. I suppose even us gals should know how to shoot a gun now.”
“Especially us gals.” Jacquelyn adjusted the M&P with her free hand.
Jenna quieted for a moment, obviously thinking about the possibility of living without her husband. “I just about lost my guy, too.”
“I heard. How’s he doing?”
“He got his bell rung pretty good. The headaches are going away little by little. I know it sounds bizarre, but I would trade a lifetime of Gucci handbags and Four Seasons vacations for this feeling. We’re together in a way I’ve never known outside of my immediate family. We work together. We fight together. We love together—as a family, all two hundred of us.”
“I know what you mean. We’re part of something bigger…” Jacquelyn trailed off, knowing she was neck-deep in feelings she might never understand. “And every last one of those couple of hundred folks is hurting for a chocolate brownie.”
Epilogue
Ross Homestead
Oakwood, Utah
“YO, JEFF.” EVAN SAUNTERED INTO the gun vault while Jeff cleaned his Robinson rifle
“You come to gloat some more?” Jeff looked up.
“Yeah, maybe later. I’ve got something to show you. I couldn’t tell you about it with that nurse hanging over my shoulder. Dude, I found something even more valuable than armor and belt-fed machine guns on my way back from the Army Depot. Check it out.”
Evan reached inside his coat and pulled out a small Ziploc baggie. Jeff expected China White or black tar heroin. Instead, the bottom of the baggy bulged with dull green kernels.
“Holy shit,” Jeff’s eyes bugged, “is that what I think it is?”
“Yessir. We’re going to be the Cartel of the Collapse. We’re rich, brother. I found a whole warehouse full of one hundred percent unroasted green Guatemalan coffee beans. I’m guessing we’re sitting on ten thousand pounds.”
“Did you secure the warehouse?”
“Of course I secured the warehouse. I left two operators babysitting the place. They’re probably caffeinated as fuck right now. Here’s the best part: there’s an old-fashion roaster, too. The boys are cranking out our first batch of medium roast as we speak.”
Jeff smiled bigger than he had smiled in weeks. “This stays between you and me, right? Can your operators keep their mouths shut?”
“I doubt it. Not while drinking coffee all day. They’ll talk a blue streak. Fuck that. I told them they live at the warehouse now.”
Jeff nodded. “Smart. When things calm down, we’ll figure out pricing and distribution. People will trade their left nut for a bag of this shit.” Jeff took the plastic bag and held it up to the light. “This is Mormon Country, so we gotta keep a lid on it.”
“Roger that,” Evan agreed.
“Have you come up with a name yet?”
Evan nodded with a conspiratorial grin. “Given the circumstances, I thought we’d call it Black Rifle Coffee.”
Everyone else had gone to bed, and a small group of men formed up by the ham shack around a picnic bench. A fire burned in the nearby fire pit, and Jason busted out some of the cheap whiskey he had set aside for trade.
Everyone sitting around the bench and the fire, except for Jason, was a former Special Forces operator. For the first time since the collapse, Chad joined them. As the liquor flowed, they began telling stories. They were stories none of them liked to tell sober. Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Haiti―each place held stories so sacred and vicious that they could not be told in the light of day.