“You ever been on the other side?” Turnbull asked as they cleaned the weapons on the porch. Bottles of Shiner Bock sat beside them, glistening with moisture in the hot, thick air. The dog came over and demanded attention from Junior, who petted him.
“Hey, don’t encourage that mutt,” said Turnbull as he wiped grime out of the lower receiver. “He’s useless. He’s a welfare cheat and I’m Uncle Sucker.”
Junior scratched the terrier’s head anyway. “When I was a kid we went to California and New York a few times before they seceded. I don’t remember much. Of course, I wasn’t of age when the Split happened so I had to earn my citizenship.”
“How about after the Split, but before they blockaded us?”
“No. Dad was really busy as part of the transition, setting up the government here after the Split. It was a weird time.”
“You’re telling me.”
“You fought in it, right?” Junior asked. The dog, bored of the attention, turned and walked to the corner of the porch and plopped himself down.
“There actually wasn’t that much real fighting before the Split, but when there was I always seemed to draw the short straw and end up right in the middle.”
“Like getting sent into Indian Country? How bad was Indiana?”
“Pretty bad. No war is vicious like a civil war. Southern Indiana should have split off with us from the start. The blues wanted to make an example of it, show the rubes who was boss. We helped them resist. And they sure as hell resisted.”
“They taught us some of you guys’ tactics at Ft. Benning. That must have been a hard mission.”
“It was,” Turnbull said. “I don’t much like blues. You kill them or they kill you. I learned that in Indian Country.”
“And before the Split, what were you thinking when she ordered you guys into the streets? What did you think when she sent you against your own people?”
“Well, I was thinking I’m not going to die for her or her bullshit politics. If she wants to confiscate all the guns, she can suit her sickly ass up in Kevlar and go do it because I’m not going to make war on my own people just because she hates anyone who doesn’t live in a coastal city. That’s pretty much verbatim what I was thinking.”
“I like to think I’d stand up and say ‘No’ if I got that kind of order too.”
“Well, we don’t elect people like her here. Her generals were ready to do it. A lot of the colonels too. Careerist cowards. But the rest of us? You know the Army runs on sergeants, and when the sergeants aren’t with you, nothing happens. It was kind of like they had a war and nobody came. Then Texas told her to go to hell and suddenly we had something to rally around. Some bad stuff happened because some folks didn’t walk back from the brink, but the politicians talked it out and we split. They were so happy to see us gone too. We were the hicks, the religious gun nuts, the flyover people, and they didn’t need us or our Constitution. They were going to start all over without us, show us how much smarter they were than those stupid Founders. And you’re about to see how that turned out.”
4.
The SUV ride to Utah took about 18 hours. The roads were good – it was simply far away. The driver, supplied by Ryan, said almost nothing as he drove, and both Turnbull and Junior tried to sleep as much as they could. Otherwise, they simply watched the scenery pass – the oil rigs in Texas, the ranches and farms in Colorado, then the crimson desert of southern Utah.
St. George was a remarkably green and manicured town in a valley surrounded by red rock cliff faces. Straddling the old I-15, which was blocked at the DMZ down in the northwest corner of Arizona and no longer ran southwest to Las Vegas, the town was notable for the white spire of the Latter Day Saints chapel – the first in Utah – and for the sprawling Army camp to the east erected after the Split. As they drove into town, Turnbull noted the many American flags everywhere, albeit with far fewer stars than he remembered from his childhood.
The driver left them at a Best Western near the edge of town, where they checked into their rooms and slept as they waited for a call on the land line. It came at about 10 a.m. Turnbull hung up and called Junior’s room.
“Pack. They pick us up in 10 minutes.”
Elijah Meachum was at least 220 pounds and bearded, and he would have still looked ferocious even if he wasn’t wearing a battle rig over his camos and carrying an M4. He nodded at Turnbull and opened the rear door of one of the two dusty brown SUVs idling in the parking lot. Both were marked “USDF – Brigham Young Brigade.” A “Utah Self Defense Force” tape was velcroed across the breast of Meachum’s battle rig, and underneath the black oak leaf of a lieutenant colonel, along with the red star of a citizen.
“Good to see you, Elijah,” Turnbull said as he tossed his gear into the back. “These all your sons?” Meacham was accompanied by five tough, handsome and similarly equipped men, aged probably 16 to 25 or so. They each wore USDF enlisted rank, while some of the older ones had their red citizenship star showing they had already completed their US Army service.
“Some of them. They’re all good local boys. Know how to handle themselves. Who’s this, Kelly?”
“A passenger. You can call him Fred. Hear that, Fred?” Turnbull replied, and Meachum nodded, understanding it was none of his concern who Junior was, only that he got where he was supposed to go. Junior said nothing, and made a mental note to answer if he heard someone say “Fred.”
They got in the backseats of the first SUV, with Elijah sitting in the front passenger seat beside the driver. The late-model Chevy moved out of the lot and into traffic, going west. “We’ll head to my ranch and spend the day there, then cross tonight. How far in do you want us to take you?”
“Well Elijah, you know you boys aren’t supposed to be crossing the border.”
“Uh huh. So how far do you want us to take you in?”
“To the link up with your cousin, if you can.”
The vehicles slowed at the DMZ checkpoint on the edge of town, manned by regular military. The troops waved the USDF vehicles through. Under the Treaty of St. Louis, as mere paramilitaries, they were authorized inside the 10 mile wide demilitarized zone to perform routine security duties.
The DMZ was not empty. Many people, like the Meachum family, still had ranches and farms inside. The local residents took the lead on security for the border near their homes. Most were Mormon hereabouts, hence the nickname of the local brigade. They went to church together, they worked together and, when necessary, they fought together.
“Any raiders lately?” asked Turnbull.
“More than in a while. My cousin about 20 miles up ambushed a half-dozen last week that had hit a couple out for a picnic. Raped the woman, killed them both.”
“I take it those raiders did not get back over the border.”
“No sir, they most certainly did not.”
The People’s Republic barely watched the borders out in the wilderness. They probably figured their internal movement controls would keep most people from getting out there, and that no one would be crazy enough to try to sneak into their failing country, so there was little point. As a result, the borders on the PR side often tended to devolve into a more savage version of the Wild West. If some of the violence and anarchy spilled over into the US, well, that was pure gravy.