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Bobcat pleaded with Abel to accompany him to Harland’s residence. As a precaution, he’d argued. But Abel insisted a lone figure would be less threatening to the farm family. Twenty feet from the farmhouse porch, Abel pulled a bandana from his nose and mouth and called out to make his presence known. No one acknowledged him. He called again.

“What’s your business?” a low voice rolled from the porch.

“I’ve come to talk with Harland.”

The front door opened and a wheat straw-thin man holding a bird gun appeared in the doorway. Harland cast an eye up and down the porch and waved to someone in the house, as if giving directions. Abel didn’t recognize the farmer at first. His body was a good deal thinner than he remembered and his face was clothed in white stubble. On each cheek, on either side of the man’s pencil-thin nose, was a large rash. Harland’s face looked as though a large red butterfly had alighted on it.

“Don’t I know you?” stammered the farmer. He paused a moment. “You that Whittemore fella.”

“Yes, Harland, I’m Abel Whittemore.”

“We’ve got no business.”

“Harland, it’s urgent I speak with you.”

“Nothing to talk about. Leave.” Harland leveled the shotgun at the visitor.

“I have a solution to the….”

“Don’t give me a reason to drive you off.”

Abel swallowed spittle in his throat and inhaled deeply. “I’ll give you a reason to put the gun down, Harland. I have a solution to the problem of the National Guard coming here and shipping the grain away.”

Harland raised the weapon to his right shoulder and screeched. “Get out of here.”

Abel held up a hand. “I’m not here to trouble you, sir. I’m here to offer a means to thwart the Guard’s mission, to keep them from emptying out of the grain silos.”

“We’ve got a plan in place and it doesn’t include you and your kind. You comprehend what I’m saying?”

“Harland, you and I should talk with Jim Bottomly. All we have to do….”

“Look, freak, that grain is life or death here in the valley. People either hold onto the grain in those silos or they starve. Pretty damn tough choice, wouldn’t you say? That’s my grain down there. I grew it. The families in this valley, they grew it. You have no right to it and neither does the Guard or anyone else.”

“I can assure you, Harland, there will be grain for everyone even if the Guard gets the train into town to offload it, even if they bring in armed troops.”

“How are you going to do that, freak? I’m not stupid. I read some of the crap you wrote. I hear what folks say. I know all about you people up on the bluffs.  You’re pacifists, one-worlders, or whatever bullshit. Well, I’m here to tell you, mister, it’s going to take a militia to face down the Guard. Most of us here have served our country. We know how to put up a fight.”

Exasperated, Abel yelled out, “You don’t need to fire a single shot, damn it.”

An explosive discharge from the right rocketed lead pellets through the air, just above Abel’s temple. The uninvited guest recoiled in terror from the sound of the blast and fell to into the ash dust.

“Get the hell out,” a husky voice, a different one, roared. “Next barrel load takes you down for good.”

Abel lay trembling, shaken by the concussion close to his face. Harland hadn’t shot at him. Who had? A huge pair of boots kicked up ash dust before his eyes, and the barrel of a shotgun arched above his nose. The Bunyanesque figure gripped the firearm. The barrel smelled of burned powder. Abel recognized the massive creature towering over him: Andy Regas.

“All right, then,” Abel exhaled loudly out of fear. “I’ll leave you to your own devices.”

“Don’t you show yourself again,” called Harland from his porch.

“Very well, but you have to know one thing.”

“And what would that be, freak?” the farmer uttered with distain.

“Applied physics is all that’s necessary to win the Sweetly grain war.”

Chapter Eighty-One

An hour north of Minneapolis, just off Interstate 94 at Sauk Center, a local police cruiser walled off Route 28 west. A Jeep Liberty slid to a stop at the checkpoint, manned by a single local policeman bundled beneath a winter parka and standing in a half inch of sleet pellets. The man took note of the vehicle’s Missouri plates.

“Good evening, ma’am,” piped a young officer, leaning into the car window, “what’s your destination?”

“Big Stone Lake.”

“Oh, not good, eh. We’re advising everyone to stay off 28 altogether. The highway is impassible most places.”

Winnie grimaced. “Could I at least get through to Morris?”

“Only emergency vehicles are permitted through to service the emergency shelter on the state university campus.”

The officer checked the interior of the vehicle and noticed belongings in the back seat.              “Where are you from in Missouri, ma’am?”

“Kansas City.”

“What are you doing up here, under these circumstances?”

Winnie engineered a verbal contrivance on the spot. “I haven’t heard from my parents in a month. I have to get to them.”

“I wish I could help you, ma’am, but it’s only going to get worse. We’re going to have some nasty weather blowing up on the plains.”

“Great.”

“Do you have emergency supplies with you?”

“Yes.”

The officer looked up the road then turned his attention to the woman behind the wheel. “Say, lady, you wouldn’t happen to have a little food you could spare?”

Winnie locked her eyes with the officer and held her tongue.

“I need to check…”

“No you don’t.”

“I…”

“No, you don’t,” she said caustically.

The young officer stumbled backwards as the Jeep Liberty suddenly lurched forward around the cruiser, fishtailed, and gained speed westbound.

“What in the name of Jesus are you doing, lady?” the officer bellowed into the west wind. “The road’s closed, woman!”

Within several miles of the roadblock, Winnie rolled under heavy spell of Yellowstone’s ash shadow. The dead rock flake layer accumulated quickly in the road and, mixed with the slick coating of sleet, created treacherous conditions. Piloting her Jeep within the confines of heavy ruts and geared down to second, she kept the Chrysler product crawling forward, yet it took nearly two hours to traverse the fifty miles to the university branch-campus town of Morris.

The gas gauge read one-third tank as the Jeep slithered onto Morris’ deserted Main Street. Motoring down the dark thoroughfare was a trip through a war zone. Not a single light shown in a storefront. No hint of the warmth of humanity materialized nor that of its trappings: no cars at the curb, no banners, flags, no marquee lettering, no trash bags set out for collection. The broad lane and sidewalks lay entombed in volcanic mire and slush paste, doorways filled in with dust drifts. The creator here had a passion only for lusterless black, hues of lead and the anemic pale skin of driven night sleet.

Winnie spun up the heater control dial to pump more heat into the cab to chase away thrumming dread.

A mile west of the Morris sleet turned to pancakes of wet snow. In minutes, Route 28 presented an unbroken track. Ruts carved down into the ash cover had drifted in with dust. The new slick of snow colored a ribbon of flat silver tarnish, twisting through the country night.