“Thanks,” Luke said. “Tell us about them.”
“The Quiet Earth Society is a coalition of environmentalists that knew society was on the brink of collapse long before anyone else. After years of failing to convince people, they started making their own plans. They recruited re-enactors, buck-skinners, and SCA members.”
“Buck-skinners and Scaws?” Kurt said.
“S-C-A,” Roger spelled it out. “Society for Creative Anachronism. They were history buffs, went out on weekends and lived like it was the medieval times.”
“Why?” Shawn asked.
“I don’t know,” Roger replied. “It was just some sort of hobby, something they did for fun.”
Everyone looked around, mystified. “It does sound interesting,” Luke said sheepishly.
“Oh, they were people like Luke,” Mark joked. “That explains it.” Several of the boys laughed. Luke blushed.
“It doesn’t matter why they did it,” Roger went on, “but the fact is, we were damn lucky they did. Before the blast, I had only thought as far as the store. If I needed new clothes, I went to a department store. If I needed food, I went to a grocery store. I never thought about where things came from or how they got there.
“That was a big part of the problem. Everybody was like me. Nobody thought beyond the store. When the stores closed, we were lost. When the grocers didn’t have food, we got mad at them and rioted. Or we got mad at the government and rioted. Nobody thought of going out into the countryside and growing more. We’d forgotten the whole process. Everyone except the Quiet Earth Society, that is. They gathered a vast collection of skilled people. People with skills nobody had needed in generations. People who knew everything from organic farming, herbalism, wildcrafting, blacksmithing, weaving, you name it. When things started going wrong, they took to the countryside.
“While the militias fought for control and political power in the cities, the Quiet Earth Society was seizing national parks and vast tracts of countryside. They knew where the real power lay. They had primitive weapons and little technology. They lived by the motto that you should never rely on anything you can’t replace yourself.
“They were outlawed for objecting to martial law. They fought a long guerrilla war against first the government and then a number of militias. I can’t guess how many times the military tried to dislodge them. In the end, everyone who went after them eventually ran out of food, ammo, or both. And they won.
“Despite being a violent revolution, they were a free society. Outside of battle, they practiced democracy and were open to most anyone. We didn’t know what they would make of our band of refugees, but they seemed like our best hope.”
Roger laughed. “Would you believe that the military actually tried to warn us away at the Rock Island Bridge? Told us we were entering Iowa, and they could not guarantee our safety from those bandits, the Quiet Earth people.
“The truth was that there were fewer bandits in Iowa, thanks to the Quiet Earth Society. A young man took up with us just outside of Davenport. He was a witch.”
“A witch?” Kurt asked, appalled. “Like with a tall hat and stuff?”
“No, of course not,” Roger replied sharply. “What have they been teaching you up in those mountains? He was a witch, as in a member of one of those neo-pagan groups. Great people. He was trained in herbal medicine and was going to visit a distant relative with a difficult pregnancy.
“After Roderick took up with us, things got a lot easier. He knew a tremendous amount about plants. He taught us to gather wild foods. We learned to identify a number of edible plants, and soon we were eating better than we had in months. At times we even had enough extra to barter with townspeople for clothes and things.
“Roderick was also very well connected. Pagans had been moving to the countryside for years. They were the most successful of the survivors because they had always used mostly organic growing techniques anyway. They always had food to spare.
“As he came to trust us, Roderick used his contacts to get us a meeting with the Iowa Chapter of the Quiet Earth Society. We met them in a park just north of Des Moines. Even though at the time they were just beginning their struggle with the military, they knew they were going to win. They were already thinking beyond it to the future. They were using refugees and other homeless to start a giant permaculture frontier out here in the west.”
“Permaculture?” Amy asked.
“Permanent agriculture,” Luke supplied. “I’ve read about it—”
“In a book.” Mark finished.
“Permaculture, like the name implies,” Roger continued, “is meant to be permanently sustainable. But what they had in mind was greater than anything the founders of the philosophy could have envisioned. They figured if the environmental disaster had been brought on by our misuse of the land, then it ought to be reversible with enough work. They were building a whole new society based on the principles of giving more back to the land then we take.
“It was clearly the best deal going. We were to become the infrastructure for this new society of theirs. We would be trained in permaculture, building homes from scratch with natural materials, etc. We would establish farms all along the plains.
“The ordeal in Chicago had left many with a lasting fear of large cities anyway. We knew, roughly at least, what was going on in the major cities and had no desire to return to that.
“With the military after them, they couldn’t work in the open yet. So our group was broken up at last and escorted west in small groups. I served with the society for a year and then went on to one of their training camps. That’s where I met Ruth. We came out here together and built this place. We have had adventures enough for a book since we got out here, but that, I think, is enough of my tale for now.”
“But what about the government?” Daniel pressed. “You talk like it just stopped working one day. Didn’t somebody do something? Or did everyone just decide they didn’t need the USA anymore?”
“Some people did,” Ruth replied. “But most people were too caught up in their own day-to-day struggle for survival until it was too late. And no, it didn’t just stop working. After Chicago, there was martial law. After New York, the civil government grew irrelevant. They didn’t have the resources to stop what was going on.
“The military held power for a while. They tried to restore peace in their own way, but what does the military know of peace? In the end, they only made things worse. The states splintered off, and civil war erupted everywhere. Finally militias started to appear, no better than common thugs, for the most part.
“Some people stood up to them, tried to stop them. I was one of them for a while. I will tell you about that after we eat,” Ruth finished.
Chapter 5
TEN THOUSAND WARRIORS FOR PEACE
“Dinner, right.” Roger stood. “Tell you boys what. We got three goats. More than we need really, we have only put off butchering the one because it’s more meat than Ruth and I need. If somebody will give me a hand, we’ll have ourselves a feast.”
After weeks on short rations, it was the best meal Amy had ever had. They roasted the rack of goat in the heavy clay oven. This fascinated her, Luke, and Kurt. The others ignored the proceedings.
Ruth and Amy built a large fire inside the dome while the men butchered the animal. Kurt helped Ruth gather a number of vegetables from the garden. Once the whole oven had reached the right temperature, the fire was removed. The earthen walls retained the heat and roasted everything to perfection. Ruth explained that while they had a wood stove inside, this time of year it was much better not to heat the house.
They ate on the veranda, the house being too small. Amy sat between a quiet and sullen Shawn and a talkative Luke. Roger sat on the other side of Luke and was explaining how the south-facing windows trapped heat in the winter and the deep veranda kept the hot summer sun off the same windows. It was exactly the sort of thing Luke got excited about, Amy thought.
After dinner Ruth produced two apple pies and warmed them in the cooling oven. Shawn poked at his slice suspiciously. “What did you say it was?”
“Can’t grow apples where we live. Too high an elevation, or too short of a growing season, or something. I can’t remember exactly, but dad always moans about it,” Luke explained around a mouthful of pie. “Never saw what the big deal was until now. It’s very good.”
There was a chorus of agreement from the others. They were enthusiastic enough to get Shawn to try his piece. He roared his approval.
“Well, honey,” Roger said as the final forks fell to empty plates, “are you ready for your turn?”
Ruth closed her eyes in contemplation. “Like my husband, I should preface my story by saying that it is hard to talk about before the collapse . . .” She waved off Luke’s attempt at an apology. “It’s not that. It’s just that it was such a different world. It is all like a dream now.
“My life before the collapse was one of ignorance. I would have told you I was an environmentalist. I would have told you I was up on the latest news. I was even a member of the Sierra Club. When it all started happening I was just as surprised as everyone else.
“The problems seemed distant from everyday life. Rising temperatures could be ignored; hey, that’s what air conditioning was for. Rising sea levels could be compensated for: build a dike. The ozone layered thinned, so you avoided the sun. Then the plague came. When your food supply is threatened, you take notice.
“At least for a while, that is; you still have to put food on the table, and in those days, that meant work. The daily grind, as I always referred to it, lulled me into complacency. Life went on.
“With the economy in a major downslide, unemployment was way up . . .” she laughed at her audience. “I imagine that more than half of what I am saying makes no sense. Let’s see, unemployment means no jobs. No jobs means no money, and no money means no food. When people have no food they will do just about anything to get some. Violent crime was way up.
“It scared me. I decided that I needed to learn self-defense. I was living in Kansas City at the time and just down the street from me was a dojo—a training hall, that is—that taught Aikido. I signed up.
“I signed up wanting to know how to fight, to defend myself. Quickly it became more than that. It connected me to my Japanese roots. I was enthralled by the grace of the long-term practitioners, but mostly I was impressed with the philosophy.”
“The philosophy?” Luke asked.
“Yes. Aikido means the way of peace and harmony,” she said. “In Aikido, we use throws and holds to blend with our opponent and defeat him without harming him. We teach punching only as a means of practice. The idea of being at peace in the middle of a violent world struck a deep chord with me.
“It didn’t hurt either that the instructor was shorter even than I am. Watching this little woman easily take on men several times her size was inspiring. She’d fight six or seven guys at once. She moved with such grace and confidence. It was amazing.
“When the blast rocked Chicago, I had been in training for almost a year. It had given my life new meaning. I was going four or five times a week and was deeply enmeshed. I was improving, but the art takes years to master.
“Chicago shocked me. It did everyone. I sent what money I could to the Red Cross. I even toyed with the idea of going as a relief worker. But my boss would have never approved it, and I didn’t dare lose my job.
“Then New York came. Again I donated what I could; it wasn’t much. Food prices were high. I was having a hard time just getting by. The problem seemed so big and far away. What could one little Midwestern girl do?
“As winter progressed the world seemed torn apart by violence. Food shortages and the state of emergency had everyone on edge. The economy was on its final leg, and there were more jobless than working. Utilities were disrupted. Electricity and gas shortages left many without heat.
“Everywhere there were more and more desperate people. At the slightest hint of a shortage, aid stations and grocers were overrun by rioters and looters. Even in Kansas City, rioting had become an almost daily occurrence. To maintain order, the police were using stronger and stronger tactics. They had to, or so they said.
“Several of our members were on the police force. Aikido’s holds and nonviolent philosophy was ideal for their line of work. They spent a lot of time discussing what was going on. They were terrified by what they were seeing. Veteran police officers were being worn down and becoming callous. Worse still, they were relying heavily on the National Guard to help out. These young men were trained for war, not this. They, too, were getting callous. When the National Guard was not available, the city hired more cops, poorly trained men with guns and clubs. Deaths on both sides mounted. No one seemed to care.
“At least half of the officers in our club handed in their badges. It was a tough decision. They were still cops at heart, and the disorder all around was hard for them. But they could not go on killing every day.
“It wasn’t just us in KC either. All over the Aikido community, the same problem was being discussed. The question went up the ranks: what should we do?
“The answer came back from Japan, from the Doshu, the leader of our system. ‘What have you been training for, if not this?’
“That was our call to action. I can still remember the first action like it was yesterday. It was a cold February morning. A club member who had not given up his badge yet tipped us off. A Red Cross station just a few blocks away had announced a major cut in its rations. The cut was necessary but unpopular. The riot squad was being dispatched.
“The crowd was tense and things looked to be getting ugly. Many of them seemed eager for a fight. So were the police. As I said, most of them were newly hired thugs, barely worthy of the title of law enforcement.
“There was a thirty- or forty-foot gap between the two groups. We marched into that gap. We were completely decked out in our traditional garb, the Gi and Hakama: the pant-like skirt that Samurai wore for centuries.