Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (6 page)

The big camper had a faded green and white body like a bloated cocoon. A sleeping area extended out over what appeared to be the vestigial front of a full-sized van.  The camper was made even taller by the addition of antennas and cargo on top.  Metal and plastic Jerry cans and a pair of bicycles were strapped in racks along the back.

The front side window was down when Ranya jogged up alongside the weathered RV.  The passenger was a plump black woman somewhere past sixty years old, wearing a gold velour tracksuit and a purple crocheted cap. The driver was a thin bald black man at least as old, staring out at her through gold-framed glasses.  He was gawking and grinning through ill-fitting dentures, but his wife inspected Ranya more skeptically.  She said, “Sorry to make you run so far, but we had to be sure you were alone.”

“No problem, I understand.”  Ranya had already rehearsed what she would say. She assumed the most fresh-faced college girl smile possible under the circumstances, considering that she had slept on the ground in the same clothes she had worn since yesterday.  A tiny statue of Jesus glued to their dashboard buoyed her spirit.  “You wouldn’t be heading to Barlow’s Creek by any chance, would you?”

The old driver said, “We sure are, Missy! You’re in luck, because that’s right where we’re going today.”  He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and gray pants.  His left hand was on the steering wheel; his right hand was out of sight behind the woman’s ample hips.  No doubt he was prudently holding a gun, Ranya thought.

The woman looked Ranya up and down and asked, “Lord, what happened to you?”

“My car died last night, back on 287.  I walked as far as I could.  I have friends at Barlow’s campground.  If I can make it there, I’ll be fine.”

The husband was nodding, already convinced.  The wife studied Ranya and then said, “Well…I see.  It’s tight up here in front—there’s no room for your pack.  So let’s throw it in the back, and then you can sit up here with us.  How’s that sound?”

“Wonderful!”  She put her hand out, and shook their hands through the open window.  She understood that they wanted her sitting in front with them, to keep an eye on her.  It didn’t matter, she was just glad for the lift. She would have cheerfully sat on the roof with the other strapped-on cargo.

“Well, okay then,” said the woman.  “And I can get you some orange juice and something to eat.  I don’t guess you’ve had breakfast yet today?”

“No ma’am, just crackers and a little water.  Breakfast sounds great.”

“I’ll bet it does, honey, I’ll just bet it does.”

In a minute, her pack was in the back of the RV, and she was up front sitting in the middle between them.  There was a cloth napkin spread across her lap, she was enjoying canned juice and biscuits with strawberry jelly, as they rolled west at a steady sixty miles per hour.  

The woman said, “By the way, my name’s Olivia, and that’s my husband, Melvin.”

Ranya didn’t hesitate to give them an assumed name, her last false name from before her arrest.  “I’m Diana.  Diana Williams.”  This was the name from her long-gone counterfeit Canadian passport.  Now the name held only sentimental value to her, from her last period of living in freedom, down in Colombia on the sailboat with Phil Carson.

“Pleased to meet you, Diana. We’re coming from Houston, heading to Utah.  We just couldn’t stand living around Houston anymore.  We just couldn’t take it.  It got too dangerous, too crazy.  No way for civilized folks to live.  We lived in New Orleans all our lives until the flood in oh-five, and then we thought we’d finish our days in Houston, but there’s no way, no way at all.”

“You were in the flood?”

Olivia answered, “No honey, when they said get out, we got out.  We were in Baton Rouge in this very camper when Katrina hit, but we lost our house.  Thank God, we had some insurance so we could start again in Houston.  But then Houston went right straight downhill too, even without a flood.”

Melvin said, “We finally figured if we were going to get shot or stabbed anyway, it might as well be on the way to the free states.  So we decided to go for broke and make a run for it.  We hoarded up all the gas we could, and when we had enough, we loaded up and we left.  We bolted. We just walked away from our new house, we just up and left it behind. Gave it back over to the bank, I guess.  Or the looters…  Now we’re heading for a safe place to live out the rest of our lives.  We hear Utah’s a safe place, a God-fearing place, even if they have a funny religion.  That’s all we want—a God-fearing place.”  

“We just want peace,” said Olivia. “If we got to spend the rest of our days in this camper, then so be it.  And if we don’t make it…well…it’s better than staying in South Texas, getting robbed every other week, waiting for one of them gangs to kill us for what little we got left in our pantry.”  

“I don’t care if it does get cold up there in the free states,” said Melvin.  “I just want to live free again, that’s all.  Free from being afraid all the time.”

His wife nodded agreement.

***

Barlow’s Creek was a makeshift RV campground
on a private ranch, visible from the state road. It stretched along one bank of a marshy stream that bisected endless miles of scrub prairie and cattle grazing land.  Beyond the paved road, a dirt track led to a barbed wire fence, and a cattle guard made from pieces of railroad track.  

Next to the break in the fence, a middle-aged guard sat on a lawn chair, beneath an awning made from a gray plastic tarp.  A bike leaned against the last fence post.  The man stood up from his chair at the approach of the new camper.  He had a revolver openly holstered on the belt of his cutoff shorts, and he wore a gray Texas Rangers t-shirt tucked in under it.  He carried a notebook and a walkie-talkie as he walked over to greet them.  

“You folks ever been here before?” he asked the driver, studying the unusual trio composed of an older black couple and a young white woman.

“Nope, first time,” Melvin answered.

“Where you coming from?”

“Down by Houston.”

“Houston huh?  Any of you all been east of the Mississippi in the last two years? No?” He studied them closely, gave each of them a long hard look, and they each replied that they had not.  

“Well then, fine.  Here’s the camp rules.  Read them, and then put your John Hancock here on the next line in my book.  We don’t have enough copies of the rules left to give you one to keep, so read it and hand it back.”  The gate guard passed over a well-worn sheet of paper with a dozen numbered sentences printed on it, and then he began to rattle them off from memory.  

“You can only stay three weeks.  If you like it, you gotta leave for a week, and then come back.  This keeps the grass fresh, and we don’t wind up with broken-down heaps that can’t move.  We don’t want homesteaders or squatters—this here is a transit camp.  Cost is eighty dollars cash a day, for now, subject to change any time the boss feels like it.  If you want, we can take barter in ammunition, gold, silver, canned goods—all the usual stuff. We don’t take credit cards, debit cards, E-bucks or bank checks, so don’t even ask.

“It’s an open-carry camp, but if we think you’re unsafe with your weapons, you’ll be politely asked to leave.  You can carry concealed if you prefer, but nobody cares either way.  You can drink, and you can shoot at our range, but if you drink and fool around with guns at the same time, you’ll be run out of here
pronto
. You can only shoot on the range, during range hours, nowhere else. We got a mobile sewage pump out, the cost is reasonable, and if you dump on the ground…well, don’t. We keep quiet hours from ten PM to seven AM, and that means no motorcycles, generators or loud music or even talking that bothers anybody.  They’re pretty reasonable rules, and you don’t look like jerks anyway.  I think you’ll like it here.  You plan on staying a full three weeks?”

“Not sure,” replied Melvin.  “We’re heading to Utah, once we figure out the safest way there.  New Mexico’s out and we’re not too sure about Colorado.”

The gate guard offered, “Lots of people are heading that way, so you’ll find plenty of company if you want it.  Folks ‘convoy up’ here. Convoys leave all the time.  You can even find gas, if you have enough cash or anything worthwhile to trade.  I think you’ll make out fine.  You made it here from Houston, so the worst is behind you.  If you can find gas along the way, you’ll make it the rest of the way to Utah, no problem.”

“Praise be!  That’s mighty welcome news, mister,” replied the driver. Visible relief flowed into all three of the visitors at the prospect of a layover in a safe refuge.

“I’ll lead you to your spot now; it’s a nice grassy place.  Just follow behind me, okay?”  He turned and spoke into his two-way radio, then clipped it onto his belt and mounted his bike.

They drove in at the guard’s unhurried cycling speed, jouncing down a dirt track with tents, trailers and RVs on both sides. Most sprouted a wide variety of antennas, solar panels and wind generators mounted on top. The wind generators all whirred madly, their sounds merging from one campsite to the next.  Everywhere, flags were whipping back on the breeze: Texas Lone Star flags, the Stars and Stripes, several yellow Gadsden “Don’t Tread On Me” flags, and other banners in every color and dimension.  Specific state flags appeared among clusters of RVs, evidence of regional clannishness, or convoy intentions.

Ranya asked, “Why did he want to know if we’d been east of the Mississippi?”

“Are you putting me on?” asked Olivia, turning to look at her. “Cameroon Fever, what do you think?  But ain’t none of us got them poxy scars, thank the Lord.”

Ranya simply said, “Oh, yeah.  Of course,” and let it drop.  She had heard rumors from new D-Camp prisoners about a lethal epidemic that had swept through Florida and Georgia, but didn’t know how far it had spread. Evidently, traveling east of the Mississippi put one into a greater risk category, at least as far as Texans were concerned.  The RV continued to follow the gate guard on his bicycle, swaying and bumping along the path.  

Kids rode bikes, chased one another on foot, played catch and threw Frisbees.  Their camper passed a wide bend in the creek, where a few people waded and splashed in the sluggish water between cattail covered banks.  They passed a redheaded woman riding a mountain bike in the other direction; she had an AR-15 carbine slung nonchalantly across her back, its muzzle down.  She exchanged waves and hellos with the gate guard on his bicycle.  The staccato popping sound of pistol and rifle shots could be heard in the distance.

The woman beside Ranya asked, “Honey, do you see your friends yet? What kind of a rig do they have?”

“Not yet,” she lied.  “They should be here, somewhere.  At least, that’s what they told me last week. We haven’t seen half the place yet. They’re around here somewhere, I’m sure.  I’ll just ask around, I’m sure I’ll find them.  So listen, thanks for the ride, but I don’t want to impose on your hospitality…”

The woman smiled and said, “Nonsense, honey, it’s no trouble.  If you need…”

“If I know my friends, they’ll be hanging out at the shooting range.  If you let me out now, I’ll just walk out there.”

“Well that’s fine, if that’s what you want,” said the woman.  “But listen…first let me finish cutting your hair: it’s kind of rough in the back.”

“Olivia’s right, honey,” said her husband, chuckling.  “If you’re going on the lam, you’ll need a better hair-do.  If you didn’t cut it yourself, I’d say your hair stylist needs to find a new line of work!”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Sure it is honey child, but who cares?” responded the woman, turning more serious.  “We’re all escaping from something these days, ain’t we? Well, join the club.  And if you don’t find your friends…you’re welcome to stay with us for a time.  We’ll squeeze you in—it’ll be tight, but it’ll be all right.  The good Lord will provide.”

***

The range was a half-mile walk
down another dirt road, away from the creek into the scrubland, past scattered trees and immobile rocking-horse oil pumps.  Ranya felt more confident with her hair trimmed evenly, and the residual ink on her neck scrubbed off with Olivia’s cold cream. She had gratefully accepted the offer to wash up in their camper’s tiny bathroom, and felt much better with a fresh face and clean teeth. 

As she walked, she reflected upon the fact that all of the clothes she wore belonged to a dead woman, from her tan leather hiking boots, to her green ball cap and even Linssen’s gold-rimmed aviator-style sunglasses. This was more than a little bit creepy, but after years of nothing but prison denim, it felt nice to be dressed in casual civilian clothes.

She walked on, enjoying her aloneness, reveling in her anonymity. There were no terrain features to speak of anywhere around Barlow’s Creek, it was practically dead flat over vast expanses of land to the horizon. Willows, cottonwoods, and cattails defined the course of the creek to the east and the west.  Only trees, oil pumps and occasional houses broke the monotonous uniformity of the land.

The slap-dash outdoor shooting range was like many she had visited in Virginia before the troubles.  The firing line consisted of a dozen rough unpainted wooden tables, with a plywood roof extending above all of them to protect the shooters from the mid-day sun. Two hundred yards from the firing line, there was a bulldozed dirt berm for a bullet backstop.  This berm was the only “hill” in the vicinity.  A few cars, pickup trucks, motorcycles and bicycles were parked on the grass behind the firing line.

A red flag twenty feet up a pole announced that the range was open. Nobody paid her any attention as she dropped her brown pack on an empty table at the left end. There was a small plywood range shack behind them, with a hand-painted sign advertising reloaded ammunition and targets for sale.  The firing line was hot.  Four men were shooting rifles from sandbagged positions on the tables at paper and cardboard targets 100 yards away.

Ranya had only the Glock pistol and two full magazines of 9mm bullets, just thirty rounds in all, which she had taken from Linssen’s bedroom.  She had no plan, no itinerary, just a general desire to get to Albuquerque somehow, and the range had drawn her back to the sights and sounds of her youth.  Any shooting range was familiar, friendly territory, a place where she felt that she had the best chance of making the kinds of contacts that she would need to assist her on her way.