The Rule of Three (19 page)

Authors: Eric Walters

“You’re going to take them away?” Mr. Peterson gasped.

“To leave them here is leaving them to die, too. I can’t ask them to throw away their lives. We need them to defend the people in the neighborhood, which will soon include your family. You must come with us.”

“This is my home, my place.”

“Your
place
is with your
family
. It’s not only too dangerous for them to stay, it’s too dangerous for anybody to stay. You all need to come with us when we leave.”

All the color had drained from Mr. Peterson’s face. He turned away and slowly walked across the room until he was looking out the front window. I looked past him to what he was looking at. Stretched out before us was the farm, the side of the barn, the chicken coop, a small pond, and then the fields rolling out into the distance. We all sat there watching him in silence until finally he turned around.

“My wife and daughter will go with you. You can take the animals, all of them, and you are welcome to take any equipment you feel you may need, but I’m staying.”

“You won’t be staying for long,” Herb said.

“Are you threatening to force me to leave?”

“No. You won’t be
alive
for long. Things are moving even faster than I thought, deteriorating more quickly. This farm will be overrun within days. Staying here won’t save anything. You’re just throwing your life away.”

“My father and grandfather and great-grandfather fought for this place. Do you know they’re all buried on the property, right down there, and that one day I’ll be buried here, too?”

“That day is going to be a lot sooner than you think,” Herb said.

I could see the entire Peterson family recoil at that comment. Mrs. Peterson put her arm around Lori, who again looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“But, Stan, I’ll make you a promise,” Herb said. “I’ll come back, and if I can find your body I’ll bury it in the family plot.” Herb got up and walked over until he was standing beside the farmer. “I respect your decision, I really do. It’s just that your leaving here is only temporary. This will pass, and when that does happen you’ll come back.”

“Come back to what?”

“You’ll come back to the land. And then you’ll do what your ancestors did—you’ll rebuild and go on.”

“I just don’t know,” Mr. Peterson said. “I just don’t know.”

“Mr. Peterson, sir, if it’s okay, could I add one more thing?” I asked.

“Go on,” he said.

“What Herb is asking isn’t about abandoning the farm, but about saving the lives of all the people in our neighborhood. We have hundreds of people to think about. It’s not just about security, but about being able to feed all of them, and the only way we can do that is if we turn every backyard and park and playground into a little vegetable garden or pasture.”

“Do you really think you can turn backyards into cropland to grow enough food for that many people?” Mr. Peterson asked.

“We have no choice. We have to try. And we need somebody who can help us do that.”

Lori spoke up. “It’s not just your wife and daughter who need you, Dad. Lots of people need you.”

He didn’t answer right away. I hoped that meant he was thinking about it.

“You really aren’t giving me a lot of choice, are you, son?”

I shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He turned to Herb. “How many days do we have before I have to leave?”

“Not days. Hours.”

“That’s not possible!”

“It’s going to have to be. We need to get to the neighborhood before dark.”

“Then I guess we better get moving,” Mrs. Peterson said as she jumped to her feet.

“You’re doing the right thing.” Herb offered Mr. Peterson his hand, and they shook.

I looked anxiously at my watch. It was almost five o’clock. We had three hours before sunset, but at the plodding pace we were going to travel it would take us a long time to make the seven-mile trip. We needed to arrive before dark, not just for our safety but for the security of the whole neighborhood. Herb had sent me back—along with Brett riding shotgun—to get permission from my mother for his plan. She’d agreed and sent another ten people and two vehicles to the farm to help. Until we returned the neighborhood security would be spread to the point of breaking. My mother had taken patrols and officers away from other areas to cover the neighborhood.

I walked along the farm lane, passing the assorted vehicles that formed our little convoy, our little parade. Leading the way was Judge Roberts’s bright red ’57 Chevy, driven by the judge himself. It
had
been in a lot of parades—local Santa Claus parades and events in little towns all around. It was loaded down with home-canned food, root vegetables, and kitchen equipment. Herb would be in the passenger seat, and it was going to be flanked by two motorbikes driven by armed officers.

Next came the tractor, driven by Mrs. Peterson, pulling three farm wagons in a little train. Each wagon brimmed with seeds, tools, fencing, and livestock—chickens in cages and eight cows taking up one entire wagon by themselves. Getting them there was no small feat—a couple of them had balked at being driven up the ramp and into the confines of the rolling pen. Sergeant Evans and Officer O’Malley, with shotguns, had already taken up their positions in the front two wagons.

Behind that was a carriage, powered by the three horses, to be driven by Mr. Peterson, and loaded down with farm equipment, including the generator, and other electrical and technical things.

I was next in line in my car. My trunk and backseat were filled with stuff from the Petersons’ house—clothes, pictures, a few keepsake items that meant a lot. My passengers were Todd and Lori.

Behind me was one more car—Mr. Langston’s Camaro, with him at the wheel—and then at the end the abandoned flatbed truck, packed with the remaining farm equipment and more armed men, more than any other place in the convoy. Herb insisted that was the most likely spot to be attacked and so had to be the best defended. He said we had to be like a scorpion with lots of sting in our tail. Both Howie and Brett were in that last truck.

Herb barked out last-minute instructions, directions, and orders. Nobody argued with anything he had to say. I think people were starting to get used to him not only being in charge but being right. As things got more dangerous and risky it felt good to have somebody take the lead.

I knew Herb wanted to get going but was being patient as the Petersons took care of last-minute things before leaving their home. How would I feel if I was going to say goodbye to my place?

They stood, the three of them, alone by the door of their house. They’d left behind most of what they owned. A lot of other things had been hidden in the barn. The root cellar had been stuffed with things, and then the trap door and the area around it had been covered with six inches of soil, in the hopes that no invaders would discover it.

I could see that Herb was itching to leave but was trying to give the Petersons as much time as he could.

“You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I asked him.

“Done what?”

“Arranged a convoy.”

He held up two fingers. “Twice I’ve had to transport embassy and support staff and their families out of a country.”

“Why did you have to do that?”

“War, civil unrest. It wasn’t that much different from what’s happening here. There was a breakdown of government, security, and the provision of basic human needs.”

I looked up and the Petersons were walking toward us. Both Mrs. Peterson and Lori were crying. Mr. Peterson appeared to be fighting back the tears.

“Can I have everybody’s attention, please!” Herb cried out.

The men in the hay wagons moved to the sides to be close to us, and everybody else came over until we were surrounded.

“I want you to know how
good
I feel about the people I have with us,” Herb began. “I have no doubts about our
success
.” He paused as people smiled and nodded in agreement. “But I know that we’re going to attract a lot of attention and that might also attract trouble. We have a great deal of what people want and need, and they might decide that they wish to take it. We will
not
let that happen. We will not initiate force, but we will meet force with greater force. We will overcome any hostile action with a greater hostile response. And, most important, you have to know that we are in this together. We start, we move, we stop as one unit. Together.”

Again there was a nodding of heads and a mumbling of agreement. This reminded me of a pregame pep talk from a coach to his players. How many times had I been on teams when we got those talks before a big game? All those metaphors that coaches used—like “do or die,” “life and death,” “going to war,” “take no prisoners”—now really meant something. At least potentially. Maybe this would be nothing more than a slow drive from the country and into our neighborhood. I could hope.

“People in the back, make sure you don’t fall behind. We have to stay tight. Remember the signals.” Herb pointed at me.

I remembered. One beep on the horn meant slow down. Two beeps meant potential danger. A long blast would bring the whole convoy to a halt, and we’d take cover and wait for orders.

“Now let’s get going and let’s be careful,” Herb said.

People sprang into action. I held my door open for Lori. Todd climbed in after her. He gave me a forced smile. He was smart enough to be scared and brave enough to try not to show it.

All around me engines started as I settled myself behind the wheel. I turned the key, and my engine sputtered and choked. I pumped the pedal, tried to give it some gas, but was afraid if I gave it too much it would flood. I tried again. It didn’t want to catch. What would happen if my worry finally came true and it didn’t start? Would they have to leave my car behind or—

Just then it started with a roar. I let out a sigh of relief. In front of me the carriage started forward and I inched along behind it, slowly bumping along the lane.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Lori.

“Me too.” She was working hard to fight back the tears.

I didn’t know what to say. It was probably best that I didn’t say anything. We turned onto the road.

“I wish we had an elephant,” Todd said.

“An elephant?” I asked.

“Or two. Every parade needs an elephant. Or maybe a little car filled with clowns.”

“I already have a car with a clown in it,” I said.

“Adam … she’s right here … That’s such a terrible thing to say about Lori!”

Despite everything all three of us burst into laughter. Todd, the best kind of clown, had brought some comic relief. We needed that.

“I guess I should thank you,” Lori said to me.

“For what?”

“For my father being here with us. He wasn’t going to come, but you convinced him.”

“That was mostly Herb’s doing.”

“No, my father said to us that it was you.”

“I’m sure he would have come anyway.”

“Why don’t you just shut up and say you’re welcome?” Todd said.

“I’m pretty sure if I shut up I couldn’t say anything.”

Lori laughed. “Thanks for that, too. I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I could get out and walk if you want to be alone,” Todd offered.

If nothing else he’d given me a chance to regain my thoughts.

“Nobody wants you to get out and walk … although you could ride in one of the wagons with the other livestock,” I suggested.

“Next time I’ll make a point of that. I don’t want anybody to say that I stood in the way of love.”

Now everybody got silent. It was hard to believe that anything could have made this drive more uncomfortable, but we had managed.

“This is all pretty hard to believe,” Lori said, finally breaking the silence.

“More like impossible,” Todd added.

“Last night was the worst,” Lori said.

“It must have been awful. I wish I’d been there to help.”

“I’m so glad Brett
was
there,” she said. “It was like a movie the way he came running in, firing his gun with one hand and sweeping me up with the other and carrying me to safety.”

Great, just great. “I guess we’re all lucky he’s along for the ride today.”

“It’s good to know we’re going to someplace that’s safer.” Lori went quiet again for a while. “Do you think I’ll have a home to go back to when this is over?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but at least this way you’ll have a family. I just wish my father was with us.”

“I am so sorry, I forgot about your father.”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel bad. My dad’s fine, I’m sure. I know he’s making his way back home.”

We crossed over the highway. Now this dividing line seemed to mark something more ominous than the boundary between the country and the suburbs. This was where it became less safe. But really, with all these men and all this firepower, would anybody try to take us on? Then again, before last night would I ever think that a truckload of armed men would try to overrun the farm?

“This isn’t quite the way I imagined it,” Lori said.

“Imagined what?”

“You and me driving someplace together.”

“And I never imagined I’d be the chaperone on your little driving date,” Todd said.

“First off, shut up, Todd, and second, this is hardly a date,” I said.

“But you have thought about us going out on a date?” Lori asked.

“I thought about it once or twice,” I admitted—once or twice a day for two years.

“Once or twice?” Todd asked. “Okay, okay, I know—shut up, Todd.”

“Then why didn’t you ever do more than just think about it?” Lori prodded.

“You always seemed to be dating somebody else.”

“Do you ever wonder how Chad is doing?” Todd asked.

I shot him a dirty look.