To Dust

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of G.o.d, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments from Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."

-John Adams, A Defence of the Const.i.tutions of the United States Against the Attack of M. Turgot, 1787 Fife, Montana

August, the Fourth Year

As the ProvGov capitulated, there were a few UN army units and "contractors" who went renegade and refused to lay down their arms. Without support from the crumbling Fort Knox government, the holdout units were increasingly demoralized, depleted logistically, and hemmed in by steadily growing resistance forces.

The remnants of Garcia's Force Two a.s.sociates gang was by then down to just twenty-three men and fourteen camp followers. The Resistance killed his friend Tony, who had been with him since the beginning. This was when they were looting the town of Lame Deer, Montana. The F2 gang had moved into Montana two weeks earlier, hoping that the lower population density would mean they'd meet less organized opposition. But instead the Resistance seemed only stronger and better organized. The F2 gang was reduced to making a few nighttime raids for food and fuel, and laying up each day in parklands or at abandoned ranches. No longer able to bluff their way into towns under color of law, they avoided being seen in all but the smallest towns.

An abandoned ranch on Enger Cutoff Road, a few miles east of Great Falls, seemed like a good place for F2 to spend a day. They pulled in an hour before dawn. A windmill kept a stock tank full so they'd have drinking water. And they were able to conceal their vehicles in a large hay barn-now empty except for a few bales that had turned black with mold. But what they didn't realize was that a neighbor a half mile away who owned a small dairy farm had seen their headlights. The dairyman was up early for his morning milking. He knew that the adjoining ranch had been abandoned for more than two years. Curious, the dairyman stealthily approached the house and ascertained that the vehicles belonged to F2. He got back to his own farmhouse just as dawn was breaking, and immediately reported seeing the looters by telephone.

As the security coordinator for that end of the county, Joshua got the word just a few minutes later. He hung up the phone and began jotting down notes.

Kelly, who had overheard his end of the conversation, asked, "What's your plan?"

"Just MSU."

Kelly laughed. The standing joke answer to all difficult questions in Kelly's business cla.s.ses at Montana State University had been "MSU," which referred to an alternate use of the acronym for the school's name: "Make Stuff Up."

"Really?" she asked.

"I won't be able to say what the plan is until I see the lay of the land," Joshua said. "I'll make up a plan on the fly. We'll just gather at the Fife junction, and then we'll probably cram ourselves into a smaller number of vehicles. We'll stop about a half mile short of the farm, and walk in from there. Sometimes MSU beats elaborate planning and multilevel interagency coordination. And it certainly does when time is of the essence."

"Air support?"

"None available. The Hueys and most of the 341st Security Forces Squadron are way back beyond the east end of the missile fields. They got called in to support the handover of command of an artillery unit that capitulated a few days ago. Then they got tasked with mopping up a bunch of looters even farther east. With refueling and all, it would take them a minimum of fifteen hours to get here, and by then the bad guys will probably be gone."

Joshua got to Fife twenty minutes later driving the Rust Bucket. The Fife junction was close to his old rental house, which now sat empty.

The ranchers soon began to arrive. They were armed mostly with scoped deer rifles. One of them had a scoped M1A semiauto, which Joshua thought was perfect for what he had planned. The majority of them wore jeans and camouflage hunting jackets. A few of them wore complete camouflage ensembles. Three airmen from the 341st-two E-3s and one E-4-arrived, all armed with M4 carbines. Joshua considered their carbines inadequate "pop guns" for what he had envisioned. He recognized two of the airmen from his security forces cross training, where in the past year he had learned the rudiments of small unit tactics.

Joshua began his briefing. "Gentlemen, I'm Lieutenant Watanabe. What we have planned today is to reconnoiter and possibly engage a group of looters that just rolled into an unoccupied farm over on Enger Cutoff Road. I'm in command, and I'll lead the main group. You three from the 341st will cover the rear of the farm from the south, act as our backup, and likely provide a diversion. I haven't yet scoped it out, but I antic.i.p.ate that the rest of us will set up an ambush position on the north side of the road. We'll coordinate on the Guard frequency."

One of the ranchers raised his hand and asked, "So are we going to a.s.sault the farmhouse?"

"No. That would put us at risk of taking too many casualties. Frontal a.s.saults are the ProvGov's style, not mine. My plan is different: We make them come to us, and we just shoot them."

Noticing smoke grenade canister pouches strapped on the MOLLE vests worn by the three airmen, Joshua said, "I see you guys have some pyro with you. Those will probably come in handy. More on that later."

Approaching stealthily, Joshua reconnoitered the farmhouse and barn. He set up his spotting scope just over 300 yards away. Seeing the F2 logo on the tailgates of two of the pickups confirmed his suspicions. He radioed his instructions to the team from the 341st. It was now just after 11 a.m. and the day was warming up.

Joshua gave his men a briefing on the situation and he sent a runner back to their parked vehicles, to get a pickup equipped with a winch. Using the winch, they pulled out the cattle guard at the entrance road to the farm. With the help of five men, Joshua flipped the heavy steel cattle guard over and back into the ditch at an odd angle, facing inward. They left the pickup parked at a sharp angle, and its winch cable stretched parallel across the top of the cattle guard to form an additional barrier.

Seeing the upended cattle guard and the cable, Joshua declared, "n.o.body is getting through here in a hurry. Okay, let's get into position."

They crossed the road and began to climb the low hills on the opposite side. As they walked, Francisco Ortega, a young ranch hand that Joshua had met only once before, asked, "Lieutenant, can't they just go around the cattle guard and crash through the barbed wire fence?"

Joshua shook his head and said, "That's a Hollywood myth. I saw a looter van going fifty miles an hour glance into a barbed wire fence a couple of years ago. The fence stopped that van. And my father-in-law was in the Army. He told me that even tracked vehicles like tanks and APCs have trouble going through a three-strand barbed wire fence. Most cars might get fifty feet, pulling up a few T-posts, but then they almost always end up in a big wad of wire around the wheels. And usually the wire doesn't break, either. So a barbed wire fence is the perfect stopper for a car or a pickup."

Francisco nodded, and Joshua went on. "If anybody steps out of those rigs to cut the fence wires, we shoot them. Or if they try to crash though and get tangled up, we shoot them. And if they try to back up, we shoot them."

Francisco chuckled. "I noticed that all three of those ended with: ' . . . we shoot them.'"

Watanabe chuckled as well. "I can see that you were paying attention. You may have a future in the militia."

They picked out p.r.o.ne shooting positions on the two small hillocks that were respectively 200 and 250 yards from the cattle guard, on either side of the creek that flowed south and through a culvert into the dairy farm. Their "far ambush" positions provided a decent cross fire to engage anyone at the cattle guard, and a good distance in either direction on Enger Cutoff Road. Francisco, armed with a scoped .300 Weatherby Magnum that had belonged to his grandfather, was lying five yards to Joshua's left. Joshua again gla.s.sed the farmhouse and barns with his spotting scope. Their activity at the cattle guard had not been noticed, since it was 600 yards north of the house, and some intervening terrain blocked the line of sight.

Joshua pressed the PTT bar on his handie-talkie and said, "Okay, pop smoke and light 'em up."

Moments later, two red smoke grenades were set off by the backup team. A light breeze from the west pushed the red smoke eastward.

Soon, there was a flurry of activity as the Force Two men sprinted to their trucks in the barn.

Bursts of automatic fire came from the trio of airmen, and a hail of 5.56mm bullets pierced the walls and roof of the barn and farmhouse.

Not wanting to stay for a fight, the F2-marked vehicles soon pulled out of the barn in an impromptu convoy, and they quickly drove north to the gate. They stopped five yards short of the overturned cattle guard.

Joshua thumbed his rifle's safety forward. Absently, he remembered that he had shot only ten rounds of .30-06 since the Crunch began. Together, those ten shots accounted for stopping one looter van and dropping five mule deer.

The Mad Minute began. By prearrangement, Watanabe's team first shot up the engine compartments and tires on the rearmost pickup. Then they shifted their fire and systematically shot out the tires on all the other vehicles. Joshua fired sixteen rounds, pausing once every four rounds to flip open the rifle's bottom-hinged magazine and refill it. When they switched to shooting out the vehicle windows, the occupants panicked and ran. Caught out in open ground in a cross fire, most of them were shot within twenty seconds. A few of the looters tried running east on the road. They, too, were cut down.

Joshua toggled his handheld, ordering the three-man backup from the 341st team to sweep northward.

Confused and not realizing that the shots were coming from two different hills, Garcia and three other men ran northeast, directly toward Joshua and half his team. The last of them dropped before they were within 100 yards of where Joshua and the ranchers lay p.r.o.ne. The firing died down to just a few sporadic shots from Joshua's men.

Joshua shouted, "Okay, everyone top off your guns! Show me a fist when you're done."

He heard the sound of guns being reloaded. He stood and scanned his men. They soon all raised a fist. Joshua then swept his arm forward and shouted, "Shoot anything that moves. Follow me!"

They advanced at a slow walk. As they descended the two hills, there were only two coup de grace shots fired. Joshua and Francisco then came upon Ignacio Garcia, who was bleeding badly. As Garcia lay bleeding heavily, he began to babble in Spanish. His last words, ending in a shout, were "Donde? Donde esta mi tesoro? Mi tesoro!" Then his chest stopped heaving.

"What's that he said?" Joshua asked.

Francisco translated. "He was asking: 'Where is my treasure?'"

"Well, his worldly treasures won't help him where he's gone."

They continued down to the road and crossed it, checking the bodies of the Force Two gang members for signs of life. Some of the men began to search the shot-up vehicles, which sat in green puddles of radiator water. They shut down the engine of one vehicle that was still sputtering.

The three enlisted men from the 341st trotted up to see what had happened. Joshua said simply, "We covered the rest of it from our positions. Good work on providing the cattle prod, guys. That was a job well done."

As they pa.s.sed by the body of Garcia's wife, who had been shot through the neck, Joshua instructed, "Save anything that looks useful for turn-in. Burn the rest."

Still standing beside the body of Garcia's wife, Francisco picked up the collar of a full-length mink coat with the tip of his rifle barrel, and asked, "What about this fur coat, sir?"

"No. It has blood all over it. Burn it."

30.

The Second Age of Steam

"In the face of the basic fact that fossil fuel reserves are finite, the exact length of time these reserves will last is important in only one respect: the longer they last, the more time do we have, to invent ways of living off renewable or subst.i.tute energy sources and to adjust our economy to the vast changes which we can expect from such a shift.

"Fossil fuels resemble capital in the bank. A prudent and responsible parent will use his capital sparingly in order to pa.s.s on to his children as much as possible of his inheritance. A selfish and irresponsible parent will squander it in riotous living and care not one whit how his offspring will fare."

-Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover, 1957 North of Williams, Arizona

178 Years After the Crunch

Pastor James Alstoba set the parking brake on his Alliance Motors Elec-Truck. He stepped out and flipped down the side-mounted PV panels on both the truck and the trailer, giving the panels full exposure to the south, and he tilted up the rack on the truck's roof to a 40-degree angle, giving that set of panels the best possible solar exposure as well. Unless the sky clouded up, the vehicle would be fully recharged by 3 p.m.

He paused to pray as he did before each day of detectoring, asking for G.o.d's providence. James depended on the detector work for his support. He spent five days a week with his church responsibilities at Grace Baptist-which included Sunday services, several Bible studies, outreach, and sermon writing-but just two days on detectoring. That was usually Mondays and Tuesdays, but that could be shifted if there was bad weather. Early on in his ministry, he had decided to work two days a week in detectoring, rather than begging for support. To his mind, begging was bad Christian witness. He'd rather sweat a bit.

His helper that day was twenty-two-year-old Mickey Johnson. Mickey was likable, but his broad facial features, vapid expression, and nasal voice immediately marked him as someone with Down syndrome. He would never surpa.s.s the mentality of an eight-year-old. But he was an amiable, cheerful worker. Some of Mickey's sayings made James laugh. James also appreciated Mickey's childlike wonder when examining a rock or an insect. And a couple of his observations on human nature were so unknowingly accurate that James had later mentioned them in his sermons.

James had to constantly remind Mickey to drink water and to wear his big sun hat. Mickey helped haul some of the detectoring finds to the trailer-mostly sc.r.a.p aluminum and steel. But most importantly, Mickey went with him to be ready to radio for help in case of an accident. That was the first thing that Pastor Alstoba had taught him to do when Mickey replaced Alstoba's son as his helper.

The front of the Elec-Truck was decorated with a painted cross and the words "In Omnia Paratus." To James, that phrase had a double meaning: both physical preparedness, and spiritual preparedness. The trailer had been hand-built by a member of his congregation. The vehicle itself was ten years old and nearing the end of life for its second set of 6-volt batteries.

James had been in prayer that he'd soon make a big detectoring find and hence have the funds to buy the new set of batteries without having to ask anyone for donations. With new batteries, the old truck would be back to its full potential range, and hence it would open up a wider area available for his detectoring.

James checked his holstered 5-7 and spare magazine. The pistol had been pa.s.sed down to him from his grandfather. It was a relic from back in the lead bullet days. By the late 2100s, most projectiles were either copper-jacketed steel or all copper. Lead was too valuable for use in batteries to waste it in making bullets. It would be a shame if the projos weren't recovered for re-cy.

James strapped on the battery pack and then the Steady Harness for his detector. The detector was an expensive new model from Minelab. He had upgraded to the new detector with the proceeds from a providential streak of one-eighth-ounce to one-quarter-ounce gold nuggets that he had found the previous year. The Australians still made the best detectors. This one had a nice backlit display and had great sensitivity and selectivity. The detector's display could distinguish between various coins, pieces of fired bra.s.s, aluminum soda cans, spent bullets, or gold nuggets. Finally, he put on his Clarke headphones. They, too, were state-of-the-art, and even had automatic noise canceling if he ever took a shot at a rabbit or a deer.

James ran the detector's Built In Test and Calibration "bitsy" sequence. The display indicated green in all segments. He was good to go. Then he consulted his tablet-comp, and used a stylus to mark the next area of the map grid that he planned to search. It zoomed in to display a composite satellite image overlayed with old map data. The tablet comp's GPS subsystem then kept track of what ground he had covered, and beeped a reminder if he missed a spot.

As Pastor James swept the detector's trapezoidal head slowly left and right, his mind soon began to wander, as it often did when detectoring. He thought about his son, Matthew, who was off training with the 3rd Liberator Brigade. The brigade was famous for freeing slaves and fighting Islamists all over the world.

James was very proud of his twenty-year-old son. Matthew had already mastered several languages, including English, Navajo, and Spanish. Now he was also learning Arabic, to ready himself for crusading. James was hoping that Matthew would return to Arizona after his militia service, but Matthew was already talking about settling in Wyoming. The lure to go there was strong. But, inevitably, like everything else, where he settled would be up to G.o.d's plans.

James's father, Alan Alstoba-the great-great-grandson of General Alstoba of World War III fame-was a prospector and celebrated detectorista. He had become wealthy by finding and patenting a uranium mine. But most of the old man's cattle and fields had been pa.s.sed down to his firstborn son, Jonathan. As the second-born son, James inherited only a one-tenth share of the cattle, and a few guns from the household armory. But James had become a successful detectorist in his own right, despite the fact that he devoted only two days a week to the art.

Most of the younger Alstoba's finds on public lands over the years had been modest. But he had often found gold nuggets, iron meteorites, vehicle body panels and engine blocks, and long discarded car and truck batteries. Those had each been days to celebrate.

As always, he worked under a broad-brimmed canvas hat that had been made back east at one of the Amish communities. The hat had originally been white, but it was now badly stained by sweat and acc.u.mulated grime. As James's wife put it, the hat had "character." Living in Arizona, the sunshine was both a blessing and a curse. Economically, the strongest regions were the Pacific Northwest, the northern Rockies, and the Midwest. The Northwest was envied for its vast forest lands (a fantastic source of constantly renewing fuel for steam power), its wind farms, its hydroelectric dams, and its farmlands-most of which didn't require pumped irrigation water.

The Midwest was nearly as prosperous because of its rich farmlands and its growing network of ca.n.a.ls. But people in the arid Southwest were doomed to a lower standard of living. The Southwest's greatest sources of wealth came from its coal mines, natural gas wells, and a few uranium mines. But without regular rains, living in the Southwest was always a struggle. At least the Mexican Border Wars were a thing of the past.

Alstoba had read that the planet was coming out of the Second Little Ice Age. For a century and a half, there had been unusually cold weather. But now some climate scientists were warning that there might finally be the long predicted global warming, as the glaciers again began to retreat. This was a great source of debate, both in scientific and political circles.

By James's generation, there were still fifty states, but no more "capital" cities. The early twenty-first century, in addition to the First Great Die-off, was also remembered as the beginning of a monumental decentralization trend. Americans learned the hard way that large cities-especially capital cities-were targets for nukes and dirty bombs by Islamic terrorists. So the population spread out. All elections were held via the Net, and legislatures met only virtually.

Because of transportation costs, most goods were transported by ship, barge, and steam train. Steam, sail, and nuke-powered ships dominated the high seas. These days, more than half the dwindling oil production was dedicated to making lubricants rather than fuel.

By the late twenty-second century, the silver-to-gold price ratio had dropped to 5 to 1. This shift took place because silver was being used up in various industrial processes like building PV panels, and the re-cy processes couldn't recover much of this silver. Inexorably, the price of silver rose in relation to gold.

The Islamists had made territorial gains throughout the twenty-first century, but in the twenty-second, when their oil ran out, they were forced to retreat on all fronts.

By the late 2100s there were just 50 million people living in the United States, which was deemed to be just about its long-term sustainable carrying capacity. Excess population was being shunted into the African colonies. These colonies had been developed in an attempt to repopulate the African continent, and to push out the Islamists. The Islamists had been stopped, and then pushed back, starting in Rhodbabwe, early in the twenty-second century. The rallying cry in World War IV had been "Push them back across the Zambezi." But by Alstoba's generation, five decades later, it was hoped that the Islamists could soon be pushed entirely off the African continent.

James heard a "whirrr!" in his headphones. Digging with his weeding probe, the target turned out to be a four-inch-long steel bolt. He put the rusty bolt in his collection bag, and resumed scanning. Two paces forward, a large hit showed up on his detector's screen. This one turned out to be a four-foot length of rusted one-inch steel pipe. This piece alone would have made his day worthwhile. Then he found an old steel T-post, also just below the surface. This got him excited, because three years earlier he had followed one hit after another on an old fence line and had recovered seventeen T-posts in just one day. That was considered a pay dirt day.