County
The next day, Tank was working on the trucks with me when he looked up at the roof of my Kenworth 990 and said, blunt as ever:
"Wouldn't mind having one of those myself."
His eyes were on the gun shield mounted to the sunroof hatch.
Tank's words tangled in my head with the ominous movements of the Road Warriors that Cody had spotted. We were enjoying a stretch of peace here, but the asphalt could turn back into a battlefield at any moment. We needed to thicken our shields while we still had the room to do it.
I called Gunner, Mike, and Jed to my trailer at once.
"I think Tank's truck is going to need a gun shield as well — so we can support Gunner if he's out in the lead when things go south."
Mike clapped a hand against the small of his back and spoke as if it were a joke.
"Heh heh. Just finished the boiler job and already there's something new. All right, I'll get right on it."
"I'd appreciate it. And while you're at it, please mount shotgun tube mounts on both Bill's and Tank's trucks."
"That's easy enough, long as Frank tunes up the capacitors and the release switches."
Mike answered with easy confidence.
"And I'd like to take this opportunity to bump the whole convoy's ballistic protection up another notch."
Mike thought for a moment, then spoke.
"The trailer sides and the doors are already plenty tough. The real problem is the weak points — windows, tires, fuel tanks."
"Then how about we start by reinforcing the mud flaps on every vehicle?"
Jed offered the idea, and Mike jumped on it.
"Oh, that's a good one. We could cut up scrap tires and layer them on, and for the heavy trucks we could weld hinges onto the rear and hang thick steel plates — cut down on the drag while we're at it, and still get the ballistic benefit."
Jed picked up the thread.
"That's right. And if we wrap steel skirts around each tire and the fuel tanks, with ballistic material behind them, it won't stop a direct hit, but it'll cut down the damage."
"The weakest point is still the windows."
Gunner, who had been listening in silence until now, cut straight to the heart of it. Jed answered with confidence in his voice.
"It's only a partial fix, but I think there's a way."
When every eye turned to him, Jed laid it out.
"We should be able to get polycarbonate panels — the kind they use for bank teller windows and government offices. Ski resort gondolas and water recreation facilities use a lot of the same material, so around here there's bound to be stock sitting in a warehouse somewhere. Post it on Reddit and we'll have it in no time. While we're at it, we should try to get ballistic film too."
Gunner asked back.
"You want to just stick those panels on the windows?"
"No. Cutting them to fit the glass exactly would be a nightmare, and even if you did, you wouldn't be able to roll the windows down. That's no good."
A brief silence.
"Here's what I'm thinking. We apply the ballistic film straight onto the glass to keep the shards from spraying, and we mount the polycarbonate panels on the outside with a little standoff, locked into welded steel guides. That way you keep your visibility, you can take them on and off, and the protection goes way up. And if you ever have to bail, you just kick the panel off with your boot."
Everyone nodded at Jed's explanation. Then Mike had one more idea.
"And what if we stockpile as much self-sealing tire sealant as we can get, and pre-fill every tire in the convoy as a precaution?"
He looked around at all of us as he explained.
"It won't stop a rifle round, of course. But if a pistol round punches a clean hole through the tread, the sealant alone should give us some recovery. At the very least, it'll buy us the mobility to get out of a kill zone after taking a hit."
"We should do everything we can."
Mike laughed at that, a rumbling chuckle.
"Heh heh heh. No rest for the wicked."
He started to go on, then something seemed to occur to him, and he pointed at the rear of my trailer.
"While we're at it — that ramp door of yours. What if we mounted a few shotgun tubes on the upper section that swings open?"
"Ah, so when the door opens, they'd point right in front of the Gun Nest — covering the space directly behind us?"
"That's the idea. If you're in a fight and the machine gun's a pain to reload, or — worst case — somebody tries to climb up over the Gun Nest, you'd want something covering that, wouldn't you?"
"That's a good idea."
I built on it.
"Then while we're doing the work, put them on the left and right sides of the ramp door as well. That way we can discourage any enemy vehicle trying to overtake us from the flank."
Mike burst out laughing again.
"Hahaha. All right, all right. This is a full-on porcupine strategy!"
The moment the meeting ended, the camp filled with a fresh heat of activity.
Jed grabbed Cody right away and started rattling off the list of parts and materials they needed to post on Reddit. Mike hummed under his breath as he rummaged through the dry van, gathering usable steel plate and scrap tires.
Every so often he would call Frank or Cody over with a request.
"Hey, when you hit the market tomorrow, see if you can find a switch like this!"
Off to one side, Gunner sat in silence, breaking down firearms, oiling them, and checking each person's ammunition inventory.
He also made sure to place a backup rifle in every vehicle for emergencies. He even found a spare moment to sit down next to Jake and learn drone piloting, his expression one of genuine concentration.
Even through all that bustle, our "salmon factory" out on the lake never stopped turning, and the daily catch had already soared past a hundred and fifty fish.
Thanks to that, Anderson's group — who'd started out renting two ice holes from us — were visibly better off. They no longer had to worry about running short on supplies.
They kept some of the salmon they caught for food and turned the rest over to Dave, who sold it alongside ours at a price that wouldn't crash the market, then split the proceeds. With that money they were filling in the gaps one by one — fuel, medicine, even clothes for the children.
As for the enormous stock of nuts and dried fruit we'd brought from the farm, we held back about a ton for emergencies and stopped selling the rest.
I was looking over the busy camp when Anderson, Walker, and Smith came to find me together.
"Is something the matter?"
I asked, puzzled. Anderson stepped forward as their spokesman and bowed his head deeply.
"We wanted to thank you properly. Would you come over to our Skoolie for a moment?"
"Ah, you really don't have to go to all that trouble..."
I tried to deflect, a little embarrassed, but we were past the point of brushing off a sincere gesture. I accepted the invitation.
This time I took the warm coffee they offered and we made small talk for a while. Then Smith spoke up, a little awkwardly.
"We prepared a small gift."
He said leatherworking had been a hobby of his, and handed me a well-made chest holster.
"You always looked uncomfortable with that pistol on your hip when you were driving... so I thought I'd try making one."
The unexpected gift left me a little awkward, but I thought of the habit I'd fallen into — pulling the pistol off my belt the moment I sat in the driver's seat and setting it aside.
"I'll put it to good use. Thank you, Smith."
The whole Anderson group lit up at that. Right then, Smith brought out another piece of leatherwork. This one was much larger and more elaborate.
"This is...?"
"It's for Wolf. A leather harness."
That genuinely pleased me. I took the harness at once.
"Wolf, come here."
Wolf came over at my call and ducked his head into the harness as if he'd been wearing one his whole life. Fitted snug to his body, he looked downright magnificent.
"Looking sharp, Wolf."
Wolf seemed pleased with the compliment and let out a short bark.
"Woof!"
I noticed the small pouches attached to either side of the harness and asked.
"What are these pouches for?"
"I figured they'd work well for a first-aid kit or spare magazine pouches, so I added them."
I thanked Smith again, sincerely, for the thoughtfulness. It occurred to me that Anderson's people were making their own efforts to belong in our community.
A few more days of this peace slipped by, warmed by the gifts Smith had given me.
Frank drove the salmon business even harder.
He hired more hands, opened additional fishing spots, and before long the daily catch had blown past two hundred and fifty fish.
He even realized that the big lake trout that came up now and then sold at a premium on the market, and put together a dedicated trout fishing crew. It wasn't just the Kokanee salmon anymore.
Our wealth piled up like a snowball rolling downhill.
We ran out of room to store the processed salmon, and eventually even the emergency jerry can holders welded to the outsides of the trucks and trailers were filled with packaged frozen salmon and trout fillets instead — a strange sight, abundance occupying the space meant for fuel. I was out at the fishing grounds, soaking in the heat of the operation, when Frank came toward me grinning from ear to ear, looking like he'd just gotten back from the market.
His eyes were brighter than usual.
"Chan, I just pulled off another one!"
"Haha. What is it this time?"
I asked, smiling. Frank glanced around once, then stepped in close and dropped his voice.
"Let's talk in your trailer. This isn't a conversation for out here."
Curious, I followed him inside. Frank shut the door, then dumped the duffel bag he'd been carrying onto the table with a thud.
He unzipped it, turned it over, and with a cascading clatter, objects gleaming gold spilled across the tabletop.
I stopped breathing. Gold bars, large and small.
"Is this... are these gold bars?"
Frank smiled, satisfied.
"Hauling this by myself was a workout, I'll tell you. Hahaha."
"Where did you even get this?"
"We can't keep stacking paper that's bulky and might turn into toilet tissue, can we? The price wasn't great, but looking down the road, this seemed like the smarter play. I converted two-thirds of our cash into this."
"Still — where from?"
"This was always a rich neighborhood. I took one or two here and there, and then some guy showed up sitting on a whole pile of it. Haha."
Scattered across the table were gold bars of every size, from finger-joint five-gram pieces to heavy fifty-gram bars. Even a rough count put them well into the hundreds.
"How much is this even worth?"
"We paid partly in goods, so... hmm. Roughly three hundred thousand dollars. Haha."
I didn't know what to say.
"And this stays between you, me, and Dave. Keep it somewhere safe, boss."
"No, Frank. Parking all of this in one place is a risk. We don't know when we'll need it, and this is basically the future of our community."
Frank said nothing.
"Let's split it up properly — spread it around with Gunner, Dave, and Uncle Mike as well."
"All right. Then you take a third for now, boss."
Frank quickly scooped the remaining bars back into the bag, minus my share, and launched into a long war story about raking in money from the salmon business.
"Anyway — come down to the market with me tomorrow. That's what I wanted to tell you."
"Yeah, sure. Haha."
The next day I followed Frank to the market. When we arrived, it was even livelier than the first time we'd visited and been stunned by it.
Dave had barely parked the truck to set up the stall when regulars who already knew our faces came over to say hello, and a line for salmon and eggs formed on its own before we'd even started laying out the goods.
The market security even greeted Dave and Frank like old friends.
Our stall had the best location in the place, occupied by fresh salmon, golden smoked salmon and trout fillets, and eggs.
The smell of food rising from every direction and the noisy chatter of the crowd made the Great Winter, the earthquakes, and the threat of war feel like they belonged to some far-off country.
Frank didn't just sell our own goods at the market. He brokered deals between merchants and even bought out newly opened stalls wholesale.
From the looks of it, Frank had become something of a celebrity around the place.
That afternoon, as the market was winding down, Frank came over with a more serious look than I had ever seen on him.