SurviRal (33 page)

It wasn’t like the other members were taking advantage of them. Clint and Jake always received fair recompense in trade. The turkey flock that came through for a few days was truly something special. Surprisingly, it was Jake who insisted on using the shotguns to get them, quoting community needs. Clint wanted to try and slingshot them all. But in the end, Jake was probably right. He was the cool-headed one, somehow, and felt freer to make those kinds of judgment calls now that Clint was converted to living on renewable resources.

But they hadn’t gotten a deer yet. A month at the cabin and still no venison. It was time. And Clint wanted it by bow, dammit.

This foggy late-June morning had all the earmarks of being the one. Clint was glad he got up early and spotted the doe in the oat field. The fog was beginning to lift now, which was perfect. He sat crouched along a tree line where fresh prints crossed the ground. It would only require a little luck for the deer to wander back this way. Clint would be waiting with the arrow strung. If the doe came into view out of the fog, he could get it quickly. What he needed was something to happen upwind to drive it in this direction. If only Jake were with him this morning, he could circle beyond the deer and make some downwind clatter to send it this way. Yep, that would do the trick—some kind of noise from that side.

Noise eventually came, but not from the right direction. And it was the one sound Clint never wanted to hear: an air horn. One long blow followed by one short blow, repeated three times. That was the Stuart’s signal.

Was it noon already? Hard to tell in the fog, but Clint knew there was no way he had been on the hunt six hours. It felt like three, maybe four. Were the Stuarts jumping the gun? Are their clocks broken?

Every Friday at noon the participating neighbors ran a test relay, starting from the Stuart residence, who were on the extreme edge of the southwest Springfield outskirts. Of course, that also made them the most vulnerable target. If this was the normal Friday test relay, someone from Clint’s home should be sounding the next signal—one long blow sounded by two short ones, repeated three times.

The Stonebreaker signal didn’t follow. Instead, the signal from the Stuart house repeated. That wasn’t right. And there was something about the way it sounded the second time. It seemed urgent.

A follow signal now came from Clint’s cabin. But it wasn’t the Stonebreaker signal. Someone at home was repeating the Stuart signal. That was an alarm, not a test relay. They must have come to the same conclusion Clint was quickly arriving at. The Stuarts needed help.

Clint cursed the loss of the doe and stood. He made his way out of the tree line and started trotting towards the Stuart distress call. He knew he might get lost in the fog, but had a compass with him, and the direction of the alarm was still fresh in his mind. Even being on foot, there was a chance he would be the first responder.

Clint realized he was now holding his bow and arrow as a weapon as he increased his pace. The thought was absurd, but it was his natural reaction. If there were robbers at the Stuarts, he wouldn’t be the most adequately-armed helper. Clint had Jake’s .45 holstered on his hip, but had failed to bring an extra magazine along on the morning’s spontaneous deer hunt. Every responder helped, though, and many of the home invaders carried only pistols as well. In the distance behind him now, he heard the faint sound of the Stuart distress signal repeat from the Butler house.

The ground was uneven, with badger holes and patches of sagebrush to negotiate, not to mention the slim but ever-present chance of surprising a rattler. Clint could only go so fast. Worse, the fog thickened. He had to glance at the compass on his belt-loop to remain confident in his bearing.

Then he came to the hill. He recognized that. Some of the rocks and bushes were unique. This spot is where Clint and Jake bagged a half-dozen quail one afternoon. At the top would be a clear view of the Stuart property, maybe 350 yards away. Clint hurried his way up, confident now in its familiarity. He came out of the fog bank before reaching the crest.

Fog hung on the other side, too, but nowhere near as thick. Clint could see the barn, part of the house, and a good portion of the front yard fairly clearly. He didn’t see any people, or any vehicles parked. Knowing he could be a target on the hillside, Clint proceeded to make his way down cautiously. Hopefully, it was only a false alarm.

By the time Clint reached the bottom, several other responders came into view. He saw Randal and Cal approaching on horseback, and then Jake’s truck parked out on the road. No one had come up the driveway yet. They were probably still trying to assess the danger.

“It’s all right!” Greg Stuart’s voice shouted. “They left. I think your relay signal scared them off.”

Minutes later, everyone met in the front yard. Jake, Harold, Randal, and Cal seemed equally surprised to see Clint coming down the hill with a bow and homemade rabbit-pelt quiver on his back. They were all brandishing rifles or shotguns. Clint felt a little ridiculous, so he made a point of showing the pistol in his other hand.

“The system works,” Greg said. “Look at you guys, rushing in from all directions.” He glanced and Clint and smiled. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it, neighbors.”

“So what happened?” Jake asked.

“Three of them on motorcycles came up between the house and barn. I stepped out on the porch with my shotgun as they dismounted. They pulled pistols from their belts. That’s when I sounded the first signal. Then I bolted the door and ran upstairs to blast the second one out the east window.”

“Maybe that’s why the second one sounded different,” Clint said.

“Maybe. All I know is when the signal relayed from your house, Clint, it got their attention. That’s when they decided to leave. They seemed mostly interested in the barn.”

“What do you keep in there?” Harold asked.

“My truck and motorcycle, bicycles, couple cans of gas, farming equipment, and all the usual tools and materials you find in a man’s workshop.”

“I’m afraid your barn may qualify as an attractive nuisance.” Harold smiled.

“I keep it locked up tight.”

“You might be better off leaving in unlocked. That way they don’t need to break into your house looking for the key.”

“Like the way you left your car,” Clint said.

“Exactly.”

A motorcycle with a sidecar came rolling up the road, slowed, and joined the social circle in Greg’s driveway. When the rider’s goggles came off, Clint saw that it was Arnold Gainer.

“I take it the trouble has been averted?” Arnold got off the bike.

Harold looked particularly pleased to see him. Clint, Harold, and Jake walked over to peek in the sidecar. There were two passengers sitting there: an AR-15 assault rifle and a lever-action rifle of some sort.

“Is that a 45-70 carbine?” Harold asked.

“Yep. One of my favorites. You ought to come over and shoot it, Harold.”

“That’s enough invitation for me. This afternoon?”

“Sure.” Arnold laughed. “Bring along any extra game the Stonebreaker boys may have on hand. I’ll treat you to a satisfying target session. We’ll waste a few more rounds than we should. Say, that hillside is an interesting vantage point. Any way to get there from the road?”

Greg Stuart pointed behind Arnold. “There’s a break in the neighboring fence line just before the ridge. Never met the owners, and never seen anyone on that lot. You can go straight up on the hill from there.”

Arnold nodded. “Thanks. If we ever get another alarm for your place, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Shortly, a mountain bike could be seen on the road. The rider turned out to be Mike Oberson, with a lightweight rifle strapped on his back. Ten minutes later, one other neighbor showed.

But only one more.

“Why the low turnout?” Arnold asked after a half-hour.

“I think I know why,” Mike said.

Everyone turned to him.

“Our alert system is far from perfect. It’s much better than nothing, but has flaws. I think the biggest problem is the gap from my house to the Nelsons. It’s too wide. That’s not the only bad gap, either. In the other direction, there’s another big one after Arnold’s. We can’t count on the relay always being heard across those gaps, other than noon on Fridays when everyone’s outside listening for it. Any other time and a loud TV set is enough to break the chain at critical connection points. All things considered, a response of only your closest neighbors might be the best we can hope for.”

“That’s not good enough,” Harold said. “The savages gang has nine or ten members, according to the reports.”

“But we have rifles.” Clint lifted his bow as he spoke, realizing how silly he looked. A couple of the guys chuckled.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Mike said, “and have been tinkering around with a possible improvement to our security system.”

“Like what?” Randal, Jake, and Cal said almost in unison.

“I’d prefer not to reveal it until it’s further along. And I’m going to need some help.”

Mike turned to Clint. “Is it all right if I come over and discuss it with you later?”

“Me? Sure, I guess. What time?”

“How about four?”

* * *

Mike showed up fifteen minutes early. Clint looked up from his work in the garden when he heard the car coming. That was a rare event these days. No automobile had been on that road since the day Roberto Sanchez brought Clint, Jenny, and Harold to the cabin. Clint walked out front to meet him.

“I saw Harold hiking down the road as I came in,” Mike said. He walked around to the rear of his car.

Clint followed him there. “He’s on his way to Arnold’s for some bachelor shenanigans.”

“I see.” Mike opened his trunk.

“That’s an Oracle server,” Clint said examining the contents of the trunk. “And a home PC?”

“A Linux box, yes.”

“What’s in these smaller boxes?”

“Outdoor surveillance cameras.”

“Interesting,” Clint said. “Battery powered?”

“Of course. Rechargeable. These cams can be set to stream or activate by motion detector, and then send videos or still shots. I think motion-detected snapshots are best for our purposes. We’ll get a lot of mileage out of each charge that way. They come with extra batteries, so we can simply swap them out at regular intervals.”

“How many cams do you have?”

“More than enough. This is only half of them. I figure you can be responsible for the west side. I have a duplicate setup at my place, so there will be two command posts, so-to-speak.”

“You probably already know all the questions I’m about to ask.”

“Right,” Mike said. “Well, the first issue is obviously cellular service. This system has a satellite network plan available. In normal times, I mean. No one can sign up now. So I hacked into it.”

“Nice.”

Jake wandered up from behind and was now watching and listening to the conversation.

“The other primary issue is continual power. I’ve got my home system converted to DC and running off a network of car batteries, which I keep charged when the power is up. I can handle a sustained blackout of perhaps a week. But I don’t have any batteries to spare. Yours will have to run on AC.”

“How much power does it need?” Jake asked.

“Hardly any.”

“We have the solar generator. Still not using it for anything.”

“Perfect.” Mike looked back and forth between Clint and Jake.

“So what do you need help with?” Clint asked.

“The system uses email to send the photos. Public email services and hosting accounts are currently unreliable. We need our own email software installed on the server, and a front-end application on the PC boxes. I thought this might be more in your wheelhouse.”

“It is.”

Mike picked up a box of software discs. “I have some standard developer suites here. Don’t know if any of these are usable. Some are kind of old.”

Clint quickly thumbed through the discs, removed one, closed the box, and held the disc up. “This one has what we need. I’ll need to make some modifications, but it will be a reliable front and back-end email server.”

“Great. Now, I have a few more Linux boxes and some monitors—not enough for everyone, but they can be placed in strategic places along the air horn gaps. We’ll have to do something about backup power sources for them.”

“We’ll figure that out,” Clint said. “Some of the guys have generators and quite a bit of fuel stored.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too. So, that’s it.”

“How will it work?” Jake asked.

Mike pointed to the PC box. “Those of us with the computer stations will get emailed photos every time a motion detector anywhere in the camera network goes off. Oh, Clint, we’ll need to make the computer beep to alert us when one comes in.”

“Not a problem.”

“Obviously,” Mike continued, “they’ll go off when the residents are moving around outside their house, or if a large animal like a deer wanders by. We can play around with the sensitivity settings. Maybe you can design a way to delay subsequent alerts within a certain time period, so those of us on watch won’t be lulled into a boy who cried wolf syndrome.”

“Piece of cake,” Clint said. He felt himself getting excited at the prospect of designing a new program, especially for such a legitimate need.

“Of course, we’ll still keep the air horn alert system. This is just a way to improve security, bridge communication gaps, and allow the responders to get a look at what they’ll be running into.”

“Cool,” Jake said. “Will this contraption really work?” He turned to Clint.

Clint surveyed the contents of the trunk one more time before answering.

“You bet it will. With me and Mike on the job, it’ll work. The two of us will make certain of that. Just like you envisioned, Mike. It’s a fantastic solution.”

“Glad you like it. So how long do you think it will take you to do the programming?”

“Two, maybe three days.”