Chapter 11

 

 

 

 

When we crossed the border into Colorado neither of us were very impressed.  The land on both sides of highway one sixty was flat and barren with not a tree in sight.  Not really what either of us expected.  We had expected towering mountains covered in dense stands of tall pines trees with streams flowing down the hills everywhere.  Along with vast herds of deer and elk convorting playfully while being careful not to step on the bunnies hopping around under their feet.  Or something like that anyway. 

What we saw instead was almost perfectly flat land with many vast fields stretching off into the distance.  Where there were no fields the ground looked to be flat barren wasteland with no living creatures of any kind other than an occasional lonely bird.  There were sometimes farm buildings and big silos but spaced far apart.  All I said was that it must have been easy to build a road here in this flat land though very boring.  Janet just nodded her head in agreement.

Seeing this land made us wonder if we really were in the state of Colorado.  With nothing else to do we pushed on down the straight as an arrow highway.  We drove through Trinidad and took a smaller highway to the west.  It was not long and we found land that was more like we had been expecting.

Big trees and big mountains.  This was what we were both expecting and looking forward to seeing.  We found many small side roads and picked one at random to drive back on looking for a campsite.  It did not take long to find something we liked and had our camp setup and ship shape in no time.  Both of us were anxious to get out for a walk after driving for a few days and it was still plenty early in the day.  The walk was not a long one and we leisurely took our time.  As was our custom we spoke very little and managed to see a couple deer and several rabbits.  The walk seemed to melt away any tension we had from hearing all the bad news everyday on the radio.  By the time we got back to camp we both had smiles on our faces and were happy just to be alone in such a pretty place like this.

That evening we did not listen to the radio.  I don’t think either of us wanted to break the mood with the bad news that the radio was sure to bring.  We sat outside and just looked at the huge number stars visible in the sky here.  The moon was not up yet but the stars were so bright that you could actually see around a little. 

We did not know how long we would be staying at this location but in the morning we did what we could to make our camp a little more usable and handy.  We had found and bought a simple flat grill to use over the camp fire which was nicer than the rocks Jan had found at our first long camp (though the rocks had worked very well).  Gathering our small amount of firewood that we used and clearing the area around the fire pit so there was no chance of our small cooking fires ‘getting away’ from us and becoming a wildfire kept us busy for awhile in that first morning.

Next it was back to our regular martial arts and hand to hand training and workout.  I had also started showing Janet a little simple knife handling.  I had allowed her to pick out a knife to carry from the many styles and sizes that I had with.

That evening we again turned on the radio to hear all the bad news.  And it was very bad news indeed.  Many of the larger banks were closed due to severe hacking attacks they reported but you could hear the skepticism in the voice on the radio.  With big banks shut down the credit and debit clearing banks were closed so most all electronic banking and all credit and debit card usage was halted.  So with most people out of work, the banks having taken most of everyone’s cash away from them, and now their credit cards and debit cards were worthless too.  That also meant all the millions of food stamp EBT cards were now useless also.

Of course that was not all they reported.  The loss of card usage had started that morning and by evening when we were listening to the radio the streets in almost all cities were packed full of protesters and rioters with countless numbers of people taking to the streets, curfews in effect or not.

There were no real solid numbers yet but it was common knowledge that crime all across the nation had skyrocketed in the past few months.  Unfortunately they expected this trend to continue.  The police and National Guard troops had been busy and everything from small local jails to federal penitentiaries were packed with prisoners.  The police at this point had no place to put anymore people they arrested in many instances even with the large numbers of early releases for non-violent criminals that were taking place to try and ease the over crowding in the jails and prisons.

Everything was stacking up higher and was just ready to fall.  All government entities were literally broke at a time when their expenditures were at their peaks.  There was virtually no tax money or fees of any kind coming in to fill all the empty government coffers.  They found they had no credit available to them anymore and when the bank accounts ran dry their checks would bounce just like anyone else’s checks. 

Police, firemen, and all other government workers below the federal level found out they were no longer getting paid in many cases when their payroll checks bounced.  And it wasn’t just wages, it was everything.  No money to buy the food to feed the prisoners at jails, no money to buy the fuel for all government cars and trucks.  In many cases there was no money to even pay the electric bills. The unthinkable was happening and it was not just in isolated cases but almost across the board in the whole nation.            

Some of this we had heard before but it just continued to get worse and worse everyday that we heard it.  The closing of the banks and the loss of credit card use was a big thing.  It was not a surprising thing because it had been talked about many times on the radio.  They did not really say but obviously if government workers were not being paid they would not go in to work.  That meant the loss of police and fire departments in many cases I’m sure.  No wonder they did not want to say that over the airwaves.  If people knew they had no police protection they would do who knows what.

I knew what the bad guys would do if they had to no longer fear getting caught by police and that was do absolutely anything they wanted.  And it was not just career criminals either.  There was always a certain amount of any population that while toeing the legal line they still had criminal leanings.  Once the fear being caught and incarcerated was removed from the equation these borderline people would quickly act out on all their pent up desires.

If anyone thought criminal activity was high before wait until they saw what total anarchy was like.  Where it was literally every man (or woman) for himself.  And where literally anything goes.  Once anarchy were to take hold in the land all lifestyle as we had known would cease to function. 

All commerce would cease because the strong would simply take what they wanted from whoever they wanted.  The old saying ‘only the strong survive’ would be proved true everyday all across the land.  It would be ugly and brutal beyond comprehension for most people.  Many people would die from violence and even starvation.  If commerce stopped so would all those food trucks that deliver the food every day.  Jan and I talked it over well into the dark and decided to pack up in the morning and go into the nearest town and buy as much food and supplies as we could while hopefully things were still calm and those supplies were still available to us.