Honor Road Jason Ross (any book recommendations .TXT) 📖

He’d heard his brother talk like these guys—he was a Marine Corps veteran—but the obscenity and carnality was unfamiliar ground. In a way, it liberated him, to hear men cut loose and speak like men; with no women to hear them, and no shame to fear.

The captain was obviously drunk, but he drove the suburban anyway. He didn’t contribute much to the boasting and joking. Behind the wheel and in-charge of the department, he was above it all. When he finally spoke, the guys switched gears.

“We’re doing pretty good on food,” Chambers began, interrupting one of the men in the middle of regaling the others about how “down to get down” some local girl had been in high school. Captain Chamber’s steady voice made it clear that this was going to be the only staff meeting that really mattered. “But we won’t be good for long. We can’t count on the Professor and his greenhouses to save us this winter. A lot can go wrong with greenhouses—my mom had one for years.”

The men settled down and flipped into business-mode. Bill Raff offered a solution. “We can run more Klingons out of the county. You know—reduce our consumption to match our supply.”

Captain Chambers raised a finger off the steering wheel. “We could, but every time we walk someone to the county line, we piss off more locals. Even a Klingon has a mom and dad, sisters, cousins and brothers. We can force people back into line, but it gets riskier the more we do it.” It seemed clear he’d already made a decision and he wasn’t really looking for suggestions.

“If Wallowa kicks in with their cattle, we’ll have plenty, and there will be enough to jumpstart breeding in the spring. With Wallowa’s cattle, we’re all set. If they horde their cattle like they’re doing now, they’ll get stronger while we get weaker. By spring, we’ll be half-starved rag dolls. They’ll be fat and happy.”

Reggie Fletcher snorted. “Yeah, but Wallowa can’t never take us down. They’re pissant-small. They can barely field a defensive line.”

Sage realized he was talking about high school football, not combat. Everything with these guys seemed to come back to football.

“You need to think bigger,” the captain corrected Reggie. “They won’t have to take down Union County. They only need to take us down.” He made a circle in the air with his finger. “From what Stack here tells me, Pete Lathrop over in Wallowa is telling people we’re un-American, that we don’t follow the Constitution. He sounds like he’s getting ready to stage a mutiny against us, over here in Union.”

“Commissioner Pete’s got a lot of family in Union County. That’s true,” Reggie said, bootlicking his boss.

The captain continued his train of thought. “If they wait until we’re suffering over here, and they’re healthy over there, people will begin to think that maybe Pete Lathrop’s got it right; that we’re un-American for defending our county.”

“That’s easy for them to say,” Bill Raff nearly shouted, “we do all their fighting for them. We sealed off Union County to outsiders, so they ain’t got no problems with trespassers. There’s no way for outsiders to get over the mountains and fuck with their cattle. They should pay us for doing their policing, instead of paying that fat prick Tate. They owe us!” he roared. Bill Raff had been drinking a lot more than just beer, Sage concluded.

“Yup,” Captain Chambers agreed. “they don’t have to invest much in defense because we do it for them. They have it easy, tucked in the back of Wallowa Valley, while we deal with the interstate, cutting across us like a clothesline.”

“They should pay us in cattle,” Kevin Tursdale chimed in.

The captain shook his head, backlit by the suburban’s headlights carving the road. “They’re not going to do that so long as Pete Lathrop is the King of Wallowa County. He’s the reason they sealed off the road and he’s the reason they won’t talk to us about trade. He sits on his high throne at the back of the valley, surrounded by fifty-thousand head of cattle and he watches us eat ourselves into oblivion. All he has to do is wait us out, and he wins. No doubt, he plans to take over Union too, and he’ll do it when our people are in a bad way.”

The men fell silent. The road clicked by under the tires and the alcohol-fogged thoughts coalesced like a virus gathering itself for an onslaught. Even a newcomer like Sage could follow the captain’s logic: a lot of people in Union County were already hungry. Not the farmers or the ranchers, but the city people had been on rations for weeks. They stood in bread lines and soup lines or they didn’t eat. It was a hell of a lot better than in Portland, but the kind of people standing in line for food weren’t the kind of people who counted their blessings. They complained, given half a chance. They were fertile minds for revolution. They couldn’t do much, the Klingons, but they could agitate.

“We should hit him while we’re still strong. Hit Commissioner Pete, I mean.”

Reggie said the words, but Captain Chambers had all but put them in his mouth. Sage saw now that the conversation had been a carefully scripted, meandering journey to reach this conclusion: they needed to remove their rival, and they needed to do it soon.

Sage felt a chill go up his spine. He remembered a moment, while he ate his burger in Lostine. He and Commissioner Pete shared a laugh with the lady setting up the tables. Joan, Sage remembered her name. She’d made a comment about how men thought they ruled the world, but women ruled the men. Pete had given Sage a goofy, knowing look that seemed to say, “someday, you’ll understand.”

Sage almost spoke up in the Suburban—almost said something to slow the freight train of indignation that’d overtaken The Five. Then, he remembered the promise he’d made to his father.

He would