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

written in coal by Isaiah. His invitation offered, “Mesquite, Nevada militia with handguns and ammunition to trade for bulk food. Interested? Leave reply here.” Isaiah hoped that the porno page would convince the stodgy people of Rockville that they really were dealing with bad guys from Nevada, instead of a hapless family from Southern Utah.

Rockville P.D. had written their reply on a torn-out page from a Mormon hymnal. It was clearly a moral rebuke, so they had likely bought the ruse.

The song was “Reverently and Meekly Now” and the lyrics made no sense to Cameron. He couldn’t tell if it was a funeral dirge or meant to scare the hell out of kids. If there was a message in the gruesome description of crucifixion, Cameron didn’t understand it. When he’d asked Isaiah, he'd shrugged. Apparently, “regular” Mormons were just as strange to Isaiah as they were to Cameron.

The Rockville reply launched a debate about the day of the week that never reached a satisfactory conclusion. No one had kept track of how many days they’d lived in the Grafton ghost town. It might’ve been a hundred days or more. The day of the week was a complete mystery.

After the Rockville reply appeared on the “Speed Limit 55” sign, Isaiah and Cameron stayed awake into the night discussing the trade meeting and the myriad of risks involved. If Rockville figured out who they were and what they had, nothing would stop them from taking all the guns and ammo by force. They were too weak and too close. After watching the town do battle with the town of Hurricane for months, the clan couldn’t assume civility.

Undoubtedly, the town knew that a family occupied the Grafton homestead. They were too close to town for their presence to have gone unnoticed. Rockville might’ve discovered the stripped-down bodies of the raiders they’d killed. Cameron had done nothing to move or bury them. Rockville might even suspect that they were involved in the killing.

Or, Rockville might conclude there was another militia roaming the countryside—it was a reasonable possibility since people with guns could be expected to range out in search of resources, and Southern Utah had historically been littered with polygamist clans and survivalist retreats. Claiming that they were the “Mesquite, Nevada Militia” would generate doubt. Just over the mountains, Mesquite, Nevada was thirty times the size of Rockville.

Rockville might also suspect a trap set by the town of Hurricane. The fighting had drawn down between the towns in the last couple weeks, but bad blood could still run hot. Rockville would suspect subterfuge. They might not even want guns. It might be a trap inside a trap.

No matter the truth, they would have to be extremely careful. The more Isaiah and Cam thought about it, the more they wished they could lay low and skip out on the whole thing. Trading was perilous business, but starvation again lurked in the shadows of their homestead.

Isaiah was laid up in his sickbed, his belly healing but his shattered leg wracked with pain. It was decided that Ruth would make the trade and Cameron and Julie would cover her with rifles. From the dead marauders, they’d scavenged six handguns—four automatics and two small revolvers. The men had carried only nine millimeter ammunition; 157 rounds, both loose and packed in nine handgun magazines. Cameron and Isaiah decided to keep all four AR-15 rifles, magazines and ammunition, and trade all the rest, including the Mosin-Nagant and the pump-action twenty gauge shotgun.

Isaiah came up with the plan and Cameron found himself again grateful he’d brought the man back from the cusp of death in the wilderness. The big nerd had a penchant for meticulous forethought.

Cameron had seen plenty of action in the apocalypse. He knew he was better for devil-may-care fighting than careful planning.

When it came to the upcoming trade with Rockville, everything looked like a possible trap. They had to assume a town that’d been fighting for its life would take advantage where they could find it. They couldn’t afford to run-and-gun on this one. Isaiah’s mind, even laid up in bed, served them as a weapon.

Completing a trade was a chess game—survival wizardry that depended on moves and counter-moves to defeat the nuclear option of stealing all goods and murdering all players. The only thing keeping the trade from going off the rails in a storm of gunfire was the promise of future trade, and of course, the mutual risk of getting shot.

As per Isaiah’s instructions, they set the meeting place on the highway with open ground all around. It’d make life hard on the snipers that’d undoubtedly be placed on overwatch around the site.

If Cameron had been in charge, he would’ve carried all their trade goods to the meeting, haggled over a price, then took the payment or not. If the Rockville militia tried a double-cross, then so be it. There would be blood.

But Isaiah insisted they not expose the totality of their trade goods in one trade, but settle into a string of smaller trades. Instead of one, hell-bent-for-leather swap, they’d dole out the marauder’s supplies in four or five installments.

Cameron would’ve sent everyone who could shoot into the trade with an AR-15 as a show of force: Julie, Ruth and himself. Isaiah suggested they send only Ruth, and send her in unarmed. Cameron and Julie would hide in the tree line and provide rifle cover. If they sent Ruth to trade with a gun, it might be tempting to kill her and add the gun to the booty. If she carried an AR-15, killing her would be even more tempting. If she carried the Mosin-Nagant or the shotgun, it’d make them appear weak and maybe encourage the traders to welch on the deal. Better to carry no firearm at all. It sent the message: we have enough guns to trade them and enough riflemen covering our negotiator that we don’t need to arm her.

Cameron would’ve carried the trade goods to the spot, but