Fortress Farm: Shield of the Okaw

Shield of the Okaw

Book Two of the Fortress Farm Series

Copyright © 2015 by G.R. Carter

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Books in the Fortress Farm Series:

The Pullback

Shield of the Okaw

Dawn of Darkness (Books One and Two Combined)

Red Hawk Rising

Against the Storm

Shield of the Okaw

Book Two of the Fortress Farm Series

G. R. Carter

…the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

—William Jennings Bryan, 1896

Chapter One

Okaw Valley Self Defense Cooperative

Hamilton Family’s Schoolhouse Hill Farm

Three Months after the Great Reset

Wisps of early morning haze lingered over freshly plowed chocolate-brown fields. Phil lifted his binoculars and scanned the acres stretching out for miles in any direction. He stood on the roof of the tallest grain tower giving him a commanding view of the Fortress Farm. These were good glasses–Bushnell Legend Ultra binoculars presented to him as a gift. Shelby County salvage teams were using the new Snapping Turtle armored vehicles to comb through every abandoned home and city for miles in each direction. Besides much-needed food, the crews also retrieved little treasures like the binoculars he held now. The images came through sharp and clear, allowing Phil to spot a portly groundhog making a quick meal of some of his soybeans in the farm’s northern sector, tier one. The sector and tier system allowed farmers to make notes and pass them on to the workers now settling onto the farmstead. Townspeople arriving with little knowledge of land management needed a Cliff’s Notes version. Land Lords learned quickly how to educate the new settlers and Anna made sure teachers included the new terminology in school classes.

Phil scribbled a quick message and tucked it into an envelope in his pocket. Animals like groundhogs were a cute fascination before America fell into darkness. Unfortunately, Shelby County needed every plant and every bean now; the four-legged thief might make a nice stew for one of the tenant families, too.

Phil and Anna were pleased with the progress the SDC made feeding its people but troubles remained. Reports of food shortages popped up more frequently around the cooperative. The two spent most of the previous night trying to work on solutions, but hadn’t come up with much. Phil lowered the field glasses for a moment, allowing the landscape to soak back in. The land welcomed sunrise, making colors and shapes jump from sleeping folds and nooks. The breeze moved slightly, causing the wisps to dance like currents in the river.

This is where the Creator truly speaks. Too bad I have to be seventy feet up to appreciate everything we have, Phil thought with a smile.

As someone who hated – really hated – heights, making the climb up to this roof was a source of anxiety for Phil. The sense of duty and the anticipation of the view barely won out each time he set foot on the slowly rusting metal ladder that started where the equally rusty old stairs stopped. Phil’s farm hands, led by AJ and Sam, were working to get an old lift fixed that would at least carry them part of the way up. For now, the climb served as part of their physical training.

While workers were in the field, at least one person would always be up on this level, which Sam affectionately termed the Hawk’s Nest. Sentries assigned to the Nest were usually younger folks who could successfully make the climb and still have the energy to watch for approaching threats. The lift became a priority when Phil came to the realization that older tenants living on the farm might be more useful watching than working. He just had to figure out a way to get them up here.

With Phil’s Fortress Farm as an example, crews all over the surrounding area set to work removing unneeded machinery from inside any available grain elevator. After a thorough cleaning to remove decades of dust and filth, open areas inside were converted to living quarters for Tenant families. While work continued to make the interiors into living space, still-operating heavy equipment – helped by a fair amount of good old-fashioned shovel work – erected earthen walls around the base of the concrete towers. Creating a Midwestern prairie version of a motte-and-bailey, the ten feet thick wall formed a solid ring around the fortress, save for a narrow opening where the railroad tracks approached. A train car modified with a large steel plate and concrete base rolled out away from the wall, forming a gate that could be closed at night or in emergencies.

Most of the defenses were contained within the main concrete towers, but there was still care to add firing platforms along the wall. The gate area was made up of the same concrete box drains and culverts used when individual farmsteads were first fortified, plus these were perched every twenty to thirty yards along the earthen wall.

On the football field-sized grounds enclosed within the wall were community buildings for equipment, training and the critical Great Hall. Right now, the Great Hall was really just an old machine shed providing a common dining area and meeting place for the residents. A giant stone fireplace sat always burning in one corner. In the back of the Hall, a large commercial kitchen was salvaged from a local VFW hall no longer serving members. For now, folding tables and chairs salvaged from a local church made up the seating area.

With all the tasks needing completion, there wasn’t much time for entertainment at night. Mostly sunup to sundown physical labor, dinner and then crashing into bed. Occasionally someone might sing or play a little guitar. Kids were treated to a weekly movie night with old video players powered by the biofuel generators. The new-old ways of skits and storytelling popped up in the more densely populated School Shelters, but life on the farms usually didn’t allow for everyone to be gathered all at once.

These common gathering spaces were intended to provide heimat, another German word provided by Strasburg’s mayor to explain a sense of community or belonging.

Despite attempts at creating a normal routine for people to enjoy, security still came first. Ditchmen – bandits who used the thousands of drainage ditches crisscrossing the rural landscape to hide from the deputies assigned to protect Shelby County – still posed a constant threat. The surrounding geography was just too big for the Self Defense Cooperative to effectively patrol. As foraging in abandoned homes became harder, and the cities became wastelands, the Ditchmen became more desperate.

Desperate men do desperate things, Phil recalled, a warning given by Sheriff Clark Olsen to all the Land Lords of the SDC. Fortress Farms kept those desperate men away from Phil’s family and friends. These giant structures allowed Shelby County’s SDC to combine forces like a kingdom of old. Consolidating their power into castles to secure a dangerous landscape, SDC forces could patrol the area during the day and return to the safety of the walls at night.

Shelby County’s Wizards were working to provide an effective cable-based communication network between the farms spread out on the frontier. Until that was completed, the unobstructed view sufficed to see any human activity for miles around. At the first sign of trouble, alert bells and horns gave those outside the chance to get back inside the walls and then inside the fortified towers. As long as there was an effective watch, these minutes of warning meant the difference between life and death in this dangerous New World.

When the sun went down, everyone near the Fortress Farm retreated into the safety of the concrete towers. The heavy steel gate secured the entrances, and heavily armed men took watch shifts. Solar Storms still illuminated the night skies, allowing the Hawk’s Nest to be an effective lookout even after the sun went down. Rain or shine the watch was kept, though the person tasked always wore a safety harness attached to a metal cage protecting them from falling. Books in the Archives describing the construction of the elevator towers documented untethered workers being suddenly shoved over the side by unexpected wind gusts.

Efficiency improved dramatically as workers felt more secure in the exposed farm fields. This morning Phil watched Tenants calmly shepherding cattle and sheep, and even a sow with a litter of piglets tagging along. Animals sheltered in pens behind the walls at night, then returned to the fenced pastures during the day. The fields closest to the fortress provided the most security and were saved for the animals to graze. Everyone remained aware of Ditchmen watching their animals from hidden vantage points. The thought of fresh meat occasionally became too much for the starving bandits and skirmishes would take place. Unwilling to work for their keep, those remaining outside the pockets of civilization would kill and steal without hesitation.

In the fields just outside the pastures, Phil watched as two 1950s-era tractors began their daily work, two guards with battle rifles keeping watch from a heavily armored old heavy duty farm truck. I still can’t get used to calling a wannabe tank a Snapping Turtle, Phil thought. Though clearly he could see why the name stuck.

The Snapping Turtles held up well in the recent conflicts with bandit groups, even those who possessed large-caliber guns. Fortunately, they hadn’t faced any heavier military-type weapons yet. He dreaded what he knew to be true; that to secure more food for their people, they might soon have to face greater dangers. As the readily available food was consumed, the Shelby County salvage crews would have to venture back into the ghostly larger cities to see what they could find. That was a big risk, unthinkable before the armored trucks arrived.

Even with the advances of Fortress Farm and those like it, animals and plants only grew so fast. Humans could help that pace along, but there were limits of nature. Safer areas around their communities were already picked clean of useful items. Phil was assured by his hunter groups that there probably wasn’t an animal bigger than a cat within thirty miles. Frankly, they hadn’t even seen many cats either. Guess they weren’t looking for groundhogs, he joked to himself. Humans were omnivores, and once their regular food supply was gone, anything they could catch went into the stew pot. Well, hopefully not anything... Horror stories he heard from refugees made him wonder if the worst of humanity lurked outside of their community. Nine meals from chaos.

Phil and Anna thinned rations as much as they could without risking sickness among the residents. Farming mid-1900s style was a high-calorie affair. They both knew it was critical not to eat their seed corn as his grandfather once told him. Future crops depended on maintaining a breeding stock of animals and saving enough seed to replant. The topic was still on their minds as Anna and AJ joined him in the Hawk’s Nest.

The fields are making great progress. But there’s no rushing the crops. We’re going to have start foraging in the cities. Maybe we can find some stuff others overlooked, Phil said to his wife and son.

I don’t disagree we’ll need to forage, Phil, Anna replied, but I just don’t think we can count on finding much that hasn’t been picked over.

It’s frustrating, because in six months, we’ll have plenty. But how do we make it through until then?

Anna thought for a moment. What about the river? Where Clark went for the concrete before? He said the port’s grain-loading facility there was still standing. Maybe we could get enough wheat or corn or soy to help bridge the gap. If things are that bad down there, maybe there’s stuff we overlooked. I mean, if there was no organized effort to gather supplies, who knows what we could find?

Are there places there along the river to fish, Dad? AJ asked.

That's a good idea, son, but I don’t think we can catch enough to make a difference to 10,000 people and get the meat back without spoiling. Plus that river was about empty besides carp before the Great Reset. But it’s certainly worth talking about. We’ll put the question to the Wizards. Maybe they know some technique to preserve or refrigerate things.

Phil continued, Anna, you’re right about the river port. I’ll talk to Clark about it this morning at the meeting.

He watched as Anna smiled through the binoculars; she spotted some the newly trained Collie–German Shepherd mix guard dogs dancing back and forth around the cattle and sheep, protecting and pestering at the same time. Anna made the suggestion to incorporate as many of the four-legged workers into Fortress Farm as they could afford to feed. The mix she chose offered loyalty, intelligence and a huge heart that wasn’t afraid to fight. As she eloquently pointed out, these were just the kind of characteristics that the SDC needed in its troops. And these troops grew quickly to maturity and were easier to train than their two-legged counterparts.

Puppies were already appearing everywhere. Anna’s ideas were often replicated throughout the county, and this particular one appealed to all residents of the farms. The extra mouths added to the food requirements for the farms, but provided an unmatched early warning system and a fearless group of loyal soldiers.

Only she would have thought about something that important without even realizing what the positives might be for everyone. She just has the gift. He stared at her and finished the business part of their conversation. We can talk about all those things later. Meantime, I want to enjoy this view with my beautiful wife and not worry about the rest of the world for a little while.

*****

I fell into a burnin' ring of fire

I went down, down, down

And the flames went higher,

And it burns, burns, burns,

The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

All the young people of the Fortress, and many of the not so young, spun in a large circle to the sound of Phil Hamilton’s favorite song. Players beat on acoustic banjos, guitars and a rickety old drum set, singing along doing the best they could to carry the tune. The dancers didn’t mind, most could barely remember what the original sounded like anyway.

The Man in Black may have recognized the tune, but probably not the moves. Each step having been created right there on the farm during the long nights of no TV or internet. The outside circle, usually made up of men, would spin clockwise. The inside circle, conversely mostly female, would spin counter during the chorus. When the next verse began you grabbed the person directly across from you in their circle and danced a Midwestern polka version of the two step.

The key then was to get back into your circles before the chorus hit again. Each person would act out the motions related to the words. Down, down, down seemed to be the younger kids’ favorite part; not necessarily shared by those whose knees had