“Little bit of advice, partner: Never think that you can help a woman deal with something like that. If she has not taken up smoking or some other addiction, she likely already has a line on how to fix it herself. Women tend to talk about the thing for the sake of the thing, where you and I as guys are talking about this to try and find a solution. Women are weird that way. Has she told you about her ex?”

“No.”

“I’m guessing that you are gentleman enough to not bring up the subject.” Joshua grunted an affirmation and Dustin let out a long exhalation. “Then I think that you’re going about this the right way. Two points of observation: She is not going to expose the most vulnerable part of her life, that being her sons, unless she’s really sure that you are worthy of that level of trust. Secondly, you had better not burn that bridge if she is a keeper. Is she a keeper?”

“I really believe that she is. I know that it seems too soon to tell, and that there is this rule somewhere that you have to date for longer than we’ve been seeing each other, but to be honest with you, Dustin—”

Dustin interrupted. “You’d better be honest with more than just me, Josh! Are you being honest with yourself?”

“Honestly, I love her. At least the version of her that I have in my head. When I’m brought into the rest of her story, then I might feel different or perhaps stronger—but I really think that she is the one.”

Dustin knew Joshua very well, and he wanted to give him the assurance that he heard every word that he said, and to give him an out if he wanted to end the conversation. So Dustin ended with, “Brother, I’m really glad that we had this talk. Seriously.”

7

THE CROSSING

How complacent we become when we sit secure, hedged round by laws and protections a government may provide! How soon we forget that but for these governments and laws there would be naught but savagery, brutality and starvation!

For our age-old enemies await us always, just beyond our thin walls. Hunger, thirst, and cold lie waiting there, and forever among us are those who would loot, rape, and maim rather than behave as civilized men.

If we sit secure this hour, this day, it is because the thin walls of the law stand between us and evil. A jolt of the earth, a revolution, an invasion or even a violent upset in our own government can reduce all to chaos, leaving civilized man naked and exposed.

—Louis L’Amour, Fair Blows the Wind

East of Seattle, Washington—October, the First Year

Phil’s drive across the Snoqualmie Pass was nerve-racking. Though the pass was clear of ice and snow, there was heavy traffic, of all descriptions, heading east. Overloaded vehicles were the norm. He noticed that many drivers were hunched up close to their steering wheels, looking tense.

Although it would have been far more direct to take Interstate 5 north to British Columbia, he knew from AM radio reports that the border crossings had at least a three-hour delay. And of course the guns that he was carrying would have put him in handcuffs immediately, given Canada’s draconian gun laws.

He was heading for the town of Oroville, Washington. Normally a five-hour drive via the Snoqualmie Pass and Highway 97, it took him nearly seven hours with the heavy traffic in the first stretch. The traffic had lightened up considerably north of Wenatchee, and it was almost normal when he got north of Omak.

As he drove, he punched the radio’s Seek button regularly and often switched from AM to FM, trying to catch as much news as possible. Reports were filled with frightening incidents of galloping inflation, large-scale street protests and riots in most major American cities, emergency executive orders, bank closures, and a full-scale panic on Wall Street.

He knew that Oroville was along a “porous” stretch of the border that had often been used by narcotics smugglers. Four years earlier, he had investigated an industrial espionage case where a set of mil-spec composite aircraft wing tooling had been smuggled across that stretch of border, destined for mainland China. The perpetrators were never caught, but Phil had filed the border crossing location away in his memory as a useful tidbit.

He arrived in Oroville late in the day, and low on fuel.

As he waited his turn in the long queue at the Cenex gas station, he removed his Garmin GPS receiver from its dashboard bracket. He programmed the leftmost loop of Meadowlark Road into the GPS. After twenty minutes in line, he reached the pump and was horrified to see gasoline priced at twenty-eight dollars per gallon and CASH ONLY. Despite the high cost, he filled his tank completely. The 26.5 gallons cost him $742. There were police officers responding to some sort of scuffle inside the station’s convenience store, so he didn’t dare go in.

The new routine at the station was interesting: Gasoline was no longer self-serve. Since the digits on the pump’s display couldn’t accommodate more than $9.99 per gallon, they had it marked “$2.80,” with a handwritten sign above that read: MULTIPLIED BY 10. An attendant carrying an FRS walkie-talkie would approach each car near the head of the line to preapprove it to buy gas or diesel, which meant showing him at least five hundred dollars in cash. Then, once at the pump, payment was demanded in advance. Meanwhile, an armed security guard stood by, holding a Mossberg shotgun and watching the proceedings closely.

Phil timed his arrival at the border for precisely 5:00 P.M. He hoped this would coincide with a shift change for border patrol agents on both sides of the border, so there would be a lower chance of encountering a patrol vehicle. All that stood between him and Canada was one hundred yards of grassy meadow and a three-strand barbed-wire fence in the middle of it.

Across the border was a web of roads that had been punched in and graveled for a housing development that never happened because of the economic downturn that began in 2008.

Phil’s hands were shaking as he walked to the fence, holding a pair of compound aircraft snips. These high-leverage cutters made quick work of the fence wire. Heavily tensioned, the wires whipped back as they were cut just to the right of a cedar pole H-brace. (He realized that someone would eventually have to repair the fence to prevent cattle from becoming illegal aliens. Cutting it there would make retensioning the fence wires much easier for whoever did the repair.) The T-posts were spaced twelve feet apart, so it wasn’t difficult to fit his pickup through the gap in the fence. He eased the pickup forward and across the uneven pasture ground, whistling nervously. He wondered about cameras and sensors but trusted that the law of averages was on his side.

Only ten minutes later he was driving through Osoyoos, British Columbia. He didn’t dawdle, but he was careful to observe the speed limit signs. He wanted to be outside of the fifty-mile-wide border enforcement zone as soon as possible.

His GPS trip planner estimated a 630-mile drive to reach his destination of Bella Coola, which would take about thirteen hours in normal driving conditions.

Reaching the point of exhaustion, he pulled onto a small road that went into Crown land. He followed the road for several hundred yards and then pulled off on a logging road, where his pickup could not be seen.

Shutting down the engine, he assessed his situation: He’d apparently made his border crossing undetected. The gas gauge read just over a half tank. He didn’t have any Canadian currency, but he did have a handful of pre-1965 U.S. silver quarters and dimes, as well as one half-ounce Canadian Maple Leaf gold coin that he’d bought during a dip in precious metals prices in late 2013. He prayed that it would be enough to get him to the McGregors’ ranch.