The Living Will Envy The Dead by Christopher Nuttall Page A

weapons.  Rumour had it that he had enough guns and ammo to fight a civil war.  “He knows what he’s doing.”
     
    “As do I,” Simon Horvat agreed.  Simon owned the largest General Store in Ingalls, which, despite bitter competition from Wal-Mart, still managed to make a profit.  His service made up for higher prices, in pretty much everyone’s view.  “I second the nomination.”
     
    There was a brief buzz of debate, but there were no other candidates.  Mac was nominated for the job by someone who owed his family a favour, but declined it, while Walter Loy – the local High School teacher – accepted the nomination, but lost.  I wasn't entirely happy about that.  Walter was a fairly decent sort who actually wanted to make sure that kids learned something and, unlike me, was better at convincing people to go along with him…
     
    “But it’s useless,” someone protested, at the rear.  The despair in his voice surprised even me.  “America is dead!”
     
    “No, it’s not,” I said, genuinely angry for the first time since the meeting had begun.   I had heard enough from defeatists in Iraq, mainly people who had done their fighting in Washington.  “America is not dead.  America isn’t the cities, or the land, or the President, or even the Stars and Stripes.  America is the people !”
     
    I touched my heart gently.  “America exists here, in all of us, and as long as we are alive and true to ourselves, America won’t die,” I said, allowing my voice to grow louder.  “We can rebuild the country and make it great again if we have faith in ourselves and don’t give up.  Americans are not quitters!”
     
    There were plenty of people in foreign nations that would have disagreed with that, but it didn’t matter, not now.  The nomination was confirmed quickly and I found myself in command of the defence and rebuilding effort.  Mac was nominated for Mayor – someone was earning their patronage tonight – but declined it again, leaving Walter Loy to be nominated.  That wasn't a bad thing, as far as I was concerned.  I liked Walter.
     
    “All right,” I said, once order had been restored.  Having talked the talk, it was now time to walk the walk.  I’d spent several hours thinking about how to proceed and then discussing it with Mac, who had had his own suggestions.  It wasn’t going to be easy.  The reason the original Jail Posse had been so large had been because some of the members might not be able to make it if there was a real emergency.  They included farmers, engineers and other people we were going to need elsewhere.  They couldn’t be risked on the battlements.  “Here is what we are going to do.
     
    “First, and most important, we are going to start a rationing system,” I said.  “Simon, I think, will be in charge of that.  People who work get fed.  We’ll organise the manpower allocations over the next few days, but a lot of people are going to have to be reallocated pretty quickly.
     
    “Second, I’m going to have to conscript most of the boys from the school,” I continued.  There were around four hundred boys who could be considered military age if one squinted a bit.  It was against the new International Law – as opposed to the far more practical older International Law, but no one followed that these days, apart from the West – but I didn’t care.  I would sooner have the boys alive and fighting than dead.  “We’re going to have to strengthen the borders as soon as possible.  The Jail Posse can’t stay on duty forever.”
     
    This provoked more argument.  Small towns, as I may have mentioned, tend to be more patriotic than the bigger cities, and no, not because bigger cities tend to be more liberal.  Ingalls had sent away thousands of young men – and dozens of young women – to various wars, almost as long as the town itself had been in existence.  Ingalls had sent men to the Civil War – we were very even-handed;