“Good. Then follow me.” He drove past them and up the smaller road. The next half hour was spent listening to the high whine of the gears as the cars climbed. The road wound and half-twisted to find the vulnerabilities of the land, the places where pavement could be laid over rock, the spots where a steep incline was made easier by using rocks and concrete to extend its length. Some stretches rose until there seemed to be no more road, but when the car got there, a hairpin turn sent them upward in the other direction.

Near the top of the hill, the road straightened and even widened a little, and there was a gravel jog off to the right into the trees. The two cars took it and kept going for about a mile until it opened into the grassy meadow with the buildings on it. Lee Wolf set the speed. It was a pace he had chosen to be respectful. It respected people’s concern for any children who might be playing there, or anyone who might be annoyed by cars kicking up dust, or the ones who were always on the lookout for hostile intruders and didn’t like having to look up from whatever work they were doing to make sure a gun was in reach.

As the two cars slowly moved across the meadow, people came out to smile and wave at Lee Wolf. He drove to the front of the plain clapboard structure where he lived and waited until the other car pulled in beside him. Edison Leonard and Lonny Mann got out of their car, and he said, “You can go right in if you want. I stopped for some groceries on the way, and I’ve got to get them to the kitchen.”

He backed up about twenty yards to the big cookhouse, opened his trunk, got out of the car, and began to unload. People who had stopped what they’d been doing to see him gathered to help. He had several five-gallon bottles of drinking water, two cases of egg cartons, bags of rice, sugar, flour, salt, and baking powder. He had two crates of fresh meat—beef, chicken, pork, sausages, turkey—all packed in ice. His biggest investment had been in canned goods. There were two dozen canned hams, flats of canned chili, soups, beans, vegetables, fruits, and tomato sauce. He had cases of beer and soft drinks, and a dozen bottles of scotch and a dozen of vodka.

As people helped unload, they talked. “So, you’re back,” said a man named Bob Carpenter. “You okay?”

“We had kind of a rough time,” said Lee. “We lost three good men. I brought the other two back with me. But I thought it would cheer us up to stop and pick up some supplies on the way home.”