Leah listened to minute after minute of the diatribe until he finished. It went on for some time. When Lee Wolf concluded, she glanced at a note she’d written down and then started typing into the laptop. The bobcat hunting season was September 1 in the state of Arkansas. In Missouri it wasn’t until November 15. The Swift Sword of the Savior was in Arkansas.

At the Ararat community, Lonny Mann and Edison Leonard were helping clear a new plot for a vegetable garden. The process required hard labor. A line of men with machetes waded into a large, rectangular plot, which had been marked by rags tied to a branch on each corner, and hacked down and carried off a thick layer of weeds and brush. Men with axes, chain saws, and spades followed them. They cut the trunks of trees, saplings, and bushes, dug down and severed roots and pulled the stumps, and carried them off the plot. Behind them came Ed Leonard, Lonny Mann, and other men with mattocks and hoes to break up the sod to expose the soil. As they worked, they found and dug out rocks and carried them to the perimeter.

Lee Wolf’s advice had not been wasted on either of them. There was no way to know what the ramifications of the disastrous raid on Weldonville might be. Violent acts could leave dozens of trails to the person who had done them. And in this particular situation, the authorities already knew their names and had their fingerprints, DNA, and photographs.

Wolf was out working in the patch too. The group had grown some vegetables in the spring and early summer, but now they were making a bigger effort. Second plantings of beets, kale, carrots, lettuce, peas, squash, and spinach could all be harvested late in November most years, and this large plot could make a big difference. Whatever they grew, they wouldn’t have to buy.

Wolf made a big show of being one of the first to begin work and the last to stop to rest. He had no shirt on, but wore a bandanna around his head to keep the sweat out of his eyes. Lonny Mann and Edison Leonard did the same to give the impression of hard labor. They knew that what caused the need for more food was more people, so they needed to be counted in this project.