by Reed, N. C.
“I got the tag off him for my claim and then took his paws and his teeth,” Kurtis continued. “Natives pay good money for that stuff,” he told the rest in way of explanation. “I decided to make my camp there that night and take the hide. I tanned it and got a good price for it. Sometimes I wish I had kept it. Would have made a good coat or blanket.”
He stopped abruptly, looking around at the others as if he had suddenly realized what he was saying, or rather how much he was saying.
“Damn, man,” Titus was the first to speak. “You got balls you need a wheelbarrow for, dude.”
“No kidding,” Gordy was nodding. “Here I thought I’d done something killing a few wild dogs,” he snorted.
“To be fair, you did kill one with your bare hands, dude,” Corey pointed out. “That has to count for something extra I’d say.”
“Bare hands?” Kurtis frowned. “Really?”
It was a good time for Kurtis to learn about the others, and they him. To let him mesh into the group in a way other people might not be allowed. Times had come full circle now, to when males their age were men grown and no longer boys. Not even teen boys.
Just men.
-
“I can’t claim to know when we’ll be back this way,” Adcock told Clay as he prepared to leave. “We’ve been out of circulation several days with this project, so we’ll have to make up for that. I don’t have any official word, but I expect we’ll start thinking about winter garrison no later than Thanksgiving, and I would not be surprised if it was before then. If things stay quiet in the region, then we might be looking at immediately following Halloween.”
“Good time of year to learn to ride,” Clay nodded. “That would work to our advantage as far as the horsemanship lessons go.”
“That’s another thing,” Adcock sighed. “We’re going to have to find horses for our men, sooner or later. Not to mention saddles and other gear.”
“That will likely be a problem,” Clay admitted. “You should start looking now. There are a lot of horses that are orphaned these days. Remember the horses that Dawson and Draper were riding in Lewiston? They found them along with several others out grazing on the side of roads. You should look for a few good jacks as well. You’ll need them to breed mules. You’ll eventually need them to pull wagons. It’s a long-term proposition since it takes so long to raise them. Better to get started now.”
“Makes sense,” Adcock nodded. “I’ll be on the lookout and pass that word up the chain.”
“When you find an abandoned farm, check for saddles and tack, too,” Clay added. “One here, three there, it all adds up in a hurry.”
“We’ll do that,” Adcock agreed. “I’ll make the trip back with Gleason and the men he’ll start with, so I will definitely see you guys again before we settle in for the winter. And thanks for that recording,” he added cryptically. “I hope I don’t need it, but I’m starting to fear you may be right about her.”
“I hope I’m wrong and she’s just overcompensating because she’s a woman in a what she perceives as a male dominated fraternity,” Clay shrugged. “We’ll see, I guess. But remember what I said. If it becomes necessary, then you can tell your Major I said it. I don’t want any trouble with him or the rest of you, but I’m not going to put up with a lot of crap from someone like her.”
“I don’t blame you, and if it becomes necessary, then I will,” Adcock assured him. “You guys stay safe,” he added as he climbed aboard his Hummer. “We’ll talk soon, hopefully.” He nodded to his driver and the Hummer started for the road. The trucks that had come with them were already lined up on the road, just waiting for their commander. Clay watched them go without any outward reaction, but he was glad to be rid of them, most especially Flores. Whatever her problem was, it was becoming noticeable to the people on the farm, and he didn’t need that turmoil atop everything else.
-
“Ladies, gather around please,” Jose clapped his hands several times to attract attention. “Ladies, gather around and take a seat please.”
The women in question began to take a chair, talk becoming whispers before stopping altogether as the young women wondered what was going on now.
“Ladies, good to see everyone,” Clay surprised them, walking by them from behind on his way to the front of the room. “You’re all looking good in training, by the way, so my congratulations on that. In fact, it’s your training that has led to this little assembly tonight.”
“I’m sure you’re wondering why that is, and I will gladly tell you. But remember, everything I’m about to say is top secret, so if you repeat it, we’ll have to eliminate you and dispose of the body. I hope that’s understood.”
Dead silence.
“Wow. Tough room,” Clay told Jose. “That was a joke, girls. Seriously. You could have at least chuckled a little to make me feel more comfortable.” This statement did draw a round of small laughs.
“Okay then, jokes aside, we do have some serious issues to discuss,” Clay got down to business. “I should say that we have an initial issue to discuss. Your decision on that issue will determine what else we talk about.”
“Your advanced training has reached a place where we have to make some choices. The choices you make tonight will determine where your training goes from here. There is only one initial question for each of you; do you want to go on operations in the field, or would you rather be limited strictly to defensive roles on the farm? Before you start considering this, be aware that there is no wrong choice. Regardless of which role you choose, your training will continue. It’s simply a question of how your training will progress from this point. If you do decide you want to operate in the field, then your training will be a good deal different that the training for defensive measures here on the farm.”
“Different how?” Clay was not surprised that Amanda Lowrey was the first to speak. She worked hard, and then worked harder still with Xavier to develop skills the others ignored.
“If you choose to work in the field, which we call operate, by the way, then you will be folded into a functioning fire team and trained with that team. A fire team normally consists of four people, all of whom usually have at least one specialty aside from simply being a rifleman. Or woman, in this case. When we deploy off the farm, we do so by teams. We may send one team, or we might send five, but we work in those teams, except in rare cases. So, if you choose to be an operator, you will be assigned to a fire team, and begin doing workups with that team so that you can adjust to working together.”
“What if we just choose the defensive roles?” Danica Bennet asked. Bennet was a little larger than Samantha Walters’ petite frame, a classic girl next door type, with brown hair and eyes.
“First of all, there’s no ‘just’ choosing defensive roles,” Clay replied. “Defense of this farm is the most vital work we do. This farm feeds us, shelters us and will eventually clothe us. This farm and its assets are all that keep us from being on the street and living off the side of the road. That may sound overly dramatic but consider where you would have to fall back to if we lost this place.” He paused as the women thought that one over.
“Exactly,” he nodded firmly as he saw the truth hitting home. “There’s nowhere for us to go. So, don’t ever think that choosing to protect this place is somehow taking the easy way out. That you’re not doing your part. No operation we perform in the field will ever be more important to us than protecting this place. Most operations we do in the field are also done in an effort to protect this place and the people who call it home. You will have noted since your arrival that we try our best to limit those operations. We’re not here to fight someone’s war or be a police force. Our own survival is our number one priority, and nothing is allowed to take precedence over that.”
“That said, it is sometimes inevitable that we have to move out into the open and engage hostile forces that are a threat to us or to our neighbors. While our relations with Jordan have been contentious at times, we
would not, for instance, allow them to be overwhelmed by an enemy force. We have gone to their aid once already against a vastly numerical foe, and then destroyed another group that had attacked them before heading this way. The same group that so many of you fell victim to, in fact.”
“The cause of our contentions with Jordan are multi-faceted but can primarily be traced to disgruntled former residents of this farm who have done their best to convince the people in Jordan that I am the antichrist.” He delivered the line with a dry humor that drew chuckles from around the room.
“To give you the brief background, these people had convinced the mayor that I was intending to take over Jordan and all the surrounding area to run it for myself. Now, bear in mind that this was after we had already armed and helped train Jordan’s constabulary and militia forces, including providing them with automatic rifles and heavy weapons. Heaven knows why I would do this if I intended to try and take over,” he shrugged comically, to another round of laughs.
“I tell you this just as background in case someone in Jordan were to mention it to you at some point. I have no interest in taking over anything. I’ve got far more than I can say grace over right here. But anyway, were Jordan to be threatened in a serious way, especially by one that might also threaten us if Jordan were to fall, we would certainly take at least some help to them. How much would depend on how many people were still on the farm, and how many of those people were able to participate in the farm’s defense.”
“Now, although I’ve just offered you a choice, I am afraid that some of you will not be eligible for service off the farm in a security or military role. There are a few people here in our community whose skills are simply too valuable to risk, either because there are too few people able to fill that role, or else there’s no one else that can fill it. That automatically puts you into the defense training path. Some of you may be relieved at that while others may feel slighted. I understand, regardless of which emotion you feel, but we have to weigh our needs on the farm against and ahead of whatever problems may arise away from home.” He took a deep breath and released it.
“Jasmine Webb, your education in home remedy medicine, and particularly your expertise in the plants that are used in healing and treating of ailments, means that you will not be joining the operations teams. In the coming months and years, your knowledge may be all that saves some of us from a great deal of misery. Perhaps, once the others in the medical field have been able to properly assimilate your know-how, we can revisit that, should you want to. But for now, you stay put.”
“Yes, sir,” Jasmine nodded once, looking neither glad nor angry, either one.
“Samantha, I know you knew this was coming, but your expertise in dealing with the cattle will keep you here. We do have a few others who are close to you in ability, but we also have a lot of cattle. You and Dee Talbot are already almost overwhelmed with work as I understand it. There’s just no way we can replace you if you were a part of operations.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam nodded. She had conflicting emotions about the decision, both wanting to accompany Gordy when he was off the farm, and yet not overly enthused about being away from the relative safety the farm offered her.
“Miss Knight,” Clay looked at Gail Knight next, “you will not be eligible for operations for the time being, as we will need your skills with horsemanship to teach others. There are people on this farm who can’t handle horses, and we will soon have roughly sixteen soldiers at a time who will be learning to handle horses from us. This is part of the deal we made to get all those new buildings put up, and to acquire the materials to get that done. In addition to your skill with horses is your ability to handle cattle. That is a skill we must have going forward. Not only can you do it, you can also teach the skill to others. I’m afraid that has to take precedence. You will be working here.”
“Okay,” Gail said simply, having expected it since she was already helping others learn how to handle and ride horses. She had also been helping with the herd whenever she wasn’t training, so it was no surprise that she would need to continue with that. At least she had a job and was needed. In the world she was in now, that was invaluable.
“Abby,” Clay said with trepidation. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but your skill with heavy equipment as well as your training with fire prevention disqualifies you from operations as well. We just have too few able bodies to do that kind of work.”
“It’s fine,” a sullen Abigail nodded. Clay had no way of knowing it, but Abigail was still smarting from the complete meltdown her relationship with Jody Thompson had endured. The fact that she could not be added to the operations side of things was of little or no consequence to her at the moment.
“For the rest of you, this in no way means you aren’t valued or don’t have skills we need. To the contrary, I think all of you have discovered that we need all the help we can get. What this means is that we have enough people in your skill set that we can offer you this choice, though we must deny it to others. We don’t expect your answer this evening, or even tomorrow if you need more time. But day after at the latest, we need to know what you intend to do. It takes time to integrate you into a working team. Are there any questions you may have that would help you make your decisions?”
“How often do you guys go off the farm like that?” Petra Shannon wanted to know.
“There’s no way to answer that one accurately,” Clay admitted. “To be honest, we strive to never be in a position where we have to. But that hasn’t really worked out for us too well, so far. Still, we do try to avoid it whenever possible.”
“What does being on the operations team, or away-team to borrow a Star Trek phrase,” Savannah Hale didn’t grin as she spoke, “entail? What kind of work would we be doing if we chose that path?” She was about average height, maybe five feet five inches, and slender. While not as whip thin as Olivia Haley, she was on the slender side.
“It depends on what’s needed,” Clay replied. “For instance, when we went to get your things, there were two teams, or in that case parts of two teams, involved with security. They were there in case the group we had already eliminated wasn’t the only group, or in case the group had more people than just those we had seen so far.”
“When Jordan was attacked, it was four teams, pretty much all hands, and we rode in armored vehicles and used heavier weapons than what you’re trained on at present. That would have been described as a classic military operation. Other times, it may be guarding a truck as it moves from one place to another. We’ve done reconnaissance missions, search-and-rescue missions, salvage missions, escort missions and, of course, combat missions. Tomorrow, we may be presented with a need we haven’t encountered before and have to figure out something new.”
“What are the risks of serving on the operations side, as you called it? Carol Kennard asked. Carol was almost the same build as Abby and had lived an active outdoor life before falling victim to the fake soldiers that had died attacking the farm. Her mousy blonde hair was pulled into a braid that ran down her back.
“If you’re asking if you can be shot and killed, the answer is yes,” Clay told her flatly. “We’ve had it happen. It will happen again, sooner or later. You can also be cut, stabbed, break a bone, take a blow to the head- I can keep going but you should be getting the picture. There is an immense risk of personal injury in serving like this. There’s also risk of injury just working on the farm, of course, but being on a mission away from home does multiply that risk considerably. Again, this is why we do our best not to operate away from the farm at all.”
“Anyone else?” Clay asked when no one immediately presented a hand. Apparently, there were no more questions for the time being.
“Very well, then,” Clay rubbed his hands together. “You’re dismissed. However, if you think of something else you want to ask, come find Jose or me, either one. We’ll make whatever time we need to in order to answer your questions.”
The young women fi
led out of the room, talking quietly among themselves. Clay waited until they were gone to look at Jose.
“Five?” he tried to guess how many would want to join a fire team.
“I’m going to say six,” Jose replied after a minute of thought, “but I think I’m going to predict also that none of them will sign on. There will be one or two that come close, but I think the others will talk them out of it.”
“Could be,” Clay agreed. “We never really intended to use them in that capacity anyway, though. It was just because they did so well in training that we decided to give it a try. Abby would have jumped at the chance a few months back. She seemed distracted tonight. Didn’t even argue when I told her she couldn’t do it. I would have sworn I’d have a fight on my hands with her being denied.”
“Might want to talk to your brother,” Jose said cryptically, putting Clay immediately on guard.
“Not this shit again,” he groaned.
-
Clay listened patiently as his brother detailed what he knew of the situation between Jody and Abigail as the two brothers sat on the front porch of Robert’s home. Clay shook his head in a sympathetic gesture when Robert finished.
“I honestly don’t know what to tell you, brother. I honestly had thought she was beyond that kind of stuff, anymore,” Clay told his brother. “She’s really done well over the last several months, Robert. Seriously. She has been completely dependable for us in every job she’s been given.”