“Good for you. Let’s see what we got here Rafe.” Sitting down and addressing my pile of letters. I noticed that the top one of Rafe’s piles was from Stan Worth.
Rafe saw it and opened it immediately, read it and said, “Listen to this. It’s from Stan in QM. He writes, ‘about to be evicted from my farm, people aren’t friendly here anymore, Molly and me ready for anything new, awaiting orders, buying new wagon and team today. Stan’.
Jason said, “Stan will be a good one to have around.”
Rafe said, “I’m thinking of setting him up in Poseidon with the store we need.”
Ike piped in, “He’ll be good as a store keeper. If he was to go to Chicago and work his way west on the railroad line he’d be sure to pick up whatever farming equipment we need, at the stops along the way and at the same time meet a lot of folks who can supply the store. Then we could make his store in Poseidon the place to stop for final instructions”
Rafe said, “Damn good idea. I’ll get to work on an answer, send him plenty of money. You two do some more thinking about what will be needed. Are we going to go with mules or oxen?”
I shifted my attention away from them to my pile of letters. They’d sort it all out eventually. I’d someday, after their integration, introduce them to the concept of prevailing realities and how high and thick mental walls become around a repetitious effort like farming. This has its good side, too; when an enemy is trying to tear your mind apart.
I’d written mostly to the nurses which I’d gone to school with. Most were married and thankful for the $1,000 gift, but seven hadn’t married, or already buried their men, and were game for a new adventure. The gambler wrote back, he was in a Sanatorium for TB in New Mexico. He reckoned he had enough strength for him and his nurses to get to Poseidon but needed two thousand more. What the hell, the novelty might keep him alive long enough to get here. There was no TB here and there never would be. I prepared my responses to the nurses and included an extra two thousand to each of them to cover the costs of the latest medical journals. Not that we’d be using them but to have a learning level from which to begin their real training. I also told them if they had any loves in their lives to bring them along, drugged if need be.
We worked until somebody said, “I’m hungry.”
So we stopped and made food, steaks and fried potatoes, and cans of green beans and for dessert cans of peaches. I made a mental note to talk to the ladies about dancing routines. An hour a day of can-can makes one strong. It used to make us all wealthy, when you caught the right eye, and followed up.
After supper I gathered all of the letters we’d received and Louise, ever the librarian, made neat files and we put them in the manager's office filing cabinet, which we emptied. I made sure to touch all of the letters knowing I’d be sending out many thoughts of reinforcement and overcoming many misgivings until they were all here. I hadn’t decided how many crew members and Habitat dwellers I needed. Maybe when we reached 100,000 I’d give it some thought. Jason took the outgoing mail to the Bank.
Louise also offered to draw a big map of the mid-section of the country so we could track the progress or our incoming people when they wrote to us. I’m sure a lot would arrive unannounced, and probably some would arrive that we had never heard of before. I mentally ran over the routines that I would have to administer to the misfits. That is, the ones which would never fit in. I would just escort them back through the pass in the hills: wipe out any memory of their time here, put in some basic activities to account for the elapsed time, some money to keep them going, and let them go.
Before Rafe and I went up to rest, ahead of the night shift, I cautioned everybody, “Tell all your people that they are to keep their plans to themselves. That will protect them from robbers.”
I didn’t say that we would all be protected from the Enemy noticing the population pattern shift and questioning why, so many things to consider. But I knew I was up to the challenge.
Chapter 4
THELMA
Slightly over three months after our arrival, Rafe and I sat on the Rest’s front porch about ‘sundown’ watching a wagon approach. It was decided that Rafe would be the focus point for the new arrivals, the one in charge. I was to be the mid wife/nurse. Ike and Louise took over the general store. Jason and Marilyn took over the Rest, and the slaughter house, which we’d not found necessary to use yet. Rafe looked in on the Livery stable now and then, but an unattached young fellow named Spirlo Watkins who'd wandered in about a month ago, was bunking there and had laid claim to all that went on. After much to do, we’d arranged for an incoming group to bring along a steam driven saw mill and it was set up along the hills producing a steady supply of various sized lumber. The saw mill had only been working a week so new houses weren’t up yet. Consequently the arrivals, seventy six so far, were enjoying the Emperor's Rest’s hospitality.
That’s not to say homesteads weren’t laid out. Rafe had laid out 50 acre plots and most people had already sunk wells. ‘Fortunately’, the wells had turned out to be artesian with a plentiful flow. He’d said that fifty acres should provide some privacy. The farming was to be done on a community basis. That concept had never worked, widely, but here I could ‘persuade’ the shirkers, if any, to try harder.
I focused directly on a Conestoga as it drew near. There was something amiss; too many life signs. I made out nine inside, plus the couple in the drivers seat. Reaching back behind me, I pulled the emergency rope, which made everyone inside aware of a problem. Above me I sensed windows opening and rifles and shotguns being readied.
“There are too many horses tied behind the wagon Rafe. Plus they have blankets over their backs and what looks like saddles under the blankets. Horses on trail lines wouldn’t normally be saddled. We’ll have to be careful.”
Rafe stood up and slipped the hammer thongs off of his pistols and said, “Good eye, this place lulls one to sleep.”
“Let's not make it an eternal sleep.”
“So right.”
We stepped down from the porch apart from each other. The driver stopped further away from the hitching rail than was usual and set his brake. I sensed people getting out of the wagon from the rear. Between the driver and his female companion a head appeared and a mean voice said, “Nate is here, and I’m taking over this place.”
I pulled my pistol and shot him in the middle of his forehead. Then I went into my slow down mode wherein molasses would be frozen and sent the driver a command, ‘MOVE!’ He slipped the brake off and laid his whip into the mules. I gave the wagon a mental push and quite quickly it wasn’t a shelter for the eight men behind it. Several rifles and a shotgun went off aimed at Rafe and me so I extended my personal body shield to encompass Rafe and keep him out of danger, while rifles and shotguns boomed from the windows above. The eight of them jerked and staggered, and one by one fell. One big fellow was the last to go. It was a shame. He would have made a good plow hand. There would be enough of the ‘essence’ left to resurrect him into a new body assigned to the Mechanized Infantry, to start with.
“That’s that. We’ll have to set up an inspection station at the pass to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Rafe said, “I’ll tend to that right away; might be more of this band standing off.”
He strode away yelling orders to the ones he wanted saddled up.
The driver walked back to me.
He said, “I’m Travis Pall. There was no way to warn you short of getting us dead, and then they would have driven the wagon themselves.”
“We’ll talk later. Get your lady inside and go on to the livery and someone there will tend to your team. I have to tend to the bodies now.”
Turning to the men who had came down from their rooms I ordered, “Strip them and leave their gear on the ground. Don’t forget the one in the wagon. Then get a buckboard and take them over to the doctor house and lay them out on the surgery tables. Pile them on top of each other. Build nine coffins. I’ll prepare th
em for burial. Reverend Haskin, pick out a place for a graveyard.”
He said, “I’ll do that.”
The others scattered to do as asked. A few of them looked at my .36 caliber Colt but didn’t bring themselves to comment. I was glad for the Reverend being here. He'd come in about two months ago with his wife, saying he'd heard there was a new town being built.
The horse pulling the buckboard didn’t much like the smell of fresh blood but I calmed him and the bodies got loaded and shortly later off loaded onto the examining room tables. I asked a fellow named Lonnie to come back and help me shift the bodies around when the coffins were ready.
He said, “If you can stomach the smell of them I can, too. Reminds me of a prisoner camp I scouted one time.”
He left to go help with the coffins. I straightened the limbs of the bodies on the tables which had only one occupant. After triggering the scanner built in the tables I washed the blood off them. They’d all bled out. One mile below the surface in the great caverns with their rows of tanks the imprint sequence took place. There the ‘body blanks’ would accept the ‘essence’. Maybe, I would have to fill in some missing time frames later.
I ran the setup below through my mind. The first six blanks in row A were copies of me and the ones who’d been taken from Colorado. Then there was the initial crew from my deep space wanderings. All those back-up bodies were being programmed moment by moment. The rest of the ‘body blanks’ were open, awaiting programming. There were 40,000 tanks containing bodies. In another cavernous room further down there were another 40,000 tanks with bodies. In addition, there were two more rooms, with 80,000 empty tanks apiece, if I needed them.
I switched the bodies on the exam tables around myself: make mental strength adjustment, start chant, stand/body, augment body,--no problem. Though I had to really concentrate a moment when I came to the big fellow. Eventually all of them had their alone time on a table. I wiped/subtracted their minds back to their fifteenth birthday and put them into a dream sequence where they were chasing girls. That should keep their minds busy for a century or so while their violent deaths became a distant memory.
Finished, I washed myself and changed clothes. Lonnie came back with seven men and the finished coffins. I told him to do what was necessary and sat on the porch of the doctor’s house with a fresh cup of tea. The coffins went in: nails were pounded, coffins came out, and were loaded into three buckboards. They departed for a knoll not far off where the Reverend stood amidst freshly dug graves. I congratulated him mentally, for being a practical fellow. Why let much distance come between the infirmary and the graveyard. I could have repaired the bodies, if I was below, but prevailing reality is prevailing reality. Their new bodies would be much better anyway.
Rafe found me there and I poured him a tea.
I said, “Just like Sunday afternoon on the plantation.”
A shadow crossed over him, and he was back there with his losses. I let him remember for a moment and then asked, “Are we secure now?”
“Yes, except for an assault from a large force. There’s a mile or so of straight canyon, so I placed twenty riflemen above that stretch and along the trail at the canyon mouth. We need Gatlin guns to stand off a larger force.”
I said, “It will take a while to get Gatlin guns here, but order them. In case we don’t get them soon enough we could arrange a landside.”
“It would be a real bother to dig it out, but that’s a great idea. John Halverton did a stretch in the mines. He knows dynamite. There are some boxes of it in the warehouse. I’ll talk to him. Right now I want to sit and reflect on how trouble has come to Paradise.”
“Trouble always comes to Paradise, Rafe, that’s the nature of people, some are always spoilers.”
“I wonder why God saw fit to make us like that.”
“Good question. Next time I see him I’ll ask.”
Rafe chuckled heartily at my comment, which had been in all seriousness. Pulling up mentally, I cautioned my mind, about observing realities, different and layered and said, “In the bitter end, I don’t expect those folks who put us here would allow us to be wiped out. We, with enough dynamite, or they could close the canyon access altogether. Sure we’d be cut off from supplies, but we’d survive.”
Rafe said, "Yeah, we’d survive, but how pleasantly? I'll order more steam engines. They have those that can be coupled with a grain thrasher now,” Rafe said.
“I didn’t know, but you do whatever you think necessary, as quickly as you want to. Maybe I’d better make an inventory of medicines and you can arrange for them immediately.”
“You’d better do that. I’ll go see John. We’ll meet back in the room later.”
We kissed, absently, as old couples do. I’d get him focused later. There was no pressing need as I was two months pregnant, and almost done with sex for the next seven months, but practice thereof makes perfect, and there are other ways. Marilyn and Louise were roughly a month pregnant. It was the first time for all of us. I’d prepared some potions to make it easier on us than it would normally be.
Chapter 5
RAFE
It was six months since we'd arrived here. I looked around, and in the diminished light of our ‘night’; I could make out the Emperor's Rest ahead. Looking back over my right shoulder, I could see the hills behind. I’d been inspecting the guard positions in, and above the pass. We were able to procure six Gatlin Guns and I oversaw the placing of four above the pass and two at our end of the straight stretch. There were no further intrusions, which made me even more worried. No one else shared my concern, but they were going along with my orders. It was odd with no further trouble about, I didn’t have more dissention. I pulled the horse up and dismounted. Placing the five foot tall iron rod into the ground with an abrupt thrust downward, and giving it a couple of blows with the sledge hammer, I'd brought along, I considered it stationary enough. Ribbons were tied to it. This place would be manned from ‘daybreak’ onward by a flag signalman. He’d use lanterns at ‘night’. I didn’t care if anyone appreciated my worry or not. We weren’t ever going to be caught off guard again.
Thelma was at the doctor’s house, asleep. We took up residence there to free up another room in the Rest. All four hundred and twenty rooms were full. Despite seven construction crews, we couldn’t put up houses fast enough to keep ahead of the arrivals. Passing the word had mushroomed with more arrivals recommending even more recruits. I just hoped the Army wasn’t keeping a count on how many people left Poseidon as opposed to how many reached Washington Territory. Ike’s last report said 1347 men, 1429 women, and 2809 children.
My worrisome mood was probably stirred up by Thelma’s pregnancy.
Ike and Louise, Jason and Marilyn, Thelma and I had a combined marrying day two months ago. I don’t know about Louise and Marion, but Thelma hadn’t considered it important, the marrying, but reckoned it would be in step with the community, so we did it. I tried to remember back to my children before the war, but something wouldn’t let me do it. Anyway, new time, in a new place, made for new feelings.
I mounted and proceeded at a walk toward our house. I knew Thelma would be stirring soon. She’d have another busy day doing exams. Everybody had to be examined as soon as possible after arrival. Thelma said that was necessary to prevent anything from spreading. The task was made a bit easier by the addition of a real doctor.
Larry Wallace had been an unexpected recruit. Recently graduated from medical school he’d lost his wife and young child to an illness during a layover in Chicago. Poseidon hadn’t been his destination (after Chicago, rather Oregon), but the conductor had kicked him off the train in Poseidon for drunkenness. He’d wandered into Stan Worth’s store looking for a bottle, which Stan provided, as well as a second one after hearing his tale. Then Stan shoved him onto an outgoing freight wagon along with a case of whiskey. Larry had arrived totally drunk out of his mind. We weaned him, and when he could walk again Thelma put him to work with the men who didn’t
like to be examined by women doctors, let alone woman nurses who knew it all. He’d sober up some day, but a month had gone by. He didn’t drink during the day, and did what he was asked to do. When done for the day he reclaimed his perch on the corner bar stool from anyone who had been silly enough to sit in ‘his seat’.
I unsaddled Trotter, and released him, into the small corral behind the woodshed putting out grain and hay for him. Entering the kitchen I started a fire in the cook stove, put the coffee pot on, and then sat at the kitchen table to work on the duty roster for next week. This was my last one. I’d extended an invitation to my old first sergeant and he eventually showed up. He was quite broken up physically, but Thelma said it wasn’t anything some potions wouldn’t cure. Actually, he was recovering slowly from a broken leg which hadn’t been set right. Said he’d become accustomed to walking in circles to get somewhere in front of him. Thelma offered to reset it, but he didn’t trust her. First Sergeant Harris Mc Govern was good Scottish stock from the northeast hills of Alabama as he told it. If he’d lost his sense of humor he’d have been totally gone, I figured.
Thelma wandered into the kitchen and the coffee started to boil over at the same time. I kissed her, as she grabbed cups from the cupboard and sat them on the table. I poured and sat the pot back on the stove's warm area.
“Up again all night, stomach again?”
“Yes.”
Sympathetically I said, “That’s about like I remember pregnancies. I got up early and rode over to the pass to see if everybody was alert.”
“One of these times you’re going to turn the screw a bit too tight and get yourself shot.”
“It has happened, not to me, yet. How is Doctor Larry coming along?”
“Better. Only, half a bottle per night.”
“Can’t you give him something?” I wondered.
“Of course, but his system needs to be cleaned of alcohol gradually. That way, when he looses his taste for it, he won’t relapse. So the experts say.”
Greener Green I: Where Does the Circle Begin Page 3