Children of a New Earth (9 page)

“Yes, we did realize it would take that long,” Jacob bristled, “but what choice did we have? The ranch only had so many rations to spare. Besides, even if we had a whole barn full, we could only carry so much. These packs are heavy as it is, and they’ll be heavier still with supplies.”

He paused and stared off into space a moment. “You see, the thing is, Amos and I are hoping that we don’t have to go quite so far. There’s another ranch not that far off.”

“Another ranch!?” Patrick howled.

“It was a need-to-know basis,” Jacob said. “The fewer people who knew the locations of the others the better.”

“You mean there’re more?” Shawn gaped.

“Of course, dummy,” Luke said.

“And how do you know?” Jacob asked.

Luke shrank under his gaze. “Kind of obvious, isn’t it?” he replied. “After all, Amos always talks about the movement, how there were thousands in our cause. Forty some people at the ranch can’t be all that’s left.”

Larry laughed. “Can’t get anything past that one, Jacob.”

Shawn turned on him. “You knew too?”

Larry just rolled his eyes. “All of us older guys knew,” he said. “We helped set things up, remember? Of course, none of us knew the locations. I am glad there’s another ranch close. Maybe we can avoid meeting any unfriendlies at all. Besides, it gives me more faith in old Amos.” He nodded to Jacob. “Sorry for expressing any doubts earlier, sir.”

Jacob accepted the apology with a curt nod. “Amos figures that if the other group is still operational, we will be able to barter for most of what we need. If they’ve been compromised, aren’t there, they may still have hidden supply stashes we can use.

“They are still a week or so away, and even in the best case scenario, they will not have everything we need, so we’ll have to go on. They’ll certainly not have the technical stuff. Our primary hope was to be able to get more rations for the deeper mission.

“I still hope to do that. We did make some plans for if that was not possible. I thought we could live off the land, hunt as we go.” He shook his head. “But I haven’t seen any sizable game this whole trip.”

“In these thick woods you won’t either,” Larry replied. “Deer could be three feet away and unless you’re lucky you’d never know it.”

“I saw a couple of squirrels yesterday,” Kurt said.

“Right, but don’t go wasting precious ammo on anything that small. We may need that ammo soon enough.”

“I got a sling,” Daniel said, “and I am pretty good with it.”

“Good lad. Keep it out,” Jacob said. “We are going to have to forage. It will slow us down even more, but it beats starving.”

“I wonder if we can find some acorns,” Shawn said, thinking of survival classes.

Patrick rapped him on the head. “Wrong season, moron.”

Several people chuckled while Shawn blushed. Horace reached over and rapped Patrick on the head. “These are pine trees, moron.”

Patrick was halfway to standing, his fists up, before he caught himself. He sat down blushing.

This trip might be worth it
, Amy thought grimly,
to see that bully put in his place.

Kurt took his turn at fixing a noon meal from their dwindling supplies while the rest watched Horace’s progress across the river. He had waded over halfway across and was chest deep before the current took him. He swam clumsily and reached the far bank only a few meters downstream.

After that it was a simple matter to throw him ropes across the river. He tied three to various trees to make a V. After their meal, they crossed the crude bridge. Amy fought nausea the whole way. It was only her determination to not show any weakness in front of the guys that kept her going.

She noted with satisfaction that both Daniel and Kurt had difficulty with the crossing, and it took a great deal of prompting by Horace to get Willie to cross at all.

As they continued on their way, the path leveled out and the trees began to thin. They crested a low rise, and the trees stopped altogether. They looked out over a vast sea of green.

Chapter 3

DEATH ON THE PLAINS

“A bright clear sky over a plain so wide that the rim of the heavens cut down on it around the entire horizon . . . Bright, clear sky, today, tomorrow, and for all time to come.”

Everyone turned and looked at Luke.

“It’s from
Giants in the Earth
,” he said sheepishly. Everyone continued to stare at him. “My favorite book,” he added.

“Oh, right,” Shawn drawled.

“Short grass prairie,” Larry said as everyone’s eyes were drawn back to the vast panorama before them. “Never thought I would see it again.”

Countless miles of knee-high grass and a vast blue sky stretched before them. Amy felt her breath leave her. Her entire life had been spent within steep valley walls. This openness was both exhilarating and frightening. You could see for miles. She felt small and exposed. 

The grass achieved something the forest did not. It completely obliterated the road. The gravel made poor soil, so the grass grew less robust, leaving a ghost-like impression.

“Damn,” Mark said, “anyone else feel like we are the only ones left?”

“It always felt that way out here,” Larry said with a sigh. “I used to long for it, this solitude. Not anymore.” He laughed dryly. “You know what’s funny? This is called the high country.”

Even though they had come only a couple of miles from the river, Jacob called a halt while he consulted his map.

“There’s good news and bad news,” he told them as they prepared to embark. “The bad news is the map is pretty well useless for a while now. I’d swear this is too early to be leaving the forest, but who knows? Maybe things have changed. Anyway, the good news is we shouldn’t need the map. Our next destination isn’t on it anyway. We head due east.”

They trekked on into a sea of green. Amy soon realized that it was not just green. The short growth boasted a dizzying assortment of plants and flowers. What looked from the distance as a bleak monotony of green was close up an array of colors. Black-eyed Susans, blue chicory flowers, yellow dandelions, and a few taller, purple coneflower were among the few that she could name. There were many more that she could not.

The second thing that Amy soon discovered was that the land was not nearly as flat as it appeared. There were gullies and depressions. The land rose and fell in long slow hills. It was as if the land were a sea with its waves frozen solid.

They trekked on for three days without seeing anything bigger than a bumblebee. Then one day, they crested a hill and saw what must have been a thousand bison spread out on the plain below them.

“Holy cow,” Patrick said in awe.

“Bison,” Daniel corrected him.

“What?”

“They’re bison, not cow.”

Patrick groaned, and a few of the others laughed.

“They’re lunch,” Shawn said raising his rifle.

“Stop it!” Jacob barked, knocking the rifle aside. “Look!”

Amy followed his pointed finger and saw a man on horseback moving sedately through the herd. She followed everyone down into a crouch. She glanced at Luke. He already had his binoculars out.

“They don’t seem to have noticed us yet,” Jacob said from behind his own pair.

“Native American clothing,” Luke said. “That’s odd.”

“Indian,” Patrick corrected. “They’re Indians.” He was squinting through the telescoping sight on his rifle.

“You’re kidding?” Horace said.

“Nope,” Jacob said. “Indians if I ever saw one. Bows and arrows and everything. What does anyone make of it?”

“Maybe society has been reduced to primitive stuff like that?” Kurt ventured.

“In thirty years?” Larry asked.

“Could’ve happened,” Kurt maintained.

“No way,” Luke said. “There’d be some people left who remembered, surely.”

“Maybe all the older people died from the blast or something, and the children, like, didn’t remember civilization,” Shawn said.

“Not possible,” Larry said. “Bows and arrows ain’t as easy as they look. Somebody had to teach them to make and use them.”

“Well, what other explanation is there?” Patrick demanded.

“Maybe they choose this,” Luke said.

“What?”

“They choose to live like this. They remember technology, but they refuse to use it,” Luke explained.

“Why would anyone do such a damn fool thing?” Horace said.

“One thing is sure, they ain’t real Indians,” Jacob said putting his binoculars down, “The one on the left is blond and as white as you or me.

“And a couple of them look to be way past thirty-something as well. No, I think I agree with Luke. They’ve chosen this, though I can’t imagine for the life of me why,” Larry said.

“Maybe it’s because they are mad that technology ruined their world and civilization,” Amy ventured, “so they refuse to use it?”

“That’s just plain stupid,” Patrick sneered.

“Maybe it’s easier,” Luke commented.

“Correction,
that’s
stupid,” Patrick replied.

“What do you mean?” Jacob asked of Luke, ignoring Patrick.

“Biodiesel and ethanol are one thing, but with all this grass, feeding a few horses would be a lot simpler.”

“What about the bows and arrows?” Shawn asked.

“Maybe arrows are easier to come by then bullets?”

“And the get-up?”

“Raising Bison would mean you’d have plenty of leather; why not use it?”

“No way,” Mark sneered.

“I think you are most likely correct, but it doesn’t matter right now,” Jacob told Luke. “Right now what matters is what are we going to do?”

“I say we go down there and get some meat,” Patrick snarled.

“And if they object?” Larry asked him.

“Then we’ll see how their bows do against this.” He brandished his rifle. Mark and Shawn both cheered. 

Typical men
, Amy thought sourly.

“We do no such thing,” Jacob declared. “We backtrack and pass behind those hills and go about our way.”

“What?” Shawn gaped. “We are going to let this opportunity pass?”

“Yes,” Jacob ordered, “head out everyone.” He ushered them back down the far side of the hill.

At the bottom of the hill, John stopped Jacob. “Sir, with all due respect, you did say that rations would not hold us. We clearly outmatch them . . .”

“No,” Jacob turned back.
John apparently deserved an explanation, whereas Shawn did not
, Amy thought as Jacob launched into his talk. “It’s a simple matter of risks versus benefits.

“First the risks; they appear not to have technology, but that is not certain. Even without it, a fight could be risky. I only count four, but they may have reinforcements nearby. Even given we can overpower them, one survivor could alert every hostile force in the region of our presence.”

“Not to mention that attacking people without provocation is wrong,” Amy threw in. Everyone ignored her.

“Then there are the benefits. If Luke is right, and I think he is, they have no technology. That means they will not have what we need. They have meat, and that’s tempting enough. We would only be able to fill our bellies tonight, though. We do not have the time to stop and dry the meat for storage,” Jacob finished.

Amy could hardly believe her ears. She thought she would have believed anything bad about the men of Freedom Ranch on general principal, but she never thought she’d hear them discuss attacking innocent people for a meal. Yet they all seemed to accept this as normal.

“We are assuming they are hostile,” Luke put in, “but we have no reason. Could we parlay?” 

Amy could have kissed him.

“We assume everyone is hostile until we know for certain otherwise. Even then, we suspect,” Jacob replied sharply. “I am taking no chances.”

“If they don’t like technology, they’ll not like us either,” Larry told Luke. “Besides, what are we going to parlay with?”

With that, the debate was ended. They moved slowly to the southeast, keeping the hill between them and the bison herd. Patrick and Shawn continued to grumble about how good fresh bison meat would have tasted. Amy felt a bitter fear settle over her. It was not Patrick and Shawn’s comments that bothered her so much, it was Larry’s. 

What did they have to parlay with? Did Jacob or Amos ever intend to parlay?

Three slow days passed. Jacob had to tighten down on rationing. Each order led to another round of grumbling about the missed bison meat. Patrick seemed to have accepted the decision, but Shawn and Mark had turned sullen.

On the third day, they came to a small river, little more than a stream, really. Its effect on Jacob was way out of proportion to its size. He broke into a big grin. He let them halt long enough to refill their canteens with water and then led them northward, following the river.

They followed him for the better part of the day. He began to move faster, always staying in sight, but ranging ahead of the weary men.

In the late afternoon, the river turned back east. Jacob had gone ahead, northward. As they reached the bend in the river, he came down from a low hill to meet them.

“We’re almost there,” he said. “Just over the next hill, in . . . well, what around here would be called a valley, though nothing like we have back home, is Liberty Farm. That’s another one of the encampments. My first camp actually,” He laughed, a note of hysteria in his voice. “Now, we got to be careful from here. We don’t want to startle the sentries.”

“If they still have sentries,” Horace muttered. Sentry duty at the ranch had ended over fifteen years ago.

“They will,” Jacob replied. “I knew their leader well. Besides, down here they no doubt saw a lot more action than we did. Probably still do. We need to go in obvious and sure.” He withdrew a bundle from his pack and unrolled an American flag. He tied it to the end of his M-16 rifle. “The rest of you, I want guns out. We don’t know if they have been compromised or not. Keep them up but do not show any signs of aggression, understood?”

Amy didn’t understand.
How can you have your guns out and not be showing aggression?
She kept her mouth shut.