B00C74WTKQ EBOK (15 page)

There was a cautious introduction phase as Reynaldo, armed with a shotgun, assured himself that these strangers meant no threat to him or his family. Reynaldo, along with his wife and three young children, had a subsistence farm better than any Adrian had seen so far. They were far enough from any dense population center that they hadn’t been run over by the walking starving when the grid dropped. This was remote, near-desolate country. Except for losing the luxury of electricity, their lives had not been strongly impacted.

Adrian took a sip of goat’s milk and thought,
This is pretty good. Probably very nutritious, a great survival food.
Adrian said, “Thank you again for your hospitality sir.”

“Please call me Reynaldo. Only the police ever used to call me ‘sir,’ makes me nervous.” Reynaldo spoke English with a heavy accent. He was fluent, but the accent sometimes made him hard to understand. “You are most welcome; we get so few visitors that you’re a delight to have. I understand what you are saying about an invasion. I’ve heard much about it. My cousin Juan just came up from Oxaca and has many stories. I sent my son to go bring him here to talk to you about this. He knows much more than I, so we wait for him.”

Reynaldo’s wife served an excellent lunch while they were waiting. Corn tortillas wrapped around spicy goat meat and pinto beans, and a side dish of cooked greens that Adrian didn’t recognize but found delicious, all served again with goat’s milk. Adrian asked about the greens and Reynaldo told him they were Moringa leaves. After lunch, Reynaldo took the three men on a tour around his ranch. Adrian told Bear to stay by the truck. The wolf curled up in the shade of the truck and waited patiently.

Goats were the perfect livestock for this arid area, able to survive and even thrive, on the native vegetation. Reynaldo had a windmill that pumped water into a series of tanks. This water kept the goats nearby, and hand feeding them with corn twice a day kept them tame, thus no fences were required except around his corn and vegetable patch to keep the goats out. Reynaldo explained that he planted the corn first and when it was the right height he planted beans around the corn stalks. Once the beans started climbing the corn stalks he then planted squash as well. It was a symbiotic relationship between the plants, each providing something the other needed whether it was shade or something to climb on or nutrients.

“We call them
Tres Hermanas
.” Reynaldo said. “It means ‘Three Sisters’ in English. They work together in many, many ways, and if tended well, bring us great bounty. It is as old as our people.”

Adrian was thoroughly impressed. He had never heard of or seen this system before, but then again, he wasn’t a farmer. He intended to report this back to the Admiral and ask him to broadcast this information by clear communication to the ham-net so that other people could learn of it. He didn’t know it at the time, but the word would spread rapidly and be adopted all over the country.

“Reynaldo, what kind of trees are those?” Adrian asked while pointing to a small grove of trees he had never seen.

“Those are the Moringa trees,
señor
, the leaves we ate are from them. They come from India and grow very well in dry country—they can go a long time with no rain. We eat the leaves and the seeds and the flowers, even the bark can be used. The roots, too, but only a little. The roots can make you sick if you eat too much but they make a good seasoning, like…horseradish. The tree is very strong food, makes us very healthy and strong. I bought the seeds from a man that was travelling through the area selling them. He said the tree has enough food to live on without anything else. He said the tree has more vitamins and other good things than any other plant on the earth, and that they are easy to grow. I took a chance and bought the seeds and planted them and he was right. The trees, they grow ten feet per year and have many branches if the tree is pruned back each year. Much food from these trees, they are a blessing.”

As they were walking back to the house Reynaldo’s son and a handsome young Hispanic man appeared out of the brush. Reynaldo introduced his cousin, “This is Juan Zuniga, my cousin from Oxaca.”

Adrian shook his hand and smiled. Juan returned the shake with a firm grip, something Adrian knew was unusual for the culture, and a small cautious smile. Adrian said, “Happy to meet you Mr. Zuniga.”

Juan replied with a bright full smile to this, “Please, just Juan. Thank you.”

They all returned to the house and sat around the kitchen table. Adrian asked Juan what he’d heard about plans for an invasion by the cartels.

Juan nodded somberly, and said, “It is everywhere in Mexico, wherever I went, there is talk of conquering the
yanquis
. They have always seen the United States as a rich paradise, and they still think it. The
cartellistas
are joining up into an army, perhaps thousands are going to come together to move north. Many who talk will not come, talk is cheap and the trip is hard and dangerous. It took me many months to walk from Oxaca to here, many hard times on the way. But many will come for they have nothing where they are, these are hard men,
señor
, very hard men. They will come and take what they want. Much killing will happen.”

Juan’s English was only fair, he referred to Reynaldo often for the right words.

“Can you guess how long before they get here?” Adrian asked.

“I don’t know
señor
. Some have already started, some are waiting to see what happens before they come. I think maybe two months before they get to the border, maybe less, maybe more. I think the first will be many hundreds, maybe a thousand, maybe more. If they are successful, the word will travel back and then many many thousands will come.”

“How well are they armed Juan?”

“Oh, very well
señor
. They have many guns, many bullets. They were rich from the drug smuggling and have many guns. The others that follow, maybe later, not so many new guns but many old guns.”

“Do you know where they will cross the river at? Have you heard anything about that?”

“Sí. Ciudad Acuna, it is spoken of often as the center. I think they will cross there.”

Adrian knew from his map that Ciudad Acuna was the sister city of Del Rio, a week’s drive from their present location. “How sure are you of this?” Adrian asked.

“No one can be sure
señor
, but it is said often. I think it is so.”

“So in summary you believe that up to a thousand heavily armed former cartel soldiers will be invading Texas near Del Rio within two months, is that about right?”

“Sí, that is what I think. I have walked all the way from Oxaca, deep in south Mexico, to here. I hear much, I say little, I listen. I think when I get here I warn Reynaldo that we must move very far north, maybe to Canada. This is going to be very bad. It will start maybe slow, but will get bigger as the stories go back to Mexico of easy food and riches. The people have nothing and will dream of being fat and rich and will come. They will tell their neighbors and friends and those will tell others and so it will spread quickly. They have nothing so they have nothing to lose. They will come, and it will be very bad.
Muy malo, mucha muerte
.”

As the three men were leaving Reynaldo handed Adrian a small bag, weighing about five pounds. “These are Moringa seeds
señor
. When you go home, plant them. They are very important food.”

Chapter 17

I
n Fort Brazos, Texas, Colonel
Linda Fremont was meeting with the elected town council: Roman, Sarah, Matt, Perry, and Tim. Linda put her cup of hot tea back on the table after a careful sip. Linda was a Colonel in the Fort Brazos Militia, formed to fight a large band of raiders, she was widowed and had a young son, Scott. Adrian had led the militia to a successful battle that ended the threat. The raider’s commander, Rex, had been a personal enemy of Adrian’s and Adrian had eventually killed him in an unusual way. Roman and Sarah were Adrian’s Uncle and Aunt and had raised him as one of their own after Adrian’s parent’s had died when he was at a young age. Matt, Perry, and Tim were old friends of Romans and had come to live in Fort Brazos shortly after the grid had dropped. Perry was formerly a lawyer and Tim an engineer. Matt had been an engineer also, and had become the town’s blacksmith and preacher. Perry had written a constitution for the Fort Brazos settlement and had become the local judge while Tim had become the town’s law enforcement officer.

“I had a ham stolen from my smoke house last night,” she said. “I’ve heard of chickens being stolen and other smoke houses broken into. I hope it’s not one of our villagers, or even worse, more than one of our villagers. That would be sad, because there isn’t a soul in this town that isn’t willing to help each other, there’s no need to steal from each other. But it could be one of ours doing it. It could also be that we’re getting hit by outsiders, someone living out in the brush and sneaking in. Not that I condone it, but I would almost prefer it. Stealing food is stealing life, it can’t be tolerated. We have to find a way to do something about it.”

Tim said, “I’ve investigated most of these recent thefts and whoever it is, he’s careful not to leave a trail. He either hits during a rain storm that wipes out his traces, or waits until the ground is dry enough not to leave a trace. I’ll get Frank and his coon hound and see if his dog can pick up a trail from your place—it’s possible he left a scent. Frank will be here shortly.”

Roman drummed his fingers on the table top distractedly. After a pause in the conversation he said, “I hate a thief worse than anything. If it’s a villager he’ll be banished. We can’t banish non-villagers though as by definition they’re already living outside our group. Tim, what exactly do we do if we catch outsiders stealing from us?”

“We have the full range of options that our imaginations can come up with.” Tim said thoughtfully.

Perry interjected, “That’s correct, we can do anything we need to. Outsiders are not protected by our rules since they don’t live here. What we want to consider is functionally stopping the thefts, not punishment for the purpose of correcting errant behavior. With a villager we want to mete out a punishment appropriate to the crime with the intent of reconstructing the offender’s behavior in such a way that the citizen earns full and complete participation in the community and the trust of the community. With an outsider we just want the stealing to stop.”

“That could take many forms. We could simply execute him, and since he’s not a citizen a trial isn’t required. Strange as that sounds but we only have a very localized government, anyone outside of our jurisdiction, so to speak, has no rights or protections. Only if there was an overall government would that be the case. We could also just run him off with a warning, or we could bring him in as a prisoner and put him to work to make restitution and then run him off. Problem with that is we would end up feeding him more than he stole to start with, not very productive for us, and it would take too much manpower to guard him.”

Tim said, “I hear Frank now. Anyone want to come along with us?”

“Damn right I do.” Linda exclaimed. “I want to be part of whatever we do if we catch him, I can’t afford to be losing good food that way, and I’m pissed off.”

Linda asked Sarah, “Would you mind keeping an eye on Scott for me? I’m not sure how long we’ll be gone and I don’t want him on this trip, too dangerous.”

“Of course! He’s a joy to take care of, brightens my day to have him around. If you’re gone overnight, don’t worry about him, I’ll take good care of him.”

“Thank you Sarah, you are a true blessing to us.” Turning to Scott she said, “Now you mind your Aunt Sarah just like you mind me—no mind her better than you mind me, and make yourself useful, take care of her chores while I’m gone.” She gave him a hug then a playful swat on the bottom as she turned to follow Frank and his hound.

Linda, Roman, and Tim followed Frank to Linda’s smokehouse. Frank led his dog on a leash and walked around to the back of the little wooden building. Frank said, “If I was going to steal a ham, I’d come out of the woods yonder and keep the smokehouse between me and the big house, to keep from being seen. I’d come from the closest spot, too, walking in a straight line. I’ll take Brownie here and cut back and forth across that line, see if she picks up anything. If she does I’ll take her across it a few more times ’til she gets the idea that I want her to follow the trail. Y’all stay back a-ways at first so she isn’t distracted.”

Frank led the dog beyond the smoke house and began working a zig-zag path towards the woods, hopefully crossing the thief’s trail with each zig and zag. Linda watched and saw that Brownie was getting more excited each time she crossed what Frank had assumed would be the thief’s path. In less than five crossings of the trail the dog was straining at the leash, trying to get back to the trail whenever Frank took her over and past it. Frank waved them to follow and then let Brownie follow the trail into the woods. She was straining at the leash, pulling hard while snuffling at the scent.

Brownie raised her head to let out a trailing howl but Frank hushed her quickly. “Now Brownie, no talking. We don’t want this critter to hear us coming, alright girl?”