“I was thinking of water power,” Hector replied. “I was thinking of trying to build a water wheel to generate power. Two centuries ago, that’s how they built sawmills.”
“The river,” said Mike, understanding at last.
“Right, Chief. I just have to figure out how. Eric might be able to help. And if I could just turn out planks, well, there are a lot of uses for planks. I’m thinking that they could be used to build more A-frames. We know where we can get our hands on some engines. There are a lot of parts we may be able to use like camshafts, crankshafts, flywheels and gears. It’s just a matter of adapting the stuff to turn a blade sharp enough to cut through a pine.”
February became March. The snow still fell, but there was a lot of sunshine, too. Some days, there were eight hours or more of usable sunlight on the solar panels, so more than half of the tribe could take a ten minute shower. The ambience in the Lodge was noticeably better this year than last.
One evening in late March, the tribe was hailed from outside. It was Ralph, and he was delivering a load of fresh food. The horses had made it through the drifts.
“Didn’t have as much buildup this year as last. And last week’s rain melted more of it,” he explained. “So I thought I would see if I could get through. It wasn’t hard at all. Mary wanted to do it, but I talked her into letting me try. I’m a fair rider these days.”
His face grew grim when he heard the news of Luis. “I suppose that something was bound to happen, but that doesn’t make it any easier to accept,” was all he said.
There was not much news from the farm to report.
“We made it through the winter fairly well. We lost some chickens and some rabbits to the cold, but most of them survived. We all caught colds, but we all got better in a few days. Paige and Nathan hooked up for about a month, and then they broke up. Kevin and Kylie got mad at each other, and that made rough on all of us. They made up, thank goodness. We made some progress on the barn. Mary said to tell John that she is looking forward to getting a lot of hard work out of him. What’s up with that?”
Ralph laughed when he saw Desi’s expanding belly. “I should have known it would be something like that.” He left the next day, promising to tell Mary the good news.
On the first day of April, Jacob and Jean left to look for Luis. Fearing the worst, Mike had them take a large strip of black plastic. The scouts knew that Luis had gone upriver. Lily and Howard were anxious, but they understood that the scouts needed to search for a clue to the whereabouts of the lost villager.
Mary and her clan came for a visit while they were gone. The kids in the tribe oohed and aahed over how much Star and Comet had grown. Comet asked why Desi had gotten so fat. Star was allowed to stay in the Lodge with the older girls again.
Nathan had been allowed to drive the wagon. Mary brought the plow, and the fields in the meadow were prepared to receive seed, which the villagers sowed by hand. After a few days, Mary and her clan returned to their farm, taking with them John and another pair of teens.
Tyler liked it when the Brown clan came. He liked Mrs. Brown and her kids, and he had enjoyed working at the farm the previous year. When he was at the Brown farm, there was no chance of being called on the carpet in Petersburg. Being called on the carpet now, he thought gloomily. And he didn’t even know why. All he knew was that someone had been sent to tell him that the Chief wanted to see him. They hadn’t said why. He wondered. Did the Chief find out about…? Nah, that was too long ago. The Chief can’t hold that against me now. Can he? He knocked on the door at Chief’s Headquarters.
“It’s open,” he heard Mike say, so he went in.
“You wanted to see me, Chief?” he asked, try hard to project politeness.
“Oh. Tyler. Come in,” Mike said.
Tyler entered and sat down on the plastic chair that was for visitors.
“Tyler, I need to talk to you about something,” Mike said and Tyler tensed.
“I’ve been thinking about Major Collins.”
Tyler relaxed slightly, but he was baffled by the Chief’s statement. What does the Army have to do with me?
“If he figures out where we are, I think that he’ll send someone to find us as soon as he can. He might come, himself. I think the earliest date they could arrive is in the middle of May. So I want you to pick three people. The four of you will man a guard post a mile beyond the Brown farm. I’ve already talked to Mrs. Brown about it. You can share the Brown attic, but you’ll be jammed in unless you want to sleep in the barn. You’ll be in charge.”
Stupefied, Tyler stared at Mike an instant, and then he stammered. “You want me to be in charge of a guard post, Chief?”
“Yes, Tyler,” Mike replied mildly with a nod. Mike picked up the dead radio that had been sitting in the cabin since he had first moved in. “And I’ve got a plan.”
Amazed at the notion that the Chief was putting him in charge, Tyler listened to Mike’s plan. When Mike finished, Tyler got up to leave.
“I want you to be ready to go by the seventh day of May,” Mike added. “And Tyler, you can’t take Gabby.”
I can’t take her, Tyler thought, as he grinned while walking away from the cabin. But I can tell her.
The third week in April, an exhausted runner arrived from the guard post upriver. Jean and Jacob had found Luis’ body. They would arrive at the Lodge the next day. It was a weary and grim pair of scouts that returned. They met with the Council in Chief’s Headquarters and described what they had found.
“His body was in a bad state of decay,” said Jean. “But he was still wearing his jacket, and we could tell that he had been shot in the back by, what I think, was a high powered rifle. We found him about four days from the Retreat.”
For a few minutes, there was silence among the Council after they heard the news. Until now, they had supposed that Luis had been killed accidentally, or that he had been caught in the snow and had froze to death.
“Murdered,” Mike said, stunned at the news.
“Yes,” Jacob said. “Someone from the Retreat? Maybe.”
“Is there any doubt?” Howard asked angrily.
“Yes,” Jacob answered.
“We wrapped him in the plastic,” Jean said. “We didn’t have the tools to bury him. We were so far away that we couldn’t carry him all the way back, and still be here when we were supposed to be, so we carried him as far as we could, and then we found a crevice in the side of a hill. We put his body inside and built a cairn of rocks. We know where he is. Give us some help, and we’ll go get him.”
“Yes, certainly,” said Mike. “You guys rest a couple of days, and then take Nathan, Kevin, Ahmad, and Rasul, and bring him back. We’ll bury him in the graveyard. Howard, pick a crew to start digging a grave.”
“One more thing,” Jacob said. “His rifle was missing.”
“Not good,” Eric said.
“It was someone from the Retreat,” Howard maintained.
“Howard, we’re not sure, but we’re not taking any chances either. Jacob, make sure the burial detail is armed,” Mike said.
“We’ll post guards behind us on our way back,” Jean said.
“Good idea,” Mike agreed. “When you get back to the guard post, leave some weapons there. We’ll man it armed from now on.”
Alarm and consternation filled their community when the news was reported. The villagers still remembered the violence they had experienced two years ago. Mike had Hector make a list of all of the firearms and the corresponding ammunition that they had accumulated from the bikers. He thought about the Major and his unit, but he was not yet ready to contact them. He put Eric in charge of the spear throwing exercises, and he put Yuie in charge of the archery practices. Everyone in Petersburg, except for Desi, was required to practice one skill or the other for at least two hours daily.