My time with the Collins Tribe
Author's note: This originally came from my #ClaytonLives story, a story that suffered from a failure to launch, so I decided to re-work the basic idea and here it is. This story follows In the Hall of the Mountain King – Grace's Tale and precedes Lucille Mulhall Rides Again. This is for the LJ 60 prompts in 60 days: Honor.
Written before SDCC sizzle-reel was released so spoiler-free.
Thank you to xyber116 for beta'ing this one-shot.
I don't own the characters or Revolution; I'm just playing with them for a bit for fun, not profit.
Three days after their escape from the non-functioning Tower, Grace and all of the remaining Tower personnel, were walking down a pitted street directly west of metro Denver. She was carrying Rachel's friend on a stretcher with the assistance of another one of the Peters. Kim Brown had decided to stick as close to the foothills as possible. The Tower people had no experience with this 'brave new world,' as Dan Jenkins had forbidden anyone from leaving for any reason. Their only experience with the outside world in fifteen years had been with Randall and his men, and the Monroe Militia, so they were justifiably concerned. Their coil-guns were useless, as were most of their skills from their hermit-like existence.
Grace was surprised at the large swath of tiny trees surrounding scorched trunks along the pitted street they followed. She supposed that without power, fighting wildfires would be a lot harder. As The Tower personnel neared Golden, huddles of sod houses around a central windmill and galvanized steel water trough started appearing along the side of the road. Each huddle of houses also had a row of car carcasses all lined up with the front dash pointing south.
The inhabitants were nigh invisible save a few peeping heads. Clearly they had had unpleasant contact with large groups of strangers. They must be nearing the Collins Tribe. Grace had heard relatively little about the Collins Tribe, which was probably for the best, only the horror stories made it to tiny, rural Grant Park, Illinois.
After the troop of Tower personnel passed three of these hamlets, Grace heard the rhythmic thrum of a large herd of horses approaching at speed. Quickly, with military ease, the best of The Tower defenders (those Rachel's friends and the militia hadn't killed) arrayed themselves in front of the rest of the personnel. They only had managed to scavenge five militia rifles. Grace knew that military action would not end well for anyone and told Peter that they should set down Rachel's friend. Once the stretcher was on the ground, she placed her hands in the universal surrender position, up and away from her body.
Several other Tower personnel followed suit, bowing to her greater experience in the post-Blackout world and with surface-dwellers. After a few minutes of hearing the ominous sound of approaching hoofbeats – the foothills must have funneled the sound from quite a ways off – a group of nine mounted archers appeared on the rise of the nearest foothill. They paused. One of the horsemen approached alone and unarmed. The other eight archers had arrows nocked up, but un-aimed. Kim Brown left the safety of the knot and approached the lone horseman.
He was clad completely in leather, and dismounted with ease that put the best horseman in Grant Park to shame. He asked, "What do you want?"
Kim Brown said evenly, "The Monroe Militia has destroyed our homes. We are looking for a safer place to homestead. Some of us have family in Boulder."
The horseman carefully studied the mixed bag of forty-plus individuals and asked, "Do you have any useful skills?"
Kim Brown answered with a selective list of their skills, mostly focusing on their defense and agriculture skills, though Grace knew there was big difference between hydroponics and growing plants suspect to the vicissitude of weather.
The horseman nodded, and said something along the lines of 'Okay, we'll escort you to the Tribal Council.' But Grace didn't really pay attention, as Rachel's friend awoke from the morphine with a gasp of pain. Grace bent down to the stretcher and drew out a vial of the opiate from her backpack.
The woman looked up into her eyes and gasped, "Miles?"
Grace shook her head; she didn't know what had happened with the rest of Rachel's friends. She said, "Miss…"
The woman replied, "Nora, Nora Clayton."
Grace nodded, "Nora, I'm going to give you some more morphine to help with the pain."
Nora nodded, and Grace cleaned her inner arm with a priceless alcohol wipe and injected the morphine into her vein.
Nora stared up into the sky as Grace packed the medical supplies back into her pack and stood up, into the watchful gaze of the lone horseman.
He laconically asked, "Doctor?"
Grace shook her head, "No, I was an Algebra teacher, but I did train as an EMT."
The leather-clad horseman nodded and put out his hand, "I'm Steve Martinez, leader of this Ranger platoon."
Grace shook his hand, and thought he didn't really look like a Martinez – not with those blue eyes and long blonde hair – she replied, "I'm Grace Beaumont."
Mr. Martinez asked, "Air Force or Cheyenne Mountain?"
Grace almost choked and froze.
Mr. Martinez said, "Come on Ms. Beaumont, I know every settlement within a hundred miles, and you guys aren't from one of them. You reek of a military group, so the only logical explanation is that you were hidden in a top secret military bunker with something that General Monroe wanted."
Grace took a few breaths to calm herself down and replied, "You aren't too far off."
Mr. Martinez looked inquiringly at Grace, and she just smiled and said, "If I told you more, I'd have to kill you."
Steve Martinez must have just barely been old enough to know that trite saying from before The Blackout, but he did, and smiled at Grace, "Okay, you can keep your secrets for now."
After a bit of rejiggering, one of the Rangers led the mixed group down into Golden. The young Ranger, Steve, replaced Peter as a stretcher-carrier, his well-trained horse following behind like a dog. They were quiet for a bit, then Steve asked what sort of skills she had. Grace replied that she had some experience with irrigation after The Blackout, and Steve started to get really excited. He told her that the Collins Tribe was attempting to expand eastward to Greeley, but they needed better irrigation. Grace thought, stealing those books on medieval irrigation techniques and sharing the information with her was one of the smartest things Ben had done post-Blackout. It had given both of them an in-demand and respected skill, and it was a damn sight better than keeping that Aaron Pittman around or letting Rachel be captured by his brother!
Steve started telling Grace all about the Collins Tribe, and by the time the group had reached what appeared to be an old college football stadium turned into a paddock and Ranger station, Grace knew much more about the Collins Tribe than she had ever expected to. As the Rangers kindly shared their meal with the Tower personnel, Grace wondered why the young man had spent so much time talking to her. She hoped he wasn't flirting; he had to be about the same age as her son Jamie, if he were still alive.
The Rangers made a soup of sorts out of beef jerky – beef being the staff-of-life for this tribe she had learned – seasoned with a smattering of dried and wild veggies, served with coarse corn tortillas. After talking with Sue Grey – the mother of one of the Peters – Grace learned that everyone had been probed for information about their skills, but that the Rangers had refrained from asking about where they had come from or why they had really left.
As dusk fell, Grace checked on the woman – Nora – again. She seemed to be doing much better, and the wound was at a nice raw-meaty looking stage with no signs of infection.
In the morning, the Rangers escorted the Tower personnel northward. Unlike the roads they had walked the past three days, this road had been maintained – the potholes that were a natural result of freeze-thaw cycles had been filled in with gravel, and in some places even patched with asphalt.
Steve continued telling Grace about the Collins Tribe and how it had formed in the early days right after The Blackout. The grain raided from one large and several micro-breweries and cattle from nearby ranches allowed much of the population of a town called Fort Collins to survive the first winter. He had lived near a feedlot in Greeley and had survived the first winter on beef, cattle feed, and pine needles to prevent scurvy. The remains of an agricultural college and its staff had the knowledge and supplies vital for sustaining life on the prairie, and had formed the true nucleus for the Collins Tribe.
Steve pointed out a windmill in the hamlet they were walking past and told how an engineer had figured out a way to make wind-driven water-pumps to bring clean water to the surface.
He elaborated, "Rivers and streams here-abouts are contaminated with, at the minimum Giardia – not a fun thing to get."
Steve told how the Aggies had vast seed banks of non-hybrid seeds – one of the reasons the people living to the east in what used to be called Kansas and Nebraska were so devastated the second year post-Blackout was the lack of seed corn.
Grace piped in, "And Illinois; damn Monsanto."
Steve looked a bit puzzled, but nodded in agreement. Grace asked, "What about those?" She pointed at row of south-facing cars at the edge of the hamlet.
Steve said, "Ah, yes the car-gardens. They are mini-greenhouses and raised-beds. They preserve topsoil, water, and expand the limited growing season. Colorado can get snow any month except July and August, and Mother's day and Halloween snowstorms are the norm, even down here on the foothills. Some of the dwarf varietals grow quite well, and it lets us have a more varied diet than we might have otherwise."
Steve continued, "What the Tribe really needs is more grain. Eastern Colorado could grow corn, but we need better irrigation to use the limited supply of ground water in a better manner than they used to Before."
Grace started to get the picture, Steve was really pushing her to consider working on irrigation east of the Collins Tribe, and she wondered why. If that is where the Tribal Council decided The Tower personnel would settle, then that's where she'd go. Sure she didn't know them all that well – a few months fifteen years ago and then a month now, but she didn't have anywhere better in mind.
After a few monologues about the beauty of a Colorado prairie fall and a sunset over the Colorado Rockies, Steve finally stopped beating around the bush and asked, "How close are you to the others?"
Grace stopped, the weight of Nora's stretcher holding her in place, "What do you mean?" she asked carefully.
Steve blushed, "Oh, I'm sorry, that came out wrong. It's just that I'm pretty sure the Tribal Council will split you guys up into different Ranger platoons or settlements, to limit your political power and aid in integration. The Greeley area is too unsettled for the Council Elders to send many of you there, but a medic-"algebra teacher"-irrigation engineer is just what that band needs. My sister lives there and I'm sure she'll make you feel welcome."
Grace smiled, relieved that not all people were as messed up as Randall and Rachel. She said, "Splitting us up does make sense given our secrets, as long as family groups stay together, I think everyone will be fine with it. And no, I'm not too close with anyone, except for my… friend, Nora." She gestured at the prone young woman.
Steve nodded, "That won't be a problem. The Collins Tribe isn't as conservative as many of the tribes and welcomes all sorts. You and your friend should be just fine with the Greeley band."
Grace was rather puzzled by this exchange and the unusual emphasis he placed on the world friend. Steve changed the subject to the unfortunate dearth of hops in the area, and it wasn't until later that night that she realized what he had inferred. He had mistaken her hesitation to claim Nora as a friend as an indication that they were closer than friends, rather than that she hardly knew her from Adam. Oh well, if they thought they were girlfriends, at least she could keep an eye on Rachel's friend and help her heal. It wouldn't make up for her role in Danny's recapture, but it was something.
Grace was walking back to their sod house, the westering sun painting a glorious spectrum of color behind the Rocky Mountains in front of her. Steve Martinez certainly was right about one thing; Colorado sunsets were marvelous. Grace knew Nora would be annoyed with her, she had said that she would get home earlier tonight, but one of the damn irrigation dykes had had other plans.
It was hard work building a furrow irrigation system into an already planted field of corn. Especially when said field had been set up for a center pivot sprinkler irrigation system. The field was fairly level, which made it hard to uniformly water all of the plants via a furrow irrigation system. This best way around this was to pulse the water supply, meaning the dykes carrying water from the South Platte River had to be micromanaged, and they were also very prone to clogging at the river end. That was what happened today. One of the main dykes had been clogged by a downed tree-branch and it had taken Grace too long to locate the issue. Irrigation was much easier in Illinois; the rivers were tamer and the soil was far less clay-y. Grace had had to convince the tribe to use some of its precious cement stores to wall the dykes in concrete, otherwise the clay-rich soil would have eroded right away.
Grace shook her head, careful that her new wide-brimmed straw "cowboy" hat didn't get knocked off. It was a gift from Steve Martinez's sister Amanda Potter, and it really did keep the sun off, but it made Grace feel silly.
The cornfields were east of the town once known as Greeley, located close to where the Cache la Poudre River met up with and was engulfed by the South Platte, the hamlet currently known as Greeley was west of the fields, but still east of the eastern edge of the old ghost-town. The hamlet consisted of almost a dozen sod houses and the hamlet's pride, a communal shower-house with a solar-heated water cistern.
It had taken Grace quite awhile to get used to the half-buried sod house, but it was quite well-insulated, cool in the summer and supposedly much easier to heat in winter than a conventional house. They also used far less of the scarce hardwood supply than the alternatives, though most did have a split-log roof supporting the foot of dirt-and-grass roots.
Grace approached their sod house, giving their red door – scavenged from a suburban house – a warning knock. She heard Nora shout, "You're late!"
Grace opened and paused at the door, replying, purposefully paraphrasing Gandalf, "No, I arrived precisely when I meant to."
Nora rolled her eyes, getting the joke but unwilling to be swayed. She had healed quickly and well, and had been up and about causing trouble for two weeks. For causing trouble is what it was.
When Nora was recovering and forced to remain in bed, she had borne it with remarkable poise, knitting socks from alpaca wool, and questioning Grace minutely about what had happened at The Tower. But as soon as Grace had said she was recovered enough she wouldn't reinjure herself, she had sprung out of that bed like the sheets were on fire and started pestering everyone. She asked questions about the tribe's system of governance the Tribal Council – a collection of matriarchs from different settlements – only very loosely based around Native American tribal councils. And she interrogated the Ranger patrol whenever they passed. When she learned that the Collins Tribe Rangers hadn't engaged with the new Neville Militia when it headed north into their territory, they had merely redirected them eastward, away from the Tribal territory, she had shouted at the Ranger, asking him how he could do that, telling him that yes, Neville was slightly less crazy than Monroe, but just as ruthless. Grace had been surprised at how she had shot the messenger; Nora normally exuded an air of quiet competence.
Grace took off her hat and her boots and padded to the hewn-wood kitchen table, there was one ivory daylily blossom in a mug on the table. In addition, Nora had laid out a pretty impressive spread: steamed summer squash from their car-garden, real cornbread instead of tortillas, a recognizable cut of fresh beef, and apricots. Nora must have really pulled out all the stops at the bartering table.
"What's up?" asked Grace as she sat down on a scavenged pre-Blackout chair.
Nora swallowed and said "Thank you for taking care of me. I really appreciate it. I thought I was dead and I know Miles did too." She tugged at her St. Michael's medallion absentmindedly and continued, "But I can't stay here. I have to do something, get some answers…"
Grace understood. Nora was a mover and a shaker; she couldn't make a quiet life for herself out here in the boonies. Grace had had enough of moving and shaking, and a quiet, stable life seemed just about perfect for her.
Nora continued, "I doubt I could find out what happened to Miles and Rachel and everyone, and Miles does always land on his feet, like a cat, but I have to find out what happened back in the Republic with the Militia and the Rebels. I know you said even the pendants don't work anymore, but I have to find out what happened. I'm going to help the Tribe drive some cattle to San Antonio, look for my sister for a bit, and then go on to Georgia and the Republic."
Grace nodded and said, "I understand. I'm kinda surprised you stuck around this long; if any of my loved ones were still alive, I would have left a week ago."
Nora patted her on her leather-clad shoulder and said, "Sorry. I had to see if there was anything for me to do here, and gather all the information I could about what had happened."
Grace started serving herself and asked, "When is the cattle drive leaving?"
Nora sat down on a log-stool and replied succinctly, "Two days." And then she stuffed her mouth with a piece of cornbread.
Grace took that as a sign and after a quick, silent prayer began to dig in as well.
The meal was most silent, but as Nora was cleaning the last bit of fruit from an apricot pit she asked, "Why did you do it?"
Grace looked at Nora and made a questioning "hmmm?" around her own apricot.
Nora elaborated straightforwardly, "Why did you save me?"
Grace chewed and swallowed the apricot and said after a bit of deliberation, "I found you and knew you to be one of Rachel's friends..."
Nora interrupted with a small snort.
Grace continued a bit puzzled, "I couldn't let someone else die if I could help it, and I have a debt to Rachel for a small role I played in her son's death."
Nora raised one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows in inquiry, and Grace explained, "I found Danny after he had escaped from Captain Neville and treated his asthma, but Captain Neville tracked him to my house and I had to let him take him."
Nora nodded and said, "You couldn't have done anything differently."
Grace smiled and replied, "Yeah, but that doesn't make me feel any less guilty." And then after a pause asked, "Why did you snort?"
Nora quirked a half-smile and responded, "I doubt if Rachel thinks of me as a friend, and probably wouldn't thank you for saving me, but I thank you never-the-less, and so would Charlie."
Grace gave Nora a puzzled look, to which she only tersely replied, "It's complicated."
Grace was still confused, but knew better than to press. She would just have to be content with the fact that she had saved the life of a good and decent woman, whether or not it ameliorated her guilt over Danny.
- Author's Note: Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :)