Chapter 3 Meeting
The Free Zone was still new-new, weren't more than a few dozen people about and they used to gather at the park down by the University and swap tales and treasures and such. Everyone still shaken up with the world going to hell in a handbasket, but after a few weeks of blind mourning, they got onto the subject of civilization. Nothing high and mighty, just getting some utilities going again, as folks who couldn't stand using an outhouse in Summer began to contemplate using on in the Colorado Winter, and figured as they might need to upgrade their village a bit when the deep frost hit Boulder.
There was plenty of news coming in from the East – and plenty of people, too. That seemed to be all that was interesting to them, from Baltimore to Atlanta and Memphis to Detroit, nice to hear stories from the good ol' hometown, but what about the other directions, which were a lot more relevant to their survival than good ol' Cincinnati?
Judy offered in what she knew of the South, in her guarded and reserved way. The Baca brothers were up and down Colorado from the San Juan valley to Denver a lot, so they knew that area some. A few mountaineers had come down from Idaho and Alberta, and some other northern plains people from the Dakotas and Montana. It was quiet, the Lakota had survived but were spooked by the die-off, and they didn't allow travel West across their homelands now. They thought that the plague came from the West; a good reckoning.
About the world from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, pretty much zippo. It seemed that amongst the Free Zone folk, there was nothing but a childish disquiet that there was a Bad Guy someplace Far West who wished them all sorts of bad wishes.
"First off," said Judy,"how have we been keeping in touch with the Navajo? Do we have a listening post down south, up north, over the mountain in Grand Junction?"
Not too many folks seemed to snap to the principle. "C'mon, now" said Judy. "The Navajo hold our southern flank. Our entire survival might depend on our relationship with them. Who's been down there?"
The Baca brothers knew some Navajo folks and towns along the way to Sierra Blanca, but had figured they'd likely pull back West and consolidate, being decimated by the plague."
"I think we best ought go down to Farmington, over to the Big Rez and Shiprock, Window Rock, and have some talk with our neighbors. I'll do it personally – who's with me?"
Mr. Sandoval raised up his hand, and Chuy and his brother, too. Ben wouldn't see fifty again, but he still went up for elk in the Jemez with his grandsons; not young enough for heavy lifting, but he knew his stuff.
"That's across mountain," said Jack Sokoloff. "I'm in." He was a Montanan, and Bill Walsh from Wyoming raised his hand quietly, a flatland rancher out of Wyoming.
Three local Coloradans, Wayne Sandoval and Seth Locklear, who lived in the mountains, and a flatland medic from Fort Collins, Tony Westerfield.
That made for nine volunteers, more than was needed, so they all shook hands on it, and called it a deal.
They hauled out by six AM, "to beat the traffic," said Westerfield. He pattered on with a few nervous jokes and then prudently shut up for the rest of the trip, to everyone's commendation. Still, Westerfield was banished to drive the car solo for the first part of the trip - the fear of a Chatty Cathy on a seven-hour trip filled everyone with dismay.
They couldn't take the Baca boys – they were just too damn big to fit in the car without being all squshed up against each other. You know, the Anglo way of saying "Chuy" comes out as "Chewie," and "Chew Baca" still raised a snicker from the wittier folks who met him. Mostly because it fit perfect.
So it was the seven riders who left for Navajo Country.