Daryl and Rick followed Beau and Libby through the woods just as the sun was really coming up. The Walker threat, as it often did when winter was setting in, seemed a lot less daunting than before, and Daryl wondered if the herd that ripped through their community had been the last big herd of the season. If it had, boy hadn't they gotten lucky?
He was beginning to think that they weren't going to find the group that the two had seen earlier. He didn't know how far they had to go, but he felt like they'd already put in quite a bit of travelling and they'd seen next to nothing.
Finally, though, he picked up the scent of cooking meat just as Beau and Libby came trotting back from a few steps ahead, not saying anything but waving he and Rick forward. They stepped forward enough to see what the younger ones had seen.
Immediately Daryl got the feeling that this was not the camp that had attacked them, though he would have had no way at all of explaining that feeling to anyone. In front of them, at a little distance, he could see a camp that consisted of a farm house, an old barn, and what looked to be two small, free standing structures that had clearly been built by hand. Around the area were similar rudimentary fences like the old farm fences that they'd found the bull in. The fences had to be somewhat strong, however, because there were at least eight Walkers pushing against them, having spotted the people that milled around inside them.
From where they stood, Daryl could see that there were at least six women. Two of them looked to be older with long gray hair. They were dressed in well-worn dresses, and one of them carried a small baby on her hip that looked to be about Hope's age at best. The other four women were younger than the oldest two, with varying ages. The youngest probably not being much different in age than Libby, who crouched down near Daryl.
The women were all either black or Native American, though Daryl wasn't really sure either way. They were oblivious of Daryl's group hiding out in the thick brush of the woods surrounding their farmhouse. Daryl would have thought that the group consisted entirely of women, but as he hunkered down watching them, he noticed a man come out of one of the free standing structures and cross over to where one of the women was tending something that cooked on a fire.
The man was also black, and probably not much older than Daryl. He didn't wear a shirt, and his pants looked like they'd been patched several times over. Daryl thought the group looked a lot more weather beaten and worn than his own group.
When another man emerged from the same building, a little younger than the first, but also shirtless, Daryl realized there could be a lot more members to the group than met the eye. He stepped forward a little bit, trying to get a better feel for the group, and he stepped on a stick that cracked, drawing the attention of a Walker.
The Walker, apparently realizing that the meal behind him was easier to reach than the meal on the other side of the fence, turned its attention toward Daryl and his three comrades, which, in turn, drew the attention of a few other Walkers. They started slowly toward Daryl and he knew they'd have to kill them, and ultimately give up whatever cover they had.
He sighed and drew his knife, hoping the group was peaceful enough not to shoot them immediately. This wasn't how this was supposed to go, it wasn't how they'd planned it at all.
As the handful of Walkers reached them, Daryl stabbed at one of them and became aware that Rick, Beau, and Libby had also given up their cover. They all focused their attention on the small piled of Walkers until they had them down.
Once the last one dropped, Daryl glanced back in the direction of the group that they'd been watching. Now, though, they weren't focused on the meat on the fire. Instead they stood close to the fence line, staring out in the direction of Daryl and the others.
"We don't mean no harm," Daryl said, realizing that they were being watched now and there was no reason to pretend that they weren't there hiding in the thick brush. At a glance, none of them looked armed, but Daryl knew better than to trust that. He raised his hands, his knife still in one of them, and stepped forward. "We was just tryin' to see who was out here, we ain't here to hurt nobody."
As Daryl stepped forward, the old woman with the baby stepped behind the largest, and oldest, of the two men present and Daryl knew it was a natural reaction to strange people these days. The others in the group, though, didn't move from their positions.
Rick, Beau, and Libby were presumably behind him. Daryl hoped that all of them had the good sense to show their hands as well, just in case the group was under the law of shoot first and ask questions later.
Daryl continued walking forward slowly, his hands raised, and his eyes trained on the people in front of him. When he'd finally cleared the heavy brush, he spoke again.
"We weren't tryin' to startle ya," he said.
"Then what were you doing crawling around in the brush?" The voice of the older man boomed out.
Daryl nodded his head a little.
"We were afraid that if ya saw us, ya might shoot us," Daryl said. "Just trying to make it to see another day. Can we approach ya fences?"
The man nodded, and Daryl noticed that several of the group members stepped back a little. The old woman with the little girl peeked around the man, but she stayed protected by his rather large figure. Another of the women trotted off and toward the structure.
"You can walk up," the man said, "but keep your hands where we can see them. No one has to get hurt unless you decide they do."
"I got ya," Daryl said. He stepped forward until he was a couple of feet from the fences, and therefore, a couple of feet from the man in front of him.
"My name is Jeremiah," the man said.
"Daryl," Daryl offered.
"Are you alone?" Jeremiah asked. Daryl glanced quickly over his shoulder, wondering if he had been the only one of the small group that had stepped forward. Rick wasn't two feet behind him, though, and Beau and Libby were off to the side. He assumed that Jeremiah wasn't asking so much about him as about their little group in general.
"We alone for now," Daryl said, "but we part a' a big group."
"Bandits?" Jeremiah asked.
"Huh?" Daryl asked.
"Are you the bandits that tore down our fences and killed our cow?" Jeremiah asked.
"We ain't bandits," Daryl said.
"A couple of days ago three white men came through here," Jeremiah said. "I was off hunting with my boy and another man who lives here. When we got back they'd torn down the fences and killed our cow. You know anything about that?"
Daryl absentmindedly lowered one of his hands to scratch his neck.
"Not exactly," he said.
"What do you mean?" Jeremiah asked.
"Well, I mean we weren't the ones that done it, but I might know somethin' 'bout it. See, a couple a' days ago there was three men come to our community in the middle a' the night. They let a herd in on us and shot several of our people. Burned down part of our community. We lost four people and we got a couple that's wounded," Daryl said. "That's really why we here. Beau an' Libby spotted y'all a few days back and we thought ya mighta been the ones that come after us."
Jeremiah stepped to the side, looking at Beau and Libby. He turned, looking at one of the women.
"Have you seen those kids before?" He asked.
The woman he was speaking to nodded.
"I saw those two boys a few days ago. They were just passing by, riding an old nag or something," the woman said. She cut her eyes at Daryl. He figured her to be a little younger than Jeremiah perhaps.
"I ain't no boy!" Libby spat from over at the side. Daryl couldn't help but chuckle.
"Libby's a girl," Daryl said. "One of the people in our group hacked all her hair off 'cause she ain't combed it in a couple a' years, but when it grows back ya can see she ain't no boy."
"This is Anissa," Jeremiah said. "My wife, and she didn't mean any harm by thinking your girl there was a boy."
Daryl chuckled again.
"Ain't my girl, neither," Daryl said. "I got a girl, but she ain't much bigger than the one that woman's bouncin' on her hip."
Jeremiah looked at Daryl now, his brow knotted a little.
"You really weren't part of the group of bandits, were you?" Jeremiah asked.
Daryl realized, for the first time in a long time, it was his group that was on the worrisome end of questioning. He shook his head.
"No, we weren't part of that group, but we'd like to know who was. The men that attacked us, they're dead now. We ain't got no way of knowin' where they come from," Daryl said. He realized that Rick was beside him now, and they'd all lowered their arms without really thinking about the action. There wasn't anything threatening about this group, and it was easy to relax around them.
"If you find them," Jeremiah said, "we've got a bone to pick with them. We've got a baby coming sometime before the week is up probably, and we were counting on that cow to pick up the slack if Agaliha wasn't able to feed it enough."
"Who?" Daryl asked.
Jeremiah motioned toward the other old woman, the one without a baby, who stood off to the side.
"Agaliha is her granddaughter. We met up with a small group a while back. They were passing through, but you might say that one of them left a little piece of himself behind," Jeremiah said.
Daryl nodded. He couldn't help but think to himself that if this group ended up being one that they could get along with, and he was beginning to think it might be, then they may be able to help them out a little with that problem. He knew that Michonne was more than willing to nurse Paul when she had him, and Sadie made more milk than she needed for the baby half the time. Still, he knew better than to offer either of the women out as wet nurses without their consent.
"So y'all stayin' here?" Daryl asked. The man looked at him again, as though he were trying to see through him. Daryl realized the man was probably nervous about them, and he didn't know a thing about their group. "We got us a community," Daryl said, "'bout two miles maybe from here. We gon' stay as long as we can, but we likely gon' move out when the weather warms back up if we see any more groups like the ones we had hit us."
Jeremiah's face softened a little.
"We're holding out, best we can, until spring," Jeremiah said. "Then we're thinking of heading west."
"What's west?" Daryl asked.
Jeremiah shrugged.
"What's here?" He asked.
Rick stepped up then.
"I'm Rick," he said, gesturing at Jeremiah, but still not moving too close to the man. "Have you seen any other groups in the area? Anyone that you think might have been behind the attacks?"
Jeremiah shrugged a little.
"Honestly? Could have been anyone. There are a lot of groups around here. The farther you go that way," he gestured across their little farm, "the more groups you see. I hunt in that area…I've come up on more than my share of people. Lots of rough bunches."
"But no one in particular caught your attention?" Rick asked.
"Not really," Jeremiah said. "One dirty, rowdy asshole looks a lot like another. I try to stay out of their way and hope they don't make their way over here. A lot of the camps look like carnival camps almost. I figure most are passing through."
"So they aren't stationary?" Rick asked.
"Some are, some aren't," Jeremiah said. "The majority of them aren't. I haven't exactly gone looking for ones that were."
Rick looked at Daryl. Daryl knew they were going to have to talk about this. If they were in some kind of high traffic area, that could be troublesome. They also had to figure out what to do about the group they were face to face with now. He thought about what they'd discussed, about trying to form some kind of allegiance with other groups, but he wasn't sure exactly how that was supposed to work.
"Our community," Rick said after a moment, his face clearly lined with thought, "isn't too far from here. We've got a pretty decent set up, but we're a little rough for the wear right now because of this attack. We were hoping to find who did this, but we were also hoping to make friends with some groups. Would you be interested in meeting with us, maybe sharing a meal together, and talking about how we might be able to work together to make it through winter and keep people like that from attacking either one of us?"
Daryl smiled. Rick was stepping up to the plate and he was going to let him have it.
Jeremiah leaned against the wood of the fence, obviously thinking about Rick's question. The group's attention was drawn, for a moment, when some Walkers approached near Beau and Libby, but Daryl turned to the snarling in time to see the two of them drop the two Walkers. He'd almost forgotten they were behind them.
Jeremiah watched them for a minute as well. He ran his hand across his face, tugging at it.
"Would you come here or would we go there?" Jeremiah asked.
"However you like," Rick said. "We've got extra houses, though. If you wanted, you could come there, spend the night in one of the houses. You wouldn't have to travel after dark with the Walkers stirred up. We've got a lot of kids. If we wanted to keep them safe we'd have to leave most of them with caregivers at the community. You wouldn't get to meet everyone."
"We've got kids too," Jeremiah said. "Anna here is only a little over a year old and that baby's going to be here soon."
Rick nodded.
"I understand if you don't feel comfortable bringing them," he said.
"I didn't say that," Jeremiah said. "I don't make decisions here, at least not alone. We're a group. Altogether we're eight women and four men, children not counted. Nobody here makes all the decisions, and that includes me. I just happen to be the only one speaking for the group at the moment. Tell me how we find you and the boy here, Leland, will come and tell you what we've decided."
"Just like you don't make decisions on your own," Rick said, "we don't have any one spokesperson. Would you excuse me a moment while I speak with Daryl here?"
"Certainly," Jeremiah said.
Daryl watched as the audience they'd drawn spread out from the fence and went back to various tasks in their tiny little area. He stepped to the side, putting his arm around Rick's shoulder so that they could discuss things.
"I don't know why, but I trust 'em," Daryl said.
Rick nodded a little.
"I do too," Rick said. "Do we trust them enough to tell them where to find us, though?"
"Ya done invited 'em ta come, an' it ain't like it's gonna be too hard to find us if they had 'em a mind to," Daryl said. "If we could join up with 'em, that's a good number of people right there, and they look like hardy stock except maybe them two old women."
Rick nodded and chuckled a little.
"Don't discredit the old women," Rick said. "They've made it this long, and that's a lot longer than some half their age."
Daryl realized that Rick had a point. He didn't know how the two old women had made it, but they had. Furthermore, though they were obviously older, they didn't move like they were too stiff, and they looked to be well built. This group may not have a lot of clothing, but they weren't lacking in nutrition, that much was evident.
"They all look like they eatin' real good," Daryl said. "Ain't none of 'em sickly."
Rick looked over his shoulder.
"What?" He asked.
"All them people," Daryl said. "They all real healthy lookin'. They eatin' good. Some a' our people don't look like they eatin' near as good as them. They might can give us a few tips. Winter's comin' an' it's gonna get mighty cold. They don't look like they got clothes, but we got more than enough. I think we could maybe work up some trades with 'em."
"You might be right," Rick said. "Fine, we'll talk to them, tell them where to find us, and hope for the best. They might have some ideas about what to do about those other groups."
Daryl nodded his agreement and Rick turned. He went back to Jeremiah and told them how to find the community. Jeremiah smiled broadly for the first time and said that he would talk to the others, but he looked forward to getting to know them better in the future. Rick shook his hand and Daryl did too. Jeremiah gestured toward Beau and Libby, but neither stepped forward to shake his hand and Daryl apologized briefly, mumbling something about their lack of raising.
As Daryl and his small group made their way back toward the community, he had a good feeling about the small group. He didn't know exactly what their relationship would be like, and he wasn't certain that they'd invite them to stay within their community, but for some reason he felt like they were good people, and that they might end up being friends in the days to come.
"Rick, ya reckon we gonna figure out who attacked us?" Daryl asked as they were wandering slowly in the direction of home.
Beau and Libby had taken off somewhere. Daryl wasn't worried about them. He figured that the two of them would be back soon enough. They might even be on one of Beau's wild adventures and still manage to beat Rick and Daryl back to the gates.
"I don't know, Daryl," Rick said. "Honestly, I'm starting to think those men that are dead were the men who attacked us. I don't have any reason to think it, but I feel like whatever group they had, or whoever they were traveling with has moved on."
"They knew enough to know when to attack us, though, an' they knew we locked the gates with a chain," Daryl said. "To me that just sounds like they planned it."
"They might have," Rick said. "If they were in the line of being bandits, like Jeremiah suggested, then they probably weren't stupid thieves. Could have been that their men waited around until they saw they were in trouble and then they ran for it."
"Ya reckon they'd do that though? Just run off and leave their group behind?" Daryl asked.
"Not everyone has the group mentality," Rick said. "We can talk to Jeremiah a little more, though, and his other people if they come for a meeting. We'll see what we can figure out. They might even know some other groups that we can touch base with who might have some insight."
Daryl nodded, agreeing with Rick. They were coming in sight of the community now and Daryl could smell the scent of their own supper cooking over a fire. Daryl could hear the echoing sound of Judith mixed with the sound of conversation, and he knew that everyone would be milling about, taking care of the daily chores, and waiting to see if they'd found out who had attacked them. He wondered how they'd all react to finding out that they were already planning, even though it wasn't how they'd thought it would happen, to have one of their first ever peace meetings with another group.