Chapter 73

It took two weeks to organize my trip to California. The main reason for the delay was the fact that I had other matters to attend to. I had to check at each of the settlements to address a few minor problems. People always had complaints and as the tribal chief and shaman, it was my job to sit and listen to those complaints and to arbitrate solutions that were just and equitable. On top of that I had to meet with my sub-leaders and talk with them.

In particular I had to spend time in the north, checking on the renovation work that was being done there. That work was now a major concern. After much deliberation, and a review of my intentions, Uttar, Vedic, Rugar, and Clara had come up with a new plan. They’d surveyed a location down in the big valley that would be perfect for a new settlement. Their intention was to spend the summer building a settlement that would be four times the size of our current one, at least in enclosed area, that would be ready for occupancy by the end of the harvest. They took me to see the site. I spent a day looking the place over and inspecting the scale model that had been created so that people could visually comprehend the work that needed to be done. I was impressed with the diorama. It had been created by my army of young carvers and they had done a great job. I signed off on the project and gave it my blessing. The intention wasn’t to completely abandon our current settlement, since the land had been ploughed and sown, and there was ample game in the area, but to use it seasonally as an annex to the proposed new settlement.

The delay was also because Kim wanted to use the Gateway to transit supplies between the Kuwait site and the base. My team being in China had prevented that from happening. Kim and Koo hadn’t known when I might signal for the Gateway to open, and they’d put a stop to using the Gateway until I got back. Now that I was back, Kim sent food supplies and more personnel to the Kuwait compound and facility, and she’d brought Smith and Clarkson to us so they could see what we’d been up to, and to help give them the sense that they weren’t alone in the world. Her plan was to shift people from Kuwait to the base and then to a community on a regular basis so that they’d get to the point that they started thinking that they were actually part of our tribe. We’d have to see how it worked. We did give Smith a transponder so that he could call on the Gateway whenever he needed it.

Nobody wanted me to go to California. Kim argued against it, as did Clara, Gabby, Dunbar, and Burton. They all thought I should send someone else. Dunbar volunteered to go, but I turned him down. I felt an obligation to go and find the compound there and to locate the personnel that had been stranded there once the Gateway had been closed. In a manner of speaking it was my fault that it had happened, and it was my fault that no one had tried to rescue them before now. I had to take responsibility for my actions. Kim didn’t agree, but then she wasn’t the one who’d given Ridgeway his orders.

The transfer went fine. I ended up standing on top of a rise in the California foothills. There was clear space about me for at least five hundred yards, and I had a good view of my surroundings. I’d arrived early in the morning, locally, appearing beneath a clear blue sky.

I wasn’t completely alone as I’d brought a pair of horses with me. One would be my mount and the other would serve as my packhorse. I’d planned on being in the region for a couple of weeks at the most. I’d packed provisions, along with some trade goods in case I encountered some locals and I was able to make friends with them. The horses would allow me to get about much easier than if I’d been on foot. If I did encounter any survivors, I’d abandon the horses if it was necessary to transfer anyone back to the base. The horses were a stallion and a mare, and both were about five years old. If I did leave them behind, the possibility was there that those two horses would breed and possibly create a new genus of horses here in what people called the New World back on my Earth. I had no idea if the original North American horse population had been wiped out or not by now, but if they hadn’t things could get interesting.

The first thing I did was to get the drone in the air. I’d packed it on the packhorse, and once I was certain that my surroundings were safe, I had unpacked it and prepped it for flight. Once it was in the air I started flying it in ever expanding circles about my location, hoping to spot something of interest. Technically, I shouldn’t be that far from the compound that I was looking for; but as we’d learned in China, without an anchor in place, ‘close’ to the location we were trying to reach could mean several miles away.

I didn’t get lucky. Once the drone’s power level had dropped, I recalled it. After recovering it and reviewing the video feed, I packed the drone up on the back of the packhorse and prepared to ride off. Based on what I’d seen in the video feed I decided to head south from my arrival point. I hadn’t spotted the compound of the mining facility, and I hadn’t spotted any sign of local inhabitants, but I had spotted a major river south of my location, and I knew from the records recovered from Winslow’s headquarters at the base that the compound was situated close to one. Hopefully the river that I’d spotted would be the right one.

That night I camped on the banks of that river. Being alone meant that I had to fend for myself so I hoped for the best as I crawled into my bedroll. I made certain that the horses were picketed close by and I had a good fire going. I also made certain I had my weapons at hand so if trouble did show up in the night I’d be ready for it.

I ended up getting a good night’s sleep that first night. Nothing disturbed the horses, and nothing or nobody dropped by to visit my camp. I put the drone in the air again shortly after I had my breakfast, sending it in circles about me in an effort to find the compound. It didn’t happen that day. In fact it took two more days before I came upon it.

In the meantime I travelled along the course of the river, taking my time and not pushing it as I certainly didn’t want one of my horses to go lame. I spent a little time hunting, bagging myself a small deer that day, and another one just before I came upon the compound. I hunted with my bow and arrows and enjoyed myself. I even did a little fishing early in the morning of the second day, just to try my hand at it. I’d come prepared, packing a rod and tackle on the mare, and to my pleasant surprise I got lucky. I actually landed myself a couple of fish. I had no idea what they were, other than they weren’t salmon, but they were a good ten pounds or more before filleting, and they tasted great breaded and fried up for my lunch.

I found the compound and the mine by accident. It turned out that the river I was travelling along wasn’t the river that I had thought it was. I’d been centring my drone sweeps on me and the river every day without achieving any success. Then on the fourth morning there I’d spotted a plume of smoke in the distance, across the river and further south of my location. At that time the power pack of the drone was recharging so I decided to check out the smoke the old fashion way. I went in search of a place to cross the river and when I found one, I did just that. The water was deep, but not too deep. I did have to lift my feet to keep them dry, but that was all I had to do. It took fifteen minutes to cross the river, and then after I’d made certain that my horses were fine and my gear was still dry, I moved on. I did so at a slow pace, not wanting to ride into trouble. A half hour later I was hidden behind a growth of brush, high on a bluff that overlooked the river I’d been looking for, looking down at the compound. To my surprise I found that it was still inhabited.

The California compound turned out to be a thriving success! From my location on top of the bluff I could see that a community of locals had grown up around the place. The compound was an eight base container complex with three containers double stacked. By the records I’d reviewed, the compound was supposed to be manned by forty-eight people. From what I was seeing, gazing down at the place, there were obviously a few more. It was also obvious that the uptime people and the locals had become integrated. I could see the gate into the compound and it was standing wide open with men and women strolling in and out of it, along with small children using it as well. I noted that the village positioned beside the compound was well laid out and that most of the structures making it up looked to have been there for a while. I even noted a couple of adobe buildings off to one side that looked to be smokehouses. I found it all very interesting.

I did notice a few other things about the compound and the inhabitants. One thing I noted was that there was a sentry stationed on top of the command post container unit. That meant I wasn’t going to sneak up on anybody, at least during the day time. The other thing I noted was that the sentry was armed with a bow, while many of the men, both uptime and local, were armed with atlatl style throwing spears. Seeing this raised a few questions in my mind. I also noticed that a few uptime people were wearing holsters upon their hips, but none of them were carrying long guns. I wondered if they no longer had ammunition for the weapons, or like my people, only used those weapons when they were needed for defence.

The final thing that I noticed was the fact that there was a vegetable garden growing in the centre of the compound courtyard. It wasn’t huge in size, maybe two hundred square feet, but it was there. That meant these people were doing something other than living off the locals to survive.

I spent the next couple of days watching the compound. I also slipped off and checked out the mining operation. The operation here in California was a much smaller one than the one in China. The facility was set up down river from the compound. It only consisted of a dozen containers, of which two were double stacks. To my surprise I saw that the mining operation had been shut down as I saw no one go to the facility during the time I spied on the community. When I carried out a midnight stroll around the facility and then went over the wall, I found all the doors to the containers locked. That gave me a little more to think about.

My big concern was how to make contact with the inhabitants of the compound. I could ride in and confront them directly, which was something I would have done right away if I’d had backup, or I could snatch someone from the compound and interrogate them privately. While the inhabitants of the compound did put a sentry on watch during daylight hours, it was the only time they did it, and I’d noted a time or two that the sentry had been napping instead of keeping watch. There was also very little attention paid to people coming and going from the village or the compound. People had a habit of wandering off, either to go hunting or fishing, or to forage for something in the woods. I could easily grab someone while they were away from the compound and no one would be the wiser. They wouldn’t miss that person until several hours later. I could have even scaled the walls of the compound if I’d wanted and take those living in it by surprise. The villagers had dogs that they could turn loose at night to roam about to provide them with security against unwelcomed visitors. Unfortunately, out of habit, the dogs rarely ventured beyond the boundaries of the village, which was sited off to one side of the compound complex. That meant that I could have come in from the other, if I had wanted to do so.

I didn’t want to capture anyone. From what I could see, the inhabitants of the compound weren’t causing any problems for the locals, so my thinking was why should I? It just didn’t make sense pissing off people when you wanted to be friendly. Ultimately I decided to ride down and confront them directly.

The thing about sitting up on the bluff and spying on the inhabitants of the compound was the fact I was able to identify who was who in the community. Over the two days that I watched, I saw who was approached the most often by those living in the compound, and who did what. I even saw how the locals interacted with members of the uptime community. It all proved very informative.

I packed up my camp on the third day of watching the compound and the inhabitants of the village. I did it early, making sure that everything was tucked away and secure, in case I had to mount up and ride for it. I really didn’t think that would happen, but decided to be cautious in any case. I then tethered my mount and the packhorse at the base of the bluff, out of sight but close at hand.

Being early morning when I did this, the village across the river from me was waking with most of the people still in bed. I grabbed the pole I’d made the night before from a young sapling, hefting it as I climbed the bluff and went over the top of it. I’d tied a white cloth bag to it, hoping that any of the uptime people seeing it would interpret it as a white flag of truce, and we could go from there. If they didn’t, things could get messy really quick.

I planted the pole on the slope of the bluff about halfway down towards the river. Once it was up and I was certain that the morning breeze wasn’t going to knock it down, I sat down and made myself comfortable.

It took some time for the people across the river to notice me. In fact, it took the sentry up on the top of the command post, as he climbed up and took up his duty to notice me, and even that had taken him a few minutes since he’d spent some time setting up a sun umbrella over his position first, and a chair to sit upon while standing his watch. However, he did raise a clamour of alarm when he did spot me.

The alarm got everyone’s attention. Men poured out of huts in the village, and from the compound, all armed with some type of weapon. While the men gathered, the women and children ran, all of them heading into the compound. Once they were inside, someone closed the gate.

I didn’t do anything. I simply sat and waited as the inhabitants of the compound and the local hunters sorted themselves out, and they decided what they were going to do about me. It actually didn’t take very long. Someone made a command decision and people started to move. Naturally, they moved towards me.

The local hunters split into two groups. One group went to the right of the contingent of uptime people, and one group took up positions on the left. Together they all advanced towards the river and me. As they did I took note of what I was up against.

First off, the uptime contingent was relatively small. There were seven of them, dressed in a mix of uptime clothing and buckskins. There were six men and one woman. The woman looked to be in charge, and after a moment I placed her from all my observations, remembering that she’d been active during the time I’d been watching the community, directing what was going on there. She looked to be in her mid-forties, tall, well-tanned, with rusty grey hair. She was also carrying a shotgun. She held it canted downwards and to the left as she walked. The six men with her were similarly armed. They were younger than she was, but they were all definitely in their thirties. As for the locals, a few had bows, but most of them were armed with atlatls.

I felt reasonably safe where I was. The river that stood between us was a little over fifty feet wide. I’d measured the distance with my laser range finder just to be sure. In addition, I was another ten feet away from the river’s edge. I wasn’t absolutely safe from the weapons of the approaching group, but I hoped the distance was enough to give them pause if matters dissolved and shooting broke out. My true hope was that if things did dissolve I could make it back up the hill before anyone could wing me. If I could, then I’d be safe, since the river was at least waist deep in that spot.

“Who are you?” the woman shouted across to me once she and her people came to a halt at the river’s edge, on their side of the body of water.

I told the woman my name. I also told her that I wanted to talk. Like everyone else I’d run into since coming here who’d worked for Quantum the woman just couldn’t believe that I was who I had said I was.

“You’re dead,” the woman declared with disbelief written all over her face. “Both Winslow and Ridgeway told us that you were dead.”

“Winslow was full of it,” I told the woman bluntly, “and Ridgeway was lying through his teeth. I am who I say I am. Now are you interested in talking or should I take off and leave you here?”

“We can talk,” the woman said without hesitation and without any consultation with her people. “Do you want to come over here? It would make chatting easier.”

“Will it be safe?” I asked the woman. “I see a lot of people with weapons, and I know for a fact Quantum people don’t like me. After all, I put the company out of business and stranded all of you here.”

My declaration caused a bit of a commotion amongst the men gathered behind the woman. A couple looked at me angrily, and one man, a tall, blonde haired, bearded fellow, leaned over and started whispering in her ear. She allowed it for a moment or two and then curtly waved the man off and then told the other men to shut up.

“You’re right,” the woman admitted, shouting over to me. “It might not be safe for you over here. Even so, shouting like this isn’t going to make people relax. How about I come over and speak to you?”

“That would work,” I agreed promptly. “There’s a crossing about two miles downriver from here, just past your mining facility. I’ll wait for you there.”

With that I got up. I did so slowly. As I did, I reached out and took hold of the improvised flag post and flag. I took them with me. It was a long walk to the top of the hill, with my back facing people I didn’t really know or trust, but I did it.

I rode to the crossing, leading my packhorse which didn’t take me long. Once there I tethered my horses to a nearby tree, and then set about getting ready to greet my guests. I quickly gathered up some firewood and some stones, made a fire ring on the shore facing the crossing and got a fire started. I had water on and heating by the time the woman arrived at the far side of the crossing. She wasn’t alone. She had arrived with the tall, blonde haired, bearded guy, and one of the local hunters. I waved to them, and then waited for them to cross the river. The river was about a hundred feet wide at that point and less than a foot deep. It took them a few moments to cross the river. I only let them get halfway.

“That’s far enough,” I shouted to them, standing at the water’s edge on my side of the river and bringing my carbine up to accentuate my words. “We need to come to an understanding before anyone comes any further. Is that understood?”’

“What kind of understanding?” the woman shouted back at me, looking nervously at my carbine that was pointed directly at her.

“You’re armed and I’m armed,” I said stating the obvious. “I want you to put your shotguns above your head. When you get here you’ll lie them down on the shore. Your native friend can put his atlatl aside as well. You can keep your side arms and knives, but that is it. If you don’t like the terms, you can head back across the river.”

“What about your weapon?” the woman demanded to know, her voice edged with annoyance.

“I’ll cover you until you’re on this side and unarmed,” I told the woman plainly, “and then I’ll put my carbine aside. I will also be keeping my other weapons. Is it agreed?”

The woman agreed. The man wasn’t happy about it, but after a sharp word from the woman, he did as he was told, lifting his shotgun above his head and holding it there until they made it to my side of the river. Once there the man and woman put their shotguns down and the local laid aside his spears and his spear thrower. Once they’d done that, I laid aside my carbine and told them to pull themselves up a log.