A quote: “I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.” ~~ Elie Wiesel
I’ll start with a story …
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Can 30 or so people be a sea? Yet all those eyes staring up at me standing at the podium couldn’t be less unnerving than if it was a few hundred.
I cleared my throat, “My name is Hope Carmichael. I’m mother to Steven, your town’s new smithy.”
When Steven was recruited, I hadn’t planned on coming. We’d been in Jefferson Township for 3 generations. But a Grayman ambush in the tripwire zone had taken the lives of several, including my husband and Steven’s wife. Our grief was unbearable, but I now had grandchildren to care for.
“Citizens, it’s true I am a teacher. I won’t insult you by saying your suspicion is wrong. But know, I was not educated under the Grays, nor was my mother or hers.
I offer my services, to help continue giving your children tools for now and in the future. Every book, every skill will be reviewed by you. The classroom door always open.”
I answered every question but I was unsure I convinced them. Trust broken is hard to regain. My answer came the day when I opened the door of the small building I was given and found my first class inside.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
GWB says: I had found it. The Holy Grail of Westerns, the Cabin At The Back Of The Hidden Canyon.
Well, that was almost always the setup in the movie or show. But even looking at it in the show, it was seldom actually nestled at the bottom back of some canyon. It was always up on the hill, with the ability to hold off pursuers. Sometimes it was the bad guy hideout, sometimes a refuge for the hero and the damsel.
And, here it was. Someone had modernized it with double-hung windows, and there was a porta-potty hidden out back. But substantially as I imagined it. Just one room with a cot and a table and chair. Oh, and the fireplace with a spot for cooking chili and brewing coffee. (Who eats anything else in a hideout cabin?) It was well-built and well-chinked against the weather.
Now to set the plan in motion. Draw them in, and take them out from that cliff up behind.
Maybe I should move that porta-potty….
Cameron says: Two people entered the schoolhouse under the guidance of an old Park Ranger. The man smiled at them and encouraged them to look around.
“We restored things as best we could,” he said. “Not too many pictures from that time.”
One of the men looked over. “Well, we have a few things for you.” He handed over some pictures that had been lovingly restored.
One of the women reached into her pack. “These are some of the textbooks that were used. If you’d like, we can get a more modern printing of them.”
The Ranger’s eyes went wide as he saw them. “This…this is…”
“The originals,” she said proudly. “Just like those pictures.”
The Ranger smiled and reverently laid the artifacts down on a desk. “I’ll get someone over today to get these in a display case. Are you really sure about this?”
The two nodded. “We’ve held onto them long enough. We have fond memories of this place and wanted to share them.”
“Fond memories?” the Ranger asked.
They pointed at two of the children. “We stopped aging when we turned twenty-one for some reason. We’re fine with leaving our mark here. It was a nice place to learn.”
Establishing our homestead was almost too easy. The Chongu supplied us with all the basics, in prefab kits. Four modules the size of steamer trunks, which we then unfolded and snapped together, formed our house. Similar kits built our barns and machine sheds. The well-drilling team had already been there, so we just had to connect the lines to each building — no need to haul in water or carry it by the bucket from a stream like some of our neighbors did while they were waiting. Then it was just a matter of getting seeds in the ground for food and fodder crops — which was mostly a matter of getting used to machinery control interfaces designed by obligate-carnivore pouncing ambush predators.
I knew the logic — as our Virtual Assistant reminded us many times during this learning period, while we adapted to their technology. The quicker the settlement prospered and became strong, the better it would be in the vast picket line the Chongu were building against their ancient enemy. We call the Tchiador the “Lobsters” because of their general shape, but they have a society more akin to that of termites, each colony having a king and queen surrounded by a vast multitude of sterile workers — and they consider it an abomination that intelligent species should be “solitaries,” every individual a potential reproductive, and not biologically locked into one or another caste. Hence the war, which has been ongoing for centuries.
Yet it feels wrong to be having it so easy. So we’ve taken to building a little log cabin, out by the big butte that marks the northwest corner of our homestead. The Chongu flicked their ears at us when we wanted hand tools, not power tools, but they decided it must be some kind of religious thing, a shrine that has to be prepared with traditional means to be holy.
No, it’s just a way of memorializing our settler ancestors who carved a nation out of howling wilderness, using body-powered tools and animal traction. And there’s a certain satisfaction at being able to look at this little shack and know that we did it, with our own tools, our own bodies, our own grit and determination.
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