A Distant Eden (6 page)

But there was always a backup plan. If the ranch plan failed, Matt’s “Plan B” was to join Roman and his group. Roman had also often talked about the optimum sustainable group size. He said, “Historically mankind has survived because of tribes. A group that shares opportunities, skills and capabilities has a better chance of survival than an individual or a family. Tribes allow some people to specialize in certain skills to the benefit of all. An example is flint knapping. When hunters developed atlatls and bows, they had need for a large number of arrowheads. Making a flint arrowhead involves hours of work.

“The flint knapper must find the materials to make the tools to make the arrowheads, and then he has to make the tools. Then he has to search for and locate the best raw materials, such as flint or obsidian. Once a quarry has been located, the knapper then has to create ‘blanks’—pieces of flint that are of the correct approximate shape and size. These can then be transported back to the camp where the knapper can bring them into shape. But trying to accomplish all these necessary activities, while also trying to survive by hunting and gathering, is a tough proposition.

“In a tribe, a skilled knapper can spend his time productively making arrowheads while hunters are out hunting with the arrowheads he made. They bring back game that they share with him, and he provides them with more arrowheads to replace the ones they lost or broke while hunting. There are other skills as well: preserving the skins, drying and storing the meat, scouting out new places to hunt, fighting off other people who try to invade their hunting grounds. Tribes dramatically improve survival of the individual.

“Fifteen prime adult men married to fifteen prime adult women, along with their children and elders, is about the optimal size. If food is plentiful, a larger tribe can be successful. But even under the best of conditions, there is an upper limit to an efficient tribe. One hundred seems to be the historical maximum, and that number is hard to maintain. Tribes need to be separate from, but close to, other tribes. There needs to be an intermixing of the gene pools. If a tribe doesn’t intermarry with other tribes the DNA stagnates.”

Matt was thinking about all this, and how a thirty adult tribal unit would be difficult to feed in west Texas under the best of circumstances. He wondered how his boys would fare in the long term without a tribe. His “Plan B” was kept alive by Roman’s continued offer of acceptance into his tribe, and by ham radio. Matt had purchased two of the radios; one for spare parts. He had purchased two inverters so the radio could be run off batteries. With them he would stay in close and frequent contact with Roman. Just in case.

It took less than two weeks to empty the warehouses of most of the food, pack it onto trucks and ship it back to Fort Hood. It was boring duty; they were loading trucks, standing guard duty or sleeping. Civilians lined the fence shouting for food. Once in a while one would attempt to climb the fence, but they never got far before they were returned to the outside of the perimeter. The first few days there had been rioting as the hungry men saw the army hauling off truck loads of food. Adrian and his men had fired over their heads to warn them off. Now they didn’t have the energy to riot.

Adrian had been doing the math and didn’t see how it would be possible to store enough food to feed one hundred thousand people for any significant length of time. He had decided that not everyone was going to be staying at Fort Hood, and he didn’t see that there was a good alternate place to send troops. It came as no surprise to Adrian when he learned the rest of the plan. The officers had been called into a briefing, and immediately afterwards the men were called to formation. The lieutenant laid it out for them.

“Men, Fort Hood has fifty thousand troops and fifty thousand dependents. The food we, and other details, have sent back won’t feed that many people. The Post Commander has ordered that only five thousand married troops and their families will remain at Fort Hood. Those five thousand will make up and maintain the core of the command and will immediately begin farming activities. They will await orders from Washington and the return of government control.

“The remainder of the married troops and their families will remain at the food warehouses they are assigned to. Your dependents will be transported out here to you. As you will have noted, not all of the food has been removed from these warehouses. Enough food was retained to feed the stationed troops and families for a one-year start up period. During that time, these troops and their families are to move to a farm assigned to them, with the full cooperation of the farm’s owners.

“There is enough food to get them started. They will provide manpower and firepower to plant and guard crops. The farmers who own the land will benefit from their presence, and the troops and their families will benefit from the land and the farmer’s expertise in a mutually advantageous arrangement. These farms have been previously identified and their locations have been made known to your officers. Those of you affected will receive additional orders tomorrow.

“The remaining troops are unmarried, or their families are not located at Fort Hood. Each of these soldiers is immediately placed on indefinite inactive reserve status, subject to recall at any time. Each soldier will be provided with a

one-month supply of MREs, his field weapon and five hundred rounds of ammo. The soldiers in this status may be transported to Fort Hood to leave from there, if they choose. Or they can be discharged from here—whichever is in their best interest. Get with your officer after formation and let him know your travel preference. Troop dismissed!”

Adrian smiled. He knew where he was going to go: his uncle’s riverbank home, a hundred and fifty mile walk from here. Roman had insisted that should such an event ever come to pass, Adrian’s first duty was to get home. Once there he was released from any further duty to family and to do as he saw fit, but he was to come home first.

Adrian’s platoon was comprised of single men. Given their unusual missions, there was no place for married men in the group. Some of them would be heading south; leaving from Fort Hood would give them a better start. Some would go back to settle personal affairs or maybe pick up personally owned items. A few were like Adrian, foot loose enough that leaving from here would be best, not needing to go back.

As the troops were dismissed, they broke up into the usual groups to cuss and discuss their new orders. Most were hit with shock; they had never thought of the future before. Others still were deeply disappointed to be cut loose. They had stayed in the army because they didn’t care for civilian life; they wanted to be soldiers. It was their first encounter with being downsized, an unpleasant experience under any circumstances. Doubly so under these.

Adrian gathered his squad mates. There was the normal belly-aching to start the conversation off, but it quickly got down to brass tacks—what each of them was going to do. Adrian told his men to meet with him in half an hour as he had an idea he wanted to present to them.

Once he was done, he walked over to the lieutenant.

“LT,” Adrian said, “my weapon of choice is the shotgun, and I want to lay first claim to it since there is only one here that I know of, and I don’t need to go back to Hood. That OK?”

“Not a problem, it’s yours. I don’t think we have five hundred rounds of twelve gauge ammo with us though; maybe two hundred assorted. I really wish we could keep you and your men with us. I argued strongly for it, but was over-ruled. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t sweat it, LT. I have other plans anyway, but I do appreciate the thought. Two hundred rounds are plenty to carry and should last me a day

or two. Would you sell me a set of your civvies? I don’t cotton to walking around out there in a uniform. I think it would make me stand out a bit too much.”

“Hell, Adrian,” the lieutenant laughed, “I wasn’t thinking of you when I argued to keep you; I was thinking of me. You can have some of the civvies that I brought. I’m one of the new farmers and fatigues are fine for farming. Meet me at my tent at 1900 hours and you can take your pick.”

Adrian saluted, said, “See you then,” spun on his heel in a perfect about-face and marched to the bivouac area to where his team waited for him. “OK, guys, here’s what I’m going to do. I have an uncle that lives about a hundred-fifty miles from here. He’s a crazy old coot that halfway raised me. He has been a doomsdayer his whole life and made some pretty good preparations for a disaster like this. I promised him that in the event, and should I be able to, I would come straight home at the first opportunity. I’m heading there in as straight a line as I can.

“When I get there, I’ll hang around awhile and then decide whether I’m staying there or moving on. Uncle Roman always insisted that I bring along anyone I wanted to. He’s put back quite a bit of food, and the hunting is good. The river is full of fish and turtles and ducks. It’s the best place I can imagine to go right now.

“So, here’s the deal. Each of you is hereby cordially invited by Uncle Roman to come home with me. Once there, you and he can get to know each other and you can decide if you want to stay or not. Knowing my uncle and knowing you guys, I have no doubt in my military mind that you’ll be welcomed with open arms to stay—and I have no doubt that you will like it there. In fact, I can’t think of any better place for any of you. But it’s your call to make. I only ask that you keep this quiet; I don’t intend to invite anyone else, and I don’t want anyone else trying to tag along. Think it over and let me know by 2200 hours tonight.”

By 2100 hours, Adrian had already heard from each of the five men. They were all coming with him.

The next morning, Adrian met the lieutenant at the temporary armory and picked up the selective fire twelve-gauge shotgun and one-hundred-seventy-five rounds of ammunition. The shotgun was capable of single fire, semi-auto, or full auto, delivering 20 rounds from the drum magazine in four seconds. It had a tube magazine when the drum wasn’t used, and looked pretty much like any black plastic stocked semi-auto shotgun.

Adrian could snipe with the best of them, but action was almost always close quarters, and nothing in the world was as effective then as twelve gauge double ought buckshot. The ammo selection also contained rifled slugs accurate to two hundred yards, accurate enough to take down either man or deer; birdshot; explosive rounds; and incendiary rounds.

The rest of the squad took their standard issue M4 5.56mm rifles. Each man also chose a sidearm, all but Adrian taking the 9mm. Adrian carried his own personal model 1911 .45acp; it delivered stopping power with perfect balance.

The men were issued MREs, which they packed into backpacks. At Adrian’s urging, each had scrounged civilian clothes to wear. They were going to look like a military patrol in civilian clothes no matter what they did, at least until their hair and beards grew.—although, until their beards and hair grew, they’d look like a military patrol no matter what. But Adrian was sure that uniforms would have been a problem.

The men were given their discharges and they set off. Before they got to the gate, Adrian halted the men and said, “OK, we can do this one of two ways. One, we can go on acting like we are still in the army. With me being the sergeant what gives the orders and you being the sergeants what follow those orders immediately and without question. Or two, we can be the civilians that we officially are. We can vote on everything and discuss each step. Either way is fine with me, but if we get into any kind of action at all, we have to have discipline or we are going to get waxed while we sit around chewing the fat. What do you say?”

Bollinger spoke up for the rest of the men, as he usually did. “Civilians—hell, we’re still army and at least until we get to Uncle Roman’s we stay army. Once there we can reconvene this pissing party and see what we want to do then. Move out, Sergeant. You’re wasting our daylight.” The rest of the men grinned and nodded, they never had a lot to say, they mostly did their talking with weapons.

Adrian’s group was the first to leave the warehouses and faced a novel situation at the gate. As usual there was a crowd of half-starved civilians waiting around, hoping for a food distribution. Each morning they were told there would not be a food distribution that day, or any other day, and to move on as they were wasting their time. But each day they did not listen, waiting and starving impassively.

At first the soldiers were bothered by this, but they were under strict orders not to share food. The soldiers soon grew irritated with these civilians for hanging around when they should have been out foraging for food. After a while they understood that these people were going to stay there until they starved or were forced to leave; they didn’t have the will to forage. It was an encounter with people that would never stand on their own two feet, always expecting others to take care of them.

As the squad reached the gate and the guards opened it, the civilian crowd stirred. This was different; army soldiers in civilian clothes were leaving the warehouse compound. Hope stirred in their eyes: hope of food and the nightmare of hunger coming to an end. They began to move forward, and then they started to run. It was turning into a stampede when Adrian fired a burst of fully automatic fire just over their heads, sending them diving for the ground.

Adrian shouted, “You civilians! Back up now or die right there—your choice! You don’t get a second warning!”

The mob began backing up, hatred written large on their faces, and as soon as they did, Adrian and his squad stepped out through the middle of them. The civilians turned and watched resentfully until they marched out of sight.

Roman quickly acclimated to the new reality. He had been thinking about it long enough that it came as less of a shock to him than most; a fulfillment of a prediction. He had a lot to do and he knew that there wasn’t anyone else to do it, so he got to work.

The first thing was building his sand-filtration system for the water; a four-legged wooden box with a sloping bottom, standing four feet off the ground. He filled the box with clean sand and began pouring water through it. The box had a small hole in the bottom. The water would flow through the sand slowly and out the hole into a bucket. This was the first of three steps. The sand filter removed the majority of the debris that was in the water; small pieces of moss or other items. It did not make the water fit to drink.