A Distant Eden

by Lloyd Tackitt

  The poacher said loudly, “I’ve been waiting for you. You might as well come on down and talk.”

  Matt kept still and quiet. He recalled a joke about a poacher who every night before going hunting would walk out to his porch and yell out, “I know you’re there, Mr. Game Warden. Might as well come in and have some coffee.” The game warden would come in and they would enjoy a cup of coffee. On the day the game warden retired, he asked the poacher how he always knew when he was out there watching. The poacher replied, “I didn’t—I just yelled it every morning and if you didn’t answer I went hunting.” Matt had plenty of time; he didn’t have to rush. So he waited.

  If the poacher had actually seen him, he would keep talking. After half an hour, the poacher shifted his position and said the same thing in the opposite direction. Matt remained quiet. After another half hour, the poacher laid down to sleep. Matt watched until he was sure he was actually sleeping. Looking around, he saw the bow and arrows, the deer hanging from a tree limb, and a backpack. Encircling the area, he searched for anyone else—but there was only this one poacher, alone.

  Armed and with the element of surprise, Matt decided to wait until daylight to capture him. He wasn’t about to shoot him down. Matt had killed the men at the roadblock because they had chosen to be a direct threat to his family. He had killed the other poacher out of self-defense. This felt different. So Matt waited.

  As the sun came up the poacher awoke. Matt had been awake all night and was eager to get on with this. Matt called out, “Freeze, and I mean freeze or die! Don’t sit up, don’t move a muscle.”

  The poacher froze in place, then visibly relaxed and waited. Matt climbed down the gully side to the bottom and stood twenty feet away from the man lying on the ground, keeping him covered with his rifle.

  Matt said, “OK, now we decide whether you live and leave or stay and die. At the moment, I’m leaning towards you die. You’ve stolen food from my children. So, explain to me, poacher, why I should let you live—and how I could believe that you wouldn’t come back.”

  The poacher knew his psychology; he knew that his best chance of surviving this was to be seen as a person and not as an object. He said, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is James Randolph. I am a game biologist and I lived in Ozona. I worked for the State of Texas before the grid dropped. I made game counts out here for the owner a few years back. My wife and son were killed by a gang that came through Ozona. I was nearly killed by them, badly wounded. I managed to drive them off, but not before they shot my wife and son through the wall of the house. I’m still recovering from the wound, but I’ll never recover from their deaths.

  “To answer your question, all I can say is that if you want me to leave I will. I can’t prove it ahead of time but I give you my word that I won’t come back. On the other hand, if you want to shoot me, go ahead; you’ll be doing me a favor. If it wasn’t for my faith, I would have killed myself the day my family died. But I can’t do that, so I’m stuck here—and I detest it.” James sat up straight and looked at Matt with steady, calm eyes, projecting that he was ready and willing to accept whatever his fate would be.

  Matt waited, then said, “There may be a third option. If I can be convinced that you are a Christian, that you have told me the plain truth, I might have another option. But how can I be sure you aren’t conning me—like you tried to do last night, calling me in like that. That sort of action doesn’t lend itself to me trusting you.”

  Surprisingly, James laughed. “You were there when I did that? I’m impressed that you didn’t fall for it; anybody else would have. OK, look at me closely. I called you in, but I’m unarmed, no gun. Just a bow and knife, both of which are over there, well away from me. I may be a poacher—no, I am a poacher—but I’m not a random killer. I hold no bad intentions towards you. I don’t blame you for not trusting me; you’ve no reason to, every reason not to, and a family, according to your words, that counts on you getting this right. It’s a quandary. Want to have breakfast while we consider it?”

  Matt thought, “This guy is smooth, very smooth. Too smooth to suit me. His story could be true, but how would I ever know?” Matt had an idea. “Alright, James. I don’t believe you; you’re too smooth. I can’t afford to take a chance on being wrong, so I’m going to kill you here. You can face the gun or turn around and take it in the back of the head. Your choice. But you have three seconds to make that choice.”

  Startled, James swallowed hard and met Matt’s eyes. In them James saw his death. He got on his knees and bowed his head. He began praying: “Oh Lord, please once again forgive me for all of my sins. Please, Lord, you are my savior and if you will but accept me, I will be your faithful servant as always. And, Lord, please forgive this poor man for the horrible choice I have imposed on him; he is only doing what he has to in order to protect his family. OK—I am ready to be with my lord and my family. Shoot true and clean.”

  Matt said, “Sorry about that. It was the only way I could think of to test your profession of faith. Either you’re the coldest con man on earth or you are truly a Christian. Go ahead and cook us some breakfast while I ponder on my plan. I want to think about it some more, but be relaxed in that the worst that will happen is you’ll walk away from here alive.”

  James built a fire and carved off two pieces of meat to roast. While doing that he brought out a small cowboy coffee pot and made camp coffee.

  The two men sat quietly drinking hot coffee and eating roasted venison as the sun continued to climb. After they finished and James had put his kit away, Matt said, “decision time for you James. Here are your alternatives. You can walk away, or you can come back to the house with me. If you come back, I’m going to propose to Alfred and Wilma that you stay on to help them. I’m convinced that this place can support three people, but six people will ruin it inside of two years. I think the best thing to do is to take my family elsewhere, but I didn’t want to leave Alfred and Wilma to fend for themselves at their age. I have somewhere to go; they don’t. Well, they do, they would be welcomed, but they would probably not be able to make the trip.

  “So, if they agree, you’ll stay permanently, giving me your word you’ll take care of them for the rest of their natural lives, staying on afterwards as the owner. Or you can walk. Your choice.”

  James looked at Matt for awhile and asked, “Are they Christians? I wouldn’t consider it if they aren’t. “

  “Yes.”

  “Before I commit I would like to get to know them, which will give them a chance to get to know me as well. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Matt said, then repeated, “Fair enough.”

  Chapter 21

  Roman led Adrian, his men, and the women into the brush to meet up with Sarah. When Sarah saw Adrian, she jumped up with joy and hugged him hard. She wiped tears from her eyes and said, “Oh honey, we’ve been so worried about you, but look at you, you’ve never looked healthier.”

  Adrian said, “Well, these past three weeks’ve been like a Caribbean cruise. We took our time getting here because the ladies needed to recover, so we spent most of our time hunting and eating. I don’t think I’ve ever had an easier three weeks.”

  Roman said, “Honey, these girls are all yours now. You take charge of them and get them settled in. I’m thinking it’s time to move to the cave. I’ve only seen two groups on the river—and that was a long time ago. It’s far from the roads and the roads are where the walkers are coming from. I think another two weeks and the walking phase will be pretty much over. What do you think?”

  Sarah smiled, easing the tension lines around her eyes. “The cave sounds great; I’m tired of seeing stars over my head at night. It’s big enough and dry and out of the wind. Plenty of fire wood around the area, easy access to water. It was favored by Indians going back thousands of years, and it’s still a good place. Besides, we left the big wash tub there; we can heat up water and take hot baths.”

  With that statement, the women’s faces lit up.
Alice said, “Hot bath? Oh my, I haven’t had a hot bath since the grid went down. What do we have to do? We’ll do it, twice!” The rest of the women and Sarah laughed with delight.

  It only took an hour to relocate everyone to the cave. Roman took Adrian and two of the men, dug up three food caches, and carried them back to the cave. Adrian said, “I haven’t been here in years. We used to find arrowheads and spear points around here. I heard that there was an archaeological dig near here recently.”

  Roman put down his pack. “The dig was a mile or so downstream. This cave apparently was used as living quarters by a lot of natives for a few thousand years. But since it floods occasionally, I guess it was used about the way we’re using it, as a “temporary home.” It has great swimming and fishing, good hunting, and it’s pleasant enough; it’s deep enough for shelter, but not too deep that it warrants exploration. In the winter, you can build a fire and get heat reflected from the walls. The best fire spot is obvious; the cave wall is blackened from where it was done before.”

  Adrian laughed. “The ladies will have this place fixed up like home in no time. It’ll hardly be fit for a man to sleep in anymore. Which reminds me, where are Jerry and Shirley?”

  Roman frowned. “Still in Dallas. They got together at Jerry’s house and actually dug out a warren of trenches under the floor. They have a pretty good setup from their description, but they’re going to have to get out within the next couple of weeks. The gangs are getting bad and moving closer to them. They wiped out one gang that got too close already. They even had to fight and kill a six hundred pound hog that tried to get under the house with them. I’m going to leave in the morning to go help them get out of there.”

  Adrian said, “I’ll leave first thing in the morning to get them. The boys’ll go with me. We’re all rested up after that slow walk and need some exercise. Tell Jerry to hold fast until we get there. It’ll take us two days, three at the most. Can they hold out that long? Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you go, you’ll slow us down. We can travel three times faster than you. You need to stay here and hold the fort until we get back.”

  “None taken. With you guys going, I won’t have to worry. And I couldn’t keep up with you guys if I had a horse to ride. When I talk to them tonight I’ll let them know the plan. Speaking of which, we need to set backup rendezvous points, just in case.”

  “I’ll round up the boys and tell them what’s up so they can be ready.” As Adrian walked off, Alice came out of the cave and approached Roman.

  “I want to thank you on behalf of myself and the girls. We could hardly have expected such warmth and humanity from total strangers. You can’t know how much it means to us; only a short time ago we had resigned ourselves to death. Then, like knights in shining armor, Adrian and his team rescued us from the edge of death, and brought us here to what already feels like home and family.” Alice choked up on the last two words and started crying.

  Roman put his arm around her shoulder. “Hey now, I hope those are happy tears. We aren’t such a bad family that you have to cry about being stuck with us. The cave isn’t much of a home, but it is temporary. We’ll do better.”

  Alice laughed and cried at the same time. “You are a rare gem, Mr. Hunter, a rare gem indeed. And Sarah is an absolute treasure—what a wonderful woman. We want you to know that we will pull our weight. We’ll do anything and everything that needs to be done around here. We’ll do all we can to make you glad you took us in. You know we are two doctors and the rest experienced nurses, right? Adrian loaded up with all kinds of medical equipment and supplies. With our training, we can set up a field hospital, treating everything from pediatrics to dentistry. I have to believe that eventually such a setup will be a major social center, bringing in folks from hundreds of miles around. Assuming that’s what you want us to do.”

  “Alice, that is perfect beyond my wildest dreams. I want you to understand that I’ve been thinking about and preparing for a situation like this since I was a boy. For instance, years ago I purchased a pressure cooker that is milled. This means that it works without a gasket. No gasket to wear out—do you know how important that will be now? When we get back to canning our own food, we can do so, and do so for the next ten generations or longer with this cooker because it requires no replacement parts, ever. It will also make a handsome autoclave.

  “Over the years Roman continued, “I’ve bought a lot of antique tools that are in working condition. Two man bucksaws, hand powered drills, spoke shaves and drawknives, block planes and all sorts of things like that. Tools that need no electricity. Tools that can be passed down from generation to generation.” Pacing back and forth, Roman’s voice swelled with enthusiasm. “Perhaps more importantly, I’ve built up a library of old-fashioned printed books. Each book contains information necessary to make the best of the situation we are in. One of the best of my collection of books is the Fox Fire series. Thirteen books about life in the Smoky Mountains. Books that describe living skills; soap making, hog dressing, shoe making, chair making, shingle making and on and on. Skills that would otherwise be lost and have to be learned over from scratch. I have books on simple chemistry that explain how to make things like sulfuric acid, batteries, fertilizer and lots more that we’ll need to know.

  “I have blacksmith tools and books and metal working books. I have old surgical and dental tools from the civil war era. I have seeds for gardens, and old plows we can use when we have mules. I have a still to make whisky with, and once we have alcohol and sulfuric acid I can make ether for anesthetic purposes. I have reloading equipment for ammunition and I have guns and I can make black powder. I have books and tools for making flintlock rifles. I have books on the best ways to make atlatls and bows and arrows and how to knap flint.

  Alice was smiling at Roman’s intensity as he continued. “I’ve collected all this, a little here and a little there over fifty years. We have the basics to restart at a low level, a level without electricity. But wait, there’s more—as they used to say on TV. Once we get set up we have electricity too; I have that figured out. By building a wood gas oven, we can run generators to make electricity. We can run about any internal combustion engine with wood gas, even to the point of fixing up a truck that can go for as far as you can find wood to burn in it. Wood gas is created by baking wood at high temperatures. It was developed during WWII when there were gasoline shortages and rationing.

  “I have all this, or know how to build it, or have books on how to do it, but what I never dreamed of having was actual, trained, real honest to God medical personnel. I never dreamed of having a nurse with us, much less five nurses and two doctors and a field hospital. Fantastic.

  “Alice, in a nutshell, here’s our future. First, we have to get past this phase of the walking starving, followed by the shorter but more brutal phase of roaming gangs. The third phase will be where we set up as a tribe or village. Literally, we’ll be stone age people for awhile. Why? Because we’ve lost all infrastructure. Think about it this way: before the grid crashed, when everything was running smooth, you couldn’t have made a No. 2 pencil by yourself. I know, that sounds crazy, but think about it.”

  Roman waved his hands as he spoke. “To build a number two pencil you need graphite. Graphite has to be mined, refined and manufactured into the pencil lead. Wood has to be cut, dried, milled. Paint has to be manufactured, requiring probably fifty chemical processes that have to be carried out in independent factories. Glue has to be manufactured, same mess as the paint. Then the metal ferrule has to be manufactured, starting with digging ore out of the ground, smelting, melting, metallurgical mixing, and forming. Forming the metal requires huge machines. Then there’s the eraser. I’m not sure what the eraser is made of, but it must be a process that requires the combination of dozens of processes and ingredients. All that just for a pencil!

  Roman was slowing down now, become more pensive. “Now that the grid is down, the people who knew how to do each one of those steps are gone. Tho
se factories are now silent. A No. 2 pencil might as well be a rocket ship these days.

  “The good news is, we can scavenge off of what was left behind. I can make a wood gas generator that can run engines, and there are millions of engines laying around for the taking. We can scavenge repair parts off of other engines, as we need to, for a couple of generations. But we’re going to run into things we can’t do.

  “We can’t, as of today, make a horseshoe from scratch. We can’t make a nail from scratch. It will take years and years before those skilled people are replaced, maybe centuries. Even back before the grid existed, there was a matrix of skilled people and operations that we depended on. Before the blacksmith could make nails, someone had to mine iron ore, smelt it into steel, refine the steel into carbon steel, heat it into billets, pull the steel into strands and coil the strands and deliver them to the blacksmith. All of that is gone. We can’t make metal anymore. We can salvage what is around us, but we can’t create it anymore. That’s why I say we’re going back to the stone age. The only manufacturing process we can perform from scratch, ourselves, will be making stone tools—and not many people will figure that out either.”

  Roman paused for a moment, looking at Alice without seeing her. “In the near future, we’ll establish tribes and villages. They’ll be scattered, not in contact at first. Eventually contact will be established between them. There’ll be wars between some of them. Trade between others. Some will begin to specialize in certain manufacturing processes. It’ll be the restart of a civilized world. Getting people together in an amicable fashion will be difficult. Having a hospital will be huge for that. Huge. We have the start for a new Eden, a distant Eden. An Eden for our kids and grandkids perhaps.

  “In the interim, there’ll be violent conflict. Between us and roaming bands of thugs. Between us and other tribes that have ill intentions towards us, or get too close and trespass on our hunting grounds. Violence and war will be normal for some time. Having the ability to heal our wounded gives us a strategic advantage over everyone else. That makes us top of the heap in many ways.”