10 Pound Bag Ch. 096-100

"You also get your own tent. You can have mine. I'll be taking my camper back over and we'll use that for our office, as well, until we get some building done. Can you put together a roster of everyone we have in the campsite, by the end of the day? You'll need to get with Captain Timmons to get a roster of his boatmen."

I turned to Michelle, "You got anything for her right now?"

Michelle thought for a minute and then said, "We need to refresh our inventories again before the new supplies arrive. We may need to recruit some help for that."

I looked directly at Mouse, "Can you take over the inventories for us? We'll teach you everything you need to know and you'll work with Sonya on how to record it."

Mouse smiled and nodded.

I let Holder and Amos get back to their day and moved on to my next point.

"I'd like to appoint Mary to be our new teacher, but I'll need you three to work with her and share knowledge. I'd also like to pull one of the black ladies in to help with that. There's a lot of knowledge to be gained from those cultures as well. Remember that yesterday is the first day of history and tomorrow is the unknown future. Stick to your stories. You can speak about hopes and dreams, but not about achievements and progress to come." That drew a very puzzled look from Ms. Mouse. If she got close to me, sooner or later she'd have to know.

"The last thing we need to work out is tent and tipi locations. All of our gear will be here soon and tents will start going up. I want to insure that racially divided neighborhoods do not spring up. We need to assign spots and make sure everyone is interspersed."

This brought nods from everyone, particularly Sonya. She was definitely going to like some of my other ideas. She was definitely still a social justice warrior at heart; that was good. We needed the other voice in our discussions.

"Gather all the ladies and we'll deal with that this afternoon, so they can simply direct the men, when the tents show up. The fellas do a much better job when they have clear marching orders."

This brought a chuckle from the group.

"Let's take a quick walk and figure out this temporary neighborhood."

Up we got, and I snared Timmons to join in the discussion as well. I planned to add him to the advisory council in the very near future, anyway. If nothing else, I needed another guy there for support.

We ended up dividing tent city up by race, as it turned out. Every other spot was allocated to a different racial background. It was stupid, but entirely necessary. The tents were going up just outside the east side of the palisade; that foot path was about to become a road. The order went alphabetically: Black, Other, White, on the north side, and White, Black, Other, on the south side.

I reminded everyone that this was simply for temporary summer housing; we'd start work on the actual houses later this summer. Then we drew straws.

Everyone got a chance to choose their lot, this included Amos and Holder.

Yeah, it became a mess. Women instantly wanted to trade, they wanted to cluster with their friends. They didn't say it but they wanted to cluster by race.

Sonya ran the whole thing and she put her foot down. You got what you chose and it's only temporary spots. She was in her element again.

Sonya sorted.

**** Chapter 100 -- Enter Banshee ****

Sonya laid down the law.

That law lasted for about fifteen minutes, before the harpies were back at it again. What the fuck?

Banshee lost it. I think the women were shocked to be out talked to that way, even if they couldn't understand Pawnee. If I doubted my fever memories of Banshee before, I didn't now. A force of nature unleashed.

Mouse stood in the middle of the path and tried to translate but she couldn't keep up. Banshee physically moved each and every woman to their spot, scolding the entire time. Apparently Banshee had no patience with foolishness.

I was flat out stunned and so were the women. Banshee had a lot to say.

I was sure glad I didn't speak Pawnee.

I turned to Sonya and said, "Have you met your new assistant?"

Michelle smacked me.

**** ****

Sonya stepped up again, once Banshee was finally satisfied and the women were all standing quietly in their plots. They actually looked chagrined and a bit fearful. The fear may have had something to do with Matilda sitting calmly on a stump, stropping her straight razor.

Sonya was bold now and she pointed due east. "Ladies, that's the way home. Just head towards the rising sun. If you don't like our rules, then you are welcome to leave with what you brought. We'll tell your man where you went."

"Otherwise, our rules apply. And every person is equal here, regardless of color, religion, or sex. Zach gives everyone an equal say on items that need a vote. Having neighborhoods by color is not one of those things you get to have a say in."

"These are the most basic of our rules and your choices are to stay and follow them, or leave. If you want to argue about them, go see Matilda and Banshee."

Silent pause, and everyone could hear Matilda calmly stropping her razor. Banshee simply glared.

Sonya charged on, "If you have a problem or question, you come privately to me or Michelle. You do not pester Zach."

"Now, please call your children to you." Kids came flooding into the lots and the ladies had to start explaining that this would be the spot where they lived for a little while, until the house was built. Trust children to lighten the mood, as only kids can.

Michelle took over now, "Ladies, I think suppertime is approaching rapidly. Please go assist Matilda with the cooking. Leave the kids here."

Damn if they didn't do as they were told. I knew the shadow conversations would start soon, but I trusted my ladies to handle it. I also noted that Capt. Timmons' wife had been silent - downright stoic - during the entire episode. Interesting.

Once the ladies were gone, I had Amos grab the older kids and head off for chores. Sonya started playing games with the kids.

"Our first game is, 'Where's Your Friend.' When I point to you, you find your friend and run to their house..."

That was under control.

Mouse came to me and I just relaxed in her arms for a minute. I needed that minute.

**** ****

Timmons was in awe of the tractor. I was worried about the amount of diesel I was going through and whether our little watering brook was going to flow. There wasn't much of a slope here, so we had to make use of every little bit we could find. We spent a couple of hours, trying to map out a path for the brook, before Timmons came up with the brilliant idea of just letting the water show us. So we did.

We simply started at the brook with shovels and hoes. I didn't have many, but we had enough to get started. Timmons had a better understanding of water flow than the rest of us, so we just followed his lead. He found a little bend in the brook which had a very slight hollow next to it. The brook was gently eating away at the bend. He explained to us that water changed course all the time and that all we had to do was to take advantage of what it wanted. Then, with a couple of quick pulls using the hoe, the water took over and the hollow started to fill.

Patience turned out to be the name of the game. After the hollow filled the water, it went searching for another route. We'd check to see if that route had any hope at all, and if not, we used our tools to start a new one that went in the direction we desired. It ended up being a winding course, due to the very slight grade we were on. Everything was heading down from the bluff and eventually would wind up in the Nemaha, but it wasn't going to be a quick straight line.

To go the thirty yards to the pasture edge, that water must have travelled almost sixty yards in total. We let the water do most of the work, but someone would have to walk this daily for years, until the bed and banks truly established themselves. Once we were out of the woods, the slope became a tiny bit steeper and the tractor took over.

It was still a game of follow the water, but it was easier now without trees and bushes blocking anything. When the water chose a path, I simply cut a six inch trench on that path until we reached a small hollow near the middle of the pasture. I dug the hollow out a little deeper and widened it with sloped banks. In the end, it was almost ten foot by ten foot and about four feet deep at its deepest point. At that point we left it to fill; it would take a while.

We still need to collect and transport gravel to line the bed of the brook and the bottom of the pond. That would take a while, because most of it would have to come up from the river. Most of that would be transported by pack horse and llama. The final step would be to give the brook an outlet back to our stream, downstream from our homestead, of course. We should have the men and tools on hand to take care of that shortly. I expected them to be here tomorrow and then the boat to show up within a day or so after that.

Cleaning up after building a water course is nasty work. Everything was covered in mud and we were all varying degrees of wet. We used a bucket to rinse the worst of the mud off of the tractor and then headed down to the stream to wash ourselves and the tools.

Supper was being laid out on the table when we got back. And a Pawnee brave was waiting for me. He was a runner from the herd. They would be here tomorrow before noon. Better news could not have been wished for, and the ladies and kids were all excited. I treated the young warrior to his first taste of quality beer and Mouse interviewed him for a long while.

A good night was had by all.