The Collapse CXXXXV: Rendezvous

 19 July 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

From Crossroads, it was another two solid days of walking along a similar road to what we had been on. As with the trip coming form McAdams, the signs of housing were few and far between here – again, roads wandering off into back behind curves or hills that were likely not wise to follow for any number of reasons. The hills themselves were none too taxing.

For everyone else. Not so for me.

If these four days of travel have made me conscious of anything, Lucilius, it is that I am not a young in any sense of the word. Likely I outstrip even the Colonel by a good fifteen to twenty years at this point. And while before all of this I would have told you that I felt in “decent” shape”, this trip - even more so that the one last month - has convinced me that I am “decent” only in the fact that I am still upright and moving.

Thankfully, we made no significant ascents and so any sort of altitude related issues were not a concern, only my tired body at the end of the day. And even when we have ended the day, I am slow but able to help. No, it is upon rising, when virtually every muscle of my lower body notes that this is not quite what it signed up for. Rising is slow, getting ready is slow – slow enough that I try to do everything I need to as quickly as possible just to meet the timetable we need to be on for moving. The first mile or two are slow as well until things get stretched out a bit and rolling.

Everyone is kind about it and affects not to notice.

To the trained eye (not mine), evidence of The Locusts was along this trail. The good Colonel took time to point them out: fire locations, swaths of garbage left by those picking through things for only the things they wanted. And although all of these locations were older, we became more cautious as we moved forward, the road curving to dead blinds that could not be seen around.

Around mid-day of the fourth day on the road, we arrived at our destination.

That this was a ranch of some kind at one point was evident from the outbuildings and multiple fences around it. That it had been the location of not just The Locusts but a battle was evident from the damage to the outbuildings and main buildings around it, not to mention fire-scorched earth and holes made by nothing else but bullets and the occasionally scattering of bones not animal in origin.

Our instructions upon arrival were rather precise: behind the ruins of the main house there was a pile of stones (whether a grave or not, we were not informed). Directly in front of the grave, to the hillward side that rose up behind it, we were to place three of those stones in a triangle and wait.

The stones placed in their triangle (after I fussed for probably what was longer than necessary: Did it need to be an equilateral triangle? Was one side too long? I fussed until I was kindly reminded that given the state of things, any triangle would be obvious as an artifact), we returned to the ruins and waited.

About an hour later, Ox noted that he saw someone coming down the hill.

The Colonel, The Leftenent, and Ox slowly withdrew to covering positions within the ruins. Young Xerxes stayed in the center. I walked out through the ruins to stand by the stones.

You may query the wisdom of this, Lucilius. The math is simple: I am the least useful member of the party for this sort of thing. If for some reason this was a set up – a rather elaborate one, I grant you – those four would be in the best position to fight their way out and their experience would be the most missed. Pompeia Paulina would miss me no doubt, but the ability of this team to survive would be at its highest.

And so I stood, hands carefully exposed and at my side, waiting.

The form continued to approach until it resolved itself into the shape of a man – a man with a rifle aimed more or less in my direction. Or at least I liked to believed aimed less in my direction.

He stopped well away from me even as he came more into view, dressed in what would be considered in these parts as ranching garb with a faded hat proclaiming a seed supplier no doubt long gone. He no more stood out from this part of the country now than he would have two years ago.

“You’re here for?” came the shout.

“Wheat”, I returned. “I am here for wheat. The wheat up the road. I am here to look at it”.

He shouted something up the hill in what even I could recognize as Spanish. The response from the hill came back as “three” even to my broken interpretation, so I assume they were counting the rest of the party.

He turned his attention back to me. “And how do I know you’re not simply bandits, an advance party sent to spy out this location?”

I shifted a bit. “First, we laid out a triangle of stones, which we were instructed to do via radio contact. The second, simply, is that can you honestly believe a bandit party would send someone like myself as the lead element?”

He chuckled a bit at that, although he did not drop the firearm down. We stood there looking at each other as birds flew overhead and up and over the hills behind the ruins.

Finally, he brought the firearm down, chuckling. “You’re right – you have the required signs, but by God there is no way someone like you could have made it last year as a bandit.” He waved up the hill behind him and two figures rose up, even as the three behind me detached themselves from the ruins and slowly came forward.

I write this note as one of his men and Ox and Young Xerxes are preparing a meal for us and the other man and The Leftenant stand watch and the Colonel and the rancher talk; my usefulness as an initial contact spent, I have little enough to contribute except to keep an odd eye out on the surroundings.

Which is fine with me of course, Lucilius; this sort of potentially facing down an armed man with nothing more than my appearance and a hopeful story is a bit more than I can bear.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca