The Collapse CXXXXVI: Cato

19 July 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

I write this at the waning of the light on this evening. The Colonel, The Leftenant, and Young Xerxes are asleep and Ox walks this first watch. Our visitors have returned to their own location; they have said they will meet us at first light.

And I remain, writing. Because for the first time, I have had the opportunity to speak with someone completely removed from my area on his experiences.

When I first broached the subject at dinner, the main speaker - the one who had come down with the gun - looked at me with the sort of look one gives the mad. His expression of “Surely you jest?” after my simple “What has it been like?” likely said a great deal about how he viewed anyone who would ask such a thing.

But I pleaded with him. If we were ever to rebuild or even to come back as something different, these stories would have to be told. And to be told, they would have to be recorded.

----

He over my shoulder as I started writing. “Cato?” he asked?

“A name” I replied. “You have to have a name. Cato the Elder: Famous Roman senator – but also famous for his book on farming at the time, De Agricultura.”

He shook his head again. I had undoubtedly again confirmed that there was no way I could have survived the past year as anything close to a bandit.

----

My family (said Cato) has been here for well over 150 years, so far back that the original Cato that lived here came with the later pioneers that followed this trail. They came – like a lot of ‘em did – for mining. He came for ranching. Somewhere buried away we have his journals.

He was a rancher – cattle mostly, Hereford and such. His son became a rancher, and his son, and down the line it went. I’m the seventh generation that has been doing this; my son and daughter will be the 8th, if such a thing continues now.

You’ve lived here a while? (I nod yes) Then you know what is like here: too hot in the Summer, too cold in the Winter, with not enough Spring and Fall between the two to really make it bearable. But weather aside, this is a land of wide open spaces and quiet and horizons. A man can get lost just taking it all in, watching the cattle on the range and being in a place that you cannot see another sign of men. It is a good place to live, to be born and raise kids and – at least for all my folk before me – to die.

They – we – survived a lot. We survived most of the mines playing out and a World War and The Great Depression and another World War and the modern world as it started moving. What we almost didn’t survive was not just the modern world moving in, but the modern world pressing in. Happened in the last 25 years or so. Suddenly everyone has to be up here in the Summer to “get back to Nature” or some such foolishness. The price of land skyrocketed and the Summers became full of people traversing the roads. Our towns became “tourist destinations”, filled less with functional stores than with stores catering to the tourists. I could not get a pluming fitting or bullets where I used to, but I could get hand roasted coffee or pottery. Neighbors started sellin’ out or allowin’ folks to build Summer cottages in their fields for the cattle to eat around.

The jobs fled. I was worried my kids would have to do something different – because the price of beef dropped. You’ll remember that.

And then, last September happened.

We heard the rumors at first on the radio. One of the hired men – Josè, you saw him at dinner – has a radio up over the hill, where we had some smaller dwellings for the hands. He started hearing of things stoppin’ to work, people startin’ first to panic and then gettin’ angry. And then came a flood of cars – goin’ where, I have no idea. You know as well as I that this road does not lead anywhere better than the city that is close. But they came: couples with bikes on their bike racks, trucks with loaded beds and trailers. As time went on that changed too: it just became vehicles alone unloaded except for people, often with nothing but themselves and a pet or two.

A few of them stopped – that tended to happen as time went on. The first ones just wanted directions or possible fuel. One I gave them, the other I had none of. As time went on, the requests became less for directions and more for food and fuel and water. The first two we still had none of; the third I could direct them down the road to the river.

Their faces. Their faces changed over time. The first few were full of the confidence I had seen on the face of our Summer visitors: this was a temporary state of affairs and they would soon be back. But as time passed, the faces lost their confidence. They became tired, then sad, then hollow. The last car – I remember it like was yesterday – was an older couple with one of them small fluffy dogs. The back of their car was load with photo albums – the only memories they had left, the man said. My wife gave them something to eat, something she had done for no-one else.

It was hard, seein’ people goin’ out without even hope.

And then, about November, the cars stopped just stopped commin’.

Winter was hard. If you live here long enough, you know to prepare for it and we were fine in that way. But having the power be spotty is different than the power not coming on at all.

Did we lose cattle? We did. The business of living means that you do not have enough time to do what you used to. We feed hay here to overwinter them – everyone does – and in this case, losses meant more for the rest.

By the time Spring rolled around, it was clear that things were not comin’ back. The radio transmissions had died out. The traffic had died out. Which meant – likely – the next crowd comin’ down would be someone looking to steal instead of looking to move through.

We moved what we could up over the hills. We tried to contact what I’ll call our neighbors, although they are miles distant from here. Could not really find more than one or two. We threw a guard up at this house in the event someone did show up to make them think this was the main place and to keep them here.

You can see the results – they did show up, and they burned the place down.

Oh, we gave as good as we got – in fact better, as they crawled away leaving dead and we only had some wounded. But it matched what I thought would happen. Anyone from here on out was likely to not be a friend.

That’s it. We keep the cattle and our guard over the hill. Someone monitors the radio from time to time to see if anyone calls (like you did). Our biggest problem at the moment is figurin’ out next Winter’s pasturage. Maybe that field you think is still there might help.

Have we thought of going up to City to see what there is? Sure. But it’s a two day walk (no way I’m driving). Given the last group that came through, I’m none too keen to meet another and cannot imagine what is left there that we might need – sure, maybe the odd plumbing fitting or box of nails, but is that worth the walk? Is it worth a life?

----

Having finished, he stood up from the fire, apparently to walk up the hill to bed. “Do you think anyone will ever read this?” he asked?

I shrugged. “I do not know. But I have to try.”

He looked at me and snorted. “An annalist. And an idealistic one, to boot”.

Perhaps not the worst thing that has been said about me.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca