But I finally got hold of him and carried him across the saddle. I gave him some water and some meat. He bit me every time I moved him for the first couple of days, then settled for growling at me. Much as I hated to do it, I had to tie him up at night so he wouldn’t wander off while I slept. Every morning, he would fight me all over again. Eventually he quit fighting me—mostly because of the food and water, I guess. He’s growing fast, getting more food than he normally would in the wild. He eats all the time, eats like he’s never had food before. He’s smart, too. I haven’t tried to train him, but he watches and listens and learns fast. It’s only been a little while since I quit tying him up. I expect to find him gone some morning, but so far, he’s sticking around.”
CHAPTER 5
MARCH 8, MORNING
JOHN AND ISAAC HAD RETURNED from their scouting mission and gone straight to Roman’s house to find Adrian. John said “We found them with no problem at all. You want a full briefing right now?”
Adrian replied, “How far out are they?”
“I give it three weeks before they’re here.”
“All right, then, save the full briefing until we can all hear it at the same time—it’ll save you from repeating it. I have a few key men who I want to hear your report. I’ve been talking to the village men, sending out runners to recruit more. As soon as you’ve reported, we’re going to send out two more scouts, then every three days, we’ll send out two more to replace them and the two that come back will fill in more details. That way, we can keep a running eye on them and stay current. As the raiders get closer and the scouts have less distance to travel, we’ll up that to daily reports by having two in sight of the raiders and one being replaced each day. Did you encounter any problems?”
Isaac replied, “No problems. They were easy to find and to watch. They’re not trying to hide, and they leave nothing but devastation behind them. There are people running from them; you’ll probably be seeing some more of those before long. Might get some recruits from them, too.”
Adrian said, “All right, you two go on home and eat and rest. I’ll spread the word to meet up here again at noon. Roman, would you ask Sarah if she can fix enough lunch for us?”
“Sure, no problem,” Roman said. “I’ll tell her to put the tea on.”
“Tea? You have tea?” Adrian asked.
“Oh yeah, we have tea. After you left, we made several scavenging trips into Waco. We came across the arboretum and I took a look to see if there were any plants still alive that we could use. Found a few; among them were some tea plants. They grow well here and are easy to process. So we have tea. Not as good as coffee, but better than nothing.”
Adrian replied, “Isn’t that something. What else did you find?”
“You saw the banana trees—we got them there, too. I think we’ll be able to harvest some this year.”
“I thought those were ornamentals. I thought they froze here in the winter.”
“They do, normally. But I read that if you surround them with a cage stuffed with straw heaped high over them during the winter, they won’t freeze unless it gets a lot colder than it normally does here. In the spring, you remove the straw, and if they didn’t freeze, they’ll produce fruit. It’s an experiment, but if it works, the kids’ll love it. You’ll also be pleased to know that we have ice. During the winter, we tried freezing water and then saving it inside insulated boxes, but it didn’t work too well. Matthew rigged up an icemaker that’s run off a portable electric generator that’s run off a wood gas generator. Comes in real handy, and is also a nice luxury.”
Adrian replied, “You have ice and didn’t bring any out last night when we were drinking whisky? Ice would have been great with that whisky.”
“Son, if you insult my whisky by putting ice in it, I’ll never let you have another drop.”
Adrian said, “Oops! My mistake.” He grinned as Roman turned and stalked off.
MARCH 8, NOON
As the men ate smoked ham and cornbread and drank iced tea, John gave his report.
“We estimate one hundred and eighty of them strung out in a wide line.