That damn rooster kept to schedule.

I almost stayed in bed until I remembered I had two new wards to look after and a new harsh reality to face. I stumbled out of the tent into the cold morning air with Brin in tow. It was time to start breaking my new ward in to the realities of staying with us.

I quietly pulled open the stall door and saw the two of them sleeping in the hay, I reached out and nudged Amos’ foot and he sleepily looked up at the third nudge. I beckoned him to follow, he slipped out of the bed and came out of the stall. I quietly closed the door.

“Amos Moses – us men have work to do, let me show you how it’s done here.”

“Yessir.” he sleepily answered.

I showed him to the outdoor utility sink and bade him was his face. That seemed to wake him somewhat, and then I led him through waking and stoking the fires. That was something he was familiar with. Coffee making came next; he followed along with determined attention, and then it was off to do the morning chores.

Amos didn’t say much, just trailed slightly behind me and joined in whenever I asked. When we returned to the camp we could smell breakfast and coffee in the air; we washed up from the chores and then we sat to enjoy our morning fare. The kid was still dazed and simply doing whatever I told him. Matilda fed us, and she fed him especially well.

While we ate, Michelle woke up Esther and brought her out into the world; that kid was even more dazed than her brother. She took Esther into the camper and showed her how to use the toilet; they joined us immediately after for their breakfast. Those kids could really eat.

****

Michelle and I left them a moment’s peace at the table together and walked away to have a conversation. Those kids were half-dead when they found us, and there was no way that I was going to let them leave until they were in better health. Sonya refused to talk about it; I think the entire slavery reality had her off kilter yet again. These last few weeks had been tough for Sonya.

I was having none of her naieve idealism today though; I needed to get my message across and get it across quickly.

“We very much are in the 1820’s,” I said, “and we are very close to the state of Missouri where slavery is still very much legal. The Civil War is now forty years in our future.”

That pretty much silenced any arguments that were brewing, so I continued, “These two are runaway slaves; the laws we now live under require us to turn them in under penalty of fines, imprisonment, or even death in some states.”

Now I really had their attention, so I pushed my plan.

“I’m not going to turn them in, but we need a cover story and everyone, even the chickens, has to know it backwards and forwards. We ourselves need a cover story also and we have to consider what we look like, dress like, and talk like.

“So, to the outside world they are our slaves, and their names are now Amos and Esther, we brought them with us from Cuba or some other island. We landed in Texas or Mexico and made our way here.

“We have to make the story work or there will be blood on the ground.” I finished. Well that actually got them thinking and they were some smart people, so I left the two of them to their plotting until they had sorted it out.

I went over and joined the kids instead.

They looked at me with trepidation when I sat down at the table with them; they were on the run and frightened and didn’t know who they could trust. Telling someone they can trust you is almost the worst idea ever, you just have to start laying out the facts and let them decide. So that’s what I did.

“I gave you new names last night, you must lock away the ones your mother and father gave you forever. You can never use them again. I am very sorry about that.

“You may stay here or you can leave. If you stay you must work like the rest of us.” That got me a smile and nod from both of them. I continued, “If anyone else comes you must say that you are our slaves and always have been. You must say that we brought you here. Do you understand?”

They looked frightened again so I tried to reassure them, “If they believe you came with us then you aren’t the runaways they are looking for and they might go away.”

That didn’t work so I put it simple, “Sonya will give you the story to tell them if they ask, you can not make a mistake. If one of them knows you or if you know them, then I will have to kill them.

“Do you understand that?” I asked.

Bless their hearts they nodded to the affirmative.

“Good, now we need to get you some clothing. Amos, please come with me.” Conversation done on my part.

The best I could manage that would fit Amos was a pair of my bib-overalls and my smallest T-shirt; he still looked like a scarecrow. I led him over to the outdoor shower, set the water to warm and made him strip; I then gently pushed him into the shower and handed him a bar of soap.

Thank the heavens he knew how to wash himself.

He was a different looking lad when he came out: he didn’t reek any longer, and he dressed and walked out for everyone to see. He was a sight in my much too-large overalls, billowing t-shirt and old broken-down sneakers; any clown in the world would have struggled to beat that get up. Matilda immediately took over and started fussing with his clothing. She then went into storage and returned with the roll of heavy canvas and a bolt of white cotton cloth. She got down to work with the scissors.

Sonya and Michelle had taken Esther into the camper to work on her appearance, so I took Amos and headed out to the livestock pen. I introduced him to the horses and llamas, the latter fascinated him to no end. He was still shy and quiet, but who could blame him considering his past and more importantly his current situation.

“Have you worked with livestock son?”

“Yessir, only it was chicken, geese and pigs.”

“Well Amos, we’re going to teach you how to take care of all these animals. That’s going to be one of the first things you learn.”, I told him.

“Thankya sir, I promise I learn real quick.”

“I know you will Amos.”

We headed back to the campsite and I told him more about the llamas, he was amazed that one creature could be so useful. I told him I had a lot of information he could read about them and he simply replied “Read? Can’t read sir, its not lawful for a negro to read.”

I’d known that fact but was curious to see what he’d say.

“We’ll teach you Amos; all of my friends can read and you will too if you’re going to stay here.” Was my reply.

We had gotten back to camp by that time and Matilda had Sonya and Esther sitting around the fire hand stitching what I assumed to be new clothing. Michelle was tidying up around the camp. I was searching my way through the problems of these new joins to our party and needed to do some research, so I asked Michelle to take Amos down to the stream and teach him how to fish with our equipment. If he had gone fishing in the past he wouldn’t have been exposed to anything like the modern rod or reels. Which once again reminded me I needed to figure out a way to keep all of this technology under wraps.

Michelle showed Amos the gear to tote, grabbed up the double barrel and the two of them went off down to the stream. We’d have to be careful now as undoubtably the two kids were being hunted. Slaves, particularly young, healthy ones were a valuable commodity and people didn’t allow them to just walk away without giving chase. At the same time, we were from the 21st century and we weren’t going to just let them be taken back; I’d fight, and fighting was something I knew how to do.

So the first order of business was to get back into the gun safe and pull out my 1911. It was a pain to carry, but now that we had a known threat I wasn’t going to take any chances. I also dove into storage and found the .22s I had purchased for target practice and the ammo to go with them: it was time to arm Sonya and Matilda. I cursed myself for still not having done a full inventory yet, and wished things would just slow down for a day or two.

My second order of business was to run a scouting patrol., I’d left the drone out last night after all the fuss and muss, so it was a simple matter of launching it and watching as it ran its pre-programmed routine. It would be weeks before I could leave it on its own; in the face of a potential threat someone would always need to monitor it. A recording of danger lying in wait for you does you no good if you don’t watch it before that danger strikes.

While that drone flew its mission I cleaned, oiled and loaded the .22s; the drone showed that there was nothing of note even with infrared activated. There was however what looked like a small herd of deer a short ways off, but we had plenty of meat for now and it was the wrong time of year to take them. I brought the drone back to base, swapped out the batteries and started up my extended mapping scripts; I needed to have more information on our surroundings.

I would still need to go out and actually explore these areas, but right now with the trees not yet leafed in I was getting a pretty good view from overhead and the software stitched it all together into a surprisingly good map. I still needed altitudes and the like, but this was far better than nothing.

While I cleaned my shotgun and the A2 and watched over the drone, the ladies worked away and chatted amongst themselves, and despite everything it was actually a calming scene.

The drone returned and I recovered it with its base from on top of Michelle’s trailer; I did a maintenance check on it and put it away for the day. I needed to figure out a better solution than packing it up into its suitcase every night.

I went over my to do list which was getting way to long. First thing was to make a tent for Amos. I had a roll of canvas available, but it wouldn’t be enough to build him a full sized tent. He’d have to make do with a pup tent for sleeping. Dipping into our archive, I found a few examples and quickly sketched out the schematics; construction would be up to Matilda. I called her over, showed her the sketches, and that was that: she was off cutting canvas before I could say a word.

With that bit of work was under way and we’d have a pup tent for Amos soon enough. My collapsible wood stoves were far too much for a pup tent so I’d have to go with heated rocks and the best place to come up with rocks was down near the creek. I couldn’t use any stones that were actually in the water but the banks had plenty I could harvest. I hitched up Brin to the cart and off we went.

Michelle and Amos were just leaving the creek when I showed up, the old driveover wasn’t far from the camp but it was hidden by some trees. I offered a quick explanation of my mission and they jumped in to help. We managed to locate a goodly amount of cantelope-sized rocks and picked out ten that seemed to be the best candidates. I explained to them that you shouldn’t take rocks out of the stream, only from up on the bank so they aren’t water-soaked, as wet rocks might explode in the fire.

We placed the rocks around the edge of the fire to begin to warm and turned to the next task. I gave Amos a hatchet from my tool box and sent him out to find a nice straight sapling, I gave him an indication of the height and diameter with my hands. There was no shortage of saplings around the creek, so that wouldn’t take long.

Next, I went into the storage room and dug out some tent stakes; if you plan to tent camp you always have extra stakes, so I had a small box of metal tent stakes. I also cut off some thick twine from our spool to use as guy wires on the tent posts.

Amos was back with the sapling and Matilda had finished stitching the tent; it wasn’t a work of art, but would keep him warm and dry. We’d treat it with oil later on to make it completely water repellent, but we were in decent shape for now. Until then, he could always retreat to the camper, one of the other tents, or one of the stalls if it did start to leak.

We cut the sapling in half, creating two shorter posts, sharpened one end of each, and then ran a length of heavy twine between the two equivalent to the width of the canvas we had. We drove the posts into the ground so that the twine was taut, then attached a length of twine to each end in a V to keep the tension steady, using the tent stakes to anchor the guy lines. Each of the lines doubled back and had a loop knot in the center so they could be easily tightened.

Next, we stretched the canvas over the frame to form a triangle and mark a line where the cloth would hit the ground. We removed the canvas and along one edge line we dug four holes where the heated stones would go each night, his sleeping pallet would go on the other side of the tent. We restretched the fabric and used tent pegs to secure it; canvas door flaps were attached to each end and we had a tent.

Being a kid, Amos immediately clambered inside and tried it out, and I cautioned him to not touch the canvas as that would make it leak. I handed him an LED lantern for use not even thinking of the effect it would have. His reaction made me realize it was time to address our tech and more importantly our stories.