Covid Wasteland, Chapter Four

Covid Wasteland

 

Chapter Four – Team Practice

 

Constance Otter got right into it. Now that the word had gotten around about Katherine’s battle, Katherine was pretty much an instant hero in the Militia. No one could match her feat of taking on two knife-warriors at once and defeating both of them. Captain Borcher wanted her to demonstrate some knife-work for the Militia when she and John returned. He had an idea that ALL his troops should be trained in her style of knife-war. He planned to ask her to set up a demonstration that the entire Militia would observe, then she would become a knife-arts instructor. The Captain didn’t know that his Ambassador was already discussing the same matter with Chief Mak’aa in Longview.

The first thing on the agenda at that parley at the gloomy Tribal Center was communications. The Family Service Radios they had were easy to keep charged, but they were low power and could only go half the distance between St Helens and Longview at their best range. They needed better comms and they needed it now. John thought about Marine VHF, and there was plenty of that around, but even at 25 watts, it wasn’t guaranteed to cover the 25 miles separating the two towns. The Marine Single Side-band would cover that, easily, but those sets were generally found only on ocean-cruising yachts. There was “Ham” radio, but they didn’t know any Hams. Could they find any? Some stomping around and looking for the tall antennas would have to be done. Maybe Captain Max would know. The parley moved on. The next subject was Mobility.

The Cowlitz had horses, more than enough after the die-off of some 80% of their Tribe. There were lots of bicycles around. There were a few electric cars, too, but those had to be charged by heavy alternating current, and there was no A/C grid left operating around here. Very little fuel to run generators, either. Nope, mobility was on the river, human or sail powered, or on the road, horses or bicycles. Bicycles were better. Twenty miles per day out of a horse was pushing it, but a bicycle-mounted troop in good shape could easily do 30, even with full kit, and 45 on a Forced March. Then John thought of steamboats. Steam had been there long before liquid-fueled engines. He drew a sketch of one and pushed his paper across to Chief Mak’aa. The Chief knew of one, but it was all the way downriver in Cathlamet, forty more miles down past Longview.

“They have a civic celebration there every July. Bald Eagle Days. I have led a horse-display unit down there twice in their big parade, and one of the times, there was a tractor towing a replica of a 140-year-old steam boat. I got a good look at it after the parade. It ran on coal or wood. There’s coal up around Chehalis. The Government closed the mining down, it’s “dirty coal”, but I heard it’s open again and being traded for up there. Good heat from coal. The Tribe never used it, but we know of it, and the Casino up there has pictures of the mining. Steam, yes. There are a couple of tourist railroads, the Chelatchie Prairie just south of here and the Mount Rainier about seventy-five miles north of here that still have coal-burning steam engines. The problem with coal is that it’s heavy. A pack-horse can’t carry enough to fire that steamboat for more than 30 miles. A steam locomotive could drag several hundred TONS of it down here for us. We have a siding at the Casino we could keep the coal cars on. Slaves pushing coal carts could supply that boat with fuel in both places. Maybe, just maybe, we could eventually find a steam-powered generator.” John spoke now.

“Just before the Covid started up, there was a big interest in electric-motor bicycles. An outfit in Seattle was making them. I had a friend in Portland who bought one, and he let me ride it. They were good for 45 miles before the battery ran out, and it could be pedaled easily. If we could find a few of those, we can keep them charged with the little solar panels like I use to charge my electric row-boat. That gets our troops back and forth without wearing themselves out pumping the pedals like they do now. If one of our troops goes anywhere on a bicycle, we have to double-feed them, and there’s barely enough food to go around now.” The Chief spoke next.

“Food will stop being a problem soon. That’s why Constance Otter is with you now. Within a month, her Gathering should put half again the calories into your Militia’s stomachs, my Fisher. Katherine Otter is also supposed to recruit you some bank-fishers and maybe some gill-netters. You should have twice the fish shortly. Now, when will your Captain let me meet and talk to the entire Militia?”

“When can you come over to our side, my Chief”

“It will take me a few days to organize that, but I will come back with you and Katherine Otter. I will bring another load of cargo for your Militia, so we’ll need your sailing-boat again. I will send a runner, who will voyage to St Helens. This runner will be my only child, Nenamook, and she is my best voyageur. Now, let us speak in depth of my mission to the Nation of Lower Columbia. Did you know that we refer to the Great Water as “Chinook”, the name of our parent Nation, which the whites UN-established in THEIR codes? What I am actually doing here is re-establishing the Chinook Nation. It is an Omen of the Great Spirit (John raises his hands, properly) that you surviving whites named your new authority after the Chinook Nation, in your own name for it, of course. Even “Lower” is correct, as we peoples of the Great Water also used our words for “upper” and “lower” to denote where along the Great Water our Tribes would live. Now came the biggest Omen of our Great Spirit (hands up again), who has told us over the years that we could outlast the whites, and that they would go away in a short period of suffering from a big disease, just like WE did three hundred of YOUR years ago. So, we must constantly praise our Great Spirit (hands up) and our Shamans who bring us these omens. You cannot realize, my Great Ally who-will-be-Chief, how much it means to ME personally for the Great Spirit (hands up) to have selected me to follow Her Path and make the Chinook peoples whole again.” John blinked. He had NO idea that he figured, personally, as a favored-by-God person anywhere for any reason, but now he sat in private parley with the strongest Native Chief in the entire region, who had just told him exactly that. The Chief continued.

“So, John of the Forest and River Chinook, your work for the next few very-busy days is to learn how to be a Chief. Then you and I need to go downriver to Cathlamet and find that steam-boat. MY first two jobs in uniting the Lower River Chinook will be to have good river-transportation and communication from St Helens, maybe even Scappoose, all the way down to the ocean. There are many sailing-boats available, but in reality, they are only a temporary solution. We have to have steam-power. I am praying that this boat-owner in Cathlamet knows of other steam-boats, so that our new Nation may have a fleet of them. I am also praying that he knows of generating electric power by steam engines. If we can do that, then we can power communications systems – the wires are already there, and my digital-medicine people tell me that electric supply is the only thing we don’t have to start up communications right now. Yes, we have some of the little sun-panels, but they don’t make enough power for anything besides charging the little radios which only talk fifteen miles as the Eagle flies.” John saw it then. BAM! It hit him between the eyes! He raised his head, sat up very tall, then spoke slowly.

“My Chief, we can forget about steam-generation of electricity for now. Doesn’t this mostly-abandoned City have many houses and businesses which have the sun-panels on the roofs?”

“Well yes. In the better housing districts, they are on about one out of five dwellings. As I understand them though, they weren’t designed to power the houses, they made power which went back into the main electrical distribution system, which the power companies then re-distributed. We can’t run the entire electrical grid, my Chief-to-be.”

“No, but we COULD go to those houses and remove the electrical sun-panels AND the additional equipment for storing power, converting the power, all of that, then bring it to OUR places and set it back up to make power where WE want that power to be used, my Chief. As I understand sun-power, what we whites used to just call “solar”, it’s only limitation is that it had to have daylight to make any power at all, and we have long nights here in the Winter. Most of those installations had batteries for holding the electric power the sun-panels made. Few of the homes had enough batteries to store all the electric power though. What we will have to do is not only remove panels, but remove inverter-controllers and many more batteries also.”

“What is an inverter-controller, I don’t know of those?”

“My Chief, an inverter-controller is a very technical equipment that takes the changing power supply from the sun panels, the power output changes all the time when clouds come, or the sun-angle changes, or night comes. The controller-part takes in that uneven power and puts it out as very even power, storing the power in the batteries which provide the extra smooth-power back to the inverter-part when needed. The inverter-part changes the battery-power from DC to AC. What goes into the electric lines is very smooth and steady AC power, the kind that machines and communications devices all need. The equipment is out there, what we have to do is build our own grid in the places we need, like communications camps along the river. There must be a lot of the little short-range radios available, aren’t there?”

“Yes, my smart Chief-to-be. In the Tribe we have about two hundred of them, and there have to be many more around, it’s just a matter of searching for them and collecting them up. I see what you want to do, and that’s build a short-range network with a capability of passing messages up and down the entire river-Path of our Nation. You know, I only have about five people who know this equipment. We have to build up a communications and power Militia.”

“My Chief, that part goes without saying. For you, it’s easy: take the best one of your small group of electric-medicine people and make him a sub-chief. His first job will be to find more electric-medicine people. While they are recruiting, they will need to plan out their electric and radio network so that your Warriors and my Militia can start to secure the land necessary for the camps.” The Chief looked at John across the table, smiled and spoke.

“John of the Forest and River Chinook, I am going to do something now that will create a controversy here, but by tradition, my position of Chief is for life and therefore secure. I am going to name you as my Successor-Chief. I have only one child, that’s Nenamook, and while there have been female Chiefs, they are very rare. The sagas say only three in Tribal memory. Now, did you know that a Chief may have two wives, or a wife and a consort?”

“My Chief, I had heard this discussed before, but I didn’t know whether the BIA still allowed it.”

“The BIA (the Chief spits) is dead, to my everlasting joy. Yes, the BIA did forbid the polygamy of Chiefs, so our Native Councils legitimized Consorting, or breeding outside of marriage. Consorting is the prerogative of only the Chief-caste but Chiefs may order it for lesser castes and all children of such matings are Chief’s Children. The BIA frowned on THAT rule also, but couldn’t stop it, because the whites were notoriously loose in their marriage relationships in the past two generations. You will have two wives, unless one of them wants to degrade herself to Consort. You will have Warrior-fisher Katherine Otter and Voyageur-Ambassador Nenamook. When your marriage to Nenamook happens, any opposition to my naming you as my successor ends.”

“My Chief, I am at a loss for words at your great generosity. Your only daughter! That must have been a very hard decision to make, my Chief.”

“No, my other-shore of the Great Water Chief, it was an easy decision to make, but now I have a warning for you. Several warnings, about Nenamook. She is physically very attractive, but has let the world know that she does not seek the role of being a wife, and would prefer to remain unwed. She HAS consorted, but with women, not men. She has a sharp tongue, which her mother let her get away with as a youth, until it became too late to change it, but then my wife died. That’s not all. One of the people she had difficulty with the most is your wife Katherine Otter, who I had to punish for caste-harmony reasons, when I should have punished Nenamook. I have a suggestion for you. You must discipline her the very minute she tries to speak out against you or Katherine. If it is in public, that would be better yet. Most of all, you need to put a baby in her womb. That will end almost all of the resistance to you and all other men that she has. As part of her first discipline session, you could also announce that she is definitely Wife Number Two, and will defer to Number One, Katherine. It’s up to you, but if you have to whip her, I would consider letting Katherine do it. Another way is to order her dressed to your desires, in clothing clearly secondary by design to that worn by Katherine. In our Custom, you are supposed to see that your wife is dressed to YOUR standard, not hers. I will help you out here. My sewing-people have made her AND Katherine some clothing suitable to being the wives of a Successor-Chief. I will have the First-Clothing-Maker show you now.” He pulls out a copper cowbell and jangles it, and two women come in, bearing bundles. They pull several dresses out and display them on the conference table. The first one is larger, obviously for Katherine. It is highly decorated, and has the Otter Clan logo on it as well as the new Chinook logo. The other two dresses are smaller, but plainer in style, they are shift-dresses. One of a lighter color and one of a darker hue. They have only the new Chinook logo on them, but there is an embroidered red circle on both that is empty. The Chief spoke to that.

“The minute Nenamook gets her clothing, and you order her to put it on, she will know. The empty red circle is for addition of a slave-mark. Empty, it means not a slave yet, but the fact that the empty circle is there and waiting for it’s mark to be applied tells the observer that there is definite potential for the wearer to be degraded down to Slave.”

“My Chief, what is all the latigo strapping for? That’s enough for five belts for the dresses, at least.”

“You are very observant, my Chief-in-waiting. Tribes-people who have lost the confidence of their Chief, and are one last step away from degradation to slave, or to their Fire, wear the Five-Circles belt. It goes around the waist five times, with a loop on one end and the other end smaller to be tied in a knot at the end-loop holding the belt on. There is that much latigo because that is how much is needed to secure a slave, hand and foot, or to tie a condemned person to the burning-stake for their death by Fire. When you are ordered to wear the Five-Circles Belt, you are on borrowed time, and SO IS YOUR SPIRIT! In Death by Fire, unlike other forms of execution, the Great Spirit cannot accept your Spirit to transmit it to the Next Life, so when your Spirit leaves your burning body, the Great Spirit scatters it widely with Her Wind, and it can never be recovered. This we believe. This is the one thing a Warrior has always had: a Warrior can never be executed by Fire. The Great Spirit’s enduring Gift to Warriors is that they die in battle, and their Spirit goes on, or they die by their own hand, and their Spirit goes on down the path of Kiva-wa to their Next Life. Remember the prayer that Constance Otter spoke at the Bridge for the dead bandits? Bandits or not, they WERE warriors, so the prayer of plea to the Great Spirit to release their Spirits MUST be spoken after their death. I believe that some of the Christian sects also do this? It’s called the Last Rites, correct?”

“You are very wise in the matters of Spirit, my Chief. I shall forever defer to your Spirit-wisdom.”

“My Spirit thanks your Spirit for that praise, my next-Chief. Now your Chief-time begins. My First Clothing-maker, summon both Nenamook and Katherine Otter to me, right now.” The First Sewer prostrates, touches her head to the Earth, then the Chief claps once and she gets up and both of the Clothing-Makers leave the room. The Chief gets up, goes to what had to once be a hall-closet, opens it and drags out a heavy, hand-carved wooden seat. He puts it’s carved front-piece in a specific direction, it seemed to John. He was correct, the Chief was orienting it in the direction where the sun would set. He then explains, after getting out a wooden-handled leather flail and laying it on the seat.

“My Next-Chief, now you meet both of your wives at once. You will have words of introduction to Nenamook, and words of advice on how to be Primary Wife for Katherine. I will leave it up to you whether you begin your new marriage with a display of your authority on your new wife’s back or not. My advice would be to speak some simple rules, and classify each rule as to what penalty is earned if it is broken. Do you follow this?”

“Oh, YES, my Chief. I not only follow it, such a program of behavior control is already in effect for my wife Katherine Otter. I call the system a “Book of Bad”. Katherine must carry a small notebook on her constantly. In it, I record instances of bad conduct, and the penalty for such. It is a matter or our mutual agreement when she must present herself for whipping. She MAY carry minor penalties for a while in her Book, but if those penalties add up to more than fifty strokes of the whip, she MUST take enough strokes to get below that number. If she doesn’t, she will be degraded to Slave. If she seems to me to be breaking rules too often, I can make her butt connect with her brain without there being a violation, just give her some strokes every day, so she feels it enough to remind her. That is our system, my Chief.”

“Why, Chief of Forest and River Chinook, that is brilliant. A disciplinary system so that no one may say that all whippings are from making the Chief angry. This should bring better acceptance of discipline in my Tribe! I will pronounce this system to the Tribe immediately! Can you write down the lists of offenses against good order in marriage and their stroke-counts for me?”

“Yes, my Chief, I will do that now, it may take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get it all on paper, though.”

“That’s fine, your wives can wait and keep silence while you write. I will see that they do.” John got busy, and this was the result:

The Prime Rule: The Husband is in charge of his wife (wives) from the day of marriage.

Rule One: when the Husband speaks, the wife may not interrupt. First instance, warning. Second Instance, five strokes. More instances, ten each AND an order of Silence.

Rule Two: The husband shall listen to his wife (wives) as they communicate to him BRIEFLY. The wife (wives) shall listen to the Husband any time he speaks to them, regardless of length of speaking. If the wife demonstrates Failing to Listen, five strokes.

Rule Three: The wife (wives) shall do their normal work-load without prompting by the Husband. If they fail to complete their work, a warning the first time, ten strokes if the warning is ignored once, twenty-five if it is ignored again.

Rule Four: Behavior outside the family. The wife (wives) shall in no manner EVER speak ill of the husband. First offense, fifteen strokes, IN PUBLIC in front of the the Tribe, or that part of it who heard the ill-spoken words. If the matter comes to the attention of a Chief or Shaman who then has to speak to the Husband about lack of control of the wife (wives), the penalty for the disgrace-bringing wives is twenty-five, administered by the Chief’s assigned Punisher.

Rule Five: Spirit-crime. The primary Spirit crime is Apostasy, speaking ill of the Great Spirit or refusing to accept Her position as Supreme Spirit. All Spirit crime accusations rise to the level of Required examination by the Shaman, who shall bring those results to the Chief immediately. If Apostasy is confirmed, the only sanction is Death by Fire. Lesser Spirit Crime can include various failures of Piety in the Works of the Great Spirit, and these can be only committed by adults over the age of fourteen. Parents are REQUIRED to provide adequate Spirit-education to their children, and failure to do so is a Second-order Spirit Crime, always punishable by a minimum of fifty strokes in public, to a maximum of permanent degradation to Slave.

Rule Six: Bringing children. The survival of our Tribe being of the highest importance, all women over fourteen, or by Chief’s permission, over twelve years of age, are Required to consort as appropriate for the purpose of bringing children to the Tribe. If a fertile woman passes two consecutive baby-moons without consorting, she has committed a Second-order Spirit Crime. If a woman comes to her Husband to mate, and he refuses to mate with her, that woman MUST report the failure to her Shaman, and the Shaman may bring a Second-order spirit-crime against the husband. In the case of such refusal, the Shaman shall assign a male consort for the spurned wife (wives).

These six rules shall be memorized by every wife of the Tribe and their Allies, to whom it also applies. Each Tribal wife shall maintain a permanent record of offenses committed and punishments received. This shall be called the Book of Bad.

 

John looked up from his writing, seeing both his wives, plus Shaman Elizabeth Wapiti and her Assistant and Chief Mak’aa. He passed his tablet of paper to the Chief, who read it and smiled, then handed it to the Shaman, who read it then gave it to her Assistant. Shaman’s Assistant Dorothy Wapiti then stood and read the new Code. John watched his wives closely. Katherine listened with her gaze lowered in debasement, as she was sitting in front of the Chief and Shaman, but Nenamook, who was sitting right next to her on her left (the inferior position), constantly looked around, turning around enough to look right at John, who was seated behind her. John knew what was coming next. The Assistant finished, and the Chief spoke.

“My daughter Nenamook, recite Rule Two, NOW.”

“My father, that rule was about listening as my Husband speaks.”

“Correct, and you watched him write those words on this paper, so those were HIS words the Assistant Shaman just read. Now, do you think that Assistant Shaman Dorothy speaks for our Shaman, whose very voice commands Piety-by-listening?”

“Yes, my father, she DOES speak for our Shaman.”

“My daughter, do you think that you may have committed a Lesser Spirit Crime by demonstrating your disdain for the Assistant’s words, which by definition of her position ARE words of Piety?”

“No, my father, I do not believe I committed that Spirit Crime.”

“Well, we have witnesses. I’m the first witness. Let’s compare your attention to that of your sister-wife, Katherine Otter, who paid strong attention. Katherine Otter, prove you paid attention by summarizing the Six Rules, please.” Katherine Otter does that, her voice ringing with conviction and respect. “That’s very good, Katherine. Shaman Elizabeth, do you find the elements and evidence of a Lesser Spirit Crime was committed by Nenamook?”

“I do find that, my Chief.”

“Pronounce a sanction for my daughter, please, my Shaman.”

“I pronounce the minimum sentence for this first offense of a Lesser Spirit Crime, my Chief.”

“Very well. Assistant, please make a short run about the Tribal Center and invite some members of the Tribe in here to witness public punishment.” Nenamook now knew that she was in for a severe whipping. She sat glumly on her blanket. She wondered how hard her new husband would thrash her, but one thing bothered her worse: the order to have children. Her father, the Chief, had just ordered every woman left in the Tribe to have children. She knew it made sense, but the whole idea of it just didn’t fit HER. She knew that the minor Spirit-crime she had just been convicted of could never be repeated, and worse, now she wondered if her refusal to get pregnant, and she planned to refuse, would mean THAT Spirit-Crime would be bumped up to Major status, which would burn her. She came to a decision, sat up, thrust out her chin and spoke directly to her Chief, her father.

“My Chief, I cannot stand the embarrassment I have had to endure here. I wish to invoke my Warrior’s Right and self-execute.” The reply came swiftly.

“My daughter, you are NOT a warrior, and have no such right. Just being my daughter never gave you Warrior-caste status. To do that, you would have to go through the caste-raising process with the Tribal Council. Considering the fact that you have just been found to have committed a Lesser Spirit Crime, I will not allow you to go to the Council with that request, and anyway, that request is never granted without a showing of coups counted. I know of none you have counted. Your request is refused. Aha! The Tribal witnesses are here. Assistant, have them stand by the back wall so that they have a good view of the whipping bench. Pick two to stand by me and observe from the front side.” All that re-positioning was done. It was time for the Chief or Shaman to appoint the punisher. The Chief deferred to Shaman Elizabeth, who announced her choice.

“I require this Spirit-Crime punishment to be done by Katherine Otter.” There WERE gasps in the large room. Nenamook shook her head, then spoke.

“I refuse to allow this low-caste to whip me. That’s just not right!” Nenamook straightened up, stood up and lunged toward Katherine, who ducked low to avoid the hair-grab Nenamook was trying for, but when Katherine straightened up, she had drawn her knife, inverted it and now she plunged it into her assailant’s belly, edge up, and using both hands, ripped upwards, disemboweling Nenamook, who curled up and collapsed in a bloody ball, screaming out her last breath without words. Katherine left the knife in her, now resting in between the halves of what used to be her heart and she threw herself on the ground, in front of her Chief in total debasement. The Chief stood, then took the steps toward John, stopping in front of him. John lowered his head in debasement. The Chief spoke.

“Chief of Forest and River Chinook, please take your wife into my private room and clean her up, then dress her in her celebratory clothing. She has to witness your marriage to your second wife. Shaman’s Assistant Dorothy, would you please go with your new husband and help him get his First Wife ready? We will be out here trying to clean up this mess. The coyotes and wild dogs will get a good meal, so my shameful daughter finally does something good with herself. We won’t bother with a high-caste funeral, she lowered her own caste to that of Slave with her Apostasy, did she not, my Shaman?” Shaman Elizabeth Wapiti speaks.

“You are perfectly correct, my Chief, she did commit Major-level apostasy. Your planned disposal of her self-defiled body is appropriate, as is your choice of Dorothy Wapiti to replace her. That also saves me the job of finding a proper high-caste consort for my former Assistant, doesn’t it, my Chief?”

“All correct, my Shaman, but why would she be your EX-Assistant? You will need to provide Shamanic guidance for the Forest and River Chinook, and Dorothy Wapiti will be that other-side Shaman, still working for you, but remotely.”

“Yes, my Chief. She has worked as Assistant long enough to qualify for elevation. We should schedule the ceremony.” The invited tribes-people had finished cleaning up the messy battle scene, so now they got their reward from their Chief.

“My good people, you will be the Second-Circle guests in the Longhouse for our ceremonies. Please go to your homes, clean up and dress for this solemn and merry occasion. Come hungry, we will use up some foods stocks for this.” The seven of them all lowered their heads in deference, then rose, raised hands and gave their throat-warbling vocal salute to their Great Spirit to voice their thanks, then they left. The Chief turned to John and smiled.

“My Forest and River Chinook Chief, we won’t go to the Longhouse for another four hours. I have to go supervise what food will come out of our cache, so you take your wives to my quarters, right through that door there, and you will know what to do when you get there, I’m sure.” As if on signal, the three responded.

 

(All three) “Yes, my Chief, thank you, my Chief.”