The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Jillian Forrester had also come back to Sussex, lest she wear out her welcome with Terrance Havens. The degree of success she had enjoyed with Alipang's brother had become a natural conversation subject between her and Lydia Reinhart; and it was to remain so at supper on this evening, as Jillian, on her third evening back in Sussex, was asked over to Alipang and Kim's house in a follow-up gesture of appreciation for her help to Alipang's parents in Casper. Thus Jillian, Lydia and Ransom formed their own little discussion circle on the topic of teenage romance, allowing the Amish girl and the Navy officer's son to compare notes with Jillian (Lydia and Ransom's courtship having more of a cultural divide to bridge than that between Terrance and Jillian).

Meanwhile, mostly ignored by the teenage trio, everyone at the table with the last name of Havens was talking about how the Filipino-history book had gone over with its homeschool audience. The educational theme was to prove a proper lead-in to another conversation that Alipang was to have after supper.

The phone rang...Alipang answered it...and the caller proved to be Daffodil Ford. "Alipang! Hello! I'm on a landline phone, so I can be a bit more at ease about what we say. I mean, they're probably still listening, but they won't care as much about it because it won't be played back to anyone. So how's your collec-- I mean, how's your family?"

"We're all well, thanks. The kids are getting back into their homeschooling schedule, and I'm getting caught up with my dental patients. And how are you doing as a supervisor?"

"Citizen Melville and Citizen Quickpace apparently think I'm not as bad as they thought I was--though I still get the feeling that there's something I don't know, that they're shy to talk about. But by now I've been able to work out some kind of actual plan with them. We were left mostly on our own to determine _what_ we could do in the way of outreach to you Biblicals; but we had a meeting, and Citizen Melville really helped to define what our options were.

"Since the triumvirate already has its ombudsman system in place, we're not needed to facilitate the vertical relationships where livelihood issues are concerned. But there were matters of _quality_ of life that we could involve ourselves with. Citizen Melville went over various projects we could propose to the triumvirate in those connections; then when she got to the matter of schooling, Citizen Quickpace jumped in, because her having worked with my mother meant she had heard about my Tolerance House work. They both agreed that our best available niche was in promoting more education for exile biopr--for your children here in the Enclave."

"Natural enough," Alipang agreed. "I'm sure you remember my talking with Avery Glass about the possibility of creating some kind of medical university inside the Enclave."

"I remember that, all right; and although we're initially looking at _primary_ education, progress there would of course facilitate measures for higher education, down the road."

At this point, Alipang mentally prayed that the well-meaning Daffodil would not end up serving as an instrument of destroying the intellectual and parental freedoms which the exiles enjoyed as compensation for being confined here. Daffodil continued:

"I've contacted Bert Randall, to ask if I could use his research findings from when he toured the Enclave. He says it's all right, so I'll have a framework on which to build my overview of the educational needs in the Enclave." The boy's voice showed more feeling now, like the voice of someone who wants to be trusted, or wants to be forgiven. "I'm going to be proposing to the triumvirate a pilot project, hopefully based where you are--because I miss being at your house!--in which we would offer some courses which have practical application, like mathematics, _without_ generating confrontation about abstractions."

Alipang felt somewhat reassured; perhaps Daffodil's "internal diplomacy" _would_ manage to avoid being just one more scheme to try to prod Christians out of their faith in Christ.
 
The next morning, shortly after breakfast, the Havens family was visited by the Forest Ranger couple Mark and Dana, accompanied not only by the dog Whiplash, but also by a third Forest Ranger, a relatively old man with a Mediterranean look about him.

"This," Mark told Alipang and Kim, "is Ranger Kostas Demophilos, the first new member of our Enclave contingent to make it through the administrative maze and actually join us. He has prior enforcement experience against poachers, which made him a natural to work here."

"We don't mean that we'll be stopping exiles from hunting," Dana hastily interjected.

"Pleased to meet you," said the weathered Greco-American, shaking hands with Alipang and Kim. "From what I hear of you, Dr. Havens, it should interest you to know that I _also_ have experience of encountering governmental gutflak. An uncle of mine was a Forestry Service firefighter...and he died while fighting a forest fire, because his superiors refused to let the firefighting helicopters collect water from a certain stream to drop onto an area of flames that had him trapped."

Alipang's eyes widened. "I think I heard about that incident when I was a boy! Wasn't it because they said an endangered fish lived in that stream?"

Kostas nodded solemnly. "That's right. Someone who had never even _smelled_ a forest fire, decreed that my uncle, and three others who were trapped with him, _weren't_ endangered. So you won't hear any Mother Gaia nonsense from me."

"Glad to hear it, or should I say NOT to hear it," said Kim. "Can we offer you Rangers some herbal tea to warm you up?"

"Sounds nice," Dana replied, visibly happy to see that Kim had not ceased to be cordial toward her.

Ransom, Lydia and Wilson all being out of the house working at one job or another, Esperanza and Brendan bustled up and made Kostas feel at home by barraging him with questions, when they weren't petting the border collie. As the hot tea was served, Alipang asked Mark, "Have you learned anything more about the magical Ku Klux Quakers?" In recent days, as opportunities arose to do so inconspicuously, Alipang had spoken to various persons he regarded as trustworthy informants, telling them about Barney Jamison's little smuggled message about the non-existence of Ku Klux Quakers. He had not yet told any authority figure; at this instant, his mind was asking God whether the Forest Rangers' visit was a sign that _they_ should be told.

"Well, we talked with Porter Hennepin, that Grange volunteer who lives east of Rapid City," said Mark. "He rounded up numerous locals who were _eager_ to be brain-scanned to prove they had no part in any harassment of the Tabor family or of anyone else. Those Biblical terrorists just keep on looking more mythical all the time." While saying this, Mark was remembering Dana's admission to him that she _knew_ the Ku Klux Quakers had _never_ been anything but a fabrication. "And then came a break, thanks to your friend the Undersecretary of Eco-Sensitive Agriculture."

"As you know, she and the Energy Undersecretary aren't always given access to all the satellite imagery available to law enforcement," put in Dana. "But a certain _wise_ fellow you know _badgered_ her with the suggestion that she resort to the _environmental_ imagery database which _does_ come within her authorization for unlimited access." Responsive smiles from both Alipang and Kim assured the lady Ranger that they knew whom she meant. "There hadn't been any helpful images on that database back when Henry Spafford was missing, but in this case there _was_ something that helped."

"She looked at satellite imagery from around the time when the vandalism against the Tabor family's property was committed," Mark went on. "Following the visual record of when Dana and I with Mr. Hennepin tried to track the vandals, she fixed the location where we lost the trail. Then, sticking to that location, she went back in time to see what she could see, cross-referencing the time when the arson occurred at the Tabors' outbuilding.

"A point was reached, not long after that shed was torched, when even the environmental imagery record was blocked, under a Department of Indoctrination seal. But they failed to think of one thing. For all of the time period after the hate crime that remained visible to Agriculture, a sign of activity was there to be seen--that is, to be seen from _above_ as a satellite sees. Right around the spot where we lost the trail of the perpetrators, all of the _snow_ had been blown off of the treetops."

Kim's eyes brightened. "The way it would be if a _helicopter_ came right down there and hovered close to make a pickup!"

Alipang clasped his wife's hand. "And there would be records of what aircraft were airborne around that time; or was _that_ also hidden?"

"Loosely hidden," Dana told them; "but the Energy Undersecretary got into the act, and made it stick when she ordered the flight records to be disclosed. The only helicopter that could possibly have blown away that snow and carried away those fake terrorists...was one belonging to the Overseers."

"This could be really big," Alipang half-whispered, "provided anyone with any power will _admit_ it's big. By their own rules, they can _confine_ us here; but even under the Fairness Party, they're not supposed to be making up fictitious crimes -- well, not unless the Presidium orders them to."

"Not in theory," said Kostas, breaking his silence. "But as my uncle would attest, there are lots of ways that bureaucrats can come to be guilty of malfeasance _even_ against their own rules, and they normally don't want to confess it. Indeed, they may go to great lengths to _avoid_ confessing it."

"Sure, like when Henry was kidnapped," Alipang snarled. Now everyone around the table fell silent, until Mark spoke again.

"The lady Undersecretaries appear to realize this themselves. Neither of them has allowed herself to be alone with Nash Dockerty, or with any of his personnel, since the Tabor investigation. In fact, they make sure not to be alone, period. Each Undersecretary has at least two armed Transport Police with her at all times now; ironically, they say for public consumption that this is in case they get attacked by Ku Klux Quakers."
 
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Copperfox said:
"Wilson, I don't think it's one-sided, it's got front and back covers." Getting a reader's-eye view, Brendan added, "And the words are on both sides of the pages."
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That's cute.:)

Copperfox said:
"I'm on a landline phone, so I can be a bit more at ease about what we say. I mean, they're probably still listening, but they won't care as much about it because it won't be played back to anyone."
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Wouldn't hearing that make whoever was listening pay more attention?

Copperfox said:
"The only helicopter that could possibly have blown away that snow and carried away those fake terrorists...was one belonging to the Overseers."
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Hmm. Who would have ever imagined.
 
To clarify what Daffodil meant in that phone conversation: you remember the slogan "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"? Daffodil _assumes_ that his talk with Alipang is being monitored no matter what; but based on his dealings with Fairness Party law enforcement, he is confident that what he and Alipang are discussing is of little concern to the Pinkshirts, because it won't be heard by citizens _outside_ the Enclave. Besides, his ideas for promoting education are already known to the Campaign Against Hate.
 
While Alipang and Kim were still taking in the significance of their being made privy to so much information, Kostas partly opened his shirt front, to let them see a netlike electronic array hidden beneath it. "This, friends, is why we are allowing ourselves to talk so freely. The Overseers actually DO have a remote listening device trained on this house at this moment; but the apparatus I'm carrying, together with a gestalt of nanobots we scattered around the location they're using, is blocking them from hearing the _actual_ conversation in here, while _playing_ in their device a pre-recorded dialogue. That dialogue even includes _your_ voice, Dr. Havens, derived from existing recordings of you talking."

"How did you pull this off without them _knowing_ you were counteracting them?" Alipang asked.

"The equipment was obtained for us on the sly by the Energy Undersecretary," Dana answered. "She _doesn't_ like the Deputy Commander."

"And the nanobots," Mark added, "were delivered to where the Overseers are by someone to whom they wouldn't give a second thought."

Alipang lifted his eyebrows and looked at Mark's border collie. "You mean Whiplash?"

"None other!" Mark laughed. "He walked right up to them and scratched himself, and the nanobots flew out of his fur. But they'll only keep working for about another ten minutes; after that, they'll self-destruct, because we don't want any technicians working for the Overseers to _realize_ that their spying gear was tampered with."

Dana picked up from there: "The canned conversation they're listening to is real as far as it goes. There have been a couple of incidents of bears here in Wyoming Sector coming out of hibernation early and raiding farms; the recording has us talking to you about Rangers working with Grangers to neutralize those bears."

"Neutralize, spelled K-I-L-L, right?" said Kim.

"Most likely," Kostas affirmed. "And to settle it in the Overseers' minds that this truly is why we came today, we're going to need Dr. Havens to come out on an actual bear hunt with us, no later than tomorrow. We'll make sure you have the supplies you need."

Alipang paused in thought, then said to the Forest Rangers, "You know, there's an advantage of sorts in having rulers who do anything to anyone anytime they feel like it. Precisely _because_ the mirror-men could just _invent_ an accusation out of _nothing_ if they were determined to eliminate me, I can feel confident now that _your_ approach to me is not entrapment. In addition, a kind of information source that Nash Dockerty doesn't believe in, made it known to us God-fascists ahead of time that there was going to be intramural conflict among authority figures. And the best bet I see, is to side with you Forest Rangers."

"Just a moment, everybody," Kim told them all. "As the only mother present, let me now attend to the weak link in your secrecy plans." She gestured for her children's attention. "Esperanza, Brendan, listen carefully. You must never, absolutely _never_ tell anyone about what we're saying here. Not even your big brother. No hints, no I-know-something-you-don't-know. Act like you didn't hear anything."

The children solemnly nodded.

"We would have had you send the kids out of the room before we even started," said Mark, "if not for one fact. The Overseers who think they are hearing us, _are_ seeing us in reality. That is, they have heat sensors which we were unable to sabotage, and those heat sensors are letting them know the exact location of every living thing inside this house. The fact of your children _remaining_ in the same room as the rest of us, will go a long way toward convincing the Overseers that there _isn't_ anything secret going on."

"Then I guess I'm in," Alipang declared.

Mark nodded. "Good--because your friend, Ombudsman Wisebadger, is in as well. You'll see him on this hunt."

"Will Henry Spafford be with us too?"

"No, because including _both_ him and you in the mix would attach too big a dissenter-tag on this operation. Besides, he's just gone off an a mail-carrying run to the Greybull River area." This caused Alipang and Kim to look at each other; they were aware that the Greybull River area was home to the young Jewish woman who had recently been promoted as a marriage prospect for their Apache friend.
 
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While the technological disguise for their meeting still existed, the three Rangers provided more information to Alipang. The two relatively-decent members of the triumvirate were putting the Transport Police to good use indeed. Besides protecting the two Undersecretaries, they were also looking after Barney Jamison, who was now fully recovered, and keeping an eye on the Mormon family that had been made the target of the pretended Ku Klux Quaker intimidation raid. All this protection, again, was ostensibly caused by that imaginary threat.

One other person to whom the Overseers might wish harm in this connection was the Grange huntsman Porter Hennepin. He, accordingly, was being brought to Wyoming Sector, supposedly to get acquainted with Kostas Demophilos, as Kostas would possibly be working in South Dakota Sector once he was settled in. Participating in the new bear hunt, Mr. Hennepin would NOT be easy for the Overseers to get at if they contemplated a covert assassination.

When everything immediately necessary had been said, Kostas shut off his interference apparatus; the nanobots doing their part outdoors would soon dissipate. Now, as the conversation "went live," the newly-assigned Ranger took up a line of talk which by itself would raise no special suspicions for the eavesdropping Overseers, yet which was of interest for those who DID know the real purpose of the meeting. "Dr. Havens, I'm a trained Greek wrestler, so I'm always interested in people with any kind of martial-arts background. I never met an Escrimador; and when I heard about the exhibition match you had with that visiting Chinese researcher, I was fascinated. Would you mind telling me some about your history as a fighter?"

Alipang, therefore, narrated some of his life story, beginning with the way he had had to fight for his life even in childhood, back on the island of Luzon. Kim, since it was fresh in her thoughts after describing it recently to their children, inserted an account of the day at Smoky Lake East when Alipang had invited a beating without fighting back, just to prove his self-control. Kim's contribution evoked a remark by Kostas:

"Dr. Havens, that sounds like what I've heard about the Moros of Mindanao! Yes, it's in your files that you have Moro ancestry. It's said of the Moros that they're uncommonly hard to kill, and that they're indifferent to pain. But their toughness is usually associated with aggressiveness, in fact with homicidal rage. So how were you able to make use of this resistance to injury when you _weren't_ in a killing fury?"

"Papa, is he mad at you?" Brendan suddenly interjected with a worried voice.

Something about the innocent little boy stirred the latent maternal instincts in Dana; she became the first to answer the question. "No, Brendan, none of us here are angry at your father; we just want to understand him." (She had almost ended that sentence with the words, "We're just interested in him;" but she had edited herself just in time, not wanting Alipang's wife to draw any unfortunate inferences in view of Dana's past behavior.)

"To answer in a quick, direct way," said Alipang, "Moro heritage is not the _only_ thing I have going for me. I also happen to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; one of the _fruits_ of the Holy Spirit, listed in the Book of Galatians, is self-control. And it says in Proverbs that he who masters himself is better than he who captures a city."

"On the other hand," Kostas went on, "it is also in your files that you _have_ killed men, two of them, when you were only seventeen years old. Were you in a berserk fury then?"

Kim found this question somehow insulting, and her feeling showed in a hardening of her voice: "I was there myself that night. What Al was doing was _defending_ a roomful of people against murderous gangsters!"

"I apologize for how that sounded, Mrs. Havens. But as Ranger Pickering said, we do wish to understand your husband better. _Was_ it the Moro in him that slew those criminals, admittedly in self-defense?"

"Actually, no," said Alipang. "I wasn't in a blind fury that night, I was as near as I had ever been to the calm concentration of a civilized warrior. But there _have_ been times when the Moro came to the surface in me. On the night of that mortal combat, I had been alert in advance for trouble, and could prepare my mind for it. The Moro comes out when things are more sudden."

Kim reached a hand to caress her husband's hard-muscled arm. "Like some long-ago occasions when his sister Chilena was threatened suddenly with harm. By God's mercy, Al _didn't_ ever kill anyone when he was in that berserk rage; but he easily could have."

Mark smiled grimly. "Just as I'm told he could have killed _five_ persons at once, the day he rescued his friend Henry from unlawful confinement. Was the Moro at work that day, Dr. Havens?"

After a pause for emphasis, Alipang replied, "Yes, he was. But even then, I had him on a leash. I had to save Henry, but I didn't dare go too far and destroy the tenuous legal standing I had for my actions."

"At least it ended well," Kostas observed. "I hope you always will have that power of your ancestors, kept under control by the power of your conscience."
 
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Chapter 77: The Courtship of Henry Spafford, Maybe


On the day before he set out on his latest mail-carrying trip, Henry Spafford made a long-distance phone call to the Grange Hall nearest to the Graybull River, and obtained the promise of the volunteers there to let the Rosenbaum family know he would be coming their way. Huldah Rosenbaum, just by being an unknown quantity, was acquiring a mild fascination for him in spite of himself.

Scarcely an hour after this landline phone conversation, Henry was outside the Spafford family cabin, applying to various cracks a modern low-temperature caulking paste he had obtained in barter for two skinned and dressed deer carcasses, when a postal employee rode up on a propane-fuelled snowmobile, bringing the items of mail that Henry would be taking to persons not in the larger towns that were served by train-born mail delivery.

"Hello, Colin!" Pointing to an unusually long package, Henry asked, "Who's that big one for? It better be good."

Colin the postman smiled. It was only his friendships in the Enclave that could make him smile of late; physical deliveries of postal mail had shrunk so far in modern times that the postal workers' union had become one of the _least_ prestigious labor unions. "As a matter of fact, Henry, this is addressed to _you!_ From outside the fence, no less."

Stacking the other mail items on a barrel-top which he had cleared of snow, Henry took a small clasp-knife to the mystery package, as his gradeschool-age sisters Kitty and Bobbie came outside to see what was going on. They and the postman beheld the startled look on Henry's face when he drew out...a bow! It was simple in construction, with no pulleys; but it clearly was not made of wood, nor horn, nor any ordinary plastic.

"That's for you?" peeped Bobbie. "Who sent it?"

"Ha, silly of me not to look..." Henry found the return address. "Well, call me a Cherokee! This is from the woman crazy enough to out-crazy Crazy Woman Creek! It's from Odette Galloway!"

Kitty, fourteen months older than Bobbie, seized the opportunity to demonstrate that she was capable of making puns. "That must mean she still wants you to be her _beau!_"

Turning to face Kitty with a deadpan face, Henry replied, "Well, I won't _string_ her along. I don't want to be committing sins of the _fletch_ with her."

Taking little heed of the puns, Bobbie asked, "Is there a note?" Spencer also came outside at this point. Their parents, and Leah, were away helping another family to repair home damage from a roof broken by a falling tree. Finding the accompanying note, Henry read it aloud:

"Dear Mister Spafford,

"I finally hit on what I could do to repay you for your bravery, without offending your sensibilities. Here is a replacement for your bow that was smashed the day you saved my life. I'm sorry it won't reach you by Christmas; I had to apply to several government offices for approval to send it to you at all, because of the high technology involved in manufacturing it. They agreed in the end, because although it's a scientifically-made weapon, the end result is no more lethal than a shot by a Japanese samurai archer. The big deal is in the convenience to the user, not in the target being any more dead.

"The bowstave is made of a new synthetic material from Canada. If you pull the bow as far back as three-quarters of the length of an average arrow, the pull to that point is no more than twenty kilograms. This allows the bow to be used for practice by an archer who isn't very strong. But for the rest of the way to a complete pull, the resistance sharply increases, so that only someone really strong can pull it all the way. Then, when it's AT maximum flex, it sort of locks in place for five seconds if you don't loose the arrow, so that if you need to wait to shoot, you don't tire your arms any further. After the five seconds, you're on your own to hold the bow bent. You still CAN shoot anytime during the five seconds, but if you wait, it actually adds even more penetrating force.

"You would not want me to say anything that sounded too personal, but I will always remember you with gratitude. Maybe someday I'll even change some of my views about the Inexpressible Ultimate. I have at least heard of the expression 'bread on the waters;' think of yourself as having dropped bread on the waters when you gave me back my life. Goodbye, and may your own life be a good one.

"Sincerely, Odette Galloway."

Henry thanked Colin, and had Kitty serve him some hot herbal tea before he went on his way. Everyone got the chance to try drawing the new bow. And when he set out on his horse Cochise the next day, Henry was thinking about Odette much of the time, though not in any sense of romantic desire.
 
During his first day on the trail, after making mail deliveries to Mayoworth-area homesteads, Henry began looking for places where he could try out his new bow in earnest without endangering any living creature. When shooting at targets with the bow at maximum draw but NOT using the "hold" option, he found the force and range of his shots to be at least equal to what he had enjoyed with his old compound bow. Then, when he DID use the "hold" option, his eyes went gaping wide as his arrow drove entirely through a tree and came out the other side. The arrow itself was ruined by this, but Henry came away with a new respect for Odette's gift. He also wondered to himself why, in an age of highly advanced armaments, the Canadians had bothered to create a bow like this. His strongest conjecture was that it was to compensate Canadian civilians for their having been denied ownership of firearms.

From there he headed up into the Chinese-made railroad passage through the Big Horn range. To his left was that portion of the Big Horn which the Fairness Party had ordered partially deforested to facilitate satellite surveillance; to his right was that portion which remained forested, and in which exiles were not encouraged to spend time. Near sunset, making good time, he reached the outskirts of Blake and Dorcas Hanley's horse ranch. One of the Cheyenne youths employed there was exercising a yearling mare; upon being hailed by Henry, he told the Grange rider where Blake was to be found right now.

The African-American rancher and another of his ranch hands were struggling to set upright a wagon which had fallen on its side in some accident. Joining them, Henry used his steel spear as a sort of crowbar to assist in the effort. Once the job was done, Henry gave a letter to Blake, and asked how business was.

"Business looks good for YOU," Blake replied. "What I mean by that is that an idea of mine seems to be working. Since you Grangers have no future supply of horses equal in quality to the Mountie horses you use now, I started last spring on a project to provide you with a new generation of action-ready horses."

Henry nodded thoughtfully. "If any exile can do it, you're the one. I always hear good things of the horses you raise: good strength and wind, with good disposition."

"The disposition's in how you train them," said the Arapahoe boy standing beside the rancher.

"That's right," agreed Blake. "And the same's to be said for their courage. The horses I'm raising for future Grange use have been exposed to the scent of bears, wolves and cougars for their whole lives, by means of my periodically bringing carcasses of those animals close to their stalls. Likewise, they've heard analog tape recordings of the voices of those animals--low volume at first, gradually raising the volume over a period of weeks. It's my belief that these horses will never be panicked by the mere closeness of a predator. Of course, I won't expect you guys to trust your safety to them until I've tried them out on the hunt myself."

Now Henry brought his new bow into view. "Speaking of hunting, look what I got for Christmas--late in coming, but still a great gift." As Blake and his worker looked it over, Henry went on: "You remember about my saving that Energy Department ombudsman from a grizzly. She sent this to me as a token of appreciation."

Peering more closely at the weapon, Blake suddenly asked, "Is this made of Everstrain?"

Henry stared uncomprehendingly. "I assume that's the name of a material? I never heard of it; and the bow came without any more explanation of its making than what Miss Galloway gave in her note to me."

Blake tried drawing the bow to full flex, with no arrow on the string to be concerned about. "I think it is. That's a synthetic they were developing in Canada starting three or four years before the United States fell. Rumor was that they had in mind making ultra-powerful bows for their own special forces, as a silent-weapon option."

Henry's jaw fell a bit. "Lord bless us! Am I going to be in trouble for having this?"

"I don't think so. The bureaucrats who passed judgment on letting the bow be sent to you, had to have been aware of what it was. And I can't imagine Miss Galloway even being able to BUY it for you in the first place, if it was going to be regarded as illegal."

"All right...I guess. But still..." Henry stepped a few paces away from the other two, making sure that nothing was above him to prevent his being seen from an overhead vantage point; looked straight up while also lifting his bow in one hand, and spoke with exaggeratedly clear pronunciation:

"Hello, satellite monitors? Read my lips! This is internal exile Henry Spafford. I was recently given this hunting bow, made of some advanced colloid material. The giver of the gift, and I as the recipient, have acted in the sincere belief that it is not an illegal weapon. If we are mistaken, I will surrender the bow to law-enforcement officers when I am so ordered."

But no one took him up on the offer that evening, nor the next day.
 
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Zella said:
Whoa!!!:eek: Is that even possible?!
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In view of how much technological advancement there has been just in the last decade, I venture to suppose that after another decade there _could_ be materials which could be "programmed" to behave in a particular way.
 
Copperfox said:
In view of how much technological advancement there has been just in the last decade, I venture to suppose that after another decade there _could_ be materials which could be "programmed" to behave in a particular way.
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I meant the arrow going the whole way through the tree.;)
 
Zella said:
I meant the arrow going the whole way through the tree.;)
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It has been said that a hurricane wind, blowing A WISP OF STRAW into a palm tree, was able to drive that straw through the tree. And the idea of that high-tech bow is that it STORES UP energy from the archer, as if there were more than one archer pulling on the same bow, so as to deliver more force.
 
Graciously declining an invitation to spend the night at the Hanley ranch, Henry made it to two more homes before full dark. The first of these homes had a letter coming; the second had no incoming mail, but Henry's impulse to go there anyway was for the good, since the family there had letters to send out.

The Apache lucked out for a place to sleep the night: there was an old semi-truck trailer, undercarriage gone, lying abandoned near a side road. It was the same kind of thing Alipang's dental clinic was made from; but by the battered look of it, this one had been rejected as material for an improvised building. There were holes in it, caused by Henry knew not what; but with his hand-powered flashlight, he was able to scan the interior. There seemed to be no rats or other vermin in it, and it was even possible to get Cochise inside it. So Henry and his horse slept indoors, in a manner of speaking, sheltered against predators. Cochise was even so obliging as to lie down--after Henry had carpeted the trailer floor with sticks, dead grass and weeds--to share his body warmth with his master. This, added to Henry's blankets, made a fire as unnecessary for surviving the cold as for deterring carnivores.

Come the morning, then, the same sticks and things which had made a bed were now dry enough to burn properly, giving Henry a good fire over which to cook some vegetarian imitation bacon he had been given at the last household he had visited. Exiles pretty much ate whatever they could obtain; the family giving this stuff to Henry had gotten it in barter from someone else.

Looking at Cochise, he laughed, "If my prospective bride were here now, I would at least score points with her for not breaking kosher!" More soberly, he told the attentively-listening animal, "Of course, that's just a detail in the picture of the _real_ problem. Jesus set us free from bondage to ceremonial restrictions, and I'm not going to let anyone, male or female, tell me I have to _return_ to those restrictions. Hmmph, probably no chance of getting Huldah Rosenbaum to read through the Books of Galatians and Hebrews with me on our first date."

The pseudo-bacon, and some dried apple slices he had with him, sufficed for a modest breakfast; but after six more pickup or delivery stops, he was riding through some empty countryside when he started feeling hungrier than he had before breakfast. So, finding a well-situated tree, he climbed it with his new bow, leaving Cochise to nose out grass from under the snow while waiting for him to come down.

Settling into the best perch the tree offered, Henry began looking all around for any sign of game. The very act of doing this made him think about the buffalo, or more properly the American bison. When his family had first entered the Enclave, they had been expecting to hunt bison in Wyoming, those animals having long been successfully kept viable in population by the efforts both of conservationists and of commercial bison-meat sellers. But the joke had been on the Spaffords: the designers of the internal-exile system, even before they had introduced extra predators _into_ the Enclave, had _removed_ all the bison there, transplanting them to showcase nature parks where foreign tourists could admire them. Tourism, after all, was one of the few industries the Diversity States had managed to keep going on any notable scale.

But eventually a pronghorn came into view. Making use of the energy-storing feature of his new bow, and helped of course by his elevated position, Henry was able to make a hit at a distance of more than half a kilometer. The first arrow didn't hit an instant-kill spot; but its very impact in a haunch knocked the pronghorn off its feet. By the time the beast had struggled upright and limped a few paces, Henry was ready to shoot again. The second arrow ensured that the quarry did not suffer long. Henry descended his tree, hungrier than ever.

As they were heading for where the carcass lay, Cochise suddenly shied anxiously. The breeze was coming from a direction close to the direction of their objective. "Bear, boy? There _have_ been folks telling of bears disturbed out of hibernation early," muttered Henry, steering the gelding away to one side.

When they had gone enough out of their way that Cochise appeared no longer worried, Henry dismounted and went toward the slain pronghorn on foot, calling upon his Apache fleetness. He brought all of his weapons with him.
 
When he drew near to where the antelope had fallen, Henry saw that Cochise had indeed scented a bear. Not a grizzly, but a black bear that was big for its species. Big enough--plump enough--that it seemed unlikely to have been awakened from hibernation by its stored fat running out. It was showing interest in the pronghorn carcass, but was not hastening to eat as if starving. So what had awakened it?

That question had to wait. Spotting Henry, the bear charged immediately, which most black bears would not do on so little provocation. The huntsman did not allow zoological curiosity to outweigh self-preservation; he had an arrow already nocked, and the extra pull already engaged. The force this bow gave would probably enable piercing the skull; but like a cop trained to shoot at center body mass, Henry went for the sure thing, aim-wise. His arrow plunged all the way through the bear's heart, fountaining out blood at both entrance and exit wounds.

Though as good as dead, the bear came on reflexively; with no time for a second bowshot, Henry sidestepped, grabbed hold of his spear which now had a carry-sling like a rifle, and thrust the spear into the mortally-wounded beast's neck. Less massive than a grizzly, the black bear died without further argument.

If he had not been living for over a year in a place full of devious authority figures and unpleasant surprises, Henry would not have inspected his kill more minutely than was called for by the business of skinning and gutting it. But in this place, and in the circumstances, he was curious. Finding the bear's back trail, he found that it had come from the north.

Where Henry was now, was near the southern end of what used to be Bighorn National Forest, a region extending to and beyond the northern edge of that part of Wyoming which fell within the reservation. Under present conditions, the triumvirate severely limited exile habitation in the Bighorn Range, since its terrain offered more potential cover against overhead satellite observation than did some parts of Wyoming Sector. The same consideration had caused the Agriculture Department to have some of the wooded sections clear-cut, as they had also done on the mountains near Casper. But it was known that some non-exile workers were employed in the Bighorn, because its pre-Diversity States reservoirs were still usable and valuable; these water sources needed to be maintained by workers who would not be making escape attempts in the rugged highlands. Thus, it was conceivable that some kind of human industrial activity had awakened the hibernating black bear.

Except that... none of the human activity in the Bighorn was new, was it? This bear should have already known where the humans were; and in the thinly-peopled Bighorn, it should have been able easily to find a den well away from all human projects. What had roused it from sleep and set it on the move in a bad temper?

Henry found three clues which increased his agitation. The bear's paws were caked with something like cement or mortar. The fur of one hind leg was streaked with what seemed to be green paint. Both of these artificial substances could have been in recent use; like the caulking Henry had been using at home, they now came in formulas that worked in cold weather. So the bear must have walked right through some kind of construction site. And the third clue both hinted that the construction site was important, and hinted at why the black bear had been aggressive.

Stuck in the bear's back were a prong and a length of wire from a taser. An Overseer, or someone similarly equipped, must have tried to drive the bear away from the site.

Henry's thoughts accelerated. Okay, I've only been looking over this dead bear for a minute or two. I've salvaged my arrow, which gave me an excuse to be close to the carcass. Whoever is watching me now on satellite video has not yet been given clear cause to think that I'm taking notice of anything unusual about the bear. My looking for the back trail could be explained as checking for a possible second bear. Since I killed this bear in self-defense, rather than having been after it in the first place, it's the most natural move for me now to turn my attention to the pronghorn, which is plenty of meat for me. On the other hand, if I exaggerate my appearance of indifference to the bear, THAT may tip them off that I noticed something. So I need to show sort of a slight interest.

With his Bowie knife, Henry carved his initials in a tree close to the bear, with an arrow pointing at the slain animal. There, I've laid claim, as a hunter might who's killed more than he can immediately carry away. Normal interest, not an exile playing detective. NOW to see to the pronghorn.

After he had carried out his huntsman business--including, of course, the EATING of a piece of that antelope--Henry would proceed with his publicly-known plan of going to the Graybull Valley to meet Huldah Rosenbaum. Changing that plan would surely have drawn unwelcome attention to him. The dead bear, he would probably contrive to barter to someone for something, furthering the pretense that it was of no inordinate interest to him.

But as when he had encountered Ralph Durgan and Halberd Meteor at their dirty work, Henry would not forget this latest case of stumbling upon governmental mischief.
 
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Just past mid-afternoon, as Henry was walking beside Cochise while the horse towed the pronghorn carcass on a litter of bound branches, he encountered two men with hunting bows. They were not Grangers, but farmers who had obtained permission to own the hunting weapons; the possession of bows, however, had not brought them success. Henry accordingly told them where they could find the bear carcass he had left behind, saying they were welcome to it if scavengers had not gotten to it first; and that was a loose end tied up.

At nightfall, he and his horse were given lodging at someone else's farm. The people there were ones he had seen before on a few occasions; he had no mail to bring them, but they made sure to get letters written that he could carry away when he left in the morning. As an additional return for the family's hospitality, the Apache Granger let them keep the rest of the pronghorn, apart from some cuts of meat he reserved for himself.

All this was routine for a Grange courier. But there was a surprise in store: the wife of the family made a telephone call to friends farther west. After some cryptic conversation, she looked at Henry and asked, "How directly are you heading for the Graybull Valley?"

"Um, pretty directly, I guess. By now I've delivered most of the mail I started with; and the items I've collected from people along the trail all seem to be ones that need to go back to the post office. Why do you ask, or is it your friend who's asking?"

"We're both asking," said the farm wife. "These friends of mine are acquainted with the Rosenbaums. You coming out to marry Huldah Rosenbaum has given country exiles more interesting gossip than we usually get, not counting disasters and illness."

Henry rose from his seat. "TO MARRY HER? Give me that phone!--that is, please give me the phone." Once the handset was against his ear, he said, "Excuse me, this is the alleged bridegroom. Where did you get the idea that I was already engaged to Miss Rosenbaum? I haven't even MET her yet!"

The other woman on the other end of the call uttered a timid, "Oh"... paused... and then admitted, "It's Mr. Rosenbaum; he talks as if it's all settled. Poor man, he's had so much grief in his life, I guess he terribly WANTS to believe something is going to work out happily."

"I see, or I think I do." Glancing sidelong at his hosts, Henry saw that wife and husband looked embarrassed themselves. So he forced his tone to be milder as he continued. "Listen, ma'am, Yitzhak Rosenbaum knows perfectly well that I never committed myself to marry his daughter. I'm more worried about Huldah. Is there any chance you'll speak to HER anytime before I arrive in their winter pastures?"

"I can see to it that I do," offered the lady on the phone.

"Thank you. Please tell her that I have no idea whether she's interested in me or not, and that I came out this way merely intending to MEET her and see if anything comes of the acquaintance. Tell her that when she sees me, she can ask me to turn around and leave, and I will... whereas, if she does want to be introduced to me, there's no telling how much or little will result from it."

When the phone conversation ended, Henry appeased the curiosity of his hosts by describing in detail all of the interaction he had had so far with Yitzhak Rosenbaum. Going to bed that night, then, he dreamed about Huldah, but not in a particularly erotic way. He dreamed that Huldah, Odette Galloway, his own sister Leah, Irina Stepanova, and the two young Pinkshirt women who had attended to him in that Overseer infirmary last November, were wielding laser guns, shooting at an attacking horde of black bears who were clad in Overseer armor.
 
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