Your Future

Chapter 17

Epilogue

It is now 6 years later

Kate was awake and just lying there, listening to the silence. In a few moments that would all be changing so she was just lying there, relishing the quiet.

Clothes was still a problem. No one, including them, had diapers though thankfully the boys were potty trained and their daughter had caught on just a few short months ago. However, since clothing was still limited it meant save for having all five of them wearing something at their waists, they were naked when they slept. Their sleeping areas were at least a little divided so each of them had a touch of privacy, even if it wasn't all that much.

And since there were five in their family they had a brand new teepee that was a lot bigger so it would fit them all. The twins were 5 while their daughter was 3. None of them were of an age where they were going to get their own teepee anytime soon.

Then Rick moved and she started to reach for him to keep him quiet yet all he did was roll over and stay asleep. Kate listened to the quiet until she remembered what today was. So she got up and went through her little clothing pile.

Her top was now a rag, her panties were long gone, her bra didn't fit her any longer thanks to having 3 kids. Worse her blue jeans had stopped fitting her years ago when she was pregnant with the twin boys. That left her with her wedding dress, a top, and a mini skirt, all made from skins. The top was a little short so it left a tiny portion of her midriff exposed. It was a bit sexy for this so she put on her wedding dress followed by her moccasins.

Everyone was wearing moccasins now since even her stout boots weren't in the greatest of shape any longer.

Kate stopped, looked at Lyn, and brushed some of her hair away. She could feel her love for her run through her body. She might be 3 but to Kate she looked like a mini her. It was almost a little eerie.

Moving on to Levi and James she watched them sleep. Twins had been a surprise. Thankfully their medical team was ready for her save for the pain she'd had to go through to give birth to them. One had tired her out completely only to be told there was another one.

She loved all of her children but while she wouldn't admit it to anyone, including her husband, these two held a special place in her heart. They were her first and she learned that Rick had been right. She loved them before they were born. Holding them after just giving birth to them told her she loved them more than anything.

These two had a piece of her and a lot of Rick. Kate ran her hand through their hair and left the teepee so she could start her day.

Everyone lived in a teepee. Theirs just happened to be the largest one for now. They had 179 teepees now and save for theirs they were all the same size. They were built and placed in groups based on where the fire pits for cooking were located. They had four fire pits so they had four groups or districts, if you preferred that term.

Kate went to the closest and sliced off a piece of wild boar and chewed while she walked. Thanks to her talk yesterday she found a group already in place. Today was going to be picking the first of the ripe oranges and kumquats. They still had a few apples left over as well as some blackberries and pawpaws. The bananas were long gone, though.

What she wanted to do before this group moved out was to walk their various orchards a little. All the trees were still young and not yet producing much. Thankfully only a few had died so far. Next to the trees was the field full of hemp plants. Far outside of both of these was the bamboo fields.

Their fields were basically a large arc beyond one end of their teepees. Today they were going to start another arc to plant still more trees, hemp, and everything else over time.

By the time Kate was back the group was gone. She decided to move to what was now the center. Here their two old 10' x 30' tents had been moved to. They were side by side now instead of end to end. One was used as a school house where all three of her children would soon be. School was handled mostly by the two real teachers that they had. Everyone knew something and they couldn't afford to lose what they knew. What everyone knew had to be passed down or it might be gone for conceivably a really long time. So yes, their two teachers were in charge, but they had a lot of temporary teachers and that included her.

The other tent contained both medical and religion. In the end Kate had left it to individual people to pray as they pleased. It was left to the families to do as they pleased within their family. They could hand down their religious beliefs, however, they didn't teach everyone else unless they showed an interest.

Kate saw three people in this tent being tended to by a woman Kate knew was their medical student. "How are they?" Something had worked its way from one teepee to another in a tight area.

"Their fever broke last night," Suzanne said, wiping her brow with the back of her hand. "They'll be here until tomorrow morning just to be sure. But they're fine. Your husband's knowledge of penicillin has worked out perfectly. We might have actually lost someone without it."

Kate knew full well that they didn't have needles to give people shots and wouldn't for a long time. Their penicillin came in two forms: pills and a cream.

Kate went to all three to make sure they were doing fine before going back to her medical student. "How is this chemical set coming?" They had a table set up and what had been useless was now being put to use.

"Depends on what it is we want. We just don't have a lot of the chemicals that we need to make things with. And without a dependable fire source we're even more limited. Though it does work, especially if we want to make penicillin," Suzanne commented.

"Well I've got more to check on this morning." Kate was ready to leave but she stopped her.

"Kate… I really am glad that you're still in charge. You're all we have. We would have frozen to death without you. We also wouldn't have all this without you." She needed for Kate to know she was wanted.

"I guess what I'm saying is please don't stop. Living here is hard enough as it is." She, like everyone else including Kate, missed what they used to have.

Kate had already learned just that when the results of her vote came in. Amazingly no one else wanted the job so while not everyone had actually voted, no one else got a vote. Kate simply took it upon herself to keep the job with Rick's support. Thankfully by now everyone had broken up into different jobs so she didn't need to micromanage any longer. She just needed to check on everyone every few days.

Done there, she went to the corrals next. They now had five corrals in total, three for horses and two for cows. Today, at least for now, all of the horses were in their corrals while the two for cows were empty.

They had solved the problem in what to put the milk in. Using a downed tree, of which they had several to chose from, they had made slats that had a tongue and grove system. Made a round bottom and inserted them into the slats. Then they used really narrow bands of wood along with lots of rope to hold it all together. Once it started to leak they started work on building another one. They even had churns to make butter with. And they'd found a way to make cheese.

From there she made her way to the chicken coops. They presently had four rows of three and today they were going to build a fifth row of three. They had chickens everywhere feeding themselves and going into the coops to lay eggs. They were able to collect eggs now. Once the fifth row was done and full they would start to add chicken to their diet.

All four of the old two-man dome tents were now only used by the groups that went out hunting. Each group was now going out farther and farther to hunt what they needed.

Her dad's watch had finally stopped working and since they had no way to fix it, it was taken to the school tent to be used as a tool to teach with. She felt like it was time for school to start so she walked that way.

Along the way she saw people everywhere doing either what they wanted or needed to do. It actually felt pretty good. Off in the distance she caught a glimpse of the bee hives that they had set up. They didn't really have much to put the honey in so they raided the hives when they needed some.

Walking into the big tent she found her husband and her children along with all the other younger children starting school. Kate knew today was going to be Rick's day to teach. He had so much information in that head of his that needed to be shared. Just how he did that was beyond her.

What they did have was small thin slats of slate and an early chalk to write with.

As Kate stood just outside and watched, since she didn't want to interfere, she observed as Rick had a totally different way of teaching. She remembered sitting at a desk with her teacher at her desk. While Rick had a space, he never stayed there. He walked between each and every child and talked the entire time. She smiled. Rick had gone from a writer, to hunter, and now he was one of their teachers. She was still watching until she heard her name being called.

She saw two of her hunting groups that were headed for the horse corrals. She walked quickly to join them. "Have you got everything you need?" These six people had a plan that she'd approved. It was only because they were picking ripe fruit that she had approved it. With them being gone meant they would be down to one hunting group and that group would be without Rick since he was a teacher now.

"Horses, axe, lots and lots of rope, and our weapons. We've even got a bag of oranges to take with us. The plan, as you know, is to kill a few and gut them right then and there. Build a travois for several horses and pull them behind three of the horses. We're hoping for 3 or 4 gators per travois," Jake told her as the others got the horses ready.

"This should be good for us. Gator meat and gator skins for all kinds of things." Shoes were the first thing to come to her mind. "Just don't get yourselves killed doing this." Getting gators wasn't going to be worth it if they lost someone.

"We plan on being careful. Just be ready for us to be gone for something like three weeks." They had a lot to do to accomplish this little task.

"I think we're ready. We still have one hunting group for wild game and horses for them to use. And we now have four canoes to fish with. We haven't even seen another shark since that first one." Kate thought they were ready.

"We'll be back." He left Kate and got his horse ready. Kate stayed long enough to watch them leave.

Kate headed for the two that were making skins for lots of uses. The teepees were done for now so all these skins now were for clothes. Like herself, literally everyone was wearing skins now unless they needed cloth.

The four weaving cloth were next. Hannah had some help now. One was a teenage boy who had expressed an interest in learning so now there were four looms holding varying lengths and widths of cloth. All of their cloth was a mix of bamboo and hemp. So far it seemed to be working out. There were also six people spinning the fibers into thread, a very slow and tedious process. But without them there would be no cloth.

Next Kate went to one of the spots where ripe fruit was being dropped off. She helped herself to an orange and peeled it as she walked. Since rope was always in need she made her way to her stump and started braiding rope.

She might be in charge, but everyone needed to work at something and this was her spot.

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It is now five years later

Kate was leaving the school tent after being a teacher. In her case she was teaching Russian. All of the kids were learning English and Spanish thanks to other people. She was the only one that spoke Russian so she had tagged herself to teach it.

"Mom, can we go swimming?" Both of her 10-year-old sons had been in the class and now that the class was over they wanted to do something else.

"Only if there's an adult lifeguard," Kate told them.

"MOM!" Levi didn't like that answer.

"Jeez, Mom!" James didn't like it either.

"Those are the rules and you both know it. No adult lifeguard, no swimming. It's as simple as that. If you want to go swimming so badly go find yourself an adult who agrees to be your lifeguard. If I find out you went swimming without one and you're both grounded for a week. You know what that means," Kate reminded them since they'd both been grounded before.

"Yes, Mom," Levi said in defeat.

"You can always go practice your shooting with a bow and arrows. Go play checkers. Go gather up enough people and play soccer." Kate offered some alternatives for them to try instead.

"YES! Thanks, Mom." James was happy and ran off with his brother right behind him.

It made Kate happy. They weren't doing something they shouldn't. Playing soccer meant playing with the other kids which in their case meant playing with girls.

Soccer had been another game that had come straight from Rick's mind. Soccer balls, like most all balls, needed a rubber inner lining that held compressed air. Naturally they didn't have any rubber let alone compressed air. However, Rick had come up with a leather ball that he had stuffed as tightly as he could with animal hair and then with Hannah's help they had sewn it closed. They even had two now in case one of the balls burst a seem.

The nets for the goal posts were easy. Getting a soccer field marked off, then level enough and not filled with holes that could be stepped into and break an ankle, had taken them weeks to complete.

Since the medical tent was close Kate went there next. "What are you guys making?" They were using the chemistry set for something.

"Slime."

"Say that again?" Had she heard right?

"Slime. It's for the little kids to have some fun with. It's perfectly safe and totally gross. Perfect for little kids," Mike told her.

Kate had to admit that for little kids it did sound fun if not exactly useful. "Okay." She still wasn't so sure. "Did my husband put you up to this?" It sounded all Castle to her.

"I plead the 5th," Kate heard a moment or two later.

"Uh-huh." She knew it. "Just don't make too much of this stuff." Kate left them to it and would question her husband about it later.

Leaving the medical tent she saw her older daughter running to the soccer field. In Kate's eyes the word was out. There was a soccer game in progress; her older daughter had long legs and could run forever.

She grinned as she walked to the horse corrals. They still had the same three for horses and two for milk cows. However, not far away were the ever expanding chicken coops. They had five of them now. Each was actually three end to end with ramps on each end and skins for roofs.

Eggs were every weekend and once a week they had a limited amount of roasted chicken for their diet. At the rate they raised chickens they were going to have to start on a sixth soon.

Not overly surprised she found Castle with Jennifer, their younger daughter who was two and a half now. Castle had her on a horse and was holding onto her and the horse as he walked them both around the enclosure.

All three hunting teams were out at the moment. Two of them were out hunting for gators since the previous trips had turned out really well. The meat had been a nice change and their skins were being put to good use so there was just the horse, Castle and her daughter in this corral.

"MAMA!" Kate had been spotted and Jennifer waved until Rick got her to put her hands back on the horse's mane. Kate simply smiled, waved back, and waited for both of them to be done.

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Kate watched her little girl do her best to run from the horse after Rick put her down, right for her. Kate scooped her up and covered her face with kisses. "Did Daddy give you a horse back ride?" Kate asked her.

"Horsey cool. Do Mama ride?" Like most little kids Jennifer was full of questions.

"A little. Looked to me like you're much better than me." It wasn't the truth but since Kate hadn't been on any of these horses since they had gotten them, it might look like she was better than her mommy.

"Where others?" Jennifer asked her next.

"Your brothers and sister are playing soccer. When you're a little older you can join them." Kate doubted she even understood the rules let alone could run fast or long enough.

Rick joined them. "How was your Russian class?"

"It was fine. No one's going to be fluent in it for a while yet. Though we're getting there." Kate had hopes of not being the only one to speak Russian eventually.

"Anything happening today?" Rick inquired.

"Not for me. I'm done for the day. Why, what have you got in mind?" Kate knew that look. Castle was up to something and was trying to surprise her.

"Where are the boys and Lyn?" Rick asked her instead of answering her.

"Playing soccer." Kate just knew he was up to something.

"We can still do it." Rick thought three was enough.

"Do what, Castle?" He wasn't explaining anything yet and she still hated surprises.

"Follow me." Rick went south and Kate still had Jen in her arms so she walked next to Castle, not knowing just what they were doing.

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She followed him all the way out into one of their fields. It had taken work and a lot people with green thumbs but they actually had several fields with various new plants. Hops, tea, and watermelon. It was just that some of it was being raided by animals or birds. Actually she wasn't sure which was worse.

Then when they stopped Kate saw all kinds of stuff on the ground. Castle had obviously planned ahead for this.

"What's this, Castle?" It looked like an odd assortment of junk. There was even some really old and badly ripped old clothes that were mostly just rags now.

"We're going to make a Castle scarecrow. Just the three of us," Rick informed them.

"What scar cow?" Jennifer wasn't following.

"Scarecrow, honey. It's supposed to scare birds away," Kate explained to her. "We already have scarecrows, Castle." None of them worked so why did they need another one?

"This one's going to be different. Just help me," Rick asked them.

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Kate was following what Rick was doing mostly, even if Jennifer wasn't really all that much help.

Kate had Jennifer in her arms while watching Castle hold onto it. Then he shoved it and it started to spin. As it spun it flailed its arms all over the place. Rick ducked and joined them to watch it spin.

"It has a sail!" Kate saw it now. It was made mostly of bamboo so it was really lightweight, unlike the others. The old clothing had been ripped into strips and when the long and lightweight arms flapped about as it spun, if there was a wind, it might actually scare the birds away.

"This is genius, Rick!" Kate was impressed. "Can we make more of them?" She would find people to help him make some more.

"Easily. …Like it?" Rick was talking to his daughter who had a wide smile as she watched it flap around while it whirled around.

Kate looked at the sky. "We need to get moving, Castle. It's supposed to be ready today." She wanted to be there when they had it working and not just another test.

"Let's move then. Should I go get the boys?" Rick asked her.

"Let them play. Maybe they'll sleep like the dead tonight," Kate said in response. They still had just the one big teepee. They were the largest family in the group. No one else had four children. There were a number of families that had four in total now with two kids. If anyone had a third they would get a larger teepee to hold them all.

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It took them some time to reach it and not surprisingly a lot of people were there to watch it start working.

Kate wasn't in charge of it. Though the design had come from Rick's brain.

"Everyone ready?" Colin yelled. "Here we go." He activated the diverter and it sent water from the river onto the wheel that made it spin. Inside the little building somewhere was a set of wooden cogs that should be spinning. All someone inside had to do was put them into gear and they would start to spin a stone that weighed a ton, almost literally. It alone had taken weeks to just make let alone move into place. It even had groves chiseled into place.

Now all they needed was the grain that was planned for next. The grain would get ground down and turned into a flour. With flour they could do a lot.

They had a little rye, barley, oats, and wheat. The fields for each were small for now. They only had just so many people and most everyone was already busy doing something. Plus only a select few of the horses were used to plow fields so far.

This was mostly the future.

"It works, babe." Kate loved it. This little mill meant a lot to them all. It was the start of the next phase of their lives.

Horses and hunting had gotten them a lot of what they had now. "We just might have a future after all," Kate commented.

So far the fights had been few and far between. They'd been mostly raised voices and occasionally shoving but not dangerous. Just differences of opinion. Only those people that went hunting had the most dangerous weapons.

They were growing and getting bigger.

"Not just our future, Kate. Everyone's future. Even your future." Rick tickled Jen which had her laughing and trying to escape her dad's fingers.

"MAMA!" Jennifer got out between laughs. Her mother needed to protect her from her dad's fingers.

Kate freed Jennifer from Rick's terrible tickling fingers and took her in the teepee for a nap. She made sure that her daughter had her favorite rag doll and she sang her a lullaby. Once the toddler was asleep Kate slipped out of the teepee.

She slid her arms around Rick's neck and tugged him down so she could kiss him. Instead she nibbled on his ear then whispered, "I'm late, babe."