Chapter 173: Slicing up the Land

‘One hundred and sixty acres to any citizen or person intending to become a citizen.’ I had decided to follow the format Lincoln’s administration had laid out. Heck if it was good enough for Honest Abe, it was good enough for me. However, I did add my own personal twist of a sort – I decided that the Pawnee wanted in on this deal and I was going to make that happen. Help those you can touch and all that; I couldn’t save the Crow from the Lakota Sioux but I could help possibly the Pawnee.

I sent for Petalesharo.

Yup that Pete, I needed to somehow get across to him that his tribe needed to place designated land claims under my auspice before the US bureaucracy got involved. The tribes recognized tribal territory but not individual ownership. If you were looking for Ground Zero of the cultural collision between the indigenous and immigrant peoples that just might have been it. Naturally I needed Mouse as well, this might require very delicate translation.

This was a heck of a way to start the day after digging in with the engineers, the last thing I’d left with them was my desire to build the community oven in our yet to be built Grange hall. Today that was their problem and I had to figure out land parcels. It did seem to me that following what I knew would be the future parcel plan for the area made the most sense; any opportunity to avoid future contention should be realized. Fighting with the US Government had to be minimized and it was up to us to think that into reality.

To be honest my motivation for all of this was actually quite selfish, I wanted the world around me to be a certain way and for the first time in my life I had the opportunity to make that truly happen. I started this trip two centuries from now intending on having a sprawling ranch in a happy, prosperous community and I was still pretty intent on achieving that outcome. It would simply require a little more work than I had imagined; so much for early lottery retirement.

Amos was my side kick in this effort, he loved to run the drone and I set him to it. We were at it for three days just to make sure we didn’t miss a thing. We pushed the drone to Bingo on each run and several times came close to zero charge. We even ventured out on horseback with the base station and spare battery to extend the range, I wanted to get this right.

We created fresh maps of the entire area and then worked on them with the assistance of Sheriff and Sonya late into the night. Naturally we conversed as we worked and as they began to understand my plan their enthusiasm grew; we were trying to out bureaucrat the bureaucrats. Our detailed and executed plan would be sensible, efficient and existent before the ponderous mechanisms of government could interfere.

Pete and the Pawnee were not so easily converted but they played an important role in this gambit if we wanted to keep them around. They were good people and I liked them, I particularly like their food and their women. Mouse came out of her red tent and started to play a big role again, her timing was lovely as she showed up shortly after Pete came in from whatever mission he had been on.