Chapter 3
Crawfordton
At the school, Amy was busy working with the twenty-two students in the class. Even though the schooling was provided for free, most people did not send their children because they wanted them to work on the farms. There were a couple of other such functioning schools outside of town.
Phil was not being the kind of help at school that Amy expected. Phil told Amy that he was busy working with Angela on her Chinese literature, which Amy found impressive, but said Angela should do some Bible reading. Angela was keen on studying the easy to understand, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and enjoyed the discussions with Phil that accompanied it.
After school, Phil went with Jayden up to the fortress on Dan's Hill. He took Angela along.
The Chief Construction Engineer stopped by. "What do you think, Phil?"
"What's not to like?" Phil said.
"Yep," the engineer said, "This will be quite a tribute to Colonel Wicox."
"Wilcox?" Phil asked. He had been at odds with Wilcox in the past. "You know, I find it quite strange that Wilcox. . ."
Jayden interrupted, "We are all sorry about Wilcox being killed in action up north. It was no surprise to us that he acted with gallantry."
"Umm. . .no surprise at all. Our hats are off to him," Phil said, unaware of his demise. Phil wanted to change the subject. "So. . . the garrison is coming here pretty soon?"
"Officially, I don't know, but I suspect any day now."
Jayden said, "Let's go inside and take a look."
Angela was trying to pull Phil aside. He leaned toward her.
"What's a garrison?"
"I'll tell ya later." Phil wanted to have adequate time for their usual in-depth discussion on military topics.
Ethan Mentzer and his Scouts came riding into Crawfordton. The five horses drew the attention of the townspeople. Ethan, the Viking-Cowboy was a tall blonde with an angular build and face. He was dressed like a mountain man, but wore a Hollywood version of a cowboy hat.
Unlike his previous visits, he now had the female warrior, Jackie with him on the beautiful chestnut colored ride.
Jackie had softened her appearance from the tri-Mohawk hairdo she sported at the Battle of Crawfordton. Her hair was growing out. Like the other Scouts, she was wrapped up in heavy clothes for the weather.
Ella saw Ethan and his rider out of what was left of one of the front windows. Most of the windows were shot out during the Battle. "Amy! Come here! Look who's back!"
Amy joined her at the window. "Ooooh."
Ella said, "That chick sure knows how to get the hot guys."
Amy said, "It's not that tough. Back in the day, Phil was a pretty big catch."
Ella looked at Amy and wondered how accurate her version of history was.
The other riders had the look of people who were not to be trifled with. The entire Troop was well armed and well supplied, Mentzer's Scouts were one of the keys to victory in the Battle of Crawfordton.
Jayden contorted himself around the women to get a look out the window. He finally got a peek at who the women were looking at and rolled his eyes. "I hate it when he comes here. He always wants something." He looked at the women and shook his head.
A couple of Guard sentries met the Scouts. All the members of the Crawfordton Guard were too young, or too old to do their mandatory service with the Ohio Coalition. The Guard was a force that had shrunken down to about 50 members after the Battle of Crawfordton.
Jayden went out the front door to greet the scouts. "Ethan."
"Colonel," Ethan said, with a salute.
"Give me a full report."
"Sir, the Shanesville Raiders are requesting assistance in dealing with a band of marauders. The marauders have no known heavy weapons in particular. In fact, some of them are armed with medieval weapons."
"Really?" Jayden said. "You mean like, archers and spearmen?"
"Affirmative. Some of these groups are running out of ammunition."
Jayden thought that if they waited a couple of weeks, maybe the Fort Wilcox Garrison could help Mentzer. This problem sounded more like a nuisance than a perilous operation. Jayden turned to one of the teenaged sentries. "Private, go over to Captain Miller's house with my instructions for him to gather two platoons to go to Shanesville."
"Sir!"
Jayden turned to the other private. "Toll the rally bell."
"Yessir."