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Quiet for the last several weeks. About time to pull the Scout Team together to venture outside. The problem at hand is obvious, the Well, is running dry. Scout teams struggling to find additional supplies. Often returning empty-handed. We need a revenue source. A reliable flow of product. The community members are restless, angry, often heard complying behind the committee’s back. A revolt would accomplish nothing. Meanwhile, the line at the gate thinking all is well inside what we now call home. The Well, functioning, still members restless. Agitators rattling the fence separating us from them, offering minimal protection, needing to be reinforced, if only we had the materials to do so. The weather is unpredictable, the air smoky, putting everyone at risk, but it’s worse for some. Struggling to breathe. Even on a good day, most should move their activities inside. Mask once a recommendation, now for many essential. The last time I saw an air quality report it was Orange, sensitive groups should reduce heavy exertion outside or take more breaks, and people with asthma and heart disease should watch for symptoms. The rest of the population may be fine. I suspect we have long pasted Orange. The sky, hazy with visibility maybe ten miles on a ‘clear’ day.
Do we possess a sell-able product? We have cooks capable of cooking tasty meals and we have a dining hall to serve as a ‘restaurant’ and space to set up a game room, like games of chance perhaps, a poker room? There are some musicians capable of entertaining. Actors? A play? A dramatic reading? Something to take one’s mine off the outside world. At least for a few hours.
So personally, and the team agrees, we could invite ‘guests’ in, provide food, some entertainment, then send away. Let’s think this through. Advertise, by word of mouth, check individuals in, collect their buy-ins (for poker chips), entrance fees to include a meal, tend to their horses, escort them to the eatery and/or poker room, check in their weapons (guns and/or knives), put on a show, monitor, then at closing accompany them out where their mount, fed and brushed, returned. What could go wrong?
For now, limit the crowd to, what… sixteen guests?
Charge for the meals. What would it cost to gain entrance? Supplies, product, gold or silver. Enough to cover the meal and a stack of chips at the tables. Let the committee hammer out details.
With a few modifications, we each agree, doable. Not only doable, but safer than venturing outside.
We can also offer limited medical attention, some traditional. Would be great if we could buy medical supplies. Returning to questionable but outdated treatments, still usable, herbs, and such. Holistic medical approach and/or homeopathic medicines, wellness through body, mind, soul to stimulate the body’s own healing responses to disease. Whatever works, works. We even have a ‘dentist’ on our staff. Too bad we don’t have some pain medicine. Hydrocodone, oxycodone, or acetaminophen with codeine.
The committee agreed. The details, ironed out, modifications made, and our Scout Team, to start, assigned to provide security. Trial run set to begin in a couple of weeks. We prep and practice considering what could go wrong.
Scenarios practiced. Day one approaches.
Day one: limit to six…
Brett observing the gate with security staff.
Frank coordinating the post supervising stable staff.
Joshua collecting weapons.
Cord, Addison, and I were at the intake table.
Day two: limit to twelve…?
Day three: limit to sixteen…?
Venue accessible Tuesday - Saturday, closed on Sunday/Monday.
Major complaint likely, weapon collection.
End of week one. Few attendees.
End of week two. Few regulars return.
End of week three. A “full” house. All is well in the Well.
Anyone with medical supplies, meds guaranteed entrance. A fact we advertised at the gate. An area more difficult to control than expected.
Once folks get a peek inside, these 'outsiders' now seeking to be admitted to the community, permanently. How to decide who to admit, few if any, do they have capital with which to negotiate? Most requests denied. Community capped at two hundred. This is how the world works. Unfair, whatever.
The issue, “but what about relatives, my brother, my sister, or others? You gotta…,” Nope, not really bummer to be you.
More wanting in requires more security, protocols put in place, higher walls, and danger. Fortunately, this is not my problem. I have my own. The note. The threat. A reward on my head, dead or alive. But who? Frank and Diana becoming a thing. Scout Teams dysfunctional. Whispers, ‘anti-government’ groups, fabricated stories, fake news, plotters, bounties, miserable weather, and gangs abound. Could it possibly get worse?
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