Nathan Jones - First Winter

There was one other group mentioned which Matt was relieved to hear news of, although it had taken longer than expected. Rogers had refused to say anything about the whereabouts of the soldiers who’d been with him when he came for Aspen Hill’s “surplus” food, the ones who’d refused to turn weapons on Aspen Hill residents. And in spite of Grimes growing increasingly irate in his insistence, it’d taken nearly a full day to locate them.

It turned out that after being severely disciplined, the twenty men had been reassigned to refugee camps farther south. Rogers had further discredited them by labeling them lazy troublemakers and accepting the dregs of units at those camps as their replacements. Ironically those incompetents and malcontents had become some of the major’s most loyal supporters, at least until Grimes ousted him yesterday.

That incident had been expunged from the records of the twenty men, and they were free to return to their original posts if they wished. Now that Rogers was gone many of them had, which meant Aspen Hill might have friends in the refugee camp for future dealings.

As for Aspen Hill, there would be no further harassment from the military about their supplies or taking in refugees. And unless other evidence of malfeasance was brought to bear they also wouldn’t face any punishment for the actions they’d taken against bandits in their area.

It was everything the townspeople had wanted to hear, and more than most had expected. The mood was relieved, even celebratory, as Grimes fell silent and stepped back to let them soak in the knowledge that the ordeal was over.

Matt followed him over, mostly out of earshot of the crowd. “Thanks for sorting this out, Colonel,” he said, offering the older man a sincere handshake. “It was getting ugly for us for a while.”

Grimes scowled, although not specifically at Matt. “Ugly all around. Issues of right and wrong aside, and even admitting that most of the blame lies on the military’s end of things, your man Chauncey’s also been giving us a public relations battering on the radio.”

Matt blinked. “Really? I thought he wasn’t making much headway over Rogers’s narrative.”

“You and me both, Mayor,” the colonel growled. “I just barely learned of it. My own fault, for assuming that what people are saying on military channels is all the conversation there is. The boys in uniform were backing Rogers out of solidarity, but with the civilians it’s a completely different story. Several towns and settlements in the area are on the verge of calling the former camp coordinator a tinpot dictator, one working with my approval in a military dictatorship. And the civilians are a much, much bigger group than the soldiers I have with me, a group I hadn’t heard a peep out of because none of them wanted to make an issue of it, just in case they got the same treatment your town did.”

“Sounds like a mess all around,” Matt commented.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Grimes rubbed between his eyes. “I’ll spend the rest of the time we have until the snows fall putting out fires from this, and you can bet in the spring people will be demanding an election to restore civilian government. I don’t suppose I blame them, since putting the power in the hands of the military sets a dangerous precedent.” He sighed. “Long term I want to get back to the system we had, preferably when it still worked reasonably well, but it sure makes my job more difficult in the here and now.”

“I regret Aspen Hill’s role in all this,” Matt said. Not exactly an apology, but even without the benefit of Catherine’s advice he wasn’t about to say anything that indicated his town was at fault for what had happened. At least he could commiserate.

“If that’s true then have your man on the radio keep telling the truth going forward, in this case about the situation being resolved and the military doing its best to make things right. The last thing we need is widespread civil unrest over chasing a mistake that’s been corrected.”

“Fair enough,” Matt said. “If you’re making things right then it’s only fair people know.”

“Appreciate that.” Grimes abruptly shifted in place, looking a bit reluctant. “I also want you to know that sending Aspen Hill’s delegation home and refusing to listen to your town’s side of things wasn’t malicious.”

“Colonel?” Matt replied hesitantly. How exactly did you respond to something like that?

The senior officer continued with the plodding tone of someone who had something to get off his chest. “It was a combination of a lot of things: overwork, enormous amounts of pressure from my responsibilities, bad intel, bias in favor of the men under my command, and a negative predisposition towards your town.”

Matt wasn’t sure why the man was telling him this. Guilt? Trying to excuse away his culpability? “All right.” Then he couldn’t help himself. “What negative predisposition?”

The colonel chuckled humorlessly. “That you guys go off half-cocked. Back when we were fighting the blockheads, a few of your strikes against the forces occupying the area around your town caused a hassle for me.”

“They did?” Matt blurted, incredulous. “We barely made a dent in the grand scheme of things.”

“For want of a horseshoe…” Grimes replied. “Small things, I’ll admit, and you did more good than harm. Mostly it was the fact that you never bothered to let us know what you were doing so we could plan accordingly.”

“We, uh, hadn’t considered that,” Matt admitted sheepishly. “I guess we figured the area we were guarding was our business. But since we were part of the larger war we really should’ve been coordinating better with the military.”

The older man waved him off. “You got better later on, probably thanks to your radio man Chauncey. And my people who worked with you had good things to say, from what little I heard. But with so much else to worry about a bad first impression was all I had time to give you.”

Huh. So Grimes could’ve been an ally if Lewis had just taken the time to radio the guys up north that they were going to be stirring up the hornet’s nest around Aspen Hill. Such a simple thing to get so many people killed.

Of course, even if the colonel had a legitimate complaint about something that happened during the fight against the blockheads, it had nothing to do with what’d happened here. Nor should it have. “Was that why Rogers went after us, too?”

Grimes paused thoughtfully, then shrugged. “Possibly. Something about your town definitely seems to have put a stick up his butt. And the fact that you tried to handle him on your own certainly didn’t help things.”

“We constantly tried to tell our side of the story and ask for outside arbitration,” Matt pointed out.

The colonel didn’t get defensive or back down this time. “Yes, but when it came right down to it instead of going through proper channels you drew weapons on one of my officers and twenty of his men.”

Since going through proper channels had done so much good. “I guess we’re used to only being able to depend on ourselves when it comes to handling problems,” Matt replied. “That comes from hard experience.”

He hadn’t meant to be quite that accusatory. Or maybe he had. The senior officer gave him a resigned look. “I don’t expect you to let me off the hook for this mess, but things will go better if we can work together from now on. I hope my efforts to rectify this situation help with that.”

Well Grimes was right about that first part. But at least he’d paved the way to heal relations in the future. Matt was willing to cut him some slack. “Aspen Hill wants to work with the military and be part of the larger events going on in the Rocky Mountains. Keep us in the loop and we’ll do our best.”