Free Primal Estate: The Candidate Species by Samuel Franklin Page A

take on, like in a fight?”
Rick liked this kind of “what if” question, and he and Carson would often have fun with them. Rick looked at him as seriously as he could. “Toddlers, eh? Do I have a weapon?”

“No weapons.”
“Do they keep coming at me or do I have a rest period?”

“They keep coming at you.”
“Do I kill them or do I just throw them off of me?”

“It’s a fight to the death, so do anything you need to.”
“How fast are they? Normal toddler speed?”

“Yeah.”
“Can I move around … run from them?”

“Not really. Let’s say they’re just everywhere, an unlimited number of evil toddlers all coming at you without letting up. How many could you take?”
“Let’s see. Not knowing how quickly I could dispatch a single toddler, having never done it before, and considering that all the other toddlers would be coming at me simultaneously, I think I could answer the question better by estimating how long I could last from this toddler onslaught, rather than how many I could take.” Rick continued slowly. “For instance, no doubt a pile would accumulate around me, a kind of protective barrier of unconscious or…” he nodded knowingly at Carson, “expired malicious toddlers.”

Rick cleared his throat. “This could limit my mobility and affect my footing. But now that I think of it, their footing would be even worse, given those tiny legs. Of course, this developing mound of toddlers would no doubt create a kind of wall, somewhat akin to the 1415 Battle of Agincourt, limiting their access to me.”
Carson chuckled.

“This could provide some time to rest, giving me a distinct advantage.” His dad continued. “If I could rest, and depending on how long it took the toddlers to climb the resulting barrier of decommissioned tots and how high I could throw them to the top of the pile, though toddlers are pretty good climbers, that could provide me with some precious time.”
Rick stood and began to pace around the table as Carson ate and watched him. “A knight of the realm in good physical condition could swing his sword for no more than about fifteen minutes before having to be replaced by the knight behind him. So, with only my hands,” Rick held them out and looked at them, “and dealing with toddlers, I think I could last twenty minutes, maybe twenty-two.” Rick paused and leaned in, close to Carson’s face. “Do they bite?”

Carson laughed and slurped down the rest of his stew.
“Carson, I’ve gotta spread some winter wheat on the primal estate during lunch. How about helping me load the truck?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Carson replied, still smiling from his dad’s monologue.

Rick had a fifty acre plot on the west side of town that he’d bought two years ago. It came with ten shares of irrigation, which is to say roughly ten acres could be irrigated, which in that desert country meant you could coax something out of the ground. Rick didn’t plant all of it, but he did like to seed as much as he could. It attracted wildlife, particularly mule deer. In the winter, elk would arrive from somewhere. Rick wasn’t sure if it was the nearby San Juan Range or from the canyons, maybe both. For the cost of a few dozen bags of winter wheat and alfalfa, he could be assured of attracting and perpetuating the populations of the game he loved the most. It was an easy choice. Some people bought their grain-fattened meat at the store. He attracted and killed his forage-fed game from the field. He felt it was his right as a human, his right as a born predatory animal. He called this right and the land, his primal estate.
For Rick, diet went further than preference. With past health issues, the type of foods he consumed made all the difference, and it would with Carson. Rick considered Carson’s cancer an issue of diet. It was a disease of affluence. It must come from the abundance of continual and misappropriated foods of affluence.

Carson had been diagnosed two years before and