Free Califia's Daughters by Leigh Richards

“I also felt that the part about Crazy Isaiah, which sounded unlikely as hell, must be true. The only part I didn’t like the feel of was when she referred to the males in her town. Not the numbers, though I do wonder if that could be an exaggeration—her calculation of percentage was a little generous, twenty-eight out of a hundred five isn’t what I’d call thirty percent. You have to wonder if the numbers themselves are stretched. Our percentage is, what, twelve?”
    â€œTwenty-four percent live birth rate, roughly ten percent survival at age three,” Judith supplied evenly, and Dian kicked herself at the unnecessary reminder.
    â€œYes. But it was the other thing she said that struck me, what was it? ‘Our group is a little bit different from yours.’ That—smelled wrong. Tasted funny?” She searched for the right words, and ended up throwing up her hands in frustration. “I don’t know how to say it, but she was hiding something, or rather avoiding bringing it up. Probably nothing important, but it was there.” The three sat in silence, considering. Sounds drifted up from the road, the women and girls coming in from the fields across the road for their lunch.
    â€œYou are right,” said Kirsten. “There is something unsaid. I wonder if we can get it from the man or boy, or from the two they will leave behind in the infirmary.”
    â€œIs there any reason we should say yes to this proposition?” Dian asked bluntly. “They’re not our responsibility. Why should we risk our future on an unknown village hundreds of miles away? Why shouldn’t we say no, very sorry, we don’t want you on our doorstep?”
    â€œI can think of any number of reasons,” replied Judith. “Aside from the obvious humanitarian one. For one thing, what’s to stop them from coming anyway? They could probably get here and set up for the winter without our help. What are we going to do, shoot them? Burn their houses down? They didn’t even have to send these people to ask our cooperation at all—they could have just arrived. It would have been a gamble on their part, but then so is having what must be one in three of your adult women gone for two months. The fact that they didn’t just drop out of the sky onto us makes me more inclined to listen to them seriously.” Dian, reluctantly, had to agree. She picked up her sister’s line of thought, musing aloud.
    â€œAssuming for the moment that everything they’ve told us is the truth, and they’ve left out nothing major, I will admit that I like what I see. I like the way Miriam works with her people, and the way Isaac acts, both with her and with the boy. It gives the impression of a group of people we could get along with, disciplined but not oppressively so. It’s even a manageable number, not so numerous (again, supposing we’ve been told the truth) that they’d threaten to overrun us, especially if they set up in the grasslands outside the Valley. They’ve got sense, they’re well trained—I’d sure as hell like to know how that woman Syl got in and out like that without the dogs knowing she was there. And whoever organized this expedition has got sense and guts. Their horses are well cared for, their wagons and everything in them well made and carefully thought out.”
    Judith interrupted. “Did you spend
all
night going through their wagons?”
    Dian gave her a tired smile. “Not quite the whole night. Enough to tell me about the minds of the people who own them. As for their bodies—well, still assuming we have the basic facts correctly—this sample of fourteen, roughly a tenth of their population, shows no signs of disease or malnourishment. They’re intelligent, educated, and well made physically. Hell, if even one or two come up to the standard of the man, they’d be a prime asset.” She stopped