Early morning reflections are one of the greatest luxuries in life. While I waited for the wood stove to do its job I climbed back under the covers to watch the fire and reflect. It had been less than a year since I had simply wanted to move to my ranch in Wyoming and to disappear from the face of the earth and the responsibilities associated therewith. Well, I got the disappearing part right; the responsibilities part – well not so much.

Nine months!

I had only been here nine months and so much had happened. Life had been a whirlwind of activity since the first of the year; everything about it had changed. I could have done without the trauma and the fighting, but in the overall of things I was pretty damn happy. In the end I was on a ranch in a really special part of Nebraska and I had good people around me.

It didn’t hurt that I had actual craftsmen around to build things. Had it all been left up to me to build everything it wouldn’t have turned out well. It would have been functional while also being functionally flawed - kind of like that old, reluctant rocker.

I enjoyed the actual work of building things, I always have. Being able to focus on a singular physical process was truly a form of meditation that did wonders for me. Unfortunately for me, I very much lacked the skill to be considered even moderately talented at any particular craft, let alone be classified as a master craftsman.

So when it came to ‘inspecting’ the progress of our new facilities, I was a bit more like a gawking tourist visiting a historical re-enactment attraction than a wizened leader of a productive village. Inspecting facilities was exactly what they had lined up for me again today. With that in mind I rolled out of bed and got busy with my morning.

Coffee in hand, I stepped out the door and into our first taste of the coming winter.

It was just a smattering of snow, maybe a quarter of an inch at best and the flakes still falling from the sky appeared to be the stragglers of our quaint little storm. It would all burn off before noon, the ground still wasn’t frozen and the first hard frost hadn’t come yet. But it would come soon.

I enjoyed the snow flurries while I could; it had been years since snow had come to me rather than me travelling to the snow. I even went so far as to stick out my tongue like a child in a vain attempt to catch a falling flake. I sat down and took a moment to enjoy the oncoming dawn, to do nothing but see, smell and hear. It was a moment to ignore the rest of the world, to simply enjoy the slowly brightening sky and taste my coffee whilst the clouds slowly cleared overhead. The sunrise was breathtakingly beautiful and totally in keeping with the theme of my morning. I treated it as a precious memory etched forever into my soul which could be a moment to remember and reflect upon when life was being unkind.

The sun slowly cleared the horizon and finally ended that memorable moment so I crushed out my cigarette, finished my coffee and got my lazy ass to work.

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There was a certain comfort in working with Amos and Holder on the morning chores. Much had changed while Amos and I travelled. For one thing, Holder had enlarged and hardened the stables for winter. He did grudgingly allow that his efforts were guided by the influence of Michelle and Matilda. Regardless, his results were incredible. Upon advice of Sheriff he had managed to combine his distillery/brewery with the stable. A single chimney rose from the center of the expanded building, the front side of the hearth in the distillery providing his cooking heat while the back side of the hearth had a water trough attached. As the hearth heated, the masonry transmitted the excess heat into the stable. The stock didn’t much approve during the warmer times of the year but it was safe and efficient and the animals adored it during the cold months.

There were more tiny tricks to the setup but I would wait to learn those later; sadly the world caught up with my morning and there were duties at the town hall calling my name. Michelle led me away from my new toy and back into the world of tactical and strategic planning.

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The town hall hadn’t changed; it was still little more than a hut with a large meeting/office room. The only item of note was the large table which was still rough hewn and could use some work to pretty it up. The news of the day was mostly as expected plus increased urgency on all topics because we’d seen snow. Frankly that wasn’t really my problem, Michelle and Sheriff would manage the priorities based on the data that Sonya gave them. No real change from the past or the future, but with winter coming everyone wanted to be the squeakiest wheel and get the most attention.

Fabiola had the best squeak, she had a letter from the U.S. Postmaster General.

The letter was on a fine parchment and after the flowery salutations and introductions it basically got straight to the point. It was basically a form letter, which wasn’t surprising considering the Post Office’s aggressive growth in this time period.

The gist of the letter was as such: I was appointed the acting Postmaster of the Missouri Valley region and it was my responsibility to insure the delivery of mail between St. Louis and Fort Dickenson. I was allowed to appoint Postmasters at all villages and trading posts in between, creating local Postmasters as I saw fit.

There were a lot of details from that point but the only ones that stood out to me were our carriage fees and weather exemptions. The rest were details for Sonya and crew but my takeaway was the income stream and the need to clone our little steamboat.