‘One hundred and sixty acres to any citizen or person intending to become a citizen.’ I had decided to follow the format Lincoln’s administration had laid out. Heck if it was good enough for Honest Abe, it was good enough for me. However, I did add my own personal twist of a sort – I decided that the Pawnee wanted in on this deal and I was going to make that happen. Help those you can touch and all that; I couldn’t save the Crow from the Lakota Sioux but I could help possibly the Pawnee.

I sent for Petalesharo.

Yup that Pete, I needed to somehow get across to him that his tribe needed to place designated land claims under my auspice before the US bureaucracy got involved. The tribes recognized tribal territory but not individual ownership. If you were looking for Ground Zero of the cultural collision between the indigenous and immigrant peoples that just might have been it. Naturally I needed Mouse as well, this might require very delicate translation.

This was a heck of a way to start the day after digging in with the engineers, the last thing I’d left with them was my desire to build the community oven in our yet to be built Grange hall. Today that was their problem and I had to figure out land parcels. It did seem to me that following what I knew would be the future parcel plan for the area made the most sense; any opportunity to avoid future contention should be realized. Fighting with the US Government had to be minimized and it was up to us to think that into reality.

To be honest my motivation for all of this was actually quite selfish, I wanted the world around me to be a certain way and for the first time in my life I had the opportunity to make that truly happen. I started this trip two centuries from now intending on having a sprawling ranch in a happy, prosperous community and I was still pretty intent on achieving that outcome. It would simply require a little more work than I had imagined; so much for early lottery retirement.

Amos was my side kick in this effort, he loved to run the drone and I set him to it. We were at it for three days just to make sure we didn’t miss a thing. We pushed the drone to Bingo on each run and several times came close to zero charge. We even ventured out on horseback with the base station and spare battery to extend the range, I wanted to get this right.

We created fresh maps of the entire area and then worked on them with the assistance of Sheriff and Sonya late into the night. Naturally we conversed as we worked and as they began to understand my plan their enthusiasm grew; we were trying to out bureaucrat the bureaucrats. Our detailed and executed plan would be sensible, efficient and existent before the ponderous mechanisms of government could interfere.

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Pete and the Pawnee were not so easily converted but they played an important role in this gambit if we wanted to keep them around. They were good people and I liked them, I particularly like their food and their women. Mouse came out of her red tent and started to play a big role again, her timing was lovely as she showed up shortly after Pete came in from whatever mission he had been on.

The Pawnee and I had a tight relationship thanks to Pete but this little venture would not follow with their beliefs and lifestyle very much and would take a little finagling to get their full cooperation. It was probably time to expose Pete to the realities of my situation I hoped to avoid that if at all possible but I needed someone on the inside to help me figure out how to sell the concept. I had Pete and Mouse.

So I mapped the land and I researched the history, then made a decision. I decided to be aggressive so went with a one hundred mile circumference, basically six hundred thousand acres. I was particular not to cross state lines so as not to complicate things initially. East of the Missouri wasn’t my concern currently but the value of that as land that I could mostly concede in negotiations might be valuable; I would lay some claim over there also.

The drone couldn’t cover that entire area so I relied on my math and maps to figure the area out. I claimed, unofficially, everything out to Pawnee City, up to Tecumseh and back to the Missouri. As I laid out the one hundred and sixty acre plots I simply went north from Rulo, west was mostly mine for the immediate period. Farm land was the first concern, basically I laid out square chunks outside of the forest fence and gave each an identifier. It didn’t take long to identify one hundred parcels, roads would be laid around the edge of each parcel.

Town parcels would be dealt with later, I had to start somewhere and the farmland was the proper focus. Now I had to work out how to deal with fair distribution and drawing lots out of a bag seemed to be the fairest approach. The house build effort would then in all fairness go in reverse, if you got to choose your plot first we would build your house last.

The Pawnee who were here and wanted to claim were welcome to join but I was also holding another large chunk of land out west on the Nemaha for them. Their lifestyle needs were a bit different from ours and we’d need to be accommodating while they transitioned. As long we protected a small amount of good land for them they would culturally evolve and adapt. From my point of view it’s not like they had any choice, I knew what would happen to them eventually if they didn’t.

I was hoping that they would quickly adapt to a modified existence, they did like their lodge houses and villages after all; it’s not like they were complete nomads.

It was time to start the land lottery and I needed to speak with Pete soon.

I also had an anxious Mouse clamoring for my attention.

Four days on this project and it was time to put it in action.