The Last Pilgrims (45 page)

The third error that led to the collapse was
the historically disproven theory that the stronger a culture or an
empire becomes militarily, the more likely it is to survive.
However much history has proven that the meek of the land survive,
and that empires fall and disappear into the dustbin of history,
man insists that militarism and strength are the one thing needful
to survival. What was the result of this irrationality? Mankind, as
a whole, was completely unprepared for what was, historically
speaking, clearly inevitable. Looking back, even Preparedness
people, Survivalists, and Apocalypticists were grossly unprepared.
Most of the world denied it could ever happen, but, of those who
knew that it would happen, only a rare few were actually already
living a simple, sustainable, and survivable life. Those who
depended inordinantly on gear and gadgets, or fieldcraft and short
term survival skills—whilst still remaining dependent in the long
run on a consumerist world that rejected production—perished with
most of the willfully ignorant world.

One of the reasons so many people fell into
these errors is because the prophets of modernity, both in and out
of religion, were selling peace and safety at all costs. Comfort
and ease are always easier to sell than hard work, responsibility,
sustainability, and simplicity. Ways to satiate the conscience were
provided; there were endless charities and missions and causes, so
long as no one actually decided to unplug and everyone stayed on
the rails that delivered the world into the inevitability of
collapse.

There were no guarantees of safety or
survival for anyone when the world as we knew it came to an end,
but history—that unmerciful and inflexible reality—tends to always
re-impose itself (at least statistically) despite the erroneous and
arrogant opinions of men who generally reject facts in favor of
wishes. History is a stubbornly persistent spectre. Men, insisting
that the survival of the fittest had shaped their present reality,
were surprised to find out that their own worldview of dependence
and consumption had resulted in them being phenomenally unfit to
survive. How embarrassing.

Our Vallenses were far from perfect. They
made mistakes and paid for them as we all must, but they had their
own advantages, not the least of which was their insistence that
they produce more than they consume, and that they not rely on
unsustainable and unviable systems for their survival. Their thirty
years in Central Texas never corrupted them to the point that they
insulated themselves from the production and preservation of good
food and clean water. Now, as has so often happened, tossed about
by the caprices and greed of tyrants and men, they became pilgrims
in the land and exiles from their own homes and hearths. This too
was hardly without historical precedent.

The flight of the Vallenses from Texas to
parts north is now the stuff of lore and legend. For months they
struggled against the harsh terrain, the brutal weather, and their
own natural desires for home and hearth; and, for the most part,
they overcame. The Vallensian pilgrimage became the largest mass
migration of a nation of people since the collapse. Viewed
historically, however, the pilgrimage would have to be considered
almost commonplace.

There were losses along the way. The pain
and suffering and toil of migration took its toll among the
Vallenses. Many of the
oldlings
died along the way, and were
buried in graves stretching from Texas into Missouri. There were
attacks by bandits and raids by thieves, but the Vallenses were a
resilient people, and they were looking for a peaceful place to
call their temporary home. Unhappily, when God sends a people into
exile for His own purposes, things often get worse long before they
get better.

In January following the exodus of the
Vallenses from Texas, the now 20,000 pilgrims were surrounded by
military forces operating under the auspices of the de-facto “King”
of the North. Their militia escort had been forced to turn back
weeks earlier due to dwindling supplies and other necessities.
After failing to convince the Vallenses to stop or turn back, the
militia regretfully informed the Elders that they must return to
Texas.

General Amos DuPlantis, a former National
Guard officer based at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri, after having
seized power in the vacuum created by the collapse, had declared
himself the military leader of the North States. Suspicious of the
peaceful claims and aims of the Vallenses, General DuPlantis
ordered the Vallenses to be driven into a massive work and
internment camp located southwest of what was once Springfield,
Missouri.

The Vallenses, unable, unprepared, and
unwilling to fight, were herded wholesale into a massive
“resettlement” work camp for refugees and potential subversives,
and once again their hearts were humbled and their future looked
bleak.

Tired and cold and decimated from four
months of hard travel, the Vallenses were forced to wait in
insufferable lines in the freezing weather of winter, in order to
be processed into the camp.

Mr. Byler the
oldling
Cobbler, one of
the few Vallenses old enough and historically literate enough to
understand the true meaning of the words, looked up before walking
through the gates of the camp and his fading eyes fell upon the
ironic sign there posted:

“WORK WILL SET YOU FREE”

The adventure had just begun…

TO

HIS GREAT MAJESTY

RICHARD the FIRST,

KING of the SOUTH STATES

Sir,

At the hazard of relating events and history
that are already well known to the King, it is necessary that I
provide you with a brief (or as brief as will suffice) summary of
the recent history of our people and our lands before and after the
collapse of the United States of America only twenty years ago.

In the intervening
decades, despite hardships and difficulties—not unlike those faced
by others that survived the upheavals that followed the collapse
and dissolution of America and the industrialized civilization
throughout the world—our people have not only survived but have
thrived in what was once considered the inhospitable land and
climate of Central Texas. For this reason, it pains me to say that
our land is currently and unhappily under the thumb of the Kingdom
of Aztlan and his puppet, the Duke of El Paso.

The world knows of the
continuing miracle of our preservation and success, of the growth
of what was once a nominal and largely unheard of sect into a mini
nation-state of many thousands of souls, and of the proliferation
of Vallensian colonies in Texas and elsewhere in North America.
Prior to our lands coming under the pretended civil control of the
Kingdom of Aztlan, we were sought out, and appealed to, by
virtually every ruler and nation in North America,
your own nation not excepted
, to remove ourselves from Texas and to relocate to their
countries. They valued our wisdom and hoped that, with our help,
they too could bring the wilds of their own lands, now uncultivated
and unproductive due to massive depopulation and a lack of
expertise required to survive in the current climate, under that
benevolent dominion and tillage for which our people are now
universally famous. Notwithstanding the numerous generous
offers—including that most graciously made to us by your own
respected predecessor—we have chosen to remain in our own lands,
believing that God Almighty has given these plains and hills unto
us in order to magnify His own glory in the taming of such a
supposedly inhospitable place even in this difficult time. This is
our home.

Our people have overcome so many
adversities, as well as the attacks and genocidal intentions of our
enemies; and, having endured it all, we again stand in peril of the
loss of our lives and lands.

We find ourselves, as a peaceful and passive
people, under the threat of annihilation and genocide by the
treacherous King of Aztlan, who—despite our peaceful ways and
productive lives—desires to bring us into subjection to his own
mind and sovereignty (via his pestilent hirelings). He aims to
impose upon us his oppressive military tyranny, as well as his own
religion—one that is abhorrent to our people and inherently
contrary to our own.

We came into this land
over 30 years ago, separating ourselves from the Kingdoms of This
World, in order to live our lives peaceably, producing our living
from the land by the sweat of our own brow. By choosing this simple
way of life, we were no burden to any man or government. We lived
and worked with the intention of being a blessing to those ‘round
about by making our poor desert rangeland good and productive soil,
and by being an example of good stewardship and responsibility to
the people who then lived in the cities and towns around us. This
we did diligently, obeying all of the rules and requirements of men
and magistrates that were not specifically contrary to the
commandments of our God. Our own countrymen that have relocated
into Your Grace’s country may bear you witness that our conduct has
always been pure and holy and that we in no way have tried to
gather unto ourselves power, prestige, or position. We have not,
heretofore, born arms against the King of Aztlan; rather, we have
submitted ourselves (as much as we are able)—according to the
commandments of our God—to those civil magistrates with whom God
has seen fit to burden us.

During our first ten years on the land (the
decade before the collapse), we worked tirelessly, and had managed
to build our infrastructure—constructing barns and out-buildings,
and working to make productive soil out of what was once marginal
range land. We captured rainwater by building ponds, tanks, and
cisterns. As much as we could, we relied on our own productivity
and the improvement of our lands in order to provide the basic life
necessities for ourselves. We weaned ourselves from the common
culture of consumption, and, in effect, created a viable,
alternative society—one based on production, rather than
consumption. During this time, we devoted much of our own precious
time and resources to teaching others to do as we did, and actively
participated in helping others to learn to survive and thrive in
the difficult times that were certain to follow.

When the collapse came, we
were not taken by surprise, as most people were; and though we had
no way of knowing exactly when that collapse would come, we were
absolutely certain that it
would
come and therefore we had prepared diligently for
it.

Following the initial
maelstrom of violence that accompanied the collapse of the system
of consumer supply, there were uncountable disasters, systemic
failures, and civil wars leading up to the inevitable dissolution
of the civil governments based on that system, and a restructuring
of the global political landscape. In the aftermath, many disparate
fiefdoms arose, each vying for civil power and authority in the
vacuum that resulted from the collapse. We took no part in that
struggle for power and in no way sought to gain from the global
demise.

The tragic die-off and
depopulation of the continent; the end of the availability and
ubiquity of inexpensive electrical power; the re-localization of
just about every resource; and the subsequent restructuring of
society along the lines and model of medieval Europe—all of these
factors brought about a ‘New World Order’, only it was a world
order modeled after the monarchial system that has reigned among
men for most of history.

Although we were not untouched by the global
tragedy, and have suffered greatly, we praise our God that we were
protected from the bulk of the violence, anarchy, and bloodshed
that destroyed much of the former country in the aftermath of the
collapse.

The primary area in which we were correct
concerning the manner of the collapse was in our prediction that
there would be a loss of power on the global scale, rendering most
“modern” technology unusable. The massive loss of life and
infrastructure brought about by the collapse (or rather, the
inevitable destruction that followed) was beyond what most people
imagined. I praise God for sparing us from the worst of it,
protecting us via our remote and seemingly unattractive location,
our predilection for preparedness and sustainability, along with
the many other deliverances we experienced via Divine
intervention.

As we had rejected most modern technologies
long before the collapse—deeming them detrimental to our safety,
our security, our peace, and the simplicity of our lifestyle—we had
many advantages in the very hard years that would come.

After a year or so had
passed from the worst events of the collapse, many cliques, sects,
and entities started vying for power. Our own region first fell
under the pretended authority of the first Kingdom of Mexico, a
realm hastily thrown together by criminal political and military
groups south of the former border, in an attempt to fill the vacuum
of power left by the dissolution of the government of the United
States.

Our lands were in the far
northeastern region of this dominion; thus, owing to difficult
travel conditions, we were mostly left to ourselves during the few
years of this period.

Moral judgments aside, the first King of
Mexico did us little real harm—though I am certain he would have
consumed us and/or enslaved us for our productive capability had he
been able or permitted to do so by God.

Shortly after, the power of the King of
Mexico waned due to the over-extension and over-reaching of his
grasp. He was unable to control his northern reaches (especially
the drug cartels and criminal enterprises) any better than the
nation of Mexico had done prior to the collapse. Thus, when he had
run out of ammunition for his guns—and when most of the more
productive citizens had been killed or had fled from his poor
management and insatiable greed—the King of Mexico was overthrown
by the citizenry of his own realm. The new power vacuum didn’t
remain for long and, within a year, the people of Northern Mexico
(the former border states) found themselves overwhelmed by the
onrushing invader from the West.