Canadian Army gave me a great link for mules in Arizona. Thanks, man! As I plunged further into researching mules and wild horses in Arizona, I developed more ideas about how a larger-scale economy might work in Arizona in 2000 and how more areas of Arizona outside SAMAD (Southeastern Arizona Military Administrative District) might look.
Horses and mules play an important part in Arizona economy after the second post-nuclear winter. As much as half of the population of Arizona dies by July 1998, due principally to food shortages, medication shortages, and violence. By 1997, there are a lot of aging snowbirds in Arizona. Without medications, a lot of these people are going to die fairly quickly. Hundreds of thousands flee Greater Phoenix and Tucson, and many of these people never make it home. Winter in the mountains of Arizona can be brutal. One of the first tests of fire for the 111th Brigade is managing refugees-turned-marauder in the Gila River Valley. It’s the middle of an unusually cold winter, and Phoenicians refugees have coagulated under a prototype marauder warlord in a rough preview of the situation described in Allegheny Uprising. 326th MI Battalion is sent north to bring some order to the situation and ends up in combat against a mass of armed and desperate former Phoenicians. But I digress.
By March 1999, Arizona has lost most of its population. Phoenix and the surrounding cities are down to about twenty percent of their pre-war population. Gangs and local defense co-ops are the rule of the day in a semi-arid version of Armies of the Night. Agriculture occurs along the Salt River and anywhere a well can bring up enough water to keep people going and irrigate crops. In short, Greater Phoenix has ceased producing large numbers of refugees and marauders.
Outside of Phoenix and SAMAD, the rural and semi-rural populations survive by reigniting local agriculture. In some parts of the state, animal husbandry forms the foundation of the food supply. Banditry becomes the largest problem. Enter the 111th. With fuel supplies low, horses make a dramatic comeback as the preferred mode of transport. Capturing, breaking, and conditioning wild horses becomes a major industry wherever populations of wild horses are available. SAMAD is going to be a major customer. Mules, which are found in surprising numbers throughout the state, become very popular as draft animals. Again, SAMAD will be a major customer.
The trade links are reestablished as a result of reconnaissance-in-force and response-in-force. I have been rethinking the level of isolation I previously have imposed on SAMAD. For a little while, I have been thinking that a more realistic model might be for Huachuca to slash its responsiveness during the 1998 campaign season. However, once the manpower levels start to rise again, the post can afford to send bodies of troops on longer-distance patrols outside the Yellow Zone.1 In fact, company-sized and battalion-sized operations in service of towns throughout the southern part of the state would be an excellent way to break in new replacements. Towns troubled by marauders might receive the services of a company team or a battalion task force, who would spend a period of time tracking down and wiping out the marauders. I’m going to have to develop this idea more.
Word will get out that Huachuca is a market for horses and mules. Soon, Huachuca will realize that horses, mules, and donkeys are to be had elsewhere in the state. Longer-distance missions will soon follow, and merchants might follow soon after that. Animals and salvaged goods might go to Huachuca, while manufactured goods might go back out. Of course, SAMAD is going to take an active interest in developing its own equine industry. However, for a time equines might prove such a powerful draw for Huachuca that the 111th spends more time in the field chasing marauders than I had originally intended.
1 Huachuca designates three levels of security: green, yellow, and red. A green zone is inside any of the cantonments, which are walled off or surrounded by other obstacles and which are under very tight control. The perimeter of each green zone is under someone’s eyes at all times. The area that Huachuca claims as SAMAD is the Yellow Zone. This area is heavily patrolled, but troops do not move here without being armed and in numbers smaller than a fire team. Most of the crops are grown here, and most of the herding is done here. This area includes most of Cochise County, much of Santa Cruz County, and the area around Tucson. Outside of the Yellow Zone is the Red Zone.
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