2nd Earth: Shortfall

by Edward Vought

  Not to be outdone, Dan and Don take us into the barn to show us several pails full of honey and honeycomb. They ask for some help from a couple of the other guys or girls because the book says you have to use a hot knife to cut the wax from the comb, run it through a centrifuge to separate the honey, then strain the honey into jars to get the sticks, any wax that may be left, and dead bees out of it. They found cases of large glass bottles and lids that they washed out very well to put the honey in. They are happy to say that they barely took any honey compared to what is out in the hives. They say they read in Jenny’s book that you can smoke the bees to make them lethargic then went in wearing the bee suit. It was pretty easy and of course they had to sample the honey and they really don’t think the rest of us will like it so they are going to sacrifice and eat it all by themselves. They are laughing when they say the last part, all the other young people are already dipping their fingers in the warm honey and tasting it. Dan and Don are informed that they will not have to sacrifice after all. We all agree that this honey is better than the stuff that we found in the houses that had hardened. We were able to put it in boiling water to make it a liquid again. That was good, but this fresh honey is great. Needless to say they have several volunteers to help them put it into jars as well as eat it.

  Tom checked out the freezer today, we are right near it so we all go to look at it. It looks like they may have slaughtered cattle and maybe even pigs and goats here because there are charts showing how to cut the meat up to get the different cuts. It is a whole large room in the lower level of this barn. Outside the room there is a place where they probably lead the animals in, then killed them, skinned them, and quartered them before they took the sections in to hang in the freezer to age. There are charts telling us how to do everything I just described. It is not the most pleasant chore we have to do, but we do have to eat and there are lots of cattle running wild on the property and all around us. Dad says that the freezer got a little colder when he turned it down today, but did not get as cold as it should be. He did find the service manual for it in a drawer in the room. It gives detailed instructions how to change the coolant which at this time is Freon gas. We brought back a couple cases of the gas and the kits for installing it into the refrigerators.

  We also brought back a brand new refrigerator to see if it will work. If not we have instructions on the back that explains how to recharge the system. Since preserving food is a number one priority we take the time to recharge the freezer. The job takes less than an hour and that’s with having to read the directions several times to make sure we do it right the first time. Tim reminds me that in our time Freon was outlawed because they say it pokes holes in the ozone. I remind him that the world was almost totally destroyed by a neutron war and he is worried about a couple ounces of Freon. We both decide we have more to worry about than what that gas will do to the ozone. None of the others have any idea what we are laughing about, but they are excited about the freezer getting fixed so we can use it.

  When it is done we set the thermostat and put a thermometer in the freezer to see how accurate the thermostat really is. We will check on it again in several hours to see how it is working. We spend the rest of the day recharging refrigerators and manage to get three of them working before supper. The new one we brought home works just the way it is so we figure it will be easier to go back to town and get enough new ones to go around. Dayna proves she is just like Ma Horton, she tells me if I’m getting a new refrigerator I need to get a new stove to go with it. That will have to wait until the greenhouse is up, just as I say that her dad volunteers to go into town with Dan and Don as well as a couple other young men and a couple young ladies that haven’t been there yet. That will work, we will stay home and work on the greenhouse and they can go into town. This way they can try to find just the right color kitchen appliances for everybody.

  The people in just about every house say they would love to be able to find some paint and maybe some new carpeting for their individual homes. Dayna has already made me promise to look for some paint, she wants yellow for the kitchen and either a light blue or a tan for most of the other rooms. The farm store has a bunch of paint if it is still good enough to use. The team going into town tomorrow will bring back several different colors along with brushes, rollers and anything else they can think of. Dayna tells her dad to see if he can find some yellow exterior paint as well, then turns to me and asks how many gallons do I think it will take to paint the outside of the house. At least I know what one of my projects is going to be when the greenhouse is up and functional. The houses can really use a good coat of paint or two and I have never minded painting. It is one of those chores that show improvement very quickly.

  In the morning we are up with the chickens, at least one of those the girls enticed into the pen is a rooster. We grab a quick breakfast and then meet at the site for putting up the greenhouse. Those going into town are getting ready to leave and the others are starting on their chores. Jenny is very excited. Apparently overnight a large flock of chickens came up to the coop and is pecking the feed that is left around the outside. When she opens the pen and sprinkles more food on the ground leading into the coop they follow along and set up residency on the nests she set up for them. She asks if she should gather the eggs, when we tell her to let them hatch for a while she is obviously relieved. One of the other girls, who lives in the house on the far side of Jenny, named Samantha asks if she can help take care of the chickens. They are both just about the same age and Jenny is more than happy for the assistance.

  Tim, Billy, Rod, and I start assembling the greenhouse. If you ever want to see a funny sight you should come and watch the four of us try to build something. Not that we don’t know what we are doing, we just have a lot of fun doing it. Our wives come over several times to tell us to quit fooling around and get the job done correctly. It was even funnier when Billy sticks his tongue out at Ramona when she turned to head back to the house. The funny part is when a man over seven feet tall and weighing over three hundred pounds tries to convince his wife who is about half his size that he didn’t do it. She has him backed against one of the walls and when the rest of us laugh we get in trouble with our wives. All in all we are having a lot of fun today and we are even accomplishing quite a bit of work.

  For the first time in my life I feel like I have a purpose in life and that I have a strong family to be part of. I always felt like part of the Horton’s family, but in the military even though I was part of a well trained team, I never really felt all that close to most of the others. We very seldom did anything outside of our duties and missions we would go on. I wonder if Tim and I have been declared deserters by now or if anyone has even noticed that we are not there yet. I suppose that there is even the chance that Tim and I are still there as well as being here. There are so many unanswered questions and there is no way that I can think of to answer them, so there is no sense worrying about them.

  When the others get back from town we have most of the four walls set up and are thinking about the best way to put the roof on. It’s not easy setting a ladder against a glass wall while you stand on it to put roof panels on. While I am studying the problem Charity comes out and asks Tim why we don’t use the scaffolding that they used to take the roof off the greenhouse. As I turn to face him he is backing up laughing and saying he was going to suggest that himself. I chase him down and give him a nuggy on his head when I wrestle him to the ground. In case you are not familiar with that term, it means I rub my knuckles across his head. It doesn’t really hurt, much. It is just kind of a fun way to harass each other. We wrestle a little more in the grass laughing like kids until we get tired, then we go get the scaffolding and set it up so we can tackle the roof, tomorrow.

  We decide to help unload the new refrigerators and stoves off the truck along with what seems like thousands of gallons of paint, which makes all the wives and women happy. We men just think of all that paint as more work. We have all but forgotten
the freezer in the barn so we go there to check it out. It is nice and cold in it and the thermostat is within a degree or two of the thermometer so we feel that our repair is a complete success. After the new refrigerators are hooked up in the homes that need them most we gather for a family meal and discuss some of the new projects that have been identified. We figure we will finish assembling the greenhouse tomorrow, and then we have to bring the benches or tables from town to set the plants on to grow. We are also planning to put in some raised beds to plant in for vegetables all year round.

  Dan and Don want to know if they can go hunting since the freezer is working properly. We tell them that it will be okay, but that they should go a little ways off to kill the deer because in winter we may need the game closer to the houses. They have been exploring the woods in their free time and say they know the perfect place to go. A couple of the younger boys want to go with them so we tell them it will be okay if they go. Dayna, along with the other wives, and women, is busy picking out what color paint they want the rooms in the house and the outside to be painted. I have to promise her that painting the house will be the very next large project that we tackle. I am happy to make her happy. I can’t believe how much we love each other even though we haven’t known each other very long. It already feels like I am only half a person when she isn’t around and she says she feels the same way.

  When just about everyone has gone back to their homes Tom tells Tim, Billy, Rod, and I that they went a few miles the other side of town today just to see what is beyond in that direction. We agree that it is good to know what is there as well as in the other direction that we haven’t gone yet. He says they found a gas station about two miles outside of town and there is a gas tank truck still in the station, and according to the gages on the side of the truck it is almost totally full of gas yet. He thinks we should work at getting it back here so that we have a ready supply of gas in case someone claims the town or something. We agree fully, that way we could fill the storage tanks here on the farm and keep the tanker until it is empty. He also says that they were exploring around town a little more and found a propane truck parked on one of the side streets. The gages show that it is almost full as well. We could use that propane as much as the gas, maybe more.

  I look at Dayna and she tells me she can wait another day to get the house painted, but that is all. If I try to put it off any longer than that she will kick my sorry butt into next week. Her dad laughs and says all of his daughters are just like their mom was, beautiful and feisty. I assure them all that I wouldn’t want her to be any other way. She smiles and says she has me trained just the way she wants me. Her two unmarried sisters ask if she would consider sharing me, they assure her it would only have to be for a few hours at a time. They say they could even make do with less time if that is a problem. They are all laughing and I am turning red which makes them laugh even more. We decide all the projects are important to get done as soon as possible so we are going to have some of the other men help Tim and Billy with the roof on the greenhouse while I go into town with dad and a couple others to get the trucks.

  10

  In the morning we throw a set of jumper cables and a small gas powered air compressor that we found in the barn into the pickup truck to take into town with us. We head to the gas truck first and are pleasantly surprised to find out the tires hold air when we fill them using the compressor. It even starts when we use the jumper cables and the pickups battery, to jump-start it. Dad is driving the truck back to the propane truck and we have as good of luck with that one. We are wondering what is going to go wrong since everything is going so well for us today. When we get back to the farm we find out. When Dan and Don went hunting this morning, they were cutting across one of the pastures to get to the spot they wanted to hunt, when they spotted a very large, very unpleasant bull watching them.

  They say they could tell he was not happy with them in what he apparently considers his field because of the way he was snorting and twitching his tail. They started angling toward the woods when he came charging right at them. Dan and Don were able to outrun the bull to the woods, but one of the younger boys twisted his ankle in a chuck hole and was limping badly. Seeing that the young man wouldn’t make it to safety Dan ran back to help him and was struck by the bull knocking him off his feet. The others started throwing rocks at the bull and finally it ambled off leaving them alone. Luckily Dan just got bruised up pretty badly and the other young man named Todd has a sprained ankle. I checked it out as soon as we got home.

  When we hear the story I look at Tim and ask him if he is hungry for a good steak. He smiles and says he thought I would never ask. We take the backhoe with the bucket in the front, to the field where the young men tell us they had the run in with the bull. Sure enough he is still here and is just as angry with us being here as he was this morning. Don asks if he can have the honor of killing that bull and we tell him he can do it as long as he makes a head shot. We don’t want to ruin any of the meat. Don says if he had known we wouldn’t get upset about killing the bull he would have shot it with the bow and arrow this morning. We assure him and the others that when it comes to defending themselves we expect them to do whatever they have to for survival. He makes a very nice shot dropping that bull with a single bullet. He never knew what hit him.

  Loading him into that backhoe bucket isn’t easy, it takes all of us to roll his carcass into it even after we field dress him. We get him back to the barn and hook him up to the chain hoist to lift him up while we skin him and quarter him to hang in the freezer. I keep calling it a freezer, but it is really a meat locker which is used to hang meat and keep it fresh while it is aging properly and keeping it fresh until it can be used. When the quarters are hung we go back to the house for supper, we are making plans for what we are going to do tomorrow when Dayna reminds us that it is Sunday. We have been so busy we have forgotten what day it is and that we promised we would rest on the Sabbath. Naturally the cows will need milking and the chickens will need fed, but we agree not to do any more than we have to.

  As usual on our Sunday we take turns reading the scriptures and then discuss what we need to accomplish the upcoming week. We also ask anyone if they have any concerns or if there are any problems between each other, we cannot be a cohesive unit if we have hard feelings toward each other. In any group as large as ours and living as closely as we do there are bound to be differences of opinion, but it is important to be able to talk it out if it is bothering someone. This week a very interesting point is raised. Robin is the one who is bringing it up, she starts out by saying she realizes that what she is proposing would be inappropriate in just about any situation except the one we are in. That gets all of our attention. She looks at Dayna as if for moral support then continues.

  “As you all know we have more women of marriageable age and actually of all ages than men. We women have been discussing this problem and believe we have a possible solution if we can all agree on it. What we are proposing is that the marriageable men be able to have more than one wife. Naturally his first wife will have to agree and there would be an understanding that if the second wife finds a husband later on she can marry that one with no ties to the first one. That is of course unless there are children involved, but we can work that out when and if the time ever comes. What does everyone think of the idea? We don’t have to have an answer right now, but we really want everyone to think about it. It wouldn’t involve all the men right now, some of us would like Jon, Tim and Rod to think about it. We asked Ramona about Billy and she said there is no way she would agree to that, at least not right now.”

  They are smiling so it must have been quite a conversation. Being the problem solver I am, I tell them they really don’t need husbands, they have a place to live and food on the table. My voice trails off when I see the way they are all looking at me.

  “Jon, is that all you do for Dayna, put food on the table and give her a roof over her head?”

  “I have to admit
that we may do one or two other things that a gentleman doesn’t talk about in mixed company.”

  Everybody laughs and says maybe one or two things an hour. Dayna is laughing and says she wishes we got to see each other that much. Robin and some of the other women who don’t have husbands say that there are a lot of things that a woman needs a man for. Definitely shelter and food are important, so is sex, and just having someone love you that you can share your dreams with and to hold you when you are afraid. I ask what I am sure the others are thinking as well.

  “What if we agree to this and it doesn’t work as well as we think it will? I’m willing to give it a try if that’s what we need to do for our family here, but what if problems arise from the arrangement?”

  “Then we can discuss what is not working and adjust the program or just say that it isn’t going to work and go on from there. The worse that can happen is we get to know each other a little better. Okay maybe a lot better, but if we are adult about it we don’t see how it can fail. I have to admit that I don’t want to share Jon with anyone, but I also know how frustrating and depressing it can be to see someone else sharing their lives with someone and knowing the odds of you ever having that happiness are next to nothing. Just so everyone knows what gave us this idea, Robin was reading in a history book to Teddy, Kathy, and Karen when she came across some information about the Mormons when they were first organized. Many of the men had more than one wife and some had several. Karen asked Robin why we don’t do that so that everyone could have a real family and they could have a daddy. In the city some families allowed it and it worked okay so why not try it.”