I tell him to pull it in and he replies that he is trying, he just can’t budge it. Robin is holding him from behind to keep him from falling in while I grab the line that is starting to hurt his arm. For a ten year old he is putting up a very good fight. One big heave by us when I count to three finds the largest crappie that I have ever seen. Now everyone is excited about fishing, we decide to take the fish home with us because Teddy wants to show off his trophy and see if we have some fishing poles that we will be able to use. Teddy is yelling and shouting for everyone to come and see the fish he caught long before we get back to the house. Everyone comes running and are totally impressed with him and his catch.
We ask if anyone has seen any fishing poles and they look at me like I have grown another head. I forgot that none of these people have ever been fishing before. Tim comes up and laughs, he says he is pretty sure there are some poles in the middle barn. If not he knows there are a whole bunch of them in the farm store in town. All the young people run to the barn to find the poles and when we get there they are asking us if everything from an axe handle to an old broken shovel handle are fishing poles. Tim goes to a small room at the back of the barn and comes out with about ten fishing poles complete with hooks, line, and sinkers. Oh yeah, they have bobbers on them as well. Teddy tells me they don’t look like the poles in his book, he runs home and comes back quickly with it and shows it to me. It shows the young man in the book using an old bamboo stick for a fishing pole. I explain that they are both correct and work well for catching fish, but the ones we have allow us to cast them out farther than the bamboo poles do and these bend a lot so they don’t break when you catch a big fish. He says he guesses it will be okay to use these. Then he asks if we can go fishing some more today.
I tell him it will be up to his mother so he turns to Robin and tells her daddy says he can go fishing if she says it is okay. Dayna and Robin laugh and say it’s okay with them if daddy wants to take everybody fishing. All the young people are looking at me now as if asking me to please say yes. How can I say no? I tell Dayna and Robin that they are helping clean the fish that our children catch though. Actually we have about twenty people of all ages that want to go see how you go about catching fish. The young teenage boys know where there are a ton of worms, their words not mine, but they are not far off. They dig under the hay that is piled up beside the barn after it is shoveled out of the barn for bedding. They have a very big can of them in no time, so we all head to the river to catch supper for tonight.
We found some more poles so everyone gets to fish except me and Tim, because we are running around helping the others. Even big old Billy is having the time of his life, catching the largest pan fish I have ever seen. There seems to be crappie, rock bass, and sunfish in the mixture. I can see that they are all over a foot long and very thick. These will be great for filleting. It only takes about an hour to catch enough fish for the whole family to have some for supper. Everyone wants to continue fishing until they catch enough for our neighbors to have some as well. Who am I to take their fun away? When we think we have just about enough fish, Billy latches on to something that almost takes the pole out of his huge hands. It’s a good thing it wasn’t one of the children who caught it.
Tim is telling him how to play the fish. He explains that with a big fish, you sometimes have to let the fish tire itself out, before you can bring it in. Billy is having the time of his life and naturally everyone is watching and cheering him on. It takes about twenty minutes, but finally he pulls the largest catfish I have ever seen to the bank and reaches down to pull it out of the water. When he holds it next to his legs its tail is on the ground and its head is at Billy’s waist. That makes that fish somewhere around three and a half feet long and at least six inches thick at its head. Billy says he is eating this fish for supper. Naturally, Tim and I ask him if he is planning on sharing it with anybody, or if he is planning to eat the whole thing himself. He turns red and says naturally he couldn’t eat this much fish by himself. We all laugh then he knows we are just teasing him, it’s a good thing he is so easy going, or he could really do some damage if he gets angry.
It is getting pretty cold by the time we get back home. We take the fish to the barn to clean them while the women go into the houses to get the fires going in the wood stoves. We decide to have this meal together in our new building so a couple of the guys who didn’t go fishing today start the wood stoves in there to make it nice and warm inside. Our neighbors have CB radios as well so we call them and invite them over. The only kind of fish any of either family except Tim and I have had is tuna out of a can. They like that so they figure they will like fresh fish as well. Frank and his wife say they had fish when they were young, but it was so long ago they don’t remember whether they like it or not.
Connie, Frank’s wife, says she remembers her mom making a batter of flour and milk with salt and pepper in it. She says after they filleted the fish they would dip them in the batter and deep fry them until they were golden brown. We found some white flour in plastic bags in the store in town and it seems to be good. At least there are no bugs in it so we decide to try a couple pieces in it, and if it doesn’t taste good we will try the wheat flour, that we grind ourselves. For oil we are using lard from the pig we slaughtered, we rendered it down using instructions that we found in the butchering room. Our neighbors are excited about the fish fry and can’t wait to try some of the fresh fish. All the young and not quite so young people are having a great time telling everybody how hard they had to fight the fish they caught.
The first pieces come out of the boiling oil and everybody is in awe. We figure since Teddy caught the first fish today that he deserves the honor of being one of the first to try it. Tim and I try a small taste to make sure the flour tastes okay before he does, but since it is fine we cook it all that way. It is funny because there is not a sound in the room when Teddy and his sisters Kathy and Karen take that first bite of the fish. When they smile and say it tastes great everyone lets out a cheer. I love being part of this family, everything we experience is an adventure to most of them and that makes it more exciting to me. It takes three large deep fryers to cook all that fish until everyone has their fill. Billy just about does eat that whole catfish, just kidding, but he definitely puts away a large portion of it.
Frank remembers that his mother used to make corn meal balls and deep fry them when they made fish. Connie says she remembers that as well, she says her mother used to call the meal eating cats and dogs because they usually ate catfish and the corn meal balls were called hushpuppies. Now everyone wants to try hushpuppies, a couple of the younger children, Tammy and Tina the four year old twins say they just want a puppy. Their mommy reads them a story about a puppy every night and they really want one. They are so cute, usually one of them will start to say something and the other one will finish what they started. Then more often than not they will look at each other and nod their heads in agreement. I tell them that I will make sure they get a puppy as soon as we can find one for them.
Kathy and Karen want to know if they can have a puppy as well, when I tell them they can, they give me a big kiss and tell me I’m the best daddy in the world. That makes me feel great, but now I have to try to figure out where we can get a couple of puppies. I have heard dogs barking at night, but I am sure they are wild dogs and would not be very good pets for these children. I discuss it with Dayna and Robin after everyone leaves for the night. They agree that wild dogs would not be a good choice, but maybe we can find one that has known people and would not be hard to tame. We agree that a couple of dogs would be very useful to not only play with the children, but to warn us if someone was trying to snoop around the houses. We will have to keep looking for some puppies or a full grown dog that is friendly.
In the morning everyone is still talking about how much they enjoyed either going fishing yesterday or how much they enjoyed eating the fish. We spend the next couple of days working around the yard, but the weather is t
urning cold and it has even started snowing from time to time. So far we haven’t had more than an inch at a time, which is a whole lot better than New York, but it gives us an opportunity to sit and relax a little without worrying about working every minute. Our family is really enjoying being here instead of up in the city. They are always telling us how they used to almost freeze all winter because it was impossible to find somewhere that was insulated enough not to have more cold wind blowing in than the small fires they could build could warm. Now they are able to sit in comfort and sleep in more comfort than they can ever remember. It makes Tim and I feel good that we have been able to help these people. We feel that we have been sent here to help them get a fresh start. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but we can’t help feeling that way.
14
It is Christmas Eve, at least by our calendar, and since we have no other way of knowing, we are going by that. We made several trips into town over the past week so that people could get gifts for each other. Mostly we went to the local library and found books that we think each other will like to read. Only a couple of the older people even know what Christmas is and they say they had no idea when it was, so they haven’t even thought about it in years. Tim and I talked it over with Dayna and Charity and we agree that we should know the true meaning of Christmas, rather than just the giving of gifts to each other. We killed another wild pig and have smoked the hams for Christmas dinner and Dan, Don, and Andrew each got a turkey yesterday to add to the meal as well.
We have invited our neighbors to join us and they accepted so we will have quite a crowd for the holidays. Ma Horton would have loved to be here. She always invited a bunch of people over on holidays, but for one reason or another, no one ever seemed to come over. That always made holidays depressing for her. Gunny always said that he should order some people to come over to make her happy, but she told him if he did she would kick his butt. I can’t help but think that they would both love to be here with us in this adventure. The excitement of the children on Christmas morning makes me feel like a kid again myself. Dayna and the others are excited as well because they have never celebrated this before.
We exchange gifts and everyone gets together in the meeting building to read the Christmas story about the birth of Christ from the Bible. We take turns reading, I get to hold Kathy and Karen on my lap, and Tina and Tammy, the twins, sitting beside me, while we read and listen to the others read. This has to be the best Christmas ever. We have a great dinner with our friends and neighbors. We also get to talk during the day and Ryan and his wife mention that they saw a fairly large pack of dogs or wolves running across the field the other day. No one wants to see the day come to an end, but as with all good things they eventually do.
It snows overnight, but only enough to cover the ground with a soft white blanket. Look at me. I’m starting to sound like some poet or something. I think having the children count on me so much has made me mature a lot more than I was when we first got here. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had our meeting and picked our first leaders for our family. Melissa, Jessica, Kate, and Eve were the women chosen to be in the leadership, and Tim, Billy, Rod, and I were chosen to be the male leaders. Dayna was nominated, but we didn’t think a husband and wife should be on the team. We had a lot of discussion about the rules we should follow and what we should do if someone doesn’t follow the rules. What we decided to use for rules are the Ten Commandments from the Bible, and we determined we will decide a punishment if and when someone breaks the rules.
Right now I can’t imagine any of our family doing anything against any of the others, but you never know. Today I am working in the barn farthest from our house, the one closest to Billy’s house. It is cold so we are cleaning the barn up so that it will be ready for the spring. If Jessica and Jenny, along with the three sisters that joined us a month ago, keep bringing in chickens and cows we will definitely need more space to keep them. Billy and I are moving some heavy equipment that we have no idea what it is for when we hear what sounds like a pickup truck come into the yard. We mention that the truck is moving much too fast for the number of children that are often playing in the yard, and start to look out to see who is driving.
We no sooner get to the door when we hear the emergency bell sounding frantically so we run to find out what has happened. I don’t know about Billy, but I am envisioning one of the children being struck by that truck and that image frightens me more than I can express. When we get to the porch Jessica is in tears and saying that a pickup truck pulled into the yard and a man got out, grabbed Rachel, pulled her into the truck, and then took off toward the city we went to. I tell Billy to grab a few men and guns and follow in one of the trucks. I’m taking one of the motorcycles to make sure they don’t have time to hurt her. We have the motorcycles from those guys that came after us when we first got here. Those bikes are not the typical chopped bikes that people associate with motorcycle clubs or gangs. They are big bikes, but they are just stock bikes like they come off the showroom floor.
I grab my .307 rifle and plenty of ammunition and jump on the bike I have ridden a couple of times now. It starts up quickly, which I am grateful for, and head out of the barn as fast as I dare. Dayna is in the yard when I go by her, I tell her Billy will explain and I am gone. I have to make sure those animals don’t have time to hurt Rachel. Of course knowing Rachel as I do, maybe I should be more concerned with her hurting them. I say that mostly joking even though Rachel and her sisters are very independent young ladies, and will never give in without a fight. Unfortunately the kind of men who have her will not hesitate to beat her senseless and then rape her. I am not going to give them time enough to even think about it if I can help it. This road to the city is fairly wide open so they can make pretty good time, but there are some places where the road is blocked and you have to work your way around a little.
On the motorcycle I can go places they can’t and I am counting on that to be able to catch them. The cold air is making my eyes water, but I didn’t take time to grab any glasses or helmet for riding. Heck, I don’t think I have any glasses or helmet to grab, so it wouldn’t have mattered. Actually the cold is freezing my hands as well, I do have a pair of work gloves in my pocket, but I can’t worry about that now. I am starting to wonder if they pulled off the road somewhere behind me when I see the pickup truck in the distance. I pour on the speed, but so do they when they see me so the race is on. At least they know I am back here so they can’t do anything yet. I just hope that Billy and the others can catch up soon. It could get a little interesting trying to fight as many guys as we saw in the city the time we were there.
The chase settles down to me following them at high speed into the city. They keep going until they get to a part of town that is pretty rundown and has some smoke coming from a chimney on one of the houses. I tell myself I can’t let them get Rachel into a house where there may be several others to hurt her. When I see brake lights I stop quickly and aim at the first guy getting out of the truck. He is the driver and is closest to the house they pulled up in front of. As soon as he steps out I shoot him in the head, the others had started dragging Rachel around the truck toward the house, but they run to a house across the street now. That’s exactly what I wanted them to do. With them separated we have a better chance of ending this without getting Rachel hurt.
Some people in the house they were going to, start shooting at me. They are using shotguns loaded with bird shot so the pellets are dropping short before they even get to me. These guys are so pathetic at being tough against a fighting man it’s ridiculous. But against Rachel they are very dangerous. I fire a couple of shots into the house where the fire is coming from and I hear someone yell that they have been hit. I have no sympathy for him. As Gunny would say, if you play with fire, you have to expect to get burned. The others get here and I fill them in on what has happened so far. Tim says it’s a good thing I haven’t killed them all yet or he would be angry with me for not sharing.
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nbsp; I tell them that I am going to get to the third floor of a house that appears to give me a clear field of fire to both houses. Tim says he wishes I still had my fifty that I used in our missions for the military. We have military radios so we can keep in touch. I work my way to a house that has three stories that looks like it will offer a clear field of fire that I need. When I get in place Tim refers to me as Zeus which confuses the others until he explains it to them. With the variable scope I have on the .307 I can look right into the rooms of the houses. In the house where Rachel is being held I can see her, but I can’t see the attackers. I am carrying on a conversation with Tim all the while I am watching. I can see that Rachel is arguing with someone, good he is doing exactly what I want him to do. He walks toward Rachel right into my line of fire. The problem is he smacks her across the face just a split second before I can squeeze my shot off. She falls back in the chair, but he drops dead in a heap on the floor, I wish I had fired a little sooner.
Tim yells in to the one guy left in the house with her to let her go and we will leave them alone, as long as they stay away from us. The one in the house with her says he will kill her if we don’t leave. Tim tells him if he does, we will kill every one of them before we leave town. I am moving to another window to see if I can get a better view into the room she is being held in. This is just like the missions we had before we came here. I hadn’t realized how much I miss this. I just wish it was under different circumstances. From this window I can see the attacker clearly, I tell Tim I can take him out anytime and Tim asks me what I am waiting for. I am ready to shoot him when the guys in the other house catch my eye. One of them is sneaking out the back door, it looks like he is planning to get behind the guys and probably kill them.
2nd Earth: Shortfall Page 13
