by Tj Reeder
Jody had not ordered her as one would a hired person, he did so as the elder head of their tribe, which she could no more ignore then she could wash off the tattoos, but she could fight back and she did, I don’t know if it’s possible to cuss in her native language but I’d bet she got it across!
Soon , maybe too soon we were finished and we carried our dish’s to the kitchen against Sings wish’s but the Lord of the Manor had spoken but she wasn’t about to leave it be, I was sure after I left the real fight would start.
After the dishes were done we retreated to the porch again where Sing brought out 3 ice cold beers and sat down with us.
Jody then begins talking about why he had wanted me to come out.
After he informed me of all he knew about me including my money and where it came from, he told me about his and where it came from, 20 years of putting half his pay in the credit union, then he found out his grand father left him a trust fund, he wasn’t even close to where I was but he wasn’t gonna be in the soup lines either, I should have been really pissed again at all this but I wasn’t for some reason, Jody somehow made it seem normal for a stranger to be so aware of my business, but he was so open about his that it just seemed some how…ok.
He cleared up one thing tho, his name was spelled Joe D, seems his dad was Joe D also so everybody took to referring to him as JoeD or…Jody, anyway it worked out the same so no problem and he had gotten tired of correcting folks
When he asked what questions I had it took me a moment to remember what he had said earlier and then to think about it for a moment, I then said well I would say you’re a survivalist? To which he said no I’m not, I am a survivor and a planner and a prepper, meaning I foresee events coming that I can not stop and can not change, all I can do is to prepare for them and at the same time do all I can to help my community to survive thru it all.
He then started talking about things like dirty bombs, EMP events, mass terrorist attacks all over the nation, one really kinda hit home on the former cop in me, what ? He asked would happen , if say two terrorist armed to the teeth and wearing bomb vests were to invade a shopping center say a week before Christmas, on a Sat.? say they have full Auto Ak 47’s and plenty of ammo, what would be the results he asked, all I could do was sit with the thoughts running thru my mind in living color…and when the cops move in they drop the weapons and raise their hands and refuse to lay down and when the cops rush them…BOOM!…it made my supper turn over in there, it was not a good image, then he said now, lets say this happens in every state and every large city in every mall…all on the same day and same hour… many thousands would die and the enemy would lose maybe 500 people.. It was mind boggling.
So many what ifs, so many things that could be done so easy and so damn many enemies, willing to die to hurt us.
After allowing me to think about what he had said Jody asked what I would do in a case of as he put it the Shit hit the fan so to speak.
I thought about it for a bit and said well I guess if I were to be worried about it I’d start making plans to have a place to be safe and the things to live with after it was over.
He then asked me why I had wanted to buy the Harmond place if I were content to sit in town and drink coffee and watch the days go by.
Well he had me there, I had to think about it a bit and Jody just sat and waited quietly along with Sing who had the smallest of smiles on her face .
At last I said something out loud that I had never said, I told them that I had found Dog Trot and had fallen into the way of life I had because after my wife and baby were killed I guess I just wanted to die to be with them but I wasn’t the type to pull my own plug, and so I found a quiet place to sit till I died.
Sing’s face now had a sad cast to it, her smile was gone and her eyes were looking right thru my eyes into my mind or so it felt, Jody was looking at me with the look of a man who had pushed a friend too far, and at that moment I knew that no matter where or what happened I wanted this man to be my friend for the rest of my life, but I wasn’t ready to admit to myself what I felt when I looked at Sing, going to Vegas for a few days to dispel the loneliness and needs was one thing, this was another Pandora’s box that I wasn’t ready to open.
After a bit Jody’s body language changed and he sat forward and said Sam my plan is to build a place of safety here, a place for as many people as can be housed, fed, cared for, people who have skills, in some cases lost skills, people who have the ability to not only do , but to teach others to do, people who can live and work together to stop the slide back into the times of ignorance, back when folks didn’t know to wash their hands before eating, If a man or Woman for that matter can not only shoe a horse but can make the shoe and the nails to hold it on then I want that person to be here, I don’t want a veterinarian to be close, I want the vet to have his home and clinic here, I want this area to not only have an Ambulance, I want it to have a Doctor but I want him to have his clinic right here. The same with all the skills and trades.
These things are going to cost money, a lot of money, more then I have and I’m not poor by any means.
Well I was waiting for the other shoe to drop and when it did it hit with a thud.
Jody said , I know you wanted to buy what I now call River Bend Ranch, I want you to go home and spend a few days thinking about what I said and what I envision for this place and this area, and if your willing to be involved I will sell you half interest in the Ranch where you can live and work and rebuild your life instead of waiting to die, I doubt your Wife would want that, your young and have your whole life ahead of you so damn it man start living it ! do some good for others with all your money. Dying with a big bank account and not having used it for good would truly piss off your wife…I sat there and asked myself why I wasn’t mad or even a bit put off, but I also knew he was right.
With that Jody and Sing stood up and he put out his hand and I took it and said I’ll see you for breakfast tomorrow morning, and please Sing, join us? She got a scared look for a second and Jody laughed and said she hasn’t left the place since we got here, she thinks people will stare because of her markings, looking at her I said without thought, they would look regardless because she’s beautiful…and we both blushed… On that note I made my escape running like a beaten dog and never looked back, if I had I would have seen Jody laughing his butt off and Sing with her mouth open.
Back in my hide out I call home I sat and thought and thought some more, then I decided to think about it all over again, and somewhere along about 3 AM I came to the conclusion that Jody was right, I had let several years pass me by and hid from the world and waited to die, and my wife God rest her would have beaten me with the Ugly stick for it, on that note I went to bed.
Morning came too soon but at 7 am I was at what had become Jody’s table I sat with my back to the door which I almost never did, I sat so I could watch the faces of the crowd, and right on time the door opened with all the usual noise of a cat fight and about 20 pair of eye balls popped out and you could have heard smoke hit the floor If anybody had ever had the guts to even think about smoking In Miss Ellie’s domain, I knew right then that Sing had come along, last night she was lovely, when I stood I found myself falling in love! She had on a wrap around shirt that ties in front, it was the Emerald green as her markings ,with her long shiny black hair down to her waist and tight black jeans and cowboy boots she looked like somebody’s idea of a dream come to life!
It was quiet in the Early Bird, so quiet you could almost hear the old clock ticking and it hadn’t worked for 40 years.
Well sir, Miss Sing walked right up to me and raising up on her toes kissed me gently right on the mouth and I died a little , her smile was so white against the copper color of her skin that it lit up the room.
After seating Sing and shaking hands with Jody we both sat down, me? I was just along for the ride and didn’t care where we were going!
The rest of the room all nodded when Jody said good morning but st
ill nobody seemed to be breathing,
Jody stood and held his hand out where as Sing took it and she stood and turned to the room, Jody said ,this is my adopted daughter Sing, that’s easier then trying to say her birth name which translates to Sings in the morning, She was born high in the mountains of South East Asia where she and her Brother whom we call Song were orphaned by Communist forces because her village worked with us during and after the war ….( My mind screamed AFTER? !!! but I said nothing and I think it slid past the local crowd ) I found them while passing thru the area and brought them out with me, he looked at Sing and smiled, She smiled at the room and then spoke in that upper crust English Accent of hers and said good morning and that she was happy to be here and hoped to make many new friends , then she sat down and here came Miss Ellie with breakfast for 3, mine and Jody’s usual and a smaller serving for Sing who rewarded Miss Ellie with that radiant smile and got one in return!!
We ate in quiet for a while then the conversation picked up again and folks just accepted that this was how it was but the phone lines were going to melt down very soon!
After we finished we walked out together and headed to my place, after putting on a pot of coffee we sat down in the kitchen and Jody and Sing looked around, I was very glad I had cleaned a bit better then my norm!
I asked Jody where he got his information on me and he very openly said he had connections in high places and also that Song whom I hadn’t met was a computer genius compared to none and could hack the White house if needed, I took that as a joke and really believe it was meant to be but Jody nor Sing gave so much as a smile, kinda thing that makes ya go..HUH… So while I digested that Sing jumped up to get coffee and I followed right behind her, she asked where things were and I showed her, after getting our coffee we sat back down and really got to it.
There is something coming at us at high speed Jody opened with, I don’t know what or exactly when but it won’t be more then a year and it will be bad and the loss of life throughout the world will be beyond belief he added.
The plan I have and that is still a work in play is to have an area that can support it’s self, food wise and act as a place to start the long road back to having a country again, he added that he had been working on this idea for most of his time in the Marines, but didn’t have a place in mind.
The Harmond ranch was like a sign from above so to speak, and while he had the basics of a plan and some of the money to implement It he knew he needed more then himself and the kids as he referred to them and so he started the search of the people he thought might be willing to be involved.
When I asked who he had found so far he said Miss Ellie of course, now that surprised the hell out of me! But he then added that Granny Harmond had been related to Miss Ellie who knew his mother from trips to visit when she was a girl, so when he called to introduce himself his mother broke the ice so to speak, then he came out here and had several visits with Ellie telling her the same story he had told me, Miss Ellie had given him my name and told him that I was not only wealthy but honest and a good man to have on your side, which surprised me a bit but then I remembered all the small chit chat I’d had with Ellie over the years, and hadn’t realized how much I had revealed to her, so much for being a fly on the wall !
He settled into his chair more comfortably and said his plan was to build the ranch into more of a place of refuge and a place to grow enough to feed as many as possible, while at the same time working with the folks living both on the ranch and around the country side, to provide plans for further food growing and storage and protection against the low life’s that would come out like roach’s into the light of day.
To educate the children, here now and those to come, to train teachers and mechanics, carpenters, all the trades, so man would not slip back into the caves while losing all that had been built in the past . As he talked I could see clear as a bell what he was talking about, the only place it was dim for me was the why of it, and how it would happen, how he knew so surly it would happen as he said.
I asked that very question and his answer was as straight forward as everything about Joe D. Brown, He said he knew for a fact but could not prove that there were forces within our own government that desired to be Kings and to run the country as a bunch of principalities, That they wanted to be Lords over all they saw within their own boundaries, that alone made me squirm a bit, how could this be? He said that was only a few who were in power, others wanted to have the entire world under their control, One World , One Government, One leader, one Church, “ONE PEOPLE” and all controlled by the central government. No more US of A, no more Germany or France etc. and there were other factions who wanted no government at all, no laws, the strongest will out, the lesser peoples to be serfs, some wanted race wars, religious wars, and in the middle of it all, the little people, the Joe six pack who just wanted a job and a roof over his head and a family.
Could all this really be true I asked and yes was the answer, he said “They” were divided on the how but not the why, except who’s fairytale would be the one?? And this was where the end would come, they would fight among themselves and it would roll over all of us, no country would be spared, none allowed to remain free…except one, this one because somebody, US were going to stop it here in this place by being more ready to fight them then they thought, from this area the people of America as we knew it would go out and stop these wanna be kings and Rulers. Thru it all Jody never raised his voice, his eyes never got wild looking, his ice cold reasoning was clear, somebody was going to destroy our country but we were going to stop them…it might take our lives or our life times and many more but in the end we would be a free land peopled by free men!
I sat there and for the first time in years I wanted to say…I need a drink!
After Jody and Sing left I sat for several hours and let my mind roam and in the late afternoon I got up and headed out to the ranch, As I got out of my truck, Sing greeted me with that 5000 watt smile and took my hand and walked with me to the door, I will say, I would have followed her to the river and jumped in for another of her smiles, Now what in the hell is wrong with me? I’m acting like a moon struck teenager and at a certain level felt like I was betraying the memory of my late wife, but I never felt like this when I went to the big city for R&R, Then it hit me, I was not looking at her as a possible R&R companion, I was looking at her as a Man looks at a Woman he wants to spend a long time with….boy oh boy!!! This is getting deep and I’m lost, now that’s a lot of thinking in a 20 yard walk!!
We went into the porch area and she excused herself as Jody came out the door and offered his hand, we shook and I said I’m in! Just like that I joined Jody’s army; I figured it might be strange but never boring!
After Sing returned with iced tea, and sat down we got to it…
Jody showed me the deed and latest appraisal for the River Bend Ranch and said I propose to sell you 50 % interest In the ranch with only one condition, that we both agree that neither of us will ever sell our share to anybody else and that as co owners we jointly follow the plan to build it into a retreat against whatever may come to disrupt life as we know it, that it’s a haven against the darkness to come.
I looked at the figure I would be putting into the first phase of the plan and said I agree, have the papers drawn up as you like and I’ll sign, Jody said The papers will show only that we are each half owners in the ranch, period, the court house has no need to know what we plan” and I fully agreed with that.
The figure was less then the interest paid on my money in the last 5 years of doing nothing with my life, I had nothing to lose and a lot to gain, and looking at Sing I really hoped there would be more to my future.
It took a Lawyer about an hour to do the deed work and Jody and I to sign the papers and for me to hand him a check. We were now co owners in what we both hoped would be the light in the darkness we both knew was coming full speed.
Jody wanted to stop at the local bank to set up a drawing
account for the expenditures that would be going out over time, surprising me a lot he set it up with both Sing and I as co signers on the account, Sing was the book keeper and any 2 of us were required to sign checks, as Jody put it, now if one was on the road looking for equipment we were covered.
The plan as Jody laid it out was many fold. His main idea was that most of the work required would be performed by those who were permanent personal at the ranch, I asked who and where these folks were?
At this point Sing took over and laid it out, it seemed that she had been very active in looking over the grad students who were finishing up in collage this year, Agriculture and Mechanical as well as Veterinarian and Medical Doctors fresh out into the cold world and had used her brothers skills as a Hacker to look at records and other things that would show how they thought.
As she explained, we needed good people but not somebody who was only in it for the money.
She had set up interviews in Tyler TX to look them over and feel them out as to which might be what we wanted, their expense’s were being covered by the LLC that was set up at the same time we signed the papers on the ranch, the idea was to look them over but not give out too much information as to why of it all, just yet.
Jody took back the meeting and explained that the place would have ponds for raising fish, green houses , fruit and nut trees, all the things it already had except in larger quantity, the surplus would be sold to cover some of the expense’s that occurred .
